We'll get into the Allegiant stuff, folks.
Five minutes later, someone sends in a tray of food. A bread roll, mash potatoes, and a hamburger. I cut my meat up and dip them in the mash potatoes before eating a bite. Back in Erudite, for lunch, we would eat food like salmon and brown rice to enhance our brain power.
Wait, I'm in Erudite. Away from Candor.
"After I sent some of the Dauntless upstairs, I thought I heard a gunshot and when I investigated, I saw that the room was empty and that the needle gun was dismantled," says Eric.
"That was me," I say. "Go ahead. Tell me that my foolishness interrupted the task force that you led."
Eric leans towards, looking stern.
"Foolishness? You were intelligent to keep away from the action until Simon was stupid enough to shoot you in the shoulder and leg," says Eric. "He lacked Erudite brains. Also, I'm glad that something put the mission on hold because I don't think I would have the stomach to shoot a ten year old boy in the head."
"That's surprising. A few weeks ago, you wouldn't mind," I retort.
"You really believe that your tenth fear wouldn't have affected me?" he asks. "Besides, your aunt would have been furious if I let you bleed to death."
Eric sits back, balling his fists.
"If I didn't love you, I wouldn't spend my minutes bringing you here," says Eric. He wants to say more but I could tell he can't because the Erudite headquarters is bugged.
"Oh," I say.
Eric doesn't say anything.
"Eric? Are you aware of a Caleb Prior working for Aunt Jeanine?" I ask.
"The Stiff Erudite-wannabe?" asks Eric. "He informed me about Tris's aptitude results."
I knew it. Besides Stiff Erudite-wannabe suits Caleb.
"I will be surprised if he doesn't chicken out," says Eric. "It would be logical if he did."
By eight thirty, I'm unhooked by the IV and given a pair of clothes. Dauntless clothes. Due to the injury on my leg, I'm required to wear a brace and cast over my leg until my leg has fully healed.
A few days they say.
Eric carries me from Erudite headquarters and I cling to him as he carries me through the compound.
A few minutes later I hear mom shout, "What happened?"
"Some moronic Dauntless soldier," says Eric. "Mistook her for one of the Divergent."
"As if she would be," says mom as Eric sets me down in front of her.
"I'm sure she needs her rest," says Eric from behind. "She most likely had a long day."
I did.
After entering the house, I travel up the stairs, good foot up first.
"Whose idea was it to send me here?" I ask Eric.
"Jeanine's. She thought it was best for you to recuperate in familiar surroundings," says Eric. "Also, she didn't see the logic of you bunking in Erudite headquarters when you lived here."
She probably wants to isolate me from the other Dauntless after what happened today. Upon, entering my room, I feel like I stumbled into the bedroom of another girl. Bookcases almost cover every inch of the walls, saving spaces for my bed, desk, and dresser. The blue slippers still sat where I last kicked them off the morning of Choosing Day. My bed was made, as if mom expected for me to return home that day. My yearbook lay at the chest containing more books and I open it. I look through the pages until I see my yearbook portrait that was taken this fall.
The girl staring back looks like me. Only her hair is partially restrained in a clip, there are no piercings on her face, and she is wearing a blue button-up blouse with a white one under it. We share the same dark blond hair, plump lips, and green eyes. Next to my portrait is Theodore, his hair slicked back and wearing his old glasses.
"You look different there," says Eric.
"Want to see the yearbook from two years ago? I always kept them," I say.
"I didn't," says Eric as I pulled the yearbook from two years ago out from the chest. "I never saw the point."
I sift through the pages until I get to one of the last pages. Situated between the portraits of Isidor and an girl named Claire (She transferred to Amity), is Eric's school portrait. He hasn't changed too much, only that his hair wasn't lightly shaved on all sides and he didn't have a tattoo running up his neck or piercings above his right eyebrow.
"I remember when you used to look like that? Why didn't you take up the glasses while you were a dependent?" I ask.
"I didn't see the point in wearing them if I had perfect eyesight," says Eric, lifting me up. "I found it rather illogical."
He places me on my bed and takes off my shoes, being extra careful when taking off the shoe of the foot of the leg that was shot.
"Do you want me to stay?" he asks.
"Yes," I say.
"Alright," he says, before taking off his shoes, turning off the lights, and he lies next to me, carefully supporting my shoulder.
At eight in the morning, I am summoned to Aunt Jeanine's office, guarded by two Dauntless in blue armbands.
"Have a seat, Isobel," says Aunt Jeanine as I enter the office and I sit in front of her desk. She weaves her fingers together. "How are your shoulder and leg?"
"Sore," I answer before saying, "Aunt Jeanine? Why didn't Eric get into trouble for not completing the mission you assigned him?"
"You see, sometimes things happen that we don't expect," says Aunt Jeanine. "It wasn't my plan to have some Dauntless shoot you. If Eric didn't abort the Candor raid, blood loss would have been on your death certificate. It's true, he didn't finish what I sent him out for him to do, but he aborted the mission because he had to. I don't want to risk losing a genetic relative because of some oafish Dauntless. Now, I summoned you for a reason. What do you think is outside the fence?"
"Either it's abandoned civilization or other fenced-in, faction based communities," I answer. "Most likely the latter, because it's illogical for us to be alone."
Aunt Jeanine curves her lips into a cool smile. "We are not alone, that is correct."
"Do you know what is outside the fence?" I ask.
"I think I can trust you and Eric with information after showing you a file," she says.
"Tris and Four. They were still in Candor when I left their compound," says Eric as we both walk down the hall.
"They probably think you are planning another attack," I say.
"Let them think what they think," says Eric as we near the elevator.
"Is there a particular reason why Aunt Jeanine wants to show us something?" I ask.
"All she told me that we were to keep our mouths shut after the video," says Eric.
"Is this private?" I ask.
"Only for Jeanine's close associates," says Eric.
The elevator door opens and we get out. People stop as we pass by. I'm wearing Dauntless clothing: black pants, one of my long sleeved shirts, my black boots with the cast making me limp slightly, but over the black clothes, I'm wearing a blue, clean-cut jacket that is unbuttoned.
Eric opens the conference roomand I enter with him following me.
"Right on time," says Aunt Jeanine. "Will you have a seat?
Eric and I take seats around the small, round glass table.
"As you know, this is purely confidential," says Aunt Jeanine. "Only you two and my special agent know about this. I trusted him to view it first, just to process his reaction."
Eric snorts in disbelief. Why did she show this to Caleb Prior, an Erudite initiate, first?
"Just to warn you, this may shock you," she says, turning on the projector. "And you will see why we are protected inside the fence.
She turns on the projector connected to her laptop and darkens the room. Minutes later, we see a woman with short brown hair sitting at a metal desk, her hands folded, in an obscure location.
"Hello," she says. "My name is Amanda Ritter. In this file I will only tell you what you need to know. I am the leader of an organization fighting for justice and peace. This fight has become increasingly more important – and consequently, nearly impossible – in the past few decades. That is because of this."
Images flash across the wall, almost too fast for me to see but I pay attention. A man on his knees with a gun pressed to his forehead. The woman pointing it at him, her face emotionless.
From a distance, a small person hanging by the neck from a telephone pole.
A hole in the ground the size of a house, full of bodies. The other images showing carnage go by faster. I look to Eric to see his reaction. He's deep in thought, his hand over his chin.
The woman reappears on the screen.
"You do not remember any of it," she says. "But if you are thinking these actions are the actions of a terrorist group or a tyrannical government regime, you are only partially correct. Half of the people in those pictures, committing those terrible acts, were your neighbors. Your relatives. Your coworkers. The battle we are fighting is not against a particular group. It is against human nature itself – or at least what it has become."
Suddenly, the alarm goes off, causing Aunt Jeanine to pause the video.
"Intruder on the top floor. Intruder on the top floor," repeats a robotic male voice.
"Who dared enter my lab?" she demanded.
Eric runs out and I follow after him.
I hear a gunshot before someone yells, "Traitors!"
Two people, a man and a woman, stagger out of the elevator, with the woman being wounded. Eric lifts his gun and fires in the air, like a warning shot. The duo glance at him before running towards one of the fire exits.
"Good thing my computer was in the conference room," says Aunt Jeanine after returning from her private lab.
"Any ideas on who did it?" asks Eric.
"Tori Wu and Ezekiel Pedrad," says Aunt Jeanine. "Probably trying to find evidence that condemns me of killing her brother. If I remember correctly, he went outside the fence."
"Outside the fence?" I ask.
"I think I can trust you two with this information," says Aunt Jeanine.
That evening Aunt Jeanine went with Max to talk with Jack in Candor on peace conditions after yesterday's aborted mission. The peace conditions are a) hand over the Divergent to Erudite headquarters and b) give the list of names of those who haven't been shot by needles.
Meanwhile, Eric and I are in the top floor, researching the file that is known as the Chicago Experiment and genetic manipulation. We were shown the rest of the video and we learned that we were purposely isolated from the rest of the world until there was an abundance of those with more flexible minds, also known as Divergents.
Also, at the end of the video, Amanda Ritter says that she would join us and would take the name of Edith Prior.
Edith Prior. Edith is an Abnegation name but she resided in Erudite. It says it in the Erudite census.
"Imagine. Your entire world, your life, is a lie," says Eric. "The government actually thought that removing certain genes would improve things. A murder gene. How ridiculous."
"Genetic manipulation is damaging," I say. "They took away someone's qualities by doing that. I knew that our faction traits were in our genes, but not like this. What's good about manipulating someone's genetic make-up?"
"What doesn't sit well with me was that we were living in a government experiment," says Eric. "I didn't want my life planned out by pencil pushers. I now feel like I'm in an insane asylum with those whose genes have been messed with."
Nothing seemed the same ever since we learned about the truth. It doesn't sit well with me either. I get what Eric is saying. The fence is imprisoning us, not protecting us from the outside.
"How much do you think Caleb knows?" I ask.
Eric barks a laugh. "He's born a Stiff. I doubt Jeanine would tell him everything."
The distribution of information is unfair on both sides. Aunt Jeanine showed the video to Caleb first but didn't show it to us. After she showed it to us, she gave us almost every immaculate detail. With that, we learned that the Edith Prior video was partially correct, but there are some things missing.
"Eric, did you ever think that we were alone?" I ask him.
"I found it impossible," says Eric. "What piqued my curiosity is about the silence about what is outside Amity. I always found it illogical that we would be on our own. Because when you think of it, how do we get the things that kept us going?"
I understood what he meant.
Eric and I leave her private laboratory and decide to steal some food from the Erudite kitchen.
"If we really want to get the full aspect of this, our best chance is to get outside the fence," says Eric.
"And leave the city," I say.
"Isobel, we're in a freaking experiment," says Eric. "Whoever is running it is close by. That way they can keep a better idea of the city."
Before I could respond we hear a scuffle.
"I'm switching over! I'm switching over!" I hear someone yell. I recognize that voice.
Peter.
Eric and Isobel would be going outside the fence and arriving at the Bureau of Genetic Welfare earlier before Allegiant. If Eric defected in Canon and if he learned what was out there, he wouldn't wait on leaving.
Also, Jeanine knew that Amar and George went outside the fence, but did nothing as she knew the Bureau wouldn't hand them over.
Speaking of the Bureau, they know what Isobel and Eric are planning, since they watch the city.