Yeah, longest chapter so far!

Just a little note before you start: I'm not Erudite, so please don't tell me I got the explanations in this all wrong. ;-) It's fiction after all!

Have fun reading and tell me what you think if you like.

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Chapter 24: Sunday, 6 days until initiation

Tris

Breakfast is an unusually quiet event, at least at our table. I'm nervous about going to Erudite today. It's not exactly forbidden, but it's at least frowned upon. How will Caleb react when he sees me? Can I really trust him with this? Will he be able to find out anything at all? Maybe it's out of range for him. Surely, as an initiate he won't be allowed access everywhere. I sigh as I stir my cup absentmindedly, as if I could find answers in the swirls of milk and coffee.

Christina doesn't talk either. Will seems to have caught her mood, since he finally stopped trying to start a conversation with her a few minutes ago. Even Uriah eats his muffin in silence, and Lynn usually never talks much in the morning anyway.

"So, can you tell me what's going on?" Marlene returns from refilling her cup at the coffee machine and sits down again between Lynn and Uriah, watching us all with a puzzled expression. "It's Sunday, we have the day off and you all look as if — well, I don't know, as if it was Monday morning at seven, and," she lowers her voice a bit, "we're about to have training with Eric and have to face two instead of one simulation."

"I''ve got a hangover," Uriah answers, rubbing his palm along his forehead.

"Me too," I sigh. It's maybe the easiest explanation we can use. Everyone here can relate to the aftereffects of alcohol.

"But you didn't drink that much," Marlene frowns at me.

"Don't forget where she transferred from," Uriah jumps in to back me up. I smile at him thankfully.

"I think I'll leave you to your breakfast after finishing this cup of coffee and do some training. Anyone wants to come with me?" Marlene continues, but she's really only looking at Christina, who doesn't seem to have noticed her question.

I softly kick her leg under the table.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Christina puts on a smile, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"I wanted to know if you'll join me in the training room after breakfast." Marlene's tone is slightly accusatory.

Christina shrugs. "Yeah, I just have to finish my omelet first and then I have to go to my apartment to change."

"Okay, I'll go ahead and meet you at the training rooms then," Marlene says, already getting up from the bench.

"Wait, your coffee," Uriah calls after her, suddenly back at the moment.

"You can drink it," Marlene shouts back over the three tables she has already passed on her way out.

"You take it," Uriah murmurs, pushing the cup towards Christina, whose own mug is already empty. Then he jumps up and leaves his half-finished muffin behind to follow Marlene.

Okay, what was that about? I was so caught up in my own problems this past week that I didn't notice what was going on between those two.

"Do you mind if I take the coffee?" Christina asks me, her fingers already closing around the black china, "I forgot to wash down my vitamin supplements with mine."

"Sure, take it."

I haven't even drunk half of mine, yet my stomach already feels full. There must be a knot in it that prevents me from eating much this morning. I glance over at Tobias, Zeke and Shauna sitting together at the other end of the cafeteria, sharing their table with a bunch of Dauntless members I don't know. The three seem disconnected to the conversation going on around them, lost in their own thoughts, too.

I keep wondering how Tobias gets to know factionless leadership when it's kept such a secret that they have a leader at all. Something in his attitude prevented me from asking him, though. It's difficult to describe, just a premonition that he might get upset if I pushed him to tell me, although I can't come up with a good reason for that feeling. Maybe I can work up the courage to ask him tonight. He'll have to report to our group anyway, since the others will be waiting for news from our different consultations this evening. I only hope it's not a mistake to trust people outside of Dauntless, but we have no other options.

XXX

My heart is beating heavily as I enter the Erudite compound. It's difficult to appear normal and relaxed to anyone who could be watching me, while on the inside I'm bursting with nervousness. I have only once been here before. The last time I saw it at all, I was on the train with Tobias in the dead of the night. Now I enter the main building in broad daylight. It's a huge library, with rows and rows of metal shelves so crammed with books that the pages seem to have to crouch to fit in.

But as a visitor I'm not allowed to enter those halls. Instead, I walk up towards the man dressed in a navy blue suit behind a desk opposite the glass doors I just went through. He looks up at me when I stop in front of him and asks me what I want. I tell him I need to talk to Caleb Prior, but I don't mention that he's my brother. I don't want to cause Caleb trouble.

The man orders me to sit down and wait while he'll look for Caleb, and I do as I'm told. His disapproving stare isn't lost on me.

The chair I sit down on isn't comfortable at all, it's hard and cold, made of metal. It could just as easily belong to Abnegation. I stare at the large portrait of Jeanine Matthews opposite me, her cold eyes glaring into mine. A wave of pure hatred starts to build inside me, and I clench my hands into fists so hard that my fingernails painfully dig into my palms. But it's a welcoming pain that helps me to channel my inner rage while I remain calm on the outside.

I'm glad when the man from the desk returns with Caleb and I'm free to stand up and get away from that oversized image. Caleb doesn't say anything. He just nods, and I nod back at him and then I follow him outside. We walk around the corner and leave the compound, strolling along a street that I've never been to. It's deserted, and I know he takes me here because he doesn't want to be seen with me. We turn around another corner and sit down on a broken bench.

"Why did you come to visit me, Beatrice?" he asks and his voice sounds exhausted and distant.

I wonder if coming here was a mistake, but I remind myself of the importance of this meeting.

"Caleb, there's something I have to talk to you about, something important. But I need you to swear you'll listen and talk to me as my brother, not as an Erudite, and ignore that I'm Dauntless now."

"That's a lot to ask from me."

"I know, but I wouldn't have come if it wasn't urgent. I trust you, Caleb, and I need you to trust me, too. I'm your sister."

"What about Faction before Blood?"

"Can we ignore that for the time being? For the sake of this conversation? Nobody will know."

He takes his time thinking about my request, and I notice my dislike at that. I'm relieved when he finally agrees.

"Okay," he says, taking off his jacket to pass it to me, "but please, cover yourself a bit with this."

I raise my eyebrows at him, something I didn't do back in Abnegation, but I guess I'm leaving that code of practice further and further behind. Maybe, it occurs to me, that's easier to do for me than for Caleb. I slip into his jacket and pull the zipper up to my throat, covering my low-cut neckline that way. If I wasn't his sister, he surely wouldn't have much of a problem with my tank top. The Erudite girls don't bother hiding what they've got either. How odd that now that I'm finally starting to feel comfortable with the shape of my body, I'm asked to cover it. I swallow down the harsh remark I'd like to throw at Caleb. I haven't come here to fight with him.

I make him swear that he'll keep everything I tell him secret and make it clear how crucial it is that I can rely on his promise, because otherwise it would get us in danger — life-threatening danger. He promises as soon as he realizes there'll be no other way for him to get the information I want to share out of me.

And so I confide in him.

I tell him about the attack plans we found and the syringes whose content we desperately need to know. I also tell him about our mother telling me to ask him to research the serums Erudite is currently working on. Only then I start asking myself why Natalie would know about them. Does she have any information on Jeanine's plans?

Caleb's face turns pale at hearing about the attack, so it must be new to him. But from the way he chews on the insides of his cheeks, I assume he knows something he hasn't shared yet. It's actually useful to have spent so much time with Christina. Her skills start to rub off on me.

"What is it that you're not telling me?"

Caleb raises his eyes to mine, surprised. And then, after shortly hesitating, he begins to tell me about the nightly activity at Erudite. He doesn't know many details since he's not a member yet, but he admits they're developing new serums that will work to connect people to a computer system without the help of wires or electrodes.

"Just imagine the subjects as parts of a program. Once the program is started, they become a part of it, too. It's like one big computer controlling many small computers."

I have difficulties understanding him. I get what he's saying, but I don't want to acknowledge the meaning behind his explanation.

"Did I get that right? People can be controlled by whoever operates a special program?"

Caleb nods, as if this was the easiest and most normal thing in the world for anyone to understand. "Yes, the subjects become part of a bigger system."

I suddenly feel sick. "People, Caleb, it's people. Not subjects."

It's good I haven't eaten properly, or I might throw up.

"It's just words, Beatrice, it doesn't make any difference which term I use. The state of affairs stays the same."

How can he speak like that?

"Not for me, Caleb. There is a difference in your choice of words. The facts may remain unchanged, but your attitude towards it is altered."

After a minute or so of silence in which he thinks it through, he nods.

"You're right. So what does the serum and the attack have to do with one another?"

I shove the thoughts and theories around in my head. When realization hits, it's as if I've been missing the obvious for too long.

"It's how our leaders want to force Dauntless to fight, Caleb. They won't ask us to do it, they'll just make us."

He gasps in shock, and his lack of protest against my theory tells me that he, too, believes it's possible, maybe even plausible.

It takes a while until we resume our conversation. We talk about our parents and agree that we have to try everything we can to prevent the looming intrusion. I doubt that Jeanine would hesitate to use the weapons that Max and Eric have ordered from the factionless. But I keep that to myself. I trust Caleb, but I don't want to get into a fight with him about Jeanine and her motives. He values his chosen faction, I can see it in his demeanor and hear it in the way he talks.

"Please tell me you have an actual idea on how to stop this. Those syringes are already stacked in a storeroom inside the Dauntless compound, and they could start as soon as initiation will be completed by next week."

"Do you have any possibility to enter this storeroom to destroy the syringes?"

"No, I don't think that's an option. We don't even know who has the key to it. Could be Eric or Max, but also Jeanine, or someone else who's in on the plan. And wouldn't it just buy us more time? I mean, Erudite would surely send a new delivery."

"That's true. An alternative plan would have been to exchange them. It's less conspicuous, and they wouldn't notice straight away that something's wrong. But if you can't go in there, that's out of the question."

I watch Caleb think about the problem and I recognize that expression on his face from our time growing up together. Only I never interpreted it as concentration, but as a general seriousness and selflessness in avoiding to show emotions. How could I have misread this during all those years?

"Okay, I think I have another idea. It could work, but I can't promise. It's difficult and risky, too. But you don't seem to mind risky these days, do you?"

"Not so much anymore, no. Bring on the plan!" I barely can contain my hope.

"Let me explain the basics first. The serums are like medicine. We administer them the same way, only with a different purpose. Serums are not designed to help against diseases, they work the other way round. The fear serum we produce for Dauntless, for example, has severe effects on the brain. It has to be injected in the neck so it'll quickly reach its destination within the subject. It sweeps the mental health away for some time and provokes hallucinations. In order to achieve that, it has to eliminate other brain functions during the simulation, like rational thinking or the sense of hearing. Otherwise, the subject would still hear what's going on around him or her, and the effect of the simulation becoming the person's reality couldn't be achieved."

Only that it doesn't work that way within my brain...

"We vaccinate our children against various common diseases, so they can't be affected by certain pathogens. We could try to research a vaccination against this new serum, so it wouldn't have the intended effect on the brain. I don't know if we could manage to neutralize its effects completely, but maybe soften them, or shorten the time it actually works the way it's supposed to."

It's the best plan we have, and I must admit it sounds promising to me, although I have no idea if Caleb has the knowledge to develop a vaccine that powerful. It has to be complicated. We keep talking about this plan a little longer, and sometimes Caleb mutters something about chemical reactions or molecules that I have never heard about under his breath. It's interesting how phrasing those words seem to help him think. Observing him is like getting a glimpse inside his brain. This goes on until he finally sits up straight and his eyes lighten up.

"Okay, I have an idea. But it's not going to be easy. Maybe it's impossible, so don't get your hopes too high. First I have to find an Erudite member who I can trust, someone who has got access to the complete laboratory. I can't go in there, at least not in the section where they develop the new serums."

"Maybe I know someone."

Christina's suggestion of asking Cara for help comes to my mind immediately, although I don't like her much. The impression she gave me on Visiting Day really wasn't a good one. But if her brother is involved, maybe she'll cooperate. We'll have to talk to Will about it.

Caleb shoots me a surprised look. "Whom?"

"I can contact her via another Dauntless member tomorrow if everything goes smoothly and then inform you about the outcome."

I won't give him her name today, no way.

"If you say so, fine. The second part is more difficult anyway. I think the key ingredient in the vaccine has to be... I don't know if I can tell you about this." His voice drops.

"Tell me. I swear I keep quiet about it if necessary."

Caleb still looks doubtful, but then motions me to get closer to him before he whispers, "Do you know what a Divergent is?"

Oh, that's why he's so secretive? I try to hide my emotions behind my Dauntless attitude.

"I do."

"Their brains work differently, they stay aware during simulations. I heard rumors that the new serum Jeanine and her team are working on still fails to affect them. It's what they're currently working on, I suppose. Well, in any case, there must be something in their DNA preventing their brains to react normally. If it's in their DNA, it's also in their blood. So if I had a Divergent's blood I could try to extract the DNA-sequences responsible for said effect and use them to create a contra-serum. You know, so that everyone injected with the vaccine won't react to that advanced simulation serum anymore."

"That sounds like a pretty... perfect plan."

I stare at my brother in awe. Sure, we've been talking for at least an hour now, but that he can come up with an idea like this so quickly... His aptitude for Erudite really must be strong.

"The problem is that I don't know any Divergents. They're said to be dangerous, Beatrice, so I really don't know how to get those freaks' blood. And, just so you know, the vaccine would be better if we had not only the blood of one Divergent, but of two or three. The more, the better. Although they have the same kind of genetic defect, their DNA differs from individual to individual. Different DNA sequences might help to expand the effect range of our vaccine."

"I think I can take care of organizing blood samples for you. I know the right people at Dauntless, who know a lot of other people, so someone will be able to help us. I know a girl who works at the infirmary, too. Maybe she can support us."

Caleb looks at me intensely. I wonder what he's thinking and if he can see past my lies, the way Christina often can. I'm relieved when he's back on his Erudite behavior of explaining his plan to me.

"We need a basis for the new serum. That would be partly consistent of the serum it's supposed to work against, only an attenuated form of it. I guess it'll be my job to figure out how to get that. Maybe your contact at Erudite can help me with that. The rest of the vaccine I would try to make of peace serum. It has strong active substances that calm you down."

"But doesn't it make people dizzy? I heard rumors it kind of knocks you out if you take too much of it."

"Only if it's overdosed. I'd filter out the sedatives before using it. That way it would be toning down aggression without causing fatigue. So, if anything worked wrong with the vaccine and the program could still control the subjects... people, at least their responses to the orders would be less grave. It might allow them to replace brutal acts with less brutal acts, so the control through the simulation couldn't cause as much harm."

I stare into Caleb's face. He's serious, but doesn't show another emotion. All he's focused on is his plan. He has a different point of view on this, I think. He's less involved and looks at this whole threat objectively, like a scientist. It's ingenious, but also creepy.

"So do you have access to the peace serum?" I ask him. It's getting late and I should go back soon.

"Unfortunately not. Erudite doesn't keep this in stock. They produce a certain amount when an order gets in from Amity, and then all of it is delivered to their compound. And although I know most of the components used in it, I can't just go in and steal them. Erudite are fond of lists, and they keep a very close eye on their stocks. There are people whose single job it is to keep track of the inventory. They'd find out very fast if something was missing. I could try to synthesize some of the essentials myself, but it would take more time and it would never be as effective as real peace serum. No, you have to organize some original substance from Amity. It's the quickest way to get it."

I swallow. That's a hard task. How are we going to do that?

"I don't know if that's possible, Caleb. Dauntless and Amity don't have that much contact, and we'd have to unveil our plan to their leader."

"You can think of a story to tell her. Make something up. You're Dauntless, not Candor. Look, you came to me for help, and I can offer some, but I can't do it all alone. It's difficult enough to do all this in secrecy anyway."

"I know, I know. It just sounds complicated."

"It is, but I'm Erudite."

For the first time today I see him smile, and I smile back at him despite the danger we're in. It's as if we were back in Abnegation, brother and sister, the way we should be. And then the moment has passed and Caleb sums up our plot matter-of-factly.

"Can you wait here a little longer? I want to go and fetch something for you," he concludes.

I nod, and he leaves me sitting alone on the weathered wood of what once has been a bench. I am so wrapped in my own thoughts that I can't even say if he's been gone a long or a short time when he comes back. He provides me with a communicator, a small portable tablet computer, that doesn't even reach the size of one of my hands. He tells me that we could use it to communicate with one another to agree on meeting points, but he warns me to never write anything that could reveal our plans and get us in trouble. As if he needed to point that out to me. I feel slightly annoyed, but then he doesn't know about my own aptitude for Erudite.

As a security measure, I have to put my index finger on the screen to let the computer scan it. It'll serve as identification from now on, so nobody else can read the messages we exchange. I thank him and give him back his jacket. I can't walk around the city dressed in blue, although it has become colder.

I pull Caleb into a hug before he can leave me again. He tenses at the contact, just like I used to do when I first transferred to Dauntless, but now it has become something I like doing to show people I like them. It expresses so much more than words ever could. When he realizes I won't just let go that easily, he carefully puts his arms around me and hugs me back. I've known him my entire life and it's only now that we're living in different factions that we can share our first real embrace.

DISCLAIMER: I own neither the Divergent world nor the characters, they belong to Veronica Roth.