8
Under No Circumstances
Greyson Tolliver loved the Thunderhead. Most people did, for how could they not? It held no guile, no malice, no agenda, and always knew exactly what to say. It existed simultaneously everywhere on every computer in the world. It was in everyone’s home, a caring, invisible hand on one’s shoulder. And even though it could speak to more than a billion people simultaneously without taxing its consciousness, it gave each person the illusion that it was giving him or her its undivided attention.
The Thunderhead was Greyson’s closest friend. Mainly because it had raised him. His parents were “serial parents.” They loved the idea of having families, but loathed raising them. Greyson and his sisters were his father’s fifth family, and his mother’s third. They had tired of this new batch of offspring quickly, and when they began to shirk their parental responsibilities, the Thunderhead took up the slack. It helped Greyson with his homework, it advised him on how to behave and what to wear on his first date—and although it could not exhibit a physical presence at his high school graduation, it took pictures of him from every possible angle, and had a fine meal delivered for him when he arrived home. That was more than he could say for his parents, who were off in PanAsia on a food-tasting excursion. Not even his sisters came. They were both at different universities, and it was finals week. They made it clear that expecting them to show up at his high school graduation was pure selfishness on Greyson’s part.
But the Thunderhead was there for him, as it always was.
“I’m so very proud of you, Greyson,” the Thunderhead had told him.
“Did you tell that to the millions of others who graduated today?” Greyson asked.
“Only the ones of whom I am truly proud,” the Thunderhead responded. “But you, Greyson, are more special than you know.”
Greyson Tolliver did not believe he was special. There was no evidence that he was anything beyond ordinary. He figured that the Thunderhead was just being its usual comforting self.
The Thunderhead, however, always meant what it said.
• • •
Greyson was not influenced or coerced into a life of service to the Thunderhead. It was his choice. To work for the Authority Interface as a Nimbus agent had been in his heart for years. He never told the Thunderhead, for fear that it might not want him or try to talk him out of it. When he finally submitted his application for the MidMerican Nimbus Academy, the Thunderhead simply said, “It pleases me,” then had put him in touch with other like-minded teens in and around his neighborhood.
His experience with those kids was not what he expected. He found them remarkably boring.
“Is that how people see me?” he had asked the Thunderhead. “Am I as dull as they are?”
“I don’t believe you are,” the Thunderhead told him. “You see, many come to work for the Authority Interface because they lack the creativity to find a truly stimulating profession. Others feel powerless and have a need to experience power vicariously. These are the lackluster ones, the boring ones, who ultimately become the least effective Nimbus agents. Rare are those such as yourself whose longing to serve is a mark of character.”
The Thunderhead was right: Greyson did want to serve, and wanted to do so with no ulterior motive. He didn’t want power or prestige. Granted, he did like the idea of the crisp gray suits and sky-blue ties that all Nimbus agents wore, but that was far from his motivation. The Thunderhead had simply done so much for him, he wanted to give something back. He could not imagine a higher calling than being its representative, maintaining the planet, and working for the betterment of humankind.
While scythes were made or broken in a one-year apprenticeship, becoming a Nimbus agent was a five-year process. Four years of study, followed by a year out in the field as a journeyman agent.
Greyson was prepared to devote his five years of preparation—but barely two months into his studies at the MidMerican Nimbus Academy, he found that his path was barred. His schedule, which consisted of classes in history, philosophy, digital theory, and law, suddenly appeared blank. For reasons unknown, he had been dropped from all of his classes. Was this a mistake? How could it be? The Thunderhead did not make mistakes. Perhaps, he reasoned, class schedules were left to human hands, and were subject to human error. So he went to the school’s registrar, hoping to get to the bottom of it.
“Nope,” said the registrar, with neither surprise nor compassion. “No error. It says here you’re not enrolled in any classes. There’s a message in your file, though.”
The message was simple and unambiguous. Greyson Tolliver was to report to the local Authority Interface headquarters immediately.
“What for?” he asked, but the registrar had nothing for him but a shrug and a glance over Greyson’s shoulder to the next person in line.
• • •
Although the Thunderhead itself did not require a place of business, its human counterparts did. In every city, in every region, there was an Office of the Authority Interface, where thousands of Nimbus agents worked to maintain the world—and did the job well. The Thunderhead had managed to achieve something unique in the history of humanity: a bureaucracy that actually worked.
The offices of the Authority Interface, or AI, as it was commonly called, were not ornate, nor were they conspicuously austere. Every city had a building that harmonized with its architectural surroundings. In fact, one could often pick out the local AI headquarters by simply looking for the building that appeared to most belong.
In Fulcrum City, the capital of MidMerica, it was a solid building of white granite and dark blue glass. At sixty-seven stories, it hit the average height for the downtown area. Once, the MidMerican Nimbus agents attempted to convince the Thunderhead to build a taller tower that might impress the population, and even the world.
“I do not need to impress,” the Thunderhead had responded to the disappointed Nimbus agents. “And if you feel the need for the Authority Interface to stand out in the world, perhaps you need to reevaluate your priorities.”
Suitably chastised, the MidMerican Nimbus agents returned to work with their proverbial tails between their legs. The Thunderhead was power without hubris. Even in their disappointment, the Nimbus agents were heartened by its incorruptible nature.
Greyson felt out of place when he pushed his way through the revolving door into the polished marble vestibule—light gray marble the same color as all the suits around him. He had no suit to wear. The closest he could come was a mildly wrinkled pair of slacks, a white shirt, and a green tie that was a bit lopsided no matter how many times he tried to adjust it.
The Thunderhead had given him that tie as a gift a few months before. He wondered if it knew, even then, that he would be called in for this meeting.
A junior agent who had been waiting for him greeted him at reception. She was pleasant and perky, and shook his hand a little too vigorously. “I’ve just begun my year of fieldwork,” she said. “I have to say, I’ve never heard of a freshman called in to headquarters.” She wouldn’t stop shaking his hand as she spoke. It began to feel awkward, and he wondered which would be worse, allowing her to continue pumping his hand up and down, or withdrawing it from her grasp. Finally Greyson rescued his hand from her grip, feigning a need to scratch his nose.
“Either you’ve done something very good, or very bad,” she said.
“I haven’t done anything,” he told her, but clearly she didn’t believe him.
She led him to a comfortable salon with two tall-backed leather chairs, a bookshelf of classic volumes and generic knickknacks, and in the middle, a coffee table with a silver platter of tea cakes and a matching pitcher of ice water. It was a standard “audience room,” designed for the times that a human touch was needed when relating to the Thunderhead. It troubled Greyson, because he always spoke to the Thunderhead directly. He couldn’t begin to guess what this was all about.
A few minutes later, a slim Nimbus agent, who already seemed tired even though the day had barely begun, came in and introduced himself as Agent Traxler. This man was of that first category that the Thunderhead had spoken of. The uninspired.
He sat across from Greyson and made obligatory small talk. “I trust you found your way here easily, blah blah, blah,” “Have a tea cake, they’re very good, blah blah blah.” Greyson was sure the man said the same exact things to everyone he had an audience with. Finally, he got down to business.
“Do you have any idea why you were called here?” he asked.
“No,” Greyson told him.
“Yes, I suppose you wouldn’t.”
Then why even ask? Greyson thought, but didn’t dare say it aloud.
“You were called here because the Thunderhead wished for me to remind you of the rules of our agency with regards to the scythehood.”
Greyson was insulted, and didn’t even try to hide it. “I know the rules.”
“Yes, but the Thunderhead wished for me to remind you.”
“Why didn’t the Thunderhead remind me itself?”
Agent Traxler released an exasperated sigh. One that he probably practiced often. “As I said, the Thunderhead wished for me to remind you.”
This was going nowhere. “All right, then,” said Greyson. Realizing that his own frustration had slipped over the line into disrespect, he backpedaled. “I appreciate the fact that you’ve taken a personal interest in this, Agent Traxler. You can consider me fully reminded.”
He reached for his tablet. “Shall we go over the rules?”
Greyson took in a slow breath and held it, because he imagined if he didn’t it might come out as a scream. What was the Thunderhead thinking? When he got back to his dorm room, he’d have to have a nice long conversation with it. He was not above arguing with the Thunderhead. In fact, they argued regularly. Of course, the Thunderhead always won—even when it lost, because Greyson knew it lost those arguments on purpose.
“Clause one of the Separation of Scythe and State . . . ,” Traxler began, and continued reading for the better part of an hour, occasionally checking in with Greyson with, “Are you still with me?” and “Did you get that?” Greyson would either nod, say “yes,” or when he felt it was called for, repeat back word for word what Traxler had said.
When Traxler was finally done, rather than putting down his tablet, he pulled up two images. “Now for a quiz.” He showed the images to Greyson. The first he recognized immediately as Scythe Curie—her long silver hair and lavender robe a giveaway. The second was a girl his age. Her turquoise robe testified to her being a scythe as well.
“If the Thunderhead were legally allowed to do so,” Agent Traxler said, “it would warn Scythe Curie and Scythe Anastasia that there is a credible threat to their lives. The kind of threat from which there would be no possibility of revival. If the Thunderhead, or one of its agents warned them, which clause of the Separation of Scythe and State would be violated?”
“Uh . . . clause fifteen, paragraph two.”
“Actually clause fifteen, paragraph three, but close enough.” He put down the tablet. “What are the consequences for a Nimbus Academy student warning the two scythes of this threat?”
Greyson said nothing for a moment; the thought of the consequences was enough to chill his blood. “Expulsion from the academy.”
“Permanent expulsion,” Traxler said. “The student may never apply to that Nimbus Academy, or any other, ever again.”
Greyson glanced down at the little green tea cakes. He was glad he hadn’t eaten any because he might just have hurled them back into Agent Traxler’s face. Then again, he might have felt much better if he had. He imagined Agent Traxler’s pinched face dripping with puke. It was almost enough to make him smile. Almost.
“Then we are clear that you are, under no circumstances, to warn Scythe Anastasia and Scythe Curie of the threat?”
Greyson heaved a false shrug. “How could I warn them? I don’t even know where they live.”
“They live in a rather famous landmark residence called Fallingwater, the address of which is very easy to find,” Agent Traxler told him, then said, as if Greyson hadn’t heard him the first time, “If you warn them of the threat, which you now know about, you will face the consequences we discussed.”
Then Agent Traxler promptly left to prepare for another audience without as much as a goodbye.
• • •
It was dark by the time Greyson got back to his dorm room at the academy. His roommate, a boy who was almost as enthusiastic as the hand-shaking junior Nimbus agent, wouldn’t shut up. Greyson just wanted to slap him.
“My ethics teacher just assigned us an analysis of mortal-age court cases. I got something called Brown versus the Board of Education, whatever that is. And my digital theory teacher wants me to write a paper on Bill Gates—not the scythe, but the actual guy. And don’t even ask me about philosophy.”
Greyson let him drone on, but stopped listening. Instead he ran everything that happened at the AI through his mind one more time, as if reevaluating it might somehow change it. He knew what was expected of him. The Thunderhead could not break the law. But he could. Of course, as Agent Traxler had pointed out, there would be severe consequences if he did. He cursed his own conscience, because being the person that he was, how could he not warn Scythes Anastasia and Curie, no matter what the consequences?
“Did you get any assignments today?” his blabbermouth roommate asked.
“No,” Greyson told him flatly. “I was given the opposite of an assignment.”
“Lucky you.”
Somehow Greyson didn’t feel all that lucky.