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"Yeah," says Tris "Wouldn’t want to take any risks"

She rolls her eyes a little

"They have a good reason for their endeavors," Matthew says "Before the factions were introduced, and the serums with them, the experiments all used to be under near-constant assault from within The serus under control, especially the ht now--it’s in the Weapons Lab"

"Weapons Lab" He says the words like they’re fragile in his ave us the seru," Tris says

"Yes," he says "And then the Erudite continued to work on theot so them in the control rooation serureatest weapon"

"A weapon," Tris repeats

"Well, it ar--erase people’s et what they were fighting about And we can also use it against rebels froe, which is about an hour froe dwellers try to raid, and thethem"

"That’s" I start

"Still kind of awful?" Matthew supplies "Yes, it is But the higher-ups here think of it as our life support, our breathing machine Here we are"

I raise ainst his own leaders so casually I almost missed it I wonder if that’s the kind of place this is--where dissent can be expressed in public, in the middle of a normal conversation, instead of in secret spaces, with hushed voices

He scans his card at a heavy door on our left, and alk down another hallway, this one narrow and lit with pale, fluorescent light He stops at a door ht brown skin and a green ju the paper that covers the exam table

"This is Juanita, the lab technician Juanita, this is--"

"Yeah, I knoho they are," she says, s Out of the corner of ainst the reminder that our lives have been on cairl offers me her hand "Matthew’s supervisor is the only person who calls me Juanita Except Matthew, apparently I’m Nita You’ll need two tests prepared?"

Matthew nods

"I’ll get them" She opens a set of cabinets across the roos out All of them are encased in plastic and paper and have white labels The roo

"How do you guys like it here so far?" she asks us

"It’s been an adjustment," I say

"Yeah, I knohat you mean" Nita smiles at me "I came from one of the other experiments--the one in Indianapolis, the one that failed Oh, you don’t knohere Indianapolis is, do you? It’s not far from here Less than an hour by plane" She pauses "That won’tto you either You knohat? It’s not ie and needle fro, and Tris tenses

"What’s that for?" Tris says

"It’s ill enable us to read your genes," Matthew says "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Tris says, but she’s still tense "I justdon’t like to be injected with strange substances"

Matthew nods "I swear it’s just going to read your genes That’s all it does Nita can vouch for it"

Nita nods

"Okay," Tris says "Butcan I do it to e, filling it hatever they intend to inject us with, and offers it to Tris

"I’ll give you the simplified explanation of how this works," Matthew says as Nita brushes Tris’s arm with antiseptic The smell is sour, and it nips at the inside of my nose

"The fluid is packed with enetic markers and transmit the data to a coive h it would take theenetic material, obviously"

Tris sticks the needle into her arer

Nita beckons auze over ray, like fish scales, and as it flows into y chewing throughme Beside me, Tris holds a cotton ball to her pricked skin and offers me a small smile

"What are themicroco for, exactly?"

"Well, when our predecessors at the Bureau inserted ‘corrected’ genes into your ancestors, they also included a genetic tracker, which is basically soenetic healing In this case, the genetic tracker is awareness during si we can easily test for, which shows us if your genes are healed or not That’s one of the reasons why everyone in the city has to take the aptitude test at sixteen--if they’re aware during the test, that shows us that they enes"

I add the aptitude test to a s that were once so iet these people the information or result they wanted

I can’t believe that awareness during si thatJeanine and the Erudite killed people for, is actually just a sign of genetic healing to these people Like a special code word, telling theenetically healed society