Donor 23 (12 page)

She didn’t look up at her father.
He was wrong about her
, she thought to herself. She wasn’t strong.

Staffan let go of the railing. Nox tried to grab him, but Staffan fought him off. Joan glanced up just in time to see her father falling. She watched him hit the ground.

“NO!” she screamed. She looked up, seething with fury. Nox leaned over the railing. Then, stepping in beside Nox was… Duncan! Her mouth dropped. He wore the dreaded black uniform. He was one of them. She couldn’t think about it now, so she quickly descended to the nearby roof.

While she ran across the roof, one of the officers shot a dart at her but missed by quite a distance.

Nox reached for his own gun but found his holster empty, “Starr, give me back my gun.”

Duncan handed it back to Nox, who turned to fire, but it was too late. Joan ran around the corner and off the next rooftop. She sprinted through the ghetto streets. Nox looked skyward as a news drone veered off, following her from above.

P
ART
II

Evader

11

J
oan raced through the streets. After jogging a few minutes, she heard commotion behind. Two snatchers. She ducked inside the market. It was crowded.
Perfect.
Dodging easily in between the stalls and sellers, she made her way to the back door. Turning, she saw the snatchers caught in the crush of the store. The donors were not budging, and sellers “accidentally” pushed items in the way. She slipped out to the back alley.

She proceeded through dark alleyways for a few minutes, but a drone hovered above her. It found her. She glimpsed a raised walkway ahead, crossing the street and attaching two buildings. Underneath hid a sewer grate. She stopped under the walkway, out of sight of the drone, and forced up the grate. The odor made her wince.

People looked at her but did not react. They saw the drone and knew a donor ran for her life, and they didn’t want to give away
her position. They nonchalantly walked by her, ignoring her, as she struggled to live. It was eerie, as if she were invisible. The drone, which had continued on, realized it lost her and doubled back.

Taking a breath, she climbed into the sewer—into the pitch-dark blackness and the stink. She fumbled inside the backpack and found the flashlight. Using the limited light, she ran through the large pipe, slipping in the sewage. She had to bend over. After scurrying what she thought a safe distance, she stopped to rest and pulled out the map to get her bearings.

The tunnel surrounding her was a side tunnel, tunnel number nine. She followed it to the main tunnel. That tunnel was large enough for her to stand upright, and she ran as fast as she dare through the slippery muck. She continued, following the numbers of each consecutive tunnel until she reached number three. It
was
a small tunnel. She had to crawl to make her way through it. It took a while, but sunlight glimmered ahead. She arrived at the grate and pushed it. It gave way. The sun streamed through the grate, and she decided to sit and rest for a moment in its warmth. Breathing deeply the fresh air, she surveyed the outside. The tunnel opened to a cliff, but her father was right. It wasn’t steep. She could descend it without difficulty.

Her father,
she thought. It happened so fast.
How did she end up out here? An evader! Running from the authorities.
She had always looked upon evaders with disdain and scorn. Now she was one of them. If she hadn’t run, if she’d stayed and gone with the snatchers, her father would be alive. It was too late. Even if she did return and gave herself up, her father was dead.

Duncan.
He stood on the balcony when Nox pushed her father off. He was a snatcher. Apparently he decided to take the safe, cushy job of a body snatcher instead of joining the army after all. If she hadn’t seen it, she wouldn’t have believed it. He fooled her, and she told him her name. She was foolish to believe him, foolish to love him. And now her father was dead. Hatred welled up in her.

She turned toward the sunlight and took another breath of the fresh air. She couldn’t think about Duncan. She had to keep going.
Or did she? What was she doing? What was she going to do? She had no one. No family. Nothing. And it was all her fault.

She sighed, as she slid the map back in the backpack. Her hand brushed against a piece of paper. She pulled it out—a photograph of her parents. She had promised her father—promised them both—she wouldn’t give up.

Squinting from the bright sun, she climbed outside the tunnel. At the bottom of the cliff was a small creek, four feet across. Then another cliff rose on the other side. At the top of the far side, a sparsely wooded area grew. She started down the cliff. Once at the bottom, she effortlessly leaped over the creek and began to ascend the other side.

Unexpectedly, the sound of a drone buzzed overhead. It had flown in ever-larger circles around the ghetto in an effort to find her, and it paid off. She tried to ignore it, hovering and buzzing above, as she picked her way up the cliff.

At the top she glanced at her wrist phone. No signals reached it way out there, so she couldn’t communicate with anyone. Wondering if they could track her, she pulled it off and threw it down the cliff. She continued on totally alone, except for the drone and the millions of citizens watching.

One of Nox’s officers looked at his wrist phone display and said, “Captain, the drone picked her up. She’s outside the ghetto, in Area Six.”

“How did she get out?” Nox asked, to no one in particular. “At least the drone will track her.”

In his office, surrounded by various aides, the Governor stared at Joan on a large tele-screen, as she ran through the woods. Holding a glass in his hand, he motioned to his servant, who was standing at the back of his office.

“More here, honey,” he held up his glass to the girl.

The servant brought the decanter and poured more liquid into his drink. She was the pretty waitress from the Fitness Center, the one with the unique, violet-colored eyes.

“Ice, girl. More ice,” he ordered crossly.

She hastily went back to the credenza and brought over the ice bucket. As she struggled with the tongs to pick up ice, the Governor impatiently grabbed a handful. Watching Joan on the tele-screen, he held the ice for a moment. Then he dropped them into his glass and directed an aide, “Get the TEO on the phone.”

Joan kept running west. The morning sun burned brightly, so she found her way by keeping the sun at her back. The drone flew above her. Drones worked in teams. One followed the evader, and one kept with the snatchers. It made for a more exciting chase for the viewers. As long as Joan could see just one drone, she knew Nox was not close.

She kept jogging at an easy—but quick—pace. The sparse foliage offered limited cover from the drone. She tried to stay under the trees, but it stayed with her. Thirst overpowered her. She stopped under a tree and pulled out a bottle of water from her pack. She took a long drink, savoring it and listening to the incessant buzz of the drone. It saw her and stopped, hovering just above the tree under which she rested.

She stared at the drone, knowing the citizens watching their tele-screens stared back at her. Replacing the water bottle and zipping up her backpack, she spotted a rock on the ground.
She picked it up and toyed with it, while she looked through the branches at the drone above. Her breathing slowed, as she took deep, measured breaths. Then she ran into the open and heaved the rock at the hovering drone.

In a control room filled with tele-screens, one screen went fuzzy and then blank. An officer wearing a headphone asked incredulously, “Did we lose drone one? Did she
throw
something at it? Have the other drone stay higher. Don’t let it get too close to her.” He shook his head. “This is a first.”

Nox and the officers drove to Area Six and waited at the top of the cliff, right where Joan had climbed up, half an hour before. His wrist phone vibrated. He answered.

“What the hell is going on?” his division commander demanded. “Do you know who I just got off the phone with? Our Governor. I was talking to Our Governor himself. He’s pissed. He’s watching this girl make a fool of us on the tele-screen. Do you know what’ll happen when people find out she’s Our Governor’s donor and that she escaped the ghetto walls? The drone is down. Down! We think she hit it—threw something at it!”