The Dauntless dining hall is also a central place for faction leaders to address the community, for daily faction-wide announcements to be made, and for celebrations to be hosted.
“THE FIRST STAGE OF TRAINING IS PHYSICAL.”
Many of the days and weeks during Dauntless training will be devoted to a single thing: fighting. Dauntless instructors, Eric and Four, lead the initiates in learning sparring techniques and various methods of hand-to-hand combat. The initiates begin their work with punching bags, throwing kicks and punches alike. But this is no abstract training session. As soon as the lessons end, the practical experience begins, and the initiates are quickly set against one another in two-person skirmishes that will only end when one initiate gives up—or is knocked out cold.
“IF I SEE YOU FLINCH . . . YOU’RE OUT.”
Dauntless training is a lot like boot camp. It begins early each morning, often with a run through the city, or with other physical warm-up exercises. One-on-one combat and sparring techniques are the foremost part of the first round of training.
Some of the initiates have never come close to a gun before, or ever used a knife for anything other than cooking. But by the time initiation ends, each initiate must be able to throw a knife with deadly accuracy, and load and fire guns without flinching—or missing a target. Training builds strength and sharpens courage in the initiates—but it also highlights their every remaining weakness.
“YOU CHOSE US. NOW WE HAVE TO CHOOSE YOU.”
Every day, the transfer initiates (and the Dauntless-born initiates) must compete against one another, and against themselves—reaching for increased levels of physical ability and decreasing their personal levels of fear.
Each evening, the Dauntless instructors rank the initiates using an electronic board. Those whose names fall “in the red” are at risk of being cut at the end of each round of training. While their eventual rankings will also be used to determine the jobs they’ll take as full faction members, the primary intention of the rankings is much more immediate.
One place every Dauntless hopes to avoid is the infirmary. But given their tremendously aggressive lifestyle, it’s not uncommon for members to find themselves in the infirmary. Dauntless hate visiting the infirmary—it wounds their pride, often to a degree that seems to nearly match the wounds on their bodies!
But when something is seriously wrong, they know there is no other choice but to seek concentrated healing. They know that their lifestyle demands a high level of physical prowess, and they are aware that losing their physical ability because of an untreated wound or a poorly healed injury would make it impossible to continue living and competing in their faction.
“WE’VE SWORN AN OATH TO PROTECT EVERY LIFE INSIDE THE FENCE—WITHOUT FAIL. THAT’S WHY WE TRAIN THE WAY WE DO.”
The giant fence that surrounds the city is something that members of every faction take for granted. It has been there since any of them can remember, separating the city from the marshland of what was once Lake Michigan, as well as everything beyond it.
Generations of children in the city have been taught that the fence is there to guard them, and that the Dauntless guards are there, in turn, to protect it—but that’s where the certainty about the fence ends. Do even the Dauntless who guard the fence know what lies past it?
During initiation, every faction hosts Visiting Day—a brief opportunity for initiates to be reunited with their parents, families, and other key members of their faction of origin. Visiting Day seems in direct opposition to the often-cited maxim “faction before blood.” But it’s a society tradition—as much a part of initiation as Choosing Day itself—and so the factions must allow it.
In Dauntless, Visiting Day is seen as one more test—do initiates have the strength to resist being thrown off their game by reminders of old attachments? Will it be the impetus for failing initiates to quit initiation and leave altogether? Perhaps being factionless would be better than Dauntless initiation?
“THERE IS NO WAY OUT, NO WAY OF ESCAPING WHO YOU ARE.”
The fear simulation is similar to the aptitude test, but this time instead of the serum being consumed, it will be injected—and induce hallucinations.
The serum also contains transmitters that allow instructors to see the images in the initiate’s mind on a computer screen. One by one, the hallucinations take the form of the initiate’s worst fears. The simulation won’t be over until the initiate has faced each of his or her fears and attempted to overcome every one.
“WHAT MAKES YOU DIFFERENT MAKES YOU DANGEROUS.”
BOOKS BY VERONICA ROTH
DIVERGENT
INSURGENT
ALLEGIANT
THE TRANSFER: A DIVERGENT STORY
THE INITIATE: A DIVERGENT STORY
THE SON: A DIVERGENT STORY
FREE FOUR: TOBIAS TELLS THE DIVERGENT KNIFE-THROWING SCENE
THE TRAITOR: A DIVERGENT STORY
FOUR: A DIVERGENT STORY COLLECTION
DIVERGENT MOVIE BOOKS
DIVERGENT MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION
DIVERGENT OFFICIAL ILLUSTRATED MOVIE COMPANION
INSIDE DIVERGENT: THE INITIATE’S WORLD
BACK ADS
CREDITS
Motion Picture Artwork ™ & © 2013 Summit Entertainment, LLC.
All Rights Reserved.
Book design by Victor Joseph Ochoa
COPYRIGHT
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
INSIDE DIVERGENT: THE INITIATE’S WORLD. Motion Picture Artwork ™ and © 2013 Summit Entertainment, LLC; text © 2013 Veronica Roth. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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ISBN 978-0-06-231560-1 (pbk.)
EPub Edition December 2013 ISBN 9780062315618
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Book design by Victor Ochoa
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FIRST EDITION
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Inside Divergent Page 3
