Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,65
Rowan at the center of their circle.
“Well, you are about to find out what it means.”
The other scythes then removed their cumbersome outer robes. Now down to their tunics and knickers, they took aggressive stances. There was a look of determination on each of their faces, and maybe a little bit of joyous anticipation. Rowan knew what was about to happen an instant before it began.
Scythe Chomsky, the largest of them, stepped forward and, without warning, swung his fist, connecting with Rowan’s cheek so hard, he spun around, lost his footing, and fell to the dusty floor.
Rowan felt the shock of the punch, the jagged bolt of pain, and waited for the telltale warmth of his nanites releasing pain-killing opiates into his bloodstream. But relief didn’t come. Instead the pain swelled.
It was horrible.
Overwhelming.
Rowan had never experienced such pain—he never knew such pain could even exist.
“What did you do?” he wailed. “What did you do to me?”
“We turned off your nanites,” Scythe Volta said calmly, “so you could experience what our ancestors once did.”
“There’s a very old expression,” Scythe Goddard told him. “‘To be painless is to be gainless.’” He gripped Rowan warmly on the shoulder. “And I wish you to gain much.”
Then he stood back, signaled the others to advance, and they began to beat Rowan to a pulp.
• • •
Recovery without the aid of healing nanites was a slow, miserable process that seemed to get worse before it got better. The first day Rowan longed to die. The second day he thought he actually might. His head pounded, his thoughts swam. He slipped in and out of consciousness with little warning. It was hard to breathe, and he knew he had several broken ribs. And although Scythe Chomsky had painfully popped his dislocated shoulder back into place at the end of his beating, it still ached with each heartbeat.
Scythe Volta visited him several times a day. He sat with Rowan, spoon-feeding him soup, and blotting where it spilled from his split, swollen lips. There seemed to be a halo around him, but Rowan knew it was just optical damage that caused the effect. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had detached retinas.
“It burns,” he told Volta as the salty soup spilled over his lips.
“It does for now,” Volta told him with genuine compassion. “But it will pass, and you’ll be better for it.”
“How could I be better for any of this?” he asked, horrified at how distorted and liquid his words sounded, as if he were speaking through the blowhole of a whale.
Volta fed him another spoonful of soup. “Six months from now, you tell me if I was right.”
He thanked Volta for taking the time to visit him when no one else did.
“You can call me Alessandro,” Volta said.
“Is that your real name?” Rowan asked.
“No, idiot, it’s Volta’s first name.”
Rowan supposed that’s as close as anyone got to knowing anyone else in the Scythedom.
“Thank you, Alessandro.”
• • •
On the evening of the second day, the girl—the one who Goddard said was so important—came into his room in between deliriums. What was her name again? Amy? Emmy? Oh yes—Esme.
“I hate that they did this to you,” she said with tears in her eyes. “But you’ll get better.”
Of course he’d get better. He didn’t have any choice in the matter. In mortal days, one died or recovered. Now there was only one option.
“Why are you here?”
“To see how you were getting on,” she said.
“No . . . I mean here, in this place?”
She hesitated before she spoke. Then she looked away. “Scythe Goddard and his friends came to a mall near where I lived. They gleaned everyone in the food court except for me. Then he told me to come with him. So I did.”
It didn’t explain anything, but it was the only explanation she offered—perhaps the only one she knew. From what Rowan could see, this girl served no discernible function at the estate. Yet Goddard gave orders that anyone who ran afoul of her would be severely disciplined. She was not to be bothered in any way, and was allowed free run of the estate. She was the biggest mystery he’d encountered yet in Scythe Goddard’s world.
“I think you’ll be a better scythe than the others,” she told him, but gave no explanation as to why she thought so. Perhaps it was a gut feeling, but she couldn’t be more wrong.
“I won’t be a scythe,” he told her. She was the first person he confessed it to.