A half hour later all of us were sitting on the floor facing the invisible wall and as Minho so accurately named him, 'Rat Man'. I sat on Newt's right side Tommy on my left and Minho next to him. The man was still reading, his feet still propped up, as if twenty kids weren't staring up at him expectantly.

Minho was the first to break the silence. "I think we've all gone psycho like those… what'd they call themselves again? Cranks. The Cranks at the windows. We're all sitting here, waiting for a lecture from Rat Man like this is totally normal. Like we're at some kind of school. I can tell you this much –if he had anything good to say, he wouldn't need a freaking magic wall to protect him from us, now would he?"

He had a point…

"Just slim it and listen," Newt said. "Maybe it's all gonna be over."

I exhaled loudly… but it wasn't a laugh, honest!

"Yeah right," Minho said. "And Frypan's gonna start having little babies, MaC'll wear a dress,"

I scoffed, like that was ever gonna happen.

"-Winston'll get rid of his monster acne, and Thomas here'll actually smile for once."

Thomas turned to Minho and gave a ridiculously exaggerated grin. "There, you happy?"

"Dude," Minho responded. "You are one ugly shank."

"If you say so," Thomas shrugged.

I smiled, amused, "You're so mean, Minho."

"Am I?" he said dryly.

"Shut your bloody holes," Newt whispered. "I think it's time."

Looking over I saw Rat Man had put his feet on the floor and placed his book on the desk, scooting his chair back to get a better of one of the drawers before pulling one and out and rummaging through it. Eventually he pulled out a thickly packed manila folder of messy papers. Many were bent and sticking out odd angles. "Ah, here it is," Rat Man said in his irritatingly nasally voice. He placed the folder on the desk and opened it. It was then that he turned his eyes to the multitude of boys, and single girl looking at him. "Thank you for gathering in an orderly manner so I can tell you what I've been… instructed to tell you. Please listen carefully."

"Why do you need that wall!" Minho shouted.

"Minho!" I scolded quietly as Newt reached around to punch him in the arm, hissing for him to shut his hole.

Rat Man continued as if nothing had happened. "You're all still here because of an uncanny will to survive despite the odds, among… other reasons. About sixty-one people were sent to live in the Glade. Well, your Glade anyway. Another sixty-one in Group B, but for now we'll forget them."

The man's eyes flickered to Aris for a moment before scanning the crowd.

"Out of all those people, only a fraction survived to be here today. I'm assuming you've figured this out by now, but many things that happen to you are solely for the purpose of judging and analyzing your responses. And yet it's not really and experiment as much as it is… constructing a blueprint. Stimulating the killzone and collecting the resultant patterns. Putting them all together to achieve the greatest breakthrough in the history of science and medicine. These situations inflicted upon you are called the Variables, and each one has been meticulously thought out. I'll explain more soon. And though I can't tell you everything at this time, it's vital that you know this much: these trials you're going through are for a very important cause. Continue to respond well to the Variables, continue to survive, and you'll be rewarded with knowledge that you've played a part in saving the human race. And yourselves, of course."

The man paused, assumedly for effect.

"This dude's shucked in the head," Minho whispered. "How would escaping a freaking maze save the human race?"

I shrugged as Rat Man continued. "I represent a group called WICKED. I know it sounds menacing but it stands for World In Catastrophe, Killzone Experiment Department-"

"What about that acronym is supposed to be reassuring?" I questioned quietly.

"-Nothing menacing about it, despite what you may think. We exist for one purpose and one purpose only: to save the world from catastrophe. You here in this room are a vital part of what we plan to do. We have resources never known to any group of any kind in the history of civilization. Nearly unlimited money, unlimited human capital and technology advanced beyond even the most clever man's wants and wishes. As you make your way through the Trials, you have seen and will continue to see evidence of this technology and the resources behind it. If I can tell you anything today, it is that you should never, ever believe your eyes. Or mind for that matter, this is why we did the demonstration with the hanging bodies and the bricked-up windows. All I will say is that sometimes what you see is not real and sometimes what you do not see is real. We can manipulate your brain and nerve receptacles when necessary. I know this all sounds confusing and a little scary.

Understatement much? The word killzone making a reappearance in my mind as I thought back to WICKED's acronym… like the ones we'd seen back in the Maze.

The man's eyes passed over each Glader in the room. "The Maze was a part of the Trials. Not one Variable was thrown at you that didn't serve a purpose for our purpose. Your battle against the Grievers. The murder of the boy Chuck. The supposed rescue and subsequent trip in the bus. All of it. Part of the Trials."

My fist clenched at the mention of Chuck and Thomas tensed beside me, presumably in anger. And all the sudden he was rising to his feet, I pulled him back to the floor before he could do anything.

As if prompted on by this, Rat Man stood from his chair, sending it sliding back into the wall as he placed his hands on the desk and leaned forwards towards us. "All of it had been part of the Trials, you understand? Phase One, to be exact. And we are still dangerously short of what we need. So we've had to up the ante, and now it's time for Phase Two. It's time for things to get difficult."

The room lapsed into silence. Anger surged with in me. Easy? He thought this had been easy? PEOPLE DIED! A kid was murdered! We just barely made it out, and he said now it was going to get hard? As if wasn't before? How DARE he! I should've been terrified, but I was too angry to think about that.

He waited for what seemed like an eternity before lowering back into his chair and moving sat he sat behind the desk once again. "You may think, or it may seem, that we're merely testing your ability to survive. On the surface, the Maze Trial could be mistakenly classified that way. But I assure you –this is not merely about survival and the will to live. That's only part of this experiment. The bigger picture is something you won't understand until the very end. Sun Flares have ravaged many parts of the Earth. Also, a disease unlike any before known to man has been ravaging the Earth's people –a disease called the Flare. For the first time, the governments of the nations –the surviving ones- are working together. They've combined forces to create WICKED –a group meant to fight the new problems of this world. You are a big part of that fight. And you'll have incentive to work with us, because, sad to say, each one of you had already caught the Virus."

Wait... What?