The next day, there is much domesticity.

I don’t turn on the lights in the bathroom because I know they will be pale and bright, just like the lights in the Erudite compound. I shower in the dark, barely able to tell soap from conditioner, and tell myself that I will emerge new and strong, that the water will heal me.

See, this is really cool, but I think probably because I kept going on about the lights in the floor. But since they didn’t really make use of the lighting in the actual book, I’m left wondering…who makes the lightbulbs in this world, and why are they different at Erudite? If anything, wouldn’t Dauntless have the freakiest lighting, what with them having no windows and all?

Anyway, Tris goes downstairs and sees all the happy people relaxing and being happy and ruminates on how she’s was told that the factionless were supposed to be all unhappy and thus the cake is a lie. On the one hand, I do like Tris’s world getting rocked. On the other, I feel like pointing out that maybe they’re happy because they’re not, you know, currently trying to live out of a box? It just seems disingenuous to say “Oh, these poor people are so happy, I must shift my worldview to make sense of this” when the situation is so completely not normal and we are in fact in the middle of a giant upheaval. Maybe they’re happy that your faction, which for all claims of charity aside sure didn’t do jack shit for them despite being in charge of everything, is half-dead. Ever think of that?

He gets up and hands me a can of peas—but it isn’t full of peas; it’s full of scrambled eggs. The aluminum warms my fingers.

He sits, so I sit next to him, and scoop some of the eggs into my mouth. I am not hungry, but I know I need to eat, so I chew and swallow anyway. I am familiar with the way the factionless eat, so I pass the eggs to Christina, and take a can of peaches from Tobias.

…my god, you hurt me so much. You really think that eating out of cans is something…cultural? They’re in a house that presumably has a kitchen with plates in it, and yet…this?

Everything about the factionless as poverty stand-ins just makes me cry because of how thoroughly it ignores basically everything that might be a parallel and/or relevant to our own world. Rampant poverty running around? Well, whatever you do, don’t identify it as an intentional situation placed upon them by outside parties. Poor people do weird things? Well, whatever you do, don’t acknowledge that they’re responding to the needs of their environment, needs which they can’t meet in the same way you do because of, you know, poverty and shit.

“Evelyn kicked him out. Said it was her house, too, and he’d gotten to use it for years, and it was her turn.” Tobias grins. “It caused a huge blowup on the front lawn, but eventually Evelyn won.”

Damn straight!

My stomach churns. Tobias talks about her almost reverently. But I still remember what she said to me about my transience in Tobias’s life.

So is this it, then? Now we’re supposed to hate Evelyn because of the tired old mother-in-law role? You know, I really wouldn’t mind Tris’s distaste for the woman if she didn’t conflate personal feelings with actual goodness so much. So Tris doesn’t like her because they bumped heads, okay, but what does that have to do with her being the factionless leader or Tobias repairing relations with her?

Nothing. Heaven forbid we let that stand in the way of having an evil woman in power, though.

Edward comes in and confronts Peter and they have a fight before being pulled apart. Tobias tells Tris that Edward almost killed Drew (another bully from the first book).

“Evidently that’s why that other transfer—Myra, I think her name was?—left Edward. Too gentle to bear it.”

Right. Gentle. Not because, IDK, maybe beating someone three-quarters to death is just all around a bad thing? You can’t be a strong person and oppose attempted murder, nope, not in this Chicago.

Tobias, why you gotta say such creepy things?

There’s some talk, and some teasing banter between Tobias and others in the room and Tris ruminates on how well Tobias fits in with this group who, like him, want to be all factions instead of being limited.

I don’t know what binds them together. The only common ground they have, as far as I know, is failure.

…and also that whole thing about wanting to be all factions. I mean, that is literally a thing that you just said one line before this.

Also they have poverty, oppression, and a burning hatred of your entitled ass, but hey, let’s not be a downer and bring that up, shall we?

Tris wanders through the group of people happily planning her society’s demise and just focuses on the happy part, not on the fact only the lack of subjugation allows it to be expressed so openly. She wanders into some headquarters building in a fit of nostalgia, and Marcus follows her in there for some chatting.

They talk about this mysterious information that…god, this whole plot is so weird I can’t even remember who has it. The Abnegation has it, and I guess Jeanine wants to steal it, but also she already knows what it is? Everything about it is so vague and so disconnected that I almost wonder if maybe it wasn’t some 11th hour addition to the plot. Like, was the original draft of this just Jeanine trying to mind-control the Divergent to make her perfect society, and then at the last minute someone added in this information subplot to…idk, just fuck up everything, because mind-controlling the Divergent doesn’t really seem to be getting her any closer to stealing some mystery information. This whole thing is just so awkwardly unconnected to literally everything around it. Even when they try to tie it into the overall plot, it doesn’t.

And no, I am not going to tell you, but not because I don’t want to. It’s because I have no idea how to describe it to you. You have to see it for yourself.”

So, I have to admit, I do know vaguely what the info is. And this description is patently false.

More than that, though, this would be obviously false no matter what the answer is. I mean, so maybe you can’t relay details or provide proof, but you can say what it’s about. “Well, it’s proof that everything outside the fence is a radioactive wasteland controlled by mutant cockroaches and we’re basically their version of a human ant farm.” “Nuh-uh.” “I know you don’t believe me, but when we get the info you’ll see the proof.”

I mean, come on, this is Tris we’re talking about, anything that can’t be verbally summarized to her is going to go over her head regardless.

And more than that, since this (should be) so obvious, it should also mark Marcus as a manipulating liar face. I mean, he keeps bringing this thing up and dangling it over her head and then…what even does he want her to do about it, again? Has he had any point to these conversations besides just reminding the audience that there might be a plot point later on?

“You like to be the only one who knows. You like that I don’t know. It makes you feel important. That’s why you won’t tell me, not because it’s indescribable.”

This actually makes the most sense out of any option we have, and yet I know it’s supposed to be the wrong one.

Marcus finally caves and says that Abnegation was going to share the info with the whole city, but Jeanine didn’t want that to happen thus all the murdering going on.

God damnit, who has the info? Because if it’s still in Abnegation’s hands, what’s to stop them from, you know, just doing that? Everyone is fractured and all that, so there might be dissemination/believability issues, but wouldn’t shouting it from the rooftops and hoping still be a better option than just waiting for Jeanine to murder it up? Hell, if getting the word out is such a big thing, and yet he’s still refusing to tell Tris anything? He came up with this little nugget like it’s supposed to excuse things, but it just makes everything even more suspicious.

Which of course means that Tris buys it hook, line, and sinker.

He also says that they were placed in Chicago for a specific purpose, but refuses to explain any further than that.

“I have told you enough to convince you that I am not a liar. As for the rest, I truly find myself unequal to the task of explaining it to you. I only told you as much as I did because the situation has become dire.”

How…is that supposed to convince anyone of anything?

Dire. Suddenly I understand the problem. The factionless plan to destroy, not only the important figures in Erudite, but all the data they have. They will level everything.

How can the factionless destroy this crucial information if Jeanine is still trying to get it from the Abnegation? Does she already have it? Is that the problem? Did no one in Abnegation ever make copies of this super important information? Was there, like, one floppy disk somewhere with everything on it that they left sitting out and it got snatched up in the invasion?

And if Jeanine already has it, then what’s she pitching a fit about now?

Tris somehow leaps to the conclusion that she’s going to have to betray Tobias. I guess because he’s all pro-factionless-destroy-Erudite-files and she now wants to save one of them, but still a leap. I mean, there’s nothing stopping her from saying “hey, I know you guys want to just fuck everything Erudite, so maybe you should not delete this one thing that they wanted deleted. You know, make the whole opposite day really thorough.”

Really, there’s nothing stopping her from just talking about this with everyone, especially since there’s every reason to believe the factionless know nothing about it. Then again, there’s no reason for why they should want to smash all information in the world, so clearly their desire to do that is solely for the sake of this specific drama right here. If you introduce logic to any one part of the problem then all of it goes away, and that’s really just not the sort of situation you want in your story.

Marcus guilts her into going along with him by saying that her mom was trying to save this info and gave it up to save her instead, so it’s her duty to finish what her mom started. Damn, so Mrs. Prior did all that and Marcus can’t even get his head out of his ass long enough to explain what the info actually is? I wouldn’t trust him in the least.