Insurgent d-2

by Veronica Roth

  “They told me you seemed confused about why you were arrested,” he says. His voice is deep, but strangely flat, like it could not create an echo even at the bottom of an empty cavern. “To me that means either you’re falsely accused or good at pretending. The only—”

  “What are we accused of?” I interrupt him.

  “He is accused of crimes against humanity. You are accused of being his accomplice.”

  “Crimes against humanity?” Tobias finally sounds angry. He gives Jack a disgusted look. “What?”

  “We saw video footage of the attack. You were running the attack simulation,” says Jack.

  “How could you have seen footage? We took the data,” says Tobias.

  “You took one copy of the data. All the footage of the Dauntless compound recorded during the attack was also sent to other computers throughout the city,” says Jack. “All we saw was you running the simulation and her nearly getting punched to death before she gave up. Then you stopped, had a rather abrupt lovers’ reconciliation, and stole the hard drive together. One possible reason is because the simulation was over and you didn’t want us to get our hands on it.”

  I almost laugh. My great act of heroism, the only important thing I have ever done, and they think I was working for the Erudite when I did it.

  “The simulation didn’t end,” I say. “We stopped it, you—”

  Jack holds up his hand. “I am not interested in what you have to say right now. The truth will come out when you are both interrogated under the influence of truth serum.”

  Christina told me about truth serum once. She said the most difficult part of Candor initiation was being given truth serum and answering personal questions in front of everyone in the faction. I don’t need to search myself for my deepest, darkest secrets to know that truth serum is the last thing I want in my body.

  “Truth serum?” I shake my head. “No. No way.”

  “There’s something you have to hide?” Jack says, lifting both eyebrows.

  I want to tell him that anyone with an ounce of dignity wants to keep some things to herself, but I don’t want to arouse his suspicions. So I shake my head.

  “All right, then.” He checks his watch. “It is now noon. The interrogation will be at seven. Don’t bother preparing for it. You can’t withhold information while under the influence of truth serum.”

  He turns on his heel and walks out of the room.

  “What a pleasant man,” says Tobias.

  A group of armed Dauntless escort me to the bathroom in the early afternoon. I take my time, letting my hands turn red in the hot-faucet water and staring at my reflection. When I was in Abnegation and wasn’t allowed to look into mirrors, I used to think that a lot could change in a person’s appearance in three months. But it only took a few days to change me this time.

  I look older. Maybe it’s the short hair or maybe it’s just that I wear all that has happened like a mask. Either way, I always thought I would be happy when I stopped looking like a child. But all I feel is a lump in my throat. I am no longer the daughter my parents knew. They will never know me as I am now.

  I turn away from the mirror and shove the door to the hallway open with the heels of my hands.

  When the Dauntless drop me off at the holding room, I linger by the door. Tobias looks like he did when I first met him — black T-shirt, short hair, stern expression. The sight of him used to fill me with nervous excitement. I remember when I grabbed his hand outside the training room, just for a few seconds, and when we sat together on the rocks next to the chasm, and I feel a pang of longing for how things used to be.

  “Hungry?” he says. He offers me a sandwich from the plate next to him.

  I take it and sit down, leaning my head on his shoulder. All that’s left for us to do is wait, so that’s what we do. We eat until the food is gone. We sit until we get uncomfortable. Then we lie down next to each other on the floor, shoulders touching, staring at the same patch of white ceiling.

  “What are you afraid of saying?” he says.

  “Any of it. All of it. I don’t want to relive anything.”

  He nods. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep. There’s no clock in the room, so I can’t count down the minutes until the interrogation. Time might as well not exist in this place, except I feel it pressing against me as seven o’clock inevitably draws closer, pushing me into the floor tiles.

  Maybe time would not feel as heavy if I didn’t have this guilt — the guilt of knowing the truth and stuffing it down where no one can see it, not even Tobias. Maybe I should not be so afraid of saying anything, because honesty will make me feel lighter.

  I must fall asleep eventually, because I jerk awake at the sound of the door opening. A few Dauntless walk in as we get to our feet, and one of them says my name. Christina shoves her way past the others and throws her arms around me. Her fingers dig into the wound in my shoulder, and I cry out.

  “Got shot,” I say. “Shoulder. Ow.”

  “Oh God!” She releases me. “Sorry, Tris.”

  She doesn’t look like the Christina I remember. Her hair is shorter, like a boy’s, and her skin is grayish instead of a warm brown. She smiles at me, but the smile doesn’t travel to her eyes, which still look tired. I try to smile back, but I’m too nervous. Christina will be there at my interrogation. She will hear what I did to Will. She will never forgive me.

  Unless I fight the serum, swallow the truth — if I can.

  But is that really what I want? To let it fester inside me forever?

  “You okay? I heard you were here so I asked to escort you,” she says as we leave the holding room. “I know you didn’t do it. You’re not a traitor.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “And thank you. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m …” Her voice trails off, and she bites her lip. “Did anyone tell you … I mean, maybe now isn’t the time, but …”

  “What? What is it?”

  “Um … Will died in the attack,” she says.

  She gives me a worried look, and an expectant one. Expecting what?

  Oh. I am not supposed to know that Will is dead. I could pretend to be emotional, but I probably wouldn’t do it convincingly. It’s best to admit that I already knew. But I don’t know how to explain that without telling her everything.

  I feel suddenly sick. Am I really evaluating how best to deceive my friend?

  “I know,” I say. “I saw him on the monitors when I was in the control room. I’m sorry, Christina.”

  “Oh.” She nods. “Well, I’m … glad you already knew. I really didn’t want to break the news to you in a hallway.”

  A short laugh. A flash of a smile. Neither of them like they used to be.

  We file into an elevator. I can feel Tobias staring at me — he knows I didn’t see Will in the monitors, and he didn’t know that Will was dead. I stare straight ahead and pretend his eyes aren’t setting me on fire.

  “Don’t worry about the truth serum,” she says. “It’s easy. You barely know what’s happening when you’re under. It’s only when you resurface that you even know what you said. I went under when I was a kid. It’s pretty commonplace in Candor.”

  The other Dauntless in the elevator give each other looks. In normal circumstances, someone would probably reprimand her for discussing her old faction, but these are not normal circumstances. At no other time in Christina’s life will she escort her best friend, now a suspected traitor, to a public interrogation.

  “Is everyone else all right?” I say. “Uriah, Lynn, Marlene?”

  “All here,” she says. “Except Uriah’s brother, Zeke, who is with the other Dauntless.”

  “What?” Zeke, who secured my straps on the zip line, a traitor?

  The elevator stops on the top floor, and the others file out.

  “I know,” she says. “No one saw it coming.”

  She takes my arm and tugs me toward the doors. We walk down a black-marble hallway — it must be easy to get lost in
Candor headquarters, since everything looks the same. We walk down another hallway and through a set of double doors.

  From the outside, the Merciless Mart is a squat block with a narrow raised portion in its center. From the inside, that raised portion is a hollow three-story room with empty spaces in the walls instead of windows. I see the darkening sky above me, starless.

  Here the marble floors are white, with a black Candor symbol in the center of the room, and the walls are lit with rows of dim yellow lights, so the whole room glows. Every voice echoes.

  Most of Candor and the remnants of Dauntless are already gathered. Some of them sit on the tiered benches that wrap around the edge of the room, but there isn’t enough space for everyone, so the rest are crowded around the Candor symbol. In the center of the symbol, between the unbalanced scales, are two empty chairs.

  Tobias reaches for my hand. I lace my fingers in his.

  Our Dauntless guards lead us to the center of the room, where we are greeted with, at best, murmurs, and at worst, jeers. I spot Jack Kang in the front row of the tiered benches.

  An old, dark-skinned man steps forward, a black box in his hands.

  “My name is Niles,” he says. “I will be your questioner. You—” He points at Tobias. “You will be going first. So if you will please step forward …”

  Tobias squeezes my hand, and then releases it, and I stand with Christina at the edge of the Candor symbol. The air in the room is warm — moist, summer air, sunset air — but I feel cold.

  Niles opens the black box. It contains two needles, one for Tobias and one for me. He also takes an antiseptic wipe from his pocket and offers it to Tobias. We didn’t bother with that kind of thing in Dauntless.

  “The injection site is in your neck,” Niles says.

  All I hear, as Tobias applies antiseptic to his skin, is the wind. Niles steps forward and plunges the needle into Tobias’s neck, squeezing the cloudy, bluish liquid into his veins. The last time I saw someone inject Tobias with something, it was Jeanine, putting him under a new simulation, one that was effective even on the Divergent — or so she believed. I thought, then, that he was lost to me forever.

  I shudder.

  Chapter 12

  “I WILL ASK you a series of simple questions so that you can grow accustomed to the serum as it takes full effect,” says Niles. “Now. What is your name?”

  Tobias sits with slouched shoulders and a lowered head, like his body is too heavy for him. He scowls and squirms in the chair, and through gritted teeth says, “Four.”

  Maybe it isn’t possible to lie under the truth serum, but to select which version of the truth to tell: Four is his name, but it is not his name.

  “That is a nickname,” Niles says. “What is your real name?”

  “Tobias,” he says.

  Christina elbows me. “Did you know that?”

  I nod.

  “What are the names of your parents, Tobias?”

  Tobias opens his mouth to answer, and then clenches his jaw as if to stop the words from spilling out.

  “Why is this relevant?” Tobias asks.

  The Candor around me mutter to each other, some of them scowling. I raise my eyebrow at Christina.

  “It’s extremely difficult not to immediately answer questions while under the truth serum,” she says. “It means he has a seriously strong will. And something to hide.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t relevant before, Tobias,” Niles says, “but it is now that you’ve resisted answering the question. The names of your parents, please.”

  Tobias closes his eyes. “Evelyn and Marcus Eaton.”

  Surnames are just an additional means of identification, useful only to prevent confusion in official records. When we marry, one spouse has to take the other’s surname, or both have to take a new one. Still, while we may carry our names from family to faction, we rarely mention them.

  But everyone recognizes Marcus’s surname. I can tell by the clamor that rises in the room after Tobias speaks. The Candor all know Marcus is the most influential government official, and some of them must have read the article Jeanine released about his cruelty toward his son. It was one of the only things she said that was true. And now everyone knows that Tobias is that son.

  Tobias Eaton is a powerful name.

  Niles waits for silence, then continues. “So you are a faction transfer, are you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “You transferred from Abnegation to Dauntless?”

  “Yes,” snaps Tobias. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  I bite my lip. He should calm down; he is giving away too much. The more reluctant he is to answer a question, the more determined Niles will be to hear the answer.

  “One of the purposes of this interrogation is to determine your loyalties,” says Niles, “so I must ask: Why did you transfer?”

  Tobias glares at Niles, and keeps his mouth shut. Seconds pass in complete silence. The longer he tries to resist the serum, the harder it seems to be for him: color fills his cheeks, and he breathes faster, heavier. My chest aches for him. The details of his childhood should stay inside him, if that’s where he wants them to be. Candor is cruel for forcing them from him, for taking away his freedom.

  “This is horrible,” I say hotly to Christina. “Wrong.”

  “What?” she says. “It’s a simple question.”

  I shake my head. “You don’t understand.”

  Christina smiles a little at me. “You really care about him.”

  I am too busy watching Tobias to respond.

  Niles says, “I’ll ask again. It is important that we understand the extent of your loyalty to your chosen faction. So why did you transfer to Dauntless, Tobias?”

  “To protect myself,” says Tobias. “I transferred to protect myself.”

  “Protect yourself from what?”

  “From my father.”

  All the conversations in the room stop, and the silence they leave in their wake is worse than the muttering was. I expect Niles to keep probing, but he doesn’t.

  “Thank you for your honesty,” Niles says. The Candor repeat the phrase under their breath. All around me are the words “Thank you for your honesty” at different volumes and pitches, and my anger begins to dissolve. The whispered words seem to welcome Tobias, to embrace and then discard his darkest secret.

  It’s not cruelty, maybe, but a desire to understand, that motivates them. That doesn’t make me any less afraid of going under truth serum.

  “Is your allegiance with your current faction, Tobias?” Niles says.

  “My allegiance lies with anyone who does not support the attack on Abnegation,” he says.

  “Speaking of which,” Niles says, “I think we should focus on what happened that day. What do you remember about being under the simulation?”

  “I was not under the simulation, at first,” says Tobias. “It didn’t work.”

  Niles laughs a little. “What do you mean, it didn’t work?”

  “One of the defining characteristics of the Divergent is that their minds are resistant to simulations,” says Tobias. “And I am Divergent. So no, it didn’t work.”

  More mutters. Christina nudges me with her elbow.

  “Are you too?” she says, close to my ear so she can stay quiet. “Is that why you were awake?”

  I look at her. I have spent the past few months afraid of the word “Divergent,” terrified that anyone would discover what I am. But I won’t be able to hide it anymore. I nod.

  It’s like her eyes swell to fill their sockets; that’s how big they get. I have trouble identifying her expression. Is it shock? Fear?

  Awe?

  “Do you know what it means?” I say.

  “I heard about it when I was young,” she says in a reverent whisper.

  Definitely awe.

  “Like it was a fantasy story,” she says. “‘There are people with special powers among us!’ Like that.”

  “Well, it’s not a fantasy, and it’
s not that big a deal,” I say. “It’s like the fear landscape simulation — you were aware while you were in it, and you could manipulate it. Except for me, it’s like that in every simulation.”

  “But Tris,” she says, setting her hand on my elbow. “That’s impossible.”

  In the center of the room, Niles has his hands up and is trying to silence the crowd, but there are too many whispers — some hostile, some terrified, and some awed, like Christina’s. Finally Niles stands and yells, “If you don’t quiet down, you will be asked to leave!”

  At last everyone quiets down. Niles sits.

  “Now,” he says. “When you say ‘resistant to simulations,’ what do you mean?”

  “Usually, it means we’re aware during simulations,” says Tobias. He seems to have an easier time with the truth serum when he answers factual questions instead of emotional ones. He doesn’t sound like he’s under the truth serum at all now, though his slumped posture and wandering eyes indicate otherwise. “But the attack simulation was different, using a different kind of simulation serum, one with long-range transmitters. Evidently the long-range transmitters didn’t work on the Divergent at all, because I awoke in my own mind that morning.”

  “You say you weren’t under the simulation at first. Can you explain what you mean by that?”

  “I mean that I was discovered and brought to Jeanine, and she injected a version of the simulation serum that specifically targeted the Divergent. I was aware during that simulation, but it didn’t do much good.”

  “The video footage from the Dauntless headquarters shows you running the simulation,” Niles says darkly. “How, exactly, do you explain that?”

  “When a simulation is running, your eyes still see and process the actual world, but your brain no longer comprehends them. On some level, though, your brain still knows what you’re seeing and where you are. The nature of this new simulation was that it recorded my emotional responses to outside stimuli,” Tobias says, closing his eyes for a few seconds, “and responded by altering the appearance of that stimuli. The simulation made my enemies into friends, my friends into enemies. I thought I was shutting the simulation down. Really I was receiving instructions about how to keep it running.”