CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Tris leans on me heavily as we are led to the front entrance of Abnegation headquarters. A Dauntless soldier presses the barrel of his gun into my back and prods me through the door. Inside a desk, computer and two empty chairs have been placed in the small room to make an office. Jeanine Matthews sits behind the desk with a phone pressed to her ear.

"Well, send some of them back on the train then," she says. "It needs to be well guarded, it's the most important part – I'm not talk-I have to go."

She ends her call, sets the phone down and looks at me and Tris.

"Divergent rebels," one of the soldiers says.

"Yes, I can see that." Slowly she removes her glasses and sets them on the desk next to the phone.

"You," she says pointing at Tris "I expected. "All the trouble with your aptitude test results made me suspicious from the beginning. But you..." She turns her attention to me and slowly shakes her head. "You, Tobias – or should I call you Four? - managed to elude me," she says in a quiet voice. "Everything about you checked out; test results, initiation simulations, everything. But here you are nonetheless."

I wonder, not for the first time, why Marcus had coached me to make sure I had received that Abnegation result. At the time I had assumed he wanted to make sure I stayed in Abnegation so he could keep me under his control. It wasn't until during my initiation that I realized there was something different about me. Unlike the others, I was aware during simulations and I had the ability to manipulate them. Did Marcus know that I was divergent and had he actually tried to protect me?

Amar had been the one to help me get through my simulations undetected. Jeanine might have the highest I.Q. of the Erudite but she wasn't smart enough to discover me...until now.

"You're the genius," I say to Jeanine. "Why don't you tell me?"

Jeanine smiles. "My theory is that you really do belong in Abnegation. That your divergence is weaker."

"Your powers of deductive reasoning are stunning. Consider me awed," I reply hotly. "Now that your intelligence has been verified, you might want to get on with killing us. You have a lot of Abnegation leaders to murder, after all."

I know it's insanity to speak like this to the woman who has the power to decide if we should live or die, but now that she knows we are divergent, the chances of her letting us live are slim. My only hope now is by aggravating her, she might order us to be shot on site which will at least be a quick death.

Jeanine continues to smile and remains calm. If she is annoyed by my comments she doesn't let it show.

Suddenly Tris falls against me. She must be getting weak from a loss of blood. I put my arm around her waist and help her continue to stand.

"Don't be silly. There is no rush," Jeanine says. "You are both here for an extremely important purpose. You see, it perplexed me that the divergent were immune to the serum that I developed, so I have been working to remedy that. I thought I might have, with the last batch, but as you know, I was wrong. Luckily I have another batch to test."

My heartbeat quickens. This is what I was afraid of. That instead of just shooting us, she wants to turn us into human guinea pigs. She will probably experiment on us until she turns our brains into mush and we die a slow and agonizing death.

"Why bother?" Tris says weakly. I can't help wondering if she has just come to the same conclusion I have.

Jeanine smirks at her. "I have had a question since I began the Dauntless project, and it is this. Why are most of the divergent weak-willed, God-fearing nobodies from Abnegation, of all factions?"

"Weak-willed," I say. "It requires a strong will to manipulate a simulation, last time I checked. Weak-willed is mind-controlling an army because it's too hard for you to train one yourself."

"I am not a fool," Jeanine snaps. "A faction of intellectuals is no army. We are tired of being dominated by a bunch of self-righteous idiots who reject wealth and advancement, but we couldn't do this on our own. And your Dauntless leaders were all too happy to oblige me if I guaranteed them a place in our new, improved government."

"Improved," I scoff.

"Yes, improved," Jeanine retorts. "Improved, and working toward a world in which people will live in wealth, comfort and prosperity."

"At whose expense?" Tris asks. Her voice sounds weak. "All that wealth...doesn't come from nowhere."

"Currently, the factionless are a drain on our resources," Jeanine replies. "As is Abnegation. I am sure that once the remains of your old faction are absorbed into the Dauntless army, Candor will cooperate and we will finally be able to get on with things."

"Get on with things," I spit out with disgust. "Make no mistake. You will be dead before the day is out, you-"

"Perhaps if you could control your temper," Jeanine says interrupting me "you would not be in this situation to begin with, Tobias."

"I'm in this situation because you put me here," I say angrily. "The second you orchestrated an attack against innocent people."

"Innocent people." Jeanine repeats with humor in her voice. "I find that a little funny, coming from you. I would expect Marcus's son to understand that not all those people are innocent." She sits on the edge of the desk. "Can you tell me honestly that you wouldn't be happy to discover that your father was killed in the attack?"

I don't know when or where Jeanine got her information about Marcus but there is no doubt now that she was the one responsible for releasing the news articles which accused him of abuse. The information in those statements was accurate. I hate that I've never been able to bring myself to forgive him. I believe in forgiveness, especially in those rare moments when it occurs to me that he might actually have been trying in his own sick and twisted ways to help me. But the truth is I wouldn't mourn for him if he died.

"No," I say through gritted teeth. "But at least his evil didn't involve the widespread manipulation of an entire faction and the systematic murder of every political leader we have."

I stare at Jeanine with hatred filling every part of me. She stares back for a moment and then clears her throat.

"What I was going to say," she says, "is that soon, dozens of the Abnegation and their young children will be my responsibility to keep in order, and it does not bode well for me that a large number of them may be divergent like yourselves, incapable of being controlled by the simulations. Therefore, it was necessary that I develop a new form of simulation to which they are not immune. I have been forced to reassess my own assumptions. That is where you come in."

She paces a few steps.

"You are correct to say that you are strong-willed. I cannot control your will. But there are a few things I can control."

She stops pacing and turns to face us.

I feel Tris leaning into me again. She rests her head against my shoulder. She won't be able to stand much longer.

"I can control what you see and hear," Jeanine continues. "So I created a new serum that will adjust your surroundings to manipulate your will. Those who refuse to accept our leadership must be closely monitored. You will be the first test subject, Tobias. Beatrice, however...you are too injured to be of much use to me, so your execution will occur at the conclusion of this meeting."

The terror of her statement sinks in quickly. She is going to test her serums on me. And Tris...she is going to kill Tris. Taking Tris from me and leaving me to be experimented on alone would be it's own form of excruciating torture. I see Tris look up at me and her eyes are brimming with tears.

"No," I say shaking my head. My voice trembles as I say "I would rather die."

"I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in the matter," Jeanine replies dismissively.

I can't do it! I won't do it! I scream internally. I know the only option I have left is to do something drastic - to make them shoot me here and now.

I only take a second to gather my courage and then...and then I know this will be the last time I will see Tris – in this life anyway. If I had the time and the opportunity there would be so many things I would say to her. She has made such a difference in the short time I have known her. Most of what she has done for me I suspect she doesn't even realize. Before I met her I was dead inside. So beaten down from all the bad things life had handed to me. I was ready to leave Dauntless even – a place where I sought refuge and had not only managed to survive but had even excelled. But it was empty. And then she landed on that net and turned my world upside down. For the first time I met someone who I dared to open myself up to and share my secrets. I found someone who made me feel I was worthy of existing. I experienced what it was like to love someone and to be loved.

I take Tris' face in my hands and kiss her. Then, without hesitation I lunge across the desk and wrap my fingers around Jeanine's throat. Vaguely I hear a rush of Dauntless soldiers and their guns click as they prepare to fire their weapons. I hear Tris scream. I expect to hear a gunshot or two and feel an instant of pain as a bullet enters my brain before the sensation of death overtakes me, but instead all I feel are strong arms pulling me away from Jeanine and forcing me to the ground. Knees press into my shoulders pinning me to the ground and hands against the back of my head smash my face into the floor so hard I can hardly breathe.

My only thought now is that I failed. I belong to Jeanine now and she will use me as a test subject instead of mercifully killing me. I hear rustling in the direction of the desk and in my peripheral vision see Jeanine approach me with a syringe in her hand. I make one last desperate attempt to escape by throwing my elbow back as hard as I can into the soldier's face. The guard slams the heel of his gun into the side of my head and I feel the prick of the needle in my neck. My entire body goes limp.

"Let him up," I hear a woman say. Her voice sounds hollow and almost dream-like.

I stand up but I'm confused as I look at the people around me. I can't remember any of their names or anything about them. I don't know where I am or how I got here, but I'm not alarmed about that. I feel calm and somehow I know that these people are my friends...I just can't remember...

"Tobias," I hear a girl calling my name. "Tobias!"

"He doesn't know you," says the older lady in the blue dress.

I look over my shoulder and see a short, thin girl with blonde hair. Her face is pale and her eyes are wide with fright. Blood drips down her arm from a wound on her right shoulder. I don't know this girl anymore than I know anyone else in the room but just as I knew they were my friends, I know she is my enemy.

Before anyone can stop me I rush toward her and grab her by the throat. One of the uniformed guards pulls me away from the girl and I hear her gasping. I continue to struggle to break free from the men holding me back. I don't know why I want to harm her, I don't know what she's done. I only know that I would need to kill her if they would let me get to her.

"The simulation manipulates him," the woman in blue says, "by altering what he sees – making him confuse enemy with friend."

I hear and understand the words she says but I don't know who she is talking to or whom she is talking about.

"The advantage to this version of the simulation," she continues, "is that he can act independently, and is therefore far more effective than a mindless soldier. Send him to the control room. We'll want a sentient being there to monitor things and, as I understand it, he used to work there."