ALLEGIANT

Chapter 7: Part 2

When I wake I have a sense of de ja vu going back to the moment when I woke after the facitonless attack, after the video aired that exposed my family and Tobias.

I blush at the thought of him, but the person I see before me is not Tobias and her face shows no pity for me and what I now know. I plan my words to come out strong and firm but words fail me and my voice is tight with unshed tears.

"Why."  I sit up straight in my bed as she stares at me unflinching. She points at my chest questioningly to my chest and I can't help but think that she's mocking me.

I hear my voice rising as I speak still  seeing the bright blue number in the dimness of the room.

"Why would you show this to me? What could it possibly do to help me, help any of us for that matter?"

                I'm shouting now but I don't care who hears I don't care, I don't feel, I just see.

I see his face when we met.

I see his eyes when he first smiled.

I remember the feel of his lips on mine, the spray of the river below us.

I see his eyes look at mine as the realization set in, the realization that he didn't even have a year left to live.

I look up at her, and this time I feel the tears come. They drip into my palms and Cara finally has the decency to look away.

"Why?" her voice is calm and collected, persuasive. "Wouldn't you want to be prepared. Wouldn't you want to know how much time you have left with a person you love" She enunciates each word and I know what she's saying. If she had a chance to know what would happen to Will she wouldn't hesitate, she would learn from it and adapt.

"Knowledge is power right? That's what you're trying to get at." I nearly spit at her, a childlike taunt in my voice.

She smiles and shakes her head, scolding me in her own way.

"Faction before blood"

Her voice is so quite yet so sure. She was saying it to herself, supposing I wouldn't hear, but I did.

I stand up and walk over to her, my knuckles are clenched and my muscles tight. I don't know where this part of me came from.

"He's not my blood. He is, however, my faction and the only family I have left. I have nothing but him."

She looks at me through her glasses, she scrutinizes me, assessing my reaction.

"Will was your blood, yet you seem to have plenty left even after-"

She launches forward grabbing my shirt and throwing me down to the bed, that's when I see that she's slender but strong, like me.

"You have no possible right to tell me what I do and don't value. I value knowledge yes, but my brother." She blinks but I don't see tears. "That knowledge was too much a burden."

It takes a moment for her words to settle in but when the realization hits me, it's like a shot to the chest.

"You knew" I say, my voice is accusatory, not curious.

She doesn't even hesitate before she speaks releasing my collar with a unsurprising carelessness. "Yes I knew, I knew and if I tried to stop it, nothing would come of it. You cannot fight the system, you can only brace yourself for it. Will was brave and he was daring he must've known as well as I that his time was coming."

"Wait he knew about, about all this?" I gesture to the world around me, the world outside the fence.

"Yes he knew, my entire family was part of this world. Will grew up inside the walls but he knew, he knew about the outside world and he knew about-"

"His death." I interrupt her now, piecing it together. "He knew about his death and that's why he chose Dauntless so he could make his end worth while"

She nods, looking at me and I see her face change.

"He knew, he met you, and you killed him. And now I have to see you every day knowing I could've easily done something to stop it had I killed you when I found out who would do it"

"You said that fighting the system is useless" I say, trying to find hope in the possibility of saving Tobias.

I see the pity and hate in her eyes now.

She shakes her head.

"It is, but every system has a loophole. If I killed you then Will would live. It would take at least a year or so for nature to take it's corse and find some other way for him to die. You can never stop it, you can just prolong the inevitable."

"Wait, you knew I would." I take a breath, "you knew I would be the one to kill him?"

She nods again. "Yes, you see, when you die your life source or your energy will affect everything around you. We have the ability to see the affects first hand and learn from them. Why do you think there is hardly any sickness, how do you think we've become so advanced, how do you think we know what we know?"

Knowing this allows us to stimulate the molecules at the time of ones birth and the time of ones death."

She looks to me for a response but I can barley register what she's saying, I feel as if I'm missing something, and there's no way she expects me to comment on an intellectual level.

Sensing this she continues "So, picture this. Your life is like a serious of photographs. Millions of snapshots arranged the way nature plans. In fact, we are creating hundreds of snapchats in this moment right now, and you don't even realize it."

She waves her so similar to that of Caleb before he chose Erudite. "If we can see exactly what's going on now, what's to stop us from seeing what happens a million snap shots from now, or even a million snapshots prior to now"

At that I laugh a bit.

"Because it sounds ludicrous, even coming from you"

She ignores me, obviously not satisfied with my answer.
" Well the truth is that nothing is stoping us. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed Tris."
I stand up, wanting to go find Tobias, I realize now that this conversation is pointless.
"You're crazy, you know that right?"

"Crazy I am not, everything I have told you is 100% factual and plausible if you would just take a second to stop and think. Here I thought you received an aptitude for Erudite but I guess that every system makes mistakes."

Ouch.

"Now let me finish" she nudges me back, none to kindly, and I feel my fists clench.
"All the energy that was here in the past is still here in the present. All the energy that is here, now, will be here a million years in the future. Given that information, If we just tap into the atoms surrounding your energy and your living presence then we can digitally adjust them, trick them if you will, into thinking that it is a different time and a different place. We can see the past and tell the future. It's all possible with atoms, cells, energy and everything that creates everything. It's all tied together Tris, don't you see" I shake my head but I do see. It sounds ridiculous but I can't find a flaw in her theory, not that Ive seen any evidence that is against or for her claims.

I think of Tobias' number and wonder if it's all a hoax.

With a disappointed sigh she heads towards the door.

"Believe me or deny me, but do not detest my knowledge on this subject and do not ask for favors you do not really want." At her last words I see that she purses her lips before she turns to the door, her hand lightly resting on the nob. She's hiding something.

"What do you mean, what favors don't I want? What are you hiding?" I finally speak up, she doesn't look at me, she just turns the handle and says what I was dreading to hear.

"I know who's going to kill you boyfriend."

And with that she's gone from the room and I'm left staring after her.

The tears from pain are gone now and I don't know what emotion is left to replace it.