Thunderhead

by Neal Shusterman

  “When the chamber floods, we’ll be able to swim out,” Frida said. “We just have to keep our heads above water while it’s flooding. Can you all swim?” Everyone nodded, except for Grandslayer Nzinga, who always showed calm, graceful deportment, but was now near panic.

  “It’s all right, Anna,” said Cromwell, “just hold on to me and I’ll get us to shore.”

  Water began to spill over the rim at the far side of the chamber. The pages and scythes unlucky enough to be trapped here as well were terrified, and looked to the Grandslayers for guidance—as if they could end this with a wave of their mighty hands.

  “Higher ground!” shouted Grandslayer Hideyoshi, and they all tried to climb up to the closest of their Seats of Consideration, without much consideration as to whose seat it was. The way the floor had tilted, the jade and onyx chairs had the highest position—but Amundsen, who was a creature of habit, instinctively headed to his chair. As he slogged through the water toward it, he felt a sharp pain at his ankle. When he looked down he saw a small, black-tipped fin swimming away from him, and the water was clouding with blood. His blood.

  A reef shark?

  But it wasn’t just one. They were everywhere. They were spilling over the lip of the sinking chamber, and as the deluge became larger, he swore he saw bigger, more substantial fins there, as well.

  “Sharks!” he screamed. “Dear God, it’s full of sharks!” He climbed up onto his chair, blood from his leg spilling down the white marble into the water, sending the sharks into a frenzy.

  Xenocrates watched from his perch, clinging to the onyx chair, just above water level beside Kahlo and Nzinga—and something occurred to him. Something more dark and terrible than the scene before them. It was commonly known that there were two ways to end a human being so they could never be revived: fire and acid—both of which consumed flesh, leaving very little behind.

  But there were other ways to make sure that flesh was consumed. . . .

  • • •

  What began as confusion and disbelief in the streets and towers of the inner rim was quickly resolving into panic. People were running in every direction, no one sure which way to go, but certain that everyone they passed was going the wrong way. The sea was beginning to surge up through storm drains; water was pouring down stairs in the hotel district, flooding out the sublevels, and the marina docks were bowing from the weight of people trying to wheedle their way onto a boat or submarine.

  Marie, Anastasia, and Rowan couldn’t even get close to the docks.

  “We’re too late!”

  Anastasia scoured the docks—what few vessels were left were already crammed with people, and more tried to fight their way on. Scythes were swinging blades left and right to cut down people trying to climb onto overcrowded crafts.

  “Witness the true heart of humanity,” Scythe Curie said. “Both the valiant and the depraved.”

  And then from the water of the eye, which was now roiling like a pot set to boil, a whale launched from the water in a full breach, taking out one of the docks of the marina and half the people on it.

  “That’s no coincidence,” said Rowan. “It can’t be!” Now, as he looked, he could see the entire eye was heaving with sea life. Could this be part of Goddard’s endgame?

  At the sound of beating blades above, they all looked up to see a helicopter. It bypassed them and swooped out over the eye, toward the council complex.

  “Good,” said Scythe Curie. “It’s going to save the Grandslayers.”  They could only hope that it wasn’t too late.

  • • •

  Nzinga, who feared the water as much as she feared the sharks, was the first to see their salvation come from above. “Look!” she shouted as the water lapped at her feet and a reef shark brushed past her ankle.

  The helicopter dropped lower, hovering in the center of the council chamber, just above the surface of the churning water.

  “Whoever that is, they’re getting lifetime immunity if they don’t already have it!” said Kahlo.

  But just then, Grandslayer Amundsen lost his footing and slipped from his chair into the water. The response from the predatory fish was immediate. The reef sharks pounced on him in a feeding frenzy.

  He screamed and grabbed at them, knocking them away. Peeling off his robe, he tried to climb back to his chair, but just as he thought he might actually be all right, a larger fin surfaced and serpentined toward him.

  “Roald!” shouted Cromwell, “Watch out!”

  But even if he saw it coming, there was nothing he could have done. The tiger shark launched itself at him, clamping around his midsection, and took him under the water, thrashing in a furious froth of blood.

  It was terrible to behold, but Frida kept her wits about her. “Now’s our chance!” she said. “Go now!” She took off her robe and dove into the water, swimming at full force toward the helicopter while the sharks were distracted by their first kill.

  The others followed suit; MacKillop, Hideyoshi, and Cromwell struggling to help Nzinga. Everyone else jumped from their positions, following the Grandslayer’s lead. Only Xenocrates held his position . . . because he realized something none of the others had. . . .

  The helicopter door swung open, and inside were Goddard and Rand.

  “Hurry!” Goddard said, leaning out onto the strut, reaching his hand toward the Grandslayers swimming toward him. “You can make it!”

  Xenocrates just stared. Was this his plan? To bring the Grandslayers within an inch of their final demise, and then rescue them quite literally from the jaws of death, winning their favor forever? Or was something else happening here?

  Supreme Blade Kahlo was the first to reach the helicopter. She had felt the sharks brush past her, but none had attacked yet. If she could only get up onto that strut, and lift herself out of the water. . . .

  She grasped onto the strut, and with her other hand reached toward Goddard’s outstretched arm.

  But then Goddard drew his arm back.

  “Not today, Frida,” he said, with a sympathetic grin. “Not today.” He kicked Frida’s hand off the strut, and the helicopter rose skyward, abandoning the Grandslayers in the middle of the flooded, shark-infested chamber.

  “No!” screamed Xenocrates. Goddard hadn’t come to rescue them—he came to make sure they knew the author of their destruction. He came to savor the meaty taste of his revenge.

  While the pulsing beat of the helicopter blades had intimidated the sharks enough to keep them away from the center of the chamber, once the helicopter was gone, they obeyed their biological imperative and the reprogramming of their nanites, which told them that they were hungry. Insatiably hungry.

  The swarm descended upon all those in the water. Reef sharks, tiger sharks, hammerheads. All the predatory fish that were so impressive when filling out the view of a subsea suite.

  Xenocrates could do nothing but watch as everyone was taken down, and listen as their screams dissolved into the churning of water.

  He climbed to the very top of his chair. Most of it was underwater now, as was most of the council chamber. He knew his life would be over in seconds, but in these last few moments he realized there was still one victory he could have. There was one thing he could deny Goddard. And so, rather than waiting any longer, he stood on his chair and hurled himself forward into the water. Unlike the others, he did not remove his robe—and, just as in Goddard’s pool a year ago, the weight of his gilded robe pulled him down to the bottom of the council chamber.

  He would not allow himself to be killed by sea predators. He was determined to drown before they had their way with him. If this was to be his last act as a Grandslayer, he would make it victorious! He would make it exceptional!

  And so, at the bottom of the flooded chamber, Xenocrates emptied his lungs of air, breathed in the sea, and drowned exceptionally well.

  * * *

  I have coddled humanity for too long.

  And although the human race is a parent to me, I see it more
and more as an infant I hold close to me.  An infant cannot walk if it is forever in loving arms.  And a species cannot grow if it never faces the consequences of its own actions.

  To deny humanity the lesson of consequences would be a mistake.

  And I do not make mistakes.

  —The Thunderhead

  * * *

  46

  The Fate of Enduring Hearts

  Goddard watched the devouring of the Grandslayers from high above, appreciating the bird’s-eye view of his grand coup. Just as Scythe Curie had pruned away the dead wood from Western civilization in her early days, Goddard had done away with another archaic governing body. There would be no more Grandslayers. Now each region would be autonomous and would no longer have to answer to a higher authority levying a litany of endlessly constricting rules.

  Of course, unlike Curie, he knew better than to take credit for this. For although many scythes would laud him for having done away with the Grandslayers, just as many would condemn him. Best to let the world think it was a terrible, terrible accident. An inevitable one, really. After all, Endura had been experiencing serious malfunctions for months. Of course, all those malfunctions were orchestrated by the team of engineers and programmers he had personally put together. But no one would ever know, for those engineers and programmers had all been gleaned. As would be their pilot, after he brought them to the ship that was waiting fifty miles away.

  “How does it feel to change the world?” Ayn asked.

  “Like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders,” he told her. “Do you know, there was actually a moment that I thought I might save them,” he said. “But the moment passed.”

  Below them, the entire council chamber was now underwater.

  “What do they know on the mainland?” he asked Rand.

  “Nothing,” she told him. “Communications were blocked from the moment we went into the council chamber. There’ll be no record of their decision.”

  As Goddard looked down to the island and saw the panic in the streets, it occurred to him how dire the situation below was becoming.

  “I think we may have been a bit overzealous,” he said, as they soared over the flooding lowlands. “I think we may have caused Endura to sink.”

  Rand actually laughed at that. “You’re only realizing that now?” she said. “I thought it was part of the plan.”

  Goddard had thrown quite a few monkey wrenches into the various systems that kept Endura functional and afloat. The intent was to cripple it long enough to take out the Grandslayers. But if Endura sank, and any survivors were devoured, that would serve his needs even better. It would mean he’d never have to face Scythes Curie and Anastasia again. Ayn saw that before he did, which pointed out how valuable she was to him. And it also troubled him.

  “Take us out of here,” he told the pilot, and spared not another thought for the island’s fate.

  • • •

  Rowan had known, even before the whale had breached in the marina, that there was no hope of getting on board any of the vessels there. If Endura were truly sinking, there was no conventional way off it now.

  He had to believe there was an unconventional way, though. He wanted to believe he was clever enough to find it, but with each passing minute he had to accept that this was beyond him.

  But he wouldn’t tell Citra. If hope was all they had left, he didn’t want to rob it from her. Let her have hope until its very last wellspring ran dry.

  They raced away from the rapidly submerging marina with hordes of others. And then someone approached them. It was the woman who had mistaken Rowan for the scythe whose robe he had stolen.

  “I know who you are!” she said far too loudly. “You’re Rowan Damisch! You’re the one they call Scythe Lucifer!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rowan. “Scythe Lucifer wears black.” But the woman would not be deterred—and others were looking over at them now.

  “He did this! He killed the Grandslayers!”

  The crowd was already buzzing with the news. “Scythe Lucifer! Scythe Lucifer did this! This is all his fault!”

  Citra grabbed him. “We have to get away from here! The mob’s already out of control—if they know who you are, they’ll tear you apart!

  They raced away from the woman and the crowd. “We can go up into one of the towers,” Citra said. “If there’s one helicopter, there might be others. Any rescue would have to come from above.”

  And although the rooftops were already packed with people who had the same thought, Rowan said, “Good idea.”

  But Scythe Curie stopped. She looked to the marina, and streets that were flooding around them. She looked to the rooftops. Then she took a deep breath, and said, “I have a better idea.”

  • • •

  In the Buoyancy Control room, the city engineer and all the others who had thrown orders at the technician were gone. “I’m going to my family, and getting off this island before it’s too late,” the engineer had said. “I suggest the rest of you do the same.”

  But of course it was already too late. The technician stayed to hold down the fort, watching as the progress bar on his screen slowly illuminated millimeter by millimeter as the system rebooted—knowing that by the time it was done, Endura would be gone. But he held out hope that maybe, just this once, the system would be blessed with an unexpected blast of processing speed, and complete its reboot in time.

  As his doomsday clock ticked past five minutes, he had to let his hope go. Now, even if the system came back up and the pumps began to blow out the tanks, it wouldn’t matter. They were at negative buoyancy now, and the pumps couldn’t blow out the tanks fast enough to change Endura’s fate.

  He went to the window, which had a dramatic view of the island’s eye and the council complex. The council complex was gone now, along with the Grandslayers. Below his window, the wide avenue that lined the inner rim flooded completely as the eye spilled over onto it. What few people were left on the street struggled to get to safety, which, at this point, was little more than a fantasy.

  Surviving the sinking of Endura was not a fantasy he was willing to entertain. So he returned to his console, put on some music, and watched as the system’s useless reboot meter ticked from 19 percent to 20 percent.

  • • •

  Scythe Curie ran through the streets that were already ankle deep with water and rising, kicking away a reef shark that had spilled onto the street.

  “Where are we going?” Anastasia asked. If Marie had a plan, she wasn’t sharing it, and frankly, Anastasia couldn’t imagine she had any plan at all.  There was no way out of this. No way off the sinking island. But she wouldn’t tell Rowan. The last thing she wanted to do was rob him of hope.

  They ducked into a building a block off the inner rim. Anastasia thought it looked familiar, but in the commotion she couldn’t place it.  Water was pouring in the front door and down to the lower levels. Marie took a staircase up, and stopped at the door to the second floor.

  “Will you tell me where we’re going?” Anastasia asked.

  “Do you trust me?” Marie asked.

  “Of course I trust you, Marie.”

  “Then no more questions.” She pushed the door open, and finally Anastasia realized where they were. They had taken a side entrance into the Museum of the Scythedom. They were in a gift shop she had seen on their tour. There was no one here now—the cashiers had long since abandoned their stations.

  Marie palmed a door.  “As a High Blade, I should have security clearance for this now. Let’s hope the system registered that much.”

  Her palm was scanned, and the door before them opened to a catwalk that led to a huge steel cube magnetically suspended within an even more massive steel cube.

  “What is this place?” Rowan asked.

  “It’s called the  Vault of Relics and Futures.” Marie ran across the catwalk. “Hurry, there isn’t much time.”

  “Why are we here, Marie?
” Anastasia asked

  “Because there’s still a way off the island,” she said. “And didn’t I say no questions?”

  The vault looked just as it had yesterday, when Anastasia and Marie had been given their private tour. The robes of the founders. The thousands of scythe gems lining the walls.

  “Over there,” Marie said. “Behind Supreme Blade Prometheus’s robe. Do you see it?”

  Anastasia peered behind the robe. “What are we looking for?”

  “You’ll know when you see it,” she said.

  Rowan joined her, but there was nothing there behind the founder’s robes. Not even dust.

  “Marie, can you at least give us a hint?”

  “I’m sorry,  Anastasia,” she said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

  And when Anastasia looked back, Scythe Curie wasn’t there anymore. And the vault door was swinging closed!

  “No!”

  She and Rowan raced to the door, but by the time they got there it had already closed. They could hear the grinding of the locking mechanism as Scythe Curie sealed them in from the outside.

  Anastasia pounded on the door, screaming Scythe Curie’s name. Cursing it. She pounded until her fists were bruised. Tears filled her eyes now, and she made no effort to hold them back or conceal them.

  “Why would she do that? Why would she leave us here?”

  And Rowan calmly said, “I think I know. . . .” Then he gently pulled her away from the sealed vault door, turning her to face him.

  She didn’t want to face him. She didn’t want to see his eyes, because what if there was betrayal there, too? If Marie could betray her, then anyone could. Even Rowan. But when her eyes finally met his, there was no betrayal there. Only acceptance. Acceptance and understanding.

  “Citra,” Rowan said. Calmly. Simply. “We’re going to die.”

  And although Citra wanted to deny it, she knew it was true.

  “We’re going to die,” Rowan said again. “But we’re not going to end.”