Matched (4 page)

The people who oversee the Matching also get their start in sorting, but I’m not interested in that. I like my stories and information one step removed; I don’t want to be in charge of sorting real people.

“Make sure you’re ready,” Norah says, but both she and I know that I already am.

 

Yellow 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 walls 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 still 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 tells me what patterns I’m supposed to find and the numbers begin to scroll 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, pulling them aside into different boxes. The tapping of my fingers makes a low, soft sound, almost as silent as snow falling.

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 will 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 will think of all 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 tell 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 really alone; the port hums in the background, keeping track, keeping watch. But that’s all 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 well. What has the Society decided I should know about him, the person I’ll 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 following 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.

W
hat?”
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.

But what else could this be? No one has two Matches.

“Cassia?” Xander calls to me through the door.

“I’m coming,” I call 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 formally 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 all the exercise options, and he knows it. We argue about it all 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 tell him, but I can’t explain why.

“Did you spend all day staring at my face on the portscreen?” he asks. He’s still 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, especially 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 all your stats and reviewed all 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 still washes over me in cold waves, but now I can breathe. Xander still thinks we are Matched. Nothing strange happened to him when he viewed his microcard. That’s something, at least.

“You read all the guidelines?”

“Of course. Didn’t you?”

“Not yet.” I feel stupid admitting this, but Xander laughs again.

“They’re not very interesting,” he says. “Except for one.” He winks at me significantly.

“Oh?” I say, distracted. I see other youth our age mingling and gathering on our street, walking to the game center like us. They’re waving, calling, wearing the same clothes we wear. But there’s a difference tonight. Some are watching. Some are watched: me, and Xander.

The others’ eyes glance at us, hold, flicker away, look back.

I’m not used to it. Xander and I are normal, healthy citizens, part of this group. Not outsiders.

But I feel separated now, as though a clear thin wall rises up distinctly between myself and those staring at me. We can see each other, but we can’t cross over.

“Are you all right?” Xander asks.

Too late, I realize that I should have responded to Xander’s comment and asked him which guideline he found interesting. If I can’t pull myself together soon, he’ll know something’s wrong. We know each other too well.

Xander reaches for my elbow as we turn the corner and leave Mapletree Borough. When we’ve walked a few steps more, he slides his hand down my arm and interlaces his fingers with mine. He leans closer to my ear. “One of the guidelines said that we are allowed to express physical affection. If we want.”

And I
do
want. Even with all the stress I feel, the touch of his hand against mine with nothing to separate us is still welcome and new. I’m surprised that Xander is so natural at this. And as we walk, I recognize the emotion that I see on some of the faces of the girls staring at us. It’s jealousy, pure and simple. I relax a little, because I can understand why. None of us ever thought we could have golden, charismatic, clever Xander. We always knew he would be Matched with another girl in another City, another Province.

But he’s not. He’s Matched with
me
.

I keep my fingers locked in his as we walk toward the game center. Maybe, if I don’t let go, it will prove that we are meant to be Matched. That the other face on the screen means nothing; that it was simply a momentary malfunction of the microcard.

Except. The face I saw, the face that was not Xander: I knew him, too.

T
here’s an opening over here,” Xander says, stopping at a game table in the middle of the room. Apparently the other youth in our Borough feel the same way we do about this Saturday’s recreation options, because the game center is crowded with people, including most of our friends. “Do you want to go in, Cassia?”

“No thanks,” I say. “I’ll watch this round.”

“What about you?” he asks Em, my best girlfriend.

“You go ahead,” she tells him, and then we both laugh as he grins and spins around to give his scancard to the Official monitoring the game. Xander’s always been this way about the games—completely alive with energy and anticipation. I remember playing with him when we were little, how we both played hard and didn’t let the other win.

I wonder when I stopped liking the games. It’s hard to remember.

Now, Xander settles himself at the table, saying something that makes everyone else laugh. I smile to myself. It really is more fun to watch him than to play yourself. And this game, Check, is one of his favorites. It’s a game of skill, the kind he likes best.

“So,” Em says softly, the sounds of laughter and talking covering her words from everyone but me, “What is it like?
Knowing
your Match?”

I knew she would ask me this; I know it’s what everyone would like to know. And I answer the only way I can. I tell her the truth. “It’s Xander,” I say. “It’s wonderful.”

Em nods in understanding. “All this time none of us thought we could ever end up with one another,” she says. “And then it happens.”

“I know,” I say.

“And
Xander
,” she says. “He’s the best of us all.” Someone calls her name and she drifts toward another table.

As I watch, Xander picks up the gray pieces and puts them out on the gray and black squares of the board. Most of the colors inside the game center are drab: gray walls, brown plainclothes for the students, dark blue plainclothes for those who have already received their permanent work positions. Any brightness in the room comes from us: from the shades of our hair, from our laughter. When Xander sets down his last piece, he looks across the board at me and says, right in front of his opponents, “I’m going to win this one for my
Match
.” Everyone turns to stare at me and he grins mischievously.

I roll my eyes at him, but I’m still blushing a few moments later when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around.

An Official waits behind me. “Cassia Reyes?” she asks.

“Yes,” I answer, glancing over at Xander. He’s engrossed in making his move and doesn’t see what’s happening.

“Could you come outside with me for a moment? It won’t take long, and it’s nothing to worry about. Merely procedural.”

“Of course,” I say, because there’s no other answer when an Official asks you for something. I look back at my friends. Their eyes are on the game in front of them and on the players moving the pieces. No one notices when I leave. Not even Xander. The crowd swallows me up and I follow the Official’s white uniform out of the room.

 

“Let me reassure you that you have nothing to worry about,” the Official tells me, smiling. Her voice sounds kind. She leads me to the small greenspace outside the center. Even though being with an Official adds to my nervousness, the open air feels good after the crowd inside.

We walk across the neatly cut grass toward a metal bench that sits directly underneath a street lamp. There’s not another person in sight. “You don’t even have to tell me what happened,” the Official says. “I know. The face on the microcard wasn’t the right one, was it?”

She
is
kind: she didn’t make me say the words. I nod.