فصل 30

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.