Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
“It’s immoral!” the scythes complained. “It’s inhumane.”
Even Scythe Mandela, who chaired the bejeweling committee and had been such an advocate for Citra, chastised her. “To know that your days are numbered is a cruelty,” he said. “How miserable to live one’s final days thus!”
But Scythe Anastasia was not fazed—or at least she didn’t let them see her sweat. She made her argument, and stood by it. “In my studies of the mortal age,” she had told them, “I learned that for many people, death was not instantaneous. There were, in fact, diseases that gave people warning. It gave them time to prepare themselves, and their loved ones, for the inevitable.”
That had brought forth a whole chorus of grumbles from the hundreds of scythes gathered. Most were scoffs and disgruntled dismissals—but she had heard a few voices saying that she had a point.
“But allowing the . . . the condemned . . . to choose their own method? It’s positively barbaric!” Scythe Truman shouted.
“More barbaric than electrocution? Or beheading? Or a knife through the heart? If a subject is allowed to choose, don’t you think that subject is going to choose the method that is the least offensive to them? Who are we to call their choice barbaric?”
Fewer grumbles this time. Not because they were in agreement, but because the scythes were already losing interest in the discussion. An upstart junior scythe—even one who had arrived at her position under so much controversy—wasn’t worth more than a few volleys of their attention.
“It violates no law, and it is the way I choose to glean,” Citra maintained. High Blade Xenocrates, who didn’t seem to care either way, deferred to the Parliamentarian, who couldn’t find grounds for legal objection. In her first challenge in conclave, Scythe Anastasia had gotten her way.
Scythe Curie was duly impressed.
“I thought for sure they would put you on some sort of probation, choosing your gleanings for you and compelling you to accomplish them on a strict schedule. They could have—but they didn’t. That says a lot more about you than you realize.”
“What—that I’m a pain in the scythedom’s collective ass? They already knew that.”
“No,” said Scythe Curie with a smirk. “It shows that they’re taking you seriously.”
Which was more than Citra could say for herself. She felt like she was playacting half the time. A turquoise costume for a plum role.
She’d found a great deal of success gleaning in the way that she did. There were only a handful of subjects who didn’t return at the end of their grace period. Two had died trying to cross the border into Texas, another on the WestMerican border, where no one would touch the body until Scythe Anastasia personally showed up to pronounce him gleaned.
Three others were found in their beds when the time on the tracking grain ran out. They chose the silence of the poison rather than having to face Scythe Anastasia again. In all instances, though, their method of death had been their own choice. For Citra that was crucial, for the thing she despised most about the scythedom’s policies was the indignity of having your death chosen for you.
Of course, this method of gleaning created double the work for her—because she had to face her subjects twice. It made for an incredibly exhausting life, but at least it helped her sleep at night.
• • •
On the evening of the same November day she gave Devora Murray her terminal news, Citra entered a lavish casino in Cleveland. All eyes turned when Scythe Anastasia stepped onto the casino floor.
Citra had grown used to this; a scythe was the center of attention in every situation with or without wanting to be. Some reveled in it, others preferred to do their business in quiet places, where there were no crowds and no eyes but the eyes of their subjects. It was not Citra’s choice to be here, but she had to respect the wishes of the man whose choice it was.
She found him where he said he’d be: at the far end of the casino, in a special area raised three steps from the rest of the floor. It was the place reserved for the highest of rollers.
He was dressed in a sharp tuxedo and was the only player at the high-limit tables. It made him look like he owned the place. But he didn’t. Mr. Ethan J. Hogan was not a high roller. He was a cellist with the Cleveland Philharmonic. He was highly competent—which was the best praise a musician could get these days. Passion of performance was a thing of the mortal past, and true artistic style had gone the way of the dodo. Of course, the dodo was back—the Thunderhead had seen to that. A thriving colony was now happily not flying on the island of Mauritius.
“Hello, Mr. Hogan,” Scythe Anastasia said. She had to think of herself as Scythe Anastasia when she gleaned. The play. The role.
“Good evening, Your Honor,” he said. “I would say that it is a pleasure to see you, but under the circumstances . . .”
He let the thought trail off. Scythe Anastasia sat at the table beside him and waited, allowing him to take the lead in this dance.
“Would you try your hand at baccarat?” he asked. “It’s a simple game, but the levels of strategy are boggling.”
She couldn’t tell whether he was being sincere or facetious in his assessment of the game. Scythe Anastasia didn’t know how to play baccarat, but she wasn’t about to share that with him. “I don’t have any cash to bet,” was all she said.
In response, he moved a column of his own chips over to her. “Be my guest. You can either bet on the bank, or bet on me.”
She pushed all the chips forward into the wager box marked “player.”
“Good for you!” he said. “A gambler with courage.”
He matched her bet with his own and gestured to the croupier, who dealt two cards to the cellist and two cards to himself.
“Player has eight, bank has five. Player wins.” He cleared the cards with a long wooden pallet that seemed entirely unnecessary, and he doubled both their piles of chips.
“You’re my angel of good fortune,” the cellist said. Then he straightened his bow tie and looked to her. “Is everything ready?”
Scythe Anastasia glanced back to the main part of the casino. No one was looking directly at them, but still she could tell they were at the center of everyone’s concentration. That would be good for the casino; distracted gamblers bet poorly. The management must love scythes.
“The barman should be coming any second,” she told him. “Everything’s been arranged.”
“Well then, one more hand while we wait!”
Again she pushed both piles of winnings, betting on the player, and he matched. Again the cards were in their favor.
She looked to the croupier but he wouldn’t meet her eye—as if somehow by doing so he would be gleaned as well. Then the barman arrived with a chilled martini glass on a tray, along with a silver martini shaker beaded with condensation.
“My, oh my,” the cellist said. “Until now it never occurred to me how those shakers look like little bombs.”
Scythe Anastasia had no response to that.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there’s a character from mortal-age fiction and films,” the cellist went on. “A playboy of sorts. I always admired him—he was more like us, I think, because the way he kept coming back, you’d swear he was immortal. Not even the most arch of villains was able to do away with him.”
Scythe Anastasia grinned. Now she understood why the cellist had chosen to be gleaned this way. “He preferred his martinis shaken, not stirred,” she said.
The cellist smiled back. “Shall we, then?”
So she took the silver container, shook it well, until the ice inside made her fingers ache. Then she opened the cap and poured out a mixture of gin, vermouth, and a little something extra into the frosty martini glass.
The cellist looked at it. She thought he’d be cavalier and ask for a lemon twist, or an olive, but no, he just looked at it. So did the croupier. So did the pit boss behind him.
“My family is in a hotel room upstairs waiting for you,” he tol
She nodded. “Suite 1242.” It was her job to know these things.
“Please make a point of holding out your ring to my son, Jorie, first—he’s the one taking this the hardest. He’ll insist the others receive immunity before him, but singling him out to kiss the ring first will mean a lot to him, even if he lets the others go first.” He pondered the glass a few moments more, then said, “I’m afraid I cheated, but I’ll wager you know that already.”
That was another wager he won. “Your daughter, Carmen, doesn’t live with you,” Scythe Anastasia said. “Which means she’s not entitled to immunity, even though she’s in your hotel suite with the others.” The cellist, she knew, was one hundred forty-three, and had raised several families. Sometimes her gleaning subjects would attempt to get immunity for entire multitudes of offspring. In those circumstances she had to refuse. But one extra? That was within her discretion. “I will grant her immunity, as long as she promises not to boast about it.”
He released a breath of immense relief. Clearly this deception had weighed on him, but it wasn’t really a deception at all if Scythe Anastasia already knew—and even less so if he confessed it in his final moments. Now he could leave this world with a clear conscience.
Finally Mr. Hogan lifted the glass with debonair style, and regarded the way the liquid caught and refracted the light. Scythe Anastasia couldn’t help but imagine his 007 ticking down digit by digit to 000.
“I want to thank you, Your Honor, for allowing me these past few weeks to prepare. It has meant the world to me.”
This is what the scythedom was incapable of understanding. They were so focused on the act of killing, they couldn’t comprehend what went into the act of dying.
The man raised the glass to his lips and took the tiniest sip. He licked his lips, judging the flavor.
“Subtle,” he said. “Cheers!”
Then he downed the whole glass in a single gulp, and slammed it down on the table, pushing it toward the croupier, who backed away slightly.
“I’ll double down!” the cellist said.
“This is baccarat, sir,” the croupier responded, his voice a little shaky. “You can only double down in blackjack.”
“Damn.”
Then he slumped in his seat, and was gone.
Citra checked his pulse. She knew she’d find none, but procedure was procedure. She instructed the croupier to have the glass, the shaker, and even the tray, bagged and destroyed. “It’s a strong poison—if anyone inadvertently dies handling it, the scythedom will pay for their revival and compensate them for their trouble.” Then she pushed her pile of winnings over to the dead man’s. “I want you to personally make sure that all these winnings go to Mr. Hogan’s family.”
“Yes, Your Honor.” The croupier glanced at her ring as if she might offer him immunity, but she withdrew her hand from the table.
“Can I count on you to make sure it’s done?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Satisfied, Scythe Anastasia left to grant the cellist’s grieving family a year of immunity, ignoring the constellation of eyes doing their best not to look at her as she sought out the elevators.
* * *
I have always had a preoccupation with those who have a high probability of changing the world. I can never predict how they might accomplish the change, only that they are likely to.
Since the moment that Citra Terranova was placed into apprenticeship under Honorable Scythe Faraday, her probability of changing the world increased a hundredfold. What she will do is unclear, and the outcome hazy, but whatever it is, she will do it. Humanity may very well rise or fall by her decisions, by her achievements, by her mistakes.
I would guide her, but as she is a scythe, I cannot interfere. I only watch her fly or fall. How frustrating it is to have so much power, yet be so impotent to wield it when it counts.
—The Thunderhead
* * *
5
A Necessary Darkness
Citra took a publicar away from the casino. It was self-driving, and it was on the grid, but the moment she got inside, the light that indicated it was connected to the Thunderhead blinked off. The car knew by the signal from her ring that she was a scythe.
The car welcomed her with a synthesized voice that was void of any actual artificial intelligence. “Destination, please?” it asked, soullessly.
“South,” she said, and flashed to the moment she had told another publicar to drive north, when she was deep in the South Merican continent, trying to escape from the entire Chilargentine scythedom. It seemed so long ago now.
“South is not a destination,” the car informed her.
“Just drive,” she said, “until I give you a destination.”
The car pulled away from the curb and left her alone.
She was beginning to hate having to take the obsequious self-driving cars. Funny, but it had never bothered her before her apprenticeship. Citra Terranova never had a burning desire to learn to drive—but Scythe Anastasia now did. Perhaps it was part of the self-determined nature of being a scythe that made her feel uncomfortable as a passive passenger in a publicar. Or maybe it was the spirit of Scythe Curie rubbing off on her.
Scythe Curie drove a flashy sports car—her only indulgence, and the only thing in her life that clashed with her lavender robe. She had begun teaching Anastasia to drive it with the same steely patience with which she taught Citra to glean.
Driving, Citra had decided, was more difficult than gleaning.
“It’s a different skill set, Anastasia,” Scythe Curie told her during her first lesson. Scythe Curie always used her scythe name. Citra, on the other hand, always felt a bit awkward calling Scythe Curie by her first name. “Marie” just sounded so informal for the Granddame of Death.
“One can never truly master the art of driving, because no journey is ever exactly the same,” Scythe Curie told her. “But once you’ve gained proficiency, it can be rewarding—freeing, even.”
Citra didn’t know if she’d ever reach that point of proficiency. There were simply too many things to focus on all at once. Mirrors and foot pedals and a wheel that, with the mere slip of a finger, could send you sailing off a cliff. What made it worse was that Scythe Curie’s mortal-age sports car was completely off-grid. That meant it could not override a driver’s mistakes. No wonder automobiles killed so many people during the Age of Mortality; without networked computer control they were weapons as deadly as anything scythes used for gleaning. She wondered if there were actually scythes who gleaned by automobile, and then decided she didn’t want to think about it.
Citra knew very few people who could drive. Even the kids back at school who boasted and flaunted their shiny new cars all had self-drivers. To actually operate a motor vehicle in this post-mortal world was as rare as churning one’s own butter.
“We have been driving south for ten minutes,” the car told her. “Do you wish to set a destination at this time?”
“No,” she told it flatly, and continued to look out of the window at the passing highway lights punctuating the darkness. The trip she was about to make would have been so much easier if she could drive herself.
She had even paid visits to several car dealerships, figuring that if she had her own car, she might actually learn to drive it.
Nowhere were the perks of being a scythe more evident than at a car dealership.
“Please, Your Honor, choose one of our high-end vehicles,” the salespeople would say. “Anything you want, it’s yours; our gift to you.”
Just as scythes were above the law, they were above the need for money because they were freely given anything they needed. For a car company, the publicity of having a scythe choose their car was worth more than the vehicle itself.
Everywhere she had gone, they had wanted her to choose something showy that would turn heads when she drove down the street.
“A scythe should leave an impressive social footprint,” one snooty salesman tol
In the end she decided to wait, because the last thing she wanted was an impressive social footprint.
She took some time to pull out her journal and write her obligatory account of the day’s gleaning. Then, twenty minutes later, she saw signs for a rest stop ahead, and told the car to pull off the highway, which it obediently did. Once the car had stopped, she took a deep breath and put in a call to Scythe Curie, letting her know that she would not be home tonight.
“The drive is just too long, and you know I can never sleep in a publicar.”
“You don’t need to call me, dear,” Marie told her. “It’s not like I sit up wringing my hands over you.”
“Old habits die hard,” Anastasia said. Besides, she knew that Marie actually did worry. Not so much that anything would happen to her, but that she would work herself too hard.
“You should do more gleanings closer to home,” Marie said, for the umpteenth time. But Fallingwater, the magnificent architectural oddity in which they lived, was deep in the woods, on the very eastern edge of MidMerica, which meant if they didn’t extend their reach, they’d over-glean their local communities.
“What you really mean is that I should do more traveling with you, instead of on my own.”
Marie laughed. “You’re right about that.”
“I promise next week we’ll go gleaning together,” and Anastasia meant it. She had come to enjoy her time with Scythe Curie—both down time, and gleaning. As a junior scythe, Anastasia could have worked under any scythe who would have her—and many had offered—but there was a rapport she had with Scythe Curie that made the job of gleaning a little more bearable.
“Stay someplace warm tonight, dear,” Marie told her. “You don’t want to go overtaxing your health nanites.”
Citra waited a whole minute after hanging up before she got out of the car—as if Marie might know she was up to something even after she ended the call.