by Ramona Finn
“What exactly do you mean, that you’re not aligned with Haven anymore? Because you seemed pretty aligned with him today when you pitched the new practice session idea.”
Dahn kept himself from wincing. Haven’s idea to have her practice culling Io made Dahn want to throw up. He’d been shocked and utterly horrified when Haven had told him the new plan. It was against everything that Dahn had ever been taught as a Datapoint. Innocents were supposed to be protected at all costs. It was why they had the Culling in the first place!
But Haven had explained it thoroughly. The utilitarian philosophy of serving the greater good. And then he’d done something that Dahn would never forget, and that he’d never be able to un-see. He’d shown Dahn historical archives. He’d made it very clear that only members of the Authority had ever been allowed to see these particular archives before and that, as such, it was a tremendous honor and show of trust for Dahn to be shown them as a mere Datapoint. Dahn’s horror at the idea of culling innocents had slightly given way at the pride that had swollen in his chest then. He’d agreed to look at the archives, to keep the secret.
Haven had shown him example after example of the collateral damage of innocent lives in the face of human progress. When humans had first attempted to colonize the moons, thousands of lives had been lost in the process. When humans had first attempted to travel via artificial black hole, hundreds of lives had been lost in the experimentation. And in the first iterations of the Culling, there’d been civilian lives lost and Datapoint lives lost—all in the interests of getting the system put in place. Haven had convinced Dahn’s mind that, to be a member of the Authority, one had to be aware of the reality that these sorts of hard choices had to be made sometimes. And Io colony was one of those choices. Glade would not push herself unless there was a lot at stake for her.
Dahn had agreed.
And now, here he was, sick to his stomach, staring down at Glade, preparing to defend that decision.
“I mean that Sir Haven has been an incredible mentor.” He ignored Glade’s involuntary curl of her lip. “And that, I’ve come to realize, blind faith in anyone is inadvisable. I’m here to learn everything I can from him. But my ultimate allegiance is to myself and myself alone. I know what my goals are, Glade. Haven can help me get there.”
“But his word isn’t gospel to you anymore. Not the way it used to be?”
Dahn said nothing.
“Alright.” Glade paced away, and there was a slightly manic glint in her eye that he’d never seen before. She wiped her hands on her pants like they were sweaty before she slapped her palms together and paced back to him. “Alright. So, here goes. Alright. Just gotta do it, Glade.”
Was she talking to herself? “What’s wrong with you?” he asked cautiously.
“Nothing is wrong with me. I just realized why I’m hurting you so badly.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I never meant to hurt you, Dahn. Never.” She paced away and then back again. “But I was. And I just figured out why. It’s because I confuse the crap out of you. To you, confusion is akin to pain. If you can’t figure something out, you avoid it, crop it out of your life. Even if it poisons you to do it. Well. God. I’m not gonna let that happen with me. Okay? Not without being really, really clear first, okay?”
Dahn frowned at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She turned to him, and her eyes found his. “I love you.”
The ground fell away beneath him and Dahn tumbled out into the asteroid belt. He was gone forever and that was just the end of it. Of him.
“What?” he choked out.
“I do. And I got it wrong when I said that you trusted me even if you didn’t want to. Really, I just want you to trust me. So badly. I need you to trust me. Because I love you and I really think I could keep us safe.”
His brain was trying to wade through a lake of peanut butter. “Safe from what?” It was the only question he could think to ask.
Glade laughed. But it was sharp. “From everything!”
Still fuzzy, still loopy, still completely lost, Dahn just blinked at her. “What are you asking me to do?”
“Nothing. Except for you to just do exactly what I say when I tell you to do it. Because I love you,” she said simply.
“Tomorrow? During the Culling? You’re honestly telling me that you’re going to sabotage it and that I’m supposed to blindly help you?”
“No! I swear. It’s not like that.”
Dahn held her eyes. He could see the swell of emotion there. She wasn’t shutting him out. She wasn’t shutting down. She wasn’t hiding everything inside. This was it. This was Glade Io showing him all the colorful, hidden inner rooms of her being. He’d been waiting for this for years.
Years.
And it was just perfect that, at the exact same time as she was doing it, he had suddenly never been more certain that she was a traitor to the Authority than he was at this exact same second. And if that was the case, ultimately, she was a traitor to him, as well. Because the Authority was everything that he’d ever believed in. Strived for. Aspired toward.
He’d spent his life as a Datapoint working as hard as he could to get just one step closer to a place with the Authority. But he had to admit now, looking down at those perfect, tipped eyes, that full mouth, and that glossy hair, somehow straight and everywhere all at once, that he’d spent his life as a man working as hard as he could to get just one step closer to Glade Io.
Dahn stepped forward. Later, he’d note how calm he felt. How steady his hand and breath were. It was almost as if he’d disconnected from the pulse-pounding intensity of the moment. As if his body was on autopilot and his logical brain had taken a siesta, somewhere out near Saturn.
Both hands came up to Glade’s chin and he tipped her head back. He kept his eyes opened when he lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her. Good and hard. Something thrilled in him when her hands came to his shoulders. And when he pulled away, Dahn lowered his forehead to Glade’s and licked his lips.
“Okay. If you go through with the Culling tomorrow, I’ll trust you, Glade.”
Her eyes searched his then, and he watched in amazement as the light went out of them. She was shutting down again.
She’d asked him for complete trust, and he’d offered her trust with conditions.
“If I go through with the Culling, you’ll do whatever I say? You’ll trust me without question after that?”
He nodded. Somewhere deep inside of himself, though, he wondered if he was telling the truth or not.
“Okay,” she whispered, with a strange, empty depth to her words. “I understand.”
Chapter Fifteen
I pulled on my steel-toed boots, up over the cuffs of my Datapoint jumpsuit. I was calm as I tossed my hair back over my shoulder and drank a full glass of water.
If I let them, I knew that there were emotions scratching at the doors of their cages, anxious to burst loose and destroy me. Destroy everything.
Today was the day I would finally leave the damn Station. If everything worked.
Today was the day I would face my first solo Culling and flee from it. If everything worked.
Today was the day I would become a Ferryman, again. If everything worked.
But most importantly, today was the day I would speed away from the Station, and I hoped like hell my mother and I could figure out a way to get to my sisters before Haven did. Mama swore she had a plan in place for that. But it was yet another thing she’d refused to tell me. I suddenly knew exactly how Dahn felt about me keeping secrets from him. It was annoying as hell.
And, oh yeah. Today was the day that Dahn would choose between me and the Authority.
He’d made his stance very clear already. But I still couldn’t quite face the idea that this might really be goodbye. He had been my closest thing to a friend, my family over the last four years. Could I really just leave him behind?
The kiss last night had confused me as much
as it had seemed to calm him. There’d been the strangest tone to it. There’d been no hope, no expectation. But it hadn’t been goodbye, exactly.
Confusing was what it was. And I couldn’t handle being confused right now. There were way too many things that could go wrong without Dahn being added to the list.
The Culling was scheduled for after breakfast, just like I’d asked. Wasn’t Haven just so dang accommodating? Barf.
I went to the dining hall and grabbed a bowl of oatmeal to go. I hadn’t been eating in the hall since Cast had hit the medical wing, and I wasn’t about to start on the morning that every single head in the hall turned to look at me as I walked in. It wasn’t until I walked out that I heard the tidal wave of whispers.
I ate my food as I walked and a housekeeping tech slid past me when I was just two hallways away from the simulation room. She had red hair and my mother’s eyes. She didn’t so much as blink at me as I walked past, but her sleeve brushed mine and I had to accept that that was all I was going to get that morning in the form of encouragement. My mother was there. She loved me. And she was going to get her task good and done so that I didn’t have to kill a bunch of citizens in my home colony.
Including my sisters.
Yeah. Okay. Best not to think about Treb and Daw right now. Because the point was, my mother had a plan. My mother had a plan. My mother had a PLAN.
I tossed the empty bowl down a trash chute as I walked past, not even caring how rude or wasteful that was. This morning? I kicked ass. That was all. I was staring down the barrel of pretty much my greatest fear. If I wanted to throw some dishes down a garbage chute, well, bye-bye dishes.
When I entered the simulation room, I wasn’t surprised to see it already half full. I also wasn’t surprised to see that the destroyed simulator was gone. Where the igloo-shaped shell had stood, there now stood only the power port where I would have to plug in my tech in order to start the Culling.
The port stood tall and proud, about up to my chest level. It looked strange without its home surrounding it. Foreign and lonely.
“Ready to make history?” a voice asked in my ear.
I didn’t have to turn to know who it was.
“Always,” I told Sir Haven.
He chuckled and came to stand by my side. I felt Dahn flank me on the other side.
“I should have known you’d already be here,” Haven said. “But I feel I should offer. Would you like to go to my office for any sort of pre-Culling conversation? Are you ready? Is there anything you seek guidance on?”
People who had apparently followed me from the dining hall filed in behind us and, in a matter of moments, the room was packed to the gills. The space had been transformed into something almost like the spores on the bottom of a mushroom. Strangely organic and geometric all at once. There were so many living bodies in there. So many beating hearts. So many sets of lungs. So many eyeballs waiting to see the impossible.
Some small, assholish part of me was thrilled to disappoint them all.
I discreetly scanned the room, keeping a weather eye out for a redheaded housekeeping tech and her promised signal.
She’d sworn I wouldn’t have to sneak away. That it would be extremely clear when it was time for me to flee the simulation room. She’d also sworn it would be well before I’d have to plug in to the power port and start the Culling process.
I considered Haven’s offer for a moment. My mother wasn’t there yet. Should I retreat to Haven’s office? Give her a few more minutes to do whatever she had to do? Or was it more important for me to stay where I was? I cursed her for being as stubborn as I was. She hadn’t given an inch when I’d tried to pressure her to tell me the end goal of all of this for her. She’d been convinced that the task was for her and her alone, and didn’t want to share any part of it with me.
“No,” I decided. “I’d like to stay here. Feed off the energy.”
I could feel both Haven and Dahn eyeing me from either side, but I didn’t turn toward either of them. My attention stayed focused on the power port in the middle of the room.
Huge screens on all sides of the rooms powered on. I hadn’t noticed them before because, sleeping, they were the same dull chrome as the walls. Powered on, they were all blisteringly red. I realized they showed a 360 image of Io. The cameras were panning the volcanoes. And then, there, they were on the colony. Some buzzing bee of a feeling hatched in my belly, but I silenced it immediately. It didn’t matter that that camera was panning across the street I’d grown up on, where my sisters currently were. It didn’t matter that another camera was zooming in on the community center where so much of Io’s workforce went to unwind after work. None of this mattered. Because my mother had a plan. And she was going to come through.
“These screens are a bit gaudy,” Haven critiqued, and sniffed as he looked around.
“They’re so we can all see what Glade sees as she’s culling. It’s a live feed,” Dahn replied.
He was both right and wrong. The screens would show a live feed of the actual Culling. Of the people falling dead in the market, in the mine and at their homes. But they wouldn’t show what my tech was showing me. The brain scans of the individual citizens. The sorting. No one would see that but me.
Come on, Mama. Come on.
“Well.” Haven turned to me. “It’s 9:30 on the nose. I don’t suppose we should delay any further?”
I eyed the screens for a moment. “Does the Io colony know that it’s scheduled for a Culling?”
When Dahn and I had culled a small section of Europa a few months back, they’d been well aware that Datapoints were coming. Most people had been behind closed doors. I’d been told that some of them had even written wills.
“Of course not!” Haven laughed. “This is basically a practice run for you, Glade. We don’t want to upset the whole solar system if something goes wrong.”
If something goes wrong and I cull the entire colony, you mean.
I eyed Haven, more than a little confused. “If something goes wrong, you’re going to say that it wasn’t a Culling?”
Haven glanced from side to side, an annoyed expression on his face—as if he wished I hadn’t said that out loud. “If something goes wrong, we’d like to control the story, as opposed to notifying everyone first that something… new is happening.”
“Right.”
I could practically feel the waves of tension coming from Dahn as he listened to our conversation. This had to be killing him. His whole life, he’d done nothing but look up to Haven, and here the scumbag was talking about how to ‘spin’ a story where the government accidentally blackholed an entire colony. Practically using AI.
There was nothing honorable in a Culling. I believed that to my core. But this? A surprise Culling that might be covered up if it was botched? Well, this was just downright gross.
I wished, for a moment, that Dahn had made different terms last night. That he’d asked for something that I really could give him. I wished that he could be just a bit more flexible. That I could have told him the whole story and he would have listened to the evidence, weighing it in his mind. But I knew him. I knew what the Authority meant to him. It was more than a system of government. It was the entity that had raised him. It was his place in the world. Nothing made sense for him without it.
He would have had to change who he was to buy what I was selling. And, truly, I didn’t want to change who he was. I just also didn’t want to have to kill anybody to get him to trust me.
That buzzing bee in my gut turned into more of a helicopter, but I shut it down once more. I was ruthless with myself, rude as hell. This was absolutely no time to get into my feelings. I needed to be alert. Aware. And ready for every next step. If I wasn’t, then this could go very badly for both me and my mother.
I suddenly became aware of a warm, dry hand at my elbow, and I blinked over at Haven. Was he? Yup. This guy was leading me to the power port, like a toddler to a hand washing station. It took everything in me no
t to yank my arm from his grasp. Too obvious. I had to act like his mere presence didn’t completely skeeve me out.
He gestured to the power port with one perfectly white, polished nail.
Yeah. Come on, Mama. Show, road, yesterday.
I stepped forward and wondered just how far I could push the dramatics. How long could I milk the moment before I plugged in?
On a whim, I turned around and caught Dahn’s eyes. His stoic, calm, shut down look flickered with surprise when I stared him right in the face. That thin brow of his furrowed, as if he were trying to interpret a message I was sending him. I glanced behind him and took the opportunity to scan the room.
Not a redheaded housekeeping technician in sight. Great.
“Are you ready, Datapoint?” the reedy voice in my ear asked.
Couldn’t he at least have the decency to not sound excited?
I took a deep breath and turned back to face the port. I could feel the impatient shift of the man beside me. The expectant stares of the crowd on every side. I was going to have to plug in at any second. Or else I was going to have to come up with a damn good reason not to.
“Whenever you’re ready, Datapoint.” Haven had changed his question to a statement, and I knew I was starting to annoy him.
Plus, there was the overwhelming push to cullcullcull from every single person around me. Well, wait... Not every person.
I could feel a strange, vacuous presence moving through the crowd. My tech was buzzing at me. Then, a few steps more, and my tech was screaming at me. I turned, confused, toward exactly the place my tech was telling me to look. And there was my mother. She wasn’t dressed like a housekeeping technician. She was dressed like a Datapoint. In one of our jumpsuits. She blended in with all of us in the room, barely distinguishable in the crowded corner where she stood.
I would never have seen her if it hadn’t been for my tech practically screaming her location at me. That, and one word, over and over again.