"I don't like it," Tobias whispers to me that night. We are all getting ready for bed, but he just sits on his. The others are across the room murmuring their own conversations.
"Don't like what?" I go and sit next to him and he leans his cheek on the top of my head.
"I don't like what Nita is implying. About using you."
I turn and face him. I thought he might say this and I have been thinking about it. "Nita says I'm this one chance they've got at bringing down the simulation. They need me."
"To what extent? You don't owe them anything."
"We have to fight, Tobias. You can see this, right?" I look into his eyes and see a vulnerability there, "We're soldiers. We're Dauntless, we have to be brave and fight for what's right."
Tobias closes his eyes and breathes out, "I can't lose you."
Oh, so that's what this is about, "And you won't," I say gently, "But this is a war and we have to take risks. If the resistance wants to use me, then maybe I'll have to be used. Maybe that's what soldiers are there for." I draw him in close and just sit in his arms, "You know I can't lose you either, right?"
"I know. It's just I'm not the one being told she's 'The One', you can't make stupid sacrifices Tris."
"Stupid sacrifices?" I say flatly and sit back, "So my mum made a 'stupid sacrifice' when she saved me did she?"
"That's not what I meant,"
"Then what did you mean?"
"You can't take ten bullets to the chest and live Tris," his voice is strained.
"I know that," I growl back, what did he think I was, a child? "We're not in a story, Tobias. But if I have to make the sacrifice so the ones I love can live then I'm going to do it. Because that's what soldiers do."
He sits back as well and we stare at each other. His voice is fast and low, "Soldiers don't want to die. You told me you wanted to live, Tris. You already did the sacrifice thing once in Erudite headquarters. I can't let you repeat that."
"You don't get to make the call. I love you Tobias, but this war involves everyone and if I can end it so we can live then I will. Whatever the cost." I turn away from him and leave the room.
He doesn't try to come after me.
I walk the hallways trying to figure out everything in my head. I don't need his protection, I can make my own choices and if I can make one where we all live happily ever after then I'll do that, but if not then I would do the next best thing. And if it meant sacrificing myself then fine, because it would be for the people I love. I wouldn't do it for myself, or my parents, it would be for him.
The hallways are dark lit only by eerie blue lights every five paces or so, and only a few people wander down them. I realise I'm outside Cara's hospital room and I shrug and enter. She's asleep, I turn to leave again but I almost walk into Mathew. He looks exhausted and motions for me to be quiet and he takes me into another room off from the hospital.
"What's up?" he asks as we enter a small office with a desk and a couch.
I shrug not really wanting to talk about it to one of Nita's lackeys. He looks at me for a long time before muttering something about tea and leaving the room.
I lean back on the couch and rub my face. I am exhausted but I don't feel like sleeping. Or going back to the room to confront Tobias. I hear the door open again and Mathew walks back into the room holding two steaming mugs. I take a sip of the one he hands me and a warm minty flavour immediately fills my mouth. I sigh and Mathew smiles at me as he settles onto the other side of the couch.
"Nothing like peppermint tea after a rough day." He sounds like he expects me to talk but I remain silent.
I'm halfway through my tea lost in my own thoughts before a question drifts up from the dregs. "The map," I say.
"What map?" he asks, looking a bit startled.
"We were showed a map when we got here. A map of an impossibly large world, where our city was just a tiny dot. It seemed so insignificant. Those other places… do they have people in them as well?" I don't know why I ask, maybe just to try and grasp whether setting the people enslaved under the simulation will make a difference? Will it matter if we can free them? I want to explore the world, the stars, everything. And I want to explore it with Tobias.
Mathew grimaces. "They do. But they won't help us. There used to be a time when all of the world was connected and people could communicate in an instant. People on the opposite side of the Earth, sharing ideas and news and wars and trade. During the Freedom War the entire world was dragged into it, every country fighting to control their own population." He gets up and sifts through some of the papers in a drawer and pulls out a copy of the map which he hands to me.
"We don't know very much about what's happening currently but the Utopian cities do have a trade network with a number of other countries. Mainly shipping, but there are far too many pirates on the waters for anything of value to come into the ports. The last bit of news we managed to hack gave us an update on a shipment of metals and ore that came in from Australia." I don't know which country Australia is but Mathew catches my look and points it out on the map. "Not exactly vital information but it does mean there are other countries out there with enough of a society to manage to have a trade route set up. Whether or not those things are mined using a slave army is still unknown. Last I read though, I'm pretty sure Africa descended into chaos during the War and Europe didn't come out of it much better…" he subsides into silence, lost in his own speculation.
I look at the map unable to fathom that there was so much more world out there. And other people, living completely different lives to us. I sincerely hoped they were free. I look up at Mathew and catch him staring at me. He seems like he has a deep understanding in his eyes, like he could fathom what I'm thinking.
"How did you join the resistance?" I ask, mainly to get him to stop staring at me.
He stiffens and his eyes narrow before he sighs, "I was born into one of the Utopian cities, below the Scar. I was trained to experiment developing the serums."
Oh. "Why did you leave?"
"Because, even after all the brainwashing, I recognised just how fucked up their version of a perfect society was. I left and found the Resistance. I didn't want anything to do with the Programmers or Government."
"Are there others like you?"
He snorts, "I don't know. I haven't met anyone else. We're told from a very young age that the Sims were made to serve us in a perfect society. The simulation is perfection and we, in the Utopian cities were the Gods to be served. But I realised that was bullshit when I watched the Programmers kill a Sim. He was a Divergent, the simulation failed him, and his mind realised and cut him out. It happens from time to time, I knew this, but I didn't know what happened to them. He couldn't be re-inserted, he wanted to be. I thought maybe then they'd just let him live in our society. I thought because he had defeated the simulation then he could live like us, controlling it. But they killed him. And then I realised how fragile that perfect world is. All the people in those cities are just like the Sims, fed a lie but born into the privilege of freedom."
"Wow. So we both came from societies of lies then." I feel a kind of kinship to him then.
He laughs, but I don't hear any humour there, "I suppose you're right. Maybe we can create something different if we ever manage to bring it down. A new society, where we tell the truth to everyone."
"And we help people."
"And we're brave."
"And peaceful."
"And we strive for knowledge and understanding." He smiles sadly at me, "I don't know whether that society could be a reality."
"Why not?" I ask, "Why can't we create something like this?"
"Maybe we could, maybe we couldn't. We fight against ourselves in every possible situation. Why do you do it? Why do you fight?" He's serious now and he looks at me with his dark eyes and his head bent to one side trying to understand me.
"To protect the ones I love," I answer immediately.
"Even if it means dying?"
"If that's what it takes. If it's necessary to protect them." I say it intensely, where was he going with this?
"That sounds pretty selfish to me." He says it with utter conviction and it stops me in my tracks.
"What?"
"Well where does that leave your loved ones? In a broken society mourning your death?"
"It won't be a broken society. I wouldn't die for nothing."
"But you'd still be dead. I don't know whether your loved ones would prefer to live in a world without you." He shrugs, "I wouldn't."
I have nothing to say. I thought sacrificing myself for love would be selfless. Maybe it would be but then I think of Tobias. I can't lose you. Mathew has just made me even more confused than before. Now I don't know what to do.
"Thanks for the tea," I say standing up abruptly.
Mathew stays seated, "You're welcome. If you need to talk, you know where I am."
I nod and leave, meandering slowly down the halls trying to untangle my thoughts. I get to the dorm none the wiser as to what I want to do, so I just take my shoes off quietly and lie on my back staring into the dark ceiling. Tobias is breathing gently in the next bed over. I turn my back to him and fall asleep.
AN: Please leave a review, they help me a lot. :D