The Unlucky Ones

[26] - Stage Two

[Tobias]

The first day of Stage Two has always been weird for the initiates. They go through fighting and knife throwing and shooting guns to facing their worst fears in a room with one other person--me. I open the door, ushering one initiate out, dragging another in.

"Lynn."

She stands, casually approaching me through a gauntlet of initiates. Peter looks at her with an icy cold glare. She approaches me, enters the room, and sits. I inject her with the serum to start the simulation. The simulation starts and I watch the screen, timing how long she takes. 20 minutes. When she's finished, I usher her put, looking down at the paper in my hand. Ugh.

"Peter."

He stands, approaching me with his usual cocky attitude. He brushes past me, causing me to roll my eyes. I close the door behind us. He sits down and I inject the serum. I look down at the monitor, watching him. I time him as well. 8 minutes. He finishes his simulation quickly, leaving without me needing to tell him to. I look down at my paper again. Initiate after initiate I watch as their fears are rolled out right in front of me. I watch as they face fears of dying, losing friend, moths even. If I didn't know how to keep secrets pretty damn well and I was as sadistic and malicious as Eric, I could ruin their reputations by divulging them. I could take all of Peter's power just by letting one of his fears slip. I could do it anonymously too. Just a note. He couldn't touch me. I have the power over him.

"Tris."

She stands, the 3rd to last initiate testing. The last two are Drew and Uriah. I hope Drew is still alive when I come back out. Drew sticks his foot out to trip Tris on her way to me. But, at the last second Tris hops over it without a second thought. Once she's in, I close the four behind us. She stops dead in her tracks and recoils on the action. She backs up, her shoulders bumping into my chest. The room is very menacing. There are no mirrors like there were in the Aptitude testing room. And there little to no windows. It's dark, too. It's just me and Tris in here. All alone. Except for a camera in the top right-hand corner of the room.

" Sit. " I say.

I squeeze her arm, nudging her forward a little bit. She nods, moving. She walks forward, taking a seat in the chair.

" What's the simulation? " She asks.

Her voice is shaky. Is she nervous?

" Have you ever heard the term 'face your fears'? Well here, we're taking that quite literally. " I say. " This simulation teaches your brain how to act in a frightening situation. "

She nods, pressing a hand to her forehead.

" Do you ever administer Aptitude tests? " She asks.

I shake my head. I could if I wanted to--I'm qualified to do it. But I have to avoid Marcus as much as possible.

" No, " I reply. " I avoid Stiffs as much as possible. "

She cocks an eyebrow, staring up at me.

" Why? " She asks.

I grab the syringe, filling the vial with the orange simulation serum.

" Do you ask me that because you think I’ll actually answer? " I ask.

She shrugs.

" Why do you say vague things if you don’t want to be asked about them? " She asks.

I shake my head. I flick the vial twice. She turns her head, eyeing the needle. I approach her, grabbing a strand of hair to move it aside. He hair is smooth and soft. I smile slightly, moving it aside.

" An injection? " She asks.

I nod, sighing.

" We use a more advanced version of the simulation here, " I say, " A different serum. No wires or electrodes for you. "

She cocks an eyebrow.

" How does it work without wires? " She asks.

I look at my computer.

" Well, I have wires, so I can see what’s going on, " I say. " But for you, there’s a tiny transmitter in the serum that sends data to the computer. "

I turn her arm over and ease the tip of the needle into the tender skin on the side of her neck. A rough wince makes its way onto her face but she looks up at me, staring at my face.

" The serum will go into effect in sixty seconds. This simulation is different from the aptitude test, " I say. " In addition to containing the transmitter, the serum stimulates the amygdala, which is the part of the brain involved in processing negative emotions--like fear--and then induces a hallucination. The brain’s electrical activity is then transmitted to our computer, which then translates your hallucination into a simulated image that I can see and monitor. I will then forward the recording to Dauntless administrators. You stay in the hallucination until you calm down--that is, lower your heart rate and control your breathing. "

I examine her closely. Her face is getting flushed with rosy color. Her skin is blotchy and clammy with sweat. I plant my hands on either side of her head and lean over her.

" Be brave, Tris, " I whisper. " The first time is always the hardest. "

The setting Tris Prior invents is eerie and almost beautiful, the sky yellow-green, yellow grass stretching for miles in every direction. Watching someone else’s fear simulation is strange. Intimate. I don’t feel right about forcing other people to be vulnerable, even if I don’t like them. Every human being is entitled to her secrets. Watching my initiates’ fears, one after another, makes me feel like my skin has been scraped raw with sandpaper. In Tris’s simulation, the yellow grass is perfectly still. If the air wasn’t stagnant, I would say this was a dream, not a nightmare--but still air means only one thing to me, and that is a coming storm. A shadow moves across the grass, and a large black bird lands on her shoulder, curling its talons into her shirt.

My fingertips prickle, remembering how I touched her shoulder when she walked into the simulation room, how I brushed her hair away from her neck to inject her. Stupid. Careless. She hits the blackbird, hard, and then everything happens at once. Thunder rumbles; the sky darkens, not with storm clouds, but with birds, an impossibly huge swarm of them, moving in unison like many parts of the same mind. The sound of her scream is the worst sound in the world, desperate—she’s desperate for help and I am desperate to help her, though I know what I’m seeing isn’t real, I know it. The crows keep coming, relentless, surrounding her, burying her alive in dark feathers. She screams for help and I can’t help her and I don’t want to watch this, I don’t want to watch another second. But then, she starts to move, shifting so she’s lying in the grass, relenting, relaxing. If she’s in pain now, she doesn’t show it; she just closes her eyes and surrenders, and that is worse than her screaming for help, somehow. Then it's over.

She lurches forward in the metal chair, smacking at her body to get the birds off, though they’re gone. Then she curls into a ball and hides her face. I reach out to touch her shoulder, to reassure her, and she hits my arm, hard.

"Don’t touch me!"

" It’s over, " I say, wincing--she punches harder than she realizes.

I ignore the pain and run a hand over her hair, because I’m stupid, and inappropriate, and stupid.

" Tris. " I say.

She just shifts back and forth, soothing herself.

" Tris, " I say. " I’m going to take you back to the dorms, okay? "

She shakes her head.

" No! They can’t see me... Not like this. " She says.

This is what Eric’s new system creates: A brave human being has just defeated one of her worst fears in less than five minutes, an ordeal that takes most people at least twice that time, but she’s terrified to go back into the hallway, to be seen as weak or vulnerable in any way. Tris is Dauntless, plain and simple, but this faction isn’t really Dauntless anymore. The people are but the leaders aren't. They are cowards.