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barrel and was jet black, with a small fluff of orange sticking out the back—the bright, cheery color seeming to belie its evil. Instead of a bullet, it shot out a tranquilizing dart. Unlike a bullet, which causes destruction in the area of the body it hits in a straightforward, albeit painful way, a tranquilizer dart leaks its malevolent poison like a virus, reaching every cell and membrane. The venom did not cause pain or death but rather sleep—misappropriating and transforming, in a grotesque fashion, the pleasing act of slumber into a doorway to death.
    Hovering about a hundred feet over the van were two camera drones—small, remote controlled helicopter cameras. Like vultures, they followed snatcher vans. Just in case of a good chase, the news wanted to catch it on film. The citizens enjoyed watching evader chase scenes. The Alliance forced donors to view the chases as well, screening them in living color on the mega tele-screens placed throughout the ghetto. Since snatchers usually caught and tranquilized any evader, it served as a good deterrent.
    The van made its way near Joan and stopped. Peering through the dark window in the back of the van, Joan saw the outline of several people. One of the shapes was not wearing the snatcher uniform cap. Joan couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman. He or she was one forlorn donor being carried away.
    Out of the corner of her eye, Joan spotted the officer in the front passenger seat looking at her, and she glanced up at him.
Captain Nox
. She froze. Joan, always abiding the law, rarely had contact with snatchers—except for one vile encounter with this one, Nox.
    Nox’s Tax Enforcement unit ran her area of the ghetto. To say donors despised and feared him was an understatement. The donors nicknamed him the Master Manipulator, with a myth that he read people’s minds. Joan turned away.
    “Hey, you,” he said.
    Joan ignored him and stared at the ground.
    “You, girl.”
    The person in front of Joan nudged her, “I think he’s calling you.”
    She forced herself to look at him.
    “You look like you’re in good shape. Go help your friend out of the way there,” Nox motioned to a man on crutches in front of the van.
    Joan did as told.
    As she walked back to her place in line, Nox shouted out, “Always nice to see a donor who’s helpful.”
    Against her will, her thoughts dragged back to the last time she saw Nox, eight months ago.
    She came home early to her apartment from a day at the Center. Turmoil ensued. Joan rushed in. Body snatchers stomped down the halls, searching the apartments.
    She made her way to her apartment. In one of the bedrooms, Joan found her mother replacing part of the wall where a heating unit had been. Joan could see a person squeezed into the small hole.
    “Mom, what’s going on?”
    Her mother glanced up, then moved furniture to block the hole, and hurriedly tried to make it appear as if nothing had been moved. Joan couldn’t believe it. Her mother was hiding an evader! They went into the front room.
    “
Mom?” Joan pleaded. “What…?”
    “Sh,” was all her mother could say, as the front door burst open.
    Nox and two other snatchers rushed in. They forced Joan and her mother against a wall. The officers searched the apartment, finding nothing.
    “We’re looking for an evader,” Nox said, holding up a photo. “Have you seen him?”
    Joan recognized the man in the photo. It was Frank, the husband of her mother’s good friend, Dolly.
    With calmness and reserve, her mother looked Nox directly in the eyes and said authoritatively, “No, we haven’t seen him.”
    Nox looked at Joan. She turned away. Her fear and hesitation appeared in her eyes. Nox discerned it, as he was well trained to detect it. Just like any good predator, he instantly chose Joan as his target. He pushed Joan’s mother.
    “Take her into the hall,” he ordered the other officers.
    Joan now stood alone with him. Captain Nox was an excellent