The Declaration

she pondered that question, the phone rang and immediately she picked it up.
    ‘Julia? Barbara. Have you heard the news?’
    ‘The news?’
    ‘The Surplus breakout. Surely the Catchers have visited you by now? They woke me up, you know. Terribly efficient, aren’t they?’
    Julia sat down. ‘I suppose it’s their job to be,’ she said thoughtfully.
    ‘Well, they told me there were two of them on the loose. So I’ve double-locked all my doors and windows. And I hope you’ll do the same. You can’t be too careful, Julia. I mean to say, who knows what damage they’d wreak given half a chance? Now perhaps people will take the Surplus Problem more seriously. Surplus Halls are a disaster waiting to happen. Keeping them there, using up all those resources. They’re just a melting pot for young thugs, Julia. And so near the village too.’
    ‘I don’t think they’re dangerous, Barbara,’ Julia said, frowning slightly. ‘And Surpluses are very well trained.’
    She thought briefly of her own housekeeper, and of Anna, the one who had apparently escaped. They didn’t wreak any damage. If anything, they seemed pitifully grateful for just a kind word.
    ‘Well, of course the Surpluses they let out aren’t dangerous,’ Barbara said darkly, ‘but we only see the employable ones. The good ones. The rest are simply stealing from us, Julia. Stealing our food, our energy, our air.’
    Julia sighed. Perhaps Barbara was right. Perhaps she’d been very wrong to let the Catchers leave without checking the summer house.
    ‘And they’re jealous,’ Barbara continued. ‘They dare to want what we have. But they don’t have the right, Julia. Their parents didn’t have the right. That’s what I keep explaining to my Surplus, Mary. Very good, she is. Very hard-working. But the fact of the matter is, she shouldn’t be alive, Julia. She just shouldn’t. And now this escape. I tell you, this Surplus Problem is going to have to be dealt with. If you’re too soft on them, people just won’t be deterred from foisting more of them on us. Do you know how much of our tax goes towards the Surplus Problem? Do you?’
    ‘No,’ Julia said.
    ‘Too much, that’s how much,’ Barbara replied ominously.
    There was a pause, as Barbara drew breath. ‘Anyway,’ she said eventually, her tone becoming more business-like, ‘the reason I’m calling is that I’m pulling a search party together. We have to protect ourselves, Julia. Have to find those blasphemers and deal with them. We’re going to meet at my house this afternoon. I was sure that you’d want to be involved.’
    ‘You don’t think this is best left to the Catchers?’ Julia asked tentatively.
    ‘Julia,’ Barbara said sharply, ‘we cannot stand by and let two Surpluses threaten everything that Longevity has brought us. They could be anywhere, and we need to pitch in, to do our bit. If we let two Surpluses escape, where will it end, Julia? There’s no room for them. They have to be stamped out.’
    ‘Stamped out?’ Julia couldn’t hide the outrage in her voice.
    ‘Dealt with, then,’ Barbara conceded. ‘Although I think stamping out a few of them really wouldn’t be a bad idea. It would send a message out, don’t you think?’
    Julia took a deep breath and leant against the back of her chair.
    ‘This afternoon,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll . . . well, I’ll see you there.’
    She put the phone down and sighed deeply. People were so scared of Surpluses, she thought to herself. Legal children, too, although you didn’t see any of those around these days. It was as if everyone had completely forgotten about the good side of young people, had convinced themselves that anyone below the age of twenty-five was dangerous and subversive. Anyone under sixty, rather. That’s how old the youngest person was now, apart from Surpluses and the odd Legal who slipped through the net after the Declaration. A world full of old people, Julia thought to herself, frowning. Old people who were convinced that they knew it all and that anything new or different could not be good – unless it related to Longevity drugs, of course.
    Perhaps ironically, Surpluses were the only subject about which there still seemed to be some political debate, even if it was limited to a very small number of very vocal people. The liberal camp were calling for a more humane approach to the problem, more education to prevent Surpluses from being born in the first place, whilst Barbara