15Enhanced
Not many people survive the experiments. In fact, she's told she's the only one. She's told she's meant for this. She needs to continue to unlock her destiny. She doesn't have much of a choice in the matter.
After all, she was designed for this, her genes played with before conception as well as after. She doesn't know much about what they did to her, only that she's dangerous, only that she needs to use her enhancement to kill whoever her designers tell her to kill, only that her enhancement prevents her from ever receiving a loving touch, let alone reciprocating one.
"Okay, Tris. Let's try this again, and then you're done for the day," her creator says to her. She can sense his frustration.
"David, I don't think this is going to work," she tells him honestly.
David rubs his index fingers against his temples. "Everyone in the lab says it should work. You should be able to bend lightning."
"I don't think I'm strong enough."
"Which is why we have to keep working at this. No more stalling! Just try to take the lightning-''
"It's not real lightning," she interjects.
"It's a simulation. It's as real as we can get without electrocuting everyone in the building. Now, you know the drill. There are two metal rods in front of you. In exactly one minute, lightning is programmed to strike the rod to your left. Your job is to manipulate the lightning long enough to change the path and strike the rod to your right. Do you understand, Tris?"
"Yes, I understand."
She stands still while she anticipates the lightning strike, her hands ready, her mind focused. David's right; she should be able to do this. All of the simulations make that very clear. There has to be something she's doing wrong.
The tell-tale flash of lightning illuminates the dimly-lit lab, and Tris channels all her energy into directing the bolt. She can feel the electricity within her own veins flowing freely, likely excited by the power source. She longs for the two to connect, but before she knows it, the lightning is gone. It's dissipated once it strikes the rod on the left.
She's failed again.
David is furious. He turns to his assistants. "What if we pumped her full of more electricity?" he demands. "Would that do it? What if we gave her so much that it would just be dying to leave her body?"
"It's not in her best interest to give her anymore," one of the doctors speaks up. "She's the only one who's survived this much. We need to preserve her."
"And think about your successes," another adds. "You've created a genetically-enhanced human who kills on contact. She electrocutes everyone she touches. So what if she can't bend lightning or remove electricity from a room? You've made her to do so much more. She's absolutely incredible."
David smiles, but his anxiety is not completely quelled. "Would further experimentation surely kill her?" he asks.
His assistants look from one to the other, the three of them, trying to determine the best way to reply. "We're not positive," the third finally admits.
"Tris has been working up a tolerance from before birth," David reminds them. "She was made for this."
His eyes rake over Tris's body critically, searching his creation for any flaws.
"Do you remember her first kill?" he asks proudly. "When we created her in a petri dish, she was our seventh attempt, and I was skeptical that the treatment to her genes would take. And then we found a surrogate mother to carry her, and when it was time to deliver her, my little experiment killed her host. Tris only had trace amounts of electricity in her then, but nine months of it, and the woman was dead."
David continues, "I remember when the doctors wrapped her in the fire blanket, fed her, and then started shock treatment immediately. I almost cried out of joy."
He turns to Tris and smiles, his earlier anger no longer present, for which Tris is relieved. She hates when she isn't able to please her creator.
"My Enhanced Electricity No. 7, Tris for short," he announces. "Prep her for experimentation."
His assistants continue to take notes on their tablets, while they simultaneously authorize the other scientists to start "exercising her", as they call it. This is where they shoot her up with 100,000 volts of electricity. It's child's play to her at this point. Then, after one minute, they increase it to 200,000 volts.
Two minutes later, she's at 300,000 volts. Three minutes pass, and she feels 400,000 volts of electricity, enough to kill a man 4,000 times over. They're trying to work her up to 1 billion volts, the average amount in a bolt of lightning, and at the rate they're going, it will likely take days.
The pain is excruciating at 100 million volts. She cries in agony and begs them to stop.
"No pain, no gain," someone tells her.
"Just grit your teeth and bear it."
"Make your creator proud."
She's enhanced, they tell her all the time. She's more than human, but for whatever reason, she's always treated less than one.
He has a fire in him that prevents him from giving up. It's a war destroying him from the inside out, and it's a theory behind why the physical agony of his enhancement doesn't faze him as much as other volunteers. Another thing that separates him from the other volunteers is his motivation. He's not after fame, money, or recognition. He's not bloodthirsty, either, like a few others beside him. He just wants to ensure that no one can hurt him again.
He's just a kid when Max stumbles upon him, a sixteen-year-old boy covered in scars. During one of the physical evaluations for the experiment, everyone sees the scars closely, silver slashes that mar his entire back, no rhyme or reason, no methodical torture, some old and some new.
Max hands his shirt back to him and pulls him aside. "You never told me your name," he says to the boy.
The boy shrugs. "I don't have one."
"Then you get to pick a new one."
"I don't know what to call myself yet."
They sit side by side on the ground. "Bet that's why you're here, isn't it, boy? You want justice to be served to whoever marked you up like that."
The boy is quick to shake his head. "No, I don't ever want to see that person again. Even if it is to kill him."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"You'll make me stronger, won't you? You'll make it so no one can touch me again. I heard that's what you can do. Is it true?"
"It's true."
"How?"
"It's a new age, boy. It all comes down to science. Time for a little biology lesson here. Now, every person on this earth has energy inside of them. Electricity, I mean. There's a small amount, but it's there. That's why on those medical shows, when someone is close to death, the doctor will take out a defibrillator and shock the person to bring him back to life.
"That electricity keeps us alive. And like I said, it's a small amount, about 100 millivolts. But here's the really interesting part. With all these advances in technology, we've discovered a new element. It's called Imponium, from the Latin impotens, which means powerless. This element absorbs energy upon touch."
"And you want to put it inside me?" the boy asks unsurely.
"We want to line your bones with it, yes."
"Won't that kill me? Won't it absorb the electrictity in me, too?"
"But that's the beauty of it," Max says, and he begins to wrap an arm around the boy's shoulders, but the boy flinches, so Max resists.
"The Imponium will be distributed all throughout your body, so when it does absorb the electricity in your body, the electricity will still be in your body. There's nowhere else for it to go. It will be redistributed, and you'll be absolutely fine. It's just that when other people touch you, the Imponium will absorb the electricity from their bodies. That's what it is."
"So if I go through with this, no one can ever touch me again?" He sounds hopeful now. He only associates touch with pain. He can't imagine touch being anything else.
Max pounces on the vulnerability in the boy. "No one can ever touch you again," he states firmly.
"Then let's get started."
He barely survives the first surgery, and the scientists aren't even able to complete it. They can only coat the bones in his arms before his blood pressure starts dropping and he almost flat lines. He's in so much pain when he wakes up.
"Is it done?" he asks.
"Not yet," Max tells him. "We need to give your body some time to adjust to this, and then we'll do it again."
The boy can't imagine going under the knife again, but he's already committed to the experiment. He's already promised Max.
"Now, when we finish this," Max reminds him. "You'll be loyal to me. After all, I'm the one making all of this possible. I'm the one enhancing you."
"Yes," the boy says. "I dedicate my life to you."
Max smiles, but it looks so unnatural on him. It looks more like a grimace. It makes him look like a mad scientist.
His arms feel unnaturally heavy, and it takes a while to adjust to them. He has to be nourished through tubes, and what irritates him the most is a doctor coming to assess his abilities every day.
After two weeks, he's cleared for another surgery. This one covers every bone in his legs. They're up to his pelvic bones before they realize the bones protecting his internal organs will have to be for another day. He's too weak for them to continue the surgery. More rest and adjustments ensue.
It's his ribs that cause him the most pain when they finally are able to go through with the third surgery. He wakes up from the anesthesia in so much pain. He feels like he can't breathe.
"Of course this one will be the most difficult. The Imponium is absorbing the energy directly above your heart," Max explains.
"Can't you give me something to ease the pain?" he begs. "Just a little. I didn't know it would hurt this much."
"But, my boy, that's one of the reasons we chose you. You're no stranger to pain."
"When will it stop hurting?"
"It won't."
"What?"
"It will dull over time, but it will never stop hurting. But remember, when it's all finished, no one can every touch you again."
It's this thought that gives him the stamina for his final surgery. This one will be the longest, he's told. This surgery will coat every bone in his skull. Even his teeth will have the Imponium applied to them.
He's so relieved that it's finished when he wakes up from the anesthesia that he doesn't even focus on the pain. He's made it. He's survived all four surgeries when they didn't know if he could survive one.
He turns to Max, who's appraising him from the other side of the room.
"I think I figured out what you can call me," the boy says.
"And what's that?"
"Four."
The only times her hands have ever been free are when David and his assistants are experimenting on her or they've sent her on a specific mission outside of the lab. When she's considered a threat to her creator while her services are no longer needed, she's confined to her bed.
Until now.
"It's called Imponium, Tris," David tells her. "It's a new element. It can actually dull the shock of the electricity in your body, so now you can touch things." He hands her the solid, black gloves that have been designed for her, cloaking the skin from her fingertips to her forearm.
Although the gloves pose a certain aspect of freedom, she's still plagued by a fierce longing. She imagines what it would feel like to touch something with her own two hands, and without destroying it in the process.
"Why aren't you happy, Tris?" he asks. "The people in the lab spent a lot of time to make these gloves for you. Don't you like them?"
"I do like them," she insists. "And I'm thankful that they did this for me."
"You know what this means, don't you?"
She shakes her head.
"It means you get to go out into the field more."
"Really?" she asks incredulously.
"Yes, really."
Now she smiles readily at the thought of delving into the outside world.
"That's enough excitement for today," David decides. He turns to his assistants. "Now let's prep to simulate the lightning."
In a matter of minutes, the identical rods appear. David approaches Tris once again and explains the task he's wanted her to accomplish for months. When he finishes, he asks the same question.
"Do you understand, Tris?"
She replies robotically. "Yes, I understand."
The simulation commences, and Tris promises herself that this will be the day. She feels stronger. This will be the day she'll succeed.
So when she fails once again, when she watches helplessly as the lightning strikes the rod on the left, ignoring her will, she falls to her knees and starts to cry. She knows how important this is to David, and she wants nothing more than to make him proud. Her inferiority frustrates her, and she experiences an overwhelming desire to punish herself on David's behalf.
When she looks up, David's standing over her, his arms crossed.
"I'm sorry, David," she laments.
He sighs deeply, stares her in the eye, and then slowly walks away, leaving her alone to cry on the cold cement.
The assistants go on to talk as if she isn't even there, discussing possible reasons for her deficiency.
"Do you think Natalie Prior may have something to do with it?" one of them questions.
Tris's head perks up. "Who's Natalie Prior?" she asks tearfully.
"Your surrogate," she replies. "She's the one who delivered you."
"Why would she have any effect on Tris now?"
"Perhaps since her mother was not enhanced, we shouldn't expect so much from her. Perhaps her future generations will be stronger."
"There can't be any future generations from her. She wouldn't be able to carry a child to full term."
"You're right. I'm just desperate for a reason she isn't able to do this."
"We all are."
Tris curls her knees against her chest and repeats the name in her head over and over again. Natalie Prior. Natalie Prior. Natalie Prior.
The woman who delivered her.
Her first kill.
Her surrogate mother.
And even though surnames are characteristic of humans and she's told she's more than human, she pairs the name Prior with her own name.
Tris Prior.
She whispers it to herself while the assistants bicker, pleased with the way it sounds. She decides that's her new name, but she knows she has to keep it a secret. David would be furious if he found out. It's the first time she's ever kept anything from David. She's ashamed at first, but over time, the guilt wears off, and excitement takes its place.
"How do you feel, Four?"
"My head hurts," he groans.
"Anything else."
"My chest. My stomach. Everything hurts."
"Do you feel your body adapting at all? Is it still the same amount of pain?"
"I guess it's dulling a little. I think I need to rest some more, though," he says, holding his arms out and testing the new weight to them.
"You can rest now, but don't get used to it. Your first assignment's coming up."
"An assignment?" he asks.
"To prove your loyalty," Max says. He stands over Four menacingly, grinning at him like the cat that caught the canary, but Four agrees. After all, it can't be so bad. He'll probably just have to keep Max protected, maybe let some more scientists poke and prod him to study how his body is reacting to the Imponium.
"You remember that was part of the deal, don't you?"
He's too sore to nod his head. "I remember."
"All right, Tris, you know the drill," her creator says, rubbing his temples. It's been so long that he doesn't even explain the experiment anymore, just leaves her to carry out the goal. She still hasn't succeeded.
"And, Tris…"
"Yes, sir?"
"Try not to fail this time."
He takes a patronizing tone with her, and for some reason, she's even more enraged with herself than usual. She is angry with her creator's assistants, who talk about her like she isn't even in the room. She is angry with her creator, who seems to forget everything she has accomplished in the light of this one obstacle. She feeds off this anger and frustration, allowing the electricity in her veins to overwhelm her when she hears the cackling of electricity above her.
The white, hot energy matches the pulses throughout her body. She focuses all of her attention on manipulating the lightning, extending her arms and willing her body to cooperate with her mind. Every simulation says she should be capable of bending energy. This is the ultimate goal. Once she masters this, there will be no limits to her ability. Once she masters this, her creator will be pleased with her. Perhaps he'll even promote her, allow her the privilege of more responsibilities, and allow her more time outside of the lab.
When the lightning finally strikes, it doesn't strike the metal rod to the left or the one to the right. It strikes her. It's a completely new sensation, one that consumes her. She's never felt this much power before. It's too much; she has to expel some of it, and she does. She directs it out of her body through her fingertips and forces it to the metal rod on the right.
She falls to the ground when the lightning leaves her, exhausted from the exertion. Her entire body throbs from the remaining electricity.
She looks up when she hears her creator's voice. David and his assistants crowd around her. One of them hands her back her Imponium gloves.
"Ladies and gentlemen," David says, "give yourselves a pat on the back! We are the future! We have created the greatest weapon in the world!"
Tris carefully confines her hands to the gloves once again. David doesn't praise her like she expected him to. He only praises himself. And she shudders to realize that she is their greatest weapon.
After a couple of weeks of healing, Max hands him a picture.
"Memorize that face," Max says to Four. "That is Jack Kang."
Four studies the picture. His aches and pains have dulled as Max promised, but he understands that he will always be in pain for the rest of his life. Having Imponium redistribute the electricity keeping him alive is not a pleasant feeling, but he's learned to cope. He's learned to distract himself from the pain. Now he's ready to work.
"And who's Jack Kang?"
"Someone working on his own experiments. But we're not too keen on competition here. Enhancing humans is a whole new field, and we're the experts, not this guy. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He's just fucking everything up."
"And what do you want me to do about it?"
"Stop him."
"How?"
Max crosses his arms. "I'm sure you'll find a way. I mean, it's not exactly difficult. One touch from you, and some poor guy's dead."
"Yeah, it's insurance that no one can ever touch me again," Four reminds him.
"No, it's assurance that no one gets in our way."
"You want me to kill him, don't you?" he asks uncertainly.
"Now you're catching on, Four," Max says with a smile. He takes a seat beside him, careful not to come in contact with his skin. "I know it can take some getting used to, but you'll get the hang of it. Before you know it, this'll be second nature. Now come on! Let's put that Imponium to use!"
He nods weakly, and the picture trembles in his hands after Max leaves him to himself. He doesn't want to look at Jack Kang's face any longer. He doesn't want to think of him as a person at all. Letting his mind drift off to any family or friends will only make his assignment harder. He can't risk upsetting Max. It seems to be understood between the two of them that defying the man that made this possible is not an option.
Jack Kang eats breakfast at a little diner in Chicago every Sunday morning. He always orders the same meal, scrambled eggs with two slices of bacon and a side of hash browns. The diner's a small establishment, and the owner never saw a purpose in installing security cameras, so Four doesn't even really have to hide. He doesn't draw attention to himself in his little corner booth.
He can't bring himself to eat anything, so he orders a cup of coffee, keeping his eye on Kang. Kang spends a lot of the time on his cell phone, replying to various text messages and e-mails. He finally waves the waitress down and pays the bill, exchanging pleasantries with a few of the other staff members he's familiar with.
Before he leaves, Kang heads to the men's restroom. No one sees Four follow him in.
"Good morning," Kang says to the boy, a small smile on his lips.
"Good morning," Four returns quietly. He looks around. They are the only two people in the restroom. This is his chance. But he can't look Kang in the eye while he kills him. He's too much of a coward. He waits for Kang to turn his back to him, and then without a word, Four presses the fingers of his left hand to the back of Kang's neck.
His other hand rushes to cover his mouth when a strangled cry escapes his lips before collapsing to the ground.
There's no point checking to see if Jack Kang is still alive. Four felt the Imponium in his body absorb the electricity in Kang's. He felt an unexplainable rush, and as he leaves the bathroom, unnoticed once again, he hopes he doesn't develop a taste for absorbing other people's lives.
Max is proud of him when he returns. He promises to give Four anything he asks, but Four can't think of anything. Material things don't matter much to him, only solitude. He wishes to be alone.
"Then I won't disturb you until your next assignment," Max vows.
Four expresses his gratefulness and returns to training his body. Punching bags and weight lifting distract him from his aching body. Training becomes his only way to pass the time.
Tris's ability to bend electricity is pretty much hit or miss. Because David can't predict any particular pattern, he's incredibly perplexed by the results, but Tris makes the connection between her temper and her performance. At the moment, she has to be absolutely enraged to direct electricity.
When she shares this with her creator, he orders his assistants to develop a plan to deter Tris from relying solely on anger to use her enhancement to the best of her ability. This translates to daily simulations and even fiercer exercises. Although exhausting, they yield results.
By her eighteenth birthday, she can turn electricity on and off in the blink of an eye. It becomes a game to her when she's bored and alone in her little unit. On the nights she can't sleep, she plays with the building's power sources to the point that the assistants have to lecture her to stop.
"Well, how else am I supposed to have fun?" she pouts.
"You're not meant to have fun. Enhanced people are not limited to the pastimes of other humans."
Tris also hears that David is attempting to create more enhanced people again, now that he's fulfilled his goals with her. He creates them under the same conditions he created Tris. He creates the enhanced genes in a little test tube and pays a struggling woman a lot of money to carry the child. He doesn't tell them that no surrogate has ever survived.
One of the babies seems promising since it survives to sixteen weeks in the womb. Most die off within the first thirteen weeks, their developing bodies unable to keep up with the fast-producing enhanced genes. A couple babies are born prematurely but die soon after. Tris is the longest-surviving enhanced.
But the baby dies at nineteen weeks in the womb. The surrogate dies, too, in the process.
"I don't understand!" David exclaims. "We're doing everything exactly the same! Why is Tris the only one to survive?"
"Maybe we should be thankful that at least one of them survived. Maybe we should pause the experiments again, focus on Tris."
"She's not going to live forever! We need to perfect this now! And besides, Tris has finally lived up to our expectations. There's nothing we have left to teach her."
"Then put her out in the field. See how she does then. God knows we have a couple people on our tails that we could do without."
David smiles wickedly. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
"I can't believe you're surprised. After all, you're the one who created the greatest weapon in the world. Field testing will help us determine what she's really capable of."
The FBI is constructing a database dedicated to researching the illegal enhancement of humans. It's the most controversial experimentation in the modern world. Some scientists argue that science should not have limitations; others believe that enhancing genes goes against every fundamental scientific principle. Still, the FBI's investigations into this illegal market are a little too close for David's comfort.
"It would be a shame if all their records were fried," he muses aloud one day.
The lab agrees, and they send Tris to Washington D.C. She has to wait for a thunderstorm to avoid some suspicion, so when she senses the lightning livening up the sky, she braces herself for the jolt of energy before forcing it to the FBI's servers. Not only are the digital records lost, but the entire building goes up in flames.
She flees before the fire department arrives, comforted by the thought that no one was in the building. She dawdles during her walks through the Capitol, soaking in as much as she can. She's never really been allowed outside before, except for a few hits over the years. Her creator is a firm believer in the credo "by any means necessary".
"Tris, meet your new target," he says one day, handing her a picture of a woman. "This is Johanna Reyes. She doesn't believe you should be allowed to exist. She doesn't think enhancement should ever be allowed in society. Can you believe that?"
"No, sir," she lies. Some days, when she's locked up in her unit after a particularly exhausting day of exercises and demands from her creator, she doesn't think she should exist either.
Over the next two years, Max's demands of Four increase. Some tasks have been too much for Four, but he's learned his lesson. Sure, no one can ever touch his skin without dying, but the people who enhanced him know his body inside and out and have developed other methods of torture that keep him in line.
During those days, Four wishes they'd kill him. But they'll never kill him; he's their best specimen. So he does what they ask of him so he never has to struggle through the consequences.
Today's assignment is Johanna Reyes.
"Her mouth's too big," Max informs him. "And for whatever reason, people hold onto her every word. She's running for Congress. It's up to you to make sure she doesn't win. The best place to reach her is at her office. She practically lives there. One of my techies can kill the cameras while you go in and work your magic. You understand?"
"Yes."
"Good. You leave tonight."
Sometimes his ability is annoying. Although useful, it's a little distracting to sense the energy in every living thing. It helps him visualize a little more, but whenever people move, the Imponium inside of him senses it and accommodates itself closer to the energy source. It's one more thing he has to live with, but he's unsure if he'll ever get used to it. At least, there's a certain radius that applies to it. When he's alone in his room, he doesn't really sense anything else.
Johanna's office is on the fourth floor of the office building. The place is practically abandoned at night other than a few people who refuse to leave and the night watch. He can't exactly walk through the front door without a badge, so he waits for word from Max that the cameras are no longer active before he can climb one of the fire escapes on the side of the building to an open window on the sixth floor.
Max pages him to say that they're incredibly lucky because the cameras are already out. Four's quick to scale the fire escape and let himself in through the window, but when he steps foot on the office floor, he senses something incredible.
He's never sensed this kind of energy before. It's so condensed and so powerful that he can't help but be drawn to it. He can tell it comes from one of the floors below him, so he follows it towards Johanna's office. They're both moving towards the office. He also notices that other people in the building are disappearing, for he can no longer detect the electricity in them. Soon, he, this awe-inspiring source of electricity, and who he assumes is Johanna are the only ones left in the building.
He continues his path, and it becomes difficult to sense Johanna over the other source of energy. When he finally enters the same room, he looks for the source. He has one hand on the gun holstered to his hip as he calls out, "Hello?"
The energy's there. There's no denying it.
"I know someone's here," he says.
There's a shuffling in the corner, and then suddenly, a young girl reaches out and grabs his neck. She is the source of energy. She's considerably shorter than him, perhaps his age or younger, and completely shocked that her electric grip did not overpower him.
He reaches to clasp her wrist, desperate to absorb the energy. Nothing happens. There's too much energy inside of her. His touch is powerless, and so is hers. And where he is panicked in this situation, she breaks into a smile.
"Are you," she begins to ask. "Are you like me?"
"Like what?"
"Are you enhanced?" Her eyes plead with him to say yes, and he gives in. "Oh, my God!" she exclaims. "I thought I was the only one!"
"Kind of selfish, isn't that? 7 billion people on the planet, and you thought you were the only one?" he teases.
She playfully smacks his shoulder. "I can't believe it! I can-I can touch you! And you don't die! That's never happened before! How is that possible? What's your enhancement?"
"Imponium-laced bones. Wait, you probably don't know what that is. It's – ''
"A new element that absorbs energy, and by energy, I mean electricity. Yeah, I know what it is. I have gloves made out of that stuff to keep me from accidentally killing my creator."
"Your creator?" he asks skeptically.
"The guy who enhanced me. Oh, who enhanced you? Is his name David?"
"Um, no."
"Oh, what's his name, then?"
Four almost answers but decides against it. "You know what, maybe this isn't such a good idea. I'm here for a reason, and I need to leave immediately after I finish."
"Are you here to kill Johanna Reyes?" she asks. "Because that's why I'm here. That's what my creator wants me to do, but everything's different now."
"How?"
"Did you know there were more enhanced out there, or did you think you were the only one?" she wonders. He doesn't answer, but she can see by his expression that he's never had contact with another enhanced.
"I always thought I was the only one," she says. "I've never been able to really talk to someone before. Doesn't that excite you that we can? I've never been able to touch someone before!"
"You're not missing out on much," he mutters.
"Well, try living your whole life without it."
He presses the palm of his hand to her cheek, more delicately than the hard look in his eyes would suggest. She leans into his touch. "See, you're really not missing anything."
She rolls her eyes. "What's your name?"
"Four."
"That's your name?"
"Yeah."
"I'm Tris. Well, actually it's Enhanced Electricity No. 7."
"Too much. Tris it is."
"Tris Prior," she adds uncertainly.
"Okay, Tris Prior."
She holds her hand out for him to shake, still reeling from the excitement that she can actually touch another human being. The only times she's ever felt touch were succeeded by destruction. This is a completely new sensation. He takes her hand and gives it three firm shakes before removing his from hers.
He doesn't know how he feels about this girl, Tris Prior.
"Are you going to kill Johanna, because my creator wants me to do it? I'm not sure how he'll feel if you kill her."
"Does he make you call him your creator?" he asks.
"Well, that's what he is."
"You're not some Frankenstein creature," he tells her. "It's weird that you call him a creator."
"Your creator doesn't have you call him your creator?"
"I don't have a creator!"
"A master, then?"
Her questions rub him the wrong way, and he crosses his arms in front of him, as some kind of shield. But it's in vain. She's like him. She knows the struggles.
"I have more of a sponsor. Someone who had me surgically-altered because I signed up for it, and now I do what he asks."
"Sounds like he got the better part of the deal."
"Some days I think he did."
"Why would you ever sign up for this?"
"Why did you?"
"I didn't," she stresses. "My creator, sorry, David made me in a test tube. I've always been like this." She fixes her eyes to the floor and hangs her head in something akin to hopelessness. He never really realizes the injustice of his situation until he experiences outrage at Tris's similar circumstances.
Locked in a basement.
Conditioned to obey.
He decides to do what he does best.
"We don't deserve this," he says with as much comfort as he can muster. "You and I shouldn't be treated like lab rats. We shouldn't be treated like experiments."
"That's what we are, Four."
"No, we're not!"
"You know enhanced people aren't natural. That's all you hear about on the news, 'unethical science'."
"We have every right to living as they do. And living normally. If you really have been stuck in some guy's lab your entire life, then I have to get you out of there. Tris, we should run away. We should be able to live without their constraints and expectations. We have the opportunity to turn our backs on everything right now."
She's taken aback by his candidness, frightened by the possibility of changing her life completely, but then she remembers how she felt every time she took someone's life. She remembers the exhaustion of having David's assistants regularly exercise her with electric shocks, and she remembers the feel of Four's touch. She doesn't want to lose that connection. She doesn't want to lose this young boy who shares so much in common with her.
She was always told she was the only one. David lied to her. There's another enhanced standing right in front of her, asking her to run away with him. A stranger, practically. But when she reaches for his hand, he takes it. She can feel the Imponium in him reacting to the electricity in her, and she knows there's a mutual understanding between the two of them, a symbiosis.
"Let's go."
This is very different from my usual stories, and I hope you enjoy this Marvel-based AU. I know I have so many unfinished stories right now, but I'm working on all of them and will have installments posted as soon as I can. I hate to make you all wait so long, but I also don't want to post anything that was rushed through. Anyways, thanks for reading! I appreciate it so much!