He immediately thought they were leaving him. First Teresa and the others, now his closest friends and Jorge. He couldn’t take any more betrayal. It hurt too much. He wanted to scream, all while needles of pain bit every inch of his body and the burning smell overwhelmed him. No, they wouldn’t leave him behind. He knew it.
Gradually his vision started to clear, and the white-hot charges of heat diminished in strength and number. He blinked. Two, then three figures dressed in black stood over him, weapons pointed at his face. Guards. Would they kill him? Drag him back to the Rat Man for more tests? One of them spoke, but Thomas couldn’t hear the words; static buzzed in his ears.
All of a sudden the guards were gone, tackled by two figures that seemingly flew through the air. His friends, had to be his friends. Through a haze of smoke Thomas could see the ceiling of the hangar far above him. The pain had mostly gone away, replaced by a numbness that made him wonder if he could move. He shifted to his right, then rolled to his left, then leaned up on an elbow, woozy and weak. A last few trickles of electricity skittered over his body and disappeared into the cement. The worst was over. He hoped.
He shifted again, looked back over his shoulder. Minho and Newt were each straddling a guard, beating the living klunk out of them. Jorge stood in between the Gladers, shooting his fiery Launcher in all directions. Most of the guards must’ve given up or been disabled—otherwise Thomas and the others wouldn’t have made it even this far. Or maybe, Thomas thought, the guards were pretending, putting on an act, like everyone else in the Trials.
He didn’t care. He just wanted out of this place. And escape was right in front of him.
With a groan he shifted to his belly, then pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Breaking glass, the crackle of lightning, the booms of weapons firing and pings of bullets hitting metal filled the air around him. If someone shot him now, there was nothing he could do about it. He could only drag himself toward the Berg. The ship’s thrusters hummed as they charged; the whole thing vibrated, shaking the ground underneath him as well. The hatch door was only a few feet away. They needed to get on the ship.
He tried to yell something back at Minho and the others, but only a gurgling groan came out. On his hands and knees like a wounded dog, he started crawling forward as quickly as his body would allow—he had to fight for every ounce of strength within. He reached the lip of the ramp, pulled himself over it, inched up the slope. His muscles ached and nausea climbed out of his stomach. The noises of battle pounded his ears, put his nerves on edge; something could hit him at any second.
He made it halfway. Turned to look at his friends. They were backing toward him, all three now firing. Minho had to stop and reload, and Thomas just knew he’d get shot or blasted with a grenade. But his friend finished and started up again. The three of them reached the bottom of the hatch door, so close now.
Thomas tried to speak again; now he sounded like a wounded dog.
“That’s it!” Jorge yelled. “Grab his butt and drag him in!”
Jorge ran up the ramp past Thomas and disappeared inside. Something clicked loudly, and then the ramp started to swing upward, its hinges groaning. Thomas realized he’d collapsed, his face resting against the raised metal traction pads beneath him, yet he couldn’t remember when it had happened. He felt hands pull at his shirt, felt himself lifted through the air. Then he slammed back down just inside the hatch door as it sealed shut and the locks engaged.
“Sorry, Tommy,” Newt muttered in his ear. “Could’ve been a bit more gentle, I ’spect.”
Though he was close to unconsciousness, an indescribable joy lifted Thomas’s heart—they were escaping WICKED. He let out a weak grunt in an attempt to share that with his friend. Then he closed his eyes and passed out.
CHAPTER 20
Thomas woke to see Brenda’s face staring down at him. She looked worried. Her skin was pale and marked with streaks of dried blood, and there was black soot on her forehead and a bruise forming on her cheek. As if her wounds reminded him, he suddenly felt the sting of his own across his whole body. He had no idea how those Launcher grenades worked, but he was happy he’d only been hit once.
“I just got up myself,” Brenda said. “How do you feel?”
Thomas shifted to lean on his elbow and winced at the sharp pain in his leg where he’d been grazed by the bullet. “Like a bucket of klunk.”
He lay on a low cot inside a large cargo hold that currently held nothing but a bunch of mismatched furniture. Minho and Newt were taking well-deserved naps on a couple of ugly couches, blankets covering their bodies and tucked in under their chins. Thomas had a sneaking suspicion that Brenda had done that—they looked like little kids, all snuggly and warm.
Brenda had been kneeling next to his cot; she now stood up and took a seat on a frumpy armchair a few feet away. “We slept for almost ten hours.”
“Serious?” Thomas couldn’t believe it—it seemed like he’d just dozed off. Or passed out was probably more accurate.
Brenda nodded.
“We’ve been flying that long? Where are we going, the moon?” Thomas swung his legs out and sat on the edge of the cot.
“No. Jorge got us a hundred or so miles away, then landed in a big clearing. He’s actually snoozing, too. Can’t have a tired pilot.”
“I can’t believe we both got shot by Launchers. I liked it a lot better being the one who pulled the trigger.” Thomas rubbed his face and let out a big yawn. Then he examined some of the burns on his arms. “Do you think these will leave scars?”
Brenda laughed. “Of all the things to worry about.”
He couldn’t help but smile. She was right. “So,” he started, then continued, slowly. “It sounded great to escape from WICKED when we were back there, but … I don’t even know what the real world … It’s not all like the Scorch, is it?”
“No,” she replied. “Only the regions between the Tropics are a wasteland—everywhere else has extreme swings of climate. There are a few safe cities we could go to. Especially being immune—we could probably find jobs pretty easily.”
“Jobs,” Thomas repeated, as if the word were the most foreign thing he’d ever heard. “You’re already thinking about getting a job?”
“You do plan to eat, don’t you?”
Thomas didn’t answer, felt the heavy weight of reality. If they were truly going to escape into the real world, they had to start living like real people. But was that even possible in a world where the Flare existed? He thought of his friends.
“Teresa,” he said.
Brenda pulled back a little in surprise. “What about her?”
“Is there a way to find out where she and the others went?”
“Jorge already did—checked the Berg tracking system. They went to a city called Denver.”
Thomas felt a prick of alarm. “Does that mean WICKED’ll be able to find us?”
“You don’t know Jorge.” She had a mischievous grin on her face. “He can manipulate the system like you wouldn’t believe. We should be able to stay a step ahead of them for a little while, at least.”
“Denver,” Thomas said after a moment. The name sounded weird in his mouth. “Where’s that?”
“Rocky Mountains. High elevation. One of the obvious choices for a quarantine zone because the weather’s recovered pretty quickly there since the sun flares. As good a place as any to go.”
Thomas didn’t care so much about the location, he just knew that he had to find Teresa and the others, be reunited. He wasn’t quite sure why yet, and he certainly wasn’t ready to discuss it with Brenda. So he stalled for time.
“What’s it like there?” he finally asked.
“Well, like most big cities, they’re pretty ruthless about keeping the Cranks out, and the residents have to be tested for the Flare randomly and often. They actually have another town set up on the opposite side of the valley where they send the newly infected. Immunes get paid a lot of money to take care of them even though i
t’s extremely dangerous. Both places are heavily guarded.”
Even with some of his memories back, Thomas didn’t know a whole lot about the population that was immune to the Flare. But he remembered something the Rat Man had told him. “Janson said that people really hate the Immunes—call them Munies. What did he mean by that?”
“When you have the Flare, you know you’re going to go crazy and die. It’s not a matter of if but when. And as hard as the world has tried, the virus always finds its way through the cracks of the quarantines. Imagine knowing that and then knowing that the Immunes are going to be okay. The Flare does nothing to them—they don’t even transmit the virus. Wouldn’t you hate the healthy?”
“Probably,” Thomas said, glad he was on the immune side of things. Better to be hated than sick. “But wouldn’t it seem valuable to have them around? I mean, knowing they can’t catch the disease.”
Brenda shrugged. “They’re definitely used—especially in government and security roles—but the others treat them like trash. And there’s way more people who aren’t immune. That’s why the Munies get paid so much to be guards—otherwise they wouldn’t go through it. A lot of them even try to hide their immunity. Or go work for WICKED, like Jorge and I did.”
“So did you guys meet before going there?”
“We met in Alaska, after we’d found out we were immune. There was a gathering place for people like us—kind of a hidden camp. Jorge became like an uncle to me, and he swore to be my guardian. My dad had already been killed, and my mom pushed me away once she caught the Flare.”
Thomas leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You told me WICKED killed your dad. And yet you still went and volunteered to work for them?”
“Survival, Thomas.” A dark look passed over her face. “You don’t know how good you had it growing up under WICKED’s wing. Out in the real world, most people will do anything to survive one more day. Cranks and Immunes have different problems, yeah, but it’s still about surviving. Everybody wants to live.”
Thomas didn’t respond, didn’t know what to say. All he knew of life was the Maze and the Scorch and the splotchy memories of his childhood with WICKED. He felt empty and lost, like he didn’t really belong anywhere.
A sudden pain squeezed his heart. “I wonder what happened to my mom,” he said, surprising himself.
“Your mom?” Brenda asked. “You remember her?”
“I’ve had a few dreams about her. I think they were memories.”
“What came back? What was she like?”
“She was … a mom. You know, she loved me, cared about me, worried about me.” Thomas’s voice cracked. “I don’t think anyone’s done that since they took me away from her. It hurts to think of her going crazy, to think of what might’ve happened to her. What some crazy bloodthirsty Crank might’ve …”
“Stop it, Thomas. Just stop.” She took his hand and squeezed, which helped. “Think how happy she’d be, knowing you’re still alive, still fighting. She died knowing that you were immune, and that you’d have a chance to actually grow old, no matter how crappy the world is. Plus, you’re totally wrong.”
Thomas had been staring at the floor, but at that he looked up at Brenda. “Huh?”
“Minho. Newt. Frypan. All your friends care and worry about you. Even Teresa—she really did do all those things in the Scorch because she thought she had no choice.” Brenda paused, then added in a quiet voice, “Chuck.”
The pang Thomas was feeling in his chest tightened. “Chuck. He … he’s …” He had to stop a second to compose himself. When it came down to it, Chuck was the most vivid reason that he despised WICKED. How could any good come from killing a kid like Chuck?
He finally continued. “I watched as that kid died. In his last few seconds there was pure terror in his eyes. You can’t do that. You can’t do that to a person. I don’t care what anyone tells me, I don’t care how many people go crazy and die, I don’t care if the whole shuck human race ends. Even if that was the only thing that had to happen to find the cure, I’d still be against it.”
“Thomas, relax. You’re going to squeeze your own fingers off.”
He didn’t remember letting go of her hand—he looked down to see his own hands gripping each other tightly, the skin completely white. He eased off and felt the blood rush back to them.
Brenda nodded solemnly. “I changed for good back in the Scorch city. I’m sorry for everything.”
Thomas shook his head. “You don’t have a single reason more than I do to apologize. It’s all just one big screwed-up mess.” He groaned and lay back down on the cot, staring at the metal grid of the ceiling.
After a long pause, Brenda finally spoke again. “Ya know, maybe we can find Teresa and the others. Join up. They broke out, which means they’re on our side. I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt—maybe they had no choice but to leave without us. And it’s no surprise at all that they went where they did.”
Thomas shifted to look at her, daring to hope she was right. “So you think we should go to …”
“Denver.”
Thomas nodded, suddenly certain and loving the feel of it. “Yeah, Denver.”
“But your friends aren’t the only reason.” Brenda smiled. “There’s something even more important there.”
CHAPTER 21
Thomas stared at Brenda, eager to hear what she had to say.
“You know what’s in your brain,” she said. “So what’s our biggest concern?”
Thomas thought about it. “WICKED tracking us or controlling us.”
“Exactly,” Brenda said.
“And?” Again, impatience filled his gut.
She sat back down across from him and leaned forward on her knees, rubbing her hands together in excitement. “I know a guy named Hans who moved to Denver—he’s immune like us. He’s a doctor. He worked at WICKED until he had a disagreement with the higher-ups about the protocols surrounding the brain implants. He thought what they were doing was too risky. That they were crossing lines, being inhumane. WICKED wouldn’t let him leave, but he managed to escape.”
“Those guys need to work on their security,” Thomas muttered.
“Lucky for us.” Brenda grinned. “Anyway, Hans is a genius. He knows every little detail about the implants you guys have in your heads. I know he went to Denver because he sent me a message over the Netblock right before I was dropped into the Scorch. If we can get to him, he’ll be able to take those things out of your heads. Or at least disable them. I’m not sure how it works, but if anyone can do it, he can. And he’d do it gladly. The man hates WICKED as much as we do.”
Thomas thought for a second. “And if they control us, we’re in big trouble. I’ve seen it happen at least three times.” Alby struggling against an unseen force in the Homestead, Gally being controlled with the knife that hit Chuck, and Teresa straining to speak to Thomas outside the shack in the Scorch. All three among his most disturbing memories.
“Exactly. They could manipulate you, make you do things. They can’t see through your eyes or hear your voice or anything like that, but we need to get you fixed. If they’re close enough to have you under observation and if they decide it’s worth the risk, they’ll try it. And that’s the last thing we need.”
It was a lot to sort out. “Well, it looks like we have plenty of reason to go to Denver. We’ll see what Newt and Minho think when they wake up.”
Brenda nodded. “Sounds good.” She got to her feet and moved closer, then leaned in and kissed Thomas on the cheek. Goose bumps broke out down his chest and arms. “Ya know, most of what happened in those tunnels was not an act.” She stood and looked at him for a moment, quietly. “I’m going to wake up Jorge—he’s sleeping in the captain’s quarters.”
She turned and walked away, and Thomas sat there, hoping his face hadn’t flushed bright red when he remembered her being close to him in the Underneath. He put his hands behind his head and lay back on the cot, trying to process everyth
ing he’d just heard. They finally had some direction. He felt a smile crack his face, and not just because he’d been kissed.
Minho called their meeting a Gathering, just for old time’s sake.
By the end of it, Thomas had a headache, the pain throbbing so badly he thought his eyeballs might pop out. Minho played devil’s advocate on every single issue and for some reason gave Brenda dirty looks the entire time. Thomas knew that they needed to go over things from every possible angle, but he wished Minho would give Brenda a break.
In the end, after an hour of arguing and going back and forth and coming full circle a dozen times, they decided—unanimously—to go to Denver. They planned to land the Berg at a private airport with the story that they were Immunes looking for a government transport job. Luckily the Berg was unmarked—WICKED didn’t advertise when it went out into the real world, apparently. They’d be tested and branded as immune to the Flare, which would allow them access to the city proper. All except Newt, who—because he was infected—would have to stay on the Berg until they figured something out.
They ate a quick meal; then Jorge went off to pilot the ship. He said he was well rested and he wanted everyone else to take a nap since it would take a few more hours to reach the city. After that, who knew how long it would be before they found a place to stay for the night.
Thomas just wanted to be alone, so he used his headache as an excuse. He found a little reclining chair in an out-of-the-way corner and curled up in it, his back to the open area behind him. He had a blanket, and he pulled it up and around him, feeling cozier than he had in a long time. And even though he was scared of what might come, he also felt a sense of peace. Maybe they were finally close to breaking the bonds of WICKED forever.
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