ACT I SCENE XLIV
INACHOS


"WHAT?" THOMAS CRIED OUT excitedly. "What did you see?"

"Slim your pants, Tommy," she glanced at him with mild amusement before pushing herself off the ground. Cassandra dusted off the dirt from her clothes before folding her arms, and facing them properly. "It wasn't much, actually. I saw some kinda computer screen and there were words on it but I don't remember what they were. It was in a room, a really dark one like it was underground or something."

"Cass!" Thomas grabbed her shoulders. "This is amazing!"

"Hey, hey," Minho placed a hand on his chest and pushed him away from her. "Back off."

"Damn, Minho, aren't you protective of your girlfriend?" Newt smirked.

"I'm his shucking princess," she joked. "And don't you forget."

"I don't know whether to bloody laugh or cry."

"Okay!" Minho raised his voice. "We got a clue- the Maze is a code and we need to put the words in some computer. Easy."

"We just need to figure the code out," she pointed. "That's where you two come in, I guess. Then we'll look for this computer room."

Thomas nodded and they made their way to the back of the Homestead where the weapons room was located. They shuffled inside the storage space and Minho switched the lights on, then showed them the little secret hiding closet in the corner. She helped him drag the boxes of Maps out of it into the open and Thomas immediately started rifling through them.

"Okay, so we know for sure that the Maze is trying to spell something out for us," Thomas started as he examined a bundle of maps in his hands.

"Dude, we've studied these things for years. How do you think it's spelling out freaking words? Think we'd have noticed 'em by now," Minho frowned.

"Maybe it's too hard to see with the naked eye," he looked up, the gears spinning in his head. "Maybe we need to look at it one day at a time instead?"

"Tommy, I might not be the sharpest guy in the Glade, but sounds like you're talking straight outta your butt to me."

"Wait, hold on, I wanna hear what he has to say," Cassandra said, leaning against a table with her arms crossed. Thomas started bouncing ideas off of them, trying to figure out a way that they haven't tried to examine the Maps with. Then he paused and held a couple pieces of paper up to the light and his eyes grew wide as a thought occurred to him.

"Wax paper..." he murmured but they heard him.

"Huh?" Minho asked. "What-"

"Trust me. We need wax paper and scissors. And every black marker and pencil you can find."

"Do you know what he's smoking?" Minho turned to her as she was chewing her bottom lip in thought, eyes wide with concentration.

"Yeah... yeah, actually, I think I do..." she nodded her head slowly. Cassandra knew that Minho was a smart guy- he remembered weird formulas in his head and memorised the patterns for every sector for every day of the week. He was just freaking lazy. "Imagine it, layering each different sector in a day on top of each other. The lines would intersect at some point, and maybe it'll spell something out?"

"Oh..." he looked up with a distant expression. "Huh, that might actually work. Come on, let's go hunting!"

They spent the next few minutes gathering the supplies they needed, wax paper from Frypan and pencils lying in odd places around the Glade. There was one in the bathroom, and she couldn't explain how it got there. Their scissors had mysteriously disappeared amongst the disarray so they had to settle with their knives instead.

"Okay," Thomas handed out wads of wax paper to them. "Start cutting rectangles, about the size of the Maps. Newt and Teresa, help me grab the first ten or so Maps from each section box."

"What is this, kiddie craft time?" Minho looked at him in disgust as he picked up his knife.

"Seriously, Minho?" Thomas looked at him in exasperation. "Just do it."

Minho sighed in irritation and glanced at Cassandra, who was already cutting the wax paper up methodically. Then he followed her, but not as neatly, and threw the rectangles in a haphazard pile in front of him. After they had enough wax pieces, they started tracing the Map sections on them one by one as efficiently as they could.

She could barely concentrate on the task as Minho kept nudging her foot underneath the table and glancing at her expectantly. The urge to smack him grew with each passing second until she looked up at him sharply. He grinned at her and she wished she could speak into his head to ask him what exactly he wanted to say to her. Instead, she settled for mouthing a big 'what' at him. He scribbled something on a scrap piece of paper and held it up for her to read.

You look hot.

She rolled her eyes at him and he winked back at her. Then she scribbled on another piece of paper and nudged his foot for him to look.

You too, babe.

Minho let out a loud strangled laugh, which drew attention from the others. He cleared his throat and continued drawing, shaking his head with a wide smirk. She bit her lip but she couldn't help the impish grin over her own face.

"I've had enough," Newt exclaimed, throwing down his marker. "My fingers are bloody burning like a mother. See if it's working."

Thomas started pointing at sections and telling them to sort the pieces out into stacks. They did as he asked and piled the map pieces up in an orderly manner. With shaking hands, he picked a piece from each pile and placed them on top of one another, making sure each section corresponded with the same day. Once he was done, he leaned back and stared numbly at the finished work.

There was nothing; no word, not even a letter.

"Great, that was a bloody waste of time."

Thomas rubbed his eyes in frustration. "I was so sure..."

"Wait," Minho called and pointed. "There's a line out of place here going diagonal over the others. See? And over there."

"I see them too," Cassandra leaned over. "They look outta place."

Thomas sat up straight in his seat again and examined the papers, then he started shuffling them around. Each time, he did it, the lines shifted across the page, always around the same area in the middle of the grid, but there was still no hint of a word or letter.

"What is this?" he asked, frowning deeply. "There's something there, but I can't figure it out."

She looked hard at the lines, trying to connect the clues together in her head. Maybe they had to be placed in a certain way, but what could it possibly be? She tried to think hard about the section patterns, the layout of each sector, when she realised something. It had nothing to do with the Maze at all.

"It's a sequence!" Cassandra stood up, gripping a pencil tightly in her fist.

"Huh?" they looked up at her simultaneously.

"It's a sequence!" she repeated and grabbed the front of Minho's shirt. "Where is it?!"

"Where's what?" he looked at her as if she had just gone crazy.

"The box! The one Lee found that dropped from a Griever!" she said. "There were numbers in it, remember?"

"Oh," his eyes opened wide as he stared back at her. Then he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him in a hurry. Cassandra quickly explained to the others and Thomas instantly gasped as he finally figured it out as well. He looked like he would have flung himself over the table to kiss her.

That would have been gross.

Once Minho was back with the box, they reshuffled the section pieces according to its sequence.

71528643.

All of them leaned over the table with bated breaths as Thomas placed the pieces on top of each other one by one, and the lines started to fit into place. Instead of overlapping over each other randomly like before, they were now repeating themselves in a uniform pattern around the middle of the map grid. Slowly, it finally became clear.

A large F sat in the middle of the completed map.


"Man," Minho said.

"Do more, quickly," Teresa urged and Thomas started on another day, arranging the pieces according to the number sequence of the Maze Sections. More letters appeared in the middle of each completed map and they started grouping the letters into words.

"What the bloody hell is a float cat?" Newt asked, bemused.

"Do more, that can't be it," Cassandra waved her hands impatiently.

The cat turned out to be the word catch.

"Definitely not a coincidence," Minho said.

"Definitely not," Thomas echoed as he continued the painstaking task of arranging the maps. Teresa pointed at the rest of the boxes, mentioning that they still had to go through all the rest of them. The mountain of maps sat in the corner, laughing at them with their quantity.

"We can't help," Minho suddenly announced and they turned to look at him weirdly. "We need to get all the Runners out into the Maze."

"Uh, why?" Cassandra shifted her gaze from side to side. "We're on a breakthrough here."

"Yeah, Minho, this is more important!" Thomas exclaimed almost angrily.

"Something might've changed out there," he told them. "Maybe something important, maybe something that'll lead us to this computer thing. I think it's time, boys and girls. We're staying out there overnight."

"Holy crap, are you being serious right now?" she looked at him with wide eyes.

Thomas hummed, liking the sound of it but he still looked like he wanted to stay and figure out the code. Then Newt made the decision for them.

"I think that's fair," he said. "You shanks go out and get Runnin'. I'll round up some Gladers we can trust and get workin' on this."

"Me too," Teresa nodded resolutely. "If you're going to decipher a hidden code from a complex set of different mazes, I'm pretty sure you need a girl's brain running the show."

She smirked widely, glancing at Cassandra. "I got it covered here, Cass, you can concentrate on the boys out there," she added.

"I really like this girl," she said, turning to Minho.

"She your new best friend now?" he grimaced.

"Aw, are you jealous?" she went over and rubbed his chest in wide circles.

He swatted her away and she snickered mischievously next to him. Thomas kept looking at Teresa, like he really didn't want to leave her there. Newt picked up on it and reassured him that his girlfriend will be fine, then shooed them all out of the room. The boy's face was on fire as they stepped out into the Glade and Cassandra wouldn't stop teasing him about it.

They assembled the rest of their team and Minho gave them the happy news before organising themselves for the adventure of their lifetime. They were still two men short though but Minho was still reluctant to let Thomas or Cassandra wander off on their own. Lee volunteered to take the extra section, and they took the other one.

Their packs were full to bursting as they stuffed as many supplies as they could in them, right up to the brim. She could barely close the damn thing and it weighed heavily on her shoulders. For some unfathomable reason, she didn't feel scared- just excited. It was weird that they were all willingly going out into the Maze at night when just a week ago, the very idea would send them into a blind fright.

Chuck came over as they were getting ready by the West Door.

"I'd join you," he said. "But I don't wanna die a gruesome death."

Thomas laughed. "Thanks for the words of encouragement."

"Be careful," the kid said. "I really wish I could help."

"Just take care of yourself, Chuck," Cassandra told him, remembering the words Gally had said the night before. "The Grievers might come back."

"Yeah, what she said," Thomas jabbed his thumb in her direction. "And thanks, we'll definitely be careful."

Minho grunted. "Being careful hasn't gotten us squat. It's all or nothing now, baby."

"Yeah, boy!" she cheered, pumping her fist in the air.

"Seriously, you two..." Thomas turned to them with a deadpan expression. "You're like Bonnie and Clyde."

"What's that?" she frowned.

"Huh," Minho's eyes lit up with a wide smile. "I like it."

Cassandra shrugged, not knowing what they were talking about, but if Minho approved then she guessed it was something good. Then, making sure they had everything ready and bidding Chuck goodbye, they started off into the Maze.


They made good progress, only stopping once for a break when they had reached the last dead end of Section Eight. None of them spoke a word to each other, conserving their energy for the long night ahead. There wasn't much to say anyway, as they were too busy scrutinising every inch of the Maze. The walls hadn't moved since the night before, it was like they were locked in place, triggered by the so-called Ending.

Suddenly, Thomas tripped and crashed to the ground behind them. They didn't stop as they glanced back at him and he looked up sheepishly before scrambling up to hurry after them again. He was so weird.

"Hey, Cass."

She almost stumbled over herself as she heard his voice in her head a moment later. Cassandra looked back and he was smiling innocently in her direction. Even though she had done it once before, she still wasn't exactly sure how it worked. The whole telepathy thing, but she tried it anyway.

"No, we are not doing this, Thomas."

"She hates me."

"I can tell," Teresa's voice swam in her mind.

Scowling deeply, she turned around again to glare at the boy. How the hell were they doing that? Was there an off switch in her brain to shut them out?

"Why do you keep looking back at Thomas?" Minho asked breathlessly beside her.

"He annoys me so much," she replied bitterly.

"Can you and Minho talk in each other's heads too?" Thomas asked.

"No, now get out of mine," she snapped back.

"Aw, but the two of you are so in love with each other," Teresa sighed. "There goes my theory that Tom and I were lovers too."

"Goodbye," she hurled the word mentally at them, imagining it smacking into their faces. Her head was already starting to hurt.

She felt a pang of jealousy at the two of them. Why couldn't she speak telepathically to Minho too? It just wasn't fair. They didn't nearly have enough time alone with each other, and she just wanted to curl on top of him so badly; it made her feel sad.

Thomas tried talking to her again but she didn't reply for the sake of her own sanity. They scoured every inch of the next Section, running their hands across the walls for inconsistencies and climbing the vines in random spots to look around. Evening came but it wasn't like that made a difference to them with the sky gone. They had their knives out just in case though, gripping one in each hand.

Cassandra saw the tail end of a Griever up ahead of them and stopped, but it had already disappeared. Then Minho saw one next and Thomas after that. An hour later, one of the creatures came barrelling down the corridor right past them and it almost gave them all a heart attack with how close it had been. After that, another one charged in their direction, completely ignoring them as they ran, and turned into another corridor.

"They're playing with us!" Minho finally said. "It's all just a stupid game to them and Gally was probably right. I bet the Grievers took another one when we get back. They're just gonna keep killing us."

"I think you're right," Cassandra muttered. The dejection that surrounded them was like an ever-present rain cloud above their heads as they made their way back to the Glade.


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I hope you liked the little twist with the map code! I honestly have no idea if it works that way haha oh well.

I actually never planned for Cassie, Thomas and Teresa to have a three-way connection and then this just happened. xx