Golden Dreg Boy, Book 1

by D. K. Dailey

  “A BART station?” My feet plant firmly on the ground and I bend my knees to brace the impact. “But all the BART stations are out of service and uninhabitable.”

  “What gave it away, genius?” Saya bites her lip like she didn’t mean to let her usual snarky insult slip out.

  I’m way past being offended by this girl. Anything that’ll remind me of how our relationship was before discovering Archer alive is welcome, like air-conditioning on a hot day. It will come to that. I’ll be fighting for the pieces of the girl I knew, though I didn’t know her well to begin with. With so much to this feisty girl, I’ll never stop learning. Never stop wanting to know who she is. That feeling hasn’t gone away, but I’m burying it until she decides she wants me.

  Wow! Never thought I’d say I’m waiting for a girl to want me. Kade Shaw, former rich guy and son of the second to the premier of the Americas, is waiting for a girl to want him. A guy who had no worries in the Golden world is now waiting. On a Dreg girl. To want him.

  “SoMa BART was the last station built before the rocket train took over. I’ve read about this station.” The words came out of nowhere but when I think harder, the last time I came here was to scavenge for skate park materials. At the time, fragments of an old cartilator cart were blocking part of the entrance, but now there are new carts. And a new generator.

  Saya rolls her eyes, and Carson laughs. “I really like you, Kade. Seriously.”

  I unstrap the glider as do Carson and Saya. “Least someone does.”

  Pike, a tall, muscular, lemon-haired man, makes his way through the crowd, yelling orders. “Carry Quincy and Archer down to Dr. Suresh. He’s in the second-floor server room.”

  People gather around the bodies, while others unhook the Taken from the gliders. A few flank the sides, heads, and feet of the tarps, lifting them individually onto the cartilator.

  In the midst of the chaos, a tiny part of me is excited for my first ride on a cartilator. Last time, Noodle and I flew down on our flutterboards. Someone presses the generator’s button, and the metal carts jerk into motion. Cartilator paths defy gravity. Moving up, down, and sideways on undergrounds paths, they’re rare. I begged Dad to come to this BART station just to ride a cartilator. But he said the top Golden don’t take the train or BART.

  I shuffle onto a cart as others follow behind me. The vibration from the generator massages my whole body. How do they get so much power underground? I never knew true resourcefulness until moving in with Dregs.

  Kids in other carts scrutinize the comatose men while others follow behind in a slow succession of wonder. Ahead of me, Saya’s and Carson’s heads bob as we travel the crooked path.

  The bumpy, spongy ceiling gives the underground a cave-like feel. The last time I was here, the air was hot and stuffy, but now the hum of fans fills the air, which means somehow they’re circulating the air. But that doesn’t stop earthy smells from creeping inside this place.

  Black-and-white tiles on the next floor clash with plain cement walkways, and colorful graffiti stalks us as we descend further into the station.

  “Bring ’em this way.” A woman in a leather jacket with intricate cornrows stops the cartilator when Archer’s and Quincy’s inert forms reach her floor. “Doc and a few people are nearly finished setting up the room.”

  “Who’s that?” I ask no one in particular. She looks and sounds important.

  “Kahina is our leader,” someone to my right says. I fight the urge to examine this new group of people mixed in with faces I’ve grown to know over the last four months.

  New people tote the tarped men away over cracked and bumpy concrete, and someone starts the generator again. I hop off on the next floor following everyone else including Kahina and Pike.

  The area looks like a blood spill, a vast difference from the classic black-and-white-tiled top floor above us. Under inconsistent portable lighting, Pike comes into view again. His wrinkles and knotted beard catch the light as he walks toward me. The bags under his eyes and the pastiness of his skin make him look worn out.

  Kahina walks briskly at his side, a huge owl with wings spread tattooed on her breastbone. It is painted red and gray, which looks abstract against her medium brown skin tone. Interesting location. Some Dregs don’t care about being bold with their hair, clothes, or body art, but a leader should. I’d think they would want to stay more low-key. That’s how Pike is, as well as the Revisionist leader they’ve talked about.

  Though Kahina’s tattoo flies with each movement of her clavicle bone, I refocus on Pike. He stops in front of me and gives me a quick once-over with blue eyes almost the same shade as mine. “What a cuckoo night! I heard over the radio. How you doing? Heard you guys had plenty of obstacles.” Then he quits talking and starts walking.

  I fall into pace beside him, and Kahina follows. “How’d you get to this place so fast?”

  “We hauled ass, and I already had a deal in the works to join Kahina’s group. Not all of us are here. Some are still moving stuff, and others are on their way,” he says distractedly. “So what’d you find?”

  “Bodies.” I finally take my eyes off Archer and Quincy.

  The lines in Pike’s face grow deeper. “The proof we needed.” His eyes glimmer. “How did the lab look? How many people were there?”

  Giving Pike the details of the mission in front of someone new, someone I haven’t officially met makes me squirm. Then, as the images flash in my mind, I forget about Kahina. People hanging in large, clear cases, incapacitated like slaughtered meat. The barbarous nature of it all still haunts me. “It was a big warehouse. The Taken were stored in glass boxes with wires, lamps, and tubes connected to them. Digital pads on the outside. All of them looked asleep, coma-like.”

  Pike holds his head in his hand for a long moment. He knew the government took people. And I’m positive there were other skeptics besides me. Looking up, he wipes a tear from one eye, probably wishing he’d been wrong. “Were all of them unconscious and scarred?”

  I close my eyes and imagine the lab again. A sea of black countertops and desks surround my dad’s office, which is behind chest-high frosted glass. The lab is as big as my old rec center, like a gym or a storage unit. Dull, gray-tinted faces invade my mind. Motionless bodies suspended in upright cases. I shake away the images. “I didn’t look at all of them, but most had scars, I think.”

  Pike grips my shoulder. “Sorry you had to discover the truth that way, son.”

  Tensing under his touch, I say. “What are you going to do with the bodies we brought back?”

  “See if we can revive them. The doctor says he’ll know more later. We didn’t have the resources to keep them alive, based on what Carson told me.” He nods toward Kahina. “But this group has the most up-to-date hospital equipment we could find, though it is still about two hundred years old. This is Quincy and Archer’s best chance, so I made an alliance with the Revisionists. I know you’ve got a lot on your mind, but I’ll need you to help me in this.” Pike flexes his fingers on my shoulder and then drops his hand. His expression strains like he’s holding something back. What does an alliance mean? Why would he need my help?

  “This is Kahina. She’s with the Revisionists. Kahina, this is Kade.”

  “It’s nice to finally meet the prized Golden Dreg boy I’ve heard so much about.”

  I don’t like the sound of that but shake her hand anyway. The coldness trapped in her palm makes me snatch my hand back.

  Pike frowns at my reaction. “Do you have the keystickie from the mission?”

  In my left pocket, I rub the extra one I swiped from Dad’s desk, thankful I made a copy of the data for myself. Now, I need something to read it on.

  I fish out Carson’s device from the customized zippered compartment in my glider pack and pass it to Pike as a gray-haired man pushes through the crowded BART platform. “Doc needs you and Kahina, now!”

  A bead of sweat runs down the side of Pike’s long face. “I’ll go see what he want
s. Kahina, see you in a few?”

  Nodding, she draws closer. “I know we just met, but there’s something I need to give you.” She presses an envelope into my hand. “She’ll contact you through someone else from now on.”

  I take it and look down. “Who will?”

  “Your mom.”

  I jiggle the envelope. “But how— What is this— Do you know her?”

  A sigh catches her breath before Kahina answers. “I can’t say more, but we Revisionists have our ways, just know that.”

  I look around, trying to shake off the confusion fizzing inside. “How does my mom know where I am? How does she know you?”

  “Read the letter. See if you can help her. But, most likely, she can help you.” Kahina touches my arm, nearly forcing me to stare into her hazel eyes. Like Mom’s. Warm and sparkling. Kahina quickly walks off.

  I stand on the platform and peer at the envelope. I want to rip it open. Instead, I tuck it into my backpack. I’ll read it when things settle down. If I can wait that long.

  Isa, one of the girls from my original Dreg group, finds me. “How’s it going, Kade?” Part of the gala mission too, she came back by bubble, like the others who helped infiltrate the building.

  “Didn’t know we’d have a new place.” I look around. “Do you know where my bag is and where we sleep?”

  “There are three different levels. Our group is on the bottom.”

  “Show me the way.” I grin but then remember she’s a flirt, and force my face to go blank.

  Isa bats her big, gray doll eyes anyway. Pulling my bag from behind her back like a surprise gift, she offers it to me. When our hands meet, her eyes spark.

  I withdraw, wrapping my fingers around my backpack straps, the one Mom gave me when I snuck home a while ago. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. We got out earlier than you from the mission, so we went to the warehouse to grab our personal stuff and then came straight here.”

  She points to the floor above us, to the ceiling. “The second floor and this floor were the train levels. There are a few bathrooms, if you wander around. No showers, though. I think they’re gonna try and tap into some water and set up portables for that.”

  “I could use a bathroom.”

  She nods and points. Following her direction, I slip into one of the bathrooms with my backpack in hand.

  Stripping off my dress suit from the mission, I tug on a pullover hoodie and then slip on black jeans. Before discarding the suit, I remove the keystickie and stuff it in a hidden compartment inside my backpack. Isa must’ve put my sleeping cot in here. In addition to that and my flutterboard, there are a few changes of clothes, a pointholder with two million points, toiletries, and four pictures of Mom, Ems, and I. My old gray paperboy hat I wore as a Golden—but not so much now—is also in there. Once, I wore it as a symbol of the rebellion. But now, I am the symbol of the rebellion.

  When I first came to live with Dregs, they were obviously victims of circumstance and therefore always ready to leave at a moment’s notice. They only had backpacks and small portable cots that fit inside their bags. Then, I thought it would be impossible to fit all my worldly belongings, even my most cherished possessions, into a backpack. Not anymore. Cherish what little you have.

  Remembering Mom’s letter that Kahina gave me, I fish it out and open it. My hands shake as I run my fingers over the creases. So many questions parade through my mind. “We Revisionists have our ways.” Whatever that means. I’m happy my mother got a note to me at all.

  The last time I saw her replays in my mind.

  In the fancy hallway at Shaw Technology, Mom struck Dad over the head with a beautiful glass vase. In an evening dress and hair in an elegant knot, she stood over him. “Each of these vases cost twenty-six thousand points. I decorated this lab hall at his request.” And then the broken vase pieces dropped from her hands.

  She’s the reason we had time to get into his lab, steal data, and save Quincy and Archer. The reason we completed the mission. I tighten my grip on the paper. Does she regret helping me? Will this be how she disowns me? I can’t expect her to keep putting herself at risk to help me. Forcing myself to unfold the letter, I read:

  Things have changed. He’s plotting to kill me. I’ll find a way to meet soon. Stay put! There’s a lot you need to know.

  No signature, but that’s her handwriting. This changes everything. If Dad wants Mom dead, then what will he do with my sister? My jaw clenches. Now, saving my sister and mom is as important as finding out what the data we stole reveals.

  Zipping open my backpack, I stuff the letter next to the keystickie, close the bag, and throw it on my back before heading back into the main room.

  Once again, my world has changed. People I love are in danger. Too much has happened over the last few hours, and all I want to do is lie down and forget everything for a while. It’s all too, too much.