Allegiant

“You all keep talking about ‘experiments,’” Tobias says. “What experiments?”

“Yes, well, I was getting to that.” David looks at Amar. “Where did they start when they explained it to you?”

“Doesn’t matter where you start. You can’t make it easier to take,” Amar says, picking at his cuticles.

David considers this for a moment, then clears his throat.

“A long time ago, the United States government—”

“The united what?” Uriah asks.

“It’s a country,” says Amar. “A large one. It has specific borders and its own governing body, and we’re in the middle of it right now. We can talk about it later. Go ahead, sir.”

David presses his thumb into his palm and massages his hand, clearly disconcerted by all the interruptions.

He begins again:

“A few centuries ago, the government of this country became interested in enforcing certain desirable behaviors in its citizens. There had been studies that indicated that violent tendencies could be partially traced to a person’s genes—a gene called ‘the murder gene’ was the first of these, but there were quite a few more, genetic predispositions toward cowardice, dishonesty, low intelligence—all the qualities, in other words, that ultimately contribute to a broken society.”

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