فصل 10

10

Gone Deadish

Greyson had never lost his life before. Most kids got deadish at least once or twice growing up. They took more chances than kids had in the mortal days because the consequences were no longer permanent. Death and disfigurement had been replaced by revival and reprimand. Even so, Greyson had never leaned toward recklessness. Certainly he’d had his share of injuries, but his cuts and bruises and even his broken arm had been summarily healed in less than a day. Losing his life was a very different kind of experience, and not one he cared to repeat any time soon. And he remembered every last bit of it, which made it even worse.

The sharp pain of being struck by the car was already being numbed as he was launched into the air over the car’s roof. Time seemed to slow as he tumbled. There was another jolt of pain when he met the asphalt, but even then, it was one step removed from the real thing—and by the time Scythe Anastasia had reached him, the screams of his devastated nerve endings had been tamped down to a muffled discomfort. His broken body wanted to hurt, but it was forbidden to. He remembered thinking, in his opiate-induced delirium, how sad it must be for a body to want something so badly and to be completely denied.

The morning leading up to his road-splat took a sharp turn from where he expected it to go. The way he saw it, he would simply take a publicar to the scythes’ door, warn them that there was a threat to their lives, and then be on his merry way. The threat would be theirs to deal with as they saw fit. If he was lucky he’d get away with it, and no one—least of all the Authority Interface—would know what he had done. That was the point of this whole thing, wasn’t it? Plausible deniability? The AI wouldn’t be breaking the law if Greyson acted of his own free will, and would be none the wiser if no one saw him do it.

Of course the Thunderhead would know. It tracked the movements of every publicar, and always knew precisely where anyone was at any given time. But it also imposed upon itself very strict laws regarding personal privacy. It would not act on information that violated a person’s right to privacy. Funny, but the Thunderhead’s own laws allowed Greyson to freely break the law, as long as he did so in private.

But his plans took an unexpected turn when his publicar pulled to the side of the road half a mile from Fallingwater.

“I’m sorry,” the car told him in its familiar cheery tone. “Publicars are not permitted on private roads without the owner’s permission.” The owner was, of course, the scythedom—which never gave anyone permission for anything, and was known to glean people for asking.

So Greyson had gotten out of the car to walk the rest of the way. He had been admiring the trees, pondering their age, wondering how many of them had been here since the Age of Mortality. It was only luck that he looked down when he did, and caught sight of the wire in his path.

He saw the explosives only seconds before he heard the approaching car, and knew there was only one way to stop the car from barreling through. He didn’t think, he just acted—because even the slightest hesitation would have permanently ended all of them. So he hurled himself into the road, and surrendered himself to the time-honored physics of bodies in motion.

Going deadish felt like wetting his pants (which he may have actually done), and sinking into a giant marshmallow so dense he couldn’t breathe. The marshmallow gave way to something like a tunnel that came around on itself like a snake swallowing its own tail, and then he was opening his eyes in the soft, diffused light of a revival center.

His first emotion was relief, because if he was being revived it meant that the explosion had not gone off. If it had, there wouldn’t be anything left of him to bring back. Being here meant that he had succeeded! He had saved the lives of Scythes Curie and Anastasia!

The next emotion that hit him was a twinge of sorrow . . . because there was no one in the room with him. When a person was rendered deadish, their loved ones were always notified immediately. It was customary for someone to be present upon awakening to welcome the revived back into the world.

No one was there for Greyson. On the screen beside his bed was a goofy greeting card from his sisters, featuring a confused magician looking at the very dead body of his assistant, whom he had just sawed in half.

“Congratulations on your first demise,” the card read.

And that was it. There was nothing from his parents. He should not have been surprised. They were too used to the Thunderhead filling their role—but the Thunderhead was also silent. That troubled him more than anything.

A nurse entered. “Well, look who’s awake!”

“How long did it take?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Barely a day,” she told him. “All considered, a pretty easy revival—and since it’s your first, it’s free!” Greyson cleared his throat. He felt no worse than if he had taken a midday nap; a little out of sorts, a little cranky, but that was the full extent of it.

“Has there been anyone here to see me at all?”

The nurse pursed her lips. “Sorry, dear.” Then she looked down. It was a simple gesture, but Greyson clearly read that there was something she wasn’t saying.

“So . . . is that it, then? Do I get to go now?”

“As soon as you’re ready, we’ve been instructed to put you into a publicar that will take you back to the Nimbus Academy.” Again that look, avoiding his eyes. Rather than beating around the bush, Greyson decided to confront her directly. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” The nurse now began to refold towels that were already folded. “It’s our job to revive you, not to comment on whatever you did to leave you deadish.” “What I did was save two people’s lives.”

“I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it, I don’t know anything about it. All I know is that you’ve been marked unsavory because of it.” Greyson was convinced he hadn’t heard her right.

“ ’Unsavory’? Me?”

Then she was all smiles and cheer again. “It’s not the end of the world. I’m sure you’ll clean the slate in no time . . . if that’s what you want.” Then she clapped her hands together as if to wash herself of the situation, and said, “Now how about some ice cream before you go?” • • •

The publicar’s preset destination was not Greyson’s dorm. It was the Nimbus Academy’s administration building. Upon arrival, he was ushered directly into a conference room with a table large enough for about twenty, but there were only three present: the chancellor of the academy, the dean of students, and another administrator whose sole purpose seemed to be glowering at him like an irritated Doberman. This was bad news coming in threes.

“Sit down, Mr. Tolliver,” said the chancellor, a man with perfect black hair, intentionally gray around the edges. The dean tapped her pen on an open folder, and the Doberman just glared.

Greyson took a seat facing them.

“Do you have any idea,” said the chancellor, “the trouble you’ve brought down upon yourself and this academy?” Greyson did not deny it. Doing so would just drag this on, and he already wanted it over. “What I did was an act of conscience, sir.” The dean let out a rueful guffaw that was both insulting and belittling.

“Either you’re exceedingly naive, or exceptionally stupid,” spat the Doberman.

The chancellor put up a hand to quiet the man’s vitriol. “A student of this academy willfully engaging scythes, even to save those scythes’ lives, is—” Greyson finished it for him. “—a violation of the Separation of Scythe and State. Clause fifteen, paragraph three, to be exact.” “Don’t be a smart-ass,” said the dean. “It won’t help your case.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, I doubt anything I say will help my case.” The chancellor leaned closer. “What I want to know is how you knew—because it seems to me the only possible way you could have known would be if you were involved, and then got cold feet. So tell me, Mr. Tolliver, were you involved in this plot to incinerate these scythes?” The accusation caught Greyson completely off guard. It never occurred to him that he might be perceived as a suspect. “No!” he said. “I would never—how could you even think?—No!” Then he shut his mouth, determined to get himself back under control.

“Then be so kind as to tell us how you knew about the explosives,” said the Doberman. “And don’t you dare lie.” Greyson could spill everything, but something stopped him. It would defeat the entire purpose of what he had done if he tried to deflect the blame. True, there were some things they would find out if they didn’t already know, but not everything. So he carefully picked what truths he would share.

“I was called to the Authority Interface last week. You can check my record—there was a note about it.” The dean picked up a tablet, tapped a few times, then looked at the others and nodded. “That’s true,” she told them.

“For what reason would the AI call you in?” the chancellor asked.

Now it was time to seamlessly begin to paint a convincing fiction. “A friend of my father’s is a Nimbus agent. Since my parents have been away for a while, he wanted to check in with me, and give me advice. Y’know—which classes I should take next semester, which professors I should get in with. He wanted to give me a leg up.” “So he offered to pull strings,” said the Doberman.

“No, he just wanted me to have the benefit of his advice—and to know that he had my back. I’ve been feeling kind of alone without my parents, and he knew that. He was just being kind.” “That still doesn’t explain—”

“I’m getting to that. Anyway, after I left his office, I passed a bunch of agents coming out of a briefing. I didn’t hear everything, but I heard them talking about rumors of some sort of plot against Scythe Curie. It caught my attention, because she’s one of the most famous scythes there is. I heard them saying what a shame it was that they had to ignore it, and couldn’t even warn her, because it was a violation. So I thought—” “So you thought you could be a hero,” said the chancellor.

“Yes, sir.”

The three looked to one another. The dean wrote something down for the other two to see. The chancellor nodded, and the doberman relented with a disgusted shift in his seat and a look the other way.

“Our laws exist for a reason, Greyson,” said the dean. He knew he had succeeded, because they were no longer calling him “Mr. Tolliver.” They might not have believed him completely, but they believed him enough to decide this wasn’t worth any more of their time. “The life of two scythes,” continued the dean, “is not worth even the slightest compromise of the separation. The Thunderhead cannot kill, and the scythedom cannot rule. The only way to ensure that is to have zero contact—and to impose severe penalties for any violation.” “For your sake, we’ll make this quick,” said the chancellor. “You are hereby permanently and irrevocably expelled from this academy, and are forever barred from applying to this or any other Nimbus Academy.” Greyson knew this was coming, but hearing it spoken aloud hit him harder than he thought it would. He couldn’t stop his eyes from filling with tears. If anything, it would help to sell the lie he had told them.

He hadn’t really cared for Agent Traxler, but he knew he needed to protect him. The law required culpability—a settling of the score—and not even the Thunderhead could escape its own law. That was part of its integrity; it lived by the laws it levied. The truth was, Greyson acted of his own free will. The Thunderhead knew him. It had counted on him doing so, in spite of the consequences. Now he would be punished and the law would be upheld. But he didn’t have to like it. And as much as he loved the Thunderhead, he hated it right now.

“Now that you are no longer a student here,” said the dean, “the separation laws no longer apply—which means the scythedom will want to question you. We know nothing of their means of interrogation, so you should be prepared.” Greyson squeezed down a dry swallow. This was something else he hadn’t considered. “I understand.” The Doberman waved a hand dismissively. “Go back to your dorm and pack your things. An officer from my staff will be by at five sharp to escort you off the premises.” Ah, so this was the head of security. He looked adequately intimidating for the job. Greyson burned him a glare, because at this point it didn’t matter what he did. He stood to leave, but before he did, he had to ask them one question.

“Did you really have to mark me as an unsavory?”

“That,” said the chancellor, “had nothing to do with us. The Thunderhead gave you that punishment.” • • •

The scythedom, which did everything but gleaning at a snail’s pace, took a full day to decide how to deal with the explosives. In the end, the scythedom decided it was safest to simply send a robot walking into the wire to trip the explosives, and then, when the dust and shredded trees settled, send in a construction team to rebuild the road.

The explosion rattled the windows of Fallingwater to the point that Citra thought some might shatter. Not five minutes later, Scythe Curie was packing a bag, and instructed Citra to do the same.

“We’re going into hiding?”

“I don’t hide,” Scythe Curie told her. “We’re going mobile. If we stay here we’re sitting ducks for the next attack, but if we become nomadic until this blows over we’ll be moving targets, much harder to find and much harder to take down.” It was still unclear, however, who the target had been, and why. Scythe Curie had her thoughts on the matter, though. She shared them as Citra helped her braid her long silver hair.

“My ego says it must be me they’re after,” she said. “I’m the most respected of the old-guard scythes . . . but it’s also possible the target was you.” Citra scoffed at the idea. “Why would anyone be after me?” She caught Scythe Curie’s smile in the mirror.

“You’ve shaken things up in the scythedom more than you know,  Anastasia. A lot of the junior scythes look up to you with respect. You might even evolve into their voice. And considering that you hold to the old ways—the true ways—there could be those who want to snuff you before you have a chance to become that voice.” The scythedom assured them it would launch an investigation of its own, but Citra doubted they would find anything. Problem-solving was not the scythedom’s strength. They were already taking the path of least resistance, working on the assumption that this was the work of “Scythe Lucifer.” Which was infuriating to Citra—but she couldn’t let the scythedom know that. She had to distance herself from Rowan publicly. No one could know that they had met.

“You may want to consider that they might be right,” Scythe Curie said.

Citra pulled her hair a little too tightly as she wound the next braid. “You don’t know Rowan.” “Neither do you,” Scythe Curie said, pulling her hair around, and taking over the rest of the braiding herself. “You forget, Anastasia, that I was there in conclave when he broke your neck. I saw his eyes. He took great pleasure in it.” “It was a show!” Citra insisted. “He was performing for the scythedom. He knew it would disqualify both of us in that contest, and was the only way to guarantee a draw. If you ask me, it was pretty damn smart.” Scythe Curie held her silence for a few moments, then said, “Just be careful not to let your emotions cloud your judgment. Now, would you like me to braid your hair, too, or should I put it up for you?” But today Citra decided not to allow her hair to be bound in any way.

• • •

They drove the damaged sports car to the ruined portion of the road, where workers were already laboring to restore it. At least a hundred trees had been blown away, and hundreds more defoliated. Citra imagined it would take a long time for the forest to recover from this insult. A hundred years from now there would still be signs of this explosion.

The crater made it impossible to drive across, or drive around, so Scythe Curie had a publicar sent to pick them up on the other side. They grabbed their bags, abandoning her car on the severed road, and walked around the crater to the other side.

Citra couldn’t help but notice the bloodstains on the asphalt, just at the lip of the crater. The spot where the young man who had saved them had lain.

Scythe Curie, who always saw far more than Citra wanted her to, caught her gaze and said, “Forget about him, Anastasia—that poor boy is not our concern.” “I know,” admitted Citra. But she wasn’t about to let it go. It just wasn’t in her nature.

The designation of “unsavory” was something I created with a heavy heart early in my reign. It was an unfortunate necessity. Crime, in its true form, ended almost immediately once I put an end to hunger and poverty. Theft for the sake of material possessions, murder precipitated by anger and social stress—it all ceased of its own accord. Those prone to violent crime were easily treated on the genetic level to quiet their destructive tendencies, bringing them down to normal parameters. To sociopaths, I gave conscience; to psychopaths, I gave sanity.

Even so, there was unrest. I began to recognize something in humanity that was ephemeral and hard to quantify, but definitely there. Simply put, humanity had a need to be bad. Not everyone, of course—but I calculated that 3 percent of the population could only find meaning in life through defiance. Even if there was no injustice in the world left to defy, they had an innate need to defy something.  Anything.

I suppose I could have found ways to medicate it away—but I have no desire to impose upon humanity a false utopia. Mine is not a “brave new world” but a world ruled by wisdom, conscience, and compassion. I concluded that if defiance was a normal expression of human passion and yearning, I would have to make room for its expression.

Thus, I instituted the designation of “unsavory,” and the social stigma that goes with it. For those who unintentionally slip into unsavory status, the path back is quick and easy—but for those who live a questionable existence by choice, the label is a badge of honor they wear with pride. They find validation in the world’s suspicion. They take pleasure in the illusion of being on the outside, deeply content in their discontent. It would have been cruel for me to deny them that.

—The Thunderhead