Chapter Twelve: Capitol and City Secrets
*Katniss POV*
Jeanine Matthews? Isn't she the lady who caused all of this? The person who stole Peeta from me….
I try to hold myself steady as the one other person I hate as much as Snow walks further into the room.
She begins speaking. "I heard from Plutarch here that you are from Panem." We nod. "Currently, the Erudite and Snow are at a peace agreement with negotiatable benefits. Snow has been benefiting off of the use of our resources, and we are using the help of research from the Capitol's scientists. But, we have no need to like the Capitol. The quicker they are removed from power, the better. We may have offered simulations and such to them, especially in the thought of Peeta Mellark, but it was simply an agreement of help for research in order to prevent chaos within our city."
"Preventing chaos in the city?" I ask.
"There is a history of this place our people know," she begins. "It isn't false, but they don't have the full extent of the knowledge like the Erudite do. They are not aware that the city seceded from Panem, but they do know the reasons for the formation of the city. The foundation of the city was formed to correct human error, and there were disagreements. In order to prevent more conflict when trying to escape it, the faction system formed. The system put five people in charge of the city as a whole, one representing each faction. The Abnegation were in charge of day to day governmental procedure in the city while these five people would only meet in dire situations. The five would meet in the Hub to find a solution to the problem. These five people are selected from the already chosen representatives of each faction, and are only given extra power in this circumstance. They also are the only ones educated to the degree of knowing where our city formed from and why. They are called the Chicago Council, but we just refer to them as the City Council. The knowledge is kept from the population to prevent them from trying to correct the error outside of our fence, yet. There are people who have obtained that knowledge and are trying to reveal it to everybody in the city."
Finnick speaks up. "Outside of the fence, yet?"
"Yes," she nods. "One of our city's founders, Amanda Ritter, also known as Edith Prior, original leader of the Erudite, created a video to have released way in the future. Far enough to where our Divergent are heavily populated among us. I'll explain that later. She was stating that when we have an enormous Divergent population, we are to open up the fence and allow people to spread our word among the world, with heavy concentration, though not stated, on Panem. We are not ready, so I needed a demonstration to prove that, AKA the attack simulation. But things began to get out of hand when Beatrice Prior and Tobias Eaton escaped to defeat me. I was attempting already to experiment on the Divergent to create a simulation to control them in the chance of conflict in my plan, though I wasn't anticipating their actions. You may know Peeta Mellark, as he was our most recent simulation test subject." I shudder at the thought of what she did to Peeta.
"But, Miss Prior and Mr. Eaton's actions put me in an uncomfortable position, so I took over the city and implemented a government, but we haven't assembled officially yet. We have no time, so the city has no rulers except their factions representatives. There is so much resent that we have no idea what to do about. Anywho, the simulated Peeta Mellark, that is what you are here for, correct?"
"Yes," Plutarch says. "We wish to know rehabilitation methods towards recovery."
"The Capitol scientists haven't provided you with the curing method?" she asks. He shakes his head. "Oh well, it is kind of a challenge. It needs the use of more tracker jacker venom. Hijacking was originally a method of injecting tracker jacker venom when watching something from the past. The errors I easily deciphered were the fact that the person is watching it from a 'televised' sort of view and it wasn't exactly committed to memory with out constant injections. Even then, a person mainly remembered watching the memory, but in an altered form of the view, and not altering the real memory. When Snow and I made an agreement for research assistance, he revealed the hijacking and its failure, wishing for me to correct it. Luckily, the Erudite were researching simulations that could hinder a Divergent's ability to escape control, so I encountered a bargain. Update the hijacking technique with a powerful simulation serum that targets explicit memories."
Throughout this entire lecture, I'm wondering what it would be like to live in the factions and be Erudite, or even Dauntless.
"The venom was mixed with the serum and programmed to target memories at the authority of the leader of the experiment. After thorough experimentation on prisoners of the Capitol, all of which were originally sentenced to become Avoxes and were negative for Divergence, I began to search for Divergent individuals. All of our testing was done in the Capitol Prison Extuino, the hardest to escape prison in the world, protected 24/7 by Peacekeepers." I shudder at the thought of a nasty prison in the Capitol. "Any person not Divergent was sent back to be Avoxed. My first Divergent test subject, her name was Lavinia, showed success in the experiment. She was also the first person to attempt rehabilitation of the simulation. But, I kept moving on, because every Divergent's abilities are different."
Why does the name Lavinia ring a bell in my mind? "Mr. Mellark proved to be quite the peculiar Divergent, similar to Beatrice Prior. He had quite a high simulation resistance, and we tried everything. Dauntless fear landscape serums, Candor truth serums, Amity peace serums, etc. He was able to resist them all. When we began the hijacking experiment on him, we broke through to his brain. He proved that even powerful Divergents can not resist the altering of their memories. Although I know how his life was messed up, I must understand that it is purely for research." She finishes her lecture.
"As we had asked though," I say. "What about rehabilitation. It has been attempted, but how?"
"Oh, right!" She chirps. "I apologize. When I'm lecturing, it is easy to forget such simple questions. But, rehabilitation for hijacking involves using a separate serum to help re-alter the memories. Unpredictable, the cure is to use an altered serum with peace serum and a soothing drug when the memory is brought back to the forefront of the mind by remembrance. So, the technical saying would be 'hijacking them back to reality'. However, as it is still a simulation to begin with, Peeta can still be activated to revert back to his hijacked from, as well as be controlled to do a certain order as reported by the leader of the experiment. The simulation cannot removed by serum, only by the deactivation of the hard drive that the data is stored on. Due to events involving Beatrice Prior and Tobias Eaton, I have personally made sure only the Erudite could deactivate the simulation, not even Snow can attempt to hack it." So, she is in charge of Peeta's life now. I hold myself back from trying to attack her.
"Thank you Jeanine," Plutarch says.
"No problem at all," she says. "I may also wish to inform you of a coming nuclear assault that Snow has planned for Districts Three, Eight, and Eleven. I am aware you are part of the rebellion."
"I though you believed we were from the Capitol," Finnick states.
"I made you believe that, but I'm an Erudite, I am a person of knowledge, Finnick Odair. Regardless, since you are part of this war, I wished to allow President Alma Coin to know about these attacks. She is a military prodigy, a Dauntless-born Erudite on voluntary exile. Well, not really exile, more or less isolation."
"What?" I ask. Jeanine raises her eyebrows. "Coin wasn't born in Thirteen."
"No," she snaps, as if it was obvious. "Miss Everdeen, Coin is the only voluntary exile person who lives in Panem. She is a military expert, a Dauntless quality, as well as a negotiating master, an Erudite quality. Under my father's predecessor, whose name has escaped my mind at the moment, she chose to use her skills to cleanse Panem of the horrors of Presidents Fuler and Snow. She chose to help, so the Erudite agreed to give her the most advanced technology to turn the small, weak underground resistance of District 13 into a military stronghold. Before you ask, she is the only one in Thirteen aware of Chicago, she promised to keep it a secret. That is, until Miss Prior and Mr. Eaton came to visit you."
Miss Prior and Mr. Eaton? "You mean Tris and Four?"
"Yes. You should recognize Tobias as the victor of the Seventy-first Hunger Games. Beatrice, or Tris, is just the daughter of a late Abnegation leader." That is why I recognized him. He was a victor. He escaped to Chicago and escaped the Quell that the rest of the victors had to deal with. I somehow no longer has respect for Tris's little boyfriend.
"So, now that I have spoke to you about information you were searching for, I have a requirement before I let you leave the compound," Jeanine says, smiling.
"That is?" Plutarch asks.
"I need you all to be tested for Divergence. If you are positive, you may be allowed to leave…..in the future, after the war. I'm sorry for any inconvenience, but our own war here in Chicago is more important to me and my colleagues. But now, I must leave for some important meeting, but there are some scientists outside that will escort you to the experimenting room."
Plutarch's eyes grow wide and I wonder, What does Divergent testing mean? What if I am? Could I be the Mockingjay any longer? Could I save Peeta from his simulation. There is one answer.
I don't know.
Note: One, the "secrets" chapters are about over. Now, we will see Jeanine from Tris's POV and hear about Insurgent and such events, and then the testing and then return to Thirteen. Only a couple chapters in Chicago left. Please review!
