through. She still approaches everything with a question instead of an answer. It is something I admire about her—something I should probably admire more.
For a few seconds we stew in silence, and I follow the path of my thoughts as they turn over and over one another.
"They can't do this," I say. "They can't erase everyone. They shouldn't have the power to do that." I pause. "All I can think is that this would be so much easier if we were dealing with a completely different set of people who could actually see reason. Then we might be able to find a balance between protecting the experiments and opening themselves up to other possibilities."
"Maybe we should import a new group of scientists," Cara says, sighing. "And discard the old ones."
Tris's face twists, and she touches a hand to her forehead, as if rubbing out some brief and inconvenient pain. "No," she says. "We don't even need to do that."
She looks up at me, her bright eyes
holding me still.
"Memory serum," she says. "Alan and Matthew came up with a way to make the serums behave like viruses, so they could spread through an entire population without injecting everyone. That's how they're planning to reset the experiments. But we could reset them." She speaks faster as the idea takes shape in her mind, and her excitement is contagious; it bubbles inside me like the idea is mine and not hers. But to me it doesn't feel like she's suggesting a solution to our problem. It feels like she's suggesting that we cause yet another problem. "Reset the Bureau, and reprogram them without the propaganda, without the disdain for GDs. Then they'll never risk the memories of the people in the experiments again. The danger will be gone forever."
Cara raises her eyebrows. "Wouldn't erasing their memories also erase all of their knowledge? Thus rendering them useless?"
"I don't know. I think there's a way to target memories, depending on where the knowledge is stored in the brain, otherwise the first faction members wouldn't have known how to speak or tie their shoes or anything." Tris comes to her feet. "We should ask Matthew. He knows how it works better than I do."
I get up too, putting myself in her path. The streaks of sun caught on the airplane wings blind me so I can't see her face.
"Tris," I say. "Wait. You really want to erase the memories of a whole population against their will? That's the same thing they're planning to do to our friends and family."
I shield my eyes from the sun to see her cold look—the expression I saw in my mind even before I looked at her. She looks older to me than she ever has, stern and tough and worn by time. I feel that way, too.
"These people have no regard for human life," she says. "They're about to wipe the memories of all our friends and neighbors. They're responsible for the deaths of a large majority of our old faction." She sidesteps me and marches toward the door. "I think they're lucky I'm not going to kill them."
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
TRIS
MATTHEW CLASPS HIS hands behind his back.
"No, no, the serum doesn't erase all of a person's knowledge," he says. "Do you think we would design a serum that makes people forget how to speak or walk?" He shakes his head. "It targets explicit memories, like your name, where you grew up, your first teacher's name, and leaves implicit memories— like how to speak or tie your shoes or ride a bicycle—untouched."
"Interesting," Cara says. "That actually works?"
Tobias and I exchange a look. There's nothing like a conversation between an Erudite and someone who may as well be an Erudite. Cara and Matthew are standing too close together, and the longer they talk, the more hand gestures they make.
"Inevitably, some important memories will be lost," Matthew says. "But if we have a record of people's scientific discoveries or histories, they can relearn them in the hazy period after their memories are erased. People are
very pliable then."
I lean against the wall.
"Wait," I say. "If the Bureau is going to load all of those planes with the memory serum virus to reset the experiments, will there be any serum left to use against the compound?"
"We'll have to get it first," Matthew says. "In less than forty-eight hours."
Cara doesn't appear to hear what I said. "After you erase their memories, won't you have to program them with new memories? How does that work?"