by Ramona Finn
The Ferrymen
The Culling Book Three
Ramona Finn
Contents
The Culling
Copyright
The Ferrymen
Blurb
About Ramona Finn
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part III
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
End of The Ferrymen
Thank You!
Also By Ramona Finn
Sneak Peek: The Glitch
The Culling
The Culling
The Authority
The Ferrymen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, MARCH 2018
Copyright © 2018 Relay Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design by Damonza.com.
www.relaypub.com
Blurb
Torn in two directions, Glade must make one fateful choice—for herself, and the future of humanity.
Glade Io is a rebel. Having fled with her younger sisters to live among the Ferrymen, she knows there is no going back now. She is committed to the cause of overthrowing the brutal Authority, and she trains her new comrades in the art of combating Datapoints like herself—those tasked with the Ferrymen’s destruction. Meanwhile Ferryman leader Kupier longs to travel the stars with Glade, free from constant war, but to do that he believes they must strike The Authority at its heart: the ancestral homeworld of Earth.
Glade is hesitant; she hopes taking out the Datapoints living on the Station will be enough. But when the time comes, Glade faces the specter of killing her former friends in cold blood and her former mentor, Dahn Enceladus, tells her that The Authority has eyes and ears within the rebel stronghold. Now Glade faces a dilemma: sabotage The Authority from within, or return to fight alongside the Ferrymen, possibly putting her sisters’ lives in danger.
About Ramona Finn
Ramona Finn writes about courageous characters who fight to live in broken, dystopian worlds. She grew up sitting cross-legged on her town's library floor - completely engrossed in science fiction books. It was always the futuristic world or the universe-on-the-brink-of-extinction plot lines that drew her in, but it was the brave characters who chose to fight back that kept her turning the pages.
Her books create deep, intricate worlds with bold characters determined to fight for their survival in their dystopian worlds - with a little help from their friends...
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Prologue
Jan Ernst Haven’s eyes stung in the gritty, stinging wind of the wasteland he was currently picking his way through. His throat had tightened up, and he realized that there were tears coursing down his cheeks.
It was such a waste. All of this was such a waste.
Enceladus had always been Haven’s favorite colony. Such a lovely silver color, with those veins of blue minerals running through Hydrogoa, their main city. When the Earth had finally been good and truly ruined, when humans had had to flee for their lives or go down with the proverbial ship, Enceladus had been the first place that humans colonized, after Earth’s moon. It was far from Earth, sure, orbiting Saturn, but there was water there. Real water. What a miracle that had been. It had been one less thing that humans had had to synthesize in order to survive. He’d always wondered if that had made the people who lived on Enceladus just a little less… desperate.
Because that had been the case, for whatever reason. The people of Enceladus had been an intellectual people. Hardworking, but cultured, they’d had just a touch more taste and distinction than the citizens who lived on working-class Io and Europa.
Haven turned his back on another gust of stinging wind. It was gorgeously, strangely blue with the dust from the minerals it picked up from the surface of Enceladus. Usually, there was an atmospheric barrier that divided Hydrogoa from the rest of the moon, but that was operated by technicians… and, three days ago, the technicians themselves had ceased to operate.
So, down had gone the atmospheric barrier. And the electricity that coursed through the city. And the street cars. And, horribly, the citizens themselves.
Haven wore an oxygen suit as he picked his way around the edge of the city. He felt impossibly foolish in the suit, which was something that technicians and mechanics typically had to wear, not men like Haven. Haven was one of seven members of the Authority, after all. The government that kept the solar system running in peace. He was the most powerful person in human existence, even if he did have to pretend to be equal with the other members of the Authority.
As he turned toward the city of Hydrogoa, he pushed thoughts of the Authority from his head. He didn’t want to have to think about them right now. The mess and headache that this would cause. He’d have to defend his new Culling program to them all, yet again.
Fools. Short-sighted fools. They were just like their ancestors. The humans who, generations before, had run the Earth dry. Destroyed its resources and left themselves with no other alternative but to flee to the colonies on the moons.
Haven was not like them. Haven had vision. He knew how to make tough decisions. He knew how to provide citizens with a future since they couldn’t be trusted to do it themselves. In Haven’s mind, human civilization was like an insane mental patient. If you didn’t strap down each extremity, and even place a bite plate in the patient’s mouth, the person would injure themselves. Might even kill themselves.
The Authority had to be as strong as those ropes holding the mental patient down. A firm government was a successful government. The Culling was their government’s best tool, too. It eliminated problem citizens and kept the good citizens in line. The threat of it was almost as important as the implementation of it.
But this…
Haven’s eyes traveled over the silent behemoth of what had once been a bustling city.
This was not right. This was a colossal failure. And a true shame.
The entire colony of Enceladus had been culled three days ago. And he didn’t mean that it had been properly sorted and the dangerous citizens had been culled, either. No. He meant that every single citizen had had their life forces yanked from their brains all at once. Men, women, children… every living soul on the colony had fallen all at once. No more breaths, no more heartbeats.
Tens of thousands of people, snuffed from life.
It had been his fault, really. A miscalculation more than anything.
He picked his way back around the edges of the city to where his Authority skip waited for him. He’d originally thought he’d make his way through the city. That he’d survey t
he remains. But the second his skip had landed, he’d realized that the reality of all the fallen citizens would be too much for him. He wouldn’t be able to handle all those dead faces, all those bodies askew and still surprised that death had come so early and unexpectedly.
Haven made it all the way back to his skip and the ramp lowered automatically for him. He knew that the technicians and pilots had been keeping an eye out for him. They hadn’t wanted him to go out on his own at all, but he’d known it was something he needed to do.
When he was safely back on the skip and the oxygen door had been sealed, he took off his suit and hung it up, realizing that it was blue with the minerals from the moon’s surface. He sighed again. Enceladus really was a special place, and Hydrogoa especially. It was such a shame. Such a shame.
Haven found his way back to his quarters on the skip without speaking with any of his crew. He simply didn’t have it in him to issue any more orders.
His quarters were equipped with a small office annex, and that’s where he went. He pulled up short when he entered and realized that it wasn’t empty, however. There was a man standing at the window of his office, his arms stiff at his sides and his dark hair shockingly silhouetted against the silvery moon he looked out upon.
Never before would Dahn Enceladus have invited himself into Haven’s office without express permission.
Things had changed, Haven had to admit to himself. And it wasn’t just this botched Culling on Dahn’s home colony. No. Things had been different since… she… had left. Haven didn’t want to even think her name. The thought of her filled him with a strange, pumping venom. A cocktail of frustration, anger, and what he feared was simply pain. The girl he’d pinned so many hopes on, the girl he’d thought he understood, and who understood him – she was gone. She’d abandoned them. Him. She’d abandoned him.
“It was everyone?” Dahn asked, without turning from the window.
For the first time, Haven noted just how deep Dahn’s voice had become. Haven had known him since he’d been born. But Dahn wasn’t a boy anymore. This was a man standing in front of Haven, his back turned, asking for answers. It both relieved Haven and disappointed him to see Dahn as a man. On one hand, Haven knew how to handle, and how to manipulate adults so much better than he did children. There was no mystery in an adult. One simply discovered their motives, what kind of adult they were, and then found it easy to manipulate them accordingly. But in the same hand, that meant there was no more mystery to them. Children were mysterious and surprising and, quite simply, filled with potential.
Dahn, once so interesting and promising as a child, had matured into adulthood. And he’d fallen short of Haven’s expectations. He was not the Datapoint that Haven had once hoped he could be. Dahn did not have the capacity to cull in the manner that Haven had hoped he would. But he had turned into a great apprentice, a right-hand man and a helper of sorts.
Looking at him now, though, at the stiff set of Dahn’s shoulders, the steel in his words, Haven knew that his own miscalculation regarding Enceladus had lost him the complete fidelity of Dahn Enceladus.
He still hadn’t answered the question, and now Dahn turned. “It’s confirmed?” he pressed. “No one left alive?”
Haven nodded, although he’d done no such confirming on his own. He hadn’t had to. The new Culling program was thorough.
Dahn’s eyes were lit from within, but his voice was even and steady when he spoke. “I told you that Sullia wasn’t the right Datapoint to pull off a Culling like this. Not only did she not have the practice, but she doesn’t have the skills or capacity required to wield the Culling technology. The technology wielded her. She was completely out of control, and now this!” Dahn gestured out the window to the desolate colony behind him. The tens of thousands of silent souls, taken too soon. And accidentally.
Haven didn’t like the way the Datapoint was speaking to him. Not at all. But he also knew that, occasionally, it was imperative to let someone vent their feelings, like steam from a kettle. He would allow it – for now.
“It was a miscalculation to have Sullia practice Culling with living souls instead of in the simulator.”
“A miscalculation?” Dahn echoed. “Tens of thousands of people were slain!”
“I believed that the raised stakes of human lives being on the line would elevate her skills. I believed that she would rise to the occasion and finally control the tech. That is the definition of a miscalculation.”
Dahn put a trembling hand over his brow. “Everyone who knows her knows that Sullia has no reverence for human life. That tactic might have worked with Glade—”
“Would have worked. No question. If only she’d…” Stayed. He didn’t bother finishing his sentence. Because Glade Io, the Datapoint who’d originally been slated to cull not only Enceladus, but the entire solar system, had defected. She’d escaped a little over a month ago and taken all of her skills, her experience, and her genetics with her. She’d been the perfect Datapoint, the culmination of years of planning and work and careful calculation. And she’d thrown it all away. Packed up and abandoned the entire Authority. Including Haven. “This was a miscalculation on my part, a failure on Sullia’s part, but the blame lies squarely on Glade Io’s shoulders.” He turned from Dahn before he had to see whatever expression would cross the Datapoint’s face. Frankly, he didn’t care how Dahn felt about his proclamation. It didn’t matter what Dahn thought. Haven knew it was true. Glade Io alone had the skills to sort through and successfully cull this many people at once. If Glade had been the Datapoint culling Enceladus instead of Sullia, then all of these innocent people wouldn’t have had to die. Only the cullables, the undesirable and dangerous citizens, would have been culled. And this horrible waste wouldn’t have occurred.
All Datapoints were equipped with the tech required to cull citizens, of course. But only Glade was strong enough to wield the advanced technology that had the capacity to cull hundreds of thousands of citizens, AKA the entire solar system, all at once. With Glade Io as the head Datapoint, the Culling would have been perfect. They wouldn’t have had to bother training so many other Datapoints. They wouldn’t have had to worry about how the Authority Database interfaced with each individual Datapoint’s brain patterns. They wouldn’t have had to spend weeks culling each individual town of each individual colony. No. All they would have had to do was plug Glade Io in and set her loose. And all of it, all of it, would have been taken care of. She would have been able to cull every cullable with ease. And anyone she might have accidentally left behind would have been quickly cleaned up by Sullia, which had been her original job. The whole thing would have been so easy. But then she’d escaped, and everything had come crashing down.
At first, he’d believed that somehow she’d been kidnapped again. After all, her entire escape had occurred during an assassination attempt on his own life. But he’d been in the proverbial front row to watch her fight her own tech.
She’d been fighting him, actually.
Haven had had control of the technology that had been surgically implanted in Glade’s brain. He’d commanded her to come back. To return to the Station. But she’d fought against it. He’d seen then that she would have destroyed herself, driven herself into insanity, before she returned to the Station. And that simply meant that she was no longer useful to him. He needed a Datapoint who surrendered to the technology, which was where Glade failed. But he also needed a Datapoint who could control the tech when necessary, as well. Which was where Sullia had failed.
Haven took a long breath that was an attempt to cool the venomous emotions pumping through his system. If he’d had any reason to think that Glade had changed her mind and would want to come back to the Station, he would have dispatched as many of his people it took to bring her home. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to get her back where she belonged… if she changed her mind.
But he’d watched and listened through her tech. He’d seen the way she’d greeted that Ferryman. That
scum. Kupier. She’d been grateful to see him. Relieved. She’d gone to him willingly. And if that was the case, she was useless to Haven. He needed her fidelity in order to use her.
And unless her loyalties swung back his way, well, he had to do the best he could with what he had. Sullia and Dahn. His number two and number three. Both so distant from Glade’s shining number one.
“You’re dismissed,” Haven told the Datapoint who seemed still to be waiting for something more. He still hadn’t turned back around to Dahn and hadn’t bothered to gauge his reaction or his level of emotion. He’d also purposefully used the word ‘dismissed’ as a way of reminding Dahn that he’d intruded on Haven’s space without invitation.
Haven waited until he heard his door click closed behind him before he collapsed into his chair. He needed a plan. He needed a next move. It had been decades since Haven hadn’t had a carefully laid out course of action, and now that he was without one, he didn’t care for this reckless, desperate feeling in his gut.
Dahn Enceladus strode down the hallway away from Haven’s office. His eyes snagged on the blue-tinged oxygen suit that Haven had worn to explore the silent colony. They weren’t scheduled to leave until the morning when the atmospheric winds were predicted to calm down and take-off would be safer.
