فصل 19

If you’ve ever studied mortal age cartoons, you’ll remember this one. A coyote was always plotting the demise of a smirking long-necked bird. The coyote never succeeded; instead, his plans always backfired. He would blow up, or get shot, or splat from a ridiculous height.

And it was funny.

Because no matter how deadly his failure, he was always back in the next scene, as if there were a revival center just beyond the edge of the animation cell.

I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects, trip into the paths of speeding vehicles.

And when it happens, people laugh, because no matter how gruesome the event, that person, just like the coyote, will be back in a day or two, as good as new, and no worse—or wiser—for the wear.

Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

19

A Terrible Thing to Do

Citra wasn’t sure what possessed her to bring up the question she had been asked at conclave. Perhaps it was the unexpected closeness she felt to Scythe Curie after seeing her feed the grieving family and listen—truly listen—to their stories about the man she had gleaned.

That night, Scythe Curie came into Citra’s room with clean sheets. They made her bed together, and just as they finished, Citra said, “In conclave you accused me of lying.” “You were,” Scythe Curie said.

“How did you know?”

Scythe Curie didn’t offer a smile, but she didn’t offer any judgment either. “When you’ve lived nearly two hundred years, some things are obvious.” She tossed Citra a pillow and Citra stuffed it into a pillowcase.

“I didn’t push that girl down the stairs,” Citra said.

“I suspected as much.”

Citra now clutched the pillow. If it were alive, she would have suffocated it. “I didn’t push her down the stairs,” Citra repeated. “I pushed her in front of a speeding truck.” Citra sat down, turning away from Scythe Curie. She couldn’t look the woman in the face, and now she regretted having confessed this dark secret from her childhood. If the Grande Dame of Death sees you as a monster, what a monster you must truly be.

“What a terrible thing to do,” said the scythe, but her voice was even, not shocked. “Was she killed?” “Instantly,” Citra admitted. “Of course, she was back in school three days later, but it didn’t change what I had done. . . . And the worst thing was, no one knew. People thought she had tripped, and all the other kids were laughing—because you know how funny it is when someone gets deadish by accident—but it wasn’t an accident, and no one knew. No one saw me do it. And when she came back, she didn’t even know.” Citra forced herself to look at the Grande Dame of Death, who now sat in a chair across the room from her, gazing at Citra with those invasive gray eyes.

“You asked me the worst thing I’ve ever done.” Citra said. “Now you know.” Scythe Curie didn’t speak right away. She just sat there, letting the moment linger. “Well,” Scythe Curie finally said, “we’re going to have to do something about that.” • • •

Rhonda Flowers was in the middle of a midafternoon snack when the doorbell rang. She didn’t think anything of it until a few moments later, when she looked up to see her mother standing at the kitchen threshold with a look of such abject pain on her face, it was clear that something was very wrong.

“They . . . they want to see you,” her mother announced.

Rhonda slurped the ramen noodles that were dangling from her mouth and got up. “Who’s they?” Her mother didn’t answer. Instead she threw her arms around Rhonda, giving her a bone-crushing hug, and melted into sobs. Then over her mother’s shoulder, Rhonda saw them. A girl about her age, and a woman in a lavender garment—clearly in the style of a scythe’s robe.

“Be brave . . . ,” her mother whispered desperately into Rhonda’s ear.

But bravery was about as far away as terror. There simply wasn’t enough time to summon either fortitude or fear. All Rhonda felt was a sudden tingling in her extremities and a dreamy disconnect, as if she were watching a scene from someone else’s life. She left her mother and moved toward the door, where the two figures waited.

“You want to see me?”

The scythe, a woman with silky silver hair and a steely gaze, smiled. Rhonda never considered that a scythe might smile. On the rare occasions she’d encountered them, they always seemed so somber.

“I don’t, but my apprentice does,” the woman said, indicating the girl. But Rhonda couldn’t take her eyes off of the scythe.

“Your apprentice is going to glean me?”

“We’re not here for gleaning,” said the girl.

Only after hearing that did the terror Rhonda should have felt finally blossom. Her eyes filled with tears that she quickly wiped away, as relief followed on terror’s tail. “You could have told my mother that.” She turned and called to her mother. “It’s okay, they’re not here to glean.” Then she stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind her, knowing if she didn’t, her mother would eavesdrop on whatever this was about. She had heard that traveling scythes would show up at people’s doors asking for shelter and food for the night. Or sometimes they needed information from people for reasons she could only guess at. But why would they specifically want to speak to her?

“You probably don’t remember me,” said the girl, “but we used to go to school together years ago—before you moved here.” As Rhonda studied the girl’s face, she pulled forth the vaguest memory, and tried to grasp at a name. “Cindy something, right?” “Citra. Citra Terranova.”

“Oh, right.”

And then the moment became awkward. As if standing on your porch with a scythe and her apprentice wasn’t awkward enough already.

“So . . . what can I do for . . . Your Honors?” She wasn’t sure if an apprentice warranted the title of “Your Honor,” but it couldn’t hurt to err on the side of respect. Now that she had time to let her face and name sink in, Rhonda did remember Citra. As she recalled, they didn’t like each other very much.

“Well, here’s the thing,” said Citra. “Do you remember that day when you fell in front of that truck?” Rhonda gave an involuntary shift of her shoulders. “Like I could possibly forget it. After I got back from the revival center, everybody called me Rhonda Roadkill for months.” Getting run over by a truck was perhaps the most annoying thing that had ever happened to her. She was deadish for three whole days, and ended up missing every last performance of her dance recital. The other girls said they did fine without her, which just made it worse. The only good thing about it was the food at the revival center on the day she regained consciousness. They had the best homemade ice cream—so good that she once splatted just to get another taste of it. But of course, leave it to her parents to send her to a cheapo revival center with sucky food.

“So you were there when it happened?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Citra said for the second time. Then she took a deep breath and said, “It wasn’t an accident. I pushed you.” “Ha!” said Rhonda, “I knew it! I knew someone pushed me!” At the time her parents had tried to convince her that it was unintentional. That someone had bumped her. Eventually she came to believe it, but in the back of her mind she always held on to a little bit of doubt. “So it was you!” Rhonda found herself smiling. There was victory in knowing that she hadn’t been crazy all these years.

“Anyway, I’m sorry,” Citra said. “I’m really, really sorry.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Citra repeated, like it was a nervous tick. “Being a scythe’s apprentice means I have to make amends for my . . . well, for my past bad choices. And so . . . I want to give you the chance to do the same thing to me.” She cleared her throat. “I want you to push me in front of a truck.” Rhonda guffawed at the suggestion. She didn’t mean to; it just came out. “Really? You want me to throw you in front of a speeding truck?” “Yes.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“And your scythe is okay with that?”

The scythe nodded. “I support Citra entirely.”

Rhonda considered the proposal. She supposed she could. How many times had there been someone in her life she wanted to dispose of—even just temporarily? Just last year she had come remarkably close to “accidentally” electrocuting her lab partner in science because he was such an ass. But in the end she realized that he’d get a few days vacation, and she’d have to finish the lab alone. This situation was different. It was a free revenge ticket. The question was, how badly did she want revenge?

“Listen, it’s tempting and all,” said Rhonda, “but I’ve got homework, and dance class later.” “So . . . you don’t want to?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, I’m just busy today. Can I throw you under a truck some other time?” Citra hesitated. “Okay . . .”

“Or better yet, maybe you can just take me out to lunch or something.” “Okay . . .”

“Just next time, please give us some warning so you don’t freak out my mother.” Then she said good-bye, stepped inside, and closed the door.

“How bizarre . . . ,” said Rhonda.

“What was that all about?” her mother asked.

And since she didn’t want to get into it, Rhonda said, “Nothing important,” which irritated her mother, just as it was intended to.

Then she went back to the kitchen, where she found her ramen had gotten cold. Great.

• • •

Citra felt both relieved and humiliated at once. For years she had held onto this secret crime. Her gripe with Rhonda had been petty, as most childhood resentments are. It was the way Rhonda always spoke of her dancing as if she were the most talented ballerina in the world. Citra was in the same dance class, back in that magical childhood time when little girls nurtured the delusion that they were as graceful as they were cute.

Rhonda had led the pack in disabusing Citra of that delusion through eyeball rolls and exasperated exhales each time Citra took an imperfect step.

The push wasn’t premeditated. It was a crime of opportunity, and that one act had cast a shadow over Citra that she hadn’t even realized until she faced the girl today.

And Rhonda didn’t even care. It was water under a very old bridge. Citra felt stupid about the whole thing now.

“You realize that in the Age of Mortality, you would have been treated much differently.” Scythe Curie didn’t look at her as she spoke—she never looked away from the road when she was driving. Citra was still getting used to the odd habit. How strange to actually have to see the path of your journey in order to make it.

“If it was the Age of Mortality, I wouldn’t have done it,” Citra told her with confidence, “because I’d know she wouldn’t be back. Pushing her then would have been more like gleaning.” “They had a word for it. ‘Murder.’”

Citra chuckled at the archaic word. “That’s funny. Like a bunch of crows.” “I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time.” She did a quick maneuver to avoid a squirrel on the winding road. Then Scythe Curie took a rare moment to glance over at Citra, when the road ahead straightened. “So now the penance you’ve given yourself is to be a scythe, forever doomed to take lives as punishment for that one childhood act.” “I didn’t give it to myself.”

“Didn’t you?”

Citra opened her mouth to answer, but then stopped. Because what if Scythe Curie was right? What if, deep down, Citra had accepted the apprenticeship with Scythe Faraday to punish herself for the crime only she cared about. If so, it was an unusually harsh judgment. Had she been caught, or had she confessed, her punishment would have been a short suspension from school, at most, plus a fine for her parents, and a stern reprimand. It would even have had an up side: Her schoolmates would have been afraid to cross her.

“The difference between you and most other people, Citra, is that another person would not have cared once that girl was revived. They would have simply forgotten about it. Scythe Faraday saw something in you when he chose you—perhaps the weight of your conscience.” And then she added, “It was that same weight that let me know you were lying in conclave.” “I’m actually surprised the Thunderhead didn’t see me push her,” Citra said off-handedly.  Then the scythe said something that began a chain reaction in Citra’s mind that changed everything.

“I’m sure it did,” she said. “The Thunderhead sees just about everything, what with cameras everywhere. But it also decides what infractions are worth the effort to address and which ones are not.” • • •

The Thunderhead sees just about everything.

It had a record of practically every human interaction since the moment it became aware—but unlike in mortal days, that knowledge was never abused. Before the Thunderhead achieved consciousness, when it was merely known as “the cloud,” criminals—and even public agencies—would find ways into people’s private doings, against the law, and exploit that information. Every school child knew of the information abuses that nearly brought down civilization before the Thunderhead condensed into power. Since that time there had not been a single breach of personal information. People waited for it. People prophesized doom at the hands of a soulless machine. But apparently the machine had a purer soul than any human.

It watched the world from millions of eyes, listened from millions of ears. It either acted, or chose not to act on, the countless things it perceived.

Which meant that somewhere in its memory lurked a record of Scythe Faraday’s movements on the day his life ended.

Citra knew it was probably a pointless endeavor to track those movements, but what if Faraday’s demise was not an act of self-gleaning at all? What if he was pushed, just as Citra had pushed Rhonda all those years ago? But this wouldn’t have been a childish crime of the moment. It would have been cruelly premeditated. What if Faraday’s death was, to use the word Scythe Curie had taught her, murder?