Chapter 10
Tobias
Though it is late, light radiates from the Erudite building as though it is on fire; each window a glimpse into the work of a scientist inside. I remember the last time I was here, saving Caleb from Evelyn's prison. It seems strange that he should have ended up back here.
"You ready?" Christina asks, squeezing my hand.
I open my mouth to reply, but I can't seem to form the right word. Instead, I move towards the glass doors that lead into the building and peer into the dimly lit foyer. It's deserted. I push the door open slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible.
Footsteps sound like bullets in the muffled silence, and I quickly pull Christina behind the empty reception desk.
An anxious-looking man in a white coat runs down the stairs, frantically riffling through an enormous book, muttering nonstop in what sounds to me like a foreign language. Once he has safely disappeared down a corridor to the right, I stand up, pulling Christina with me. I look around the reception, trying to find anything that might help us, but before I see anything…
"Four, over here!" Christina whispers excitedly. She's standing across the room, examining one of the posters on the wall. As I draw nearer, I realise that it's a detailed floor plan of the building.
"Where's his lab?" I ask, scanning the map quickly.
"Up here," she says, pointing to the far left corner on the second floor. "And we're down here," she points to a red dot near the bottom of the map, "so we need to go up these stairs, across there, up those stairs, down the corridor and third on the left." She traces our path with her finger and she speaks.
"And all we have to do is not be seen by anyone," I say. "Sounds like one of Eric's Dauntless initiation games."
"If Eric had planned it, there'd be no map and a minefield instead of a staircase." Christina smiles at me. "Let's go."
We make our way silently up the stairs, the blue-hued electric lights casting our moving bodies as elongated shadows shifting fluidly across the stark white walls. The first floor is silent, though squares of light shine through the lab doors, illuminating our faces as we pass. We come to the second staircase; a narrow, winding spiral climbing steeply upwards. Voices suddenly echo up from below us, followed by the patter of footsteps on the stairs. Christina looks at me, panic-struck. I turn to sprint up the stairs, but it's too late.
"Hey!" calls a man's voice. I freeze, wondering whether to make a run for it, I am almost certainly faster than him, but one shout could alert all the other scientists.
"Four?" A wave of relief washes over me as I recognise Caleb's voice, not the emotion I would have expected in this situation.
"Oh, thank God," Christina says, slumping against the bannister, "it's you."
"You're lucky it is me," Caleb replies reproachfully. "Do you realise what would have happened if someone else found you here?"
"Yeah, yeah, spare us the lecture," I say, his Erudite character already annoying me. "Shouldn't we get going to your lab?"
"This way," he says, casting me a dirty look as he carries on past me up the stairs. We follow him down in dizzying circles upwards, until we emerge on an identical, long corridor. We stop outside the door of lab 34B, on which a small plaque reads Dr Caleb Prior.
Caleb types a long code into a keypad set to the side of the door, and it slides smoothly open, revealing a typically minimalist Erudite lab, all the surfaces spotlessly clean. Automatic lights flicker on above us as we enter, the severe blue glare bouncing off the polished walls and floor. Caleb leads us over to his desk, where several computer monitors are winking sleepily at us.
I feel uncomfortable here, the bright lights and steely worktops an all-too-painful reminder of the time I spent as a prisoner in the Erudite headquarters, when Jeanine made me watch Tris writhe in pain so that I would give her information.
Lost in agonising memories, I suddenly realise Caleb is talking. I drag myself back to the present, trying to ignore the feeling of dread that still fills me.
"As you know, all the scientists have access to all the security cameras inside the city, as Dauntless did before," he is saying, tapping away rapidly at the keyboard as he speaks. "But since our visit to the Bureau, I've been curious to see more of what's outside the fence as well, especially after Tris…" He fades off, glances nervously at my stony face, then continues hurriedly. "Anyway, I've been trying for a while to remotely access their computer system in order to see their CCTV footage, and a couple of days ago I finally managed it." He steps back from the screen and beckons us forward. "I managed to get hold of this clip from one of their mobile cameras that was set up in the fringe, and I thought you should see it." His hands are trembling slightly as he clicks the mouse once.
I lean forward and see a derelict row of houses set back from a potholed street, where a few people are walking slowly towards the camera. As they get closer, I see that it's two women, both slight and blonde. They draw closer to the camera, then turn to look at the houses in front of them. A few moments later they move again, back down the way they've come.
A movement at the edge of the screen catches my eye, and as a figure moves into the shot, one of the women turns face on to the camera, reaching for a gun at her waistband in a movement that is painfully familiar.
The picture is small and grainy, but there's no doubt now. I stare at the screen, transfixed by what I'm seeing, unable to believe my eyes.
Tris stares back at me, smiling now as she seemingly recognises the figure. I glance at him, wondering who he could be. As they turn and walk away, his shuffling gait reminds me of a tall boy with shaggy blonde hair from Dauntless initiation – Will.