Chapter 7: Again

I'm on my back in the dark, arms and legs stretched out on either side of me. The lights click on in rows and the center of the room, where I lay, is last. My eyes narrow as they adjust to sting of bright light. My hearing muffles as it reacquaints itself with the echoing silence of the chamber.

So close. I was so damn close that time.

"You were so damn slow that time," Zeke grumbles over the hiss and whine of the electronic doors.

I'm all out of excuses and I don't know what to say anyway. The transition back from the simulation always makes me feel like I'm walking through thick mud. My brain processes everything slower. My body wishes it was back there and not here.

Here is Hell.

The rest of the audience shuffles in and my eyes greet each face with the enthusiasm of a man about to be electrocuted. It's a small team of overly optimistic fools who look to me to be some sort of leader.

I massage my neck. I'm always stiff after a simulation anymore.

"How long?" I ask, glancing straight to Zeke and block out everyone else.

"How long did you think it was?" he replies to my question with a question and I try not to growl.

I recall the events of the sim. I can't remember further than wandering through the neighborhood and Zeke finding me the night before. The sun had just begun to set when Christina and I entered the compound. "Maybe twenty four hours," I guess.

He nods, hands on his hips like he's posing for a recruitment poster. "You were down thirty minutes."

I curse under my breath. Thirty minutes? Might as well hand my head over to the drainers. I should be able to do better. I can resist serums. I can manipulate simulations.

Once I'm aware I'm in one that is.

"I think it's safe to say we're producing a more authentic batch," a voice says from the exterior of my peripherals.

I bite back the curse I want to throw at that voice. Apparently I'm both stiff and aggressively explosive when I wake up from sims now.

Caleb shifts closer to my line of sight and I want to look away, but I know it's rude. Tempting, but rude. He holds an electric tablet in his hands for notes. I wait for him to start poking and prodding my mind like it's my veins and his questions are a needle.

"Did you ever feel aware that something was not right in the simulation?"

I scratch a spot on the side of my face. "Lots."

His eyes are so familiar that it's almost painful to look straight into them but I do when he narrows them for an elaboration.

I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

Zeke kicks my leg and shakes his head.

"Yeah," I sigh, "a few times I … I remember thinking things were happening that everyone around me didn't believe."

He nods and marks notes on the pad in his hand. I try not to marvel at the way his mind works. He acts as though he could change the foundation of the world with just the right combination of codes in the chips he puts in our minds.

"What would happen during those times to keep you rooted in the scenario?"

My teeth tug my bottom lip between them and bite down. What would happen to keep me thinking a dream is real? I shake my head. "Dunno. Usually someone would tell me something that made sense. And…I'd hear…" My voice trails off and everyone in the room knows what I heard.

Caleb opens his mouth to ask another question, but Zeke cuts in.

"Okay, party's over," he announces, waving toward the door. "Let the guy get some rest. We'll select a new volunteer tomorrow."

Feet shuffle past me and I keep my eyes focused on the floor. This feels so strange. We all fought so hard to keep the serums out of our heads. We broke through unbelievable walls to define reality and now here we are…letting a bunch of Erudites crawl back into our skulls and poke around.

Once we're alone Zeke, drops down into a crouch beside me. "Was she in it again?"

He doesn't have to specify. "A few times," I tell him.

He nods, rubbing the back of his neck like all the sudden his emotions are leaking out through his pores. "That's…weird, man."

"Yeah," I agree.

"I mean…me," he says, slapping a hand to his chest, "a dad? You have to know that's not real in the moment, right?"

In all honestly Mina has become one of the most real projections in these simulations to me. Something is so true, so honest about her. Maybe it's all the parts of me that I wish someone had seen when I was that small, but every time she pops up in my head I hold tight to her.

It is the nature of the serum Caleb is developing. We have to identify and recognize the truths that we don't want to deny in order to wake up from the dreams. It's the only way to survive. The only way we'll fight the compulsion.

I scrub my hands over my face, wishing I were a stronger person. "I don't even think about it anymore." I sigh. "Maybe I should sit out the next couple of rounds. I think I'm starting to like being in there more than being out here."

A laugh echoes from the corner of the room. Just one, sharp burst of noise that suddenly puts me on edge. I hadn't realized he walked into the room and didn't walk back out.

I don't turn to look at him. The simulations put me on a weird, edgy stance with him for the first several hours after I've woken up. I don't know if I can trust him. I'm not even entirely certain he's real.

And yet he's kind of the only thing keeping us all going down here in the Pit.

"What's so funny?" Zeke challenges. Zeke is lacking that natural fear most people have. He stands tall and stares every unknown element in the eye.

"Not funny," Dimitri says with that accent that makes words sound too heavy in his mouth. "Ironic. I understand the desire to believe the lie."

My eyes roll and Zeke doesn't even both hiding his laugh. I have no desire to live that lie. If I was going to pick a lie to live in, Tris would be alive and we would live happily ever after. I'd live in a world where monsters that control people's minds and drain their blood for feeding didn't one day overrun our streets. I wouldn't pick that world to escape this one.

"So," Zeke says with a clap of his hands. "We start again tomorrow." He glances between where I sit and behind me where Dimitri must be leaning against a wall. "It's getting close to nightfall so we've got to close down shop. You guys want any power diverted in here tonight?"

I start to say no, I want to sleep, but Dimitri overrides me. "Yes. Here and in the training room, please."

Zeke salutes and heads out.

I flop back on to the hard mat, staring up at the glaring light.

"How did I arrive in this one?" he asks.

I cross one ankle over the other. Now we begin the hour long interrogation that will sound similar to every other time he's asked these questions of me. I humor him. I understand his devotion to his cause. I once had that kind of dedication too.

"Flash of light. I found you at the base of the chasm…thought you were a rock at first."

His boots are heavy but his steps are light. I feel the vibrations of his movements against the mat, but I don't hear sound.

"That's fairly close to what really happened."

I close my eyes. I don't know if I'm required to acknowledge the validity of his statement. We were both there that night. He knows how he breached this point in space and time, and I know when and where he showed up. Even so I make some sort of noise that indicates I agree with him.

"Did you see me after? Did you see any of the Strigoi?"

He calls them by the title of his time. I replace the word with my own. Drainers. Ancient humanity called them vampires. Whatever anyone calls them, they are monsters.

My eyes open and he's standing right above me. I blink a few times. "I didn't. I saw a victim. I saw a security feed with you kicking my ass." He smirks and I glare. "And the light cut out. I think Drainers were in the darkness. I felt cold skin, heard them hissing…ran into something that felt damn near like stone—"

He nods. "Strigoi."

I shrug. I have to take his word for it. I scratch my wrist, running my finger along the raised flesh just below my palm. The crescent shaped scar is a constant reminder to me. In the simulations I don't have these scars. In the simulations I know nothing of this world and the monsters that feed on you and rob your memories. I know Drainers fed upon me before Dimitri arrived, but I don't know what they look like.

No one knows.

Except Dimitri.

Well, Dimitri and a small band of resistance who followed him from the past to this horrific future.

"That's good," he decides, folding his arms over his chest. I try to count the inches that from the floor to the top of his head. He's taller than any man I've ever encountered.

"It's stagnant," I say, shoving into a quick sit and then jumping to my feet. I don't elaborate and I have a feeling he doesn't need me to. This time mirrors just about every other time I've gone under. I'm no prodigy with these serums. I'm little to no help at all with the resistance.

I head towards the door, hoping I can slip out to my bunk and bypass whatever plan he had for the training room tonight. My finger is still on the control panel when he says, "run."

I sigh. I'm not some sixteen year old Stiff anymore. I don't need to work on my agility. I might be two feet shorter than him but I can take him in fight. I don't need to train like some initiate afraid of a Factionless future.

We're already living in a Factionless future.

Even so, I nod and leave the chamber at a dead sprint. I set off for laps around the training room, counting seconds. Five minutes later Dimitri emerges from the chamber. He's stripped his duster and donned a training suit and he matches my stride effortlessly on my next pass. I don't ask him what he was doing in the chamber alone. I know the look in his eyes as he runs beside me. It's the look that I used to have every time I left the chamber. He's facing his fears. I don't judge him for that. I faced mine for years.

Of course, it took me a lot longer than five minutes to overcome mine.

The question tugs at the corner of my mind, but I don't ask it out loud.

What on earth is he afraid of?