Because the flaw in my genome has nothing to do with my ability to grow high-quality crops for the glory of the city.
Or does it?
Even knowing that my life is in danger—that the lives of everyone I’ve ever known and cared about are in danger—I can’t help wondering where Trigger is and hoping he’s okay. He’s been a distraction from my work and studies for weeks.
Maybe Management is right. Maybe this oddly archaic, strangely physical attraction does lead to inefficiency. Maybe my defect is relevant to my potential as a gardener.
Has Trigger 17’s blood been drawn? Or is such shocking behavior actually acceptable from soldiers expected to react to survival situations with instincts that might save lives?
Maybe his crime isn’t that he kissed, but who he kissed….Maybe his genome will survive this.
Mine will not.
Tears blur my vision and I swipe them from my eyes. I haven’t cried since the day I sprained my ankle during a soccer game when I was Dahlia 10.
I don’t understand these tears. I’m not injured. Yet I am in pain. I ache deep inside but in no location I can describe or point to. Much like I felt when I thought Trigger had graduated.
For the hundredth time, I wish I could warn my sisters, but that would change nothing. Thousands of identicals cannot run, and they cannot hide.
Blinking away more tears, I glance around the room. There’s nowhere for me to hide in Lakeview. My only hope of survival is to escape the city. I’m not naive enough to believe that surviving off plants growing in the dirt will be an adventure, but I am confident I can do that. Surely gardeners are uniquely suited to find and identify food growing wild.
I’ll need supplies, but if I carry anything obvious I will stand out. So I stuff Violet’s jacket pockets with an extra pair of socks and my toothbrush, then I reach for the doorknob. And that’s when I realize I have no idea how to get out of the city. There are walls, but I’ve never been past them. There are gates, but I don’t know how to get through them or how long that will take. I’ve never been farther than the administrative ward. I’m supposed to graduate and be assigned to housing in the residential ward and a job in the industrial ward, where most of the city’s hydroponic gardens are located. And it has never occurred to me until just now that I might ever need to know any more than that.
I have no idea what to do or where to go. But Trigger goes on missions in the wild. He’ll know how to get out of the city. He might even know how to sneak out of the city.
He wasn’t taken to the Management Bureau with me. If he received some kind of punishment within his own bureau, he’ll probably be scrubbing toilets and washing dishes. On the twelfth floor.
I race down six flights and stand on the twelfth-floor stairwell landing, panting. What if he’s not here? Or worse, what if the twelfth floor is crawling with cadets, all aware of my escape and on the lookout for me because they’re soldiers in training?
I press my ear to the door, but I can’t hear anything, so I take a deep breath and ease it open.
The hallway is deserted. I sneak into it and stand beneath the security camera so it can’t see me. A reexamination of the footage will show exactly where I went, but staying out of sight as much as possible on the live feed should buy me some time.
I scoot down the hall with my back pressed against the wall, on alert for the sound of a toilet being scrubbed by a rule-breaking cadet while I assess the threat of each camera I pass and listen for footsteps. I see and hear nothing but my own thundering heartbeat. If Trigger is being punished in the Defense Academy rather than the dormitory, my escape is doomed.
Near an intersection of the hall, I hear a splash, accompanied by a sigh. I recognize the splat of a mop hitting the floor, and frustration feeds my fear. The custodian trainees may not know that I’m wanted, but they will know I don’t belong on the cadets’ floor.
Carefully I peek around the corner, expecting to see a member of the manual labor division—the other half of Workforce—hard at work. Instead, I find a cadet with skin a few shades darker than mine and familiar short loose curls slinging a mop back and forth over the already spotless tile floor. His gaze is focused on the tile, his shoulders stiff. He hates this work.
It’s Trigger. His shoulder braid is missing—our violation obviously cost him his leadership position—but who else would be mopping tiles as punishment on his dormitory floor?
His mop pauses and he pushes his sleeves up to reach into the wheeled bucket full of murky water. Alarm shoots through my chest, and I scramble silently back from the corner. There’s no scar on his arm.
It’s not Trigger.
What am I doing? My heart slams against my sternum and I close my eyes, fighting for calm. What made me think I could sneak onto a Defense dormitory floor, without getting caught, and find a Special Forces cadet who might not even be there?
I’m a gardener.
But if I don’t find Trigger and get out of the city, I’m not going to be anything more than a memory—Lakeview’s greatest disgrace.
Determined, I peek carefully around the corner again, and when the cadet turns to mop in the other direction I cross the hallway and press my back against the wall on the other side, directly beneath one of the cameras. Quietly I ease my way down this new section of hallway until a deep voice freezes me where I stand.
“…ever disgrace the unit like that again, Trigger 17, I will see to it that you spend the rest of your life scrubbing toilets and polishing boots.” The voice is deep and mature—an instructor or a dormitory conservator. It’s coming from an open door two rooms down. “Do you understand, cadet?”
“Yes, Commander.”
I exhale, thankful to hear that Trigger is still alive and well. But my relief is fleeting. He’s with his commander. Which is surely some kind of instructor. “My biggest regret is that I’ve embarrassed my unit,” Trigger continues.
Embarrassed? Not condemned? Not even shamed?
I’ve suspected that our infraction wouldn’t be as devastating for Trigger as for me and my identicals. I understand that his genome was designed for creative thinking and that subterfuge is part of his training—though I shouldn’t understand any of that. But how could the violation that will result in the euthanasia of my entire genome be nothing more than an embarrassment for Trigger and his?
“See that it doesn’t happen again,” the commander says.
“Yes, sir!” Trigger shouts, even though he’s inside, presumably in a small room.
“Dismissed,” his commander barks.
Trigger moves into the hall, but his steps falter in front of the doorway when he sees me. I can only stare, panic-stricken. I’ve found him, and that’s as far as my desperate, impulsive plan goes.
The commander’s shadow appears in the doorway, but Trigger is still blocking the threshold. Staring at me. “Step aside, cadet.”
My heart hammers so loudly it seems to be beating in my head. I need to move. But I have no idea where to go.
Trigger’s eyes widen, sending me a silent warning I don’t know how to heed.
“Now, cadet!” the commander shouts.
Trigger takes one large step out of the door way, opposite the direction I’m standing.
His commander steps into the hall, carrying a tablet, and starts to turn toward me.
My pulse spikes. My hands begin to shake.
“Armstrong 38!” Trigger shouts.
The commander pivots sharply toward him and away from me. “What is it, cadet?” he snaps while I glance around the hall, desperate for some place to hide. If I turn the corner again, the cadet mopping the floor will see me.
“Sir, I respectfully request that you consider returning my braid.”
“On what grounds?” Commander Armstrong tucks his arms behind his back, still holding his tablet. The screen shows a large image of my face above print too small for me to read.
He’s gotten the alert.
I suck in a quiet, terrified brea
th and back silently away from them.
“On the grounds that breaking one of the city’s most consequential directives took an inordinate amount of courage and ingenuity—two qualities highly valued by Defense leadership.”
“Management has been very clear about the leniencies afforded cadets in consideration of your training. Defense projects and exercises may not affect students from other bureaus. No exceptions.”
“And if I’d followed that rule, Management would still be ignorant of a flawed genome less than two years from joining Workforce,” Trigger insists. “Lakeview should be thanking me. Instead you’re taking my braid.”
I stare at him in shocked silence. Is he actually demanding a reward for getting me and thousands of my identicals sentenced to death?
It’s just a distraction. I can see that. But the fact that his commander is considering his argument tells me more than I want to know about the Defense Bureau.
“Denied.” Armstrong 38 starts to turn, and I freeze again.
“On what grounds?” Trigger demands, and I flinch. I’ve never heard anyone speak to an instructor like this.
The commander spins toward Trigger, clutching his tablet so tightly that his fingers have gone white. “On the grounds that you got caught, cadet. Special Forces does not get caught.”
I glance around the hallway again, my heart racing. Halfway down, a plaque marks one closed door as a supply closet. The doorknob has no keyhole. It can’t be locked.
“Respectfully, sir, if I hadn’t gotten caught, my actions would have gone unnoticed. And unrewarded,” Trigger adds as I creep softly toward the closet.
“Are you saying you got caught on purpose? Cadet, did it ever occur to you to simply make a report?” Armstrong 38 demands. “You would have gotten credit for what you uncovered, but you would not have been caught.”
Surprise washes over Trigger’s strong features as I ease open the closet door, crossing my fingers that the hinges don’t squeak. “In retrospect, that does seem to be the wisest course of action,” he admits.
“Indeed,” Armstrong 38 grunts. “This is your last warning. If I hear your name again before graduation, I’ll have you bumped down to infantry.”
“Sir, you can’t—!”
“You are out of line!” Commander Armstrong shouts as I close the closet door.
“Yes, sir.” Trigger’s voice is softer, heard through the door, but he sounds relieved. I am hidden. He can stop arguing with his commander. “I apologize, sir.”
The only reply is Armstrong’s swift, heavy footsteps marching past my hiding place, headed toward the bank of elevators.
When I hear the doors slide closed, I exhale. A second later, the storage closet door flies open, and before I can gasp Trigger tugs me into the hall by one hand.
“Slide along the wall, beneath the camera,” he whispers, obviously unaware that I’ve already figured that out.
We make our way quickly down the hall, my hand still clasped in his, and even though my need to flee the city grows more urgent with every passing second, the feeling of his palm pressed against mine is strangely reassuring. And exhilarating.
Trigger sticks his wrist beneath the scanner next to a door halfway down, and a green light flashes as the bolt slides back.
“Step to the right and stay against the wall,” he whispers as he opens the door.
I follow his instructions and find a dorm room strikingly similar to mine. Two sets of neatly made bunk beds. Drawers and chutes built into the wall. But there is no rug. There are no chairs. There are no sketches of plants hung on the walls.
Nothing differentiates one bunk from the next.
Trigger leaves the door open at a precise and odd angle. Puzzled, I follow his gaze and see that at this angle, the open door blocks me and half of the room from the camera’s view.
“In there,” he whispers, and I hurry silently into the bathroom, careful to keep my back against the wall. Inside I exhale slowly. It would never have occurred to me to hide from the cameras using an open door, but Trigger 17 is obviously accustomed to evading observation.
What did he use these skills for before he met me?
He steps into the bathroom and closes the door, and his soft frown is equal parts relieved and concerned. And a little impressed. “How did you get in here? How did you get out of custody?”
“I had help with a door lock. Then I snuck out and jogged across the city with a class of cooks.”
Trigger looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “Are you sure you’re a gardener? Because that sounds more like something a cadet would do in training.”
“They teach you how to escape?”
He nods. “From a variety of situations. In case we’re ever captured.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
“Did you mean any of what you said to that Commander? Would you have turned me in for a greater leadership position, if you’d thought of it?”
“I did think of it. The day we got stuck in the elevator. Back before I’d committed any infraction. But I couldn’t do it.”
“What? You spoke to me first!”
“Yes, but only in an official capacity.” He smiles, and this time when my gaze catches on his mouth, all I want to do is punch it. “You were going to hyperventilate, and I’m trained to prevent that. What was I supposed to do? Let you pass out? Defense would have considered that a humanitarian effort, not a violation.”
“You mean I was the only one breaking a rule in that elevator?”
“Yes. But I’ve broken plenty since then. Dahlia, I could never have turned you in.” His smile fades as he looks into my eyes. “I was afraid they’d recall your genome.”
“They did. They are, I mean.” My throat tries to close around the words. “Evidently coordinating a recall that large takes time.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” His voice sounds strained. As if he’s in physical pain. “I followed you into the equipment shed thinking we could steal a few minutes, but Mace 17 saw. He wanted my red braid. So he turned me in.”
“He did this for a braid?” The petty nature of such an act stuns me. “He must have known what would happen to my genome. He would do that for an accessory?”
“For what the braid represents. For the respect and benefits that come with a leadership position. But they won’t give it to him. Locking your roommate in a closet when you’re a year seven is one thing. Betraying him to the enemy—to Management, in this case—when you’re months from graduating is something else entirely. At this point in our training, we’re supposed to be able to trust one another implicitly.”
“So he doomed Poppy and all the rest of my identicals for nothing?” Though it hardly seems possible, that makes me feel even worse.
“I’m so sorry.” Trigger’s gaze strays to my lips, and I feel a ghost of our kiss haunting me with its consequences. “I wanted to bring you something picked fresh from the wild. I wanted to touch you again,” he says. “I saw you and I couldn’t resist.”
I understand that feeling. That horrific, exhilarating certainty that you’re going to touch something dangerous—something that will hurt you—because you have to know what it feels like. Just this once.
He frowns. “I should have known better. I should have been more careful.”
Yes. And so should I.
Trigger reaches for my hand in spite of the conclusion we’ve both drawn, and I let him have it, because I am already in as much danger as I can possibly get into. He’s the reason my whole world is falling apart, yet somehow being near him is comforting when it should be terrifying.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him as the inevitability of my predicament settles onto my shoulders like a weight pressing me into the ground. “If Management is right, my flawed genome would have showed itself eventually.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, unless the same thing’s wrong with me.” Trigger leans down to kiss me, but I push him away, ev
en though every flawed cell in my body aches to pull him closer. I can’t kiss him knowing that Management is planning the systematic destruction of nearly everyone I’ve ever known. Kissing Trigger got my entire genome recalled.
No, Mace 17 got my genome recalled. Genetic flaws got my genome recalled.
I got my genome recalled.
But I’m going to die if Management catches me, and if I escape the city I’ll never see Trigger again. These are the last moments we’ll ever spend together.
So I pull him closer and step up on my toes. His hands find my waist, and my arms wrap around his neck. I kiss him, and this kiss is deeper and wilder. Desperate and scared. I can feel time slipping away from us, and no matter how tightly I hold him, soon I’ll have to let go.
When I finally pull away, my pulse racing, I’m hyperaware of how long I’ve spent in Trigger’s room. Yet I don’t regret a single second of that kiss.
“I have to go.” Reluctantly I let my arms slide free of his neck. “Can you tell me how to get out of the city? I…” My ignorance is humiliating. “I don’t even know where the gate is.”
Trigger’s grip on me tightens. “There are several gates, Dahlia, but you can’t go through any of them. Your bar code won’t open them, and most of them are guarded. You’ll be arrested the moment they see you.”
“Only most of them are guarded? What about the unguarded gates?”
He lets me go. “Neither of us has the security clearance to unlock them, and if we try we’ll be raising an alarm.” He holds his arm up, showing me the bar code on his wrist for emphasis.
“Trigger, there has to be a way out.”
“Not on your own. But I can help.” He squats in front of the cabinet below his sink and pulls out a small zippered bag.
“No.” I shake my head firmly. “I’m not going to drag you—” I frown as he opens the medicine cabinet and pulls out a half-empty tube of toothpaste. “What are you doing?”
“Packing. I’m in trouble whether I go with you or not, but you won’t make it out of the city without my help. So I’m coming with you.”