230.03.15 | 5:52 p.m.
“Holy crap,” Thomas breathed, as stunned as he’d ever been.
Teresa let go of Thomas’s leg and slumped back into her chair with a loud release of breath. “Holy crap is right. What’s going on?”
Thomas looked over at Chuck and felt his heart break a little. The boy had curled his legs up into his seat and wrapped his arms around them, his face pale, two clear lines of tears glistening down his cheeks. He was trembling. An unbearable guilt swarmed around Thomas’s heart—he’d never expected his friend to see something so awful. He’d never expected to see something so awful himself.
“Hey, hey,” Thomas said, turning to face Chuck. He gripped the boy’s shoulders. “Hey, look at me. Look at me.”
Chuck finally did, eyes filled with sadness.
“We’ll figure this out, okay?” Thomas said. “I’m sure that…I don’t know. Something went wrong. Someone screwed up. It wasn’t meant to happen. This isn’t how the maze will be, okay?”
Chuck spoke through a lurch of a sob. “I was just having fun. I didn’t…” His voice cracked and he kept crying, quietly.
“I know, man, I know. That was tough to watch.” He pulled Chuck into his arms. Teresa was already there, embracing him from the other side. Their little group hug went on for a minute or so; then Thomas looked over his shoulder to see how the Gladers were reacting to the violent death.
Some of the boys had dispersed, most of them wandering off alone. Alby was on his knees, leaning against the wooden spear he’d used to kill George, staring at the ground, completely still. Newt was near him, sitting cross-legged in the dirt, head in his hands, eyes closed, as miserable as a person could look.
A beetle blade had skittered closer to George’s body, and Thomas put that view in the center display. Of all the kids present, Nick seemed to have held it together better than anyone, even though George had obviously been a close friend. He’d called him Georgie, after all. Nick knelt next to his dead companion—rummaging through his clothes, looking into his eyes, studying his limbs. He suddenly froze, his eyes focused on a spot in the middle of George’s back.
After a second or two, he reached out and grabbed the dead boy’s shirt, fingered it until he found a small rip. Then, with several quick jerks of his arm, he tore a larger hole and leaned in to stare at something. Thomas leaned in, too, in the observation room, focusing on the big screen in front of him.
The beetle blade moved in closer until it was right next to the body, its view pointing at the very spot that had interested Nick. The skin there was red and swollen, and several thick black veins sprouted out of a wound, an almost perfect circle of darkness cut into George’s flesh. It looked like the body of a spider with broken legs coming from its body. The vicious wound was hard to look at for too long.
“Stung,” Teresa said. “That looks like one hell of a sting to me.”
Thomas stood up. “That’s it,” he said. “Come on.” He turned away from the hideous display projected onto the wall and headed for the door.
“Where are we going?” Teresa asked, right by his side.
Thomas turned to Chuck, who was close behind them. “Actually, you need to stay here. I mean, I need you to stay here.”
“What? Why?” He was either offended or terrified to be left alone, Thomas couldn’t tell.
“Someone needs to keep an eye on those monitors for me. If anything happens—if a Griever comes out or if someone gets stung or the whole place explodes, anything—you come find me. Okay?”
Thomas knew that Chuck was too smart to buy his explanation for leaving him behind, but he accepted it without putting up a fight. “Fine. But where are you going? How will I find you?”
Thomas opened the door and waved Teresa through.
“I’m going to get some answers.”
Thomas banged on the door.
“Let us in!” he yelled.
The main command room was off limits to anyone younger than twenty-one. He’d heard someone say that once, but it sounded like a formality invented to keep them out. He, Teresa, Aris, and Rachel were part of the “team” when it was convenient. He knew they were all being analyzed just as much as anyone in the Glade.
And after what he’d just seen, Thomas was beginning to feel very uncomfortable about things.
He was about to pound on the door again when there was a click, followed by a hiss; then the big metal slab swung open. A man he’d never seen before stood there, short and stocky with dark hair. And he looked none too pleased.
“What’s the problem, Thomas?” the man asked in a surprisingly calm voice. “Things are a little crazy in here right now.”
“You keep saying we’re important, that we’re a part of all this,” Thomas said. He pointed at Teresa, then himself. “We helped program your maze. And helped send all our friends there. And now we just watched one of them die and you did nothing to stop it. Why? Why didn’t you guys go in and help? Someone needs to explain what happened, and someone’s going to do it right now.”
Thomas was shaking, trying to hold himself together. He sucked in a quaking breath, waiting for the man to answer.
Several emotions passed across the man’s face. The last was anger.
“Hold on,” he said, then closed the door without waiting for a response.
Thomas reached out to bang on the door again, but Teresa grabbed him, shook her head.
They’ll talk to us, she said in his head. Just show a little patience. We have to act as calm as they do in these situations if we’re ever going to get anywhere.
Chagrined, annoyed that she was right, feeling stupid over his ridiculous act of bravado, he let out another breath and nodded, then waited.
The door opened less than a minute later. Dr. Leavitt stood there, as bald and unhappy as always, but before he could say anything, Dr. Paige appeared at his side. She practically pushed the man out of the way.
“Thomas,” she said kindly. “Teresa. I’m sure you must be as concerned as we are.”
He hadn’t expected those to be her first words to them, although he couldn’t say why they struck him as strange.
“Well, yeah, we are,” Teresa replied. “You guys are okay with killing kids now?”
Thomas didn’t know if he would have been brave enough to say it so bluntly, but he agreed. However it had happened, WICKED had just murdered George. A kid who wasn’t even eighteen.
Dr. Paige stepped to the side, opening the door wider. “Come in. We’ll explain to you what happened. What went wrong. You deserve to know.”
“Yeah, I think we do,” Thomas heard himself say, though he was a little lost at the moment. He’d been struck by a realization that had never felt truer: It didn’t matter what they did or what they said. Anything and everything could be a test set up by WICKED.
It was too much.
He followed Teresa into the command room, suddenly wary of his surroundings.
“Follow me,” Dr. Paige said, letting the door swing shut.
Leavitt still stood to the side, eyeing both Thomas and Teresa when they moved past him as if they were enemy invaders.
After walking down a short, narrow hallway, they entered a vast room that opened to both sides. To Thomas’s right was an array of monitors, workstations, control desks and chairs. It looked like their own observation room on steroids, at least ten times bigger. Twenty people or so went about various duties in the huge space. To Thomas’s left were several desks, a glass-enclosed meeting room, and a few closed doors, hiding who knew what mysteries. It made Thomas remember that he really only saw a tiny piece of WICKED’s vast operation.
“I don’t want anyone else talking to you about this right now,” Dr. Paige said over her shoulder as she walked through the middle of all the activity. “Let’s find a quiet spot and I’ll explain to you what’s happened. I wish you trusted us—trusted me—a little more than you’ve shown just now. Maybe gave us the benefit of the doubt.”
“Benefit of the doubt?” Thomas repeated, surprised by her reaction. Could she really expect that of them? After what they’d just seen?
The doctor came to a small glassed-in room with a table and four chairs at its center. She opened the door and ushered them in, gesturing for them to sit. Thomas didn’t like how this was going—he’d wanted to stomp in there demanding answers, and now somehow they were on WICKED’s terms again.
“We didn’t come for a nice sit-down,” he said. “We don’t want lies. We want actual answers. Please.”
“You killed someone,” Teresa added, in a much calmer voice. “We didn’t sign up for this. We didn’t sign up for you killing our friends. Are we next?”
Dr. Paige didn’t look angry, or guilty, or even embarrassed. Instead, she seemed…sad. Distressed.
“Are you finished?” she asked, her voice tired. “Can I please talk now? You’re sick of lies and half truths? So am I. But you came here for answers, and all you’re doing is making accusations. That has to stop if you want me to talk.”
Thomas sighed. It seemed they always ended up treating him like a child and there was nothing he could do about it. Most annoying, he was still a child in their eyes, though he sure didn’t feel like one.
“Fine,” Teresa had said while he stewed. “Then talk.”
Dr. Paige gave a slow nod of acknowledgment. “Thank you. Now, here’s the truth. We mutated a version of the Flare virus that can take hold in the immune in…interesting ways. Ways that will help us understand the main virus better. That altered version is what the Griever injected George with, and it’s also what the serum is for, to stop its effects. Sadly, the serum hasn’t been perfected yet, and you saw the…unfortunate result.”
She paused a moment, eyeing Thomas for a reaction. Thomas was too shocked by her candidness to gather his thoughts. Teresa stayed silent as well.
Dr. Paige folded her arms. “We’ll keep working on it. We didn’t mean for George to die—that’s the honest truth. We’ll correct the serum.” She paused to take a breath before continuing.
“But I can tell you this: we measured some very significant results in the hours after he was stung—results that we need and will continue to need. Not just from George, but from everyone who saw what happened and reacted to it.” She stood up, then put her hands on the table and leaned toward them. “And that’s what matters.”
She walked toward the door and opened it, then looked back at them. “I’ve grown to love the both of you. Like my own children. I swear to you that nothing on this earth could be more true.” She paused, on the verge of choking up. “And I’ll do anything—anything—to make sure that you have a world to return to someday.”
She looked down, a shimmering tear perilously close to dripping from her eye, then stepped out and closed the door.
