Thomas still loved eavesdropping whenever he could. Listening in when Alby, Minho, and Newt would sit down for meals. It made Thomas feel like a part of them, almost like he was there.
And that was exactly what he’d been doing all afternoon, switching between views and microphones when one scene grew boring. At the moment, over by the east door, Newt was talking to Minho, who’d just returned from running the vast maze itself.
“Anything new out there?” Newt asked, the sarcasm obvious. “Did a bloody Griever come out and ask for a snog?”
Minho leaned against the stone, still catching his breath. “How’d you know? I told him maybe some other time—not really my type.”
These two had some variation of this conversation almost every day, mocking the monotony of what the Runners found in their daily excursions. They’d started walking toward the Map Room when Thomas heard a knock at the door behind him. Sadly, he pulled himself away from the world of the maze and returned to WICKED.
“Who is it?” he asked.
The door opened, and Chuck’s curly head poked through. “Hey, Thomas. Dr. Campbell said I could have two free hours to help you with your notes. So…”
“Come on in, you shank. You don’t have to act like it’s a big deal every time.”
He and Chuck had started using some of the slang words invented inside the Glade, just between the two of them. Chuck’s favorite was klunk by a long shot. Dr. Paige said the Psychs were really interested in how the memory loss affected the Gladers. Sometimes there were surprises, like the invention of totally new words. A few of them came from Minho, who’d had quite the mouth even before entering the maze. The Swipe seemed to heighten the trait, which the Psychs also found interesting.
Of course, the Psychs found everything interesting.
Chuck came in and sat beside Thomas, plopping down in his seat with an exaggerated sigh of contentment. “They sent Frank in today, which means I only have one month left.” The mix of excitement and fear in Chuck’s eyes always broke Thomas’s heart a little. He shared as much blame for the fear part as anyone—it’d been his own selfishness having Chuck in here so often, seeing some of the bad things that happened inside the maze. But the kid was his brother in every way but blood—without him in his life, Thomas would’ve broken long ago.
“It’ll be here before you know it,” he said.
“Which means,” Chuck said, “that all of this’ll be over before we know it, too.”
“Yep. You got it.”
“What’d you do today?” Chuck asked. “Let me guess—medical checkup, classes, critical thinking, observe the maze.”
“Yep. You got it,” Thomas said again, making the boy laugh. “Pretty exciting life I lead, am I right?”
“Just wait until I get to the maze,” Chuck replied. “I’ll liven that place right up.” He said it with an enthusiasm that Thomas could only guess was genuine—kids that young had a knack for remembering only the good parts.
“Yep. You got it.” The third time made even Thomas laugh. Then he stood up. “Sorry, I have a meeting I’m supposed to go to.”
“Aw, come on, I just got here! I was hoping to watch the Gladers eat dinner. I think Gally and Alby are finally gonna beat the klunk out of each other tonight.”
“Sorry, bud,” Thomas said. “And you know you can’t be in here without me, so head to the barracks. Later we’ll grab food, come back here, and do more Glade spying. Maybe the Psychs’ll send a Griever in to dance for them.”
Chuck paled a little at that but did his best to cover it up. Sometimes, in his excitement to get to the Glade, he forgot about the monsters.
“Sorry,” Thomas said, wanting to kick himself. “Terrible joke.”
—
The meeting was in a small conference room, and Thomas arrived knowing absolutely nothing of its purpose. Dr. Paige sat at the head of the table, with two people to her left who were obviously Psychs. One was from the days before the Purge—a lady named Campbell. The other was a newbie, from Seattle or Anchorage or who knew where. Thomas purposely didn’t bother learning details like that. He couldn’t put his finger on why.
To Dr. Paige’s right, a middle-aged man with dark hair and brown skin sat with a girl who could have been his daughter age-wise, but not genetically, by the looks of it. She had fair skin and dirty-blond hair, and the man leaned toward her as if he knew her well, as if they’d just been whispering.
Thomas stood there for a long moment, everyone in the room assessing everyone else.
Dr. Paige stood up. “Thanks for coming, Thomas. You’ve made yourself scarce lately. Helping Chuck prep for his big trip to the maze next month?” She smiled innocently, as if she didn’t know every single move he made, every second of the day. Thomas didn’t like her nearly as much as he had before the Purge.
“Something like that,” Thomas said in an even tone.
“Well, please sit down,” Paige replied, motioning to a chair opposite hers, across the table.
After he was seated, Thomas asked, “So what’s this all about?”
Dr. Paige held up a finger, looking annoyed. “Just a moment. Teresa should be here any second.”
On cue, the door opened again and Teresa came bustling through, offering a few nods of greeting before sitting next to Thomas. She always looked so…busy. So preoccupied.
Hi, she said to him, sending as much warmth along with her greeting as she could.
Good to see you, he replied. Truer words had never been spoken. He missed her.
Dr. Paige got down to business. “I want to introduce a couple of new friends who will be helping with some upcoming projects.” She turned toward the two newcomers to her right, the man and the girl he seemed to hover over. “This is Jorge and Brenda. Jorge is a Berg pilot, a very good one. And Brenda has some training as a nurse, with big plans to become a Psych someday. Isn’t that right, Brenda?”
The girl nodded, not showing a hint of shyness or awkwardness. “Whatever it takes to find a cure,” she said. It seemed like an odd response, but something haunted hid behind her eyes, something that probably explained exactly why she’d answered that way.
“Hola,” the man named Jorge said, looking each of them in the eye for a moment. “I’m excited to work with you.”
“Work with us?” Teresa asked. “What’s going on?”
He’d gotten Thomas’s attention. He was now madly curious.
“We’d like you to help us on an upcoming expedition,” Dr. Paige said. “In a few weeks, Jorge, Brenda, and quite a few others will be sent to a place called the Scorch. We’re very interested in what we may find inside a nearby city infested with Cranks. Significant research potential.”
“A city infested with Cranks?” Thomas repeated. He had a bad feeling he wasn’t hearing the whole truth here.
“Yes,” she said, offering nothing else. “And we think it will be valuable to have you there. We’d like to test the long-range effectiveness of your implant technology, especially the remote monitoring of your killzone patterns and other measurements. We need to know it can work at long distances. Now, here’s what we have planned….”
Thomas worked over what she’d just said, tuning her out. Why would they need to know about long-distance monitoring? Was WICKED planning on moving them somewhere? There was more going on here that they weren’t telling him, and he had a bad feeling about it. A feeling he’d had for a while but could only now admit to himself. It made him feel sick.
WICKED was never going to stop.
They were never, never going to stop.
231.11.30 | 8:32 p.m.
Thomas walked with Chuck down the long hallway, which seemed to stretch out infinitely before him. That was how everything felt today. Long and never-ending. Really, he was just in a sad mood. The day had finally come.
Chuck was going to be inserted into the maze.
Thomas had asked for this hour with Chuck to eat a last meal of sorts and talk through things. Their own goodbye.
Then Thomas planned to leave Chuck in the hands of the experts and make himself scarce. He didn’t think he could handle watching Chuck get his memory erased, see him handled like a corpse, watch him get thrown into the Box like a heap of trash. They’d have their goodbye, and then Thomas could hide in his room until the next morning rolled around.
The cafeteria was quiet during the lull between the breakfast and lunch crowds. After grabbing plates of breakfast leftovers, he and Chuck sat down by one of the few windows that looked out over the Alaskan forest. They’d barely talked since Thomas had retrieved Chuck from his room, and now they both picked at their food. Neither had actually taken a bite yet.
“I might as well get the dumb question out of the way,” Thomas finally said. “You scared?”
Chuck held up a limp piece of bacon and studied it. “You’re right. Dumb question.”
“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”
Chuck chomped on the bacon, his face wincing a little. “Tastes like klunk.”
“Of course it does. They fried it almost three hours ago. But your one wish for today was to sleep in, so they let you sleep in. Maybe your wish should’ve been for crisp bacon. Or, you know, a one-way ticket to Denver.”
Chuck gave him a polite smile, the most adult thing he’d ever done.
“Come on, man,” Thomas said. “Open up here, buddy. Tell me what you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. I’m worried about you.”
The kid shrugged. “Do we really have to get all cheesy like this? They’re sending me into the maze and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m going to miss it here, going to miss you guys. But there’s no point whining and crying.”
“You’ll have to go a while without seeing my beautiful face every day. You better be whining and crying. I’m talking puffy eyes, wet face, snot pouring into your mouth, the whole bit. I don’t see that in the next three minutes, I’m gonna be offended.”
“What happens after I get there?” Chuck asked, acting like he hadn’t heard a word Thomas just said. “I mean, this can’t go on forever, right?”
And just like that, all the air drained out of the room.
“Of course not forever,” Thomas said. “I hear they’re getting close to a full blueprint. And once they have that, the cure’s next. I’m sure we’ll be reunited before too long.”
Thomas didn’t know if he could actually count all the lies he’d just told on one hand. But what did it matter? Chuck was about to have his memory wiped, and Thomas didn’t think it could hurt to get his hopes up a bit.
Chuck was staring at him.
“What?” Thomas asked.
Chuck told him he was full of something, and he didn’t use the word klunk.
“I am not,” Thomas rebutted. “Look, man, you’re right. We don’t need to get all cheesy. We’re saying goodbye, but we’ll both still be inside this huge complex. And I’ll be watching you, rooting for you. Always. I promise.”
“I won’t even remember you,” Chuck said. “So it’s really like we’re saying bye forever.”
“No, man, no.” Thomas got up and went to the other side of the table, sat right next to his friend. “I was just thinking about this recently. There’ll be a time, in the near future, when we have a cure and we’ll all be living in the same neighborhood—rich, fat, and happy. Everyone will have their memories back, and life’ll be sweet. Just look forward to that.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.”
“Okay, then.” The boy smiled, then looked away, the swell of a tear threatening to spill from his eye. “Sounds good.”
“You know what?” Thomas said. “We don’t even need to say bye. Byes are too hard. I’ll just get up and walk out, like no big deal, and then I’ll see you when I see you, okay? No sayonaras necessary.”
Chuck nodded, but when Thomas made the first move to get up, his friend catapulted forward and pulled him into a hug, squeezing him fiercely with both arms.
“I’m gonna miss you,” the boy said through a sob. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”
Thomas hugged him back, his own tears dropping into Chuck’s hair. “I know, man. I know. I’m going to miss you, too.”
They might’ve stayed that way forever, but Dr. Paige sent someone to summon Chuck and she gently escorted him away. His look back right before they left the room just about shattered Thomas’s heart.
—
He sat at the cafeteria table for a long time, imagining Chuck in the maze. Imagining Chuck being attacked by a Griever. Chuck starving or dying of thirst. He imagined Chuck dying a hundred deaths and no one doing anything to help.
He thought of Newt, of Alby, of Minho.
He thought of Teresa.
Something grew hard deep inside Thomas’s chest. For now, he had to go along with whatever WICKED wanted of him. But that wouldn’t always be the case.
An idea occurred to him. A ridiculous, ridiculous idea. A plan. Teresa had said once, long ago, that someday they’d be bigger. And now they were.
What if I saved them? he thought.
What if I saved my friends?
231.12.11 | 10:46 a.m.
It was only Thomas’s second time on a Berg, and the first he could scarcely remember.
At first he hated it—his stomach bouncing and churning, waves of nausea filling his mouth with saliva—but when he got used to it, he kind of liked it. Then he hated it again. Being inside the large flying beast was exhilarating, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Living in such a ruined world really made you appreciate something so powerful that even gravity couldn’t keep it down.
Teresa hadn’t come, staying back to do her part in testing the long-range abilities of their implants. Every day they grew more distant. She buried herself in WICKED and their mission, and Thomas sometimes hesitated to tell her what he was thinking. But they needed to have a talk—a big talk. Soon.
Thomas looked out one of the viewing ports set into the floor of the Berg. He watched countless landscapes flash by below him, in complete and utter awe. Despite the devastation that had been wreaked on his planet, it remained beautiful. Breathtaking. Greens and blues and oranges mixed with lots of pale brown. Of course, this high up, you couldn’t see the details. You couldn’t see the Cranks and the starvation and the poverty and the terror.
No wonder back before the sun flares, every kid wanted to be an astronaut.
“Hey.”
He looked up and saw Brenda, who’d been busy with Jorge prepping all their supplies for the Crank city expedition. They were also delivering a bunch of equipment to the Scorch for WICKED, for reasons no one shared with Thomas.
“Hey there,” he said back. “You guys about ready?”
She sat down next to him. “As ready as we’ll ever be. Jorge made me check everything about a hundred times. He likes to be prepared.”
“When are we supposed to get there?” He knew almost nothing. But the land below had already started to look like a desert, various shades of red and orange and yellow taking over the palette. There were almost no signs of life, or that life had ever been there, for that matter.
“I think a half hour or so.” She rubbed her hands together, and her expression looked strained. “Man, I’m getting nervous. This all sounded like a fun adventure until about ten minutes ago.”
“What’s there to be scared about?” Thomas asked. “A postapocalyptic city with no government or security, surrounded by a desert and swarming with Cranks. I mean, come on. Don’t be a sissy.” He flashed the girl a quick smile to let her know he was joking.
Brenda rolled her eyes.
“Or…,” he said with exaggerated chagrin, “it could be scary.”
“You should be nicer to Teresa, you know,” she said after a long beat of them staring down at the wasteland, the hum of the Berg’s engines so soothing Thomas suddenly wanted a nap.
“What do you mean?”
“She obviously feels strongly about you. And it just seems like you haven’t
been that nice to her. Sorry if it’s none of my business.”
Thomas thought about it, a topic he usually tried to avoid in his own mind. “No, it’s okay. She’s my best friend. We’ve been together for more than half our lives, and we can talk to each other…like no one else can. Without even speaking sometimes. Maybe that’s why it seems like I’m not nice.”
Brenda nodded as if that made sense to her. “Just friends? After all this time? I’ve never seen you two holding hands or kissing or anything. You’re one slow mover.” She laughed at the last part.
“It’s complicated,” Thomas said, surprised at this conversation, the things it was making him think about. “She means the world to me, and nothing will ever change that. But it’s kinda hard to be romantic when you have a dying world outside your home and your friends are stuck inside an experiment.”
Brenda seemed disappointed. “Yeah, but come on. People love, Thomas. Best of times, worst of times. People love. You should make sure she knows how you feel. That’s all I’m saying.”
Thomas felt a surge of emotion he didn’t understand. He thought of his mom, and his dad, and his friends. And it all just welled up inside him and tears began to leak from his eyes. He didn’t know what he needed in life, or what he was meant to accomplish. Friends were what he had, and they were all that mattered. Somehow he had to save them.
Brenda noticed his tears, and her face melted into something so soft and full of kindness that Thomas shook. She pulled him into a hug, and he hugged her back, felt like he was hugging everyone who’d just flashed through his thoughts. They stayed that way, pressed together, until the Berg tilted to the right and started its descent.
They’d arrived at the Scorch.
—
WICKED had sent armed guards with them, and they spilled down the open ramp first, to the dusty, blistering-hot ground below. When they gave the all clear, Thomas walked down with Brenda and Jorge, all three of them squinting against the blinding brightness of the sun.