May, 2120
It was with a sigh that Uloweyo closed up his shop, hefting the heavy keys and scanning his eyeball once to confirm the shutdown protocols. Would he open again? Hard to say. He trod down the street wearily, not even responding to some of his fellow merchants called out to him, squatting nearby in the dust on a corner and idly casting dice to pass the time. It was not a time to sit and chew qat in the shade of the highlands trees, for his heart was too full.
Better security, aye. The Red-Blood Marauders which had ruled Masvingo for a generation were gone, most of their leaders corpses decorating the eastern barracks of the new occupiers as a warning to their men. The worst of the brigands had been run out into the Tsangari forests and lowlands, into the crevasses and caves where even surveillance drones had a difficult job to track them down. He had been optimistic, for a time. His business had done well in the last two weeks, with the cut for protection money no longer eating up all of his profits.
Then that young man in the clean charcoal-gray suit had stopped by, and politely informed him that the state required contributions from the people to maintain the peace, a thing called "taxes".
They had all heard of taxes before, of course. The oldest graybeards spoke of them when they spoke of the benighted Grand Zimbabwe who had once been the people of this land. They were supposed to be a giving of those below to those above, so those above could return the money to the people in projects which were good for all, so the people who could see furthest could invest the resources for all where they were needed.
Well, Uloweyo hadn't seen any of this investment, not yet. There were men in the armored suits of the gendarmes patrolling the streets, sure, making sure nobody cheated at the bazaars too blatantly. They flogged the reprobate, cast the murderer into chains to sweat off his debt to the family of the lost. But that was about it. For business? Ah, they were far too busy to do anything about the rutted road outside of the black-headed man's home, or even deal with thieves really - not unless you brought them the thief, or had an idea who it might have been.
The dreamers in the square squatted in the dust and talked in their sleepy tones about development, prosperity, progress. They said the south-men and the Federation had gone to the stars, that their furnaces made wonders which made men live lives of luxury and ease.
Well, Uloweyo hadn't seen any of those wonders, not yet. Just the man in the gray suit who had insisted he sell a quarter of his stock for Krugerrand, and hand it over to the state. The merchant spat in the dirt as he walked home, wondering how he would explain it all to his wife. A month's profit, gone like that, with the thin veil that if he didn't pay the gendarmes would be just as happy to put him in chains as any other man.
Life under this new government, it seemed. Fai.
Sud Afrika takes Major Action: Taxation