AN: Back after a hiatus... Thanks bamcn and enj for the encouragement! And as requested - tris realizes she's been combative and is trying to soften her edge with tobias. They're both pretty strong personalities who have never really been so close to someone before, plus they're young & have both been through significant trauma - much to work through, but they'll get there. And a warning: I do not intend to kill off any main characters. I don't think a martyr is the only way to get redemption.

It's quiet out in the orchards, just the wind rattling the dry leaves and the gently swelling breaths of my team, crouching next to me in the trees.

We're waiting for the signal to move in to the Amity compound, to Johanna's office, which we now know has a concealed space underground. Glory was far more talkative once Lou did whatever it was she did to her, and so Lou was able to send that annoying Candor girl - Elsa? Eliza? I guess I should know - to Dauntless with some good information. Elsa also had a message from Cara - "I know where they are."

"That's it?" I had asked the girl, who had her arm around Tris.

"It's all we need to know right now, Tobias," Tris pointed out.

I nodded at her. Cara must have figured out who was responsible for our being here, and more about where to find them. I could tell Tris had come to the same conclusion, and we couldn't help grinning at each other like idiots.

"It would help a great deal if you two would take this mission seriously," Evelyn had scolded us from across the room. "If you'd care to join us, we're going over your attack plan."

And now, less than a day later, we're here, waiting to carry it out. Have I forgotten anything? I go through a mental checklist. My team will catch Johanna in her lair - we know she was there when we left Dauntless, and there's no reason to think she would have moved. If she is gone for some reason, we'll take whatever she's hiding in her bunker, load it into one of Amity's trucks, and bring it all back to Dauntless. Anything really important or mysterious, we'll send out to Cara. Team two, which Rat is leading, is in charge of catching Christopher and Johanna's other known Amity accomplices. Inez's team will look for Johanna in her living quarters just in case and then go get a truck if she's not there. We'll leave a couple of spotters out here in the orchard. Everyone else in Amity, and maybe even Johanna, should be out cold right now, but we're not taking any chances.

Speaking of cold, it's freezing out here. And boring, just waiting around. I can't keep my thoughts from wandering.

Tris was a little anxious around me, apologizing for going off on another excursion without telling me and for volunteering me as an emissary to my mother, but other than that, she wasn't acting guilty or anything. And I had plenty of time to observe her: she rarely left my side from the second I came back to Dauntless with Evelyn and the other Factionless. She was even cordial to Evelyn, who did try to be cordial back, though I think even Eric was better at pretending to be friendly. There wasn't really time for any major confessionals - or anything else (Leo claims "make-up sex" is worth having a fight, possibly worth starting a fight, but I'm thinking Tris may be the exception to that particular rule). She even held my hand for awhile, which I took more as a sign that she was worried about the mission and the fact that she would not be at Amity with me than anything else.

I glance over at Uriah, who's on my team. He's on one knee, leaning against a tree and twirling a stick restlessly in his fingers. He's also been acting like nothing happened the other night, so maybe nothing did. He's not a very good actor. Plus I think he may still have some truth serum in his system. Maybe I should just ask him.

The beacon in my hand begins to flash a series of short dots, mercifully taking me away from my own mind.

Fernando may have been a spy and a traitor, but his signal system is certainly coming in handy.

"It's time," I whisper, "move out." I turn my hand sideways and make a forward chopping motion to signal to the other two teams to begin the assault on the Amity compound. I almost laugh out loud at the thought; no one would ever say I like cheerful people, but even I never thought I'd actually be driven to violence against the Amity.

It's completely silent inside the compound. There aren't even the usual sounds of human presence - the snores, the creaking bed slats, the farts and sighs. Tris must have really dosed them. We creep down the halls - right turn, then left, then across a short courtyard to a separate building. We gather at the door, and I glance at the team, giving them a nod and receiving one back. I try the doorknob gently, and it turns easily. I push the door carefully open.

No one is there. It's a small office, plainly furnished with a rough wooden desk and several chairs. There's a large map of the Amity compound and orchards covering one wall, and a vase of dried flowers on a shelf. We tiptoe behind the desk and pull up the red and orange homespun rug. Looking carefully, I can see the outline of a trapdoor. There's a faint click as I twist the handle out of the floor and pull it up. Frowning, I hesitate. If Johanna is down there, she may well have heard that click. I'm certain Tris will have disabled any alarm system, but there's not much she can do about a kinetic noise.

I look at the team and signal them to be ready, in case we get shot at when we open the door. I pull on the handle, and the door rises up briefly before sinking silently away. "Cover me," I mouth to Uriah, who's right behind me, and I put my foot down carefully on the first step, and then the next.

My eyes have already adjusted to the dark, so I can see that there's a small empty space below, and a faint light glowing from under what must be a door about 20 feet in front of the bottom of the stairs. I motion to Uriah for the team to follow me in and I keep moving silently down the stairs.

Once we're all down, I approach the door. Tris should have used Glory's code to open the door, so I give the team a silent count to three on my fingers, and then I throw the door open.

Johanna looks up from behind a computer terminal, freezing for just a split second before she jumps up.

"Don't move," I shout at her. "Hands up! Hands up, or I'll blow your brains across the room!"

And maybe because I really do mean it, she puts her hands up and holds still. The team streams in behind me.

Uriah and one of the other Dauntless move immediately to search and bind Johanna. They know they're supposed to keep her from touching anything, but she moves faster than they expect and slams her fist down on something on her desk.

She smiles at me, lowering her hands.

"You can do whatever you want to now," she says, with a snide twist to her mouth, which emphasizes the scar across her face, "because I just gassed Dauntless. You have 30 minutes to get there with the antidote, or every single one of them, including Beatrice, will die. And I won't tell you where it is unless you let me go."

I shrug. "Don't care," I say. Her mouth drops open, and Uriah binds her hands behind her, running his own hands along her back, sides, legs - every square inch of her, removing various weapons and odd metal implements.

"Check this out," Uriah says, holding out a card he found in a concealed pocket in her waistband. It's an identity card, like the one we found on Bruce's body. I squint at it and smile.

"So you are Jana then," I say to her, and am satisfied to see her turn from surprised to truly shocked.

"How could you possibly know that?" she demands.

"Drives you crazy that some of your puppets have broken their strings, doesn't it?" I say to her grimly. I nod at the Dauntless holding her. "Dose her." The drug takes effect immediately; no one moves to catch her as she crumples and hits the ground.

It was Tris's idea, of course, to begin the assault with the computers. She's gotten quite adept at using the purple serum to manipulate the system, so she led a small attack team, which began infiltrating Amity's computers yesterday. Tris tested Glory's access information right away and then again before we left to confirm that it still worked. Last night, while we were beginning to move out, they upped the peace serum dosage in the nightly meal, ensuring that we would have no interference. And no witnesses.

I move over to the computer terminal and tap in a code. I push the tab on the tube going into my arm and inject some serum, sitting down at the terminal and plugging my cable into the port on the side and sticking the sensors onto my temples.

"We have her," I say out loud. I don't need to vocalize, of course, but I'm doing it so the team will hear the conversation. "I take it you're all alive and well?"

"Yep," Tris answers promptly, and the stock footage of Dauntless she loaded onscreen for Johanna's benefit is replaced with her face. "I told you I disabled the gas."

"I know," I acknowledge. "She said there's an antidote stored somewhere on site here - see what you can figure out and I'll check in with you before we leave. Anything else I need to know?"

"Nope," she says out loud. Be careful, she thinks, she's paranoid, amoral, and very dangerous. I'm worried we may have missed something. She has to have other failsafes that are not linked into the computer system. Knock her out as fast as you can - don't take any chances.

"Already did," I send back.

"Good. Love you," she thinks quickly, before nodding at me and signing out.

I turn back to the team "Group one fall out with Johanna, and remember: do not take your eyes or your weapons off of her. We have no idea what kind of countermeasures she may have access to, and who else knows to avoid the evening meal. Group two, begin tagging and bagging materials. Inez should have the truck out front for us by now."

Uriah shoots me a look. I put him in group two, and I can tell he suspects it's because I don't trust him to keep his emotions in check around Johanna. He's right, of course. He hasn't even been able to bring himself to tell us exactly what she did to him, so it's a risk I can't take. In fact, looking at him more closely, I can see sweat rolling right off his chin, and his pupils are a bit dilated.

"Go quickly. Now," I snap at Elena, the Group One leader. I move between Uriah and Johanna.

"What is it?" I ask him softly.

"Not sure," he mutters, his hand convulsing around his weapon.

"Look at me," I command him. His gaze snaps up to me, as I hear the team moving swiftly up the staircase. "Whatever it is, Uriah, fight it. Remember that you're Divergent." He nods uncertainly, taking in a deep breath, as I ease the weapon out of his hand.

I get an idea.

"Come here," I say, taking his elbow. "And keep your eyes on me."

I lead him over to the computer, plug into the system and hit the code, which summons Tris immediately.

You alright? She thinks.

Fine, but something's wrong with Uriah. I'm going to connect him - see if you can figure out what's going on.

I rip off the tape inside my elbow and slide the needle out of my arm, inserting it into Uriah's. I stick the sensors on his head.

Uriah is a strong Divergent, but he hasn't spent too much time training with the purple serum, so he just looks a little confused.

"I don't know," he says out loud. "I just feel weird, like there's something I'm supposed to be doing that I'm not doing." He falls silent for a moment. "Angry. Yeah. I feel angry. It's weird..."

Suddenly, his eyes roll back in his head and he falls off the chair, the sensors popping off as he whacks his head on the edge of the table.

"Shit," I say, rushing forward and turning him over. He has a nasty gash just above his hairline, and it's already bleeding profusely. Lauren's come up next to me and is pulling out her field kit.

"I'll take care of him," she says. "You find out what's going on."

I yank the needle out of his arm, earning a dirty look from Lauren as she quickly presses the gauze she was going to use on his head to his arm. I turn back to the terminal and stick the sensors back on my temples.

What happened, Tris?

I think I knocked him out.

Yeah, I noticed. Why?

Didn't mean to. There was some kind of trigger, what Cara calls a post-hypnotic suggestion, planted in his mind, and I was trying to get rid of it. Did Johanna say anything to him?

No; we dosed her before she could say much at all.

Okay. I think he's okay now.

Except that he fell and smashed his head open.

Oh. Oops. Sorry about that.

I'm not the one with the busted head. Better go - we're almost done here.

See you soon. Oh, and the antidote is in Silo Two.

"How is he?" I ask Lauren, as I fold the chord up and stick it in my pocket.

"He's fine. Head wounds always look worse than they are. He should be coming around in just a minute."

"Good. How we doing here, team?"

"We can get it all in two trips," a Dauntless named Enrico says.

"Good. Start moving it out."

Uriah groans and opens his eyes, wincing and blinking. I crouch down next to him.

"Think you can get up?" I ask him.

"Yeah," he wheezes, "just give me a minute." He sits up, resting his elbows on his knees and ducking his head down. "What happened?"

"Tris said Johanna did something to your mind. She thinks she fixed it."

"Feels like she blasted out a chunk out of my brain."

"No great loss," I shoot back, offering him a hand up. He gives me a half smile and lets me pull him to his feet. The team has already shifted most of the material up the stairs, so I grab a stack of files in one hand, tuck the computer hard drive under the other arm, and nod to Uriah to go ahead.

Inez is up in the office with a couple of her folks, and I hand her the files and give one of her teammates the computer. "That's just about it," I tell her. "Heard from Rat yet?"

She shakes her head and then frowns at Uriah. "What happened to him?"

"He tripped," I answer, peering out into the courtyard. "I'm going to look for Rat. We'll meet you at the rendezvous point. You have Johanna all squared away?"

She nods. "She's in the truck. I have three people watching her."

"Good. Come on, Uriah, you're with me."

Inez frowns at me this time. "You should take someone else, too."

I start to tell her no, but I know that look in her eye. She's not going to give it a rest until I do exactly what she wants me to.

"Yeah, okay. Fine. And there's more stuff in Silo Two - some chemicals, possibly something else. But be careful - might be traps set up around it."

Inez nods. "Jasper," she says, grabbing one of her Factionless by the shoulder, "leave off that for now. Go with these guys." The slight, rat-faced man shrugs and puts down the box he was holding. He looks at me expectantly, and I motion for him to follow me.

We're just rounding the corner of a long hallway, right before it opens up into the cavernous main hall, when we come face to face with Christopher. We have our weapons up and we're ready for something like this to happen, but he gets the first two shots off, anyway. There's just no way around it: surprise generally outweighs numbers as a tactical advantage in a battle situation. The first shot crashes through Jasper's forehead, shattering the back of his skull and splashing his brains on the wall behind us. Almost in slow motion I see the barrel of the gun in his other hand point at me, and I squeeze the trigger of my own just a moment too late. When the bullet hits, it feels like a train plowing into me. The impact knocks me right off my feet.

"Rosebud," I dimly hear Christopher shout, and through the haze in front of my eyes, I see Uriah turn mechanically and run after Christopher down the hall. My hands scrabble uselessly around. Where is my gun? Why can't I find it?

"Tobias!" I hear someone shouting. I can't see anything, anymore. My vision has gone all fuzzy and gray, and my mouth is as dry as sand. "Tobias!" The voice shouts, getting farther away, not closer.

"Truck," I croak. "Johanna. Don't let them get away." I can hear feet running past me, I think.

I know I'm still conscious, but I can't see anything, and there's a ringing in my ears that's making it hard to hear. I feel a weird, hysterical laugh bubble up in my throat, because I just realized that Amar would be really mad at me. That was the first thing he taught me, never to let my guard down.

"That's a very good way to get killed," he said to me after my first fight in the training room. I had relaxed in the ring after a fight with Eric had been called in my favor, and Eric broke my nose as soon as I looked away.

No, Amar, I think sluggishly, it is a very bad way to get killed.