Page 2 of Trade
Amy’s eyes light up. I bet she’s relieved I’m not asking her to explain how a tomato is supposed to hang. “Bone meal. Not much. A few sprinkles for a few days and see if that makes a difference.”
“Bone meal? Done.” I like easy solutions that don’t involve water.
She smiles. “Awesome. Thanks. Great.” I wait for her follow-up question. Amy always needs a little wait time before you end an interaction. “Should I go get it now? The ladder is free.”
Good thing I waited. “No, no, let’s wait until tomorrow. I want to take a look at them first.”
Her smile falls.
“Just so I can track how they’re doing when you’re off duty,” I quickly reassure her. “I’ll get the bone meal. I need to get a few other things from second-tier storage anyway.”
She bobs her head. “Great, great. Thanks, Gloria.”
I wait, and when she shoves her hands in her pockets and drifts away to check out the lemon tree, I give her a friendly nod and continue on my way.
Everyone knows that I don’t want people up in second-tier storage, but Amy doesn’t really pick up on unspoken rules.
The techs assume I don’t want anyone near the fertilizer, and that’s true enough, but what I really don’t want is anyone sniffing around the flower boxes I have up there on a ledge hidden behind an enormous flex duct.
Dad entrusted the care of the Queen Anne’s lace, stoneseed root, smartweed, and thistles to me when I first came to work for AP. I’m fairly confident that no one in the bunker knows what the plants are called or what they’re for, but it’s not a theory I want to test.
Good thing weeds don’t require much encouragement to grow. I’ve managed to water them out of my own personal allotment so far, but if rations are cut again, I’m going to need to make some hard decisions.
The rock in my stomach gets heavier. I take a deep breath.
I’m getting ahead of myself. The water issue could just be a result of bureaucratic bullshit. Plenty of things are.
I’ll feel better once I hash it out with Neil. Bennett isn’t going to like me going over his head, but what am I supposed to do? He won’t listen. This bunker has preserved twenty-seven species of trees for three generations. We can’t let them die out on our watch.
Before I head into the maze of narrow corridors and low-ceilinged cells sandwiched between our two largest spaces—the atrium at surface level and the Assembly Hall eleven floors below—I duck into the restroom to make sure I look decent. Cecily is in there, fixing her face, and she scoots over to make room for me at the mirror. She’s the Irrigation and Fertilization supervisor. We don’t see each other much socially since we work conflicting schedules, but I consider her a friend.
“Hot date?” she asks as she applies a balm to her lips with her pinky. The bright pink is a beautiful contrast to her dark skin.
“Skip-level meeting with Neil.” I drag my fingers through my short, ash-blonde hair, coaxing it into framing my face, but as always, it does what it wants.
“Madder?” I ask, nodding at the little aluminum foil square of lip color sitting on the metal shelf.
“Beet juice.” She winks at me in the mirror.
“Nice.” You can trade Food Services for beet juice, no problem, while Bennett would notice a missing madder plant. Well, he would have noticed before he got so “swamped” with work.
The one thing Bennett and I never agreed on, not even when we were kids, was contraband. We both follow the rules and abide by the Articles, but Bennett believes it’s his responsibility to report infractions. In my opinion, life is hard enough, and I work in Agricultural Preservation, not Safety and Compliance.
Maybe that’s why Dad picked Bennett over me. Would that sting less than what I’ve always figured—that to Dad, head of department was a man’s job, and Bennett was a man, and there’s the end of it?
I shake the thoughts away. I can’t ask Dad now, and what does it matter anyway? It’s not like Bennett didn’t deserve the job. He’s brilliant with plantsandpeople, and he isn’t afraid of change. Like with the produce. Dad talked about it for years, but in his first year as head, Bennett managed to switch the tomatoes, zucchini, and green beans from hydroponics to soil in order to conserve water.
And it still hasn’t been enough. The rock grows heavier again.
“I thought skip levels were next month.” Cecily pops her lips and checks her teeth. “Does this color look natural?”
“Very natural.” In that beet juice is natural. No human lips are that shade, but no one is going to bust Cecily for such a small infraction, not even Bennett. She’s a lottery winner. Winners get out of jail free. “There must’ve been a scheduling conflict. Barb called me this morning to move my meeting up.”
Cecily cocks her head and catches my gaze in the mirror. “Oh, yeah?”
There’s something strange in her expression. Sympathy? Or pity? Does Cecily know about the trees? What am I thinking—she works in Irrigation and Fertilization. Of course, she does.
“It’ll be okay,” I reassure her. “I’m going to deal with it.”
