newclothes, but beneath them, my Dauntlesstattoos. It is impossible to erase mychoices. Especially these. Tobias

What else was I supposed to do?he demands. You wouldnt see reason!Maybe reason wasnt what Ineeded! I sit forward, not able topretend I am relaxed anymore. I feltlike I was being eaten alive by guilt, andwhat I needed was your patience andyour kindness, not for you to yell at me

A lie of omission is still a lie.

Sometimes he yelled it so often that Iwould dream it; it woke me like analarm clock, requiring more of me than Icould provide. Adapt. Adapt faster,adapt better, adapt to things that no manshould have to.Genes arent everything, Amarsays. People, even genetically damagedpeople, make choices. Thats whatmatters.

I laugh, and its laughter, not light,that casts out the darkness buildingwithin me, that reminds me I am stillalive, even in this strange place whereeverything Ive ever known is comingapart. I know some thingsI know thatIm not alone, that I have friends, thatIm in love. I know where I came from. Iknow that I dont want to die, and forme, thats somethingmore than I couldhave said a few weeks ago.

Doing a little at once can fix something,eventually, but I feel like when youbelieve that something is truly aproblem, you throw everything you haveat it, because you just cant helpyourself.

This is ridiculous, I say. Why doyou, or they, or anyone get to determinemy limits? []Its about morethan genes, here, and you know it.

Are you talking aboutMarcus? Because hes Divergent.Genetic damage had nothing to do withit.

Marcus was Divergentgenetically pure, just like me. But I dontaccept that he was a bad person becausehe was surrounded by geneticallydamaged people. So was I. So wasUriah. So was my mother. But none of uslashed out at our loved ones.

Some of the people here want toblame genetic damage for everything,he says. Its easier for them to acceptthan the truth, which is that they cantknow everything about people and whythey act the way they do. Everyone has to blame somethingfor the way the world is, I say.

-Why do people come here, then? Ifrown. Why dont they just go back tothe cities? -Here, theres a chance that if youdie, someone will care. Like Rafi, orone of the other leaders, the guard says.In the cities, if you get killed, definitelyno one will give a damn, not if youre aGD.

The worst crime Ive ever seen aGP get charged with for killing a GDwas manslaughter. Bullshit.Manslaughter?It means the crime is deemed anaccident, Rafis smooth, lilting voicesays behind me. Or at least not assevere as, say, first-degree murder.Officially, of course, were all to betreated the same, yes? But that is rarelyput into practice.

Theres electricity, but its on a rationsystemeach family only gets so manyhours a day. Same with water. Andtheres a lot of crime, which is blamedon genetic damage. There are police,too, but they can only do so much.So the Bureau compound, I say.Its easily the best place to live, then.In terms of resources, yes, Nitasays. But the same social system thatexists in the cities also exists in thecompound; its just a little harder tosee.proof that the Bureau, thegovernment, was lying to us about ourhistory.The Bureau talks about this goldenage of humanity before the geneticmanipulations in which everyone wasgenetically pure and everything waspeaceful, Nita says. But Rafi showedme old photographs of war.I wait a beat. So?So? Nita demands, incredulous.If genetically pure people caused warand total devastation in the past at thesame magnitude that geneticallydamaged people supposedly do now,then whats the basis for thinking that weneed to spend so many resources and somuch time working to correct geneticdamage? Whats the use of theexperiments at all, except to convincethe right people that the government isdoing something to make all our livesbetter, even though its not?

Why? Why spend so much time andenergy fighting something that isntreally a problem? I demand, suddenlyfrustrated.Well, the people fighting it nowprobably fight it because they have beentaught that it is a problem. Thats anotherthing that Rafi showed meexamples ofthe propaganda the government releasedabout genetic damage, Nita says. Butinitially? I dont know. Its probably adozen things. Prejudice against GDs?Control, maybe? Control the geneticallydamaged population by teaching themthat theres something wrong with them,and control the genetically purepopulation by teaching them that theyrehealed and whole? These things donthappen overnight, and they dont happenfor just one reason.-The genes for blue eyesand brown eyes are different too, but areblue eyes damaged? Its like they justarbitrarily decided that one kind of DNAwas bad and the other was good.-Based on the evidence that GDbehavior was worse, Christina pointsout.-Which could be caused by a lot ofthings, I retort.But I think that nomatter how smart, people usually seewhat theyre already looking for, thatsall.Their entire liveserased, against their will, for the sake ofsolving a genetic damage problem thatdoesnt actually exist. These peoplehave the power to do that. And no oneshould have that power.I imagine myself trimming backall the stray branches of my thoughts,focusing on just this place, just this time.The Weapons Lab. Holy words.I think of Uriah lying on the tilesurrounded by glass and metal. My bodyis straining toward him, every muscle,but I know theres nothing I can do forhim right now. The more important thingfor me to do is to use my knowledge ofchaos, of attacks, to keep Nita and herfriends from stealing the death serum.|

Hey, I say quietly. Just keepmoving. Move now, process later.He states his opinions as iftheyre facts, and somehow his completelack of doubt makes you believe him.

Idont know what to do with the sympathygrowing within me, for a man I know hasdone terrible things.

Though I know that hehad something to do with the attacksimulation, and with all those deaths, Ifind it difficult to pair those actions withthe man I see in front of me. I wonder ifthis is how it is with all evil men, that tosomeone, they look just like good men,talk like good men, are just as likable asgood men.To me, Tris has always seemedmagnetic in a way I could not describe,and that she was not aware of. I havenever feared or hated her for it, the wayPeter does, but then, I have always beenin a position of strength myself, notthreatened by her. Now that I have lostthat position, I can feel the tug towardresentment, as strong and sure as a handaround my arm.

Cara says, Ignore them. They dontknow what it is to make a difficultdecision.

Evelyn tried to control people bycontrolling weapons, but Jeanine wasmore ambitiousshe knew that whenyou control information, or manipulateit, you dont need force to keep peopleunder your thumb. They stay therewillingly.That is what the Bureauand theentire government, probablyis doing:conditioning people to be happy underits thumb.

Well your home is perpetuating thebelief that genetically damaged peopleneed to be fixedthat theyre damaged,period, which theyweare not. Soyes, its unfortunate that the experimentsstill exist. I wont apologize for sayingso.

And Abnegation who switch to Dauntlessbecome . . . I dont know, soldiers, Iguess. Revolutionaries.Thats what he could be, if hetrusted himself more, he adds. If Fourwasnt so plagued with self-doubt, hewould be one hell of a leader, I think.Ive always thought that.How were you able to forgive Tris,after what she did to your brother? Isay. Assuming you have, that is.Hmm. Cara hugs her arms close toher body. Sometimes I think I haveforgiven her. Sometimes Im not certain Ihave. I dont know howthats likeasking how you continue on with yourlife after someone dies. You just do it,and the next day you do it again.