2- Aptitude

We're picking apples in the orchard after a food-less lunch, and I'm grateful for the others around us. A mid-afternoon breeze blows my hair off my back. Ashton is on the ground sorting the apples into baskets while I climb to the higher branches. I grit my teeth, knowing that he's looking up my skirt. The basket at the base of the trunk fills quickly as I yank apples off the tree as fast as possible. I don't want to be up here any longer than necessary, but do pause to quickly eat an apple once I'm high in the tangle of branches. It isn't much, but any sustenance will do.

My bare feet touch the ground lightly as I jump out of the tree, which appears to be clear of apples. Ashton reaches over and pulls a leaf out of my hair, making me flinch, before resting his hands on my shoulders. His eyes seem to light up at my discomfort.

"Harmony Chase?" a voice calls my name. Ashton and I both turn to look. A tall man dressed in a pair of jeans and a maroon shirt steps towards us. "It's time for your test." Ashton digs his fingers into my arm.

"Good luck, baby sister," he releases me, smiling sweetly, but I can feel the malice behind his voice. I follow the man from the orchard towards the compound, and the aptitude test.

I settle into the cold metal chair, watching the man, who provided David as his name, type something into a computer and then prepare a syringe. The liquid in the tube looks like the peace serum they give us, but instead of olive green, it is pale blue. I take a deep breath as David wipes my neck with a cold alcohol wipe.

"This might sting a little. Do you want me to count to three?" David holds the syringe next to my neck. I shake my head. He slips the needle into my neck, but the pain is almost nothing. "The serum should take effect in about a minute. Good luck." He returns to stand behind the computer, clicking a few buttons. I stare straight ahead at the wall, counting down the seconds. 3, 2, 1…darkness.

I stand in the middle of a peach grove. In front of me is a long table, covered with a table cloth and ready to be set for dinner. A man steps out from behind a tree, and heads towards the table, picking up a bundle of forks and placing one at each place.

"You can sit. Dinner is almost ready," he says.

"Let me help you," I step towards the table, picking up the pile of plates, and distributing them. The man with the forks smiles at me, then disappears, along with everything on the table except for a long, sharp knife and a hunk of raw meat. I shrink away from both options. I've never eaten meat before, and the knife looked like a weapon, not an eating utensil.

"Choose," a voice that isn't quite male or female calls. My eyes look around for the source of the voice.

"Why?" I turn in a circle, still searching for the voice. "What do I have to do?"

"Too late," the voice taunts, and the table disappears, along with the knife and the meat. A man appears in front of me, holding a knife much like the one that was on the table. He points it at me, before lifting up a picture of a familiar looking boy.

"Do you know him?" he shakes the flyer in my face, touching the cold point of the knife to my forehead.

"He looks familiar," my eyebrows knit together. The knife at my head is vaguely concerning, but even if he stabs me, it's just a simulation. I won't die, or even be hurt, in real life.

"He killed my family…" the man's mad look softens into sadness for a second, "I guess I'll have to kill you as retribution."

"Violence isn't the answer," my Amity responds. I take his hand to pull it away from my forehead, but it won't budge.

"It's the only way." I sigh. I can't convince the sim- it has no reason.

"Fine," I look into the man's eyes, challenging him. "Do it."

I return to the chair in the aptitude test room with a start. David is typing furiously at the monitor; his face is as red as his shirt. I look at him expectantly.

"You're lucky you got me to administrate, not someone else," he finally turns to me. I cock my head at him, confused. "You are, like, completely divergent. The test is supposed to knock out one faction at a time- you helped set the table, indicating Abnegation. You wanted to know why you had to choose, indicating Erudite. You didn't lie about the boy on the poster, indicating Candor. And you told the man violence wasn't the answer, showing Amity. Then you just let him kill you, showing Dauntless in that you weren't afraid of him. You didn't eliminate any of the factions." David rubs his head across his forehead. "I've never seen this before." I'm speechless. Being divergent is…dangerous, to say the least. If anyone finds out, especially given how strong my divergence is, I'll either be dead or in the Erudite labs almost instantaneously.

"What do I do?" I stare at David, a hard determination in my eyes.

"I run an algorithm simultaneously with the aptitude test, so if there is divergence, it will just take the last faction that you fit in as your aptitude. I tried to program it to choose the faction that the tested showed the most aptitude for, but it was too complicated, so the aptitude test was able to pick up that something was messing with it. The order of the events in the test varies in everyone's test, so what faction they get isn't always the same. The last faction you were tested on was Dauntless, which you qualified for. It'll be strange for an Amity to go to Dauntless, but since that is what your test result shows up as, it would be even worse for you not to go."

"So I have to go to Dauntless?"

"Basically. You could stay in Amity if you wanted, many people stay in their home factions despite their test results," he powers the computer down, "but it would still be kind of suspicious since Dauntless and Amity are practically opposites."

"Thank you," I stand up from the chair.

"Of course. You know not to tell anyone, even your brother. The safest route for you is to choose Dauntless, but if you feel like you really belong somewhere else, just make sure you have a good reason before you choose." I nod.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Harmony."