Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,76

now, and perhaps not have to endure any more of this. But Volta believed in him. And so did Goddard, even if he wouldn’t admit it aloud—for why would Goddard set this challenge before him if he didn’t believe Rowan would rise to it?

Rowan took a deep breath, gripped his blades tightly in both hands, and with a guttural war cry that drowned the alarms blaring in his soul, he launched himself forward.

There were men and there were women. The subjects represented different ages, ethnic mixes, and body types, from muscular to obese to gaunt. He yelled and screamed and grunted with every thrust, slice, and twist. He had trained well. The blades sunk in with perfect precision. Once he began, he found he couldn’t stop. Bodies fell, and he was on to the next, and the next. They didn’t fight back, they didn’t run in fear, they just stood there and took it. They were no different from the dummies. He was covered in blood. It stung his eyes; the smell was thick in his nostrils. Finally he came to the last one. It was a girl his age, and there was a look on her face of resignation bordering on sorrow. He wanted to end that sorrow. He wanted to complete what he had begun, but he overrode the brutal imperative of the hunter in him. He forced himself not to swing his blades.

“Do it,” she whispered. “Do it or I won’t get paid.”

But he dropped his blades to the grass. Twelve deadish, one left alive. He turned to the scythes, and they all began to applaud.

“Well done!” Scythe Goddard said, more pleased than Rowan had ever seen him. “Very well done!”

Ambu-drones began to descend from above, grasping his victims and spiriting them away to the nearest revival center. And Rowan found himself smiling. Something had torn loose inside of him. He didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not. And while part of him felt like falling to his knees and hurling up breakfast, another part of him wanted to howl to the moon like a wolf.

* * *

A year ago if you’d told me that I’d know how to wield more than two dozen types of blades, that I would become an expert at firearms, and that I would know at least ten ways to end a life with my bare hands—I would have laughed and suggested that you ought to get your brain chemistry tweaked. Amazing what can happen in just a few short months.

Training under Scythe Goddard is different from under Scythe Faraday. It’s intense, physical, and I can’t deny that I’m getting better at everything I do. If I am a weapon, then I’m being sharpened against a grindstone every day.

My second conclave is coming up in a few weeks. The first trial was nothing more than a simple question. I’m told it will be different this next time. There’s no telling what the apprentices will be expected to do. One thing’s for sure, there will be serious consequences for me if I don’t perform to Goddard’s liking.

I have every confidence that I will.

—From the journal of Rowan Damisch, scythe apprentice

* * *

25

Proxy of Death

The engineer liked to believe that his work at Magnetic Propulsion Laboratories was useful, even though it had always appeared pointless. Magnetic trains were already moving as efficiently as they could. Applications for private transportation needed little more than tweaking. There was no more “new and improved,” there was just the trick of different—new styles, and advertisements to convince that stylishness was all the rage—but the basic technology remained exactly the same.

In theory, however, there were new uses that were yet to be tapped—or else why would the Thunderhead put them to work?

There were project managers who knew more about the ultimate goal of the work they did, but no one had all the pieces. Still, there was speculation. It had long been believed that a combination of solar wind and magnetic propulsion would be required to move about in space with any efficiency. True, the prospect of space travel had been out of favor for many years, but that didn’t mean it would always be.

There had once been missions to colonize Mars, to explore Jupiter’s moons, and even to launch to the stars beyond, but every mission had ended in utter and disastrous failure. Ships blew up. Colonists died—and in deep space, death meant death, just as completely as if they had been gleaned. The idea