But not every portion of serum that vanished into dark channels fell into the hands of ordinary criminals. There was also a deeper conspiracy going on. Within the government a small group had had an idea how to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, it became increasingly clear that the official program failed to produce sufficient numbers. But the draft toll could not be elevated without risking general uproar. On the other hand, there was increasing pressure from the middle class to clean up in the ghettos. Not least because, and this fired back on the first issue, there was a feeling that due to a slack registration system youths from the ghetto were much less likely to be drafted for tranformation than correctly registered, law abiding kids from the wealthy suburbs.
A plan to simply elevate tranformation rates for people below a certain income threshold had been crushed. It would draw too much attention to the problem without really helping to solve it. Instead, a secretive group of politicians and sceintists had decided to sidestep official channels. With the help of some big names in the agro-business an underground system of tranformation centers had been set up which delivered directly to farms where trustworthy employees knew when it was time to ask little questions. Of course, rumours about the system spread but as long as a low profile was kept, no resistance arose. Quite simply, many people in the country preferred the disappearance of a few gang members from ghettos over their own sons and daughters being transformed for livestock.
Supply for the system was gathered in different ways. Some came from police stations and youth correctionals. But most was "collected" by hired mercenaries who patrolled the slums in the dark of the night. Tonight, one of these dark-clad patrols captures ...