The Culling (The Culling Trilogy Book 1)

by Ramona Finn

  His posture hadn’t shifted, yet I sensed a change coming over him. Something rigid was lining each word that came out of his mouth. He was lazy in turn, but somehow his words sliced through me.

  “You are, basically, telling me that you won’t do what we’re asking you to. Despite your levels of technological intelligence. Despite your score on the sociopathic scale. Despite the fact that, on paper, you are a perfect Datapoint. Despite the incredibly high hopes we had for you when you were selected at the age of thirteen. Despite it all, there is something within you, some flaw in the human design, that makes you very difficult for us to work with.

  “I find myself wondering. If only I had access to a version of Glade Io who had almost all of her attributes besides the thing that makes her resist. If only such genetic material existed… But, oh, it does, doesn’t it?”

  My sisters. He must have been talking about my sisters. Still, his leg was crossed, his chin propped on his hand as if we were discussing what we’d like on the menu for dinner. But there was nothing casual about his words. Nothing casual about his threat to my family.

  “You’re considering bringing my sisters in for Datapoint training?” A memory burned through me, almost making me wince. Florescent lights sting my retinas as steel hooks hold my eyelids open. I’m straining against chains at my chest and arms; even my feet are pinned down. I can see nothing but the blue light above me, but my mind is racing, my thoughts jumbled, confused, terrified. My left arm and the left side of my face experience searing pain where they’ve opened the flesh, implanting the computer tech into me. But that’s not the most painful part. The most painful part is the fact that now they’re programming that tech to interact with my brain. Some technician sits behind glass and fiddles with the settings on the computer that’s connected to my brain through the side of my head. My thoughts are not my own. My brain tries to understand, to right itself. But the computer toggles with the information. My legs jump as the motherboard in my arm tells them to. No! My brain screams, grappling for control. The integrated tech doesn’t control me. I control the tech. Pinwheeling into pain and the brightest, most excruciating darkness I’ve ever experienced, my body thrashes against the intrusion.

  The integration of my tech. It took three days for my brain to accept it. Longer than most, shorter than some. And that was the easy part. The harder part was the years of practice, of simulations, of constantly straining to sync my brain with the computer implanted inside of me.

  Haven wanted to bring my sisters here. He wanted to do that to them.

  Haven shrugged, acknowledging my words and changing his posture for the first time since he’d sat down. “We’re running out of options, Glade. I’d rather not start from scratch, of course. We have invested a great deal of time and money into you, Datapoint. But the bottom line is that we’re not interested in creating Datapoints that only fulfill seventy-five percent of their duties.” He pointed at the screen behind me, and just the movement of his hand commanded it to turn on. He scrolled through the air and brought up what he was looking for. “You might be interested in seeing your sisters’ Datapoint scoring, which we only recently performed on them. A preliminary testing, not the official testing, of course. At eleven, they’re a touch young for it, but, as you know, I’ve always been a curious man.”

  He’d had preliminary testing done on them? I’d never even heard of that before. I gripped the armrests as my world tilted. Apparently, there were fewer rules in this game than I’d thought.

  I focused my eyes onto their two names at the top of the screen. Daw Io and Treb Io. Identical twins.

  My stomach sank as I read their scores. Their intellect was high. Though technology had never naturally interested them, the technical fluency would be easy enough to teach. Across each scoring category, they looked more and more like the perfect candidates for Datapoint training. Creative problem solving: High. Tenacity to accomplish a task: High. Speed of decision making: High.

  My heart leapt when I read the most important category, though.

  Exhibition of sociopathic tendencies: Non-existent.

  Thank God. They were ineligible. No Datapoint was without at least some sociopathic score.

  “Don’t their scores on the sociopathic scale render them ineligible, Sir Haven?”

  I’d carefully kept any trace of hope out of my voice.

  “Normally, yes.”

  He resumed that lazy Sunday posture. “Except, in their cases, the rest of the Authority and I found that their low scoring there was offset by these scores.” He scrolled his hand again in the air and brought up another screen with their testing results.

  Acceptance of rules: Extremely high.

  Mental malleability: Extremely high.

  My stomach sank again. Translation? Daw and Treb did exactly what they were told to do. This was no fabrication on Haven’s part. I’d seen this quality exhibited in them since they were old enough to understand English. If they came here, if they were integrated, trained as Datapoints, they’d follow every direction given to them. They’d learn to cull. And they’d do it well.

  And it would destroy them. I had no doubts in my mind of that.

  Halfway through tossing my hair, I froze. I thought of the footage of that horse. The glossy beast. Its haunches bunching and rolling as it raced through an earthen field. A horse that was broken and owned, but could never really be subdued – not if it had a field in which to run. The sun on its back.

  Burning light in my eyes. Hands tied. Pain of an indescribable measure at my temples. The computer makes my fingers curl. I fight back. Open my hands and make the computer bend to my will. I can’t see. I can’t hear. I can only feel my heartbeat, every beat of my pulse slicing through me like teeth made of ice.

  “It’s not necessary to waste the resources on replacing me,” I heard myself say, ignoring the pleased glint in Haven’s eye. “I understand that my efficacy has been subpar. I’ll work harder.” I paused. “I’ll sync with the Database.”

  She didn’t see him as she stepped out of Jan Ernst Haven’s office. She tossed her glossy black hair back over her shoulders, took a deep breath, and headed toward the trainee’s section of the Station. Dahn watched her go.

  It didn’t surprise him that she hadn’t looked back and seen him standing in the hall. She barely even saw him when she was looking right at him. They were friends, sure. Had been for years. But as he watched her disappear down the hall, exhibiting that funny little gait of hers, he realized that he had absolutely no idea what she was thinking. He had no idea what she’d been thinking when she’d stepped out of the simulator, he had no idea what she’d been thinking when Jan Ernst Haven had singled her out yet again, and he had no idea what she was thinking now as she disappeared around the corner.

  It surprised him that he wanted to know, though. That was fairly new. He’d always been intrigued by her, interested in the fierce little Datapoint who was somehow different than all the others. But recently he’d found himself drawn to her. It was just curiosity, he was certain. He’d always had an annoying amount of it. And he knew that, like any thirst, it could be quenched. But Glade Io was just so damn close-lipped. There was no getting to know her – not even for someone who’d been her friend for two years.

  So, his curiosity about his friend who held him at a distance… lingered. It was a feeling he wasn’t comfortable with. Just like he wasn’t comfortable with the rising desire to follow her down the hall. To ask her what had happened with Jan Ernst Haven. To sit with her at dinner.

  He took one step in her direction before he paused. When she’d been in the office with Jan Ernst Haven, Dahn hadn’t felt any confusion about where he was supposed to be. But now, one of the two reasons he was standing in this hallway had just turned the corner and walked the other way. And now Dahn found himself staring at the gray steel door in front of him and pausing.

  He pushed the feeling of hesitation down. He never paused. And he’d be damned if he started pausing
now. No matter how shiny her hair was. Or what the sight of her perma-frown did to his pulse. That didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was being the best Datapoint he could be. The only thing that mattered was excelling. The only thing that mattered was being one of the seven one day. The Authority. Dahn couldn’t imagine a higher honor than being one of the seven whom every other citizen looked up to, admired, and trusted. The Authority made life safe for the entire solar system. And one day he’d be a part of it. That was the only thing that mattered.

  Dahn knocked on the steel door and it rang hollowly in the hallway. The same way it always did when Dahn knocked after lessons.

  “Come in.” Jan Ernst Haven’s reedy voice was so soft that it could barely be heard through the closed door.

  Dahn swung it open. “Evening, Sir Haven. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to talk about my simulation from yesterday.”

  Jan Ernst Haven chuckled as the young Datapoint stepped into his office. “Always so eager to improve, Dahn Enceladus.”

  “Yes,” Dahn agreed, a warmth washing over him as, for the first time that day, he was finally being seen.

  Chapter Two

  “You’re driving me insane,” Sullia snapped, looming over where I lay on my back on the barracks floor. Her carved, beautiful face was narrowed in annoyance, and her brown hair, lined with the navy blue she’d just highlighted it with slid off her shoulders and into her eyes.

  “That’s unfortunate.” I smirked at her.

  Cast, a Datapoint two years younger than I – and the person I usually spent time with after dinner in the barracks – snickered his usual laugh and held his hand up for the ball we’d been bouncing at one another.

  “If you bounce that ball one more time, I swear on Scorpio’s stinger that I’ll—”

  I cut off Sullia as I noisily zinged the ball across the large room, letting it bounce twice before it smacked into Cast’s outstretched hand. The rest of the Datapoints were scared of her, because her admissions scoring indicated that she was a true sociopath, incapable of any form of empathy. But she didn’t scare me. She had no power, just like the rest of us Datapoint trainees. So the worst she could do was bitch and moan.

  Shooting a completely neutral look my way, Sullia stalked across the barracks and dropped to her knees next to where Cast sat, with his messy thatch of blond hair spilling into his eyes. He froze, his eyes as big as moons as he watched her lean into him, her chest pressing into his shoulder.

  I watched in half chagrin and half amusement as he fell instantly into her spider web. Her lips, half an inch from his ear, whispered something that had his eyes growing even wider. When she reached up to brush the hair out of his eyes, I sighed deeply. There went our game of catch. Without hesitation, Cast handed the bouncy ball over to Sullia.

  She instantly snatched it from his hand, bounded gracefully to her feet, and shoved the ball down the refuse shoot before she sashayed back to her bunk in the far corner and plopped down with a satisfied expression on her face. She didn’t spare Cast another glance as she pulled the curtain around her bed. He, on the other hand, stared at her closed bunk with a dumb, open-mouthed look on his face.

  A low chuckle from behind me had me rolling onto my side.

  “Poor kid never stood a chance,” Dahn muttered, shaking his head as he leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

  He’d changed into our more comfortable evening uniform, loose athletic pants and a baggy white t-shirt. His hair was wet and clean, and it fell around his shoulders instead of his usual style, where it would have been scrupulously pulled back.

  I rolled backward and looked over at Cast, who had gone rosy red. He shrugged at me sheepishly. “I don’t get it,” I said to Dahn. “Why do they fall for her crap so easily?”

  “It’s not her crap they’re falling for, Glade,” Dahn replied, pushing off the wall to come sit next to me on the floor. Technically, as a graduated Datapoint, he wasn’t supposed to spend time in the trainee barracks, but our after-dinner time wasn’t highly monitored. He fished in his pocket and tossed something to me.

  I snatched it out of the air, hissing in a breath when I realized what it was. “Hell yes,” I murmured under my breath. My night had just gotten a lot more interesting.

  I studied the small screen in my hand. It was about the size of my palm and had an archaic keyboard attached to the bottom. A few years ago, Dahn had fished it out of one of the refuse shoots. It was an artifact from Earth, back when the planet had been inhabitable, from when people had still lived there instead of among the cols spread across our solar system. It was some sort of gaming device, as best as we could tell. And it was positively primitive. Ever since then, Dahn and I had passed it back and forth. We programmed and reprogrammed it, coding in puzzles and traps for one another, trying to see if we could outsmart the other. So far, each of us had a perfect record, though he occasionally had to work on his puzzles for a few days longer than I did.

  I fiddled around with it for a second, trying to figure out what kind of puzzle he’d left for me until the gaze of his eyes on the side of my face had me instinctually looking up.

  Dahn had piercing gray eyes that seemed to reflect light. His gaze was always very noticeable. In a training program with a bunch of sociopaths, strange eye contact was a pretty normal occurrence. But recently, Dahn had been looking at me a lot more often than usual. And the way he was looking at me? Honestly, it was the exact same way he looked at the gaming device whenever he was trying to crack whatever puzzle I’d left for him.

  “What?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow. I liked using my eyebrows. They were thick and dark against my olive skin. My brown eyes, slightly tipped up like my dad’s had been, were nothing to write home about. But my eyebrows were commanding. And they said more than my words ever could. Whenever I could, I wielded them.

  He shrugged, looking away from me and breaking our eye contact. The second my eyes went back to the gaming device, though, I could feel his gaze back on my face.

  “Seriously, Dahn.” I slammed the device down and sat up on the palms of my hands, my hair slipping down my back. “What the hell are you looking at?”

  He held my gaze for longer this time, his eyes narrowed as they bounced between my left and right eye. “I’m wondering what Jan Ernst Haven said to you about your simulation.”

  I looked away from him, glancing at Sullia’s curtained bunk. We were talking too quietly for her to hear, but even if we hadn’t been in a public place, I wouldn’t have told Dahn what we’d talked about. Talking about it would mean I’d have to admit that I hadn’t been syncing to the Authority Database. And admitting that would mean that Dahn would know exactly how disobedient I’d been. And worse, how resistant I’d been. Neither of those traits were things to be proud of. And both of them were already on the verge of getting my sisters admitted to the program. There was no way I was rocking the boat anymore tonight.

  “And,” Dahn continued, “I also know that there’s no chance you’re ever going to tell me. Not if I asked outright, or even if I tried to manipulate it out of you, like Sullia would. Nope. I’m just looking at you and trying not to get too frustrated that everything I want to know is just inches away from me.” He leaned forward and gently knocked a knuckle against my forehead. “And it’s all locked up tighter than that puzzle I left for you.” He cocked his head to one side, his eyes narrowed, his temper on a tight leash. “You’re the one encryption I can’t break, Glade.”

  I raised both eyebrows in tandem, and repeated something that Haven had said to me just a few hours before. “Humans aren’t computers, Dahn.”

  “I know,” he said, looking at something only he could see. “It’s freaking annoying.”

  I grinned, the expression as brief and rare as a shooting star. “Tell me about it.”

  “Did you find out yet, Dahn?” Cast called too loudly as he crossed the room toward us.

  As I expected, Sullia’s curtain flung open the minute she
heard Dahn’s name. She had some sort of interest in him that I didn’t trust. It wasn’t romantic, which I could have understood since Dahn was very handsome. No, it was something much more centered in her own self-interest.

  “Find out what?” I asked him, trying not to laugh as Cast took the long way across the room, giving Sullia quite a wide berth before he came and sat with us.

  “If he’s been chosen to be a mentor.” Cast plopped down next to me and reached for the gaming device in my hand. He was as interested in the puzzles as I was, but I almost never let him work on them. They were a rare spot of fun for me, and besides, Dahn always designed them specifically for my brain. I slapped his hand away, but shifted so that he could watch the screen as I worked my magic.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked, my eyes still on the screen. I could feel Dahn’s gaze on the side of my face again. “I didn’t know you were eligible so soon after graduation.”

  “Most people aren’t,” Cast said, a sort of pride in his voice. “But Dahn excelled so much in the program that there was a rumor he’d be a mentor.”

  “For one of us?” It seemed strange to me that they’d group such a young mentor with someone our age. Dahn was only three years older than I was. There was usually a much greater age disparity.

  “As far as I know, it’s just a rumor,” Dahn said in a quiet voice, those gray eyes still on me.

  I shrugged, my focus shifting back to the gaming device and the particularly frustrating puzzle he’d left for me. Dahn and Cast kept talking, and after a minute Sullia’s voice swirled in, as well. But I ignored them. It was a skill I’d had for as long as I could remember. I had the ability to singularly focus on any task at hand, regardless of what was going on around me. It used to drive my mom crazy. She’d call me ten times for dinner while I was reading or messing around on the old desktop I’d dragged from the junkyard and hot-wired. It wasn’t until she’d shake me by the shoulders that I’d even realize she was in the same room.