Page 131 of The Sixth Fraction

Meanwhile, Jeanine thrusts a hand into the flames without hesitating and closes her eyes. Her fingers twitch. She doesn’t speak—I’m sure she doesn’t need to, to communicate her will.

“It seems there have been some erasures,” she says. “I can’t retrieve the lost data, but it leaves a mark. You’re sure nothing irregular has occurred recently?”

“Actually, ma’am, there was something,” I say. “An initiate told me that someone was using the simulation room the other night. But when I investigated, the person was gone.”

Jeanine opens her eyes. She looks almost menacing, the flames casting shadows over her cheeks and eye sockets.

“I assume you looked into who it was?”

“That’s the strange thing.” I shift on my feet, like I’m uncomfortable. And I am uncomfortable, but mostly, I want her to see my discomfort. “The system told me it was you. But I know that can’t be the case. So I think there has to be some kind of malfunction. Maybe that accounts for the erasures, too.”

“You didn’t inform anyone of this?” Max demands.

“I wanted to get documentation of it, first,” I say. “But initiation’s drawing to a close, and there’s only one of me, sir.”

“Still, an error of that magnitude should have been reported immediately,” Eric says. “If you can’t balance your instructor duties with your technician duties . . .”

I grit my teeth and force myself to reply, “It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.” But he’s smiling.

I think about sticking my finger through the loop of his lip ring and pulling. Hard.

“It’s good we’re here to improve your system, then,” Jeanine says. She looks at Cara. “Have Caleb install the update. He could use the practice.”

Caleb.

I stare at the boy who has, until now, been standing by the door looking uncomfortable. Caleb. There were books hidden under Caleb’s mattress. I’m glad he’s in Erudite, if it’s right for him.

He’s dressed like someone who’s trying to look older and more capable than he is, in a blue jacket with sharp shoulders, his hair smoothed back from his face, but it’s unmistakable: Caleb is Tris’s brother. I don’t think I would have spotted any similarities between him and Tris if I hadn’t known to look—he’s tall, and his hair is darker than hers, his eyes a duller color. But now that I know, I can see her in his face. Something about their mouths, maybe, or their ears.

Caleb lurches forward like he was shoved away from the wall. He’s grinning, eager, as he kneels next to the briefcase to open it. There’s a computer inside it, and his fingers are fast and deft on the keyboard.

“You’re the only technician in Dauntless?” Jeanine asks me.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Strange, to have no redundancies in such an important feature of Dauntless life,” Jeanine says. “A system with no backup in place is not a well-designed system, Max.”

“Not many Dauntless are eager to sit alone in a torture chamber all day,” Max replies. “We’re lucky we have a technician at all.”

Jeanine looks unimpressed with that answer. But her eyes linger on me. Beside her, Caleb has finished typing. The flames go still at his touch, freezing in place. Judging by his reaction, that’s what he expected to happen.

Jeanine says, “You must have a uniquely resilient mind, Mr. . . .”

“My name is Four. The name I had from before Dauntless, it doesn’t matter.”

It’s a little harsher than I want to be, with her, but I’m also not giving her my real name. I’m hoping she chalks up my reluctance to Dauntless brashness.

“Your faction loyalty is admirable,” she says. “Four. Where did that nickname come from?”

“It’s the number of fears in my fear landscape.”

“Impressive.” Jeanine smiles. As the simulated flames start to shift and move again, she adds, “You’ll have to be the one to test our system update, then.”

I realize, too late, what I’ve walked into. I can’t go through a fear simulation in front of this group of people. First of all, I’m Divergent, and it’s not easy to hide.

Second of all, there’s a twenty-five percent chance that Marcus will show his face.