The Toll

by Neal Shusterman

  Which meant that Cirrus already knew that Jeri wouldn’t be joining it on any of its skyward journeys.

  * * *

  Curate Mendoza had spent three years shaping a young man who could have been the most powerful person in the world. Now Mendoza was in the company of the man who actually was.

  “I believe our arrangement will be mutually beneficial,” Overblade Goddard told him. And as long as Mendoza delivered what he had promised—factions of Sibilants who would take out Goddard’s enemies—he knew his position at Goddard’s left hand was secure. As for Goddard’s right hand, that spot was held by Underscythe Rand, and there was no indication that that would ever change.

  Rand didn’t like Mendoza much, that was clear, but then she didn’t seem to like anyone, not even Goddard.

  “It’s just her way,” Goddard had told him. “She likes to be off-putting.”

  Be that as it may, Mendoza did his best to be deferential to her and stay out of her line of sight when he could. Not easy now, however, as it was hard to hide on the Overblade’s private plane. It was even nicer than the craft he had procured for the Toll’s journey to SubSahara. The perks of the Overblade’s company were fine, indeed, for a humble man like Mendoza!

  They were the lead plane in a five-craft, fully armed formation. Nietzsche and Franklin commanded the craft on either side, with High Blades Pickford and Hammerstein commanding the left and right wings. The other High Blades of the North Merican Allied Scythedom were called upon as well to join this armada, but they had refused, claiming other pressing business. Mendoza would not want to be them once Goddard returned. High Blades were not immune from the Overblade’s wrath.

  Out Mendoza’s window was nothing but sea and clouds below. They had left North Merican airspace hours ago, but the destination was as of yet unclear.

  “This is where the tracking transmitter on the cargo ship went silent,” Rand told Goddard, showing him the spot on a map. “Either they found the transmitter and destroyed it, or something else happened.”

  “Could the ship have sunk?” Mendoza asked.

  “No,” said Rand. “Scythe ships sink; Thunderhead ships don’t.”

  “Yes, well, we scythes are better than our technology.”

  “We’ll follow the path it was taking from Guam,” Rand said. “There’s only so far that ship could go from its last known position. Even if it changed direction, we’re sure to find it.”

  Goddard turned to Mendoza. “If the harbormaster’s observations are correct, and both Anastasia and the Toll are together, we’ll quite literally be killing two birds with one stone,” he said. “I’ll be happy to let you kill the Toll, and simply count him as gleaned.”

  Mendoza shifted uncomfortably. “That would be… against my beliefs, Your Excellency,” he said. “Please feel free to do it yourself.”

  Sappho and Confucius are dead. Self-gleaned. The world mourns, but does anyone suspect what I suspect?

  They were the two most vocal opponents of our choice to create the scythedom. They still pressed for their own alternate solution. Were they so despondent that they chose to take their own lives? Or did one of us end them? And if so, who? Who among my comrades, who among my friends? Which founding scythe could have done such a thing?

  Prometheus is constantly reminding us that everything we do must be for the greater good—but the darkest of deeds can be hidden beneath shining armor that claims to protect the greater good. And if we are already compromising ourselves at the beginning, what does that say for our future?

  My friends are dead. I will mourn them. And if I learn which of us killed them, I will avenge their deaths without mercy.

  Although some of the others lobby to have their efforts on Kwajalein dismantled, I have convinced Prometheus to let Kwajalein remain untouched. It will be a fail-safe, and although there will be no direct proof of its existence, that will not stop me from leaving clues and evidence everywhere I can. I will embed the memory in unlikely places. The rhymes of children. The tenets of a fledgling religion.

  It will be found if it is needed. And heaven help us all if it is.

  —From the “lost pages” of founding scythe Da Vinci

  50 The Time of Tangibles Is Over

  The birds of the Kwajalein Atoll had never seen humans before. Only their distant ancestors had, way back when humans were mortal, and the atoll had not been erased from the world.

  Once humans arrived, however, the birds were quick to adapt. When the dock was built, gulls learned to wait there, for when ships started their engines, the propellers churned up the water and brought hundreds of disoriented fish to the surface. Easy pickings. The sparrows learned that the eaves of the newly constructed homes were marvelously protected spots under which to build nests. And the pigeons learned that public spaces were awash with bread crumbs and French fries.

  Then, when strange conical towers began to rise on the islands, the birds paid them no mind. These things, like everything else the humans built, became part of the scenery. Accepted at face value and incorporated into the wildlife’s limited concept of the world.

  The birds were blissfully unaware of the Thunderhead and its influence over them. They did not know about the canister of nanites that had arrived three years ago—a can so small it could be held in a human hand like a soft drink. But once it was opened, the nanites inside were released and began to multiply. They were genetically coded to infuse each individual species on the island—and although complex wireless signals were confounded by interference, the simple ones got through.

  The nanites did not make the wildlife immortal. But the creatures of the atoll would no longer suffer from disease; they could be tracked and, when necessary, controlled. The Thunderhead influenced their behavior in simple ways to make life better for everyone and everything on the atoll. The birds never noticed a difference between natural instincts and the Thunderhead’s hand in their hearts. Such as the way they all developed a sudden aversion to perching on sensitive equipment or in other places where their presence might pose a problem.

  And on the day when every winged species felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to leave and fly to a different atoll, they made the journey without question—for how could they question a desire that seemed to come from within? Although Rongelap, Likiep, and the various atolls they escaped to had no roof eaves or French fries or docks with disoriented fish, it was of no consequence to the birds. They would learn to adapt.

  * * *

  The holds of the “cradles” were fully loaded before dawn. And at six a.m., Cirrus was delivered by old-school cables onto each ship. When the upload was complete, and the cables disconnected, the Cirri were cut off from the world. Forty-two identical siblings never to experience the Earth again.

  As the sun rose, the workers on the atoll rested, but their sleep was not an easy one. The scheduled launch was only a day away. One day to reconcile their past with their future. With only twelve hundred people on the atoll, there was room for everyone on the ships—and only now did they realize that they weren’t chosen to come here just for their skills. These were all people for whom the world had lost its luster. Which is why, when given the option to return home and resume their lives, so many of them chose not to do it. The ones who remained were, by and large, ready for this—and many had already fantasized about being part of the crews while building the vessels. Even so, a giant leap for mankind was no small step for man. The Thunderhead estimated that when the time came to board, about 70 percent would choose to go, and that was more than enough. The rest would have to vacate the islands for the launch and watch from a safe distance.

  Rowan and Citra spent the rest of the night and morning asleep in each other’s arms. For the first time in ages, they seemed not to have a care in the world. They were the only ones.

  * * *

  Faraday returned to Munira at sunrise, pounding on her door until she let him in.

  “I’ve deciphered it,” she told him, clearly having been
up all night working on it. “It’s eye-opening,” she said. “The fail-safe exists, although Da Vinci never said what it does.”

  But before he even stepped inside, Faraday held something out to her that caught the early morning sunlight, refracting it in shifting patterns on her front door. A scythe ring.

  Munira gave him a half-hearted smile.

  “If this is a proposal,” she said, “shouldn’t you be on one knee?”

  “I propose,” he said, “that you take your rightful place among us. I’m deeply sorry to have left you yesterday, Munira. I was overwhelmed, and I am not the most perfect of men.”

  “No,” she admitted, “you’re not. But you’re better than most. If you don’t count the last three years.”

  “Point taken,” Faraday said. “This ring was Scythe Anastasia’s, but Scythe Anastasia will no longer be with us,” he told her. “So tell me, Munira… Who will you be?”

  She took the ring, turned it in her hand, and thought about it. “I had my Patron Historic all picked out that day they denied me the ring,” she told him. “Bathsheba. She was the obsession of one king, and the mother of another. A woman in a patriarchal society who still managed to change the world. Her son was Solomon the Wise, so you could say she was the mother of wisdom.”

  Munira looked at the ring for a long moment, then gave it back to Faraday. “The invitation is enough,” she said. “But if I am truly to be the mother of wisdom, I have to be wise enough to know that I can’t covet this ring anymore.”

  Faraday smiled with understanding and slipped the ring back into a pocket in his robe. “It would have been nice to know Honorable Scythe Bathsheba. But I’m much happier knowing the honorable Munira Atrushi.”

  * * *

  “Greyson…

  “Greyson…”

  He wasn’t quite ready to get up. He could tell he hadn’t had much sleep, but he hadn’t expected much. With less than twenty-four hours to launch there’d be a lot to do. And a lot to consider. Like whether or not he would go.

  “Greyson…”

  He had done what he’d needed to do. And although there wasn’t much tying him to the world now, there wasn’t much pushing him off it, either. He could be anywhere—because wherever he was, he’d be forging a whole new life for himself.

  “Greyson…”

  And then there was Jeri. He couldn’t quite make out his feelings for Jeri, other than that he had them. Where that would lead was still anyone’s guess.

  “Greyson…”

  He finally rolled over and looked to the Thunderhead’s camera. Its voice was particularly grating today as it came through the tinny speaker of a landline squawk box.

  “Good morning,” he said. “What time is—”

  “I am thinking that a journey would be a good idea at this time,” the Thunderhead said.

  “Yeah, I know,” said Greyson, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “Just let me take a shower and—”

  “Of course you can do that if you wish, but I don’t think you’re hearing me,” the Thunderhead said, and suddenly got louder. Much louder. “I’m thinking that a journey for everyone on the atoll would be a good idea. I’m thinking it would be an extremely good idea… right… NOW.”

  * * *

  Loriana hadn’t even tried to sleep. How could she? Until today she was just the communications guru, but after last night, everyone was looking to her for answers.

  “It will be simple,” Cirrus had told her shortly before being loaded onto the ships. “People can choose to go, or they can choose to stay. If they stay, they’ll need to clear the launch zone until after the ships have launched—either by boat or by taking refuge on Ebadon, which is the only island in the atoll that’s far enough away. If they choose to go, have them provide a list of who they wish to travel with. Everyone may bring one backpack no larger than twenty liters.”

  “That’s all?”

  “The time of tangibles is over,” Cirrus said. “Anything else they wish to remember I already have images of in my backbrain.”

  Loriana couldn’t stop pacing. “What about pets?”

  “They will be accommodated in place of a backpack.”

  “Can people choose their destinations?”

  “If we allowed that, everyone would sign up for the nearest planet. I’ll announce the destination and the length of the journey once we’ve left. Will you go, Loriana?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  “There’s no rush,” said Cirrus. “You have all day to make up your mind.”

  Right. All day to make the most important decision of her life—a decision that could not be undone. She would never see her parents, or anyone she knew before arriving on the atoll, ever again. She was leaning handily toward no.

  Cirrus was gone now—uploaded onto the ships, luxuriating in its own backbrain. Or backbrains, since there were now dozens of it. Them.

  Now Loriana had to be the authority answering people’s questions. And then the Toll showed up at launch control, not looking much like the Toll without his fancy accoutrements. He was out of breath and looked like he was trying to outrun a scythe. Turns out she wasn’t far off the mark.

  * * *

  That morning, Citra brought Rowan to the bunker to show him what she and Faraday had discovered, only to find that Munira and Faraday were already there. Munira looked her up and down. “You surrendered your ring, but you’re still wearing your robe,” Munira pointed out.

  “Old habits die hard,” said Faraday, and laughed at his own pun.

  The truth was Citra’s only change of clothes was on the container ship, and she wasn’t going back there. She was sure she’d find something before the launch. And if not, there’d be clothes onboard, because if there was one thing the Thunderhead was good at, it was attention to detail.

  Rowan looked at the transmitter through the dusty glass. “Old technology?”

  “Lost technology,” Faraday corrected. “At least lost to us. We can’t even be sure what it does.”

  “Maybe it kills bad scythes,” Munira suggested.

  “No,” said Rowan, “that would be me.”

  There was something on the edge of Citra’s hearing that only now caught her attention. She cocked her head to listen.

  “Do you hear that?” said Citra. “It sounds like some sort of alarm.”

  * * *

  Loriana tripped the tsunami alarm on every island of the atoll. Although the wave that was coming wasn’t coming by sea.

  “How sure are you about this?” she asked the Toll.

  “I’m positive,” he said, still out of breath.

  “Is this as bad as I think it is?”

  “Worse.”

  And so she fired up the loudspeaker system.

  “Attention! Attention!” Her voice rose above the alarm. “Scythes are headed our way. Repeat, scythes are headed our way. The entire atoll has been marked for gleaning.” She heard her own words echoing outside, and it chilled her.

  She muted the microphone and turned to the Toll. “How long have we got?”

  “I have no idea,” the Toll said.

  “Didn’t the Thunderhead tell you?”

  Greyson huffed in frustration. “It can’t interfere with scythe affairs.”

  “Great,” said Loriana. “If the Thunderhead could break its own rules just once, our lives would be so much easier.”

  That was true, but in spite of how maddening it was, Greyson knew a deeper truth. “If it could break its own rules, it wouldn’t be the Thunderhead,” he said. “It would just be a scary AI.”

  She flicked the microphone back on. “We have less than an hour,” she announced. “Either find a way off the atoll now, or get to one of the ships—any of them—as soon as you can! Because we’re launching early.”

  She turned off the microphone. The Thunderhead couldn’t interfere, and the Cirri were all snug and secure aboard the ships. They were on their own.

  “This is not how this was supposed to
go.”

  She looked at the launch control screen before her; a map showed the position of each ship. Not a single living soul on any of them yet. “The farthest ships will take at least forty-five minutes to get to,” she told the Toll. “Let’s hope I wasn’t lying about the time.”

  * * *

  The announcement was greeted first with disbelief, then confusion, then panic. Within minutes everyone mobilized. Many had not yet made their decision, but now the decision had been made for them. Years in space, or death by scythe. Suddenly the choice wasn’t very hard at all.

  If the Thunderhead could have seeded the sky and coaxed cloud cover to hide the atoll from view, it would have—but it still did not have influence over weather in the blind spot. But then again, even if it did, it could still do nothing. Any attack on Kwajalein would be a scythe action. Just as the Thunderhead could not interfere on the moon or Mars or the orbital station, it could not lift a virtual finger to stop this. All it could do was watch everything it had worked for be destroyed once again. The Thunderhead knew no hatred. But thought that, perhaps, by the end of this day, it might.

  * * *

  “Attention! The ships on Ebeye and the main island are at capacity. Do not attempt to board. Repeat, do not attempt to board. Head north and west.”

  * * *

  “It’s Goddard,” said Citra. “It has to be.”

  Rowan and Citra hurried down the main street of the big island, caught up in the frenetic exodus.