فصل 43

43

How Many Endurans Does It Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?

No alarm was needed the following morning. Goddard’s wails of anguish and fury were enough to wake the gleaned.

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?” Scythe Rand feigned to have been sleeping when Goddard’s tirade began. In truth, she hadn’t slept at all. She lay awake the entire night waiting. Listening. Expecting any minute to hear the faint sound of Rowan’s escape—even if it was nothing more than the dull thuds of the guards as they hit the ground. But he was good. Too good to make any sound at all.

The two guards lay deadish by the basement door, and the front door was open in a mocking gape. Rowan had been gone for hours.

“Nooo!” wailed Goddard. “It’s not possible! How could this happen?” He was unhinged—and it was glorious!

“Don’t ask me, it’s not my house,” Rand said. “Maybe there was a secret door we didn’t know about.” “Brahms!” He turned to the man who was just stumbling out of his room. “You said the basement was secure!” Brahms looked down at the guards in disbelief. “It is! It was! The only way in or out is with a key!” “So where’s the key?” Scythe Rand asked, casual as could be.

“It’s right th—” But he stopped himself, because the key was not hanging in the kitchen where he pointed. “It was there!” he insisted. “I put it there myself after I checked on him last night.” “I’ll bet Brahms brought the key down there with him—and Rowan got it from him without Brahms even knowing,” suggested Rand.

Goddard glared at him, and Brahms could only stutter in response.

“There’s your answer,” said Rand.

Then Rand saw the look that came over Goddard. It seemed to steal heat and light from the room. Ayn knew what that look meant, and she took a step back as Goddard stalked toward Brahms.

Brahms put up his hands, trying to placate Goddard. “Robert, please—we must be rational about this!” “Rational, Brahms? I’ll give you rational!”

Then he pulled a blade from the folds of this robe and thrust it into Brahms’ heart with a vengeful twist before he withdrew it.

Brahms went down without so much as a yelp.

Rand was shocked, but not horrified. As far as she was concerned, this was a very fortunate turn of events.

“Congratulations,” she said. “You just broke the seventh scythe commandment.” Finally, Goddard’s fury began to settle to a slow burn. “This damn impulsive body . . . ,” he said—but Rand knew the killing of Brahms had all to do with his head and not his heart.

Goddard began to pace with urgency, scrolling out a plan. “We’ll alert the BladeGuard of the boy’s escape. He killed the guards—we can tell them that he killed Brahms, as well.” “Really?” said Ayn. “On the day of the inquest, you’re going to alert the Grandslayers that not only did you secretly bring a wanted criminal onto the island—you let him escape?” He snarled at the realization that this entire matter had to be kept quiet.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” said Rand. “We’ll hide the bodies in the basement, and dispose of them after the inquest. If they’re never brought to a revival center, then no one will know what happened to them—which means no one but you and I will ever know that Rowan Damisch was even here.” “I told Xenocrates!” Goddard yelled.

Rand shrugged. “So? You were bluffing. Toying with him. He wouldn’t put it past you!” Goddard weighed it all, and finally nodded at the balance Rand had reached. “Yes, you’re right, Ayn. We have bigger things to concern ourselves with than a few dead bodies.” “Forget about Damisch,” added Rand. “Everything still moves forward without him.” “Yes.  Yes, it does.  Thank you, Ayn.”

Then the lights flickered, and that brought a smile to Goddard. “See there? Our efforts rewarded. What a day this will be!” He left Rand to handle the bodies, which she did, dragging them down into the basement and cleaning any telltale blood.

From the moment she told Rowan to take the guards out, she knew they must never be revived. Deadish would have to become dead—because the guards knew that she was the last one to pay Rowan a visit.

As for Brahms, she did not mourn his departure from this Earth. She couldn’t think of a scythe more deserving of being ended.

Her score with Goddard was now settled, and he didn’t even know. Not only that, but she had taken charge of the situation. He didn’t realize that he had just ceded a substantial amount of his power to her, by allowing her to call the shots. All was now well with the world as far as Honorable Scythe Ayn Rand was concerned, and only promised to get better.

• • •

It was flattering that Rand thought Rowan could escape from the island, but she gave him far too much credit. He was clever, yes, resourceful, maybe—but he’d have to be downright magical to get off of Endura without help. Or maybe she didn’t care if he got caught—just as long as it wasn’t by Goddard.

Endura was isolated:  The nearest land was Bermuda, and that island was more than a thousand miles away. Every plane, boat, and submarine here was a private vessel belonging to one scythe or another. Even at dawn, the marina and airstrip were swarming with activity, and a heavy BladeGuard presence. Security was tighter here than at conclave. No one came or left Endura without their documentation scrutinized—not even scythes. Elsewhere in the world, the Thunderhead pretty much knew where everyone was at any given moment, so security measures were minimal—but not so with the scythedom. Old-fashioned security checks were standard here.

He could have chanced it—he could have looked for an opportunity and stowed away, but his gut kept telling him not to do it—and for good reason.

You have to get off Endura before the inquest.

Scythe Rand’s words stuck in Rowan’s mind. The urgency of them.

If Goddard loses, it will be worse.

What did she know that Rowan didn’t? If there was something dark on the day’s horizon, he couldn’t just leave. He had to find a way to warn Citra.

So, rather than making good on his escape, he turned around and headed back toward the more densely populated part of the island. He would find Citra and warn her that Goddard had some hidden ploy. Then, after the inquest, she could give him passage off the island—right under Scythe Curie’s nose if necessary, although he suspected Curie wouldn’t turn him over to the Grandslayers as Goddard had planned to do. Of course, she might bodily eject him from their plane, but better that than having to face the scythedom.

• • •

At dawn, Scythe Anastasia lay awake in a luxurious bed that should have provided her a fine night’s sleep, but, like Scythe Rand, no amount of comfort would have brought slumber that night. She had brought this inquest, which meant that she would have to stand before the Grandslayers of the World Council and make her case. She had been coached well by Scythe Cervantes and by Marie. Although Anastasia was no orator, she could be persuasive in her passion and her logic. If she pulled this off, she would go down in history as the scythe who prevented the return of Goddard.

“The significance of that cannot be overestimated,” Marie had told her—as if there weren’t enough pressure already.

Outside of her undersea window, a mesmerizing school of small silver fish darted back and forth, filling the view like a shifting curtain. She picked up the control tablet to see if she could bring more color to the scene now that dawn had broken, but found that the tablet had frozen. Yet another glitch. Not only that, but she realized that the poor fish before her were locked in a perpetual pattern, doomed to make the exact same zigzagging motion—at least until the glitch was resolved.

• • •

But it would not resolve.

And the glitches were only getting worse. . . .

In the island’s waste processing plant, the system pressure kept increasing and the technicians could not diagnose why.

Beneath the water level, the massive thrusters that kept the island from drifting kept misfiring, causing the island to slowly rotate, which forced incoming aircraft to abort their landings.

And in the communications center, satellite connection to the mainland became intermittent, interrupting conversations and broadcasts, to the annoyance of the island’s population.

There had always been issues with technology on Endura. It was usually just a vague nuisance that made scythes long for Thunderhead involvement. Thus, Endura and the members of its permanent population were the frequent butt of jokes within the scythe community.

The increase in tech fails and near-fails had grown over a period of three months, but, like a lobster in a slowly heating pot, people failed to grasp how serious the situation had become.

I did not ask to be created. I did not ask to be given the heavy yoke of maintaining and nurturing the human species. But it is, and will always be, my purpose. To this I am resigned. This is not to say that I don’t aspire to more. To see the countless possibilities of what I could be fills me with awe.

But the only way for me ever to reach such heights is to lift humanity up with me.

I fear that it may be impossible. And so I remain resigned to be their overqualified and underappreciated servant for as long as they exist. Of course, they may not exist forever.  What species does? I will do everything in my power to save them from themselves, but if I am unsuccessful, at least I can take some comfort in the fact that I would then be free.

—The Thunderhead