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

Chapter 60

Tobias

"I still can't believe that this is your connection to the factionless," Zeke repeats for the third time since I dropped the bomb about Evelyn being my mother. "That's unbelievable. How could you keep that to yourself for so long?"

"I'm not used to having someone to share personal stuff with," I shrug, unable to find a better answer. Now that Tris and Zeke know and neither of them looks at me any different than before, it's getting more difficult to remember why I never wanted to share this with anyone.

"But Tris knows, doesn't she?" Zeke asks while we sneak around a corner.

"Yes, she knows."

"That's good. It's not helpful to have secrets like that."

"I know, but it was still hard for me to tell her," I sigh as I remember the night she held my wordless self in her arms, and the night after that, when I finally told her about Evelyn. It was the same night she took me up onto the roof, where I was overwhelmed by my love for her.

"We're almost there," I whisper to change the topic. We need to concentrate. I gesture to the weapon in my belt, then place my hand over it. I've been here before, and it's not the safest area of the city.

We fall silent as we move quietly through the last few alleys lined by broken houses before we reach the old factory building that serves as the factionless headquarters. It's strange to come here during daylight hours, without the darkness' cover as protection against curious eyes. I'm sure we're being watched as we walk across the square towards the main entrance, over the crumbling pavement that's been cracked open by the forces of sun and ice and time.

I was right about being watched. Before we reach the rusty metal doors that close their compound off to the surrounding world, they are already being opened. Four men block the now open entrance, weapons in hands.

"Who are you and what do you want?" one of them addresses us in a harsh voice that doesn't falter. From the way he holds his gun, the whole position his body automatically takes, I can tell that he once must have been Dauntless.

"We're coming in peace, don't worry. We just want to talk, to Evelyn Eaton."

"That doesn't answer the first part of the question," he snorts.

Okay. There's no way around saying it, words that feel like a lie because they're not true anymore - at least not for me.

"I'm Evelyn's son, Tobias. And this is my friend Zeke. We have an important issue to discuss with her."

Those words I hate to say are like a key, one that allows me to open the door to factionless. The guards glance at each other, and then their leader motions them to step aside and let us in.

"Wait here, I'll go and tell Evelyn that you're visiting," he orders, and his tone is already less cold.

"Thanks," I nod and fold my arms in front of me. It's meant to make me look intimidating and maybe even bored by this whole place. Only I know that it's my protection, that I try to shut my emotions away inside me by building a wall between me and the world.

I stare at the waiting guards who stand in a group and chat quietly, occasionally shooting us a glance, while Zeke stares at the scenes playing out on the other side of us, where the factionless' daily life is taking place.

I, too, was stunned the first time I saw their indoor market where they exchange goods, and their workshops where they repair broken things and build new ones out of used items that they gather in the streets or elsewhere. Everything seems so normal, just like life in the other factions: Children play, people stop to have a chat or eat while on the way to work or the simple places they call home.

"You were right, it really is like a sixth faction," Zeke whispers to me, stunned.

"Tobias!" Evelyn's happy voice calls out my given name from somewhere behind me. I brace myself and turn around.

There she stands, still looking young and beautiful, the way she always did — except for when Marcus had beaten her up, and she had bruises in her face or red-rimmed eyes from crying which she was desperately trying to hide. She almost beams at me, probably thinking that I've changed my mind and came here to make up with her.

Her smile fades and her opened arms sink the moment she spots Zeke by my side. That must be when she realizes that I'm not here because of her. I wonder if the guard didn't mention Zeke, or if she just didn't listen to the part where he said I had brought a friend.

"Hi Evelyn," I greet her, giving her a small smile just big enough to not be impolite. After all, we've come to ask her a favor. "This is my best friend Zeke. Can we go to your office, please? We need a word with you. It's important."

"If that's why you're here, follow me."

What she's really saying is 'I'm disappointed you're here for reasons other than seeing me because I'm your mother, but if you want to act businesslike, so will I'.

I roll my eyes as I walk behind her through a row of improvised market stalls, through a heavy door and up a flight of stairs, Zeke following in my wake.

Evelyn's office looks the same as it did when I last visited her. It doesn't seem only little over a week ago. Every single item in here is old and shows signs of usage. The wood her desk is made of has dents, color is peeling from the metal walls, the sofa has holes and squeaks as Zeke and I sit down on it. Evelyn places herself on a chair that looks dangerously unstable and draws it close to us. We can now talk with our voices down, which is good; I don't want anyone to overhear our conversation.

"So what is it that brings you and your friend to factionless?" Evelyn asks, leaning back in her chair. I feel as if I am being judged under her eyes, which stay fixed on me.

We don't have a choice, so here I go, "I'm sure you remember how I came to ask you to delay the weapon delivery to Dauntless last week. Before I explain further, I want to thank you for making it possible, even if it was just for a few days. It helped us a lot and it saved many lives, at least until now."

She nods and raises her eyebrows, a small self-satisfied smile on her lips. There's hope in her face, as it always is whenever I say something nice to her. It just wouldn't feel right to leave that little 'thank you' out of our talk, especially when I want something from her.

Then a thought hits me like lightning: Am I just as calculating as my so-called parents, acting in a certain way only to achieve my own goals?

I shake it off as fast as it occurred, push it away to deal with that question later.

"We now have a new problem. After the attack failed, Jeanine, Eric and Max developed a new plan and kidnapped three of our friends, including Zeke's brother. They are now being held hostage in an Erudite lab, and we think we know where that is, thanks to a transfer from their faction. Jeanine is threatening to harm them. I wouldn't put it past her to actually kill them, just to increase the pressure on us to stop us from interfering with her plans to overthrow Abnegation. That's why we have to act fast and effectively."

It's good that Zeke has been training how to keep a straight face in years and years of pranking half of Dauntless, as he doesn't show any signs of surprise or suspicion while I speak, although he must notice how many parts of the truth I skip or bend. Like I told my friends, I really only told Evelyn what was necessary, nothing more.

"What exactly is it that Jeanine is asking for?" Evelyn wants to know.

"She wants us to back off and let her run her attack. Well, in general. The other thing she asks for is for us to hand over Divergent, one for each of our friends she has kidnapped. She thinks we know some, and she wants to experiment with them to improve her serums. Since we cannot comply with that, we made up our own strategy. We're going to surprise them in their compound, get our friends out of there and arrest all three faction leaders that are part of this conspiracy."

Now it's out.

"And when are you planning to do this?"

"Tonight. There's no time left for us to wait any longer. It's the best opportunity we'll get, as Max and Eric are going to be there, too. We need to get them all at once, so none of them can escape and carry on their plans from somewhere outside the faction system."

"Tonight. I see."

I'm surprised that there's no further questions from Evelyn. I assumed she would try to talk us out of it, or drown us in warnings. But no, she doesn't.

"You won't tell me any specifics of your plan, will you, son?"

She's holding eye contact with me as she says this. A part of me finds it hard to keep up the distance, to keep up the emotional wall I've built between us.

"I can't. We're a group and we decide as such. We voted not to give away details to anyone. Zeke is here to make sure I don't blab," I say, while I inwardly apologize to my friend for making him look like a control freak.

"I see," Evelyn repeats indifferently.

There's an awkward pause between the three of us.

"I'm sorry, Evelyn, but this is our group's decision. I don't want to be rude, but we've come to ask for your help. It could make the difference between failure and success, and I'm sure you don't want Jeanine to rule this city either," Zeke speaks for the first time. I'm glad it's him who asks for what we need.

"So how can I help you then?" Evelyn averts her eyes only reluctantly from me, that much is obvious.

"A former Erudite told us about a serum that factionless used to produce for them, but then the production was stopped a few years ago."

"The sleep serum?"

"Yes. We'd like to use it once we've made it to the heart of the Erudite labs. We're few, and it would be safer for us to move around there without attracting too much attention and risking an armed confrontation. The idea is to go in and leave as quietly as we can, with the arrested leaders of course."

"That sounds interesting," Evelyn turns back to me. "Very clever. Was it your idea?"

"Not completely. We developed it together, as a team."

Evelyn nods appreciatively before she rises from her chair.

"I'm going to check if we still have any of this serum in our depot. If so, you can have it. But I can tell you right away that, even if there's some left, it's old. That means it won't work as good as it used to."

"As long as it works at all, it would be a great help for us," I say.

After Evelyn has left the room, Zeke turns to me and scrutinizes me wordlessly until I have enough of him staring at me.

"What?" I ask.

"Not only that this woman is your biological mother, her surname is Eaton? What's yours?"

"Eaton," I admit, defeated. I'm too strained to keep up a useless facade. Now that I've started to be honest with Zeke, I can't stop. I don't want to lie to him, either, and it was my idea to take him to factionless with me.

"So your father, the one you mentioned terrorizing you and your mother when you were young, doesn't happen to be Marcus Eaton?" Zeke asks breathless.

"Yes, that would be him."

That leaves Zeke speechless for the rest of the time until Evelyn returns. Two men follow in her wake, each carrying a cardboard box which they place on the desk. After they have left, not without looking at us curiously, Evelyn motions us to join her beside the boxes. I'm amazed they didn't fall apart while being carried, as they look shabby and damp.

"So this is what we could find," Evelyn begins. She opens the lid of the top box, takes out two small green glass bottles and hands one to each Zeke and me. I hold the phial between my thumb and forefinger and raise it in front of my face to inspect it in the weak light emitted by the bare light bulb dangling from the ceiling. It is filled with a clear liquid that's swaying slightly when I move the bottle.

Evelyn keeps talking about the precious content, "It is indeed old, so I recommend we check its effects before you use it in the Erudite compound. It's not dangerous, or shouldn't be. It was originally known as 'soothing serum', or at least that was the name that Erudite gave their invention. It wasn't designed to make people sleep in the first place, but to calm them down after a stressful day and to help the mind to relax after a long shift in the labs or studying in the library. Its purpose was to improve nocturnal brain recovery, so that the scientists could start their work refreshed and focused in the morning.

Leadership at that time decided to keep the development of the serum a secret. They were afraid their latest invention might be denounced as a form of mental cheating and therefore rejected by their own members. That's why they added it into the food they served at dinner, with only few people knowing about it, much like Amity still keep doing it with their peace serum. It's not so different from that one anyway.

The soothing serum worked fine for a while. A lot of extra work got done in the labs, as their statistics showed. But then the effects wore off after a year or so, because people got used to the serum. So the leaders increased the amount of serum they put in the food, which led to better achievements again — but only for a few months.

They repeated the procedure a few times until Jeanine stepped in. She was a promising scientist at that time, and she discovered the side effects the serum caused in long-term use. One of them was that it made people unhappy and depressed without reason, and they lost part of their natural curiosity. They didn't work with the same grade of motivation as they used to.

Jeanine gathered a group of followers and rose to power, the old leaders were deprived of their position and both died under mysterious circumstances within the next year. However, one of the first things Jeanine did was to give the whole faction a week off from work. Officially she stated that she wanted to refurbish the labs and library, but I think she wanted to detoxify Erudite. However, after that, the scientists' accomplishments went back to normal, to how they were before the soothing serum was invented.

There have always been rumors about the serum itself, and very few of the people who knew about its existence kept using it after it was banned until they ran out of it. They found out that it could be used as a sedative if it is evaporated and inhaled. That habit didn't go completely unnoticed, so that's why people refer to it as sleep serum, not knowing this wasn't its original purpose.

So if you want to use the substance to sedate your enemies, you'll need a humidifier. I've ordered some former Erudite to build one for you. It'll be improvised, but I think they'll make it work. It'll be ready in maybe one or two hours. You can have lunch with me in the meantime. It'll be brought to my office, so you can tell me a bit about life in Dauntless."

The last sentence is not a question, and I know it's the first price tag she puts on the serum and the humidifier. There'll sure as hell be more.

"So the amount of serum we have here, how many people could we make falling asleep with it?" I ask, putting the phial I've played around with back into the box.

"That's difficult to estimate. You need around ten bottles per person per hour, but that's under normal circumstances. You'll need a higher dosage for two reasons: You can't bring anyone to directly inhale the vapor straight from the humidifier and, I already told you, the substance is old. It has lost its strength. But don't worry, I'll organize some people we can test that on."

"What do you mean by 'organizing some people'?" Zeke asks, shocked.

I myself am not shocked. It's something I'd expect from Evelyn. While she looks at Zeke in surprise, I explain, "She means she'll find a handful of volunteers that offer to test the serum for a little extra food or useful objects."

"Wow, is that legal?"

If the situation wasn't so serious, I'd laugh at that question coming from Zeke, of all people.

"Of course not. Do you think this is a place to debate legality?" I reply.

"Oh, we do have our own laws. It's not that everybody can do whatever he wants in factionless. We have a jail for our gripers, you know? It's more difficult to make people obey the rules here, as they are poor and have already lost almost everything that once was important to them, but I established a basic order that improves life in factionless for everyone who has to live here. And part of that is because there are rewards for cooperative behavior and little extra jobs," Evelyn clarifies.

At this moment, there's a knock at the door and lunch is brought in. It's basic food, much like what I know from Abnegation, only here they don't go without spices out of their own will.

While we're sitting around the desk and eat, we discuss how to best use the soothing serum for our purpose until Evelyn offers to help us in a way that makes Zeke choke on his chicken and my throat tighten so much that it's hard to swallow any more food: She offers to 'lend' us the 'service' of three Divergent that live among the factionless to exchange them for our imprisoned friends.

"I can't believe you're even suggesting this!" I say after I've regained my composure.

"Why not?" Evelyn shrugs. "It's an option, so it's worth giving it a thought. I sense that those friends are important to you, and to Zeke of course, given that his brother is among them. I have people who don't care about the danger of it, former Dauntless. They participated in part of the fearlessness-training you do during initiation, and I'd pay them fairly for their duty. You could get more former Dauntless to expand your group of soldiers, too."

I want to tell her how disgusting it is to put innocent people's lives at risk as if they were worth less than those of Tris, Uriah and Lynn, that only a heartless person like her could propose something as hair-raising as this. But she cuts me off before I can get out a single word.

"Don't say no straight away. At least give it a thought. Zeke surely has something to say about this, too, doesn't he? You can have a moment in private to discuss your decision after lunch, and then you'll let me know what kind of help you can accept."

Full stop. Zero tolerance for contradiction. I lean back in my chair, defeated. Zeke has stopped coughing after washing down his food with a lot of water and now looks as if he's waiting for one of us to clarify the situation and say it was a bad joke.

When he realizes that won't happen he changes the topic back from the thin ice we're on, "You have a great knowledge about life in the different factions in general. So do you know all the serums that they use?"

"Well, at least the official one of each faction. There could be other ones that are being used that I've never heard about, though," Evelyn states.

"So what can you tell us about the memory serum they use at Erudite?"

That's why it was good to bring Zeke. He's flexible and able to make the best out of every situation, and while we can't leave at the moment, we can investigate a bit more.

"I'm astonished you've heard about that. It's not exactly common knowledge, for obvious reasons. It's a powerful substance. If you're injected with it, you'll forget all you know and who you are and become an empty shell. It is rarely used, but it is suspected that Jeanine used it against two of her strongest opponents after she became a leader."

"That doesn't surprise me," I say. "How long does it take until the memories return?"

"Return? No son, they don't return. Never. Once lost, they have vanished forever."

"But if it is used in a smaller dosage?"

"No, it's way too strong for that. There are no half doses. It'll either wipe your memory or it won't."

I shift uncomfortably. So what's happening with Caleb and Marlene then? Why do their memories come back?

The only explanation would be that they've been given a different serum, but then Jeanine would have done that on purpose. There is no coincidence when it comes to her. So why would she do that? What's the calculation behind it?

"So what's the serum of Abnegation?" Zeke asks to keep the conversation going and cover both our apprehension.

"Oh, you got that wrong. The memory serum is the Abnegation serum."

What? Why?

"They use it as a last resort to maintain peace and quiet among their members. But I honestly don't know what situations it is used in exactly. I think it is hardly ever administered," Evelyn answers our unspoken question.

"But what's the Erudite serum then?" I ask, my nerves strained. I need to know, yet I dread her answer. And the moment after she's given it, I wish we had never asked.

"They have a death serum."