Should just mention - author's note: I don't own this story or any of the characters! They belong to Veronica Roth, but I sure am having fun with them...
I take a closer look at Tris as the others bind and gag the Erudite. She appears to be in a deep coma, clearly alive but completely motionless. I lift her eyelids and pinch her hand, but she shows no reaction at all.
"Tris… Tris – can you hear me? It's me, it's Tobias." I whisper in her ear. "It's safe now – you can come back now. Come back to me." No reaction.
She has electrodes attached to her head, and when I follow the wires, I realize they are connected to the screen above the table. One side of the screen shows a scan of what is presumably Tris's brain, with activity lines scrolling by below. The other side shows – me? In a room – is that an Abnegation house?
After I shake off my initial shock, I realize it must be what Tris is seeing in her simulation.
"Four," Leo says urgently, "we have to get this group out of here and take Jeanine somewhere secure."
"Yeah, okay," I mumble, without taking my eyes off the screen.
"We're going to need you, man, for the assault – it's time."
"No," I say quietly, gesturing at the table, "no. I have to stay here. She needs me more."
Leo glances briefly at the screen, hesitates, and then nods at me. He pushes Jeanine roughly out of the room as the other Dauntless force the Erudite to their feet.
"We'll be back, Four," one of them says. "Be careful – some of the Erudite are armed." He chuckles, without any real mirth: "Some even know how to shoot." I nod absently.
I grab the headphones Caleb left dangling from the nearby keyboard and put them on.
"I'm here, Tris," I rasp in her ear, just as I hear my own voice in the headphones say, "You're in my group…"
Is that what I really sound like? Deep and rumbling, stern and a little forbidding? Or is that just how I sound to Tris? I'm not sure which is worse.
"…during the attack," I continue, sitting next to her on a plain and narrow bed that could only be inside an Abnegation house. "I hope you don't mind. We're supposed to lead the way to the control rooms." My words sound as though I'm giving her a choice, but my tone sure doesn't. I know kindness isn't my strong suit, but am I really like that? Even when we're alone together?
The simulation doesn't let you hear the subject's thoughts, unfortunately, only to see what she sees and hear what she hears, though I can see Tris herself. She's clearly thinking hard. If there were a serum that would let me hear her thoughts, I'd definitely take it.
Not so different from real life, I think wryly.
Tris twists her fingers together, and the on-screen Tobias asks her, "What is it?"
"I still can't fire a gun. And after what happened in Erudite headquarters… Risking my life doesn't seem so appealing anymore."
The real me and simulated me breathe out "Tris," in relief, pretty much the same way at the same time, and both of us touch her, he on the cheek and me on the arm. OK, that's just creepy.
On screen, I suddenly look younger, not so stern. "You don't have to go," I say gently.
"I don't want to seem like a coward."
"Hey," I say to her, and suddenly I look a little forbidding again, as I touch her jaw. "You have done more for this faction than any other person. You…you're the bravest person I've ever met. Stay here. Let yourself mend."
My eyes cloud with tears as I watch myself kiss her, but then I notice something else. She is biting the inside of her cheek, which I know she does sometimes when she's unsure of herself or hiding something. We lie down, and she turns away from me, my arms wrapping around her. Her face is troubled.
That is exactly how she looked when she promised me she wouldn't go to Erudite headquarters. I knew then she was lying to me, and I know it now.
"What are you up to, Tris?" I whisper, as the virtual me falls asleep. Tris stares out the window, a tear rolling down her cheek as her eyelids start to sag.
Suddenly, the screen goes dark.
