Would I be able to identify an identical stranger among my own classmates?
I would definitely know if anyone tried to impersonate Poppy, Violet, or Sorrel. And I would suspect something if Calla 16 were suddenly friendly. But the rest?
We have assigned desks, gardening stations, and dorm rooms. We tend to sit with the same friends every day in the cafeteria. How much of recognizing my identicals is actually just knowing where they’ll be at any given time?
“Blanch, what do you think that’s about?” a girl to my left asks.
Blanch. This is a cooking union. The girls around me will have names like Julienne, Simmer, and Braise.
I turn to follow Blanch’s gaze and nearly choke on my own tongue. Two identical soldiers are talking to the athletic instructor, gesturing toward the other end of the training ward. Toward the dormitory.
“I don’t know,” the girl next to Blanch says.
My heart thumping painfully, I casually move closer to the instructor, stopping every few steps to stretch. When I’m a few feet away, I bend to touch my toes and rise with an unattended water bottle.
“…a security issue. Nothing to worry about,” one of the soldiers is saying. But of course it’s something to worry about. Defense doesn’t dictate the Workforce Academy’s schedules.
The instructor frowns. “I don’t understand. We still have two laps of the ward before—”
“You’ll have to cut the exercise short today,” the second soldier interrupts. “We’ve been instructed to escort your class back to the dormitory, where you’re to lead them to their cafeteria for a snack. Management’s orders.”
“A snack? But they—”
“Now, please,” the first soldier orders.
The instructor nods stiffly. “Thank you for your service.” Then he turns to the rest of us. “Class, we’re going to cut the run short.” Can the others hear how nervous he sounds? “It seems that Management has an impromptu treat for you in the cafeteria. Please grab your water bottles and follow me.”
The girls around me murmur excitedly as we fall into a rough line, and I pass right by the poor girl stuck looking for her missing water bottle.
In the dormitory, when everyone else gathers in front of the bank of elevators, I slip into the stairwell. By the time I reach the eighteenth floor, I’m breathing hard and my quads are on fire. But there is no one on our level to see me sneak from the stairwell into the room I share with Violet, Sorrel, and Poppy. Presumably my union is in class at the academy.
I feel sick thinking about how worried Poppy must be about me.
What has Sorrel 32 told her? What has Sorrel 32 been told?
My chest feels like it’s caving in. How much time do they have before the recall?
Alone in my dorm room, I feel so jittery that I nearly jump out of my shoes when the air-conditioning suddenly blows my hair from the vent overhead. I strip out of my recreation uniform and toss it down the laundry chute. Since I’m on camera and someone could be watching, I can’t spare the time for a shower, so I just change into a clean school uniform. But instead of my own jacket, I take Violet’s spare. Her jacket won’t fool a scanner held over my wrist, but hopefully wearing her name will prevent my wrist from being scanned in the first place.
Dressed, I glance from bunk to bunk and drawer to drawer. I have no idea what my life will be like from now on, even if I manage to escape the recall. I can’t imagine an existence with no identicals. No hydroponics. No classrooms, cafeterias, or group recreation. I can’t believe I’m never going to sleep in this room again. I can’t believe I’m never going to see my roommates again.
I can’t believe my moment of weakness in the equipment shed has led to the imminent euthanasia of five thousand girls. Of every friend I’ve ever had.
I’m supposed to believe that’s inevitable. If a genome is flawed, that flaw will eventually show itself, allowing Lakeview to purge the inferior workers for the benefit of those who remain. Yet that doesn’t feel like the case.
Yes, I am attracted to Trigger 17, though doubtless I should not be. But if the elevator hadn’t broken down, that attraction would never have had a chance to develop. I would have continued with my life and my work, unaware that such a possibility existed.
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.