Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,77
of irrevocable death without the controlled hand of a scythe was too much to bear for a world that had conquered mortality. The public outcry shut down all space exploration. Earth was our sole home, and would remain so.
Which is why, the engineer suspected, the Thunderhead moved forward on these projects so carefully and so slowly as not to draw the public’s attention. It was by no means underhanded, because the Thunderhead was incapable of underhandedness. It was merely discreet. Wisely discreet.
One day, perhaps the Thunderhead would announce that while everyone was looking the other way, humanity had achieved a sustainable presence beyond the bounds of planet Earth. The engineer looked forward to that day, and fully expected he’d live to see it. He had no reason to expect that he wouldn’t.
Until the day a team of scythes laid siege to his research facility.
• • •
Rowan was awakened at dawn by a towel hurled at his face.
“Get up, sleeping beauty,” Scythe Volta said. “Shower and get dressed, today’s the day.”
“Today’s what day?” Rowan said, still too groggy to sit up.
“Gleaning day!” said Volta.
“You mean you guys actually glean? I thought you just partied and spent other people’s money.”
“Just get yourself ready, smart-ass.”
When Rowan turned off his shower, he heard the chop of helicopter blades, and when he came out onto the lawn, it was waiting for them. It was no surprise to Rowan that it was painted royal blue and studded with glistening stars. Everything in Scythe Goddard’s life was a testament to his ego.
The other three scythes were already out front, practicing their best kill moves. Their robes were bulky, and clearly loaded down with all nature of weaponry sheathed within the folds. Chomsky torched a potted shrub with a flamethrower.
“Really?” said Rowan, “A flamethrower?”
Chomsky shrugged. “No law against it. And anyway, what business is it of yours?”
Goddard strode out of the mansion. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!” As if they hadn’t all been waiting on him.
The moment was charged with the adrenaline of anticipation, and as they strode toward the waiting helicopter, Rowan, for an instant, had an image of them as superheroes . . . until he remembered what their true purpose was, and the image shattered.
“How many are you going to glean?” he asked Scythe Volta, but Volta just shook his head and pointed to his ear. Too loud to hear Rowan over the chopper blades, which made the scythes’ robes flail like flags in a storm as they crossed the lawn.
Rowan did some calculations. Scythes were charged with five gleanings per week, and to the best of his knowledge, these four hadn’t taken a life in the three months that Rowan had been there. That meant they could glean about two hundred fifty today and still be within their quota. This wasn’t going to be a gleaning, it was going to be a massacre.
Rowan hesitated, falling back as the others got in. Volta noticed.
“IS THERE A PROBLEM?” Volta shouted over the deafening chop of the blades.
But even if Rowan could make himself heard, he would never be understood. This is what Goddard and his disciples did. It was how they operated. This was business as usual. Could this ever be that way for him? He thought to his latest training sessions. The ones with living targets. The feeling he had when he had rendered all but one deadish, revulsion fighting a primal sense of victory. He felt that now as he stood at the entrance to the helicopter. With each step deeper into Goddard’s world, it became harder and harder to retreat.
All four scythes were looking at him now. They were ready to go on their mission. The only thing holding them back was Rowan.
I am not one of them, he told himself. I will not be gleaning. I will only be there to observe.
He willed himself to step up into the helicopter, pulled the door closed, and they rose skyward.
“Never been up in one of these, have you?” Volta asked, misreading Rowan’s apprehension.
“No, never.”
“It’s the only way to travel,” Scythe Rand said.
“We are angels of death,” said Scythe Goddard. “It is only fitting that we swoop in from the heavens.”
They flew south, over Fulcrum City, to the suburbs beyond. All the way Rowan silently hoped the helicopter would crash—but realized what a pointless exercise that would be. Because even if it did, they’d all be revived by the weekend.
• • •
A helicopter landed on the main building’s rooftop heliport. It was unexpected,