Shades of Grey

Sacrifices

Half an hour later I walked down to the railway station to see Imogen and Dorian off. Despite a last-minute attempt by Yewberry and deMauve to find something in the Rules to stop them, there was nothing they could do. The couple had made their beds, completed their laundry and even finished homework that had been left over from their schooldays. Bertie Magenta was incandescent with rage, and not just because he was losing Imogen or his evening “on appro.” It seemed that he had surrendered his ticket for “safekeeping” and had been told by his father to “work his passage home.”

Fandango, too, was outraged, and while a small crowd, variously mixed with well-wishers and outraged parties, stood arguing opposite Imogen and Dorian’s compartment, I went to wish the Colorman a safe journey.

“I heard you got deMauve to agree that you could sit the National Color entrance exam.

Congratulations.”

“As you said,” I replied, “a capacity for ingenuity is looked on favorably by National Color.”

“It is indeed. I am not involved in training, but I suspect we shall meet again. I like to think of National Color as a close-knit family.”

He paused for thought.

“I never did find Ochre’s second accomplice,” he said. “I would expect you to tell me if any information reaches your ears?”

“I shall.”

“Good. Do you want some advice, Edward?”

“I would welcome it.”

“Sometimes people dabble in ideological matters that they shouldn’t before they follow the one true light.”

He said it in a pointed manner, and I felt my skin prickle. He might suspect something about Jane and me, and he might be fishing. I was instantly on my guard.

“I’m not sure I understand your meaning.”

“Then let me throw some figures at you. Three hundred years ago, upward of ten thousand people were consigned to Reboot per annum. Last year’s figure was five hundred and sixty-nine. In another three hundred years, it might be nil. Do you understand?”

I did, of course. He was trying to prove the system to me. I couldn’t even show I properly understood.

“Yes, sir,” I replied, “it shows that Munsell was right, in all things—except perhaps the spoons.”

I laughed, and the Colorman laughed with me.

“Yes,” he said, “the spoons.”

He nodded in the direction of Imogen and Dorian’s compartment.

“A fine couple.”

“A happy couple.”

“I’ve instructed them to take the Night Train to Emerald City,” he said, fixing me with a steely gaze. “It’s more comfortable.”

I felt my heart miss a beat.

“But . . . that’s the Reboot train,” I remarked, trying to sound as normal as I could. “Wouldn’t it be simpler to send them on the Emerald City Express?”

The Colorman stared at me with seemingly no emotion.

“I’ve wired instructions for them to be met and sent into the City. There is no risk. Do you have any objections to this plan, Edward?”

He stared at me with, I think, something of a triumphant smile. He had me trapped, and he knew it. If I said nothing, Imogen and Dorian would be sent to High Saffron. If I lodged an objection, he’d know that I was fully aware of what was going on. Jane and I would be finished even before we’d got started.

I took a deep breath, and recalled Jane’s words: The innocents will suffer, and at your hands. I’d bested Sally Gamboge and deMauve, I was on the Council and even had a chance at infiltrating the notoriously secretive National Color. More, I knew things no one should ever know. Jane and I had an outside chance to discover the whole truth and destroy the Collective. Was all that more important than Dorian and Imogen?

“They could go on either train,” I said. “I’m just happy for them to get away.”

And I smiled. And in that smile, I condemned two people to death. Two innocent people. Two people in love. But also in that smile, I might have saved thousands. I also laid the foundation for Jane and myself.

We would succeed, if only for Dorian and Imogen, and all the others who left their spoons behind in High Saffron.

The Colorman’s face fell. He thought he’d got me.

“Excellent,” he said without emotion. “Good day, Mr. Russett. We shall meet again, of that I am certain.”

I told him I would look forward to that day, but he was no longer interested. The whistle blew, I wished him a safe journey and the train steamed out of East Carmine.

It took part of me with it.