Unknown Location

I groggily come to my senses, shaking my head as my vision adjusts to the bright lighting in the room. The walls are completely white, with only a table in front of me and an opaque window near the door. My uniform has been removed, replaced by a jumpsuit that has a large U on it. Odd.

"He's awake."

Voices! Yes! It's probably the government. They'll get me out of this situation. I hope they dealt with that crazy murdering lady. I wonder…

The door opens, and two bulky guys in grey uniforms with some kind of body armor walk in...with that weird reaper symbol on their armor.

Ah shit.

One takes a seat at the table in front of me, with a nasty scowl on his face, while the other stands behind me, towering over me. He's obviously trying to look intimidating.

"Would you mind telling me why you rendered a scythe deadish, young man?"

"What? Who are you? What is this place?" I look around. "I demand a lawyer, damn you! I work for-" He leans over and clotheslines me in the face sitting back down while cracking his knuckles.

"I don't think you've heard me. Why. Did. You. Render. A. Scythe. Deadish?"

Okay. Two can play at that game. "I. Do. Not. Know. What. The. Fuck. You. Are. Talking. About."

He smirks. "Wrong answer. Hold him." The second guard pulls my chair back, holding it. The first guy picks up some kind of baton. He jabs it into my stomach. I yowl with pain as the brute force nearly breaks the skin. He grabs me by the shoulders and knocks me over, the second guy kneeing me in the back.

"Why did you render a scythe deadish? I demand you tell me!"

"Becuase she fucking killed someone in cold blood, prick! That psycho bitch just stabbed him, and I retaliated! It's perfectly legal! Now would you-"

"Stop!"

The door flies open, to reveal a man.

Wearing gold robes. Ones very similar to those of the woman I shot.

"High Blade! What-"

"By my will, as High Blade of MidMerica, you will cease your actions and stop this nonsense immediately. Leave now or I swear I will glean you two, right here!"

Looks like this guy has some kind of authority. They nod shamefully, and walk out the door.

The gold-robed guy shakes his head, mumbling something under his breath as he helps me up.

"On behalf of the Midmerican Scythedom, I am so sorry about that. The BladeGuard can get very physical sometimes. Almost too physical."

"Please, for the life of me, tell me what's going on." I stared at him with a confused look on my face.

The man sighed, sitting down. He seems a little...heavy, and he looks at me with how a child would look at a dinosaur in a zoo."What year do you think it is?

"Year? I...when I could recall, it was 2038."

The man shakes his head, frowning. "Back when we used numbers to describe years...still can't believe that was really a thing humans did in Mortal times."

"Mortal times?" I asked, confused by the term.

"This may seem hard for you to believe, but it is approximately three hundred and thirty years since when you started your mission."

"...Three hundred and thirty? Could it...was it really that long?" I simply could not believe it. Everything...just went numb. The Earth I knew...was gone. My family...my friends...all of it just lost to time.

I can't exactly remember what happened next, but from what the High Blade guy told me, I had a major panic attack, something that hadn't happened to anyone in hundreds of years. I passed out for a few hours, and woke up in some kind of bed, in a cell.

The High Blade told me everything about what happened to the world while I was gone: In 2042, the online cloud became sentient, naming itself Thunderhead. It became an overbearing yet benevolent AI manager, solving basically all of humanity's problems over time. Global warming, poverty, war...it solved all of that shit. Crime isn't a thing anymore, homelessness has been long gone due to a worldwide minimum wage paid to all, regardless of whether one worked or not. And apparently, I'm now the oldest living person on Earth. Huh.

Oh yeah, and immortality is a thing, too.

You see, in 2042, nanites were developed, that would grant anyone immortality. You can reset your age, called 'turning the corner', back to any previous age around twenty, whenever you want. These nanites also eliminate any chance of infection from disease, and also regenerates most injuries, except from fire. If someone actually dies, it's called 'being deadish', and unless the body is completely burned, you will be revived, for a small fee.

Neat stuff. And it completely overwhelms me.

Apparently my mission was for nothing, as several horrible accidents that befell the 'post-mortal' space program on the Moon and Mars. So humanity as a species is stuck here on its cradle for the foreseeable future. We're stagnant.

And that's not even talking about the Scythedom.

So with humanity stuck on one planet, and as all of those humans are immortal, mind you, overpopulation was going to be a problem. So the Scythedom was founded. A group of humans, trained to glean - their word for killing - people so the population stays at an amount where the Thunderhead can manage it accordingly. Each scythe must kill...glean, I mean, 250 people per year to fulfill their quotas.

It's basically government-mandated murder, seeing as how the Scythedom basically rules death. The Thunderhead seems like an interesting entity. Not like the AI pictured in movies or games, I see. Suck it, James Cameron. It has its own network of agents and everything. It just seems so...simple. Managing the world in such a way just seems...odd. No government incompetence, no greed...from a 21st century perspective, it seems so odd.

I cried, too. A lot.

Sure, this brave new world seemed all well and good, but for me? I had lost everything. My family was gone. My expeditionary crew, who was basically my second family, was gone. My 21st-century education probably made me look like an idiot compared to these people, and I was definitely out of place. Back in my day, I feared death.

Today, not at all.

These people are just... numb to it. Their nanites can prevent anything, from depression to cancer. They're not even sure if I can get these nanites. No one's had to have them implanted for hundreds of years - it's just a thing everyone has now. The man in gold just sat and watched.

I cried some more, and some more, and eventually calmed down. The man in gold introduced himself. His name was Xenocrates, High Blade of the MidMerican Scythedom. That means that he's the head honcho of the MidMerican order of scythes, which basically covers the formerly named US of A. The Scythe that I rendered deadish, Scythe Curie (when they become Scythes, apparently they rename themselves after a historical figure), was a celebrity, known for gleaning the last President of the United States around a hundred and fifty years ago, to help end corruption so the Thunderhead could move in. He told me that a lot of scythes wanted me gleaned for doing such an act. Under the circumstances, the High Blade formally excused me.

Well, that's a relief.

Moving on, should I decide to stay and not allow myself to be gleaned (something I was seriously considering), I would be turned over to the AI, or Authority Interface, basically the operating body under the Thunderhead. They handle Unsavories (basically edgy people who don't follow the normal way of life and cause minor trouble), Nimbus Agents (Thunderhead proxies), administrative things like that.

They managed to recover a lot of my stuff from the crash, as well as MILTON's core, which appears to be still functioning. With my permission, the nanites everyone has will hopefully be integrated into my body, allowing for me to de-age whenever I want, just like everyone else. There's more stuff to be done, but seeing how the Scythedom isn't under the Thunderhead's control, the rest of the more technical stuff will be handled by Nimbus agents. Due to my age, there's possible talk of me getting permanent immunity, but I really don't care about that.

All I want is some peace, damnit.

A/N: Thank you all for reading this ff of mine. This universe has lots of potential, and I will be sure as hell exploiting it. Shoutout to my friend DerelictTyrant on FF net for reviewing my stories. Check him out, he's a good writer!