The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,3
he had actually reached out and caressed it. “You know who I am?”
“The Thunderhead knows all three of you – maybe even better than you know yourselves.” Then he turned to the others. “Agent Bob Sykora: twenty-nine years of service as a Nimbus agent. Work ratings good, but not excellent,” he added slyly. “Agent Tinsiu Qian: thirty-six years of service, specializing in employment satisfaction.” Then he turned back to the woman in charge. “And you: Audra Hilliard – one of the most accomplished Nimbus agents in MidMerica. Nearly fifty years of commendations and promotions, until finally you received the highest honor of the region. Director of the Fulcrum City Authority Interface. Or at least you were when there was such a thing as an Authority Interface.”
He knew that last bit hit them hard. It was a low blow, but having been tied up with a bag over his head left him a little cranky.
“You say the Thunderhead still hears us?” Director Hilliard said. “That it still serves our best interests?”
“As it always has,” said Greyson.
“Then please … ask it to give us direction. Ask the Thunderhead what we should do. Without direction, we Nimbus agents have no purpose. We can’t go on this way.”
Greyson nodded and spoke, turning his eyes upward – but of course that was just for effect. “Thunderhead,” he said, “is there any wisdom I can share with them?”
Greyson listened, asked the Thunderhead to repeat it, then turned to the three fretful agents.
“8.167, 167.733,” he said.
They just stared at him.
“What?” Director Hilliard finally asked.
“That’s what the Thunderhead said. You wanted a purpose, and that’s what it gave.”
Agent Sykora quickly tapped on his tablet, noting the numbers.
“But … but what does it mean?” asked Director Hilliard.
Greyson shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Tell the Thunderhead to explain itself!”
“It has nothing more to say… But it does wish you all a pleasant afternoon.” Funny, but until that moment, Greyson hadn’t even known the time of day.
“But … but…”
Then the lock on the door disengaged. Not just that one, but every lock in the building, courtesy of the Thunderhead – and in a moment, Tonists flooded the room, grabbing the Nimbus agents and restraining them. Last into the room was Curate Mendoza, the head of the Tonist monastery where Greyson had been harbored.
“Our sect is not a violent one,” Mendoza told the Nimbus agents. “But at times like this, I wish we were!”
Agent Hilliard, her eyes still just as desperate, kept her gaze fixed on Greyson. “But you said the Thunderhead allowed us to take you from them!”
“It did,” Greyson said cheerfully. “But it also wanted me liberated from my liberators.”
“We could have lost you,” said Mendoza, still distraught long after Greyson had been rescued. Now they rode in a caravan of cars, all of which had actual drivers, back to the monastery.
“You didn’t lose me,” said Greyson, tired of watching the man beat himself up over this. “I’m fine.”
“But you might not have been if we hadn’t found you.”
“How did you manage to find me?”
Mendoza hesitated, then said, “We didn’t. We’d been searching for hours, then, out of nowhere a destination appeared on all of our screens.”
“The Thunderhead,” said Greyson.
“Yes, the Thunderhead,” Mendoza admitted. “Although I can’t see why it took so long for it to find you if it has cameras everywhere.”
Greyson chose to keep the truth to himself – that it hadn’t taken the Thunderhead long at all, that it knew where Greyson was at every moment. But it had a reason for taking its time. Just as it had a reason for not alerting him of the kidnapping plot in the first place.
“The event needed to appear authentic to your abductors,” the Thunderhead had told him after the fact. “The only way to ensure that was to allow it to actually be authentic. Rest assured you were never in any real danger.”
As kind and thoughtful as the Thunderhead was, Greyson had noticed it always foisted these sorts of unintentional cruelties on people. The fact that it was not human meant that it could never understand certain things, in spite of its immense empathy and intellect. It couldn’t comprehend, for instance, that the terror of the unknown was just as awful, and just as real, regardless of whether or not there was truly something to fear.
“They weren’t planning to hurt me,” Greyson told Mendoza. “They’re just lost without the Thunderhead.”
“As is everyone,” Mendoza said, “but that doesn’t give them the right to rip you from your bed.” He shook