WOW SO I'VE BEEN ON FANFICTION FOR A YEAR NOW! I NEVER THOUGHT THAT I WOULD ENJOY WRITING SO MUCH! (AND I NEVER IMAGINED HOW MUCH SLEEP I WOULD LOSE TO READING/ WRITING FANFICTION! BUT I'M A HORMONAL- MELATONIN-LACKING-TEENAGER SO MY SLEEPING PATTERNS ARE JUST WEIRD IN GENERAL...)

CALEB'S POV

"My name is David. As Zoe probably told you already, I am the leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. I'm going to do my best to explain things," David said. "The first thing you should know is that the information Edith Prior gave you is only partly true."

"She provided only as much information as you needed to meet the goals of our experiments," said David. "And in many cases, that meant oversimplifying, omitting, and even out right falsehood. Now that you are here, there is no need for any of those things."

"You all keep talking about 'experiments,'" Four said. "What experiments?"

"Yes, well, I was getting to that." David looked over at Amar, a little nervously. "Where did they start when they explained it to you?"

"Doesn't matter where you start. You can't make it easier to take," Amar said, nonchalant.

David cleared his throat."A long time ago, the United States government—"

"The united what?" Uriah asked.

"It's a country," said Amar. "A large one. It has specific borders and its own governing body, and we're in the middle of it right now. We can talk about it later. Go ahead, sir."

United states? Were there a bunch of Faction systems like our all under one government?

"A few centuries ago, the government of this country became interested in enforcing certain desirable behaviors in its citizens. There had been studies that indicated that violent tendencies could be partially traced to a person's genes—a gene called 'the murder gene' was the first of these, but there were quite a few more, genetic predispositions toward cowardice, dishonesty, low intelligence—all the qualities, in other words, that ultimately contribute to a broken society."

Jeanine said that human nature was out enemy. Those people probably had the same logic that she did.

Isolating a single gene and passing it down to people? That was nearly impossible! I could only imagine the things that these people knew. But still, wouldn't making a certain trait more prominent in someone mess something up? We had fear for a reason. We lied for a reason.

"Obviously there are quite a few factors that determine personality, including a person's upbringing and experiences," David continued, "but despite the peace and prosperity that had reigned in this country for nearly a century, it seemed advantageous to our ancestors to reduce the risk of these undesirable qualities showing up in our population by correcting them. In other words, by editing humanity.

"That's how the genetic manipulation experiment was born. It takes several generations for any kind of genetic manipulation to manifest, but people were selected from the general population in large numbers, according to their backgrounds or behavior, and they were given the option to give a gift to our future generations, a genetic alteration that would make their descendants just a little bit better."

I glanced over at Peter, who was scowling in distain. These people were almost a bad as Jeanine. Nothing good ever comes out of experimenting on people. I'd read in an old book- which I'd assumed was fiction- about this group called the 'Nazi's' experimenting on people. True, it seemed much more brutal compared to this, but altering someones personality to 'make humanity better' wasn't too unlike giving people gangrene to simulate war injuries and make doctors better.

"But when the genetic manipulations began to take effect, the alterations had disastrous consequences. As it turns out, the attempt had resulted not in corrected genes, but in damaged ones," said David, "Take away someone's fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty . . . and you take away their compassion. Take away someone's aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation. If you think about it, I'm sure you know exactly what I mean."

That was true. Candors were quite inconsiderate. Dauntless were just generally mean and threatening people. Erudite thought that they were better than everyone else. Amity was too passive. Abnegation barely let people do anything, because it was 'self indulgent'.

"Humanity has never been perfect, but the genetic alterations made it worse than it had ever been before. This manifested itself in what we call the Purity War. A civil war, waged by those with damaged genes, against the government and everyone with pure genes. The Purity War caused a level of destruction formerly unheard of on American soil, eliminating almost half of the country's population."

"The visual is up," said someone sitting at a deal behind David.

A map appeared on the screen above David's head. The shape just looked like a blob, covered in red dots. The red dots were most likely meant to represent people.

"This is our country before the Purity War," said David. I assumed that the blob was 'the United States'. "And this is after—"

I held back a gasp as dots disappeared rapidly.

David went on, "When the war was finally over, the people demanded a permanent solution to the genetic problem. And that is why the Bureau of Genetic Welfare was formed. Armed with all the scientific knowledge at our government's disposal, our predecessors designed experiments to restore humanity to its genetically pure state.

"They called for genetically damaged individuals to come forward so that the Bureau could alter their genes. The Bureau then placed them in secure environments to settle in for the long haul, equipped with basic versions of the serums to help them control their society. They would wait for the passage of time—for the generations to pass, for each one to produce more genetically healed humans. Or, as you currently know them . . . the Divergent."

It was ironic. People tried to destroy the Divergents, yet they were the ones who were 'normal'. But then, where did that put me?

"Your city is one of those experiments for genetic healing, and by far the most successful one, because of the behavioral modification portion. The factions, that is," said David, beaming, broadly.

"The factions were our predecessors' attempt to incorporate a 'nurture' element to the experiment—they discovered that mere genetic correction was not enough to change the way people behaved. A new social order, combined with the genetic modification, was determined to be the most complete solution to the behavioral problems that the genetic damage had created." David's smile fades as he looks around at all of us. I don't know what he expected—for us to smile back? He continues, "The factions were later introduced to most of our other experiments, three of which are currently active. We have gone to great lengths to protect you, observe you, and learn from you."

Cara ran her hand through her hair, then spoke, "So when Edith Prior said we were supposed to determine the cause of Divergence and come out and help you, that was . . ."

"'Divergent' is the name we decided to give to those who have reached the desired level of genetic healing," said David. "We wanted to make sure that the leaders of your city valued them. We didn't expect the leader of Erudite to start hunting them down—or for the Abnegation to even tell her what they were—and contrary to what Edith Prior said, we never really intended for you to send a Divergent army out to us. We don't, after all, truly need your help. We just need your healed genes to remain intact and to be passed on to future generations."

My mind slowly processed what that meant.

"So what you're saying is that if we're not Divergent, we're damaged," I said, my voice wavering a little. I felt sick.

"Genetically damaged, yes," said David. "However, we were surprised to discover that the behavioral modification component of our city's experiment was quite effective—up until recently, it actually helped quite a bit with the behavioral problems that made the genetic manipulation so problematic to begin with. So generally, you would not be able to tell whether a person's genes were damaged or healed from their behavior."

"I'm smart," I said. "So you're saying that because my ancestors were altered to be smart, I, their descendant, can't be fully compassionate. I, and every other genetically damaged person, am limited by my damaged genes. And the Divergent are not."

"Well," said David,"Think about it."

Wasn't I compassionate? At least a little? I had helped my sister escape from Erudite. That was compassion, right? Right?

"Genes aren't everything," said Amar. "People, even genetically damaged people, make choices. That's what matters."

Everyone around me looked like they'd just been slapped in the face my their mother.

"This is a lot to process," said David.

That was probably the biggest understatement I'd ever heard in my life. Peter snorted.

"And you've all been up all night," David finishes, like there was no interruption. "So I'll show you to a place where you can get some rest and food."

"Wait," said Tris, "You said you've been observing us. How?"

David nodded to one of the people behind him. Images appeared on the screens behind them. The bean sculpture. The Amity fields, the Hub. Everything.

"You've always known that the Dauntless observe the city with security cameras," David said. "Well, we have access to those cameras too."

These people had been watching us. They'd seen our entire lives. The'd seen my fathers death, my sister being experimented on. They'd seen the mindless drones of the Dauntless attacking Abnegation. They'd seen everyones ups and downs.

An uneasy feeling washed over me. I never understood the saying 'ignorance is bliss.' Now I did.

HAS ANYONE EVER NOTICED HOW YOU CAN MEET PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD HERE? YOU MIGHT HAVE NEVER MET THEM IN REAL LIFE BECAUSE THEY LIVE HALFWAY ACROSS THE EARTH! IT'S PRETTY COOL! REVIEWS PLEASE! STAY PIEFACEINGLY!