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Alex shivers, feeling the air on the back of his newly bare neck, his previously medium-length hair cut into something shorter and more manageable. He tentatively reaches back with his fingers anyway, but there’s nothing past the base of his scalp.
“Want to see?” his dad asks.
Alex’s head snaps up so quickly he nearly gives himself whiplash. “Can I?”
“A special treat,” John says, nodding. “Just for today.”
Alex looks straight ahead at the locked compartment across from where he sits, watching as his dad inputs some sort of combination to crack the lock before sliding the wooden cover on the compartment built into the wall over, revealing a mirror.
He stares and he stares.
The boy in the mirror stares right back. He looks unsure of himself, barely recognizable, but it’s supposed to be Alex. The haircut isn’t bad. As he goes to brush the fringes of blond out of his vision, still gazing intently into the mirror, the abrupt clicking sound of a locking mechanism and the disappearance of his mirror image startles him into taking a sharp intake of breath.
“Sorry, but that’s all you get. Rules are rules,” John says. And he’s right. Rule following is even more sternly enforced when you’re meant to be an exemplary model for the rest of your faction to follow—that’s what John Rider is in Abnegation, a leader of the city council along with Alex’s mum, Helen Rider.
Abnegation, the selfless.
The well-being of others is all Alex has ever known, even more than himself.
That being said, he doesn’t know himself very well.
“Are you nervous, Alex?”
“No,” he lies through the cracks of his teeth. “Were you? For your test?”
John’s eyes glaze over for a moment, like he’s reliving a memory in the entirety of a split second. “No,” he says, eventually. “Now Ian, on the other hand, was terrified.”
“But you two stayed together?” Alex stares at his feet. “You had each other.”
“... We did,” John admits. “It helped to have each other through it all.” There’s something unspoken in the air, a story untold. Alex doesn’t dare ask about it, though. Curiosity isn’t a good look on Abnegation.
Curiosity is self-centered. Alex is supposed to be beyond the self, speak when spoken to, avoid thinking about personal wants—sharing pieces of himself with others. As far as he’s concerned, he hasn’t given away a single piece. He’s developed a rather itchy restlessness when people look to him as John Rider’s son, model Abnegation, next in line. He’s never known anything else other than the regulated eight-centimeter grass within the vicinity of their community’s mirrored shacks, all equidistant from one another, no one home more luxurious than the rest, least of all John Rider’s. Like clockwork, they all volunteer in the morning, every morning, passing out surplus materials set aside for the factionless, spending the evenings informing policy-making as the public servants of the city amongst other tasks.
If Alex takes an extra minute to get up in the mornings and drags his feet whilst walking back home and leaving the bustling city every day, that’s no one else’s business but his own.
“Your mum laid out your clothes earlier.” John pauses in the doorway, lingering. Then softer, “You can take your time.”
Alex doesn’t take his time getting dressed. He wishes to get his Aptitude Test over with as soon as possible.
***
Four lines distinguished by the vastly different clothing worn by the people in said lines stretch out from the government-regulated testing center. Most in Abnegation are talking in hushed tones, sneaking furtive glances at the other factions, as if staring too long might cause a sudden disturbance to the balance of all things and inflict some kind of curse upon them all.
“So all the food we’re not getting, you guys are giving away to the factionless? You’re lying to me; we all know you keep it for yourself.” Ahead of Alex in line is a sudden disturbance, a shock of noise. The culprit belongs to a man wearing Candor’s bright white colors, over-the-top and looking for human duplicity where there is none. “Hey, look at me. I’m talking to you…!”
Alex eyes the way one of his fellow Abnegation is shoved out of line by the sudden stranger and there’s that itch again, the one that erupts under his skin whenever he wants to act on an impulse that’s unbecoming of him, something reckless and loud. His internal debate is interrupted when the rhythm of the city is broken by the sound of a rapidly approaching train in the distance. Perking up, Alex doesn’t even need to turn his head to know—Dauntless has arrived in style, jumping off the still-moving train into safety rolls to distribute the kinetic energy of the abrupt impact with the ground, laughing all the while.
It isn’t until he’s called to step into the testing chamber and a reflexive frown pulls at his mouth does he realize he’s been smiling unconsciously, staring dazedly at Dauntless and their black jackets and the noisiness of their conversations, unabashedly at full volume without a care in the world for the way the other factions are side-eyeing them.
He follows silently behind the several before him into a long hallway lined with doors, his own completely indistinguishable from the ones beside it. He doesn’t have long to wonder if the insides are just as identical when the heavy door cracks open automatically, revealing a padded medical chair lined with wires and machinery in the back corner in what is a room filled with stark shadows, the very first thing Alex notices. The room is dark. Accompanying the equipment is a man Alex can only describe as adept at his job, looking right at home pouring a serum mixture into a fancy glass beaker.
Alex startles when his own face looks back at him from multiple angles. It takes him a moment to realize the four walls of the room are covered with mirrors from corner to corner, with nowhere to hide. He’s never had much of a chance to see himself through a mirror for a long period of time, but here…
Fair blond newly cut short frames his boyish face. In a sea of faces, his is not much to stop and smell the roses for; murky pond water blue eyes stand out the most accompanied by a curious furrow in brow and lips drawn into a thin line. Is this how he looks all the time? Other than mildly irritated, he looks younger than his years, something to do with the puppy fat still clinging to his cheeks and the lack of muscle on him. Never having step foot out of your faction’s lifestyle will do that to you.
Upon closer inspection, he realizes what compels others to constantly compare his facial features to his dad’s. He looks like a younger version of John Rider, mixed with some of his mum’s features.
“What is it with you Abnegation and mirrors?”
Startled, Alex directs his attention to the test examiner who’s done messing with the strangely colored liquid. “... We reject vanity,” is his automatic response, something ingrained in him since he could begin to think.
‘Hmm.” The man eyes him with trepidation, rotating his chair to face Alex directly. “Have a seat. I’m Smithers, and I’ll be administering your test today. Not to fear, most end up testing into their birth faction, and from the looks of it… You’re John’s boy, aren’t you?”
Alex settles into the angled medical chair, opting to raise his chin in defiance. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It doesn’t,” Smithers answers neutrally. “The Aptitude Test doesn’t decide your ultimate placement, anyway. You do, during the choosing ceremony.”
“But it helps,” Alex argues. “The Aptitude Test. It’ll tell me where I belong, right?”
Sighing, Smithers raises a small beaker of blue liquid to Alex’s eye level. “Bottoms up.”
Alex can tell when a conversation is over, when he isn’t going to be further answers. Gently wrapping his fingers around the rim, he’s surprised by how cold the serum is. Wondering what it’s made of, he tilts his head back and drinks the liquid in less than three rapid mouthfuls, one after the other.
***
He comes to gasping for air like a fish out of water, lungs heaving like he’s just been forced to run a marathon. Vague flashes of images are still imprinted under the skins of the eyelids, the mirrored room full of Alex Riders, sons of the head of Abnegation, how he was supposed to choose correctly but he ended up not choosing anything at all, the beast growling and frothing at the mouth with a gaping, sharp maw that went after a boy who looked like a younger version of him, other things he can’t remember and far too many things for him to process properly.
Alex flinches when a hand grabs his forearm roughly and finds himself staring into Smithers’s wide, frantic eyes. “You’ve got to go before Blunt—before someone comes and sees. I’m going to let you out of the back entrance and you’re going to go home and tell anyone who asks that the serum made you sick.”
Pulled to his feet but still groggy from the Aptitude Test, Alex grounds himself on the armrest of the chair. “Wait, what? But what were my results? And why do I have to leave early?”
After some insistent tugging, Alex follows Smithers’s lead to a door different from the one he entered through.
He shakes the test proctor off when they near the furtive exit, tucked away into an alcove. “Explain. Explain right now or I won’t leave.”
“Listen, Alex Rider,” Smithers murmurs. “You tested Abnegation,” Alex’s heart plummets to his stomach like a heavy stone, “... and Erudite… and Dauntless.”
Dauntless, he repeats in his head.
“Do you understand what that means?”
“That your test is broken?” Alex guesses.
Smithers shakes his head firmly. “There are very rare occasions when someone will test to be more than one faction. Very rare. It means you’re different. And here? They don’t like different.”
“That’s not…” fair, he wants to say. But he’s directed that very same thought to Abnegation’s lifestyle many times. “... What do I do then?”
“As far as anyone is concerned, you are Abnegation because that is what I entered into the system.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense if I left with everyone else and acted completely normal?”
“Normal…” Smithers mutters. “A pipe dream, really. No one gets through the test this quickly. Only people like you do. Divergent, you’re called. You don’t fit into the small boxes they like to put us in. It would make more sense to say the serum made you sick, thus I had you leave early with a preliminary result.”
“But the test was supposed to tell me what to do,” Alex whispers to himself, staring at his feet. Worn-out cloth shoes that do nothing to shield him from the elements look back. They’re not fit to his size, a hand-me-down prepared to be used to death.
“Only you know what to do,” Smither says cryptically, ushering Alex out the door and into a sudden distressingly large amount of sunlight that forces him to squint at his surroundings. “Remember.”
***
“I was waiting for you, Alex,” Ian vocalizes as soon as they start dinner. The same short meal in dimness, brightened only by the barest amount of candlelight, the same meager oatmeal porridge. “I waited for a rather long time, actually. Why did you leave without telling anyone?”
“I got sick off the serum and the bloke administering my test sent me home,” Alex parrots. Both his parents had been working in the city all day, which left Ian to babysit for the occasion. Only—Alex had gone out the back and all the way back home, leaving one very confused uncle still left standing in front of the test building. “I totally forgot Mum and Dad said you were going to pick me up afterwards, cross my heart, honest mistake.”
His parents exchange a look from across the table. “If you say so, Alex,” Ian nods slowly. “It wasn’t because… of your result, was it? You know to think of the family, regardless of the test, don’t you?”
Alex blinks, fighting down the panic that wants to crawl its way up his throat.
“What Ian means to say is,” his dad cuts in with a weak smile, reaching for Alex’s other idle hand on the table, “we were wondering what you tested as, if you’d like to say?”
Nearly scoffing, Alex sees the question for what it is. Choosing not to answer is an answer in and of itself. Even so, he can only avoid his parents' burning gazes for so long.
Dialing up the confidence in his voice, Alex looks directly into his dad’s eyes, flits over to his mum’s, and replies with a casual, “Abnegation, of course.” John’s shoulders slump minutely, in relief. An unspoken, good. Helen, on the other hand, shoots Alex a concerned expression he pretends not to notice.
“Are you worried about the articles Erudite keeps running about the corruption of Abnegation leadership at all, John?” Ian asks between bites of his supper.
It’s his mum who answers, “Everyone knows we’re simply public servants, but… it is true Vladimir is under heavy scrutiny. Old accusations are being brought up against him, about…” She trails off, pointedly staring into her oatmeal and anywhere but John.
About what? Alex fights the urge to ask, but allows the feeling to pass through him instead.
Too curious, his dad had always scolded him. Alex knows, now. Curiosity is an Erudite trait.
After tearing his eyes away from the work talk, Alex labors through one last spoonful of the bland oatmeal. Halfway to putting his spoon down, he catches a glimpse of himself on the broad side of the metallic utensil. It’s a boy, nearly a man, but it isn’t Alex. He hasn’t the foggiest who he keeps seeing in the reflections, but it isn't himself, that’s for sure.
It isn’t who he wishes to be.
***
The auditorium the choosing ceremony is being held in is beyond loud, a level of volume Alex isn’t used to, and yet, everything is muted and muffled in his head, like he’s just stuck his head underwater and listening to everything from down there. Ian sits to his right and his parents on his left, closest to the aisle. A lengthy granite table, or some polished stone meant for visual appeal, is the centerpiece of the occasion. In the very front at the base of the sloped seats, the table holds five separate bowls, slightly distanced from one another. Engraved into the stone bowls are symbols belonging to their relative factions.
It’s too far away for Alex to see if anything is inside them.
The audience naturally eases into applause and then a respectful quiet when a woman with an obvious air of authority steps up, ready to speak. Black, wavy hair and a firm, no-nonsense stare that could turn anyone to stone, Julia Rothman, head of Erudite, in charge of intelligence and educator roles as well as research, clears her throat. “As you all know, we are very lucky to be in this city, kept together by the consolidated efforts of our five factions. Today is the anniversary of the arrival of our founders after the war, and it is very fitting, seeing today is the choosing ceremony in which many of the new adults sitting amongst us will be selecting their faction of choice for the rest of their lives. I’ll keep it short, after all, today is a very important day for all of you.”
She gestures at the audience in general, but her gaze lingers for a beat too long where Alex sits. Two seats beside him, closest to the steps, where his dad sits.
More history Alex hasn’t a clue about.
“The only way for the faction system to continue running as effectively as possible is for all of you, our future hopes, to come into your rightful place in society. To know yourselves and where you truly belong.”
The tension in Alex’s jaw doesn’t ease up for a single moment. How can someone possibly map out the course of their life through one spur-of-the-whim decision at this young of an age?
“When you leave this room, you will no longer be dependents, but full-fledged members of our society. Young adults, soon to acquire adult roles,” a new voice begins to speak. Vladimir, Alex easily recognized. One of the leaders of Abnegation along with his parents, city council member as well. “Faction before blood.”
“Faction before blood.” Amongst the synchronous echoes of the phrase throughout the auditorium, no one can notice the stiffness of Alex’s words. How can that be? To suddenly pick up your very being and move to a new community and force yourself to forget about your birth one? How can he forget his nameless neighbors who always gave away their freshly baked goods to Alex when his parents weren’t looking? The couple who cleaned and patched up Alex’s skinned knees while putting a strawberry flavored ice lolly into his hands as a distraction from when he ran a little too far and too fast when he was much younger, the first and last time he’d gotten lost? How can he forget his silly uncle who will drone on and on about public service and Alex’s need to go more for the community all the time but still let him sleep in for that please, just one more minute? His dad, who works all day and shoulders the entirety of not just Abnegation, but the whole city, factionless and all, on his shoulders? As all Abnegation do, they don’t ever practice excess, but once, on Alex’s fourteenth birthday, John had that weary look of being overworked but pulled him aside after a short dinner, had given him a well-worn book, frayed at the edges with yellowing pages and the name of his late grandfather scribbled into the back of the cover. How can he willingly forget? And his mum—his mum who…
“I love you, Alex,” Helen smiles from beside him, reaching over to gently hold his cheek, like the world is in her hands. It is brief, like all things are. The names being called out to choose, to pick, rapidly approach Alex’s with an overcast cloud of involuntary permanence. Emphasized, “No matter what.”
No matter what, Alex mouths to himself. Okay.
“Alex Rider.”
Heads turn. They’ve been looking forward to this one, haven’t they? Who is he, whispers are passed around like poorly-hidden secrets. John Rider’s son spreads faster than rumors circulating a Candor discussion forum.
Each step down towards the center table with the choosing bowls is like being weighed down by waterlogged trousers and shoes and socks. He doesn’t look back, doesn’t dare latch onto what he knows will be pride and hope flaring brightly in John’s eyes and end up sinking into that brief self-doubt.
He doesn’t look at Julia Rothman on the sidelines, a curious glint with some sort of expectation of him. He doesn’t look at Vladimir, one of the leaders of his own faction, for what business does he have with a man who’s never spoken to him all of his life? He won’t be finding any comfort there.
Closer to the large, stone bowls, the insides make themselves clear to him: jagged glass for Candor, clear water for Erudite, fertile soil for Amity, burning coals for Dauntless, simple grey stones for Abnegation.
What awaits him on a stool in front of the faction bowls is a clean ceremonial dagger, sharpened to a point. Beside it are bandages and large palm-sized plasters.
A steady hold on the hilt is important so as not to slip up and embarrass himself further. This is what occupies his mind instead of giving into the urge to pass out onto the floor.
Alex tilts the tip and one sharp edge of the dagger into the flesh of the base of his palm like he’s envisioned hundreds of times. Just enough for him to bleed, not too deep a wound.
Today is for him.
The cut stings, as all shallow open wounds do, and Alex curses the visible tremble along his arm, held up and ready to choose.
Today is for tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that.
Held aloft over Abnegation as his hand should be, Alex repeats to himself, think of the family, think of the family, think, think, think…!
Today is for a chance to discover who Alex Rider really is, instead of John Rider’s son.
Several drops of blood sizzle on blackened coal embers, hissing in delight at his decision. A thunderous applause erupts from behind him, a tumultuous celebration of his faction switch. Almost too quiet to hear under the cheering is confused groans.
Alex stands aimlessly until he is herded to the chairs in the very front of the Dauntless assigned seating, closest to the spectacle of the stone choosing bowls. Hands thump his back in congratulations, laughter emerged at the color of his Abnegation-born clothes, and someone nearby exclaims, “This is probably the second ever Abnegation to switch to Dauntless!”
Who’s the first passes and disappears just as quickly as it came when everyone abruptly stands up. They’d done the choosing in reverse alphabetical order.
It’s over.
“This way!” Dauntless are the first to leave.
Alex turns around to cheat, for one final glimpse of his faction—his former faction—in a way that doesn’t break the rules.
The gathering crowd of new Dauntless initiates blocks his line of sight to the Abnegation section of the seats. He follows along obediently with no other choice, and then suddenly they are out of the stuffy hundred-floor Hub, pinnacle of society they like to call it, and into the free space of the city, everyone’s turf.
Final goodbyes are not allowed.
Alex doesn’t get to see his family and friends and faction one last time.
***
They’re trying to kill him, Alex thinks, completely out of breath, sitting on his arse atop a five-story building he jumped onto from a moving train. They’re trying to kill all the non-Dauntless-born initiates.
Almost immediately after leaving the Hub, the Dauntless-born had begun jogging, running as if the lack of movement would cause them to wither and die, render them permanently sedentary. Vertical steel trellis-shaped poles adorned the four corners of an open space, leading up to some sort of railing. The insane bastards began to crawl up them with the fearlessness of a cat with nine lives, free climbing with the small edges of the steel that stick out as hand and footholds. Naturally, Alex follows them up—otherwise, he’ll be left behind. He nearly slips as many times as humanly possible, but with the never-felt-before adrenaline pumping through his veins, he’d probably trail after the group no matter what they did. It’s what he’d been thinking standing by the railing, waiting for the incoming train to stop.
The train does not, in fact, stop, blowing right past him mockingly. In the end, he had to run himself beyond exertion to catch the last train car, grab the outer bar handle on the side of the car door and hoist himself into the open door before the ledge he’d been struggling to sprint along disappeared into a steep drop.
Not long after, all the Dauntless born began leaping out of the train—which again, did not stop for anyone—and onto the roof of a building with a nearly two-meter long gap of open space between the edge and the train doors. Over the chugging of the engine and the blood pounding in your ears, you’d never hear anyone scream. The last to go in his own compartment leaves Alex plenty of room but no time to make a literal leap of faith, rolling along his side when he overshoots the edge of the room and collides with the floor in an amateurish way, unable to replicate the body rolls of the Dauntless born.
His sides ache and his palms are scraped up and they’re trying to kill Alex but he’s grinning like a maniac, huffs of laughter trickling out between his attempts at catching his breath.
They soon gather in front of an missing space roughly in the shape of a circle carved out in the middle of the rooftop, an empty black hole below it.
A slim and wiry man hops up onto the edge with a practiced ease. Dark brown eyes that flit from person to person and the beginnings of a rough beard define his immediate features. Following that is the black, curly hair that matches rather well with the Dauntless colored jackets.
“My name is Ash. Before you ask, yes, it wasn’t always that way, and no, I won’t be telling you anymore,” he says firmly. “If you want to enter Dauntless, this is the way in, initiates. If you don’t have the guts to jump, then… I guess you don’t belong in Dauntless.” A mean-spirited shrug.
Mutters along the lines of is there water at the bottom, we just jumped out of a train ripple through the forty or so of them.
“Someone’s going to have to go first.” Ash is almost smiling to himself. “Who’s it going to be?”
Dauntless are trying to kill their new initiates.
This is absolutely mad.
“I’ll go,” someone says. Everyone turns to look at Alex, tucked somewhere into the rear end of the group.
I’ll go, he had opened his mouth and said. What other choice is there other than to move forward when there’s no looking back?
The next moment passes faster than half a blink, standing uneasily on the edge, some taunting about his Abnegation origins, something about keeping everyone on the roof all day, and then suddenly all there is is air between his legs and his arms and every cell of his being, his existence passing right through him and his stomach swooping with the sensation of a rapidly approaching death.
He doesn’t remember much of it; however, what comes after…
Alex’s short life flashes before his eyes. Something soft but wiry meets his back at the bottom and knocks the breath out of him, like something out of the novel his dad had lent him, still stashed beside his neatly made bed in his old home.
The man holding onto the edge of the net leans forward to receive Alex, but he sucks in a breath, whispers in almost disbelief, “You’re…” before reverting to a professional stoicism, like Alex was never meant to hear any breaking of character.
For a moment, it is only Alex, unbalanced and laying uneven, tilted in the direction of the man’s pull on the edge of the net—for a moment, the world is only him and this man with eyelashes Alex can only dare take note of because they are only centimeters from each other, hair close-cut for practicality and left to grow slightly longer framing his face and the strong cut of his jawline. An almost serene wistfulness in his eyes nearly distracts Alex from the fact that the man’s chiseled lips pulled into a thin line bordering on a frown are moving, forming words that he processes a beat too late.
“Your name,” the man corrects his earlier blunder.
“Alex…” he doesn’t know why he hesitates at all, “Rider. Alex Rider.”
“... I’m Yassen,” the man says, and he looks quite surprised at himself almost immediately afterwards but covers it up by swiftly turning his body away and back like he’s checking on the other Dauntless leaders still hidden further in. “Were you pushed?”
“No,” Alex says. Yassen almost looks impressed.
“Alex Rider, first jumper!” Yassen raises his voice. Cue the cheering and applause from beyond this man at the bottom of the net, out of sight, for now, overshadowed by the presence of Yassen, somehow larger than life even though Alex has only known him for less than five minutes.
After the edge of the net is purposefully tugged on harder, Alex tumbles out the side, steadied by Yassen’s firm hands on his shoulders to support him until he’s solidly on the ground again, his entire world either screeching to a halt or starting to set in motion for the first time in his life.
Raising a brow at Alex’s blatant staring that hasn’t stopped for even a moment, the other man scans Alex’s clothes. “Abnegation. I shouldn’t have to tell you how rare it is?”
Alex doesn’t hold himself back and scoffs openly, crossing his arms.
“It is nothing to scoff at, Alex Rider,” Yassen says softly. “You are going to have a very, very hard time here.”
“What?” Alex feels his face contort into something indignant, flushing from exertion. Swept up by how rapidly everything is proceeding, he can only hope for some semblance of calm approaching soon. “Is that a warning? Or a threat?”
Flashing a thin smile that can only be described as mysterious, Yassen murmurs, “Welcome to your new normal, little Alex.”
It’s a promise that the familiar, comforting calm Alex has always been so used to will never belong to him again.
What awaits him instead is his new form of normal: Dauntless and all it has to offer.