Last time on Matched.com, Cassia worries that she’s maybe not really matched with Xander! So she keeps it a secret, continues holding his hand and doing other stuff that’ll get her in huge trouble if it turns out they aren’t matched.

They head to the crowded rec center, full of kids their age. Xander heads over to play something, and Cassia says she’ll sit it out this time. A girl named Em, her friend, says the same.

then we both laugh as he grins and spins around to give his scancard to the Official monitoring the game.

Huh, so they’re everywhere. Well, evidently no one’s sent out the word about her match being wrong, then, so maybe she’s clear.

I remember playing with him when we were little, how we both played hard and didn’t let the other win.
I wonder when I stopped liking the games. It’s hard to remember.

That’s kind of weird and worrying, Cassia. She goes on to say it’s more fun watching Xander than doing it herself. While I too enjoy watching people play, it’s generally more fun to do it yourself after you’ve seen it a few times. And considering how little variation there seems to be, there’s probably some Hundred Recreations or something so none of this would be new.

The game is called Check, so it’s either checkers or possibly chess. All we’re told is it’s a game of skill, Xander’s favorite type.

With Xander distracted, Em wants to know what’s up with being matched to Xander. Awesome, naturally.

Em nods in understanding. “All this time none of us thought we could ever end up with one another,” she says. “And then it happens.”

This seems to be suggesting that the matching really wasn’t the best idea, since everyone’s reaction shows they consider getting matched to someone they know a better idea than what normally happens.


“And Xander,” she says. “He’s the best of us all.”

What, really? I had the impression Cassia was thrilled about this because they’re best friends and he happens to be super compatible with her in particular, not because they handed her the most popular boy. This is looking more like people are jealous because Xander’s the best, which is something they really should have beaten out of the teens by now. There probably are better and worse people to be matched with, but the official line is that you get matched to the person you’re suited for, so Xander being matched to someone else means as great as you thought he’d be, the all-knowing government has someone even better matched to you.


As I watch, Xander picks up the gray pieces and puts them out on the gray and black squares of the board. Most of the colors inside the game center are drab: gray walls, brown plainclothes for the students, dark blue plainclothes for those who have already received their permanent work positions. Any brightness in the room comes from us

What do these people have against colors?

So, this is a puritan science cult. In fairness I can think of worse dystopias to be in…but not more boring ones. Listen, Cassia, I know you’re gearing up to fight the power over your match, but could you invent paint or something instead? Be a graffiti artist rebel!

(Also how do you have different sides if they’re both grey?)

Xander shows off by saying he’s going to win this for his MATCH because did you know his MATCH is right here being MATCHED and all RIGHT THERE LOOK.

I roll my eyes at him, but I’m still blushing a few moments later when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around.

An Official waits behind me. “Cassia Reyes?” she asks.

WELL THEN.

Luckily Xander’s distracted by the actual winning bit of winning the game for his match so he doesn’t see the official.

The official says Cassia needs to step outside to hear about something completely fine and nonworrying! I would make fun of how very worrying this undoubtedly sounds, but if you think about it, it really doesn’t matter what the woman says, reassurance just makes it seem like she’s trying to soften a blow.

“Let me reassure you that you have nothing to worry about,” the Official tells me, smiling. Her voice sounds kind. She leads me to the small greenspace outside the center. Even though being with an Official adds to my nervousness, the open air feels good after the crowd inside.

It’s a shame they’re anti-imagination atheists, because she could be making some literary reference to how angels have to open conversation with mortals with hey, stop cowering already. And there could be the hidden little fact that mortals weren’t just cowering because angels were so majestic but also because of things like the Job incident that made cowering a completely reasonable response, implying a similar issue with these officials.

What Cassia doesn’t think about is why she’s so uneasy. It’s because whatever she’s told is law. The official isn’t here for some helpful advice, she’s here to say what will happen regardless of how Cassia feels about it. And in this particular instance, they’re looking pretty fallible. One of the two faces was a mistake, and the card itself another mistake. She’s now going to be told which one of the faces they claim is correct – but who’s to say they won’t just make a mistake again?

“You don’t even have to tell me what happened,” the Official says. “I know. The face on the microcard wasn’t the right one, was it?”
She is kind: she didn’t make me say the words.

This is very, very worrying.

Cassia seems to be acting like seeing the government make an error is some sort of failing of hers. She wasn’t trying to defy them by latching onto Xander, she was trying to avoid the sin of their being wrong. And this isn’t some weird logic chain of hers, the Official acts as if this is standard behavior.

So from this, people do not look to whatever the Society is for guidance. They’re on their own. They have to obey the commandments and those are nominally for their own good, but anything that goes wrong, including mistakes other people make that happen to involve them, is their responsibility.

I suppose no one really requires that dystopias live up to their claimed ideals, but this does seem very odd. If Cassia is so scared of them here, why doesn’t she show some degree of fear whenever she’s under their scrutiny? Her behavior elsewhere matched up with her claims that their society is the best and officials know what they’re doing. And it leaves for a somewhat anemic message – should you give up your ability to make choices in return for still having responsibility for anything that goes wrong is not really a hard question to answer.

“Cassia, absolutely nothing has changed. You are still Matched with Xander Carrow.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I’m so grateful that saying it once isn’t enough. “Thank you.”

Why haven’t they eliminated “thanks” like they did luck? Luck implies chance is to blame for the outcome, thanks implies the person did something unnecessary for you.

This woman had no say in who Cassia was matched with. Indeed, the people who actually did the matching, and everyone else in whatever makes up “Society” had no say, at least in theory. They have some sort of system to find the best match for everyone and who actually gets paired is based on their individual personalities and presumably genetics. This should be like thanking someone for the fact it’s a sunny day.

Cassia’s really relieved by this news, again begging the question why she didn’t just contact someone and ask – by now it’s implied the answer is because she’s terrified of the Society she supposedly thinks is benevolent, but it’d be nice to hear her own reasoning on the matter.

“And may I congratulate you on your Match? It’s caused quite a stir. People are talking about it all over the Province. Perhaps even all through the Society. It hasn’t happened in many years.”

Okay, now I’m just getting the sense this is sloppy. After the opening with their stilted science speak, we seem to have returned to pretty normal speech patterns. This really, really does not fit with people whose most enthusiastic greeting is “I wish you optimal results”. It doesn’t fit with people who think “luck” is a bad word. There’s nothing to congratulate her on, and furthermore the very idea there’s something particularly good about this is implying what happens normally is inferior, which in turn implies something wrong with the standard way you match people and they’d be better off matched to people they know.

All that said, this may be giving a glimpse of why they allow same-area matchings despite the jealousy issue – people are bored as fuck. They’re deliberately allowing for occasional odd events just to keep the impression that things actually happen.

Anyway, the woman asks for the matching card back and gives a replacement. Cassia notices that in the bag is also an extra-large tablet container.

She sees my glance. “Higher-level Officials carry extra,” she says. “In case of an emergency.”

…wait, why the hell did they send someone super important to say everything’s fine?

I can’t tell if that means something’s really, really wrong or it’s just the author doesn’t understand how delegation works. But she must be really high level if Cassia’s never seen that tablet container before.

The woman then again sees Cassia’s glance, this time looking for an insignia (I know she is an Official, because she wears white clothing, but I am not sure which Department of Society she represents. please let there be a plot point in which Cassia puts on something white and everyone just assumes she’s totally legit.) and explains she’s from the matching department (well, of course), specifically the subdivision for errors. She says they don’t normally have much work…so why employ them specifically as troubleshooters and why would the workers be super high rank? Why not just send out someone who worked in the regular department, it’s not like this was a particularly skilled task.

Her words remind me of a paragraph in the official Matching material: The goal of Matching is twofold: to provide the healthiest possible future citizens for our Society and to provide the best chances for interested citizens to experience successful Family Life. It is of the utmost importance to the Society that the Matches be as optimal as possible.

So sometimes it’s like Society is different than society and sometimes they’re synonymous. I’m going to put at least some of the blame here on the Capitalization nonsense, that seems to end up shortcircuiting the brains of authors at random points.

Cassia says she’s never heard of a mistake, forgetting that she kept it a secret from everyone including her own match, so it’s probably just that no one ever talks about them.

The woman says that it’s rare, which could be true or just propaganda.

and then she asks the question that I do not want to hear: “Did you recognize the other person whose face you saw?”
Suddenly and irrationally I am tempted to lie.

WHY.

She doesn’t even come to the conclusion she shouldn’t lie, she just realizes she can’t because it’s already obvious from the way she’s frozen up and then says yes.

Matching lady continues to be extremely chill about how Cassia is acting guilty as sin.

“Can you tell me his name?”
She already knows all of this, of course, so there is nothing to do but tell the truth. “Yes. Ky Markham.

So I’m left with the sense that there is absolutely no stigma with lying, although I have no idea how that can be. These are obsessively literal people obsessed with conformity who have no secrets and think nothing of the government knowing every aspect of their personality, but they also don’t mind lying? And they seem to think they have a decent chance of getting away with it except when it’s really obvious otherwise, given so far her reasons for not lying have been that they clearly already know, not that she assumes they would.

Cassia says that’s why she was so freaked out – the odds of a mistake may be low, but another person she already knows is way more unlikely. She doesn’t seem to get that it isn’t like she accidentally got the wrong card here, the card itself was obviously messed up and for all she knows it’s just that Xander and Ky were next to each other in the database. In fact, I wonder if at some point the idea was for the card to just show her the wrong person instead, because so far, that’s how she’s acted.

The woman agrees that it’s odd and that she thinks it was some sort of prank, due to what Ky is.

“What he is?” Ky Markham moved to our Borough back when we were ten. He is good-looking and quiet. He’s very still. He is not a troublemaker. I don’t see him as much as I once did; last year, he received his work position early and he no longer goes to Second School with the rest of the youth in our Borough.

How weirdly suburban. People still move, she says “not a troublemaker” as if there’s anyone who is, and kids are trickling out of school for jobs instead of getting assigned all at once.

The Official nods and leans a little closer, even though there is no one around to hear us. The light from the street lamp above shines down, hot, and I shift a little. “This is confidential information, but Ky Markham could never be your Match. He will never be anyone’s Match.”

Uh, then why are you telling her this?

Cassia makes a stunning effort to avoid hearing private information and says that just means he’s a single, right? And we finally learn what singles are:

Lots of people in our school have chosen to be single. There’s even a paragraph about it in the official Matching material: Please consider carefully whether you are a good candidate to be Matched. Remember, Singles are equally important in the Society. As you are aware, the current Leader of the Society is a Single. Both Matched and Single citizens experience full and satisfying lives. However, children are only allowed to be born to those who choose to be Matched.

This doesn’t fit well with Cassia saying that she’d pegged the girl earlier as a single instead of assuming the girl would choose to be single – this might seem like semantics, but the language made it sound like singleness was something very obvious about a person’s personality, while here it seems quite fluid.

Also, this says you don’t get to have children, not that you’re banned from sex. It’s impossible to say if the latter is implied but they just don’t want to mention it outright or if the idea is that non-matched people can screw who they want because it isn’t important they provide a stable home environment for kids.

But perhaps most intriguing is the opening line: Please consider carefully whether you are a good candidate to be Matched. Not if you want to be matched, if you’re good enough take part. If it’s such an important decision, why even leave it up to people? And what happens if you’re not a good candidate? The way this is written they’re obligated to take you anyway, otherwise they wouldn’t be cautioning people away from even asking.

“No. He’s not a Single. Ky Markham is an Aberration.”

WHY ARE YOU TELLING HER THIS.

Cassia explains that they have two evil-a words. Anomalies are worse despite the word sounding lesser and have to live separated from Society and my god book I am trying to just ignore the capitalization thing and here we are not even a sixth of the way in and already this sort of awfulness from you. Anyway, so, Aberrations are usually what happens after an Infraction, presumably as opposed to infractions which are no big deal, and you’re not really supposed to know who they are unless you’re an official in charge of that but oh well.

It’s through no fault of his own. But his father committed an Infraction. The Society couldn’t overlook a factor like that, even when they allowed the Markhams to adopt Ky. He had to retain his classification as an Aberration, and, as such, was ineligible to be entered in the Matching pool.”

So sins of the father then?

This would seem to suggest you only get infracted for seriously major stuff that suggest not only are you untrustworthy but so much your genes shouldn’t be passed on.

We’re already checking to see who had access to your microcard, who could have added Ky’s picture before the Banquet.”
“I hope you find out who did it,” I say. “You’re right. It’s cruel.”

Why? Apparently being single or not is no big deal in this world and there isn’t even the attitude that there’s a big difference in temperament between the two groups. If the idea was that most people were matched and a small number were deemed better off single, then this would seem cruel because Ky was statistically likely to be in the happier-if-matched category. But no one’s thinking of it like that. For all you know none of this even matters because he’d have chosen to be single.

I try to pull my thoughts from the boy who is an Aberration. I should be thinking about how wonderful it is that everything is back in order. But instead I think about Ky—how sorry I feel for him, how I wish I didn’t have to know this about him and could have gone on thinking he had chosen to be a Single.

But again, you don’t know he wouldn’t! If both choices are equally valid, then there’s no reason to assume he’s being deprived of the choice he wants. If anything, the matching pamphlet seems to emphasize how good of an idea it is to pick being single.

Okay, maybe part of this is just that Cassia wanted to be matched and assumes everyone would feel the same unless they explicitly say otherwise. But it’s still weird and seems mostly pandering to the audience’s feelings that it’s wrong for someone to be prevented from marrying.

“I don’t need to remind you to keep the information about Ky Markham confidential, do I?” she asks mildly, but I hear the iron in her voice. “The only reason I shared it with you was so that you could know without a doubt that he was never intended to be your Match.”

Why would this matter? I mean, it’s not like she could go against the government if she wanted to, or like she has any reason to want to, and anyway, what’s wrong with just saying Ky picked being single? That would also mean he wasn’t intended to be her match.

The official then suddenly suggests that she could tell Cassia’s family as well as Xander’s family about…what, exactly? That there was a glitch somewhere that’s already been fixed and doesn’t affect them? Cassia acts mortified and doesn’t want the official to tell any of them, so more sin undertones.

I don’t want anyone to know, except—”
“Except who?”
I don’t answer, and suddenly her hand is on my arm. She does not grip me roughly, but I can tell that she will wait out the answer to her brief question: “Who?”

This should not be a big deal. The woman was just offering to tell a half dozen people about this.

Cassia says she wants to tell her grandfather. Who, somehow, is just shy of eighty. And his birthday is tomorrow, so yeah, looks like they kill them when they get old, although at least eighty is better than sixty or seventy. (Still a far, far cry from the longest lives ever.)

The official thinks this is great because that way no one else will know.

“I have to admit that it makes things easier for me. Obviously, when you talk to your grandfather, you will tell him that he will be cited if he mentions this to anyone else. And that’s certainly not something he wants now. He could lose his preservation privileges.”

Or maybe they just go to some sort of old person reserve? (Or “go” to the “reserve”.) That would at least explain her belief people live long lives.

Anyway, not sure why she told Cassia in the first place if she’s so concerned with no one knowing about it. It’d make so much more sense if everyone was entered into the matching system except the aberrations, and that’s why they know it was someone messing with the data to put Ky in.

Huh, what if it was actually Ky hacking into the database to try to make it match them together? I hope not, I’m pretty sure he’s the other love interest and I’ve been liking the fact I don’t hate people.

Anyway, with that done the official asks if there’s anything Cassia needs help with. Naturally there isn’t, but I’m disappointed that we have yet to see anyone actually try to ask the apparent civil servants for help. Do they actually, or is it just a formality?

Also she says she feels like the woman’s still watching her as she heads back inside, which seems weird for someone who lives in a society that assumes someone’s always watching you. But besides that everything’s great now that she knows she’s still with Xander.

When she goes back inside, it’s so hot and humid from the crowd it reminds her of a tropical ocean which she learned about in class, and she informs us that the whole warming business killed the entirety of the coral reefs and either all the fish that lived there or possible all fish in the oceans period.

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.”

And they do. They freeze in place. Cassia keeps up the whole ocean and fish metaphor by saying it’s like when the instructor paused the hologram and then she starts wondering Are there other unknown Aberrations standing here in this room, swimming in this water?

Time for a flashback! When they were younger and had more free time, Xander would go swimming a lot (…and Cassia liked to sit by the side of the pool for some reason. Is this going to lead somewhere? It’s getting odd.) One day he lost his tablet container in the pool.

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.

Uh, Cassia, most people can keep going for several days if they have water.

Also, I’m starting to get annoyed by stuff being referred to as just “nutrients”. It really doesn’t mean anything – it can mean providing energy, or materials, or even just something needed for functioning. Technically water is classed under this group. If you can stick it in your mouth and it does anything other than kill you, it’s probably a nutrient.

So what’s in the pill? It sounds like it’s calories, since people should have stores of vitamins. If you were trying to combine calories with vital material, namely the fatty acids humans can’t manufacture, fat is the way to go, but that’s usually not what people mean when they talk about pills.

Also, is that really a likely event? I can’t tell here if they’re actually scared of it happening or if this is some sort of holdover from major upheaval in the past. They certainly still seem worried about the weather.

Cassia wants to call the lifeguard, but Xander doesn’t want to because he’ll get cited. So the system discourages people from telling the truth.

Our parents carry our tablets for us until we are old enough to take them over, one by one.

And that makes even less sense. The blue pill is apparently for a disaster so major you can’t get to any supplies at all or even rely on walking back to where you set it down next to the pool, why would you be sure a kid’s with their parent? Or if they are, that they’re with the one who has the pill?

They get the green pill at thirteen, which makes more sense given it’s apparently a calming drug and you probably want them at least halfway responsible before deciding to take that.

And when we’re sixteen, the red one, the one we can only take when a high-level Official tells us to do so.

Huh. So that sure does sound like it could be their mass suicide mechanism.

Anyway, so she and Xander try to find the container, but she sucks at it because chlorine hurts her eyes. The she realizes Xander’s been under too long.

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 tell,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the water. A boy stood next to me; tanned skin, dark hair. A new boy.

Wow, Cassia is easily distracted. I’m not sure if this is bad writing or if she’s meant to sound like that because the society’s all weird.

The boy dives under and then Xander pops up with the tablet case. Cassia confesses she was worried, then she realizes that now the other boy isn’t coming up. And then the other kid does.

She notices he has a scrape on his face, which is weird because injuries are super rare, and also she doesn’t know him.

“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.”

So this is looking like another banned word, but Cassia doesn’t explain what the society’s distinction is.

She asks the boy if he’s visiting, and he says no.

“No,” said the boy, and though he still smiled, his voice sounded quiet and still like the water had become around us. He looked right at me. “I belong here.”

Okay then, mysteriously ominous boy.

And we jump back to the frozen present.

Now, my eyes fixed on the crowd in front of me, I feel that same feeling of relief and release as I see a familiar face, someone who, until now, I had been desperately worried about. Someone I must have thought had drowned or slipped or been pulled under and might never be seen again.
Ky Markham is here and he looks right at me.

I have no idea why she was suddenly worried about Ky when the official said nothing about the guy being transferred or anything.

God, that name is going to get annoying, I keep wanting to type Kyle.

Seeing him makes her take a step forward, and wouldn’t you know it, the lost container was right under her foot. See, this is why it’s more productive to tell everyone to stand still and look around instead. And despite being super important and made to be waterproof because you can never let go of them, I feel something burst beneath my foot. The lost tablet container has broken open, and everything it is supposed to protect has spilled out on the floor and been crushed under my foot. Bluegreenred. because hell if I know. Hey, guys, why don’t you try making the containers out of that cottonwood? The wood may not be particularly hard but it’s better than eggshells or spun sugar or whatever it is you designed these out of.

Everyone notices she stepped on it and an official hurries over.

When I look back at where Ky stood, he has disappeared. Just like he did that day into the pool. Just like his face did earlier on the port at my house.

…and?

Nope, on that we end. I suppose it’s deep and meaningful for some reason.