And Aberrations aren’t al owed to carry tablets of their own.
Does Xander know now? Did Ky just give himself away?
But I don’t think Xander guessed. Why would he? It makes as much sense for him to give Em the tablet as it would for Ky. More, even. Xander has known Em longer. He settles back in his seat, watching Em as he takes her pulse, his hand around her delicate wrist. He looks up at Ky and me and nods. “Everything’s fine now,” he says. “She’s going to be fine.”
I put my arm around Em, and close my eyes, too, listening to the music. The song the woman was singing has ended, and now it’s the Anthem of the Society, bass notes rumbling, choir coming in for the final verse. Their voices sound triumphant; they sing as one. Like us. We closed around Em in a circle to protect her from the eyes of the Officials; and none of us wil tel about the green tablet.
I am glad that al is wel , glad that I promised to let Em borrow the compact for her Banquet. For what is the point of having something lovely if you never share it?
It would be like having a poem, a beautiful wild poem that no one else has, and burning it.
After a moment, I open my eyes and glance over at Ky. He doesn’t look back, but I know he knows I’m watching. The music is soft, slow. His chest rises and fal s. His lashes are black, impossibly long, the exact color of his hair.
Ky is right. I wil never hear this song the same way again.
At work the next day, we al notice immediately when the Officials enter the room. Like dominos fal ing at a game table, head after head turns toward the door of the sorting center. The Officials in their white uniforms are here for me. Everyone knows it and I know it, so I don’t wait for them. I push my chair back and stand up, my eyes meeting theirs across the dividers that separate our slots.
It’s time for my test. They nod for me to fol ow.
So I do, heart pounding but head held high, to a smal gray room with a single chair and several smal tables.
As I sit down, Norah appears in the doorway. She seems slightly anxious but gives me a reassuring smile before she looks at the Officials. “Do you need anything?”
“No, thank you,” says an Official with gray hair, who looks significantly older than the other two. “We’ve brought everything we require.”
None of the three Officials makes smal talk as they set things in order. The Official who spoke first seems to be in charge. The others, both women, are efficient and smooth. They hook up a datatag behind my ear and one inside the neck of my shirt. I don’t say anything, not even when the gel they use stings my skin.
The two women step back and the older Official slides a smal screen across the table toward me. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I say, hoping my voice sounds level and clear. I straighten my shoulders and sit up a little tal er. If I act as though I’m not afraid maybe they wil believe me. Although the datatags they’ve attached to me might tel a different story, thanks to my racing pulse.
“Then you may begin.”
The first sort is a numbers one, a simple one, a warmup. They are fair. They want me to get my legs under me before they move into the hard sorts.
As I sort the numbers on the screen, making order out of chaos and detecting patterns, my heartbeat evens out. I stop trying to hold onto so many other things—the memory of Xander’s kiss, what my father has done, curiosity about Ky, worry about Em in the music hal , confusion about myself and how I am meant to be and who I am meant to love. I let it al go like a child with a handful of bal oons on her First Day at First School. They float away from me, bright and dancing on the breeze, but I don’t look up and I don’t try to grab them back. Only when I hold onto nothing can I be the best, only then can I be what they expect me to be.
“Excel ent,” the oldest Official says as he inputs the scores. “Quite excel ent. Thank you, Cassia.”
The female Officials remove my datatags. They meet my eyes and smile at me because now they can’t be accused of showing any partiality. The test is finished. And it seems that I have passed, at least.
“It’s been a pleasure,” the gray-haired Official says, reaching across the smal table toward me. I stand up and shake his hand and then the hands of the other two Officials. I wonder if they can feel the current of energy that runs through me: The blood in my veins is made of adrenaline and relief.
“That was an exceptional demonstration of sorting ability.”
“Thank you, sir.”
On their way out the door, he turns back to me one last time and says, “We have our eyes on you now, young lady.”
He shuts the metal door behind him. It makes a thick, solid sound, a sound of finality. As I listen to the nothing that fol ows I suddenly realize why Ky likes to blend in. It is a strange feeling, knowing for certain that the Officials watch me more closely. It is as though I stood in the way when that door swung shut and I find myself pinned now by the weight of their observation—a concrete thing, real and heavy.
The night of Em’s Match Banquet I go to bed early and fal asleep quickly. It is my night to wear the datatags and I hope the information they gather from my dreams shows the sleep patterns of a completely normal seventeen-year-old girl.
But in my dream I’m sorting for the Officials again. The screen comes up with Em’s picture and I’m supposed to sort her into a Matching pool. I freeze. My hands stop. My brain stops.
“Is there a problem?” the gray-haired Official asks.
“I can’t tel where I should sort her,” I say.
He looks at Em’s face on the screen and smiles. “Ah. That’s not a problem. She has your compact, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“She’l carry her tablets to the Banquet in it, as you did. Simply tel her to take the red one and everything wil be fine.”
Suddenly I’m at the Banquet, pushing through girls in dresses and boys in suits and parents in plainclothes. I turn them, shove them, do whatever I have to do to see their faces, because everyone here wears yel ow and it al blurs together, I can’t sort, I can’t see.
I spin another girl around.
Not Em.
I accidental y knock a tray ful of cake out of a waiter’s hand, trying to catch up to a girl with a graceful walk. The tray fal s on the floor and the cake breaks apart, like soil fal ing from roots.
Not Em.
The crowd thins, and a girl in a yel ow dress stands alone in front of a blank screen.
Em.
She’s about to cry.
“It’s al right!” I cal out to her, pushing my way through more people. “Take the tablet and everything wil be fine!”
Em’s eyes brighten; she pul s out my compact. She lifts the green tablet and puts it in her mouth, fast.
“No!” I cry out, too late. “The—” She puts the blue tablet in her mouth next.
“—red one!” I finish, pushing through one last cluster of people to stand in front of her.
“I don’t have one,” she says, turning around, her back toward the screen now. She shows me the open compact, empty. Her eyes are sad. “I don’t have a red tablet.”
“You can have mine,” I say, eager to share with her, eager to help her this time. I won’t sit idly by. I pul out my container, twist the top, put the red tablet right into her hand.
“Oh, thank you, Cassia,” she says. She lifts it to her mouth. I see her swal ow.
Everyone in the room has stopped mil ing about. They al look at us now, eyes on Em. What wil the red tablet do? None of us knows, except me. I smile. I know it wil save her.