I Was Amity...

19

"You're Divergent," he replies.

I stare at him, not showing any hint of fear on my face that I feel on the inside. How does he know? I haven't done anything. I haven't said anything I wasn't supposed to.

I lean back, pressing my shoulders to the wall, and say, "What's Divergent?"

I know Four isn't a threat to me. If he was I would have already been dead.

"Don't play stupid," he says.

"Who says I'm playing," I say while smirking at him.

"I suspected it last time, but this time it's obvious. You manipulated the simulation; you're Divergent. I'll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind up dead at the bottom of the chasm, you'll figure out how to hide it during the simulations! Now, if you'll excuse me."

"Wait," I say and grab his arm before he can get away. "I'm sorry I was being rude and stupid. I'm just scared. You should understand. You know what this means."

Four doesn't say anything; he just walks back to the simulation room and slams the door behind him.

Once he is gone my heart finally begins to slow. How had I manipulated the simulation? Breaking through the wall. I didn't know that was an act of Divergence. How did he? I push myself away from the wall and start down the hallway. I need answers, and I know who has them.

I walk straight to the tattoo place where I last saw Tori. There aren't many people out, because it's midafter-noon and most of them are at work or at school. There are three people in the tattoo place: the other tattoo artist, who is drawing a lion on another man's arm, and Tori, who is sorting through a stack of paper on the counter. She looks up when I walk in.

"Hello, Em," she says. She glances at the other tattoo artist, who is too focused on what he's doing to notice us. "Let's go in the back."

I follow her behind the curtain that separates the two rooms. The next room contains a few chairs, spare tattoo needles, ink, pads of paper, and framed artwork. Tori draws the curtain shut and sits in one of the chairs. I sit next to her, tapping my feet to give myself something to do.

"What's going on?" she says, like she doesn't already know why I'm here. "How are the simulations going?"

"Good, Really good, Maybe a little too good." I say, looking at her face. She seems tense.

"So I've heard," Tori tells me.

"You have to help me understand," I say, no I almost demand. "What the hell am I? What does it have to do with the simulations?"

Tori leans back and crosses her arms. Her expression becomes more guarded. "Among other things, you...you are someone who is aware, when they are in a simulation, that what they are experiencing is not real," she says. "Someone who can then manipulate the simulation or even shut it down. And also..." She leans forward and looks into my eyes. "Someone who, because you are also Dauntless, tends to die."

To be honest I wasn't at all surprised. In school kids would talk about Divergence and how they were bad people.

"So I'm going to die, then?" I ask.

"Not necessarily," she says. What the hell does that mean? "The Dauntless leaders don't know about you yet. I deleted your aptitude results from the system immediately and manually logged your result as Amity. But make no mistake, if they discover what you are, they will kill you."

I stare at her in silence. "Thanks."

"For what?" Tori questions.

"For helping me you didn't have to. You're putting yourself in danger by doing this," I say.

She plants her hands on her knees and stares right at me, her features soften with a sudden sadness. "They got my brother," I nod, hoping she will go on. "He and I both transferred from Erudite, only his aptitude test was inconclusive. On the last day of simulations, they found his body in the chasm. Said it was a suicide. Only my brother was doing well in training, he was dating another initiate, he was happy." She shakes her head.

"My brother died two years ago, granted it wasn't suicide, but I would like to think I would know if he was suicidal or not."

Her sleeves are rolled up, so I can see a tattoo of a river on her right arm. Did she get it after her brother died? Was the river another fear she overcame? She lowers her voice. "In the second stage of training, Georgie got really good, really fast. He said the simulations weren't even scary to him, they were more like a game. So the instructors took a special interest in him. Piled into the room when he went under, instead of just letting the instructor report his results. Whispered about him all the time. The last day of simulations, one of the Dauntless leaders came in to see it himself. And the next day, Georgie was gone."

I could be good at the simulations, if I mastered whatever force helped me break the wall. I could be so good that all the instructors took notice. I could, but I won't be, I can't be, I need to survive.

"Is that all it is? Just changing the simulations?" I say.

I can't see why it would be such a big deal to be Divergent if all I can do is change sims.

"I doubt it," she says, "but that's all I know."

"How many people know about this?" I say, thinking of Four and Eric. Eric has to know he is a leader. What would he say if he knew what I was? Four must know, even if he has only been her for two years he has probably seen this before.

"About manipulating the simulations?" Tori asks.

"Two kinds of people," she says. "People who want you dead. Or people who have experienced it themselves. Firsthand. Or secondhand, like me," Tori explains.

Four told me he would delete the recording of me breaking the glass. I knew he doesn't want me dead. Is he Divergent? Was a family member? A friend? A girlfriend? I push the thought aside. I can't let him distract me.

"I really don't understand why the Dauntless leaders care that I can manipulate the simulation. It's not that big of a deal. I guess it's kind of unfair but that's not a good enough reason to kill people," I say.

"If I had it figured out, I would have told you by now." She presses her lips together. "The only thing I've come up with is that changing the simulation isn't what they care about; it's just a symptom of something else. Something they do care about." Tori takes my hand and presses it between her palms. "Think about this," she says. "These people taught you how to use a gun. They taught you how to fight. You think they're above hurting you? Above killing you?" She releases my hand and stands. "I have to go or Bud will ask questions. Be careful, Em."