I smile back at Tris.
"What do you have after lunch?" She asks eagerly.
I look back at my schedule and decode it.
Lab B Lab A Lab C Lab A2 Lab A1
I clear my throat "BACA2A1, I think."
She sucks her teeth and groans. "Man..." She pulls me into an embrace. "I'll miss you this afternoon."
I laugh and hug her back. It would be odd, not spending the entire day with her like we would in Dauntless. I stroke her hair, but when it stops at her shoulders, I stop. It is foreign. Her hair being short. I stroke just her head this time, not going to her back. When I pull away, I kiss her chin gently and hold her waist.
"We'll be together again before you know it." I whisper in her ear a reassurance. She nods and looks me with a grin. I push some of the hair out of her eyes and smile down at her.
Breakfast is quiet. Tris and I sit at a table with Uriah, Lynn, Zeke, Shauna, and Hector.
Christina is nowhere to be found. And for some reason, that worries me.
Suddenly, Caleb sits next to me, and the table is no longer quiet.
"Umm hi..." Lynn says to Caleb, an awkward expression on her face.
I knew what she was thinking.
Why was there a real Erudite sitting with us? Was he confused?
"His name is Caleb." I say to Lynn, who stares at him.
Lynn raises her eyebrow. "How would you know?"
"He's my brother." Says Tris, taking a sip of a clear liquid. It is visible through her glass cup.
Caleb nods and smiles at Lynn. "And you are?"
"None of your business." She snaps at him.
His smiles disappears, and he mutters something about the Dauntless under his breath.
Uriah clears his throat. "Tris you never told us you had an Erudite brother." He gives her a grin.
Tris smiles back at him. "I guess it never came up."
Caleb grins; at nobody in particular, but he does. I pick at my plate as the conversation grows. I don't speak for a while as it does.
Lab C is first.
I look around on every floor for it, and ultimately get lost.
I should have stayed with Tris.
I look around the building more, and I know that I am officially lost.
Suddenly someone taps my shoulder from behind. I turn around, and I am face-to-face with Caleb.
This guy was everywhere.
Seriously, shouldn't he be doing something Eruditey right about now?
"Are you lost?" He asks with a friendly smile.
I nod furiously and hand him my schedule. He takes it and deeply looks into it. "Lab C is on this floor, over there-" He stops to point to a room, with a large sign over it that says, 'LAB C'.
I furrow my eyebrows. How did I miss that? If I missed this, then I could have passed the other rooms without even realizing it. I take my schedule back. "I think I can try to find the other rooms by myself." I say, walking towards to room. I do not see Caleb's expression as I do, and I don't turn back around to see it.
When I am in the room, Tris and Uriah are nowhere to be seen. A woman in a blue dress guides me into a blocked off room. Tris said that is was her first activity. The room the woman put me in had a single white bed. Odd.
The woman gestures to the bed without saying anything. I sit on the bed and the woman opens a dresser next to it.
She pulls out a needle.
It then comes to my head.
The Erudite were going to run simulations on us.
But why? What was the reason? For fun. I wasn't sure, but I would find out. The woman puts the needle to my neck, but before she does, I back away from it. "What does it do?"
She tilts her head, and gives me look and puts the needle back up to my neck. "It's just new simulation were trying out. Nothing to be afraid of." I nod, and she sticks the needle into my neck.
Nothing happens.
Suddenly, a man walks in. He is Erudite. I don't recognize him.
"I'm ...ing to...it, okay, Peter?"
Her words enter my mind slowly, and her voice becomes odd. I nod slowly, understanding only half of what she says. A slight buzzing enters my ears. She taps something into virtual board and suddenly, the man is not just the man anymore.
He is the enemy.
I attack him. He is connected with a bad memory of some sort. He hurt me somehow, and I needed to hurt him.
I hit him in the jaw. My movements are slow, I don't control them. Everything is slow. I don't hear the impact of my punch- it didn't land. My hand hits the wall.
He is on the other side of the room. I make myself attack faster, and I land one solid kick into his stomach.
I becomes slower. What was up with my head? I needed to think. Fast.
My thoughts became slow. He was on the other side of the room. How did he get away so quickly?
I stopped thinking. My brain was too slow. And suddenly, I on top of him, beating him furiously.
I hit every place I saw. His neck, jaw, cheek, eye, chest- everywhere.
I wasn't thinking. Something was taking over.
What was it called again?
When I thought, my mind became slower, along with my movements.
I tried to think of what it was. It took me multiple tries to remember what I was thinking about.
A stim? A skim?
A sim. A simulation.
I remembered, a simulation was taking over.
When I remember, I instantly stop thinking. It is too slow to do so.
Suddenly, I can think again, quickly. Like normal. I come to my senses, and stop punching the man.
I was out of the simulation.
I look at the man.
He has a bruised and bloody face, he is screaming.
I did not hear screaming, but a slight buzzing when I was in the simulation.
He looked awful. But I had to remind myself, that I was the reason that he did.