Perhaps it was because Jeri now knew the Thunderhead’s mind, or maybe it was just intuition, but Jeri was right – and it was, indeed, the kind of request you needed to hear from a friend, not from an unfamiliar AI.
They found Anastasia and Faraday on an empty street. She began to tell Greyson about a bunker, but he cut her short. There was no time for small talk now.
“Cirrus wants you to lead one of the ships,” he told her. “It feels that you, more than almost anyone else here, would be qualified and respected enough to do it.”
Anastasia didn’t even hesitate with her response.
“Not happening,” she told him. “I have no intention of leaving everything behind and spending years in a tin can hurtling through space.”
“I know,” said Greyson. “So does the Thunderhead; so does Cirrus. But they also know you, Citra. They know exactly what it would take to make you change your mind.”
Then he pointed behind her.
When Citra turned and saw him, she didn’t trust her own eyes. She was convinced it was either a cruel trick or her own sleep-deprived mind hurling hallucinations at her.
She took a few steps toward him but stopped – as if getting too close would burst some bubble, breaking the spell, and this tenuous night vision of Rowan would dissolve into nothing. But he ran toward her, and she found she was running, too, as if she had no control over her own legs. Perhaps she and Rowan had both grown so much larger than life that the gravity between them was too intense to resist. When they embraced, they nearly knocked each other off their feet.
“Where did you—”
“I never thought I’d see you—”
“Those broadcasts you made—”
“When you were captured, I thought—”
And they began laughing. There wasn’t a sentence they could finish, but it didn’t matter. Nothing that came before this moment mattered.
“How did you get here?” she finally was able to ask.
“I hitched a ride with a bunch of dead people,” he told her. Which, in any other situation, might have begged an explanation, but not tonight.
Anastasia turned to look at Greyson, Jeri, and Faraday, who kept their distance, allowing them their reunion. And she realized that, as always, the Thunderhead was absolutely right. There was really only one reason to stay, and that was to find Rowan. She had already suspected she’d never see her family again. They had come to terms with her death years ago; how could she reintroduce herself into their lives now? And her case against Goddard was already made. What the world did with it was up to the world. She didn’t want to be the great Scythe Anastasia any more than Rowan wanted to be the dread Scythe Lucifer. There was nothing here for either of them but an eternity of unwanted notoriety. Citra Terranova was not someone who ran away from things, but she also knew when it was time to move on.
“Give me a minute,” she said to Rowan, then went over to the man who had started her on this strange path.
“Honorable Scythe Faraday. Michael. Thank you for all you’ve done for me,” she said. Then she pulled the ring from her finger and put it in his hand. “But Scythe Anastasia is gone. I’m done with death and dying and killing. From now on, I want my life to be about living.”
He nodded, accepting the ring, and Citra went back to Rowan.
“I still don’t understand where we are and what’s going on,” Rowan said. “And are those rockets out there?”
“It doesn’t matter where we are, because we’re getting out of here,” Citra told him. “Are you ready to hitch another ride?”
Jeri went back to the ship after the last of the containers had been off-loaded onto the dock. Greyson had accepted Cirrus’s invitation to spend the night in one of the main island’s abandoned dwellings – and although Cirrus had offered Jeri one as well, Jeri had declined.
“I would feel more at home aboard the cargo ship,” Jeri told it. But Cirrus, who was basically the Thunderhead 2.0, cut through Jeri’s dissembling.
“Don’t be too offended that Greyson didn’t invite you to be with him,” it said. “He needed a place where he could speak to the Thunderhead freely tonight. His earpiece can’t work here, and he can’t get used to cumbersome landlines.”
“Which means he’d rather speak to the Thunderhead than speak to me.”
“Tonight, above all nights, he needs the Thunderhead’s counsel.”
“It had no right to do what it did to me!”
Cirrus paused before speaking again. “No, it did not. But it was out of time. What it did was necessary. Critical, or this entire endeavor on the atoll would have been for naught. But the Thunderhead apologizes and begs your forgiveness.”
“Then let it ask me itself.”
“It can’t. You’re unsavory.”
“If it can steal me without permission, then it can, just once, break its own laws and apologize!”
Cirrus heaved an electronic sigh. “It can’t. You know it can’t.”
“Then I can’t forgive it.”
And so, with nothing more that could be said on the matter, Cirrus brought the conversation back to where it started. “If you choose to return to the cargo ship,” Cirrus said, “I warn you that it may be an unpleasant environment by morning. I advise you to keep your door closed.”
“Really? Will the dead be walking?”
“Not if I can help it.” Then Cirrus, who would soon be duplicated forty-one times and ensconced in the Cradles of Civilization, offered Jeri some parting words. “Take heart, Jerico. I have known you all your life – or rather, I have memories of having known you – and I can unequivocally say that no matter what happens, you will land firmly on your feet. And I will miss you.”
Which meant that Cirrus already knew that Jeri wouldn’t be joining it on any of its skyward journeys.
Curate Mendoza had spent three years shaping a young man who could have been the most powerful person in the world. Now Mendoza was in the company of the man who actually was.
“I believe our arrangement will be mutually beneficial,” Overblade Goddard told him. And as long as Mendoza delivered what he had promised – factions of Sibilants who would take out Goddard’s enemies – he knew his position at Goddard’s left hand was secure. As for Goddard’s right hand, that spot was held by Underscythe Rand, and there was no indication that that would ever change.
Rand didn’t like Mendoza much, that was clear, but then she didn’t seem to like anyone, not even Goddard.
“It’s just her way,” Goddard had told him. “She likes to be off-putting.”
Be that as it may, Mendoza did his best to be deferential to her and stay out of her line of sight when he could. Not easy now, however, as it was hard to hide on the Overblade’s private plane. It was even nicer than the craft he had procured for the Toll’s journey to SubSahara. The perks of the Overblade’s company were fine, indeed, for a humble man like Mendoza!
They were the lead plane in a five-craft, fully armed formation. Nietzsche and Franklin commanded the craft on either side, with High Blades Pickford and Hammerstein commanding the left and right wings. The other High Blades of the North Merican Allied Scythedom were called upon as well to join this armada, but they had refused, claiming other pressing business. Mendoza would not want to be them once Goddard returned. High Blades were not immune from the Overblade’s wrath.