The Culling (The Culling Trilogy Book 1)

by Ramona Finn

  I found I couldn’t look at him.

  “Besides,” he continued, “since you’re so curious, I’m shocked that you haven’t spoken to your mentor about it.”

  “Dahn?”

  Haven nodded. “He’s the most knowledgeable Datapoint that we have, when it comes to the Authority Database.”

  My mind went blank for a second. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Not in the least.” His expression was startlingly serious. “Not every Datapoint resisted the Database from day one, Glade. Some of them, like Dahn Enceladus, accepted it immediately. He’s been syncing with and working alongside the Database for years. He understands it in its entirety. Didn’t you wonder why we paired the two of you together? A Datapoint who excelled with the program? And one who did not?”

  I left his office just moments later, my head spinning. This entire time, Dahn has been an expert on the Database, and I’d been wasting my time sending puzzle games back and forth with him? I could have had the answers to my questions years ago.

  I’d started to jog down the hallway toward his quarters when it hit me. What was I going to do? March into his room and ask him every question I had about the Database? He was going to know that I didn’t trust it. I thought back on the questions he’d asked me the night before. He was worried about my alliances. There was no way he was going to answer outright questions. It would throw off every alarm bell he had. Best case scenario, he’d completely shut down on me. Worst case scenario, he’d turn me in to Haven and the tactical team for more interrogations. He was going to think that I was asking on behalf of the Ferrymen. Or worse, for a single Ferryman. One who everyone thought I was in love with.

  I slowed and took a minute to look out one of the port windows. If I couldn’t outright ask him, then how was I going to manage to get this information?

  I needed it. I needed it from Haven or Dahn.

  Because those snakes were still circling one another’s tails in my head. Why had the Culling felt like murder? And why had the simulation felt so different from the Culling?

  The thought struck me then, and I almost groaned in exhaustion from just the idea of it. There was a way to prove my loyalty to the Authority and to learn more from the Authority Database at the same time.

  The same way that Dahn had done it.

  By being the most efficient, statistically perfect machine of a Datapoint of all time. He’d learned about the Authority Database through countless syncings. Through dedication. Through immaculate practice.

  If I was excelling in the program, proving my dedication, then no one would question my ambition to learn more about the Database. It was only while I was resisting it that my questions would seem suspicious.

  I cracked my knuckles as I turned away from the port window. If a perfect Datapoint was what they needed, then a perfect Datapoint was what they were gonna get.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jan Ernst Haven frowned as he watched the remote simulation screen. Through it, he could see all of what the participant saw. He could see the participant’s vital signs. He could see the interface between the integrated tech and the Authority Database. He could see the effectiveness of the participant’s sorting efforts. And he could see the speed and efficacy of their Culling, also.

  What he was looking at both pleased and puzzled him. Glade Io was, once again, excelling. In the two months since she’d come to his office, she’d pulled firmly out of the middle of the pack. She was now the only Datapoint in training who could sort and cull over a thousand people in less than five minutes with one hundred percent accuracy.

  She was interfacing with the Database with the same ease and trust with which she interfaced with her own tech. And she was listening to every bit of coaching her mentor was providing her.

  It pleased Jan Ernst Haven because he’d suspected, from the first moment he’d seen her more than a decade ago, that she had these capabilities. It puzzled him because he didn’t understand why she was suddenly pushing herself.

  He’d seen her in the sparring chamber well after her comrades had gone to bed. He’d seen her taking apart one of the simulators and reassembling it – all within eight hours. He’d seen her studying with Dahn. Always with Dahn. The two of them with their heads together, studying the history of the Culling. Each and every one that had taken place. The parts that were hard for the Datapoints, the parts that were easy.

  Haven wondered at this. Was she simply reaching her full potential? Was she scared that her sisters would become Datapoints? Or did she, like so many others, simply believe in the Culling?

  A message beeped on the bottom of the screen that Haven was currently watching. Another member of the Authority was contacting him. Yet another transport skip had been attacked. This one contained some new integrated tech prototypes that he’d been hoping to try out on the newest round of incoming Datapoints.

  Nothing had been stolen, but the skip was badly injured. It was Ferrymen who’d done it.

  Haven frowned. The Ferrymen. They were like the pigeons he’d seen videos of. So beautiful in the sky, so disgusting up close.

  He could respect their determination. In fact, it was something he wished more of his Datapoints had. But he got tired of swatting at them. The way a man in a lounge chair grew tired of swatting at a fly.

  They’d tried to take his greatest accomplishment from him. And the worst part was that it had been seemingly random! They could have taken any Datapoint they’d put their grubby hands on. But it had been Glade Io who’d been whisked away.

  Glade Io who’d been compromised.

  And now it was Glade Io who was excelling in the program. Haven narrowed his eyes for a moment before casting the monitor aside.

  It wasn’t worth worrying over now. Things like this always revealed themselves in due time. The fly had to land at some point. It was in its nature.

  And he would be ready.

  “Dahn!”

  He almost stopped walking when he heard her call his name. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not right this second.

  “Dahn!”

  She was getting closer to him. He could hear her footsteps behind him. And there. Her hand was on his shoulder, as warm and firm as ever.

  Dahn.

  This time she spoke in his head, and he cursed himself for ever starting that with her. At the time, he’d realized that it was the only way he was ever going to get into Glade Io’s head. The only way he’d ever potentially solve the puzzle that she was.

  But now, she was so comfortable using the same trick right back at him. Speaking through their tech to one another. It was like whispering in one another’s ear. And it sent shivers down his back every single time she did it.

  “Not now, Glade.” He’d spoken out loud on purpose, trying to give her a hint.

  “I came out of the simulator and you weren’t there.” Her brow furrowed and that serious mouth of hers got even more serious as she strode alongside him. Going wherever he was going. “Did I do something wrong?”

  Dahn pulled up short for a second and looked down at her – that dark spill of hair, her dark eyes, that fierce expression she was always wearing these days.

  “I’m bad at two things today,” he muttered, half to himself.

  “What? Dahn. You’re good at everything and you know it.”

  He yanked one of her hands off her hip and pulled her into one of the exterior battle rooms. Datapoints were allowed to be inside them because the idea was for them to be comfortable with the spaces when it was time to go into battle. But right now, all Dahn cared about was the view.

  He eased himself down into one of the reclining battle chairs and let his eyes wander out the window. He knew that if the window were bigger, he’d be able to see Mars. Like a red marble in the sky.

  Dahn looked sideways and found Glade’s eyes on the side of his face. She stared at him, waiting for an answer or an explanation. He hated when she did that. Considering that she never provided answers or explanations to him
.

  “What did you mean, that you were bad at two things?” she demanded.

  He sighed. “I meant that I was a bad mentor for leaving you without an explanation. And that…” he almost couldn’t say more. “I have to get used to not being the best Datapoint anymore.”

  Glade pulled back from him, her eyes narrowed, but he thought she looked surprised more than anything. “You think I’m better than you?”

  Dahn let out a sharp puff of air. “Glade, you just sorted and culled two thousand citizens in fifteen minutes. Your vitals barely rose. You had one hundred percent accuracy. And it was your first time doing it. Yeah. I’d say you’re better than I am.”

  She frowned at him for a minute. “I’m not, you know. Better than you.”

  He didn’t dignify that with a response.

  “I’m not!” she insisted, rising up from her chair to come sit on the arm of his. She blocked his view out the window. “I might have had some luck with Culling, but I have nowhere near the understanding of the Authority Database that you do. I’ll never be as good until I do.”

  He frowned at her. “Everyone has their own style, their own path, their own way to cull. Mine is to lean hard via the Database. Yours is different. It doesn’t matter how well you know the Database. The point is how well you cull. And you cull better than any Datapoint in history.”

  She frowned right back at him. “You really think the whole point is how well you cull? That’s why you’re doing all this? All your late nights in the simulator? Every conversation with Sir Haven? The years of pushing yourself to the brink? It’s all because you believe so much in the Culling?”

  She tossed her hair back at the end of her question, in that way that she always did. The way that reminded him of the horse they’d seen on video once. That horse had been beyond compare. He’d never seen anything like it before. Powerful, demanding, utterly unreachable. When he’d told Glade that she’d reminded him of the horse, she’d thought he’d only meant the hair toss. He hadn’t.

  One section of her hair remained in front of her and, without thinking, Dahn reached up and grabbed hold of the ends of it. Like a paintbrush, he thought, dragging it over the tips of his fingers.

  No. Like a human’s hair. She gripped it right back, tugging her hair out of his hand and tossing it over her shoulder.

  He almost blushed. He hadn’t realized that he’d pushed that thought toward her tech. He’d thought it was private. And that was what did it. What made him really tell her. He realized that, if they were sharing thoughts these days, well, it was only a matter of time until he slipped and she found out anyway. He might as well tell her voluntarily.

  “I want to be a member of the Authority.”

  She rearranged herself, pulling herself halfway onto his chair so that her knee jammed into his outer leg. He found he didn’t mind. She rested her chin on one hand and watched him.

  “But all the spots are filled.”

  “For now,” he nodded. “But three of the seven members are older. They’ll not want to do it forever. They pick who is next, you know.”

  A light turned on behind Glade’s eyes, as if she were finally understanding all the time that Dahn had spent with Haven over the years.

  “Do you think they’d pick a Datapoint? I’ve never heard of a Datapoint on the Authority before.”

  “It’s been done before, actually. Rand Europa – he was on the Authority before Sir Haven was, and he was a Datapoint. And one other. Sita Enceladus. She wasn’t on the Authority long before she died. But she’d gone completely through the Datapoint training.”

  Glade nodded. She’d obviously heard their names before. “You think they would choose someone so young?”

  Dahn shrugged. There was his real fear. That he was running out of time in the wrong direction. That any new spots on the Authority would be filled before him simply because he wasn’t old enough. “I don’t know. Even if I were appointed in the next decade, I’d still be the youngest in history, besides Sir Haven.” His gray eyes held hers. “I thought I’d have a better chance if I were the most effective Datapoint of all time. But. That’s over now.”

  He leaned forward and dug his hands into his eyes for a second. “I just need a new strategy is all.”

  He could have sworn he felt something brush over the hair at the back of his head then, but when he looked up, Glade was sitting just the way she’d been a minute ago.

  “Why is it so important? To be on the Authority? It seems like such a strange job. All work. All law. You won’t even be able to live in your home colony.”

  No one knew where most of the Authority lived. There were seven members at all times and Haven was the only one who was known to stay anywhere in particular. The Station. The rest of them had highly secretive lives. For security reasons.

  Dahn shifted, and the movement made Glade slide further into the seat. He’d never been so close to her before. Except when they were sparring, of course. But for some reason this felt different. Her listening so hard to him. Facing him. That knee of hers pressing against his leg. He could still feel the paintbrush of her hair. And maybe that’s why he told her.

  “I want to be in control of my life. I can’t – I won’t be at the whim of others more powerful than I am. Not for my whole life.” His eyes grew distant as he looked past her and out the window again. He wished the damn window were bigger. “I was brought to the Station at a very young age. Did you know that? I didn’t officially start training then. But I was first brought here, first met Sir Haven, when I was nine.”

  Glade’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “Most don’t come until they’re thirteen.”

  He nodded.

  “Did you live here?”

  “No. I just came here to meet Sir Haven. I traveled with him during the Culling. I – I’m still not sure why. I think he was testing me, trying to figure out if I could be a certain kind of Datapoint.”

  “But doesn’t the testing do that?”

  “Of course. But I think he was looking for something… even more than just that. I’m not sure.” He didn’t look at her. And he didn’t tell her that he’d seen her. All those years ago. He’d seen her the day her father had been culled. He didn’t tell her that, even then, he’d known that it was Glade who Haven was really looking for. Even then, he’d already been replaced by her in Haven’s mind. “After the Culling was over, I went back to live with my grandparents. Until it was time for my training to start at thirteen.”

  Her dark brow furrowed now. “I didn’t realize that you lived with your grandparents.”

  Now he did look at her. “You knew that my father was killed.”

  “By Ferrymen.”

  “By Luce. He was their leader for a time. The older brother of the one who leads them now. He was a Datapoint. My father, that is.”

  Glade sat as still as a layer of ice over a lake. She didn’t speak for a long time, and Dahn wondered if this was where it ended, the longest conversation they’d ever had. It was strange to be so personal with someone. Thrilling and horrifying all at once. The same feeling as removing a long, deep splinter. Half of you wants to rip it out and the other half desperately wants to leave it in.

  And your mother?

  Dahn made sure not to wince. “Gone. She left me with my father’s parents shortly after my father was killed. I’ve never seen or heard from her since.”

  He’d said it casually. As if it were something he’d talked about many times before. As if it didn’t feel like swallowing razors to say the words out loud. He was strangely proud of himself for hiding his pain so well.

  “No wonder you want to have ultimate control over your life.” Glade’s chin had found its way to her folded-up knee.

  Dahn pulled back from her. Her words had scraped him clean like a knife over a stubbled cheek. He suddenly felt raw and exposed. Too tender for even her gaze to touch him. She watched him even now, with intense scrutiny. There wasn’t malice in her eyes, or calculation. But there wasn�
�t kindness either. Rather, it was understanding that he saw. As if she finally understood something she’d been trying to work out for years.

  How could he have been so stupid? To tell someone all these things he should have never spoken aloud?

  He was about to shove himself up from the chair, away from this room, away from Glade, when she reached out to him. He froze when her hands met his shoulders. Datapoints rarely touched. And she looked mildly unsure, as if this were the first time she was ever touching someone like this. Like she was copying a move she’d seen someone else make before.

  “You know, Dahn. I’m not the best. Think about the Culling. I couldn’t even stay conscious during that. I would have completely failed that test if it weren’t for you. You were the only reason we survived that. Hell. You probably kept me out of another round of interrogations. So, no matter what I just did in the simulator, I’m not the best. We’re the best. We’re a team. Mentor and mentee. I would never have gotten this far without you, okay?”

  He searched her eyes. He felt like she was trying to tell him two things at once. “I guess you’re right.”

  She squeezed his shoulders in her hands, and for one tense second, he wondered if she was going to hug him. And then he wondered if he would hug her back.

  But she simply released him, clapping those slender hands in front of her. “Okay. I say we get something to eat and then we go back to the simulation room. Only, this time? You’re in there, okay? And I’m gonna watch your process with the Database and I’m gonna learn from you, okay?”

  He nodded, a little mystified by her sudden energy. He felt completely rung out. Vulnerable. Exposed. And a little on edge. He could feel where she’d touched him on his shoulders, too. It burned.

  Chapter Seventeen