Prestigent

Prestigent (Chapter 19)

I am going to get real sciencey in this chapter. Nerds rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope you enjoy my ramblings... :)

This is personally, one of my favorite chapters. :)

CHAPTER 19

TOBIAS POV

I go home afterwards, aspiring about the time I am going to spend with Christina.

"Tomorrow. 5:00" I told her, my voice bouncing around in my brain. I look up at the fireplace from my seat. It is there, the urn. I used to dream it would suddenly hop up and turn into Tris, but those days are behind me. I will never see her again. Only in my dreams. Somehow, I doze off.

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I wake to the sound of a loud crash. I look up and see the fireplace, the urn broken in a million pieces on the floor, a few spare ashes that never fell out littered on the floor. And then I see him. His evil smile and his confident posture stick out like a sore thumb. I jump up and grab him, twisting his arm until he falls to the floor. I put him in a head lock. My father's hands stay frozen from the job they were performing. There is a small glass vial filled with ashes there.

"Tell me what you are doing in my house," I say, my teeth clenched, focusing on my arm around his neck. He stays quiet and I squeeze tighter, a wince escaping his lips. He stays quiet. With his free hand, he reaches back into his pocket, grabbing the handle of a gun. I jump back, preparing to duck under the bullet but nothing happens. He gets up slowly, pointing the gun at me.

"You were never strong enough to beat me. You still cower whenever you see me," he says. I stick my head up high, hiding the sick feeling in my stomach.

"Popularity wise, maybe, but you are not as strong as me, physically or character wise." He slowly steps out of the room and out of the door. When the door begins to close, I run after him, jumping on him. We roll down the stairs. The gun flies off the porch. I get on top of him and punch him in the jaw again and again. He kicks up at me and escapes from my grasp. He runs fast into the night. I chase after him for a little, but he is too far.

I notice a slip of white paper on the floor, probably from one of his pockets. It is a drawing of Tris. On the other side, there are several equations and diagrams. I decide to head to Caleb's house. He's the only one who might understand this nonsense. I quickly remember the gun and pocket it, thinking ahead a bit.

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I knock on Caleb's door, although it is around midnight. I hear a fumbling inside and a light flickers on. Caleb's head peeks out through the door.

"I found something you might want to look into," I say. He opens the door wider and I enter. I lay the paper down flat on the table. He pulls a wooden chair over and stares intently at the paper.

"Why didn't I think of this before?" he asks. "Replicate the DNA from the ashes by building 46 independent chromosomes and.... dividing those into two synthetic gametes that would then fertilize and.... form a new born baby. The genotypes and alleles would have to be played with a bit, seeing as she could have been homozygous or heterozygous and the phenotypes would have to be perfect for a clone...."

"What? I'm a bit lost," I say pondering all the information he has just told me. These Erudites....

"Marcus is planning on building a clone of Tris... for what, I don't know," he says, "I don't think he could have done this alone. I think he has an ally..."

"Well, we should find out who that person is..." I say, thinking.

I think through all the images of people I have known in my head. The only person I can think of with that amount of intellectual capability is... Cara.

Has Cara betrayed us?