Then the scythe held up his hand, showing his ring. And Bradford’s spirits fell again like the second drop of a roller coaster. That was no fake—it was the real thing “The boy is one of my apprentices,” the scythe said.
“I’m sorry,” said the boy. “It’s not personal—you just fit a certain profile. Back in the Age of Mortality lots of people died trying to perform rescues. A lot of them were people who jumped into flooded rivers to save their pets. Most of them were good swimmers, but that doesn’t matter in a flood.”
The dogs! thought Bradford. That’s right, the dogs! “You can’t hurt me!” he said. “You do, and my dogs’ll rip you to pieces.” But where were they?
Then a girl came out of his bedroom, wearing the same armband as the boy. “I sedated all three,” she said. “They’ll be fine, but they won’t be bothering anyone.” There was blood on her arm. Not the dogs’ but her own. They had bitten her. Good for them.
“It’s not personal,” the boy said again. “I’m sorry.”
“One apology is enough,” the scythe told the boy. “Especially when it’s genuine.”
Bradford guffawed, even though he knew this was real. He just somehow found this funny. His knees weak, he settled onto the sofa and his laughter resolved into misery. How was this fair? How was any of this fair?”
But then the boy knelt down before him, and when Bradford looked up, he was caught by the boy’s gaze. It was as if he were looking into the eyes of a much older soul.
“Listen to me, Mr. Ziller,” the boy said. “I know you saved your sister from a fire when you were my age. I know how hard you struggled to save your marriage. And I know you think that your daughter doesn’t love you, but she does.”
Bradford stared at him, incredulous. “How do you know all this?”
The boy pursed his lips. “It’s our job to know. Your gleaning won’t change any of that. You lived a good life. Scythe Faraday is here to complete it for you.”
Bradford begged to make a phone call, pleaded for just one more day, but of course, those things were not granted. They said he could write a note, but he couldn’t bring himself to find anything to write.
“I know how that feels,” the boy told him.
“How will you do it?” he finally asked them.
The scythe responded. ‘“I have chosen for you a traditional drowning. We shall take you to the river. I shall submerge you until your life leaves you.”
Bradford clenched his eyes. “I’ve heard that drowning is a bad way to go.”
“Can I give him some of the stuff I gave the dogs?” the girl asked. “Knock him out so that he’ll already be unconscious?”
The scythe considered it and nodded. “If you choose, we can spare you the suffering.”
But Bradford shook his head, realizing he wanted every second he had left. “No, I want to be awake.” If drowning was to be his last experience, then let him experience it. He could feel his heart beating faster, his body trembling with the surge of adrenaline. He was afraid, but fear meant he was still alive.
“Come then,” the scythe told him gently. “We’ll all go down to the river together.”
? ? ?
Citra was awed by how Rowan handled himself. Although he began a little shaky when he first spoke to the man, he took charge. He took the reigns of that man’s fear and gave him peace. Citra only hoped that when it came her turn to make a choice, she could keep her composure as well as Rowan had. All she had done today was tranquilize a few dogs. Sure, she got bitten in the process, but it was nothing, really. She tried to convince Faraday to take the dogs to a shelter, but he wouldn’t have it. He did allow her to call the shelter to come for the dogs. And the coroner to come for the man. The scythe offered to take her to a hospital for some speedhealing of the dog bite on her arm, but she declined. Her own nanites would heal it by morning, and besides, there was something compelling about the discomfort. She owed it to the dead man to hurt a little for him.
“That was impressive,” she told Rowan on the long ride home.
“Yeah, right until I puked on the riverbank.”
“But that was only after he was gleaned,” Citra pointed out. “You gave that man strength to face death.”
Rowan shrugged. “I guess.”
Citra found it both maddening and endearing how modest he could be.
* * *
There’s a poem by Honorable Scythe Socrates—one of the first scythes. He wrote many poems, but this one has grown to be my personal favorite.
Have not a hand in the blade with abandon,
Cull from the fold all the brazen and bold,
For a dog who just might,
Love the bark and the bite,
Is a carrion raven, the craven of old.
It reminds me that in spite of our lofty ideals and the many safeguards to protect the Scythedom from corruption and depravity, we must always be vigilant, because power comes infected with the only disease left to us: the virus called human nature. I fear for us all if scythes begin to love what they do.
—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie
* * *
9
Esme
Esme ate far too much pizza. Her mother told her pizza would be the death of her. She never imagined it might actually be true.
The scythe attack came less than a minute after she was given her slice, piping hot from the oven. It was the end of the school day, and the daily trials of fourth grade had exhausted her. Lunch had sucked. The tuna salad her mother had given her was warm and mildly fermented by the time lunch rolled around. Not exactly appetizing. In fact, none of the food her mother packed for her hit high on the flavor scale. She was trying to get Esme to eat healthier, because Esme had a bit of a weight problem. And although her nanites could be programmed to speed up her metabolism, her mother wouldn’t hear of it. She claimed it would be treating the symptom, not the problem.
“You can’t solve everything by tweaking your nanites,” her mother told her. “You need to learn self-control.”
Well, she could learn self-control tomorrow. Today she wanted pizza.
Her favorite pizza place, Luigi’s, was in the food court of the Fulcrum City Galleria—which was on her way home from school. Sort of. She was negotiating the cheese, trying to figure out how to take that first bite without burning the roof of her mouth, when the scythes arrived. Her back was to them, so she didn’t see them at first. But she heard them—or at least one of them.
“Good afternoon, good people,” he said. “Your lives are about to change in a fundamental way.”
Esme turned to see them. Four of them. They were clad in bright robes that glittered. They looked like no one Esme had ever seen. She had never met a scythe. She was fascinated. Until three of them pulled out weapons that glistened even more than their bejeweled robes, and the fourth pulled out a flamethrower.
“This food court has been selected for gleaning,” their leader said. And they began their terrible mission.
Esme knew what she had to do. Forgetting her pizza, she dropped beneath the table and crawled away. But she wasn’t the only one. It seemed everyone had dropped and was scrambling on the floor. It didn’t seem to faze the scythes. She could see their feet through the crawling crowd. The fact that their victims were on all fours did not slow them down in the least.
Now Esme began to panic. She had heard stories of scythes who did mass gleanings, but until now she thought they were nothing but stories.