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area. It was a large, walled in city. There were countless ghettos scattered throughout the nation. The Alliance kept each ghetto small, enclosed, and tightly maintained with security.
    It hadn’t always been like this. Joan’s father had told her that in his younger days, there were no walls. Donors freely walked and mingled in the nicer citizen neighborhoods, but then a rash of crime occurred. Citizens were up in arms. Blame fell on the donors. Literally overnight, in a well-timed and prepared execution, the Alliance erected walls surrounding each ghetto and restricted travel. Her father surmised the real reason was that citizens feared the size of the growing donor population.
    Joan passed her apartment, magnificent by ghetto standards. It stood near the entrance gate. She needed to stop by the market and knew the walking would help her leg feel better.
    The marketplace bustled with people, even though most had not yet returned from their day of work in the city. Smoke permeated it, and dirt covered the floor. Joan made her way through the aisles filled with gritty groceries. Many of the sellers also sold black-market items, hidden beneath the counters. Some stalls cooked food over open flames, but not the kind found at the high-priced citizen restaurants. Joan enjoyed the atmosphere and the smells, but it was not her destination. She continued to the back of the market.
    “BE SURE YOU DON’T MISS THE NEWLY RELEASED FLICKER ABOUT OUR FIRST GOVERNOR, DEPICTING HIS BRAVE RESCUE OF A VILLAGE FROM A HOARD OF BARBARIANS…”
    An elderly security guard stood at a doorway.
    “Miss Lion, you’re early today,” he greeted her warmly.
    Joan didn’t have a grandfather, but if she did, she imagined he would be like Ed.
    “Hi, Ed. Yeah, caught an early bus.”
    Joan scanned her tattoo, and he motioned her to go inside. Only those with special clearance could enter this part of the market. The atmosphere in this small room differed from the main market—shining, clean and sterile. The aisles stood empty, except for her. The food, abundant and high quality, was displayed beautifully. In the checkout, Joan swiped her cash card and made her way out with her two bags of groceries. She paused by Ed.
    “There’s something on top for you, Ed,” she told him, motioning to a small package wrapped in paper from the butcher section.
    “Oh, Miss Lion, you never forget me, do you?”
    The food allotted to the ghettos was minimal. The System walked a fine line between keeping donors alive and ensuring they did not become a drain on Alliance resources. Joan had a large stipend, so she purchased a fair amount of food. She had to. She was under instructions to eat a lot of calories. Even so, she had more than enough to spread some around to others. Besides, Joan was lucky enough to eat many meals at the Fitness Center.
    She made her way back through the main market and out into the sunlight. She had one more errand to run. Venturing a few streets out of her way, she picked up her pace to reach Dolly’s apartment.
    As she turned a corner down a narrow side street, she saw the sidewalk on one side without pedestrians, so she crossed from the busy side to the clear. Trudging along the empty sidewalk, Joan discovered too late the reason people walked on the other side. A poster of the Governor hung vandalized with graffiti on the wall a few feet from her. To the Governor’s smile, the artist added long fangs and a forked, snakelike tongue. The gray streaks in his hair had been changed into an obvious diamond pattern, as on a rattlesnake’s head.
    Joan paused when she saw it and had a brief intake of breath. The penalty for desecrating a photograph of the Governor was severe. The Alliance sentenced an offender to a labor camp for life. No donor wanted to be seen near a defiled poster, lest they be accused or implicated in its defilement. Joan stepped out a few steps into the street and hurried on to Dolly’s home.
    After a short walk, she