dingy office where David gave me my mother's journal. Matthew is sitting with his nose three inches from his computer screen, his eyes narrow. He barely registers our presence when we walk in.
I feel overwhelmed by the desire to smile and cry at the same time. I sit down in a chair next to the empty desk, my hands clasped between my knees. My father was a difficult man. But he was also a good one.
"Your father wanted out of Erudite, and your mother didn't want in, no matter what her mission was—but she still wanted to be near Andrew, so they chose Abnegation together." She pauses. "This caused a rift between your mother and David, as I'm sure you saw. He eventually apologized, but said he couldn't receive updates from her anymore—I don't know why, he wouldn't say—and after that her reports were very short, very informational. Which is why they're not in that journal."
"But she was still able to carry out her mission in Abnegation."
"Yes. And she was much happier there, I think, than she would have been among the Erudite," Zoe says. "Of course, Abnegation turned out to be no better, in some ways. It seems there's no escaping the reach of genetic damage. Even the Abnegation leadership was poisoned by it."
I frown. "Are you talking about Marcus? Because he's Divergent. Genetic damage had nothing to do with it."
"A man surrounded by genetic damage cannot help but mimic it with his own behavior," Zoe says. "Matthew, David wants to set up a meeting with your supervisor to discuss one of the serum developments. Last time Alan completely forgot about it, so I was wondering if you could escort him."
"Sure," Matthew says without looking away from his computer. "I'll get him to give me a time."
"Lovely. Well, I have to go—I hope that answered your question, Tris." She smiles at me and slips out the door.
I sit hunched, with my elbows on my knees. Marcus was Divergent— genetically pure, just like me. But I don't accept that he was a bad person because he was surrounded by genetically damaged people. So was I. So was Uriah. So was my mother. But none of us lashed out at our loved ones.
"Her argument has a few holes in it, doesn't it," says Matthew. He's watching me from behind his desk, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair.
"Yeah," I say.
"Some of the people here want to blame genetic damage for everything," he says. "It's easier for them to accept than the truth, which is that they can't know everything about people and why they act the way they do."
"Everyone has to blame something for the way the world is," I say. "For my father it was the Erudite."
"I probably shouldn't tell you that the Erudite were always my favorite, then," Matthew says, smiling a little.
"Really?" I straighten. "Why?"
"I don't know, I guess I agree with them. That if everyone would just keep learning about the world around them, they would have far fewer problems."
"I've been wary of them my whole life," I say, resting my chin on my hand. "My father hated the Erudite, so I learned to hate them too, and everything they did with their time. Only now I'm thinking he was wrong. Or just . . . biased."
"About the Erudite or about learning?"
I shrug. "Both. So many of the Erudite helped me when I didn't ask them to." Will, Fernando, Cara—all Erudite, all some of the best people I've known, however briefly. "They were so focused on making the world a better place." I shake my head. "What Jeanine did has nothing to do with a thirst for knowledge leading to a thirst for power, like my father told me, and everything to do with her being terrified of how big the world is and how powerless that made her. Maybe it was the Dauntless who had it right."
"There's an old phrase," Matthew says. "Knowledge is power. Power to do evil, like Jeanine . . . or power to do good, like what we're doing. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil."
"I guess I grew up suspicious of both. Power and knowledge," I say. "To the Abnegation, power should only be given to people who don't want it."
"There's something to that," Matthew says. "But maybe it's time to grow out of that suspicion."
He reaches under the desk and takes out a book. It is thick, with a worn cover and frayed edges.