Chapter 10
TOBIAS
It's a brand new week filled with brand new challenges. We're done with the physical part of our training and are now supposed to enter the mental part of it, although I have no idea what that actually entails. Whatever it is, it takes places in a whole different part of the Dauntless compound and doesn't require Will and Gendry's presence.
Zeke, Jax and Rhys lead us down a different set of tunnels in the underground compound. They bring us to a very large and dark room with a giant window in the back wall. Someone flips a switch and from the roof fluorescent lights start flickering on and off.
Rhys walks to the centre of the room and busies himself at a machine that looks a lot like the one used to administer the aptitude test. Jax flips a second switch, and the lights expose another large, empty room which stretches out beyond the window. There are cameras in each corner of it.
"This is the fear landscape room," Rhys announces without looking up. "A fear landscape is a simulation in which you confront your worst fears." He arranges a line of syringes on the table next to the machine before walking back over to us. The entire contraption looks sinister if you ask me.
"Here at Dauntless we consider the fear landscape to be a vital part of training," Zeke adds. "After you've exposed yourself to your greatest fear, the fear has no power over you. Dauntless is founded upon bravery, and you cannot be brave if you don't know how to conquer fear."
"How will you know what our worst fears are?" I ask Zeke.
"The serum," Caleb answers, although my question was obviously never directed to him. "It will stimulate the parts of the brain that process fear, and will trigger them to fabricate the simulation obstacles. In other words, we'll make them up ourselves."
"Will it be like the aptitude test?" Arthur, the youngest of us, asks with a shaking voice. I wonder since my Divergence makes me aware during simulations, like I was during the aptitude test and Uriah was during the attack, if it will give me some sort of advantage over the others in the fear landscape.
"Going into the simulation will be a lot like the aptitude test," Caleb answers again. "The only difference is you will be aware that what you are seeing isn't real." So I suppose it will be a level playing field then. Arthur lets out a relieved breath.
"Exactly," Zeke answers slowly, giving Caleb a strange eye. I'm curious too. I'd like to know how he knows so much about Dauntless serums after twelve weeks in Erudite.
"Zeke and I will be in the other room," Rhys adds. "We'll be controlling the simulation, and we get to tell the program embedded in the simulation serum to move on to the next obstacle once your heart rate drops to a normal level. In other words, once you've calmed down or faced your fear in a significant way. When you run out of fears, the program will terminate and you will wake up with a greater awareness of your own fears."
"Will you be able to see our fears?" Lennox asks, staring at the machinery in the other room.
Both Zeke and Rhys turn to look at Caleb, prompting him to answer. "Yes," he begins. "There's a transmitter in the serum which picks up the brain's electrical activity and transmits that to the computer, which then translates the hallucination into a simulated image that can be seen and monitored."
Everyone nods slowly, but I doubt they all understood what he just said.
"You," Rhys says, pointing to Caleb. "Since you know so much about it, you get to go first."
Caleb doesn't move an inch.
Rhys picks up one of the syringes and beckons to Caleb a second time; he appears to be frozen in place. It's a drastic shift of character considering how confident he was only a few minutes ago when he was quick to display his knowledge of the serum. But this is typical of Caleb; he has a head full of theory without the slightest ability or will to apply it.
Slowly, Caleb approaches, and Rhys plunges the needle almost savagely into the side of his neck. They leave Jax at the table of syringes, and Zeke and Rhys steer Caleb toward the next room. They leave him to stand in the middle of it, and then they both attach themselves to the simulation machine with electrodes. Zeke presses something on the computer screen to start the program.
At first, Caleb is still, his hands by his sides. He stares at us through the window, his eyes wide and pupils dilated. A moment later, though he hasn't moved, it looks like he's staring at something else, like the simulation has begun. Caleb suddenly begins to scream and thrash and cry, flinging his arms at nothing. His heart rate, recorded on the monitor in front of Zeke and Jax, rises and rises until his heart is beating so fast I fear it'll suddenly tire and stop.
He's not just afraid- he's terror-stricken. I think I understand why they made it so that everyone is aware during the fear landscape. Facing your worst fears one after the other without knowing it isn't real might be enough to kill a man.
I count the fears as Zeke passes them- fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Sixteen fears. When Zeke taps the screen one last time, Caleb's body collapses and he screams out in panic, still unaware that the simulation has ended. Jax disconnects himself from the machine and goes to pick him up, slowly leading him back over to our side of the room. Caleb is barely outside when Rhys calls Arthur up next.
Lennox follows Arthur, then James and Theodore. For more than an hour I watch them face their fears, running and jumping and clawing their way out of some invisible trap. But the fears that intrigue me the most are the silent ones, the ones that leave them paralyzed or bring them to their knees, and in some cases, lying face down on the floor, sobbing. They all seem to have a number of fears, though not as many as Caleb, and I sit and wonder what things might Abnegation men be terrified of. To be honest, I can't think of many. I certainly can't think of sixteen.
I suppose I will soon find out, since Jax is practically carrying Theodore out the room, and urging Zeke to continue without him. It's a welcome surprise. It's not that I don't trust Jax, I'd just prefer if Zeke were the only one to get inside my head. I'm not sure what they'll see when they connect themselves to me.
"It's just me and you." Zeke says. "You ready?"
I lie with a nod. Having been aware in a simulation prior to this one might help keep me calm going in, but that's as far as I imagine my divergence being of any advantage to me; I have no idea what I'll see once I'm in there, or how I will react to it.
Zeke picks up the needle. It's much larger up close. "Come on, let's get this over with."
Standing in front of me, Zeke pushes the needle into my neck. Surprisingly, I barely feel it go in. I walk into the next room and face the window, which looks like a mirror on this side. In the moment before the simulation takes effect, I can see my reflection clearly. I stare at it; I've never looked like this before. I appear taller but it's only because I'm standing up straight and not slouching the way I always used to. I'm not skinny and buried in fabric; my body looks bigger, fortified with muscle. I'm surprised by the shadow of strength I see in myself right before the room disappears.
Images fill the space in pieces. The skyline of the city appears first, then the line of the ledge beneath my feet and the pavement seven stories below me. I'm on a building taller than all the others around it and I feel the full force of the wind as it pushes against me from all angles. Then the building grows with me on top of it, moving me farther away from the ground. The wind becomes even stronger, whipping my clothes so hard they snap.
I cringe away from the edge, something I'd do every time I looked out the windows of the higher floors of City Hall, but the wind won't let me move backward. My heart pounds harder and faster as I confront the reality of what I have to do; I can only move forward- I have to jump.
Knowing there will be pain when I slam into the ground, I shake out my hands, squeeze my eyes shut, and scream into my teeth. I jump, following the push of the wind, and I drop fast. Searing, white-hot pain rushes through me as I hit the ground, but it only lasts for a second. I stand up, wiping dust from my cheek, and wait for the next obstacle.
I have no idea what it will be and my heart races in anticipation.
Out of nowhere, something hits my back, hard. Then something hits my left side, then my right side, and I'm enclosed in a box large enough only for my body. Shock protects me from panic, at first, and then I breathe the close air and stare into the empty darkness. I feel my insides squeeze tighter and tighter.
I suddenly can't breathe anymore. I gasp at the air and take in nothing; the box is suffocating me. I try to think but I can't seem to grab hold of my mind. The wall against my back is too much like the one in my memories, from when I was young, shut in the darkness in the upstairs hallway as punishment. I was never sure when it would end, how many hours I would be stuck there with imaginary monsters creeping up on me in the dark, with the sound of my mother's sobs leaking through the walls.
I slam my hands against the wall in front of me, again and again, then I claw at it though the splinters stab the skin under my fingernails. I put up my forearms and hit the box with the full weight of my body, closing my eyes so I can pretend I'm not in here. I want to scream for someone to let me out, but the child in me knows the punishment for making a sound when I'm not supposed to.
That's when I go still. I remember that this is a simulation. Slowly, I gain control of my breaths and my thoughts. I think it through. What do I need to get out of this box? How did I escape the dark closet as a child?
A door, I think. I need a door.
Knowing there has to be a way out, I press my hands against the wall in front of me and I slide them down until I feel a knob. I grab it hard and turn it, pushing the door open as I do. All the walls fall to the ground around me as I step out into freedom.
Only I'm not free; my hands are tied in front of me as I walk into a room full of Abnegation. The crowd stretches as far back as I can see, far more of us than there are left, far more of us than I think there ever has been. There's a wooden podium standing in front of them and I walk up to it, not understanding at all what is happening. I can't be afraid of being their leader if that is what I already am.
I open my mouth to speak although I have no idea what I'm to say, but my lips become frozen when a cold finger is pressed against them. The room becomes as cold as winter and I turn to my right only to look and see my father's corpse, pale and blue and still bleeding from his abdomen. He stands there staring at me, his cold finger still pressed against my lips.
"What do you want from me?" I seethe at him, fighting to break my hands free. "Why are you here?"
"I want you to admit it," Marcus answers darkly. I shiver at the sound of his voice; it's his, only deeper and heavier. "You can never free them." He points to the crowd of Abnegation and when I turn to look at them they are all bound with their hands in front of them, just as I am. The people are still. They all look at us blankly, looking but not at all seeing.
"You're wrong," I say. "I will make things right again. I'll be a better leader than you ever were."
"But I am still their leader," Marcus smiles sinisterly at me.
"No," I growl at him. "You're gone. I'm their leader now."
"No, you are not," Marcus shakes his head. "I am. These people don't trust you, Tobias. They trust me. They expect you will be as great a leader as I was. Do you think they will continue to follow you after they've learned what I did? When they've lost faith in me, they will lose faith in you. They will abandon you."
"That's a lie!" I scream at him.
"You cannot save them!" The corpse of my father hits me, harder than he ever has, and I fall to the cold, hard, floor. I scurry on the floor for a second but I push myself back up, knowing that to get out of this fear I must defeat my father even after his death. He tries to push me back down but I'm stronger than him, I know I am, even with my hands tied. I plant my feet into the ground and I stand firm.
"I will save them," I say strongly. "And you will never hurt any one of us ever again."
Marcus hisses at me as he grows larger and larger in front of me until he's a giant more than ten times my height. Angry, he looks down at me but I'm not afraid of him. So he grabs a woman who meekly stands in the front row. Picking her up to his face, she does nothing while he squeezes the life out of her. Knowing she won't fight back, I recognize I must free myself in order to save her. I must free myself so I can kill him.
Pulling my hands apart, the rope tears like paper between them and falls to the ground. I call a knife to my hand and, without thought, I throw it at him, aiming for the space between his eyes. The giant corpse falls to the ground and then vanishes.
The Abnegation, all now free, begin to disappear one by one until there's only one woman left.
Tris.
She and I stand alone in a large white space and she's smiling at me as I walk toward her. But I break into a run when I see a Dauntless soldier standing behind her. When he aims his gun at her, I run full speed, but instead of closer, she only seems farther away. I see his finger on the trigger and my heart races so hard it hurts.
"Tris!" I yell at the top of my lungs. "Turn around!" But she doesn't hear me.
I run faster, and my vision becomes blurred with tears because I already know what will happen. I already know that losing Tris is the worst thing that could ever happen to me.
The gunshot is loud and the bullet hits her from behind, piercing through the left side of her chest. Only then do I get to her, and I collapse in front of her, frantically taking her lifeless body into my arms.
"No!" I cry out into the empty space. I try to breathe but I can't seem to. It isn't real. It isn't real, I tell myself over and over again, but the pain in my chest is as real as it could ever be. I sob into her face, holding her body flush against me. Rubbing my hand over her hair, I press a kiss to her forehead and I watch her body disappear from my arms.
I let my arms fall to the ground, waiting for the next obstacle. My knuckles brush the stone floor, which is cold and grainy with dirt. I hear footsteps and brace myself for what's coming, but then I hear Zeke's voice say, "Is that really all there is? You are one special son of a bitch."
He stops next to me and offers me his hand. I take it and let him pull me to my feet. I don't look at him. I don't want to see his expression. He knows more about me now than I would have ever wanted to share and I wish he didn't.
"I don't believe it. Four fears," he says with amusement in his voice. "I definitely need to stop calling you 'Stiff'. You're more Dauntless than half my faction." At that I do look at him. He's smiling a little. I don't see any pity in his eyes, none at all. "But you are Dauntless, aren't you?" Zeke asks, crossing his arms. "You're Divergent," he says casually.
"Yes," I have no fear to admit since Zeke's own brother is Divergent. Confused as to how he could have figured that out, I say, "I thought everyone was aware during the simulation."
"Everyone is aware, but not everyone can manipulate the simulation the way you just did. You created a door and a knife just by thinking about it," he says. "Besides, I had figured as much; I've never met such a Dauntless Abnegation in my life."
"Is that why I only had four fears? Because I'm Divergent?"
"No," Zeke clarifies. "Manipulating the simulation will make your fears easier to deal with, so you'll get through them a lot faster than most people would, but it doesn't affect the number of fears you have. That's all you." We both begin to walk out of the fear landscape room when Zeke adds, "And most times the fears aren't to be taken literally, but I'd say yours are pretty straightforward."
"Could you do me the favour of keeping them to yourself?" I ask sounding a bit annoyed. To be honest it's only one in particular I'd rather no one ever knew: the fear that I'd never be able to save Abnegation, that my father ruined us forever.
"It's our secret," Zeke says with a wink, and then he pats me hard on the shoulder.
We walk out the same way we came in, only we don't turn down the tunnel that leads to the training area. "Where are we going?" I ask.
"The others aren't expecting us for at least another half hour. I'll just let the girls know we're done."
"You mean you just want an excuse to see Shauna," I tease under my breath.
Zeke laughs. "That may or may not be true."
The walk to the girls' training room is a familiar one, since Zeke's brought me with him once before. The only difference is back then I was certain Tris would have wanted to see me. I'm not so sure anymore; she spent the last two days barely speaking to me. Even yesterday, when we were given the day off, she chose to spend the entire day with Susan and Uriah in Dauntless.
I was miserable but I didn't back down. It's not that I'm hell-bent on training Emily- I'm not. I just don't want to encourage Tris to prolong a meaningless feud between them. At some point, she will have to accept that Emily is not a threat.
We push the door open and find the girls already finishing up their training for the morning. Will's in the room with them, his arm wrapped around one of the Dauntless girls- Christina, I think her name is. Shauna doesn't hesitate to walk over, smiling from ear to ear when she sees Zeke.
"You guys finished already?" she asks him after a kiss on the cheek. She slides her fingers between his.
Zeke nods. "You ever hear of anyone having only four fears in their fear landscape?" I immediately feel my shoulders sink. I could have sworn only five minutes ago he swore to not speak of my fears.
Shauna's eyebrows furrow. "No. Last I heard, the record was seven or eight. Why?"
Zeke doesn't say anything, but he gestures at me and wraps his free arm around me.
Shauna's eyes open wide and she freezes in front of us. "You're kidding," she asks, awestruck. When Zeke shakes his head she says, "Wow. Four."
Zeke grins at me. "Maybe that's what I'll call you. Four."
"That's pretty amazing," Shauna says with a genuine smile. "I hope my girls do well today too. Let me go tell them to get ready." She turns to walk away but Zeke holds her captive, only letting go of her hand after she's playfully tugged it away a million times. Jogging back the way she came, Shauna blows him a kiss and grins.
"Later, Babe," Zeke calls out to her. He smiles for at least another full minute.
I've come to really admire their relationship and how well they've been keeping things together even after their families fell apart. Zeke shared with me that Shauna's mother left with the traitor Dauntless and took their little brother with her; she's always been wary of Divergents and was a believer in Jeanine's rumours. She even taught her children that Divergents could not be trusted and pulled away from Uriah when he admitted to being Divergent, just after the attack. She even warned Shauna to stay away from Zeke when he chose to stand by his brother, but a few difficult conversations and sleepless nights later, she chose to stay with him. They've had real problems and still stand strong together, while Tris and I are here fighting over nonsense.
"How long have you two been together?"
Zeke, still smiling, answers, "About two years. You should ask her though. She'd probably be able to tell you down to the last minute." He shakes his head and removes his arm from around me. "We've known each other our whole lives but I didn't even know she liked me until our initiation."
I nod. Maybe time is what makes the difference.
"And you? How long have you and Tris been married?"
"A little over 3 months," I say. "And we didn't really know each other long before that." I don't get into the details.
"Really?" Zeke raises an eyebrow at me. "And you two look like you've got it all figured out already. What's your secret?"
I scoff. If he only knew. "I think she might be mad at me." I look over at Tris who is obviously ignoring me. She's facing my direction, but pretending not to see me. I just wish she'd stop blowing this whole thing with Emily out of proportion. After what I just saw in my fear landscape, I want nothing more than to hold her, to kiss her.
"Yup. She is definitely mad at you." Zeke gives me an eye. "What'd you do?"
But before I can answer, the answer comes running up to me. She seems energetic and vibrant, her brown hair let down and hugging her face. "Tobias!" Emily says my name cheerily. "So I'll see you later?"
"Yeah, sure," I answer with nowhere near as much vigour as she.
"I'm up first for the fear landscape, so we can work out until the others are finished." With an excited grin, Emily takes off and follows Shauna and Lynn through the door.
I feel Zeke's eyes tearing into me. When I turn my head to look at him, the look on his face is one that demands an explanation. I feel guilty though I'm doing nothing wrong. "She asked me for help with her training," I tell him.
"And you agreed?"
I shrug.
"Just you and her?"
"Yes," I answer.
"Well no wonder Tris is mad at you," Zeke says, shaking his head at me. "Shauna would rip my head off if I tried some crazy shit like that, man."
"Tris has nothing to worry about. Emily is not important to me," I roll my eyes. I hate having to explain this yet again.
"That's not the point!" Zeke urges quietly. "When your girl is wary of a certain woman, you run. Doesn't matter if she's right or wrong. There is absolutely no way it'll end well for you." Zeke chuckles, actually he's laughing at me, and he pats me on the back before walking out of the training room with Will and Christina. Maybe he's right, but it shouldn't have to be like that. Tris is supposed to trust me enough to know I'd never let anyone come between us. I can't cut people out of my life just because she doesn't like or trust them; If I did, with how suspicious she's been of everyone, I wouldn't be talking to anyone.
Susan and Uriah walk out next with Tris close behind them. Not willing to let the morning go by without speaking to her, I gently take her arm when she tries to slide out the door. She looks at my hand wrapped around her elbow and then up at me. There's a look in her eyes- one of anticipation. I already know what she wants me to say, and given that I haven't been this close to her in a while, I'm almost tempted to.
"The fear landscape can be tough," I say instead. "Just breathe and you'll get through it."
"Thanks," she says, turning her eyes away from me. "Good luck today with your trainee." Tris pulls her arm back and walks away, leaving me standing alone in the training room.