Inextricable: A Divergent FanFiction (Book Three) ©

Chapter 27

                    I laughed, not a pleasant thing, but a sharp edged bark of amusement. If Banks thought he'd ever coerce me into doing his dirty work he was in for a surprise.

"You really are a piece of work, aren't you?" I exhaled with irritation. "I'm not a murderer. I don't care what you have to say, I'm not going to kill anyone."

"Oh, Sage," Banks tsked, shaking his head contemptuously. "Do you think you have a choice in the matter?"

"Why wouldn't I?" I vaguely gestured at my entrapped wrists and raised a brow. "These don't change anything."

Though I was strapped down to a chair, a few feet away from a headless body, in a grisly lab that was in a location I didn't recognize, and essentially powerless to contact my friends or the authorities, I couldn't help but notice that I was responding in an uncharacteristically calm manner.

"I didn't expect them to," he replied, leaning closer as he peered at my face with open curiosity. "But I have other ways."

"You can't manipulate me," I informed him, slightly surprised that I hadn't felt the need to rage and shout. "I won't do it."

Leaning even closer to me, I had the ambiguous feeling that Banks was waiting to see something in my expressions. Was expecting a certain response from our conversation.

"There will be no need for manipulation, or any other kind of deception for that matter," he said as he straightened and gave Vera a nod. "You will come to see the rationality behind my plans and will cooperate out of free will."

I watched as he pressed a long sequence of numbers into the computer that was attached to the chair, so that minutes later a different area slid open to reveal a series of ports. Then taking the modified memory stick from Vera, he inserted it and waited until it glowed a faint yellow.

Out of nowhere a current of electricity ran from the base of my neck and into my limbs. And though I expected pain to follow shortly after, it never came. I felt only a series of miniscule pinpricks, as if my entire body had fallen asleep and it was only now getting a proper amount of blood circulation.

"Neural transmitter online," Vera said as she efficiently situated herself behind a different computer and began to type away. "Pending activation."

"Download the Panoptic Program and await my go for download," Banks ordered as he pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it into my eyes.

"What are you doing?" I asked, wanting to sound more demanding, more fearsome, but failing to do so. Instead I sounded inquisitive, like a child first discovering the wonder of technology.

"Making sure you are ready," he replied, his eyes scanning the readings that came from the chair. Appearing satisfied, he nodded his head at the IV lines that snaked from my arms. "We've had to use more serum than I ever anticipated but it seems as if your body is finally accepting it."

"Serum?"

"Yes, I mentioned it to you before," he said, and when he saw that I was about to argue he explained, "Not in great detail, but I told you that I wanted to cleanse the city. To save it from those diseased individuals known as the divergent."

Divergent. That word momentarily seemed to ring a warning bell in my head. But not because I was afraid of those people, rather because...

Someone once told me–

"Cleanse it how?" I asked, unable to remember what exactly I'd been warned about.

"I have been busy formulating the perfect serum to abolish the contagion," he gestured at the lines that carried the brown liquid. "Simply called, it is the Inhibitor serum. If administered at a young age, it will only require one vaccine. It will serve to block any undesirable characteristics and leave in its wake only the ones deemed useful."