by Ramona Finn
The Authority
The Culling Book Two
Ramona Finn
Contents
The Culling
Copyright
The Authority
Blurb
About Ramona Finn
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part II
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part III
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
End of The Authority
Thank You!
Also By Ramona Finn
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, JANUARY 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
When everything she’s ever known is a lie, one young woman must make a choice that could change the course of history.
Glade Io is torn between two worlds. She’s a trained killing machine—selected by the ruthless Authority to be a Datapoint, a tech-enabled agent of the state who eliminates threats to the human colonies throughout the solar system in the Culling. But her time among rogue colonists called the Ferrymen has convinced her that The Authority has far more sinister plans in store, and all the justifications they fed to her are lies. Vowing to help the rebels fight The Authority from the inside, Glade must sabotage a captured Ferryman ship that The Authority is planning to use to attack the Ferrymen stronghold.
Though Glade is drawn to the brave leader of the Ferrymen, Kupier, she has older loyalties as well. Her friend and mentor Dahn Enceladus is charismatic and ambitious, but although Glade cares for him, she can no longer trust him. Her younger sisters are also in danger of facing Datapoint testing, and now she’s being forced into an upgrade she cannot refuse. But help is about to arrive in an unlikely form: a ghost from her distant past.
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
Planet Earth
Jan Ernst Haven stood on his small wrought iron balcony. He peered out at the mountains in the distance, his hands clasped behind his back. He could see an early spring storm waking up and rolling out of bed behind the mountains. It would reach him in a matter of hours. That was alright. He enjoyed a spring rain.
It was one of the pleasures of visiting Earth. Spring rain, pollen in the air, flowers coughing themselves back to life after sleeping all winter. He loved it. Simply loved it. He felt, in a way, as if he were Earth’s lover. Her overprotective husband, perhaps. He was, after all, doing everything he could to protect her from the dirty, scrounging masses of humans who’d been evicted from this gem of a planet hundreds of years before.
However, Haven did have a begrudging respect for human life. They were, after all, a very stubborn lot. Always scrambling and scratching to hang on, just a bit longer. He found it as admirable as he did disgusting.
He glanced behind him at the gilded clock on the wall in the parlor. It was time. He restrained his sigh. He’d have to explain his plan to the other members of the Authority—again. It was like trying to get a puppy to sit through a lesson on physics.
Cinching his sweater around his thin waist, he slid on his nice leather boots in case that rain made it all the way here while he was out. He closed the door to his rooms and was on the street in a matter of seconds.
The town that spiraled out from the city center had a sort of antique-y aura about it. There were rows of town homes and dust whorls in the street. None of the buildings were taller than a few stories, and centuries-old elm trees lined most of the sidewalks. There was a river lining one side of the town and mountains on the other. Out here, the clear blue sky looked even bluer next to the red brick and green ivy that were the signatures of almost every dwelling.
Simply put, he loved it in this city, and every sight reminded him of this. And not just because of its rarity—it being the only inhabitable city on the planet Earth. He loved it because it was perfect. Somehow sterile and charming all at once. There were the perfect number of citizens to keep it lively but not busy. The city planners and engineers who’d secretly designed the city of Jericho had done an exceptional job. They’d taken the remains of an old Earthly city and remade it. When it had first been ready for the Authority and their families and loved ones to come live here thirty years ago, there’d been a lot of foliage still to fill in and cobbled streets to wear down. But now the town had a lovely, lived-in feeling to it.
Haven took a deep breath of fresh air and clasped his hands behind his back as he made his way down the street. Some children played at the end of the block; he knew they were the grandchildren of an Authority member. A pretty woman leaned out her window to yell something to them, but when she caught sight of Haven she went very pink in the cheek and ducked back inside.
He supposed that it was strange for the humans who lived on Earth to spot an Authority member out and on his own—to spot him, specifically, out and on his own. The six other members of the Authority lived on Earth with their closest family and friends. They’d each brought their loved ones to this forbidden paradise. Some of these children had even been born on Earth. True Earthlings. He chuckled to himself as he walked. The children at the end of the lane gave him a wide berth and the ball they’d been playing with bounced into a roll, untended as they watched him.
Yes, he knew he was regarded with confusion and fear. The only Authority member with no family or friends on Earth. The only one who chose to bring no one into paradise with him.
His silver white hair caught the sun like a sparkle of light over ocean water as he walked down one street and then the next. The city whose streets he walked had the bones of a former world. It was ancient, and the quality of that knowledge improved its beauty, so far as he was concerned. Even if the facelift that the Authority’s architects had given it was only thirty or so years old. The stone church on the corner must have been hundreds of years old.
Haven was glad that they’d decided
to keep evidence of the older ages of Earth. He never wanted to forget how humans had almost destroyed themselves with their own greed, their own horrible need for more, more, more. Not only had they needed more food, more space, more gadgets, and more clothing, but they’d also demanded more and more autonomy. Each man thought he knew the best way to rule and be ruled. But humans weren’t meant to be ruled individually. They were meant to be ruled en masse. Like the giant, breathing, intertwined organism they were. But ancient man had pushed and pushed and spoiled Earth to the last drop until they’d had to flee out into space. Into the solar system. They’d created the moon colonies and a new system of government.
Man could no longer be trusted with the keys to his own house. Earth was a burned-out, diseased hull. Humans had become renters of the moons, and the Authority had been conceived. A tight hand on the neck of an unruly animal.
When the Authority had first begun to creep tentatively back to Earth, the first order of business had been to make Jericho—as they’d started to call this city—inhabitable, and stylishly so. It had taken a few decades to revive what could be revived and to build the rest from scratch. But, though Haven preferred his home on the space station, he had to admit the effect was pleasing. Small shops were scattered here and there. And while supplies were regularly brought in from the outer colonies, for the most part, the city was self-sustaining. Even the bolts of colorful fabric he saw in one shop’s window were a product of the fields that lined one edge of the city, rolling out toward the mountains like a welcome mat.
Farther away from the town center, the houses had more breathing room and were built more in the farmhouse style. Haven approved of that. There were many different kinds of people on Earth right now, and he wanted them to be able to live in the type of dwelling they wished. The point, after all, was for these chosen Earthlings to be happy. Safe. Protected.
Coming up in front of him, there was a small white building nestled between two brick houses, like an unexpected stone on a sandy beach. It was into this dwelling that Haven disappeared, his hands still clasped behind his back. He knew what he would find when he made his way up the white carpeted stairs and to the room with all the skylights.
The other six members of the Authority. Sipping tea, of all things.
The light from the skylight was harshly bright, as it sometimes was on Earth, and it showed every dust mote in the air, every line on every face, every misaligned button. Again, Haven resisted the urge to sigh. No matter how perfectly he planned everything, and no matter how perfectly he programmed everything, in the end, people were just people. Humans who needed three meals a day and a good night’s rest. It was all so fragile.
This was why he preferred computers. And the humans whose brains most closely resembled them. Datapoints. Humans who’d been trained at a young age to integrate their brains with the computers implanted into their bodies. They were the Authority’s greatest accomplishment, in Haven’s eyes. They were the only possible way that a rule of government could be imposed on a civilization that spanned an entire solar system. Without the Datapoints, he was sure that each of the colonies on all those moons would have spun off into anarchy.
The Authority was like the five fingers of a fist holding humanity in place. If any of these fingers slipped, he was certain that all of the humans, slippery as they were, would eek out of that loose space. Into oblivion. They were like babies, humans were. They needed structure, rules, and a father who knew best, who was willing to make tough decisions.
Which was why each of the other six Authority members stopped talking when Haven stepped through the door. Because Haven, unlike these feather-hearted poetry readers, was willing to make tough decisions.
The blue sky spread out on the other side of the skylights as Haven pulled out his chair at the large heptagonal table. Each Authority member formally greeted each other in turn now that they were all present. Civilized as could be.
Haven wasn’t fooled. He could scent the dissension on the air as easily as he could that spring storm. It was brewing.
He kept half an ear cocked as they went through their normal business. They had these full group meetings only twice a year, so there was a fair amount of ground to cover. Updates and the like. Haven knew that the six people surrounding him met much more often than this, though. They all lived here year-round. Haven himself lived on the space station where he could personally oversee the training of the Datapoints. The other Authority members traveled, of course, and made appearances wherever they were needed. But they spent the majority of their time on Earth.
A red breasted bird landed on one corner of the skylight, catching Haven’s eye. He understood why they all preferred to spend as much time on Earth as possible. It was beautiful here. But more than that, it was home. There was some deep, DNA-level settling of the nerves whenever a human stepped foot on Earth. Even though generation after generation had been born on the moon colonies scattered around the solar system, he knew that there would always be a whispering inside them, a suggestion that something wasn’t quite right with their current living conditions—in space.
He wondered, idly, if there was some correlation there, in that distance from Earth as an unsettling factor… something there that destined the people who’d been banished to the colony the farthest away from Earth to also be the most rebellious. Was there some sort of fire that was stoked inside the rebels who called themselves the Ferrymen? A burn that could only be quenched on Earth? After only another moment of consideration, he dismissed the thought as foolish. The Ferrymen were the way they were because of their ancestors. Rebellious dissenters who lusted after anarchy. It had been a foolish move of the previous members of the Authority to sequester them all on Charon together. Because, as humans did, they’d procreated. And now the Ferrymen were Haven’s mess to clean up.
He looked back from the robin in time to see a circle of blank, round faces pointed towards him. He blinked his eyes and the shapes turned into the faces of the Authority. Ah. They were waiting for him to speak.
“I suppose you’d like an update on the Datapoint program?”
The other members traded eye contact.
“Of course, Sir Haven,” one of them responded. Her name was Kalis Rome, and she’d been a member of the Authority for longer than Haven. She was constantly a thorn in his side, and like him, had white hair and a fairly young face. People had asked before if they were related to one another. They weren’t.
“Well, as my updates to you have indicated, the alterations to the Datapoint program have gone incredibly well.” Haven sat casually in his chair, legs crossed, his face neutral. “She’s adapted to her new role with alarming alacrity.”
“We’re talking about Glade Io?” Rome asked.
“Yes.”
Rome paused. “She’s done as well as the tests indicate? Numbers can be deceptive. No matter how she performs, we may not know whether—”
“She’s ready. She’s been through a successful Culling on her own with her mentor and her skills in the simulator are incomparable. There is no one who could possibly have done this better than she. She’s perfect.” His voice quavered infinitesimally on that last word, and Haven cursed himself for his own human surge of emotion. That wouldn’t help anything right now, to get emotional in front of this group.
“I’m not concerned with whether or not she can do this,” said another Authority member, Rhys Walker—a younger man with coarse brown hair and a constant frown on his face. “I’m concerned with whether or not she should do this.”
This again. Haven bit down his frustration. How many times were they going to have to go through this? He’d spent the last decade attempting to get permission to do the one thing he knew would fully save their civilization.
“Frankly,” Walker continued, “when we voted to allow you to test Datapoint Io, we’d agreed to just that. Testing. Not this sudden assertion that we would be altering the entire system of Culling, just like that.”
“
Sir Walker,” Haven cut in, outwardly calm as could be. “We agreed to go through with this testing because we were searching for the one Datapoint who could answer all our problems. And we found her. She’s not only physically and mentally capable of what we’re asking of her, but she’s proven her loyalty to the Authority. Not only with her work ethic, but the girl has survived torture for us.” Haven allowed just a touch of emotion into his tone now, if only so that the rest of the Authority couldn’t sterilize the intensity of the poor girl’s experiences.
It wasn’t worth mentioning that the torture had been ordered by Haven himself. He’d needed the girl to prove her loyalty and she had.
“Perhaps I’m dense,” said another member, Tita Calypso. She was the youngest member, and was very unassuming and very smart. Haven hated her. “But I’m still confused on why we’ve needed to change the system at all. I’ve been under the impression that the Culling is still extremely effective.”
Haven felt dark matter twist and rise up inside him. Black temper, endless frustration at the foolishness of the people sitting at this table. His so-called peers. Yet, they couldn’t see more than a generation into the future.
“The data is fine for now, but we all know that the trends are shifting. Having hundreds of Datapoints culling millions of people is no longer effective. We can’t train that many Datapoints and be responsible for their skills and their mistakes. Glade Io can do the work of hundreds on her own. With the cost of training only one Datapoint. She can cull our entire solar system at once. Imagine this! Instead of wasting our time and resources on this many Datapoints, we concentrate on her. Think of all we’d have at our fingertips with all these retired Datapoints. Think! They’re the brightest minds in our solar system. And we wouldn’t have to sequester them down to the single task of Culling anymore.”
