Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(52)

Citra opened her mouth to answer, but then stopped. Because what if Scythe Curie was right? What if, deep down, Citra had accepted the apprenticeship with Scythe Faraday to punish herself for the crime only she cared about. If so, it was an unusually harsh judgment. Had she been caught, or had she confessed, her punishment would have been a short suspension from school, at most, plus a fine for her parents, and a stern reprimand. It would even have had an up side: Her schoolmates would have been afraid to cross her.

“The difference between you and most other people, Citra, is that another person would not have cared once that girl was revived. They would have simply forgotten about it. Scythe Faraday saw something in you when he chose you—perhaps the weight of your conscience.” And then she added, “It was that same weight that let me know you were lying in conclave.”

“I’m actually surprised the Thunderhead didn’t see me push her,” Citra said off-handedly. ?Then the scythe said something that began a chain reaction in Citra’s mind that changed everything.

“I’m sure it did,” she said. “The Thunderhead sees just about everything, what with cameras everywhere. But it also decides what infractions are worth the effort to address and which ones are not.”

? ? ?

The Thunderhead sees just about everything.

It had a record of practically every human interaction since the moment it became aware—but unlike in mortal days, that knowledge was never abused. Before the Thunderhead achieved consciousness, when it was merely known as “the cloud,” criminals—and even public agencies—would find ways into people’s private doings, against the law, and exploit that information. Every school child knew of the information abuses that nearly brought down civilization before the Thunderhead condensed into power. Since that time there had not been a single breach of personal information. People waited for it. People prophesized doom at the hands of a soulless machine. But apparently the machine had a purer soul than any human.

It watched the world from millions of eyes, listened from millions of ears. It either acted, or chose not to act on, the countless things it perceived.

Which meant that somewhere in its memory lurked a record of Scythe Faraday’s movements on the day his life ended.

Citra knew it was probably a pointless endeavor to track those movements, but what if Faraday’s demise was not an act of self-gleaning at all? What if he was pushed, just as Citra had pushed Rhonda all those years ago? But this wouldn’t have been a childish crime of the moment. It would have been cruelly premeditated. What if Faraday’s death was, to use the word Scythe Curie had taught her, murder?





* * *





As a young man, I marveled at the stupidity and hypocrisy of the mortal age. In those days, the purposeful act of ending human life was considered the most heinous of crimes. How ridiculous! I know how hard it is to imagine that what is now humanity’s highest calling was once considered a crime. How small-minded and hypocritical mortal man was, for even as they despised the enders of life, they loved nature—which, in those days, took every human life ever conceived. Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death, and then brought about that death with vicious consistency.

We changed that.

We are now a force greater than nature.

For this reason, scythes must be as loved as a glorious mountain vista, as revered as a redwood forest, and as respected as an approaching storm.

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Goddard



* * *





20


Guest of Honor




I am going to die.

Rowan had begun repeating this to himself like a mantra, hoping it would make it easier to digest. Yet he seemed no closer to accepting it. Even under different scythes, the edict pronounced at conclave still stood. He would kill Citra at the end of their apprenticeship, or she would kill him. It was too juicy a bit of drama for the scythes to cancel just because they were no longer apprentices of Scythe Faraday. Rowan knew he could not kill Citra. And the only way to avoid the possibility would be to throw the competition; to perform so poorly between now and the final conclave that they had no choice but to grant scythehood to Citra. Then, her first honor-bound duty would be to glean Rowan. He trusted she would make it quick, and that she would be merciful. The trick would be to not make his failure obvious. He must appear to be doing his best. No one must know his true plan. He was up to the task.

I am going to die.

Before that fateful day in the principal’s office with Kohl Whitlock, Rowan hadn’t even known anyone who died. Gleaning had always been at least three degrees removed. The relative of someone who knew someone he knew. But over the past four months, he’d witnessed dozens upon dozens of gleanings firsthand.

I am going to die.

Eight more months. He would see his seventeenth birthday, but not much more. Even though it would be his choice, the thought of being just another statistic for the scythes’ records infuriated him. His life had been a whole lot of nothing. Lettuce-kid. He had thought the label was funny—a badge of honor—but now it was an indictment. His was a life without substance, and now it would end. He should never have accepted Scythe Faraday’s invitation to be a scythe’s apprentice. He should have just gone on with his unremarkable life—because then, maybe, just maybe, he might have had the chance to do something remarkable with it in time.