No one tries to stop him. Are cadets allowed to use the stairs rather than the elevators? Is that part of their physical conditioning?
My leg begins to bounce beneath the table as I watch him walk away. I can’t even taste my food anymore. I want to follow him. My body is in the cafeteria, but the rest of me is already in the stairwell, asking him about the carrot, and the wild, and whatever mission or war game took him out of the city. Asking him if he’s seen the great, winding channel of water that Riverbend was named for in the mountains that sandwich Valleybrook.
I want to hear his voice, but even more I want to watch his lips as they form the words, and I have no idea why. That seems like an odd thing to crave, yet I do.
Knowing that he’s just a hallway away, waiting for me, is more than I can stand. I don’t even realize I intend to leave the cafeteria until I’m already on my feet, my empty tray in hand.
“Dahlia?” Poppy stares up at me. “Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.” I step back from the stainless steel stool bolted to the floor. “My stomach feels…bad.”
“Maybe that’s because you inhaled your food,” Violet says, and I nod because that sounds more plausible than anything I’ve come up with.
On my way out of the cafeteria, I drop my empty tray into the recycling chute, then tell the supervisor on duty that I’m going to the restroom. She lets me pass, and I can’t believe how easy it is. The possibility that I might be sneaking out to break a rule doesn’t seem to occur to her, because we are not wired to break the rules. Because, to my knowledge, no one before me has ever tried anything this bold.
Is this what Trigger has figured out? That unless we wave our misbehavior in their faces like a flag, our supervisors and instructors will only see what they expect to see?
My heart pounds as I walk down the hall, and my steps match its rhythm until I’m just feet from my dorm room and only a few more feet from the stairwell. I look over my shoulder at the last minute to make sure I’m not being watched.
No one is looking at me. But I can’t help looking at them. Several hundred people are still seated in the cafeteria, and hundreds of them are wearing my face. Spread out over several dozen other floors are thousands more who look just like us. Right now, they are talking and eating, blissfully ignorant of the fact that I’m about to put all of their lives in danger so I can ask a boy I’m not supposed to have met about things I’m not supposed to know.
Suddenly I feel very selfish. I don’t have the right to take what I want at the expense of their lives. Just because my genome has flaws—these strange thoughts and urges are evidence of that—doesn’t mean that I have to act on them. Right?
Now what I see in the cafeteria is not hundreds of my identicals finishing up their lean chicken breasts, lightly buttered corn, and black beans but a room full of prone corpses staring up at the ceiling with empty eyes. Hundreds of dead bodies that all look just like I do.
My pulse races so fast the hallway begins to blur in front of me.
I glance at the door to the stairwell. I know Trigger is standing right behind it. My hand itches to grab the doorknob. But I slide my wrist beneath the scanner next to my dorm room door instead.
For the next ten minutes, I hold a folded shirt and feel the carrot hidden inside it while I fight the tears pooling in my eyes.
I don’t even know why I’m crying.
The next two weeks are hell.
I can’t stop myself from looking for Trigger every time I see a squad of marching cadets, even when they’re not from year seventeen, but now I’m not sure I actually want to find him. I’m worried about how he’ll look at me.
Does he understand why I didn’t meet him in the stairwell? Will he even want to talk to me anymore?
The answers don’t matter. We can’t meet again, and the very fact that I want to is evidence that something is wrong with me. I spend every moment of every day waiting for Management to call me in for a blood test so they can uncover whatever genetic flaw makes me prone to arrogance and personal pride. To curiosity about things a gardener doesn’t need to know.
My identicals seem to have no trouble keeping their thoughts on schoolwork, gardening, and winning the next field day tournament. Maybe that’s because they don’t know there is anything else to think about. If I were to tell them, would we all be so prideful and distracted? Is ignorance of our flaw the only thing keeping us all from being recalled?
If so, keeping my secret means protecting all 4,999 of my sisters.
But Poppy knows, and the only thing distracting her from her duties is concern for me.
When I’m the last one off the court after a game of indoor volleyball on a rainy afternoon, Poppy hangs back to walk with me. “Are you okay, Dahlia?” She’s asked that same question a dozen times in the past few days alone.
“Yes, of course.”
Her skeptical expression says she knows better, though. “Is this about the instructor position? Have you heard back yet?” My fixation on Trigger 17 makes no sense to her, so I’ve stopped talking to her about it. But she shares my anxiety over the thought we might be separated after graduation. “Did they select someone else?”
“I haven’t heard—”
Footsteps echo toward us from the front of the building, and the precise, even cadence captures my attention. I look up and stumble over my own feet. Trigger 17 marches past my entire class without even glancing at me.
My insides are a tangle of disappointment and relief, yet I can’t help turning to see where he’s headed.
He gives our recreation instructor, Belay 35, a formal nod of greeting. “Your work honors us all.”
“Thank you for your service.” Belay 35 reciprocates the nod, and I drag my feet so I can hear. “What can I do for you, cadet?”
“Management would like to see one of your students. Dahlia 16.”
My legs stop working. My feet are frozen to the floor. I’ve had this dream a dozen times, but suddenly it feels like a nightmare. The last thing I want is more attention from Management.
“I didn’t get a ping,” Belay 35 says, and I hear his athletic jacket rustle as he pulls his tablet from an inner pocket.
“They’re having technical difficulties at the Management Bureau. That’s why I was dispatched to deliver the message.”
“What a quaint and inefficient method of communication.” Belay 35 clears his throat, then raises his voice. “Dahlia 16?”
I am equal parts relieved and terrified as I turn. “Yes, sir?”
“Please report to Management immediately. I’ll let Sorrel 32 know you will be delayed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Poppy stares at me, wide-eyed, when I fall in behind Trigger 17. She’s probably wondering the same thing I am: is this about the instructor’s position? Have they noticed how distracted I’ve become?