Reached

dangling down. Pulling up or planting? I wonder.
    “Yes?” I say.
    “I need to speak with you,” she says. A man emerges from the Hill behind her. He is the same age as she is, and something about them makes me think,
They would be a good Match.
I’ve never had permission to go on the Hill, and I look back up at the riot of plants and forest behind the workers. What is it like in a place so wild?
    “We need you to sort something for us,” the man says.
    “I’m sorry,” I say, moving again. “I only sort at work.” They are not Officials, nor are they my superiors or supervisors. This isn’t protocol, and I don’t bend rules for strangers.
    “It’s to help your grandfather,” the woman says.
    I stop.
    “There’s been a problem,” she says. “He may not be a candidate for tissue preservation after all.”
    “That can’t be true,” I say.
    “I’m afraid that it is,” the man says. “There’s evidence that he’s been stealing from the Society.”
    I laugh. “Stealing what?” I ask. Grandfather has almost nothing in his apartment.
    “The thefts occurred long ago,” the woman says, “when he worked at Restoration sites.”
    The man holds out a datapod. It’s old, but the pictures on the screen are clear. Grandfather, younger, holding artifacts. Grandfather, burying the artifacts in a forested area. “Where is this?” I say.
    “Here,” they say. “On the Hill.”
    The pictures cover a span of many years. Grandfather ages as I scroll through them. He did this for a very, very long time.
    “And the Society has only now found these pictures?” I ask.
    “The Society doesn’t know,” the woman says. “We’d like to keep it that way, so he can still have his Banquet and his sample taken. We need you to help us in return. If you don’t, we’ll turn him in.”
    I shake my head. “I don’t believe you,” I say. “These pictures—they could have been altered. You could have made all of this up.” But my heart pounds a little more quickly. I do not want Grandfather to get into trouble. And the thought of his sample is the only thing that makes the pain of the upcoming Banquet manageable.
    “Ask your grandfather,” the man says. “He’ll tell you the truth. But you don’t have much time. The sort we need help with happens today.”
    “You have the wrong person,” I say. “I’m only in training. I don’t even have my final work assignment yet.”
    I should ignore them completely, or report them to the Society. But they’ve unsettled me. What if they take their story—true or not—to the Society? Then a wild hope comes to mind: if they do, will the Society delay Grandfather’s Banquet while they investigate? Could we have a little more time? But then I realize that won’t happen. The Society will have the Banquet and take the sample as planned, and then if there’s enough evidence, they might decide to destroy it.
    “We need you to add data to the sort,” the man says.
    “That’s impossible to do,” I say. “When I work, I only sort existing data. I don’t enter anything new.”
    “You don’t have to enter anything,” the woman says. “All you have to do is access an additional data set and transfer some of that data.”
    “That’s also impossible,” I say. “I don’t have the correct passkeys. The only information I see is what I’ve been given.”
    “We have a code that will allow you to pull more data,” the man says. “It will help you access the Society’s mainframe simultaneously as you’re sorting their information.”
    I stand there, listening, as they tell me what they want me to do. When they finish, I feel strange and spinning, as though the wind did after all pick me up and set me turning. Is this really happening? Will I do what they’ve asked of me?
    “Why did you pick me?” I ask.
    “You fit all the criteria,” he says. “You’re assigned to the sort today.”
    “Also, you’re one of the fastest,” the woman says. “And the best.” Then she says something else, something that sounds like, “And you’ll forget.”

    After they finish explaining what they want me to do, I have very little free time left. But I still climb off at the stop near Grandfather’s apartment. I
have
to speak with him before I decide my course of action. And the people at the Arboretum are right. Grandfather will tell me the truth.
    He’s out in the greenspace, and when he sees me, surprise and happiness cross his face. I smile back but I