The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,25

to overtake her. She never lost consciousness, but rather gave in to that ethereal state where one’s mind slips in and out of outlandish thinking, while still marginally tethered to reality. Although her reality was currently beyond anything her dreams could have devised.

When she dredged up the wherewithal to take in her surroundings, she saw that quite a few safety pods had beached themselves up and down the strand. Their occupants had, no doubt, been sedated by the pods, which wouldn’t open until at least one person regained consciousness. It meant that Loriana would have to face their attackers alone.

Then she saw a man approaching from the tree line, and she realized to her absolute disgust, that he was a scythe. His robe was frayed, the hem torn, and although it clearly had begun as a lighter color, the closer to the ground it got, the darker and dirtier the robe was. She found herself more angry than frightened. To think that she, and all the others still in their pods, had survived the attack, only to be gleaned by a scythe upon the shore!

Loriana forced her aching body upright and stood between the scythe and the pods. “Stay away from them,” she said with more force than she thought she had in her. “Haven’t you done enough? Do you need to glean the survivors, too?”

The scythe stopped in his tracks. He seemed taken aback. “I have no such intention,” he said. “I mean you no harm.”

And although Loriana had always seen silver linings in the darkest of clouds, she was rapidly jading. “Why should I believe that?”

“He’s telling the truth,” said another voice – a woman coming out from the palm trees behind him.

“If you mean us no harm, then why did you attack us?”

“We are the ones who stopped the attack; we didn’t initiate it,” said the scythe. Then he turned to the woman. “Or more accurately, Munira here did. Credit where credit is due.”

“If you want to help us, then go get some others,” said Loriana, looking down the strand at the beached pods. “Because we’re going to need more than just the two of you.”

“There are no others,” Munira said. “Only us. Our plane was shot down. We’re stranded here, too.”

Well, that was just great, wasn’t it? Did anyone know they were here? Well, the Thunderhead did. But not really. All it knew was that they had crossed out of its eye. Why couldn’t Loriana have just listened to her parents and gone back to school for a new career path – any career path that wouldn’t have put her here?

“Tell us what you need us to do,” said the scythe, calmly deferring to her.

Loriana wasn’t sure how to respond to that. No one ever looked to Loriana for leadership, much less someone like a scythe. She had always been more of a pleaser than a planner, happy to be at the business end of the finger that was delegating responsibility. But these were strange times, and this was a strange place. Maybe it was the right time to redefine herself. She took a deep breath and pointed at Munira.

“Why don’t you walk up and down the beach, count the pods, and check that they’re all intact.” It would probably be a few hours before those within the pods regained consciousness. That would give Loriana time to get an idea of the scope of this situation.

“And you,” she said, pointing at the scythe. “I want you to tell me everything you can about this island, so we know what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

Scythe Faraday was not surprised to find that this girl was a Nimbus agent sent by the Thunderhead.

“Agent Loriana Barchok,” she told him. “I was with the Fulcrum City AI offices. We were given these coordinates without explanation, and so we came to find out why.”

Faraday told her who he was, figuring, in the here and now, it didn’t matter who knew. She didn’t bat an eye – apparently Nimbus agents were not aware of which scythes were supposed to be living or dead. He was amused, and perhaps a little bit insulted, that she did not recognize his name.

Faraday followed her directions precisely; he told her what he knew of the island – but nothing of what he suspected of it – because, to be honest, he and Munira had no proof that the fail-safe was here. All they knew was that this had been some sort of military base in mortal days,