"Quiet down everyone!" Silence. The moment Jack Kangs hands were raised. I looked around for a moment, expecting to see some kind of whispering, or people sharing looks, nothing.
I leaned back in my chair and crossed one leg over the other, my eyes going back to Jack Kang before I even registered the thought. A small flash of light is in the corner of my eye, lightning... a room full of people, a room with holes instead of windows... but its the biggest room they have. Yet, I still see no one bat an eye at the common disruption.
"I know many of you are confused and shaken by what happened yesterday," Jack starts. I absentmindedly put my hand to the gun wound. "I have heard many reports from a variety of perspectives, and have gotten a sense for what is straightforward and what requires more investigation." I raised my eyebrow, my arms crossing.
I didn't understand what was so un-simple. What needed more investigation. We were attacked, people were killed, children were killed. But it is not my place to bring this up, Candor are the thinking law, different from Dauntless who were the brawny law. They had to treat everything like a court case, evidence. Even if, to me, the blood splattered on the walls that people had scrubbed their hands raw to get rid of, was evidence enough.
"What seems to me to require more investigation," a beat. They are as dramatic as they are truthful. "Is the Divergent." I have to physically stop myself from straightening my back, to stop any kind of bodily panic that would immediately bring the attention of the people in this room, the ones taught to look for bodily actions.
But my heart raced in my throat. I don't dare turn my head, or look anywhere but Jack Kang, not even to see Tris' reaction.
"If you are one of the Divergent, please step forward so that we can hear from you." Trap, it's a trap, run, run as fast as you can. I take a deep breath the moment I hear breath hitching from other people in the room.
"It's called Divergent, do me a favour y/n." I nodded. "Don't tell anyone, especially Erudite." "Anyone?" She started rushing as we heard the next names being called. "Family, friends, anyone."
This was the first time in a while that I had no idea what to do. Even if I had no idea what to do before, I would do something, I would fight with myself, but I would do something. Sitting in this chair is something right? But it's not, because I haven't chosen to sit in this chair, I'm frozen.
Then my eyes move upwards, watching as Tobias moved forward, I picked at my skin. I looked back at Tris, she looked at me, we both stared for a few seconds before she started moving forward, softly saying 'excuse me' to others. I sighed and shook my head, stupid... stupid... stupid... I thought to myself as I stood up and moved forward, deciding to dodge people rather than wait for them to move. A few others reached the middle at the same time I did, one of the girls I recognised from the line up.
I looked over my shoulder for a moment, quickly looking forward again and straightening my shoulders as I saw the poisonous looks sent our way. As if to say we are dirty, dangerous, everything Erudite fed.
Despite the notoriety Tobias, Tris and I have gained, whether from Dauntless or something else. None of the focus is on us after a few seconds. It's on Marcus, and I find myself shooting him the same look everyone was doing to me previously. Hypocrite.
"You, Marcus?" Jack asked, I continued staring at Marcus. He seemed like the highlight of Abnegation, on cameras at least. But truthfully, he was so self confident and had his head so far up his own ass, he wanted every single drop of attention he could get. Is that what Tobias was talking about back in Amity? Making himself seem more important?
"Yes," Marcus says. "I understand that you are concerned, that you all are concerned. You had never heard of the Divergent a week ago, and now all that you know is that they are immune to something to which you are susceptible, and that is a frightening thing. But I can assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of, as far as we are concerned." It isn't frightening, their God complexes are just being challenged. I mentally scolded myself for the silent insult.
But as I watch him tilt his head, and raise his eyebrow with sympathy... Goddamn it... no wonder he was head of government.
"It seems clear to me, that we were attacked so that the Erudite could find the Divergent. Do you know why that is?" It is clear, as clear as glass, the Erudite have always taught that Divergence is dangerous, anyone who may be sickened with it should be turned over immediately. But does anyone, even Marcus, understand how far it goes? I don't, I might understand that they hate us and that they want to kill us, but I never truly knew why.
"No, I do not," I look back at Marcus. "Perhaps their intention was merely to identify us. It seems like useful information to have, if they intend to use their simulations again." I feel bile rising in my throat... us... he made a connection between him and I... and I want to throw up.
But annoyance also rises from his ignorance, they didn't want to 'identify' us, they wanted to kill us, like they always have. Sure, maybe them taking extra time and questioning was to identify us or identify what could possibly lead to Divergence, but they weren't planning on leaving with a full clip in their gun.
"That was not their intention." I quickly look at Tris, my heart racing from the adrenaline of annoyance and wanting to yell. "They wanted to kill us. They've been killing us since before any of this happened."
I watched as Jack went to say something after being quiet for a few seconds, I wanted to say something, but how did I know it would received properly? "That sounds very much like a conspiracy theory, what reason would the Erudite have to kill you?"
I let out an audible sigh, not meaning to, as Tris went to say something. I looked at her with an annoyed look, the face of someone who only wanted to be believed, and she mirrored it. Before nodding.
"Why else?" I started, I looked at Tobias who shot me a look, as if telling me to be quiet. "Knowledge, sure it may sound like a conspiracy theory, but can we really put it past the faction... known for wanting and craving knowledge?" I continued to ignore Tobias' staring. "We aren't meant to exist, we are... glitches in what is meant to be a perfectly built system-"
"It's all a theory." Tobias cuts me off as he looks back at Jack Kang, my eyes twitched slightly as my breathing shakes. I looked at Tobias and glare at him. "We don't actually know why. But there are over a dozen random deaths in Dauntless, and those people all had the same irregularity when it came down to aptitude tests." I sighed and shook my head, statistics, that's not evidence enough.
Evidence... what is considered evidence?... I wondered to myself, would me being dead along with the rest be evidence enough? I asked myself as I pulled my hand back and looked at it, red stains. My eyes narrowed as my breathing picked up and my heart raced, it ached, I looked down at my shirt as I watched it start turning a deep dark... sticky red. No, no, no.... My breathing turned to the rhythm of my racing heart.
"Yes I do, it happens every time, people are in a dying state for a reason, Y/n! And most of the time that reason hasn't left, and refuses to leave. You could go back, get shot in the head, dead. Your wounds will take over, dead. Maybe you could live for a short while, but is your body in a position to fight?" The woman was right.... I'm dying aren't I? Oh God.... oh God...
"While that is intriguing, correlation does not constitute evidence." My head swung and looked at Jack Kang as he spoke calmly, pushing away Tobias' statistics. My eyes narrowed as I looked back at my hand, completely clean, devoid of any deep dark reds...
"A Dauntless leader shot a Candor child in the head!" I looked back at Tris as she yelled, my hand still subtly shaking, I could have sworn I felt the stickiness on my hand still. "Did you get a report of that? Did it seem worthy of investigation?"
"In fact I did," I looked at Kang again. "And shooting a child in cold blood is a terrible crime that cannot go unpunished. Fortunately, we have the perpetrator in custody and will be able to put him on trial. However, we must keep in mind that the Dauntless soldiers did not give any evidence of wanting to harm the majority of us, or they would have killed us while we were unconscious."
My eyes widened as I felt my expression morph into one of shock. Of course they didn't want to hurt the majority... but the one's they did hurt were divergent... why wasn't that clicking with him?
Almost as if everyone else read my thoughts, or had similar ones themselves, a chorus of irritated whispers erupted around us. "Their peaceful invasion suggests to me that it may be possible to negotiate a peace treaty with the Erudite and the other Dauntless," I could feel my heart skipping beats, a banging behind my eyes. "So I will arrange a meeting with Jeanine Matthews to discuss that possibility as soon as possible."
But I bite my lip, I didn't want to yell, not when the circumstance was so extreme. But are we really going to stay with people that believed Erudite? Would me yelling make our outcome any worse?
"Their invasion wasn't peaceful," Tris starts, a short snap in her tone, but well hidden by her exasperated expression. But from where I was standing, I could see Tobias' lip curl slightly into a smaller version of smile... a proud one. Why did I get a glare but she got a smile? "Just because they didn't shoot you all in the head doesn't mean their intentions were somehow honourable. Why do you think they came here? Just to run through your hallways, knock you unconscious, and leave?"
"I assume they came here for people like you," I would have thought he was pointing at me until I noticed he really wasn't, he was pointing at the wound on my stomach. As if they never done anything to me... they just caused a small warning. A peaceful warning. "And while I am concerned for your safety, I don't think we can attack them just because they wanted to kill a fraction of our population."
"What happened to faction before blood?" I asked as I raised my eyebrow and looked at Jack, my eye twitching slightly as my jaw grew tense. "They killed Candor as well-" I went to continue before he cut me off.
"The difference is all in the numbers!" My back straightened at his ignorant tone. "From the numbers we can deduce they only wanted to clean up, no one else was in danger, danger of being killed!"
"Being controlled is way worse than being killed!" Tris stepped in. "That's what they are planning to do!"
I wanted to slap Kang the moment I saw him smile with amusement, as if this was all one big, unharmful, debate. "Oh? And how will they do that?"
"They shot you with needles," Tobias says. "Needles full of simulation transmitters. Simulations control you. That's how."
"We know how simulations work," says Jack. "The transmitter is not a permanent implant. If they intended to control us, they would have done it right away."
"But—" Tris begins.
My eyes narrow at how quick Jack throws her to the side. "I know you have been under a lot of stress, Tris," he says quietly, "and that you have done a great service to your faction and to Abnegation. But I think your traumatic experience may have compromised your ability to be completely objective. I can't launch an attack based on a little girl's speculations."
"Little girl?!" I take a moment, trying to understand how it could have been me to yell that, I didn't mean to. But I had attention on me now. "That little girl could have died, I could have died, all of us could have died. We know the true danger that is happening right now, how can you be so unfathomably stupid that you won't listen for one second?!"
"If I didn't know better Y/n, I would say you are under, if not more, the same stress as Tris here-" My eyes widened. My heart raced as I felt rage just build and build, but what was I supposed to say? If I continued arguing I was only proving his point. "So I'll reiterate, Candor will not launch an attack based off of pre-delusions."
"You don't make our decisions for us Kang." Tobias suddenly stepped in, acting the leader once again. Never put in more than five words right? The strong silent type. The one everyone follows. The wrongly accused of being so confident others will talk for him.
No, at this point we're talking for ourselves, not for the factionless, or the dead, or for the army we could possibly have. We're talking for the ones that are in the middle of it all, and the ones being accused of being paranoid and too young to understand.
I tilted my head over my shoulder slightly as I started to hear the Dauntless speak up. "You are not the leader of our faction!" I looked back at Jack who silently waits for all of the yelling to die down, maybe that's another reason I don't like him, he's too calm.
"That is true. If you want to, you can feel free to storm the Erudite compound by yourselves. But you will do so without our support, and may I remind you, you are greatly outnumbered and unprepared."
We all turn silent. He was right, we couldn't storm Erudite, not without Candor. It would be an unnecessary blood bath.
"That's what I thought." Jack says, making everyone's attention turn to him. "Then I will contact Jeanine Matthews to negotiate a peace. Any objections?"
A sudden chill creeped up the back of my neck, I knew Erudite would only call a peace if Candor handed us over, and they would. We didn't have Candor on our side, if we needed numbers, we need the factionless.
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