I do not own TMR - The world/characters/central plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner!


Chapter 3 – Backstreet Boy

In the end, my angst wasn't really worth it. A couple of people glanced in my direction, but the majority carried on with whatever randomness they'd busied themselves with. I say randomness – chaos is probably a better word.

An Asian boy, about my age, was hanging upside down from a ceiling rail that was creaking ominously whilst a blonde girl with dip-dyed hair was yelling at him to get off 'before you bring the freaking roof down and kill us all!'. Some others were playing a noisy game of Snap in the corner, screeching at the tops of their voices, a shady-looking figure was scratching nasty graffiti on the windows that would have made Mom's eyes burn. Honestly, for a small carriage, there were people in pretty much every position imaginable – sprawled on the floor, sitting, hanging, standing, sleeping, screaming – you name it, there was somebody doing it.

For a long second, I just stared into the carriage looking at the mayhem but a sudden choked wail startled me out of my trance. My eyes swivelled to one corner of the battered tin can that housed a long, splintering bench with four pierced teenagers lounging on it. One of them glared at a small, shivering bundle on the end of the bench before aiming a plastic bottle at it.

"God, kid – shut the hell up before I come over there and shut your trap myself!"

The plastic bottle found its target and the kid in the blankets squealed, the wailing dying down to a muffled sniffling. A flare of irritation flashed through me as I looked at the grimy older boy – yeah, as far as I could tell, this sucked, but we were all in the same sucky boat – taking it out on a sobbing child was low.

"Leave him alone!" I demanded, "What's he done to you?"

The boy looked up, eyebrows raised, evidently surprised that I'd dared to question him. He leered at me, brushing his greasy hair from his forehead, his eyes sweeping me up and down, and I took a step backwards warily.

"What's he done?! He's driving nails into our skulls and taking up a mile of space too –Why should I, Rich Girl?"

The boy stood up then, towering over me, his day-old breath making my head spin and I suddenly lost all ability to speak.

"Because…because..." I stammered, searching my mind for a scathing comeback, "Because it's not very nice, is it?"

Wow Lilianne. Just wow. I should be a politician. The jerk and his cronies immediately started cackling and flipping me off – "Daddy couldn't buy you an IQ, sugar?" I was shrinking down next to the bundle in the corner, wishing I could sink into the floor, when a voice called:

"For God's sake, give it a freaking rest, Sam!" It was the blonde girl who'd been screaming before. She strutted across the carriage in her miniskirt, her spike-heeled boots clacking on the wooden beams as she went. "We all know you have the biggest ego in the room, sweetie – leave it out". She tossed her thick hair across her shoulder as she spoke, raising an eyebrow. Sam smirked up at her now, changing his tune:

"Sure thing, gorgeous…" The girl wrinkled her nose and threw herself down onto the bench next to me.

"You okay?" She grinned, "Sorry about that – He's an idiot." I snorted and nodded weakly.

"Yeah – thanks."

"No problem! I'm Karly, by the way – Karly Linnaeus. That idiot over there's Minho - he's the son of a martial arts medallist from Korea."

Karly pointed across at the Asian boy she'd been yelling at before, who – on hearing his name – heaved himself into a vertical position and waved. Looking at him, I could believe it - the guy was built like an oak tree and in his current situation, I could see the veins popping in his muscled arms. I didn't realise I was staring until Karly elbowed me in the ribs with a questioning face:

"Aaaand you are?"

"Oh! Sorry - Lilianne Pasteur."

Karly screwed her eyes up, "Yeesh. And I thought Linnaeus was bad..."

I drew back then, confused and a little offended. What was wrong with my name? Okay, it definitely wasn't much – it sounded more like one of those fancy liqueur chocolates that looks pretty but nobody actually likes, than a name – but it was all I had. What right did this high-school prom queen have to sneer at it? I was getting ready to make a snarky comment that was about as impressive as my remark to Sam when Karly noticed the look on my face and hastily raised her hands:

"Whoa, whoa – no offense! I thought they'd told you the whole thing with the names!"

There was a pattern to our names? That would make sense – the few I'd heard so far sounded pretty insane. Karly was hurrying to explain it, gesturing at the other carriage hostages, rattling off their names at a million miles an hour – and I was absolutely certain that I would remember none of them afterwards. Her first gesture was at a small, willowy girl with perfect coffee-coloured skin and flowing black hair.

"That's Mariella Curie, she's from Lisbon, got on the train two weeks ago – talks about her hair, her make-up and her boyfriend constantly – disgrace to her namesake, don't waste your time." I nodded, hoping that was the right response. Next was a taller, African looking girl with dark-brown hair and a skinny looking redhead with milk white skin.

"Harriet Beecher-Stowe and Sonya Sarandon: They're okay, quite smart and a hundred times better than Mariella. Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian – seems alright but speaks absolutely no English, so no-one really has a clue about the guy (could be a mass murderer for all we know). Benjamin Franklin…"

Karly carried on with the list but I'd stopped listening, turning the names over in my head. They were all familiar to me – Marie Curie discovered radioactivity, Dmitri Mendeleev was the Periodic table, Harriet Beecher-Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, Carl Linnaeus… I think that was something to do with animals and then…

"And then there's you!" Karly paused for breath, "Louis Pasteur – wasn't he that milk guy?"

"Pasteurization." I said, feeling a sudden need to protect my namesake. There was no way I was going to be known as 'the milk girl' for the next decade. She nodded,

"Okay. So we're basically all famous people, which is why it sucks! I mean, come on, I could have been Rihanna or Oprah, or at least someone interesting – Joan of Arc or Cleopatra or something. But no."

Karly threw herself back against the rusted wall of the train, the hollow creaking sound disappearing into the general clamour of the carriage, and throwing her hand across her forehead dramatically. "I get to be the guy who invented the organism classification system."

Looking at this girl, collapsed across a window ledge, my exhausted brain started to summarize every depressing thing I'd been told that day. New identity, brain patterns, harmless tests, killzone department, 'you better hope you never find out', containment failure – and her theatrical display over a celebrity namesake suddenly seemed so ridiculousthat I started to laugh – and not the attractive giggling you see on TV either; full on laughter than doesn't have a specific sound but is made up completely of snorting, squeaking and high-pitched noises. Karly removed her hand from her face in surprise and mock irritation, but took one look at me and promptly joined in.

By the time we'd stopped laughing over nothing and had pulled ourselves together, the 50% of the room that wasn't passed out was staring at us like we were full-gone Cranks. (At the time I didn't realise how normal that was going to become) But I'd passed the point of caring now, so just met their eyes and grinned at them Cheshire cat style and sang "Sorry!"

Karly picked my hand up off the seat and swung it back and forth, stating "We're gonna be friends."

And though she was never the kind of friend I'd imagined when I was alone in my room, or even the kind of friend I'd have picked when I stepped into W.I.C.K.E.D's world for the first time, she was right.


In the next hour, as the clouds drew together across the sky and the rain began to batter the carriage - the noise sounding like gunfire inside the metal room- , I learned. I'd be more specific but that's really what it was. Mostly I learned useless trivia about the other people on the train (Minho's greatest weakness is avocado, Karly can quote every Keira Knightley film there has ever been, Mariella's boyfriend is called Archibaldo, Harriet won fifteen under 12 marathons before the sun flares hit and Dmitri loves kittens - we think) but also, we pooled our knowledge about W.I.C.K.E.D and what was happening. Unfortunately, it didn't take much pooling to work out that we knew absolutely nothing, but I think it made everybody feel better to come up with bizarre theories about our possible destination and our future. The reality, of course, was beyond our wildest nightmares, but in that freezing train with a storm starting up outside, it was much more entertaining to spout rubbish like 'world domination', 'cloning' and 'advanced chicken racing' than anything that was actually possible.

So, when the door flew open with an almighty crash and two teenage boys were flung roughly in, it's fair to say that everyone jumped a foot in the air.

"Oh my God!" Karly yelled, pulling on my arm as a man in a white suit walked in behind the boys, a disapproving expression on his face. W.I.C.K.E.D was painted across the jacket in large red letters. The boys were still on the floor, trying to disentangle their limbs when the man started to lecture them in the most patronising voice imaginable.

"Boys, boys, boys." This was accompanied by a disappointed shake of the head. "You are supposed to be intelligent young men –how many times must I tell you? STAY IN YOUR DESIGNATED CARRIAGE UNTIL WE REACH OUR DESTINATION. There are small children and elderly citizens in the other parts of the train and your attire, manner and language greatly unsettles them. There are solitary compartments that could be arranged for the next six hours if you cannot follow the rules…"

The man let the threat tail off. The older boy, a dark-skinned teen with close cropped hair, mumbled something that might have been an apology, hanging his head and placing what was supposed to be a restraining hand on the other boy's arm. The younger one was tall, taller than his friend but far skinner, his legs too long for his body. He shook off the hand irritably and stood up, brushing his dark blond hair out of his eyes. Does he want to spend the rest of the trip solitary? I thought, I'd go insane…

"Follow the rules?" The boy hissed, his eyes narrowed, "All we've been doin' for the past three weeks is followin' your bloody rules! Locked up in this buggin' tin can for three weeks with nothing to do but bang our heads together! There's a kid over there –" He gestured towards the bundle in the corner, his voice getting louder. "Who's been cryin' his little head off since Paris – if that isn't 'greatly unsettled' I don't know what bloody is! You said you wanted us to help you – you never mentioned turning us into buggin' Cranks in the process! I'm tellin' ya', I'm going barmy – we all are!"

It was obvious that this kid was throwing every nasty word he had in his worn-out brain at the man, but the employee just took it silently, arms folded, waiting for the boy to finish. He reached out his hands, placing them firmly on the blond's shoulders, locking eyes with him. Very passive aggressive.

"There are only six more hours to go – you have been a model subject so far – keep going. As for Master Churchill – he is adjusting; rest assured his distress will pass. Now, unless you want to spend the journey alone, follow Mr Einstein's example."

There was something else in the man's voice, not just threat but knowledge. He knew that confinement would silence the boy – and whatever he knew, he was right. The kid's eyes were smouldering and his fists were clenched, but he turned his back on the employee and threw himself onto the wooden floor. The man smiled to himself, evidently considering this a victory, and left, closing the door with a bang – one final insult.

"Good riddance." The dark skinned boy, punched his friend lightly on the shoulder and muttered something very uncomplimentary about the man that I am not about to repeat.

Listening to the two boys suddenly made my think of my Mom and what her face would look like if she could hear them. Any one of the words they were tossing around would have given her a 'fit of the vapours' and had her scrubbing my mouth out with carbolic soap! The thought made me laugh quietly as I pictured her cupping her hands over my ears, "Close your ears darling, there are youths present." The way she'd say it, as if the very idea of swearing 'youths' appalled her.

But the blond boy looked up then, his face still flushed (with embarrassment or anger, I couldn't tell) catching the smile as it faded from my lips. He scowled, giving me a filthy glare- the resentment painted clearly on his face, curled his lip and spat:

"Well we can't all talk like the bloody Queen, Princess!"


Hi everyone! Thank you so much for your amazing reviews – they keep me going!

I'm really sorry it's a day late – I'm quite laid-back in real life, but when I'm writing I'm a total perfectionist, and I just didn't think it was ready

Merry Christmas for tomorrow everyone! Have a fabulous day!

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