"No!" I gasp, ripping off the headphones. I grab her shoulders to shake her when I realize I can still hear the thud of her amplified heart. I put my ear to her chest to be sure, and there it is, steady and strong. She's alive.

I sit back down, rubbing the back of my neck wearily. I look up and see the screen is still dark. The activity lines on the brain scan are barely moving. I'm desperately wondering what could have gone wrong when it hits me.

She's asleep.

She fell asleep in the simulation, and she really is asleep. As a former administrator of simulations, I can't help but be fascinated that her body in real life is mirroring what's happening in her mind to this degree. Or maybe her real body is tired and is making her simulated self sleep? I shake my head. Not the time to go all Erudite.

But it is time to look around. I realize right away that the monitor is hooked up to a computer, and my pulse quickens. Of course they would be recording her simulation. I can go back and watch what's happened so far, maybe figure out what the purple serum does and how to break her out of this.

The data file for her simulation is huge – it would be, given that it's three day's-worth of data, but it's large, even for that. In fact, it's so big they have saved it in multiple files.

I scan the other folders on the system and see that most of them are for physical monitoring, including of an IV in her arm. Unfortunately, there's no file helpfully titled "about this program" or "how to operate" or just "why."

The hard drive only has this experiment on it, but it does appear that I can get into the main frame from here. I try to access it to see if I can help destroy the attack simulation files, but it's password protected. I could probably figure it out, but it would take time, and I can't afford that right now. I'll just have to hope the traitor Dauntless can get to the control rooms.

I open Tris's first file, putting on the headphones, and do a double take when I see the computer screen. We're in this same room and Tris is in exactly the same spot.

"Take the body to the lab," I hear Jeanine say. "The autopsy is scheduled for this afternoon." Tris appears to be dead – even the heart monitor has gone silent. I shift one ear out nervously, just to check that her heart is, in fact, still beating in real life. It is.

On screen, Peter and Caleb disconnect her from all the monitors, and Peter pushes her on the table, out of the room.

I look away from the computer and under the table and see that it does, in fact, have wheels. She doesn't miss much. Or maybe that detail was programmed in?

I frown. This is not anything like a normal simulation so far – it's just a continuation of the situation she was in, not a scenario of some kind. Although I suppose the ultimate fear landscape would be watching yourself be dead. Most fear landscapes end just before you die.

Peter is speeding up as he wheels her down the halls, practically running. He ditches the table and picks her up.

"For someone so small, you're heavy, Stiff," he mutters to her, though Tris still appears to be dead.

I recognize where they are now – my cell. Peter keys the door open, and I rush out, promptly losing it when I see Tris.

"Spare me your blubbering, okay?" Peter snaps. "She's not dead; she's just paralyzed. It'll only last for about a minute. Now get ready to run."

"Let me carry her," I say on screen, reaching for her.

"No, you're a better shot than I am. Take my gun. I'll carry her."

As I watch them – us – run down the pale maze of hallways, I try to understand what I am seeing. It's not really a fear landscape. What is this? I'm momentarily distracted from attempting to answer my own question when I see that Tris has regained consciousness on screen, and I am kissing her, in what appears to be a garbage dump. Romantic. Someone has a sense of humor.

"Unless you want me to throw up all over you guys, you might want to save it for later," Peter says, explaining that we will be escaping through the incinerator, which he has turned off. Clever, Peter – wait, no. It's a simulation – someone must have inserted that detail. I snort – I doubt very much that the real Peter would have gone to so much trouble to help the two of us escape.

In fact, that's important. Peter is not acting like Peter. Tris would have noticed that, too, and it should have tipped her off that she was in a simulation. It should have allowed her to break out. Why didn't it?

I look away from the simulation to get a closer look at the data files. There doesn't appear to be any code or programming involved – it's all just output data. Usually, we're inserting code into the simulation to control the details or at least to stimulate the fear response. I see nothing like that here.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Tris just manipulated the simulation to save her life, turn Peter into an accomplice, and rescue me, too. How is that possible? And if she can control the simulation like that, why is she still trapped in it?

I lean back in the chair, pinching the bridge of my nose. The brain scan records are running in a separate window, so I pull those up, too. We didn't have that kind of imaging in Dauntless, so I'm not sure what I'm looking at. The activity lines are moving, and I wonder what the peaks and valleys correlate with.

I move back and forth through the last few minutes of the simulation. One of the lines jumps whenever Tris is running or getting shot at, so that must be the heart monitor – her heart rate is reacting in real life to the physical situation in the simulation. Makes sense.

The brain activity is a little harder to interpret, but it appears that the highest activity is when anyone in the simulation is making a decision – anyone, not just Tris. Interesting. I can see that it lights up one large region of the brain – I know it's not the amygdala, which is what we usually stimulate for the fear landscapes, but I'm not sure what it is.

There's generally a different pattern when she's focusing on me. Not always, really just when she's touching me or kissing me. The indicators surge, but a different, smaller region of her brain lights up, and very brightly. I smirk as I wonder if that means she has a Tobias section of her brain. Almost like a neurological blush. Or perhaps something a little more carnal than a blush? Ah, well, that thought is certainly lighting up a particular part of my anatomy, I think ruefully. Doesn't take much. How can I think about that when my girlfriend is lying in a coma, having a near-death experience?