Everything is back to normal. Better than normal—now I can again enjoy the fact that I’ve been Matched with Xander.
Stil , I wish she hadn’t told me about Ky. I won’t be able to look at him the same way again, now that I know too much about him.
There are so many of us inside the game center. It is hot and humid in the room, reminding me of the tropical ocean simulation we had in Science once, the one about the coral reefs that teemed with fish before the Warming kil ed them al . I taste sweat and breathe water.
Someone bumps into me as an Official makes an announcement over the main speaker. The crowd goes quiet to listen: Someone bumps into me as an Official makes an announcement over the main speaker. The crowd goes quiet to listen:
“Someone has dropped their tablet container. Please, stand completely still and do not speak until we locate it.” Everyone stops immediately. I hear the clatter of dice and a soft thud as someone, perhaps Xander, puts down a game piece. Then al is quiet.
No one moves. A lost container is a serious matter. I look at a girl near me, and she stares back at me, wide-eyed, openmouthed, frozen in place. I think again of that ocean simulation, how the instructor paused it in the middle to explain something, and the fish projected around the room stared back at us, unblinking, until she switched the simulation back on.
We al wait for the switch to be thrown, for the instructor to tel us what comes next. My mind begins to wander, to escape this place where we al hold stil . Are there other unknown Aberrations standing here in this room, swimming in this water? Water. I recal another memory of water, real this time, a day when Xander and I were ten.
Back then, we had more free-recreation time, and in the summers we almost always spent it at the swimming pool. Xander liked to swim in the blue-chlorinated water; I liked to sit on the pockmarked cement side of the pool and swish my feet back and forth before I went in. That’s what I was doing when Xander appeared next to me, a worried look on his face.
“I’ve lost my tablet container,” he told me quietly.
I glanced down to make sure that mine was stil hooked to my swimwear. It was; its metal clip snapped securely to the strap over my left shoulder.
We’d had our tablet containers for a few weeks, and at that point they contained one tablet. The first one. The blue one. The one that can save us; the one with enough nutrients to keep us going for several days if we have water, too.
There was plenty of water in the pool. That was the problem. How was Xander ever going to find the container?
“It’s probably underwater,” I said. “Let’s get the lifeguard to clear the pool.”
“No,” Xander said, his jaw set. “Don’t tel them. They’l cite me for losing it. Don’t say anything. I’l find it.” Carrying our own tablets is an important step toward our own independence; losing them is the same as admitting we aren’t ready for the responsibility. Our parents carry our tablets for us until we are old enough to take them over, one by one. First the blue, when we are ten. Then, when we turn thirteen, the green one. The one that calms us if we need calming.
And when we’re sixteen, the red one, the one we can only take when a high-level Official tel s us to do so.
At first, I tried to help Xander, but the chlorine always hurt my eyes. I dove and dove and then, when my eyes burned so much I could barely see, I climbed back onto the cement next to the pool and tried to look beneath the sun-bright surface of the water.
None of us ever wears a watch when we are smal ; time is kept for us. But I stil knew. I knew that he had been under the water much longer than he should. I had measured it out in heartbeats and in the slap of the waves against the side of the pool as one person, then another, then another, dove in.
Did he drown? For a moment, I was blinded by sunlight slanting off the water, white, and paralyzed by my fear, which felt white, too. But then I stood up and drew a deep breath into my lungs to scream to the world Xander is under the water, save him, save him! Before my scream was born, a voice I did not know asked, “Is he drowning?”
“I can’t tel ,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the water. A boy stood next to me; tanned skin, dark hair. A new boy. That was al I had time to notice before he vanished, slipping under the surface in one quick motion.
A pause, a few more slaps of the waves against the cement, and Xander’s head popped up above the water. He grinned triumphantly at me, holding the waterproof case. “Got it,” he said.
“Xander,” I said, relieved. “Are you al right?”
“Of course,” he said, the confident light back in his eyes. “Why would you think I wouldn’t be?”
“You were under so long that I thought you were drowning,” I admitted. “And so did that boy—” Suddenly I panicked. Where did the other boy go?
He had not come up for air.
“What boy?” Xander asked, puzzled.
“He went searching for you.” And then I saw him, below the blue, a shadow under the water. “He’s right there. Is he drowning?” Just then the boy broke the surface of the water, coughing, his hair glistening. A red scrape, almost healed but stil noticeable, ran along his cheek. I did my best not to stare. Not just because injuries are uncommon in a place where we are al so healthy and safe, but because he was unknown to me. A stranger.
It took the boy a few moments to catch his breath again. When he did, he looked at me but spoke to Xander, saying, “You didn’t drown.”
“No,” agreed Xander. “You almost did, though.”
“I know,” the boy said. “I meant to save you.” He corrected himself. “I mean, to help you.”
“Don’t you know how to swim?” I asked him.
“I thought I did,” the boy said, which made both Xander and me laugh. The boy looked into my eyes and smiled. The smile seemed to surprise him; it surprised me, too, the warmth of it.
The boy looked back at Xander. “She looked worried when you didn’t come back up.”
“I’m not worried anymore,” I said, relieved that everyone was safe. “Are you visiting someone?” I asked the boy, hoping he was staying for a long visit. I already liked him because he had wanted to help Xander.
“No,” said the boy, and though he stil smiled, his voice sounded quiet and stil like the water had become around us. He looked right at me. “I belong here.”