by Ramona Finn
“Ugh.” I shook my head and pain shot behind my eyes. “Like I just culled the solar system.”
“Yeah, well, you did.” His tone was wry.
I cracked an eye and studied his face. “Has Haven said anything yet?”
“He made an announcement while I was carrying you out of the simulator. You’d passed the test. You’re going to lead the next Culling.”
I groaned, nausea rising from just thinking about it. “I’ll bet Sullia loved that.”
“I think she’s organizing a parade as we speak.”
I cocked my head. “Dahn, did you just make a joke?”
He shrugged, pink in his cheeks. “I’m happy that you didn’t die.”
“Yeah.” I looked at the ceiling of infirmary. Gray and brown. “Me, too. Hey. You’ll be there, though, right? You’re still my mentor? You’ll be with me through the Culling?”
“I… don’t know. None of us do. Everything’s changing, Glade. You changed everything. And you’re not exactly ‘in training’ anymore. That little show you put on was pretty much your graduation ceremony. You’re a full-on Datapoint now. You won’t need a mentor anymore. Besides, no one knows what the next Culling will look like now that we have a chosen one.”
I made a face at him. “Don’t call it that.”
“He’s right, though,” Cast chimed in, his blond hair flopping in his face. “It’s full steam ahead on the Culling. I heard that we’re not even going to waste time training new recruits for next year. It’s just us.”
My heart leapt in my chest. “You’re kidding! There won’t be any new Datapoints admitted to the Station?”
“Well, except for your sisters. But I’m sure you already knew that.” The smile fell from Cast’s face as he watched horror shape mine. “What? You didn’t know? Everyone knows.”
“She’s been asleep for two days, Cast. How the hell would she have found out?” growled Dahn. “I was going to tell you when you felt better.”
I grabbed Dahn’s hand, clutching it like a lifeline. “It’s true?”
He sighed. “Yeah. It’s true.”
I dropped his hand and scraped my hair out of my face. “I have to talk to Haven. Now.”
“No, Glade, you’re not healthy enough.” Dahn tried to hold me in the bed, but I slapped his hands away.
“Now,” I repeated. And there must have been something in my voice that had him taking me seriously, because he fell back.
I knew he followed me to Haven’s office. I knew he wanted to make sure I got there alright. But I didn’t pay any attention to that.
There was only one thought in my head the entire way: what had I done?
Chapter Nineteen
It only took eight minutes to finish my conversation with Haven. My sisters were coming here. Not yet, though, because they were still just eleven years old. They’d stay on Io while they matured. My genetic material was apparently too valuable to ignore. But thank you very much for nearly killing yourself in our simulation. Now you can be in charge of the Culling you aren’t sure you believe in. Oh! And I still won’t answer any of your goddamn questions. Bye bye.
It took one more day for me to get let out of the infirmary. And half that time to make up my mind.
It took two days to figure out the landing pad schedule so that I could sneak in and steal a com from the skip that Sullia and I had stolen. It took me a nerve-wracking five hours to construct a passable replica in the shop so that no one would notice I’d stolen it. And then it took me a day and a half to fix the damn thing.
The one perk of being the chosen one was that not a soul bothered me in my bunk the entire time. Not even Dahn. Everyone was avoiding me. And, thank God for that.
Because I had a rebel leader to contact.
It was the sixth day after the Culling simulation when I snuck into the abandoned storage units in the bottom of the Station. Dark and dusty, orderly boxes towered everywhere, lashed together to form great crates.
I skittered around the back of a particularly large grouping of boxes. My back hit the wall and I slid down slowly, taking deep breaths. When I looked up, the boxes rose over me like buildings in a great city. No one would hear me down here. And if they did? Who cared? They could turn me in, and then we’d just all see what happened next.
I held the crappy, hotwired com in one hand, the battery pack that I’d rigged in the other. I sure hoped this thing could communicate over unknown distances. Holding my breath, I pressed the homing button. It blinked green for a moment before going back to its dull gray.
I pressed it again. Green and then gray.
Again.
And again.
“Damn it.” I shoved at the box of uniforms next to me. I was cramped and dusty and someone could catch me at any moment, and this damn thing wasn’t working. The homing button was supposed to alert its mother ship that it was lost. The mother ship would then contact back. Either the distance was too far, or I hadn’t—
Beeeeep.
I almost dropped it when the com squawked at me. The homing button started blinking yellow. What did that mean?
“Mantis 5. Do you copy?” A loud, crackly voice sounded over the com and I scrambled to turn the volume down. “Mantis 5. Do you read?”
I took a deep breath. “I read. Patch me through to the Ray.”
There was a long pause. Then, “This is the Ray.”
Thank God. I’d thought for sure that the mothership would be the huge patrol skip that Sullia and I had stowed away on. But no, apparently our little skip’s mothership had been the Ray. Okay. One hurdle down.
“I need to speak to Kupier.”
Another long pause.
“Glade?”
I recognized the voice then, crackly as it might be. It was Oort. My heart squeezed down for a second and I gulped for air. “I need to speak to Kupier.”
I dropped my head to my knees then, with the reality of what I was doing. What was I doing? This was insane. This was instant death if I got caught. I was reaching up to click off the com when I heard it.
“DP-1.”
His voice, though crackly and distant, was just as deep as I remembered. My face hurt, and I realized it was because I was smiling. And that I hadn’t smiled since I’d left Charon.
“Yeah.”
“Long time no see.”
Something behind my eyes was hot and tight. I gulped. Why was I still smiling? “Yeah.”
“Soooooooooo?” I could tell he was smiling, too. I could hear it in his voice.
“Kupier, I need your help.”
There was a long pause. “Glade, you stole my ship and left. And now you want a favor?”
“You kidnapped me!”
“Oh, right. So, then that makes us even.”
“Kupier.”
“… Glade.”
I sighed. And now my eyes were even hotter and tighter. I’d been so focused on how to contact Kupier, I hadn’t even stopped to consider what I should say when I did. I went with the truth. “They’re coming for my sisters. Because of something I did.”
There was a long pause. “Who is?”
“The Authority. Haven. They’re going to make them Datapoints. Because of this horrible thing that I can do. They think Daw and Treb will be able to do it, too. They’re going to come for them. And they won’t survive it, Kupier. Some citizens don’t survive the integration process. Some kill themselves during training. Because it’s so awful. It’s terrible and painful and all you learn to do is cull. They won’t survive it, Kup. You have to help.”
“Whoa. Hey. Slow down, Glade. Take a breath.” I heard him do the same. “What is it you’re asking me to do?”
“To get my mom and my sisters from Io. They’re in the Hera colony. Just get them. Syb Io, Daw Io, and Treb Io. They’re small and blonde. Just get them and take them… somewhere. Anywhere. I don’t care. Charon. Take them to Charon. Please.”
There was another silence. The longest one yet. And then, “DP-1, you have to kn
ow I can’t do that. Risk that.”
A small noise escaped me, and it sounded like a wounded animal.
“Even if you were telling the truth and this isn’t a trap – which is, you know, doubtful – there’s a hundred ways something like that could go wrong. I can’t put my men in jeopardy like that. I can’t put the whole movement in jeopardy. Not when I don’t know for sure what I’d be getting into. What you’d be getting me into.”
The noise from my throat happened again and I jammed my fist into my mouth.
“Glade, we’re from opposite worlds. And when you left, I realized how big that gulf is. How can we ever really trust each other?”
“I trust you enough to put my sisters’ lives in your hands.”
He made a noise then. A groan. And the com caught the end of it. “If it were just me in danger, I’d already be on my way. I’d do that for you, Glade. You know I would. But it’s my men that stand to lose here. It’s Charon that stands to lose.”
I didn’t say anything else. I let the com fall from my fingers and I buried my face in my hands. I listened to Kupier call my name ten or fifteen times before he gave up. And then I just listened to the static crackle of the disconnected com.
Haven frowned across his desk at Dahn Enceladus. He found himself irritated with the young Datapoint.
For years, he’d watched the boy grapple with feelings for Glade Io without ever really understanding her. Haven had no problems with the ebbs and flows of youthful passion. Even young Datapoints were subject to the whims of their humanity occasionally. It was a part of life. But he did not want Glade Io to have any distractions. And the dark-haired boy who sat in front of him, with the purple smudges under his eyes, was a distraction.
“I understand that we can’t risk losing the genetic opportunity of her sisters, but—”
“No. You must not understand at all, Dahn Enceladus, if you are here, in my office, trying to talk me out of it.” It was practically the first time that Haven had ever had to reprimand Dahn, and both of them felt the sting of it.
“Sir, I only mean to give you information that you might not have.”
Haven gestured for the young Datapoint to continue.
Dahn shifted in his chair in a rare show of uncertainty. “I think having her sisters here would be a distraction for Glade. She’s connected to them on an emotional level. Protective. If they were here and undergoing the training, I don’t think she’d be able to perform at the level that you’re asking of her.”
Haven was quiet for a moment before he leaned in. “And this is your opinion as her… friend?”
“As her mentor.”
Haven was leaning back, a reply on his lips, when the small screen at his wrist beeped. A banner message zinged along the bottom. He frowned. Another Authority supply skip had been attacked. The fourth in a month. Again, nothing had been taken. He wanted the skip brought back to the analytics team here. He wanted to make sure no bug had been implanted in the computer mainframe or any spyware left behind. He didn’t understand what the Ferrymen were doing, and he thought it might be time to swat back.
He typed off a quick reply, instructing the skip to come back to the Station for inspections. And then he was facing Dahn again.
“This has been a very exciting time for all of us, Dahn Enceladus. Everything is changing.”
Dahn nodded tightly. “You mean to proceed.”
Haven sighed. “You act as if I’m making this up as I go along, Datapoint. As if I hadn’t been planning for this since the day you and I first saw her a decade ago.”
Haven couldn’t know that his words had just smashed something inside of Dahn, like a hammer to frozen glass. Even then, Dahn thought desperately, there was never a chance for me to rise.
Chapter Twenty
A week later, and I was sure I was losing my mind. No one had spoken to me in over two days. Dahn and Cast included. Cast was just busy – I understood that. Now that the Culling was going to take on a completely different form, everyone had new protocols to learn.
But Dahn? He was just plain avoiding me, and I didn’t understand why. Something had happened and he wouldn’t tell me what it was. I didn’t mind giving him space, as everyone deserved that, especially Datapoints. But I hated giving him space when Sullia so obviously wasn’t.
Every time I had sought out Dahn over the last two days, I’d found Sullia by his side. Sullia with one hand on his shoulder. Sullia whispering something intense and fierce just three inches from his face. And what was even worse, Sullia sitting silently alongside Dahn while both of them read. I didn’t understand what was happening. And I didn’t trust it.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just lost my only real ally on the entire Station. And I wasn’t even sure why.
And so I passed the time slowly. I spun unrealistic dreams of bribing one of our pilots to go rescue Daw and Treb. Or of stowing away myself, getting to them before the Authority could. Ripping out my integrated tech and disappearing with my sisters into the solar system.
Every one of those dreams ended up with me dead and my sisters in training. I couldn’t do it on my own. There was no chance of succeeding.
That night, I pulled my curtains closed on my bunk and stared listlessly at the ceiling. I’d just have to protect them as best as I could when they arrived. It was all I could do now. I realized that Dahn had been right all along. Being a member of the Authority was the only way to be in control of your own life.
Kupier didn’t come to sit at the edge of my bed that night. No, instead he slammed the curtain of my bunk closed behind him, breathing hard and looking wild-eyed. He squinted through the darkness as he put one knee up on the bed and brushed the sweat from his forehead. I’d had dozens of dreams about him since I’d come back to the Station, but this was a new one. I’d never seen him look quite so harried. Even so, I did what I usually did in my dreams. I rolled to the side so that he could stretch out and make himself comfortable alongside me, the way he always did.
This time, he didn’t.
Instead, he flashed those white, white teeth at me through the dark, and he gestured at the strip of bed I’d just vacated. “Is that an invitation?”
His voice was ragged with the breath that still pumped his chest up and down like a bellows.
I stared blankly at him. I waited for him to ask me about the Culling, the way he always did. To bring out the marble and hold it in the air, the way he always did.
He didn’t do either of those things.
“You don’t look surprised to see me,” he whispered, those electric blue half-moons bouncing back and forth between my eyes. He leaned forward, the knuckles of one hand pushing him up across the bed. He came close enough for me to catch his scent. “And actually, it’s starting to freak me out a little bit.”
“What?” I whispered back. He looked so clear, leaning through the shadows, the curtain of my bunk pulled closed behind him. “Wait.” I sat up. We were just two feet away from one another now. “Wait,” I repeated.
My hand shook as I extended it. I couldn’t remember a single other time in my life when my hand had shaken before. When just the very tips of my fingers touched his warm cheek, I ripped my hand back like I’d been burned.
“Oh God.” I let my breath out in a huff. “Oh my God. This isn’t a dream. I thought it was a dream. But – oh my God.”
Those white teeth flashed again, and he cocked his head to one side. “Been dreaming about me, huh?”
“Kupier,” I gasped, my eyes hot and tight the way they’d been when we’d talked on the com all those days ago. I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate. I lunged over the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him. My forehead jammed into his neck as I squeezed every breath of air right out of his chest. I heard him chuckle as his arms came around my back. He held me as tight as I held him.
“You smell like the Ray,” I huffed, and the words came out on a wave of strange, loose laughter.
“I’m gonna ta
ke that as a compliment.” He pulled back from the hug and the stubble on his chin scraped my temple.
“What the hell are you doing here?” There was something wet on my cheeks, and I thought it might be all of the anxiety I’d been going through this week. I thought it might be the pain of the interrogations. The raw fear and pressure of the simulation. I touched my cheek with my fingertips and pulled them away, astonished I was crying.
Kupier didn’t seem to think anything of it. He merely pulled his sleeve over the heel of his hand and roughly brushed the tears off my cheeks. “I’d love to explain it all, but maybe we could go somewhere? Someplace where I’m less likely to get tortured and then publicly beheaded?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “On the Station? That place doesn’t exist.”
“Luckily, I brought it with me.”
Kupier snuck me through the Station the way he’d snuck in. Apparently, the Station had a hell of a ventilation system. It wasn’t until we’d made it all the way back to the landing deck that I spoke again. My heart was thick and beating like a fist on a door. I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to spot us. It was craziness to be following him, but I couldn’t help but think that I really didn’t have any other choice. Kupier was my very last chance for saving my sisters.
“Kupier, where are we going? They’re going to notice us.”
“No…” he shook his head and tossed that grin around like he always did. “They won’t even see us.”
There was a huge supply skip that had docked earlier that day for some reason or another. I’d heard rumors that its computer systems were getting fully stripped and rebuilt. Even at this hour, technicians were circling it, taking notes and climbing on and offboard. It looked to me like they were finalizing the very last of the check. An alarm sounded briefly from one side of the landing deck. It was going to be taking off again soon.
Kupier and I kept to the shadows along the exterior wall. When we came around to the belly of the skip, where most of the supplies were kept, Kupier ducked from the wall through a small porthole that had been opened on the side. I was beginning to suspect that it was the same one that he’d snuck in on.
