فصل 6

6

Retribution

History had never been Rowan’s best subject, but that changed during his apprenticeship. Until then, he could not connect anything in his life, or even in his possible future, that could be affected by a distant past—especially the strange events of the mortal past. But in his apprenticeship, historical studies focused on the concepts of duty, honor, and integrity throughout history. The philosophy and psychology of humankind’s finest moments, from its birth until present day.  That, Rowan found fascinating.

History was full of people who sacrificed themselves for the greater good. In a sense, scythes were that way; surrendering their own hopes and dreams to become servants to society. Or at least the scythes who respected what the scythedom stood for were that way.

Rowan would have been that kind of scythe. Even after his brutal, scarring apprenticeship to Scythe Goddard, he would have remained noble. But he was denied the chance. Then he had come to realize that he could still serve the scythedom, and humanity, but in a different way.

His tally was now a solid baker’s dozen. He had ended the lives of thirteen scythes across multiple regions, all of whom were an embarrassment to what the scythedom stood for.

He researched his subjects extensively, just as Scythe Faraday had taught him to do, and chose without bias. This was important, because his leaning would have been to look only at the corruptions of new-order scythes. They were the ones who openly embraced their excesses and the joy they took in killing. New-order scythes flaunted the abuse of their power, as if it were a good thing, normalizing bad behavior. But they did not have a monopoly on bad behavior. There were some old-guard scythes, and those who were unaligned, who had become self-serving hypocrites, speaking of high-mindedness yet hiding their dark deeds in shadows.

Scythe Brahms was the first of his targets to whom Rowan had given a warning. He had been feeling magnanimous that day. It had actually felt good to not end the man. That reminded him that he was not like Goddard and his followers—which made him worthy of facing Citra without shame.

• • •

While others prepared for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, Rowan researched several possible targets, spying on them and taking an accounting of their actions. Scythe Gehry was big on secret meetings, but they were usually about dinner parties and sports bets. Scythe Hendrix bragged about questionable deeds, but it was all talk; in reality he was meek about his gleanings, and did it with appropriate compassion. Scythe Ride’s gleanings appeared brutal and bloody—but her subjects always died quickly without suffering. Scythe Renoir, however, was a distinct possibility.

When Rowan arrived at his apartment that afternoon, he knew there was someone inside even before he opened the door, because the doorknob was cold. He had rigged a cooling chip into the door that would be triggered when the knob was turned clockwise—as doorknobs generally turn. It was not cold enough to generate frost, but cool enough for him to know that someone had been there, and probably still was.

He considered running, but Rowan was never one to run from a confrontation. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife—he always had a weapon with him, even when he wasn’t wearing his black robe, because he never knew when he’d have to defend himself against agents of the scythedom. Cautiously, he went inside.

His intruder was not hiding. Instead he sat in plain sight at the kitchen table, eating a sandwich.

“Hey, Rowan,” said Tyger Salazar. “Hope you don’t mind, but I got hungry while I was waiting for you.” Rowan closed the door and put his blade away before Tyger could see it.

“What the hell are you doing here, Tyger? How did you even find me?”

“Hey, give me some credit—I’m not entirely stupid. Don’t forget I was the one who knew the guy who gave you your fake ID. I just had to ask the Thunderhead where I could find Ronald Daniels. Of course, there were tons of Ronald Danielses out there, so it took a while to find the right one.” In the days before Rowan’s apprenticeship, Tyger Salazar had been his best friend—but such designations meant little after one has spent a year learning how to kill. Rowan imagined it must be what mortal-age soldiers felt when they returned from war. Old friendships seemed trapped behind a clouded curtain of experiences that old friends didn’t share. The only thing he and Tyger had in common was a history that was getting more and more distant. Now Tyger was a professional partier. Rowan couldn’t imagine a profession that he could relate to less.

“I just wish you would have given me a heads-up that you were coming,” Rowan said. “Were you followed?” Which he realized ranked pretty high on the list of stupid questions. Not even Tyger would have been clueless enough to come up to Rowan’s apartment if he knew he was being followed.

“Calm down,” Tyger said. “Nobody knows I’m here. Why do you always think the world is out to get you? I mean, why would the scythedom be after you just because you flunked out of your apprenticeship?” Rowan didn’t answer him. Instead, he went over to the closet door, which was slightly ajar, and closed it, hoping that Tyger hadn’t looked inside to see the black robe of Scythe Lucifer. Not that he would understand what he was seeing. The general public didn’t know about Scythe Lucifer. The scythedom was very good at keeping his actions out of the news. The less Tyger knew, the better. So Rowan invoked the age-old ender of all such conversations.

“If you’re really my friend, you won’t ask questions.”

“Yeah, yeah. Big mystery man.” He held up the remaining bit of his sandwich. “Well, at least you still eat human food.” “What do you want, Tyger? Why are you here?”

“Is that any way to talk to a friend? I come all this way—at least you could ask me how I’ve been.” “So how’ve you been?”

“Pretty good, actually. I just got a new job in a different region—so I came here to say goodbye.” “You mean some sort of permanent party job?”

“Not sure—but it pays much better than the party agency I was working for. And I finally get to see the world a little bit. The job’s in Texas!” “Texas?” Rowan got a little worried. “Tyger, they do things . . . differently there. Everybody says, ‘Don’t mess with Texas’; why do you want to mess with it?” “So it’s a Charter Region. Big deal. Just because Charter Regions are unpredictable doesn’t mean they’re bad. You know me; my middle name is ‘unpredictable.’ ” Rowan had to stifle a laugh. Tyger was one of the most predictable people he knew.  The way he became a splatting junkie, the way he ran off to be a professional partier. Tyger might have thought of himself as a free spirit, but he wasn’t at all. He just defined the dimensions of his own cage.

“Well, just be careful,” Rowan said, knowing that Tyger wouldn’t be, but also knowing that he’d land on his feet, whatever he did. Was I ever as carefree as Tyger? Rowan wondered. No, he wasn’t—but he did envy that about Tyger. Maybe that’s why they were friends.

The moment became a little awkward—but there was more to it than that. Tyger stood, but didn’t make any move to leave. There was something else he had to say.

“I have some news,” he said. “It’s actually the real reason why I’m here.” “What kind of news?”

Still Tyger hesitated. Rowan braced, knowing it was going to be bad.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Rowan . . . but your dad was gleaned.”

Rowan felt the Earth shift slightly beneath him. Gravity seemed to pull him in an unexpected direction. It wasn’t enough to make him lose his balance, but it left him queasy.

“Rowan, did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you,” Rowan said softly. So many thoughts and feelings shot through him, short-circuiting one another until he didn’t know what to think or feel. He never expected to see either of his parents again, but to know that he couldn’t see his father—to know that he was gone forever—not just deadish, but dead. . . . He had seen many people gleaned. He had ended thirteen people himself, but never had Rowan lost someone so close to him.

“I . . . I can’t come to the funeral,” Rowan realized. “The scythedom will have agents there looking for me.” “If there were any, I didn’t see them,” Tyger said. “The funeral was last week.” That hit just as hard as the news.

Tyger offered him an apologetic shrug. “Like I said, there were tons of Ronald Danielses. It took a while to find you.” So his father had been dead for more than a week. And if Tyger hadn’t come to tell him, he would never have known.

Then the truth slowly dawned on Rowan. This was no random event.

This was punishment.

This was retribution for the acts of Scythe Lucifer.

“Who was the scythe who gleaned him?” Rowan asked. “I have to know who did it!” “Don’t know. He swore the rest of your family to silence. Scythes do that sometimes—you’d know that better than anyone.” “But he gave the others immunity?”

“Of course,” Tyger said. “Your mother, brothers, and sisters, just like scythes are supposed to.” Rowan paced away, feeling like he wanted to hit Tyger for how completely oblivious he was, but knowing that none of this was Tyger’s fault. He was just the messenger. The rest of his family had immunity—but that would only last for a year. Whoever gleaned his father could pick off his mother, then each of his siblings, one a year, until his entire family was gone. This was the price of being Scythe Lucifer.

“It’s my fault! They did this because of me!”

“Rowan, are you even listening to yourself? Not everything is about you! Whatever you did to piss off the scythedom, they’re not going to come after your family because of it. Scythes aren’t like that. They don’t hold grudges. They’re enlightened.” What point was there in arguing this? Tyger would never understand, and probably never should. He could live for thousands of years as a happy party boy without ever having to know how petty, how vindictive, how human scythes could be.

Rowan knew he couldn’t stay here. Even if Tyger hadn’t been followed, the scythedom would eventually track where Tyger had been. For all Rowan knew, there was a team on its way to take Rowan down.

He and Tyger said their goodbyes, and Rowan got his old friend out the door as quickly as he could. Then, a moment after Tyger was gone, Rowan left as well, taking nothing but a backpack stuffed with weapons and his black robe.

It is important to understand that my perpetual observation of humanity is not surveillance. Surveillance implies motive, suspicion, and ultimately, judgment. None of these things are part of my observational algorithms. I observe for one reason, and one reason only: to be of the greatest possible service to each individual in my care. I do not—cannot—act on anything I see in private settings. Instead, I use the things I see to better understand people’s needs.

Still, I am not insensitive to the ambivalence people can have at my constant presence in their lives. For this reason, I’ve shut down all cameras in private homes in the Charter Region of Texas. Like all the things I do in Charter Regions, it is an experiment. I want to see if a lack of observation hampers my ability to rule. If it does not, I see no reason why I could not turn off a vast majority of my cameras in private homes around the world. However, if problems arise from not seeing all that I am capable of seeing, it will prove the need to eradicate every single blind spot on Earth.

I hope for the former, but suspect the latter.

—The Thunderhead