Chapter 7: Tris – Outsiders
The voice I hear most clearly is Tori's. It must be the pain in her tone that cuts through the other sounds.
"I killed Jeanine for you!" she shouts at George. "You made me into a murderer!"
Beside me, Tobias stands as rigid as the walls of the building, his eyes moving between his father and the man next to George.
"Who is that?" I ask, pulling on his arm, but he seems to be unaware I'm there. I've never seen Tobias so unresponsive, except when he was under the simulation. The sight sends a chill through me.
"I think it's Amar," Uriah says from behind me. "Our old initiation instructor. He's supposed to be dead, but it looks just like him."
A sinking feeling goes through me, and I lace my fingers into Tobias', trying to bring him back to me. He's had too many betrayals in his life already, and now his old instructor, the one who hid his Divergence to keep him alive, is adding to it. It feels like Amar has ripped something from inside my own chest in the process.
The third newcomer, a gray-haired woman who is not much taller than I am, stomps her feet loudly in a short pattern. The others near her stomp it back to her. She stomps it again, and a larger group responds. After the third time, the whole room stomps it in unison. She holds her arms up over her head and speaks in a voice that projects through the entire floor. "Eyes on me!" Every face in the room turns to her, even Tori's and Tobias'.
"Obviously, many of you recognize us," she says. "For those who don't, we used to live among you. We lived in the same factions you did. We shared your concerns and your lives. But we were recruited by the group Amanda Ritter told you about. We're here today because we need your help, and because you need ours!"
A burst of excitement goes through me. This is our chance to learn more about those outside the city. This is what my parents wanted. But it's also why Jeanine started a war, and I know many here will resist the message these people are bringing.
I shift from side to side, trying to get a closer look at the woman who's talking. Her voice is smooth and practiced, the voice of a leader, and I feel an instant desire to trust her. But I don't trust people easily, so in an odd way the impulse makes me warier.
"This city is in tremendous danger," she continues, her tone conveying a deep sense of urgency. "There is an entire country outside of here that is poised to attack. We have protected you from them for years, but we can no longer do that by ourselves. We need some of you to help us, and you all need to get ready to defend yourselves!"
"Why should we believe you?" someone yells, and a murmur of agreement goes through the crowd.
"Because I was a Dauntless leader for sixteen years. Many of you know what Dauntless was like under my guidance. I ask those of you who were there – did I ever steer you wrong?"
Again, mutters fill the room, but this time, shouts of support mix in with them. Older Dauntless members around the room pump their arms in the air, calling, "Anna! Anna! Anna!"
Behind me, Uriah says suddenly, "I remember her, from when I was a kid. My mom really liked her."
"Why did she leave?" Cara asks, but I already know the answer. The Dauntless aren't allowed to grow old. Once it gets hard to jump on and off trains, you're "encouraged" to leave – to die or become factionless. It seems that Anna found a third option.
Abruptly, I remember something Tobias said once, back when I only knew him as Four. He told me that Dauntless used to be different, but that the leadership changed six years ago, when Max was brought on board. Anna must represent the old Dauntless values, before they started working with Erudite, before they started killing the Divergent.
"Thank you!" Anna calls to those shouting her name. "I should ask, too, of every initiate Amar ever trained – did he steer you wrong?"
Again, people shout in response, chanting his name and yelling their support. Tobias makes a little movement, like he wants to answer too, but he stops himself.
I can feel the mood of the crowd shifting. They're listening, and beginning to agree. Anna knows how to work them well.
"For those who aren't Dauntless," Anna continues, "there's another reason to listen. I'm Amanda Ritter's daughter." My pulse leaps into my throat. Amanda Ritter used another name, too – Edith Prior – which means that Anna must be related to me. The connection springs to mind just as she says the words. "And Natalie Prior's mother."
Tobias' hand clutches mine hard, but now I'm the one who is rigid and barely able to hear. My pulse is pounding in my ears, and my mind is racing. My mother grew up in Dauntless. As almost her last words to me, she said that she was Divergent, and that she only stayed safe because her mother was a Dauntless leader. Anna is that leader, my grandmother. Why did it never occur to me that she might still be alive? I never even thought to look for her face among the factionless.
But of course I didn't. I never knew her name. With a twinge, I remember my mother telling me that she didn't care about factions, that she loved me because I'm her daughter. But she told me nothing about her own life, nothing about her past. She raised me to believe in faction before blood after all.
Or perhaps she didn't know that her mother was still alive. I think of the shocked reactions among the crowd. Clearly, everyone thought these people were dead. Did my mother believe that too, like Tobias believed his mother had died? Anger rises in me at the thought. When my mother died, it felt like part of me was ripped out and I was left writhing in pain. Did she feel that too, because of a lie? And what kind of people are these three, who do that to the ones who love them, and then ask us to trust them anyway?
I'm vaguely aware that Christina's hand is on my shoulder and that Tobias is speaking to me, but all I want to do is shake this woman who claims to be my grandmother and get her to tell me the truth, to tell me everything.
Tobias moves in front of me, holding my arms firmly and leaning down so I have to look at his eyes. They're wide and almost black in the moonlight, and they finally break me out of my thoughts.
"Are you all right?" he asks, his voice low.
I swallow. "Yeah. Are you?"
He smiles a little. "I'll live."
"We need to get closer," Cara says, "so we can talk to them. I have questions, and I'm sure you do too." She's right about that.
Tobias nods grimly and pulls his gun, but he keeps it down as he turns toward the crowd. The rest of us do the same, and we walk together to join the people surrounding the outsiders. They shift to make room without seeming to actually notice us. Their eyes, like ours, are focused forwards.
But they see us – Anna and Amar and Marcus and Johanna. Their eyes lock onto us immediately, and I know without needing to be told that they were hoping to find us here. That's not really a surprise. They want the Divergent, and Tobias and I are as Divergent as you can get.
Anna's eyes rest on mine as she says, "I believe it's time for some explanations."
"That would be good," I answer calmly, and I see Marcus' mouth curve into a little smile.
"This city was part of a country called the United States of America," Anna begins. "There was a major war, a worldwide war, that destroyed entire countries and killed billions of people. Every weapon imaginable was used in humanity's quest to destroy itself. Bombs reshaped the landscape, and the massive lake that used to be here flowed away. This city ended up isolated, and everyone abandoned it. So, it was perfect for our use."
She smiles a little, sadly, and continues. "Toward the end of the war, both sides started experimenting with serums that could control people's thoughts. One side came up with what we call the Suggestibility Serum. As the name implies, it makes people follow suggestions from others. The developers used it to win the war, and they formed the New United States of America, or NUSA as we call it.
"But they were afraid of their own population afterwards, afraid of losing their power, so they kept using the serum. They add it to the country's water supplies, so everyone drinks it every day. And they inject a receiver into every newborn baby, hidden inside a vaccination, so everyone receives the information they broadcast. That way, they can keep the entire population living as slaves." Her expression is bitter.
"But some people are naturally resistant to the serum. A group of them escaped from NUSA's control and came here. They reshaped Chicago into the city you know, and they've kept it safe and hidden for nearly sixty years now. During that time, they've sometimes pulled people out, when there was a strong need. That's how they've kept you all safe." She gestures to Amar and George and herself and says, "We're some of those people. I know you're angry that we fooled you, but there was no choice. You wouldn't still be here, alive and free, if they hadn't done that." She looks at me again, and I hesitate. My instincts say that she's telling the truth, and I usually trust my instincts, but I have no objective way to be sure.
George speaks, his voice tentative and his eyes on Tori. "The NUSA government is constantly trying to track down rebels. And when they do, they use a high dose of the serum to get information. No one can resist that type of dose. So, it's bad when they capture a rebel who knows about this city, really bad." He clears his throat and continues. "When the rebels pulled me out, that had just happened, and they were mounting a rescue mission. They needed someone who was strongly Divergent, and they knew I was in danger here, so they picked me."
He shrugs a little. "It kept me alive, and it kept the whole city safe for a while longer. Or at least safer than it would have been." His eyes plead with Tori, and I'm reminded suddenly of the way Caleb looked at me in Erudite. When Tori looks away, I can't blame her.
"Why didn't you just tell us what was going on?" Cara asks. "Why keep it all secret?"
George gives a short laugh. "We've been trying for almost two decades, but Jeanine got in the way. She decided she wasn't interested in stopping NUSA. Instead, she isolated the serum and began experimenting with it. She used it to get Erudite and half of Dauntless to follow her. She used it in the aptitude tests, to get people to switch factions when she wanted. She used it in those simulations you're so familiar with. And she used it in high doses to make people betray their friends and family to serve her."
The words send a chill through me, and suddenly it's difficult to breathe. Beside me, Tobias clutches my arm tightly, and I turn to him. But I already know what he's thinking, what he's going to say. The words echo through me. Betray their friends and family….
Tobias' eyes are intense on mine as he says, "We have to rescue Caleb." It's all I can do to nod.
"So, you see," Anna says, "you already know what you'll be facing when NUSA's army gets here. Total mind control for the rest of your lives – everything you just fought to avoid. And they're on their way. Because in all the chaos of this war, we weren't able to rescue the last rebel they caught."
For a moment, I close my eyes and try to picture the world they're describing. The image comes all too easily. The blank eyes in Amanda Ritter's video as their owners murdered and destroyed. The slack Dauntless faces as their hands shot Abnegation leaders in the head. Marlene stepping off the building with no knowledge of what she was doing. The expressionless Candor firing at Fernando as he climbed across the ladder.
"What do you need us to do?" I ask. Again, a shadow of a smile crosses Marcus' face, and I feel Tobias tense beside me, but Anna looks me in the eyes and nods seriously.
"We need a group of highly resistant people – what you call Divergent – to go to the capital and seize control of the equipment they use to broadcast messages. We need to broadcast our own message, to counter what the government has been sending, so we can free everyone."
Her eyes move from me to Tobias and to the others beside us, and then she says, "We'd like at least ten volunteers for that, preferably more." As she looks around at the crowd, she adds, "And we need everyone else to organize into an army, to protect this city if the NUSA soldiers get here before our mission succeeds."
I nod, about to speak, but Tobias places a hand on my arm, and I pause. He must want to discuss something first. I remember how angry I was when he made a deal with Evelyn without speaking to me privately first, so I close my mouth and wait for now.
Christina asks, "Only the Divergent can go?"
Anna shakes her head. "It's not quite that simple. We need people who are resistant to the Suggestibility Serum. Divergent people are, but so are some others. People who switched factions, for instance, are more likely to be resistant, as are people who were in Erudite but didn't side with Jeanine. We can test you if you want to come."
"How do you do that?" Cara asks suspiciously.
"We administer a low dose of the serum and gradually increase it until you begin to respond. It tells us how much you can take."
"What are the risks of that?" Tobias asks, his voice as tense as wire. His eyes flick to his father and back again, and I realize he's worried about something he hasn't told me. For a moment, I'm furious that he's keeping secrets again, but then I realize he hasn't had time to tell me about his day at Erudite yet. I try to believe that's what triggered his concern.
The rebels look at each other uncomfortably, and then Amar says quietly, "That depends on the person. The serum finds a path through your brain that gets you to follow the suggestion, and it strengthens that path. The higher the dose, the stronger the effect. Sometimes, if someone has a latent tendency towards a particular behavior, a high dose can bring that out." He glances at Marcus and then looks back at Tobias. "But it can't change who you are. It can't make you do something that's fundamentally against your nature." He steps toward Tobias and says again, "It can't."
That seems like an odd thing to stress, but as I look between Amar and Tobias, I begin to understand. Right or wrong, Tobias thinks that Marcus was given a high dose…and that it may have caused his violence.
And that it could do the same thing to him.
I don't know what to say.
"For what it's worth," Anna says, looking directly at Tobias, "we know that Jeanine added the serum to her mass simulations. And while we weren't able to get ahold of all the other simulation serums she tried, we strongly suspect they had even higher doses. It was her pet project, after all. So, if you were exposed to those and didn't react badly, you aren't likely to."
Tobias doesn't look reassured, but I know he must be thinking what I am. There isn't really a choice here. He and I stand the best chance of succeeding in this mission, and if the mission doesn't succeed, the battle will come here. There's no safety in either option.
I pull his arm, and he brings his ear to my mouth. "We have to go with them," I whisper. He draws away slightly, closing his eyes for a moment and then fixing his gaze straight ahead. He nods crisply, but he won't look at me.
"We'll go," I say to Anna.
Her eyes are thoughtful, and I think sad, as she nods. "Thank you," she says quietly. Then, she turns to the rest of the room. "Who else will go?"
But I don't hear the other responses. I hold Tobias' hand firmly and lean against him, trying to figure out how to reassure him that his greatest fears won't come true. That he won't become like his father, and he won't hurt me. And perhaps trying to believe it myself.
A/N: It's deliberate that Anna has the "Prior" last name, even though that means it came to Tris through her mother and not her father. My reasoning is based on several passages from "Insurgent." That book states that surnames are just an additional means of identification and are rarely used in daily life. It also says that when a couple marries, one spouse takes the other's surname or they pick a new one together. Andrew left Erudite under bad circumstances and clearly wanted nothing to do with that place afterwards, so I don't see him being attached to his last name. On the other hand, Natalie's mother hid her Divergence and kept her safe. So, it seems reasonable to me that they would keep Natalie's last name, not Andrew's. I also chose to have Anna get that last name through her mother, rather than her father, in order to keep a completely female line leading from Amanda Ritter to Tris. I just kind of like that idea. :-)