DIVERGENT DAUGHTER

Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent Trilogy in any way. They are property of Veronica Roth

"Today, something has changed in the initiation process," boomed Eric to all of the initiates. I stopped laughing at Christina and Will's antics and stared at him. The glinting metal in his face combined with the steel gray of his eyes makes me flinch for some reason. Their sadistic gleam makes me think that this will not be something we will like.

"One of you lovely, lucky ladies," he drawls, his lips turning up in a cruel smirk "will be able to bypass the rest of the initiation process and become Dauntless two weeks earlier than planned. You will never have to worry about being cold and hungry. You'll never be factionless."

I flinch at the last word: to be factionless means always being hungry, cold, and homeless. Security of a faction is what every person wants, but why do only the women get this option. Peter vocalized this same question.

"Because, you stupid Candor, men do not have the ability to bear children." He said, his smirk intensifying. His leer extended to all of the women in the room, from the beautiful mocha Christina to the manly Molly. When his eyes fell on me, a slight shiver went up my spine. "To help explain the process that we are going to be experimenting with, I would like to introduce Ms. Jeanine Matthews of Erudite and Councilman Andrew Prior of Abnegation."

I froze when I heard my father's name and actually flinched when I saw him walk into the room. He looked exactly the same to me; handsome, weary face, plain gray clothes hiding his body completely including his slight paunch, his chestnut hair parted to one side with bolts of silver streaked through it. His warm brown eyes found mine for a moment, and widened in shock. I realized he'd never seen me in anything so revealing; a scoop neck top exposing the tattoo on my collarbone, tight skinny jeans, a studded belt, and my eyes were lined with charcoal colored pencil to make them "striking" as Christina called it. The only thing that looked remotely the same was my straw colored hair tied into a braid. I saw something akin to disappointment flash in his eyes before he turned his attention to Jeanine and Eric.

Jeanine had not changed at all since I had last seen her when I visited Caleb at the erudite compound. Same chunky figure, same blonde bob, and same monotone expression. She looked tense standing beside my father and after everything she'd said about him, I decided there was nothing I'd like more than to scratch her eyes out.

"Ladies, the process that we will be initiating today is going to be somewhat… revolutionary," said Jeanine, her blue eyes lighting up as she scanned us. We were her raw material for her next experiment. "We have decided that to try to stop the mass amount of transfers from one faction to another, we would try a process known as gene-perfecting"

I saw my father stiffen and I knew exactly why; I remembered the term from school. It was one of the more horrific things we remembered from our past. My hand shot straight up in the air. Jeanine's eyes narrowed slightly as if she were annoyed with my interruption, but smiled nonetheless.

"Yes… Beatrice is it?" she said as though she had no idea who I was and what I preferred to be called. I heard Molly and Peter snort at the sound of my real name. I ignored them.

"Yes, Beatrice Prior, although here I go by Tris," I informed her with a sweet, bland smile to match her own. "I seem to remember that in the charter of our government, gene-perfection was banned due to the problems we had with it in the past. As, I recall during World War II, Adolf Hitler's vision started out as gene perfection and led to a mass genocide of an entire religious and ethnic group. The same occurred with the genocide of Rwanda with the slaughter of the Tutsi people, and in the Congo…"

"Yes, yes, Ms. Prior, we are very aware of the problems gene perfection has caused in the past," she said shortly as though she were annoyed that I actually paid attention to these types of things in school. "This is why we've had to amend the original terms of agreement we've had for this experiment with Councilman Prior for the past three years." She gestured to him dismissively and he cleared his throat.

"The process that we have decided to initiate here is one of scientific importance. However, we have had to have permission from every one of your faction leaders to proceed with this process." His voice wavered slightly. My stomach dropped as I realized that this was a recent decision he had agreed to, probably in desperation after Caleb and I left to keep other families from knowing his pain. "Dauntless was the only faction in which all of the leaders agreed. Shannon, Max, and Eric seem to think that Dauntless needs to be kept within the faction."

My eyes flashed to Eric and his passive face as though he had been born Dauntless and not Erudite. His eyes locked with mine and he pressed a finger to my lips to tell me to keep quiet. I did not listen.

"Then why even include transfers in this process?" I asked haughtily "We weren't born here. We would taint the results." Jeanine smiled again but this one had more humor to it, as though she was explaining something to an impatient child.

"My dear Beatrice, we are not saying that all Dauntless-born have the perfect genetic structure for the faction," she said. "After all, the Dauntless have transfers as well. We will be taking your test results, combining them with the qualities that are prized in the Dauntless manifesto, and comparing your genetic structures with those of other Dauntless members who share the same qualities and combining the genes to create what should be the perfect Dauntless soldier."

"And how do we get this perfect Dauntless soldier into the world?" I ventured daringly. "With an artificial womb of some sort?"

"Oh no, dear, that is why the female whose genes are selected with automatically become part of the faction." She said sweetly, "You see, once the gene-perfected embryo is created, it will be reintroduced to the biological mother's uterus to be carried to term and birthed. During this time, the biological mother and father will cohabitate into the same environment, and raise the child together; this way both nature and nurture are introduced to the experiment and have the best chance at success."

"So we are going to be forced to become pregnant by someone we don't know and forced to live with them and raise a child together even if we don't like them?" I clarified. For once, Jeanine did not reply. She just looked to Eric how finally spoke after everything was done.

"Yes, Tris, that's the general idea of it. However," he said raising his hand against my instant huff of indignation "Councilman Prior has made it very clear that we are to inform you that you ladies are to make this choice of your own volition without any sort of retaliation if you refuse. If you choose not to participate in this trial, you will continue with the initiation process as planned with no repercussions for your refusal."

The glint in his eyes told another story. I knew then, if any of us refused, we would be factionless for sure.

"Now dears, who of you would like to get started?" asked Jeanine, motioning to the lab table that had been set up while their presentation had been going on. Two Erudites in white lab coats stood silently beside it.

Molly lunged for the table first and most of the rest of the girls followed suit. Only Christina hung back with me, touching my arm gently.

"Tris?" she asked "Are you sure you can do this?"

"No." I said shortly, "but I don't think I have a choice."

"I don't think we do either."

"Then I'm going to need your help," I said putting her hand firmly on my arm. "Do you remember that first day on the train and you asked me to drag you off?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, I need you to drag me through this"

She nodded and seized my upper arm and directed me to the table and quite literally threw me into the examination chair. Just my luck, Jeanine was smiling at me, clipboard in hand.

"Hello again, Beatrice." She said, as she looked at her clipboard "Just a few basic questions before we begin. What is your full name?"

"Beatrice Natalie Prior"

"Blood type?"

"O positive"

"Birth Faction?"

"Abnegation"

"Parents names?"

"Andrew and Natalie Prior"

"Parents occupations?"

"Councilman and Volunteer coordinator"

"Siblings full names?"

"Caleb Andrew Prior"

"Faction?"

"Erudite"

"Alright then, Beatrice, next I'm going to take a sample of your blood and take a quick cheek swab and you'll be done." She smiled as the needle went into my arm and blood began flowing into her tubes marked 'Prior, B.' in neat handwriting and I opened my mouth to allow her to stick a cotton swab against my cheek and gently scrape. She then placed a sterile white gauze pad against the needle in my arm and pulled it out while keeping pressure on the wound and wrapping it in white medical tape. "Now, Beatrice, if you'll please go see Councilman Prior for your release papers to prove your consent."

I felt as though there were lead in my veins as I walked toward my father. He pointedly refused to look at me until I was right in front of him.

"Hello, Beatrice," he said in his lovely timbre. "I… It is good to see you. I am glad you are well."

"Yes, Dad, I am doing very well," I said stiffly. I will not cry, not in front of him. I will not be weak.

"Good. If you will please sign this form, Beatrice," he said, his own voice strained as though he too were fighting the urge to cry. I quickly signed the piece of paper without even reading it and hurried out of line, only for a strong arm to grip my arm so tightly that it hurt. I spun around, fully expecting my glare to pin either Eric or Four. Instead, a tall woman in her fifties had ahold of me. She looked familiar somehow with dark green eyes fringed with dark lashes and her hair was a golden brown like wrought gold that had aged in the elements. She was beautiful, beautiful like-

"Mom?" the word escaped my mouth before I could stop it. Of course, this woman wasn't my mother. Her hair was a different color and she was much older. Nevertheless, the look in her eyes was the same as mine.

"Oh my god, BEATRICE?" she gasped and I stared back blankly at her just nodding dumbly.

"But… but, that's impossible. You've been dead for almost eighteen years," she gasped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max, Eric, and Four approach us. Max put his hand on her shoulder, breaking her out of her near hysterical reverie.

"Shannon," he said gently, "She's not your Beatrice."

"Max, who else could she be?" the woman now identified as Shannon said, "She looks just like her when she was…"

"Sixteen. She looks like Beatrice did when she was sixteen," he said firmly, "As I recall, Beatrice filled out much more by the time she turned eighteen, the age she died, remember?"

"But… she looks just like she did, and her name is the same…" said Shannon truly bewildered. A throat cleared behind us, and we turned away to see my father standing there.

"I can attest to the fact that she is not your daughter, Shannon," he said. At once, Shannon's face turned up in a feral snarl.

"And how would you, a Stiff, know anything about my dead daughter?" she growled at him.

"Because, this Beatrice is my daughter, given birth to by your live daughter," he said quietly trying to calm the feral lioness in front of him "You do remember Natalie, I presume. The daughter who left Dauntless for Abnegation?"

Shannon looked as though she had been hit with a bolt of lightning as she reeled back into Max's arms as though my father had physically hit her. Then, understanding flooded my muddled brain.

The woman I was looking at was my mother's mother; my grandmother. The woman she was confusing me for was my mother's sister; my aunt. My mother wasn't from Abnegation. She was from Dauntless.