Thanks for the reviews! Yes, sometimes I do write really fast - a little too fast. 14 and 15 were wayyyy too talky & clunky! Sorry about that - edited them a bit... I promise after 14 and 15 there will be more action! First fanfiction - learning the ropes...
Cara is already back at the computer, looking at the screen, at Caleb's journal - at anything but me. I understand. What just happened between her and Leo is something too new, too visceral, for her to talk about. She wants to protect it for the moment, like a just-lit match that needs to be shielded from the wind. If I did say something, it would just be to tell her that I really do understand.
Instead, I head over to the weapons locker, taking out three guns for myself and one for Cara. I put it on the shelf next to her without waiting to see if she takes it.
Back on screen, Tris is riding in a pickup truck, out of the Amity orchards and into the city, with people I don't recognize. They must be Amity or part of Cara's group.
As the truck comes to a stop, a young man with glasses and an open, friendly face winks at Tris and says, "Come on, Insurgent."
"What?" she asks, sliding down the side of the truck. The man starts handing everyone blue clothes out of a bag.
"Insurgent," he says, "Noun. A person who acts in opposition to the established authority, who is not necessarily regarded as a belligerent." Definitely Erudite.
The discussion continues as they all start stripping off their candy-and-sunshine Amity clothes. Tris hesitates.
"No time for Modesty, Stiff," Christina barks out. I like it that she cares about Tris but never coddles her.
Tris gets a hint of that look she gets in her fear landscapes, right when she's about to shatter glass or summon rain. All she does is change her clothes, though. Then again, I would not be comfortable changing my clothes in front of other people, either, so I guess I am not suprised that her brain scan pulses lightly.
"Did she just call you 'Stiff'?" the Erudite man asks her.
"Yeah," Tris responds. "I transferred into Dauntless from Abnegation."
"Huh." he responds, looking thoughtful. He certainly is paying a lot of attention to her. Jealousy lances through me, even though I know it's irrational. He may not even be a real person. "That's quite a shift," he continues. "That kind of leap in personality is almost genetically impossible these days."
"Sometimes personality has nothing to do with a person's choice of faction. There are many factors to consider." Tris could be talking about herself, me, or her father, but I somehow know she is thinking about her mother, a Dauntless-born Divergent who transferred to Abnegation for her safety.
A touch on my shoulder makes me jump. Cara motions to me to take the headphones off and then does a double take as she sees herself on screen. In the simulation, she just pinned Tris's hair back with a silver clip - and the brainscan flared.
Cara furrows her brow. She reaches over and unplugs the headphones so the audio plays from speakers into the room.
"Do you want one?" Christina says, holding out a gun to Tris. "Or would you rather carry the stunner?"
Standing next to me, Cara starts talking softly, and I lower the volume of the audio slightly. "Before I left, I was the top brain researcher in Erudite..."
I look at her in surprise, interrupting her, "Don't you think you could have mentioned that before?"
"Would it have made any difference to you if you knew?" she responds pointedly.
"In my research, one of the things I discovered is that the genetic brain... map... if you will... that we're each born with can be shaped by our environment."
She's talking very fast now, watching the screen out of the corner of her eyes. "Tris was born Divergent, with a unique mix of traits - she is highly intuitive and most comfortable when she is in control of the situation around her. But she was raised in Abnegation, and the only control you're allowed to have is of yourself. I imagine that's not especially tolerable to someone like Tris, so I'm not surprised she transferred."
"But growing up in Abnegation shaped her, too. That self control, the lack of any need for positive reinforcement - those became actual physical changes in her brain. I looked through your records, too, and you have a strikingly similar pattern," she notes. "And I suspect it is one of the explanations behind your father's…behavior."
"So what does that mean for her situation now?" I ask. I am not uninterested in the neurology lesson, but I don't want to talk about Marcus and I can feel on a gut level that we are running out of time.
"Look at the screen," Cara says, "and watch the brain activity." Oddly enough, as I look up, it's the virtual Cara speaking, too, who says: "The stunner is a perfectly good option. If you ask me, the Dauntless are too gun happy anyway."
The prefrontal cortex flares brightly and the activity lines jump.
"She's solving problems," Cara says simply. "That's what she does. Just now, she received the forgiveness she needed from me for killing my brother."
"What? When? I didn't hear you say that."
"No," she agreed. "That would not be credible. It had to be indirect. I am not a demonstrative person."
I raise my eyebrows at her.
"Usually," she concedes, her cheeks pink.
"But by putting the hair clip in earlier, by telling her it's acceptable not to want to touch a gun, I am communicating my forgiveness in a way that is authentic to me." Cara's voice softens, "and she is not wrong, either."
"About your personality or your forgiveness?"
"All of it," she says.
