XLI

It was the second time in one day where I wondered
if I was dead. Not a fun record to break.

The shot hit me in the left side of my chest, right at the base of my ribcage. It wasn’t really pain, which surprised me. More like a dull thud. I looked down to see a gleaming silver dart.

“Oh,” I said, right before my knees gave out.

I hit the ground, then a stair, then another stair, and...so on. Instinctively, I tried to break my fall, but a second later, whatever was in the dart kicked in. A giant hand picked me up and doused me into ice water. I could move. Not well. It knocked the wind out of me. I rolled to a stop on the pavement, my ear pressed to the marble, my hair falling over my eyes.

My heart pounded—though it was struggling. Then it slowed. It seemed to want to go slower before picking up again and settling to normal. Strange, because I was still terrified. Voices were screaming. Through my hair, I saw the running shoes of a panic. Instinct told me to panic and run too. I had been shot by some sort of tranquilizer dart, but it wasn’t working as it should. Divergent immunity. Of course.

I had to stay still. Maybe if I played dead (or paralyzed), I could gather more information before making a move. Irene yelled my name, then a string of curses. Heavy boots shook the ground around my head. Dauntless. The steps pounded in perfect time, perfect formation, too perfect for Dauntless. A second later, the rhythmic pounding was broken by sharp heels.

Through the red curls, I caught a flash of blue satin toes.

“Fascinating,” said Jeanine.

A hand brushed at the back of my head and I tried to keep from flinching. Cold, clammy fingers slipped under my collar, pressing against my neck.

“I was certain we’d have to shoot her again; this formula always provided mixed results...pulse unusually fast, though. Irene, didn’t you report an unusual pulse in her aptitude simulation?”

“She has anxiety,” said Irene, her voice low.

“Not a Divergent thing?”

Irene didn’t respond.

“Well.” Jeanine pulled her hand away. Her jacket rustled as she stood. “It’s been hypothesized that Divergence is comorbid with certain developmental disabilities… autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit, as well as anxiety. Perhaps we should look more into it.”

“Get to the point, Jeanine,” Irene snapped.

“Erudite is taking custody of Beatrice Prior.” Metal clinked against metal, and the Dauntless moved. I shut my eyes, fearing they would come for me, but it was worse. “Irene McCandless, you are under arrest for charges of conspiracy and premeditated treasonous acts. You know the law and your rights…though after today, I’m beginning to doubt that.”

“Hey! You can’t do that!” shouted Brighton.

“Arresting people is Candor’s job,” Aletheia said. “This is false arrest and imprisonment. She can sue you to hell, you know.”

“Actually, no.”

The voice was Oona’s. The arguing subsided. A hollow pit was forming in my gut, and it wasn’t only because of the hunger.

“Dauntless has original jurisdiction over trespassing on their property. They should have tried Phoebe, but they allowed Candor to do it first. Legally...they can void that agreement if new evidence is found.”

“But you can’t arrest me,” Irene protested.

“I think Phoebe’s testimony is enough to charge you with aiding and abetting,” said Jeanine.

Oh God. This was the last thing I needed—for the testimony to cause a legal trainwreck. Well, we did want a legal trainwreck, but it wasn’t supposed to be quite yet. There were supposed to be less Erudite involved.

“As for my presence,” continued Jeanine, “Dauntless leader Eric and your own Judge Lysander Morris asked me to come along. As you might figure, Erudite has a special interest in people who accuse the whole faction of murder and torture. Thank you, Oona.”

I bit my tongue at Morris’ name, but it was at Oona’s that it drew blood. Jeanine knew Oona. It all made sense now—Jeanine knew Morris, and Morris liked Oona, so he made her my prison warden.

The smile was audible in Jeanine’s voice. “So...if nobody else is going to tell me how to do my duty to the city…I think you should all return to your dormitories.”

“What about Antigone’s?” asked Leanne.

“First you take our friend, and now you’re taking our drinks?” Brighton demanded.

“The common district is closed. The city is on level 2 lockdown. You, older girl, take them. Oona, Sherlock, you two stay.”

She must have been talking to Amalka, because as the feet of my classmates begrudgingly passed by me, I heard her whisper, “I’m sorry, Phoebe.”

“What about us?” asked Sherlock.

“You’re not in trouble,” said Jeanine. “Your classmate’s... incendiary little speech disturbed much of the city. Factionless criminals have begun to riot in the common, and many people are frightened. But we in Erudite and Dauntless, as you know, have lost our credibility. We need an impartial voice to reverse the damage that Beatrice did, speak to the city in a broadcast, and assure them that all is under control. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” said Oona immediately.

“Yes,” echoed Sherlock, a little more hesitantly.

“Thank you. You can follow me. Liza, you have the judge’s list; round up the Divergent and report back to me. Eric, take those two disgraces back to Dauntless.”

“Yes, Jeanine,” said a woman’s voice.

“With pleasure,” said a man’s voice.

Jeanine, Oona, and Sherlock left, but I didn’t see where to. Suddenly, two brawny arms wrapped around my waist and slung my body in the air, so fast that I didn’t even have time to gasp. I was dropped over someone’s shoulder, bent at the waist with my face in the back of a black combat vest. Then the person carrying me began to walk. The heavy boots moved in time with all the others.

My head was spinning. I couldn’t see much while pretending to be sedated, only flashes of color and light, but something was so, so wrong. I saw Dauntless black, but not the Dauntless spirit. When did Dauntless walk in perfect time? When was a whole plaza of Dauntless silent as a tomb?

With the jostling of my captor’s steps, I managed to pull of a natural-looking turn of my head. To my left was a white suit. Irene walked next to me, hands cuffed in front of her, one arm held by a Dauntless man. Their faces stared forward, unblinking, their mouths half-open, awake without being alive. They were sleepwalkers. To my right, Eric was talking to another Dauntless woman. Neither of their gaits matched the soldiers who held me and Irene.

Marching at our rear was a single soldier. I almost didn’t give her a second glance. Then, out of chance, my peripheral vision caught it—a flame-red scar streaking down her cheek.

Ace.

As blank-faced as the rest of them. She didn’t even meet my eyes. She held a large gun to her chest, but it was wrong. A right-handed grip. Ace wasn’t left-handed, but she didn’t use her right hand to aim a gun, because the vision in her right eye was impaired.

If I hadn’t overheard Caleb talking to Eric, or if Jeanine hadn’t cornered me and asked me about my experience with the simulation serum, or if I had never read about Judge Touma’s infiltration of Erudite, it would be a stretch. But now the pieces all fell into place. Erudite’s delivery to Dauntless was supposed to be two thousand individual doses, “enough to drug up a whole damn faction”. Dauntless serums didn’t use electrodes, only a remote transmitter injected in the neck, but they were the same thing as the aptitude simulation. Data collected about aptitude could be used to develop Dauntless serums. And according to the news reports, Touma had been in Jeanine’s office, searching for information about Lady Rose and the Angel Girls—but why would she need that when all of that information should have been in Candor?

This was what Touma was chasing. Something that I had been so blind to miss. The Erudite were controlling the Dauntless through a serum, a whole mindless army, to do…

A chill ran down my spine. Whatever they were doing, it would end in tragedy.

Eric and the other conscious Dauntless leader weren’t looking at me, so I risked a longer look at Ace. Was I wrong? Was she wrong? Was she not Divergent? Tears sparked behind my eyes, and I blinked them back as I slowly dropped my head again. All I could do was stare at her boots.

When we all stopped in an alley, Ace’s heels locked together, at perfect attention. And then something peculiar happened: keeping her weight evenly on her heels, her hips and shoulders perfectly still, Ace lifted her left toe and tapped it a half-inch in the air.

The last of the sedative rushed from my body. I wanted to hug her. She was awake. I was right, and we’d be alright.

Behind me, a door opened, and Irene made a noise of disgust as her soldier shoved her out of my sight. A second later, my soldier lifted me off his shoulder and dropped me clumsily on a hard metal floor. I kept my eyes mostly closed, but I knew had landed in the opening of a military truck, facing the outside. Someone’s backside was in my face, Eric’s.

“Ready to go?” asked Eric.

“Another minute,” said a woman that I couldn’t see. “Damn factionless; they didn’t just slash the tires, smashed in the hubcaps too. Wait here with the prisoners until Lockwood’s done.”

Eric grumbled, but not for long. Something else seemed to catch his attention.

“I can’t get over this,” he said, stepping toward Ace. At least his backside wasn’t pressed up against my face. My eyes caught on the holstered pistol on his hip, within my reach. Eric poked Ace’s scarred cheek. She didn’t even flinch.

“They really can’t see us? Or hear us?” the woman asked.

“Oh, they can see and hear. But they’re not processing any of it,” said Eric. “Our network sends a command, the transmitter receives it…” His fingers trailed down and pressed his fingers against a spot in Ace’s neck. I wanted to strangle him. “...and they do as they’re told.”

A low, wicked chuckle bubbled from Eric’s throat.

“What a sight to see. The legendary Ace, finally doing what she’s told. It’s too good. No one’s going to remember that I came in second now, are they? Second to a factionless—pardon me—a Stiff? No one’s going to ask, ‘What was it like to train with the first hobo Dauntless? The missing Abigail Eaton?’ Give me a fucking break.”

Growling, he reached into his jacket and whipped out a knife. Ace didn’t so much as flinch.

“It’d be so easy,” he snarled. “Just say that a factionless stabbed her to death, no one would be the wiser.”

“Go ahead,” the woman said, sounding bored. “She’s nothing now.”

Without drawing blood, Eric lay the flat of his knife against Ace’s scar, pulling it slowly down her cheek. Behind me, Irene let out a choked sob.

“Let’s finish what we started, shall we?” whispered Eric.

My lungs burned. I hadn’t breathed in almost a minute. I saw Ace’s finger twitch against the trigger of her gun, but I was already on the move, my hand snapping across the space between me and Eric. I grabbed his pistol, scrambled to my knees, and aimed at his head. Right between his eyes when he turned.

“Touch her and—and you’re dead,” I stammered.

Eric seemed surprised for only a second. Then he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ve seen you shoot.”

“I don’t need to hit you,” I said. “Just distract you.”

Ace drove her boot into the back of his knees, then her gun into his head. Eric crumpled.

Immediately, the two other Dauntless snapped into action, raising their guns mechanically. Ace was faster. She ducked, sweeping her legs behind one man’s heels and sending him to the ground. When the second came for her, she fired a shot into his hip, and when the first scrambled up, another single shot into his shoulder. The two men spasmed, still trying to obey the orders in their heads. But Ace kicked their guns aside, and the pain seemed too much for even the serum to override, so they fell limp and gasping on the ground.

The conscious Dauntless woman ran towards us, but Ace didn’t give her mercy. Two shots. Heart and head.

Eric was at the ground in front of me. Unconscious. Ace pushed one boot into his back and leaned forward, hand outstretched to me.

“My hero,” she smiled.

Still trembling from adrenaline, I took her hand and stepped over Eric. I tried to give Ace the gun, but she gently nudged it back. “Keep it.”

“I still don’t know how to aim it.”

“Presumably, you can try using your eyes,” supplied Irene. “Will you stop flirting and help me?”

I found the key in Eric’s belt, unlocked Irene’s cuffs, and gave her back her silver cane. When we ran around to the front of the truck, we were almost hit by a flying Erudite mechanic, whose transmitter Ace was crushing under her heel. After tumbling to the ground, the mechanic shrieked and ran from the alley.

“Get in,” called Ace.

I started helping Irene into the passenger’s side before climbing in after her. “What about Eric?”

“You didn’t kill him?” asked Irene, sounding disappointed.

“No.” Ace frowned. “Should I have?”

“We’re not killing anyone else,” I said. I knew the Dauntless woman might not have deserved mercy. But my stomach still clenched at the memory of gunfire. “Ace, Irene, please.”

Ace grumbled, but she finally got into the driver’s side. “Fine.”

We sped off.

“They gave us the injections last night, after Dauntless initiation,” said Ace as she drove. We turned onto the street near the Merciless Mart plaza, but the windows were tinted and none of the patrolling soldiers could see us in the front seat. I knew that the anonymity wouldn’t last for long, however; Eric would soon wake up or the two injured soldiers would be found. “Said they were to track us if we went missing, some drivel like that. But I couldn’t refuse without looking suspicious, and thanks to you, I’m plenty of that.”

“You’re welcome,” I said sarcastically.

“Psh. Honestly, though...the testimony was awesome,” she added. “Managed to watch a bit before they turned the transmitters on.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’re cute when you’re mad at the establishment.”

“I am going to kiss you so much.”

“You’re both disgusting,” said Irene.

“The transmitters are being controlled from a station in the Hub,” Ace continued. “This morning, Jeanine told Eric to report there. Why there and not Erudite, I don’t know.”

I frowned. “But the Hub’s closed today. Abnegation initiation should be tonight. There’s the short ceremony, a social and a potluck. The whole faction is there.”

“That’s what I thought too,” said Ace. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Sociopaths with robot soldiers could easily convince them to cancel a potluck,” Irene said dryly.

“Did Sajida know anything about that?” I asked.

Ace pressed her lips together. “I don’t know.”

“Jeanine said the factionless are rioting in the common district. Maybe they do know.”

“Not rioting,” said Irene. “Marching. The factions have known for quite a long time that the factionless were planning a protest; they just needed an extra push. The plan was always this: wait for the right time, send no more than one hundred unarmed protesters to the common district plaza, and refuse to leave.”

As we drew closer to the common district, the sidewalks became dense with marching Dauntless. We joined a line of other military trucks, creeping along the center of the streets. In the distance, there was a roar of voices. Thousands.

“What’s going on?” Irene asked.

“There’s a holdup somewhere ahead,” said Ace, squinting. Finally, she grew impatient and turned the truck down an alley and a side street, knocking over a few trash cans, veering so sharply around the corners that my face hit the window glass. “Probably just some Amity and Candor. What a great day for Erudite’s riot control experiment, the day where every single faction goes to the common to celebrate—”

Only the front half of the truck had emerged from the side street when Ace slammed on the brakes.

“Oh god,” said Ace.

“Irene?” I whispered.

“I’m here.”

“You said there were only one hundred protesters.”

The inside of the truck was quiet for a very long time.

“Oh no,” said Irene.

Before us was a war zone. It wasn’t the common district plaza—that was two blocks away. This, it seemed, was the overflow. Hundreds of factionless and Dauntless filled the street. We had emerged in the Dauntless half, less than a hundred feet from the chaos where the two groups intersected, a writhing, screaming mass.

“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” Ace murmured, fumbling around the controls of the truck and looking around wildly. We couldn’t go back, and we couldn’t exactly use the roads.

A loud pounding on the truck made us all jump. “Hey!” yelled a muffled voice. A fully conscious Dauntless ran around to the front of the truck, waving his hands. “Why are you out of formation? Get out of the vehicle and put your hands over your head!”

“ Shit,” Ace growled.

“Ace, no!” I yelled at the same time. Though the timing didn’t matter. Ace stomped on the gas anyway.

Like driving a sled into a snowdrift, Ace bowled the Dauntless over and heaved at the steering wheel. The truck screeched around the corner, half on the sidewalk, half in the street, plowing through a whole column of hypnotized Dauntless. Whoever was controlling them was fast, though, and soon they began to move out of our way, raising their guns. A wave of gunfire rained upon the truck. The bulletproof windows cracked, fissured, and wobbled. I screamed.

With eyes like a madman’s, Ace laughed.

We broke through the last platoon of Dauntless at fifty miles an hour, my side of the truck scraping against a lamppost that Ace barely managed to avoid. Then we were in the clear. Irene was gripping my arm and her silver cane, her face green. When Ace changed gears and stomped again on the accelerator, Irene and I were both jolted against the seats.

“Hell YEAH!” Ace hollered.

“Please don’t do that again,” Irene whispered.

Ace threw her head back and cackled. “I have ALWAYS wanted to do that!”

“Every girl’s dream to drive a truck through a small army,” I murmured, glancing behind us. A few of the Dauntless turned to chase after our cloud of dust, but soon they were gone.

“I think we’re in the clear,” I said. “Where are we—”

I did a double take. One of the other military vehicles had turned around and was now rapidly approaching. A hatch from its top opened up and a giant gun slid out. As usual, I had spoken too soon.

A thunderclap, a whistling, and suddenly our world was upside down. The truck flipped. Weightlessness.

I caught, from the front window, a flash of yellow sunset.