Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(31)

He waited another fifteen minutes, then finally his probation officer entered.

“Good morning, Greyson,” said Agent Traxler.

He was the last person Greyson expected to see today. “You? What are you doing here? Haven’t you ruined my life enough?”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about.”

Of course he’d say that. Plausible deniability. He hadn’t asked Greyson do to anything. In fact, he had expressly told him what not to do.

“I apologize for the wait,” Traxler said. “If it makes you feel any better, the Thunderhead makes us agents wait before meeting with you as well.”

“Why?”

Traxler shrugged. “It’s a mystery.”

He sat down across from Greyson, glanced at the soulless sailboat with the same disgust that Greyson had, then explained his presence here.

“I have been transferred here from Fulcrum City, and I’ve been demoted from being a senior agent to being a probation officer at this regional facility. So you’re not the only one who’s had a downgrade in status over this matter.”

Greyson folded his arms, not feeling an ounce of sympathy for the man.

“I trust you’re beginning to adjust to your new life.”

“Not at all,” Greyson said flatly. “Why did the Thunderhead mark me unsavory?”

“I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that out.”

“Guess not.”

Traxler raised his eyebrows, and released a slow breath to stress his disappointment at Greyson’s lack of insight. “As an unsavory, you are required to attend probationary meetings on a regular basis. These meetings will provide a way for you and me to communicate without raising the suspicion of anyone who might be watching you. Of course, for that to work, I’d have to be transferred here and made your probation officer.”

Ah! So there was a reason why Greyson was denigrated to unsavory! It was part of some larger plan. He thought he’d feel better once he knew why, but he didn’t.

“I do feel sorry for you,” Traxler said. “Unsavorism is a difficult yoke for those who don’t desire it.”

“Can you rate your pity on a scale of one to ten?” Greyson asked.

Agent Traxler chuckled. “A sense of humor, no matter how dark, is always a good thing.” Then he got down to business. “I understand that you’ve been spending most of your days and nights at home. As your friend and advisor, might I suggest that you begin frequenting places where you can meet other unsavories, and perhaps generate new friendships that could ease this time for you.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Perhaps you do want to,” Agent Traxler said gently. Almost subversively. “Perhaps you want to fit in so much that you begin to behave like an unsavory, and dress like an unsavory, and get yourself some sort of unsavory body modification to show how fully you embrace your new status.”

Greyson said nothing at first. Traxler waited for Greyson to fully wrap his mind around the suggestion.

“And . . . if I were to embrace my status?” asked Greyson.

“Then I’m sure you’d learn things,” said Traxler. “Perhaps things that not even the Thunderhead knows. It does have blind spots, you know. Small ones, certainly, but they do exist.”

“You’re asking me to be an undercover Nimbus agent?”

“Of course not,” Traxler said with a grin. “Nimbus agents are required to attend four years at the academy, and do an additional year of mind-numbing field work before getting an actual assignment. But you’re just an unsavory. . . .” He patted Greyson on the shoulder. “An unsavory who happens to be very well-connected.”

Then Traxler stood. “I’ll see you in a week, Greyson.” And he left without as much as a backward glance.

Greyson felt dizzy. He was angry. He was excited. He felt used, he felt put to use. This was not what he wanted . . . or was it? “You, Greyson, are more special than you know,” the Thunderhead had told him. Was this the Thunderhead’s plan for him all along? He still had a choice in the matter. He could stay out of trouble, as he had done his whole life, and in a few months his normal status would be restored. He could go back to living his life, such as it was.

. . . Or he could spiral down this new path. A path that was the opposite of everything he knew himself to be.

The door opened and some nameless Nimbus agent said, “Excuse me, but now that your meeting is over, you’ll have to vacate the room immediately.”

Greyson’s instincts told him to apologize and leave. But he knew what path he now needed to take. So he leaned back in his chair, smiled at the agent, and said:

“Go screw yourself.”

The agent gave him a demerit, and returned with a security guard to eject him from the room.





* * *




While the Office of Unsavory Affairs might appear inefficient, there is method behind the madness that it generates.

Simply put, unsavories have a need to despise the system.

To facilitate that, I had to create a system worthy of loathing. In reality, there is no actual need for people to take a number, or to wait for long periods of time. There isn’t even a need for an intake agent. It’s all designed to make unsavories feel as if the system is wasting their time. The illusion of inefficiency serves the specific purpose of creating annoyance around which unsavories can bond.