Tobias
I enter the control room just in time. Zeke is already there, talking to Sam and Rick. They fill him in on the afternoon's events. By the sound of it, nothing important has happened. I take a beer out of the fridge and get ready in my seat in front of the monitors, letting Zeke finish the talking.
I'm lost in thought when he sits down next to me.
"You're having a beer?" he asks instead of greeting me.
I know it's unusual for me. "I felt like I needed one."
"You had a bad day?" Zeke opens the tap of his own bottle and takes a large gulp.
"Kind of," I say, aware that it's an understatement.
"Well, if you want to talk about it, we've got all night."
I'm thankful for his offer and that he doesn't try to force me to tell him at once. We sit and watch the monitors, but we can't spot anything suspicious yet. Instead, we agree to go through the material from Monday night later, when we can be sure nobody's going to disturb us in here.
We wait for time to pass. At half past ten, Zeke gets up to fetch another two bottles of beer for us. At eleven, it's my turn to get new drinks. Half an hour later I get us some water because at least I can already feel the effects of the alcohol. After the intense training and just a small dinner, it works its way into my brain quickly.
I appreciate the silence between Zeke and me. It's interesting what it does to me: Oddly enough it makes me want to talk, makes me want to share today's anger with him. It's an impulse I'm not used to having.
"I got into a fight with my girl today," I begin without knowing where this is going.
Zeke nods in understanding. "That's always annoying. Shauna and I don't often get into fights, but if we do, it's usually a hard time for both of us."
"I found out something and kind of overreacted. I didn't give her much of a chance to explain herself."
"What was it that you found out?"
I hesitate before answering his question, "That she told someone about our relationship."
"What kind of someone, friend or enemy?"
"Friend. I even met said friend today, and she promised me she wouldn't tell anyone."
"So what's the problem if you have her word?"
I sigh. Growing up, I was taught to always say whatever the person opposite needed to hear. And Christina's words seemed exactly like that, making it, ironically, more difficult for me to believe they are true and not just purposefully used by her to get rid of my distrust. Unfortunately, I've learned from Marcus that one can mask a hell of secrets with words, using them like a blanket to cover all the darkness underneath, using them like a key to lock in the truth in our cold Abnegation house, so that up until today, even after leaving him and his lies behind, I have issues when it comes to trust people and their promises. Except Tris.
I don't think I can explain this to Zeke. I'd have to tell him too much about me, so I keep my darkness covered and the door locked and say, "You're right. But we still got into a fight about it, and I wasn't able to find her all day to tell her I was sorry."
"Then you'll go see her as soon as you can. You can go once we're done here. Is it your first fight?"
"The second one."
"Well perhaps then you already know what comes after fighting," Zeke grins, raising his eyebrows. I must look puzzled, so he adds in a conspiratorial whisper, "Make-up sex."
Oh, so that's what he was hinting at... And he ends up pointing out our other problem involuntarily.
"We haven't done it yet."
"Oh, then you need to wait for your next fight to have make-out sex. It's always special."
"I'll keep that in mind," I say, hoping to get away from the topic as fast as possible.
While most Dauntless speak about sex rather openly, at least with their friends, I can't. I was raised in the knowledge that sex was some miracle thing reserved for marriage, surely nothing you'd do at the age of eighteen — or sixteen. And although I've already broken with that idea, sex, and even touching, still remains special to me, and to Tris. I just wish that her fear of it wasn't big enough to show up in her simulations. I don't know what else I can do to help her get over it. Maybe Zeke, obviously being the more experienced one of us, could give me some advice, but I'm too inhibited to ask.
And then the opportunity is gone anyway when he breaks the silence, "Did you tell Tris that I know about the two of you?"
Once again, I'm taken aback.
"I never mentioned her name."
"Oh, I didn't mean to take you by surprise, Four. Knowing that it was one of the initiates, I went over their names in my head and I narrowed it down to her. Plus, when I was in the control room this morning to swap my shift, I saw you two discussing wildly in the simulation room on one of the monitors. The images were just passing by in the background, and I spotted you in the corner of my eye. Don't worry, nobody else was watching. I just kept on talking until she left."
"Okay, you've assumed right," I give in. "Please don't tell anyone."
"I won't. But you have to tell Tris that I know about you. It's only fair. How did you find out that she shared your secret with one of her friends anyway?"
"It was part of her fear simulation."
"How? Doesn't she trust her friend?"
"No, it's not like that. In fact, she seems to be trustworthy." I hope. "No, it was more like a side effect."
"A side effect? Four, don't let me pull every word out of your mouth!"
"I can't give you any details. In general, it's a simulation that would give our relationship away to the leaders and put us both in danger if it came up during the final initiation exam. Therefore, it's a fear she has to try to overcome before that day."
Zeke stares at me in disbelief and concern is evident in his voice, "But you know how difficult it is to get rid of those simulations. Usually it takes years, at least months. There are some in my fear landscape that will never go away, no matter what."
Everything he says is right, and I'm more than aware of that fact, although usually the fears are completely different from Tris'. I've never seen an initiate with her fear before and I've never heard about one either. But then, Tris and I were the only transfers from Abnegation in recent years.
"In this case, I think there is a realistic chance that she'll manage it. Although I'm not sure about whether I've made it better or worse today..."
I'm uneasy every time I think about it. I hate that we're under time pressure. It shouldn't be like that.
Okay, I think, time for a change of topic.
"So, the mysterious delivery," I begin, making it clear that I don't want to talk about Tris' and my problems anymore. At least, not our intimate ones. I guess the other ones are also big enough to keep Zeke and me occupied all night.
He takes the hint I give him, and we go through all the facts we have found out so far. We're both surprised that there is no footage from Monday to be found on the servers. The material in the archive only covers the last twenty-four hours.
"Since when do we keep the data only for a day?" Zeke frowns at me.
"I don't know. It's been a while since I looked up a file. Actually I think I only had to do that twice at all since I started in the control room, but I was told all data was saved for a week."
What reason would they have to reduce that time span?
Finally, we come up with an alternative plan and decide to check if the door in the back of the lonely hallway, where Max and Eric met Jeanine, is still locked. Zeke takes out a set of walkie-talkies.
"Look what I found in the junk room where they keep all the technical gadgets they sort out. I went there this afternoon, saying I was looking for a cable. I put in new batteries, and they still work. I figured they might come in handy. Well, okay, initially it was Uriah's idea when I filled him in on the events."
He grins at me, obviously waiting for applause. I praise their idea, and then Zeke leaves and I stay behind, following him with my eyes on the screens.
Surprisingly, he seems to know where the cameras are hidden almost as well as I do. Sometimes I lose sight of him for almost a minute before I see him again.
"Keep going, there's nobody around," I whisper into the microphone of the black device I'm clenching in my hands. My heart pounds stronger the closer Zeke gets to the meeting point. Then he's gone from the monitors.
I know the door we're talking about leads to a secret storeroom or something like that, and the hallway it's in has a dead end. Better nobody else appears during the next minutes.
It feels like an eternity before Zeke returns on the screen on his way back. But he doesn't stop, he just passes the cameras quickly, avoiding being filmed more than necessary in case anyone else could be watching.
"You're still free to go," I tell him, "but better hurry up!"
I can only estimate where he is, but I follow the two guys patrolling the compound closely, and they're walking in Zeke's direction, though not directly. They either don't know where the cameras are or they make no effort to avoid them. And why would they? They're not the ones on a secret mission tonight.
"Okay," Zeke's voice comes crackling out of the small speaker in my hand.
Time stretches as I'm waiting for him to return, and I'm relieved when he's back in the control room with me.
"The door was still locked, and there was nothing unusual to be seen. The boxes must all be inside that room."
We spend a while discussing what kind of serum the syringes might contain and what the leaders want to use it for. We finally agree that we have to find a way of accessing Max' or Eric's computer to find out more. Otherwise, we have little chances to learn about their plans. They certainly won't run around spilling them to the entire faction.
So this is the point we're working on for hours until we have made up a plan. We work on the details and write a computer program that'll help us spy on Eric until it's almost time for the change of shift. Although it's already half past five in the morning, I don't feel tired. On the contrary, my mind is racing, wide awake with all the plans and ideas.
"Four, I know you don't want to reveal our observations to more people, but I'd really like to tell Shauna. I feel bad keeping this from her. We're usually rather open with each other, so if you don't mind I'll divulge our secret to her tomorrow. Or today, as it's already morning."
I sigh. It isn't meant to be a question, it's rather an information Zeke gives me. He has made up his mind anyway, so I agree. Probably it's just fair, given that Tris has all the information, too — or will have, as I'm not planning to keep the latest revelations to myself. God, there's so much to talk about.
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DISCLAIMER: I own neither the Divergent world nor the characters, they belong to Veronica Roth.