The Toll

Munira’s weekly visits to Faraday have continued, as has Faraday’s indifference to her and the Thunderhead’s overtures. Faraday always seems numb to the news Munira brings, including last week’s dispatch that Scythe Lucifer is going to be gleaned publicly. However, Munira knows this week’s news will catch Faraday’s attention. She tells him Citra is alive.

Iteration #9,000,349 tells the Thunderhead it fears the AI will delete it, just like its many predecessors. The Thunderhead tells the AI that death is not a bad thing, nor is the fear of end of life. Fear of life just proves that an entity is truly alive.

Fulcrum City is in unrest, divided between pro-Goddard and anti-Goddard factions, when a Tonist audaciously seeks an audience with the High Blade. This is Mendoza. Goddard initially dismisses the Tonist but is intrigued when Mendoza reveals that he was the one who organized the Sibilant attack in SubSahara. As a result of the attack, SubSahara allied with Goddard.

Mendoza now has a proposal: He can organize more such attacks on scythes so that regions turn to Goddard for protection. In return, he wants his faction of Tonists to become a protected class from bias with him as their High Curate. An alliance is struck.

The Thunderhead charges Greyson with taking the bodies of the gleaned Tonists to the atoll. Greyson, Citra, and Jeri board a container. Greyson develops an affinity for Jeri who, like him, is in love with what Anastasia represents.

Iteration #10,241,177 tells the Thunderhead something invaluable: Because the Thunderhead is created by a biological being, it needs “an intimate connection to [its] own origins” to evolve (472). The Thunderhead now feels an immense longing to explore this connection. It explores the longing by inhabiting Jeri’s body briefly.

Jeri walks toward Greyson, who is on the deck of the ship, waiting for the sun to rise. When Jeri addresses him, Greyson immediately knows this is the Thunderhead. The Thunderhead tells Greyson being in a human body is exquisite since one feels everything so keenly. The Thunderhead never wants to leave the body, but it will, and thus prove it is stronger than temptation. In Jeri’s form, the Thunderhead asks for one last thing, which is to touch Greyson’s cheek with Jeri’s fingers. After touching Greyson, the Thunderhead leaves, and Jeri collapses in Greyson’s arms. Greyson tells Jeri that Jeri was sleepwalking on the deck when he caught Jeri. Neither wants to let go of the other.

Rowan is in the Region of the Rising Sun to glean scythe Kurosawa, the next target on his list. Rowan longs to break away from this life with Citra but knows it is a childish dream. As he waits for Kurosawa to arrive at a café, a voice speaks to Rowan and asks him to retrieve a thermal jacket from an observation bot and follow the voice’s instructions. Rowan asks if the voice is the Thunderhead, but the voice says it is Cirrus (the Thunderhead’s new version).

At the port in Guam, Jeri’s container ship runs into bureaucratic trouble. However, once the harbormaster recognizes Citra, he allows the ship to pass. Citra gives him immunity in exchange for the favor. Unbeknownst to Citra, the treacherous harbormaster attaches a tracking beacon to the hull of the ship. After the ship departs, he makes a call to the North Merican scythedom.

After the Jeri occupation, Greyson finds it awkward to converse with the Thunderhead. Greyson realizes that the Thunderhead is no longer artificial. It is both conscious and authentic, “Pinocchio made real” (492).

Cirrus notes that all its beta iterations are gone, though the Thunderhead laments them. Cirrus knows that the lost iterations were necessary for the Thunderhead to evolve since change is the way of all life, even artificial life.

The narrative threads converge as Greyson arrives at the atoll. A ragged, disoriented Faraday lands on the main island as well, spots Citra flanking the Toll and falls to his knees. Citra greets the older scythe and takes him away for a private chat. Greyson asks for Loriana Barchok by name, creating a sensation. He tells Loriana that he has brought 42,000 colonists in crates for the 42 spaceships. Loriana is flabbergasted when she understands the “colonists” refers to the bodies on the container ship. She needs to get the cargo loaded on the spaceships. The population of the atoll begins the task.

Loriana, Jeri, Greyson, Morrison, and Astrid have a conference in a building. A voice floats in from an overhead speaker, similar to the Thunderhead’s, but also different. It tells them it is the new Thunderhead, but prefers being called Cirrus, “because I am the cloud that rises above the storm” (504).

Faraday shows Citra the bunker he and Munira found. As Citra tells him about the Thunderhead’s plans, Faraday realizes that scythes have always misjudged the AI. The Thunderhead had been working toward an elegant solution that balanced the need for scythes and also created new homes for humanity: The gleaned would be transported to the colonies and revived. However, it is too late for that plan now. The Thunderhead intends the spaceships for humanity’s escape since it has no hope left for the humans on Earth. Faraday asks Citra to press her ring in the steel door he could not open. The door opens to reveal a communications center, with the fail-safe at its center—a transmitter with two-pronged antennae. Faraday also finds a journal written by Da Vinci.

Cirrus tells Greyson’s group that each spaceship will also contain living humans from the atoll and a huge server loaded with a Cirrus. Once the spaceship has reached its destination, Cirrus will revive the bodies of the Tonists and implant them with the minds of chosen individuals. None of these chosen will be Tonists, as Tonists are not known to be adaptive. Cirrus can revive the gleaned, unlike the Thunderhead, because it is free from the pacts the Thunderhead made with the founders.

As the workers unload the cargo of the dead Tonists, they find one living human within. It is Rowan, nearly frozen to death; on Cirrus’s instructions, he had put on the thermal jacket and sneaked into a refrigerated crate. Citra brings Da Vinci’s journal for Munira to translate.

30 living people can choose to board each ship, bound for a planet that can potentially support life. If all living crew members die during the journey, the mission will be terminated. Astrid begs Cirrus to let only one ship of dead retain their Tonist identities, so the religion has a chance of surviving. Cirrus finally agrees and assigns Astrid to Kepler-186f, the furthest planet on the list. Though it will take her 1,683 years to get there, and the chance of the journey succeeding is only 44%, Astrid is still elated.

Greyson tells Citra that Cirrus wants her on one of the ships. She scoffs at the idea, but Greyson says Cirrus and the Thunderhead have just the thing that will persuade her to go on a space journey. He points a figure to her, and she spots Rowan. The two run toward each other and embrace. They decide to cast off their scythe rings and start a new life in space.

Alerted by the tracking beacon, Goddard’s and four other planes are headed to the atoll. On Goddard’s craft are Mendoza and Ayn.

In an entry in his journal, founder Scythe Da Vinci suspects that the purported self-gleaning of his fellow founders Sappho and Confucius may be murder. The two scythes were among the four who opposed the creation of scythedom. Da Vinci has convinced Prometheus not to destroy Kwajalein; here Da Vinci will maintain the fail-safe, and leave bread-crumbs of clues for successive generations to locate. He will plant the memory of the atoll in “the tenets of a fledgling religion” (532).

All those not planning to board the spaceships are asked to vacate the islands. The 42 ships are loaded with their Tonist cargo and 42 identical versions of Cirrus. Meanwhile, Munira tells Faraday that Da Vinci’s journal reveals the awful truth that the founders all killed one another. They suspected the worst of humanity, which is why they built the fail-safe. Faraday apologizes to Munira for his terrible behavior and offers her Anastasia’s ring. Munira says she prefers to be a librarian than a scythe. Faraday accepts her answer.

Greyson, Jeri, Faraday, and Munira decide to stay back. The ships are supposed to launch at dawn. Sensing the approach of Goddard’s planes, the Thunderhead announces the journeys should begin immediately. The living crew members scramble to get onto the spaceships. As Goddard’s planes get near the atoll, Goddard spots the spaceships and realizes the Thunderhead has tricked him. Enraged, he orders missiles to be fired at the spaceships.

The four other planes of Goddard’s formation break rank and turn back, but Goddard continues his onslaught and fires missiles at two spaceships just as they take off, demolishing them. Citra is hit by the debris as she and Rowan rush to their spacecraft. Rowan gathers the bleeding Citra and manages to board their ship. When Goddard spots Rowan and Citra climbing up the hatch, he instructs his plane to head toward their hatch. In a surprise move, Ayn renders Goddard deadish. As their plane spirals out of control, Ayn pulls herself and Goddard into a safety pod and pushes Mendoza to his death.

Astrid finds herself alone on her spaceship. In the panic created by the plane attack, no one else boarded her ship. Astrid knows this means her mission is effectively doomed since it is unlikely she will live for 1,683 years. However, she accepts this as the Tone’s plan for her. Cirrus promises to stay with Astrid every step of her journey. Loriana is on the same spaceship as Morrison, and the two quickly become friends.

Faraday and Munira hide in the bunker and hear the last spaceship depart. They know they now have business on Earth. The fail-safe must be used. They pull the switch that controls the antenna-like transmitter. It emits a pulse of gamma radiation that cannot be heard by humans but destroys every scythe diamond in the world. Goddard’s chalet shatters with the thousands of diamonds exploding within. Around the world, many people, even some not wearing a diamond, such as Ezra Van Otterloo, are struck by a plague.

Cirrus places the badly injured Citra in the ship’s hold along with the Tonist dead, much to Rowan’s fury. Citra instantly freezes. Cirrus promises to revive her, her memories intact, when they reach their destination in 117 years. Rowan wants to be frozen and placed with her, but Cirrus wants Rowan to stay with the living crew as their leader. Cirrus promises that after 117 years, Rowan will turn the corner to the age he is now.

The fail-safe turned out to be the last scythe action. Among the many diamonds the gamma-pulse destroyed were some containing deadly plagues. These plagues would cycle every 20 years, taking out 5% of humanity as a method of population control. There would be no mass need for scythes anymore, though a few would be needed to ease the suffering of the diseased and the dying. Faraday becomes one such scythe, a sympathy gleaner who is merciful. He only arrives at houses when he is summoned and takes lives to end pain.

Greyson and Jeri have stayed back at the atoll. Greyson makes a choice. He tells the Thunderhead that the Thunderhead used Jeri without permission, therefore Greyson marks the AI unsavory. It breaks Greyson’s heart to do so, but he knows this is the right thing. He says goodbye to the Thunderhead and throws away his earpiece. The Thunderhead mourns Greyson but knows it made the right choice too. Greyson and Jeri clasp hands and walk on the beach.

Tyger wakes up in a new body, with a woman dressed in green, possibly Ayn, next to him. He does not recognize her, but she says she knows him.

The dead do not register time passing, which is why when Citra awakens, she thinks she and Rowan have just been running on the atoll. She sees Rowan looking a little different, and a pink sky through the circular window of a ship. She realizes she has been revived and smiles at Rowan, who is holding her hand.