The space between Rowan and Citra had quickly become a minefield. A dangerous no-man’s-land that promised nothing but misery. It was hard enough to negotiate with Scythe Faraday there, but his absence left the two of them with no one to mediate the space between.
Rowan stayed in his room, studying there rather than going into the weapons room, which would feel painfully wrong without Citra sitting with him. Still, he kept his door cracked on the faint hope that she’d want to bridge the distance. He heard her leave, probably for a run, and she was gone for a good long time. Her way of dealing with the dark discomfort of their new situation was to remove herself from it even more completely than Rowan had.
After she returned, Rowan knew there would be no peace between them, or within himself, unless he took the first step into that minefield.
He stood outside her closed door for at least a full minute before he worked up the nerve to knock.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice muffled by the closed door.
“Can I come in?”
“It’s not locked.”
He turned the knob and slowly opened the door. She was in the middle of the room with a hunting knife, practicing bladecraft against the empty air, as if battling ghosts.
“Nice technique,” Rowan said, then added, “if you’re planning on gleaning a pack of angry wolves.”
“Skill is skill, whether you use it or not.” She sheathed the blade, tossed it on her desk, and put her hands on her hips. “So what do you want?”
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for shutting you down before. On the train, I mean.”
Citra shrugged. “I was babbling. You were right to shut me up.”
The moment began to get awkward, so Rowan just went for it. “Should we talk about this?”
She turned away from him and sat on her bed, picking up a book on anatomy and opening it as if she was about to start studying. She hadn’t yet realized she was holding it upside down. “What’s to talk about? I kill you, or you kill me. Either way, I don’t want to think about it until I have to.” She glanced at the open book, turned it right side up, and then gave up the charade completely, closing it and tossing it to the floor. “I just want to be left alone, okay?”
Even so, Rowan sat on the edge of her bed. And when she didn’t tell him to go, he shifted a little bit closer. She watched him, but said nothing.
He wanted to reach for her, maybe touch her cheek. But thinking about that made him think of the saleswoman who was gleaned by a touch. What a perverse poison that was. Rowan wanted to kiss her. There was no denying that anymore. He had suppressed the urge for weeks because he knew it would not be tolerated by the scythe. But Faraday wasn’t here, and the turmoil they had both been hurled into had washed all bets off the table.
Then, to his surprise, she suddenly lurched forward and kissed him, catching him completely off guard.
“There,” she said. “We’ve done it. Now it’s out of the way and you can leave.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
And she hesitated. Long enough to make it clear that staying was a distinct possibility. But in the end she said, “What good would it do, really? For either of us.”
She moved farther away on the bed, bringing her knees to her chest. “I haven’t fallen in love with you, Rowan. And now I want to keep it that way.”
Rowan got up and moved to the safety of the threshold before turning back to her. “It’s all right, Citra,” he told her. “I haven’t fallen in love with you, either.”
* * *
I am not a man easily brought to fury, but how dare the old-guard scythes presume to dictate my behavior? Let every last one of them glean themselves, and we can be done with their self-loathing, sanctimonious ways. I am a man who chooses to glean with pride, not shame. I choose to embrace life, even as I deal death. Make no mistake—we scythes are above the law because we deserve to be. I see a day when new scythes will be chosen not because of some esoteric moral high ground, but because they enjoy the taking of life. After all, this is a perfect world—and in a perfect world, don’t we all have the right to love what we do?
—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Goddard
* * *
16
Pool Boy
There was a scythe at the door of the executive’s mansion. Actually a quartet of them, although the other three stood back, allowing the one in the royal blue to be the point man.
The executive was frightened—terrified actually—but he hadn’t risen to this level of success by wearing his emotions on his sleeve. He had a keen mind, and a consummate poker face. He would not be intimidated by death on his doorstep—even when death’s robe was studded with diamonds.
“I’m surprised you got to the front door without my gate guards alerting me,” the executive said, as nonchalant as could be.
“They would have alerted you, but we gleaned them,” one of the other scythes said—a woman in green with PanAsian leanings.
The executive would not allow this news to daunt him. “Ah, so you need me to give you their personal information, in order for you to alert their families.”
“Not exactly,” said the lead scythe. “May we come in?”
And since the executive knew he didn’t have the right to refuse, he stepped aside.
The diamond-studded scythe and his rainbow of subordinates followed, looking around at the understated opulence of the mansion.
“I am Honorable Scythe Goddard. These are my junior associates, Scythes Volta, Chomsky, and Rand.”
“Sharp robes,” commented the executive, still successfully capping his fear.
“Thank you,” said Scythe Goddard. “I can see you are a man of taste. My compliments to your decorator.”
“That would be my wife,” he said, then inwardly grimaced to have brought her, in any way, to the attention of the life-takers.
Scythe Volta—the one in yellow, with an Afric look about him—strolled around the grand foyer, peering through the archways that led to other areas of the mansion. “Excellent feng shui,” he said. “Energy flow is very important in a home so large.”
“I imagine there’s a good-size pool,” said the one in the flame-colored robe embedded with rubies. Scythe Chomsky. He was blond, pale, and brutish.
The executive wondered if they were enjoying prolonging this encounter. The more he played along, the more power they had, so he cut through the small talk before they could see him crack.
“May I ask your business here?”
Scythe Goddard glanced at him but ignored the question. He gestured to his subordinates, and two of the three left. The one in yellow took the winding stairs, the woman in green went to explore the rest of the first floor. The pale one in orange stayed nearby. He was the largest of them, and perhaps a bodyguard for their leader—as if anyone would actually be stupid enough to strike a scythe.
The executive wondered where his children were at the moment. Out back with the nanny? Upstairs? He wasn’t sure, and the last thing he wanted was to have scythes in the house out of his sight.
“Wait!” he said. “Whatever your purpose, I’m sure we could reach some sort of arrangement. You do know who I am, don’t you?”
Scythe Goddard took in a piece of artwork on display in the foyer, instead of looking at him. “Someone wealthy enough to own a Cézanne.”
Could it be that he didn’t know? That their presence here was not planned, but random? Scythes were supposed to be random in their choices, but this random? He found the dam that held back his fear was fracturing.
“Please,” the executive said, “I’m Maxim Easley—surely the name means something to you?”
The scythe looked at him without a hint of recognition. It was the flame-clad one who reacted. “The guy who runs Regenesis?”
Finally there came recognition from Goddard. “Oh, right—your company is number two in the turncorner industry.”
“Soon to be number one,” Easley reflexively bragged. “Once we release our technology that allows cellular regression beyond the twenty-first year.”
“I have friends who’ve used your services. I myself have yet to turn a corner.”
“You could be the first to officially use our new process.”
Goddard laughed and turned to his associate. “Could you imagine me as a teenager?”