CHAPTER 33
They went through the West Door into Section Eight and made their way down several corridors, Dib right beside Zita as she turned right and left without seeming to think about it, running all the while. The early-morning light had a sharp sheen about it, making everything look bright and crisp—the ivy, the cracked walls, the stone blocks of the ground. Though the sun had a few hours before hitting the noon spot up above, there was plenty of light to see by. Dib kept up with Zita as best he could, having to sprint every once in a while to catch back up.
They finally made it to a rectangular cut in a long wall to the north that looked like a doorway without a door. Zita ran straight through it without stopping. "This leads from Section Eight—the middle left square—to Section One—the top left square. Like I said, this passage is always in the same spot, but the route here might be a little different because of the walls rearranging themselves."
Dib followed her, surprised at how heavy his breaths had already become. He hoped it was only jitters, that his breathing would steady soon.
They ran down a long corridor to the right, passing several turns to the left. When they reached the end of the passage, Zita slowed to barely more than a walk and reached behind her to pull out a notepad and pencil from a side pocket in her backpack. She jotted a note, then put them back, never fully stopping. Dib wondered what she'd written, but Zita answered him before he could pose the question.
"I rely ... mostly on memory," the Keeper huffed, her voice finally showing a hint of strain. "But about every fifth turn, I write something down to help me later. Mostly just related to stuff from yesterday— what's different today. Then I can use yesterday's Map to make today's. Easy-peasy, dude."
Dib was intrigued. Zita did make it sound easy. They ran for a short while before they reached an intersection. They had three possible choices, but Zita went to the right without hesitating. As she did so, she pulled one of her knives from a pocket and, without missing a beat, cut a big piece of ivy off the wall. She threw it on the ground behind her and kept running.
"Bread crumbs?" Dib asked, the old fairy tale popping into his mind. Such odd glimpses of his past had almost stopped surprising him.
"Bread crumbs," Zita replied. "I'm Gretel, you're Hansel." On they went, following the course of the Maze, sometimes turning right, sometimes turning left. After every turn, Zita cut and dropped a three-foot length of ivy. Dib couldn't help being impressed— Zita didn't even need to slow down to do it.
"All right," the Keeper said, breathing heavier now. "Your turn." "What?" Dib hadn't really expected to do anything but run and watch on his first day. "Cut the ivy now—you gotta get used to doing it on the run. We pick 'em up as we come back, or kick 'em to the side."
Dib was happier than he thought he'd be at having something to do, though it took him a while to become good at it. First couple of times, he had to sprint to catch up after cutting the ivy, and once he nicked his finger. But by his tenth attempt, he could almost match Zita at the task.
On they went. After they'd run awhile—Dib had no idea for how long or how far, but he guessed three miles—Zita slowed to a walk, then stopped altogether. "Break time." She swung off her pack and
pulled out some water and an apple.
Dib didn't have to be convinced to follow Zita's lead. He guzzled his water, relishing the wet coolness as it washed down his dry throat.
"Slow down there, fishhead," Zita yelped. "Save some for later." Dib stopped drinking, sucked in a big satisfied breath, then burped. He took a bite of his apple, feeling surprisingly refreshed. For some reason, his thoughts turned back to the day Zita and Letter M had gone to look at the dead Griever—when everything had gone to klunk. "You never really told me what happened to Letter M that day—why he was in such bad shape. Obviously the Griever woke up, but what happened?"
Zita had already put her backpack on. She looked ready to go. "Well, shuck thing wasn't dead. Letter M poked at it with his foot like an idiot and that bad boy suddenly sprang to life, spikes flaring, its fat body rollin' all over him. Something was wrong with it, though—didn't really attack like usual. It seemed like it was mostly just trying to get out of there, and poor Letter M was in the way."
"So it ran away from you guys?" From what Dib had seen only a few nights before, he couldn't imagine it.
Zita shrugged. "Yeah, I guess—maybe it needed to get recharged or something. I don't know." "What could've been wrong with it? Did you see an injury or anything?" Dib didn't know what kind of answer he was searching for, but he was sure there had to be a clue or lesson to learn from what happened.
Zita thought for a minute. "No. Shuck thing just looked dead—like a wax statue. Then boom, it was back to life."
Dib's mind was churning, trying to get somewhere, only he didn't know where or which direction to even start in. "I just wonder where it went. Where they always go. Don't you?" He was quiet for a second, then, "Haven't you ever thought of following them?"
"Man, you do have a death wish, don't you? Come on, we gotta go." And with that Zita turned and started running.
As Dib followed, he struggled to figure out what was tickling the back of his mind. Something about that Griever being dead and then not dead, something about where it had gone once it sprang to life ...
Frustrated, he put it aside and sprinted to catch up.
Dib ran right behind Zita for two more hours, sprinkled with little breaks that seemed to get shorter every time. Good shape or not, Dib was feeling the pain.
Finally, Zita stopped and pulled off her backpack once more. They sat on the ground, leaning against the soft ivy as they ate lunch, neither one of them talking much. Dib relished every bite of his sandwich and veggies, eating as slowly as possible. He knew Zita would make them get up and go once the food disappeared, so he took his time.
"Anything different today?" Dib asked, curious. Zita reached down and patted her backpack, where her notes rested. "Just the usual wall movements. Nothing to get your skinny butt excited about."
Dib took a long swig of water, looking up at the ivy-covered wall opposite them. He caught a flash of silver and red, something he'd seen more than once that day.
"What's the deal with those beetle blades?" he asked. They seemed to be everywhere. Then Dib remembered what he'd seen in the Maze—so much had happened he hadn't had the chance to mention it. "And why do they have the word wicked written on their backs?"
"Never been able to catch one." Zita finished up her meal and put her lunch box away. "And we don't know what that word means—probably just something to scare us. But they have to be spies. For them. Only thing we can reckon."
"Who is them, anyway?" Dib asked, ready for more answers. He hated the people behind the Maze. "Anybody have a clue?"
"We don't know jack about the stupid Creators." Zita's face reddened as she squeezed her hands together like she was choking someone. "Can't wait to rip their—"
But before the Keeper could finish, Dib was on his feet and across the corridor. "What's that?" he interrupted, heading for a dull glimmer of gray he'd just noticed behind the ivy on the wall, about head high.
"Oh, yeah, that," Zita said, her voice completely indifferent. Dib reached in and pulled apart the curtains of ivy, then stared blankly at a square of metal riveted to the stone with words stamped across it in big capital letters. He put his hand out to run his fingers across them, as if he didn't believe his eyes.
WORLD IN CATASTROPHE: KILLZONE EXPERIMENT DEPARTMENT
He read the words aloud, then looked back at Zita. "What's this?" It gave him a chill—it had to have something to do with the Creators.
"I don't know, shank. They're all over the place, like freaking labels for the nice pretty Maze they built. I quit bothering to look at 'em a long time ago."
Dib turned back to stare at the sign, trying to suppress the feeling of doom that had risen inside him. "Not much here that sounds very good. Catastrophe. Killzone. Experiment. Real nice."
"Yeah, real nice, Greenie. Let's go." Reluctantly, Dib let the vines fall back into place and swung his backpack over his shoulders. And off they went, those six words burning holes in his mind.
An hour after lunch, Zita stopped at the end of a long corridor. It was straight, the walls, solid, with no hallways branching off.
"The last dead end," she said to Dib. "Time to go back." Dib sucked in a deep breath, trying not to think about only being halfway done for the day. "Nothing new?"
"Just the usual changes to the way we got here—day's half over," Zita replied as she looked at her watch emotionlessly. "Gotta go back." Without waiting for a response, the Keeper turned and set off at a run in the direction from which they'd just come.
Dib followed, frustrated that they couldn't take time to examine the walls, explore a little. He finally pulled in stride with Zita. "But—"
"Just shut it, dude. Remember what I said earlier—can't take any chances. Plus, think about it. You really think there's an exit anywhere? A secret trapdoor or something?"
"I don't know ... maybe. Why do you ask it that way?"
Zita shook her head, spat a big wad of something nasty to her left. "There's no exit. It's just more of the same. A wall is a wall is a wall. Solid."
Dib felt the heavy truth of it, but pushed back anyway. "How do you know?" "Because people willing to send Grievers after us aren't gonna give us an easy way out." This made Dib doubt the whole point of what they were doing. "Then why even bother coming out here?"
Zita looked over at him. "Why bother? Because it's here—gotta be a reason. But if you think we're gonna find a nice little gate that leads to Happy Town, you're smokin' cow klunk."
Dib looked straight ahead, feeling so hopeless he almost slowed to a stop. "This sucks." "Smartest thing you've said yet, Greenie." Zita blew out a big puff of air and kept running, and Dib did the only thing he knew to do. He followed.
The rest of the day was a blur of exhaustion to Dib. He and Zita made it back to the Glade, went to the Map Room, wrote up the day's Maze route, compared it to the previous day's. Then there were the walls closing and dinner. Keef tried talking to him several times, but all Dib could do was nod and shake his head, only half hearing, he was so tired.
Before twilight faded to blackness, he was already in his new favorite spot in the forest corner, curled up against the ivy, wondering if he could ever run again. Wondering how he could possibly do the same thing tomorrow. Especially when it seemed so pointless. Being a Runner had lost its glamour. After one day.
Every ounce of the noble courage he'd felt, the will to make a difference, the promise to himself to reunite Keef with his family—it all vanished into an exhausted fog of hopeless, wretched weariness.
He was somewhere very close to sleep when a voice spoke in his head, a scratchy, male voice that sounded as if it came from a goblin trapped in his skull. The next morning, when everything started going crazy, he'd wonder if the voice had been real or part of a dream. But he heard it all the same, and remembered every word:
Dib, I just triggered the Ending.