by Ramona Finn
“I’m going to kill you, Glade. Right now. As you flee the Station. A traitor. And then everyone will know I was right! They’ll know! They’ll have no choice but to turn to me for help with the Culling. I’m the only one who can do it!”
Her words were breathy and desperate. Their content didn’t scare me, but her frantic wildness did. She’d completely cracked. Her plan didn’t even make sense. Even toward her own agenda, and that was the one thing you could always count on Sullia to make sense about.
I blocked another wave from her taser as she walked closer to me. I could see now that she was dragging one of her feet behind her. She was ten feet away, though, and still the taser was sparking. I blocked it easily with the energy from my tech. She was creeping toward me, reaching into her jumpsuit and pulling out a glinting knife.
Now that she was closer, I could see her eyes dilating and retracting, as if she were stepping in and out of a pitch black room. She was either on drugs or she’d been tortured beyond belief. Probably both, knowing all these lovely folks at the Station.
“Sullia,” I said, trying to keep my voice reasonable. “You want me gone? I’m gone. You don’t have to do all this. They’ll probably hand over the whole Culling to you anyways. Because as long as you let me get on that skip, I’m gone forever.”
She sneered. “I’m not dumb, Glade.” She inched forward more, the white energy meeting the orange in a buzzing hot ball halfway between us. It raised the hairs on my arm and gave the air a metallic taste. “If you leave, they won’t give up on you. They’ll just go after you. They always want you. They always WANT YOU.”
I jolted from her sudden scream and took the opportunity to dodge to the side, getting closer to the skip. The energies slipped off one another and, for one bright, excruciating second, her taser landed on me and my energy landed on her. We screamed in unison, falling to our knees before the beams met once again, defending us and allowing us to catch our breath again.
I saw a skittering in my peripheral vision and knew it was Wells, gathering the oxygen suits. Good kid.
Sullia’s eyes followed him and I prepared to defend him with my tech, but it was almost like her eye was following a shooting star, or the drift of a moon in the sky. Her gaze was absent and confused until it hit me again, and then it was rigid and burning with intensity. I took the moment to slide us back, more toward the skip. I could see Wells wrestling with Cast’s clumsy body, pulling the suit onto him.
Time was wasting. I needed to get on that skip. Well, I needed to not get killed, first of all. But yeah, all kinds of clocks were running down to zero.
One more step toward the skip and Sullia had apparently had it. She was suddenly sprinting toward me, ignoring the burning laser of the energy from my tech as it hit her square in the chest. Whether her foot was really hurt, I didn’t know. But she was on me like a cat. I barely had time to grab her knife by the hilt before she attempted to plunge it through my heart.
“Glade!” I heard Cast shout behind me.
I tried to twist the knife from Sullia’s hand. I could feel the pressure of the blade at my breastbone, but it wasn’t enough to tear through my jumpsuit yet. Or my skin, thank God.
“If you kill me now,” I gasped, “he’ll never fully know how much of a traitor I really am.”
Sullia’s eyes were still dilating and contracting, and her face was pulled into a mask of rage, but I could tell she heard my words. Her hand slipped just the tiniest bit and I rolled us. I held her own knife, suddenly broadside, against her cheek, holding her face down to the dirty floor of the loading pad.
I heard the pilot skip fire up and I knew this was it. This was the time. I had Sullia’s arms pinned under my knees. One hand was on her throat and the knife was pinning her face down. Her eyes rolled in her head like marbles.
“Don’t screw this up for yourself,” I told her. “You’re smarter than this. Let me go. Let me prove what a traitor I am. Tell him everything.” I couldn’t bring myself to say his name. “Everything you know about me. Swear allegiance to him. Tell him you’ll bring him my head on a stake.” I pushed the flat of the blade down—I knew it would leave a bruise across her cheekbone. She needed some evidence that we’d fought. “I don’t care. Tell him you’ll eat my heart. But you have to let me go first. You have to let me prove that you’ve been right this whole time. You’ll have everything, Sullia. He’ll give it all to you. But if you kill me, it’ll just come back down on you. You’ll be the one who killed the chosen one. You’re smarter than that.”
Sullia screamed in rage for one long, tremulous note. But at the end of it, her muscles went lax and I knew I had her.
I sprang off of her, kicked the taser out of her hand and halfway across the dock, and sprinted headlong toward the pilot skip.
“GO!” I screamed as Wells slammed the door behind me.
“Get your suit on…” Cast slurred as he huddled in the corner of the bare, dank pilot skip. There weren’t even seats in here. It probably hadn’t been manually flown in fifty years.
“Screw the suit! Get us the eff out of here!”
Wells was at the controls and commanding the service dock doors to open for us. I glanced back at the dock and saw the main stairwell door being flung closed. Good. Sullia was gone already. She was probably raising the alarm as we spoke, but still, at least she wasn’t about to get sucked out into outer space, or trying to break into our trash skip.
The door to the dock opened slowly and on a hinge, not like the snazzy dilating doors of the main loading dock. This certainly wasn’t a very fancy garbage operation down here.
As soon as Wells hovered us and started moving forward, I lunged at the spare oxygen suit. I did not want to be in space without it. I didn’t trust this old pilot skip.
We were moving forward, Wells at the controls, when I zipped the thing on and got the oxygen flowing. The black universe stretched out in front of us as asteroids hurdled past. Some of them looked to be stationary, as they were moving at the same speed as the Station, but still others were flying past as fast as bombs. I hoped Wells was an adequate pilot. I wished that Cast was well enough to do this instead. I trusted his pilot skills without hesitation.
We’d just breached black space fully, leaving the Station, when my tech started sending off an alarm. To me and to the Station.
Turn back, it told me. Turn back. Datapoint Io, leaving the Station. Datapoint Io, leaving the Station.
I gritted my teeth in rage. Yeah. This wasn’t exactly a surprise, but still. I’d hoped we’d have a touch more time before my tech alerted absolutely everyone that I was attempting to escape.
“Crap.” I zeroed in on the control panel. “Look, we’ve got about fifteen seconds before we’re gonna have major company here, so get ready to drop the trash.”
“Right,” Wells said, wiping sweaty hands on his pants before dodging an errant asteroid. “Now might be a good time to tell us a bit more of the plan.”
“Okay.” I watched as he swerved around another asteroid and simultaneously overrode a safety warning that had been keeping us from going faster. Yet another reason to like Wells. “Our ride has been notified that we’re leaving the asteroid belt in this skip. We have to get to the dark side of Mars and they’ll rendezvous with us there.”
None of us mentioned that it would take nearly an hour to get to the dark side of Mars.
“Our ride?” Cast asked, trying to pull himself to standing. “Lemme guess.”
“Ah. Yeah. Ferrymen.”
“Ferrymen?” Wells screeched. “Oh God. Oh crap. Oh Jesus. My mother is going to disown me if she ever finds out about this.”
Cast and I exchanged a glance and, again, I had to stifle the insane urge to burst out laughing. Any second, skips from the Station were going to be surrounding us and trying to haul us back in. Not a laughing matter.
“Do we have weapons?” Cast asked.
“Just me,” I replied. “But honestly, it’s fifty-fifty if I’m gonna be ab
le to fight for us or against us.”
“Great,” Wells muttered. “Peachy.”
Chapter Seventeen
The edge of the asteroid belt was fast approaching, but we weren’t going anywhere near fast enough to outrun even Authority skips. Which told you how slow our pilot skip was.
“I’m going to jettison the garbage pod,” Wells said. “We’ll go faster without it.”
My tech notified me that we had three incoming Authority skips. Dang. They’d mobilized fast. “Wait! Let’s be smart about this.”
I knocked Wells to the side, taking over the controls.
My tech practically cheered, thinking I was about to steer the skip back toward the Station. But when, instead, I barrel-rolled the skip, sending all of us skidding across the cockpit, and one of the Authority skips smashed into the trash pod, dislodging it by half and sending our skip juddering in yet another direction. My tech started sounding all sorts of alarms to me.
Datapoint Io! Stand down!
It was the single warning I’d gotten before and, suddenly, my hands were not my own anymore. The skip was suddenly veering, attempting to turn back.
No! I slammed my eyes shut. The first image my own brain fed me was of my mother, the red volcanoes of Io reflecting in her dead, glassy eyes. I could feel my fingers again as I shut out the tech, shoving it from my brain. I pivoted the skip and took stock of the Authority skips.
There were more coming, and they were going to try to surround us.
“What the hell!” one of the boys yelled as my tech had me jolting the skip again. It wanted me to go back.
“No!” I screamed, and then I gritted my teeth, trying so hard to shake the tech out of my brain. I dodged three asteroids, one after the other, as we burst out of the asteroid field. Sensing the Authority skips in my range, I slammed the skip into reverse, forcing one Authority skip to smash against the asteroid closest to us as it tried to avoid a collision with us.
My tech calmed down, too, because I was once again headed toward the Station. Apparently, it didn’t care if I took out Authority skips on the way.
The boys screamed and held on for dear life as I rolled our skip again, headed firmly back into the asteroid field. When I righted us, I swept sideways and two more skips smashed into the trash pod so that it was knocked halfway free of our skip’s grip, slamming us askew.
It was then that my tech had enough.
My hands were not my own. None of my body was. I was turning the skip back to the Station. Haven was going to make me turn myself in.
“Take the controls!” I screamed, and I slammed myself down onto the floor of the skip, gripping the ridged metal for dear life.
“Why? You were doing so well,” Wells said dryly as he dashed for the controls and took hold, immediately dodging another asteroid and using my side-swiping technique to waylay two more Authority skips.
“There’s too many of them!” Cast screamed as he looked out the window.
I, meanwhile, could barely understand English. My vision was alternating between ash white and char black as I fought with my tech, which was getting more and more commanding. More and more desperate.
Turn. Back. It warned me, Now, Datapoint Io.
I screamed against the voice in my head and nearly broke my fingers with gripping the floor. I knew that pain would keep me in my body. I could keep control if I could stay in pain.
Take the controls and TURN BACK.
I broke my knuckles open on the floor as I slammed my fist into the ridged metal. I knew this voice speaking to me now. And it wasn’t technology. It was Haven. I knew that he was speaking to me through my tech. He’d designed this tech to serve himself and to make me his tool.
It would be so easy to be someone’s tool. All I’d ever have to do was follow orders. I’d never have to think or deliberate or feel again.
Volcanoes in my mother’s eyes. The virus slinking back to its hiding place. I felt the skip rotate again, and now the screaming was coming from me.
I could see the Authority skips converging on us. More and more of them. Not even my body was mine. Haven even owned my brain.
Something was cutting open my palm and I realized it was the metal mane of the horse figurine that had somehow found its way into my hand. I gripped it. This was an animal. I was an animal. Free. Something in this animal could never be caged.
I was free. My heart was free. I would never be owned. NEVER.
I rolled, and my tech tried to get me to take back the controls. Ten more Authority skips were on their way.
We were well past the asteroid belt when I staggered to my feet. Stop the skip. Go back. Come back. Come back to where you belong, Glade. Do what you were born to do. Cull. Come home to the Culling.
“Tie me up!” I screamed at Cast and Wells.
“What?”
“My tech is going to tank us unless you tie me to that pipe.”
Cast hauled himself to his feet and searched the cockpit. There was nothing to tie me up with. “There’s only this.” He held up an old gear chain that he’d dragged from some small storage compartment under the storage panel.
I could sense more Authority skips converging. My hands were reaching toward Wells’ back. I’d smash his head in to get to those controls. To get us home. To the Station.
“NO!” I screamed at myself, falling to my knees. “Use it,” I said to Cast.
“It’ll tear your oxygen suit. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m too dangerous. I’ll get us all killed.”
Wells dodged a skip, rolled, and in a gorgeous move, released the trash pod as a perfectly aimed projectile that obliterated three Authority skips at once. “Do what she says!” he yelled to Cast.
“Look!” Cast pointed out the window. “Mars! Glade, can’t you hold on just a bit longer?”
“Cast, my tech is literally going to make me kill you with my bare hands if you don’t chain me up.”
He was shaking as he dragged himself toward me.
I held as still as I could, using every white-hot bit of strength that I had to stay still against the pipe as he lashed me to it with the chain. He tied a tight knot over one of my wrists and across my chest. He was right. The chain was serrated and sharp, and the second I pulled against it, it was going to puncture my suit and my skin. If I fought it, I was only going to have so much oxygen left.
“They’re gaining!” Wells called. “Can we notify the Ferrymen that we need help? We’re never going to make it! There’re so many!”
Turn back! Obliterate. Come home. Cull.
My mother. The bomb destined for Charon. My mother. There was white hot pain in my wrist as I fought the gear chain, and it brought me back into myself.
Haven had torn me in two. Made me fight myself. To death.
I could almost see the oxygen leaking out of my suit now. The pilot skip we were in was pressurized, but just barely. I wasn’t sure how long I’d survive without the suit. I could feel it deflating around me just as I could feel the blood from my wrist dripping down my fingers.
But my hands kept fighting. Kept pulling. My tech wanted me to go back. Haven wanted me to go back. I was a prisoner in my own skin.
“We’re surrounded!” Wells yelled, but his voice was distant and being vacuumed away into the dark. There was a blood-red fuzziness at the edges of my vision. I didn’t know if I was suffocating or if my tech was sending me into a trance of some kind. What if I blacked out, but my body was still alert enough to listen to Haven?
The thought had me panicking and wrenching my eyes open. I had to stay aware. I couldn’t sleep. I had to stay.
I forced myself to focus out the windshield of the cockpit. I blinked to make sure I wasn’t seeing double. Sure enough, there must have been fifty Authority skips in a solid line in front of us, blocking us from our path, from rounding Mars.
“No.” This time I whispered it. Because it wasn’t just me getting caught. It was Cast and Wells, too.
“I kidnapped
you,” I gasped out to them, and they both turned to glance at me, fear in their eyes, before they looked back at the line of skips. “Do you hear me? I forced you to come with me. Say it! Agree now! Get your story straight now!”
My tech tried to take me under. Now that it sensed the Authority skips surrounding me, all it wanted me to do was collapse, go docile, and wait to get captured. I fought it again. I needed to stay awake. I needed Cast and Wells to understand that they’d have to lie or they’d be killed.
“Better yet,” I realized dizzily, the lack of oxygen making my brain swim, “just jettison me out toward them. My suit will hold up. They’ll take me and you two can still rendezvous.”
“Shut up, Glade,” Cast said. “I’m not shooting you out into space.”
“We’re surrounded,” I said, my head lolling to one side, blood inching sluggishly down my fingers. The gear chain was still stuck in my wrist, and oxygen whispered out of my suit, out over the wound, like a kiss.
Cast said something, but I didn’t hear it. My eyes focused on the solid, never-ending line of Authority skips between me and the rest of my life. They’d always be there. They’d never let me go. There was no fleeing them.
“Look!” Wells shouted.
My eyes followed to where he was pointing. To the line of Authority skips. I blinked. There was something approaching them from behind. Something pivoting and twisting through the air like a giant drill.
I recognized it. That ship. That cobbled together, ugly-ass ship. And I sure as hell recognized that driving. Somehow reckless and precise all at once.
It was the Ray. Coming up fast behind the line of Authority skips; Mars in a crescent shadow was framed behind it. And I would bet my life that Kupier was in the pilot seat.
