Chapter 1
“Eleven-oh-one, join the others.”
Twelve minutes, sixteen seconds. Impressive. The workers just improved on their old record by thirty-nine seconds.
Settled on a bike in the corner of the little-used exercise room, I keep my eyes on the palm-sized screen I hold and weigh my options. Oblivion seems like the best choice today. It annoys the workers unreasonably well and earns me the fewest demerits. I command my mind-surface to shift into secondary routine: stall until the last moment possible. That random number assigned by the Institute of Experimentation and Retraining never suited me anyway.
Pumping my legs faster, I continue my interrupted reading.
“During the following thirty years, his music, both vocal and instrumental, became increasingly marked by his skillful manipulation of dissonance. Many scholars agree this was due to his three failed marriages, the suicide of a son, and bankruptcy, among other things.”
I touch the highlighted word and study the footnote that appears at the bottom.
“Dissonance: a jarring sound produced in music through three—”
The palmscreen is wrenched from my hand. The last possible moment has come. I exit my orderly inner consciousness into my chaotic mind-surface.
Renegade lines of incoming information shoot past me and twist together into a tangled lump, much like a ball of those tasteless noodles the cafeteria served twice a week. Too much information. I snap my eyes shut.
The flow slows and with a few simple commands, the backlog of information—most of it useless—is sorted. Why would anyone want to spend most of their time, much less every waking moment, on their mind-surface? Even my 5.9 years of Institute training had failed to explain that conundrum.
Order restored, I open my eyes. The external sharpens into focus.
Sweat trickles down my warm back, causing my white shift to cling to my skin. The ventilation hums softly as it circulates the forced air, and the bike whirls rhythmically as I continue to pedal. The translucent concrete walls glow with injected light cells, illuminating the colorless room.
Whispers on my left attract my gaze. Three feet and seven inches away, two girls dressed in yellow shirts and calf-length paran pants peer and point at my palmscreen.
I access my memory file. All but the highest ranking worker wore the black parans, but shirts were color-coded. If my files were correct—and they were 98.7% of the time—yellow shirts belonged to seventh-year apprentices.
The redhead nudges the brunette. “Can you believe this? The mute is studying music!”
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