Allegiant

Tris wakes before dawn and walks through the compound back to a sculpture, a large, dark stone with a glass water tank suspended over it. Water falls one drop at a time from the tank onto the stone. Zoe says hello from the other side of the sculpture and explains the sculpture’s symbolism. The water represents the potential to change a problem, and the rock represents the problem. Each drop of water that hits the stone is what people can do to change that problem. Zoe tells Tris that David wants to see Tris in the lab. As they walk, Zoe continues to explain more about the experiments. The Bureau found that cities with factions had better results because they helped teach good behavior to counter genetic damage and trauma; cities without factions failed within three generations.

Zoe and Tris approach David, and Zoe leaves. David then takes Tris into a small office and asks a worker for Natalie Prior’s file. He wants Tris and Caleb to read their mother’s file, explaining that Natalie’s genes were nearly perfect. They discovered her in the fringe—the area outside the cities and government control – and brought her to the Bureau. David tells Tris that Natalie volunteered to go into Chicago to stop Jeanine from killing the Divergents and helped get some of the Divergents out of the city. The worker in the room, Matthew, hands Tris a glass tablet with Natalie’s files downloaded onto it; she takes it back to the dormitory. As he walks with her, Matthew asks if Tris and Tobias would mind testing their genes. Tris says she’s willing and will ask Tobias. Matthew says he’ll return for her in an hour.

Tobias gets up, showers, and dresses. When he returns to the dorm, Tris is on her cot. She shows Tobias the tablet and tells him Natalie wrote a journal, but she hasn’t looked at it yet because she’s afraid of what she’ll learn. Tris asks if he’s willing to do the genetic test, and Tobias agrees but only to escape having to watch his father’s trial. George, Tori’s brother, enters the dorm looking for his sister, so Tris tells him Tori died, giving her life to get the rest of them out of the city.

Matthew returns to the dorm and takes Tris and Tobias to a lab. They walk through a converted terminal and see numerous people analyzing data from the experiments and other Bureau projects. Matthew talks about serums, which initially came from the Bureau. Erudite took what the Bureau provided and perfected them. Matthew says the Abnegation memory serum is the Bureau’s best weapon because it solves conflict without hurting anyone.

They arrive at the exam room and meet Nita. She prepares an injection of microcomputers that looks for specific genetic markers and transmits that information to a computer. Matthew leaves, so Tris talks to Nita, who came to the Bureau eight years ago. Nita’s previous city was a control group for the experiment. It didn’t have factions but many rules; her city failed when someone bombed a government building. Tris asks why the government hasn’t shut Chicago down with all the recent violence, and Nita says it’s because it has been successful for so long and because of the factions.

Matthew returns an hour later and reads the information on the computer screen. He confirms that Tris is a Divergent based on her genetic markers but says Tobias isn’t Divergent. Tobias realizes he’s genetically damaged and takes the news hard. Tris tries to tell him the test doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t change who he is. Tobias walks out of the room; as he does, Nita catches up and tells him to meet her at the lab at 9 pm without Tris.

When Tobias leaves the room, Tris doesn’t follow him because she doesn’t know how to help him. She no longer feels unique for being Divergent. She leaves the room and sees Zoe, who says she’s planned an airplane ride for anyone interested.

Two hours later, everyone from the group except Tobias boards the plane. Zoe explains that the Bureau uses the aircraft for surveillance missions in the fringe. The pilot enters the plane and introduces herself. The plane takes off, and Tris sees the expansive landscape and feels small. They see a city with burnt buildings because of the Purity War. They approach Chicago and see the marsh that used to be Lake Michigan, realizing their city is far smaller than they realized.

That night, Tris begins reading her mother’s journal. In the first entry, Tris learns that Natalie grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her mother was in law enforcement, and her father was a teacher. When Natalie was 13, her parents got into an argument, and her mom shot and killed her dad. She buried his body and left the house. Natalie never saw her again. To escape government intervention, Natalie left Milwaukee and moved to the fringe. There, she saw a man beating a child, so she hit him over the head with a board. She accidentally killed him and felt that she was no better than her mother. David picked Natalie up and tested her genes, finding that they were more healed than most. Tris stops reading, and Christina and Uriah enter the dorm. Tris tells them what she has learned about her mother, and Caleb enters the room. Tris hides the tablet, and he asks if she will ever forgive him. Tris turns away instead of answering.

Tobias meets Nita that night. As they walk through the airport, she tells him about the division between the genetically pure (GPs) and the genetically damaged (GDs) that still exists inside the Bureau. Tobias becomes angry and believes there’s more to a person than their genes. They continue through a tunnel and into a doorway. They enter what looks like a recreation room for GDs. A young man runs into the room and says that Evelyn is about to announce Marcus’ verdict. Tobias runs to the control room and sees his parents on the screen. Evelyn summarizes Marcus’ crimes and says his punishment is to be sent outside the city, never to return.