Isobel and I sat in the small control room, looking at the screens while tying down information on computer. Amar is here, running a check on the monitors.
"Amar, how were the Dauntless leaders in sniffing out Divergents?" Isobel asks him.
Amar turns to give her his attention.
"There were two uneven groups that were split on the issue," says Amar. "Max and Veronica were adamant about hunting them down while the other three weren't as enthusiastic about it."
"I guess the latter group didn't want to lose assets to their faction," says Isobel. She's right about that one.
"Exactly the point," says Amar. "Darrell, Eric's predecessor, well, he thought that hunting down Divergents in Dauntless was going to diminish their number of assets. He blamed simulation awareness for various things. Eric wasn't enthusiastic as you know, but that was because he was Divergent himself and he too didn't want to risk losing what he thought were assets to the faction."
That's true. I didn't care for the initiates but half of them, Divergent or not, were assets to the faction, like Uriah Pedrad. You could say that another reason I ignored him was because he was an asset to Dauntless. His rank shift didn't seem suspicious either. No one would look twice at an initiate who was ranked first in stage one and then ranked second in stage two. If it weren't for that shitty war that started, he could have been a Dauntless leader.
"When you administered the tests for stage two," says Isobel, turning her eyebrow piercing in a careful loop, "when was it obvious to you that the initiates were Divergents?"
"If the Bureau doesn't say otherwise about Four, his Divergence was obvious in day one of stage two," says Amar. "With Eric here it was day three. I didn't bring it up with him unlike I did with Four. I just told him to act less aware before sending him on his way."
"I'm sure you deleted the footage," I say, knowing that he did. He probably did the same thing with Four. Thing is, we might not know about what his genetic status is until tomorrow.
"Well, that is that," says Amar, standing from his seat. "I'm going to the break room to see if Violet made any coffee yet."
He leaves Isobel and I in the room. Isobel turns to the computer monitor by me and begins looking at the screen.
"Hopefully, by tomorrow, some tension might be resolved," says Isobel.
"Talking about Tori?" I ask.
"What is George doing today?" asks Isobel.
"He's on some surveillance mission," I say. "He might not see his sister until tomorrow morning."
"Tori aside, I plan on seeing David at break," says Isobel. However, the notion of it seems unpleasant to her.
"Is there a particular reason why?" I ask her.
"I want to ask him if he can have the control room operators upload some footage of Caleb on a disc," she says. "You know, during the time when Tris was in Erudite headquarters, held against her will."
I could see why. The Stiff needs to know that her brother didn't want her to know that he had any involvement with Jeanine's plans. She can't just go by her assumptions forever. That's being ignorant of the facts.
When I was ten, I heard that ignorance is another root of discord. That not wanting to understand something would blind people.
The Stiff is living in a fantasy world. One where she is the only one in the world that is right and that everyone should think like her. I don't doubt that she turned her boyfriend and friends against her brother.
If Four had any brains, he'd call her out on it. Yes her brother was a coward, but turning everyone against him? That's selfish on her part.
In my opinion, what probably contributed to this mess was the fact that they were raised in a faction where talking about themselves to other people was considered self-indulgent.
There is nothing wrong with sitting down with someone and asked why they hurt them. If my loved one betrayed me, I wouldn't trust them anymore but I wouldn't go far as being "You did this to me, so you're not my family member anymore."
She left her birth faction without turning back, despite that incident where she ran off to the Erudite compound with Isobel on the day before the final test. Her brother most likely left Abnegation without looking back either. I'm pretty positive that the Abnegation never put heavy emphasis on 'faction before blood' on the dependents. Because that somehow equated selfishness.
While Erudite and Dauntless are hardcore when it comes to 'faction before blood', both factions held Visiting Day anyway. After being in the Dauntless compound for a week, my parents were strangers to me. There I was, a sixteen year old boy with ink running up his neck (at that time, it was the only tattoo I had on my body. I had the sides of my head shaved and had those microdermals after initiation), wearing black while my parents were in their polished, blue Erudite clothing, my mother looking with disapproval at the tattoo running up my neck. Their visit wasn't long. More like former colleagues meeting with each other.
In Erudite, families had teacher/student relationships.
In my old home, any guest was supposed to remove their shoes because mother didn't want dirt on her carpet. Isobel's house seemed like some library you would enter.
In fact, every dwelling in Erudite should be considered a library.
When I enter the break room, I see that someone has brought donuts. I try to avoid sweets as much as possible. I never understood the Dauntless craving of chocolate cake. I did eat the muffins, though mostly they were either bran or banana walnut. I think I had chocolate cake once, during initiation and I thought it was too sweet while I saw Four have two servings of it two tables away.
And during the recent initiation, I noticed that Isobel particularly favored blueberry muffins. Probably because of the bread her mother would make on rare occasions.
So, I just grabbed one of the muffins in the break room and ate it before returning to work.
"David said that he is going to give Tris a file to view on a tablet," says Isobel during lunch, as she put ketchup on her hamburger before putting the bread back on the meat. "I heard it contains her mother's journal entries and letters."
"Is that something he should give to her brother first?" I ask after Isobel picks up her hamburger. "Because there is no chance that she would give it to him."
For all I know she would hog the thing.
"They should have," says Isobel before taking a bite from her hamburger.
"Did they give you the disc?" I ask when I give her the chance to swallow.
"David said he was going to give it to me tomorrow morning first thing," she says. I see that she has ketchup on her mouth. No need for her to use a napkin.
"Let me take care of it," I tell her.
I frame her face with my hands and put my lips to the corner of her bottom lip, licking the ketchup from her lips before kissing her.
"That's disgusting!" she says, laughing.
"Why do you need a napkin when you have a boyfriend to take care of it for you?" I ask.
She grins, playfully shoving my shoulder before continuing her hamburger.
"Well, that's the last of it," I say, finishing my round in the underground GD area. "I'll check if the area around the Weapons Lab is secure."
It's pitiful that those with damaged genes live underground while those with sound genes see the light of day when they wake up. Sometimes it reminds me of the Dauntless compound.
"It wouldn't hurt to continue your round here," says my companion, another member of the security team named Ann. "Who knows what problems might arise here?"
If they think that GDs are violent and unpredictable, why is the GD staff here always on their best behavior? The Bureau only believes that solely based on GDs living in poverty and squalor. Of course you'll get behavior like that when placing people in that environment.
"Thing is, I'm scheduled to have a round around the Weapons Lab in ten minutes," I say. "I don't doubt that you can hold yourself here well."
I walk away and jog up the stairs to the first floor of the compound. The Weapons Lab, I heard contains the serums that were actually created by the Bureau, most prominently the Abnegation memory serum and the Erudite death serum. If a city experiment is in danger of failing, if that city was so successful, they are able to do a memory reset on the entire city.
How brilliant. Waking up without knowing your name, your family, and where you are.
The area is guarded though; however they have members of the security team do rounds for a double check if the area is sound. I log the data in the tablet I'm holding, watching as it goes into the security computer system.
"If you take another round here, you might want to watch out for Juanita Hernandez," someone says and I turn to see a female guard in her late twenties.
"Has she done anything suspicious?" I ask. That wouldn't surprise me, since there is something shifty about her.
"I caught her walking down this hallway yesterday," the woman answers promptly. "She claimed she was lost but I didn't buy it."
"I'll make sure she won't do anything," I say. I always knew that she was a shifty one. I doubt that she got lost if she's been here a little longer then Isobel and I. She probably has the entire compound memorized.
I finish my round around the corridor and head towards the cafeteria for dinner.
Sorry if this is short and just filler.