Chapter 1 

           “Blast Him!”

Shots whizzed by my head. Bursts of red from the SS-65 blasters that were commonly used by Shockerz, who people used to call police men, but that was just over 100 years ago. Now things were different, the United States was long gone, overthrown when it was ravaged by famine and disease. A new nation called the Pramo took over. It was supposed to be a place of equality, but the big cities of Pramo were so filled with poverty, that they made the cities like Minneapolis and San Francisco seem like the most friendly and equal places ever seen. 

I was one of those people who were poor, and had to steal on a daily basis to get food or money. I was sprinting for not only my life, but my mother’s. She was sick, and I was pumping my legs as fast as I could to get away with the medicine for her deadly disease, called Hard Cold. Years ago called the common cold, it had adapted into one of the most deadly diseases on the planet. 

As I looked back at my pursuers, I saw that they were gaining on me. To my relief, I saw a turn, and as I rounded the bend of the alley –

I slipped.

Not the kind of “slipped” as in, “I fell on the floor!” I slipped into invisibility. 

The men were coming, and I flattened myself against a wall, and tried to be as quiet as I could.

“C’mon, Fuller, the brat went this way!” one of the Shockerz said.

“I ain’t dumb, Jerf, I know!” the other said in a thin, reedy voice.

They ran down the alley, and I sighed in relief. I slid back into visibility, and started to head back to my home, when realization hit me like a sack of bricks. At first, there had been three Shockerz, but only two had come down the alley. I was about to slip again, but before I could, a hand clamped over my mouth, and everything went black.