Finding The Courage

Part 52

Zoe was telling us about the compound and that it used to be an airport as we followed her around. None of what she was saying made sense to any of us. Peter knew I wasn't about to say anything so he took it upon himself to make it obvious to Zoe. Peter raised his eyebrow as if asking a question as Zoe made eye contact with him.

"Right, Sorry. I keep forgetting how little you all know." She said sheepishly.

"I believe it's your fault we don't know anything, not ours." Peter responded with a little attitude behind his words. I grabbed his hand and gave it a quick squeeze, asking him to be polite. Zoe went on to explain what an airport was and what air travel was. I had lost interest in what she was saying, I didn't like the tone in which she spoke to us. I tuned out the words that left her mouth as she led us through the doors, which were opened by two armed guards who smiled at us in welcome. I wrinkled my nose at the way they seemed overly friendly, unlike the Dauntless or factionless guards. Inside the building windows arched high above our heads letting in pale light, it was beautiful and in stark contrast to the worn and dirty tile floor beneath our feet. The walls were a plain Abnegation gray with nothing on them. A sign ahead of us caught my attention as I looked around. Security Checkpoint it read. I followed the others as we approached.

"Look at that." Tris pointed out a strange block of stone with some sort of glass structure suspended in the air above it to Four. The others had moved forward as I had stopped staring at the odd structure. Cara was now beside Four While Tris and Christina had moved to hand over their weapons at the checkpoint.

"Weapons aren't allowed inside the facility, you can leave them at the checkpoint and pick them up after you've left if you wish to keep them on you." Zoe's voice interrupted my train of thought. I tensed and realized I would have to give up every weapon I had on me and I was not ready to part with every single one of them.

"That woman is irritating." Cara said to Four.

"What?" Four responded

"Why?" I added myself to the conversation, curious why Cara didn't like Zoe.

"She keeps saying things as if they're obvious, even when they're not. She can't separate herself from her knowledge."

"You're right." Four agreed half heartedly. I took a good look at him for the first time since we got here and realized that Four was not okay. He felt like he had no control.

"It is irritating." I agreed with Cara as we both drew our guns, following Zoe's example of placing the gun and ammo in the gray bucket that is held out to us. Four reluctantly added his gun after ours. Zoe stepped through a scanner, Amar, Peter, Caleb, Cara, and Christina followed after her. Tris, Four and I stay on the other side. I pulled my knife out of my boot as I watched Four begin to panic. I placed a comforting hand on his pack and gave him a little push before I adjusted the knife from Eric from my waist band to under my bra. I was not going to give it up. Tris followed after Four with no issue and took his hand on the other side immediately. I followed after them waiting for the whirring of the tunnel to give away the small knife tucked into my bra. A guard waved me forward and I stepped out of the tunnel, safe to join the others.

Uriah followed after me and Zoe waved us forward as he joined us. Everything after the checkpoint was shiny and well taken care of, as if visitors to the front were not as important as the people who made it past security. People watched us as we followed Zoe down a darkened corridor as if we were some kind of celebrity group. Finally we stopped in front of a large circle of blank screens that reminded me of the Dauntless security room. There were people sitting within the circle who were working in front of more screens like they did in Erudite. It was then I realized that there were various chairs and benches scattered around these screens, as if people gathered here to watch something together. I stiffened, I didn't want to know what they had been watching especially if it happened to be us.

A man approached us with open arms.

"This is what we've been waiting for since the beginning." I flinched. Something was off about this man but I had no way to pinpoint the level of discomfort he gave me. "My name is David as Zoe probably already mentioned. I am the leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. I want to do my best to explain things. First you should know that the information Edith Prior gave you was not completely true." His eyes scanned the group and landed on Tris after flicking over Caleb. "She only gave you enough information to meet the needs of our experiment. This led to us oversimplifying, omitting things, and outright lying. However, now that you are here we no longer need to do those things."

"You keep saying experiments, what do you mean by experiments?" Four interrupted him.

"Ah yes, I was getting there." He turned to look at Amar. "Where did they start with you?"

"Doesn't matter where you start. It won't be easy." Amar answered him. \

"The United States government-"

"The what?" Uriah interrupted David.

"It's a country that we are in the middle of, with defined borders. We can talk about it later." Amar cut him off. "Please continue sir."

"As I was saying. A few hundred years ago the government became interested in enforcing certain-" He paused for a moment. "I guess desirable would be the right word, traits and behaviors in the citizens. There had been scientific studies that showed violent tendencies could be traced partially to a person's genetic makeup. The first of these genes was dubbed "the murder gene." That was only the first of man, there were genetic predispositions towards cowardice, dishonesty, low intelligence, all qualities that ultimately lead to a broken society."

This explained the faction system we had all grown up with and were taught about. Eric was smart but deadly, he must have had the murder gene and a heightend intelligence gene.

"Obviously," David continued. "There are other factors that determine an individual's personality. Including but not limited to a person's upbringing or experiences.Despite the peace and prosperity in the country for nearly one hundred years it seemed like an advantage for our ancestors to reduce the risk of these undesirable qualities showing up in future generations. They decided to edit humanity. That's how genetic manipulation experiments were born. It took several generations for any kind of results to manifest, but people were selected from the general population in large numbers based on their background or behavior and they were given the opportunity to give a gift to future generations. Genetic alteration that would better their descendants."