The workers around me give no indication that the sort means anything to them. But I’m sure there are others in the room looking at these words and wondering Is it finally time?
Wait for the actual data, I remind myself. I’m not just looking out for a sort; I’m also looking out for a particular set of information, which I’m supposed to mismatch.
In exponential pairwise matching, each element is ranked by assigning an importance to each of its properties, and then paired to another element whose property rankings fit optimally. It is an intricate, complicated, tedious sort, the kind that requires every bit of our focus and attention.
The screen flickers and then the data comes up.
This is it.
The right sort. The right data set.
Is this the beginning of the Rising?
For a brief moment, I hesitate. Am I confident that the Rising can bug the error-checking algorithm? What if they didn’t? My mistakes will all be noted. The chime will sound, and an Official will come to see what I’m doing.
My fingers don’t tremble as I push one element across the screen, fighting the natural impulse to put the element where my training says it should go. I guide it slowly to its new location and slowly lift my finger, holding my breath.
No chime sounds.
The Rising’s bug worked.
I think I hear a breath of relief, a tiny exhalation somewhere else in the room. And then I feel something, a cottonwood seed of memory, light and flitting on the breeze, floating through.
Have I done this before?
But there’s no time to follow the wisp of memory. I have to sort.
It’s almost more difficult to sort incorrectly at this point; I’ve spent so many months and years of my life trying to get things right. This feels counterintuitive, but it is what the Rising wants.
For the most part, the data comes through quick and relentless. But there’s a short lag while we wait for more of it to load. That means that some of it is coming from off-site.
The fact that we’re doing the sort in real time seems to indicate that there’s a rush. Could the Rising be happening now?
Will Ky and I be together for it?
For a moment I picture the black of ships coming in above the white dome of the Hall and I feel the cool air through my hair as I rush to meet him. Then the warm pressure of his lips on mine, and this time there is no good-bye, but a new beginning.
“We’re Matching,” someone says out loud.
He breaks my concentration. I look up from the screen, blinking.
How long have we been sorting? I’ve been working hard, trying to do what the Rising asked. At some point I became lost in the data, in the task at hand.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of green—Army Officers in uniform moving in on the man who spoke.
I saw the Officials when we first came in, but how long have Officers been here?
“For the Banquet,” the man says. He laughs. “Something’s happened. We’re Matching for the Banquet. The Society can’t keep up anymore.”
I keep my head down and continue sorting, but at the moment they drag him past me I glance up. His mouth is gagged and his words unintelligible, and above the cloth his eyes meet mine for a brief moment as they take him away.
My hands tremble over my screen. Is he right?
Are we Matching people?
Today is the fifteenth. The Banquet is tonight.
The Official back in the Borough told me that they Match a week before the Banquet. Has that changed? What has happened that would make the Society in such a rush? Data culled so near to the Banquet will be prone to errors because they won’t have much time to check for accuracy.
And besides, the Match Department has its own sorters. The Matches are of paramount importance to the Society. There should be people higher than us to see to it.
Perhaps the Society doesn’t have more time. Perhaps they don’t have enough personnel. Something is happening out there. It almost feels like they’d done the Matching before, but now they have to do it again at the last minute.
Perhaps the data has changed.
If we’re Matching, then the data represents people: eye color, hair color, temperament, favorite leisure activity. What could have changed about so many people so quickly?
Maybe they haven’t changed. Maybe they’re gone.
What could have caused such a decimation in the Society’s data? Will they have time to make the microcards or will the silver boxes stay empty tonight?
A piece of data comes up and then gets taken down almost before I see it at all.
Like Ky’s face on the microcard that day.
Why try to have the Banquet like this? When the margin of error is so high?
Because the Banquet is the most important celebration in the Society. The Matching is what makes the other ceremonies possible; it’s the Society’s crowning achievement. If they stop having it, even for a month, people will know that something is very, very wrong.
Which is why, I realize, the Rising added the bug, so that some of us could Match incorrectly without getting caught. We’re causing further havoc with an already compromised data set.
“Please stand up,” the Official says. “Take out your tablet containers.”
I do, and so do the others, faces appearing from behind the partitions, eyes bewildered, expressions worried.
Are you immune? I want to ask them. Are you going to remember this?
Am I?
“Remove the red tablet,” the Official says. “Please wait until an Official is near you to observe you taking the tablet. There’s nothing to worry about.”
The Officials move through the room. They’re prepared. When someone swallows down a red tablet, the Officials refill the containers right away.
They knew they’d have to use these, at some point, tonight.
Hands to mouths, memories to nothing, red going down.
The little seed of memory floats past again. I have a nagging feeling that it’s something to do with the sort. If I could only remember—
Remember. I hear footsteps on the floor. They’re getting closer to me. I wouldn’t have dared to do this before, but trading with the Archivists has taught me to be stealthy, sleight of hand. I unscrew the lid and slip the paper—remember—into my sleeve.
“Please take the tablet,” the Official tells me.
This isn’t like last time, back in the Borough. The Official standing in front of me isn’t going to look the other way, and there’s no grass beneath my feet to grind the tablet into.