Yel ow light slants through the windows near our stations in the sorting center. I cast a shadow across the other workers’ stations as I pass by. No one looks up.
I slip into my tiny station, which is just wide enough for a table and a chair and a sorting screen. The thin gray wal s rise up on either side of me and I can’t see anyone else. We are like the microcards in the research library at Second School—each of us neatly tucked into a slot. The government has computers that can do sorts much faster than we can, of course, but we’re stil important. You never know when technology might fail.
That’s what happened to the society before ours. Everyone had technology, too much of it, and the consequences were disastrous. Now, we have the basic technology we need—ports, readers, scribes—and our information intake is much more specific. Nutrition specialists don’t need to know how to program air trains, for example, and programmers, in turn, don’t need to know how to prepare food. Such specialization keeps people from becoming overwhelmed. We don’t need to understand everything. And, as the Society reminds us, there’s a difference between knowledge and technology. Knowledge doesn’t fail us.
I slide my scancard and the sort begins. Even though I like word association or picture or sentence sorts the best, I’m good at the number ones, too. The screen tel s me what patterns I’m supposed to find and the numbers begin to scrol up on the screen, like little white soldiers on a black field waiting for me to mow them down. I touch each one and begin to sort them out, pul ing them aside into different boxes. The tapping of my fingers makes a low, soft sound, almost as silent as snow fal ing.
And I create a storm. The numbers fly into their spots like flakes driven by the wind.
Halfway through, the pattern we are looking for changes. The system tracks how soon we notice the changes and how quickly we adapt our sorts.
You never know when a change wil happen. Two minutes later, the pattern changes again, and once more I catch it on the very first line of numbers.
I don’t know how, but I always anticipate the shift in pattern before it happens.
When I sort, there is only time to think about what I see in front of me. So there in my little gray space, I don’t think about Xander. I don’t wish for the feel of the green dress against my skin or the taste of chocolate cake on my tongue. I don’t think of my grandfather eating his last meal tomorrow night at the Final Banquet. I don’t think of snow in June or other things that cannot be, yet somehow are. I don’t picture the sun dazzling me or the moon cooling me or the maple tree in our yard turning gold, green, red. I wil think of al of those things and more later. But not when I sort.
I sort and sort and sort until there is no data left for me. Everything is clear on my screen. I am the one who makes it go blank.
When I ride the air train back to Mapletree Borough, the cottonwood seeds are gone. I want to tel my mother about them, but when I get home she and my father and Bram have already left for their leisure hours. A message for me blinks on the port: We’re sorry to have missed you, Cassia, it flashes. Have a good night.
A beep sounds in the kitchen; my meal has arrived. The foilware container slides through the food delivery slot. I pick it up quickly, in time to hear the sound of the nutrition vehicle trundling along its track behind the houses in the Borough.
My dinner steams as I open it up. We must have a new nutrition personnel director. Before, the food was always lukewarm when it arrived. Now it’s piping hot. I eat in a hurry, burning my mouth a little, because I know what I want to do with this rare empty time in this almost-vacant house. I’m never real y alone; the port hums in the background, keeping track, keeping watch. But that’s al right. I need it for what I’m going to do. I want to look at the microcard without my parents or Bram glancing over my shoulder. I want to read more about Xander before I see him tonight.
When I insert the microcard, the humming takes on a more purposeful sound. The portscreen brightens and my heart beats faster in anticipation, even though I know Xander so wel . What has the Society decided I should know about him, the person I’l spend most of my life with?
Do I know everything about him as I think I do, or is there something I’ve missed?
“Cassia Reyes, the Society is pleased to present you with your Match.”
I smile as Xander’s face appears on the portscreen immediately fol owing the recorded message. It’s a good picture of him. As always, his smile looks bright and real, his blue eyes kind. I study his face closely, pretending that I’ve never seen this picture before; that I have only had a glimpse of him once, last night at the Banquet. I study the planes of his face, the look of his lips. He is handsome. I’d never dared think that he might be my Match, of course, but now that it’s happened I am interested. Intrigued. A little scared about how this might change our friendship, but mostly just happy.
I reach up to touch the words Courtship Guidelines on the screen but before I do Xander’s face darkens and then disappears. The portscreen beeps and the voice says again, “Cassia Reyes, the Society is pleased to present you with your Match.” My heart stops, and I can’t believe what I see. A face comes back into view on the port in front of me.
It is not Xander.
CHAPTER 4
What?” Completely startled, I touch the screen and the face dissolves under my fingertips, pixelating into specks that look like dust. Words appear, but before I can read them the screen goes completely blank. Again.
“What’s going on?” I say out loud.
The portscreen stays blank. I feel blank, too. This is a thousand times worse than the empty screen last night. I knew what it meant then. I have no idea what it means now. I’ve never heard of this happening.
I don’t understand. The Society doesn’t make mistakes.
But what else could this be? No one has two Matches.
“Cassia?” Xander cal s to me through the door.
“I’m coming,” I cal out, tearing the microcard from the port and shoving it into my pocket. I take one deep breath, and then I open the door.
“So, I learned from your microcard that you like cycling,” Xander says formal y as I close the door behind me, making me laugh a little in spite of what just happened. I hate cycling the most out of al the exercise options, and he knows it. We argue about it al the time; I think it’s stupid to go riding on something that doesn’t move, spinning your wheels endlessly. He points out that I like to run on the tracker, which is almost the same thing.
“It’s different,” I tel him, but I can’t explain why.
“Did you spend al day staring at my face on the portscreen?” he asks. He’s stil joking, but suddenly I can’t catch my breath. He viewed his microcard, too. Was my face the one he saw? It feels so strange to be hiding something, especial y from Xander.
“Of course not,” I say, trying to tease back. “It’s Saturday, remember? I had work to do.”
“I did, too, but that didn’t stop me. I read al your stats and reviewed al the courtship guidelines.” He unknowingly throws me a lifeline with those words. I am not drowning in worry anymore. I am neck deep and it stil washes over me in cold waves, but now I can breathe. Xander stil thinks we are Matched. Nothing strange happened to him when he viewed his microcard. That’s something, at least.