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For as long as anyone could remember, Candor’s
Full Unveilings were aired on TV. It is one thing to stand in front of a secluded faction and reveal your deepest secrets; it is another entirely to release them to the whole city.

Not that people normally watched them. An all-day broadcast of raunchy secrets and scandals is only interesting in theory . It was actually quite boring if you didn’t know the initiates. Then there was the matter that two of the five factions were staunchly against the broadcast on moral principles—Amity, most of whom didn’t own televisions, deeming them to be far less interesting than dancing in sunny meadows; and Abnegation, none of whom owned televisions, deeming them to be self-indulgent...obviously. Both factions had radios, but listening to the Full Unveilings was still discouraged. Amity found them depressing. Abnegation found them a waste of time. Neither faction was technically wrong.

Erudite’s only interest in the Full Unveilings was for research. Most of them used Candor initiates as lab rats, comparing a person’s reaction to the serum to different demographic features, diets, severity of secret, et cetera. One famous paper, however, didn’t study the Candor initiates at all. A particularly long Full Unveiling (an initiate class of fifty-eight students) was used as the triggering factor in an experiment about volunteers’ abilities to endure slow psychological torture.

The Dauntless just liked to make fun of us.

The factionless were technically allowed to have TVs. Technically, they were allowed to have anything they wanted; the problem lay in getting it, or, even before that, having any reason to want one. The only TV broadcasts were news reports, Candor trial proceedings, or—after midnight—Dauntless wrestling matches. As a result, the factionless didn’t often save their meager wages to buy TVs; therefore, they never watched the Full Unveilings. Until this year, when they all did.

Ace was the first person I told about my plan, right before she “turned me in” to the Dauntless police. I told her that I planned to come absolutely clean, Divergence and all.

She asked if I understood that they would kill me.

I said that was okay. What mattered was that my speech would reach an entire faction, and no one could shut me up without violating the philosophy of truth itself.

Ace didn’t like it at all. But she let me, swore a vow of silence, and we left.

After I was taken back to Candor, Ace was held behind by Dauntless. The news about her true identity sent seismic-scale shockwaves throughout the whole faction—everyone wanted to know, most of all Eric Coulter. She refused to speak to him. Instead, she went straight to the head leader of Dauntless, Max, and explained her story only up until her initiation into Dauntless. She didn’t mention me once. When asked, she said, “You’ll know soon enough. It’ll be on TV.”

Ace was placed on disciplinary probation and suspended from work, which surprised nobody, but which took a toll on her. She only broke her vow of silence twice. The first time was when Irene visited Dauntless with the help of her nephew Uriah, which wasn’t really a breaking of the vow, since Irene was consulting Ace on her parts in the story. The second time was when Ace got drunk with Tori and Sajida Touma and started crying about losing me. As soon as Sajida knew, it was over.

The word spread through the projects like a new strain of hallucinogen. For the first time, an initiate was going to use the Full Unveiling to flip the factions the bird. Most of the factionless didn’t believe it, and of those who did, few of them cared. It wouldn’t change anything, they assumed. If they were lucky, they might get to watch someone get shot on live television.

But of those who believed and cared, it was enough.

+ + +

I couldn’t imagine that it was a good day for Ravi. When I asked him, he said, “I’ve had worse, but not many.”

The not-nice bailiffs threw him out of the front doors of the Merciless Mart, stripped him of his keys, and shoved a pamphlet at him.

“Report to the Abnegation Grace Building next Monday,” said the least-nice one gruffly. “You can apply for your food stamp card, employment options, and housing contracts there.”

“Next Monday?” Ravi protested. “What am I going to eat until then?”

“That’s not our problem anymore,” said the slightly-nicer-but-still-not-very-nice bailiff, then slammed the doors.

For a long time, Ravi sat there in the north plaza, his robe torn and fingernails bleeding. He’d fought the bailiffs all the way down, even though there had been nothing to escape to. Except this.

He pulled at the Merciless Mart doors. They were locked. He ran across the street. The Institute was locked too. He screamed. He threw his body and fists at the glass doors, but they didn’t so much as crack. Bulletproof.

He collapsed at Themis’ feet and cried for hours.

There was only so much crying he could do, though, especially after fasting for so long. He needed food. He tried to break into the Institute kitchen, but he only found one paperclip and broke it while trying to pick the lock. Eventually, he subjected himself to the worst shame of all, pulling food from the garbage.

Barefoot, smelling of trash, and bundled in a dirty white robe, Ravi set out into the world.

It took him a while to find help. He found the projects—“Guess this is my home now,” he said aloud, trying to make it a joke, but then just crying—and wandered the streets, looking into windows, calling out after the elusive shadows that lurked in the alleys. Finally, he came across a ramshackle little bar, its windows boarded up, but with laughter coming from inside.

He tiptoed up to the door and cracked it open. Inside were some older men and women, clad in garments as tattered and dusty as Ravi’s robe. They were gathered around a black-and-white television. Most were drinking. Some were playing a card game.

“Hello?” said a kindly voice, and Ravi pushed open the door a little further. The bartender, a portly, silver-haired woman, was looking at him. “Oh, it’s a child… sorry, love, I know some places don’t care, but we’d really you be of age…”

Ravi stepped inside anyway. The bartender gasped, and the room went quiet. All of the factionless turned around, staring.

In the silence, Ravi heard a voice that he knew—the voice of Leanne, giving her testimony.

“You’re that girl,” said one of the men. “The one that failed—”

“I’m not a girl,” Ravi snapped.

“Oh...shit,” said the man. “I’m sorry.”

“Beezus, really,” said one of the elders. “Our apologies, Beezus tries, but he forgets. I’m Jericho, they/them. The flower at the bar is my wife, Lola, she/her.”

“I’m Ravi,” said Ravi warily. “He/him.”

That was how Ravi made his first factionless friends.

Lola poured him a mug of homemade beer that warmed him to the bone, and the group at the TV welcomed him in. He asked why they were watching the Full Unveilings, and most of them shrugged. One of them said that a friend had told them to put that old TV of theirs to good use, because one of the initiates was planning to say something really big, even on the realm of treasonous. Treason was always fun, they laughed. Ravi tried not to cringe at that. Then he remembered that he was homeless, and it suddenly became easier to not find such statements offensive.

Most of the customers were only partially watching the Full Unveilings. Despite some of the rumors, they didn’t actually care that much. They considered it only a reason to throw a party, since being factionless got monotonous after a while. Beezus taught Ravi how to play poker. Jericho, who left Abnegation after coming out as agender, listened as Ravi unloaded his feelings about being rejected from Erudite and Candor. Lola wrapped Ravi in a blanket and promised him that he could stay with their family as long as he needed.

As the Unveilings dragged on, more people filtered into the bar. Many of them recognized Ravi’s robe, and for a time, the room turned into a line of factionless, waiting their turns to give condolences to their newest member. By the time Oona’s testimony began, the place was packed to the roof, Lola was out of mugs, and no treason had been said in the Unveilings.

“It has to be Phoebe,” said Ravi to the others. “She got in all sorts of trouble the week before the exams. She said she was in love with a Dauntless woman. She even had a tattoo.” But inside, Ravi wasn’t so sure. Last he remembered, I was Abnegation; I was the furthest thing from treasonous.

It didn’t make sense until I picked the locks of my handcuffs on live TV and said I was Divergent.

It was safe to say that no one in the bar—or, for that matter, in the city—had expected what they saw. A half-naked Abnegation transfer, tattooed all over and stoned on truth serum (I have been told, by multiple accounts, that I was a little tipsier than most of my classmates, since I was the smallest. Divergence didn’t help me there, I suppose), calling out Candor and the government for crimes against humanity. It was a scene.

Just like in the Grand Courtroom, by the end of my testimony, the bar was silent. Candor stood, though they weren’t shown on camera. The judges cast their votes. I was made a member. Then I was bundled out by the bailiffs and the closing ceremonies began.

But by that point, nobody was listening. It was clear that whatever happened to me now wouldn’t be shown on screen. Slowly, Jericho reached across and turned the TV off.

“That was...something,” they said.

A murmur of assent. An undertone of fear. What would happen now? Surely, Erudite, Dauntless, and Abnegation all knew of this. The Candor broadcast hadn’t shown the Divergent who stood, but it wouldn’t matter; they’d be found anyway. The half-Dauntless police would undoubtedly return, searching for the revolutionary sects scattered around the projects. The factionless had safety in numbers, at least. There were never enough half-Dauntless to hurt more than a few. And the Candor...there were Candor on the right side now…

After a while, a few of them noticed something. Ravi still sat in front of the TV, staring at the black screen.

His face was twisted in rage.

As the rest of the factionless argued in hushed tones, Ravi looked down. His hands gripped his sleeves, already torn, and pulled them until they tore more, ripping the delicate seams. He quietly asked Lola for a knife. She gave him one, watching in worry as he began to cut up his sleeves and the longer hem from his robe. Then he tied the strips around his hands and feet, knotting them tight.

In the rags of his Full Unveiling, Ravi stood.

+ + +

Around the city, the factionless stood.

It started with the ones like Sajida, those who planned—her group had been ready for a while now, waiting for the perfect time, and Ace and I had given it. In the early morning, as nineteen Candor initiates dressed in white robes, Sajida and Judge Madullah Touma arose and draped themselves in black ones. Sajida dressed for war. The Judge dressed for court. When I spoke, they stepped into light for the first time in days, leading about a hundred factionless into the streets.

It was carried onwards by the ones like Ravi, deciding right then to act. There were an estimated three hundred televisions in the factionless projects at the time, all showing the Full Unveiling, a good number serving whole neighborhoods or a crowd like Ravi’s. Forty factionless gathered in a poor woman’s restaurant for one last round of drinks. They toasted. They shouted. Then they marched, a small part of something greater.

They came from all around, converging in the city common district. They flooded walkways and bus routes. They chanted, they lifted homemade signs, but most of them were silent, the only sound thousands of marching feet. From back doors, chefs and servers heard the thunder. From windows, housekeepers saw the surge. From basements, courtesans felt the shaking of the earth. They didn’t know why, but they knew they were witnesses to the end of the world as they knew it, and they stood. They dropped their smiles and left their customers. They took up brooms and kitchen knives. They painted roses and thorns and angels on cardboard signs. They stood.

Some didn’t stand. In a little apartment, in a locked room without electric light, Miriam sat by the window with a semi-automatic rifle and two extra boxes of ammunition. Thirty children—her own, her neighbors’, and nobody’s at all—huddled around her feet. She hadn’t been religious since she was much younger. Now, for the children, she prayed that she wouldn’t need to stand.

In the span of an hour, three thousand factionless emerged from the shadows to stand. The Full Unveiling’s closing ceremony dragged on. I waited in a bathroom, Irene and the bailiffs keeping guard.

Judge Lysander Morris drove to the Erudite compound, said what he needed to say, and drove back to his penthouse apartment. As the hour drew to a close, he took off his jacket, poured a single malt scotch, and sat on the balcony. His view overlooked the canal and the south Merciless Mart plaza. He watched the factionless parade down the street, then the ranks of Dauntless march in behind them. By the time the Merciless Mart doors opened and the Candor flooded out, the streets were empty except for a few Dauntless patrols. As the last of the Candor left and the initiates were allowed to go, a car pulled up to the plaza. Blue-clad figures stepped out.

Morris smiled. From where he sat, twelve floors above the cleanup, the late afternoon sun pricked against the skeletal radio towers. He began to think about what to make for dinner. He would have to wait this one out, but that was alright.

It was a nice day.