by Ramona Finn
It was nearly ten hours after I landed the capsule ship on the landing deck when I was able to track down Dahn.
Any guesses who was by his side?
I tried not to let it hurt that he and Sullia were running a simulation together. I tried not to let it hurt when I walked into the simulation room and watched as he bent his head over the same screen that she did. The two of them whispering about the things that had just happened in the simulator.
It was Sullia who noticed I was there. Her hair was mostly purple these days, and it suited her even better than the pink had. It was longer than it had been all those months ago when we’d been captive on the Ray. So much had changed since then.
I expected a biting comment from Sullia. But it wasn’t what I got. Instead, I saw something much worse in her eyes. Hatred.
“You’re going to get us all killed, Glade.” She strode up to me, almost nose to nose. “You accuse me of being an opportunist. Of being a snake. But you’re the one playing both sides. And don’t even pretend that you aren’t! I don’t know what your end game is. But I know that you don’t give a shit if we end up in a war with the Ferrymen. In fact, maybe that’s what you’re hoping for.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her. “Get to the point, Sullia. This speech is high and mighty, but we both know you don’t care about the fate of the Authority or the solar system.”
I thought she might strike me, but she didn’t. She took one step back from me and then another. “You’re not the chosen one, Glade. No one is. I don’t care who you are or what they think you can do. You don’t have it in you to cull an entire solar system. It doesn’t matter what happens with you or,” she narrowed her eyes threateningly, “to you. Because I’m gonna be there. I’ll be there to do everything that you can’t do. It’ll be me they’re celebrating this time next year. Not some weak Ioan who never should have been selected to be a Datapoint.”
“Take a walk, Sullia.” Dahn pinched the bridge of his nose in between his fingers as if her speech were giving him a headache.
“Excuse me?” She whirled on him.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re being insubordinate to a superior officer. You’re threatening the Datapoint the entire Culling is being reconstructed around. And you’re just generally being kind of an asshole.”
I thought for a minute that Sullia was going to throat-punch him. Not that she would have been able to get the hit in – Dahn was fast.
But after a few tense seconds, she just stormed out. “Screw you both.”
Dahn and I looked at one another for a minute after she’d left. “Why are you spending time with her?” I couldn’t help but ask him.
Immediately, I felt the awkwardness between us bloom again. I remembered that he’d barely talked to me since I’d gotten out of the infirmary after the simulation. After Haven had announced I was the chosen one. His eyes were flat as he started shutting down the simulator for the night.
“Because I understand her,” he said after a minute. His back was to me. “Sullia isn’t honest. She’s not pleasant. You’re right that she’s a snake who would strike me down without hesitation. But I trust that she’ll always be like that. I know what I’m getting.”
I let out a long breath. “And you’re saying that you don’t trust me.”
“Of course I do!” he snapped, turning on me. The insulted fury in his eyes went a long way toward soothing me. The tidal wave settled a little. “I just wish that I didn’t. Because I don’t know what you’ll do next.”
He stiffened as I crossed the room in three long strides. His body readied for an attack. It was with Kupier’s voice in my ear that I flung my arms around Dahn’s middle. It was like hugging a tree trunk. And it took at least ten seconds of sustained contact before one of his arms banded around me. But it was a light touch, as if he were worried he’d break me. Ironic, considering all the sparring we’d done, where he actually had been trying to break me.
“I was wrong,” I spoke into the air next to his shoulder as I pulled back from our hug. Our lovely, stiff, Datapoint hug.
There was red creeping up Dahn’s neck and he had to clear his throat before speaking. “About what?”
“When I said that Datapoints can’t love. I was wrong about that. I love my sisters. My mother.” I took a deep breath before punching him lightly in the arm. “And I love my family here on the Station. Who trust me against their better judgement.”
Dahn’s eyes held mine. They went from being soft to frustrated and back to soft. Some of his long, dark hair had come loose and he quickly tied it back, the tech at his temples catching the light. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t understand you, Glade Io.”
I reached out, and instead of touching him skin to skin, I did something I’d never done before. I gently clacked the integrated tech on my arm against the tech on his arm. Our computers shivered at the contact and I watched Kupier’s hidden com catch the light.
“That’s because we’re human, Dahn.”
Epilogue
Four days after I’d returned the capsule, Kupier sat at the foot of my bed. It was the first night he’d visited my dreams since I’d last seen him. I knew it was a dream because he turned his blue marble into a blue blanket that covered us both.
“I found a planet that no one has discovered before,” he whispered. “It’s called Earth. You’ll never believe how beautiful she is.”
I laughed. “Kupier, the human race began on Earth. Everyone knows about it.”
“No,” he shook his head. “Not the Earth that I found. I can show you a different side that no one has ever seen before.”
I woke up frowning. And I found that I believed him.
I didn’t sleep any more that night, and it was almost time to get out of bed when I felt a strange tickle creep up my back. My tech was telling me something that I’d never felt before. It was the gentlest whisper.
The com. Suddenly, I knew it in my bones. It was the com talking to me. I slammed the blankets over my head and flicked the Ferrymen’s com off my tech.
Sure enough, words flashed across the screen.
DP-1. I joined up with the Ray. We’re just hours away from Io. I’ll let you know when we have Daw and Treb. Be safe.
I squeezed my eyes closed, just once. Something was rearranging inside of me. It was that mountain I called a heart. All the stones that had shaken loose during the Culling on Europa… I felt them gathering, finding their places again.
I knew that once my sisters were safe I was going to have some questions to ask myself. Questions I couldn’t afford to ask while they were still in jeopardy. Questions about who I believed. And, more importantly, who I fought for.
For a brief, fantastical second, I imagined Kupier and Dahn standing aboard the Ray together.
Yeah.
Never going to happen.
I dragged myself out of bed. Dahn had agreed to keep training with me. More for something to do than for the practice. But I was glad for the reason to see him every day. And I was glad he wasn’t avoiding me anymore.
It was when I got out of the simulator an hour or so later that I found Dahn frowning at me, a complicated expression on his face. It was like he didn’t want to look at me, but he was making himself.
“Sir Haven wants to see you. He just called.”
“Okay.” I paused in front of Dahn. “I’ll see you later?”
He hesitated for just a second, that hard look on his face slowly melting. “Yes. Sure. Definitely.”
I knew he watched me go.
Haven was sitting in his blue chair when I got there. “Glade, I’ll get right to it. I have good and bad news for you.”
My brain shorted out as I lowered myself into the chair. For one, horrified second, I thought that Haven might be reaching out for my hand. But instead he just crossed his legs and leaned toward me.
“The good news is that your sisters are safe. I know how you worry for their welfare. They
withstood an attack from the Ferrymen. They were almost abducted. But members of the Authority security had been assigned to protect them, and you needn’t worry. They are completely safe, and in Authority custody on Io right now.”
Kupier.
I could barely think. It had gone wrong. Kupier hadn’t gotten my sisters. God. What had happened to Kupier? To the Ray? To the rest of the crew? My fingers itched to reach out to my silent com, but I restrained myself, knowing that Haven would track the movement.
“And the bad news?” I barely recognized my voice. It was like someone had coated my vocal chords in ice.
“I’m sorry to tell you that your mother perished in the course of the attack.” He paused as if he were in genuine pain. “She was killed by Ferrymen.”
I made it back to my bunk somehow. Maybe I crawled; maybe I floated. I’d never know. I knew just one thing while I lay there with the curtains closed, my com silent no matter how many messages I was sending to Kupier.
Haven was lying.
I knew, in my heart, that the Ferrymen hadn’t killed my mother. I knew who had.
I slapped the com back onto my tech. Hiding it from the world. My heart shook in my chest as my body refused to absorb the fact that my mother had died. It was unbelievable, indigestible. Unreal.
I grabbed onto the only thing I could as my entire world shifted beneath me. The Authority had culled my father. Tortured me. Captured my sisters. And now they’d killed my mother.
I didn’t care if there was a virus or not. I was going to destroy that Database. Yank it out at the root, burning it to the ground.
End of The Culling
THE CULLING BOOK ONE
Who gets Culled next?
Find out when The Authority (book two of The Culling series) is released January 10th 2018. The Authority is available for pre-order here.
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