Shades of Grey

His Colorfulness Matthew Gloss

I sat cross-legged on the window seat and watched the evening rain. It was a cloudburst of unusual heaviness, and in the distance peals of thunder could be heard. I watched as the gutters filled, then overflowed, and the path outside turned into a stream.

I picked up a piece of paper in order to write a list of the various puzzles in the village. I planned to start with the most intractable and work my way down. I wrote “Wheelbarrow” at the top, then stopped to think. After my conversation with the Apocryphal man I had returned to where I’d tripped over the wheelbarrow the previous night. The wheelbarrow was still there, resting on the grass beside the Perpetulite. I had put it back on the roadway and timed it. The Perpetulite had taken nine minutes and forty-seven seconds to sense that the wheelbarrow was foreign, and another five minutes and twenty-two seconds to remove it. Slower than the boulders we’d seen removed on the way to Rusty Hill, but the principle was the same. The problem was, it had been dark for over half an hour by the time I walked out there, so who—or what placed the wheelbarrow on the Perpetulite.

“Wheelbarrow?”

It was the Colorman, and he had walked up unnoticed because of the noise of the rain outside and read over my shoulder. I started to rise, but he magnanimously indicated for me to stay seated, then asked if he could join me.

“Of course,” I said, shuffling aside to let him sit.

“Writing a list?” he asked in a friendly manner.

“My birthday list,” I explained, then started to gabble. “It’s unusual, I know, and my birthday isn’t until October. We don’t have a garden, either—not one big enough to warrant a wheelbarrow, anyway—but I thought I might make a few extra cents by hiring out garden implements—with the prefect’s permission, of course.”

“A surfeit of information often hides an untruth,” he said, with annoying clarity.

“No untruth, sir. I’ll freely confess to feeling nervous in your company.”

He nodded, and seemed to accept my explanation. “Your father said you were interested in queues.”

I told him this was so.

“Then perhaps you can reveal why I never get into the fastest queue at the cafeteria back at National Color?”

“That’s easily explained,” I replied. “Since only one queue can be the quickest, in a set of five checkouts, eighty percent of the queues will be slower than the fastest. It’s not a question of your choosing badly.

It’s more that the odds are stacked against you.”

He thought about this for a moment. “So the more checkouts there are, the less chance I will have of getting into the fastest queue?”

“Absolutely,” I replied, “but conversely, if you were to reduce the number of queues to one, you would always be certain of being in the fastest.”

“I had no idea queuing could be so interesting,” he said, “nor that anyone might have invested so much thought in the matter.”

It was an ambiguous remark. It could have been either praise or criticism, but I was unsure which. I had skillfully avoided the wheelbarrow question, and now, as Jane had requested, I had to find out what he was doing here. But he had other things on his mind.

“May I ask an indelicate question?”

“I will answer it as best I can.”

“Is there anyone who can fix me up with some youknow? A Colorman’s life is a lonely one, and I spend many weeks on the road.”

The question placed me in a difficult situation. He may already have known about Tommo from the Council, and if he did, then he was simply testing my loyalty. If he didn’t and this was a sting, then I would be as guilty as Tommo. But I needed him to trust me.

“I could make inquiries on your behalf,” I replied slowly, “on account of your position, hue and kin. I would be stepping across the line as a favor, and would trust that I would not be compromised on account of it.” It had come out better than I’d imagined. It made me sound almost intelligent.

“An answer worthy of a prefect, young man. Neither yes nor no, but somewhere in the middle—and with the ball firmly back in my court.”

It was going well, and now it was my turn. “May I ask a hypothetical question, Your Colorfulness?” I was using an obsolete term to impress, but annoyingly, the Colorman knew it.

“I positively welcome it, young cousin—and please, call me Matthew.”

“Thank you. Just supposing there are two people with whom I was vaguely acquainted. One is a mid-Purple and the other an ex-light Purple, now Grey. Let us also suppose they are both young and foolish. They desire to be together, but their parents have other ideas.”

“And would these hypothetical young lovers be living, hypothetically speaking, in East Carmine?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Ah! Go on.”

“They plan on running away, but they have nowhere to go. I was wondering whether a contact might be found in Emerald City who would be willing to employ a hardworking young couple with no questions asked.”

He smiled. “I appreciate your hypothetical concern, and give you full marks for compassion, which is certainly a trait worth cultivating. The short answer is that you should report these two for the infraction, pocket the bounty and move on with your life, happy in the knowledge that you have dutifully served the Collective.”

“And the long answer?”

The Colorman stared at me, considering the matter. “Let’s just suppose I have a friend in Emerald City,” he said. “Let’s also suppose that I decide to put your theoretical couple in touch with her. I should imagine that providing such a contact—hypothetically speaking—would be worth a thousand merits, in cash. Once they are there, they will have to negotiate privately with my contact. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir, you do.”

I blinked. I had been playing with fire, but seemed to have got away with it. I wasn’t even sweating.

Dorian and Imogen would be pleased, but a thousand merits in cash was a lot of cautionary photos in Spectrum and at least half a negative ton of floaties.

The Colorman thought for a moment, then lowered his voice. “Tell me, Edward, have you ever thought of a career at National Color?”

Everyone had, at some point in his life.

“You think I might be up for it?”

“It’s possible. Your diplomatic skills impress me, and you have a good knowledge of color. I heard about your escapade beyond the curtain last night. It showed a certain . . . grit.”

“I ended up having to be rescued.”

“In order to fail, first you have to try. But tell me, why risk your hide for a Yellow?”

“He was my friend.”

The Colorman nodded his head slowly. “I admire loyalty in a resident,” he said, “as long as it is used correctly. Loyalty misplaced is loyalty wasted.”

“I also wanted to see what it was like,” I said quietly. “Being Nightloss, I mean.”

“And what was it like?”

“I’ll be honest: frightening.”

He looked at me for a long time, then seemed to come to a decision and took an envelope from his breast pocket. “See this? It’s an invitation to sit the National Color entrance exam. You will still need your head prefect’s approval, which isn’t likely—they generally like to keep even medium receptors for color-sorting duties. But a capacity for ingenuity is looked on favorably by National Color. Wangle a signature on this, and you’ve got a shot at the color trade.”

I thought he was going to give me the letter, but he didn’t. He just placed it on a nearby table.

“Can I count on your complete discretion, Edward?”

I told him that he could.

“Then I want you to swear an oath that what I say goes no further than this room.”

“On the Word of Munsell.”

He looked around, then lowered his voice. “My appearance at East Carmine is not simply about magenta leaks and conducting Ishiharas.”

“No?”

“No. National Color takes the illegal sale of hues very seriously, so Robin Ochre’s theft is of considerable interest. One of his accomplices was Zane G-49, whom you met. He died before we could ask him to account for his actions. We think he posed as a Purple, selling ‘surplus’ swatch hues to various Paint Shops around the Collective. Naturally, since he seemed Purple, no one thought to question him or his motives. Conservative estimates place the value of the stolen swatches at twenty thousand merits.”

“Goodness,” I said, wondering if I could remain convincingly naive until the end of the conversation.

“But that’s not the end of it,” continued the Colorman. “We think there was someone else involved.

Someone who may still be hiding here, in East Carmine. Someone who is a very grave danger to the Stasis.”

“A fanatic?”

“Of the very worst sort. I don’t wish to panic anyone, but once monochrome fundamentalism gets a hold, it can be hard to eradicate without harm to other residents.”

I wasn’t sure what the term meant, but if it was hating the system, then Jane was definitely part of it. I just didn’t know if it was a bad thing or not. After all, ignoring the prescribed dress code was also considered “most serious,” but I would be hard-pressed to say I felt it actually was. The Apocryphal man seemed no worse for wearing no clothes at all, and us for having to see him, even if we pretended we didn’t.

“Surely the prefects would be the best people for you to ask?” I said warily. “There are over three thousand people in this village, and I’ve met barely thirty.”

The Colorman shook his head. “Prefects are good people but can only be trusted to maintain themselves and their bonuses. You saw Zane at Vermillion, so are involved in a way, and you have been here two days and have a reputation for curiosity, so can nose about with impunity. Tell me, have you seen anything unusual?”

Five things sprang to mind immediately. If I’d been given a little longer, I probably could have made it the round dozen.

“There is little in this village that isn’t unusual,” I admitted, “but of the matters of which you speak, nothing springs to mind.”

He stared at me for a long time, then picked up the envelope from the table. “Don’t disappoint me,” he said, and handed it over.

He left me sitting at the window seat, my understanding of Jane, while not transformed, at least open to reappraisal. She was involved with the theft of the swatches, along with Ochre and Zane. There were twenty thousand merits kicking around somewhere, and they didn’t end up with Ochre—Lucy had told me they didn’t have a bean. Three people in on the scam, and only one still living. My mind started to crowd with unwelcome thoughts. I knew from personal experience that Jane was capable of doing the murder and didn’t like my asking questions. She was up to something, that was true; but the question was: What? And should I snitch on her and take the buckets of bounty that would come my way?