Allegiant - alternate ending

NEW CHAPTER 56, TOBIAS

I don't know how long I'm waiting before the Tris's room. Inside everything is quiet. A doctor comes now and then to check her and the machines. Then I remember Uriah. I did not see Amar, Zeke and Hana after we came back to the compound and I force myself to go to Uriah's room. I see Zeke and Hana beside him, his hands in their hands, in silence, with empty eyes. I cannot stand the pain of guilt inside me - it burns too much. I have to turn around and my move attracts Zeke's attention. All I can do is to bend down my head. Before I go, I collect the will to look up again. I meet his glance, angry and sad at the same time. I just close my eyes. Guilt is burning in my chest.

I come back to Tris's room and she is still peaceful, just like she is sleeping. But the appearance of her skin makes it clear that this is not an ordinary sleep. I don't know how long I was there before Christina comes to replace me. They need me in the David's office.

Matthew got some people to prepare a teaching program for people with erased memory and to present a report with news for those with intact memories. Two experts are now trying to get the data from the computer. They hoped that some of my experience from the control room could help them, but it does not make any sense. Soon I decide to go back to the hospital. Christina is still there. She is pale and worn. We are sharing the grief. After some minutes she leaves to see Uriah. I have my eyes focused on Tris's face and I am trying to imagine events in the weapon lab and what she was thinking in her last minutes. Suddenly somebody puts his hand on my shoulder.

"I am sorry for Tris," he says. It is Amar.

"I have to apologize for not telling you," I reply.

"I knew what you were planning and obviously I agreed." He winks with a small smile on his lips. "How is she?"

I stare at him with surprise and then I look back toward her. "You knew what we planned?"

He pauses before he quietly says, "I would like to tell you about some things. Can you talk?"

I nod.

He checks the hallway to be sure that we are alone and then he quietly explains, "Firstly you have to know why the Bureau was established. At the end of the Purity War both sides developed weapons powerful enough to erase the humankind. They had to stop fighting at this point and there were long negotiations to establish a new, fair social order. They were so afraid of scams that they were not able to come to an agreement. Finally they decided that rules for a new social order could be established only by a group of serum-resistant people without markers for genetic changes. These people should origin from GD areas, which were later called experiments and they should prove their mental stability through a series of simulations. In Chicago we would say that they should have abilities for all five factions. The leader of a group should be resistant to four serums and should pass all five factions."

He stops for a second to take a meaningful look into Tris's room. Then he again checks the hallway before he continues.

"The Bureau was established to find these people. They set up experiments to find these people and to prevent further fighting. But after some decades the Bureau got new, corrupted leaders. They focused on the development of serums and they began to use them on a regular basis to control people. They still didn't find any appropriate candidate and people and the government were becoming impatient. The result were increasing tensions in the fringe. Just a day before the last initiation day the Government gave an ultimatum to the Bureau. They gave them just one more year."

I stare at him. "This doesn't make any sense. Then they would tell us about this. Tris could..."

"She is an ideal leader, the only one known," he interrupts me. "But the Bureau was not searching for a leader any more, they were developing a strategy to govern. When you arrived they only required some more months to finalize serums and plans. They hide and adjusted her data. Only the leaders of the compound knew the truth about her."

"And how do you know this?"

He smiles a bit before he answers. "Well, all the time there was a small group of people who did not agree with the leaders and who insisted to return to the original mission of the Bureau. Natalie Prior was one of the leaders recently."

"Tris's mother?" I wince.

"Yes, she was the one who helped me to come here and she saved hundreds of other people. As you know she was found in the fringe and David felt in love with her. Soon she realized how corrupted they are, but she acted like she wouldn't know anything. When she volunteered to go to the city David gave her a secret computer for their communication. After she married he demanded the computer back. But she succeeded to make copy and she returned it instead of the original. This copy was returned partly damaged to conceal that it was only partly functional. Through this device she was able to follow some of David's secret conversations. Before the simulation attack she succeeded to get the device from her house. It could be useful now."

He beckons me to follow him.

"So you already knew..." is everything I am able to say.

"I wanted to tell you, but I didn't get the possibility to talk to you in secret," he explains before he starts down the hallway.

I take another look at Tris and then I follow him. He leads me to his apartment and he shows me a small box. "Natalie used it also to store data on divergent populations and numerous genetic analyses that she performed on her own."

Suddenly another idea comes to me: "Can you use it to connect to David's computer?"

"No, you can only follow some of his conversations," he replies, surprised because of my haste.

"Can you show me how the data are coded? We are trying to get several important documents from David's computer, but it is encrypted and we cannot get through."

Amar grins and nods. "There could be at least similar security system."

He takes the box and we hurry toward David's office. He needs only some minutes before we hear his loud "Yes!" and his happy smile reveal that he succeeded. I give him a grateful look and we are already here, searching for secrets.