We open with Tris looking at “the serum” through a microscope. At this point, just having a week away from Allegiant renders me completely unable to remember which serum we’re eve talking about anymore. I’m just going to assume it’s another wacky serum that somehow allows other people to actually be able to see everything in your head. [Matthew says: Or the same wacky serum, because this book has long since run out of wacky serums, and also ideas.]
I was so busy looking for Nita’s lies that I barely registered the truth: In order to get their hands on this serum, the Bureau must have developed it, and somehow delivered it to Jeanine to use. I pull away. Why would Jeanine work with the Bureau when she so badly wanted to stay in the city, away from them?
For someone who always seems to miraculously suss out people’s motivations, it’s pretty surprising Tris doesn’t think, “Hey…hm, maybe the Bureau told Jeanine not to let anyone find out about them and the fact they were in an experiment. There are a lot of other questions I could be asking. Like why is Peter still in this book? Is he ever going to do anything ever again?”
But I guess the Bureau and Jeanine shared a common goal. Both wanted the experiment to continue. Both were terrified of what would happen if it didn’t. Both were willing to sacrifice innocent lives to do it.
Okay. But better questions are why did Jeanine want it to continue/why kill Divergent people if the point was to have loads of Divergent people?
Tris, sad that the Bureau sucks and isn’t the start of a great new life for her, goes for an angsty wander. As we all know, angsty wanders are prime times to run into either someone you love or someone you hate! So of course Tris bumps into Caleb. He gives some really terrible excuses for why he helped try to execute Tris and why she should forgive him.
“You know what Mom told me once?” he says, and the way he says Mom, like he didn’t betray her, sets my teeth on edge. “She said that everyone has some evil inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recognize the same evil in ourselves, so we’re able to forgive them.”
Caleb then goes on to say that Jeanine was super persuasive and Tris might have tried to kill him too. Tris starts beating him up because he deserves it.
After some guards break it up, Tris goes to chat to her buddy Matthew in his lab. He explains how they want to upgrade the serums so they’re airborne! Lame serums: Now in sprayable form! Oooooh. [Matthew says: It’s also worth pointing out that “Good news! You know that super dangerous drug we have? Now you can inhale it if it gets in the air!” is the most obvious foreshadowing that some people are gonna fucking inhale it when it gets in the air.]
Then Tris stumbles upon what is the easiest fucking reveal in the history of the world. Behold:
“I heard something yesterday,” I say, testing the waters. “About the Bureau. About my city, and the simulations.”
He straightens up and gives me a strange look.
“What?” I say.
“Did you hear that something from Nita?” he says.
“Yes. How did you know that?”
“I’ve helped her a couple times,” he says. “I let her into that storage room. Did she tell you anything else?”
Matthew is Nita’s informant? I stare at him. I never thought that Matthew, who went out of his way to show me the difference between my “pure” genes and Tobias’s “damaged” genes, might be helping Nita.
“Something about a plan,” I say slowly.
He gets up and walks toward me, oddly tense. I lean away from him by instinct.
“Is it happening?” he says. “Do you know when?”
“What’s going on?” I say. “Why would you help Nita?”
“Because all this ‘genetic damage’ nonsense is ridiculous,” he says. “It’s very important that you answer my questions.”
“It is happening. And I don’t know when, but I think it will be soon.”
“Shit.” Matthew puts his hands on his ”face. “Nothing good can come of this.”
“If you don’t stop saying cryptic things, I’m going to slap you,” I say, getting to my feet.
“I was helping Nita until she told me what she and those fringe people wanted to do,” Matthew says. “They want to get to the Weapons Lab and—”
“—steal the memory serum, yeah, I heard.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No, they don’t want the memory serum, they want the death serum. Similar to the one the Erudite have—the one you were supposed to be injected with when you were almost executed. They’re going to use it for assassinations, a lot of them. Set off an aerosol can and it’s easy, see? Give it to the right people and you have an explosion of anarchy and violence, which is exactly what those fringe people want.”
Boy, Tris sure is lucky that the guy she happened to befriend and decide to open up to right now knew the whole actual secret plan that not even Tris or Fourbias knew. [Matthew says: Good thing he’s literally the only other person we’ve met at the Bureau aside from the guy who runs the goddamn place.]
Of course, it’s already too late and like five seconds later they walk outside, see Uriah, and a wall next to Uriah explodes. So, uh, RIP Uriah. It was good barely knowing ya? [Matthew says: We’re actually not 100% sure that Uriah is dead yet, but remember this book kills off semi-important characters like Dauntless jump off trains, so everybody get ready to mourn like you mourned for Fernando, which we accidentally made matter in the BBGT collective head canon.]
Tris starts running for the weapons lab so Nita and friends can’t get their hands on the death serum. Of course, en route, Tris finds Nita and friends with a gun to David’s head. IF ONLY I CARED ABOUT ANY OF THIS!!! IF ONLY.
I semi mourn Uriah’s purported passing if only because he’s one of the handful of minor characters I can vaguely remember.