by Ramona Finn
“But why rest the entire system on one person if we don’t have to? What if something happens to her? What if she—”
“We have two sisters of hers, both younger, who I believe are equally viable. Not on their own, but together, I believe they could cull as well as she can, if it comes to that.”
Another member started squawking some disagreement, but Haven cut right through it. “We all know that the Culling is deeply taxing on a Datapoint. On their mind and… soul. We have here the opportunity to cull more effectively, and with fewer people affected by the mental weight of it. Our Datapoints have been known to make mistakes. Not often, but still, we all know that occasionally an innocent person will be culled. Glade Io is the most accurate Datapoint I’ve ever encountered. That is what I’m offering you all here. I’m offering you the chance to go to sleep at night knowing, in your hearts, that the citizens of our solar system are safer. That the murderous and the violent will be painlessly and humanely wiped from existence by Glade Io. And no one but the murderous and the violent will fall victim.”
“What about Glade Io?” Kalis Rome asked. “How could any one person handle this amount of work? This amount of pressure?”
“She’s a Datapoint,” Haven answered immediately, and he felt a trumpeting surge of triumph within him. He had them. Because no matter how much they tried, these fair-minded, emotional people sitting around him could never understand Datapoints. Not the way that he could. Their world didn’t understand the chosen few who were trained to become weapons of the Authority. Weapons for peace. For order. These people sitting at the table, they would look at Glade Io and they would see a sixteen-year-old girl. But Haven knew what she really was. He was the only one who really knew.
“She doesn’t suffer the emotions of this the way you might,” he answered. “The girl is a machine. A computer. Her brain doesn’t tremble at the idea of Culling. She understands it from a clinical perspective.”
“And her heart?”
Haven didn’t hesitate. “She has no heart.”
Chapter One
Home was where the sky was red with the irritated heartburn of three volcanoes at once.
Or something like that.
It was eruption season on the Io colony, which meant that the citizens wore scraps of fabric over their mouths to keep out the smoke. It meant that there was a filmy, peeling layer of ash on every surface. It was always strange to me how much ash could look like a feather when it drift-drift-drifted out of the sky.
Of course, volcanoes don’t follow any particular schedule. So it was lucky, really, that the day I set foot back on my home colony for the first time in four years was the day the closest volcano system erupted. Or, deeply unlucky, depending on your point of view.
Either way, I could blame the stinging of my eyes on the harsh smoke billowing out of the volcanoes in the distance, and I could blame the ringing in my ears on the distant thunder of our complaining moon.
When the volcanoes are silent and still, the sky on Io is actually a velvet navy, with not much difference in color between day and night. The stars are always visible.
I’d spent the last four years wondering if I’d ever come back, and almost that whole time praying that I wouldn’t. I’d known that if I ever came back, it would be to cull. To cull my own people.
I’d been wrong, though. I hadn’t come here to cull. I’d come here to bury my mother.
The clunky, overlarge Authority skip lurched as it landed on my home colony’s landing pad. I yanked my belt off and was on my feet in the next second.
“Wait!” Dahn Enceladus called from behind me. My only real ally back at the Station, he’d insisted on coming with me to Io when I’d found out my mother had been killed. I supposed I should probably feel guilty that he didn’t know even half the story of my mother’s death. That it hadn’t been the Authority’s rebel enemies who’d killed her. And he didn’t know that the icy rage wafting off of me wasn’t for the Ferrymen. It was for myself. For not being able to protect my family.
Nothing was making it through this shell of shock and anger. My mother was dead, and I knew who’d killed her.
The secret comm on my arm was as silent as it had been for days, and that enraged me, too. My partner in this whole, insane plan had gone dark the minute I’d found out my mother was dead. Kupier was supposed to have been rescuing her and my sisters. And now she was dead, and Kup and the Ferrymen were gone.
What. Had. Happened?
This was the only thought that burned its way through me as I strode from one end of the skip to the other. The answers were out there. On my home planet. I just needed to get to them. I needed to know exactly what had gone down four days ago.
“Wait!” Dahn repeated again, coming to stand at my side. He lifted his hand and blocked the lever that opened the door of the skip. I turned and looked at his silver-gray eyes, at his dark hair framing that serious, handsome face.
“Why?”
“Because you can’t just jump out of the skip and storm down the street, Glade. This is an Authority skip and you’re a Datapoint—you’ll scare the hell out of every citizen down there.”
“Oh.”
Did I even care about that, though? I couldn’t tell. The only thing I cared about was getting to my sisters. Getting home. Saying goodbye to my mother. Figuring out what the hell had happened.
Blend in. Hide. If they can’t find you, they can’t take you.
That was my mother’s voice in my head. She’d known my whole life that I was different. That I would be singled out by the Authority. She’d been right. And Dahn was right. I needed to calm down and not draw undue attention to myself.
At this point, I’d achieved the highest tier of Datapoint that was possible. According to the Authority, I was the most important person in the solar system. If only they knew where my loyalties really lay.
Hell. If only I knew where my loyalties really lay.
There were only two people in this entire universe who I trusted with my life, though—I knew that much. Dahn and Kupier. But Dahn loved the Authority above all else. And the Authority had tortured me, and were training me to cull half the citizens in our solar system, no questions asked… and they were gunning for my sisters. To put them through exactly what they’d put me through.
So yeah. Screw them.
That left me with Kupier and the rebel Ferrymen, who I hadn’t heard from in days. He’d been coming to Io to rescue my sisters and mother out from under the Authority’s thumb when the news had come back that Mama was dead. And I hadn’t heard from him since.
Probably because he was dead. At least, that’s what I’d come to fear, the more I’d thought about it. If he wasn’t, why wouldn’t I have heard from him?
The rage inside me curled and twisted. Suddenly, it wasn’t fueling me. It was burning me alive. I sagged against the doorway of the skip. Instead of storming out and running through the Io colony, the way I had wanted to, I let Dahn go out first. He stood next to the skip and spoke quietly with the two pilots and the skip technician who were part of the crew that had brought us here.
I said nothing.
I turned my back on the conversation and instead looked out at my home planet. Well, Io was technically a moon, but it was as close to a planet as humans would ever inhabit again. When we’d evacuated Earth hundreds of years ago, we’d had to set up shop on various moon colonies. Io was rocky and volatile. Volcanoes ringed the edge of the colony. They were constantly upset and rumbling, spitting ash and occasionally lava down onto the borders of our col. But we also relied on them. We were too far away from the sun to receive enough heat to sustain us. All of that came from our volcanoes. We couldn’t live without them.
Figured, right? Wasn’t that just the way our solar system worked? The hand that feeds you can also punch you to death whenever the hell it wants.
Thinking about the unfairness of it all, I chuckled humorlessly into my hand until I felt Dahn nudge my shoulder.
&n
bsp; “Are you alright?”
I raised my dark eyebrows at him. What do you think?
He frowned. “Right. Well. They’re not coming with us, if that helps.” He tossed his head back toward the crew.
“Really?” The Authority didn’t exactly let Datapoints come and go as they pleased. I was still shocked that I’d been allowed to come home at all, and now we were going to be able to do it all without babysitters? “How’d you manage that?”
He held up one arm and the crystal-like motherboard surgically implanted into his body caught the light. In a move he’d done once before, he leaned over and clacked his tech against my own, the tech in my arm. It sent that shivery thrill through my entire system.
I wasn’t sure I liked it. I wasn’t sure I didn’t.
“Not like they can lose track of us,” he said, referencing the trackers that were implanted along with our tech. “Besides. You’re the chosen one. I think they’re scared that if they say no you’ll cull them in their sleep.”
I scoffed. I didn’t think that was funny, and I knew Dahn didn’t either. I didn’t want to be the chosen one, the one who was so much better at culling than any other Datapoint. And I also knew that he would have given anything to be the chosen one. I wished he hadn’t brought it up.
As we walked down the dusty, familiar streets of my childhood, I was swollen with feeling. I was chosen to be a Datapoint because of my lack of emotion. All of us were selected for that same reason. Datapoints were not baby kissers, we didn’t tear up over sad stories, and we definitely weren’t the touchy-feely types. But right now? I was a damn mess.
It had been four days since I’d found out my mother had died, and I could have sworn that every emotion I’d ever had suddenly sat heavily on my shoulders, strangling me. I couldn’t even say what it was that I was feeling. Just that there was a hell of a lot of it.
I led Dahn through my home colony, passing kids on the street, an old stray dog, men and women on their way home from work. I didn’t look up at any of them, terrified I’d see a familiar face from my childhood. Or that someone who’d known my mother would have a kind word for me, and it would puncture this weighted sack of emotion that was suffocating me. I couldn’t do anything but watch mine and Dahn’s feet as we turned onto my street. The houses here were larger, and still made of packed red clay, but things on this street were just somehow neater. There were fences in front of each house, and some of the houses even had two levels.
I let my feet lead me to our place.
Look, there’s where I used to play hopscotch in the yard.
There’s where my sisters and I used to wait for Papa to come home from work.
There’s where we found that stray kitten who stayed with us for a few weeks.
And look, there’s where Papa fell when he was culled. I can almost see the tracks in the dust his body left behind when they dragged him away.
“Glade? Glade!”
I shook my head clear of memories as I stood in my front yard and turned to the voice behind me. My mouth dropped open as one of my little sisters—not so little anymore—catapulted out of our front door and into my arms.
I’d always wondered what it would be like to see them again. If they’d be too cool for me, or worse, if they’d fear me and what I could do. But she burrowed her face into my neck and squeezed me so hard I felt my heartbeat echo inside me.
I wrenched my arms out from her grasp and pulled her head back. My sisters were identical twins, and I’d been the only one who could always tell them apart at a glance. And, yup. It was Treb squeezing the life out me right then.
“Hey, Treb,” I whispered. She stepped back, and Daw was next into my arms. Her hug was gentler, but somehow more desperate, a shiver wracking its way through her as she held me. “God, you’re taller than I am,” I muttered.
They were. My little sisters hovered a good two inches over my smallish frame. I saw, with a start, that they’d begun to look like me as well. Our coloring was different, of course. I still had straight black hair while they had blonde waves. And my eyes were dark while theirs were blue. Yet, the shapes of their faces, and… those permanent frowns. Just like mine. I had never noticed our family resemblance before, but there it was, frowning back at me.
Their eyes ricocheted from me to Dahn and they took matching steps backwards. Like they were scared of him. I eyed him myself, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Dark hair, silver eyes, frown, stocky frame. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“Can we go inside?” Daw asked, her eyes carefully averted from Dahn.
Treb just took me by the hand and tugged.
“Wait, is he coming?” Treb was whispering in my ear. Again, I looked back at Dahn. He either didn’t sense my sisters’ aversion to him or it didn’t bother him at all because his face remained completely blank.
“Yes. He’s my friend from the Station. He’s going to stay here while I do.”
They glanced at one another, seeming to communicate, until Treb shrugged. “Okay.”
Movement over their shoulders caught my eye and a familiar face came into the doorway of our house.
“Sabi!” I was surprised to see my mother’s best friend there, tears in her eyes and two hands clutching at her dress.
“Glade.”
“Sabi’s been taking care of us the last few days,” Treb said. “Since—”
Her voice cut off abruptly, and I was cowardishly grateful that she hadn’t finished her sentence.
Sabi stepped forward and awkwardly embraced me. It had been so easy to wrap up my sisters, but this woman who I hadn’t seen in so many years felt like a stranger. She’d loved me once, when I’d still lived here on Io, but I could feel a wall between us now. Her eyes took in everything, lingering too long on the integrated tech in my arm and on the side of my face. She was uncomfortable being next to me.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said finally, and I had no way of knowing if it was true or not. She certainly seemed like she wished I was anywhere but here. She was looking at me as if I were a knife pointed at her throat.
I remembered that she’d had young children when I’d left Io for the Station. When I’d been selected to be a Datapoint. “Who’s looking after your children, Sabi?”
She blinked, as if she were surprised I would have asked. “You remember Raif, my husband.”
“Of course.” I vaguely did. “You should return to your family,” I told her.
“But you girls can’t be alone right now,” she protested, even as I watched her hands clench her dress again. Her eyes darted between Dahn and I. God. The woman was terrified of us.
“We can and we will,” I said firmly. “I’ll take care of them while I’m here. And before I leave, I’ll make arrangements for their care.” It was half the reason I’d come anyways. My sisters were just twelve years old; they’d need someone to look after them.
She nodded, something hardening in her gaze when she realized that she was being dismissed. “Alright, then. I’ll grab my things.”
She bustled into the house and back out just a minute later. Sabi pulled Daw and Treb into two affectionate hugs. All three of them squeezed their eyes tightly shut. Like they never wanted to let go. Sabi unhanded them after a minute’s embrace, and gave Dahn and I a brisk nod.
“You’ll contact me if you need anything.” She turned with that, and I watched her emotions get the best of her. A Datapoint would have strode away, all business tended to. But Sabi turned back to us yet again, her eyes glazed with tears. “Your mother was very important to me, Glade. You’ll allow me to help the girls now.”
I was surprised at her tone. At the intensity of it. I nodded to her, and she was gone.
Ten minutes later, my sisters and I found ourselves locked away in our mother’s room. I held a picture of me as a baby in one hand, and one of her sweaters in my other hand. I wished I could breathe, but there was something ugly and heavy on my chest.
I turned to my sisters, whose blue eyes
were brimming with tears, and the ugly thing got even heavier on top of me. I wanted to lay down. I wanted to sleep for a year. I wanted to find a black hole and swan dive into it, just to know what all the fuss was about.
There was a noise from the main part of my house, and for one horrible leaping second, I imagined it was my mother, here to straighten everything out. But no. Of course. It was Dahn.
Daw, sitting on the edge of our mother’s bed, stared in the direction of the sound. The closest thing to rage I’d ever seen was etched across her face. “Why is he even here?”
Mildly surprised, I lay down on my mother’s bed, right in the middle. My weight had Daw sliding back to lean on me. Treb crawled up, too. “Because he’s my friend, and because Datapoints can’t just travel by themselves across the solar system.”
“Why?” Treb asked, her big blue eyes wide.
“Because Datapoints are very feared in some places. Unwelcome. It might not have been safe for me to come back on my own.”
Treb’s forehead lined in confusion. “But being a Datapoint is an honor.”
A memory hit me. He stands over me, a man I’ve never seen before. His mouth is moving. Maybe he’s asking me a question. But I can’t answer because I’m not human anymore. I’m comprised of only electricity. My body sparks and cracks and I hate it. I writhe in pain when I don’t answer his questions. It’s because of him. He lights a fire inside each and every cell of my body and he doesn’t smile or grimace. He looks bored. This is his job. My eyesight starts to fade. I have to speak. I have to speak or I’ll be fried on this floor like an egg in a pan. I can already feel a feverish heat in my brain. I have to tell them everything.