Chapter 1
Hello all! I am officially venturing into the world of Divergent fanfiction. I have been a fan for a long time, and this idea has also been lurking inside my head for nearly six years, but I have lacked the courage and/or the time to write it out. Now, due to the COVID-19 social distancing measures, I have both. My hope is that this can serve as a distraction for all of you as you (hopefully) stay safely inside your homes.
I will also hopefully be updating my Inside Out fic soon, but this fic, while still serious, will be a bit lighter than that one. I plan to work on both as my emotions and online coursework dictate.
Disclaimer #1: I do not own Divergent.
Disclaimer-ish #2: PLEASE get your coronavirus info from real health officials (especially the WHO/CDC!)
On to the story!
Four years before Tris's Choosing Ceremony; two years before Tobias's.
The bell sounds, its gentle hum filling the packed classroom. Lunchtime- a much-needed respite for members of every faction but mine. Mrs. Schaffer, my English composition teacher, barely has time to step away from her lectern before a sea of black clothes pushes past each other, poking, prodding, and laughing their way out of the classroom. The Dauntless. The faction of thrills and risks. The faction I understand the least, and will never understand as long as I live.
Next comes a less physically aggressive but still rowdy deluge of black and white matching outfits. The self-important voices of the Candor drown out all other conversation as they filed out. I hear a particularly loud boy and girl already starting a debate on whether or not the Candor cafeteria should be renovated, with their sidekicks jumping in at random intervals to inject phrases such as "Garbage!", "No, you dimwit," or "I can't stand to look at that place again!"
High-pitched giggles replace the arguments as a large, nearly identical group of Amity girls rise from their seats, clasp hands and shuffle out. A few well-mannered boys, clad in yellow and red, follow behind, one opening the door for the group of girls. "Thanks, Braden!" one girl coos, and the others giggle in unison. Braden blushes and says, "Good day, ma'am," to my teacher before removing himself.
My cue. Along with the other Erudite members, I rise, dignified, unshaken, always prepared and determined for what came next. I remind myself to adjust my posture, to hold my head high. Mrs. Schaffer beams at a few of us, her severely-fitting blue top and dress pants matching our youthful attire only in its shade. We take our turns saying "thank you" to her as we exit the room.
I am last in the line, my fellow faction members and friends already having left for their lunch spots. They knew the drill: I talked to the teacher, then went to another teacher, and they could join me only if they found classroom eating desirable.
These talks could last from thirty seconds to twenty whole minutes, depending on both of our desires for intellectual spontaneity. At the beginning of the school year, the Abnegation always seemed unsure as to whether they could be dismissed when I was still in the room, but they eventually learned that there was no harm in it. Today, they rise in unison, making sure their chairs made no unpleasant sounds as they push them in. Then, as in a dance routine, they form a perfectly straight-single file line.
Each girl with her tight bun, each boy with his close-cropped haircut, everyone included in the mass. Once every member had joined the line, the Abnegation bow their heads and filed out one by one, going as if they had never been in the room to begin with.
Today's conversation with Mrs. Schaffer is short. I would have to talk to her for a longer time later in the week. This week. The second-to-last week of Upper Levels. I could scarcely believe it. I almost didn't want to think about it.
"I'm hoping it's acceptable if I go straight to Dr. Thompson today," I inform my teacher. "I will stay longer in a few days, perhaps on Wednesday. Do you have a meeting then?"
Light bounces off her spectacles as her body visibly relaxes. Managing unruly Dauntless and Candor is always a challenge for Erudite teachers, and I admire how Jeanine always made sure they were suitably rewarded.
"Yes, you absolutely may see her," Mrs. Schaffer replies. "I am also aware that today is an important day for you, so I will save my closing words for Wednesday." She winks, but there is a small amount of sadness in her eyes. She would be losing me, all of us, soon.
"Thank you," I return, trying to appear unruffled by the word 'closing.' So ominous to me. Decently unthreatening to her, after years of Choosing Ceremonies containing brilliant Erudites like me, all of whom had effortlessly returned to their birth faction and made it proud. "See you tomorrow, Mrs. Schaffer." I smile as I step into the hallway, then make a civilized beeline to my favorite classroom, where I spend almost all of my lunches.
"Hello, Alia," a familiar voice greets me as I enter a classroom marked 'Dr. Alice Thompson, Biology.' "Can you help me neutralize that? Just regular old HCl and NaOH. I'm holding tutoring hours today." Dr. Thompson's eyes meet mine, green and unusually warm. She was known to be one of the strictest and most difficult teachers in the entire school. People cursed her class. This meant, of course, that I thrived in it, and she had long been my favorite teacher.
Next to her stands a confused Candor boy with close-cropped brown hair, jabbing his finger impatiently at a worksheet. He opens his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it. "On it. Let me know if you have anything else you need."
I cross the room, passing rows of long desks and reaching the perpendicular rows of lab benches. Two glass beakers sit on the center table, one marked "Acid Waste" and the other "Base Waste." I note with displeasure that the base waste is slightly yellow in color, meaning that someone had disregarded Dr. Thompson's instruction to discard solutions with pH buffer down the sink. Surely not an Erudite. At least that pair hadn't dumped pure HCl down the sink, or so I hope.
With speed but not haste, I move to the cupboard, taking out another beaker, a tub of baking soda, and a tiny strip of paper. Soon enough, I have completed the proper procedure: make a baking soda and water solution, mix with the acid, dip the paper in. As expected, it comes out green. Neutralized. Now no more harmful than water. I dump it down the sink and adopt a similar procedure for the other jar of waste. When that is finished, I wash all of the beakers, put them away, and turn back to my teacher.
"I need to eat lunch, Dennis," Dr. Thompson says, clearly exasperated. "Would you mind letting Alia help you? You can ask me tomorrow if you have questions." She looks expectantly at the Candor boy, gesturing to me. Blinking myself out of my stupor, I again adjust my posture and turn up my lips, trying to meet Dennis's eye invitingly.
I love tutoring. At first I had been shocked that teachers would let me, an untrained student, explain concepts they knew much better to struggling students. But they did, and they were always thankful for my willingness to help.
"Yeah, okay, bye," Dennis replies somewhat rudely. "Hope you don't fail me," he mutters under his breath as Dr. Thompson waves at us and leaves.
I hide a smirk. I always feel terrible for students who failed under an unfair or lazy teacher, but I hold a special admiration for the fact that Dr. Thompson is fair and yet never backs down in her course's rigor. My straight, brown ponytail whips around as I walk closer to Dennis. "Hi, Dennis. What do you need help with?"
Not addressing the question, he puts his notes down and stares at me judgmentally. "She said your name is Alia?"
"Yea- yes," I catch myself, always one to use formal language with strangers. "What unit is your class on?"
"I thought your name was Val," Dennis replies with a snicker. "That's what everyone in my grade calls you. Except the Erudite, I guess."
"I am not officially the valedictorian yet," I say seriously, trying to stifle a smile at the way his class refers to me. "That statistic will be reported today."
"Still, you're gonna lead Erudite when Jeanine dies," he remarks casually, as if that event would cause little more disruption than a passing rainstorm. "Or retires, I don't know."
A rush of adrenaline, of pride, runs unnoticeably through my body, and I quickly conceal it. This guy is a classic Candor. Honesty is vital to my conduct and I never lie except at times where the truth is rude. But I find the callousness of the faction rather stifling, although less irrational than the Dauntless need for escapades with a high probability of death.
"Jeanine will be in charge for at least the next twenty-five years, and I am quite pleased with that. Dennis, I was assigned to help you pass this class. I want to assist you academically. What is your question?"
"Well you're no fun," he replies jokingly, then, when my facial expression doesn't budge, he relents. "We're on diffusion and osmosion-"
"Osmosis," I correct him automatically with a chiding look.
"Whatever. And I can't for the life of me understand this thingy called a-" he peers at his notes, "concentration gradient. What the hell is all this particle nonsense supposed to mean? Why does she say it's so important?" He rolls his eyes, scoffing.
Ignoring his antics- which I knew Dr. Thompson must have regularly faced, the poor woman- I launch straight into a layman's explanation of a concentration gradient. "So say you have two cafeteria lines, each with one worker serving the night's meal," I begin, drawing a hasty representation of two vats of food on the board. "One of the lines has, say, 20 people, and you originally stood on it when you came in. Another one has three people. Of course, the distance from the front to the back of the cafeteria is the same for both lines. Will you switch lines?"
Dennis looks as if he were watching paint dry. "Yeah, sure," he replies.
"Great. Now watch. I'm going to explain how this works with particles."
For a good ten minutes, my mind becomes a whirlwind of effortless scientific energy. I draw more diagrams, clarify Dennis' questions, and ask him a few questions of my own to further his understanding of the topic. Dr. Thompson re-enters the room with a knowing smile, mouthing a silent "thank you" to me behind Dennis' back. My lips turn up in reply.
At long last, Dennis's brow starts to unfurrow, and he asks fewer abrupt questions. I wrap up my last explanation, and he looks up at me, his face displaying a bit of relief. "Okay, I think I kinda get it now," he intones, "uh, thanks, Alia. Hopefully I can pass the next exam."
Dr. Thompson chimes in from the corner, her all-encompassing positivity filling the room. "You can do it! Study, study, study!" She smiles at Dennis, who manages a weak one in return.
"See you tomorrow," he says sheepishly, his white shirt flowing out behind him as he turns his back and leaves the room.
Alone at last, I stride automatically over to Dr. Thompson's desk. Our eyes meet, the knowledge of a few years flowing between them. Not one to beat around the bush, she puts aside the tests she had been grading and gives me a sober look. "So. 2 days until the aptitude test. Are you ready?"
As much as we'd been together over the past month, neither one of us had broached the subject of the Choosing. It was the elephant in the room, the moment when I would be ripped away from Upper Levels, away from her and Mrs. Schaffer and my "team" of supporters, and put through the grueling ritual of Erudite initiation. We both knew I'd make it through without being cut and rise through the ranks of ordinary Erudite to become one of the most successful new members of my generation.
But I had been an ordinary student for so long that I felt some trepidation about being put with solely Erudite initiates and unfamiliar initiation instructors. I wasn't allowed to communicate with my former teachers for the duration of initiation; faction rule.
I was sure that Dr. Thompson wondered if she'd ever hear from me again. I would work quickly to clear away her disappointment.
"Ready as I'll ever be," I reassure her, confident and standoffish, the perfect picture of a top Erudite. "And you can bet I'll be throwing a party for everyone in Upper Levels when I'm done."
The uncertainty leaves her face, and she smiles at me again. "Well, I wouldn't want to keep you from seeing the rankings. Do you want to talk again Thursday?"
The rankings! My heart starts to pound again, and I stand up quickly, my chair scraping the floor. "Yes, I will drop by then. Also, don't worry about Friday." I wink at her, letting her know that regardless of the test, Erudite is my home. Always had been, always would be…
As I make my way to the door, she shows a rare dose of candor. "I'm going to miss you. Teaching you… well, you know this, but… it's been one of the greatest pleasures of my life. I can't wait to see what your future brings, Alia."
The ambrosia of pleasure fills me once again. I blink away tears. "Thank you. I have to write to you. I can't possibly express my gratefulness in person."
"You do that. But run along now. Good luck on the rankings." She glances fondly at me one last time, then turns away.
I exit the room, running like a Dauntless as I approach the rankings.
A crowd of fellow Erudite gather eagerly around a hallway bulletin board, where a long ream of paper had been posted. A few Candor and Amity members mingle among us. It contains the names of everyone in our class, and their official class rank. The last one ever- for everyone not choosing Erudite, that was.
My faction members part for me as I excuse myself through the crowd. Their knowing grins could mean only one thing.
My 6'1 height allows me to be eye-to-eye with the very top of the board. I survey the top 10 students by rank, all but one of them Erudite. I take my time, savoring the hope I feel when my name isn't in the fourth ranked spot, nor the third, nor the second…
And there it is. A very familiar name. At the tippy top of the board.
Alia Rushton
I feel the collective strength of the hardworking minds behind me. I feel them all under me, working with me, yet understanding my mind's superior strength. All of the hard work had paid off. Every night of perfecting homework, every minute of flipping through flashcards, every minute of practicing my writing, my math. All worth it. Dr. Thompson was right: I knew my place. I knew who I was meant to become.
I let out a whoop, my feet excitedly leaving the ground as I propel myself into the air in triumph.
I know that was a lot of exposition and perhaps boring. I'm trying to work on not being such a description-heavy writer and making introductions more entertaining. Hopefully I conveyed how much Alia and her teachers cherish their intellectual relationships.
Next chapter, we will plunge into the actual Divergent universe- aptitude tests and Choosing, here we come!
Stay home and stay safe!