Newt was really getting tired of waking up to the same view, with the same pain, to the same voices. Before he was fully awake though, he was conscious of a sharp jab in his upper arm.
"Ow! The bloody hell is that?" His voice was thick with sleep and lack of use.
"It's necessary." A sharp female voice came from beside him, and he moved his eyes to see. She wore a lab coat and gloves, flyaway curly brown hair barely contained in a sock bun. Her dark red lipstick contrasted greatly with her mocha skin, and she had the aura of someone whom Newt wouldn't want to mess with.
"So what is it?"
"Serum." she removed the syringe, and Newt let out a small gasp of pain.
"What do I need serum for?"
"To prevent you from turning into a Crank, idiot."
A Crank? He wasn't cured? Well, he still felt like shit, so he guessed not. But not as bad as he felt the day he…died. Oh yeah. Maybe she could answer his question.
"How am I still alive?"
"That is classified information."
Classified? "It's my bloody life, I think I should know why I still have it!" Newt exclaimed. It was hard to give a convincing argument when your whole body was strapped to a gurney, but he tried.
The woman sighed. "Sir?" she spoke into a radio on her chest. "4-B is awake, he wants to talk to you."
"Why am I 4-B?" Newt asked.
"It's code," the woman said, standing up and walking to the door. "It stands for 'For Bait'."
"What!" His accent cracked at his exclamation, but it fell on silence. His heart was pounding as he lay, immobile on the bed, his eyes more alert then they had ever been. He roamed the ceiling, studying the hexagons on the clean white. He couldn't see much, but he was in a glass room, though with a solid wall on two sides. Medical persons in lab coats walked by with beeping equipment in hands. He had an odd feeling that he had been here before, but when?
"I understand you wanted to speak with me."
A male voice near the door made him jump, and he recognized it as the male voice he had been hearing for a while. Newt tried to strain his eyes to see who it was, but it was no use.
"Clarisse, unstrap his neck and give him something higher to rest his head on." The same nurse, Clarisse, unhooked the neck resistor, and propped his head up on another pillow. Newt closed his eyes and soaked in the relief. But when he opened them again, he saw a face whom he now hated.
"You!"
"Yes Newt, me." Janson replied.
The Rat Man looked horrible. Well, even worse than he did before. One eye was missing, his face was covered in scars and gashes, and half his hair was gone. But what was even more noticeable was the black veins snaking their way up his neck.
"What happened to you?" Newt blurted out before he could stop himself. He suddenly felt a sharp stinging pain in his cheek, as Clarisse dug a metal probe-looking thing into his face. "I'll turn up the voltage next time," she hissed.
"It's alright, Clarisse," Janson said, pacing the floor next to Newt's bed. "When your little friends were escaping the building, they let some Cranks on me. They didn't stick around to notice that I still had my gun. Of course, those scratches didn't help these." He stroked the viens delicately.
"Why am I here? Why aren't I dead? Where are they now?" Newt asked, a little hysterically. Janson put his hands up. "So many questions, but I'll try to answer them. I've always been a...reasonable man." The British boy resisted the urge to snort.
"Why aren't I dead?"
"The same reason why you're here."
"Why are you guys so shucking vague?"
Newt let out a yelp of pain as the stinging electric probe made its way onto his skin again.
"Maybe let me just answer your questions without your comments, 4-B," Janson said, his voice a little darker. Newt nodded.
"Your friend Teresa-"
"She's not my friend." Damn it Newt! Keep your thoughts inside your head!
Janson acted as though he hadn't heard anything. "Your friend Teresa made a very important discovery that night. Thomas has a unique ability in his blood to cure the Flare virus. After I was attacked by Cranks, I sent out a few of my loyal companions to find him. I needed him, for me to survive the Flare. While out there, some found you. They thought you were dead, of course, but it turns out there was a little bit of his blood on the knife that stabbed you."
Of course, the knife got Tommy too.
"This blood retracted the virus in your brain enough for your body to keep yourself alive. You were lucky that the knife missed your heart, though. So we operated on you and saved you, and we're giving you the serum to keep the Flare from eating you."
"Why?"
"You forget Newt, that we studied you inside that Maze. I know how close you are to Thomas. You are our bait. He will come to us, even sacrifice himself, to save you."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
Janson stayed quiet for a little bit. "We only have enough serum here for a limited amount of time. To keep me and you healthy. We're running out. We need your friend here."
"Well forget it. I won't let him give up his life to save yours. Or even mine!"
Janson chuckled. "You aren't in a position to do anything." He got up to leave, until one more thought struck Newt.
"Wait." Janson turned around.
"Where are we? I thought WCKD buildings were destroyed."
Janson chuckled. "WCKD was always about finding a cure to help all of mankind. But some of us within it thought it would be better off saving the, ah, elite of mankind. Not everyone is worth saving. But those who can pay millions, even billions of dollars, are." he inspected the rings on his fingers. "We are not inside WCKD anymore. WCKD was destroyed. We are now the Flare Easing Utopian Department Inside New Governments. We are FEUDING."
So the mystery guy is Janson? Interesting… now how are Thomas and the rest of them going to save Newt from FEUDING? Stay tuned!
(Sorry for the shorter chapter...)