Before there was an Entemat, there had been a world of roses and light. That was how it was described: A place where everyone was free and nobody was forced into the forever hell of Contract Labor.<\/p>\n
That was the trick the companies played: Once a Contract was signed, the signee was never allowed to go free.<\/p>\n
Everything cost credits with the companies. From food and water to the gear required to complete their labors. They charged for everything, and people swiftly found that their dents would never be paid.<\/p>\n
A short<\/em> five year Contract swiftly became a life sentence.<\/p>\n Ryan had signed his Contract with the idea that he would be able to save up for supplies and get a colony land grant. It hadn\u2019t taken him long to realize the mistake he\u2019d made. That he would never save anything. That the whole of his life would be spent in backbreaking labor with nothing else to look forward to. This would be the death of him: a lifetime of legal slavery followed by a cremation charged to his \u201cestate.\u201d<\/p>\n He had regrets, but company Contracts were ironclad. They took advantage of the ignorance of the unsigned and the inability of the Contracted to mention what went on within the companies.<\/p>\n The Implant wasn\u2019t something he would have agreed to if he\u2019d known about it. After signing the Contract, there\u2019d been inoculations he hadn\u2019t objected to, and somewhere in there the med techs slipped in a little something extra. Maybe nanotech or maybe something less advanced, whatever it was he found himself bound to the limits of his Contract.<\/p>\n He\u2019d been able to shake his head when his young cousin had asked if signing a Contract with the company was a good idea. But he hadn\u2019t been able to say the words. Hadn\u2019t been able to vocalize or write a warning. Hadn\u2019t been able to describe the hell he\u2019d relegated himself to.<\/p>\n Sometimes he dreamed of what his life could have been if he hadn\u2019t signed a Contract. He imagined living in the slums and it brought him a sense of wistfulness. Because even with the filth and squalor, he\u2019d still had the freedom to dream.<\/p>\n Now there was just this. Day after day. Week after week. Forever.<\/p>\n All of his dreams had been expunged by a signature across a printed page. And he\u2019d been shipped as cargo to an unsettled world where he was put to work in the mines. A piece of equipment cheaper to purchase and maintain than heavy machinery. Paid in food and water and tanks of oxygen he earned through hard labor.<\/p>\n The value of his life had been distilled into the double\u2014or perhaps single\u2014digits that were the future years ahead of him. And when they passed\u2026 he would be replaced by another broken dreamer. Some other poor soul that dared to dream of something more<\/em> and made the mistake of trusting their future to a company as cruel as his.<\/p>\n He smoothed down the front of his maroon coverall and joined the rest of the chow line. Not<\/em> thinking about the contraption he had made from bags of sugar and the ignitor he\u2019d jury rigged from parts scavenged from the junk pile.<\/p>\n As long as he didn\u2019t think<\/em> about the purpose of the thing<\/em> he\u2019d assembled\u2026he\u2019d been able to put it together and leave it where it needed<\/em> to be. Where it would do what it would do\u2026 and set him free.<\/p>\n