Her words stopped him cold.
At least they’re trying to fix what they screwed up, she continued. I mean, there’s nothing we can do about that now.
Teresa…, he started to say, but then stumbled over a void. He had no idea how to respond. Did you…did you already know this stuff?
I’d heard rumors.
And you never told me? He was stunned. How could she have known this and never said anything? She was his best friend. The first person he went to with everything.
I just don’t see the point. Yes, we have reason to hate these people. But how is dwelling on the past going to help anybody? The solution is what matters.
Thomas had never been so blindsided in his life. Didn’t you learn anything from our puzzle lessons with Ms. Denton? To know a solution, you have to know the problem through and through. This is a problem.
The response he got from Teresa was emotionless.
Yeah, I guess you’re right, she answered. I’m really tired, Tom. Can we talk about it tomorrow?
She was gone from his mind before he could respond.
—
The next day, Teresa refused to talk about it, emphasizing that she’d rather focus on the future than the past. Dr. Paige also blew it off, saying that those decisions had been made well before her time. It was almost like they were both determined to forget.
Thomas wouldn’t forget.
He swore to himself that he’d always remember this.
That he’d always remember that WICKED was trying to fix a problem their predecessors had created in the first place.
231.05.04 | 10:14 p.m.
Winter came in spurts that year, like old engines being restarted after years of sitting in the maintenance heap. But it finally settled in, lasting long past what should have been the onset of spring.
Thomas didn’t venture outside very often—and then only by special permission and with at least two armed guards by his side—but he saw enough to know that ice, cold, and snow had returned to the world with a vengeance. The resident WICKED climatologist said that weather patterns were slowly resuming their cycles on earth—winter, spring, summer, and fall—but that in places farthest north and south of the equator the seasons were far more unpredictable and extreme than they’d been before the sun flares. He described the world’s climate as a pendulum that now swung faster and farther in both directions.
Thomas enjoyed it when he could, enjoyed the feel of snow on his face, the tingle of icy cold on his nose and fingertips. It felt like a way of spitting in the sun flares’ face. See? I’m cold. Now go suck it.
In early May—winter still refusing to loosen its grip—Thomas took a walk outside with Chuck and Teresa, two of the guards right behind them, weapons out. Thomas was in a sour mood.
Everything about WICKED had worn him to the bone, hardened his heart. The Psychs, the Variables, the killzone, the patterns. Everything. He’d felt that way ever since the night he’d discovered the truth about their predecessors—that they’d unleashed the very virus to which they wanted to find a cure. Going outside for a while was a tiny escape.
Teresa shivered and rubbed her arms through her coat. “Are we sure this is planet Earth? WICKED didn’t throw us through a Flat Trans, put us on an ice planet?”
“That’d be cool,” Chuck replied. “Ice aliens. I wonder if your tongue sticks to their skin when you lick them. Ya know, like a flagpole.”
Thomas tousled his friend’s curly hair, trying to put his bad feelings aside. “Yeah, we know, Chuck. You don’t always have to explain your jokes to us. Sometimes they’re actually funny. Like that one. It was funny. I’m laughing so hard it hurts on the inside.”
“Me too,” Teresa added. “I’m snorting, I’m giggling so hard. On the inside.”
Chuck oinked like a pig and giggled. He often reacted to things like that. It only made him more likable.
“Might want to bring it down a notch,” Teresa said. “We don’t want to wake the Cranks down in the pits now do we?”
“I never got to see them,” Chuck replied, faking sadness. At least, Thomas hoped he was faking.
They rounded a corner of the complex and stopped, a spectacular view having opened up in front of them. The lights on the outside of the WICKED building were bright enough to illuminate the surrounding forest, the pine trees dusted with snow glowing in the reflection. Specks of snowflakes lit up the sky, the crashing of waves below the cliffs more distant than ever. Thomas felt like they were standing inside some sort of man-made set, the chill breeze coming from giant fans.
A fake world like the maze.
“Man, it’s so pretty,” Teresa whispered.
Thomas expected a joke to pop out of Chuck, but he was just as caught up in the wonder of their surroundings. “Our world isn’t so bad,” he said. “Once WICKED figures out how to make everyone well again, life’ll be pretty good, don’t you think?”
Thomas just nodded, a hand on Chuck’s shoulder. Using his stolen tablet, Thomas had done his own research about the Scorch, a place where WICKED had set up some kind of secret operation. If Chuck could see the pictures of that desolate hellhole, he might change his tune a little. But the kid was right. The world had a lot of places like this forest on a cliff, the majestic ocean crashing against it. Places where humanity could settle in and rebuild.
“Tom, over there,” Teresa said, her tone urgent. He followed her sightline to a group of trees about a hundred feet away.
A figure had stumbled out of the woods and fallen. Whoever it was got back up, brushed off the snow, then started walking straight toward Thomas’s group. The guards quickly put themselves in front of the kids, raising their weapons.
“We better get back,” one of them said.
“It’s a Crank, isn’t it?” Chuck asked. He said it calmly, bravely, and Thomas burst with pride, so much so that it almost hurt.
“Bingo, little man,” the other guard replied. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. Let’s get inside.”
“Wait a sec,” Teresa said. “That’s not a…I mean…that’s Randall.”
Thomas squinted against WICKED’s bright lights. And she was right. It was him. Randall. Lurching through the snow as if he’d lost something there and hoped to kick it into the air.
The first guard lowered her gun. “I’ll be damned. It is him.”
“What’s he doing out here?” Thomas whispered.
“What should we do?” Chuck asked, way too loudly. Thomas tried to shush him, but it was too late. Randall had stopped, his head snapping up. He saw them, and for a long moment no one moved.
Then Randall broke into action, struggling to get through the snow to them.
“Sorry,” Chuck muttered.
“Let’s get back,” the guard said more urgently. “We need to tell Ramirez.”
They turned their backs on Randall and jogged briskly toward the closest entrance to the looming complex. They were right in front of it when Randall shouted at them from behind.
“Stop! Marion! Moureu! I just need to say something!” At hearing their names, the guards turned around, once again placing themselves in front of the kids and raising their weapons.
Randall stepped out of the snowy grounds and stumbled onto the pavement, about twenty feet away from them. He looked awful. Eyes bloodshot. Nose bleeding. His cheeks hollow and gaunt. The skin at the right edge of his brow had split open, a streak of red painting the side of his face. Thomas stared at the poor man. What could he possibly be doing out here?
“Speak fast, then, Randall,” the woman said. “You don’t look well. We need to get you some help.”
“Can’t hide it anymore, can I?” Randall said, now bent over, leaning on his knees. “It’s the darndest thing!” He lurched upright, swaying left, then right, before getting his balance. “The darndest thing, trying to hide the Flare from your bosses.”
Thomas grabbed Chuck by the hand. The snow seemed to freeze in midair, no longer swirling, no longer dancing, no longer f
alling.
“All right, we’re done here,” the female guard said. “Open the door, Moureu. Get them inside and find a doctor. Quick.”
“You think you’re special?” Randall yelled. “You really think they’re not gonna do the same thing to you they’re gonna do to them all?”
Moureu punched in the security code. There was a loud beep. The color on the display changed from red to green; then a click rang through the air. The door popped open. The guard pulled it wide and stepped back.
Thomas practically shoved Chuck through the entrance, then grabbed Teresa’s arm and pulled her with him, running through. He didn’t want to spend one more second out there with Randall, whom he could still hear yelling.
“You hear what I said?” the sick man shouted. “You’re runnin’ from the wrong guy. I’m not the one you should be scared about. You hear me?”
The guard pulled the door closed on Randall’s ramblings. Thomas peered through the small safety window and watched the man turn around and stumble back toward the forest.
—
“You can sleep on my floor tonight,” Thomas said to Chuck. They stood in the hall outside his door. “I don’t care if we get in trouble.”
Teresa had gone into her room to use the bathroom but had just come back out to join them. She had a troubled look on her face.
Thomas looked at her, concerned. “You wanna sleep in here, too? I’m a little freaked out myself.”
“Actually…”
“What’s wrong?” Thomas asked.
She flicked her eyes at Chuck, who was lost in his thoughts. She spoke in Thomas’s mind. Let’s get him to sleep in your room. Then we need to go. Now.
Wait, what? Thomas said back. Go where?
Things are worse than you think, she said. Look…just get him to sleep, tell him bedtime stories, for all I care. Whatever it takes. Tap on my door when you’re sure he’s out.
What’s wrong? he asked again.
“You know what?” she said aloud, ignoring his question. She gently brushed a strand of Chuck’s hair out of his face and he looked up at her, his eyes filled with the weight of all he’d just seen. “I’m tired. Why don’t you two go have your sleepover and I’ll see you in the morning. And don’t worry.” She leaned over a little to be able to look him in the eyes. “Seriously. Randall is sick and they’ll take care of him. We’re immune, remember? There’s nothing to worry about.” She smiled a big warm smile at the boy. She was so reassuring, Thomas almost believed her himself.
“Good night,” Thomas said to her. “Come on, Chuck.”
“Good night,” she said back, then slipped into her room.
Thomas closed the door behind him and threw a couple of blankets on the floor for Chuck. As he was settling into his makeshift bed, the boy once again reminded Thomas that he was far smarter than they often gave him credit for.
“Yeah, she’s right—we’re immune,” he said in the darkness. “But what about all those people who work for WICKED?”
231.05.04 | 11:41 p.m.
Teresa opened the door before he even tapped twice.
“Come in,” she whispered urgently, though her calm focus scared him.
He stepped inside and she closed the door. “What’s up?”
She held up a piece of paper. Thomas took it. A few words were scribbled on it in pencil:
Come see me. ASAP.
Dr. Paige
Thomas looked up at Teresa. “Okay, now, really—what’s going on?”
“That note was slipped under my door while we were outside.” She paused, breathed. “I’m pretty sure Dr. Paige knows what happened out there tonight. It has to be related to Randall somehow.”
Thomas leaned back against the wall. Something was terribly wrong, he just knew it. A horrible fear was clawing its way up his chest. He felt an overwhelming uncertainty, a shifting of the world.
“What do we do?” he asked.
Teresa put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Let’s just go find Dr. Paige. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. If she wants to talk to us, then we need to go.”
“Okay,” Thomas said dully. “If there’s anyone we can trust, it’s her.”
Teresa gave him a nod of encouragement, then opened the door and left the room.
He followed her.
—
He knocked softly on Dr. Paige’s door. The last thing they wanted to do was wake up any of the other doctors or Psychs along the same hall. When she didn’t answer, he knocked a little harder. Finally he heard a soft voice from the other side.
“Who is it?”
“Thomas,” he said, a thought suddenly striking him. What if the note hadn’t actually been from her? “And Teresa. We got your message?”
The door opened a crack. He’d never seen Dr. Paige so…disheveled. Her hair was down and tangled from sleep and her face was clean of makeup. She opened the door wider and nodded for them to enter.
“I’m glad you came.”
—
Dr. Paige sat at her desk, Thomas and Teresa both on the bed, side by side, waiting for her to speak. He found himself thinking of Newt, maybe the one he liked most of all of them, not immune. There were only two futures for Newt: they found a way to treat this sickness, or one day he went insane, ending up like Randall.
Dr. Paige finally spoke. And while she seemed as calm and contained as ever, her eyes said something different. Thomas saw fear in them.
“I’ve been dreading this day for months, wishing we could last just a little while longer,” she said.
She stood up, stood quietly for a moment, thinking, then turned to look at them.
“There’s a reason I’ve fought for you and sought your help so many times,” Dr. Paige said. “You are part of this organization. You’ve grown up here, as one of us, and I know we have the same goals. I know that I can trust you to do anything to help us achieve our mission. And now I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
Thomas looked at Teresa and she looked back. He could feel what she was thinking.
They both nodded.
The doctor flashed them a warm smile. “Yes, I thought so,” she said. “Okay, well, we have no choice now. Once we start this, there’s absolutely no going back.” She took a second to look each of them in the eye. “So, I need to ask you both: are you ready?”
Thomas stood. Teresa stood. They both nodded again.
“Okay, then,” Dr. Paige said. “I’ve been suspicious for a while now that certain WICKED officers have been hiding information from us that can potentially undermine everything we’re doing here. Some of our top people haven’t even shown their faces in weeks. It’s time to initiate the protocol.”
She paused before she spoke again. Took a breath. “It’s time for the Purge.”
231.05.05 | 12:33 a.m.
Dr. Paige marched down the hall, confident step after confident step, her whole demeanor different from anything Thomas had ever seen before. It was like she’d accepted some woolly mantle of responsibility and wore it high on her shoulders. He found himself believing she could save this situation.
“We have to get everything done in the next twenty-four hours,” she said quietly over her shoulder. “I have plenty of help on my end, and Aris and Rachel will help you on yours.”
“Where are we going?” Teresa asked. “What’s the Purge?”
Dr. Paige stopped at the elevator, pressed the call button, and stepped in when the car arrived, speaking as the door closed. “First things first. At the end of every day WICKED requires a mandatory blood test of its members. We’ve always understood the importance of monitoring for contamination.” She entered the floor number and the lift started moving. “But over the last several months, I’ve noticed some strange activity—there’s been an undercurrent of suspicion—and then I discovered some of our personal health data has been breached. Chancellor Anderson finally decided that all results would have to go through him before being disseminated to the medical staff. Well,
I receive a general report every night, and not one person has tested positive. But…that’s according to the reports I’m seeing through the chancellor.”
The elevator came to a stop, the familiar chime dinged, and the doors opened. Thomas and Teresa followed Dr. Paige out and down yet another hallway.
“But I started noticing symptoms recently,” she continued. “Even the chancellor himself is showing signs of infection. I’m almost certain now that our beloved leader has been fudging the reports. I saw Randall on the security feeds tonight. And if Randall is sick…well, it’s impossible he’s the only one.”
Dr. Paige stopped in front of a door that Thomas had only seen once before. The time he’d been invited there to meet the chancellor himself.
“But why haven’t we noticed anything?” Teresa asked. “I mean, besides Randall, we haven’t seen any signs people are sick.”
Dr. Paige nodded as if she’d anticipated the question. “It may be early for some. Others further along may be in hiding somewhere. Makes me wonder if Randall got out from wherever that is. What happened tonight with him made me realize how serious our situation has gotten. If the results are being faked like I think, I need to initiate the safety protocol to ensure we remain healthy and we can continue our work. I have to take charge. Tonight.”
Thomas couldn’t believe how quickly things were escalating.
The doctor had never looked so grave, so determined. “First we have to get every last one of those results from the blood tests—from the original results, not the summary report. We’ll find out who’s sick and who isn’t. And then we’ll deal with things.”
Thomas was trying to sort through the whirlwind of information. “How do we get into his office? Aren’t the security feeds following us?”
She smiled, a brief break in the clouds. “Which question should I answer first?”
“The second one,” Teresa said for him. “Security.”
Paige nodded. “Let’s just say there are many people who owe me favors here. That and everyone is so scared about getting sick, they’re depending on us to guarantee their health. Ramirez is terrified of succumbing to it, and he thinks I’m best suited to make sure the cure actually happens. The sad truth is that Chancellor Anderson’s time leading WICKED has to come to an end.”
The Fever Code Page 20