The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,168
I found in there.”
Rowan had been here before.
Only then, Citra had been with him in a vault sealed in the dark. Now he was in a chilled shipping container with the dead. Hundreds of them around him in the darkness. The container was kept a degree above freezing, just like the vault at the bottom of the sea.
But this time, he had no expectation of death. At least not in the immediate future. Cirrus had instructed him to bring enough food and water for four days, and the thermal jacket was a much better insulator than the founders’ robes had been in the vault. Cirrus had told Rowan the container number he was supposed to slip into, but never told him what the cargo was. Rowan had almost bolted when he saw, but where would he bolt to?
The last thing Cirrus had said to him before it shut down the surveillance bot in the ramen shop was “See you on the other side.” Which meant that this journey had a destination he might just live to see. It was enough to keep him from running, because whatever was waiting for him on that other side was better than anything on this side. After a few hours in the dark with the dead, he felt the jolt of a crane clamping on to the container, followed by a disorientating elevation as it was raised from the dock, then a second jolt as it was lowered into place on a cargo ship. He heard the dead shift, slide, and tumble around him. He closed his eyes even though there wasn’t the slightest bit of light penetrating the chamber.
Was it strange that he was afraid to be alone in the dark with the dead? He kept imagining the dead standing around him, ready to exact vengeance on the only living subject within reach. Why, he wondered, was humankind plagued by such irrational fears?
When he felt the container being off-loaded the first time, he thought it was over, only to feel the motion of the sea once more a few hours later. He was on another ship. He didn’t know where he had gone from Tokyo; he didn’t know where he was going now. He had no idea why these lifeless people were being transported, or why he was with them. But in the end none of that mattered. His ship had set sail, and there was no turning back. Besides, he had grown accustomed to the dark.
When the container was opened, he gripped tightly to the blade he had brought, but he kept it concealed. He didn’t want to use it – it was, for once, only there for self-defense. Imagine! A weapon held for nothing more than self-defense! It felt like a luxury. There was surprise and commotion when he was discovered there, as he knew there would be, and when the dockworkers had a few moments to sort out their shock, he emerged.
“Are you all right? How did you get in there? Someone get this man a blanket!”
The dockworkers were kind, caring, and concerned until someone recognized him. Then wariness washed over them like a wave. They backed away, and he pulled out the knife – not to use, but in case someone attacked. He was stiff from the journey, but he could still wield a knife just fine. And besides, with a blade in hand he might get quicker answers to his many, many questions. But a voice spoke to him from a speaker on a nearby light post.
“Please, Rowan. Put that away,” it said. “It will only complicate things. And the rest of you stop staring and get back to work, because the longer you take, the more unpleasant your task will be.”
“Cirrus?” said Rowan, recognizing the voice that had spoken to him through the bot back in Tokyo.
“Welcome to nowhere,” Cirrus said. “There’s someone I need you to see, and preferably sooner than later. Follow my voice.”
And Cirrus jumped from one speaker to another, leading Rowan deeper into the moonlit island.
“It’s Italian,” said Munira. “I can tell by the handwriting that it was written by Scythe Da Vinci.”
The commotion on the island was at full-tilt frenzy, but Munira refused to be a part of it. When she’d heard pounding on her door, she’d thought it was Sykora or some other overbearing blowhard come to make her unload cargo. When she saw who it was, she let them in. Now she was regretting it.