Thunderhead

by Neal Shusterman

“Complete your research on him,” Faraday instructed. “Write an anonymous epitaph and post it for all to read.”

  “Yes, Scythe Faraday,” Rowan said, finding a bit of unexpected honor in obedience to his old mentor.

  Satisfied, Faraday turned for the door.

  “What about you?” Rowan asked, part of him not wanting the scythe to go and leave him to his own thoughts. “Are you just going to vanish again?”

  “I have many things to do,” he told Rowan. “I am not old enough to have known Supreme Blade Prometheus and the founding scythes, but I do know the lore they left behind.”

  So did Rowan. “If this experiment of ours fails, we have embedded a way to escape it.”

  “Very good; you remember your readings. They planned a failsafe against a scythedom that falls to evil—but that plan has been lost to time. My hope is that it is not lost, but merely misplaced.”

  “You think you can find it?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not, but I think I know where to look.”

  Rowan considered it, and suspected he knew where Faraday planned to begin his search. “Endura?”

  Rowan knew very little about the City of the Enduring Heart, more commonly known as Endura. It was a floating metropolis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was the seat of power, where the seven Grandslayer scythes of the World Scythe Council lorded over the regional scythedoms around the world. As an apprentice, it had been too many layers above Rowan for him to care about. But as Scythe Lucifer, he now realized it should have been more than just a blip on his radar. His actions must have drawn the attention of the Grandslayers, even if they remained silent about it.

  But even as Rowan considered the part that the great floating city might play in the grand scheme of things, Scythe Faraday shook his head.

  “Not Endura,” he said. “That place was built long after the scythedom was founded. The place I’m looking for is much older than that.”

  And when Rowan drew a blank, Faraday grinned and said, “Nod.”

  It took a moment for Rowan to register it. It had been years since he had heard the rhyme. “The Land of Nod? But that place can’t be real—it’s just a nursery rhyme.”

  “All stories can be traced to a time and place—even the simplest, most innocent of children’s tales have unexpected beginnings.”

  It brought to mind another nursery rhyme Rowan remembered. Ring Around the Rosie. Years later, he had learned that it was all about some mortal-age disease called the black plague. The rhyme was just silliness without context, but once you knew what it was about—what each line meant—it made eerie sense. Children chanting about death in a macabre singsong.

  The rhyme for the Land of Nod didn’t make any sense either. As Rowan remembered, kids spoke it while circling one chosen to be “it.” And when the rhyme was over, the child in the center had to tag all the others. Then the last one tagged would be the new “it.”

  “There’s no evidence that Nod even exists,” Rowan pointed out.

  “Which is why it has never been found. Not even by the tone cults, who believe in it with the same fervor that they believe in the Great Resonance.”

  The mention of  Tonists killed any hope that Rowan would take Faraday seriously.  Tonists? Really? He had saved the lives of many Tonists on the day he killed Scythes Goddard, Chomsky, and Rand—but that didn’t mean he took any of their invented cultish beliefs seriously.

  “It’s ridiculous!” Rowan said. “All of it!”

  At that Faraday smiled. “How wise of the founders to hide a kernel of truth within something so absurd. Who among the rational would search for it there?”

  • • •

  Rowan did not sleep for the rest of the night. Every sound seemed amplified—even the sound of his own heartbeat became an unbearable thrumming in his ears. It wasn’t fear he felt, but weight.  The burden he had placed on himself to save the scythedom—and now the added news that Citra could be in danger.

  In spite of what the MidMerican scythes might think, Rowan loved the scythedom. The idea of the wisest and the most compassionate of all humans being the ones bringing life’s conclusion to balance immortality was a perfect idea for a perfect world. Scythe Faraday had shown him what a scythe truly should be—and many, many scythes, even the pompous, arrogant ones, still held themselves to the highest of values. But without those values, the scythedom would be a terrible thing. Rowan had been naive enough to believe he could prevent that. But Scythe Faraday knew better. Even so, this was the path Rowan had chosen for himself; to leave it now would be to admit failure. He was not ready to do that. Even if he couldn’t single-handedly prevent the fall of the scythedom, he could still remove what cancers he could.

  But he was so alone. Scythe Faraday’s presence gave him a brief moment of camaraderie, but that only made his isolation all the worse. And Citra. Where was she now? Her existence was being threatened, and what could he do about it? There had to be something.

  Only when dawn came did he finally sleep, and mercifully, his dreams were not of the turmoil he faced in his waking life, but were filled with memories of a simpler time, when his greatest troubles were grades and games and his best friend Tyger’s splatting habit. A time when the future yawned bright before him and he knew for a fact that he was invincible and could live forever.

  * * *

  There is no great mystery as to why I chose to set up Charter Regions with laws and customs different from those of the rest of the world. I simply understood the need for variety and social innovation. So much of the world has become homogeneous. Such is the fate of a unified planet. Native languages become quaint and secondary. Races blend into a pleasing mélange of all the best from each ethnicity, with only minor variations.

  But in Charter Regions, differences are encouraged and social experiments abound. I have established seven of these regions, one on each continent. Where possible, I have maintained the borders that defined the region during the age of mortality.

  I am particularly proud of the social experiments featured in each of these Charter Regions. For instance, in Nepal, employment is forbidden. All citizens are free to engage in any recreational activity they choose, and receive a Basic Income Guarantee much higher than in other regions, so that they do not feel slighted by an inability to actually earn a living.  This has resulted in a substantial rise in altruistic and charitable endeavors. One’s social status is not measured by wealth, but by one’s compassion and selflessness.

  In the Charter Region of Tasmania, each citizen is required to select a biological modification to augment their lifestyle—the most popular being gillform breathers that allow for an amphibious life, and lateral webbing much like that of the flying squirrel, which facilitates gliding as a sport and as self-propelled travel.

  Of course, no one is compelled to participate—people are free to leave or join a Charter Region as they please. In fact, the growth or decline of a Charter Region’s population is a good indication of how successful the region’s unique laws are. In this way, I can continue to improve the human condition, by broadly applying the most successful social programs to the rest of the world.

  And then there’s Texas.

  This is the region in which I dabble in benevolent anarchy. There are few laws, few consequences. I do not govern here as much as I stay out of people’s way, and watch what happens. The results have been mixed. I have seen people rise to be the finest versions of themselves, and others become victims of their own deepest flaws. I have yet to decide what is to be learned from this region. Further study is necessary.

  —The Thunderhead

  * * *

  14

  Tyger and the Emerald Scythe

  “You’ll have to do better than that, party boy.”

  The wild-eyed, wild-mannered scythe in bright green kicked Tyger Salazar’s legs out from under him, and he hit the mat hard. Why did they call the flimsy thing a mat when it was every bit as bruising as the teakwood floor of the penthouse s
undeck on which they sparred? Not that he minded. Even with his pain nanites dialed way down, he’d come to enjoy the endorphin rush that came with the pain of training. It was even better than splatting. Sure, jumping off high buildings could be addictive after a while, but so was hand-to-hand combat—and unlike splatting, fighting was different every time. The only variation he found in splatting was when he hit something on the way down.

  He was quickly on his feet and sparring again, getting in enough good blows to frustrate Scythe Rand. He got her off balance, took her down, and laughed—which only made her angrier. That was his intent. Her temper was her weakness. Even though she was far better than him in the brutal martial art of Black Widow Bokator, her temper made her sloppy and easy to outsmart. For a moment he thought she might run at him and start brawling. When her temper took over, she pulled hair, gouged eyes, and ripped at every exposed bit of flesh with nails that could score stone.

  But not today. Today, she kept her wildness in check.

  “Enough,” she said, backing out of the circle. “Hit the shower.”

  “You gonna join me?” Tyger teased.

  She smirked. “One of these days I’ll take you up on your offer and you won’t know what to do.”

  “You forget I’m a professional partier. I know a thing or two.” Then he took off his sweat-drenched shirt, letting his sculpted torso serve as a visual parting shot, and sauntered off.

  As he took his private shower, Tyger marveled at his enviable situation. He had fallen into something pretty sweet. When he arrived, he thought it would just be a normal gig. But there was no party, no guests besides him. It had been more than a month since his arrival, and the “gig” showed no signs of ending anytime soon—although he assumed if it truly was an apprenticeship, it would have to come to an end eventually. But in the meantime, he had the run of a lavish penthouse, and all the food he could eat. His only requirement was exercise and training. “Gotta buff out your body for the days ahead, party boy.” She never called him by his name. It was always “party boy” when she was in a good mood, and “maggot” or “meatbag” when she wasn’t.

  Although she never confessed her age, he guessed it at twenty-five—and a true twenty-five. There was something about an older person who reset back to their twenties that made them easy to spot. There was a staleness to their youth. But the emerald scythe was going through life for the first time.

  Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely convinced that the woman even was a scythe. She did have a scythe’s ring, and it appeared to be real, but he never saw her go out gleaning—and he knew enough about scythes to know they had a quota to fill. What’s more, she never met with other scythes. Wasn’t there some sort of meeting they were obliged to attend several times a year? Conclave, it was called. Well, perhaps this isolation was a Texas thing. Rules and traditions were different here than in the rest of the Mericas. They didn’t call it the Lone Star region for nothing.

  Regardless, he wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth. In a family where he had always been an afterthought at best, he had no problem being the center of someone’s attention.

  And he was strong now.  Agile.  A specimen to be envied and admired. So even if it was all for naught, and the emerald scythe turned him loose without as much as a goodbye-and-thank-you, he could return to the party circuit without missing a beat—and with a build like he had now, he’d be in high demand. His ripped physique would make him high-end eye candy for sure.

  And if he wasn’t let go, then what? Would he be given a ring and sent out to glean? Could he bring himself to do it? Sure, he had pulled his share of pseudo-lethal practical jokes—hadn’t everyone? He still smiled to think of his all-time best one. The diving pool at his high school had been drained for maintenance, and Tyger had the bright idea of filling it with holographic water. The school’s best diver went up to the ten-meter platform, and proceeded to do a perfect swan dive that ended in an unintentional splat. The moan he let out before he went deadish was classic. It was almost worth the three-day suspension and the six weekends of public service levied on him by the Thunderhead. Even the diver, after getting back from the recovery center a few days later, admitted it was a pretty good joke.

  But deadish and dead were two entirely different things. Did he have it in him to end life permanently, and do it every day? Well, maybe he could be like that scythe whom Rowan had apprenticed under. Scythe Goddard—who knew how to throw great parties. If that was part of the job description, Tyger could handle the rest of it, he supposed.

  Of course, Tyger wasn’t entirely convinced that this was an apprenticeship for scythehood. After all, Rowan had failed his apprenticeship. Tyger found it hard to believe that he could succeed where Rowan had not. Plus, Rowan had been changed by his experience. He had turned all dark and serious by the mental challenges he had been forced to face. There were no such mental challenges for Tyger. His brain was pretty much left out of it, and that was fine by him. It had never been his best organ.

  Perhaps he was being trained to be a scythe’s bodyguard, although he couldn’t imagine why a scythe would need one. No one was stupid enough to attack a scythe, when the punishment was the gleaning of one’s entire family. If that turned out to be the case, he wasn’t sure he would accept the job. All the severity with none of the power? The perks would have to be primo for him to agree to do it.

  • • •

  “I think you’re almost ready,” the emerald scythe told him over dinner that night. Her bot had just served them each a lean slab of steak—and real steak, not the synthesized stuff. Natural protein was, after all, the best for building muscle.

  “Ready for my ring, you mean?” he asked. “Or do you have something else in mind?”

  She offered him an enigmatic smile that he found more attractive than he wanted to admit. He hadn’t found her so when he first arrived, but there was something about the vicious, yet intimate nature of Bokator sparring that changed a relationship.

  “If it’s for a scythe’s ring, aren’t there trials I have to face in conclave?” he asked.

  “Trust me, party boy,” she said, “you’ll have that ring on your finger without ever having to go to conclave. You have my personal guarantee.”

  So he was going to be a scythe! Tyger ate the rest of his meal with gusto. It was both heady and chilling to finally know the nature of his destiny!

  Part Three

  ENEMIES WITHIN ENEMIES

  * * *

  Let’s all forsake,

  The Land of Wake,

  And break for the Land of Nod.

  Where we can try,

  To touch the sky,

  Or dance beneath the sod.

  A toll for the living,

  A toll for the lost,

  A toll for the wise ones,

  Who tally the cost,

  So let’s escape,

  Due south of  Wake,

  And make for the Land of Nod.

  —Nursery Rhyme (origin unknown)

  * * *

  15

  Hall of the Founders

  The Great Library of Alexandria—considered one of the wonders of the ancient world—was the crowning glory of Ptolemy’s reign. It was the intellectual center of the world, when the world was still the center of the universe and all else revolved around it. Unfortunately, the Roman Empire believed their version of the world was the center of the universe, and burned the library to the ground. It was considered one of the greatest losses of literature and wisdom that the world has ever known.

  Its rebuilding was the idea of the Thunderhead, and it mobilized thousands in a massive construction effort, providing them jobs and purpose for fifty years. When the great library was completed, it was as close a replica of the original as could be built, on the same spot where the first library stood. It was meant to be a reminder of what had been lost in the past, and a promise that knowledge would never be lost again now that the Thunderhead was there to protect it.

&
nbsp; Then, upon the library’s completion, it was seized by the scythedom to house its collection of scythes’ journals—the leather-bound parchment volumes that all scythes were required to keep every day of their lives.

  As the scythedom was free to do whatever it pleased, the Thunderhead could not stop it. It had to remain content in the knowledge that the library had, at least, been rebuilt. As for its ultimate purpose, that could be left in the hands of humankind.

  • • •

  Munira Atrushi, like most people in the world, had a job that was perfect in that it was perfectly ordinary. And like most everyone in the world, she didn’t hate her job, nor did she love it. Her feelings lingered somewhere near the center.

  She worked part-time at the Great Library of Alexandria, two nights a week, from midnight until six in the morning. Most of her days were spent in classes at the Cairo campus of the Israebian University, studying informational science. Of course, since all the world’s information had long ago been digitized and catalogued by the Thunderhead, a degree in informational science, like most other degrees, served no practical purpose. It would be a piece of paper framed on her wall. A permission slip to befriend others with similar functionless degrees.

  But she hoped having that piece of paper might give her enough prestige to convince the library to hire her as a full curator once she graduated—because unlike the rest of the world’s information, the journals of the scythes were not catalogued by the Thunderhead. The journals were still subject to clumsy human hands.

  Anyone who wanted to research the 3.5 million volumes of journals, collected since the first days of the scythedom, would have to come here—and they could come whenever they wanted, because the Great Library was open to the whole world, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year. Yet Munira found that few people took advantage of its accessibility. During daytime hours, there was only a scattering of academics doing research. There were plenty of tourists, but they were more interested in the library’s history and architecture. They had little interest in the volumes themselves, except as backdrops for photos.