The Chasm

Chapter Thirty Five

The man lowers his hands as we take it all in.

"My name is David. As Zoe probably told you already, I am the leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. The first thing you should know is that the information Edith Prior gave you is actually true. She provided only as much information as you needed to meet the goals of our expriments. And in many cases that meant oversimplifying, omitting and even outright falsehood. Now that you are here, there is no need for any of those things."

"You all keep talking about 'experiments'. What experiments?" Four asks.

"I was getting to that, yes," David says. "Where did they start when they explained it to you?"

"Doesn't matter where you start. You can't make it easier to take," Amar says.

"A long time ago," David starts. "The united states government--"

"The united what?" Eric asks .

"It's a country. A large one. It has specific borders and its own govenering body and we are in the middle of it right now. We can talk abou it later. Go ahead sir."

David is clearly annoyed by all of the people interrupting him but he begins again.

"A few centuries ago, the goverment of this country became interested in enforcing certain desirable behaviors in it's citizens. There had been studies that indicated that violent tendencies scould be partially traced to a persons genes--a gene called 'the murder gene' was the first of these, but there were quite a few more, genetic predispositions towards cowardice, dishonesty, low intelligence-- all of the qualities, in other words that ultimately contributed to a broken society."

So it is basically the genes that seperated us into one out of five categories--abnegation, amity, candor, dauntless, and erudite. But I don't understand how they could figure out which one were the most strongly in a person. But I am not a scientist, I am not Jeanine Matthews.

David continues talking and I struggle to keep up with his words. All I hear is the same thing about the factions. Not why we are here at all, or what our purpose is. If Tris is 100% divergent, that must mean something to them, right?

Oh right. The box. She opened the box. So there is no need for the rest of us to come along.

I pick back up on what David is saying. "Take away someone's fear, or low intelligence, or dishonestly and you take away their compassion. Take away someone's agression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishnessand you take away their sense of self-preservation. If you think about it, I'm sure you know what I mean."

It all comes back to the factions. In order to gain something they need to lose another thing. In my word that is being brave. But what is the other thing?

Oh, to be cruel. That's what Max is, that is what Eric has turned into. And what is happening to me.

David continues but the amount that he is talking is making me sick. I clutch Eric's hand and adjust my fingers. He rubs my hand with his thumb reminding me that he is here.

A map appears behind him of blue and green spaces. Pink and red lights appear on the screen and then they start to dissapear. I imagine it as people, people dying under the hands of the whatever goverment that they had.

"They called for genetically damaged individuals to come foward so the the bureau could alter their genes. The bureau then placed then in secure enviorments to settle in for the long haul, equipped with basic versions of the serums to help them contol their society. They would wait for the passage of time-for the generations to pass, for each one to produce more genetically healed humans. Or, as you know them... The divergent." I look around to each one of the people that are divergent. Tris, Peter, Four. We all have something in common. We are healed. And the others... aren't.