The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,49

casually, but always with determined intent, so that it carries greater personal meaning for those who make the journey.”

And so construct sanctums were deep in dark forests or on top of treacherous mountains. They were at the bottoms of lakes or at the end of underground mazes. There was, in fact, an entire industry devoted to building increasingly inaccessible, and creatively dangerous, sanctums.

The result was that people were, for the most part, satisfied with pictures and videos of their loved ones. But when someone felt a burning need to actually speak with a digital recreation of the lost individual, there was a means of doing so.

Scythes rarely visited construct sanctums. Not because they were forbidden to, but because it was considered beneath them. As if to do so somehow sullied the purity of their profession. And besides, it required skill at digging through the backbrain – because, while ordinary citizens could find their loved ones through a user-friendly interface, scythes had to manually code their way in.

Today, Scythe Ayn Rand crossed the face of a glacier.

Although the construct sanctum she was intent on visiting was right there, practically a stone’s throw away, she had to weave back and forth around treacherous crevasses and cross ridiculously narrow ice bridges to get there. Many had gone deadish attempting to visit this particular sanctum, yet people still came. There was an inner need in some, Rand supposed, to demonstrate their devotion to a loved one’s memory by risking the inconvenience of going deadish.

Scythe Rand should have been first underscythe to Overblade Goddard – but she was glad he had chosen others. Underscythes were yoked with crippling and petty responsibilities. One need only look at Constantine, who, as third underscythe, spent his days jumping through hoops and contorting himself to woo the obstinate LoneStar region. No; Ayn much preferred having untitled power. She was more influential than any of the three underscythes, with the added benefit of being accountable to no one but Goddard. And even then, he allowed Ayn her freedom. Freedom enough to go where she wanted, when she wanted, without anyone noticing.

Such as paying a visit to an Antarctic construct sanctum, far from prying eyes.

The sanctum was a neoclassical structure, with a high roof supported by Doric columns. It looked like something one might have found in ancient Rome, except that it was made entirely of ice.

Her guards went in before her to clear out any other visitors. Their orders were to render anyone present deadish. She could, of course, glean them, but gleaning was too conspicuous. Families would have to be notified, she would have to grant them immunity – and invariably someone in the MidMerican scythedom would find out where she had done the gleaning. This was much cleaner. People could be dispatched by the BladeGuards, and ambudrones would quickly arrive to carry the bodies to a revival center – problem solved.

Today, however, no one was present, which the guards found mildly disappointing.

“Wait outside,” she told them once they had done their sweep; then she climbed the ice steps and entered.

Inside were about a dozen niches with holographic welcome screens and an interface so simple, the dearly departed’s pet could probably use it. Scythe Rand stepped toward an interface, and the moment she did, it went blank. The screen now flashed:

“SCYTHE PRESENCE DETECTED;

MANUAL ACCESS ONLY.”

She sighed, plugged in an old-fashioned keyboard, and started coding.

What might have taken hours for another scythe only took about forty-five minutes for her. Of course, she’d been doing this enough that she was getting better at it.

Finally, a face, ghostly and transparent, materialized before her. She took a deep breath and regarded it. It wouldn’t speak until spoken to. After all, it wasn’t alive; it was just artifice. A detailed recreation of a mind that no longer existed.

“Hello, Tyger,” she said.

“Hi,” the construct responded.

“I’ve missed you,” Ayn told it.

“I’m sorry … do I know you?”

It always said that. A construct did not make new memories. Each time she accessed it, it was like the first time. There was something both comforting and disturbing about that.

“Yes, and no,” she said. “My name is Ayn.”

“Hi, Ayn,” it said. “Cool name.”

The circumstances of Tyger’s death had left him without a backup for months. The last time his nanites had uploaded his memories to the Thunderhead’s database was just before meeting her. That had been intentional. She had wanted him off-grid. Now she regretted it.

She had already determined on a previous sanctum visit that the last thing Tyger’s