The Transfer (Divergent #0.1) - Veronica Roth Page 0,24

feel like a game to me, that’s all.”

It’s the first time I’ve expressed that to anyone. I know why it doesn’t feel like a game—because for so long, it was my reality, it was my waking and my sleeping. Here, I’ve learned to defend myself, I’ve learned to be stronger, but one thing I haven’t learned, won’t let myself learn, is how to enjoy causing someone else pain. If I’m going to become Dauntless, I’m going to do it on my terms, even if that means that a part of me will always be a Stiff.

“All right,” she says. “Let’s go again.”

We spar until she’s mastered the uppercut and we’ve almost missed dinner. When we leave, she thanks me, and casually, she wraps an arm around me. It’s just a quick embrace, but she laughs at how tense it makes me.

“How to Be Dauntless: An Introductory Course,” she says. “Lesson one: It’s okay to hug your friends here.”

“We’re friends?” I say, only halfway joking.

“Oh, shut up,” she says, and she jogs down the hallway toward the dormitory.

The next morning, all the transfer initiates follow Amar past the training room to a grim hallway with a heavy door at the end of it. He tells us to sit against the wall, and then disappears behind the door without saying anything. I check my watch. Shauna will be fighting any minute now—it’s taking the Dauntless-borns longer to get through the first phase of initiation than us, since there are more of them.

Eric sits as far away from me as he can, and I am glad for the distance. The night after I fought him, it occurred to me that he might tell everyone that I’m Marcus Eaton’s son just to spite me for beating him, but he hasn’t done it. I wonder if he’s just waiting for the right opportunity to strike, or if he’s holding back for another reason. No matter what, it’s probably better for me to stay away from him as much as possible.

“What do you think is in there?” Mia, the Amity transfer, sounds nervous.

No one answers. For some reason I don’t feel nervous. There’s nothing behind that door that can hurt me. So when Amar steps into the hallway again and calls my name first, I don’t cast desperate looks at my fellow initiates. I just follow him in.

The room is dim and grungy, with just a chair and a computer in it. The chair is reclined, like the one I sat in for my aptitude test. The computer screen is bright and running a program that amounts to lines of dark text on a white background. When I was younger, I used to volunteer at the school in the computer labs, maintaining the facilities, and sometimes even fixing the computers themselves when they failed. I worked under the supervision of an Erudite woman named Katherine, and she taught me far more than she had to, happy to share her knowledge with someone who was willing to listen. So I know, looking at that code, what kind of program I’m looking at, though I would never be able to do much with it.

“A simulation?” I say.

“The less you know, the better,” he says. “Sit down.”

I sit, leaning back in the chair and setting my arms on the armrests. Amar prepares a syringe, holding it up to the light to make sure the vial is locked in place. He sticks the needle into my neck without warning and presses down on the plunger. I flinch.

“Let’s see which of your four fears comes up first,” he says. “You know, I’m getting kind of bored of them, you might try to show me something new.”

“I’ll work on it,” I say.

The simulation swallows me.

I am sitting on the hard wooden bench at an Abnegation kitchen table, an empty plate in front of me. All the shades are drawn over the windows, so the only light comes from the bulb dangling over the table, its filament glowing orange. I stare at the dark fabric covering my knee. Why am I wearing black instead of gray?

When I lift my head, he—Marcus—is across from me. For a split second, he’s just like the man I saw across the Choosing Ceremony hall not long ago, his eyes dark blue to match mine, his mouth pressed into a frown.

I’m wearing black because I’m Dauntless now, I remind myself. So why am I in an Abnegation house, sitting across from my father?

I see the outline of the