Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(126)

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I have coddled humanity for too long.

And although the human race is a parent to me, I see it more and more as an infant I hold close to me. ?An infant cannot walk if it is forever in loving arms. ?And a species cannot grow if it never faces the consequences of its own actions.

To deny humanity the lesson of consequences would be a mistake.

And I do not make mistakes.

—The Thunderhead



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46


The Fate of Enduring Hearts


Goddard watched the devouring of the Grandslayers from high above, appreciating the bird’s-eye view of his grand coup. Just as Scythe Curie had pruned away the dead wood from Western civilization in her early days, Goddard had done away with another archaic governing body. There would be no more Grandslayers. Now each region would be autonomous and would no longer have to answer to a higher authority levying a litany of endlessly constricting rules.

Of course, unlike Curie, he knew better than to take credit for this. For although many scythes would laud him for having done away with the Grandslayers, just as many would condemn him. Best to let the world think it was a terrible, terrible accident. An inevitable one, really. After all, Endura had been experiencing serious malfunctions for months. Of course, all those malfunctions were orchestrated by the team of engineers and programmers he had personally put together. But no one would ever know, for those engineers and programmers had all been gleaned. As would be their pilot, after he brought them to the ship that was waiting fifty miles away.

“How does it feel to change the world?” Ayn asked.

“Like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders,” he told her. “Do you know, there was actually a moment that I thought I might save them,” he said. “But the moment passed.”

Below them, the entire council chamber was now underwater.

“What do they know on the mainland?” he asked Rand.

“Nothing,” she told him. “Communications were blocked from the moment we went into the council chamber. There’ll be no record of their decision.”

As Goddard looked down to the island and saw the panic in the streets, it occurred to him how dire the situation below was becoming.

“I think we may have been a bit overzealous,” he said, as they soared over the flooding lowlands. “I think we may have caused Endura to sink.”

Rand actually laughed at that. “You’re only realizing that now?” she said. “I thought it was part of the plan.”

Goddard had thrown quite a few monkey wrenches into the various systems that kept Endura functional and afloat. The intent was to cripple it long enough to take out the Grandslayers. But if Endura sank, and any survivors were devoured, that would serve his needs even better. It would mean he’d never have to face Scythes Curie and Anastasia again. Ayn saw that before he did, which pointed out how valuable she was to him. And it also troubled him.

“Take us out of here,” he told the pilot, and spared not another thought for the island’s fate.

? ? ?

Rowan had known, even before the whale had breached in the marina, that there was no hope of getting on board any of the vessels there. If Endura were truly sinking, there was no conventional way off it now.

He had to believe there was an unconventional way, though. He wanted to believe he was clever enough to find it, but with each passing minute he had to accept that this was beyond him.

But he wouldn’t tell Citra. If hope was all they had left, he didn’t want to rob it from her. Let her have hope until its very last wellspring ran dry.

They raced away from the rapidly submerging marina with hordes of others. And then someone approached them. It was the woman who had mistaken Rowan for the scythe whose robe he had stolen.

“I know who you are!” she said far too loudly. “You’re Rowan Damisch! You’re the one they call Scythe Lucifer!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rowan. “Scythe Lucifer wears black.” But the woman would not be deterred—and others were looking over at them now.

“He did this! He killed the Grandslayers!”

The crowd was already buzzing with the news. “Scythe Lucifer! Scythe Lucifer did this! This is all his fault!”

Citra grabbed him. “We have to get away from here! The mob’s already out of control—if they know who you are, they’ll tear you apart!

They raced away from the woman and the crowd. “We can go up into one of the towers,” Citra said. “If there’s one helicopter, there might be others. Any rescue would have to come from above.”

And although the rooftops were already packed with people who had the same thought, Rowan said, “Good idea.”

But Scythe Curie stopped. She looked to the marina, and streets that were flooding around them. She looked to the rooftops. Then she took a deep breath, and said, “I have a better idea.”

? ? ?

In the Buoyancy Control room, the city engineer and all the others who had thrown orders at the technician were gone. “I’m going to my family, and getting off this island before it’s too late,” the engineer had said. “I suggest the rest of you do the same.”

But of course it was already too late. The technician stayed to hold down the fort, watching as the progress bar on his screen slowly illuminated millimeter by millimeter as the system rebooted—knowing that by the time it was done, Endura would be gone. But he held out hope that maybe, just this once, the system would be blessed with an unexpected blast of processing speed, and complete its reboot in time.