Intentionalities” by
Aimee Ogden, where in the near future Sorrel gets trapped in an all-too-plausible system of debt peonage and ends up “conferring” a child to Braxos Corp. She bears the child, Abigail, and is able to raise her to the age of five with resources from the corporation, then has to surrender her, as she’ll eventually become a space miner. The rest of the story is Sorrel’s work with non-profits that have the goal of dismantling this system of debt-based slavery. It’s a very short story in which to sketch out a complex system and a whole life, and sometimes it feels a bit rushed, but its point is well drawn. In “