Chapter 3: Beatrice

Beatrice and Caleb enter the factionless sector en route to school, passing decay and people clustered around aid. With Robert and Susan, Beatrice contributes her apple to a factionless woman, reflecting on rumors about factionless isolation and territory. The group boards a city bus driven by an Abnegation volunteer, highlighting faction mingling in transit.

At school, Robert and Beatrice sneak to the library to watch the Dauntless leap from a moving train, a private ritual that fuels Beatrice’s desire to belong to their daring world, though she doubts her Abnegation fit and is unsure where she belongs.

In the cafeteria, students await random summons for testing. Beatrice studies each faction’s chosen games, noting strategy, debate, affirmation, and pain tolerance, while Abnegation keeps still and anonymous. A Dauntless administrator with a hawk throat tattoo calls Beatrice.

Inside the testing room, the administrator, Tori, prepares an injection and explains the test’s technology: micro transmitters and receivers implant permanently in the brain, enabling administrators—and later leaders—to interface with powerful computers, the same mechanism used to record memories in Abnegation’s Memory Vault. Tori’s casual challenge to Abnegation’s discouragement of curiosity unsettles Beatrice.

As Tori swabs Beatrice’s neck, she mentions her hawk tattoo symbolizing the sun and overcoming fear of the dark. Tori injects Beatrice; pain flares, and at Tori’s “Not anymore,” Beatrice loses consciousness, ending the chapter at the threshold of the simulation.