We: Record 21 Summary & Analysis

D-503 writes that I-330 was assigned to see him yesterday and, again, left a confusing note on her pink ticket, instructing D-503 to lower his blinds as though she were actually in his room with him. He goes along with her request without understanding it, as he fears that without I-330 he’ll never know the answers to “those unknown quantities,” such as the secret passageway in the closet at the Ancient House, and he is obligated by the One State to seek answers.

At 16:00, D-503 takes an aero to the Ancient House: he sees it as his “authorly duty” to do so. The flight there is cloudy and icy. When he arrives, the old woman tells him nobody is there. D-503 is outraged at the woman. He takes out his anger on her in his written record: “Didn’t I populate these pages with all of you? […] Without me, would you have ever been seen by all those I am leading through the narrow footpaths of these written lines.” D-503 makes the old woman lead him to the courtyard, but it is empty. He looks around and tries to find the secret corridor he walked down with I-330, but it’s nowhere to be found.

Back in the main courtyard, D-503 runs into S, who inquires after D-503’s health. D-503 remarks that there is an unusually large number of Guardians’ aeros surveilling the sky. S responds with a convoluted explanation that a good doctor begins treating a patient while they are still healthy in the event that they might become sick later. S leaves and D-503 returns home. On his way there, he notes an abundance of birds flying above the Green Wall.

Later that evening, D-503 says, he attempted to write in his record about the Day of the One Vote. However, he found he was unable to write, as he was too distracted by the sound of the wind outside. Later, U comes to D-503’s room. He watches her adjust the pleats of her unif and feels close to her. She tells him about how she found a caricature of her drawn as a fish on the wall of the Children-Rearing Factory, where she works, earlier that day. D-503 assures her she doesn’t look like a fish, and informs his reader that it was wrong of him to describe U’s “gills” in his earlier records.

U continues with her story: she turned the children in to the Guardians, considering her “cruelty” in so doing to be, in fact, an act of love. D-503 understands and commends U’s decision. U then starts to tell him news about the Day of the One Vote, but she stops herself, instead telling D-503 that if he needs anything, she’ll be there for him. U leaves D-503’s room. He falls asleep and has a dream about making love to an old-fashioned, wooden chair.