Chapter 3 - The Amity Mitigation
During the following days, Delta searches for Eric at the cafeteria of the Upper Levels School to plan their Amity outing, but always fails to encounter him. The Erudite students don't mention his name, although they do talk about the rooms they use. Delta steals a timetable from the backpack of an Erudite girl that's around Eric's age, and the next day, at lunch time, she goes to the room where they had their last lesson. Delta looks through the doors of the corridor until she sees Eric sitting alone at a desk full of papers.
'Why did it take so long for you to find me?' Eric asks without looking at her. The sound of the door being opened had been short and harsh, like someone hadn't bothered to turn the handle completely before opening. It had to be Delta.
'Because I'm stupid?' Delta replies.
'That's the correct answer,' Eric puts the pencil down and looks at her. Even though they go to the same school, they had never seen each other inside the building before.
'So you do come to school.'
'Of course I do,' Delta sits on the desk next to his.
'That's unexpected,' Eric leans back on his chair and crosses his arms.
Delta tosses a piece of her sandwich bread to his face.
'Cut it already, Mr. Know-it-all,' she exclaims, 'we have to make our little trip. Next weekend?'
'No planning?' Eric sits up straight.
'What for? Taking a train and walking towards the farms?' Delta stands next to his desk and glances at his homework, "is that information they're giving you even useful?'
'Every piece of information is useful,' Eric closes his notebook roughly, 'next weekend is fine. Staying overnight?'
'Why not? It'll be fun,' she nods, 'let's say Saturday at Sable Bridge... 4 a.m.?'
Eric rises his eyebrows in surprise. Delta turned out to be smart enough to make a simple plan.
'Okay. I'll see you there.'
On Friday night, Eric hides the Amity clothes that he had stolen from school in one of his backpacks. He has told his parents that he will be spending the weekend doing school research with some of his fellow Erudites. They don't question his words because he never gave them a reason not to trust him. While he prepares the bag, he feels a burst of happiness waiting to explode inside his chest, he wants to run, jump and scream, and he probably will get to do that as soon as he leaves the Erudite quarters and joins Delta by the bridge. It's the first time that he is gonna go so far away from his home, so far away from the city. He'll be completely free during the trip, no one controlling him, no rules to follow, no conventions to live up to. He will be able to explore a new area, to experience new things, and he won't be doing it alone. Delta will be there as well, also breaking the rules. It doesn't feel like what he's doing is wrong if another person does it as well.
He steps out of the building at night, when all the lights are off and the streets are completely empty. He has never felt the chill of the night in Chicago because he has never been allowed to be out so late. Walking through the empty streets, Eric arrives to Sable Bridge exactly at 3.59 a.m. The first train of the morning will be there in a minute. Delta is not there yet, but he is not worried. She wouldn't miss that trip.
The sound of electricity running through the railway warns him about the approaching train. In the middle of the night, the lights of the train look like fireflies travelling in groups along the street. Eric looks at the first car and sees Delta, her head sticking out of the door. Eric smiles when he realises that he's not scared of jumping towards the train anymore. He knows he'll make it, he knows that his arms will be strong enough and that his legs will propel him far enough.
He stands by the edge of the platform watching Delta's face approach, focusing on the handle of the door. When the train passes by, he only has to extend his arm and hold onto the handle to become a part of the current of air that the train leaves behind. As the wind blows against his face, he moves his legs towards the inside of the car and jumps in smoothly, silently.
Delta greets him with a nod, the feeling of anticipation shining through her fearless eyes. She's wearing her Dauntless clothes, her short uncombed hair tucked behind her ears unevenly. Eric remembers her in the Erudite outfit and understands how ridiculous she must have looked to her Dauntless eyes.
'Good to see you,' he says tossing his backpack next to hers under the empty seats of the train. There's no one else in the other cars, no one ever takes the first train of the morning that goes towards the fence.
'Good to see you too,' she nods once again, 'are you ready for our illegal excursion?' she looks at him directly in the eye. She realises that his eyes are brighter than usual, like there's a light shining in the inside, and he looks happy. The rest of his face is serious, cold and hard as stone, but Delta now knows that he's smiling inside. He's just extremely good at hiding it.
'Why wouldn't I be?' he loosens up the last button of his shirt.
'Because you're an Erudite,' she teases him.
'I'm Eric,' he takes his jacket off, 'only Eric right now.'
Delta gives a step back showing the palms of her hands with a surprised face.
'Oh, okay,' she chuckles, 'watch out for Eric.'
Eric ignores her and leans against the open door of the train, but he doesn't look outside. His eyes are stuck on the metal floor of the car, his face is relaxed but Delta can distinguish a hint of sadness in the way in which he slightly folds his eyebrows and purses his lips. She leaves him alone to his thoughts and leans against the opposite door.
They see the sun rise over the city of Chicago, each of them lost in their own thoughts, silent. The fence can be seen at the distance, also the first farming lands, but they're still empty. Small shadows walk up and down the fence. Dauntless. Delta follows their movements and turns around to see them through the other side of the train. Eric is still thoughtful. The sun reflects on his blond hair creating brighter shades and also shadows. Delta joins him at the door and points at the other Dauntless patrolling the fence. Eric looks at them.
'Dauntless?' he asks knowing the answer.
'Of course,' Delta says without taking her eyes off the fence.
'Of course,' he mumbles with a lower voice.
The arrogant Erudite is also a young boy full of questions without an answer, and in spite of his nature, he's probably full of doubts as well. Every teenager is. Delta is as well. She hits his arm with her elbow.
'Hey, cheer up,' she tells him, 'don't ruin this trip.'
'I'm okay,' he straightens his back and frowns.
'Yeah,' Delta says unconvinced.
She hits him again, this time harder. Eric looses his balance but manages to shift the weight of his body and stumbles into the inside of the train. He shows his teeth with a malicious smile and tries to push Delta out of the car. Delta stands strong on her Dauntless boots and charges against him knocking him to the floor. He lays on his back, his head sticking out of the train, the world turning upside down in front of his eyes. He stays like that, watching the sky become the ground and the grass turn into clouds. Delta imitates him and lays on her back next to him. She laughs when the Dauntless patrol hangs from the fence like bats swinging their wings in a cave.
Eric sits up after a while and observes Delta, who is still amazed at the inverted world they just created. She extends her arms out and lets them fly in the wind. Her body slides down the metallic floor slowly without her noticing, but Eric does. A curve in the railway moves her body, she tries to reach for the handles but they're too far. Eric holds her leg and pulls her back into position without trouble. She continues with her upturned watch.
'Your brain's gonna drown in blood,' he says looking at her long neck.
Delta sits up. Her face is red, her hair even messier than in the morning. She pats her hair with the palms of her hands trying to flatten it down again.
'It matches your personality much better,' Eric rests his head against the wall with a smothered laugh.
'What do you know about my personality...' she sits in front of him.
'Enough,' he closes his eyes when the sun blinds them.
They jump off the train in the middle of a tall bluestem field. The grass is almost as tall as them, so they only need to crouch down a little to become completely invisible. The sun is up already, the wind has died out and everything stands still and silent. For a minute or two, they don't move and wait until the sound of the train has disappeared in the distance.
Slowly, Eric approaches Delta, the dry grass cracking under his weight. Eric points at her backpack. Delta nods. They undress, their eyes paying more attention to the fence patrol than to each other's bodies.
Eric puts on a pair of bright brown pants, a green shirt and a brown vest. It's comfortable because it's loose, but he doesn't trust the strength of the fabric in case they have to jump or get into a fight. However, it's Amity. The only person who would get into a fight with him there is Delta. He looks at her. She has a pair of dark green pants and is putting on a yellow shirt with long sleeves. He sees her stomach before the fabric covers it and distinguishes a big purple bruise on her side. She puts on a brown vest as well, and hides her Dauntless clothes in the backpack.
'Are you ready?' Delta asks him.
Eric nods with a frown. He draws his eyes away from her and begins to walk towards the fence, although his mind is still thinking about that bruise. He's never been hit like that, he doesn't know how it feels like, how much it hurts. He imagines Delta fighting in the stone tunnels of the Dauntless compound. He wonders who attacked her, how, and why. Perhaps it was just a part of a game, or perhaps someone really wanted to hurt her. Or both. When he looks at her again, Eric feels anger. He wants to know the reason to everything, including the reason to why that bruise appeared on her skin.
'Did you get into a fight?' he asks glancing at her side.
'Yeah,' Delta says feeling the wounded area with her hand, 'with an initiate. I told him I could take him.'
'Did you?' Eric keeps walking ahead. If he was a cat, his ears would be pointing at Delta.
'No. He beat me alright.'
Delta runs past Eric and looks back at him with narrowed eyes. Her dark hair stands out among the dry bluestem grass, her pale skin almost getting lost in the contrast, her Amity clothes merging with the setting. The competition in her eyes seems almost flirty to Eric, or perhaps that's just how attracted he feels towards being competitive in general, towards being smarter, stronger, better, or simply, the best. That's what he strives for, and so does she. Although she doesn't care about the being intelligent part.
The gate that leads outside the fence is watched by a Dauntless patrol, and only Amity trucks are allowed in and out. Delta and Eric observe them from a safe distance hiding in the tall grass field. Delta sighs in frustration. Eric's jaw is tense, his eyes fixed on the Dauntless woman that checks the food trucks. He looks at his clothes, and at Delta's. They are Amity at that moment, young Amity pre-initiates. Eric runs his fingers through his dark blond hair to make it look as Amity-messy as possible. Delta doesn't need any styling.
When they emerge out of the grass, the two Dauntless guards that perch on the fence aim at them immediately. Eric and Delta pretend to be scared, and raise their hands. The guards look at their clothing, their messy hair, and flushed cheeks. The two men look at each other with a smirk, but keep aiming at the two Amity youngsters.
'What are you two doing here?' one of them asks.
'We, ah-' Delta brings out the best of her stammering performances, 'spent the night out,' she blurts out.
'Doing research for school,' Eric adds avoiding to look at them directly in the eye on purpose, pretending to be weak by staring at the ground instead.
The guards laugh adopting a relaxed position, lowering their weapons and shaking their heads. The tallest one points at the other side of the gate with the rifle.
'Don't do this again, huh? Find some other place to do research next time, you got me?' he tries to intimidate them.
Eric and Delta cringe at the intonation used by the guard when he mentions their inexistent research, but it turns out that the Dauntless man has created a better excuse than theirs. Delta tries hard not to laugh, so she keeps her head down, facing the ground.
'Yes, sir,' Eric replies with a submissive voice , 'it won't happen again.'
To follow the Dauntless guard's imagination, Eric grabs Delta's hand and runs towards the outside of the fence as if they were scared of the guards, or scared of being caught. But he isn't. He can feel the excitement of defying the rules, of lying to the Dauntless, and getting away with their plan. As soon as they turn their backs to the guards, Eric begins to smile first, and then to laugh. Delta pulls from his hand to make him shut up, but she ends up laughing too. They run away from the farms and move towards the cluster of trees that hide the first Amity buildings.
The trees are tall and most of them are covered in dark green leaves. Delta drops Eric's hand driven by her curiosity when they see the first building, tall and rounded, like a wooden dome made of curved beams and glass panels in between them. She's never seen Amity, or their buildings, and they are more interesting than she ever thought they could be.
Walking behind her, Eric pretends to rub at the dry grass on his pants, but the sensation of Delta's fingers entwined with his is still there. He doesn't mind it, but it distracts him because it makes him aware of all the nerve ends at the tip of his fingers and in the middle of his palm. The last person he has held hands with is his mother, when he was seven or eight years old.
'Do research,' Delta imitates the guard, 'perv...' she says to herself.
'I would simply call it a Dauntless mind,' Eric catches up with her.
'Right,' Delta snorts, 'I'm not gonna comment on that.'
'Because you know it's true,' Eric keeps looking ahead, observing the architecture of the buildings, tracing maps in his head.
'I'm not gonna fight you,' Delta says sounding like she's trying to convince herself, 'we're Amity now, so no fighting. We gotta adapt.'
'Ha! You, Amity?' he shakes his head, 'I don't think so.'
'I can sing for you,' Delta hops her way towards the open space where the central building stands. She moves her arms from side to side, and stops with a jump. 'You see? I'm committed.'
Eric stops to contemplate the landscape in front of him. The dome structure standing in the center of the green grass field is built around a magnificent tree with thick long branches that reach up to the sky like the fingers of a hand attempting to touch the sun. Delta, however, doesn't pay attention to the building, or the people inside. Her eyes travel from tree to tree like those of a squirrel looking for the perfect trunk to climb. She then sees a swing suspended by ropes and her eyes shine anew.
'We should go separate ways,' Eric tells her, 'clearly, we have different interests.'
'Oh,' Delta is crestfallen for a second, but then she shrugs, 'sure, if that's what you want.'
'Yes, it is,' Eric smiles dryly and walks away towards the central building without turning back.
Delta watches him go, his steps heavy with the weight of arrogance and superiority complex. She's never liked to be left alone, she's repelled by the idea of not having someone to talk to or to share experiences with, and that's why her Dauntless instinct guides her to a group of Amity teens that sit by the edge of a destroyed bridge and sing songs together. Delta, of course, is only attracted by the height of the bridge, and the idea of jumping from it.
Inside the central building, Eric acts confident when elderly eyes turn to him as he enters the place. A few early birds sit at the wooden tables surrounding the great tree and eat their breakfast amidst friendly conversations and constant laughter. Eric is somewhat repulsed by the never-ending happiness, the continuous use of kind words, and the cheerful expressions of absolutely everyone surrounding him. He doesn't believe they are all as happy as they seem, and for once, he begins to understand the hostility that the Candor have always shown towards Amity. It is quite obvious that such a happy society can't possibly exist, and therefore they must be lying, or high, one of the two.
Eric steps out of the building and examines his surroundings, classifying them in his brain, prioritising potential sources of knowledge, devaluing what he deems as unavailing locations. He breathes in the fresh air from outside the fence and quickly glances at Delta up the broken bridge. She's practically pushing the Amity teens down the bridge to make them jump, face their fears. Eric rolls his eyes at the Dauntless girl, and then begins his own journey in search for Amity knowledge.
During the day, Eric engages in conversations with adults pretending to be an unusually curious Amity teenager with thirst for knowledge about his faction. He poses as an Amity initiate when he overhears a group of transfers talk about their own initiation. He wants to know what is required to become a member of Amity, what their tests are, what their skills must be like. He has lunch with them, lies about his life, his parents, his friends, and also tones it down with his Erudite knowledge. Eric finds it irritating to talk to them and not to be able to correct them, or to tell them how stupid they are for not knowing the facts that he knows by heart. Eric sighs and excuses himself for a second, but he never comes back to the ignorant transfers table.
Outside, the broken bridge is empty. He frowns and purses his lips. Not knowing, that's what he hates the most, including not knowing where people are when he needs them. His jaw tenses. He had thought that the time in Amity would be interesting, constructive, or fun, but it hasn't been any of that. He has gained knowledge about the faction, its history, its people and their way of living, but somehow it's not enough, and that angers him. Perhaps he is just as grumpy as Delta says he is, perhaps he's not happy.
Eric strolls around the forest until he distinguishes the farms. He finds a nice spot to sit on right at the top of a small hill. From there, he can see the central building of the faction, and the big tree that's shaped as a hand. The sun is setting, the sky being coloured with blue,pink, and golden shades that slowly give way to the night. He realises how much he likes to stand above all things, to be able to watch and control from a high position.
'Bored?' Delta has sneaked behind him silently. She sits next to him, 'I borrowed some bread,' she takes a loaf of bread out of her backpack and gives it to him, 'I put some in the backpack, in case we get hungry at night.'
'At night,' Eric repeats sullenly, 'right.'
'You forgot we're sleeping here?' Delta breaks a piece of bread and bites it.
'Yes, actually I had forgotten,' he looks at her.
'I talked a boy into letting us stay in an outdoors room that his family doesn't use,' she says casually, 'I figured you'd be too busy to find shelter,' she smirks, 'so, did you find something interesting?'
'I did,' he says looking away, 'but it's not important, or fun.'
'Oh,' Delta talks with food in her mouth, 'that's a shame.'
Eric laughs.
'Nah, it's not,' he doubts for a second, 'do you wanna know something about their bread?'
Delta nods.
'They put a serum in it, to make people happy,' he whispers.
Delta shakes her head in disbelief.
'So I'm gonna get high 'cus I've eaten so much of this,' she laughs.
When the night comes, Delta guides Eric to the small storage room that the Amity boy showed her early in the morning. They sleep on improvised mattresses made of bales of hay. They can see the stars out of the window. Eric recites their names in his head, Delta imagines how it would be like to travel in space.
During the following day, Eric realises that Delta has learnt much more about the Amity lifestyle than he has. They stroll around the area, climb trees, play hide-and-seek with a few Amity teens, but tackle the others when they are about to be caught. The games end quickly and they both run away before they're punished. At night, they talk about their choices, fantasize about visiting Candor, and Delta tells Eric almost everything he wants to know about Dauntless, because Max told her to.
While she talks to him, Delta traces the lines of his face hoping that they will reveal the reason why that Erudite boy is somehow special, but she doesn't find any. His eyes are a tunnel to his intellect, and Delta can easily see that he's too smart to be Dauntless yet too aggressive to be Erudite.
..
Delta tells Max about Eric's traits on Monday morning, when she's back at Dauntless. Max is not happy about it, though Delta doesn't know why. She continues to express her doubts about being a faction traitor for showing the Dauntless compound to an Erudite, and for sharing with him the little information that she knows about the Dauntless initiation. Max stares at her gravely.
'Who gave you these orders?' he asks her inside his office.
'You, sir.'
'Then, are you calling me a faction traitor?' Max points his index finger at her face.
'No, sir,' Delta shakes her head hurriedly.
'I thought so,' Max is nervous. His voice is steady but his eyes fly all over the room, 'get the boy to Candor, and also to see the Stiffs. I'll make sure you get through safely,' he says doubting, 'this is important,' he nods, 'for the future of Dauntless, and of this society.'
'But, what does Erudite have to do with us?' Delta seals her lips after talking.
'They have the brains,' Max talks to the walls, and Delta is not sure that she is the addressee of his words anymore. The Dauntless leader seems to be talking to himself, to be convincing himself instead of Delta, 'they are intelligent, they know what this society needs... and doesn't need,' he finally looks at her, somewhat confused, 'get the hell out of here, and do as I tell you.'
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! :)
Also, thanks to my new beta reader, Electric Blue Reader!
