Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)

by Neal Shusterman

Death makes the whole world kin. Rowan wondered if a world without death would then make everyone strangers.

But the Thunderhead was incorruptible. Not only that, but its algorithms were built on the full sum of human knowledge. All the time and money wasted on political posturing, the lives lost in wars, the populations abused by despots—all gone the moment the Thunderhead was handed power. Of course, the politicians, dictators, and warmongers weren’t happy, but their voices, which had always seemed so loud and intimidating, were suddenly insignificant. The emperor not only had no clothes—turns out he had no testicles either.

There was no 15B—the concept of the B seat, where one had to sit between two other passengers, had been eliminated along with other unpleasant things, like disease and government.

“You’re back early,” Scythe Faraday commented when she returned. And although he feigned surprise, he had set her place for dinner.

Life was about forging time, not just passing time.

And those news reports—how exciting they were. Filled with all nature of criminal activity. Your neighbor could be a salesperson of illegal chemicals of recreation. Ordinary people would take life without the permission of society. Angry individuals would take possession of vehicles they didn’t own, then lead law enforcement officers in dangerous pursuits on uncontrolled roadways.

I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects, trip into the paths of speeding vehicles. And when it happens, people laugh, because no matter how gruesome the event, that person, just like the coyote, will be back in a day or two, as good as new, and no worse—or wiser—for the wear. Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.

How small-minded and hypocritical mortal man was, for even as they despised the enders of life, they loved nature—which, in those days, took every human life ever conceived. Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death, and then brought about that death with vicious consistency.

I do believe mortals strived more heartily toward their goals, because they knew that time was of the essence. But us? We can put things off far more effectively than those doomed to die, because death has become the exception instead of the rule. The stagnation that I so fervently glean on a daily basis seems an epidemic that only grows. There are times I feel I am fighting a losing battle against an old-fashioned apocalypse of the living dead.