The young man’s tracking device ceased to function the day he turned 18. In a few months, the device implanted when he was a child would break down leaving a small scar, the only evidence of his forced servitude. Life as a commodity was over. The Vocational Education Program that bound him, as slave labor could no longer force him to work. He was a free man. His life his own, He could travel anywhere, go to college or seek employment. All traces of his life in hell erased from the books, sealed by the courts as governed by law.

The young man looked out the window; the rain was stopping. “We gotta go” he said nudging his girlfriend out of the booth. Her tracking device still functioned. She was a runner, a criminal.