“So what do we do if it says things are getting dangerous?”
“Damned if I know,” Hayden says. “That’s Connor’s department.”
There’s a console from which Hayden creates playlists and runs interviews for his Radio Free Hayden show.
“You realize that it doesn’t broadcast any farther than you can shout,” Starkey tells him with a smirk.
“Of course not,” Hayden says. “If it did, then the Juvies could pick it up.”
“If no one is listening, then who’s it for?”
“First off,” says Hayden, “your assumption that no one is listening is incorrect. I estimate I have at least five or six listeners at any given time.”
“Yes,” says Tad. “He means us.”
“And second,” Hayden says, not denying it, “it’s preparing me for a career in broadcasting, which I plan to pursue once I turn seventeen and get out of this place.”
“Not hanging around to help Connor, huh?”
“My loyalty has the half-life of unpasteurized milk,” Hayden tells him. “I’d take a bullet for Connor, and he knows it. But only until I’m seventeen.” It all seems pretty straightforward until Esme says, “I thought you already were seventeen.”
Hayden shifts his shoulders uncomfortably. “Last year didn’t count.”
Next to Jeevan is a printout. A list of names, addresses, and dates. Starkey picks it up. “What’s this?”
“Our good man Jeeves here is responsible for getting us a list of all the kids slated for unwinding from here all the way to Phoenix.”
“These are the kids for your rescue missions?”
“Not all of them,” Hayden says. “We pick and choose. We can’t save everyone, but we do what we can.” He points out the highlighted names—the ones chosen for rescue—and as Starkey looks over the list, he starts to get angry. There’s information about each kid, including birth dates—except for the ones who don’t have a birth date. Instead a stork date is listed. None of the storked kids are highlighted.
“So you and Connor don’t like saving storked kids?” Starkey asks, not even attempting to hide the chill in his voice.
Hayden looks genuinely perplexed and takes the list to look at it. “Hmm, I hadn’t noticed. Anyway, it’s not part of our criteria. We look for only-children in dimly lit suburban neighborhoods. It means fewer people to squeal on us, and less of a chance of being seen. See, brothers and sisters can’t keep their mouths shut, no matter what we threaten them with. I guess mothers who stork babies mostly give them to people who are parents already. Hard to find a storked only child.”
“Well,” says Starkey, “maybe we need to change the criteria.”
Hayden shrugs like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t really matter, and it just makes Starkey angrier. “Take it up with Connor,” he says, then goes on with his grand tour of the communications center, but Starkey’s not listening anymore.
- - -
The revelation in the ComBom gives Starkey a game-changing idea. One by one he singles out all the storked kids in the Graveyard. It’s not an easy task, because most storks want to keep their storking a shameful secret. Starkey, however, makes no secret of his own doorstep arrival, and soon the storked kids begin to seek him out, seeing him as their champion.
As it turns out, a full fourth of the Graveyard population are storks. He keeps that information to himself.
The girl named Bam, who at first hated him because he took her place in the Holy of Whollies, warms to him quickly because she’s a stork as well. “If you want your revenge on Connor, be patient,” he tells her. “It will come.” She reluctantly takes his word for it.
One day Starkey catches Connor when he’s busy supervising the dismantling of an engine.
“Is there a buyer for it, or are they gonna put it up for sale?” Starkey asks pleasantly.
“They asked for it in the front office, that’s all I know.”
“The engine says Rolls-Royce—I thought they only made cars.”
“Nope.”
Starkey keeps chatting about pointless stuff, until he’s sure that Connor is irritated at having to divide his attention between the engine and Starkey. That’s when Starkey pulls out what he’s been hiding up his sleeve.
“Listen, I’ve been thinking . . . you know I was storked, right? And well, you know, it’s nothing big, but I thought it might be nice to make some special reserved time just for storked kids at the Rec Jet. Just to show them they won’t be discriminated against anymore.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Connor says, as he stares at the engine, happy to be ending the conversation. He never even realizes what he’s just given away.
Starkey calls his little group the Stork Club and stakes out the hour between seven and eight every evening. While everyone’s looking somewhere else, a new class distinction rises within the Graveyard. The Stork Club is the only minority with special members-only time at the Rec Jet. It’s a taste of privilege that these kids have never had before—and Starkey wants them to gobble it up. He wants them to get used to it. He wants them all to expect it—and to know that Starkey can deliver.
Since Starkey runs food services, members of the Stork Club start replacing others in serving positions, and dole out larger servings to other storks with a wink. In the Holy of Whollies, the only ones who seem wise to these little creeping alliances are Ashley, whose job it is to root out social flare points, and that obnoxious Sherman kid who replaced John as head of waste and sanitation. It turns out Ralphy was easily bribed to look the other way, and as for Ashley, Starkey pretty much has it under control.
“What if giving storks special treatment creates resentment in the general population?” Ashley asks him as he supervises dinner one night.
“Well,” Starkey tells her with a mildly seductive smile, “the general population can kiss my ass.”
It makes Ashley blush just a little bit. “Just try to keep a low profile, okay?”
Still beaming charm, he says, “It’s what I do best,” and serves her a nice heaping portion, all the while calculating how she might secretly play into his plans.
“You’re a hard guy to read,” she tells him. “I’d really like to get inside your head.”
To which he responds, “The feeling’s mutual.”