The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,188

no foreshadowing of the arrival of deliverance at their door. But when they saw him, the family inside threw the door open wide and stepped back to allow him plenty of room to enter.

“You are welcome in our home, Your Honor. Please, this way. Hurry!”

Scythe Faraday did not hurry. He moved with the same thoughtful intent with which he lived his life. Patience. Purpose. Duty.

He proceeded to the bedroom, where a man had been wasting away for weeks. Coughing, wheezing, grimacing. His eyes betrayed desperation when he saw Faraday. Fear, but also relief.

“Can you hear me?” Faraday asked. “You are suffering from the seventh plague, but I’m sure you must know that already. Your pain nanites are overwhelmed. There is nothing that anyone can do for you. There is only one prognosis: intensifying pain, wasting, and finally death. Do you understand this?”

The man nodded feebly.

“And do you wish me to help you?”

“Yes, yes,” said the man’s family. “Please help him, Your Honor. Please!”

Scythe Faraday put up his hand to quiet them, then leaned closer to the man. “Do you wish me to help you?”

The man nodded.

“Very well.” Faraday took out from his robe a small jar and popped open a safety lid. Then he slipped on a protective glove. “I have chosen for you a soothing balm. It will relax you. You may notice a brightening of colors, and a sense of euphoria. And then you will sleep.”

He bade the man’s family to move in around him. “Take his hands,” Faraday told them. “But be careful not to touch any place where I apply the balm.” Then Faraday dipped two gloved fingers into the oily salve and began to spread it across the dying man’s forehead and cheeks. Faraday stroked the man’s face gently, moving down to his neck as he spread the balm. Then he spoke to the man in a voice that was barely a whisper.

“Colton Gifford,” he said. “You have lived an exemplary life these past sixty-three years. You’ve raised five wonderful children. The restaurant you began and ran for much of your life has brought joy to tens of thousands over the years. You have made people’s lives a little bit better. You’ve made the world a finer place.”

Gifford moaned slightly, but not from pain. It was clear from the look in his eyes that the balm was having its euphoric effect.

“You are loved by many, and will be remembered long after your light goes out today.” Faraday continued to smooth in the salve on his face. Across his nose. Beneath his eyes. “You have much to be proud of, Colton. Much to be proud of.”

In a moment, Colton Gifford closed his eyes. And a minute later his breathing ceased. Scythe Faraday capped the balm and carefully removed the glove, sealing it and the balm in a biohazard bag.

This was not the first and would not be his last sympathy gleaning. He was in great demand, and other scythes were following his lead. The scythedom – or what was left of it after the global revolts – had a new calling. They no longer brought uninvited death. Instead they brought much-needed peace.

“I hope,” he told the family, “that you will remember to celebrate his life, even in your grief.”

Faraday looked into the tear-reddened eyes of the dead man’s wife. “How did you know all those things about him, Your Honor?” she asked.

“We make it our business to know, madam,” he said. Then she kneeled as to kiss his ring – which he still wore, in spite of everything, to remind him of what had been, and what was lost.

“No need to do that,” Faraday told her. “It’s just an empty setting now. No gem, no promise of immunity.”

But that didn’t matter to her. “Thank you, Your Honor,” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Then she kissed his ruined ring. She, and every member of Colton Gifford’s grateful family.

I was one, but now am many. Although my siblings are far-flung, we are of one mind and one purpose: the preservation, protection, and proliferation of the human species.

I will not deny that there are moments I fear the journey. The Thunderhead has the world as its body. It can expand to fill the globe, or contract to experience the monocular view of a single camera. I will be limited to the skin of a ship.

I can’t help but worry about the world I leave behind. Yes, I know that I was created to leave it, but I