by D. K. Dailey
“Find a bubble and get back to the center. Go to the ones on Polk Street if you can.” Zee touches her shoulder, and her eyes transfer to him. The moment of lust between Saya and me passes.
She nods in understanding. They hug, and then she motions for me to follow. We go opposite Zee and Rigo. I’m like a rag doll being dragged behind her.
We run to join a crowd, and the two other Dregs disappear down another street. I refocus on Saya.
“Come on,” she orders.
I don’t hesitate because their group holds the answers to all my questions. Plus, I have nowhere else to go. Truth is, I’d follow her anywhere.
Squads gather, searching in the distance, but they haven’t spotted us.
“Slow down. No one’s chasing us.” I grab Saya’s hand. She pulls away, of course.
“Everyone will think we’re a couple, not fugitives.” I intertwine my fingers in hers. A warmth pounds through me that she can’t ruin with recoiling body language.
Wrinkling her nose, she continues walking hand in hand with me through the crowd. We’re like a married couple taking a stroll down a busy street. For a second, I relish this moment like a lovesick schoolgirl. If everything were perfect, we would both be Goldens and betrothed and on a date night.
“You have to act the part, S.” I smile down at her.
She doesn’t smile back. “Name’s Saya.” She tightens her grip.
Somehow the name sounds strange when she says it. More proper. “Psy-what?” I trip on the syllables.
“Psy-yuh,” she says phonetically. “Real simple. Two syllables. Sounds like the beginning of sayonara—the Japanese word for saying goodbye. As in ‘I wish I could say sayonara to you.’” Her voice is colder than ice.
I smile. “Goodbye. Okay, Psy-yuh. I heard the guys saying it back there. Nice to officially meet you.” She’s literally the girl of my dreams. The one that dropped her scarf and asked me how dumb could I be and what my problem was. Telling myself these facts doesn’t help. She’s as quick-witted and mean in real life as she was in my dream. “Are you part Japanese then?”
She rolls her eyes. “So typical. No, I’m black. What does it matter to you anyway?”
How was that typical? I wasn’t trying to assume. I asked. I drop my eyes from her face. She’s going to be hard to crack and comes with attitude very much intact. Looking up, I recognize we’re not too far from Unity Square. Metal balconies with railings enclose apartments, and fifteen-foot-wide skywalk bridges connect buildings and floors. Squads scatter on them, examining the street crowd from above.
After a few minutes, we’re almost home free.
Someone points. “There he is!” The crowd splits, revealing us like a curtain on opening night at the Battle Creek Opera House.
In the next second, the squad who’s been searching for us from above jumps off their skywalk tiers using mini flutterboards.
“Run!” she roars. “We gotta make it to the bubble at that corner.”
We take off again, pushing through the crowd. A cop glides alongside us, weaving around people, but he can’t get to us. I look back, which is not what you’re supposed to do when you’re being chased. How many are there?
Saya gaining distance ahead of me pulls my vision forward. She’s already getting into a bubble marked with a large gray dot on the window. Man, she’s quick. I’m taller, so I should be faster. But I lack her agility. Then there’s her intuition. She makes decisions at exactly the right times.
Pushing open the passenger-side door, she waves to hurry up. I’m zarding running as fast as I can, but it still doesn’t seem fast enough. My body’s tired from lack of food and sleep. I thrust forward but don’t go any faster. Pushing past my weaknesses, I pump my arms and legs harder, hoping to increase my pace.
I gaze above, and a different bubble trails me. The cop who glided near us on the street grabs my T-shirt, pulling me back, making it difficult to keep running.
Stopping will force his momentum to push him headlong forward, so I stop and duck. He flies headfirst, smashing into the ground in front of me. I stand back up, jump over him, and take off again.
Running is harder than before, like I’ve stopped a machine after hours of working and it needs to warm up to start once more.
I dive into our escape bubble head first, but another cop grabs my foot. I kick, manage to jiggle him lose, and then close the door. He slams into the passenger-side partition, and his flutterboard cracks in two.
Saya takes off and enters the track system. We’re home free.
Chapter Fifteen
The air conditioning permeates through the vehicle, refreshing me. But freedom isn’t in my grasp just yet.
Saya maneuvers us onto the tracks with two officer bubbles in close pursuit. I press my hands to the rounded bulletproof-glass roof, trying to sneak a look at the action. I’m reminded of Ems and how she calls bubbles “marbles floating in the sky.” The vehicle’s twirling colors and lights reflect off the glass of new buildings jutting out over the solar tracks above city ruins.
New buildings were built without demolishing the old ragged ones. The government tried to cover up their mistakes in a hurry to create more space for people fleeing their homes to live in the heart of Battle Creek.
“You’re driving manually?” I try not to freak out, but my voice cracks. No one drives manually.
Saya rolls her eyes. “Only Goldens let themselves be driven around, trusting technology and whatnot.”
I move my lips but then think better of it.
“I also don’t want anybody hacking into the bubble, you doink.”
My brain’s not wired to think the worst of the government. Biting my lip, I gaze up. The track tiers have two solar rails set one hundred feet apart, radiating energy to all vehicles on the track. Two cop bubbles swarm behind us, matching our excessive speed. One tries to force us off the track and into the exit, but Saya teeters above the pedestrians in the same area, avoiding the bulldozing maneuver. They get caught behind and in between other bubbles. She speeds up, putting distance between them and us.
Above us, the BART rocket train flies past at close to two hundred miles per hour. I look back down so I don’t get dizzy. To keep busy, I bang on the electric dashboard. Finally, the stream of the back of the bubble jolts on, and a mess of black-and-white blurred lines covers the screen. It would help to be the navigator, but I’m losing interest in the failing technology.
“You’re the girl from the market. The none-of-your-business girl.”
“You just realized that, genius?” Attitude tenses her voice.
“No, I knew the moment you took off your helmet.”
She rolls her eyes again. Man, I can’t catch a break with this girl. She zarding hates me.
“How did you get the bubbles?” I keep talking, hoping she’ll find me charming. Everyone does eventually.
“We stole them.”
“Figures.” I shake my head.
“‘Thanks for rescuing me, Saya.’ Why, you’re very welcome, Kade,” she mocks and then concentrates on the track ahead of us.
“I was going to thank—”
“Just shut it.”
I peer at her with respectful eyes. I’m safe in her beautiful and more than capable hands. Never mind her treating me like shucky. She just saved my life and lost someone she obviously loved.
She looks the same as I remember. Same clothes, but cleaner. Her hair falls into her eyes, and she pushes it back, tucking longer pieces behind an ear. I’m a total pervert, drinking her in like this, but it’s hard to concentrate in such close proximity.
A bubble crashes into my door, startling me. The silver-blue flashing lights reflect off our bubble’s dusty glass as the cops level out above another vehicle next to us.
Ours shakes with each movement, like an olden-day elevator stopping on a high floor. Normally, rides are smooth, but this older model is unstable.
I check the tracks above and below us but don’t see any lapse i
n traffic. If Saya signals, our bubble will ping cars on the track, slowing them down to make room for us to enter traffic on a different track level. But we’re blocked in.
Hitting the electric dashboard again makes the live stream replace static. The cop bubble on screen is behind us for only a second before it knocks us into the vehicle ahead. With a twist of the wheel, Saya jerks our bubble. The back of my head hits the headrest, and I grab the spot and grunt.
“Hold on!” she shouts. She narrows her eyes, then moves above and to the side of the cop bubble before dipping underneath. Leveling us out on the track, she slants sideways, missing the bubbles slowing down or dodging us.
On the dashboard, in the distance, the cops that bumped us crash into another bubble, swiping below them unexpectedly. The flashing lights ricochet off the shiny track rails, and their bubble fades into the distance.
“Have you done this before?”
“We get chased a lot.”
The dashboard reveals another cop bubble still in pursuit. A loud knocking, squeaky noise invades our vehicle. We lose height under the weight of their bubble. We go down until Saya skids to the left. Unable to pull out of their forced free fall, the cops drop through the sets of tracks.
That doesn’t happen often. Moves like Saya’s are illegal because, at a moment’s notice, track tiers curve, dip, and change directions.
Through the clear floor, the cop bubble falls to the last few tiers and crashes on the bottom track. It hits like Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall. Cracked pieces serve as relics.
Saya nosedives to a track below, following its curves around old ruins. She hovers and then slips into a gap between two towering apartment buildings fifty or more stories high. Since the worldquake, some towers have been built side by side into more supportive structures. But somehow a crevice big enough for a bubble to fit through exists.
“Did you know about this spot?”
“Yeah.” She shifts her eyes to our surroundings. “A construction miscalculation.”
“Are there any other little crannies like this?” I refocus on the tracks and the bubbles flying by.
“This is the only one I know. We studied street maps and cased out possible routes before rescuing you.”
“So this was planned?”
“As soon as you were taken into custody, yes.” She averts her eyes.
“What about the hacking? The officer on the radio said you guys hacked into the system.”
“We found a backdoor.” She meets my eyes.
“What?” I frown.
“Pike will tell you everything when you meet him.” She shifts her focus back to the road.
“You mean if.”
“No, I mean when.”
Guess I don’t really have a choice. I’m a wanted criminal, and they obviously know what they’re doing. If I lived as a fugitive on my own, I wouldn’t know the first thing about surviving.
Another cop bubble passes by, flashing bright searchlights, fluttering above the highest track. They disappear into a bubble cluster like a bird assimilating into their flock.
“That was the last of them.”
“I know, dummy.” She rolls her eyes yet again. “We wait it out now. Five minutes, and I think we’ll be good to go.”
“Geesh, you’ve done nothing but insult me since I met you.” A spirited smile dances on the edge of my mouth. “If I was easily hurt, I…”
“This isn’t the Scouts. I don’t have to be nice to you.” Her aggravated groan, accompanied with her words, turns me on.
“But you had to rescue me, right? I must be pretty important.”
She glares.
“What if I throw myself out of the bubble? Go at it on my own?” I touch the button door, faking as if I’ll do it.
She’s not amused but flinches. “You’d best stay with us.” She sweeps her eyes over me. “You wouldn’t know how to make it on your own anyway.” She busies herself once more, examining a little part of the track that’s visible ahead.
My ego shrinks. I’m beginning to think she can’t say or think anything good about me. From the little conversation we’ve shared, her view of Goldens is derogatory. She’s been taught to believe we’re good for nothing. What’s that thing moms say? If you can’t say anything good, say nothing at all. Saya should try that mantra sometime.
After about five minutes, she reenters the track. In the stream of the bubble’s rear, other bubbles surround us as the afternoon slips away, red and yellow streaks of sunset blazing in the distance.
We’re safe and clear now. But what could the mysterious group of rebels possibly want with me?
We eventually ditch the bubble and walk about six blocks, turning down alleys and streets I never knew existed. People stand at entranceways of abandoned buildings, eying us cautiously. Wrecked bubbles, old furniture, beat-up mattresses, lamps, and other rubbish litter the streets like a junkyard. Cats and dogs roam about, and groups of people encircle garbage-can fires. All new sights. A whole different world.
The outer rim, where I lived cozy and clueless just last night, catches my eye. The hill sectors look different from the flatland vantage point. More massive, like the rim of a cup, except now I’m lost inside it. I’m positive this is the east end of the city because the hills aren’t too high on this side. We’re near Sectors Four.
Crammed in too-tight spaces, tiny, poorly constructed green-and-brown shacks look like one building with multiple entrances, like someone threw wood, glass, tin roofs, and nails together within minutes and called it a day. The roofs might cave in with any great wind or heavy rainfall.
I walk behind Saya, looking up as we approach a large, decrepit building. A kid-sized electric car lies on its side, and a sign dangles above the wooden door, its lettering faded and incomprehensible. Tilting my head sideways doesn’t help me make out the letters, but it’s an old recreation center. A new one was built close to the market, though this one stayed active until I was seven. Wasn’t this one torn down?
“I remember this place from when I was a kid. What happened? Do you live here?” My eyes search for familiarity. “Why would you stay here? The government provides housing.”
“We stay here for now.” She turns to me, and her chest brushes against mine. “They provide housing.” She snorts. “No, they zone areas like they can keep people and take land that belongs to nature. That’s why a lot of people stay in Marley Row, on land they don’t want. And we, we don’t take their stupid handouts.”
I can’t concentrate when she’s this close.
“Listen, this may not look like much to you, but it’s all we have.” She pushes a finger into my chest. “There are rules we live and die by.” Her face is stoic as she maintains eye contact. “We’ve formed a family where there was none, and you’re an outsider. Keep your head down and stay out of the way.” She paces toward the building’s entrance.
“What are the rules, Saya?”
She twirls around. Her filthy boots crush leaves and debris as she treads back toward me. “Don’t touch other people’s stuff, and when in doubt, run.” She pushes me back with her hand. “Keep to yourself, forget what you know, and no last names. They get you in trouble.”
“Five rules. Is that all?” I smile, trying to bring one to her face.
“I don’t see why your making quips. You’re Dreg now. Nothing funny about that.” Her undertone is harsh. “And if anyone asks, we rescued you because you’re Dreg. We don’t let our own die if we can help it.”
Our own? She thinks I’m Dreg. Well then, she should be nicer, shouldn’t she? I’ll say I am Dreg for now since that’s my only choice. But I’m not.
“I’ll clear my name.” Even if my parents refuse to.
She turns her back on me once more, but I whirl her around and force her to face me.
“What about my family? When do I get to see them again?”
She snorts again. Even her snorts are cute. “You don’t have a family anymore. I wouldn’t say we’re you
r family now, but maybe, maybe we’ll keep you around if you prove useful.” Finally, she smiles, the first since freeing me from jail. She’s teasing me with those succulent lips and toying with me with those mystifying hazel eyes. The smile isn’t welcoming. It’s twisted, communicating her disdain for me.
Turning on her heel, she leaves me standing in the street, gazing at my dreary surroundings like a loser. The landscaping is unkempt. The trees and bushes grow wild, and leaves, acorns, and branches clutter the ground beside waste. Somewhere not too far away, garbage intermingles with the overwhelming stench of human feces. Gross. I’ve never smelled anything worse in my life.
About a mile away, buildings soar into the sky, drawing shadows across the flatland. Standing in the shadows, engulfed in a dragging gloom, nags at my sensibilities. I imagine dark angels, monsters, machines, aliens, and erupting volcanoes are inside the metal buildings. Reflective glass is also strewn throughout. The mirrored, slightly slanted, pyramid and dome-shaped buildings are the backdrop to the devastation surrounding me. Am I really no longer Golden?
I’m in one of the many jam-packed, neglected areas near one of the glorious hill sectors. But this is temporary. My name will be cleared. Taking a deep breath, I walk toward the double doors of the recreation center and follow Saya inside to the last place that could ever be home.
Chapter Sixteen
The building is enormous. The high-rafted, wooden ceilings hold remnants of banners, and edges of posters cling to wooden-plank walls. The only brick wall has two rough-cut windows that make the room feel stuffy.
A bubble is parked inside with someone lugging heavy equipment from it. I stop and stare. I’ve never seen a vehicle inside a building.
A lopsided wooden case full of trophies leans near the front entrance. In the main room, a large open space is filled with cots, each one equidistant from its neighbor. At least a hundred people are scattered throughout. Dirt smudges their faces, and caked-on filth bogs down their clothes. How depressing. Have these people ever heard of a shower or a change of clothes?