The sun sweltered in the sky. There was a rising rumble of shouts and whistles and marching. Groups of the infected were approaching from all directions. Far off, through the display of lights flashing before his eyes, Mark thought he could see Bruce and his red flag leading his own charge. If these people got to the Flat Trans before someone shut it down or destroyed it …
“Come on,” he grunted to Trina.
The wind from the ascending Berg blew across them as he ran over to the entrance of the building, its doors still open. Deedee clung to him and Trina was right by his side. They went through the entrance into a wide room with no furniture. Only a strange object right in the center—two metallic rods, standing tall, with a shimmering wall of gray stretched in between them. It appeared to be moving and sparkling, yet still and serene at the same time. It hurt Mark’s eyes to stare at it.
A man and a woman were standing next to it, looking back at Mark and his friends with fear in their eyes. They were already moving toward the grayness.
“Wait!” Mark yelled.
They didn’t respond, didn’t stop. The two strangers leaped into the abyss and vanished from sight. On instinct, Mark sprinted to the other side of the gray wall, yet there was nothing there.
A Flat Trans. For the first time in his life, he’d actually seen someone travel through a Flat Trans. The noise of the approaching crowds outside seemed to tick up a notch, and Mark knew he was out of time. In so many ways.
He walked back over to the proper side of the Flat Trans and kneeled right before it, gently placing Deedee on her feet. It took every last ounce of his effort to remain calm and keep his swirling emotions and anger and madness at bay. Trina knelt as well, though she said nothing.
“Listen to me,” Mark said to the girl. He stopped, closed his eyes for a second, fought off the darkness that tried to consume him. Only a little longer, he told himself. “I need … you to be really brave for me now, okay? There’re people on the other side of this magic wall that … are going to help you. And you’re going to help them. You’re going to help them do … something really important. There’s … something special about you.”
He didn’t know what he expected. For Deedee to protest, to cry, to run away. But instead she looked him in the eye and nodded. Mark’s head wasn’t clear enough to understand how she could be so brave. She was special.
He’d almost forgotten about the note he’d scribbled earlier. He pulled it out of his back pocket, read it one more time, his hand shaking.
She’s immune to the Flare.
Use her.
Do it before the crazy people find you.
He gently reached out for Deedee’s hand and scrunched the paper up into her palm. Closed her fingers around it. Squeezed her hand with both of his. The shouts and calls from outside grew to a crescendo. Mark spotted Bruce charging the door, a mass of people behind him. Mark’s entire body washed with sadness. He nodded at the Flat Trans. Deedee nodded back.
Then she and Trina were hugging fiercely. Both of them shed tears. Mark was on his feet. He heard the unmistakable sound of the Berg’s thrusters returning. Noticed a wind picking up outside. The time had come.
“Go, now,” he said, fighting the emotions that tore through him.
Deedee pulled away from Trina and turned, ran into the gray wall of the Flat Trans. It swallowed her whole and she was gone. The roar of the Berg filled the air. The building trembled. Bruce arrived at the door, screaming something unintelligible.
And then Trina was rushing to Mark. Throwing her arms around his neck. Kissing him. A thousand thoughts flipped through his mind, and he saw her in all of them. Wrestling in the front yard of her house before they were old enough to know anything; saying hi in the school hallway; riding the subtrans; feeling her hand in the darkness after the flares struck; the terror of the tunnels, the rushing waters, the Lincoln Building; waiting out the radiation, stealing the boat, the countless treks across ruined, sweltering land. She’d been there with him through it all. With Alec. Lana. Darnell and the others.
And here, at the end of the fight, Trina was in his arms.
Monstrous noise and quaking took over the world, but he still heard what she whispered into his ear before the Berg came crashing into the building.
“Mark.”
EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER
A single lightbulb hung from the apartment’s drab ceiling, buzzing every ten seconds or so. Somehow, it seemed to represent what the world had become. Lonely, noisy, dying. Barely holding on.
The woman sat in her chair, trying desperately not to cry.
She’d known the knock was coming far before it happened. And she wanted to be strong for her son. Make the boy think that the new life that awaited him was a good thing. A hopeful thing. She had to be strong. When her son—her only child—was gone, then she’d let it out. Then she’d cry a river’s worth until the madness made her forget.
The boy sat next to her, quiet. Unmoving. Only a child, and yet it seemed he understood that his life would never be the same. He had a small bag packed, though the woman assumed its contents would be discarded before her son reached his final destination. And so they waited.
Their visitors tapped the door three times. There was no anger behind it, or force. Just tap, tap, tap, like the gentle pecking of a bird.
“Come in,” she said, so loud it startled her. Nerves. She was on the edge.
The door opened. Two men and one woman stepped inside the small apartment, dressed in black suits, protective masks covering their mouths and noses.
The lady seemed in charge.
“I can see you’re ready,” she said, her voice muffled, as she walked forward and stood before the woman and her son. “We appreciate your willingness to make such a sacrifice. I don’t need to tell you how much this means to future generations. We’re on the cusp of a very great thing. We will find the cure, ma’am. I give you my word.”
The woman could only nod. If she tried to speak, it would all come out: Her pain, her fear. Her anger. Her tears. And then her efforts to be strong for the boy would have been for naught. So she kept it in, a dam against a raging river.
The lady was all business. “Come,” she said, extending a hand.
The boy looked up at his mother. He had no reason to hold back the tears, and he didn’t. They flowed down his face freely. He jumped to his feet and hugged her, shattering her heart a million times over. She squeezed him back.
“You’re going to do great things for this world,” she whispered, somehow keeping herself under control. “You’re going to make me so proud. I love you, sweet boy. I love you so much and don’t you ever forget it.”
His only response was to sob into her shoulder. And that said everything.
Finally it had to end.
“I’m very sorry,” the lady in the dark suit and mask said. “But we have a tight schedule. Truly, I’m sorry.”
“Go on now,” the mother said to her son. “Go on, and be brave.”
He pulled back, his face wet, his eyes red. A strength seemed to come over him and he nodded, helping her believe he’d be okay in the end. He was strong, this one.
The boy turned away, never to look at her again. He walked to the door and went through it with no hesitation. No glance back, no complaints.
“Thank you again,” the visiting lady said. She followed the boy out.
One of the men looked up at the dangling, buzzing lightbulb, then turned to his partner. “You know who invented those things, right? Maybe we should call this one Thomas.” And then they left.
When the door closed, the woman curled up into a ball and finally let her tears come.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All those who’ve helped make this series happen are well known by now, since I’ve mentioned them in every book so far. Especially Krista and Michael.
Therefore, I want to dedicate this space to all of my readers. My life has changed drastically since I first wrote about Thom
as and the other Gladers, and I owe so much of it to you. Thank you for enjoying this story. Thank you for spending your hard-earned money on my books. Thank you for telling your friends and family. Thank you for all the enthusiastic praise you’ve sent me via Twitter, Facebook, my blog, etc. Thank you for allowing me to make a living doing something I love so much.
I’ve got a lot of books in my head, so hopefully we can be friends for a long time. With all my heart, mind, body, and soul … thank you!
If you love
THE MAZE RUNNER,
turn the page for a look at the first book in
James Dashner’s new series, the Mortality Doctrine:
Excerpt copyright © 2013 by James Dashner. Published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
CHAPTER 1
THE COFFIN
Michael spoke against the wind, to a girl named Tanya.
“I know it’s water down there, but it might as well be concrete. You’ll be flat as a pancake the second you hit.”
Not the most comforting choice of words when talking to someone who wanted to end her life, but it was certainly the truth. Tanya had just climbed over the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge, cars zooming by on the road, and was leaning back toward the open air, her twitchy hands holding on to a pole wet with mist. Even if somehow Michael could talk her out of jumping, those slippery fingers might get the job done anyway. And then it’d be lights-out. He pictured some poor sap of a fisherman thinking he’d finally caught the big one, only to reel in a nasty surprise.
“Stop joking,” the trembling girl responded. “It’s not a game—not anymore.”
Michael was inside the VirtNet—the Sleep, to people who went in as often as he did. He was used to seeing scared people there. A lot of them. Yet underneath the fear was usually the knowing. Knowing deep down that no matter what was happening in the Sleep, it wasn’t real.
Not with Tanya. Tanya was different. At least, her Aura, her computer-simulated counterpart, was. Her Aura had this bat-crazy look of pure terror on her face, and it suddenly gave Michael chills—made him feel like he was the one hovering over that long drop to death. And Michael wasn’t a big fan of death, fake or not.
“It is a game, and you know it,” he said louder than he’d wanted to—he didn’t want to startle her. But a cold wind had sprung up, and it seemed to grab his words and whisk them down to the bay. “Get back over here and let’s talk. We’ll both get our Experience Points, and we can go explore the city, get to know each other. Find some crazies to spy on. Maybe even hack some free food from the shops. It’ll be good times. And when we’re done, we’ll find you a Portal, and you can Lift back home. Take a break from the game for a while.”
“This has nothing to do with Lifeblood!” Tanya screamed at him. The wind pulled at her clothes, and her dark hair fanned out behind her like laundry on a line. “Just go away and leave me alone. I don’t want your pretty-boy face to be the last thing I see.”
Michael thought of Lifeblood Deep, the next level, the goal of all goals. Where everything was a thousand times more real, more advanced, more intense. He was three years away from earning his way inside. Maybe two. But right then he needed to talk this dopey girl out of jumping to her date with the fishes or he’d be sent back to the Suburbs for a week, making Lifeblood Deep that much further away.
“Okay, look …” He was trying to choose his words carefully, but he’d already made a pretty big mistake and knew it. Going out of character and using the game itself as a reason for her to stop what she was doing meant he’d be docked points big-time. And it was all about the points. But this girl was legitimately starting to scare him. It was that face—pale and sunken, as if she’d already died.
“Just go away!” she yelled. “You don’t get it. I’m trapped here. Portals or no Portals. I’m trapped! He won’t let me Lift!”
Michael wanted to scream right back at her—she was talking nonsense. A dark part of him wanted to say forget it, tell her she was a loser, let her nosedive. She was being so stubborn—it wasn’t like any of it was really happening. It’s just a game. He had to remind himself of that all the time.
But he couldn’t mess this up. He needed the points. “All right. Listen.” He took a step back, held his hands up like he was trying to calm a scared animal. “We just met—give it some time. I promise I won’t do anything nutty. You wanna jump, I’ll let you jump. But at least talk to me. Tell me why.”
Tears lined her cheeks; her eyes had gone red and puffy. “Just go away. Please.” Her voice had taken on the softness of defeat. “I’m not messing around here. I’m done with this—all of this!”
“Done? Okay, that’s fine to be done. But you don’t have to screw it up for me, too, right?” Michael figured maybe it was okay to talk about the game after all, since she was using it as her reason to end it—to check out of the Virtual-Flesh-and-Bones Hotel and never come back. “Seriously. Walk back to the Portal with me, Lift yourself, do it the right way. You’re done with the game, you’re safe, I get my points. Ain’t that the happiest ending you ever heard of?”
“I hate you,” she spat. Literally. A spray of misty saliva. “I don’t even know you and I hate you. This has nothing to do with Lifeblood!”
“Then tell me what it does have to do with.” He said it kindly, trying to keep his composure. “You’ve got all day to jump. Just give me a few minutes. Talk to me, Tanya.”
She buried her head in the crook of her right arm. “I just can’t do it anymore.” She whimpered and her shoulders shook, making Michael worry about her grip again. “I can’t.”
Some people are just weak, he thought, though he wasn’t stupid enough to say it.
Lifeblood was by far the most popular game in the Virt-Net. Yeah, you could go off to some nasty battlefield in the Civil War or fight dragons with a magic sword, fly spaceships, explore the freaky love shacks. But that stuff got old quick. In the end, nothing was more fascinating than bare-bones, dirt-in-your-face, gritty, get-me-out-of-here real life. Nothing. And there were some, like Tanya, who obviously couldn’t handle it. Michael sure could. He’d risen up its ranks almost as quickly as legendary gamer Gunner Skale.
“Come on, Tanya,” he said. “How can it hurt to talk to me? And if you’re going to quit, why would you want to end your last game by killing yourself so violently?”
Her head snapped up and she looked at him with eyes so hard he shivered again.
“Kaine’s haunted me for the last time,” she said. “He can’t just trap me here and use me for an experiment—sic the KillSims on me. I’m gonna rip my Core out.”
Those last words changed everything. Michael watched in horror as Tanya tightened her grip on the pole with one hand, then reached up with the other and started digging into her own flesh.
James Dashner is the author of the New York Times bestselling Maze Runner series as well as the Mortality Doctrine series, the 13th Reality series, and two books in the Infinity Ring series: A Mutiny in Time and The Iron Empire. He was born and raised in Georgia but now lives and writes in the Rocky Mountains. To learn more about James and his books, visit JamesDashner.com, follow @jamesdashner on Twitter, or find dashnerjames on Instagram.
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