The Ferrymen (The Culling Book 3)

by Ramona Finn

  She smiled again, just for a second, before I turned.

  “You should head back to bed,” Kupier called to me. “You need your rest. And that sentinel lit a fire under my ass. I think we need to relinquish some of our cargo and pick up speed. I wanna hit Earth by tomorrow’s dawn. Maybe thirty hours from now.”

  My eyes grew. That was half a day faster than we’d planned. I approved of the move, though. I wanted to get there. Needed to. The sooner the better as far as I was concerned.

  “Would you look at that?” Wells murmured from over my shoulder.

  “Have you ever seen anything quite so… blue?” Cast asked from my other shoulder.

  We, as well as the rest of the Ferrymen, stood in front of the Ray’s gigantic window. In front of us, Earth loomed, filling up almost our entire view. White clouds rolled over Earth’s surface like oil over water. And it was blue, so blue that my mouth had dried up. The only place I’d seen that color before was Kupier’s eyes. My heart ached for what I was seeing. A human home. Our birthplace, our birthright, the only place we were meant to be living.

  There was a collective gasp as the Ray, racing through space, got a better angle and some unnamed landmass peeked out from the edge of the atmospheric clouds.

  “Green!” someone gasped from across the room, and all of us crept closer to the window.

  “Green.”

  “Oh my God.”

  I couldn’t peel my eyes from what was obviously a forested continent below us, just a sliver at the edge of the world. But there it was. For centuries, we’d been told that the Earth was uninhabitable. That not even plants could survive there anymore. But would you look at that? That was a forest below us.

  Green was the rarest color in the solar system. My mother had grown some herbs on one of our windows, but we’d used them, sprinkled on our food, only on the most special of occasions. And even then, it had barely been for the flavor. Much more for that mouthwatering burst of green, rare as it was.

  As my eyes teared and I stared at the Earth, I had the insane desire to drag my tongue over the whole planet. I wanted to taste all that sunlight, trapped in the spiderweb of its atmosphere. I wanted to taste the salt of the oceans. The clay-bitter loam of the Earth. I wanted to feel the ripe leaves of the trees burst open between my teeth. I wanted rain and moonrise. I wanted to be a human.

  Fully human.

  Two arms came over my shoulders and around my neck. A chin on top of my head followed next. “Isn’t she gorgeous?” Kupier whispered to me.

  I turned my back on the window, slamming my forehead onto his chest. His hands came around me so softly I could barely stand it.

  “What is it?” he asked, a touch of bewilderment in his tone.

  “I get it now,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Why this is about more than the Culling for you. This is about the Authority, too.”

  He waited for a moment and I turned in his arms – my eyes swimming, but pinned to the glowing blue paradise in front of me.

  “They live down there, the Authority. They’ve kept it from the rest of us. They’ll keep it from us forever, won’t they?” I asked.

  “I believe so,” Kupier said, his voice as low as mine. “I think they’ll do just about anything to keep it to themselves.”

  “I want it,” I told him, craning my head back to see his expression. He grinned down at me, his eyes lit from within. “And I’m taking it back.”

  Four hours later, we were still undetected by Earth’s security satellites thanks to our stealth mode. I was dressed in the same jumpsuit and weaponry as before, with one very important addition up my sleeve. I hadn’t been aware that a heart could split in two and beat in one’s throat and abdomen all at once, but there I was, sitting on Kupier’s cot and waiting for him to return. We’d said we’d meet there before everything got started.

  What we hadn’t said was that it was going to be the last time we ever spoke to one another.

  I listened to Kupier’s voice over the loudspeaker of the Ray, telling everyone to get into their attack positions. Every man had their job. Mine didn’t start until we’d landed.

  His voice cut out and, half a minute later, he appeared in the doorway of his small room. He kicked the door closed behind him after he’d entered. For a second, he barely even looked like himself. He looked older and more serious, and like he was looking at something more precious than he could name.

  He brought his arms around me as he sat next to me on the cot, and for a moment, he just buried his face in my hair. “Let’s not make this too hard on ourselves,” he said to me. Then he craned his head back and grinned that grin of his. “Though I know you’re inclined to long, romantic speeches, I think it’s best if we try to keep a hold on our emotions.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. I was really going to miss him. If it was possible to miss anyone when you were dead.

  “Let me guess,” I said, keeping my voice sarcastic, but also trying to convey a message to him, “you want me to look after your family and to never stop fighting for the cause.” I was guessing what he wanted, but really, I was telling him what I wanted. Because in just a few hours, he would be the one headed back to Charon, not me.

  “Not exactly. Look after my family, especially Misha, who I think has a crush on you. But more than wanting you to fight for the cause, Glade, I want you to fight for your happiness. I know that you don’t have any practice doing that. But just promise me that you’ll try. There’s no point fighting for humanity if you don’t get to stop and be human every once in a while, alright?”

  I stared at him for a moment and swallowed hard. I took in his whole face. That shocking blue of his eyes. The lines at his eyes and mouth, showing that his face smiled more than it did anything else… his slightly large nose, those flashing white teeth. How had I ever thought he was plain? He was simply kindness personified.

  My heart raced in two places. I wanted to kiss him for fifty more years. I wanted to turn this ship around. I wanted to crash it into Haven’s face.

  I said a prayer, maybe the first one of my life, that someday, Kupier would forgive me for what I was about to do. I couldn’t guess what his feelings would be, as that obviously wasn’t my forte, but I could only imagine that he’d spend some time being mad at me. Someday, though, he’d get over it. Maybe when he had a wife and a family. In a way, that’s what I was giving to him right now, so far as I was concerned. I couldn’t be there with him, by his side, but I was giving him his future. What he chose to do with it was up to him, but I knew he’d make it beautiful, the way he made everything.

  I leaned forward to press my lips against his, but he stopped me. “This is for my family.” He held up a few pieces of paper, folded together. I could see the indented press of his pen through the paper, the messy scratch of his handwriting. “Just make sure they get it.”

  I nodded and set the paper carefully aside. The first kiss, I closed my eyes tight and just enjoyed it. I knew now, so close to the end, that it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Kupier’s love. It was like the sun. Warm and perfect and ever-present, even in the dark. My logical brain told me that I wouldn’t be taking anything with me when I died. I’d simply cease to be. But my emotional heart, the one that Kupier had given to me, hoped that I’d be able to take just a little bit of this feeling to the other side. Whatever the other side really was.

  My eyes fluttered open to see that his eyes were still closed. The first kiss was for my heart. The second kiss was a distraction. I deepened the kiss as I reached behind me and pulled the syringe from my sleeve. He was gonna be really, really mad. Oh well. At least he was gonna be alive.

  Before I could second-guess myself, I plunged the syringe into his neck and depressed the plunger on the end. He yanked back, jolting, one palm going over the injury. He spotted the syringe in my hand, and comprehension bloomed in his eyes, followed quickly by anger.

  He lolled to the side.

  “Glade, no. Don’t�
�” His body fell fully to the side and started to slide off the bed. I hefted him back onto the cot. By the time I’d lifted his feet up the rest of the way, he was completely unconscious. And he’d stay that way for the next few hours, at least. Plenty of time. What I’d just given him wasn’t nearly as strong as the drugs that Dahn had given me. I reached into my jumpsuit and folded two letters of my own overtop of the ones that Kupier had given me. And I tucked it neatly in next to him, my writing peeking out so that he’d realize there were letters on top of his own. There were so many things I’d never said to his face. But it was better if he read them. That way, he’d be able to keep them forever.

  I traced his cheekbone with the back of my hand and was just stepping away from him when his door was flung open.

  “Kupier, we need to—WHAT THE HELL?!?!” Aine was on me a second later, her iron-like grip at my throat, squeezing the breath out of me and slamming my head against the wall. She had the element of surprise, but she didn’t have the years of practice that I had.

  I swept her legs and sent her tumbling backward, halfway into the hallway. Her fist caught me on the chin, but my elbow caught her throat and we both rolled away from each other, coughing.

  “You don’t understand!” I shouted, kicking away the knife she’d brought to her fingertips. “It’s not what you think.”

  Ignoring me, she grabbed one edge of Kupier’s wall shelf and attempted to bring the whole thing down on top of me. I rolled out of the way just in time as the heavy metal smashed, corner down, on the ground.

  “Stop!” I shouted, pinning her arms behind her. If she kept going like this, she’d have Ferrymen running up to investigate, and that of all things could potentially ruin our entire plan. We needed our people concentrating and at their posts or this whole thing was gonna get shot to hell. “I’m protecting him. Not hurting him.” She scoffed and kicked out at me. “Sure. Poisoning him is a hell of a way of protecting him.”

  “I just knocked him out for a few hours, and I’ll gladly tell you why if you stop trying to kill me for three seconds!”

  She yanked her arms from me and I crouched, ready for her attack, but instead, she just rushed toward Kupier, checking his breathing and his heart. She studied the empty syringe that lay beside him on the bed. “Talk.”

  “I’m trying to keep him from killing himself.”

  “What?”

  “Look. Once we get past Earth’s shield, they’re going to do everything they can to keep us inside, to keep us from leaving. We’re not going to be able to get back out unless we externally blow the bunker that holds all of their defense systems.”

  “We’ll do it with the Database. You can do it.” She looked confused. Figured, since this was not the plan that we’d gone over with any of the other Ferrymen.

  “No. The Database will already be blown by then. We only have two options for how to blow the defense bunkers and get the hell out of there.” I held her eyes. “Either we use Haven’s bomb in the one-man ship orbiting the moon right now, which needs someone to pilot it.” Aine’s eyes flicked toward Kupier. “Or I attempt to hack into the bunker remotely, on my own, with just my tech and no power source.” Her eyes came back to mine.

  “Do you think you can handle that kind of strain?”

  “No. It’ll most likely kill me.”

  “So, it’s either Kupier dies in the one-man ship, or you die on Earth.”

  “Pretty much. And he was just about to jettison off in one of our landing ships to go board the one-man ship. So, I incapacitated him. He’ll wake up in a few hours, probably feeling pretty betrayed, but it’ll all be over. And he’ll be safe.”

  She stared at me. “But you’ll be dead.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Oh, Christ.” She sat down hard, her forehead hitting her knees for just one second before she stood back up. “I guess there’s no changing your mind. Considering you already knocked him out.”

  “Nope.” For some reason, having Aine in on the plan was steadying me. Making me feel more resolute.

  She strode forward and clamped a hand on my shoulder, hard. She stared down into my eyes, hers fierce and blazing. “You’re pretty much the most badass person I’ve ever met, Glade. And that’s saying something.”

  “I’m pretty sure I could say the same for you, Aine.”

  We held eyes for just another minute before she let out a deep breath and stepped out of Kupier’s room. Her eyes held onto him another moment before she held her hand out and pulled me into the hallway.

  “Let’s not keep everyone waiting.”

  I jogged down to the landing deck, my assigned position, and strapped into one of the jump seats that lined the walls on one side. Cast was in charge of landing the Ray, which had been the plan all along. He just hadn’t known that it was because Kupier was supposed to have been secretly leaving the Ray to go get himself killed on a ship-made-bomb.

  I clicked my seatbelt and didn’t look around to any of the other Ferrymen who were beside me. There was nothing to worry over, no last-minute details. It had all been planned out, and all we could do was trust that it worked. I knew that Aine would be there, handling the computers. I knew that Nix would help make the defensive calls. There was a team of Ferrymen surrounding me who would protect me on our run to the building that housed the Database. There was a team of Ferrymen who would protect the Ray while we attempted to bring down the Authority.

  I paid attention to none of it. I was in my own head. Visualizing every single step of the way. Nothing else existed for me outside of the confines of my own body, my own skills, and my own choices.

  Only one thing snagged my attention. I lifted my eyes involuntarily, the way you do when you can feel someone staring at you. And there, across the landing deck of the Ray, was Dahn, handcuffed to the bars of a cage.

  When it was all over, when my team was running back to the Ray, they would slide him off the landing ramp. And he would be the Authority’s problem.

  His silvery gaze wasn’t that of the pained, hardened man I’d seen down in the sublevel of the Ray. No, as he stared at me, guarded and perplexed, I saw my friend again. The boy who I’d loved for so long. My only ally on the Station. I wondered, for a moment, if he could see what I was about to do. That I was about to launch myself into oblivion. Taking his precious Authority with me.

  The ship jolted as it hit the first lick of Earth’s atmosphere and our eye contact broke. I closed my eyes and shut him out.

  I shut everything out.

  Cast’s voice over the loudspeaker. Our pilot shouting instructions. I missed the alarm bells ringing. I didn’t even register the sharp jolts of gunfire and cannon fire into the side of the Ray as we attempted to land our enemy ship on Earth’s soil. Our stealth mode had kept us from being detected while we’d orbited the Earth, but soon enough, they’d been able to detect us in the atmosphere, and in just a few minutes, they’d see us with their naked eyes.

  The Ray juked and dived, and I knew that Cast was avoiding more fire. I heard the tell-tale signs of the Ray firing back. When things went silent for a moment, I wondered if Aine had been able to hack into Earth’s gun systems and dismantle them, the way we’d practiced. I hadn’t known for sure what kind of system she’d have to work with, so I’d taught her a hundred different ways to do it. But then there was the banging fire of guns again, and I realized that she hadn’t been able to do it, after all.

  The surface would be coming up quickly, which was made even more obvious by the slowing of our acceleration. I felt alternate thrusters fire up and I prayed they’d aid us in a smooth landing. I prayed that the Ray wouldn’t be damaged. I prayed that everyone on this ship, besides myself, would fly away safely.

  The words of prayer caught in my throat. I realized I wasn’t praying – I was just chanting, hoping it would come true.

  I almost laughed at myself then, realizing just how much I’d changed in the last months. I was on a rebel ship, about to destroy my solar system’s g
overnment, just kind of hoping things would pan out. Was this the human version of Glade Io? Had I fully shed the Datapoint? God, I hoped so. It would be nice to die a human being.

  I squeezed my eyes shut until bursts of light and color cartwheeled across my vision. It was just the pressure, I knew, but part of me felt like it was my body’s own mini-parade, complete with rainbows and pinwheels, welcoming me, at last, to Earth.

  I knew the ship had landed not because I felt it, but because the bodies around me started shouting, bustling, jostling my shoulders. I unclipped myself from the jump seat and expected my legs to feel like rubber. But they didn’t. Oh, no, they didn’t. They were bands of steel beneath me. One of the Ferrymen shoved a long metal wand into my hand and I held it over my shoulder like it was a bayonetted rifle. It was what I would use to reactivate my tech. And it was as crucial to this plan as I was. Without my tech activated, I was just another foot soldier. A foot soldier who could kick ass, but still. My tech was crucial.

  The landing door of the Ray started to open and, for a moment, I was confused. I’d been expecting blindingly bright sunlight – this was Earth, after all. Weren’t the rumors true? But no, of course. It was still the half hour before dawn. What greeted us wasn’t sunlight. It was a rectangle of teal air. Humid and warm and scented.

  I felt myself lunging forward, toward my birthright. Toward our planet. My legs were sprinting and so was I. The Ferrymen on either side of me came, too.

  We’d caught Earth’s people by just enough surprise that there were no soldiers there to greet us. But I knew that was a luxury that wouldn’t last long. We had to get where we were headed.

  Kupier, with his infinite number of satellite pictures, had made map after map of how to get to the Database from Earth’s landing pad. I could have done it with my eyes closed at this point.

  I sprinted toward the edge of the darkened city of Jericho. There was a tug in my gut that I brutally ignored. I felt as if I had a fishhook in my belly, anchoring me to the Ray. On the Ray was Kupier, sleeping and unharmed. On the Ray was Dahn in a steel cage. Two branches of my twisted, chosen family. I wondered briefly if the two of them would ever see one another again. If they’d ever speak of me.