Notes: Set in the film verse. The rescue sequence for Group B is fan speculation.
"Harriet, can you get the others acquainted?" Mary asked before leading Thomas and Brenda away.
Vince scanned each of the survivors from Group A with a critical eye, checking for visible signs that anyone else was turning into a Crank. Minho bit his lip as the leader of The Right Arm got up in his space, holding in a rude comment about the proximity of the other man's face to his. Once Vince deemed that everyone else seemed to be in the clear, he left Harriet and Sonya in charge of showing the group around the camp.
The volunteers who had been holding Jorge back released their grip on him and he adjusted his jacket.
"Where did they take Brenda?" Jorge spoke up.
Harriet pointed to a tent further in the back and Jorge strode toward it, lingering a few feet outside the door. She turned her attention back to the rest of the group and surveyed their appearance. "You guys are gonna need more gear – gets cold up here in the mountains," she said. She motioned to Sonya, who excused herself to go grab extra scarves and gloves for the guys.
"Hmm…" Frypan mused as he studied the contents of his plate. He picked up a forkful of the food, staring intently at it.
Minho wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and groaned. "Fry, just shuck it and eat it! It's fine – if it was poisoned, I woulda collapsed."
Frypan muttered something under his breath before trying a bite of the food. He looked thoughtful for a few moments before he gave a nod of approval and continued to dig in.
"Told ya it was good," Minho said. He scraped his fork along the plate to gather up the remainder of the food and put it in his mouth. After he swallowed, he jerked his head in Newt's direction. The blonde was standing up with his plate in one hand and was using his other to dust crumbs off his pants.
"Get me seconds, okay?" Minho said as he thrust his plate toward Newt.
Newt scowled as he took the other boy's plate. "Right, does anyone else need me to grab them seconds too?"
Fry shot him an apologetic look before passing over his plate to Newt. Newt rolled his eyes as he balanced Frypan's plate on top of Minho's.
"There anymore requests?" Newt asked. He shot Minho an irritated look and received a shrug of the shoulders in return.
"You're getting up – why have all of us go up?" Minho replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Thank you Newt," Frypan called after him.
"Yeah, you're all bloody welcome!" Newt grumbled as he slunk over to the food tent. With three plates in hand, he balanced Minho's and Fry's in one hand before passing over his to the volunteer doing dishes. He made a beeline for the food line and passed the plates over to the volunteer spooning even-sized portions onto the plates.
"Someone's hungry," Sonya mused as she joined him. She passed over a plate to another volunteer, who began putting food on it.
Newt shook his head and murmured that it wasn't for him. He thanked the volunteer as the plates came back, piled high with hot food and he accepted them, holding one in each hand.
Sonya's eyes widened as she stared and she murmured a thank you as her plate came back. "Was gonna say…" she trailed off. She shook her head and pushed the tent door flap open, stepping to the side so Newt could pass.
"Thanks," Newt said as he slipped through.
"Don't mention it," Sonya replied. "I'm gonna guess that your chef guy and the annoying loudmouth are the ones who wanted seconds, yeah?"
"You were right," Newt said. He stole a glance over at his friends and rolled his eyes when he saw Minho motioning him over for his food. He looked over at Sonya and excused himself, walking quickly so he could pass off the seconds to his friends.
"Thanks shuckface," Minho said as he dug in.
Frypan echoed his thanks and Newt nodded as he retrieved his water bottle and mumbled something about refilling it. The other two had put their heads down as they scarfed their food and Newt walked past Sonya.
"Do they always boss you around like that?" she asked, tilting her head.
Newt shook his head and headed to the water station, unscrewing the lid from his bottle. "Nah, Min's just lazy. Sometimes I was like the bloody mother in that Maze, always looking out for them," he said.
"Funny, that's kind of what I was like," Sonya recalled. "Lots of crying girls that were scared and I was the one who comforted them. I must have given out hundreds of hugs and had gallons of tears shed on my shoulder all those years." She stared thoughtfully at Newt as he filled his bottle.
"How did you find these Right Arm shanks?" Newt asked as he watched the water trickle into his bottle.
"Shanks? Is that some kind of weird word you guys use a lot?" Sonya asked, raising a brow.
Newt shook his head and muttered that he and the others had been saying it for a while. "When all of us woke up and came outta that Box, we only knew some basic things and usually we'd figure out our names a day or two later," he replied. "I've…I've been saying it for so long, I forgot who said it first."
A faint smile crossed her lips and she shifted her weight to her other foot as she leaned against the support pole of a nearby tent. She crossed her arms over her chest and watched as Thomas emerged from the medical tent.
"I don't know about you guys," she began, "but we were rescued from our Maze after we solved it. Actually, it was Rachel – she was in our Maze but didn't make it – that solved it. Aris helped her too. We got taken to some shelter facility in the middle of nowhere and got food and clothes. I think we were there about…maybe a day or two before all of us heard alarms going off and our rooms were locked. We heard shots fired and lots of screaming in the building. About an hour or so passes and these guys break down our door, yelling that we need to get out of there fast. They loaded us into trucks and we drove around until we reached camp. It turns out the facility we were at was WCKD owned and The Right Arm was evacuating it to save Immunes. Right Arm told us that WCKD had been taking Immunes and using them to create a cure for The Flare." She paused, eyes moving back toward Newt.
Newt had finished filling his water bottle and looked up at Sonya. Same experiment, same discovery – save Thomas found out what was happening and had them break out on their own, all without a plan.
"Sounds like us, except Thomas was the one who figured out what these shanks were really up to," Newt said. "They'd call a bunch of names every day during meals, saying those people were going to some safe haven. We'd never see them again. Aris showed Thomas a room in the facility where they were keeping the bodies of the people. …They said those people weren't…dead, but they weren't alive really. Just suspended from the ceiling with tubes and masks – I didn't see the room, but it sounded bad."
"Excuse me, I need to get to the water," a volunteer said from behind Newt.
Newt shot him an apologetic look and stepped away from the water, moving towards the path between the tents. Sonya gestured to an open area behind the food and water tents and they walked over.
"Probably better to get out of the way while everyone's working," Sonya explained as she glanced around. "Like I said earlier, our goal is to roll out at first light through the Trans Flat to the Safe Haven. But go on – continue. I know Aris said you guys crawled out of the air ducts and escaped but that's all he told me."
Newt nodded before slipping his water bottle into his coat pocket and pulling his gloves on. "Thomas pulled some kind of launcher gun on them and threatened to shoot if we couldn't get through. He barely made it to the other side of the door before it closed on him and we ended up in some kind of warehouse. We took a couple of supplies and came across some Cranks, which we had to run from. One of our guys, Winston, got attacked by the Cranks and started to get sick. We dragged him through this wasteland before he begged us to leave him to die."
"Was the Crank girl and older guy with you in WCKD's facility?" Sonya interrupted.
"No, we found their hideout during a storm and they actually tied us up until Thomas said we were looking for The Right Arm," Newt replied. "Turns out they were looking for them too but weren't able to leave their group. WCKD found us and Jorge blew the place up to stop them. We got separated from Thomas and Brenda, but she wasn't a Crank when we first met her. It probably happened before we found them in a rundown part of town knocked out. Jorge beat some shank bloody until he got the whereabouts of The Right Arm outta him."
Sonya blinked before she looked over at the older man who was emerging from the medical tent looking worn but relieved. "We could use someone like him, if we get into any trouble," she said. "I think I know who you're talking about – the guy who told you where we were. Mary's mentioned his name but she said something about him changing sides or something?"
"Well, Jorge punched him until he started talking – eyes got really swollen and his nose was a bloody mess," Newt recalled. "We also stole his car – think he called it Bertha, or something?"
Sonya snickered at the name and shook her head. "Guess it's better he isn't coming with us then." She fiddled with her braid and slid the hair tie off the end, fingers working her hair free. It hung in tight waves, cascading past her shoulders. As she combed her fingers through her strands, Newt frowned as he thought of something.
He's 9 years old and he's getting ready for school – what would be one of the last days he attended school. He's brushing his teeth, toothpaste foaming at the corners of his mouth, when the door swings open and a blonde girl dashes over to the mirror. She pushes the stool in place so she can see the mirror better before she steps onto it and begins to comb her hair.
He continues to brush in silence, lowering his head to spit into the sink until he hears a small "Ow" coming from the mirror. He drops the toothbrush into his holder and looks to see that the younger girl has snagged the comb on a tangle at the back of her head.
"I'm stuck," the girl said, pursing her lips into a frown.
He shakes his head before walking behind her and trying to work the comb out of the tangle. Her eyes watch him in the mirror as he passes the comb gently over the area and removes the tangle. Once it's out, he puts the comb down on the counter and steps back.
"Thanks," she replies before gathering all of her hair and pulling it to one side.
"Right then," Newt says. "You need help with braiding it?"
The girl shakes her head as she separates the bundle of hair into three sections. "I got this."
"Hey, you haven't seen that Teresa stick, have you?" Sonya interrupted his thought. "I just realized that I didn't give her gloves. Actually, come to think of it, did she even eat yet?"
Newt looked around the camp and shrugged his shoulders. Teresa wasn't his priority – the girl could bloody take care of herself without trouble. But now that Sonya had mentioned it, the trigger of their Maze had made herself scarce once Group A was deemed safe.
"Is she and that Thomas guy related or something?" Sonya asked.
His answer was on the tip of his tongue but he found himself saying something completely different.
"Lizzy."
Sonya scrunched her brows up and stared back at Newt. "Who's Lizzy?"
Newt shook his head, brushing some of his hair out of his eyes. "Sorry, not sure why I said that. …Ya know? Maybe it was you doing your hair that made me think of that." He turned away, eyes staring at a mountain in the distance. "I think I just remembered something about my life. My real life – not the one I made in the Maze. I think I had a sister before the Maze – she had long hair like yours and would braid it in the same way. Name was Lizzy." A quiet smile tugged at his lips and he sighed.
"Sorry, not sure where that buggin' memory came from," he said.
Sonya crossed her arms over her chest, a wistful look in her eyes. "At least you can remember something," she replied, "Rachel told me they wiped everyone's mind blank before we were sent up. She purposely got attacked by one of the creatures in our Maze and got some of her memories back. She claims they were all dark ones she wanted to forget – I'll admit I'm kinda scared to know what kind of person I was like back then."
She took a step towards Newt and placed a hand on his shoulder. "We had a Beth in our Maze, but I never heard anyone call her 'Lizzy'. Who knows? Maybe she survived this awful world and didn't end up in a WCKD facility."
Newt nodded as he picked up one end of his scarf, winding it around his neck a few times. He pushed the memory to the back of his mind and glanced over at the fire where his friends sat.
"I should –"
"Yeah I need to go check on the packing for tomorrow," Sonya interrupted. She raised a hand before slipping between the tents and hanging a right.
"So what were you and that Sonya shank talking about?" Minho demanded once he returned.
Newt muttered something about the plan for tomorrow's departure and Minho turned away satisfied. Frypan was busy watching Sonya, Harriet, and Aris talk around another fire, laughing at something Aris said.
He heard someone crouch next to him and he turned to see it was Thomas.
"Do you think we're finally gonna be safe?" Thomas asked.
Newt tilted his head, eyes drifting down to Sonya.
"I'd say it's better than being strung up to a buncha machines."
