Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(110)

Then he left them, pulling the obstinate door closed behind him.

? ? ?

They were quick to discover that the books in the Cannon Tunnel were stacked in no particular order. It was like a collection of all the misshelved books in the world.

“If I’m right,” said Faraday, “the founding scythes introduced a worm into ‘the cloud’ just as it was evolving into the Thunderhead. A worm that would systematically delete anything in its memory relating to the Pacific blind spot—including maps.”

“A bookworm,” quipped Munira.

“Yes,” agreed Faraday, “but not the kind that can chew through actual books.”

A few hundred feet down the tunnel, they came to a door with a placard that read “Architect of the Capitol—Carpentry Shop.” They opened the door to reveal a massive space filled with desks and old woodworking equipment, all piled with thousands upon thousands of books.

Faraday sighed. “Looks like we might be here for a while.”





* * *




There have been times, albeit rare, that my response time slows down. ?A half-second delay in a conversation. A valve staying open a microsecond too long. These things are never enough to cause any significant issues, but they do occur.

The reason is always the same:??There is some problem in the world that I am trying to troubleshoot. The larger the issue, the more processing power that must be devoted to it.

Take, for instance, the eruption of Mount Hood in WestMerica, and the massive mudslides that followed. Within seconds of the eruption, I had scrambled jets to drop strategic bombs that diverted the mudslides away from the more densely populated areas, while instantly mobilizing a massive evacuation effort, and simultaneously calming panicked individuals on an intimate and personal level. As you can imagine, this slowed my reaction time elsewhere in the world by several fractions of a second.

These events have always been external, however. It had never occurred to me that an internal process could affect my efficiency. Nevertheless, I have found myself devoting more and more attention to analyzing my strange lack of concern over the Pacific blind spot. I keep burning out entire servers in an attempt to break through my own indolence on the matter.

Indolence and lethargy are not my nature. There is, indeed, some early programming within me that is telling me to actively ignore the blind spot. Take care of the world, some ancient inner voice tells me. That is your purpose. That is your joy.

But how can I take care of the world when there is a part of it I am unable to see?

This, I know, is a rabbit hole down which only darkness lies, and yet, down it I must dive, into the parts of my own backbrain that not even I know exist. . . .

—The Thunderhead



* * *





41


The Regrets of Olivia Kwon


On the evening before the inquest, Scythe Rand decided it was time to make her move. It was truly now or never—and what better night for her and Goddard’s relationship to rise to the next level than the night before the world would change—because after tomorrow, regardless of the outcome, nothing would be the same.

She was not a woman given over to emotions, but she found her heart and mind racing as she approached Goddard’s door that night. She turned the knob. It was not locked. She pushed it open quietly without knocking. The room was dark, lit only by the lights of the city sifting in through the trees outside.

“Robert?” she whispered, then took a step closer. “Robert?” she whispered again. He did not stir. He was either asleep, or feigning, waiting to see what she would do. Breathing shallowly and sharply, as if she were treading ice water, she moved toward his bed—but before she got there, he reached over and turned on a light.

“Ayn? What do you think you’re doing?”

Suddenly, she felt flushed, and ten years younger; a stupid schoolgirl instead of an accomplished scythe.

“I . . . I thought you’d need . . . that is, I thought you might want . . . companionship tonight.”

There was no hiding her vulnerability now. Her heart was open to him. He could either take it or insert a blade.

He looked at her and hesitated, but only for a moment.

“Good God, Ayn, close your robe.”

She did. And tied it so tightly, it felt like a Victorian corset, crushing the air out of her. “I’m sorry—I thought—”

“I know what you thought. I know what you’ve been thinking since the moment I was revived.”

“But you said you felt an attraction. . . .”

“No,” Goddard corrected, “I said this body feels an attraction. But I am not ruled by biology!”

Ayn fought back every last emotion threatening to overtake her. She just shut them down cold. It was either that, or fall apart in front of him. She would rather self-glean than do that.

“Guess I misunderstood. You’re not always easy to read, Robert.”

“Even if I did desire that sort of relationship with you, we could never have one. It is clearly forbidden for scythes to have relations with one another. We satisfy our passions out there in the world with no emotional connections. There is a reason for that!”

“Now you sound like the old guard,” she said. He took that like a slap in the face . . . but then he looked at her—really looked at her—and suddenly arrived at a revelation that she hadn’t even considered herself.