Matched

“The new workers have been in a sterilization chamber to remove al outside contaminants,” the Official tel s me conversational y. “That’s where they pick up their numbers and adhere them to their uniforms. This new shift is the one you’l be concerned with.”

She gestures up and I notice several outlook points throughout the room: smal metal towers with Officials standing at the top. There are three towers; the one in the middle of the floor is empty. “We’l be up there.”

I fol ow her up the metal stairs, the kind that we have at air-train stops. But these stairs end on a smal platform with barely enough space for the four of us to stand. Already the gray-haired Official perspires heavily and his face is red. My hair sticks to the back of my neck. And al we have to do is stand and watch. We don’t even have to work.

I knew Ky’s job was hard but I had no idea.

Tubs and tubs of dirty containers stand next to smal stations with sinks and recycling tubes. Through a large opening at the end of the building, the soiled foilware arrives in a never-ending stream, flowing from the recycling bins in our residences and meal hal s. The workers wear clear protective gloves, but I don’t see how the plastic or latex doesn’t melt into their skin as they spray off the foilware containers with hot water. Then they put the clean foilware down into the recycling tubes.

It goes on and on and on, a steady flow of steam and scalding water and foilware. My mind threatens to glaze over and shut down as it does when I’m confronted with a particularly difficult sort on the screen and I feel overwhelmed. But these aren’t numbers on the screen. These are people.

This is Ky.

So I force myself to stay clear and focused. I force myself to watch those bent backs and those burning hands and the vastness of al the refuse sliding silver along the tracks.

One of the workers raises his hand, and an Official comes down from his perch to confer with the worker. He gives a foilware container to the Official, who scans the bar code on the side of the container with his datapod. After a moment, he takes the foilware container with him and disappears into an office at the edge of the large open room. The worker is already back at work.

The Official looks at me as if she’s waiting for something. “What do you think?” she asks.

I’m not sure what she wants, so I hedge. “Of course, the most efficient thing to do would be to get machines.”

“That is not an option,” the Official says pleasantly. “Food preparation and distribution needs to be handled by personnel. Live personnel. It’s a rule. But we would like to free up more of the workers for other projects and vocations.”

“I don’t see how to make it any more efficient,” I say. “There’s the other obvious answer . . . to make them work more hours . . . but they look exhausted as it is ...” My voice trails off, a wisp of steam too smal to matter.

“We’re not asking you to come up with a solution.” The Official sounds amused. “Those who are higher up than you have already done that. Hours wil be extended. Leisure hours wil cease. Then some of the personnel from this area can be spared for another vocation.”

I’m beginning to understand and I wish I weren’t. “So if you don’t want me to sort the other variables in the work situation, you want me to—”

“Sort the people,” she says.

I feel sick.

She holds out a datapod. “You have three hours to watch. Enter the numbers of the workers you think are the most efficient, those who should be sent to work on an alternative project.”

I look at the numbers on the back of the workers’ shirts. This is like a sort on the screen; I’m supposed to watch for the faster patterns among the workers. They want to see if my mind wil automatical y register the workers who move the most quickly. Computers could do this job and probably have. But now they want to see if I can do it, too.

“And Cassia,” the Official says from the metal stairs. I look down at her. “Your sort wil hold. That’s part of the test. We want to see if you can make decisions wel when you know they have actual results.”

She sees the shock on my face and continues. I can tel she’s trying to be kind. “It’s one shift of one group of menial laborers, Cassia. Don’t worry.

Just do your best.”

“But what’s the other project? Wil they have to leave the City?”

The Official looks shocked. “We can’t answer that. It’s not relevant to the sort.”

The gray-haired Official, stil breathing heavily, turns back to see what’s happening. She nods to him that she’s on her way down, and then tel s me gently, “Better workers get the better work positions, Cassia. That’s al you need to know.”

I don’t want to do this. For a moment, I contemplate throwing the datapod into one of the sinks, letting it drown.

What would Ky do if he were the one standing up here?