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“Why don’t they keep all this on computers?”
“I assume they kept these records before they developed a sophisticated security system on their network,” he says without looking up. “Data never fully disappears, but paper can be destroyed forever, so you can actually get rid of it if you don’t want the wrong people to get their hands on it. It’s safer, sometimes, to have everything printed out.”
His green eyes shift back and forth as he searches for the right place, his fingers nimble, built for turning pages. I think of how he disguised that part of himself, wedging books between his headboard and the wall in our Abnegation house, until he dropped his blood in the Erudite water on the day of our Choosing Ceremony. I should have known, then, that he was a liar, with loyalty only to himself.
I feel that sickening ache again. I can hardly stand to be in here with him, the door closing us in, nothing but the table between us.
“Ah, here.” He touches his finger to a page, then spins the book around to show me.
It looks like a copy of a contract, but it’s handwritten in ink:
I, Amanda Marie Ritter, of Peoria, Illinois, give my consent to the following procedures:
• The “genetic healing” procedure, as defined by the Bureau of Genetic Welfare: “a genetic engineering procedure designed to correct the genes specified as ‘damaged’ on page three of this form.”
• The “reset procedure,” as defined by the Bureau of Genetic Welfare: “a memory-erasing procedure designed to make an experiment participant more fit for the experiment.”
I declare that I have been thoroughly instructed as to the risks and benefits of these procedures by a member of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. I understand that this means I will be given a new background and a new identity by the Bureau and inserted into the experiment in Chicago, Illinois, where I will live out the remainder of my days.
I agree to reproduce at least twice to give my corrected genes the best possible chance of survival. I understand that I will be encouraged to do this when I am reeducated after the reset procedure.
I also give my consent for my children and my children’s children, etc., to continue in this experiment until such time as the Bureau of Genetic Welfare deems it to be complete. They will be instructed in the false history that I myself will be given after the reset procedure.
Signed,
Amanda Marie Ritter
Amanda Marie Ritter. She was the woman in the video, Edith Prior, my ancestor.
I look up at Caleb, whose eyes are alight with knowledge, like there’s a live wire running through each of them.
Our ancestor.
I pull out one of the chairs and sit. “She was Dad’s ancestor?”
He nods and sits down across from me. “Seven generations back, yes. An aunt. Her brother is the one who carried on the Prior name.”
“And this is . . .”
“It’s a consent form,” he says. “Her consent form for joining the experiment. The endnotes say that this was just a first draft—she was one of the original experiment designers. A member of the Bureau. There were only a few Bureau members in the original experiment; most of the people in the experiment weren’t working for the government.”
I read the words again, trying to make sense of them. When I saw her in the video, it seemed so logical that she would become a resident of our city, that she would immerse herself in our factions, that she would volunteer to leave behind everything she left behind. But that was before I knew what life was like outside the city, and it doesn’t seem as horrific as what Edith described in her message to us.
She delivered a skillful manipulation in that video, which was intended to keep us contained and dedicated to the vision of the Bureau—the world outside the city is badly broken, and the Divergent need to come out here and heal it. It’s not quite a lie, because the people in the Bureau do believe that healed genes will fix certain things, that if we integrate into the general population and pass our genes on, the world will be a better place. But they didn’t need the Divergent to march out of our city like an army to fight injustice and save everyone, as Edith suggested. I wonder if Edith Prior believed her own words, or if she just said them because she had to.
There’s a photograph of her on the next page, her mouth in a firm line, wisps of brown hair hanging around her face. She must have seen something terrible, to volunteer for her memory to be erased and her entire life remade.
“Do you know why she joined?” I say.
Caleb shakes his head. “The records suggest—though they’re fairly vague on this front—that people joined the experiment so their families could escape extreme poverty—the families of the subjects were offered a monthly stipend for the subject’s participation, for upward of ten years. But obviously that wasn’t Edith’s motivation, since she worked for the Bureau. I suspect something traumatic must have happened to her, something she was determined to forget.”
I frown at her photograph. I can’t imagine what kind of poverty would motivate a person to forget themselves and everyone they loved so their families could get a monthly stipend. I may have lived on Abnegation bread and vegetables for most of my life, with nothing to spare, but I was never that desperate. Their situation must have been much worse than anything I saw in the city.
I can’t imagine why Edith was that desperate either. Or maybe it’s just that she didn’t have anyone to keep her memory for.
“I was interested in the legal precedent for giving consent on behalf of one’s descendants,” Caleb says. “I think it’s an extrapolation of giving consent for one’s children under eighteen, but it seems a little odd.”
“I guess we all decide our children’s fates just by making our own life decisions,” I say vaguely. “Would we have chosen the same factions we did if Mom and Dad hadn’t chosen Abnegation?” I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe we wouldn’t have felt as stifled. Maybe we would have become different people.”
The thought creeps into my mind like a slithering creature—Maybe we would have become better people. People who don’t betray their own sisters.
I stare at the table in front of me. For the past few minutes it was easy to pretend that Caleb and I were just brother and sister again. But a person can only keep reality—and anger—at bay for so long before the truth comes back again. As I raise my eyes to his, I think of looking at him in just this way, when I was still a prisoner in Erudite headquarters. I think of being too tired to fight with him anymore, or to hear his excuses; too tired to care that my brother had abandoned me.
