3

I don't know if it's luck or skill, but Tobias takes both guards by surprise and they don't even get a chance to point their rifle at him. He rushes to them and takes their weapons. Two of the Candor guards handcuff the Dauntless guards and we all follow Tobias inside. The room is long and surprisingly empty. If it wouldn't had been for the guards outside the door I would have dismissed this room completely upon entering. Seems like Jeanine isn't as smart as she thinks she is.

We see large thick wires running along the floor and we decide following them. They are for electricity, so wherever they lead is probably where we will find Jeanine and her Erudite lackeys.

My theory proves to be correct. At the end of a long dark corridor is a room filled with computers and on the screens I can see the Dauntless marching through Abnegation. It seems they've just arrived there and start searching one house after the other. Jeanine is standing in front of one large screen.

"I don't understand. Where are they?" she says, clearly frustrated that her zombie Dauntless couldn't find anyone in Abnegation to slaughter.

"They are safe" Tobias says entering the room pointing the gun on Jeanine.

"How did you get in here?" she asks confused by his sudden appearance. "Never mind. Get him" she orders two Erudite men with handguns. Tobias is quicker and shoots the guns out of their hands.

"It's futile. You can't stop this" Jeanine says laughing.

"Really?" Tobias asks mockingly.

"Yes. Erudite will win. By the end of this day Erudite will lead this city into a new era of progress" she says. I put my hand out to stop Marcus from going in. I get what Tobias is doing. His making her confess her crimes without even trying to move a muscle.

"And how do you think you can do that?" he asks, faking interest.

"You see this" Jeanine says pointing at the Dauntless on the screen "they are my puppets and I am their puppeteer. I command and they obey my every wish."

"Really? How did you convince them to join your sick plan?"

"Convince? Oh, no. They are under a simulation. You see this vials over there" she points toward a crate filled with the same vials Tobias showed me just this morning. "The serum in there is one of my greatest accomplishments. You see I wanted to expand the control range of the serum. And I succeeded. And what better way of trying it out than by using it on this brainless fools" she says laughing.

"Well, turn it off and delete the program" Tobias says clenching his teeth.

"Delete it? I will not. And you won't be able to do a thing about it."

"Will see. I will stop you."

"Really? You and what army?" Jeanine asks mockingly and I know it's the perfect time to come out of the shadows.

"This army" I say as I jump out from where I was hiding, followed by the Candor guards.

"Jeanine Matthews, you are under arrest for attempted murder on everyone in Abnegation, manipulating the Dauntless and conspiracy to overthrow the government" Marcus says with satisfaction in his voice.

"You can't do that!" Jeanine shouts as a Candor guard puts her in handcuffs

"Yes, we can" Jack says.

"Shut down the program" I say.

"You? You little bitch. It was you" she says to me, venom filling her voice.

"Shut the program" I repeat.

"I won't. Can't you see that what I did was to protect our city?" she says addressing Marcus and Jack.

"Protecting our city from what?" Jack asks her.

"The Divergent. There are everywhere. They will destroy our way of life" she says and I suddenly am afraid she might know that I'm divergent.

"Don't be ridiculous, Jeanine" Marcus says.

"I'm not. They are trying to take over our city" she continues to plead, but it seems the more she insists the more they dismiss her reasoning. I need to make her shut down the program. As long as it is running we are in danger. The Dauntless don't know what they are doing. If someone would order them to kill us they would. If someone would order them to kill each other they would. I need to make her shut down the program. But how?

I look around and see a vial with the simulation serum on the desk to my left. I grab it and set in into the injection device. I get close to Jeanine who is still desperately trying to convince everyone that she is acting in the city's best interest and the Divergent are to blame for all this. It makes me sick. While she is distracted I plunge the needle into her neck and inject her with the serum. I look toward Marcus and Jack who just look shocked at what I did. Jeanine turns around astonished and when her eyes lose focus I know she can't control herself anymore.

"Shut down the simulation and wipe the program" I order. Tobias takes the keys to Jeanine's handcuffs from one of the Candor guards and releases her hands. She turns to the main computer and pushes several keys until I can see on the screens in the room that the Dauntless, who are still in Abnegation, slowly regain consciousness. They seem confused as to why they are even there, but other than that they are fine. I see some of them returning to the tracks. And then I see them. Max and Eric look confused. They don't know what happened here, but they must have figured something went wrong, because they suddenly leave Abnegation, running toward the city, not the train tracks. Great! Now we have to look for them.

Jeanine returns to her normal self once the program is successfully shut down and deleted. She tries to recover her data but everything she's trying is in vain. She lost on so many levels today.

She turns around and I can see pure hatred in her eyes.

"You!" she shouts. She launches herself toward me, but I punch her in the face, knocking her out.

"Nice right hook" Jack compliments.

"Thanks. Four taught me that during initiation" I say and turn to look at Tobias. He smiles at me warmly.

"Arrest everyone in here and get them transferred to Candor" Jack orders his men. He lets us take three of his men to check the rest of the compound for other Erudite.

After we check the compound twice most of the Dauntless have returned to the compound confused and angry that no one seems to tell them what happened. Tobias and I decide to gather everyone in the Pit to tell them what happened, including how their own leaders offered the whole Faction to Erudite as guinea pigs.

Tobias gets on one of the rocks and grabs the microphone Zeke prepared. No one other than me and Tobias know what happened last night and during the early hours today.

"My fellow Dauntless, please stay calm and listen" Tobias starts. When there are still people talking Tobias puts his most frightening Four face on and yells into the microphone "SHUT UP."

Everyone seems to have heard that. I for sure did. Every pair of eye is now focused on Tobias and I'm thankful I don't have to stand where he stands right now.

"Last night our leaders told us that for security reasons we will all be injected with a tracker." Most of the Dauntless nod. "That was a lie. It wasn't a tracker. I have witnessed for the past several weeks how our leaders allowed Erudite members to enter our compound and deposit computers and other hardware and also crates filled with vials, containing a special serum. The serum is a simulation serum similar to the one we use in the fear landscape, yet makes us believe that what we are doing is right when in fact our actions are wrong. With help of a program Jeanine Matthews, head of Erudite, send out the command to all the Dauntless who got injected to gear up and march on Abnegation killing everyone there." Tobias stops for a moment to let the information sink in. I look into the crowd and some people looked confused, outraged or simply can't believe their ears. "Fortunately, Abnegation was warned in time and the whole Faction was successfully transferred to a safe place, that wasn't disclosed." Well, that's not true. We know where they are. But if there are still traitors among us they better not know that. "With the help of our City Council and Candor leader Jack Kang and some brave men from Candor we managed to arrest Jeanine Matthews, who operated right from here, from this compound" Tobias says pointing around to emphasize his words. "Even though some of the conspirators have been arrested there are still others at large. As far as I know, our five leaders are still somewhere out there in the city. I won't order you, since I'm just one like you, but I will ask you to help me wash the name of our Faction clean. It is outrageous that they would use an entire Faction to kill another one. I'm not looking for revenge, I'm looking for justice. Whoever wants to join me is welcome. We need as many as we have to find them and bring them to Candor headquarters where they will be tried for treason" Tobias finishes his speech. I expected them to keep a moment of silence and reflect, but instead they cheer as they always do.

"Let's find those bastards" one man shouts from the middle of the crowd.

"Yeah, they will pay for what they did to us and our Faction" another joins in.

"Lead us, Four" a third one starts chanting and soon the whole Pit chants his name. I have to admit, I'm very proud of him right now. He is a born leader.

It takes a while until those who want to go looking for the Dauntless leader organize into smaller groups. Thanks to the electronic shop who offers walkie-talkies for the groups to stay in touch more easily Tobias divides the crowd into seven groups. One group is designated to search the Factionless sector, another one searches Abnegation, a third searches the Amity farms, two groups stay behind searching and protecting the Dauntless compound and the remaining two are send to search Erudite. Jack Kang promised Tobias he would send his best men to search Candor for the escaped Dauntless leaders. Also, I made sure that every faction knew that we were looking for dangerous criminals and everyone promised they would cooperate with us when we come searching.

I'm on Tobias's team together with Will, Christina, Uriah, Zeke and a few others I still don't know. We chose to search Erudite, since neither Tobias nor me trust anyone else for this task. We go to the train tracks and jump on the train. It takes us at least fifteen minutes until we reach Erudite headquarters. Tobias stands near the door, while the others sat down on either the benches or the floor. I walk to Tobias who is so deep in thought that he doesn't even see me even when I'm standing right in front of him.

"Penny for your thought" I say, trying to lighten the mood.

"What?" he asks snapping out of his thoughts.

"It's an old saying. Means I would pay to know what you are thinking" I explain. He smiles down at me and wraps one arm around me.

"I was just thinking about the last twenty four hours. Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it?" he asks, but I'm not sure if the question was actually meant for me.

"Yeah" I just say. "Tobias" I whisper his name "when this is over I need to tell you something. Something important. Something about me. Something you might not like. Something that maybe would make you not like me anymore" the last words come out as a pitiful whisper and I have to look away, afraid to look him in the eyes. He puts his right index finger under my chin and pushes slightly upward, making me look into his beautiful dark blue eyes. His look is serious, but also kind.

"There's nothing you could tell me that would make me not like you. In fact, there is nothing in this world that would make me stop loving you" he says and my breath catches in my throat. He loves me?

"You love me?" I ask shyly.

"Yes, Beatrice" he uses my given name, but I don't mind. It sounds sweet coming from his lips. "I love you" he confesses. My eyes tear up and I have to swallow hard pass the lump in my throat to tell him that I love him too.

"I love you too, Tobias." He smiles and then leans down and kisses me gently on the lips. It's sweet and loving and warm and I feel a million butterflies in my tummy and I'm so happy right now I could jump up and down. Too soon he pulls away and I automatically pout. He smiles and leans close to my ear "we are there".

I look outside and see the tall building that is the Erudite headquarter. We all jump off the train and walk confident toward the entrance. Upon our arrival we are greeted by one of the Erudite representatives. We are allowed to search the whole building and then the adjacent ones. We are still in the main building when one of our teams report that they found two of our leaders hiding in the Factionless sector. After another hour Jack Kang calls Tobias and tells him they found another one hiding in Candor. By the time we reach the last few apartments of the Erudite members another team, the one that went to Amity reports they found Max and the forth Dauntless leader. Which leaves only Eric. Chances are he is hiding here. He came from Erudite after all and he conspired with them to kill members of Abnegation and basically manipulate an entire faction into doing their bidding.

There five apartments left and I feel increasingly nervous about this whole situation. Even though I know that Tobias is much stronger and a better fighter than Eric you can never know what tricks this son of a bitch will use to escape. I force myself to concentrate on Eric to visualize where he is. When we reach his parents apartment I stop Tobias from knocking. I pull him aside and he furrows his brows at me.

"Don't" I say.

"What? What is it?" he asks a little angry.

"He's not there" I say.

"What? How do you know?" he asks.

"Call it female intuition or gut feeling, but he is not in there. He is hiding in the apartment next to his parents. Call Uriah and Zeke and tell them to search the apartment while we search the one next to theirs. He will probably wait until a team enters his parents home to make a run for it" I explain and while I do I realize how far-fetched it sounds. But I know I'm right. Tobias sighs and calls Uriah and Zeke to meet us here.

"We're here" Zeke says as soon as they reach us.

"You two check Eric's parents apartment, while Tris and I search the one next to theirs. These two are the last ones. If he's not in one of them he is not here anymore, but I don't want to give that bastard a chance to escape" Tobias tells them.

We wait for Zeke and Uriah to be let into the apartment before we practically break into the next apartment. But I was right. In the middle of the room stands a shocked Eric who doesn't really get how it is that we are here when he clearly heard us knock on the neighboring door. He doesn't remain motionless for long. He grabs his gun from the table next to him and fires at us.