Shades of Grey (45 page)

“A merit sweep by the Gamboges.”

“Jane also told me you showed potential,” said the old lady. “I suggest you show it. It’s time you left.”

I closed the attic door and ran downstairs, where I met Jane on the doorstep. A larger crowd of Greys had turned up from the fields, glasshouse and factory. Some even carried tools. The mood had grown darker.

“How did you get along with Mrs. Olive?” asked Jane.

I looked around nervously, and the crowd stared back at me silently.

“How many do you have hidden?” I asked.

“Sixteen in the Greyzone and one living above you. Mostly damaged Nightloss, a few Rebootees. Five are blind and one of them can’t move anything from the waist down. To the prefects they’re ‘unlicensed supernumeraries’and harboring them carries a twenty thousand demerit—applicable to anyone who lives in the house or ‘could not have reasonably failed to know.’ ”

“Unlicensed supernumeraries?” I echoed, having never heard the term.

“I agree it’s somewhat dispassionate. We just call them ‘the Extras.’ ”

“Tommo’s Ulrika of the Flak,” I said, recalling the sandwiches he had left for an imaginary friend in the flak tower. “Does he know about them?”

“Thankfully not. But feeding imaginary friends has a long tradition, and the sandwiches are always welcome. Do you know how hard it is to smuggle food out of the dining room?”

I answered that I did, because the lunch monitors had the power of Stop and Search—eating between meals was
strictly
forbidden.

“So try doing it for sixteen people—even with Apocrypha on your side.”

“Perkins Muffleberry back home,” I murmured. “I left food for him in the hollow beech. It was always gone by the morning.”

She laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t sweat it, Red,” she said, doubtless reading the despondency in my face. “Few people see anything at all. Everything might look fine and dandy on the outside, but behind the closed door there’s a fire raging. Now, will you stop this from getting any worse?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, as the full scale of what was going on suddenly became apparent, “I think you’re right.”

“What did you find up there?” asked Sally Gamboge, stepping out of the house.

“A three-person bench and an armchair,” I replied, voice cracking.

“Very well,” said the prefect, and she made a move toward the next house.

“Wait!”

She stopped.

“I have decided,” I said slowly, “to conduct my chair census in a less . . . intrusive manner.”

I started to sweat and swallowed down my nervousness as the Yellows all glared at me.

“No, you haven’t,” said Little Penelope Gamboge in a belligerent screech. “You’ll do this census the Yellow prefect’s way, or you won’t do it at all!”

“Then I won’t do it at all.”

“You will,” said Sally Gamboge, “and that’s a Direct Order.”

“I’ll be dead on the road to High Saffron in under twenty-four hours,” I replied, the apprehension in my voice readily apparent. “I can certainly afford to defy you on this occasion, ma’am.”

“Your almost certain death is
precisely
why we need to hurry this along,” remarked Bunty with a singular lack of empathy. “If Head Office has entrusted you to conduct this important work, it behooves you to complete it as soon as you can. The Collective expects all residents to act with the highest level of integrity.”

“The answer is
NO
.”

They stared at me for a moment in astonishment.

“We’ll magnanimously let you
reconsider
that last response, Russett,” observed Courtland. “Refusing a Direct Order from a prefect carries a maximum five hundred demerit. Haven’t you lost enough merits today already?”

I had—and a loss of five hundred more would put me teetering on the edge of Reboot. It was all so hopelessly unfair. I was refusing not just in order to keep the Extras hidden but to save the
Yellows
. The Greys who were standing close by were not just idle onlookers but there to defend the secrets in the attics and their potential twenty thousand demerit for complicity. I looked at Jane, the Greys—and then the Yellows, who were completely oblivious to just how close they were to becoming compost.

But then, just as I was about to confirm my rejection of Gamboge’s Direct Order, take the five hundred hit, reduce my merits to zero
and
kiss farewell to an Oxblood marriage this decade, relief came from an unexpected quarter—the
postman
.

He walked into the small knot of people, nodded us all a greeting and gave out the mail. The situation had an odd, even surreal quality about it. If a piano should suddenly have fallen from the sky or a talking bear rode past on a bike, I would not have been unduly surprised. We all stood there, momentarily paused. We said nothing as the mail was handed out and just looked at one another suspiciously.

“Oh, look,” said the postman, “there’s even a package for you, Penelope.”

He handed the youngest Gamboge a parcel, tipped his cap and moved off. And as soon as he had, the balance suddenly tipped in my favor.
I recognized the parcel.

“Okay,” said Courtland, “last chance. Are you refusing a Direct Order?”

I stared back at him. I had been sent to the Fringes to learn a lesson in humility, and I
was
—but not from the prefects or anyone in authority. I was learning it from the
Greys
, who were harboring damaged Nightloss in their attics at huge personal risk to themselves.

“You speak of integrity?” I said, my voice no longer tremulous. “Would that be the same integrity that had you allocate Travis Canary’s postcode the day before we even knew he was dead?”

There was a deathly hush. Travis had carried a prestigious TO3 postcode from the traditional Yellow Honeybun Peninsula. It was the sort of postcode that could open yellow doors. The sort of postcode that could get a Yellow away from a Fringes village forever. It was the sort of postcode, in fact, that a pushy grandmother and a murderous uncle might do
anything
to procure, so that their granddaughter and niece would have a better chance in life. Penelope Gamboge. She had been allocated Travis’ code on the last day possible—her twelfth birthday.

“I sent Travis’ personal effects back to his postcode,” I said, “thinking the redirects wouldn’t be up yet. I was wrong. The parcel has just been delivered.”

Bunty and Penelope looked confused, but Sally Gamboge and Courtland looked at each other, then at the parcel. The arrogant veneer suddenly dropped, and there was silence for almost a full minute.

“He was Nightloss and as good as dead,” growled Mrs Gamboge, “so I just preempted the inevitable. I’ll take the hit for that.”

She stared at me, and I stared back. They might argue their way out of the Daylighter in Travis’ head
or
the reallocation, but not both together. But I think the Gamboges knew that.

“This census is henceforth canceled,” said Prefect Gamboge quietly. “Bunty, hand Master Russett back his assignment.”

“What—?”

“Do as I say, Miss McMustard.”

She handed it over, and I considered it was probably time to leave, so I walked quickly away, leaving a foursome of loathing and loathed Yellows within a knot of disgruntled Greyfolk, whose sixteen charges remained unmolested and secret. I also left a Grey with a retroussé nose who was, I hoped, impressed enough to join me on the trip to High Saffron.

W
hen I got home, there was a note from Violet reminding me that we had arranged to meet at lamplighting that evening for a romantic walk, and that I was to brush my teeth and put some moisturizer on my lips. She had also sent round some jam. Some
loganberry
. It was a small pot, such as you might find at a jam-tasting session organized by the sector jam-in-chief. I smiled to myself but Violet’s kindness notwithstanding, I cleared out the broom cupboard so that I would have a safe retreat if she came calling unexpectedly. I even practiced a form of “Violet escape drill” in which I could be noiselessly inside the cupboard from anywhere within the house in under five seconds. I had just completed a front-door-to broom-cupboard dash in under four seconds, and had emerged from the cupboard much pleased with myself, when a voice made me jump.

“By all that’s navy, young man, what
are
you doing?”

It was Mrs. Lapis Lazuli, and she must have walked in the back door unannounced.

“I was—um—rehearsing for hide-and-seek.”

“Hmm,” she replied in her odd, imperious way that I knew was hiding someone deeply devoted to story and librarying, “not some sort of ‘hiding from Violet’ procedure?”

“Maybe that as well.”

A smile cracked upon her austere features.

“I don’t blame you. A frightful child is Violet—quite
horribly
spoiled. I hear you’re going to High Saffron?”

I told her this was so, and she reiterated her belief that there was a library hidden within the overgrown oak and rhododendron forest, and that she wanted me to keep an eye out for it.

“I’m humbled by your optimism,” I told her. “No one else thinks I have even the slightest chance of coming back.”

“Ah,” she said, faintly embarrassed, “I had—um—made provision for that eventuality. Might I explain?”

I sighed. “Go on, then.”

“This box contains two homing slugs,” she said, passing me a beautifully crafted wooden container no bigger than a goose egg, “each in its own compartment. The first is marked ‘Hoorah, yes, there’s a library,’ and the second, ‘No, worse luck, there isn’t.’ I’ve logged the Taxa number on each. All you have to do is release the appropriate slug when you get to High Saffron. Do you want me to run over the details again?”

“I think I’ve got it. You know that High Saffron is over forty miles away?”

She smiled.

“I won’t live to see the return of the slug,” she said, “but the next generation of librarians shall. Time is something we
definitely
have on our side. Is there anything I can do for you in return?”

I thought for a moment.

“I’d like to hear the end of
Renfrew of the Mounties
this evening—about whether he catches the train robber or not.”

She smiled. “I’ve no idea who commits that indefensible abuse of the centralized heating system, but I’m sure they can be persuaded.”

“I’m very grateful,” I told her. “Would you excuse me?”

I had just seen the Apocryphal man enter the front door. I found him in the living room, staring absently at one of the Vettrianos.

“Really?” he said when I told him I had some loganberry. “Show me.”

His face fell at the meagerness of my offering, but a promise was a promise, and we sat down on the sofa.

“You told me yesterday you could remember a time before Model Ts—when the Ford flathead was the vehicle of choice.”

“Yes?”

“I had a look in the
Leapback Book.
Flatheads were disposed of at the Third Great Leap Backward—one hundred and ninety-six years ago.”

“So your question is—?”

“How old are you?”

He thought for a moment and then counted on his fingers

“I’ll be four hundred and fifty-two years this August. A card might be nice, but don’t worry about a present. Unless it’s jam, of course.”

“How can you live so long?”

“By not dying. See this?”

He pulled up his shirt to reveal where
NS -B4
was scarred into the place his postcode should have been.

“It stands for ‘Negligible Senescence—Baxter #4.’ That’s my name—Mr. Baxter. Now, if you had to devise a historian, what would be your design parameters?”

I had to think about this.

“Intellect, for analysis.”

“You’re very kind. What else?”

“An excellent memory.”

“Flatterer. Anything more?”

“Longevity?”

He smiled. “
Precisely
. Unlike you, I don’t have any of that tiresome obsolescence that is both the bane and boon of mankind.”

I stared at him for a moment without speaking.

“You must have seen a lot.”

He shook his head. “Not a lot—
everything
. You recall I told you I was once a historian? I was lying; I still am. But Baxters don’t teach; Baxters
observe
. They note, they file, they compile reports.”

“For whom do you do this?”

“Head Office.”

“But since no one
studies
history anymore,” I pointed out, “what’s the point of recording it?”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he said slowly. “I don’t exist to record your history;
you
exist to give
me
something to record.”

It was an interesting concept, although quite clearly loopy. One might just as easily suppose that we are here only to give function to houses, or to give a market to Ovaltine and string.

“So let me get this straight,” I murmured. “We are here only to give
you
something to study?”

“In one. I’m amazed you’ve taken so easily to the concept. Those that can be troubled to muse upon the meaning of life are generally disappointed when they figure it out.”

“In that case,” I said, thinking quickly, “what is the meaning of your life?”

He laughed. “Why, to study all of you, of course. It’s the perfect symbiosis. Once my studies are complete, I will be recalled to the faculty at Emerald City to present my findings.”

“And when will that be?”

“When the study is complete.”

“And how will you know when that is?”

“Because I will be recalled to Emerald City.”

“That’s insane.”

“If you look around, you won’t find much that isn’t.”