Rubber Pony Prison
Chapter One At first it was with some relief that Pamela had heard that she would serve her sentence as a rubber pony. The sentence was slavery, of course, but at least the friends she once had, and her family would not actually be able to recognize her amidst the herd of rubber ponies serving out their time on the streets of the city. The changes that had swept the world since her birth had brought about a world that would have once been called “Medieval”, technologically. The laboratory engineered organism which had been created to absorb oil spills at sea succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings or fears. Within a few months the organism had spread far beyond the test sites and began to consume all the petroleum on Earth–either in the tank or in the ground. Within a year, the entire world economy was in such a state of collapse that slavery again appeared worldwide in response to the world wide evaporation of assets. Millions, even billions of people on the planet now found themselves forced to sell themselves or families into slavery to keep alive. Millions more found themselves ordered into slavery in response to crimes that once would have required mere fines or community service. ...