I can feel the heat radiating from his body. He’s so close that I have to look up to see his face. “We have to go. Promise me you’ll never do this again. For both our sakes. For our identicals’ sakes.”
“You’re really scared.” His smile fades with the realization, and the heat in his eyes cools. “I was very careful, Dahlia. No one will know about the hacking, and unless you tell them, no one will know about this stairwell.”
I believe him. I can see that the last thing he wants is to put me in danger. But things are different for me in a way he clearly can’t understand. I am rarely ever without the company of my classmates, and every moment that I am draws notice. Management doesn’t want laborers to know things we don’t need to know, because that will distract us from our purpose. I’ve seen that very clearly over the past few weeks.
Management is right.
This is wrong.
“Promise me, Trigger 17.”
Finally he nods. “I promise. But I can’t promise I won’t look for you.”
I don’t argue, because I can’t promise him the same thing. “I think looking is okay, as long as no one notices. But this is not.”
He nods again and takes a step back, putting more air between us. More distance. But his gaze has snagged on my mouth. My attention is drawn to his lips too, just as my fingers were. I’m not surprised by that, but I can’t articulate why. I can’t explain my growing fascination with his mouth.
“We should go. Separately.”
He looks disappointed, but he agrees. So I take a deep breath and try to swallow my own disappointment over how very final my exit feels. Then I step out of the stairwell and close the door at my back. And I walk away from Trigger 17 again.
I report to my gardening unit still wearing my athletic clothing, and Sorrel 32 gives me twenty minutes to return to my room to shower and change clothes. As I jog down the winding sidewalk through the common lawn, I notice that every group I pass turns to look at me. They’re not staring, exactly. They don’t seem suspicious or worried. They’re just curious because I am alone.
The fact that being alone no longer bothers me makes me very nervous. Someone is bound to notice eventually.
Alone in my dorm room, I take a clean change of clothes into the bathroom, careful to grab the lumpy shirt. While the shower runs, I remove Trigger’s carrot from the folded bundle and stare at it. It no longer smells like dirt, yet it still smells…earthy. It’s a different scent than that of a hydroponically grown carrot, maybe because it isn’t a variety we grow in class. Maybe because it wasn’t carefully engineered, fertilized, and monitored.
Now that I know I have to eat the carrot, I can’t figure out how I ever resisted in the first place.
I break off the fibrous cord at the end, then bite off the tip and chew it slowly. The flavor and texture don’t seem to have suffered after more than fourteen days in my dry, clean drawer. Though it has a wilder taste and a stringier texture than the cultivated carrots we grow in class, it is not woody or tough. The carrot is an interesting mixture of sweet and bitter, and I wish I could taste it steamed with a little salt. Or sautéed with butter and onion. Or glazed and baked.
It doesn’t seem fair that those of us who grow food for the city will never have a chance to prepare it.
On the first truly cool day of fall, Belay 35, our athletic instructor, decides that the year-sixteen hydroponic gardening classes—both male and female—should enjoy the beautiful weather by spending our recreation hour outside. I’m thrilled by this idea until it becomes clear that by “enjoy the beautiful weather,” he means “jog laps around the training ward.”
Jogging is my least favorite form of exercise. Except for running.
But it is a beautiful day, so I grab a bottle full of cold water and file in line between Poppy and Sorrel and next to a boy named Indigo 16.
“It seems like you’re gone all the time now,” Sorrel calls softly from behind me as we take off down the sidewalk at a comfortable pace.
“She’s only been called out twice,” Poppy says over her shoulder. “Let’s keep that in perspective.”
She doesn’t mention the times I’ve returned to the dormitory alone to change.
“What’s it like, leaving the training ward on your own?” Violet asks from behind Sorrel as we pass the Workforce Academy, where a line of female mechanics in gray coveralls are filing through the front door.
“It’s…uncomfortable.” The lie tastes bitter, but Trigger’s right. It’s necessary. “It makes me feel exposed. As if it’s cold outside and I forgot my coat.”
Poppy shudders. “You’ll have to get used to that if you become an instructor, but I’m glad it’s you and not me. We were never meant to make our way alone.”
I can’t shake the feeling that she’s right, but not for the reason she means. Trigger and I have nothing genetic in common, yet I feel anything but alone when I’m with him.
As our pace picks up and talking becomes uncomfortable, I watch Indigo 16 and his classmates jogging in the line next to ours. He and his identicals are an inch or so taller than my sisters and I are, yet a good six inches shorter than Trigger 17. The gardening boys have narrower, longer faces than Trigger and much less facial stubble, even though it’s late afternoon.
Indigo 16 and his identicals also have narrower shoulders and chests, and though—like us—they are fit from lifting jugs of fertilizer and from an hour a day spent in recreation, they are not as obviously strong as any of the cadets. Not as solid.
Trigger’s face flashes through my memory as I run, and my sudden warmth doesn’t seem related to exertion.
Each genome is unique and no two classes can look alike, because of the Preservation and Equal Distribution of Genetic Traits directive. But I can’t help wondering why geneticists would bother with other male genomes after Trigger 17’s was created.
His form is clearly a triumph of genetic design, and I can’t imagine how future efforts could possibly improve upon it.
Or am I being unfair to the other boys?
Why do I prefer Trigger’s physical form? Why should I have any preference at all?
As we jog, I watch the pendulum motion of Poppy’s ponytail. I’m dying to ask her which she prefers, but I’m pretty sure my sisters have never truly noticed the boys in our division, much less boys in other divisions, and asking the question will only show them how different I’ve really become.
As we pass the Specialist Academy, my thoughts wander to the stairwell where I touched Trigger’s face. Ahead is the Art Academy, where—
Motion in my peripheral vision draws my gaze, and I slow just a little when I notice two identical female soldiers standing next to a patrol car that has stopped in the middle of the road. Rather than the typical uniform, the soldiers are wearing all black, and one of them is gesturing angrily to a girl on the curving sidewalk. Though I can’t hear what she’s saying, it’s clear that she wants the girl to get into the car.
I don’t recognize the girl’s uniform either. Her pants are blue and formfitting, and her shirt is a pale red color that I can’t associate with any bureau. Before I’ve gotten more than a glance at her, one of the soldiers pushes her into the back of the car and slams the door.
Why is the girl alone? Where are the soldiers taking her, and why would she resist when disobeying an order is grounds for a DNA analysis in search of genetic flaws?
The soldiers slide into the front seats, and as the vehicle begins to roll forward along the cruise strip painted on the road I see the girl’s angry pout in profile. I don’t recognize her genome. She has olive-toned skin and dark hair worn longer than is considered practical for either Workforce or Defense.
Maybe she’s Management. We don’t have much contact with the managers in training, except when they get to practice bossing us around, so she probably belongs to a class I’ve never noticed before. And who, other than Management, would dare argue with a soldier?
I face forward again to see if any
one else noticed the incident, but the rest of my class is staring at something else.
A crowd of people has gathered in front of the Defense Academy, but they seem to be standing in very neatly ordered rows. A few steps later I understand why: the crowd is made up of soldiers—not cadets—and they are standing in formation, in full uniform.
Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.
Belay 35 slows, and we slow with him until we’re just standing on the sidewalk. Staring. “Everyone take a short breather and drink some water,” Belay 35 calls out without even looking back at us.
For a moment no one moves. We never take a break until we’ve completed the first circuit of the training ward, and when we do rest, we take our pulses and wait for Belay 35 to record them on his tablet.
This is not right.
Our neat lines sluggishly collapse into confused clusters, and I notice that even though there’s no rule against it, our cliques do not cross the gender line. As if the girls and guys have no interest in talking to one another.
“Why are there so many soldiers at the academy?” Violet asks as she twists open the valve on her bottle. “Some kind of training exercise?”
Poppy wipes a drip of water from her chin. “Do graduates still do training exercises?”
I don’t know. In fact, I have no idea what cadets do after they become full-fledged soldiers, beyond their general mission to protect and defend. I make a mental note to ask Trigger—
No. I can’t ask Trigger anything, because we can never be alone again.
Why is that so hard for me to remember?
“Class!” Belay 35 calls, and we turn as one, all conversation fading into attentive silence. “Stay here and rest for a minute. I’ll be right back.” Without waiting to make sure his directions will be heeded—there’s little doubt of that—our instructor jogs toward the Defense Academy.
“That’s weird,” Sorrel says as we watch him go, and I hear the same sentiment echoed from the other students around us. I’ve never seen an instructor so obviously curious about what’s going on in another division, which is definitely none of his business. Yet Belay 35 is clearly headed toward the Defense Academy for some answers.
“There are more coming,” Poppy says, staring over my shoulder, and I turn to see a large group of soldiers jogging in formation across the common lawn, their uniforms crisply pressed, their footsteps muffled by the grass beneath their feet. Each soldier carries a black duffel bag over one shoulder and a rifle held at an angle in front of his chest.
Violet shields the sun from her eyes with one hand. “They look kind of young.”
I glance at the soldiers, and the rest of the world seems to go dark around me. All the boys have Trigger’s face.
But year seventeen hasn’t graduated yet. They can’t wear soldiers’ uniforms. They’re still cadets.
Terrified, I spin again to squint at those already in formation in front of the Defense Academy, and my worst fear is confirmed. Those soldiers—both male and female—are also from year seventeen.
“They’re graduating…,” I mumble. Trigger will be moving to the residential ward, and even once I graduate our paths will likely never cross. He’ll be sent farther into the wild than ever before, and for longer than ever before. Should Lakeview go to war, he will fight. He might die.
I will never see Trigger 17 again.
“They can’t be graduating. Defense doesn’t graduate until December,” one of the boys says from a clique near ours. “This is nearly three months early.”
“Well, yesterday they were cadets and today they’re clearly soldiers,” Sorrel says. “What’s your explanation?”
He frowns. “I don’t know.”
“We’re not supposed to know,” the boy next to him adds, and I see with a glance at his jacket that this is Indigo, who’s been jogging next to me for ten minutes.
“Obviously.” Poppy rolls her eyes. “But if this weren’t out of the ordinary, Belay 35 wouldn’t…”
The discussion dies as our focus is pulled back to our instructor, who’s now speaking to the instructor of another class, which has also stopped to watch. Poppy’s right. Belay 35 wouldn’t make such a production of his curiosity if what we’re seeing wasn’t frighteningly abnormal.
Why would Lakeview graduate a class of Defense cadets three months early?
Belay 35 returns and orders us back into two lines. He doesn’t offer us any information, and I can’t tell whether any was offered to him.
The only person I know who will have the answer and be willing to share it with me is somewhere in that formation of graduating cadets, about to be marched out of my life forever.
I will never know why.
‘For days, I scan the face of every soldier I see, hoping against all odds that somehow Trigger 17’s squad was assigned to patrol the training ward after graduation. The chances of that are slim for a Special Forces unit, yet I can’t stop hoping.
But none of the soldiers I see around the common lawn are wearing Trigger’s face, and none of the remaining cadets are older than year sixteen. A week after the unexpected graduation, I force myself to face the reality that Trigger is gone.
Which is why, a few weeks after I’ve mentally said goodbye to him, I am stunned to step out of the Workforce Academy for our monthly field day and find Trigger 17 looking right at me. Wearing a cadet’s recreation uniform.
I can tell it’s him even without the red braid, and even though I’m not close enough to see the scar on his forearm. I can see it in the way he watches me, even though I look just like all the other girls pouring out of the academy onto the lawn.
He’s in the company of five of his identicals, forming a squad of six charged with overseeing a competition where several dozen year-fifteen cadets spar one-on-one in the center of a circle formed by their peers. The year seventeens are acting as both judges and mentors, and their instructor appears to be evaluating their performance in both regards as he taps on his tablet.
Time seems to hang suspended between us while Trigger and I stare at each other, but I know that mere seconds have passed when Poppy passes me on her way down the steps toward our first event without even noticing my hesitation.
“Hey.” I jog to catch up with her. “Aren’t those year-seventeen cadets from the division that graduated last month?” Can she see what I’m seeing, or am I imagining the whole thing?
Poppy follows my gaze, and her groan is proof enough. “Yeah. I guess they didn’t all graduate.”
I’m so relieved that I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.
“But, Dahlia, you have to forget about him and your weird fascination,” she whispers as she tugs me onto the cool fall grass. “He’s probably long gone.”
I don’t argue with her for the same reason I didn’t tell her about talking to Trigger in the stairwell. Poppy is my best friend. She’s the last person in the world I’d want to burden with such dangerous knowledge.
She deserves nothing less than absolute ignorance of whatever genetic flaw we carry.
“Why would the city graduate only part of a division?” I ask instead.
Poppy shrugs. “Why would they graduate that part of a division three months early? Who knows why Management does what it does? All I know is that it’s none of our business. Come on.” She takes off toward the common lawn, where our identicals are already setting up sporting equipment and dividing into teams under the supervision of Belay 35 and a few other athletic instructors. All the male year-thirty-five instructors look just like Belay, but there are several other genomes from other years represented as well.
Between rounds of volleyball, soccer, and relay races, I stare at the cadets across the common lawn, but over that distance I can’t tell which of the black-clad bodies and dark-eyed gazes belongs to Trigger 17. Yet for the first time I notice the difference between our recreation and his.
Workforce’s athletic activities consist exclusively of team sports. Yet while the cadets ch
eer for one another and shout advice as their classmates grapple, their activities invariably pit one cadet against another. Their races aren’t relays. They play tennis one-on-one. They compete for the most accurate target shooting. Their efforts—both their successes and failures—stand on their own.
I’m not sure their way is better than ours, but I’m not sure it’s worse either. I think it’s just different. And I’m amazed that I’ve never noticed that before.
After my leg of the sprint relay, I look up to find that the cadets’ exercise has ended and the last of the year fifteens are filing back toward their academy. Their year-seventeen mentors are nowhere to be seen.
I can’t set aside my disappointment even when Violet smacks me on the shoulder with the baton she has just carried across the finish line, earning our team the relay championship. Our victory cupcakes taste bittersweet, even though chocolate is my favorite flavor. I hardly hear our athletic instructor’s speech lauding our teamwork and dedication to the group effort rather than individual glory.
When Belay 35 asks for a volunteer to return the sporting equipment to the utility shed behind our academy, I raise my hand. I need a few minutes to myself to process the knowledge that Trigger 17 isn’t gone. Not yet, anyway. So I put the baton tape in my pocket, throw the mesh bag full of balls over my left shoulder, and tuck the bundle of relay batons under my right arm. Then I head for the back of the building in spite of my instructor’s surprise that I haven’t chosen an identical to help me.
In the utility shed, I place the volleyballs and soccer balls on their designated racks and toss the empty mesh bag into a basket full of others just like it. I’m counting the relay batons to make sure they’ve all been recovered when the door at my back closes.
I gasp and whirl around. The batons clatter to the ground, and one of them hits my foot. I can’t make out anything in the darkness, and I can’t remember where the light switch is.
“Dahlia. It’s me.”