by Ramona Finn
“I didn’t want to kill you.”
She smiled then, savage and with every tooth visibly bared. “You’re just proving my point. You’ll never be what Haven wants you to be if you can’t even kill me when I’m trying to kill you. You think I’m a villain, Glade, but you deserve to be put down. You deserve to be eliminated. There’s no place in all this for a Datapoint who won’t kill. Who can’t even control her own tech.”
“What’s going on here?”
Both Sullia and I whipped around to face the door. It was then that I realized my tech had been telling me that there was another Datapoint approaching. I’d been so caught up in Sullia’s little speech that I had barely listened to it.
Neither Sullia nor I spoke, but she clambered painfully to her feet and I followed. My sleep clothes were sticking to me with the sweat from our fight. I didn’t have to turn to feel Dahn’s eyes taking it all in, lingering on me.
When neither of us answered him, he spoke again. “Sullia, you could be thrown into interrogations for being in Glade’s quarters. Tampering with the head Datapoint is considered an act of treason. In fact…” Dahn closed his eyes and I knew he was sending a message through his tech to security.
I narrowed my eyes at him. He looked different somehow. Harder, more distant. There wasn’t any of the softness that I’d gotten so used to seeing.
Further off in the Station, I heard two doors slam, and then the galloping, clapping cascade of hard-booted feet. Sullia straightened herself up and I watched as she intentionally ground the comm into even finer pieces under the heel of her own boot.
They had her blood all over them and, at this point, it would be my word against hers about who the comm had originally belonged to. She couldn’t risk having been caught in my room and being seen as the owner of a communication device from the Ferrymen. She would be executed for that, instantly.
Her eyes flicked to mine, calculatingly cold, and I didn’t let her in on my thoughts. But I couldn’t help but flinch when security came through my door, practically shouldering Dahn aside. He went to stand on the other side of the room as one man clapped shackles onto Sullia’s wrists and two others flanked her.
They would take her to see Haven. And he would decide what would next happen to her. Whether he’d protect her or not, I wasn’t sure. She was, after all, rising in his esteem with how good she was at the new training protocol. But it was a blatant breach of the rules for her to have shown up in my room. And, simply, I was more important than she was. He wouldn’t kill her—I was certain of that. But he didn’t seem to have any problems inflicting pain on his pupils.
I didn’t watch them take her away. Instead, I stared at Dahn. But his silvery gaze was on Sullia, not on me. His eyes were still on the door even when the group was gone and we could barely hear them heading down the hall.
“Dahn—”
“What happened?”
“She came in here and we fought.” I wanted to leave any information about the comm well and truly out of it.
His eyes narrowed and flicked toward me for just a second. “She came here to fight you? That doesn’t make any sense. She had to know she’d get caught if she did that.”
I shrugged, attempting to keep my face blank. “I’m sure Haven will get to the bottom of it during her interrogations.”
Dahn’s eyes met mine, examining me. I was sure he was suspicious of how cavalierly I’d brought up interrogations. They were a sore spot for me. And it would be considered strange for me to be able to speak about them with no noticed affectation.
“Is what she said true?” he asked, almost no inflection in his tone.
“About what?” I was panicked suddenly, wondering exactly how much Dahn had heard.
“That you can’t control your new tech.”
“Oh.” I glanced down at it, glinting menacingly on my arm, every crystal sharp and fierce. “I haven’t had a chance to get used to it.”
“Right.” Dahn nodded. “Well. Get dressed. I’ll notify Sir Haven that you’re heading into simulation. He’ll want to be there for your first round with your new tech.”
I blinked at him, but I didn’t respond otherwise. It didn’t matter if I agreed to this or not. Dahn was going to set the wheels in motion. I’d just seen him ring the alarm on Sullia without hesitating. And I could feel this strange, unprecedented distance between us. Had he heard more than just the last few sentences of Sullia’s speech? Was he wondering if I was a traitor? Was he putting pieces together in his head?
The thought of entering a simulator right now was utterly abhorrent. It hadn’t been more than a few hours since I’d detected Haven’s virus. Since I’d gotten proof that Kupier had been right all along. And now I was just supposed to skip along into simulations like nothing was different? Like I didn’t know that the damn simulator was leading lambs to slaughter? Even if the simulations weren’t real, the idea of performing one turned my stomach into a nest of snakes now. I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I could fake this compliance anymore. Not now that I knew for certain what Haven had done to the Datapoint program. What he’d willingly done to the soul of every Datapoint who trusted the program. He’d turned every Datapoint into his own personal weapon. That wasn’t what we’d trained to do.
Dahn looked around, and seeming to really realize that we were alone in my room and I was still in my pajamas, he strode to the door. “I’ll get the simulator ready for you. Be there in twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes? It wasn’t enough time to figure out a way to get off the Station. If I tried to commandeer a skip and did it sloppily, it would set off alarms and they’d catch me mid-escape. If I did it more sneakily, I would need more time and I wouldn’t show up for my simulation on time. They would come looking for me.
And, they would find me attempting to commandeer a skip.
I stared in horror at Dahn’s back. He held still in the door of my room as if he were waiting for a response, but what was I going to say? I didn’t see a way out of it. There was no way for me to get out of this simulation without raising all kinds of alarm bells. It was a miracle that Haven had waited this long to force me to practice with the new tech anyways. If I asked for more time, it would only raise suspicion. So, if my goal was to fly under the radar as well as I could until I figured out a way of getting off the Station, then I had to go through with this simulation.
Simulation.
I clung to the word. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t an actual Culling. No one would end up dead in real life. I could do it.
I thought of the virus then. The way it had skittered back down into the depths of the Database, exactly the way it had been designed to do. To burrow so deep under a Datapoint’s skin that they never even knew it was there.
Dahn had culled. The virus had tricked him into culling innocent citizens.
I opened my mouth, completely unsure of which words were going to come out, but his back straightened, apparently done waiting for me to speak. I heard a long breath come out of him as I concentrated on the back of his dark head, practically willing him to turn around and give me those soft eyes of his. But he stepped forward instead.
And then he was gone.
Chapter Twelve
I stood outside of the simulator and swung my shoulders back and forth, stretching. There wasn’t an audience this time, as there usually was when I stepped into a simulation. Most people were at breakfast now, and there hadn’t been time for word to spread.
I wasn’t alone, though, either. Dahn and Haven stood shoulder to shoulder. For the first time, I felt I saw some real similarities between them. From a distance, they both had silvery eyes and the same hard set to their shoulders. Though Haven’s expression was one of soft, almost childlike wonder, and Dahn’s was one of frustration.
There was some scuffling at the back of the room and I saw that a few gray-suited technicians were filing in to watch me go through the simulation, but I barely paid them any attention. My mind was fuzzy at the e
dges and sharply clear in the center.
I wrenched open the door of the simulator feeling as if it were both an old enemy and an old friend at the same time. I’d run many simulations since I’d become the chosen one, but the first time I’d ever tried to cull the entire solar system at once, it had nearly fried my brain like an egg. I had the feeling that something similar was going to happen now. My first time attempting the simulation with this strange new, sinisterly perfect tech.
I closed the door behind me and was plunged into perfect black. A light blinked on and glowed in the center of the room, two quick steps away from me. This was the port where I was to plug in the tech on my arm.
Though a Datapoint could cull without plugging in, the port was a power source for our tech and, if it wasn’t plugged in, then it took the power directly from our bodies. That could easily kill a Datapoint. But there was another reason to plug into the port as well. Plugging in allowed a Datapoint to sync with the Authority Database. I had always resisted this in the past, every time, because I didn’t understand how the Database worked—I didn’t trust it, and I certainly hated the way it felt inside my brain when I synced with it.
It wasn’t until I returned from my time with the Ferrymen that I realized that, in order to understand it, I was going to have to sync with it. I had wanted to search for any evidence of Haven’s implanted virus that Kupier had told me about, and the only way I could access the Database was through the simulations, as a user. So utilize it I did. Becoming the best.
But this was my first time interfacing with the Database since I’d accessed it from the other side. Since my tech and I had sifted through the Database’s dirty, disgusting secrets. Since I’d held that virus up to the light, like a ruby to the sun. I’d seen everything with my own eyes. I knew exactly what the Database was going to do now. What it was going to make me think I was seeing.
Internally, I shrugged. I had to get through it one way or another. Remember, Glade? You’re in a corner.
I plugged in my tech and waited for the simulator to recognize me and boot on. I could hear the whirring of the great machine starting.
Kupier lied.
Your mother is avoiding you. Or hurt. Or dead.
Your sisters are still half a solar system away.
And you’re a weapon designed by an apparent madman to kill anyone who doesn’t want an Authoritarian government to control their every move.
Coolcoolcool.
Oh yeah. And you kissed Dahn. And you liked it. And you have no idea how he feels about it.
Frustration bloomed inside of me like a fast-motion flower. I was bright and pumping with it when the simulation started.
It started the same as always. With a point of light in front of me for each of the moon colonies on which citizens lived. The points of light grew and surrounded me. They began to take on more recognizable features. The volcanic colonies glinted red. The icy colonies glinted blue. And then they grew even more until they sort of melted into one another. I could start to see citizens now. I wasn’t sure if it was the tech or if I was just better at this than I used to be, but things seemed to be moving much faster than they usually did.
Here I was, already seeing individual citizens. I was racing through them, able, at this point in my Datapoint career, to recognize the innocent citizens and the cullable citizens with nothing more than a glance. Cullables and innocents all had the same red haze around their heads that indicated their active brainwaves. But the pattern that cullables’ brainwaves formed was recognizably different than an innocent citizen’s brainwaves. I ignored the full body shudder that worked its way through me as I started mentally sorting the cullables onto one side. I wasn’t physically moving them, but both my tech and my brain felt an incredible urge to get them firmly away from the innocents.
I knew this was all a lie, of course. I knew that my perception of who was innocent and who was murderous had been irrevocably tampered with. But I had to push through.
Simulation. I chanted the word in my head as I continued the sorting. I was through three of the colonies now and my tech was pushing me ever faster.
I realized, with a jolt, that I was already synced with the Database. Usually, it was a painful, intrusive experience to let the Database into my tech and into my brain. But my new tech had made the process almost unrecognizably easy. The Database was taking the strain of sorting this many people on itself. All my brain had to do was recognize who was who and the Database took that citizen and immediately tossed them onto whatever side they belonged on.
It had barely been ten minutes and here we were, practically done with the sorting. Next, all I’d have to do was cull. I knew, already, how easy that would be. Both the Database and my new tech would make it so incredibly easy for me to pull the plug on all those cullable citizens.
I could practically feel Haven standing outside the simulator, watching my progress on the screen and grinning from ear to ear.
That flower of rage that had initially bloomed inside me grew a friend. And another. Pretty soon, I had a whole garden of fury blossoming in my gut. I hated this. I didn’t want to be here. I was sick of being lied to and manipulated.
I wanted to tear this horrible new tech right off my arm. Who cared if it drove me insane to do it? Who really cared? Maybe, if I was insane, everyone would just leave me alone already.
There. I was done sorting.
There were more innocents than there were cullables, but not by many. I was at the precipice, dizzy with the exertion and the heady power of it. I was here, about to cull half the damn solar system, and I had no idea how many of them were actually good people. Free thinkers. Artists. Rebels who didn’t deserve to have their lives unplugged from their brains like they were nothing more than an electrical socket.
I could feel Haven standing outside the simulator. He would still be standing shoulder to shoulder with Dahn. My friend, who I loved. Haven had wrecked Dahn. I knew that Dahn had a soul in there. A heart. I knew that, if Dahn had been raised differently, or had been given a little bit more attention by his mentor, he might not have strived so hard to be the best. For him, everything had fallen by the wayside except for becoming a member of the Authority. So there he was out there, standing next to Haven and forcing me to cull innocents.
Maybe that thought was what did it. Or maybe there wasn’t one thing in particular. Maybe it was the accumulation of my entire crummy life. All the ways that I’d been sequestered off from love and softness and free will. But as I stared at those two perfectly sorted sections of citizens, I hated them.
I hated everything. If I could have torn a blackhole into the fabric of our solar system, I would have done it. I would have sucked us all down into nothingness. Ended this horrible existence for us all.
But I couldn’t. I was just a manipulated, tortured, experimented on Datapoint who wasn’t even allowed to make decisions about the surgeries she was put through. I was owned in every sense of the word.
I felt my tech grasping at the brainwaves of the group of cullables. I could narrow down my focus right now—I knew I could. I could grab those brainwaves and yank and this whole horrible simulation would be over.
But my fury was still pumping through my system. The walls of the simulator seemed too close. The 3D images that were being fed from the simulator through my tech and into my eyes were grating and too bright. I hated it. I hated it all.
I realized that something was growing, refocusing within me. It was my tech. It wasn’t just going for the cullables anymore.
Because of my hate, it was going for the innocents.
“No,” I whispered to myself. And it was exactly the same feeling I’d felt just a few hours ago. I was pinning Sullia down and feeding that strange energy into her tech all over again. My tech had taken over the reins.
I was exhausted, fighting, but I wasn’t sure who. Myself? My tech? The citizens in the simulation?
“No!” I whispered, more urgently this time.
I
tried to pull my arm from the port, but found that I couldn’t. My arm was no longer listening to my brain. My brain wasn’t in charge. I wasn’t sure if it was the Database or my new tech, but something was controlling me. The only thing my body was in charge of was the sweat slicking down my spine, the tremble in my kneecaps.
I watched in horror as my tech did exactly what it wanted to do. With terrifying grace and ease, my tech reached out and pulled every plug at once. A huge, pulsing wave of energy ballooned out from me and I heard a bang, felt an echo. Were those screams?
I opened my eyes into the darkness and realized that they were all dead, in the simulation. Not a single red brainwave lit the space around me. Innocent and cullable. Every single citizen in our solar system had been culled. By me and my tech. Just like that.
It had been so easy. So, so easy.
I fell to my knees and realized that my palms were connected to the cool chrome ground. My body was my own again. My brain was in charge. I was unplugged and autonomous again.
The door to the simulator swung open and my eyes tracked automatically to the blindingly bright square of light. A figure obscured it and I automatically reached toward him. Dahn.
But it wasn’t Dahn, I realized as I blinked focus into my eyes and narrowed in on the slender shoulders and familiar gate. I saw a shock of choppy red hair. The technician’s uniform.
It was my mother.
Relief coursed through me. I hadn’t even realized how worried I’d been that something had happened to her. So she had been avoiding me.
“She needs medical!” my mother shouted over her shoulder.
I didn’t. Not really. I was exhausted, sure, but this was nothing compared to the time I’d practically exploded my brain with culling the solar system.