The year is 2316, and the intellectual elite have fled the corporate governments on Earth for the safety, abundance and promised immortality of the Solar Council of Artificial Intelligence in space. Huge asteroid colonies have formed, where these refugees work to support the terraforming of Mars. Everyone of them is granted access to retirement after 15 years of work; retirement into stasis, awaiting their future re-settlement on a green and blue Mars. On Mefitis colony, tensions are brewing as colonists seek to split from the SCAI and forge a new path, a path where AI is slave and human is master. For Alpha Praetan and his friend Lily, two 12 year old creche-students on Mefitis, the only thing that matters is getting their Implants. The golden neural lace that will enable them to discover a universe of knowledge and science. As their day approaches, they find that someone or something has different plans.