You wouldn't have known that it was well past midnight in Dauntless by the sheer amount of activity flooding the Pit. Once the announcements were over, there had been a swell of bodies as the formal lines between Initiates and Dauntless fell apart.

I had caught the edge of the fury - Drew - and the agony - the Dauntless-borns - that came from those who weren't named. Someone had to drag Drew out of the room when he launched himself at Four. The others who didn't make it were instead swarmed by their families for what I assumed would be a painful goodbye. Faction before blood took no prisoners.

There was too much fervent energy in the room to let me sit in that headspace, though. The kitchens were reopened. A bar was set up in the far corner of the Pit. Dauntless wanted to celebrate, so celebrate they did. I let myself fall into the current for a while, bobbing around the room with Will and Christina for a bit, then with Uriah and his older brother, and finally on my own to just take in the moment.

People congratulated me. The hesitation that had separated us from the rest of the faction earlier was gone. I tried to track down Eric through the crowd but it seemed like once the announcements were done, all of Leadership had vanished. Instead I ended up leaning against the stone wall chatting with Lauren and Tori.

"I can't believe you made first rank," Lauren remarked with a slight shake of her head. Then she lifted a hand and grimaced. "Not that I meant it that way! Of course you earned it."

Tori leaned over and rested her elbow on my shoulder. "She's just mad because she lost the bet on whether she or Four would get the first ranked kid honor," she said with a laugh.

I felt like I had to say something but couldn't think of what would do the trick. Rolling her eyes, Lauren made a rude gesture to Tori. "We do integrated training after Phase One, so can we really call them 'my kids' or 'Four's kids'?" she asked.

"Uh, yes," Tori laughed.

"Sorry, Lauren," I said sheepishly. "I tried throwing the last few sims in phase three to let Uriah catch up. Didn't seem to work." The joke landed well and I felt better. Lauren stepped away to get another round of drinks for herself and Tori - I was just drinking seltzer after a day of nerves - leaving me alone with the tattoo artist.

Tori tracked Lauren's back until she was lost to the jostling crowd. Her gaze was sharp despite the empty glass in her hand. Then her attention went back to me. "So you got first. How do you feel about that?" The way that she asked was starkly different than how everyone else had approached the situation. Most people had said congrats. Then again, most people hadn't seen my aptitude scores.

"I feel pretty great about it," I replied firmly. "I worked hard all Initiation. Dealt with a lot of crap. Made it through the other side and managed to get some recognition for it."

Tori didn't look convinced. She moved to bring me closer so that she could murmur quietly rather than speak over the crowd. Her arm over my back kept us together. "You know recognition isn't always good if it's not for the right reason. Or from the wrong person."

I glared at the stone under my feet. "Like who?" I retorted.

"You know who. Tris, he's exactly the person you need to not be around."

I scoffed. My arms folded tight across my chest. Tori nudged me again, this time to get me to meet her eyes. "I have to fit in with the faction. I am fitting in with the faction. I wouldn't have gotten this far without support like his or Lauren's or any of you," I snap. I didn't want to think about the conversation that Eric and I'd had before my test. Tori's arm pressed right on my sore injection spots.

I ground my teeth. Why was she so dead set on ruining this night? Of course, I knew why. Tori was looking out for me for the long term. "I just wanted to survive Initiation, which meant trying my hardest. What'dyou think I should have done? Not taken advice and help when it was given to me? Handed them an excuse to shove me out the door for being inadequate?" I hissed.

She raised one eyebrow. "You're sure that you're okay with standing out, then? Everyone's going to know your name, at least for a while. That's a lot of eyes. You're going to have Max, Victoria, all of 'em, paying attention to you. It's been two years and they're still chasing Four to join them at the top. That's a lot of opportunities to be noticed for other things."

"I don't care about that. I just want to be Dauntless. Like everyone else," I insisted.

Lauren returned then, balancing three glasses in her hands. "You are Dauntless, Tris," Lauren said, confusion on her face.

I plastered a smile on and took the fresh glass that was handed to me. "Hasn't really sunk in yet," I lied. She shrugged and passed Tori her drink as well.

"Fair enough." Whatever other wisdom she was going to dispense was cut short by a sharp whistle piercing the crowd. Everyone looked for the source, landing on one of the upper stairwells. Max leaned on one of the few railings safeguarding the drop down into the Pit. Apparently Leadership hadn't left the party for good, then.

"Sorry to interrupt, but this seems as good a time as any to remind everyone of the new tagging protocol," he called out. "For those of you who came in from a shift earlier today and got tagged, feel free to go about your night. For the rest of you we're gonna just ask that you find one of the couple stations around the Pit and get tagged."

Someone stood on a table and cupped their hands around their mouth. "What're we tagging for? You know, for us who didn't get briefed," they shouted. Scattered clapping showed that there were more than a few Dauntless feeling left behind. Myself included. I turned to look at Lauren who grimaced. Tori frowned.

Max raised a hand to quiet the calls coming up from the Pit. "As you may have heard lately we have been redoing our threat assessments. Part of that includes personal risks. To help mitigate some of those, we've decided to institute a mandatory tracker program for Dauntless," he explained. Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

"It's just a preventive measure to help locate missing persons. It's been a big gap of ours for a long time and been long overdue to be addressed. Now we've worked with Erudite to ensure that these trackers are gonna be safe, durable-" that got a bit of a chuckle "- and non-invasive. It's just a precaution."

I edged closer to Lauren. "What kind of risks exactly are we worried about where we might lose people?" I whispered.

She pursed her lips. I thought of Al, still missing from when I asked last, and teenaged Lauren getting snatched on her way to the corner store. "Never mind," I said.

Lauren swallowed a hearty portion of her drink and clapped me on the shoulder. "You got one more injection in you before you turn in?" she asked gruffly. She had to clear her throat from the alcohol.

"Why not." She led the way to one of the stations. As we filed in line behind some older Dauntless I realized that Tori hadn't followed. Peering on my tip-toes didn't help. When I mentioned it to Lauren, she didn't seem to be too bothered.

"Tori marches to the beat of her own drummer," Lauren said with a shrug.

"What does that mean?" I looked now at the stairs and ramps leading back to the upper levels. I thought for a second that I spotted her dark hair but it was nearly impossible to tell in the nighttime lighting.

Lauren laughed, "Not sure, really. I think it's the polite way of saying 'I'm too scared to ask why she does what she does.' She's been in the faction for ages. Maybe she got tagged earlier. Or maybe she's gonna come back down when things are quieter. I wouldn't overthink it."

My search did bear some fruit at least. I spied Eric again. He was with Max, standing on the tier above us. When we got closer to the tagging station I could see him more clearly. He looked stiff and his expression was dark. No, scratch that. His face was twisted in anger but what stood out was the clear black eye. He had looked tired earlier; now I wondered how I had missed the bruises. Maybe they hadn't been there or maybe they had just been waiting to swell.

"Hey Tris, you're up," Lauren interrupted my train of thought. I turned back to the station and was surprised to see that she was right. We'd ended up at the front far quicker than I would have expected. Dauntless efficiency was striking.

"This'll pinch," a Dauntless man said. He took my arm - mercifully the trackers weren't going in the neck. Then he read off a serial number and asked for my full name. An Erudite woman next to him recorded both.

It all took about a minute, if that. Still, the energy of the party had fizzled even in the short time that Lauren and I had been in line. I looked back up at the catwalk above. It was empty now and I buried the crushed feeling in my gut. There would be time tomorrow to find Eric, I reminded myself. Or the next day. I wasn't going anywhere now. When I left the station I found Will and Christina once more, both of whom seemed about as wiped as I was. Lauren gave us all a final hug and congratulations. Then we crashed to bed.

Right as I climbed up to my bunk, Christina tapped me on the shoulder. "I guess I need to admit you were right after all. Everything worked out today," she said.

I smiled and slid back down. Wrapping my arms around her in a tight hug, I admitted, "I'm still relieved. I would have missed you guys if things had gone in a bad way."

"Me too," she said as she squeezed my shoulders.

The subtle rocking back and forth was just a bit too quick to be soothing. But I still struggled to push past the heavy fog in my mind. My head bobbed and snapped up when it fell too far forward. I opened my eyes blearily. Grey, cloudy sky rushed by in the train windows across from me.

A wide turn meant slowing slightly. Brakes hissed underneath my feet and reverberated in my back. The train moved on and on, like it always did.

I exhaled slowly and rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes. Training must have been weighing more on me than I had realized if I had fallen asleep waiting for the drop off. When I blinked a few more times I noticed that I wasn't the only one slumped against the wall. The car was about half full of other Dauntless, each of us looking either half asleep or zoned out.

Shaking out my legs - they were cramped and my feet were aching - I shifted to sit up more. I was realizing, too, how warm it was in the train car. My fingers worked at the zipper on my vest, tugging it down to get some fresh air. I paused a moment when I spied the grey fingerless tactical gloves in my vision. I… didn't remember having anything like them. Or the heavy Kevlar vest. Or the thick padding over my tactical pants.

I was dressed in a full kit, just like those I'd see coming back from patrols in the mornings. I'd sweated through it, too, based on the damp feeling on the back of my neck, knees, and underarms.

There was a queasy feeling brewing in my stomach as each of these thoughts came to me. Together, it felt very… simulated. I bit my lip and hauled myself to my feet. The train shook beneath me. It was familiar, reassuring. The sensations like these never came through so strong whenever I was under.

What didn't match was the acrid smell lingering in the air that I recognized with a start. Burnt gunpowder. I dropped my hand to my hip and found my belt wasn't empty. I swallowed hard. The more that I looked around me, the faces seemed even less familiar.

I took a half dozen shaking steps to get to the door at the end of the car. I didn't have a plan. I hadn't ever tried to switch cars while the train was running. But I had mastered jumping off of them at full speed, so could it really be any more difficult? I pulled the heavy latch to open it. Wind tore through the inside of the car.

"Hey," someone called. Down at the other end of the car there was another Dauntless staggering to his feet. He held up a hand. I froze, about to step out onto the tiny platform on the outside of the car. "Wait, what's going on?" he insisted.

"I don't know," I called in response. The wind tore at my words. Worse, it seemed to breathe new life into the car around me. Someone started, jolting to their feet with a shout.

I stepped onto the platform and slid along the jumble of wiring and clamps linking the train together. The door to the next car opened just as smoothly as the last one. I passed through the center line as I studied each face briefly. There was a ripple, a chain reaction with each door I opened and each step I took.

On the fourth train car I found Uriah. He was blinking heavily and unlike the others he was empty handed. I dropped to my knee and clasped him on the shoulder, unable to contain the relief of finally recognizing someone. "I thought I would never find someone else," I admitted heavily.

He lifted his gaze, brown eyes wide. "What have we done?" he murmured. Hearing his voice broke the lingering worries in my head that this wasn't real; it just sounded too imperfectly human to be conjured up in my head.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I thought… honestly I thought for a while there that this was a sim. What's going on? What's with the loadout, the packed train?" I didn't mention the smell of gunpowder that was still strong even after walking along the outside of the train. My question was echoed in the bursts of conversation around us; some people's voices get raised. I slipped down to sit next to Uriah, our knees knocking together from the speed of the train.

He didn't reply initially. He studied the people around us with a wary expression. An idea sprang to mind and I lurched forward to twist his wrist to me. Like Al, Uriah had worn a watch nearly every day. It was more functional than Al's and included the date and even the day of the week in the corner.

"Do you remember this morning?" Uriah asked. It was now well past afternoon. Behind the clouds, the sun would begin its drop past the horizon.

Again I answered as honestly as I can. "I don't. I think… I mean we must have gotten to sleep in after all the Initiation stuff was wrapped, yeah?" Even as I said it, it didn't sound right. The morning slipped through my thoughts like mercury. I crunched closer to Uriah when someone at the other end of the train started shouting and scuffling with a Dauntless woman with silver bars on her shoulders. The corporal was dazed. She shook her head roughly and drew up her stance to push back.

"You will stand down, soldier! All of you! Chain of command will be held, is that understood?" she snapped.

"Chain of command? No one knows what op this is. Why we're here. Anything. You got answers?" Heads turned. These were the questions of the hour; no one wanted to miss what the corporal had to say. Next to me, Uriah hunched further in on himself.

The corporal gritted her teeth. "Keep your heads straight," she said firmly. "Everything will be clear soon." Her words didn't soothe the tension in the car. The shouting ticked up a notch as two more Dauntless through their indignance at the officer. She rallied another Dauntless to try and placate the group while she disappeared through the passage to another car.

I turned back to Uriah. "What kind of training would have the C.O.s out of the loop, too?" I wondered aloud.

"I don't think this was a training," Uriah murmured. He refused to say anything further, not until the train returned to the familiar slow arcing turn that ran past the lower entrance to Dauntless. The corporal hadn't returned either. Like an overturned insect hive, the train cars emptied in a surge of dark-clothed Dauntless.

"Find the others?" I suggested to Uriah when we had dusted ourselves off from disembarking. He still looked hollow-eyed but he nodded as though this was something as simple as making dinner plans.

The Pit was a seething mess, bubbling with a chaos that made last night seem childish. There was an anger in the air instead of elation, the sour tinge of fear rather than celebration. Uriah latched his hand on my shoulder as we wound through the people; I kept my fingers wound through his to ensure he wouldn't be separated by someone else moving with the same single-minded determination that I had.

It was too difficult to try and decipher who was where. We ended up in the cafeteria instead, spurred by brisk conversations that said the Dependents had been gathered in there, so wouldn't it be possible that the other recent Initiates would be caught up in that, too? I wanted to tear off the heavy Kevlar around my chest as even the cool caverns of Dauntless were sweltering with the extra layers on. But Uriah's hand clasped the shoulder strap and I wasn't willing to lose that tiny comfort.

"Zeke!" Uriah's shout caught me off guard, and soon I spotted the older Pedrad standing atop a table on the far side of the room. He didn't spot Uriah's waving arms until we wound our way closer. The two brothers collided into a tight embrace.

"You're okay!" Zeke said fervently. He let go of his brother and turned his attention to me. "And Prior, you're good too. Excellent." I got a rough clap on my shoulder while Zeke pulled us up to his previous perch on the table.

He was looking for their mother, I gleaned. Between the three of us we all repeated the same points apparently echoing throughout all of the faction - everything since the ranking party was hazy or outright gone. I stood on my tiptoes as I looked around the bustling cafeteria. Who I was looking for, I didn't have a good answer. Definitely I wanted to know if Christina, Will, and the others were alright. I might not have had a family like Uriah to worry about, but I had meant what I told Christina last night. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if something would happen to them now.

A fresh wave of faction members surged into the room every few minutes, mixing with those assembled at tables in clusters like ours. Rumors, each as unfounded as the last, ebbed and flowed. This was a capacity test. This was a mass competency trial. Sabotage. Poisoning at the party last night.

The first piece of news with any shred of evidence came when a pair of comm officers were dragged into the room by their jackets. They were deposited roughly onto the service window where the hot food was usually placed. I didn't catch the first wave of what was being said until the table across from us quieted down.

"And why exactly were you keeping this information a secret?" a furious man shouted. One of the comm officers was nursing a bloody nose. The other one growled a response, too muffled to catch over the distance. "You were ordered to," the angry Dauntless repeated. "By who?"

I nudged Uriah, though he had already dropped his conversation with Shauna. Heads were turning as the crowd realized something was happening. More people moved to stand on benches and tables to stare down the impromptu interrogation.

The two comm officers looked at one another. The one with the bloody nose responded this time. I could hear just the tail end of it. "... but it was an encrypted line."

"You took orders from… someone in Dauntless because it was over the protected line. But you don't know who. What about rank? Location? Anything useful?"

Uriah leaned over to get a better look. "That's… hell, I think that might be Griffin?" The name meant nothing to me.

The interrogator - Griffin, allegedly - waved for one of the other Dauntless who had brought the pair of officers. They laid out a clunky looking speaker and another piece of tech. I had to assume it was from the communications office. "Do you want to dial it up or are you going to stick to your orders and keep everyone in the dark?" Griffin sneered.

There was another brief scuffle - someone got a boot to the stomach - before the bloody comm officer limped over to the communication array. "I think you might be right that this isn't training," I whispered to Uriah. He looked sick. I couldn't figure out how I felt. Not good, that much I knew. It took another long moment until the speakers crackled to life.

"-peat, this is Sergeant Richards out on Dearborn. I've got four civilian casualties en route to the hospital. Requesting a new route. These barricades-."

"-got twenty missing persons. Haven't got a lock on the others in the Council listings, either. Marc-"

"-haven't found any authorization for the rollout in sector five. This is priority one. Over."

Each channel that the officer clicked to was filled with confused Dauntless. I felt my blood run cold as I listened. Dearborn ran two blocks from my parent's house. Sector five was an Abnegation sector; I remembered Eric drilling the different assignments into my head the last time we ran the streets.

Griffin pulled the comm officer to his feet by his lapels. "You wanted to keep this from everyone? Abnegation is burning. No one remembers this morning. So you tell me, who made that call?"

"It came down chain of command. We're just as lost as you are," the officer replied smartly. He got a knee to the gut and was dropped onto his knees.

"Who said to keep us in the dark?" Griffin snarled.

The officer barked out a laugh. "Anyone with clearance above corporal has access to that channel," he said. "It could have been anyone. Maybe start asking who did remember this morning, cause just like you, I ain't got nothing. Just a fog til the switchboard lit up like fireworks with all the calls.

"Could have been anyone."