Emergent

Chapter 3

Weeks of training went by. Daniella and David worked me hard to ensure an Erudite response to the aptitude test. I did many Dauntless exercises and studied hard for Erudite. We reviewed and reviewed the plan of attack. Drip my blood into the water. Find out who is charge of the attacks. Let David know. Then they will enter the simulation, erase people’s memories, and kill the leader.

“Here,” Daniella shoved a pile of black cloth into my arms. “Black is the Dauntless color. We need you to be ready.”

I accepted the clothes, heading towards the bathroom. Today was the day. The day I was entering Chicago. Where I could leave my past behind, for better or for worse. They were preparing now, as I changed.  Erasing people’s memories-for me. Making people forgot they had a brother, a friend, a lover, a parent-for me. It was all too crazy. I felt responsible for what they were doing for people.

I pulled the tight black t-shirt over my head and stared at myself in the mirror. The girl staring back at me was not the Natalie that lived in the Fringe. Her brown hair was flung around her face in a windswept style; the weeks of pent-up anger and tiredness were showing in her clear blue eyes. Her body was skinny, and the new black clothes clung to her body. This was not the Natalie I was a few weeks ago; this was a new Natalie. A badass Natalie. A Dauntless Natalie.

I walked back to where Daniella was waiting. “Good,” she said, eyeing my body. “You look Dauntless. Let’s go.”

She led me out to a black steel car outside the building. It would take me directly into the city to the Dauntless compound.

“Good luck Natalie. We know you can do it.” These words she spoke reminded me of how much these people trusted me. They wanted me to succeed in this mission.

“I won’t let you down,” I promised.

I closed the car door as it began pulling out of the Bureau’s lot.

~

I made no attempt to talk to the driver. I was busy lost in my own thoughts. What was the city going to be like? Is it like the Bureau, all clean and high tech?

We were approaching a tall metal gate, going higher than the tops of the building in the city. All around were farms. The Amity compound, I thought. I could barely make out small specks of red and yellow in the fields. Daniella had said that black was the Dauntless color. I guess all factions had different colors.

The car pulled through the gate and was now driving through the city. I glanced out the tinted windows at all the people walking by. I saw shirts of blue, black, gray, and white. The faces I did see looked mindless. All these people, trapped inside a simulation that they didn’t even know was a simulation. For them, this was it. This was their life.

I felt especially bad for them since I had come from another experiment too. I remember the feeling that I got when they revealed that it all wasn’t real. I felt like my world had come crashing down. I hope these people wouldn’t ever find out the truth.

The driver stopped the car in front of a standard gray building and got out of the car to talk to a person standing on the sidewalk with multiple tattoos and piercings. The driver motioned to the back seat and I took this as my cue to exit. The man on the sidewalk spoke.

“My name is Justin. I am the leader of Dauntless,” He dropped his voice. “and fellow Divergent.”

I nodded. “I’m Natalie. Where should I go?”

He smiled. “Right this way,” then led me through the double doors.

I was in.