228.04.03 | 8:04 a.m.
Thomas had struck a nerve. He’d had her talking more honestly than ever before, and he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity, no matter how much her sudden display of emotion surprised him. He got up and went after her.
She was walking briskly down the hall, almost jogging, so he had to run to catch up. He grabbed her arm to stop her.
She wrenched away from him, took a step back until she met the wall. Breathing heavily, she looked at him with something like disgust. Her eyes flared with a moment of anger. But then everything melted away and she was back to the same old Dr. Paige he’d always known. Caring, kind Dr. Paige. Although the sadness painted over her features almost made Thomas apologize and go back to his room.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “What aren’t you telling me?” When she just shook her head, he kept at it. “Every day I go out there and make your gigantic maze a little closer to test-ready. I don’t whine or complain—I just do it. I work my butt off, and so does Teresa. We both know what the stakes are.”
Dr. Paige nodded. “Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“But that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” he continued. “Because we’ve had to grow up fast, we deserve to be treated like adults. Not like babies, not like mice in a cage, not like idiots. We all want the same thing. Why can’t we be treated like partners instead of…subjects? Minho, Alby, Newt—everyone I know in here would be a lot more cooperative if you’d just show a little respect.”
Dr. Paige had recovered from whatever had caught her off guard. She now stood tall and serene as ever, arms folded, eyes sharp and focused on him. “Listen to me. Back in your room I told you it boiled down to two issues. First, some of these episodes of what you call harshness have actually been planned out by the Psychs. They are ways to stimulate brain patterns before we get to the big tests inside the mazes. Okay?”
No, not okay. Thomas didn’t like it, though at least it was an explanation. “Fine. And the second thing?”
“These people are survivors, Thomas. I know you were young—terribly young—but surely you remember the awful state of the world after the virus spread and reached us out here. Things weren’t supposed to…”
She paused, and something in her eyes told Thomas that she’d said something she hadn’t meant to. “But my point…the world became a place of horror and death and madness. By nature…by definition…anyone who survived those first waves of sheer terror had to be a little hardened. Tougher than normal. It’s what helped them survive. The weak—they either died or will soon.”
Thomas, a little stunned by her flurry of words, didn’t know what to say.
“So yes,” she continued. “Most of the people here aren’t the nicest you’ll ever meet. They don’t have the time or the inclination to worry about feelings. Okay? They’ve seen the depths of hell out there in the world, and they’re ready to do anything and everything possible to find a cure and stop those horrors. And you’re just going to have to accept that.”
“Okay,” Thomas said, overwhelmed by all he’d just heard. Her impassioned speech had drained him of any desire to pursue the argument.
“Now buck up and get to work,” Dr. Paige said. The corner of her mouth twitched in a semi-smile, which he figured was the best he could ask for that morning.
“Will do,” he replied, the words as sullen as he could make them.
Thomas walked along the corridors of the maze, proud of the progress they’d made over the last few months. He couldn’t take much credit for the majestic walls themselves—the cracked gray stone, the ivy that crawled like veins across their surfaces, the sheer magnitude of it all. Especially the advanced level of engineering that went into the moving walls, the changing configurations of the maze itself. It was cool to watch, but he had no idea how it worked—the engineers weren’t the friendliest folk in the world, and were too busy to get much information out of.
But so many of the finer details around him—the little things that really made the place come alive and feel real—were due to his and Teresa’s tireless efforts.
He was thinking about all they’d done as he turned a corner and headed down a long stretch of the labyrinth. Even the doctors, Psychs, and technicians of WICKED were surprised at how valuable the telepathy had ended up being. Not only could Thomas and Teresa instantly communicate, they’d become much better at sensing the other’s feelings, anticipating their thoughts, understanding things that were impossible to articulate. No one really believed him when he tried to explain it, so he’d stopped trying a long time ago.
You there yet? Teresa asked him from the control center.
Give me a second, he responded. I’m just enjoying our handiwork. He looked up at the bright blue sky, the sun just peeking over the tall stone wall to his left. The sky on its own had taken countless days of painstaking effort to perfect, but seeing the end result—seeing that beautiful sky that looked so real—made him forget just how hard it had been.
The sound of little clattering metal feet approached from behind, and he knew what it was. The beetle-blade cameras that were now spread all over the complex, ready to record every single thing that happened during the trials. He was going to ignore the thing, until it jumped onto the back of his leg and crawled up his body.
“Ahh!” he yelped, and leaped into the air, twisting, reaching for his back, trying to swat the creature off. He spun in a circle as the thing scuttled all over his clothes, pecking his skin with those sharp legs. It reached his neck and latched on, digging in until it hurt.
You were saying again? Teresa asked. He felt every morsel of her evil glee. That’s a really nice dance you put on down there. Don’t worry, I have it recorded, ready to show Newt and everybody else next time we get together.
“Not funny!” he yelled out loud. The beetle blade was knocking its head into his ear, right in a spot that hurt like crazy. Thomas finally got a grip on the metal body and flung the creature off. It landed on its feet and scampered away, disappearing into the ivy of the wall to his right.
You win, he said. I’m coming. He tried not to smile, but he couldn’t help it.
Next time I’ll send a Griever, she replied. Or worse—Randall.
He laughed and so did she, one of those things he knew and felt without understanding how.
Okay, I’m here, he said. He’d reached the end of the corridor, which had a drop-off of about twenty feet to a black-painted floor. This was one of those weird areas inside the maze where the optical-illusion technology wasn’t yet complete, making you think you’d lost your mind. When he looked up, he saw a perfect sky. When he looked down, over the edge of the cliff, he saw a black floor that led to a black wall—the edge of the maze cavern. But straight ahead, the sky and the wall didn’t exactly meet—the boundary between the two bounced here and there, blended and unblended, mixed and swirled. It made him dizzy and nauseous.
Can you see the Griever hatch? Teresa asked.
He’d closed his eyes to keep his stomach from swimming, but opened them again. Somewhere in the middle of that crazy kaleidoscope of illusion and real world mixing together, he saw a shaft towering up from the floor below, with an open circle at its top. This was the hole from which the Grievers would enter and exit the maze.
I can see it, he replied to Teresa, but it keeps swimming in and out of the illusion. It’s gonna make me throw up.
She didn’t return a hint of sympathy. Let me know when it disappears completely.
He watched, squinting, hoping that would help his stomach. The image in front of him shimmered, went out of focus, bounced, then shimmered again. But soon the shaft of the Griever entrance vanished from his sight, and as long as he didn’t look down, the illusion of endless blue sky opened up before him. Now, instead of dizziness, he felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo, almost like falling. He took a step backward.
It worked! he yelled. It looks perfect!
She let out a big whoop, something he felt all the way to his bones. They’d been working on this section for a month, and now they were so close.
Good job, he said. Seriously. What would these people do without us?
They’d need another few years at least.
Thomas stared at the vista before him, in disbelief at how realistic it appeared. As if the corridor of the maze ended in a cliff at the end of the world, at the end of existence.
I wonder who’ll be the first one to see a Griever, he said. And will they crap their pants? Should we bet on it?
He was surprised by the somber tone that rebounded back to him. And even more so by her words.
And who’ll be the first to die?
They won’t let it go that far, Thomas replied. There’s no way.
Teresa cut off their connection without an answer.
