“They’re Special Forces.” But as soon as the words are out, I wish I could stuff them back into my mouth. I’m not supposed to know anything about Defense. So I improvise. “Everything special is produced in limited quantities. Like geneticists.”
“I heard geneticists are cloned in batches of ten,” Piper adds, and I smile at her, thankful for the change of subject. “And their education is so intense that they don’t graduate until year twenty-five.”
“I heard they’re six to a class,” Violet says. She always argues. “And they don’t finish school until they’re in year thirty. They’re the most elite identicals in the world.”
I’m pretty sure that Special Forces cadets are at least as elite as geneticists, but I let her statement stand because no one is focused on Trigger’s squad anymore. Except me.
I wonder where they go, outside the city. I wonder what they do. I wonder what the air smells like in the wild. The plants in our gardening lab smell so good they never fail to make me hungry, but I’ve never smelled them in their natural environment, where the scents are free to mingle with the other aromas of nature.
Before I realize it, we’ve arrived at the delivery bay behind the Workforce Academy, where carts of gardening supplies are waiting to be unloaded. I try to concentrate on counting and lifting and recording the inventory, but all I can think about is the wild. Unlike a landscape gardener, I’ve never sunk my fingers into the dirt. I’ve never pulled a plant from the earth. I’ve never seen trees growing in any formation other than the meticulously planned, geometrically precise layout of the city’s lawns and orchards.
How wild is the wild, exactly?
“Dahlia!” Iris 16 snaps softly, and I look down to realize that liquid fertilizer is dripping onto my shoe from the jug I’ve just lifted from the delivery cart. “How could you not notice the leak?” she demands. “These bottles are standing a quarter inch deep in liquid fertilizer!”
I glance into the crate and see that Iris is right. I haven’t been able to truly concentrate since I met Trigger 17. I want to know what his bureau is taught. I want to see the wild for myself. I want to experience the things Trigger gets to see, touch, and taste.
I want to talk to him again.
The thought that anyone other than Poppy might find out about my ambition and dissatisfaction scares me to death. But I still want dangerous things, even though I know how very dangerous they are.
“Dahlia.”
I look up, startled, when Poppy takes the leaking jug from me and sets it back in the crate. “Are you still not sleeping well?” she asks while Iris shakes her head in dismay.
Actually, I look forward to lights-out every night, in case I dream about Trigger 17. Only in my dreams can he and I meet, talk, and look at each other with impunity. But Poppy is trying to help me explain myself.
“I’m fine,” I assure them both. “I just got distracted.”
Poppy looks even more worried. A future instructor cannot be subject to distraction.
“You’re going to have to report that as damaged.” Iris nods at the crate where the leaking jug now sits. “And you’ll have to change your shoes.”
I follow her pointed gaze to see that a puddle of liquid fertilizer has formed around my left sneaker.
“Go on,” Poppy says. “I’ll take care of the report.” Before I can argue, she kneels next to the screen built into the side of the automatic delivery cart and pulls up the inventory chart for the current shipment. She taps on the fertilizer count and reports one damaged jug. Then she slides her wrist beneath the scanner built into the side of the cart and says, “Lakeview central warehouse.”
The screen confirms the destination and shows the route it will take; then the cart rolls forward, carrying its damaged goods out of the delivery bay and onto the narrow road that runs behind the row of academies, following the cruise strip.
“Dahlia,” Poppy says as she stands, staring at my messy shoe. “Go change.”
With a distracted nod, I turn and report the incident to Sorrel 32, who releases me to return to the dormitory and change my shoe. “You may select a classmate to accompany you,” she says.
“That’s okay. I’ll be fine on my own.” And anyone I took with me would notice just how distracted I have become.
Sorrel 32 gives me a strange look, and as I head across the common lawn I wonder if I’ve given the wrong answer. Should a future instructor still be reluctant to leave the company of her identicals? Is learning to work independently from her sisters the most difficult part of instructor training?
Is this supposed to be harder for me than it is?
Alone in my dorm room, I take off my shoes and drop them into the exchange chute, which is used for supplies we don’t need replaced every day, like shoes, jackets, and toothbrushes. Only one of my shoes is dirty, but much like me and my identicals, one shoe doesn’t travel alone.
Usually.
A second later, a red light flashes to the right of the chute. I pull open the drawer recessed into the wall to find a fresh pair of sneakers waiting for me.
The fertilizer has also dripped onto my top, so I pull it off and drop it into the laundry chute; then I open the dresser drawer labeled with my name and pull out one of my spare shirts. It feels oddly lumpy.
I sit on the bed to unfold my shirt, but I stop, startled, when I see what has been hidden between the layers of cotton.
It’s a carrot. But it isn’t any of the varieties we grow in the hydroponic lab. This carrot is paler, thinner, and knobbier than any I’ve ever produced. The stem and blooms have been removed, but the brown smudges in the gray cotton are unmistakable.
This is a wild carrot. Dirt still clings to it.
My pulse jumps, but my excitement is quickly eclipsed by a bolt of fear. I glance up at the camera in the corner of the room and fold the shirt back over the carrot, hoping my arm has blocked it from view. And that no one is currently monitoring the feed from my room.
In the bathroom—the only place where there are no cameras—I unfold my shirt over the sink. Tiny clods of dirt fall into the basin, and I stare at them, fascinated. This dirt is much paler and slightly redder than the soil the landscape gardeners use, because this soil isn’t fertilized and tilled, nor does it come delivered in bags from the central warehouse.
This dirt is earth. It is wild, free, and fragrant. It reminds me of the time I had to miss a soccer game because of a sprained ankle when I was Dahlia 10. I sat on the sidelines and picked through the grass beneath me, looking for earthworms. My fingernails were caked with the earth, and they smelled like grass, life, and all things green.
That’s what this carrot smells like.
Trigger 17.
Only a cadet would have access to vegetables grown in the wild. No one else would have any reason to give one to me. No one else would know how to avoid the cameras well enough to sneak onto my floor of the dormitory, then plant a carrot in my drawer.