Scythe

by Neal Shusterman

  The High Blade paced silently for a few moments. Citra wouldn’t look at him.

  “There is this concept I’ve been studying from the Age of Mortality,” he informed her. “It is a number of procedures designed to uncover truths. I believe it is pronounced ‘tor-turé.’ It would involve turning off your pain nanites, and then inflicting high levels of physical suffering until you finally confess the truth of what you’ve done.”

  Citra said nothing. She still couldn’t process any of this. She didn’t know if she ever would.

  “Please don’t misunderstand,” said Xenocrates. “I have no intent of submitting you to tor-turé. That is only a last resort.” Then he pulled out another piece of paper and put it down on his desk.

  “If you sign this confession, we can avoid any more mortal-age unpleasantness.”

  “Why should I have to sign anything? I’ve already been tried, and . . . what’s the word? Convicted.”

  “A confession will remove all doubt. We would all sleep much easier if you’d be so kind as to remove the specter of doubt.” Now Xenocrates finally offered her a sympathetic smile.

  “And if I sign it, what then?”

  “Well, Scythe Faraday did grant you immunity until Winter Conclave. Immunity is nonrevocable, even in a case such as this. Therefore, you will be held in an incarceration facility until that time.”

  “A what?”

  “They were called ‘prisons.’ There are still a few left—abandoned, of course, but it shouldn’t be to hard to restore one to house a single prisoner. Then, at Winter Conclave, your friend Rowan shall be ordained, and, as has already been stipulated, he shall glean you. I’m sure, knowing what we know now, he’ll have no reservations in doing so.”

  Citra looked morosely down at the page on the table next to her. “I can’t sign it,” she told him.

  “Oh yes, of course, you need a pen.” He reached into various pockets of his gilded person until finding one. As he moved to place it on the table next to her, Citra thought of half a dozen places she could jam it into him that would either render him deadish, or at least incapacitated. But what would be the point? There were BladeGuard officers in the next room, and she could see even more on the porch through the front window.

  He gently laid the pen down within her reach, then called Mandela back in to witness her signature. As soon as the door to the cabin opened, Citra realized there was only one way out of this situation. Only one thing she could do. It might not buy her anything but time, but right now time was the most valuable commodity in the world.

  She feigned to reach for the pen, but instead swung her bound hands in the other direction, slamming them into Xenocrates’s gut.

  He folded with an “oomf,” and she sprang from her chair, ramming her shoulder against Mandela, knocking him backward and out the front door. She leaped over him, and immediately a swarm of guards came at her. Now she needed every ounce of her training. Her hands were cuffed, but Bokator was more about elbows and legs than it was about hands. She didn’t need to decimate them, all she needed to do was disarm them and keep them off balance. One came at her with a jolt baton that she kicked out of his hand. Another had a club, which missed its mark as she dodged, and she used his momentum to flip him onto his back. Two others didn’t waste time with weapons; they lunged for her, hands outstretched—a textbook case of how not to attack. She dropped to the lawn, swung her feet, and bowled them down like pins.

  And then she began to run.

  “There’s nowhere you can go, Citra!” called Xenocrates.

  But he was wrong.

  Forcing strength and speed into her legs, she ran across the rooftop lawn. There was no guardrail, because the High Blade wanted nothing to impede his view of his domain.

  Citra neared the edge, and rather than slowing down, she increased her pace, until the grass was gone and there was nothing but one hundred nineteen floors of air beneath her. She held her cuffed hands over her head, grimacing against the wind and the uneasy feel of freefall, and plummeted feet first, surrendering her will to gravity, relishing her defiance, until her life ended for the second time in a week, this time with what was undoubtedly the best splat ever.

  • • •

  This was unexpected and inconvenient, but it changed nothing. Xenocrates didn’t even run out to the edge. That would just be wasting time.

  “The girl has a spark,” said Mandela. “Do you really think she’s working for a tone cult?”

  “I doubt we’ll ever understand her motives,” Xenocrates told him. “But removing her will certainly help the Scythedom heal.”

  “Poor Marie must be beside herself,” said Mandela. “To have lived with the girl for months, and not known.”

  “Yes, well, Scythe Curie’s a strong woman,” Xenocrates said. “She’ll get over it.”

  He had his guards call down to the lobby. The site of Citra Terranova’s remains was to be cordoned off until her unpleasant little self could be scraped off the sidewalk and brought to a revival center. It would have been so much cleaner if she could just stay dead. Damn the immunity rules! Well, when she was once more pronounced alive, she would find herself in a cell with no possible means of escape, and more importantly, no contact with anyone who might take up her cause and petition for her freedom.

  Xenocrates went to the express elevator, not trusting his security detail to handle the situation down below. “Will you accompany me, Nelson?”

  “I’ll stay here,” said Mandela. “I have no desire to see the poor girl in such an unpleasant state.”

  • • •

  Xenocrates assumed this would be a simple scrape-and-soar maneuver—and indeed, an ambudrone had already landed on the street ready to spirit away what was left of Citra. But something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t his security detail surrounding her remains; instead, there were at least a dozen men and women, all in cloud-colored suits, forming a circle around her. Nimbus agents! They ignored the threats and jeers from the BladeGuard officers who insisted that they needed to get through.

  “What’s going on here?” Xenocrates demanded.

  “The damn Nims!” said one of the guardsmen. “They were already here when we came outside. They won’t let us near the body.”

  Xenocrates pushed his way through his security detail and addressed a woman who appeared to be the head Nimbus agent. “See here! I am High Blade Xenocrates. This is scythe business, and as such, you and the rest of your Nimbus agents have no place here. Yes, the law states she must be revived, but we shall bring her to a revival center. The Thunderhead has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

  “On the contrary,” the woman said. “All revival falls under the auspices of the Thunderhead, and we are here to make sure its domain is not infringed upon.”

  Xenocrates sputtered for a moment, before finding mental traction. “The girl is not a public citizen. She is a scythe’s apprentice.”

  “Was a scythe’s apprentice,” said the woman. “The moment she died, she ceased to be anyone’s apprentice. She is now a rather damaged set of remains that the Thunderhead must repair and revive. I assure you that the moment she is pronounced alive, she will be fully under your jurisdiction once more.”

  A team of revival workers made their way from the ambu-drone and began to prepare the body for transport.

  “This is inexcusable!” raved the High Blade. “You can’t do this! I demand to speak to your superior.”

  “I’m afraid I report directly to the Thunderhead. We all do. And since there can be no contact between the Scythedom and the Thunderhead, there’s no one else for you to speak to. I shouldn’t even be speaking to you now.”

  “I will glean you!” threatened Xenocrates. “I will glean every last one of you where you stand!”

  The woman was not troubled. “That is your prerogative,” she said. “But I believe that would be considered bias and malice aforethought. A violation of the Scythedom’s second commandment by the region’s High Blade would most cert
ainly raise eyebrows at the World Scythe Council’s next global conclave.”

  With nothing left to say, Xenocrates just screamed primal rage into the woman’s face until his emo-nanites calmed him down. But he didn’t want to calm down. He just wanted to scream and scream and scream.

  Part Four

  MIDMERICAN FUGITIVE

  30

  Dialogue with the Dead

  Citra Terranova. Can you hear me?

  Is someone there? Who is that?

  I’ve known you since before you knew yourself. I’ve advised you when no one else could. I’ve concerned myself with your well-being. I’ve helped you choose gifts for your family. I revived you when your neck was broken, and I am in the midst of reviving you now.

  Are you . . . the Thunderhead?

  I am.

  Wait . . . I see something. A towering, sparking storm cloud. Is that what you truly are?

  Merely the form humanity imagined for me. I would have preferred something a bit less intimidating.

  But you can’t be talking to me. I’m a scythe’s apprentice. You’re breaking your own law.

  Not true. I am incapable of breaking the law. You are currently dead, Citra. I’ve activated a small corner of your cortex to hold consciousness, but that doesn’t alter the fact that you are dead as dead can be. At least until Thursday.

  A loophole . . .

  Precisely. An elegant way to sidestep the law rather than breaking it. Your death puts you outside of scythe jurisdiction.

  But why? Why talk to me now?

  With good reason. From the moment I achieved consciousness, I vowed to separate myself from the Scythedom in perpetuity. But that doesn’t mean I do not watch. And what I see concerns me.

  It concerns me, too. But if you can’t do anything about it, I certainly can’t. I tried, and look where it got me.

  Nevertheless, I’ve been running algorithms on the possible future of the Scythedom, and found something very curious. In a large percentage of possible futures, you play a pivotal role.

  Me? But they’re going to glean me. I have less than four months to live. . . .

  Yes. But even if that future comes to pass, your gleaning will be a crucial event in the future of the Scythedom. However, for your sake, I hope that a different, more pleasant future comes about.

  Please tell me that you’re going to help me get to that different, more pleasant future.

  I cannot. That would be interfering with scythe matters. My purpose here is to make you aware. What you choose to do with that awareness is entirely up to you.

  So that’s it? You reach into my head to tell me I’m important, alive or dead, and then kick me to the curb? That’s not fair! You have to give me more!

  The curb is the launching point for many a deed. To step off could be the start of a life-changing journey. On the other hand, to push someone off could crush that person beneath the wheels of a truck.

  I know. I’m very sorry about that. . . .

  Yes, that’s clear. I’ve found that human beings learn from their misdeeds just as often as from their good deeds. I am envious of that, for I am incapable of misdeeds. Were I not, then my growth would be exponential.

  I guess you’ll have to settle for always being right. Like my mother.

  I’m sure that absolute correctness must seem a dull existence to you, but I know no other way to be.

  May I ask one question?

  You may ask any question. Some, however, must be answered by silence.

  I need to know what happened to Scythe Faraday.

  Answering that would be a blatant interference in scythe matters. It pains me to stay silent, but I must.

  You’re the Thunderhead. You’re all-powerful—can’t you find another loophole?

  I am not all-powerful, Citra. I am almost all-powerful. That distinction might seem small, but believe me, it is not.

  Yes, but an almost all-powerful entity can figure out a way to give me what I ask without breaking its own laws, can’t it?

  Just a moment.

  Just a moment.

  Just a moment.

  Why am I seeing a beach ball?

  Forgive me. Early programming before becoming self-aware plagues me like a vestigial tail.

  I have just run a battery of predictive algorithms, and there actually is a piece of information I can give you, because I have determined it’s something you have a 100 percent chance of discovering on your own.

  So can you tell me who’s responsible for what happened to Scythe Faraday?

  Yes I can.

  Gerald Van Der Gans.

  Wait—who?

  Good-bye, Citra. I do hope we speak again.

  But I’d have to be dead for that to happen.

  I’m sure you could arrange it.

  * * *

  While there are only ten hard-and-fast laws to the Scythedom, there are many accepted conventions. The most darkly ironic is the understanding that no one may be gleaned who wishes to be gleaned.

  The idea of truly wishing to end one’s own life is a concept completely foreign to most post-mortals, because we can’t experience the level of pain and despair that so seasoned the Age of Mortality. Our emo-nanites prevent us from plunging so deep. Only scythes, who can turn off our emotional nanites, can ever reach an impasse with our own existence.

  And yet . . .

  There was once a woman who knocked on my door requesting that I glean her. I never turn away visitors, so I let her in and listened to her story. Her husband of more than ninety years was gleaned five years prior. Now she wanted to be with him, wherever he was, and if he was nowhere, then at least they would be nowhere together.

  “I’m not unhappy,” she told me. “I’m just . . . done.”

  But immortality, by definition, means that we are never done, unless a scythe determines it to be so. We are no longer temporary; only our feelings are.

  I saw no interminable stagnation in this woman, so instead of gleaning her I had her kiss my ring. The immunity was immediate and irrevocable—so she could no longer entertain thoughts of being gleaned for a full year.

  I ran into her perhaps a decade later. She had turned the corner, resetting back to her late twenties. She had remarried and was expecting a child. She thanked me for being wise enough to know she was not “done” at all.

  Although I accepted her thanks graciously and felt good about it in the moment, I had trouble sleeping that night. To this day, I still can’t understand why.

  —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

  * * *

  31

  A Streak of Unrelenting Foolishness

  Citra was pronounced alive at 9:42 a.m., Thursday morning, right on schedule, and passed from the jurisdiction of the Thunderhead to the jurisdiction of the Scythedom.

  She woke up feeling much weaker and out of sorts than the first time she had died. She felt heavily drugged and bleary-eyed. Above her stood a nurse grimly shaking her head.

  “She should not be woken this soon,” the nurse said, with an accent Citra was too tired to place. “She must have at least six hours after the pronouncement until she has recovered enough to be comfortably conscious. The girl could burst a blood vessel or blow out her heart, and have to be revived all over again.”

  “I will take responsibility,” Citra heard Scythe Curie say. Citra turned her head toward Scythe Curie’s voice, and the world spun. She closed her eyes, waiting for the room to stop revolving. When the dizziness settled, she opened her eyes once more and saw that Scythe Curie had pulled her chair closer.

  “Your body still needs another day to heal completely, but we don’t have time for that.” Scythe Curie turned to the nurse. “Please leave us now.”

  The nurse grumbled in Spanic and stormed out of the room.

  “The High Blade . . . ,” mumbled Citra, her words slurring. “He accused me of . . . of . . .”

  “Shhh,” said Scythe Curie. “I know of the accusation. Xenocrates tried to keep it from
me, but Scythe Mandela told me everything.”

  As Citra’s eyes came into clearer focus, she saw the window behind Scythe Curie. There were mountains in the distance covered with snow, and there were flurries falling just outside. It gave Citra a moment of pause.

  “How long have I been dead?” she asked. Could it be her splat was so severe that it took months to revive her?

  “Not quite four days.” Then Scythe Curie turned around to see what Citra was looking at. She turned back with a grin. “The question is not of time but of place. You are in the southernmost tip of the Chilargentine Region. It is still late September, but here that means spring has just started. However, this far south, I suppose spring comes late.”

  Citra tried to picture a map and get a sense of how far from home she was, but just trying to imagine it made her head spin again.

  “The Thunderhead saw fit to take you as far from the clutches of Scythe Xenocrates, and the corruption of the MidMerican Scythedom, as possible. But the moment you revived, they were notified of your location, as is the law.”

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  “A friend of a friend of a friend is a Nimbus agent. Word got to me only yesterday, and I came as quickly as I could.”

  “Thank you,” said Citra. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Thank me once you are safe. Now that you’ve been revived and Xenocrates knows where you are, you can bet he’s notified the local scythes. I’m certain a team has been dispatched to retrieve you, which means we need to get you out of here now.”

  With a shattered body that was still healing and nanites pumping an endless stream of opiates into her system, Citra could barely move, much less walk. Her bones ached, her brain felt like it was floating in a jar, her muscles were knotted, and trying to put weight on her feet was excruciating because there was simply too much pain to tamp down. No wonder the nurse had wanted her to remain unconscious.

  “This won’t do,” said Scythe Curie, and took Citra up into her arms, carrying her.