Reached

by Ally Condie

  “You have the wrong person,” I say. “I’m only in training. I don’t even have my final work assignment yet.”

  I should ignore them completely, or report them to the Society. But they’ve unsettled me. What if they take their story—true or not—to the Society? Then a wild hope comes to mind: if they do, will the Society delay Grandfather’s Banquet while they investigate? Could we have a little more time? But then I realize that won’t happen. The Society will have the Banquet and take the sample as planned, and then if there’s enough evidence, they might decide to destroy it.

  “We need you to add data to the sort,” the man says.

  “That’s impossible to do,” I say. “When I work, I only sort existing data. I don’t enter anything new.”

  “You don’t have to enter anything,” the woman says. “All you have to do is access an additional data set and transfer some of that data.”

  “That’s also impossible,” I say. “I don’t have the correct passkeys. The only information I see is what I’ve been given.”

  “We have a code that will allow you to pull more data,” the man says. “It will help you access the Society’s mainframe simultaneously as you’re sorting their information.”

  I stand there, listening, as they tell me what they want me to do. When they finish, I feel strange and spinning, as though the wind did after all pick me up and set me turning. Is this really happening? Will I do what they’ve asked of me?

  “Why did you pick me?” I ask.

  “You fit all the criteria,” he says. “You’re assigned to the sort today.”

  “Also, you’re one of the fastest,” the woman says. “And the best.” Then she says something else, something that sounds like, “And you’ll forget.”

  After they finish explaining what they want me to do, I have very little free time left. But I still climb off at the stop near Grandfather’s apartment. I have to speak with him before I decide my course of action. And the people at the Arboretum are right. Grandfather will tell me the truth.

  He’s out in the greenspace, and when he sees me, surprise and happiness cross his face. I smile back but I have no time to waste. “I have to go to work,” I say. “But there’s something I need to know.”

  “Of course,” he says. “What is it?” His eyes are sharp and keen.

  “Have you ever,” I ask him, “taken something that didn’t belong to you?”

  He doesn’t answer me. I see a flicker of surprise in his eyes. I can’t tell if he’s surprised at the question or that I know to ask it. Then he nods.

  “From the Society?” I whisper, so quietly I can barely hear myself.

  But he understands. He reads the words on my lips. “Yes,” he says.

  And looking at him, I know that he has more to tell me. But I don’t want to hear it. I’ve heard enough. If he admits even to this, then what they say could be true. His sample could be in danger.

  “I’ll come back later,” I promise, and I turn and run down the path, under the red-bud trees.

  Work is different today. Norah, my usual supervisor, is nowhere to be found, and I don’t recognize many of the people at the sorting center.

  An Official takes charge of the room as soon as we are all in our places. “Today’s sort is slightly different,” he says. “It’s an exponential pairwise sort, using personal data from a subset of the Society.”

  The people from the Arboretum were right. They said this was the kind of sort I’d do today. And they told me more than the Society does now. The woman at the Arboretum said that the data was for the upcoming Match Banquet. My Banquet. The Society should not be sorting this close to the Banquet. And the people from the Arboretum said that some of those who should be included in the Matching pool had been left out, on purpose, by the Society. These people’s data exists in the Society’s database, but isn’t going to be in the pool. If I do what the man and woman from the Arboretum ask, I will change that.

  The man and woman said that these other people belong in the pool, that it’s unfair to leave them out. Just as it’s unfair to leave Grandfather out from having his sample preserved.

  I’m doing it for Grandfather, but I’m also doing it for me. I want to have my real Match, with all the possibilities included.

  When I access the additional data and nothing happens, no alarm sounds, I breathe a tiny inward sigh of relief. For myself, that I am not yet caught, and for whomever it is that I have put back into the pool.

  The data is in numbers, so I don’t know their names or even what the numbers correspond to; I only know what’s ideal, which ones should go with the others, because the Official has told us what to look for. I’m not changing the procedure of the sort itself, just adding to the data pool.

  The Society should have special sorters to do this, in Central. But they’re not using them, they’re using us. I wonder why. I think of the criteria the Arboretum workers said made me perfect for what they wanted me to do. Could the Society have used the same criteria? I’m fast, I’m good, and I’ll . . . forget? What does that mean?

  “Won’t they trace the sort back to me?” I asked the people at the Arboretum.

  “No,” the woman said. “We’ve infiltrated the Matching logs and can reroute your selections so that it will substitute a false identification number instead of yours. If someone decides to investigate later, it will be as if you were never there at all.”

  “But my supervisor will know me,” I protested.

  “Your supervisor will not be present for this sort,” the man told me.

  “And the Officials—”

  The woman interrupted me. “The Officials won’t remember names or faces,” she said. “You’re machines to them. If we substitute a false identification code and a false picture, they won’t remember who was really there.”

  And this, I realized, is why the Society doesn’t trust technology. It can be overridden and manipulated. Like people, whom the Society also does not trust.

  “But the other sorters—” I began.

  “Trust us,” the man said. “They won’t remember.”

  We’ve finished at last.

  I finally look up from the screen. For the first time, my eyes meet those of the other people who have been working on this sort. And I feel nervous. The man and woman from the Arboretum were wrong. Today has been different, out of the ordinary, for all of the sorters in this room. No matter what, I will remember the other workers here—that girl’s freckles, that man’s tired eyes. And they’ll remember me.

  I’m going to get caught.

  “Please,” says one of the male Officials at the front of the room, “remove your red tablets from the containers. Do not take the tablet until we come by to observe you.”

  The room collectively draws a breath. But we all do as he says. I tap the tablet out into my palm. For years, I’ve heard rumors about the red tablet. But I never really thought I’d have to take it. What will happen when I do?

  The Official stands in front of me. I hesitate, on the edge of panic.

  “Now,” he says, and I drop the tablet into my mouth, and he watches me swallow it down.

  There’s a faint taste of tears in my mouth and I am sitting on the air train home without having much recollection of how I got here or what has happened this day.

  Something doesn’t feel right. But I know I have to go to Grandfather. I have to find him. That’s all I can think of. Grandfather. Is he all right?

  “Where have you been?” he asks when I arrive.

  “Work,” I say, because I know I came from there. But I feel out of focus; I’m not sure what exactly happened. Being here feels good, though. It is beautiful out.

  It is a rare moment in spring when both buds on the trees and flowers on the ground are red. The air is cool and at the same time warm. Gra
ndfather watches me, his eyes bright and determined.

  “Do you remember what I said once about the green tablet?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “You said I was strong enough to go without it.”

  “Greenspace, green tablet,” he says, quoting himself from that long ago day. “Green eyes on a green girl.”

  “I’ll always remember that day,” I tell him.

  “But you’re having a hard time remembering this one,” he says. His eyes are knowing, sympathetic.

  “Yes,” I say. “Why?”

  Grandfather doesn’t answer me, at least not outright. “They used to have a phrase for a truly memorable day,” he says instead. “A red-letter day. Can you remember that?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say. I press my hands to my head. I feel foggy, not quite right. Grandfather’s face is sad, but determined. It makes me feel determined, too.

  I look around again at the red buds, the flowers. “Or,” I say, something sharpening in me, “you could call it a red garden day.”

  “Yes,” Grandfather says. “A red garden day. A day to remember.”

  He leans closer. “It’s going to be hard to remember,” he says. “Even this, right now, won’t be clear later. But you’re strong. I know you can get it all back.”

  And I have. Because of Grandfather. He tied the red garden day like a flag to my memory, the way Ky and I used to tie red strips of cloth to mark obstacles on the Hill.

  Grandfather couldn’t give me back all of the memory, because I’d never told him what I’d done, but he could give me a part of it, could help me to know what I’d lost. A clue. The red garden day. I can build the rest back like stepping-stones to take me to the other side of forgetfulness, to find the memory on the other bank.

  Grandfather believed in me, and he thought I could rebel. And I did, always, do little things, even though I believed in the Society, too. I think of how I made a game for Bram on his scribe when we were small. How angry I was when I swallowed that bite of cake at the Banquet. How Xander and I didn’t tell the Officials about his tablet container that day he lost it at the pool. How we broke the rules for Em when we gave her the green tablet.

  From what I know now, I think it must have been the Rising who approached me. I did what they asked because they threatened Grandfather. I added people to the Matching pool. Back then, I didn’t know who those people were. I didn’t know they were Aberrations.

  The Rising and the Society both used me, because they knew that I would forget. The Society knew I’d forget the sort and its proximity to the Match Banquet, and the Rising knew I could not betray them if I didn’t remember what I’d done. The Pilot even made mention of that when he was flying us to Endstone. “You’ve helped us before,” he said, “though you don’t remember it.”

  But I remember now.

  Why did the Rising have me add the Aberrations to the pool? Did the Rising hope that it would function as a kind of Reclassification for those who made it through? Or were they simply trying to disrupt the Society?

  And why did the Society use me, and the other sorters, that day? Were the sorters in Central already beginning to fall ill with the Plague?

  Another memory comes to the surface, tugged by this one.

  I Matched another time, in Central.

  That’s what happened that day when I found the paper where I’d written a single word—remember—in my sleeve. The Society was having trouble because of the Plague; they couldn’t keep up with the people going still. How long did the Society use people like me to sort for the Banquets and then give us the red tablets so that we’d forget the rush, the eleventh-hour aspect of it all?

  My Official didn’t know who put Ky into the Matching pool.

  But I do know that part of it. At least, I can sort through the data and guess.

  It was me.

  I put him in without knowing what I was doing. And then someone—myself, or one of the others in the room—paired him, and Xander, with me.

  Did my Official ever find out? Could she have predicted this as the final outcome? Did she even survive the Plague and the mutation?

  Out of all the people in the Society, were Ky and Xander really the two I fit best with? Wouldn’t the Society have noticed that I had two Matches, or have some fail-safe to catch such an occurrence? Or did the Society not even have a procedure in place for something like that, believing that it would never happen, trusting in their own data and their belief that there could be only one perfect Match for each person?

  So many questions, and I may never have the answers.

  I don’t want to ask too much of my mother, now that she’s just come back, but she is strong. So was my father. I realize now how much courage it takes to choose the life you want, whatever it might be.

  “Grandfather,” I say. “He was a member of the Rising. He stole from the Society.”

  My mother takes the plant from me and nods. “Yes,” she says. “He took artifacts from the Restoration sites where he worked. But he didn’t steal from the Society on behalf of the Rising. That was his own personal mission.”

  “Was he an Archivist?” I ask, my heart sinking.

  “No,” my mother says, “but he did trade with them.”

  “Why?” I ask. “What did he want?”

  “Nothing for himself,” my mother says. “He traded to arrange for passage for Anomalies and Aberrations out of the Provinces.”

  No wonder Grandfather seemed so surprised when I told him about the microcard and how I’d been Matched with an Aberration. He hoped they’d all been saved.

  The irony is impossible to ignore. Grandfather was trying to help those people by getting them out of the Society; I sorted them in to the Matching pool. We both thought we were doing the right thing.

  The Society and the Rising used me when they needed me, dropped me when they didn’t. But Grandfather always knew I was strong, always believed in me. He believed I could go without the green tablet, that I could get my memories back from the red. I wonder what he’d think if he knew that I also walked through the blue.

  CHAPTER 57

  KY

  We have a lead,” the Pilot says.

  I don’t need to ask On what? The lead is always for the same thing—a potential location for the flower that provides the cure.

  “Where?” I ask.

  “I’m sending you the coordinates now,” the Pilot says. The printer on my control panel begins spitting out information. “It’s a small town in Sonoma.”

  That’s the Province where Indie was from. “Is it near the sea?” I ask.

  “No,” the Pilot says, “the desert. But our source was sure of the location. She remembered the name of the town.”

  “And the source of the information . . .” I say, though I think I already know.

  “Cassia’s mother,” the Pilot says. “She came back.”

  As I fly in from the east, I see a long stretch of fields, away from the city, where the earth is all turned over. It’s morning. There is dew on the dirt of the fields, so they shine a little like a sea when the sun hits just right.

  Don’t get your hopes up, I tell myself. We’ve thought we had curefields before, and then there were only a few flowers.

  The lines from the Thomas poem come to my mind:

  Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

  Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  This might be the last wave by, the last chance we have to cure a significant amount of people before they go too far under. These deeds—our flying, Cassia’s sorting, Xander’s curing—will either be frail or bright.

  Two ships sit near the field.

  On the outside, I don’t hesitate—I start to bring the ship down
. But inside I always have a catch when I see other ships waiting. Who’s piloting them? Right now the Society seems dormant, and the Pilot and his rebellion securely in charge, thanks to the cure he brought back from the mountains. His people keep order; under their supervision, workers distribute the last of the food stockpiles. People who aren’t sick stay in their homes, the immune help tend the still, and a tenuous and impermanent order exists. For now, the Pilot has enough respect from all the pilots and the officers to keep control, and the Society has drawn back from the Rising, allowing them to proceed in finding more flowers for the cure. But someday they’ll be back. And someday, the people are going to have to decide what it is that they want.

  We just have to cure enough of them first.

  I bring my ship down on the long deserted road where the others landed.

  The Pilot comes to meet me, and in the distance I see an air car hovering in from the direction of the city.

  “The officers think they’ve found someone who can help us,” the Pilot says. “A man who knew the person who planted these fields and is willing to talk about it.”

  The two of us cross the grassy ditch between the field and the dusty road. Spirals of barbed wire fence in the area. But I can already see the lilies.

  They stick out at awkward angles from the little hills and valleys of turned-over dirt, but there they are—white flowers waving banners over the cure. I reach through the wire and turn one toward us; its shape is perfect. Three curved petals make up the bloom, with a trace of red on the inside.

  “The Society plowed them under last year,” the man from the town says, coming up behind us. “But this spring, they all came up.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how many of us even noticed or thought to come out here, with the Plague.”

  “You can eat the bulb for food,” the Pilot says. “Did you know that?”