Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)

by Neal Shusterman

Hope in the shadow of fear is the world’s most powerful motivator.

“But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell.”

The index is supposed to keep the world free from cultural and genetic bias, but aren’t there underlying factors that we can’t escape? For instance, who decided that the first number of one’s genetic index would be Caucasoid?

You shall live as I do. Modestly, and subsisting on the goodwill of others. You will take no more than you need, and waste nothing. People will attempt to buy your friendship. They will lavish things upon you. Accept nothing but the barest of human necessities.

She didn’t answer him. He didn’t expect her to. It was just a seed he wanted to plant. Over the past two months he had learned that no one had his back anymore. Perhaps no one ever did. His friends had pulled away. He was a footnote in his own family. There was only one person now who shared his plight. That was Citra. If they couldn’t find a way to trust each other, then what did they have beyond a learner’s permit to kill?

The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.

Back in the days when the world’s digital network was called “the cloud,” people thought giving too much power to an artificial intelligence would be a very bad idea. Cautionary tales abounded in every form of media. The machines were always the enemy. But then the cloud evolved into the Thunderhead, sparking with consciousness, or at least a remarkable facsimile. In stark contrast to people’s fears, the Thunderhead did not seize power. Instead, it was people who came to realize that it was far better suited to run things than politicians.

In those days before the Thunderhead, human arrogance, self-interest, and endless in-fighting determined the rule of law. Inefficient. Imperfect...

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 intimida...

The Thunderhead quite literally knew everything. When and where to build roads; how to eliminate waste in food distribution and thus end hunger; how to protect the environment from the ever-growing human population. It created jobs, it clothed the poor, and it established the World Code. Now, for the first time in history, law was no longer the shadow of justice, it was justice. The Thunderhead gave us a perfect world. The utopia that our ancestors could only dream of is our reality. There was only one thing the Thunderhead was not given authority over. The Scythedom. When it was decided that people needed to die in order to ease the tide of population growth, it was also decided that this must be the responsibility of humans. Bridge repair and urban planning could be handled by the Thunderhead, but taking a life was an act of...

1) The Deniers: These were the people who forged on and pretended the scythe wasn’t there. It wasn’t just a matter of ignoring him – it was actively, willfully denying his presence. It reminded Citra of the way very small children would play hide and seek, covering their own eyes to hide, thinking that if they couldn’t see you then you couldn’t see them. 2) The Escape Artists: These were the people who ran away but tried to make it look as if they weren’t. They suddenly remembered they forgot to get eggs, or began chasing after a running child that didn’t actually exist. One shopper abandoned a cart, mumbling about a wallet he must have left at home, despite an obvious bulge in his back pocket. He hurried out and didn’t come back. 3) The Scythe’s Pets: These were the people who went out of their way to engage the scythe and offer him something, with the secret (not so secret) hope that he might grant them immunity, or at least glean the person to their right instead of them some day. “Here, Your Honor, take my melon, it’s bigger. I insist.” Did these people know that such sycophantic behavior would make a scythe want to glean them even more? Not that Citra would want to level a death penalty for such a thing, but if she were given a choice between some innocent

bystander and someone who was being nauseatingly obsequious about their produce, she’d choose the melon-giver.

The Scythe Commandments 1) Thou shalt kill. 2) Thou shalt kill with no bias, bigotry, or malice aforethought. 3) Thou shalt grant an annum of immunity to the beloved of those who accept your coming, and to anyone else you deem worthy. 4) Thou shalt kill the beloved of those who resist. 5) Thou shalt serve humanity for the full span of thy days, and thy family shall have immunity as recompense for as long as you live. 6) Thou shalt lead an exemplary life in word and deed, and keep a journal of each and every day. 7) Thou shalt kill no scythe beyond thyself. 8) Thou shalt claim no earthly possessions, save thy robes, ring, and journal. 9) Thou shalt have neither spouse nor spawn. 10) Thou shalt be beholden to no laws beyond these.

Some would call this behavior aloof. I suppose on some level it is, but for me it’s more the need to remind myself that I am “other.” Certainly, most uniformed positions allow the wearers to have a separate life. Peace officers and firefighters, for instance, are only partially defined by their job. In the off hours they wear jeans and T-shirts. They have barbecues for neighbors and coach their children in sports. But to be a scythe means you are a scythe every hour of every day. It defines you to the core of your being, and only in dreams is one free of the yoke. Yet even in dreams I often find myself gleaning…

I am an accomplice to the world’s oldest crime, he told himself in his loneliest moments. And it will only get worse.

Competition was in her very nature; she couldn’t help herself.

But Rowan cared. If he was going to put pen to paper – if he was going to do what a scythe does – he would do it right or not at all.

Scythes are supposed to have a keen appreciation of death, yet there are some things that are beyond even our comprehension.

The woman I gleaned today asked me the oddest question. “Where do I go now?” she asked. “Well,” I explained calmly, “your memories and life-recording are already stored in the Thunderhead, so it won’t be lost. Your body is returned to the Earth in a manner determined by your next of kin.” “Yes, I know all that,” she said. “But what about me?” The question perplexed me. “As I said, your memory construct will exist in the Thunderhead. Loved ones will be able to talk to it, and your construct will respond.” “Yes,” she said, getting a bit agitated, “but what about me?” I gleaned her then. Only after she was gone did I say, “I don’t know.”

“In the fourth bout, I pierced his heart with the tip of my blade. As he breathed his last, he thanked me for allowing him to die fighting. It was the only time in all my years as a scythe that I had been thanked for what I do.”

She claimed it would be treating the symptom, not the problem.

We do have the unsavories nowadays, but they do little more than drop occasional pieces of litter and move shop items to places they don’t belong. No one rages against the system anymore. At most, they just glare at it a bit.

Perhaps this is why the Thunderhead still allows a measured amount of economic inequality. It could certainly make sure that everyone had equal wealth – but that would just add to the plague of boredom that afflicts the immortal.

but it runs far deeper than that. Mortals fantasized that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know that neither is true. Love remained mortal, while we became eternal. Only scythes can equalize that, but everyone knows the chance of being gleaned in this, or even the next millennium is so low as to be ignored.

I think about religion and how, once we became our own saviors, our own gods, most faiths became irrelevant. What must it have been like to believe in something greater than oneself? To accept imperfection and look to a rising vision of all we could never be?

It must have been comforting. It must have been frightening. It must have lifted people from the mundane, but also justified all sorts of evil. I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring.

“The Scythedom is the world’s only self-governing body,” said Scythe Faraday.

“While the rest of the world is under Thunderhead rule, the Scythedom is not.

Which is why we hold conclaves three times a year to resolve disputes, review policy, and mo...

The quota system has worked for over two hundred years, and although it fluctuates region to region, it makes it crystal clear what each scythe’s responsibility to the world is. Of course it’s all based on averages – we can go days or even weeks without gleaning – but we must meet our quota before the next conclave. There are those eager ones who glean early, and find themselves with little to do as conclave draws near. There are those who procrastinate and have to hurry toward the end. Both those approaches lead to sloppiness and unintentional bias. I often wonder if the quota will ever change, and if so, how much. Population growth is still off the charts, but it’s balanced by the Thunderhead’s ability to provide for an ever-increasing population. Renewable resources, subsurface dwellings, artificial islands, and all without there ever being any less green or a sense of overcrowding. We have mastered this world, and yet protected it in a way that our forefathers could scarcely have dreamed. But all things are limited. While the Thunderhead does not interfere with the Scythedom, it does suggest the number of scythes there should be in the world. Currently there are approximately five million people gleaned per year worldwide – a tiny fraction of the death rate in the Age of Mortality, and nowhere near enough to balance population growth. I shudder to think how many more scythes it would take, and how many gleanings would be required, if we ever need to curb population gro...

This, Citra realized, was intentional. Scythes wished to be seen as the many facets of light, not of darkness.

Citra wondered what it was that scythes talked about. The tools of gleaning? The weather? The chafing of their robes? It was intimidating enough to be in the presence of a single scythe. To be surrounded by hundreds was enough to make one crumble.

I do believe people still fear death, but only one-one hundredth as much as they used to. I say that because, based on current quotas, a person’s chance of being gleaned within the next one hundred years is only 1 percent. Which means the chance that a child born today will be gleaned between now and their five thousandth year on Earth is only 50 percent.

To date, the oldest living human being is somewhere around three hundred, but only because we are still so close to the Age of Mortality. I wonder what life will be like a millennium from now, when the average age will be nearer to one thousand. Will we all be renaissance children, skilled at every art and science, because we’ve had the time to master them? Or will boredom and slavish routine plague us even more than it does today, giving us less of a reason to live limitless lives? I dream of the former, but suspect the latter.

I think it’s wise that scythes may not glean one another. It was clearly implemented to prevent Byzantine grabs at power; but where power is concerned there are always those who find ways to grasp for it. I think it’s also wise that we are allowed to glean ourselves. I will admit there were times when I considered it. When the weight of responsibility felt so heavy, leaving the yoke of the world behind seemed a better alternative. But one thought always stayed my hand from committing that final act. If not me, who? Will the scythe who replaces me be as compassionate and fair? I can accept a world without me in it … but I can’t bear the thought of other scythes gleaning in my absence.

How could you not hear me knocking? he would chide. Last I heard, no one’s been deaf for two hundred years.

The High Blade took a deep breath in, and sighed. “He invoked the seventh commandment,” Xenocrates said. “Scythe Faraday has gleaned himself.”

For some it is a form of vanity: “Learn from me and be awed because I am so wise.”

Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.

Isn’t it good to know that we are all safe from the threat of the inferno? Except, of course, when we’re not.

The “backbrain” it was called –

“You’ll have to get used to that,” Scythe Faraday had told her early on. “Scythes cannot speak to the Thunderhead, and it will not speak to us. But in time you’ll come to appreciate the silence and self-reliance that comes from its absence.”