Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(108)
Perhaps because there were no miles between them.
? ? ?
In Scythe Brahms’s vacation home, not far from the opera house, Rowan remained locked away in a furnished basement with a subsea view.
“This is far better treatment than you deserve,” Goddard had told him when they arrived that morning. “Tomorrow, I shall present you to the Grandslayers, and, with their permission, will glean you with the same brutality with which you cut my head from my body.”
“Endura is a glean-free zone,” Rowan reminded him.
“For you,” Goddard said, “I’m sure they’ll make an exception.”
When he was gone, and Rowan had been locked in, he sat down to take a final accounting of his life.
His childhood was unremarkable, punctuated with moments of intentional mediocrity, in an attempt not to stand out. He shined as a friend. He supposed he stood a shoulder above when it came to doing the right thing—even when the right thing was a truly stupid thing—and it seemed most of the time it was, or he wouldn’t be in the mess he was in right now.
He was not ready to leave this world, but after having gone deadish so many times over the past few months, he no longer feared what eternity might bring. He did want to live long enough to see Goddard taken down for good—but if that wasn’t going to happen, he was fine having his existence ended now. That way he wouldn’t have to watch the world fall victim to Goddard’s twisted philosophies. But not to see Citra again . . . that would be much harder.
He would see her, though. She would be there at the inquest. He would see her, and she would have to watch as Goddard gleaned him—for it was certainly part of Goddard’s plan to force her to witness it. To scar her. To ruin her. But she would not be ruined. The Honorable Scythe Anastasia was much stronger than Goddard would ever give her credit for. It would only serve to make her resolve stronger.
Rowan was determined to grin and wink at her as he was gleaned—as if to say Goddard can end me, but he can’t hurt me. And that would be the parting memory with which he would leave her. Cool, casual defiance.
Denying Goddard the satisfaction of Rowan’s terror would be almost as gratifying as surviving.
* * *
When I assumed stewardship of the Earth and established a peaceful world government, there were some difficult choices that had to be made. For the collective mental health of humanity, I chose to remove traditional seats of government from the list of viable destinations.
Places like the Merican District of Columbia.
I did not destroy that once-distinguished city, for that would have been a vile, heartless thing to do. Instead, I merely allowed it to diminish on its own, through a policy of benign neglect.
Historically, fallen civilizations left behind ruins that vanished into the landscape, only to be rediscovered thousands of years later, becoming almost mystical in nature. But what happens to the institutions and edifices of a civilization that doesn’t fall, but evolves beyond its own embarrassment? Those buildings, and the obsolete ideas they stood for, must lose their power if evolution is to succeed.
Therefore, Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and all other places that were powerful symbols of mortal-age government have been treated by me with indifference—as if they no longer matter to the world. Yes, I still observe them, and am available to any and all who need me in those places, but I don’t do anything more than is necessary to sustain life.
Rest assured it will not always be this way. I have detailed blueprints and images of what these venerable places looked like before their decline. My timetable for full restoration begins in seventy-three years, which, I have determined, is when their historical significance will outweigh their symbolic importance in the eyes of humankind.
But until then, the museums have been relocated, the roads and infrastructure are in disrepair, the parks and greenbelts have become wilderness.
All this to drive home the simple fact that human government—whether it be dictatorship, monarchy, or government of the people, by the people, for the people—had to perish from the Earth.
—The Thunderhead
* * *
40
Knowledge Is Pow
While Scythes Anastasia and Curie spent their day touring Endura, two thousand miles northwest, Munira and Scythe Faraday crossed a street riddled with potholes and invaded by weeds to a building that was once the largest, most comprehensive library in the world. The building was slowly crumbling, and the volunteers who ran it could not keep up with the repairs. All of its thirty-eight million volumes had been scanned into the Thunderhead over two hundred years ago, back when “the cloud” was still growing and only minimally aware. By the time it became the Thunderhead, everything the Library of Congress held was already part of its memory. But since those scans were administered by humans, they were subject to human error . . . as well as human tampering. That was what Munira and Faraday were counting on.
Like the Library of Alexandria, there was a grand entry vestibule, where they were met by Parvin Marchenoir, the current and possibly last Librarian of Congress.
Faraday let Munira do all the speaking and stood back, on the off chance that he might be recognized. He was not well-known here, but Marchenoir could have been more worldly than the typical EastMerican.
“Hello,” Munira said. “Thank you for making the time to see us, Mr. Marchenoir. I’m Munira Atrushi and this is Professor Herring, of the Israebian University.”