فصل 42

CHAPTER 42

The mysterious people were true to their word.

The next time Thomas woke up, he was hanging in the air, strung tightly to a canvas litter with handles, swaying back and forth. A large rope attached to a ring of blue metal held him as he was lowered from something huge, the whole time accompanied by the same explosion of hums and heavy thumps that he’d heard when they’d come to get him. He gripped the sides of the litter, terrified.

Finally, he felt a soft bump, and then a million faces appeared around him. Minho, Newt, Jorge, Brenda, Frypan, Aris, the other Gladers. The rope holding him detached and sprang up into the air. Then, almost instantaneously, the vessel from which he’d been lowered vaulted away, disappearing into the brilliance of the sun directly overhead. The sounds of its engines faded, and soon it was gone.

Then everyone spoke at once.

“What was that all about?”

“Are you okay?”

“What’d they do to you?”

“Who was that?”

“Have fun in the Berg?”

“How’s your shoulder?”

Thomas ignored it all and tried to get up, but realized that the ropes holding him to the litter still bound him tightly to it. He found Minho with his eyes. “A little help here?” As Minho and a couple of others worked on untying him, Thomas had a disturbing thought. The people from WICKED had shown up to save him pretty quickly. From what they’d said, it was something they hadn’t planned on, but they’d done it anyway. Which meant they were watching and could swoop in to save them whenever they wanted to.

But they hadn’t until now. How many people had died in the last few days while WICKED stood by and watched? And why did that change for Thomas, just because he’d been shot by a rusty bullet?

It was too much to think about.

Once freed, he got to his feet and stretched out his muscles, refusing to acknowledge the second volley of questions flung his way. The day was hot, brutally hot, and as he stretched, he realized that he felt no pain other than the slightest of aches in his shoulder. He looked down to see that he was wearing fresh clothes, and that there was the bulge of a bandage under the left sleeve of his shirt. But his thoughts immediately went to something else.

“What are you guys doing out in the open? Your skin is gonna bake!”

Minho didn’t answer, just pointed at something behind him, and Thomas looked to see a very shabby hut. It was made out of dry wood that seemed like it might crumble to pure dust at any second, but it was big enough to provide shelter for everyone there.

“We better get back under that thing,” Minho said. Thomas realized that they must’ve run out just to see him delivered from the huge flying … Berg? Jorge had called it a Berg.

The group trekked over to the shelter; Thomas told them a dozen times that he’d explain everything from beginning to end once they were settled. Brenda found him, walked right next to him. But she didn’t offer her hand, and Thomas felt an uneasy relief. She also didn’t say anything, and neither did he.

The miserable city of the Cranks lay a few miles distant, huddling in all its decay and madness to the south. No sign of the infected people anywhere. To the north, the mountains loomed now, only a day or so away. Craggy and lifeless, they sloped up higher and higher until they ended in jagged brown peaks. Harsh cuts in the rock made the whole range appear as though a giant had hacked at it with a massive axe for days and days, letting out all its giant frustration.

They reached the shelter, the wood dry as rotted bone. It looked as if it had stood there for a hundred years—maybe built by a farmer in the days before the world was ravaged. How it had withstood everything was a complete mystery. But one flick of a match and the thing would probably burn down in three seconds.

“All right,” Minho said, pointing to a spot in the far end of the shade. “You sit there, get yourself all nice and comfy and start talking.” Thomas couldn’t believe how good he felt—just a dull ache in his shoulder. And he didn’t think he had any trace of drugs in him anymore. Whatever doctors WICKED had unleashed on him had been brilliant at what they did. He took a seat and waited for everyone to get situated in front of him, sitting cross-legged on the hot and dusty ground. He was like a schoolteacher readying to give a lesson—a blurry flash from his past.

Minho was the last to take a seat, right next to Brenda. “Okay, tell us about your adventures with the aliens in their big bad spaceship.” “You sure about this?” Thomas asked. “How many days left to get over those mountains, to the safe haven?” “Five days, dude. But you know we can’t go tramping around in this sun with nothing to protect us. You’re gonna talk, then we’re gonna sleep, then we’re all gonna bust our humps walking all night. Get on it.” “Good that,” Thomas said, wondering what they’d been doing while he was away, but realizing it didn’t matter all that much. “Save all your questions till the end, children.” When not a single person laughed, or even smiled, he coughed and hurried on. “It was WICKED that came and got me. I kept passing out, but they took me to some doctors who totally fixed me up. I heard them saying something about how it wasn’t supposed to happen, how the gun had been a factor they hadn’t expected. The bullet set off a nasty infection in me, and I guess they felt pretty strongly that it wasn’t time for me to die.” Blank faces stared back at him.

Thomas knew it would be hard for them to accept—even after he’d told the whole story. “Just telling you what I heard.” He went on to explain more. Every detail of what he could remember, and about the odd bedside conversation he’d listened in on. Things about killzone patterns and Candidates. More about the Variables. None of it had made much sense the first time around, and it made even less now as he tried to recall it word for word. The Gladers—plus Jorge and Brenda—looked as frustrated as he felt.

“Well, that really cleared things up,” Minho finally said. “Must have something to do with all those signs about you in the city.” Thomas shrugged. “Glad to know you’re so happy to see me alive.”

“Hey, if you wanna be the leader, no skin off my back. I am happy to see you alive.” “No thanks. You keep it.”

Minho didn’t respond. Thomas couldn’t deny that the signs weighed heavily on him—what did it really mean that WICKED wanted him to be the leader? And what should he do about it?

Newt got to his feet, his face in a deep scowl of concentration. “So we’re all potential candidates for something. And maybe the purpose of all the buggin’ klunk we’ve been through is to weed out those who don’t qualify. But for some reason the whole gun-and-rusty-bullet thing wasn’t part of the … normal tests. Or Variables, whatever. If Thomas is gonna croak and die, it wasn’t supposed to come from a bloody infection.” Thomas pursed his lips and nodded. Sounded like a great summary to him.

“What this means is that they’re watching us,” Minho said. “Just like they did in the Maze. Has anyone seen a beetle blade running around anywhere?” Several Gladers shook their heads.

“What the hell’s a beetle blade?” Jorge asked.

Thomas answered. “Little mechanical lizard things that spied on us with cameras in the Maze.” Jorge rolled his eyes. “Of course. Sorry I asked.”

“The Maze was definitely some kind of indoor facility,” Aris said. “But there’s just no way we’re inside something anymore. Though they could be using satellites or long-range cameras, I guess.” Jorge cleared his throat. “What is it about Thomas that makes him so special? Those signs in the city about him being the real leader, them swooping in here and saving his butt when he got all sicky-sicky.” He looked at Thomas. “I’m not trying to be mean, muchacho—I’m just curious. What makes you better than the rest of your buddies?” “I’m not special,” Thomas said, even though he knew he was hiding something. He just didn’t know what. “You heard what they said. We have lots of ways to die out here, but that gun shouldn’t be one of them. I think they would’ve saved anybody who’d gotten shot. It wasn’t about me—it was the bullet that messed things up.” “Still,” Jorge replied with a smirk. “I think I’ll stay close to you from here on.” A few more discussions broke out, but Minho didn’t let them last long. He insisted that they all needed sleep if they were planning on marching through the night. Thomas didn’t complain—he’d grown more tired with every passing second of sitting in that hot air on that hot ground. Maybe it was his body healing, maybe just the heat. Either way, sleep called to him.

They didn’t have blankets or pillows, so Thomas curled up on the ground in the very spot where he’d been sitting, resting his head on his folded arms. Brenda somehow ended up right next to him, though she didn’t say anything, and she certainly didn’t touch him. Thomas didn’t know if he’d ever figure her out.

He sucked in a long, slow breath, closed his eyes, then welcomed the rest, welcomed that heavy feeling of slumber as it started pulling him into its depths. The sounds around him seemed to fade away, the air to thicken. A calm came over him, then sleep.

The sun was still blazing in the sky when a voice sounded in his mind, waking him up.

A girl’s voice.

Teresa.

After days and days of utter silence, Teresa started talking to him telepathically, all at once, a rush of words.

Tom, don’t even try to talk back, just listen. Something terrible is going to happen to you tomorrow. An awful, awful thing. You’re gonna be hurt and you’re gonna be scared. But you have to trust me. No matter what happens, no matter what you see, no matter what you hear, no matter what you think. You have to trust me. I won’t be able to talk to you.

She paused, but Thomas was so stunned and trying so hard to understand what she’d said—make sure he remembered it—that he couldn’t get a word in before she started up again.

I have to go. You won’t hear from me for a while.

Another pause.

Not until we’re back together.

He fumbled for something to say, but her voice and her presence slipped away, leaving him empty once more.