Infallible

Chapter 29

"Eric?" She tried hesitantly.
  He whipped around quickly to face her, a murderous look behind his blue eyes. She didn't know what time it was, but the pale light of the morning was shining through the vast windows of the Erudite complex where they stayed.
"Get up." He ordered. His tone was short and lacking emotion. Rae sat up obediently.
"Is everything okay?" She coaxed gently.
"Get dressed." He commanded, again sounding too harsh. Rae struggled through her morning fog.
"Okay..." she agreed quietly, pulling on her shoes. She was too frightened to object. There was no way out and she knew this. She had been warned of this.
  After pulling on her shoes, she followed a silent Eric through the Erudite compound. He seemed to know right where he was going, which made Rae anxious.
"It's late. We should go back to bed." She whispered.
"We need to go Jeanine. She's expecting you."
"Why?" She breathed, as they paused outside a closed door.
"She is waiting." Is all her husband told her, before he opened the door and roughly pushed her inside ahead of him.
  The room was much larger than she expected, and bright. Her eyes squinted against the fluorescence, and her insides wound into tight knots. Jeanine stood near the center of the room, and did not immediately look up when they entered. She was engrossed on a tablet she held in her hand. There were a few Erudite in the room as well, all going over information that was whizzing across their monitors faster than she could register. Sam and Max conversed quietly in a corner.
"Hello Rae. It's good to see you again." Jeanine's voice was flat and expressionless as she looked over her screen at her new guest. Rae only nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Hey there, Rae. Glad you're finally here." Max walked over to stand near Jeanine, smiling at her. Rae had always thought his smile was warm, now all she saw was a murderer.
"Glad to be here." She quietly lied, looking back over at her husband. He was still too rigid, standing too still. He did not meet her gaze, he instead stood looking expectantly toward Jeanine.
"We have had overwhelming success in Abnegation. There were a few minor set backs, but overall we achieved what we set out to do." She paused, looking at Rae searchingly. Rae realized she was being studied.
"Yes ma'am, that's what I've gathered." She said coolly, hoping her smile looked innocent and not panicked. Jeanine did not answer immediately, but slowly stepped out from behind a computer monitor toward Rae. Her watery eyes raked over Rae's small stature.
"I have been working tirelessly on many new developments. New serums, new simulation technology... new detection devices. They really are state of the art. Don't you think so?" She jerked her head toward Eric. Rae watched as he agreed monotonously. She looked between the two of them, and felt a surge of rage that she was almost certain that Jeanine picked up on. Jeanine had Rae's husband tight in her grip. Everyone he knew was one of her pawns. Yet, Rae had seen Eric just hours before. He had told her she was right. That was something he had never said to her about this.
This doesn't  feel right.
  Those had been his words. Murdering innocent Abnegation hadn't felt right. He had started to tell her, before Jeanine took him away. Why? Why was he just now showing a little empathy? Why hadn't he ever tried to listen before?
  Jeanine had retrieved a strange looking device from a nearby counter and handed it to Eric. It had a long handle with five prongs at the top that formed a circle. Eric held it firmly at his side while his blank, cold gaze remained straight ahead of him. She wished he would look at her, yet was doubtful that he would even see her if he did.
"Bring them in, please." Jeanine instructed two Dauntless traitors seated near the door. They hurriedly exited the room. Returning quickly, they returned with a man and woman dressed in Abnegation grey, hands cuffed behind them. They both looked rather dazed, feet stumbling slightly as the Erudite guided them in. They were stopped once stood before Eric.
"This device measures a person's level of Divergence.  It may surprise you to know that not all Divergents are equal. Some are only slightly so, making them hardly any different than any of us."
As Jeanine finished her sentence Eric lifted the device in one swift motion, pointing it at the rather listless woman. Activating the trigger, Rae watched the prongs activate as a blue light connected them. She could see the symbol of each faction appear along the blue light, and spin. After a brief pause, a computerized female voice filled the air.
"Divergent, 12%."
Rae swallowed nervously, her throat suddenly very dry.
"Some carry more of the Divergent gene, making them more valuable to me." Jeanine nodded her head to Eric again, and he turned the device on the man. It lit up again, and they listened as the voice spoke,
"Divergent, 43%."
"You see, the stronger the gene, the more resistant they are to serums and simulations. If we can study them, we can develop new technology that works on them."
Rae understood her curiosity more clearly now. She wasn't cruel on purpose, she just couldn't bear the thought of not being able to understand why something didn't not work the way it should. The human brain, for example. Divergents were a threat to her because their brains were capable of things that her brain was not. This terrified her more.
She didn't see Jeanine motion to the Dauntless guards, but she must have because they approached again, taking the pair of Abnegation back to wherever they had been brought from.
"With someone like you or I, this device would merely state the same faction in which we tested positive for in a regular simulation."
Rae's heart seized, her chest constricting with fear. She should have known she was next. Part of her did know it. There was nowhere to hide as Jeanine nodded to Eric once more. She finally met her husbands captivating yet blank eyes as he pointed the frightening device directly at her. It lit up and she watched the faction symbols spin once more.
"Divergent, 100%"
The entire room froze. Nobody moved or breathed as every eye in the room focused on Rae. The people that were seated slowly began to rise. Jeanine looked pleased, and not the least bit surprised.
Max and Sam seized her immediately. Rae did not fight back, she only looked up at her husband with tears in her eyes. They paused a moment, looking to Jeanine for instruction. Rae took that moment to speak to Eric directly.
"Eric. Please... don't do this." Her voice cracked as she spoke.
"He can't hear you." Jeanine said happily as she took a few steps toward them. "Even if he wasn't in a simulation, Eric is one of my most faithful allies."
"He is NOT your ally." Rae spat, lurching toward the foul woman. The men tightened their hold, forcing her roughly to her feet.
"He's your SLAVE. He doesn't even know who he is without your poison flowing through his bloodstream. Why would ANYONE be loyal to such a faithless hag?!"
The hatred in Rae's eyes burned, yet Jeanine remained infuriatingly unbothered by her statements. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly in self satisfaction.
"Take her for and MRI then put her in a room for tonight. We'll start tomorrow." She says simply, before looking back down at the tablet she was holding and beginning to type.
Rae felt herself being pulled from the room, only halfway struggling in order to see Eric as she was being dragged away.
"I love you, Eric." She pleaded into his empty eyes. "I will love you no matter what happens." The words had barely left her mouth before a door slammed shut between them, leaving her alone and defenseless against the two men, only one of which she halfway trusted.
The room they took her to was dimly lit. There was a two way mirror on one wall, and opposite the mirror was a large machine. There was a bed that protruded from it.
"Lie down."
Rae heard Jeanine's voice speak from somewhere above her head, and glared at the two way mirror. She wanted to refuse, but a part of her was curious. What was so different about her brain, in comparison to Eric's? This wasn't the first time she had experienced genuine curiosity, an Erudite trait. Yet this was the first time that she acknowledged it for what it was... an absolute Erudite characteristic. She allowed herself to be laid upon the tray of the machine, daring a glare up at Sam. He left his expression blank as he strapped one of her arms and one of her legs down to the machine. Max did the same to the other half of her body. However, Sam seemed to meet her gaze for an extra moment or so, a certain softness passing quickly over his features.
Maybe he IS sorry. Rae thought blankly as they backed away from the table she was now secured to. She lay still, a sad stillness overcoming her as another person approached her. A person dressed in blue. She kept her eyes on the ceiling as the Erudite grabbed her arm. A second later, she winced as a sharp, pressuring pain was applied to her bicep.
"This is gadolinium, a contrast solution to help us see better in to your brain." The woman explained, as Rae squeezed her eyes tightly closed to avoid the tears that threatened to spill out. Hospitals were one of her fear landscapes. Doctors, needles, even just the smell of a medical setting set her on edge. Surely, Jeanine must know this. Surely, Jeanine did not care.
Think like a Dauntless. She told herself. Think like Eric. For Eric was the most Dauntless person she knew. People had told her of his travels through his own fear simulations, during his own initiation. He never showed signs of fear, and was one of the most feared initiates of his class.
Somehow, throughout the entire grueling process, she remained still. She had no reason to squirm, as she already knew her fate. An hour later, she was unbound from the MRI machine and escorted to her room.
***