The Toll

by Neal Shusterman

  And he also watched, and rewatched, Citra’s all-too-short broadcasts. Knowing that she was still free and fighting made everything else bearable.

  The last time Rowan had been in the LoneStar region, he had been Rand’s captive. The mandate of the region—benevolent lawlessness—made it easy for Rand to escape scrutiny and carry out her plan to bring Goddard back. But it was that same self-determination that made its scythes bold enough to rescue Rowan.

  Post-mortal Texans were unique. They were beholden to no rules beyond those of their own personal making and accountable to no one but one another—sometimes to terrible results, other times to glorious ones. As one of the Thunderhead’s seven Charter Regions, it was a prolonged social experiment that had become a permanent way of life—perhaps because the Thunderhead had decided the world needed one such place, where people could learn how to live by the laws of their own hearts.

  Some other experiments didn’t fare as well. Such as the “pensive collective” in RossShelf—the Charter Region in Antarctica—where the Thunderhead introduced mind-link technology that allowed everyone to read everyone else’s minds. Not pretty. People said it was the closest the Thunderhead had ever come to making a mistake, although it insisted that all its experiments, by their very nature, were successful, because they all proved something and gave it a better perspective from which to serve humanity. The pensive collective became the “slumber collective,” and now the people of the RossShelf region were the happy subjects of communal dreaming, where minds were still linked, but only during REM sleep.

  Two days after Rowan’s rescue, Scythes Travis and Coleman visited him in his quarters. But then a third scythe entered the room. One whom Rowan knew all too well, and was not keen on seeing.

  The instant he saw the red robe, Rowan knew he had been betrayed. He stood, reflexively reaching for a weapon, but of course he had none. Scythe Constantine, however, made no move to attack. He didn’t seem too happy—but that was nothing new for the man. He only had two expressions: disgusted and judgmental.

  Scythe Coleman put up her hands to calm Rowan down. “It’s not what you think,” she told him. “He’s not here to harm you. Scythe Constantine has joined the LoneStar scythedom.”

  Only now did Rowan notice that the jewels that had adorned Constantine’s robe the last time Rowan had seen him were gone. And although his robe was still crimson, the fabric was now rugged canvas. While scythes were free to align themselves with any region they chose, it was rare that an important scythe like Constantine joined a different region. Rowan couldn’t help but think it was a trick.

  Scythe Travis laughed. “Told you we should have warned him.”

  “Believe me, Mr. Damisch,” said Constantine. “I am no more pleased to see you than you are to see me, but there are concerns greater than our mutual animosity.”

  Rowan still wasn’t sure if he believed it. He couldn’t even imagine the high and mighty Constantine as a LoneStar scythe, limiting himself to gleaning only by bowie knife—the only rule of the LoneStar scythedom beyond the commandments.

  “Please, Rowan, sit down,” said Scythe Coleman. “We have business to discuss.”

  And when he sat, she gave Rowan a single page. On it were a list of names. All scythes. There were about fifty of them.

  “Those are the scythes we have decided that you should end,” Coleman said.

  Rowan looked up at Coleman, then down at the page, then up at Coleman again. Could they actually be asking him to kill fifty scythes?

  Travis, who was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed, gave a mournful oh boy sort of whistle. “The look on his face says it all, don’t it? This won’t be easy.”

  Rowan held the sheet out to Coleman. “No,” Rowan said. “Out of the question.”

  But Scythe Coleman didn’t take back the sheet and was not about to take no for an answer. “Don’t forget that we rescued you from the prospect of a painful death, Rowan,” she said. “And because we rescued you, thirty thousand innocent people were gleaned. You owe it to us as your rescuers, and you owe it to those poor people.”

  “All we’re asking,” added Travis, “is that you rid the world of problematic scythes. Didn’t you already have your heart set on doing that? Now you won’t be working alone. You’ll have the LoneStar scythedom’s backing.”

  “Unofficial backing,” added Coleman

  “Right,” agreed Travis. “No one can know. That’s the deal.”

  “And exactly what makes a scythe problematic to you?” Rowan asked.

  Coleman snapped the page away from him and pulled a name from the list. “Scythe Kurosawa. He has spoken out against our region for years and has insulted our High Blade time and time again.”

  Rowan was incredulous. “So that’s it? You want me to end a scythe for having a big mouth?”

  “You’re missing the point,” said Travis. “Why is this so hard for you, son?”

  Through all of this Constantine said nothing. He just stood back, with a funereal expression. The fact was, as Scythe Lucifer, Rowan vetted his choices thoroughly. If he could find a single redeeming quality to the scythe in question, he left that scythe alone. He personally knew at least three of the scythes on that list. They might not have been the most upstanding of scythes, but they didn’t deserve to be ended.

  “Sorry,” said Rowan. “If you rescued me so you can use me to settle your grudges, then put me back on the pyre.” Then he turned to Constantine. “And you! You’re a hypocrite! You hunted me for gleaning bad scythes, and now you’re fine with me going out there to do it again?”

  Constantine took a deep breath before he spoke. “You forget that I was an underscythe to Goddard. After what I’ve seen, I’ve come to feel his hold on the world must be weakened by any means necessary. All the scythes on that list are of the new order and fully embrace Goddard and his philosophies. You began your rampage because you believed the scythedom needed a dramatic overhaul. A culling, if you will. Although I am loath to admit it, I believe you are right.”

  Did Constantine actually just say that? Hell would be freezing over if the Thunderhead weren’t controlling its weather.

  “Thank you for saving my life,” Rowan told Coleman and Travis. “But like I said, I don’t take requests.”

  “Told you so,” Travis said to Coleman. “Plan B?”

  Coleman nodded. Rowan shuddered to think what plan B was, but no one was pulling out their knives to glean him.

  “In all the time since you were revived, did you ever once ask about what happened to your family?” Scythe Coleman said.

  Rowan looked away. He had been afraid to ask—not just out of the fear of knowing, but also because he didn’t want to bring his family into this, to be used on anyone’s chessboard.

  “If they’re still alive, I’m sure they’ve disowned me,” Rowan said. “Maybe changed their names, or even had themselves supplanted. If I were related to me, that’s what I would do.”

  “Very insightful,” said Scythe Coleman. “Actually, two of your sisters did change their names, and one of your brothers did get supplanted—but the rest of the Damisch family remained. Your mother, grandparents, and four other siblings.”

  “Are you… threatening to hurt them?”

  Travis guffawed at that. “What do you think? We’re like Goddard? We’d never hurt innocent people. ’Cept of course for the ones we glean.”

  “I’ll tell you what we did do,” Scythe Coleman said. “After you sank Endura, your family came to our region out of fear that they would be gleaned by MidMerica’s new High Blade—with whom they knew you had bad blood. We took them in, and since then they have been quietly under our protection, where they will remain, regardless of what you choose to do.” Then she turned to Travis. “Bring them in.”

  Travis left the room.

  And Rowan began to panic.

  Was his family here? Is that what was happening? Were they going to force him to face them? No! How could he, after all that he had
done—after all they believed he had done. As much as he wanted to see them—to see for himself that they were all right—he couldn’t bear the thought of standing before his family.

  “No! No, don’t!” Rowan insisted.

  “If we can’t convince you, maybe they can,” said Constantine.

  But the horror of making his family a part of this? Of hearing his own mother tell him to go out there and kill scythes? That was worse than being gleaned! It was worse than being burned alive!

  “I’ll do it!” Rowan blurted. “I’ll do whatever you want, just… just please, please leave my family out of this….”

  Coleman closed the door before Travis could return.

  “I knew you’d see reason,” she said with a warm smile. “Now let’s make this world a better place.”

  * * *

  “Have you done the research? Have you dug into the backbrain? I know it’s frustrating without the Thunderhead’s help—but after three years, I’m sure a lot of you have figured out how to do it. There’s a benefit to being unsavory, isn’t there? It forces you to struggle through the frustration and do things the hard way. So much more satisfying.

  “What did you find when you looked at the lunar disaster? Anything that didn’t look quite right to you? Did you find that the environmental system had triple redundancy? Not only a backup system but two backups to the backup. Did you learn that prior to that day, the Thunderhead had calculated the chances of an atmospheric catastrophe at .000093%? That’s less than one chance in a million. Was the Thunderhead wrong?

  “After the disaster, the Grandslayers of that time enacted a week of mourning. No one would be gleaned for a week, since so many had died on the moon. I’m sure most of the Grandslayers believed it was a tragic accident and were genuine in their remorse.

  “But maybe, just maybe, one was not.

  “If you’re looking for evidence that would tie any specific scythe to that disaster, you won’t find it. But did you look into what happened in the days and weeks after the tragedy? Did it trouble you that there was no cleanup of the site by the Thunderhead? No recovery of the dead?

  “Nameless sources suggested it was simply too much effort for the Thunderhead to recover bodies that were too damaged by the vacuum of space and solar radiation to ever be revived.

  “But if you dig in the backbrain, you can find a single statement from the Thunderhead. It’s there for anyone to see who cares to look. In fact, it’s the last thing in its file on the lunar disaster. Have you found it yet? If not, I have it pulled up right here. Have a look:

  “ ‘Lunar event beyond Thunderhead jurisdiction. Result of scythe activity.’ ”

  * * *

  Drawing out what she knew wasn’t just a tactic to hook people—it was a stalling tactic as well, because Anastasia still wasn’t sure where it was going to lead—but each day revealed more hidden truths in the backbrain. She knew she was close to a breakthrough on the Mars disaster, but was completely stymied by the destruction of the NewHope orbital colony.

  But the first reveal already had everyone reeling. Tenkamenin was overjoyed, and couldn’t contain his glee at dinner.

  “That statement by the Thunderhead in a forgotten file. ‘Result of scythe activity.’ Masterful work!”

  “You put us all to shame, dear,” said Makeda. “We searched the backbrain for months and never found that.”

  “And walking people through how to find it themselves only makes your case stronger,” Tenka said.

  “But I can’t lead them to things I can’t find. There are still so many leads that make no sense. Like the white silk.”

  “Explain,” said Makeda. “Maybe we can help.”

  Anastasia pulled out her tablet and showed them an image. “This was the last picture taken on the NewHope orbital colony before the disaster. You can see the approaching shuttle in the background—the one that lost control and hit the station, destroying it.” Anastasia tapped on the screen. “The backbrain links the image to tons of things—almost all of them relating to the disaster. News reports, obituaries. Dynamic analysis of the explosion. And then there’s this….”

  She showed them an inventory log for a bolt of fabric. Pearl-white silk. “I tracked where it went—about half of it was sold for wedding dresses, some of it was used for drapes—but there are fifteen meters unaccounted for. Nothing’s ever unaccounted for in the Thunderhead’s inventory.”

  “Perhaps they were just scraps,” Baba suggested.

  “Or,” came a voice from behind them, “perhaps it was used by someone who didn’t need to pay for it.”

  It was Jeri, late as usual, but with the insight that made all the difference. There was only one sort of person who could walk away with an expensive fabric, no questions asked, and not have to pay for it. Jeri sat beside Anastasia, who quickly started working on the tablet. Once she had something to look for, the information wasn’t hard to find.

  “There are hundreds of scythes known to have robes in shades of white… but only about fifty in silk… and pearl silk? That’s not common at all.” Then she stopped to take in what her screen was telling her, and turned to the others.

  “There’s only one scythe who had robes made of that particular fabric,” she said. “Scythe Dante Alighieri.”

  While the others didn’t realize the significance, Tenka did, and offered her the broadest of smiles. “How divine the comedy,” he said. “All roads lead to Alighieri….”

  “His name is familiar,” said Makeda. “Wasn’t he from Byzantium?”

  “TransSiberia, I believe,” said Baba.

  Then the moment was shattered by a jarring jangle loud enough to make everyone jump. The sound ceased, then came again.

  “Ah, there’s the culprit,” said Jeri, pointing to the antique twentieth-century telephone in the corner of the dining room. It was one of the old phones connected to Tenkamenin’s personal line—which hadn’t rung once since Anastasia had been there. It gave off one more abrasive jangle before Tenkamenin directed one of the servers to pick it up.

  “This is His Excellency’s, High Blade Tenkamenin, personal line,” the server said a bit awkwardly. “Whom may I say is calling?”

  The server listened, looked alarmed for a moment, but then his expression resolved into annoyance. He hung up and tried to return to serving.

  “What was that all about?” asked the High Blade.

  “Nothing, Your Excellency.”

  “It looked very much like something to me.”

  The server sighed. “It was a Tonist, Your Excellency, moaning and groaning like an animal. I don’t know how the miscreant came upon your number.”

  Then the phone rang again.

  “We could have it traced,” suggested Scythe Makeda.

  Tenkamenin’s face was serious. Not angry, but concerned. “There’s a red button on the right of the device,” he told the server. “It will put the call on speaker. Be so kind as to answer it once more and press the button.”

  The servant did as he was instructed, and immediately a wordless wailing sounded from the phone’s tinny speaker. The noise was so ghostly it would have been more at home in a drafty medieval castle than the High Blade’s palace. It was insistent. Mournful. Desperate.

  Tenkamenin pushed his chair back with a loud scrape, stood up, and went to the phone. He just stood there looking at it and listening to the awful sound. Then finally he disconnected the call.

  “Well,” said Scythe Baba, “that was unpleasant.” He tried to make a joke of it, but Tenkamenin was not in a joking mood. He just stood there staring at the silent phone. Then he turned to Jeri.

  “Captain Soberanis,” Tenkamenin said. “Where is your crew at this very moment?”

  Jeri looked around, understanding no more than anyone else the pertinence of the question. “They’re either out in town or back on the ship. Why?”

  “Notify them that you’ll be setting sail immediately. And that we will be coming with you.”

 
; “We, as in…”

  “As in all of us.”

  Anastasia stood up. She had never seen Tenka like this. He had always been unflappable. Now he seemed deeply shaken.

  “What’s going on, Your Excellency?” she asked.

  “That wasn’t a random call,” he said. “I believe it was a warning, and one we should heed.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because,” Tenkamenin said, “that was my father.”

  35 Requiem in Ten Parts

  i. Introitus

  It begins with hushed anticipation. The conductor stands, hand poised, all eyes on the wand, as if its downstroke will bring a dark magic.

  Today’s piece is an orchestral wonder. A requiem conceived of, and performed by, sibilant followers of the Tone, the Thunder, and the martyred Toll. A requiem performed in response to the Mile High gleaning an ocean away.

  Can you hear it now, ringing forth in the streets of Port Remembrance? A wordless, tongueless mass of mortality in an immortal world? Sweeping strains of fire and brimstone, but mostly fire. These Sibilants are well prepared for the music they will deliver today. And for those who hear it, there will be no deliverance.

  ii. Dies Irae

  Fire trucks were all automated. Yet still they were designed to require a human at the wheel, for the Thunderhead had planned it that way. Of course, if the human made a wrong turn, the truck would override the human and correct the error.

  The fire chief of Port Remembrance thought about that often. Before he became chief, he would intentionally make mistakes while driving his rig just to entertain himself—to see how long it took for the course correction to register, and for the truck to get itself back on track. The Thunderhead could use robots to do the job of firefighters, he supposed, but the Thunderhead had never been too keen on robots. It only used them for mindless labor that no one else wanted.

  And so firefighters were still firefighters. But that didn’t mean they had much to do. Because whenever a fire started, the Thunderhead always saw it when it was little more than a spark, and was usually able to put it out. It was only on those rare occasions that it could not, that firefighters were called in… although the chief had come to believe that the Thunderhead started “safe” fires just to give them something to do.