After she had moved on, Scythe Faraday explained that she was a long-time friend. “She cooks for me from time to time—and she works in the coroner’s office. In my line of work it’s always good to have a friend there.”
“Do you grant her immunity?” Citra asked. Rowan thought the scythe might be indignant at the question, but instead he answered:
“The Scythedom frowns upon those who play favorites, but I’ve found I can grant her immunity on alternate years without raising a red flag.”
“What if another scythe gleans her during the off-years?”
“Then I shall attend her funeral with heartfelt grief,” he told them.
As they shopped, Citra chose some snacks that the scythe eyed dubiously. “Are these really necessary?” he asked.
“Is anything really necessary?” Citra responded.
Rowan found it amusing how Citra gave the scythe attitude—but it worked. He let her keep the chips.
Rowan tried to be more practical, picking out staples like eggs, flour, and various proteins and side dishes to go with them.
“Don’t get chickenoid tenders,” Citra said, looking at his choices. “Trust me, my mother’s a food synthesis engineer. That stuff’s not actual chicken—they grow it in a petri dish.”
Rowan held up another bag of frozen protein. “How about this?”
“SeaSteak? Sure, if you like plankton pressed into meat shapes.”
“Well then, maybe you should pick your own meals instead of grabbing sweets and snacks.”
“Are you always this boring?” she asked.
“Didn’t he say we have to live as he lives? I don’t think cookie dough ice cream is a part of his lifestyle.”
She sneered at him, but switched out the flavor for vanilla.
As they continued to shop, it was Citra who first noticed two suspicious-looking teens who seemed to be tracking them through the store, lingering behind them, trying to look like they were just shopping. They were probably unsavories—people who found enjoyment in activities that bordered on the fringe of the law. Sometimes unsavories actually broke the law in minor ways, although most lost interest eventually, because they were always caught by the Thunderhead and reprimanded by peace officers. The more troublesome offenders were tweaked with shock nanites in their blood, just powerful enough to deter any scoffing of the law. And if that didn’t work, you got your own personal peace officer 24/7. Citra had an uncle like that. He called his officer his guardian angel, and eventually married her.
She tugged on Rowan’s sleeve, bringing the unsavories to his attention but not to Scythe Faraday’s.
“Why do you think they’re following us?”
“They probably think there’s going to be a gleaning and they want to watch,” suggested Rowan, which seemed a likely theory. As it turned out, however, they had other motives.
As the three of them waited in the checkout line, one of the unsavories grabbed Scythe Faraday’s hand and kissed his ring before he could stop him. The ring began to glow red, indicating his immunity.
“Ha!” said the unsavory, puffing up at his strategic triumph. “I’ve got immunity for a year—and you can’t undo it! I know the rules!”
Scythe Faraday was unfazed. “Yes, good for you,” he said. “You have three hundred sixty-five days of immunity.” And then, looking him in the eye, said, “And I’ll be seeing you on day three hundred sixty-six.”
Suddenly the teen’s smug expression dropped, as if all the muscles that held up his face failed. He stuttered a bit, and his friend pulled him away. They ran out of the store as fast as they could.
“Well played,” said another man in line. He offered to pay for the scythe’s groceries—which was pointless, because scythes got their groceries for free anyway.
“Will you really track him down a year from now?” Rowan asked.
The scythe grabbed a roll of breath mints from the rack. “Not worth my time. Besides, I’ve already meted out his punishment. He’ll be worried about being gleaned all year. A lesson for both of you: A scythe doesn’t have to follow through on a threat for it to be effective.”
Then, a few minutes later, as they were loading the grocery bags into a publicar, the scythe looked across the parking lot.
“There,” he said, “you see that woman? The one who just dropped her purse?”
“Yeah,” said Rowan.
Scythe Faraday pulled out his phone, aimed the camera at the woman, and in an instant information about her began to scroll on screen. Naturally ninety-six years of age, physically thirty-four. Mother of nine. Data management technician for a small shipping company. “She’s off to work after she puts away her groceries,” the scythe told them. “This afternoon we will go to her place of business and glean her.”
Citra drew in an audible breath. Not quite a gasp, but close. Rowan focused on his own breathing so he didn’t telegraph his emotions the way Citra had.
“Why?” he asked. “Why her?”
The scythe gave him a cool look. “Why not her?”
“You had a reason for gleaning Kohl Whitlock. . . .”
“Who?” Citra asked.
“A kid I knew at school. When I first met our honorable scythe, here.”
Faraday sighed. “Fatalities in parking lots made up 1.25 percent of all accidental deaths during the last days of the Age of Mortality. Last night I decided I would choose today’s subject from a parking lot.”
“So all this time while we were shopping, you knew it would end with this?” Rowan said.
“I feel bad for you,” said Citra. “Even when you’re food shopping, death is hiding right behind the milk.”
“It never hides,” the scythe told them with a world-weariness that was hard to describe. “Nor does it sleep. You’ll learn that soon enough.”
But it wasn’t something either of them was eager to learn.
? ? ?
That afternoon, ?just as the scythe had said, they went to the shipping company where the woman worked, and they watched—just as Rowan had watched Kohl’s gleaning. But today it was a little more than mere observation.
“I have chosen for you a life-terminating pill,” Scythe Faraday told the speechless, tremulous woman. He reached into his robe and produced a small pill in a little glass vial.
“It will not activate until you bite it, so you can choose the moment. You need not swallow it, just bite it. Death will be instantaneous and painless.”
Her head shook like a bobblehead doll. “May I . . . may I call my children? Scythe Faraday sadly shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. But we shall pass on any message you have to them.”
“What would it hurt to allow her to say good-bye?” Citra asked.
He put up his hand to silence her, and handed the woman a pen and piece of paper.
“Say all you need to say in a letter. I promise we shall deliver it.”
They waited outside of her office. Scythe Faraday seemed to have infinite patience.
“What if she opens a window and decides to splat?” Rowan asked.
“Then her life will end on schedule. It would be a more unpleasant choice, but the ultimate result is the same.”
The woman didn’t choose to splat. Instead, she let them back into the room, politely handed the envelope to Scythe Faraday, and sat down at her desk.
“I’m ready.”
Then Scythe Faraday did something they didn’t expect. He turned to Rowan and handed him the vial. “Please place the pill in Mrs. Becker’s mouth.”
“Who, me?”
Scythe Faraday didn’t answer. He simply held the vial out, waiting for Rowan to take it. Rowan knew he wasn’t officially performing the gleaning, but to be an intermediary . . . the thought was debilitating. He swallowed, tasting bitterness as if the pill were in his own mouth. He refused to take it.
Scythe Faraday gave him a moment more, then turned to Citra.
“You, then.”
Citra just shook her head.
Scythe Faraday smiled. “Very good,” he told them. “I was testing you. I would not have been pleased if either of you were eager to administer death.”
At the word “death,” the woman took a shuddering breath.
Scythe Faraday opened the vial and carefully removed the pill. It was triangular with a dark green coating. Who knew death could arrive so small?
“But . . . but I’m only ninety-six,” the woman said.