Chapter 1

Freedom.

A simple word. A word that means almost nothing by itself, but must draw meaning from the words attached to it. A word that was the focus of one person's life.

Freedom.

Freedom was to young Aiden the only reason for living. It was his only goal, the only thing he had worked towards since he had come to understand the concept. It was also the one thing that the society around him seemed bent on denying him, no matter how hard he strived for it.

Aiden was a slave. Perhaps he was one of the smartest slaves... or indeed, maybe even one of the smartest humans... to have ever been born, but he was still just a slave. It did not matter that when he was a mere six months of age he began walking, or that at eight months he was able to utilize patterned speech at a level that most two year olds could not. It did not matter that by the time he was four, he was able to read at the level of most educated ten year olds... even though slaves were forbidden from being taught to read. Public notice of that event had launched an investigation on the part of his masters, which had revealed that young Aiden had an IQ far higher than any slave deprived of an education should have possessed.

Nevertheless, no matter what, he was still only a slave. His higher intelligence gained him nothing except a few extra restrictions. The graphical/verbal instructional handheld computer that all slaves carried with them to have their orders delivered to them via simple language and pictures was modified for Aiden, with special security encryption to keep him from getting around its various firewalls and codes to access the Masters' central mainframe and learn more than he was allowed to. He was never allowed access into the library of the house, was always kept outside for manual labor, and was not permitted to touch any unsecured computer with access to the system-wide web. He also had a special titanium band locked onto his head, which would send small charges directly into his brain if he acted up, with the ability to put him down permanently if need be.

Of course, as any incredibly intelligent freedom-craving being would have done, Aiden had found a way around his restrictions. He managed to break through the security on his handheld when he was about ten, downloading and reading everything he could find. Technical manuals, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, the Bible, the qu'Ran, Homer, a few works by the first author from Mars, Carl Reid, and the various science fiction works by Clarke, Heinlein, and the Xangris favorite Mish'ran Q'tral were some of the things he assimilated in his first month of browsing. Later he studied more monotonous items such as the Venus Imperial Accords, modern law (several thousand pages of it), and every single byte of information he could access on slaves, slave holding, and slave security procedures. By the twelfth year of his life, he had managed to redesign his handheld with scavenged processors and parts from all over his Masters' house, tripling its efficiency. He even managed to crack several SolNet security protocols and gain access to more in-depth information on ship design, theoretical astrophysics, and other tidbits of knowledge that he believed would eventually aid him in his escape.

The only thing that still stood in Aiden's way was the small strip of titanium that encircled his head. One charge from it, and he might have all of a tenth of a second to realize he was going to die before his consciousness was torn from existence. Therefore, when his fifteenth year as a slave approached and with it the time for the band to be taken off and replaced with a slightly larger and more powerful one, Aiden knew that his only chance had arrived. It had to be during the transfer of bands, or never.

Thus, Aiden plotted as he surveyed the grounds on which he had been forced to toil for all of his life. He carefully planned each step, thinking of every contingency of every scenario that he could imagine. Of course, there were still limitless ways for it all to go wrong, for it to end in death or the continuance of bondage... but Aiden had to take the chance. If he ended back up in slavery, then there had been no harm in trying. As for death, it could not compare to slavery. If that was the only way for him to escape the humiliation of being held in bondage to another human being, then so be it. He would welcome it with open arms.

"Aiden from bondage will deliver Aiden," he muttered beneath his breath, modifying a line from the Tragedy of Julius Caesar.

"Come with me," a sub-Master, one of the puppets of the true "Masters" ordered Aiden, "and be quick about it. You know I would love nothing better than to scramble a few more of your brain cells today."

Aiden nodded, quickly hustling to keep up with the sub-Master's demanding pace. He made sure not to look up towards eye level, even when facing the back of the sub-Master's head, lest he turn around; his vision only focusing on the ground before him. He did not speak, did not do anything that might have drawn attention to him. This was one day he could not afford to be knocked unconscious by the damnable strip of control that ringed his cranium.

He was quickly taken into the spartan medical chambers that the slaves were allowed access to, the sub-Master placing him on an inclined metal table and locking Aiden's hands and feet into cuffs. Their magnetic locks clicked into place loudly, reminding Aiden of how many things could possibly go wrong.