Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(25)

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Citra was awed by how Rowan handled himself. Although he began a little shaky when he first spoke to the man, he took charge. He took the reigns of that man’s fear and gave him peace. Citra only hoped that when it came her turn to make a choice, she could keep her composure as well as Rowan had. All she had done today was tranquilize a few dogs. Sure, she got bitten in the process, but it was nothing, really. She tried to convince Faraday to take the dogs to a shelter, but he wouldn’t have it. He did allow her to call the shelter to come for the dogs. And the coroner to come for the man. The scythe offered to take her to a hospital for some speedhealing of the dog bite on her arm, but she declined. Her own nanites would heal it by morning, and besides, there was something compelling about the discomfort. She owed it to the dead man to hurt a little for him.

“That was impressive,” she told Rowan on the long ride home.

“Yeah, right until I puked on the riverbank.”

“But that was only after he was gleaned,” Citra pointed out. “You gave that man strength to face death.”

Rowan shrugged. “I guess.”

Citra found it both maddening and endearing how modest he could be.





* * *





There’s a poem by Honorable Scythe Socrates—one of the first scythes. He wrote many poems, but this one has grown to be my personal favorite.

Have not a hand in the blade with abandon,

Cull from the fold all the brazen and bold,

For a dog who just might,

Love the bark and the bite,

Is a carrion raven, the craven of old.

It reminds me that in spite of our lofty ideals and the many safeguards to protect the Scythedom from corruption and depravity, we must always be vigilant, because power comes infected with the only disease left to us: the virus called human nature. I fear for us all if scythes begin to love what they do.

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie



* * *





9


Esme




Esme ate far too much pizza. Her mother told her pizza would be the death of her. She never imagined it might actually be true.

The scythe attack came less than a minute after she was given her slice, piping hot from the oven. It was the end of the school day, and the daily trials of fourth grade had exhausted her. Lunch had sucked. The tuna salad her mother had given her was warm and mildly fermented by the time lunch rolled around. Not exactly appetizing. In fact, none of the food her mother packed for her hit high on the flavor scale. She was trying to get Esme to eat healthier, because Esme had a bit of a weight problem. And although her nanites could be programmed to speed up her metabolism, her mother wouldn’t hear of it. She claimed it would be treating the symptom, not the problem.

“You can’t solve everything by tweaking your nanites,” her mother told her. “You need to learn self-control.”

Well, she could learn self-control tomorrow. Today she wanted pizza.

Her favorite pizza place, Luigi’s, was in the food court of the Fulcrum City Galleria—which was on her way home from school. Sort of. She was negotiating the cheese, trying to figure out how to take that first bite without burning the roof of her mouth, when the scythes arrived. Her back was to them, so she didn’t see them at first. But she heard them—or at least one of them.

“Good afternoon, good people,” he said. “Your lives are about to change in a fundamental way.”

Esme turned to see them. Four of them. They were clad in bright robes that glittered. They looked like no one Esme had ever seen. She had never met a scythe. She was fascinated. Until three of them pulled out weapons that glistened even more than their bejeweled robes, and the fourth pulled out a flamethrower.

“This food court has been selected for gleaning,” their leader said. And they began their terrible mission.

Esme knew what she had to do. Forgetting her pizza, she dropped beneath the table and crawled away. But she wasn’t the only one. It seemed everyone had dropped and was scrambling on the floor. It didn’t seem to faze the scythes. She could see their feet through the crawling crowd. The fact that their victims were on all fours did not slow them down in the least.

Now Esme began to panic. She had heard stories of scythes who did mass gleanings, but until now she thought they were nothing but stories.

Before her she could see the robes of the scythe in yellow, so she doubled back, only to find the scythe in green closing in. Esme crawled through a gap in the tables and between two potted palms that the scythe in orange had set on fire, and when she emerged on the other side of the large pots, she found herself with no cover.

She was at the food concessions now. The man who had served her pizza was slumped over the counter, dead. There was a gap between a trash can and the wall. She was not a slim girl, so she thought the skinniest thoughts she could, and squeezed her way into the gap. It was not much of a hiding space, but if she left it, she would be right in the line of fire. She had already seen two people trying to dart across the walkway and both were taken down by steel crossbow arrows. She didn’t dare move. So instead, she buried her face in her hands. She stayed that way, sobbing, listening to the terrible sounds around her, until silence fell. Still she refused to open her eyes until she heard a man say, “Hello there.”

Esme opened her eyes to see the lead scythe—the one in blue—standing over her.