III

I woke with a jolt.

I was shaking. Crying. Gasping for breath.

It took me a while to compose myself. But when I did, I found myself lying in the chair in the mirrored room, and I was safe. I hoped I was safe. In the mirror, I saw Irene behind me. Her lips were pinched as she removed the electrodes from our heads and the headset from her ears.

I waited for her to say something about the test—that it was over, or that I did well, because I didn’t know what not being over or not doing well would look like—but she said nothing, just continued to remove the wires hastily. The adhesive pads left my skin stinging and I rubbed them once they were off. My hands were almost dripping with sweat and I wiped them on my skirt next. I was sure I did the test as well as I could. But Irene didn’t strike me as someone who could be ruffled easily, and now she was very ruffled indeed.

“Irene?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“When you were in there,” asked Irene, “did you understand you were taking the test? Did you really remember who you were?”

“Of course I did—”

“I have something to attend to,” said Irene. “Excuse me.”

“Stop,” I blurted.

She froze. So did I. Interrupting was forbidden in Abnegation. “Pardon?” she asked.

“I—I want to know what I got,” I said hesitantly. There was something Irene was not telling me. I wished she wasn’t wearing those sunglasses, because not being able to see her eyes was making it hard to read her expression. Her brow furrowed slightly.

“You’re getting on my nerves,” she said plainly, then snatched up her cane and left the room.

I was still trembling, so I brought my knees to my chest and buried my face in them. The tears weren’t offering even the slightest sense of relief. How could you fail a test you weren’t allowed to prepare for?

After a few minutes, I got more agitated. I had to wipe off my hands increasingly often as the sweat collected. What if they told me that I wasn’t cut out for any faction? I would have to live in the housing projects with the factionless. I couldn’t do that. There was no real future to be found in the projects. It was dangerous; all of the worst people were factionless. And to live factionless was not just to live a life of menial labor; it was to live divorced from society, separate from the most important thing in life: community.

My mother once told me that we couldn’t survive alone, but even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Without a faction, we had no purpose. No reason to live.

I shook my head. I couldn’t think like this. I needed to stay calm. My eyes caught on the machine next to me, its screens still open and unlocked.

Then the door opened, and Irene walked back in. I realized I had been getting out of my chair and snapped back into it. Thankfully, Irene couldn’t see, so she didn’t know.

“I apologize for my absence,” she said calmly. She stood by my feet with her hands clasped around her cane. “There was a technical error with the test, but the matter has been resolved. Your results came back for Abnegation.”

Abnegation. The answer should have filled me with relief. It was the easy way out.

But I knew at once that it wasn’t right.

“You’re lying,” I said.

Irene’s lip twitched. “I beg your pardon?”

“I—” I was about to charge forward, try to protest, say that it couldn’t be right, but my tongue snagged on something and I couldn’t finish. I didn’t know what I wanted to tell her. I didn’t even know what I wanted to hear.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I apologize for my disrespect.”

I felt like she could tell I was lying now, too. But if she did, she didn’t say anything about it, just nodded.

“Your body reacted to the simulation serum, so you’ll be upset for a little while,” said Irene. “I suggest you go home.”

“I have to tell my brother where I’m going.”

“I’ll let him know.”

She gestured for me to stand. I peeled my hands from the arms of the chair but braced myself against them again, my head spinning. Perhaps I really did have a negative reaction. When Irene led me out of the room, she took me away from the lunchroom, towards an elevator that would whisk me straight to the ground floor. I was glad for that, at least. I didn’t really want to be around for the whispers that might happen if I walked through the lunchroom and left that way.

But my luck only went so far. “Irene?” said a voice, and we both turned. It was the other Candor test proctor, a thin man with a pointy face. “What’s going on?”

“This one had a negative reaction to the serum,” said Irene coolly. “I’m sending her home early.”

“Well, you did complete the test, right?”

“Yes, yes, I did. I’ve been doing this longer than you have, Ben, you just worry about your own kids.”

Ben didn’t seem quite satisfied with that, but he clearly saw that I looked like I was about to throw up, so he shrugged. The elevator arrived with a crisp ding and Irene herded me on. “Be safe, Miss Prior,” was all she said before turning away.

I pressed the button for the ground floor. We were on floor six. But as the doors began to close and as I was drifting away, about to be lost in my own thoughts, something caught my ear again. Ben turned to Irene and asked, “Hey, um...it’s our lunch break now, so do you want to—go together?”

Lunch break.

Without thinking, I reached over and pressed the button for floor five.

When the doors next opened, they popped me out into a deserted hallway. Classes were still in session and the only witness around was an old janitor. He didn’t even notice the grey-clad Abnegation girl who scurried past him to the corner stairwell.

I couldn’t get on the elevators again; they had cameras and I couldn’t take that risk. One of the stairwells to the sixth floor was locked and now I knew why, because it led to the aptitude testing rooms. So I glanced around, made sure nobody was watching (the janitor had left), pulled two pins from my headscarf, and began to fiddle with the lock.

When I was younger, my parents used to lock the bag of brown sugar in a cabinet to keep us from eating it. More accurately, to keep me from eating it, as no amount of Abnegation discipline could deter me from sneaking sugar. They thought they had won. But I just let them believe that. The locked cabinet did not stop me, only made me smarter. Sometimes there were delicious benefits to being a terrible person.

I got the stairwell lock open in a couple minutes and slipped inside. But as soon as the door clicked shut behind me, I felt as if I had just stepped through a shower of ice water. The reality of what I was doing dripped down my spine and palms. This was very illegal. Everything I had done, was doing, and was planning to do. Lying to a test proctor. Breaking into the aptitude testing wing. Hacking into a confidential test machine. Was I really going to do this?

“I don’t have a choice,” I whispered.

Irene had lied to me. If what I was doing was illegal, then what she did was illegal too. If I didn’t find out the truth, I felt like I would go insane.

I began to climb.

When I opened the door at the top of the stairs, I peered around and found that the mirrored halls were empty. Silent. The lights were all off except the faint red blush from the exit signs.

I found the tenth room, thankfully unlocked. The lights were off here too, but along with the red of the exit sign was the blue glow from the testing machine. When I lifted my hands to the keyboard, my fingers were shaking so bad I didn’t think I would press the letters right.

Think, I scolded myself. Try to remember what Irene did.

Well...first, Irene had put on that strange headset. But when I found it and put it on, I found that it was simply a voiceover that guided me around the limited login page. It explained how Irene could navigate the screens while blind. But it wasn’t helpful to me, so I put it away.

The first thing that Irene had typed was a passcode. She had the keyboard memorized, so she must have been touch-typing. The keyboard had small ridges on the F and J buttons to indicate where to put the index fingers. She had lowered her left pinky and held down—shift, then lifted her right pinky, P . Left index finger moved up, r. Right ring finger moved up— o. Left index down c. Left index up t. O again. R again. And then she moved her hand to the square numerical keyboard to type 1 and 0. Proctor10. Not very original. But when it worked and began to load, I couldn’t help but feel proud.

On the desktop were several folders. Some names I knew. A few I didn’t. A Caleb Prior, next to Beatrice Prior.

My breath hitched. My finger hovered over Caleb’s file before I shook my head. No. If he wanted to tell me, he would tell me. I moved to my file and opened it.

“I was afraid I’d find you here.”

I whirled around. Irene stood in the doorway, sipping from a thermos. The glow of the screen reflected off her round glasses, two bug-like blue eyes. I had never more wanted to die on the spot than I did right then.

“I—I’m sorry—” I began, but she turned around, closed the door, and held up her hand.

“No, you’re not.”

She was right. I wasn’t. But I did regret being there.

“Well?” Irene tapped her foot. “Have you read the file?”

“No,” I said.

“Do you want to?”

I hesitated. “Yes.”

“Read it,” she said.

I inhaled. Then I turned and looked at the file.

The screen was blank.

“There’s nothing here,” I said.

“Like I said,” Irene told me, “you responded abnormally to the serum. I had to analyze your results manually, and your responses lined up with the standard responses of Abnegation.”

“That’s not right,” I retorted. “You’re lying.”

Irene cocked her chin. “Am I?”

I fell silent. My brain screamed but it seemed like my mouth had been running without it until now. What was I doing? Accusing a Candor of lying? Was I crazy? I felt crazy. I wanted to cry. But I could only stare at the passive opaque glasses.

“You have two choices, Miss Prior,” said Irene. “You can file a complaint that you believe your test results were incorrect—and I can tell them you broke into a testing room and tampered with the equipment. Which is a felony, by the way. You will be in prison for years and factionless for life. Or...you can go home today, choose whatever faction fits your fancy tomorrow, and never speak of what you saw in that simulation for the rest of your life, ever, with anyone, no matter what happens.”

I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t just two choices. It couldn’t be. But I had the feeling she wouldn’t tell me the truth no matter what I begged, cried, bargained, or threatened. A Candor who liked to lie would have all the experience in the world in keeping a secret.

“What’s wrong with what I saw?” I croaked.

Irene regarded me for a while. Then she finally said, “Enough that it would get both of us killed.”

Not could. Or might. Would. I felt as if the cold ice shower had been turned on again.

Irene stepped forward and reached for my hands. Numb, I gave them to her.

“For your safety,” she whispered, “you will never speak of what happened in this room. You came in, you got Abnegation, you felt a little nauseous, I sent you home.”

“What do I do tomorrow?”

“Choose like you would have before you took the test. If you’re smart, you’ll stay in Abnegation where nobody will ever ask what happened today.”

I didn’t understand. I couldn’t—how could a simulation be dangerous? Why wouldn’t it matter what I chose tomorrow?—but I found myself nodding. She was right, at least, I hoped she was. It was my choice, no matter what the test said.

Amity. Dauntless. Erudite. Abnegation. Candor.

A blank screen.

+ + +

I decided not to take the bus. If I got home early, my father would notice when he checked the house log at the end of the day, and I would have to explain what happened. I wasn’t ready to do that.

I walked in the middle of the road. The buses tended to hug the curb, so it was safer there. Sometimes, on the streets near my house, I could see places where the yellow lines used to be. We had no use for them, since so few people used cars. We didn’t need stoplights, either, but no one ever took them down and they still dangled precariously over the road. I always quickened my pace as I walked under one, worried that it might crash down any minute.

Renovation moved slowly through the city, which was a patchwork of new, clean buildings and old, crumbling ones. Most of the new buildings sat beside the marsh, which used to be a lake a long time ago. The Abnegation volunteer agency my mother worked for was responsible for most of those renovations.

When I looked at the Abnegation lifestyle as an outsider, I thought it was beautiful. When I watched my family move in harmony; when we went to dinner parties and everyone cleaned together afterward without having to be asked; when I saw Caleb help strangers carry their groceries, I fell in love with this life all over again. It was only when I tried to live it myself that I had trouble. It wasn’t fulfilling. Only performative.

But choosing a different faction meant forsaking my family. Permanently.

Past the Abnegation neighborhood were the housing projects. Miles upon miles of broken sidewalks. Rows of crumbling storefronts wearing weatherworn hats, quilt-patch brick, boarded windows, and laundry that would never be clean. There were spots where the road had completely collapsed, revealing sewer systems and flooded subways that I had to be careful to avoid, and places that reeked so powerfully of sewage and trash that I pulled a fold of my scarf over my nose.

This was where the majority lived—the factionless. Three fourths of the city’s population were factionless. I was always told that the factionless had the same chances that we did; they went to government-funded schools, they were taught about the factions, they were offered a place in society. But they refused to choose a faction or failed to complete initiation, and because of their choice they lived in hardship. Any children born factionless were offered a chance at faction life in the Erudite-run “project schools”. But no matter what faction I chose, I would never meet a factionless-born initiate. The factionless made their choices just like we made ours, and they often chose not to join us.

So, if they chose to work, they became janitors and construction workers and garbage collectors; they made fabric and operated trains and drove buses. In return, we in the factions supported them. Amity produced free food. Dauntless provided police protection. Erudite offered public education. Candor maintained a fair justice system. Abnegation worked among the factionless to govern and distribute all of the resources. But, as my mother said sadly, there was never enough to go around. And, as my father always added, not all factionless chose to accept it.

Even still, we were taught to never fear walking among them. They needed compassion just like anyone else.

Some of the hollow faces stared out at me. Others disappeared into the yawning black doorways, as if shying away. One, a teenager wearing ragged brown clothing, sat at the edge of a sinkhole with his bare feet hanging over. A factionless kid. He watched with sunken eyes as I approached.

“Hey,” he called. “Hey, Stiff, whatcha got? Ain’t eaten today.”

There had been a lump in my throat before, but now it was worse. A stern voice in my head said, Duck your head and keep walking.

But that wasn’t right. He needed help and it was my duty to give it.

“I have a lunch,” I said. My mother had packed a brown paper bag for me that I hadn’t had the stomach to open. I reached into my pack and pulled it out.

The kid reached towards me, but he didn’t take the bag. His hand clamped around my wrist. He smiled. Some of his teeth were missing, but he couldn’t have been much older than I.

“Whatcha hiding with that hood, missy?” he slurred. “Show me a peek?”

I jerked my hand back, but he was unnaturally strong, his eyes bloodshot—he had to be under the influence of one of the homemade drugs that spread like wildfire through the factionless populations. Something acrid and unpleasant stung in his breath.

“Little young to be walking around by yourself,” he said.

“I’m older than you,” I retorted. “I’m sixteen.”

His lips spread wide, revealing a gray molar with a dark pit in the side. “Oh yeah, it’s that big special day for you, i’nit? The day before you choose?”

“Let go of me,” I hissed. My ears began to ring. My voice echoed clear and stern—not what I expected to hear. Like it didn’t belong to me.

I was ready. I knew what to do. I pictured myself twisting my free arm around and driving my elbow into his jaw. I saw the brown paper bag flying into the sinkhole. I heard my running footsteps. I wanted to act.

But then he released my wrist, took the bag, and said, “Choose right, Stiff.”