Post by kait on Apr 17, 2012 22:57:15 GMT -5
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After spending the afternoon with Four, it's time for the Dauntless banquet. The two of them enter separately and sit apart. Tris sits with Christina and Will, where she catches up on all the testing talk she'd missed earlier.
"Question" says Christina, leaning forward. "The leaders who were watching your landscape...they were laughing about something ... Any idea what obstacle it was?"
"No."
"You're lying," she says. "You always bite the inside of your cheek when you lie. It's your tell."
Not only does this force Tris to tell Will and Christina all about her fear of intimacy, it also feels like a major bit of foreshadowing for the future. Christina, and ALL Candors for that matter, are really good at detecting liars. Hmmmm...
Finally, final ranking are announced and it's good news all around!
TRIS IS FIRST!
MOLLY AND DREW ARE CUT!
Then I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to see Tobias standing behind me. I get up, beaming.
"You think giving you a hug would give away too much?" he says.
"You know," I say, "I really don't care."
I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his.
It is the best moment of my life.
But then Tris realizes all the bad things in the world at once.
One: Colored serum contains transmitters.
Two: Transmitters connect the mind to a simulation program.
Three: Erudite developed the serum.
Four: Eric and Max are working with Erudite.
HOLY CRAP! The Erudite are going to force Dauntless to fight by putting them in a simulation, probably one in which they believe they're defending themselves!
Of course, Tris is surrounded by corrupt faction leaders, so there's nothing she can say or do to warn the Abnegation right now. It will have to wait.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE[/u]
Even with the weight of this enormous revelation of her, Tris is too tired to stay awake and warn Four after the banquet. She drifts, then wakes up to something seriously disturbing.
I wake to squeaking mattresses and shuffling feet ... Everyone is awake, but everyone is silent.
"Christina," I hiss. She doesn't look at me, so I grab her shoulder and shake it. "Christina!"
... Her eyes are open, but blank, and her facial muscles are slack. She moves without knowing what she's doing ... and everyone else looks just like her.
... They're sleepwalkers.
Oh no oh no oh no THE SIMULATION HAS ALREADY BEGUN and Tris has no way of warning anyone! All she can do imitate the crowd of Dauntless zombies as they each grab a gun and get on a train heading toward the Abnegation.
The Dauntless leaders are the only other people with full awareness of their senses. They watch the crowd, looking for anything out of the ordinary and making readers hate them forever.
In the mist of all things, Tris realizes why she isn't brain-dead:
I must be awake because I am Divergent. And if I am awake, that means Tobias is too, unless I am wrong about him.
Tris thinks to spots Four in the distance and makes some dangerous moves to get next to him, only to find him as out of it as everyone else.. until he grabs her hand and squeezes!
FOUR IS DIVERGENT TOO, Y'ALL!
Four tells Tris to run once they get off the train, but there's no way she's going to just abandon her family once she realizes what's going on.
I see a Dauntless soldier push a gray-clothed man to his knees. I recognize the man-- he is a council leader. The soldier takes the gun out of her holster and, with sightless eyes, fires a bullet into the back of the council member's skull.
The soldier has a gray streak in her hair. It's Tori.
The Dauntless are systematically executing all of the government leaders, completely unaware of their actions.
Among the Dauntless leaders awake at the scene, Eric decides to poke and prod Tris as he explains to another leader how the simulation serum works. Then he sees Four and gets an idea that he's him in major trouble!
Eric tilts his head. "Think anyone would notice if he accidentally got shot?"
Tris and Four have no choice but to snap to life, shoot Eric and his friend in the leg, and run for it. Unfortunately, there's about a bazillion Dauntless soldiers behind them.
The pain is sharp and sudden, beginning in my shoulder and spreading outward with electric fingers ... I lift my head to see Tobias's knees next to my face, and yell "Run!"
His voice is calm and quiet as he replies, "No."
THIS IS NOT GOOD.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Dauntless leaders take no time rounding up Tris and Four. They bring them to the woman who, at this point, is obviously the mastermind behind the whole thing: Jeanine.
It turns out Jeanine had expected that Tris was Divergent all along, but she never thought that Four was as well-- al of his data suggested he was just minimally talented.
"You see, it perplexed me that the Divergent were immune to the serum that I developed, so I have been working to remedy that ... Luckily, I have another batch to test."
So THAT is why Divergent people were hunted down! Jeanine knew they were no use to her and could potentially ruin her plans for revolution because they weren't susceptible to the simulations. There's also another trend about divergence that she hates:
"Why are most of the Divergent weak-willed, God-fearing nobodies from Abnegation, of all factions?"
Jeanine plan is simple: Take out the Abnegation leaders and install an "improved" government that refuses help to the factionless into order to spread the wealth elsewhere. She plans to take the remaining Abnegation and inject them with the same simulation serum being used on the Dauntless, making them mindless soldiers as well.
And P.S., as this is all being discussed, Tris is bleeding out all over the place from a gunshot wound.
"You will be the first test subject, Tobias. Beatrice, however..." She smiles. "You are too injured to be of much use to me, so your execution will occur at the conclusion to this meeting."
WHAT?! THIS WOMAN SERIOUSLY NEEDS TO GET HER PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!
Naturally, Four fights like hell to save Tris, but it's only a matter of time before he's held down and injected with Jeanine's newest serum, made especially for Divergent individuals.
"His eyes narrow and he starts toward me, fast. Before the guards can stop him, he closes a hand around my throat..."
DAMMIT! Stop it, Four! These simulations have got you thinking that Tris is the enemy! Now Tris is being dragged off to her execution and you're absolutely useless! Whyyyyy?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Tris wakes up from a nasty blow to the head to find herself smack in the middle of one of her least favorite simulations, except this time, it's real.
"I see the walls of a tank around me, and my shadowed reflection across from me ... I see a small opening near my feet. Connected to it is a tube, and connected to the tube, in the corner of the room, is a huge [water] tank."
Jeanine is going to drown Tris. And she's got a video camera set on Tris so she can watch.
Slowly, the tank fills. Tris accepts her death and tries her best to make peace with it. Then BANG! The glass cracks open and Tris can breathe once again. But who saved her?!
She wears a sleeveless shirt. When she lifts her arm, I see the corner of a tattoo under her armpit...
"Mom," I say, my voice strained. "You were Dauntless."
"Yes," she says, smiling... "And it has served me well today."
Epic win for Tris' mom! Her family and immediate neighbors are hidden safely away in a discreet section of town, which is where she plans to bring Tris now.
As they escape, Tris can't help but question it all.
"Mom, how do you know about Divergence?" I ask...
"I know because I am one," she says as she shoves a bullet into place. "I was only safe because my mother was a Dauntless leader. On Choosing Day, she told me to leave my faction and find a safer one. I chose Abnegation."
Uh, the irony! Abnegation is technically safe, except that everyone now wants to kill them!
Getting back to the others isn't going to be easy, though. The Dauntless zombie soldiers have caught onto their trail and chase them through the city. When Tris' mother decides to cause a distraction, Tris knows exactly what that means...
I feel her lips on my forehead and then she runs into the middle of the street. She holds her gun above her head and fires three times into the air ... I whip my head over my shoulder when I hear them fire back. My feet falter and stop ... She falls, first to her knees, her hands limp at her sides, and then to the pavement, slumped to the side like a rag doll.
OMG WHY?! HOW?! We are now feeling all the emotions!!!!
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Will. Dull-eyed and mindless, but still Will ... I see his finger poised over the trigger and hear the bullet slide into the chamber, and I fire. The bullet hit him in the head. I know because that's where I aimed it.
OMG ALL MY CREYS! THIS IS NOT OKAY! Will is such a lovable character and he had a girlfriend and he was awesome to Tris! How could this happen to him?!
With Will dead, *sob* Tris safely makes it to the area where the others are hiding out. Among them, much to her surprise, is Caleb. Turns out he researched the simulation serum and found out what Erudite was up to!
"I'm factionless now." "No, you aren't," my father says sternly. "You're with us."
This moment kind of makes my eyes water... But then there's the pressing situation of Tris' giant bullet wound
Strangely enough, her father seems to know just what to do.
"Have you ever taken a bullet out of someone before?" I ask, a shaky laugh in my voice. "The things I know how to do might surprise you," he replies.
So does Tris' father have a super secret past too?! Was he Dauntless or maybe from a family of Amity doctors?
Then Tris has no choice to give her father and brother the bad news: her mom is dead.
My mother's death was brave. It isn't just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without appearing to consider another option.
Tris realizes that the simulation is being run by a computer. All she has to do is shutdown the computer running it and the Dauntless will stop killing and come to their senses. She gathers from a conversation she overheard Jeanine having that the computer running the simulations are at the Dauntless headquarters.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Tris hops a train to the Dauntless compound with her father, Caleb, and Four's father, Marcus.
"I assume you now regret choosing Dauntless," says Marcus.
Marcus, you are such a horrible person and frankly, your attitude is not winning us back to your side.
Of course, Tris also knows that there will be guards at the Dauntless compound, most likely surrounding the Pit. That means they'll have to use the back entrance, where Tris first dropped in as a new initiate.
"Don't think," I say. "Just jump."
I turn, and as I turn, I lean back, compromising my balance. I drop like a stone, my eyes closed, one arm outstretched to feel the wind.
HOW BADASS IS THAT?! Soon after, the others follow. They sneak up to the Pit, knowing they'll have to do through to get to the glass building where the control room is located.
There is ONE guard at the Pit floor and guess who it is? PETER.
Tris promptly shoots him (YAY!) then gets to questioning:
"How are you awake?" I demand...
"The Dauntless leaders...they evaluated my records and removed me from the simulation," he says.
Tris needs to find out exactly where the computer room is. Peter knows, but will only spill the info under one condition: He wants to escape with Tris and the others so he Dauntless don't kill him for tattling.
Meanwhile, Tris has her father in her ear. He's VERY unhappy that she took it upon herself to shoot Peter, even though he easily would have shot any of them if given the chance.
There are three guards in the lobby of the glass building. Tris takes out two, but then there's a twist!
I stare into the black pinprick that is his gun barrel.
Then something surprising happens. He jerks his chin to the side. Telling me to go.
He must be Divergent.
After convincing Caleb, Marcus, and Peter to stay behind, Tris and her father head up to the eighth floor. When the elevator doors open, the two of them are met by gunfire.
Despite having just lectured Tris for shooting Peter, her father kills both guards while Tris ducks for cover. Then, knowing that the computer room is to the left, he runs down the right hallway to lead the other guards away. However, they overpower him in just a short matter of time.
"Dad," I say. I mean for it to be a shout, but it is just a wheeze.
He slumps to the ground. Our eyes meet like the yards between us are nothing.
His mouth opens like he's about to say something, but then his chin drops to his chest and his body relaxes."
Both parents... in a matter of hours. I can't.., urgh! I can't! So unnecessary yet so common in war.
However, her father's sacrifice leaves Tris free to enter the control room and stop to simulation. Until..
In front of the screen is a chair and a desk. Sitting in the chair is a Dauntless soldier.
"Tobias," I say.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
As much as everyone hoped that Four would somehow break out of his simulation, he doesn't. Instead, he thinks she's threatening him with a weapon.
So what ensues? A BRAWL!
Tris make really like Four, but she full-on ATTACKS him in an attempt to destroy the computer. Unfortunately, Tris is not nearly as strong a fighter as Four and it's only a matter of time before she's seriously losing this battle.
Somehow she gets a hold of the gun and is faced with a choice: Kill Tobias or let the Abnegation be killed by the Dauntless.
"Tobias, please." I am begging. I am pathetic. Tears make my face hot. "Please. See me."
But Tris can't do it. She knows the real Tobias is still is there somewhere and she hopes that, under the right conditions, she can bring him back. She hands him the gun, but he still doesn't seem to be aware of who she is.
Tris only has a quick moment to come to terms with her death.
Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?
I don't know. I don't know.
Please.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The shot doesn't come.
YES! Four is able to fight his way out of the simulation! It just took him a little longer because of the unique setup of the simulation, but the Divergent can break out of anything.
"How did you do it?" I say.
"I don't know," he says. "I just heard your voice."
Say it with me, everyone: AWWWWWWWW!
Four manages to stop the simulation just in time to save Caleb, Marcus, and Peter from being ambushed on the ground floor. The fallout is horrendous as Tris and Four watch the Dauntless all around the city on the control room monitors.
Their heads turn from side to side, and they drop their guns, and their mouths move like they're shouting, and they shove each other, and some of them sink to their knees, holding their heads and rocking back and forth, back and forth.
How chilling is that? They've all basically woken up and realized that they've committed mass murder in their sleep. In the Abnegation sector, the Dauntless start shooting each other.
Tobias grabs the data on the simulation and they're on the escape route. Unfortunately, in all the commotion Tris forgot to tell Four that his awful, abusive father was present.
"Hey," I say, pulling away from Caleb... "Hey. Get away from him."
Tris may have to take Marcus with her, but she surely doesn't trust him anywhere near Tobias. As they hop on the train, you know that things will get interesting once they reach the Amity compound.
After discussing the deaths of her parents and all the reasons why she couldn't shoot Tobias, it all comes down to a very sweet moment.
"I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."
"That's sensible of you," I say, smiling too."We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something."
But that doesn't mean all is well and good. They still have all the simulation data and no idea what to do once they're in Amity.
I reach into my pocket and take out the hard drive that contains the simulation data ... Marcus's eyes cling greedily to the movement. Not safe, I think. Not quite.
Please, gods of foreshadowing! Please do not let this mean what I think it means!
As the group heads to Amity, all Tris knows is that everything remains uncertain.
"We are creatures of loss; we have left everything behind. I have no home, no path, and no certainty. I am no longer Tris, the selfless, or Tris, the brave.
I suppose that now, I must become more than either."
What. a. book!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- If you were Divergent, would you have pretended to be under the influence of the simulation like Tris or would you have tried something else?
- If you were one of the Dauntless under the influence of the simulations, what would you do when you woke up and realized what you'd unknowingly done?
- Do you think Tris' father has a secret background of his own, much like her mother did?
- Tris is able to kill Will without considering any other option, but finds herself willing to die rather than kill Four later on. What do you think this says about Tris as a friend and as a person?
- If a situation came down to you or a friend, would you be able to harm or even kill them?
- There's a Divergent guard in Dauntless who lets Tris sneak by to the computer room. Why do you think he didn't try to stop the simulations himself?
- Do you think Jeanine will actually be able to convince the other factions to form a new government with her after she's committed mass murder?
- Was it Tris' place to openly acknowledge the terrible relationship between Four and his father in front of everyone? Do you think it actually helped or that it will just make things worse overall?
- Theories on Insurgent! 1, 2, 3... GO!
Don't forget that you can pre-order Insurgent RIGHT NOW. In fact, when Insurgent gets about 7,000 more pre-orders, Veronica Roth will release a scene from Divergent in Four's POV!
After spending the afternoon with Four, it's time for the Dauntless banquet. The two of them enter separately and sit apart. Tris sits with Christina and Will, where she catches up on all the testing talk she'd missed earlier.
"Question" says Christina, leaning forward. "The leaders who were watching your landscape...they were laughing about something ... Any idea what obstacle it was?"
"No."
"You're lying," she says. "You always bite the inside of your cheek when you lie. It's your tell."
Not only does this force Tris to tell Will and Christina all about her fear of intimacy, it also feels like a major bit of foreshadowing for the future. Christina, and ALL Candors for that matter, are really good at detecting liars. Hmmmm...
Finally, final ranking are announced and it's good news all around!
TRIS IS FIRST!
MOLLY AND DREW ARE CUT!
Then I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to see Tobias standing behind me. I get up, beaming.
"You think giving you a hug would give away too much?" he says.
"You know," I say, "I really don't care."
I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his.
It is the best moment of my life.
But then Tris realizes all the bad things in the world at once.
One: Colored serum contains transmitters.
Two: Transmitters connect the mind to a simulation program.
Three: Erudite developed the serum.
Four: Eric and Max are working with Erudite.
HOLY CRAP! The Erudite are going to force Dauntless to fight by putting them in a simulation, probably one in which they believe they're defending themselves!
Of course, Tris is surrounded by corrupt faction leaders, so there's nothing she can say or do to warn the Abnegation right now. It will have to wait.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE[/u]
Even with the weight of this enormous revelation of her, Tris is too tired to stay awake and warn Four after the banquet. She drifts, then wakes up to something seriously disturbing.
I wake to squeaking mattresses and shuffling feet ... Everyone is awake, but everyone is silent.
"Christina," I hiss. She doesn't look at me, so I grab her shoulder and shake it. "Christina!"
... Her eyes are open, but blank, and her facial muscles are slack. She moves without knowing what she's doing ... and everyone else looks just like her.
... They're sleepwalkers.
Oh no oh no oh no THE SIMULATION HAS ALREADY BEGUN and Tris has no way of warning anyone! All she can do imitate the crowd of Dauntless zombies as they each grab a gun and get on a train heading toward the Abnegation.
The Dauntless leaders are the only other people with full awareness of their senses. They watch the crowd, looking for anything out of the ordinary and making readers hate them forever.
In the mist of all things, Tris realizes why she isn't brain-dead:
I must be awake because I am Divergent. And if I am awake, that means Tobias is too, unless I am wrong about him.
Tris thinks to spots Four in the distance and makes some dangerous moves to get next to him, only to find him as out of it as everyone else.. until he grabs her hand and squeezes!
FOUR IS DIVERGENT TOO, Y'ALL!
Four tells Tris to run once they get off the train, but there's no way she's going to just abandon her family once she realizes what's going on.
I see a Dauntless soldier push a gray-clothed man to his knees. I recognize the man-- he is a council leader. The soldier takes the gun out of her holster and, with sightless eyes, fires a bullet into the back of the council member's skull.
The soldier has a gray streak in her hair. It's Tori.
The Dauntless are systematically executing all of the government leaders, completely unaware of their actions.
Among the Dauntless leaders awake at the scene, Eric decides to poke and prod Tris as he explains to another leader how the simulation serum works. Then he sees Four and gets an idea that he's him in major trouble!
Eric tilts his head. "Think anyone would notice if he accidentally got shot?"
Tris and Four have no choice but to snap to life, shoot Eric and his friend in the leg, and run for it. Unfortunately, there's about a bazillion Dauntless soldiers behind them.
The pain is sharp and sudden, beginning in my shoulder and spreading outward with electric fingers ... I lift my head to see Tobias's knees next to my face, and yell "Run!"
His voice is calm and quiet as he replies, "No."
THIS IS NOT GOOD.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Dauntless leaders take no time rounding up Tris and Four. They bring them to the woman who, at this point, is obviously the mastermind behind the whole thing: Jeanine.
It turns out Jeanine had expected that Tris was Divergent all along, but she never thought that Four was as well-- al of his data suggested he was just minimally talented.
"You see, it perplexed me that the Divergent were immune to the serum that I developed, so I have been working to remedy that ... Luckily, I have another batch to test."
So THAT is why Divergent people were hunted down! Jeanine knew they were no use to her and could potentially ruin her plans for revolution because they weren't susceptible to the simulations. There's also another trend about divergence that she hates:
"Why are most of the Divergent weak-willed, God-fearing nobodies from Abnegation, of all factions?"
Jeanine plan is simple: Take out the Abnegation leaders and install an "improved" government that refuses help to the factionless into order to spread the wealth elsewhere. She plans to take the remaining Abnegation and inject them with the same simulation serum being used on the Dauntless, making them mindless soldiers as well.
And P.S., as this is all being discussed, Tris is bleeding out all over the place from a gunshot wound.
"You will be the first test subject, Tobias. Beatrice, however..." She smiles. "You are too injured to be of much use to me, so your execution will occur at the conclusion to this meeting."
WHAT?! THIS WOMAN SERIOUSLY NEEDS TO GET HER PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!
Naturally, Four fights like hell to save Tris, but it's only a matter of time before he's held down and injected with Jeanine's newest serum, made especially for Divergent individuals.
"His eyes narrow and he starts toward me, fast. Before the guards can stop him, he closes a hand around my throat..."
DAMMIT! Stop it, Four! These simulations have got you thinking that Tris is the enemy! Now Tris is being dragged off to her execution and you're absolutely useless! Whyyyyy?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Tris wakes up from a nasty blow to the head to find herself smack in the middle of one of her least favorite simulations, except this time, it's real.
"I see the walls of a tank around me, and my shadowed reflection across from me ... I see a small opening near my feet. Connected to it is a tube, and connected to the tube, in the corner of the room, is a huge [water] tank."
Jeanine is going to drown Tris. And she's got a video camera set on Tris so she can watch.
Slowly, the tank fills. Tris accepts her death and tries her best to make peace with it. Then BANG! The glass cracks open and Tris can breathe once again. But who saved her?!
She wears a sleeveless shirt. When she lifts her arm, I see the corner of a tattoo under her armpit...
"Mom," I say, my voice strained. "You were Dauntless."
"Yes," she says, smiling... "And it has served me well today."
Epic win for Tris' mom! Her family and immediate neighbors are hidden safely away in a discreet section of town, which is where she plans to bring Tris now.
As they escape, Tris can't help but question it all.
"Mom, how do you know about Divergence?" I ask...
"I know because I am one," she says as she shoves a bullet into place. "I was only safe because my mother was a Dauntless leader. On Choosing Day, she told me to leave my faction and find a safer one. I chose Abnegation."
Uh, the irony! Abnegation is technically safe, except that everyone now wants to kill them!
Getting back to the others isn't going to be easy, though. The Dauntless zombie soldiers have caught onto their trail and chase them through the city. When Tris' mother decides to cause a distraction, Tris knows exactly what that means...
I feel her lips on my forehead and then she runs into the middle of the street. She holds her gun above her head and fires three times into the air ... I whip my head over my shoulder when I hear them fire back. My feet falter and stop ... She falls, first to her knees, her hands limp at her sides, and then to the pavement, slumped to the side like a rag doll.
OMG WHY?! HOW?! We are now feeling all the emotions!!!!
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Will. Dull-eyed and mindless, but still Will ... I see his finger poised over the trigger and hear the bullet slide into the chamber, and I fire. The bullet hit him in the head. I know because that's where I aimed it.
OMG ALL MY CREYS! THIS IS NOT OKAY! Will is such a lovable character and he had a girlfriend and he was awesome to Tris! How could this happen to him?!
With Will dead, *sob* Tris safely makes it to the area where the others are hiding out. Among them, much to her surprise, is Caleb. Turns out he researched the simulation serum and found out what Erudite was up to!
"I'm factionless now." "No, you aren't," my father says sternly. "You're with us."
This moment kind of makes my eyes water... But then there's the pressing situation of Tris' giant bullet wound
Strangely enough, her father seems to know just what to do.
"Have you ever taken a bullet out of someone before?" I ask, a shaky laugh in my voice. "The things I know how to do might surprise you," he replies.
So does Tris' father have a super secret past too?! Was he Dauntless or maybe from a family of Amity doctors?
Then Tris has no choice to give her father and brother the bad news: her mom is dead.
My mother's death was brave. It isn't just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without appearing to consider another option.
Tris realizes that the simulation is being run by a computer. All she has to do is shutdown the computer running it and the Dauntless will stop killing and come to their senses. She gathers from a conversation she overheard Jeanine having that the computer running the simulations are at the Dauntless headquarters.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Tris hops a train to the Dauntless compound with her father, Caleb, and Four's father, Marcus.
"I assume you now regret choosing Dauntless," says Marcus.
Marcus, you are such a horrible person and frankly, your attitude is not winning us back to your side.
Of course, Tris also knows that there will be guards at the Dauntless compound, most likely surrounding the Pit. That means they'll have to use the back entrance, where Tris first dropped in as a new initiate.
"Don't think," I say. "Just jump."
I turn, and as I turn, I lean back, compromising my balance. I drop like a stone, my eyes closed, one arm outstretched to feel the wind.
HOW BADASS IS THAT?! Soon after, the others follow. They sneak up to the Pit, knowing they'll have to do through to get to the glass building where the control room is located.
There is ONE guard at the Pit floor and guess who it is? PETER.
Tris promptly shoots him (YAY!) then gets to questioning:
"How are you awake?" I demand...
"The Dauntless leaders...they evaluated my records and removed me from the simulation," he says.
Tris needs to find out exactly where the computer room is. Peter knows, but will only spill the info under one condition: He wants to escape with Tris and the others so he Dauntless don't kill him for tattling.
Meanwhile, Tris has her father in her ear. He's VERY unhappy that she took it upon herself to shoot Peter, even though he easily would have shot any of them if given the chance.
There are three guards in the lobby of the glass building. Tris takes out two, but then there's a twist!
I stare into the black pinprick that is his gun barrel.
Then something surprising happens. He jerks his chin to the side. Telling me to go.
He must be Divergent.
After convincing Caleb, Marcus, and Peter to stay behind, Tris and her father head up to the eighth floor. When the elevator doors open, the two of them are met by gunfire.
Despite having just lectured Tris for shooting Peter, her father kills both guards while Tris ducks for cover. Then, knowing that the computer room is to the left, he runs down the right hallway to lead the other guards away. However, they overpower him in just a short matter of time.
"Dad," I say. I mean for it to be a shout, but it is just a wheeze.
He slumps to the ground. Our eyes meet like the yards between us are nothing.
His mouth opens like he's about to say something, but then his chin drops to his chest and his body relaxes."
Both parents... in a matter of hours. I can't.., urgh! I can't! So unnecessary yet so common in war.
However, her father's sacrifice leaves Tris free to enter the control room and stop to simulation. Until..
In front of the screen is a chair and a desk. Sitting in the chair is a Dauntless soldier.
"Tobias," I say.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
As much as everyone hoped that Four would somehow break out of his simulation, he doesn't. Instead, he thinks she's threatening him with a weapon.
So what ensues? A BRAWL!
Tris make really like Four, but she full-on ATTACKS him in an attempt to destroy the computer. Unfortunately, Tris is not nearly as strong a fighter as Four and it's only a matter of time before she's seriously losing this battle.
Somehow she gets a hold of the gun and is faced with a choice: Kill Tobias or let the Abnegation be killed by the Dauntless.
"Tobias, please." I am begging. I am pathetic. Tears make my face hot. "Please. See me."
But Tris can't do it. She knows the real Tobias is still is there somewhere and she hopes that, under the right conditions, she can bring him back. She hands him the gun, but he still doesn't seem to be aware of who she is.
Tris only has a quick moment to come to terms with her death.
Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?
I don't know. I don't know.
Please.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The shot doesn't come.
YES! Four is able to fight his way out of the simulation! It just took him a little longer because of the unique setup of the simulation, but the Divergent can break out of anything.
"How did you do it?" I say.
"I don't know," he says. "I just heard your voice."
Say it with me, everyone: AWWWWWWWW!
Four manages to stop the simulation just in time to save Caleb, Marcus, and Peter from being ambushed on the ground floor. The fallout is horrendous as Tris and Four watch the Dauntless all around the city on the control room monitors.
Their heads turn from side to side, and they drop their guns, and their mouths move like they're shouting, and they shove each other, and some of them sink to their knees, holding their heads and rocking back and forth, back and forth.
How chilling is that? They've all basically woken up and realized that they've committed mass murder in their sleep. In the Abnegation sector, the Dauntless start shooting each other.
Tobias grabs the data on the simulation and they're on the escape route. Unfortunately, in all the commotion Tris forgot to tell Four that his awful, abusive father was present.
"Hey," I say, pulling away from Caleb... "Hey. Get away from him."
Tris may have to take Marcus with her, but she surely doesn't trust him anywhere near Tobias. As they hop on the train, you know that things will get interesting once they reach the Amity compound.
After discussing the deaths of her parents and all the reasons why she couldn't shoot Tobias, it all comes down to a very sweet moment.
"I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."
"That's sensible of you," I say, smiling too."We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something."
But that doesn't mean all is well and good. They still have all the simulation data and no idea what to do once they're in Amity.
I reach into my pocket and take out the hard drive that contains the simulation data ... Marcus's eyes cling greedily to the movement. Not safe, I think. Not quite.
Please, gods of foreshadowing! Please do not let this mean what I think it means!
As the group heads to Amity, all Tris knows is that everything remains uncertain.
"We are creatures of loss; we have left everything behind. I have no home, no path, and no certainty. I am no longer Tris, the selfless, or Tris, the brave.
I suppose that now, I must become more than either."
What. a. book!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- If you were Divergent, would you have pretended to be under the influence of the simulation like Tris or would you have tried something else?
- If you were one of the Dauntless under the influence of the simulations, what would you do when you woke up and realized what you'd unknowingly done?
- Do you think Tris' father has a secret background of his own, much like her mother did?
- Tris is able to kill Will without considering any other option, but finds herself willing to die rather than kill Four later on. What do you think this says about Tris as a friend and as a person?
- If a situation came down to you or a friend, would you be able to harm or even kill them?
- There's a Divergent guard in Dauntless who lets Tris sneak by to the computer room. Why do you think he didn't try to stop the simulations himself?
- Do you think Jeanine will actually be able to convince the other factions to form a new government with her after she's committed mass murder?
- Was it Tris' place to openly acknowledge the terrible relationship between Four and his father in front of everyone? Do you think it actually helped or that it will just make things worse overall?
- Theories on Insurgent! 1, 2, 3... GO!
Don't forget that you can pre-order Insurgent RIGHT NOW. In fact, when Insurgent gets about 7,000 more pre-orders, Veronica Roth will release a scene from Divergent in Four's POV!