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 anyone 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.