Chapter 42: Tobias – Selflessness
There's a period of close to an hour while Peter and Amar are both in surgery. My first instinct is to go looking for Tris, since I'm desperate to make sure she's safe. But Cara convinces me that that will only delay things, and I reluctantly have to admit she's right. If Christina and Uriah have found Tris, she's likely to be on her way here already, and if I leave, she won't know where I am.
Still, that doesn't make it easy to wait, particularly with the images that keep filling my mind. I don't know which ones are worse – the real memories from the last few hours or the snatches that keep appearing from my fear landscape. Between them, they seem to cover all possible variations of how Tris could be injured or dead.
But I keep functioning despite those thoughts. I've spent years ignoring my fears, after all, so I do what I've always done – I build up the walls inside myself and grit my teeth and find a way to deal.
It's somewhat of a relief when they tell us we can visit Peter. Cara declines, choosing to wait for Amar to be ready for the brain scans, but I need a distraction.
"I guess I lived," he says as I enter his room. He lies on the bed, hooked up to almost as many wires and tubes as I needed for the Control Computer. I raise an eyebrow in question. It's an odd thing to say.
"You'd look happier if I died," he explains with a straight face. The words actually cause a smile to quirk at the corner of my mouth.
"No," I answer calmly, "I'm just upset that you're awake. It's harder to steal your cake this way."
He laughs – only slightly, but it still causes him to wince in pain and clutch at his side. "I don't think they've even heard of cake in this country," he wheezes after a moment.
"That's probably true," I admit as I step closer, stopping by the side of the bed and looking at him.
He's young, I realize abruptly. Through all the bizarre interactions we've had since he landed in Dauntless, that somehow never really occurred to me. He's the same age I was as I struggled to fit into my new faction, trying to figure out how to make friends and work a job and be free of my father – all things I had absolutely no idea how to do.
"Don't worry," I add in as kind a tone as I can muster. Maybe it's just a less cruel one. "You'll be able to go home soon, and even with everything my mother may have done to the city, I'm sure there's still cake around somewhere."
One side of his mouth lifts. "I think you're underestimating her," he comments dryly, and this time it's my turn to chuckle.
"It doesn't really matter, anyway," he adds. "I'm going to stick around here." That startles me, and I look at him appraisingly, trying to determine if he's serious.
"Why?" I ask warily.
For a moment, he's silent. When he does answer, his eyes move around, not really focusing. "What is there to go back for?" he asks quietly. "My mom's fine without me, and the factions are destroyed, and my friends are dead. And it's not like I have a job anywhere. I'm going to have to start from scratch, which I might as well do here." He shrugs. "And like I said, the safest place to be is where the Stiff is."
I almost laugh at the idea that we've been safe during any part of this mission, but something in his expression stops me. He looks vulnerable, like a scared kid. It's a sentiment I can certainly relate to, and given everything we've learned about him in the last few days, I find myself actually sympathizing with him – just a little.
"It still seems like you'd have more opportunities in Chicago," I comment evenly. "Or are you expecting Tris to give you a job?"
He shrugs again. "She'd be foolish not to." I raise an incredulous eyebrow, but he continues like this is something he's rehearsed for a while. "Think about it. Everyone else in this country can be brainwashed, and you can bet the people you're overthrowing have some equipment stashed away to do that. They'll try to work their way back into power by 'influencing' key people, and by turning others into assassins."
My mind goes instantly to Caleb, and I feel sick as I realize that Peter's right. He smirks as he adds, "But that stuff doesn't work on me, so at least you always know who you're dealing with."
"Yeah," I say bitterly before I can stop myself. "Someone who gouges eyes out and tries to throw people into chasms."
His mouth tightens, and he glares at me for a few seconds before looking down again. A flush rises on his face, whether in anger or shame I can't tell.
"I'm not dumb, you know," he says defiantly. "If I had a good position with Tris in charge, why would I help some wanna-be overthrow her? There's no gain from that."
My mouth opens automatically to respond, but I shut it again without saying anything. He has a point – several, actually. As hard as it is to believe, Tris might be safer with Peter around than if we send him away. I sigh, rubbing the back of my neck.
"I never know what to make of you, Peter, so I'm just going to ask this flat-out. Can I trust you?"
He laughs. "No, I'm quite sure you're incapable of that. But I'm not going to attack her again, if that's what you want to know."
For a long moment, we assess each other. It reminds me of fighting in the ring at Dauntless, each opponent gauging the other's strengths and weaknesses before deciding how to proceed.
Finally, I nod. "All right, if you can convince Tris to hire you, I won't try to stop her. But you do understand that if you betray her, there is nowhere you can go to be safe, right? Because I will hunt you to the ends of the earth to make you pay."
He rolls his eyes, covering any fear he might feel. "Yeah, yeah," he mutters. "Murder, mayhem, and all that. Got it." But I can tell he knows I'm serious, and it's enough to reassure me.
I nod again, slowly, before turning to go. This seems like a reasonable time to end the conversation.
Apparently, Peter doesn't agree. I'm halfway to the door when he speaks up again. "I'm not the real danger, anyway." I freeze, every muscle in my body going rigid. I know what he's about to say, and I don't want to hear it. I don't. But I listen anyway.
"You can justify yourself to the others however you want, but you and I both know better. We both know that punch wasn't a total fluke. And we know it could happen again."
I don't answer. My breathing is too harsh to form words, even if there was something to say. Which there isn't.
My feet find their way out of the room, wandering aimlessly down hallways in an attempt to escape from the thoughts that follow me. It's not as if Peter said anything I wasn't already thinking, but somehow it's worse hearing it from a second person. From someone who knows. I can't ignore it from him.
On the surface, I'm calm again when I let a nurse lead me to the room where Cara and three doctors are discussing Amar's brain scans. The results are displayed on a large monitor, and I stare at them blankly as the others talk, asking questions and suggesting ideas I don't even attempt to follow. I'm angry and tired, and I frankly don't care about the technical details. I just want to know what it means for Amar.
After what feels like a long time, the group falls silent, and the doctors begin making their way from the room. Cara hangs back, watching me.
"What do you think?" she asks.
"I'd like a translation," I respond shortly.
Her mouth tightens, whether because she's tired or annoyed I can't tell, and then she sighs. "Fine. How much did you understand?"
I drag a hand down my face, making a frustrated noise. "Honestly, nothing, Cara. I missed half the conversation, and I can't think right now anyway. Just tell me what's going on in plain English."
She nods, looking almost as fatigued as I feel. But her tone is level as she begins.
"The Suggestibility Serum works through two actions. First, it stimulates the part of the brain that makes us susceptible to suggestions. It basically makes us calm and happy and willing to listen. When we hear a message while we're in that state, we want to believe it, so our brains actively help the message get through, by guiding it along whichever existing pathway is most compatible with it. And the process makes that pathway stronger and more active, so we follow it more readily on our own after that. Basically, it becomes a larger part of who we are."
"As an example, if you received a message telling you to like cats, and you already liked them, it would strengthen that pathway, and you'd like them even more. But if you didn't already like them, and you instead loved dogs, it would build on that to convince you that all pets are good, including both dogs and cats. And you'd end up loving cats, but also loving dogs even more than you already did. The exact pathway depends on the person receiving the message and what the message says. But it always finds a route and makes that route stronger."
She pauses, as if debating how to word the next part, before saying slowly, "Amar is Divergent. Before today, he had equal aptitudes for both Dauntless and Amity." I look up with a start. Before today? But she bites her lip and continues. "Most of your broadcast appealed to the Amity pathways in his brain, and it increased those dramatically."
She walks over to the monitor and begins pointing at sections of the images that are displayed. "These areas of the brain control emotions and social interactions and peaceful tendencies. Back in Erudite, we called these the Amity regions, because they're normally very active in people from that faction and less active in others. But I would never expect to see them this active. Virtually all of Amar's current thoughts are mired in these areas, along with this one here." She points again, as if what I'm seeing should be obvious. "This is a group of memories, and he's cycling back and forth between those memories and the Amity regions. The more times he completes that cycle, the stronger the pathways become, and the more he stays in them. He's basically stuck there."
She looks at me, waiting to see if I understand. But while I'm following her words without a problem, something still doesn't make sense. "If he's stuck in the Amity part of the brain," I ask, "then why is he so upset?"
Her voice is surprisingly gentle as she responds. "Because he killed a lot of people right before getting stuck there. I think those are the memories he keeps cycling through, and they're so incompatible with the rest of the cycle that he can't deal with them."
Understanding clicks into place. I've felt enough guilt in my life, including everything coursing through me now, to have an inkling of the horror Amar is experiencing. Every single thought in his brain is telling him that what he did is wrong. Massively, unforgivably wrong. And he can't stop thinking about it, even for a moment.
"What do we do?" My voice sounds hoarse even to me.
"There are a few approaches we can try," Cara answers. Her expression tells me I won't like what she's about to say, but I listen anyway. "There's a form of electroshock therapy that forces the brain to jump to other neural pathways. Given the severity of Amar's current problem, I think we need to start with that."
I swallow. No part of that "therapy" sounds appealing.
"Unfortunately," she says, "that approach will still leave the expanded pathways in place. There is no known treatment to reduce those to normal, but if he stops using them so much, they'll fade on their own over time. So, our goal is to get him to use other pathways as much as possible."
She looks at me to make sure I'm following before she continues. "The best way for us to accomplish that is to expand some other pathways. That will give him more options on what to think about, and hopefully he'll be able to deal with his memories better that way. We can do that by repeating the broadcast process, though in a less extreme form and obviously with different messages. We'll need to use a medium dose of the serum and give him one-on-one transmissions, probably twice a day to start and hopefully less often over time."
She pauses, biting her lip again as she watches me. "You'll need to be the one to deliver the messages. You're inextricably linked to the pathway he's stuck in now, so I think you're by far the best person to get him out of it."
I don't even question that before I nod. I made this mess, and I know I have to be part of cleaning it up.
"When do we start?" I ask as calmly as I can.
"He needs to recover from the surgery first," Cara answers in her clinical tone, but I think I hear relief behind it. She's glad I'm cooperating. "They've placed him into a medically induced coma so he can heal physically without making his brain damage worse. And then they'll need to do the electroshock therapy. The sessions should begin right after that."
I nod again, trying to wrap my head around all of this. "We'll need equipment," I find myself saying. It's easier to think about the details than the larger picture. "Something like the setup they had in the bomb shelter."
Cara nods. "They presumably have equipment like that here. I imagine it's what they used when questioning prisoners…." But her voice falters at the same time my head jerks up.
"We can't take Amar back to where he was questioned," I say firmly. "That will make him even worse."
"Yes, obviously," Cara says tensely, her eyes unfocused as she thinks. "Besides, the equipment needs to be nearby. We'll have to see if they can move everything here."
"Yeah," I mutter, looking away again. But I know that's no solution. We can't keep that kind of equipment here, particularly after what Peter said. It would be too easy for someone to misuse it. We'll have to figure out another location – somewhere with medical resources and security. But I have no idea where.
I knead the back of my neck again, trying to think through the exhaustion and frustration, but the only answer that comes to mind is one that every emotion in me rejects. Amar's best chance of recovery lies far away from this city, back in the bomb shelter with George. Far away from where Tris needs to stay to do the job I just gave her….
I'm still trying to think of other solutions when a nurse bangs the door open, his face anxious.
"They're bringing the president in," he says urgently. "Dr. Mandel said you wanted to know." The look on his face tells me the next part before it leaves his lips. "She's hurt."
For a split second, Cara and I both stare. I don't know what's going through her mind, but to me the world is threatening to end. I push the feelings back ruthlessly. This is not the time for self-pity. Instead, I follow the nurse as he leads us through hallway after hallway at an impressively fast clip.
Uriah comes into sight first. He's running ahead of the others, clearing people out of the way of the group behind him, and I know Tris must be among them. My body tears ahead of the nurse and Cara as I race forward, needing to see. When I do, I almost stop in my tracks.
Tris lies on a wheeled stretcher, her lungs gasping for air that they clearly can't get. The side of her head has been shaved, and she has a device like Amar's attached to her skull. But what breaks me is the vacant look in her eyes. I don't know if she's been damaged by my broadcast or just by my fist, but I've never seen such emptiness in her gaze – as if she isn't really there.
Her eyes drift closed and then open again, seeing but not seeing the flurry of people around her.
"Tris," I call, reaching for her, but her hands are still bandaged, and there's nowhere for me to hold. "Tris," I say again, desperately wanting her to look at me, to register my presence, to show that spark that is uniquely her. But even when her eyes open again – even when they rest on me – I can't tell if she truly knows I'm there.
God, what have I done to her?
"You need to wait here," someone is telling me firmly, as hands press against my chest. My first instinct is to push past them, to fight back and stay by Tris' side, but I dimly recognize the voice. Caleb. My feet stop as the orderlies wheel Tris through a set of double doors that I know must lead to surgery. I don't know how my heart keeps beating after the doors close.
Time stops completely while we wait for the surgery to finish. The others sit in the chairs that fill the small waiting room, but I pace restlessly, trying to ignore the thoughts pounding into my mind, the ones that tell me I'll never see Tris again, not the way she was.
And with the thought comes guilt, stronger than I've ever felt before. Peter's words haunt me, twining their way through the empty look in Tris' eyes, through my mother's bloody form lying on the floor as my younger self tries to rouse her, through a thousand remembered aches that I know I have the power to inflict all too easily.
"You're driving me nuts, you know," Christina says caustically as I pace by her for the hundredth time. I know she doesn't mean it that way, but given Amar's condition, it's not really the best choice of words.
"Yes," I growl. "Out of everything, clearly my biggest concern at the moment should be how not to annoy you."
Her mouth presses into a line, and her eyes narrow, but she doesn't respond at first. Instead, she just watches as I keep pacing.
"Tris will be fine," she says firmly after a moment, clearly determined to believe it herself. I don't answer. If I could accept that statement, I would have already, after any of the dozen times someone in this room has proclaimed it.
Beside her, Cara sighs, pressing her hands to her cheeks in an uncharacteristic movement. It reminds me of Tris, and I turn away, unable to handle the comparison right now.
"She wasn't particularly mad at you," Cara says softly. That catches my attention. "I told her she should be, but it was obvious she wasn't."
I have no idea how to react to that. Part of me seizes on the hope she's offering, the possibility that I haven't screwed things up as badly as I know I have. But the words are yet another reminder of my past, of how my mother kept forgiving my father over and over as each transgression got worse, until Marcus finally crossed a line and her love turned to hatred. Maybe it's better if Tris sees me that way now. If she can see me at all.
Cara apparently misinterprets my silence, because she continues, "And given how affectionate your broadcast was towards her, and how much remorse you clearly feel, I assume she's even less angry now."
I shake my head, pacing away again. There's no point in answering, certainly no point in saying that I hope she's wrong. But I do. Because no matter how much I love Tris, no matter how much I want her and need her, the bottom line is that she deserves better. She deserves someone who's not broken, someone who would never hit her and then leave her injured and unprotected in a city full of enemies, someone she can trust – and who can trust himself.
Someone who's not selfish enough to stay with her despite what he might do.
The others watch me, obviously struggling with what else to say, but I don't want to talk anymore. I didn't want to talk in the first place. And I certainly don't want to see the pity in their eyes.
So, instead I leave, making my way down random corridors until I find an empty room in some remote part of the building. I sink to the floor, pulling my knees against my chest and holding them there, huddling like I did as a child, like I did in the image I just shared with all of NUSA. And as I did then, I try to close out the world and pretend the monster doesn't exist, that he can't hurt the woman I love ever again. Even if this time he's inside my body.
I've never seen Tris look so small. She is small, of course, but somehow her presence usually fills any room she's in, as if her physical size is just a technicality that has nothing to do with how she really is.
But as she lies in the intensive care unit, barely visible through the mask that's helping her breathe and the bandages that cover her injuries, she looks tiny. Almost childlike. And it breaks whatever was still intact inside me.
I sit next to her, unable even to lace my fingers with hers, staring at the IV that is connected to the only part of either hand that isn't wrapped with fabric.
I caused this.
"Tris," I whisper, my voice tight. "I'm so sorry. Please be okay. You need to be okay." But she lies there, unmoving, her heart monitor beeping a steady rhythm against the rasping of the ventilator.
I shift my eyes away from her hands, automatically seeking out her eyes, but they're closed, and I find myself looking instead at the bandage taped to the side of her head. It covers the surgical site, where they removed the thing that was attached to her skull. I still don't know how much damage it did. Caleb kept reassuring me that she was normal after the broadcast, that it didn't affect her thinking the way it did Amar's, but I don't know how much to believe him. His track record of honesty isn't good.
My eyes move down again, wanting to at least see Tris' lips, but they're blocked by the mask that's helping her breathe. I stare at it for a few seconds before turning my attention to the bandages that wrap her ribcage tightly, attempting to hold the bones in place so they can heal from the damage my fist inflicted. I squeeze those knuckles hard with my other hand, wanting to punish them for their betrayal, wanting them to feel some measure of the pain they caused, but I know it's misdirected anger. My fingers didn't act on their own.
I think of what the doctor said, about where her ribs broke and how a sharp end punctured her lung. About how that punch hit exactly the right spot to do the maximum damage…. And I know it was too accurate to be completely accidental. There's no escaping the reality – no matter how much I want to think otherwise, some part of me aimed that blow. Something deep inside me chose to hurt her.
And it's certainly not the only pain I've caused her. My eyes run over her ear, seeing the slight scar left from the knife I threw at her. And they move over her shoulder, remembering the gunshot wound she received because I failed to warn Abnegation in time. I knew for months that the war was coming, but I did nothing to prevent it. I was too much of a coward to face my father, and because of that, Tris was forced to shoot a friend. Because of me, her parents died.
My gaze drifts to her collarbone, looking for the ravens tattooed there, the ones that represent her family. I promised to be her family after Erudite, but I've failed her as badly as my parents failed me. I should have known better than to think I could ever be with her that way.
Every mark on her is my fault. Every scar she has, inside and out, came from me. I think of the message I sent just a few hours ago, of the lessons the factions tried to teach us. Every single one of those values is telling me what to do, and they're all saying the same thing.
I stand up, staring at Tris again as I brush my fingers very lightly over her forehead – the only part of her I can reach. Even now, I feel the electrical pull that every touch creates with her. And I know it's unique to her, something I'll never feel with anyone else. I pull away, knowing if I stay any longer I'll never have the strength to do this.
"Bye, Tris," I whisper. I don't look back as I walk out the door.