I meet Lauren for lunch, and we wait for Eric to join us. I'd rather be alone with Lauren, but since he is the leader in charge of initiations, there is not much I can do to eject him from the planning stages. We need to go over the schedule one more time, and make sure she and I are both on the same line for the first part of the training.
Since she's taking care of the Dauntless born, and I of the transfers, her kids will for the most part be in a better physical condition than mine. It also means they will probably know how to fight better, and some of them will already know how to use weapons. Since we want both groups to be evaluated on the same grounds we can't afford to have too many differences in the instruction they are given. Lauren and I have had a bit of divergence on that matter.
"Oh, come on!" She says laughing. "How am I supposed to teach to a bunch of kids if they are bored to death? I can't just stand them and tell them to do stuff they have been doing since they were kids. How will we look?"
Of course Eric was agreeing with her, though not for the same reasons.
"Four," he said, looking at me with a threat in his eyes, "we are Dauntless. If anyone from any faction could join us, what would that make of us? There will be no prior physical training. They will handle the initiation, and grow muscles if they are made for Dauntless. If not, well too bad for them, they should have chosen Amity."
There was no way out of that argument with Eric so firmly against me. Lauren was looking apologetic, she knew we could have settled the matter differently if Eric hadn't been there. The only gain I was able to make during that meeting, with the content of the technical training. That part at least was to be a basic training, and Lauren agreed that if that was the case she would not be showing her initiations more than I would.
"I guess they can handle a little boredom," she sighed. "After all I don't want your initiates to have an easy time and get better marks than mine because your training was easier on them!"
Lauren loves scaring the hell out of new recruits. Hell, I do too. But she is also taking this as a competition. And since her part of the deal includes the children with the biggest odds of performing well, she is as decided as ever to beat me in the ranking. We both know this isn't totally true, Eric and I are the perfect example of it. Two transfers being ranked first and second. But I am not about to remind it to her. It won't be in the interest of my initiates if she gets even more desperate.
Eric gets to the Dining Hall a few minutes late. He looks preoccupied, but happy.
"Jeanine Matthews from Erudite has surprised us with an impromptu visit, I have to get upstairs for a leader meeting. Enjoy yourselves without me." He then looks at me and adds, "I can't wait to hear what the outcome of your little chat will be."
Translation: I will know it if you try to change my directives, and you will regret it. He knows that I understand, and I know that I wouldn't have needed that little reminder to know it.
"Okay," Lauren says. "See you later Eric!"
While he leaves, I breathe deeply. Lauren is watching me with a grin. " He sure loves you doesn't he? One would think after two years things would change, right. "
I stare at her, not committing to any kind of reaction.
"Anyway, how was your morning? Better than last year?"
"Yeah, I got lucky. They sent me Sandra from resources. Or rather she sent herself." I press my hand to the base of my neck to release some of the tension. "She's rather good with computer so I managed to train her pretty efficiently during the morning. I'll probably need to visit her tomorrow to make sure everything is fine, but I am not worried."
"That's good to hear! We're lucky none of the initiates tried to kill each other last year."
"You don't say. So, about the training sessions, I wanted to talk to you about the combat stageā¦"
Conversation with Lauren is easy, even when we don't agree, and I am glad Eric is not there. I say everything I would have liked since we have the guidelines and I have Eric on my back, but it is still easier to make sure every stage is as fair as it can be when Eric is not there. Eric does not care about fair, and he loves proving he has power on me. Once Lauren and I have agreed on everything, it will be hard for him to make us change the program unless we have stepped outside of the guidelines.
Lauren was in the same initiate class as I was, but she is Dauntless born, so most of our classes were given separately. It is still of use though when we try to decide some of our plan of action. It would have been harder with someone having been trained a few years back since so many things have changed in Dauntless since then. I am guessing I would have probably agreed more with the old ways, but the new ones make complying to Eric's rules easier at least. And Lauren and I both know the limits we should stick to. She is not more inclined than I am to risk the initiates lives.
I am also guessing she resents the stress she had when she was an initiate herself. In most faction, except perhaps in Erudite, you stand a pretty good chance at staying in your faction if you decide this is what you want to do. In Dauntless, even when she decided to stay, she risked being thrown out and loosing all her family. Lauren is hard, but she is not heartless, nor insensitive.
Two or tree hours later, we are interrupted but Shauna and Zeke who rush loudly through the Dining Hall.
"Four!" they yell together. "Four!"
"Hey," Zeke says. "You gotta see this!" He hands me a piece of paper. Glancing at it, I see it was issued by Jeanine Matthews. There is a picture of Marcus on the side. My eyes go up to Zeke. The Erudite have been publishing reports against Abnegation for months now, and Marcus, as the most important figure of Government and of Abnegation has been mentioned in most of them.
"This one is quite different from the other ones," he says. "Shauna and I thought you might be interested⦠they say in there that Marcus' son transferred to Dauntless because he was physically abused by his father."
It does not specifically say anywhere that Lauren was in Tobias' class, BUT what she says, is this, before showing her fear landscape to the new initiates: "Two years ago, I was afraid of...". In my opinion, there is no reason for her to pick her fear landscape from two years ago except if it is her original one from her final exam. Therefore, I decided to make her one of Tobias' classmates.
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