Conflicted

by M. J. Kaestli

  She slept soundly until the alarm woke her up the next morning. She got up and found her work uniforms—a linen colored jumpsuit with a pattern stitched on the back. When she was being educated, the pattern was a cherry blossom, and while working at the State house, her uniform was void of any distinguishing marks or designs.

  All adult greenhouse workers had ivy stitched onto their backs, which signified longevity, faithfulness and eternity—as once they enter this civil duty they would never leave it. It was almost funny to her, wearing the ultimate symbol of stability and strength, which couldn’t be further than how she felt about the life which caused her to don this warrior of growing things. Ivy could grow in most environments, even where other vegetation couldn’t. Would she be strong enough to grow in this challenging environment? Or did her strength compare to lesser greenery? Deep in her heart, she already knew she could never compare.

  Lewis had risen before her; she could hear the shower running. He finished his washing and returned to the bedroom wearing nothing but a towel. His near nudity snapped her out of her thoughts of self-doubt and put her mind back on the task at hand.

  “Morning.” He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “I would ask how you slept but you were a log last night.”

  “Do you ever sleep?” she asked in response.

  “Bathroom’s yours, and no, not much.”

  She showered quickly, anxious about starting at the new greenhouse. She dressed in the bathroom and Lewis was ready with two breakfast bars in hand when she came out. As they turned to leave, Lewis leaned in to kiss her good-bye. Freya jumped when his lips landed on hers, and so he maneuvered to kiss her right beside her lips, and lingered for a moment. They said their good-byes and she headed up the elevator to start her new civil duty.

  Freya had arrived early, which would probably be normal for her considering she lived with a military personnel. The door was locked when she tried to scan in. A few minutes later, a woman appeared.

  “You must be Freya—I’m Cady.” She held out her hand, which was weathered and lined. These were the hands of one who had spent many years labouring in the soil. Cady appeared to be in her early fifties, with lines contouring her kind face. Her once dark hair was now a blend of dark on white, creating an overall silver glow.

  “Yes, I am. It’s nice to meet you, Cady.”

  Cady turned and scanned the door, which seemed to open for her just fine, and then led Freya into the greenhouse. It was much like the one she had previously worked in while she was being educated, except it was almost four times in size. The air quality was something she would have to readjust to, it was much more humid than the gardens at the State house. With so many rows of vegetation lining walls in geometric patterns, copious amounts of greenery crammed into the space, it felt small and claustrophobic.

  Cady seemed to be some sort of supervisor. She was definitely in charge of this greenhouse. It was almost like having an instructor, but she really wasn’t being taught anything. Freya had always taken for granted she got so much freedom at the State house. Cady showed her where all of the working tools were, shared the schedules of the maintenance of the plants, how they were rotated and harvested. This kind of work was going to be almost too easy for her. She could tell already she was going to be bored working in this kind of environment.

  Other workers started to filter in and get their tools set up and start working. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw Ursa. It wasn’t as if she didn’t expect to see her there; it was still her lack of confidence in herself to successfully carry out their mission that made her heart start to pound. The sun had barely risen and she was practically in a sweat. Freya put on gloves and an apron and let Cady guide her over to the place she was to start, which, to her horror, was near enough to Ursa to be within earshot.

  “I hear you used to work at the State house. I was a little concerned that this kind of work would be beneath someone like you,” Cady said.

  Freya cringed. It was hard enough for her to make friends. People knowing she worked at the State house and was top of her class in school would not help. She knew that if she couldn’t talk to other people, it would not seem natural for her to want to talk to Ursa.

  “Oh, well, plants are plants. It’s all the same thing, really—just the view that is different.” She tried to sound nonchalant. She looked around, and everyone within earshot of their conversation was staring at her. Great! Her face flushed and her stomach turned in knots. How did I get talked into this again?

  “Well, let me know if you need anything.” Cady walked away.

  Freya used a tablet to track her progress, just like she had at the State house. The operating system was a little different. The data that had to be collected was completely unique to this greenhouse. She didn’t have to take soil samples or test anything to do with the ecosystem, which would most likely be Cady’s job. She just had to record when she watered, rotated, and what the general health and produce of the plants were. It was so simple. It’s a good thing I’m a spy or else I might go crazy with how mundane this is.

  Whether it was Cady’s intention or not, she had isolated Freya, made her completely unapproachable. This normally would have been Freya’s preference, but not now. Every time she caught someone’s eye throughout the day, she smiled and nodded to them. They kept whispering to each other, but no one interacted with her. She figured it would take them time to warm up to her after hearing where she used to work, at least she hoped—she had never been amazing at making friends.

  The day dragged on forever. When lunch time had come, Cady was the only person she felt she could sit with. Every now and then, she would chance a look at Ursa, who would look away quickly as soon as Freya caught her eye. Perhaps Lewis had been wrong. What if Colin had told Ursa that she was a poster child, and she knew not to trust her? With a big, muscular guy like Lewis, how could it not be obvious? This is going to look like a plant job, because it is, she thought. Why did they send me?

  Her face flushed slightly in frustration. This was stupid. Even if Colin hadn’t told his mom about her, surely, she missed her son. Maybe looking at Freya was like looking in a mirror of her own grief at his loss. Ursa didn’t seem to want to speak to her—Freya had smiled and nodded at her three times already, and Ursa continuously looked away. As Freya was not great at making friends with anybody, she thought she should be overly nice to everyone. If she was only open to Ursa, it would look suspicious. Obviously, the plan had failed; perhaps it had failed before it began. Her raw emotions perhaps weren’t the ticket in—just being who she was an instant sabotage to the entire mission.

  As she worked through the afternoon, she started to think about how long it would be before she could go back to the State house. How long would it take them to realize it was a lost cause, and then how long to extract me? Would they try to convince me to go on another mission? Or was one enough for them to see what I have been trying to tell them—I am not cut out for this. Freya let out a sigh of relief when her shift was over. She hoped the extraction would come soon.

  ***

  She and Lewis fell into their routine quite quickly. They got up, went to their civil duties, exercised, and spent the evening in the bedroom talking strategy and tactics. Well, Lewis talked strategy and tactics; Freya kept laying on the bed, telling him it wasn’t going to work.

  “You don’t get it. Colin had this dumb nickname for me. He called me a poster child. If he ever spoke to his mother about me, I am sure he would have said how compliant I was. I show up in her building, with a big military-looking guy who I claim is my partner, and she is supposed to buy all of this?”

  Lewis seemed to be a little irritated by her bad attitude. “Freya, the mission is on track. It is still technically ahead of schedule. You have identified yourself to the target—that alone can take some time. She isn’t going to come running to you and say “hey, Freya, I think you were coupled with my son. We are a part of the rebellion, want to join?” It doesn’t happen li
ke that.”

  She nodded in response, but in her gut, she knew this couldn’t be done.

  “You picked the wrong girl. She will never see me as anything but what I am: a spy,” she said in frustration. “I think we should get extracted.”

  “Not happening,” he said. “You have a mission, and so do I. You are my cover, remember? If there is no threat to us, we stay. I still feel that we are making good progress, and I think you are wrong. It will take her time to speak to you. You have to remember that she just lost her son. When she talks to you, she has to find a way to do so privately, and as you know, that is challenging.”

  “How is she supposed to talk to me at all? There are cameras everywhere. I still don’t get how you think this will all go down.”

  “The rebellion is very resourceful, Freya. The cameras can’t catch everything, and the rebellion always manage to find the blind spots. You saw them finding a weak link with your own eyes. Even when something is caught on camera, or could be if someone watched the footage closely enough, Security doesn’t always do their job, and can we really trust them to always report in what they see?”

  Freya thought about what he said for a moment. It reminded her of the story Colin had told her. His friends did cover for each other if they crept into a female’s apartment. What else could be getting covered up?

  “Okay, so you think she needs more time. I still think I am really just here as your cover.” She paused. “I guess I will stop thinking about when I get to go back to the State house then. Who knows how long you will be.”

  Lewis rolled his eyes. “You are not just a cover. You are a valuable part of this mission. I can’t even tell you how valuable. I know you can’t see it right now, but you are doing extremely well. It is just going to take you time to gain some confidence. You will see—this will work. I think for now we just need to agree to disagree,” he said, and then he changed into his sleeping wear.

  Freya wondered at that moment why males were so comfortable with their own nudity. Lewis did sleep in partial sleeping attire—he wore the pants part at least. They had only been here for a few days and already he was stripping down in front of her with no warning. When Colin had done this, she knew he was trying to seduce her, but Lewis was so mission focused she didn’t think that was his intent.

  He had said that it would be all right if things went in that direction between them, but he had never tried anything. Actually, it wasn’t totally professional—he had held her when she cried now twice—but if they weren’t on camera, he didn’t try to touch her. So his undressing must not be him trying to show off his body to her like it had been with Colin. Perhaps he found it unpractical to try to dress any other way. Then again, they could be here for a long time. Maybe even with a working relationship, she might start changing in front of him too. They were supposed to be passing as a couple; it wouldn’t look right if she was always having him leave the room when she changed her clothing.

  “Freya, I understand that you were very reclusive when you lived independently,” Lewis said. She didn’t know where he was going with this but already didn’t like the sound of it. “I think once we have been here for a couple of weeks, we should start to go to the common room. We need to take some time to appear we are in the honeymoon stage of our new coupling, but we should slowly submerge. We need to be seen as a normal couple, but you could also use some work on your social skills.”

  “Well, I never pretended to have any. If you aren’t happy with my current social skills, it’s your own fault for bringing me here,” she snapped back at him. She thought for a split second she might have angered him, but instead he laughed.

  “Oh, so when they said “hate” in regards to the common room in your file, it wasn’t an overstatement,” he replied.

  Her face flushed. It was definitely true: hate was not too strong of a word to describe how she felt about the common rooms.

  “Did they also put boring, dumb, and waste of time in my file?”

  “No. They felt hate was a sufficient enough description.” He laughed as he turned out the lights.

  “Hey,” Freya had a new grievance strike her. “How come you get a file so you know everything about me, but I don’t get one for you?”

  Lewis looked her right in the eye as he answered, “Because everything about me, about my life and who I am, is either a lie or it’s classified.”

  Freya accepted defeat, but still shot a nasty scowl at Lewis to express the injustice of it all.

  All Freya could think about was if they had said going to the common room was a part of this mission, it might have tipped the scales into her refusing to go. How long was this going to take again? Lewis fell asleep right away, and she pulled out her tablet to try to find a puzzle to take her mind off things. Being here, working in a greenhouse, it really made her aware of how much she had changed in such a short time.

  She had always thought working in a greenhouse and doing puzzles by herself at night would be the perfect life for her—yet puzzles no longer held any interest for her. The greenhouse was getting rather dull also. She had fallen in love, which she didn’t ever think would be possible, and part of her missed being coupled. No matter how angry she was at Colin, no matter how unjust it had been for the State to put them together in the first place, she missed him. A part of her enjoyed having Lewis around. Even though their relationship was not romantic or physical, the companionship was nice. She liked talking to him before she went to sleep, even if it was about things she didn’t want to take part in.

  Perhaps being at the State house and feeling a sense of family was partially responsible for the change in her. She was never that close with her parents. Since she was coupled with Colin, she barely spoke to them. Once she was living in the State house, there were no calls to them. She didn’t even know whether it was allowed. Or perhaps she could have talked to them, but never thought to. Chastity, Amaia—and even though she was still angry with him, Victor—she almost forgot about her own family with them around. Did they know about Lewis? Did they think I was coupled with Lewis, like everyone at the State house?

  It was hard to tell, yet she knew she couldn’t call home now. She felt her mother would see right through her lies if she told them she chose to get coupled again. Then again, maybe not. Her mother didn’t believe her when she said she wanted to be in independent living. Sometimes when she talked to her mom, it was almost as though she thought Freya was someone else. It was as if she didn’t really know her, or didn’t understand her at least. Freya thought more and realized that she had never really heard many people discuss their parents. Perhaps when you leave your parents’ home at twelve years old, there is just so much about you they miss. A sickening feeling came over her. Was the entire purpose of having you leave your parents’ home so young was so that you couldn’t form close bonds with them?

  Colin was the only person who had ever talked to her about his family. He had told her they were part of the rebellion, that he had chosen his life with her over his family. Obviously, that wasn’t true, or at least the whole truth—she was investigating his parents. If there was any doubt about which side Colin was on, they would never have let him on that colony ship. Perhaps getting away from his parents at a young age helped him to see the sense of it all. Did he really stay a part of the rebellion after we were coupled? No, that was the trick: the truth in the lie. His family was part of the rebellion—he knew it but did not share their views. He was having an affair with Ida, but after running into her, it was a good cover story that they met at these rebellion meetings.

  Freya’s stomach began to knot up. Should I have told them that I knew his parents were part of the rebellion? Or would that just get me in trouble for not coming forward sooner? Did I really need to? Obviously, we were sent here for a reason… She knew then that she must be successful in this mission. If it were ever found out that she knew of their treason and never came forward with what Colin had told her, and her mission just so happened to fa
il, she would look guilty. She would look so guilty; they might think she sabotaged the mission to protect them, or that she was a part of the rebellion too. She put down the tablet and stared at the ceiling. This had to work, for her own survival. As of tomorrow, no more smart cracks to Lewis and no more complaining. She had to focus; this was all or nothing.

  ***

  She hardly slept that night; the pressure of everything had really gotten to her. Strategies, scenarios, things Colin had told her, all ran through her mind. If she could only make sense of it, she could believe she was capable of this. Finally, she drifted off and caught a little bit of shut-eye. It wasn’t sufficient, but better than nothing. The stress and lack of proper rest didn’t do anything to help her that day. She was short-tempered and even more antisocial than normal. There was not one person in the greenhouse who she made eye contact with or smiled at. She just walked around with a dark cloud around her. It didn’t seem to make a difference; no one had warmed up to her.