The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,108
19.3%.”
33 Unbreakable
“This is Scythe Anastasia. And no, this is not a recording; I’m coming to you live—because I am alive. But you’re not convinced. Of course you’re not—anyone can pull off a stunt like this using my memory construct, and a hundred other technological tricks. That’s why I need you to doubt this broadcast. Doubt it enough to do everything you can to debunk it. Do your best to prove that it’s fake, because once you fail, you’ll have to accept that it’s real. That I’m real. And once you’re convinced that I am who I say I am… then we can get down to business.”
* * *
The first broadcast was short and sweet. It had all the conviction, all the confidence it needed to have—and with good reason. Anastasia had found something on the lunar disaster. Something big. She had done what no one else had managed to do: uncover evidence that had been there, buried in the backbrain, since long before she was even born. The Thunderhead knew it was there, but it was, by law, obliged not to do anything about it. Scythe business was scythe business; it had to let it go. But the Thunderhead must know what she had discovered. It knew every bit of its own backbrain. She wondered if it was happy with what she had found.
“I am immensely proud of you,” High Blade Tenkamenin told her. “I knew you’d crack it! Of course Scythe Makeda had her doubts.”
“I was voicing healthy skepticism,” Makeda said in her own defense. “We couldn’t count our chickens before they were hatched.”
“Or put our eggs in one basket,” added Baba. “I wonder which expression came first, the chickens or the eggs.”
Which of course made Tenka laugh. But his laughter was short-lived. There was something weighing on the High Blade. On all of them. There had been an undercurrent of tension all day.
It was even evident in Jeri, who usually played emotions close to the vest. “One of my crew had a family member gleaned,” Jeri told her. “I need to go into town and console her.” Jeri hesitated, as if there was more to be said… but didn’t say it. “I’ll be back late. Tell the High Blade not to expect me for dinner.”
And then, when the rest of them did sit down for dinner, the tone in the room bordered on dour. Not tense, but heavy. As if the burden of the world, which rested firmly on their shoulders, had doubled. Anastasia thought she knew why. “It was my broadcast, wasn’t it?” she asked, breaking the silence over a salad that wilted under the weight of everyone’s mood. “People didn’t react the way you wanted. It was a waste of our time.”
“Not at all,” Makeda said. “You were marvelous, dear.”
“And,” added Baba, “I’ve been tracking the chatter. It’s through the roof. I’d say you’d made an even bigger splash than Endura did.”
“Poor taste, Baba,” said Makeda. “Very poor taste.”
Tenkamenin didn’t comment. He seemed lost in his greens.
“Then what is it?” Anastasia asked. “If something’s wrong, you have to tell me what it is.”
“There was… an incident last night,” Tenkamenin finally told her. “In North Merica…”
Anastasia braced herself. “Did it involve Rowan Damisch?”
Tenka looked away—and so did Baba, but Scythe Makeda held glaring eye contact. “Yes, as a matter of fact it did.”
Anastasia curled her toes so tightly she felt the soles of her feet begin to knot. “He was gleaned,” Anastasia said. “Goddard gleaned him.” Somehow, saying it herself was better than hearing any of them say it.
But Tenka shook his head.
“He was supposed to be gleaned,” Tenka told her. “But he escaped.”
Anastasia folded with relief. It was not very scythelike. She tried to regain her composure, but everyone had seen.
“He’s with the Texans,” Makeda said. “Why they’d save him is beyond me.”
“He’s their enemy’s enemy,” Baba said.
“The problem isn’t that he escaped—it’s what happened afterward,” Tenka told her. “Goddard ordered a mass gleaning. Beyond anything we’ve ever seen. Nearly thirty thousand souls were taken—and he’s ordered that those who escaped be hunted down along with their families. He’s invoking the third commandment.”
“As if that applies!” snapped Makeda. “When you’ve just condemned an entire stadium to death, who wouldn’t run?”
Anastasia was silent. She took it in. She tried not to respond, because it was just too big a thing to respond to. Rowan was safe. And because of it, thousands were dead. How was she supposed to feel about that?