Allegiant (23 page)

I take a moment to let that sink in.

“That can’t be true,” I say. “Jeanine told me that the highest proportion of Divergent—the genetically
pure
—in any faction was in Abnegation. You just said the Bureau values the genetically pure enough to send someone in to save them; why would they help Jeanine kill them?”

“Jeanine was wrong,” Tris says distantly. “Evelyn said so. The highest proportion of Divergent was among the factionless, not Abnegation.”

I turn to Nita.

“I still don’t see why they would risk that many Divergent,” I say. “I need evidence.”

“Why do you think we came here?” Nita switches on another set of lights that illuminate the drawers, and paces along the left wall. “It took me a long time to get clearance to go in here,” she says. “Even longer to acquire the knowledge to understand what I saw. I had help from one of the GPs, actually. A sympathizer.”

Her hand hovers over one of the low drawers. From it she takes a vial of orange liquid.

“Look familiar?” she asks me.

I try to remember the shot they gave me before the attack simulation began, right before the final round of Tris’s initiation. Max did it, inserted the needle into the side of my neck as I had done myself dozens of times. Right before he did the glass vial caught the light, and it was orange, just like whatever Nita is holding.

“The colors match,” I say. “So?”

Nita carries the vial to the microscope. Reggie takes a slide from a tray near the computer and, using a dropper, puts two drops of the orange liquid in its center, then seals the liquid in place with a second slide. As he places it on the microscope, his fingers are careful but certain; they are the movements of someone who has performed the same action hundreds of times.

Reggie taps the computer screen a few times, opening a program called “MicroScan.”

“This information is free and available to anyone who knows how to use this equipment and has the system password, which the GP sympathizer graciously gave me,” Nita says. “So in other words, it’s not all that hard to access, but no one would think to examine it very closely. And GDs don’t have system passwords, so it’s not like we would have known about it. This storage room is for obsolete experiments—failures, or outdated developments, or useless things.”

She looks through the microscope, using a knob on the side to focus the lens.

“Go ahead,” she says.

Reggie presses a button on the computer, and paragraphs of text appear under the “MicroScan” bar at the top of the screen. He points to a paragraph in the middle of the page, and I read it.

“‘Simulation Serum v4.2. Coordinates a large number of targets. Transmits signals over long distances. Hallucinogen from original formula not included—simulated reality is predetermined by program master.’”

That’s it.

That’s the attack simulation serum.

“Now why would the Bureau have this unless they had developed it?” Nita says. “They were the ones who put the serums into the experiments, but they usually left the serums alone, let the city residents develop them further. If Jeanine was the one who developed it, they wouldn’t have stolen it from her. If it’s here, it’s because
they
made it.”

I stare at the illuminated slide in the microscope, at the orange droplet swimming in the eyepiece, and release a shaky breath.

Tris says, breathless, “Why?”

“Abnegation was about to reveal the truth to everyone inside the city. And you’ve seen what’s happened now that the city knows the truth: Evelyn is effectively a dictator, the factionless are squashing the faction members, and I’m sure the factions will rise up against them sooner or later. Many people will die. Telling the truth risks the safety of the experiment, no question,” Nita says. “So a few months ago, when the Abnegation were on the verge of causing that destruction and instability by revealing Edith Prior’s video to your city, the Bureau probably thought, better that the Abnegation should suffer a great loss—even at the expense of several Divergent—than the whole city suffer a great loss. Better to end the lives of the Abnegation than to risk the experiment. So they reached out to someone who they knew would agree with them. Jeanine Matthews.”

Her words surround me and bury themselves inside me.

I set my hands on the lab table, letting it cool my palms, and look at my distorted reflection in the brushed metal. I may have hated my father for most of my life, but I never hated his faction. Abnegation’s quiet, their community, their routine, always seemed good to me. And now most of those kind, giving people are dead. Murdered, at the hands of the Dauntless, at the urging of Jeanine, with the power of the Bureau to back her.

Tris’s mother and father were among them.

Tris stands so still, her hands dangling limply, turning red with the flush of her blood.

“This is the problem with their blind commitment to these experiments,” Nita says next to us, as if sliding the words into the empty spaces of our minds. “The Bureau values the experiments above GD lives. It’s obvious. And now, things could get even worse.”

“Worse?” I say. “
Worse
than killing most of the Abnegation? How?”

“The government has been threatening to shut down the experiments for almost a year now,” Nita says. “The experiments keep falling apart because the communities can’t live in peace, and David keeps finding ways to restore peace just in the nick of time. And if anything else goes wrong in Chicago, he can do it again. He can reset all the experiments at any time.”

“
Reset
them,” I say.

“With the Abnegation memory serum,” Reggie says. “Well, really, it’s the Bureau’s memory serum. Every man, woman, and child will have to begin again.”

Nita says tersely, “Their entire lives
erased
, against their will, for the sake of solving a genetic damage ‘problem’ that doesn’t actually exist. These people have the power to do that. And no one should have that power.”

I remember the thought I had, after Johanna told me about the Amity administering the memory serum to Dauntless patrols—that when you take a person’s memories, you change who they are.

Suddenly I don’t care what Nita’s plan is, as long as it means striking the Bureau as hard as we can. What I have learned in the past few days has made me feel like there is nothing about this place worth salvaging.

“What’s the plan?” says Tris, her voice flat, almost mechanical.

“I’ll let my friends from the fringe in through the underground tunnel,” Nita says. “Tobias, you will shut off the security system as I do, so that we aren’t caught—it’s nearly the same technology you worked with in the Dauntless control room; it should be easy for you. Then Rafi, Mary, and I will break into the Weapons Lab and steal the memory serum so the Bureau can’t use it. Reggie’s been helping behind the scenes, but he’ll be opening the tunnel for us on the day of the attack.”

“What will you do with a bunch of memory serum?” I say.

“Destroy it,” Nita says, even-keeled.

I feel strange, empty like a deflated balloon. I don’t know what I had in mind when Nita talked about her plan, but it wasn’t this—this feels so small, so passive as an act of retaliation against the people responsible for the attack simulation, the people who told me that there was something wrong with me at my very core, in my genetic code.

“That’s
all
you intend to do,” Tris says, finally looking away from the microscope. She narrows her eyes at Nita. “You know that the Bureau is responsible for the murders of hundreds of people, and your plan is to . . . take away their memory serum?”

“I don’t remember inviting your critique of my plan.”

“I’m not critiquing your plan,” Tris says. “I’m telling you I don’t believe you. You hate these people. I can tell by the way you talk about them. Whatever you intend to do, I think it’s far worse than stealing some serum.”

“The memory serum is what they use to keep the experiments running. It’s their greatest source of power over your city, and I want to take it away. I’d say that’s a hard enough blow for now.” Nita sounds gentle, like she’s explaining something to a child. “I never said this was all I was ever going to do. It’s not always wise to strike as hard as you can at the first opportunity. This is a long race, not a sprint.”

Tris just shakes her head.

“Tobias, are you in?” Nita says.

I look from Tris, with her tense, stiff posture, to Nita, who is relaxed, ready. I don’t see whatever Tris sees, or hear it. And when I think about saying no, I feel like my body will collapse in on itself. I have to do something. Even if it feels small, I have to do something, and I don’t understand why Tris doesn’t feel the same desperation inside her.

“Yes,” I say. Tris turns to me, her eyes wide, incredulous. I ignore her. “I can disable the security system. I’ll need some Amity peace serum, do you have access to that?”

“I do.” Nita smiles a little. “I’ll send you a message with the timing. Come on, Reggie. Let’s leave these two to . . . talk.”

Reggie nods to me, and then to Tris, and then he and Nita both leave the room, easing the door closed behind them so it doesn’t make a sound.

Tris turns to me, her arms folded like two bars across her body, keeping me out.

“I can’t believe you,” she said. “She’s
lying
. Why can’t you see that?”

“Because it’s not
there
,” I say. “I can tell when someone’s lying just as well as you can. And in this situation, I think your judgment might be clouded by something else. Something like jealousy.”

“I am not
jealous
!” she says, scowling at me. “I am being smart. She has something bigger planned, and if I were you, I would run far away from anyone who lies to me about what they want me to participate in.”

“Well, you’re not me.” I shake my head. “God, Tris. These people murdered your parents, and you’re not going to do something about it?”

“I never said I wasn’t going to do anything,” she says tersely. “But I don’t have to buy into the first plan I hear, either.”

“You know, I brought you here because I wanted to be honest with you, not so that you could make snap judgments about people and tell me what to do!”

“Remember what happened last time you didn’t trust my ‘snap judgments’?” Tris says coldly. “You found out that I was right. I was right about Edith Prior’s video changing everything, and I was right about Evelyn, and I’m right about this.”

“Yeah. You’re always right,” I say. “Were you right about running into dangerous situations without weapons? Were you right about lying to me and going on a death march to Erudite headquarters in the middle of the night? Or about Peter, were you right about him?”

“Don’t throw those things in my face.” She points at me, and I feel like I’m a child getting lectured by a parent. “I never said I was perfect, but you—you can’t even see past your own desperation. You went along with Evelyn because you were desperate for a parent, and now you’re going along with this because you’re desperate not to be
damaged
—”

The word shivers through me.

“I am not damaged,” I say quietly. “I can’t believe you have so little faith in me that you would tell me not to trust myself.” I shake my head. “And I don’t need your
permission
.”

I start toward the door, and as my hand closes around the handle, she says, “Just leaving so that you can have the last word, that’s really mature!”

“So is being suspicious of someone’s motives just because she’s pretty,” I say. “I guess we’re even.”

I leave the room.

I am not a desperate, unsteady child who throws his trust around. I am not damaged.

T
RIS

I
TOUCH MY
forehead to the eyepiece of the microscope. The serum swims before me, orange-brown.

I was so busy looking for Nita’s lies that I barely registered the truth: In order to get their hands on this serum, the Bureau must have developed it, and somehow delivered it to Jeanine to use. I pull away. Why would Jeanine work with the Bureau when she so badly wanted to stay in the city, away from them?

But I guess the Bureau and Jeanine shared a common goal. Both wanted the experiment to continue. Both were terrified of what would happen if it didn’t. Both were willing to sacrifice innocent lives to do it.

I thought this place could be home. But the Bureau is full of killers. I rock back on my heels as if pushed back by some invisible force, then walk out of the room, my heart beating fast.

I ignore the few people dawdling in the corridor in front of me. I just push farther into the Bureau compound, farther and farther into the belly of the beast.

Maybe this place could be home
, I hear myself saying to Christina.

These people murdered your parents
, Tobias’s words echo in my head.

I don’t know where I’m going except that I need space, and air. I clutch my ID in my hand and half walk, half run past the security barrier to the sculpture. There is no light shining into the tank now, though the water still falls from it, one drop for every second that passes. I stand for a little while, watching it. And then, across the slab of stone, I see my brother.

“Are you all right?” he says tentatively.

I am not all right. I was beginning to feel that I had finally found a place to stay, a place that was not so unstable or corrupt or controlling that I could actually belong there. You would think that I would have learned by now—such a place does not exist.

“No,” I say.

He starts to move around the stone block, toward me. “What is it?”

“What is it.” I laugh. “Let me put it this way: I just found out you’re not the worst person I know.”

I drop into a crouch and push my fingers through my hair. I feel numb and terrified of my own numbness. The Bureau is responsible for my parents’ deaths. Why do I have to keep repeating it to myself to believe it? What’s wrong with me?

“Oh,” he says. “I’m . . . sorry?”

All I can manage is a small grunt.

“You know what Mom told me once?” he says, and the way he says
Mom
, like he didn’t
betray
her, sets my teeth on edge. “She said that everyone has some evil inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recognize the same evil in ourselves, so we’re able to forgive them.”