Broken Fate

by Jennifer Derrick

  When I get home, I jump out of my car and run for the front door, banging it open in my haste. Mom is sitting at the dining room table, surrounded by legal paperwork and client files.

  “Slow down,” she says absently as I race through the living and dining rooms, dropping my coat and backpack as I go.

  “Right,” I call back from the kitchen where I’m already punching the unlock code into the keypad on the basement door.

  I throw open the door and hop down the stairs, taking them two at a time. At the bottom, I flick on the light switch. The overhead fluorescent tubes flicker and then hold, illuminating the vast underground space where my sisters and I manage the fate of humanity.

  I run toward my workroom, passing Chloe’s spinning wheel and Lacey’s shelves crammed full of measuring tapes, scales, and astrological charts. Spools of gold thread fill the shelves on one wall, all waiting to be spun into lifelines. Against another wall, our server farm hums away, processing all of humanity’s records.

  All of my work is conducted behind the ten-foot tall, eight-inch thick oak door at the end of the room. In the center of the door is a carving of me as I looked when I lived on Mount Olympus. My hair curls down to the middle of my back, and I’m wearing a one-shoulder gown that I remember as being made of white satin. Holding my shears in my left hand, I grasp a human lifeline, poised for cutting, in my right. I look like the goddess that I am.

  The day I posed for that carving was pretty much the last time I looked that way, though. We left Olympus not long after the door was made, trading life among the gods for life among the mortals. I happily traded the gowns for the most casual fashions I could get away with.

  The long hair is gone now, too, replaced by a short, swingy bob that hangs just past my chin and is easy to care for. Mom is constantly badgering me to grow it back, but I refuse. I compromised with her, and I keep it my natural auburn color instead of streaking it with lavender which, for some reason, is something I really want to do.

  At the top of the door, inscribed in gold leaf, are the words, “θάνατος περιμένει όλους.” It’s my motto in Greek which means, “Death waits for all.” The rest of the door is filled with elaborate carvings of animals, people, insects, and plants. They’re supposed to symbolize life, to remind me that it continues endlessly. Whether I find that thought inspiring or depressing depends on what kind of day I’ve had.

  Although I could have left the door on Mount Olympus, I haul it with me every time we move. Zeus presented it to me when he made me the Death Fate. For that reason alone, it is unique. Zeus gave me exactly two things—the door and my shears. Other than that, he’s been an absentee father, only troubling to involve himself in my life when he needs something from me. Which isn’t often.

  Entering my code into the keypad on the door, I place my finger on the fingerprint scanner. I wait while it verifies my identity, and then I haul open the door once I’m cleared. A blast of perfectly dry and climate-controlled air hits me in the face. I pull the door shut behind me and lock it for privacy.

  The cavernous space is illuminated by only a few soft lights. Harsh lighting has always seemed too clinical to me. This room may be a killing zone, but it doesn’t need to look like a morgue. Billions of thin, gold filaments hang from racks mounted to the ceiling. Each filament is a human lifeline, spun by Chloe. They shimmer in the soft light like tinsel on a Christmas tree, blown by the slight breeze coming from the overhead vents.

  No question, Chloe has the best job of the three of us. She determines who is born and when, and then her job ends before those lives turn problematic. She creates, never destroys. Must be nice. Occasionally, a human will say, “I wish I’d never been born,” and curse Chloe, but far more people curse Lacey and me.

  When Chloe finishes spinning a lifeline, she hands it over to Lacey. Lacey determines the length of each life and doles out the positive and negatives for that life. Win big at the casino? Thank Lacey. Blow all that money and end up homeless? Blame Lacey. She also assigns each person’s date of death. Once assigned, it can never be changed. Not even Zeus can alter a human’s fate once Lacey has recorded it in her files.

  My job is to carry out the final act of every human life. I decide how each human will die, and then I cut their lifelines at the appointed time. My real name is Atropos, also known as, The one who cannot be avoided. No one escapes me—not the great, not the powerful, and not the wealthy.

  I turn to my desk and punch the play button on my iPod dock. Pavarotti’s voice belts out Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.” I pull my box out of my desk drawer, lay it on my desk, and pop the clasp. My shears rest on the blue velvet inside.

  Mythology refers to them as the “abhorred shears,” but there is nothing abhorrent about them to me. No matter how many billions of times I’ve used these shears, they never fail to impress me. About a foot long, with handles encrusted with alternating rubies and emeralds, they are sharp enough to cut through any material. Hephaestus enchanted them and made them self-sharpening, which is wonderful since I lack the patience and time to do it.

  If a human touches the blades, their life and fate are instantly forfeit. Zeus added that feature to protect against any humans who might try to steal my shears and control death. The idea of death falling into human hands scares Zeus. For that matter, anything that takes control away from the gods scares Zeus.

  Technically I don’t even have to cut the lifelines. I could just travel the world, touching humans with my shears and killing them. That’s too time consuming, though. I’m not Santa Claus. I don’t have super-speed reindeer, so I can’t travel around the world in one night handing out death. Besides, a woman running around touching people with scissors and then having them drop dead is too conspicuous. Instead, I work here, keeping the killing private and easy.

  I check the clock on the wall. There is only five minutes left before Flight 112 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean. I pull up the accident file on my computer and print off the schedule, showing who will die and when. Above me, the racks of lifelines begin to spin, like the automated system at a dry cleaner’s, bringing all the ones for this accident to the front. They arrive already sorted chronologically. All I have to do is reference the schedule and snip each line at the right time.

  Computers are a boon to my job. Before them, I manually recorded dates and manners of death, cross referenced and cataloged everything with Lacey’s handwritten records, manually pulled every line to cut on a given day, and then I still had to do the cutting. As Earth’s population grew, I rarely slept and free time was nonexistent. Having everything automated except the cutting gives me a little time to relax each day.

  One-hundred and six lifelines hang before me now. Most are fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, indicating adults aged twenty to sixty. Longer lines represent the elderly, and the shorter lines are children. I sigh when I see three lines no more than a foot long in the group. Babies. I hate this part of the job, but there’s nothing I can do about it. That was Lacey’s call, not mine.

  I move to the first group of lifelines and watch the clock. The seconds tick down. Three. Two. One. At 12:30:43, the plane crashes into the ocean. I gather the first sixty-eight lines in my fist and cut them with my shears. Those people are dead on impact. There’s a one-minute pause, and then I snip eight more lines. I wait a beat. Then five more, and then ten more. Three more minutes. Two more lines. The cuts are happening less frequently now that the initial impact is over. These people are burning, bleeding out, or drowning. One cut, a five-minute pause, and then another cut. Only eleven people remain. I wait.

  My schedule lists, “Drowning of people inside when fuselage sinks: 12:44:41.” When the clock shows the right time, I cut ten of the final eleven lines. The one remaining line is incredibly short. I know it’s a baby, probably not more than eight months old. Likely his carrier seat is bobbing in the water for now, perhaps stuck on a piece of wreckage. I sigh. The poor kid has minutes left. His parents
are already dead. I guess that’s a blessing.

  I stare at that single line waving in the breeze from the vents and wish, yet again, for a way to change the outcome. I’d love to give everyone an easy death, but I’m not allowed to do that. Zeus has a master plan for the humans, and I’m bound to honor it. Part of that plan is that sometimes people need to die horrible deaths. It reminds the humans about the fragility of life and the specialness of the gift. Humans tend to forget just how lucky they are to be alive. Death is a good reminder. Random, unjust, and cruel deaths are even better reminders.

  The clock ticks down, and I snip the baby’s line. The tiny filament falls to the floor, landing on top of the other one-hundred and five lines. I stand a moment, silently respectful of the dead, and wipe away the tear that drips down my chin. It’s my job. Only a job. Maybe one day, reminding myself of that will help.

  After I’ve boxed up the lines and sent them to Thanatos for pick up, I glance at my clock. It’s not yet one o’clock, which means I have to go back to school. Mom worked hard to make it so that we can attend school as our schedules dictate, but we aren’t allowed to abuse the privilege.

  Truthfully, she didn’t work that hard, but I’m willing to give her the credit. She simply abused her power a bit. As Themis, the goddess of law and order, she has the ability to compel people to comply with rules and laws, so she “encouraged” the administration to accept the crazy excuses she crafted for us. Obi-Wan Kenobi used a similar power in Star Wars to get the storm troopers to leave Luke alone. George Lucas totally stole that from Mom. I’m supposed to be the only caregiver for a sick relative, Lacey is an elite swimmer training for the Olympics, and Chloe has some weird disease that requires treatment at odd hours. It’s all lies, but Mom forged a ton of paperwork to support everything and then persuaded the administration to buy every bit of it. You’ve got to respect that level of trickery.

  Regardless, there’s too much time left in the day, so I have to go back to school. There’s no point in arguing about it, either, because Mom won’t bend the rule no matter how tired I am. It doesn’t matter that we’re all immortal and well past grounding age. What Themis says is law, and we don’t disobey her. Not often, anyway.

  I lock up my shears and head upstairs where I gather up my discarded bomber jacket and book bag. Mom calls to me from the dining room as I’m searching the floor for my car keys.

  “Everything taken care of?”

  “Yeah. Another hundred or so people dead and on their way to Thanatos. Chloe’ll have them replaced by sundown,” I say as I scoop my keys out from under the coffee table.

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. It’s not very respectful.”

  I wander into the dining room and take a seat at the table across from her. “Sorry. I’m just tired. Lacey’s got humans dying by the truckload this week, and I’m just trying to keep up. It’s one of those weeks that I swear she’s trying to punish me for something.”

  “I know. But you know Zeus chose you and your sisters for this work because he knew you could handle it,” she says.

  “It just gets old. Billions of kills and trillions more to go, unless Zeus decides to end the world early.”

  “Why don’t you have some fun, then? You spend all your time alone when you’re not working. You’re either out walking or you have your nose buried in a book. You girls are in school again. You could join some clubs like Lachesis, or play sports like Clotho. They do just fine in the mortal world.”

  “And how many times have I broken their hearts when I’ve killed someone they loved or were friends with?” I ask. “Why would I subject myself to that sort of misery? Lacey still mourns that guy, Charlie, she loved, and that was over a hundred years ago.”

  “I know it’s hard,” Mom says, reaching across the table to take my hand. “You see all the misery and death in the world, and you’re the architect of some of that suffering. But that doesn’t mean you should lock yourself away. You’re missing out on life, Atropos, and it worries me. It worries your father, too.”

  I snort at that. “Not likely. Zeus quit worrying about me a long time ago.”

  “He does. He just doesn’t show it.”

  I shrug. “Whatever. Humans are just too much trouble, anyway.”

  “Then hang out with other gods. I know Apollo’s interested. Or what about calling Persephone? You two always got along well.”

  “I’ve tried the god thing,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Twice. Didn’t work out so great either time, if you’ll recall. And as for Persephone, you know how much Hades hates to let her out of the Underworld. She and I can’t be all buddy-buddy as long as he keeps that leash so tight. And I certainly don’t have time to go down there and visit her. I’m too busy killing people.”

  “I’m just saying that I think you’re missing out on some great things by not opening yourself up to love and friendship.”

  “This from the woman who’s still hung up on Zeus, even though he’s been with how many other women? He only beds you every few hundred years when he’s bored with everyone else, and he still chooses Hera as his queen over you. Have you ever considered getting over him and seeing someone else?” I ask. “Maybe a human?”

  “I have and I’ve rejected the idea. Your father remains the love of my life, even if he is a cheating asshole.”

  “Then don’t tell me what I’m missing when you’re just as dysfunctional.” I pull my hand back and stand to leave.

  Mom stands, too, and comes around the table to stand in front of me. “The problem is, Atropos, that you don’t love anyone. You don’t have relationships, functional or not. You don’t love any of the gods, nor the humans. Sometimes I wonder if you really love me or your sisters.”

  That stings, and I lash back. “When do I have time to love anyone? Between the farce of going to school every day and killing thousands of people every week, when do I have time for anyone, even if I wanted them?”

  “You’d make the time, if it were important to you,” Mom says.

  “Yeah, well, I guess it’s just not that important to me,” I say, swallowing the rising anger. We’ve had this conversation before, and it always ends the same way—with me pissed off and Mom hurt. I try to cut it off before things get worse.

  “I’ve got to get back to school,” I say, pushing past her. “There are still two hours left in the day, and I don’t have to kill anyone again until three. I wouldn’t want to break any rules,” I say.

  “Atropos—” Themis begins, reaching out to touch my arm.

  I twist away from her and stomp out the door, giving it a good slam on my way out. I’ll catch hell for that later, but I really don’t care.