Determinant: One choice will change everything

Chapter 14: Tobias - Discussion

Chapter 14: Tobias – Discussion

Anna's office is as small as everything else in this place, with the ceiling I can barely stand under and the walls far too tight around me. I try to keep my eyes focused only on furniture and people, to distract from the claustrophobia, but it still feels like I'm in a coffin buried deep underground.

There are only three chairs in the room, and Amar gestures us toward them before taking up a spot along the wall and leaning comfortably into it. Amar has always had a way of looking at ease wherever he is.

For a long moment, we sit and look at each other, Anna behind the desk and me and Tris facing her. I'm reminded uncomfortably of being across from Jeanine in a small Abnegation office a thousand years ago, except that Anna doesn't look hostile. Her expression is much harder to read than that.

Finally, she laces her hands on the desk in front of her and says, "We've been waiting sixty years for someone to do that."

"You've contained your enthusiasm well," Tris states flatly, and I barely bite back my laugh in time.

Anna smiles a little, but ruefully. "It's a bit...complicated. Our odds of succeeding are suddenly much higher than we could have hoped, and I'm truly glad of that. But at the same time, if I could have picked anyone in the city for this task, it certainly wouldn't have been my granddaughter or Marcus' son."

I do laugh now. "Are you trying to claim you're all worried about us? Because I don't think you even met Tris until a few days ago, and Marcus has never cared about me in his life."

She's silent for a moment. There seems to be genuine sadness in her voice when she answers. "Very well, we'll start there." Her eyes turn to Tris. "There's a reason I never had the chance to know you....

"I had a son who was three years older than your mother. He was Divergent too, before any of us realized how dangerous that was. He chose to remain in Dauntless to be with us, but he never made it through initiation. They claimed it was suicide, as they've claimed about so many others.... My husband wouldn't let it go. He kept pushing and pushing for the truth, and then he turned up dead too."

She pauses, pushing back from the desk and running her hands up her arms as if seeking a comforting touch. "That's when I decided to go into leadership. I thought perhaps I could find out what really happened and hold someone accountable, or at least protect others. Especially my daughter.

"Erudite was experimenting with the aptitude test at the time, and I was able to get an advance copy of it. I used it to pre-test Natalie, and when her results were obviously Divergent, I erased them and let her retry until she could pick any faction she wanted. It left a suspicious trail, though, and I knew she'd never be safe in Dauntless, so I told her to pick any other faction and make sure her test showed it as her aptitude. She chose Abnegation, and then I had to play the role of abandoned Dauntless leader, and she had to act like she had turned her back on me completely. Faction before blood, after all...

"So, no, I never got to meet you or Caleb until now, or your father at all, and I barely saw Natalie after that. It was a steep price to pay, but at least she lived that extra time. She got to raise her children – and she didn't have to see them die like I did. I'd make the same choice again."

For a moment, it's so quiet I can hear the catch in Anna's throat as she breathes and can hear Tris swallowing hard. Finally, Tris asks, "Did she think you were dead? Like everyone else did?"

"No," Anna says emphatically, an expression of revulsion on her face. "I would never have done that to her." But then her eyes flick to Amar, and I suspect she feels her words were too strong. She clears her throat and continues, "I suppose I had an advantage over the others in that regard. After a certain age, you're forced to leave Dauntless anyway, and no one looks closely at where you go. When I left the city, everyone just assumed I had joined the factionless. And that in turn allowed me to sneak back in easily whenever we needed."