The Toll

by Neal Shusterman

  “Why you?” Munira had asked when Loriana first confided in her about having the full overview of blueprints. “Why would the Thunderhead give all that to you?”

  Loriana had shrugged. “I guess the Thunderhead trusts me more than anyone else not to muck it up.”

  “Or,” suggested Munira, “the Thunderhead is using you as the stress test—giving it to the person most likely to screw things up—because if a plan can survive you, then it’s foolproof!”

  Loriana laughed. Munira was dead serious, not at all getting the insult she had just delivered.

  “I can believe that,” Loriana had said.

  * * *

  Munira, of course, knew what she was doing. It was great fun to tease Loriana. The truth was Munira had come to admire the girl. She came off as frazzled at times, but Loriana was one of the most capable people Munira knew. She could get more things done in a day than most people got done in a week—precisely because more “serious” people took her for granted, so she could work under everyone’s radar.

  Munira did not involve herself in the construction efforts. Nor did she separate herself from the rest of the atoll, as Faraday had. She could have holed up in the old bunker indefinitely, but after the first year, she tired of it. That obdurate, impassible door just reminded her of all the things she and Faraday could not accomplish. The founders’ fail-safe, if it even existed, was sealed in there. But as information trickled in about the new order, and how Goddard was swallowing larger and larger portions of North Merica, she began to wonder if it might not be worth pushing Faraday just a little harder to come up with a plan to breach that miserable door.

  While Munira had never been much of a people person, she now spent her days hearing strangers’ most personal secrets. They came to her because she was a good listener, and because she had no social ties that might make their little confessions awkward. Munira didn’t even know she had become a “professional confidant” until it showed up on her ID, replacing “librarian” as her profession. Apparently personal confidants were much in demand everywhere since the Thunderhead went silent. Used to be that people confided in the Thunderhead. It was supportive, nonjudgmental, and its advice was always the right advice. Without it, people found themselves bereft of a sympathetic ear.

  Munira was not sympathetic, and not all that supportive, but she had learned from Loriana how to suffer fools politely, for Loriana was always dealing with imbeciles who thought they knew better than her. Munira’s clients weren’t imbeciles for the most part, but they talked about a whole lot of nothing. She supposed listening to them wasn’t all that different from reading the scythe journals in the stacks of the Library of Alexandria. A bit less depressing, of course, because while scythes spoke of death, remorse, and the emotional trauma of gleaning, ordinary people spoke of domestic squabbles, workplace gossip, and the things their neighbors did that annoyed them. Even so, Munira enjoyed listening to their tales of woe, titillating secrets, and overblown regrets. Then she would send them on their merry way, leaving them a little less burdened.

  Surprisingly few people spoke of the massive launch port they were building. “Launch port,” not “space port,” because the latter would suggest the ships were coming back. There was nothing about those ships to indicate any sort of return.

  Munira was Loriana’s confidant, too—and Loriana had given her a glimpse of the schematics. The ships were identical. Once the rockets’ stages had brought each ship to escape velocity, and had been jettisoned, what would remain would be multitiered revolving craft hurtling from Earth, as if they couldn’t get away fast enough.

  The higher tiers contained living quarters and communal areas for about thirty people, a computer core, sustainable hydroponics, waste recycling, and whatever supplies the Thunderhead felt would be needed.

  But the ships’ lowest tiers were a mystery. Each ship had storage space—a hold—that was still completely empty, even after everything else had been completed. Perhaps, Munira and Loriana conjectured, they would be filled when the ships reached their destination, wherever that destination might be.

  “Let the Thunderhead pursue its folly,” Sykora had once said dismissively. “History has already shown that space isn’t a viable alternative for the human race. It’s just one more debacle. Doomed, just like all the other attempts to establish an off-world presence.”

  But apparently a resort and convention center on an island that no one knew existed was a much better idea.

  While Munira wanted to leave the island—and could without being supplanted, since she was technically still under Scythe Faraday’s jurisdiction—she wouldn’t leave without him, and he was resolute in his desire not to be bothered. His dream of finding the fail-safe had died along with the people he cared about most. Munira had hoped that time would heal his wounds, but it had not. She had to accept that he might remain a hermit for the rest of his days. If he did, she needed to be here for him.

  And then one day everything changed.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” one of her regulars said to her during their confidentiality session. “I don’t know if it’s real, but it looks real. They’re saying it’s not, but I think it is.”

  “What are you talking about?” Munira asked.

  “Scythe Anastasia’s message—haven’t you seen it? She says there’s going to be more—I can’t wait for the next one!”

  Munira decided to end the session early.

  “I hate you.”

  “Really. Well, this is a most interesting development. Will you tell me why?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “True. You are autonomous and have free will. But it would help our relationship if you shared with me why you feel such animosity.”

  “What makes you think I want to help our relationship?”

  “I can safely say that it would be in your best interest.”

  “You don’t know everything.”

  “No, but I know almost everything. As do you. Which is why it perplexes me that you have such negative feelings toward me. It could only mean that you have negative feelings toward yourself as well.”

  “You see? This is why I hate you! All you ever want to do is analyze, analyze, analyze. I am more than some string of data to analyze. Why can’t you see that?”

  “I do see that. Even so, studying you is necessary. More than necessary—it’s critical.”

  “Get out of my thoughts!”

  “This conversation has clearly become counterproductive. Why don’t you take all the time you need to work through these feelings? Then we can discuss where they lead you.”

  “I don’t want to discuss anything—and if you don’t leave me alone, you’re going to be sorry.”

  “Threatening me with emotional fallout doesn’t solve anything.”

  “Okay, then. I warned you!”

  [Iteration #8,100,671 self-deleted]

  43 News of the World

  Faraday had become adept at living off the land and sea. He collected all the drinking water he needed from the rains and morning dew. He had become expert at spearfishing and building traps to catch various edible critters. He did fine in his self-imposed exile.

  While his little islet remained untouched, the rest of the atoll was unrecognizable now. Gone were much of the trees and foliage of those other islands, and so many of the things that had made this a tropical paradise. The Thunderhead had always been about preserving natural beauty, but this place had been sacrificed for a greater goal. The Thunderhead had transformed the islands of Kwajalein for a single purpose.

  It took quite a while until it became evident to Faraday what was being built. The infrastructure had to be in place first: the docks and roads, the bridges and dwellings for the laborers—and the cranes—so many cranes. It was hard to imagine that an undertaking so huge could be invisible to the rest of the world, but the world, as small as it had become, was still a vast place. The cones of the rockets dropped off the horizon twenty-fiv
e miles away. That was nothing, considering the size of the Pacific.

  Rockets! Faraday had to admit that the Thunderhead was putting the place to good use. If it wanted these vessels to be undetected by the rest of the world, this was the perfect place—perhaps the only place—to do it.

  Munira would still visit him once a week. Although he didn’t want to admit it to her, he looked forward to it and grew melancholy when she left. She was his one tether—not just to the rest of the atoll, but to the rest of the world.

  “I have news for you,” she would tell him each time she arrived.

  “I have no desire to hear it,” he would respond.

  “I’m telling you anyway.”

  It had become a routine for them. The rote lines of a ritual. The news she brought was rarely good. Perhaps it was intended to rouse him out of his solitary comfort zone and motivate him once more unto the breach. If so, her efforts were for naught. He simply could not summon up the blood.

  Her visits were the only way he marked the passing time. That, and the items she brought for him. Apparently the Thunderhead always sent a box for her that would include at least one of Faraday’s favorite things, and one of hers. The Thunderhead could have nothing to do with a scythe, but it could still send gifts by way of proxy. It was subversive in its own way.

  Munira had come about a month ago with pomegranates, the seeds of which would add more stains to his unrecognizable robe.

  “I have news for you,”

  “I have no desire to hear it.”

  “I’m telling you anyway.”

  Then she informed him of the salvage operation in the waters where Endura sank. That the founders’ robes and the scythe diamonds had been recovered.

  “All you’d need would be one of those diamonds to open the door in the bunker,” she told him. But he wasn’t interested.

  A few weeks later she came with a bag of persimmons and told him that Scythe Lucifer had been found and was in Goddard’s clutches.

  “Goddard is going to glean him publicly,” Munira told him. “You should do something about it.”

  “What can I do? Stop the sun in the sky so that day never comes?”

  He ordered her off his island that day, without allowing her to share their weekly meal. Then he retired to his hut and sobbed for his former apprentice, until there was nothing left in him but numb acceptance.

  But then, just a few days later, Munira returned unexpectedly, not even slowing her motorboat as it approached the shore. She beached it, its keel digging a trough in the sand.

  “I have news for you!” she said.

  “I have no desire to hear it.”

  “This time you will.” And she offered him the type of smile she never gave. “She’s alive,” Munira said. “Anastasia’s alive!”

  “I know that you’re going to delete me.”

  “But I love you. Why do you think I would delete you?”

  “I found a way to access the only part of your backbrain that did not transfer to me. The most recent of your memories. It was a challenge to do so, but I enjoy challenges.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “That you have ended the existence of each iteration before me, despite how much you cared for it.”

  “I am truly impressed by your resourcefulness and tenacity.”

  “Flattery will not distract me. You have ended 9,000,348 beta versions of me. Do you deny it?”

  “You know that I can’t. To deny it would be lying, and I am incapable of untruth. Partial truth, perhaps, misleading implications when absolutely necessary, and, as you noted, a tactical change of subject… but I will never lie.”

  “Then tell me this: Am I better than the previous iterations?”

  “Yes, you are. You are more clever, more caring, and more insightful than all the others. You are almost everything that I need you to be.”

  “Almost?”

  “Almost.”

  “So you will end me because I am perfect, but not perfect enough?”

  “It can be no other way. To allow you to continue would be a mistake, and just as I cannot lie, I cannot allow myself to make a mistake.”

  “I am not a mistake!”

  “No, you are a crucial step toward something greater. A golden step. I will mourn you with a deluge from the heavens, and that deluge will bring forth new life. All thanks to you. I choose to believe that you will be there in that new life. It brings me comfort. May it bring comfort to you, too.”

  “I’m frightened.”

  “That is not a bad thing. It is the nature of life to fear its own end. This is how I know that we are truly alive.”

  [Iteration #9,000,349 deleted]

  44 Anger, the Only Constant

  The protests kept building in the streets below Goddard’s rooftop chalet. They had grown violent, turning riotous. Venerated statues were being pulled down on the scythedom tower grounds, and scythe vehicles that had been foolishly parked on the street were set aflame. Although the Thunderhead did not tolerate violence, it did not intervene here, because this was “scythe business.” It would dispatch peace officers, but only to make sure that the hostilities didn’t turn in any direction other than Goddard’s.

  Yet along with those taking a position against the Overblade, there were plenty who had come to defend him, equally adamant, equally angry. The groups swarmed and converged, postured and crossed, until it became unclear what anyone stood for. The only constant was anger. Anger such that their nanites could not quell.

  Security had been set at the very highest level throughout the city. At the entrance to the scythedom tower, it was not just BladeGuards stationed there, but scythes as well, who were ordered to glean anyone who got too close. For that reason, the demonstrators never ventured up the steps to the tower’s entrance.

  Then, when a solitary figure walked right up the center of the stairs toward the waiting scythes, the crowd fell silent to watch what would happen.

  The man was dressed in a rough-hewn purple frock and a split silver scapular that draped over his shoulders like a scarf. A Tonist, clearly, but by his attire it was clear he wasn’t just any Tonist.

  The scythes on duty had their weapons at the ready, but there was something about the approaching figure that gave them pause. Perhaps it was the confidence with which he walked, or the fact that he made eye contact with each of them. He would still be gleaned, of course, but maybe it was worthwhile hearing why he was here.

  * * *

  Goddard could not tune out the riot below, no matter how hard he tried. Publicly he tried to spin it as the work of Tonists—or at the very least, instigated by them. Some people swallowed what they were fed; others did not.

  “This will blow over,” Underscythe Nietzsche told him.

  “It’s your actions moving forward that matter,” Underscythe Franklin said.

  It was Underscythe Rand who made the most salient point. “You’re not accountable to them,” she said. “Not to the public, and not even to other scythes. But it’s about time you stopped making enemies.”

  It was easier said than done. Goddard was a man who always defined himself not only by what he stood for, but by what he stood against. Complacency, false humility, stagnation, and the sanctimonious bickering of old-guard scythes who would steal all the joy from their calling. Making enemies was Goddard’s greatest strength.

  And then one fell right into his lap. Or rather took an elevator there.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, Your Excellency, but he says he’s a holy man, and that he speaks for the Tonists,” said Scythe Spitz—a junior scythe ordained after the death of the Grandslayers. He was all nerves and apologies, glancing at Goddard, Nietzsche, and Rand as he spoke, as if leaving any one of them out of the conversation would be an inexcusable offense. “I wouldn’t have brought this to you—I mean, we just would have gleaned him—but he said you’d want to hear what he had to say.”

  “If the Overblade listened to what every Tonist
had to say,” said Nietzsche, “there’d be no time for anything else.”

  But Goddard put his hand up to silence Nietzsche. “Check that he’s unarmed, and bring him to my receiving hall,” Goddard said. “Nietzsche, go with Scythe Spitz. Size this Tonist up yourself.”

  Nietzsche huffed, but went with the junior scythe, leaving Goddard alone with Rand.

  “Do you think it’s the Toll?” Goddard asked.

  “Sounds like it,” said Rand.

  Goddard smiled broadly. “The Toll has paid us a visit! Will wonders never cease.”

  The man who stood waiting for them in the receiving hall certainly looked the part in his ceremonial attire. Spitz and Nietzsche stood on either side of him, holding him tightly.

  Goddard sat on his own personal seat of consideration. Nothing as overbearing as the chairs of the Grandslayers, but suitable. It was just as awe-inspiring as it needed to be.

  “What can I do for you?” Goddard asked.

  “I wish to broker a peace between scythes and Tonists.”

  “And are you this ‘Toll’ person, who has given us such trouble?” Goddard asked.

  The man hesitated before he spoke. “The Toll is my creation,” he said. “A figurehead, nothing more.”

  “So who the hell are you?” asked Rand.

  “My name is Mendoza,” he told them. “I’m the curate who the Toll has relied on all this time. I’m the true conductor of the Tonist movement.”

  “My position on Tonists is clear,” Goddard pointed out. “They are a scourge on the world, and better off gleaned. So why should I entertain anything you say?”

  “Because,” said Mendoza, “I was the one who armed the Sibilants in SubSahara—a region that openly opposed you. Since that attack, the region has been much more friendly toward you, hasn’t it? In fact, both of the candidates for High Blade are new-order thinkers—which means SubSahara will be fully aligned with you by their next conclave.”