Chapter 9.
A surge of annoyance filled Thomas as he processed the information. The words 'warm up' meant something would happen, probably another variable. WICKED couldn't even wait 24 hours before they threw the gladers into another deadly situation. Thomas was honestly not surprised.
"good luck, kids" the guard said. Then he turned around and walked out the door. That was it, no map, no clues, nothing. Thomas wondered if they could have followed the guard, he might be headed for the cafeteria if they were lucky, but by the time Thomas thought of that the guard was long gone.
He sighed, then turned to face his friends.
"What do we do now?" He asked.
"aren't you the one making plans around here?" Minho wondered.
"aren't you the one who ran around in a maze for two years?" Thomas replied.
"Fair enough" Minho said with a shrug. "well, we shouldn't get too divided, there may not be grievers here, but I still don't think anyone should risk going of on their own, I mean, who knows what's in this place? But if we go as one group it'll take longer time" his voice had turned more serious as he spoke, and it made him sound like a true keeper of the runners.
"two groups" Minho decided.
"that's what makes the most sense. I'll take one group, Newt takes the other, we were both runners, so we know what we're doing. Right Newt?" He looked at Newt, who gave a nod in agreement.
"good. Thomas, can you and Aris still do the telepathy thing?"
'the telepathy thing'. Thomas had forgotten about it completely. He could have tried talking to Teresa earlier, told her about his plan. He would have to try contacting her as soon as possible, but now was not the time.
"can you hear me?" He asked in his mind. It was directed at Aris, but he wanted Teresa to hear him too. "yeah" Aris replied. Thomas felt a bit disappointed that it hadn't been Teresa who'd answered, but at least now he knew it worked.
"It still works" he told Minho.
"that is still seriously freaky, but at least we have a means of communication between both groups. Now, let's get going".
"good that" Thomas said. Then the gladers stepped out into the maze that was WICKED's facility.
Soon the corridor parted. There were three options. Continue forward, go left, or go right. They had come from the corridor on the right the day before, and none of them could remember seeing a cafeteria. It could have been there anyway, but they decided to explore the other corridors first.
Minho went into the left corridor, followed by Aris, Frypan and two other gladers that Thomas didn't know. Newt led the way forward with Thomas at his side, the remaining gladers followed a few paces behind them.
As they walked through the corridor they passed a few doors, though all of them were locked. there weren't any side-corridors, and the corridor they walked through seemed to be endless. Occasionally it would turn in a random direction, and after a while Thomas didn't even know which direction they'd come from. It was scary, even though they could just turn around and walk back, they weren't actually lost, it just felt like it.
Thomas wanted to talk to someone, not about anything in particular, just to pass the time, but the only one who didn't look exhausted was Newt, and Thomas couldn't talk to him, because he had to stay focused on where they were going, even if they were just walking through the same corridor.
"are you there?" He asked mentally.
"Did you find anything?" Replied a voice. The wrong voice.
"No, I wasn't talking to you" Thomas explained in annoyance.
"If you're trying to talk to Teresa, just know that I've tried that a dozen times already without her responding" Aris said.
Thomas ignored him.
"Teresa!" Thomas called out, focusing so hard his head hurt.
No response.
He hoped it was just temporary, that they wouldn't separate Teresa from him again. Hopefully their power had just been shut of so they couldn't help each other with the newest challenge, assuming group B had to do the same thing.
"Hey, guys!" Called a glader from behind them, startling Thomas.
"What is it, Alex?" Asked Newt.
"this door is unlocked" Alex said, opening the door on his right to demonstrate.
Thomas shoved past the other boys to get a better look, but there wasn't much to see, since whatever was on the other side was shrouded in darkness.
By that time, Newt had made his way to the opening. He shoved Thomas lightly and Thomas stepped out of the way.
"should we go inside?" Thomas asked him.
Newt squinted in an attempt to see what was inside, but he quickly gave up.
"well, we don't know what could be in there" he said thoughtfully. "I'll go inside and try to find a light switch".
"I'm going with you" Thomas said immediately.
"No, you're staying here" Newt said.
"and that's an order" he added before disappearing into the darkness.
Thomas waited anxiously for Newt to return. He had only the sound of faint footsteps to reassure him that nothing had happened. He wasn't sure about what exactly he thought would happen, he knew it was probably just a normal, empty room, but he'd learned to expect the worst.
After a few minutes of waiting, there was a small 'click' and the room before him lit up.
Thomas released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding and entered the room.
The large room looked like it was made for meetings, with about two dozen chairs placed around an oval table. There weren't any other exits, unless they were hidden.
He saw Newt standing at the opposite side of the table, but he didn't notice Thomas, he appeared to be studying something on the floor.
Thomas was about to go over to him and see what it was, but before he could do so, a high-pitched, almost inhuman scream rang out from Newt's direction.
Then something launched itself at his friend. A crank. It must've been what Newt had been looking at.
"Run! There's a crank!" He shouted at the other gladers.
The former person gave another shriek as Newt punched it in an attempt to get it off of him, but the crank was still on top of him. It didn't look like it had a weapon, but that didn't make it any less dangerous.
Thomas was about to rush over to help, but someone beat him to it, shoving him to the side and running past him. It was Gally, he realised, as the other boy jumped over the table and pulled the crank off of Newt.
The thing gave an animalistic roar as it turned on him, swiping at him with it's claw-like nails.
Gally tried his best to block the attacks, but his best wasn't enough. The crank scratched his left cheek, leaving two diagonal lines that immediately filled with blood. He instinctively put his hand against the wound, and for the moment he was distracted, the crank grabbed him and slammed him hard against the wall. Then it took hold of his neck and started squeezing.
Gally made choking noises as he tried to get the hands away, but the crank only pressed harder. Its nails dug into Gally's skin and small trickles of blood ran down his neck.
Thomas suddenly realised that he had just stood there the whole time being useless. He climbed over the table (because jumping over it was a lot harder than it looked), and by the time he was there, Newt was on his feet. Thomas watched as he grabbed a chair and slammed it into the crank's head. The crank let go of Gally as it fell to the floor.
Gally stumbled, but managed to steady himself in time, drawing in a huge breath as he did so. While he was trying to regain a normal respiratory rate, the crank, which Thomas thought had been unconscious, spoke, of all things.
"liars, liars, liars" it whispered like a chant "liars, all liars". They backed away from it, but it didn't even seem to notice them anymore.
"said they were finding the cure, they were going to take away the things in my head. they lied, no cure, only stupid telepathy, no cure for me" it began to giggle, a sound of complete lunacy.
"come on, we should leave while we can" Newt said.
With that they made their way to the door, going around the table instead of over it this time. Gally was a little unsteady from the recent lack of oxygen, but Newt supported him. Thomas walked behind them, feeling ashamed of himself for not doing anything during the fight. If something had happened, it would have been his fault, he knew that Newt didn't blame him, there was no telling with Gally, but he probably didn't either. He decided to let it go for the moment, he needed his mind for something else.
"Aris!" he called mentally.
"ow, you don't have to shout like that" Aris complained
"right, sorry, but we just got attacked by a crank, I'd rather not stay over here, please tell me you found that shucking cafeteria". Thomas said.
"a crank? Never mind, we'll talk about that later. I was actually about to contact you, I'm pretty sure we found it" Aris told him.
"What do you mean by 'pretty sure'?" Thomas asked sceptically.
"there's sounds, like voices and stuff, hang on, it should be right behind this corner… yeah, we found it. We'll get back to where we parted ways, see you there"
Thomas sighed in relief.
"I talked to Aris, the others found the cafeteria, now we just have to go back" Thomas said to Newt.
"finally some good news" Newt said, "we faster we get out of here the better, who knows when that crank'll come chasing after us".
Thomas looked back at the crank, which was still giggling and muttering to itself. He thought of what it had said. 'no cure, only stupid telepathy', what was that supposed to mean? He understood the part about there being no cure, but telepathy? Were WICKED using some brain patterns that had to do with telepathy? Thomas supposed he shouldn't listen to the words of a demented crank that was currently lying on the floor giggling, but there was something about it, something Thomas couldn't explain, but there would be time for suspiciousness later.
Thomas expected the other two gladers to be waiting outside, but they were nowhere to be found. They must've done as Newt had said and ran.
"we should start running now if we want to catch up to the others" Newt said "do you feel up for that, Gally?" He asked.
"yeah, I'm fine" Gally assured him. It was an obvious lie, the small wounds on his throat had stopped bleeding, but the scratches on his cheek hadn't. He held his sleeve against them, but it was already stained red. He was clearly in pain, but neither Thomas or Newt argued, the crank's mutterings had grown louder, and Gally if wanted to run, then there was no point in not doing so.
When they got back to the others, Minho's group was already waiting for them.
"what happened to you?!" Minho asked in alarm.
"we'll explain, but we should get going first, we could be followed for all we know." Newt said.
Minho looked confused but decided not to argue, he let Frypan take the lead so he could walk with Thomas and Newt.
They took turns explaining what had happened, and by the end of the story Minho was frowning.
"do you think they put it there on purpose?" Minho asked.
Thomas hadn't thought of that, but it made sense, why else would there just happen to be a crank behind the one door that wasn't looked?
"Probably" Newt responded "I don't think they want to hurt us at the moment, they probably just wanted to scare us".
"Probably" Minho agreed "am I the only one who's getting really tired of their mind games? I mean, they just keep doing it over and over, for all we know this might not be real, you could be robots programmed to act like humans, I'm just so sick of not knowing, you know what I mean?"
"yeah, you're definitely not alone on that" Thomas said, thinking back on when WICKED made him think Teresa had betrayed him back in the scorch.
"well, we're here" Minho said, pointing ahead unnecessarily.
And there it was, the cafeteria that they'd had to go through a near-death experience in the search of.
'The food better be worth it' Thomas thought as they entered.