Chapter 29. Understanding.
Their new acquaintances, Ethan, Rose, and Jules, turned out to be decent enough people, despite what they seemed like at first. Thomas could detect a tone of mistrust from the trio, but he could hardly blame them for that. Still, there was a painful tug at his heart when he noticed Jules looking at him with poorly masked fear.
He wondered how the Gladers would look to these people. They had discussed it, and the trio knew a bit about them, but it was mostly from stories told second- or third-hand. They had just as many, if not more, misconceptions as they had actual facts.
It had been a short conversation, thankfully. Thomas had had a hard time containing his increasing frustration with the new people. Not because they believed Group B had commandeered an army of helicopters to battle the terrible bat-monsters when escaping their maze -although that made him question their judgment- but because they sounded envious of them. Thomas couldn't understand how they could be so foolish; didn't they understand how terrible the Gladers and Glenners had had it during WICKED's experiments? Sure, they had been sheltered from the nightmare that was current society, but their memories had been taken away to ensure that ignorance. These people didn't know what it was like to see the doors of the Maze close in front of their very eyes, dooming everyone still inside to a horrible demise. They hadn't heard the doors close behind them as they ran into the near certain doom of the Maze, hoping against hope to save two friends. No, they had sat cooped up comfortably, playing board games while the Gladers ran from Grievers. What right did they have to envy Thomas? If anything, he should be the envious one.
But he buried his annoyance in some distant part of his mind, where he sent all the thoughts and feelings he couldn't allow himself to have. He kept telling himself that he could let them all out soon; when it was over. But when would that be? Or rather: How much longer could he keep it up before it all burst out of him like water from a broken dam?
When they ran out of things to talk about, Jules suggested they play a game. Thomas recognized the game, though he had no memories of playing it. It was a board game called Monopoly, where you tried to bankrupt your opponents. They played in three teams: Teresa and Harriet, Rose and Jules, and Thomas teamed up with Newt. Ethan was the judge.
Thomas was very bad at Monopoly, and Newt was even worse. They were out after ten minutes of gameplay. The other two teams fought to the bitter end, where Rose and Jules won narrowly. The epic battle between team T and H's metal dog and team R and J's top hat lasted for a very intense 45 minutes. Teresa blamed her loss on Thomas' terrible advise that he kept giving her once he was out of the game.
They played other board games -some Thomas recognized, some he didn't- until it was late at night. It was surprisingly fun, and Thomas had even forgotten that they were on different sides. They didn't realize how late it was until Ethan fell asleep and landed on the gameboard as if it were a pillow.
Teresa glanced over at the clock fixed on the far wall.
"Whoa, it's already one in the morning," she said.
"It is?" Rose looked at the clock herself. She turned to Jules. "It's way past your bedtime, little man."
"I don't have a bedtime!" Jules protested, "and don't call me 'little man', I'm almost twelve!"
"Whatever you say, now help me clean up this mess."
Jules put game pieces back in their boxes, while Rose put the boxes back in the bookshelf they'd been taken from. On her way back she kicked Ethan's leg and he woke up with a start. Newt folded up the gameboard Ethan had been using as a pillow. He went to put it back in its rightful place on the shelf, but he accidentally knocked over a mug of crayons, which thankfully didn't break on impact, but left colorful stains on the floor.
"Oh, bugger. Sorry." Newt grabbed a piece of paper from right next to the crayons' previous location and wiped away the stains. He put the wadded up paper in his pocket and put the crayons back in their mug. In the blink of an eye, he snatched a blue crayon and hid it up his sleeve. Newt looked around suspiciously, but Thomas didn't think anyone besides himself had noticed. Surely, if he wanted the crayon, he could have asked to borrow it. What was the point of using stealth?
As soon as Thomas lay down on the rickety bunk bed, he knew he was in for a sleepless night. He twisted and turned, but he could not find a comfortable position. It didn't help that the room was icy cold.
He had chosen the beds farthest right, the ones farthest from the people in the Right Arm. Harriet and Teresa were in the bunks opposite him, and Newt was above him. Thomas, knowing that a symptom of the Flare was poor balance, had offered to take the upper bunk, but that had made Newt climb up in defiance. He was probably asleep by now. The old bed-frames creaked at the slightest movement, and Thomas hadn't heard anything. He stared up at the mattress above. It was yellow, and it was peppered with holes as if someone had used it for target practice. A few strands of golden hair dangled in the air. Thomas turned to lay on his side, going through his plans for the hundredth time. 1. Pretend to go along with Vince's plan and go to WICKED's building. 2. Ambush everyone from the Right Arm who came to take over the place. 3. Trick Vince to bring the rest of the Gladers and the Glenners to the building. 4. Get rid of Vince and free everyone. 5. Complete the trial, get the cure, and live happily ever after.
He wished he could get it all over with immediately, but if they wanted it to seem like they had walked all the way to WICKED they would have to wait a few days.
They could just run off in the middle of the night, leave a note to explain where they'd gone, and pretend to still be cooperating by describing a time and general location for a meeting place to plan an attack on the people from WICKED. That might just work, but there was always the risk of setting off their captors. They may not be willing to kill the hostages, but there was nothing saying the hostages couldn't be harmed. They could be starved, or dehydrated, or beaten. Even if the immunes couldn't be harmed, there was the girl who wasn't immune. What right did he have to bring suffering to even one other person, even if it was to save another? She had the Flare too, though. Wouldn't she want to get the cure as soon as possible, even though she hadn't shown obvious symptoms yet? A few days could do all the difference.
He realized with horror that he was starting to think like WICKED. The thought repulsed him, especially as he knew he himself used to think like that when he was younger. Put the kids in a maze, take their memories, send them to the Scorch, put them through a nightmare-simulation. It's for their own good, for the good of everyone. Unless we find the Cure they will all die, either by becoming Cranks or getting torn apart by them. We have to do this, there's no time for being gentle. Surely they would choose this for themselves if we asked them.
Maybe it was a righteous choice, the only moral choice there was. To someone on the outside of the variables, wouldn't it seem horrible of Thomas to oppose WICKED? He had worked for them, hadn't he? Right up until he was tossed to the lions in a meat-flavored sack without any memory of how he got there. Would it have been any different had his memories remained? Maybe he was a hypocrite, preaching that the ends justify the means until the means affected him.
The Right Arm was strongly against WICKED, of course. In the simulation, they had claimed to value isolation of the disease above risking immunes to find a cure, but they hadn't done anything except blow up WICKED and removing both alternatives. They had only been a variable designed by WICKED, though, and may or may not have had the actual ideals of the Right Arm, especially considering how they now wanted to do their own experimentation. That probably didn't make them much better than WICKED. It only made it stupid to side with them at all, since WICKED might be nearing a solution, while the Right Arm hadn't got past the theoretical textbook-research.
There was clearly no good alternative. WICKED was hardly the lesser of two evils, but logically they were the most likely to succeed. If the Right Arm really had some new method that was super effective, wouldn't they have given the information to the people with the resources to test it if they wanted to help people? That just showed how they cared about their own status. What's worse, they lured in scared civilians to do their dirty work for them. Thomas had no reason to trust the Right Arm more than WICKED.
He had become faintly aware of a rustling sound above him as he thought, but he had not paid it any mind until a wadded-up piece of paper landed on his ear.
He fumbled after it in his confusion. When he unfurled it, a crayon fell out, the blue one that Newt had taken earlier. He glanced up, but he figured the mattress above didn't have an explanation for him. He looked at the paper. One side had a colorful stain on it -it was clearly the paper Newt had used to wipe away the stain of crayon on the floor- the other side had two words written in the upper corner. "You awake?" It said in messy, blue text.
Thomas looked up again and saw a lock of hair that hung through the large hole in the mattress. He tugged at it lightly, and as soon as he had let go of it, it was snatched out of sight. That was as clear an answer as any. He wrote a question of his own below the first one, his usual neat handwriting warped by the thick crayon and uneven surface. "What is it?"
He scrunched up the paper with the crayon inside and pushed it through the hole in the mattress, where it was snatched up immediately.
When it was returned he was prepared and caught it easily.
"Couldn't sleep. got bored. Ps do NOT pull my hair."
Thomas smiled at the last part. If he could have, he would have done it again just to be annoying.
He answered. "Do you want to talk, then? What about?"
It felt a little silly to pass notes. Like they were two schoolchildren sitting through a boring lesson. It still seemed like a better option than trying pointlessly to go to sleep or dwelling on things. And he liked talking to Newt, even if it was by passing notes through a hole in a mattress.
"I dunno. Something nice," was the reply. Something nice? So not anything about the present, or the little they knew of the past, which left only…
"What are your plans for the future?"
"I'm not sure. I never thought I'd survive long enough to have a future. What're you gonna do?"
"I'm gonna go somewhere far away from WICKED, that's for sure. Maybe to some old, abandoned place, without Cranks to bother me."
"Sounds good, mind if I come with?"
"Of course I'd take you with me. I lack common sense, remember?" Thomas had automatically assumed that Newt would come with him. He was surprised that Newt had felt the need to ask.
"Some old abandoned place it is then. How about a farm?"
"Not a bad idea, as long as you know more about farming than I do, because I have no clue."
"After I quit the Runners I spent some time helping out in the Gardens, and the others know stuff too."
It looked as if several words had been blotted out at the beginning of the message as if Newt couldn't decide which words to use, but what really caught Thomas' attention was the last part. The others.
Of course they would take the others with them —the ones willing to come, anyway— but he had been caught up in the moment, picturing himself and Newt escaping to another part of the world and starting a new life there, just the two of them. A stupid thought, really; there was no way they could restore and maintain an old farm all by themselves. But for some reason, the idea appealed to him. A sort of warm, comfortable sensation spread through his chest.
"I'm sure it'll all work out, as long as you teach me about farming," Thomas wrote hastily upon realizing he was taking too long to answer.
"Or you could always be a housewife, if that doesn't work out."
Thomas snorted. "Are you proposing to me?"
"I didn't say MY housewife, I figured you'd get back together with Brenda or something."
"For the last time, that was a crush, which I'm long-since over."
"Sorry if I'm intruding. I just don't want you to get hurt. I know it's none of my business though. You're allowed to like whoever, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"Hey, shank, I know, we're cool."
In truth, Thomas was actually pretty annoyed that Newt never believed him about this, but he couldn't help but feel touched at knowing Newt didn't want him to get hurt, or rather, him admitting it outright. He supposed that could explain why Newt seemed to care so much about his love life.
Thomas waited for the next message, but it never came. He didn't hear the crinkling sound of paper, or anything else, for that matter. He guessed the conversation was over. He listened for the tell-tale deep breaths of sleep, but all he heard was the noise from the others in the room.
He still didn't feel tired, and the creaks of the beds and the snores of the sleeping people hardly helped.
He was fairly certain he managed to snag an hour or two of sleep, but his thoughts were too hazy to be sure.
When he noticed people starting to get up, he followed suit. He didn't have to look at the clock to know that it was very early. The little daylight that made it through the grimy, high windows was faint and without much warmth. The yawning spread through the building like an epidemic.
People buzzed around the room like busy bees, completing their morning chores. Thomas stood against the wall of the large room, feeling a title awkward. He noticed immediately how everyone moved around with purposeful ease; they had clearly been doing this for a long time, long enough for the routine to settle into muscle memory.
Breakfast was a thin, grey porridge, which was surprisingly good, despite appearances.
Thomas felt much happier with a full stomach, and the grogginess of semi-consciousness had dissipated as he ate.
He felt sore from the physical exertion the day before, but that only made him more restless. He wanted to do something —he wanted to run.
He settled for chatting.
Soon after they had helped clean their bowls, Jules ran up to Thomas like an excited puppy, Ethan and Rose following closely after. The young boy talked happily about how there would probably be enough snow to build a snowman this year. There had apparently not been a lot of snow the year before, or the years preceding it.
The group (Thomas, his friends from the mazes, and the Right Arm trio) sat down and talked about many things. Nothing about the Flare, or the solar flares, or anything like that. It was nice.
Except for one detail: Newt was clearly having a bad episode. By the looks of it, he'd gotten even less sleep than Thomas, and he looked much worse for wear than Thomas did, if the bathroom-mirror was to be believed. His eyes were in shadow, giving him a haunted look. He said nothing, save for a few one-syllable words. Even their new friends sent him worried glances, though that was likely them fearing for their own safety in the presence of a Crank.
Hours passed, and Thomas' unease grew. Newt didn't snap out of it like he usually did, instead, he began rubbing at his temples, as if he had a headache. Thomas wanted to say something, but he didn't want to cause a scene.
An unlikely savior came in the form of Brenda, telling them Piper needed help with the laundry, which was to be washed outside in a nearby stream.
"We'll do it," Thomas volunteered, gesturing at himself and Newt.
"Good," Brenda said shortly and left them just as efficiently. She seemed to be avoiding them.
Thomas went to Newt, who hadn't reacted at all to what was being said, and helped him up from where he'd been sitting on the floor.
"Come on," Thomas clapped his friend on the back, "fresh air will be good for you."
They met up with Piper, and Thomas helped the old woman carry the large laundry basket.
The outside air was crisp, without much wind, and the sky was dark with clouds. Jules would probably get to build his snowman soon.
The stream was a few minutes walk from the gym, on the opposite side of where they'd come.
The stream itself ran free and clear, too wild to freeze over. Thomas did not look forward to coming into contact with the cold water, which would undoubtedly give him hypothermia, or at the very least frostbite.
He stalled for as long as he could, arranging the basket of clothes carefully after putting it down in the frosty grass.
Piper smiled at him sympathetically. "I can take it from here, boys. There's an old racetrack somewhere around here, you go have fun."
"Thank you, but won't you get cold if you wash all of this by yourself?" Thomas asked.
"No, no. You should have been here before the solar storms, this is nothing compared to that, and I'm used to the cold. You've been shivering since you stepped out the door," Piper said.
Thomas thanked her again and led Newt away to where the racetrack was supposed to be.
The track was simple; a large oval of cracked plastic with grass sprouting through wherever it could. The ground was white with frost, and Thomas had a hard time finding it.
"Look, there it is!" Thomas said to his silent companion.
No response.
"Do you want to run around the track for a bit? We could race each other."
Silence.
"We'll both come down with a cold if we don't do anything to stay warm.
Nothing.
"Are you listening to me?" Thomas stepped closer. Newt wasn't even looking at him, he was looking at his own shoes.
Thomas cupped his face, making Newt look up at him.
"Are you listening to me?" He asked again.
Newt mumbled something in response and moved away from him. At first, he thought it might be to sulk, but he was moving towards the racetrack.
Without another word, he started running.
Newt ran fast despite his limp, though it made him run in a slightly odd fashion.
Thomas took off after him, moving just a bit quicker. With his head start, Newt ran an entire circle before Thomas caught up. He slowed his pace so they ran side by side.
Running felt wonderful, like he was a bird soaring through the sky, free and unbothered.
It didn't last for long. Thomas ran slower and slower, trying to match Newt's tempo.
His friend was getting unsteady, veering left and right as he ran.
"Hey, Newt, maybe we should take a break!" Thomas called.
Rather than slow to a stop, Newt picked up the pace, leaving a surprised Thomas behind.
He ran faster and faster, stumbling and swerving, but completely unfazed by it.
Thomas ran faster, trying to catch up to his friend before he got hurt, yelling at him to slow down to no avail.
He was closing in, but Newt still ignored him.
Thomas considered running in front of him, forcing him to stop, but Newt might just run him over in this state.
He could grab him, physically stopping him, though he might end up accidentally tackling his friend in the rush,
Before he could make up his mind, Newt stumbled after taking a false step on his bad foot.
His momentum caused him to fall forward, roll, and land in a heap in the frost.
Thomas called his friends name as he ran up to him, crouching by his side.
Newt groaned but insisted that he was alright. He slapped away the hand Thomas offered him and shakily got up on his own, putting as little weight as possible on his bad leg.
"Stupid bloody limp!" Newt shouted, glaring at his leg, "I wish I'd climbed higher up." His voice faltered.
"You don't mean that," Thomas mumbled, more to himself than to Newt.
"Oh, and how would you know?" Newt said venomously, and Thomas made the mistake of not answering.
"That's right, you don't. You don't know me. You know nothing, Tommy."
"Look, I don't know what to say to you," Thomas said, before Newt could continue, "you switch back and forth between being like you've always been and telling everyone and everything that you hate them. I know you've been through hell, and you're still going through it, and I want to help you, but you never let me. You either act like it's nothing or yell it in my face, and I don't know what to do, okay, I'm not perfect —far from it— I don't know what you need me to say or do, and you never tell me. All I want right now is make sure you don't die, and you promised to help me with that. Carrying all this hate around only makes everything worse. I'll help you work it all out if you let me, and if you can't bring it up now, I'll wait until you're ready. Just don't carry it around like this, please."
Newt stared at him, his expression betrayed nothing, and he didn't say anything. Then he wrapped his arms around Thomas and held him as if he were a lifejacket in the middle of an endless ocean. Thomas guessed he must've said the right thing. What he'd said was the truth, but he had been unsure of what reaction he would receive. Newt needed to tell Thomas what was wrong, and Thomas needed to do what it took to fix it. So that's what he would do; he would not wait for weeks or days, he would wait until nightfall, then they would go, and Thomas would save Newt.
