Ever since I realized that Max was working closely with Jeanine Matthews, and began to suspect that they had something to do with Amar’s death, I’ve been looking for a way to investigate further. When I saw him type in his password the other day, I found one.
084628. Yes, the numbers look right. I call up the live security footage again, and cycle through the camera feeds until I find the ones that show Max’s office and the hallway beyond it. Then I type the command to take the footage of Max’s office out of the rotation, so Gus and the others won’t see it; it will only play on my screen. The footage from the whole city is always divided by however many people are in the control room, so we aren’t all looking at the same feeds. We’re only supposed to pull footage from the general rotation like that for a few seconds at a time, if we need a closer look at something, but hopefully this won’t take me long. I slip out of the room and walk toward the elevators.
This level of the Pire is almost empty—everyone is gone. That will make it easier for me to do what I have to do. I ride the elevator up to the tenth floor, and walk purposefully toward Max’s office. I’ve found that when you’re sneaking around, it’s best not to look like you’re sneaking around. I tap the flash drive in my pocket as I walk, and turn the corner toward Max’s office.
I nudge the door open with my shoe—earlier today, after I was sure he had gone to the Pit to start Visiting Day preparations, I’d crept up here and taped the lock. I close the door quietly behind me, not turning on the lights, and crouch next to his desk. I don’t want to move the chair to sit in it; I don’t want him to see that anything about this room has changed when he gets back.
The screen prompts me for a password. My mouth feels dry. I take the paper from my pocket and press it flat to the desk top while I type it in. 084628.
The screen shifts. I can’t believe it worked.
Hurry. If Gus discovers that I’m gone, that I’m in here, I don’t know what I’ll say, what excuse I could possibly give that would sound reasonable. I insert the flash drive and transfer the program I put there earlier. I asked Lauren, one of the Dauntless technical staff and my fellow initiation instructor, for a program that would make one computer mirror another, under the pretense that I wanted to prank Zeke when we’re at work. She was happy to help—another thing I’ve discovered is that the Dauntless are always up for a prank, and rarely looking for a lie.
With a few simple keystrokes, the program is installed and buried somewhere in Max’s computer that I’m sure he would never bother to access. I put the flash drive back in my pocket, along with the piece of paper with his password on it, and leave the office without getting my fingerprints on the glass part of the door.
That was easy, I think, as I walk toward the elevators again. According to my watch, it only took me five minutes. I can claim that I was on a bathroom break if anyone asks.
But when I get back to the control room, Gus is standing at my computer, staring at my screen.
I freeze. How long has he been there? Did he see me break into Max’s office?
“Four,” Gus says, sounding grave. “Why did you isolate this footage? You’re not supposed to take feeds out of rotation, you know that.”
“I . . .” Lie! Lie now! “I thought I saw something,” I finish lamely. “We’re allowed to isolate footage if we see something out of the ordinary.”
Gus moves toward me.
“So,” he says, “then why did I just see you on this screen coming out of that same hallway?”
He points to the hallway on my screen. My throat tightens.
“I thought I saw something, and I went upstairs to investigate it,” I say. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to move around.”
He stares at me, chewing the inside of his cheek. I don’t move. I don’t look away.
“If you ever see something out of the ordinary again, you follow the protocol. You report it to your supervisor, who is . . . who, again?”
“You,” I say, sighing a little. I don’t like to be patronized.
“Correct. I see you can keep up,” he says. “Honestly, Four, after over a year of working here there shouldn’t be so many irregularities in your job performance. We have very clear rules, and all you have to do is follow them. This is your last warning. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say. I’ve been chastised a few times for pulling feeds out of rotation to watch meetings with Jeanine Matthews and Max, or with Max and Eric. It never gave me any useful information, and I almost always got caught.
“Good.” His voice lightens up a little. “Good luck with the initiates. You got transfers again this year?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Lauren gets the Dauntless-borns.”
“Ah, too bad. I was hoping you would get to know my little sister,” Gus says. “If I were you, I’d go do something to wind down. We’re fine in here. Just let that footage loose before you go.”
He walks back to his computer, and I unclench my jaw. I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it. My face throbbing, I shut down my computer and leave the control room. I can’t believe I got away with it.
Now, with this program installed on Max’s computer, I can go through every single one of his files from the relative privacy of the control room. I can find out exactly what he and Jeanine Matthews are up to.
That night I dream that I’m walking through the hallways of the Pire, and I’m alone, but the corridors don’t end, and the view from the windows doesn’t change, lofted train tracks curving into tall buildings, the sun buried in clouds. I feel like I’m walking for hours, and when I wake with a start, it’s like I never slept at all.