Home > The Toll (Arc of a Scythe)(8)

The Toll (Arc of a Scythe)(8)
Author: Neal Shusterman

If Scythes Curie and Anastasia were successful on Endura, and Scythe Curie became the High Blade of MidMerica, perhaps the scythedom could be turned from the ruinous path Goddard would take it on. But if not, the world just might need a fail-safe.

They dropped to five thousand feet, and as they approached, details of the atoll came into view. Lush groves and sandy beaches. The main island of Kwajalein Atoll was shaped like a long, slender boomerang – and here they finally saw something that was evident nowhere else in the blind spot. Telltale signs that there had once been a human presence here; strips of low growth that used to be roads: foundations outlining spots where buildings once stood.

“Jackpot!” said Faraday, and pushed the stick forward, dropping their altitude for a closer look.

Munira could actually feel her nanites registering her relief.

At last, all was well.

Until the moment that it wasn’t.


“Unregistered aircraft, please identify.”

It was an automated message barely audible through waves of powerful interference, with a generated voice that sounded too human to actually be human.

“Not to worry,” Faraday said, then transmitted the universal identification code used by the scythedom. A moment of silence and then:

“Unregistered aircraft, please identify.”

“This is not good,” said Munira.

Faraday threw her a half-hearted scowl, then spoke into the transmitter again.

“This is Scythe Michael Faraday of MidMerica, requesting permission to approach the main island.”

Another moment of silence, and then the voice said:

“Scythe ring detected.”

Both Faraday and Munira relaxed.

“There,” said Faraday. “All better now.”

Then the voice spoke again.

“Unregistered aircraft, please identify.”

“What? I said I’m Scythe Michael Faraday—”

“Scythe not recognized.”

“Of course it won’t acknowledge you,” Munira told him. “You weren’t even born when this system was put in place. It probably thinks you’re an imposter with a stolen ring.”

“Blast!”

Which is exactly what the island did. A laser pulse shot out from somewhere on the island and took out their left engine with a reverberating boom that they could feel in their bones, as if they had been struck, and not the plane.

This was everything that Munira had feared. The culmination of all her worst-case scenarios. And yet in spite of that, she found courage and clarity in the moment that she hadn’t expected to find. The plane had a safety pod. Munira had even checked it before takeoff just to make sure it was in working order.

“The pod’s aft,” she told Faraday. “We have to hurry!”

Still, he remained obstinately on the static-filled radio. “This is Scythe Michael Faraday!”

“It’s a machine,” Munira reminded him, “and not a very smart one. It can’t be reasoned with.”

The proof of that was a second shot that shattered the windshield and set the cockpit on fire. At a higher altitude they would have been sucked out, but they were low enough to be spared from explosive decompression.

“Michael!” yelled Munira, using his first name, which she had never done before. “It’s no use!” Their wounded craft had already begun a lopsided dive toward the sea; there was no saving the plane now, not even by the most skilled of pilots.

Finally, Faraday gave up, left the cockpit, and together they fought the angle of the diving jet to reach the safety pod. They climbed inside but couldn’t pull it closed, because his robe kept getting caught in the latch.

“Damn this thing!” he growled, and tugged so hard that the hem ripped – but the latch was now free. The mechanism sealed them inside, gel-foam expanded to fill the remaining space, and the pod ejected.

The safety pod had no window, so there was no way to see what was going on around them. There was nothing but a sense of extreme dizziness as the pod tumbled free from the crashing plane.

Munira gasped as needles penetrated her body. She knew they were coming, but still it was a shock. They caught her in at least five places.

“I despise this part,” groaned Faraday, who, having lived as long as he had, must have experienced a safety pod before, but it was all new and horrifying to Munira.

Safety pods were specifically designed to render the subjects within unconscious – so that anyone who was injured by the pod’s landing would remain unconscious while their own nanites healed them. Then they would awaken unscathed after however many hours it took to repair the damage – and if death occurred, then they’d be whisked to a revival center. Like those passengers in the meteor strike, they would wake up and feel exhilarated by it all.

Except that would not happen to Munira and Faraday way out here, if the fall killed them.

“If we die,” said Faraday, his words already slurring, “I am truly sorry, Munira.”

She wanted to respond but found herself slipping out of consciousness before she could.


There was no sense of time passing.

One moment, Munira was tumbling in darkness with Faraday, and the next, she was looking up at swaying palm trees that shaded her from the sun. She was still in the pod, but the lid had popped open, and she was alone. She sat up, wriggling out of the form-fitting foam.

Near the tree line, Faraday roasted a fish on a stick over a small fire, and drank coconut water straight from the coconut. A bit of torn linen trailed from his robe in the sand, the spot where it had caught on the latch. The hem was muddy. It seemed odd to see the great Scythe Michael Faraday in a robe that wasn’t pristine and perfect.

“Ah,” he said jovially, “you’re awake at last!” He handed her the coconut for a sip.

“A miracle we survived,” she said. Only when she smelled the fish he was roasting did she realize how hungry she was. The pod was designed to keep its occupants hydrated for days but provided no actual nutrition. Her hunger attested to the fact that they had been there healing within the pod for at least a day or two.

“We almost didn’t survive,” Faraday told her, giving her the fish, and skewering another. “According to the pod’s record, there was a failure of the parachute – probably hit by a piece of debris, or it took a laser strike. We hit the water hard, and in spite of the foam padding, we both suffered grade-three concussions and multiple rib fractures. You also had a ruptured lung – which is why it took a few more hours for your nanites to heal you than mine.”

The pod, which had a propulsion system for a water landing, had powered them safely to shore and was now half-buried in the sand, having endured two days of rising and falling tides.

Munira glanced around, and Faraday must have read the look on her face, because he said, “Oh, don’t worry; the defensive system apparently only tracks incoming craft. The pod came down close enough to the island not to be noticed.” As for their plane – the one Faraday had promised to return to its owner – it was now in pieces at the bottom of the Pacific.

“We are officially castaways!” Faraday said.

“Then why are you so damn happy?”

“Because we’re here, Munira! We did it! We have achieved something that no one since the birth of the post-mortal age has achieved! We’ve found the Land of Nod!”

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)