My father looks momentarily stricken and then recovers himself, averting his glistening eyes and nodding.
“That is good,” he says, sounding strained. “A good death.”
If I speak right now, I will break down, and I can’t afford to do that. So I just nod.
Eric called Al’s suicide brave, and he was wrong. My mother’s death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn’t just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without appearing to consider another option.
He helps me to my feet. Time to face the rest of the room. My mother told me to save them. Because of that, and because I am Dauntless, it’s my duty to lead now. I have no idea how to bear that burden.
Marcus gets up. A vision of him whipping my arm with a belt rushes into my mind when I see him, and my chest squeezes.
“We are only safe here for so long,” Marcus says eventually. “We need to get out of the city. Our best option is to go to the Amity compound in the hope that they’ll take us in. Do you know anything about the Dauntless strategy, Beatrice? Will they stop fighting at night?”
“It’s not Dauntless strategy,” I say. “This whole thing is masterminded by the Erudite. And it’s not like they’re giving orders.”
“Not giving orders,” my father says. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I say, “ninety percent of the Dauntless are sleepwalking right now. They’re in a simulation and they don’t know what they’re doing. The only reason I’m not just like them is that I’m…” I hesitate on the word. “The mind control doesn’t affect me.”
“Mind control? So they don’t know that they’re killing people right now?” my father asks me, his eyes wide.
“No.”
“That’s…awful.” Marcus shakes his head. His sympathetic tone sounds manufactured to me. “Waking up and realizing what you’ve done…”
The room goes quiet, probably as all the Abnegation imagine themselves in the place of the Dauntless soldiers, and that’s when it occurs to me.
“We have to wake them up,” I say.
“What?” Marcus says.
“If we wake the Dauntless up, they will probably revolt when they realize what’s going on,” I explain. “The Erudite won’t have an army. The Abnegation will stop dying. This will be over.”
“It won’t be that simple,” my father says. “Even without the Dauntless helping them, the Erudite will find another way to—”
“And how are we supposed to wake them up?” Marcus says.
“We find the computers that control the simulation and destroy the data,” I say. “The program. Everything.”
“Easier said than done,” Caleb says. “It could be anywhere. We can’t just appear at the Erudite compound and start poking around.”
“It’s…” I frown. Jeanine. Jeanine was talking about something important when Tobias and I came into her office, important enough to hang up on someone.
“It’s at Dauntless headquarters,” I say. “It makes sense. That’s where all the data about the Dauntless is stored, so why not control them from there?”
I faintly register that I said
I guess I am what I’ve always been. Not Dauntless, not Abnegation, not factionless. Divergent.
“Are you sure?” my father asks.
“It’s an informed guess,” I say, “and it’s the best theory I have.”
“Then we’ll have to decide who goes and who continues on to Amity,” he says. “What kind of help do you need, Beatrice?”
The question stuns me, as does the expression he wears. He looks at me like I’m a peer. He speaks to me like I’m a peer. Either he has accepted that I am an adult now, or he has accepted that I am no longer his daughter. The latter is more likely, and more painful.
“Anyone who can and will fire a gun,” I say, “and isn’t afraid of heights.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ERUDITE AND DAUNTLESS forces are concentrated in the Abnegation sector of the city, so as long as we run away from the Abnegation sector, we are less likely to encounter difficulty.
I didn’t get to decide who is coming with me. Caleb was the obvious choice, since he knows the most about the Erudite plan. Marcus insisted that he go, despite my protests, because he is good with computers. And my father acted like his place was assumed from the beginning.
I watch the others run in the opposite direction — toward safety, toward Amity — for a few seconds, and then I turn away, toward the city, toward the war. We stand next to the railroad tracks, which will carry us into danger.
“What time is it?” I ask Caleb.
He checks his watch. “Three twelve.”
“Should be here any second,” I say.
“Will it stop?” he asks.
I shake my head. “It goes slowly through the city. We’ll run next to the car for a few feet and then climb inside.”
Jumping on trains seems easy to me now, natural. It won’t be as easy for the rest of them, but we can’t stop now. I look over my left shoulder and see the headlights burning gold against the gray buildings and roads. I bounce on the balls of my feet as the lights grow larger and larger, and then the front of the train glides past me, and I start jogging. When I see an open car, I pick up my pace to keep stride with it and grab the handle on the left, swinging myself inside.
Caleb jumps, landing hard and rolling on his side to get in, and he helps Marcus. My father lands on his stomach, pulling his legs in behind him. They move away from the doorway, but I stand on the edge with one hand on a handle, watching the city pass.
If I were Jeanine, I would send the majority of Dauntless soldiers to the Dauntless entrance above the Pit, outside the glass building. It would be smarter to go in the back entrance, the one that requires jumping off a building.
“I assume you now regret choosing Dauntless,” Marcus says.
I am surprised my father didn’t ask that question, but he, like me, is watching the city. The train passes the Erudite compound, which is dark now. It looks peaceful from a distance, and inside those walls, it probably is peaceful. Far removed from the conflict and the reality of what they have done.
I shake my head.
“Not even after your faction’s leaders decided to join in a plot to overthrow the government?” Marcus spits.
“There were some things I needed to learn.”
“How to be brave?” my father says quietly.
“How to be selfless,” I say. “Often they’re the same thing.”
“Is that why you got Abnegation’s symbol tattooed on your shoulder?” Caleb asks. I am almost sure that I see a smile in my father’s eyes.
I smile faintly back and nod. “And Dauntless on the other.”
