Authors note: I'm going on vacation a few days after this chapter is posted, I'll be away for a week and I won't write then, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit longer than usual for the next chapter. With that said, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter, reviews and constructive critisism is appreciated.
Chapter 16.
They spent the rest of the afternoon exploring. The key card opened most of the doors in the corridor they had started exploring, but they didn't find anything of interest. Most of the rooms looked like labs, but they were dirty and abandoned.
They looked for hidden compartments but came up short, if there was anything there it had been hidden well.
It wasn't really that surprising, WICKED had definitely made sure that the gladers only saw what they wanted them to see.
They'd left the door to the library unlocked, knowing they would find it, because it seemed a bit too convenient that they'd found an unlocked room with books on how to survive in the wilderness by accident.
The warm and stale air made Thomas feel tired, and the stack of books he was carrying seemed to get heavier by the minute.
He felt relieved when Minho decided it was time for dinner and they made their way to the cafeteria.
The cafeteria wasn't nearly as crowded as it had been before. The only ones there were a group of grumpy-looking security guards seated at a table.
Once they'd grabbed some food and sat down, Teresa took one of the books she'd been carrying and started reading as she ate.
Thomas thought it seemed like a good idea and followed her example, and picked up the book about scientists. As it turned out, he wasn't very good at reading and eating at the same time. At one point he'd gotten so lost in the book that he forgot all about the spoon that he'd been about to bring to his mouth. Then he'd reached the end of the page he'd been reading and accidentally went to turn the page with the hand that was holding the spoon. Thomas had cursed as a spoonful of soup fell on the book and he'd grabbed a handful of napkins and tried his best to wipe away the soup. He'd then decided to wait with the reading until he'd finished his meal.
Around ten minutes after that incident, they had all finished their meals. The group looked at Minho, waiting for him to decide what they should do next.
"Should we continue exploring?" Newt asked when Minho didn't say anything.
"Nah, I think we've all had enough of that for one day, we can continue tomorrow. But now we should wait until group B gets here, see if they've found anything," Minho said.
"Oh, right, I forgot about them," Newt said.
Thomas considered offering to communicate telepathically with Aris, but after what had happened earlier when he talked to Teresa he didn't feel like it. She didn't offer to either.
"Maybe we should read in the meantime," she suggested, not looking up from her book.
Minho looked at her with a slight distaste for a moment, then he spoke.
"Everyone grab a book, and don't pour soup in them like Thomas did."
Thomas glared at Minho but didn't say anything.
The book he'd been reading previously hadn't dried completely, and he decided it would be best to leave it like it was, since he didn't want to risk damaging it, so he chose another book instead.
Thomas had almost read half the book when the other group finally showed up. By then the room was full of people and Thomas didn't notice that group B had arrived until Minho nudged him and pointed at the other side of the room.
The members of the other group were looking around the room as if searching for someone. They must've been looking for the gladers since they started to make their way over to them once they had spotted them. Minho waved at them as they made their way across the room, but no one waved back.
"Did you find anything interesting besides those books?" Harriet asked once she was within earshot.
"No, just a bunch of abandoned labs," Minho said.
"Did you check for hidden compartments?" Sonya asked.
"Of course we did, but there weren't any," Minho sounded slightly offended at the implication that he hadn't thought of doing that.
"Right," Harriet said, "anyways, you have to show us where you got the books."
"What if we don't want to?" Minho asked though he didn't sound serious.
"Then we won't show you where we got these," Harriet pulled up her sleeve, revealing a black wristwatch.
"I was just joking," Minho said, "we found the books in a library in the corridor a bit away from here, we'll show you once you're done eating as long as you show us where to get watches."
"Sounds good to me," Harriet said.
She, Sonya and about half of their group sat down at the gladers' table. The others sat at the table next to them since there wasn't enough room for them to sit at the other table.
Thomas hadn't really thought about how big the other group was compared to his own. There were around twenty people, more than twice as many as
there were in group A.
He remembered being told that they had escaped their maze three days earlier than his own group and with fewer casualties.
Thomas hoped the two groups would go through the next trial together, he would like to get to know the people from group B, or 'glenners' as they called themselves. They had kind of gotten off on the wrong foot, what with WICKED ordering them to kill him and Teresa convincing them he had done something horrible to her, but he hoped they could start over.
If nothing else, thirty people stood a better chance of winning a fight than nine.
He continued reading while waiting for group B to finish. After what he was guessing was around twenty minutes they were finally done and both groups got up and exited the cafeteria. Thomas walked in silence, since he didn't have anyone to talk to. Minho took the lead on their way to the library with Harriet walking next to him. Newt was next to Thomas, but he was talking to Sonya and Thomas didn't want to intrude on the reunited siblings. Teresa was saying something to Aris and the rest of his group were walking together a bit behind Thomas.
Then one of the girls stepped up next to him.
"Hey, how you doing?" She asked.
"Why are you asking?" Thomas wondered.
"I saw what happened in the simulation, on the video. You know, with Sonya's brother. That can't have been easy."
"Um, no, it wasn't, but he's alive now so I'm fine," Thomas said, feeling uncomfortable talking about it with someone he didn't even know.
"My best friend isn't immune either. She caught the flare in the simulation, she wasn't as close to the gone as your friend, but she made us leave her behind after we'd been to Denver. I thought that was bad, but then I saw what happened to you, and I just can't stop thinking about what it would be like if I had to do the same thing to her," the girl went on.
"I'm sorry about that," Thomas said, "don't worry about your friend, we're gonna find the cure soon. By the way, I didn't catch your name."
"I'm Marie," she said.
"I'm Thomas," Thomas said, though he guessed she had already known that.
"I know," she said, confirming his guess, "Teresa told us a lot about you, you know."
"Right, what did she say about me anyway? No one told me what it was."
"Trust me, you don't want to know."
"If it was that bad, why do you even want to talk to me?"
"Nothing of what she said about you was true, she told us as much yesterday, and you don't seem like that bad of a person," she explained.
Thomas didn't have anything to say in response, so they just walked in silence until they arrived at the library. Everyone in group B entered except for Sonya, who was going to show them the way to wherever group B had gotten their watches.
As it turned out, group B had explored the corridor outside their room.
Here it is," Sonya announced, gesturing at a door.
Minho opened it and peered inside.
He went inside, gesturing for the others to follow.
The room turned out to be a giant wardrobe, there were stacks of clothes, though not normal clothes, there were camouflage clothes and guard uniforms, unfortunately, none of the weapons the guards usually carried were there.
To top it all of there was a table on the far side of the room with a bunch of wristwatches on it.
Thomas grabbed a bulletproof vest, a camouflage jacket, a pair of camouflage pants, a watch, and a pair of combat boots. He had to try on several pairs of boots before finding a pair big enough to fit him, which made Minho teasingly call him 'Bigfoot'.
Once they had all grabbed a set of clothes they exited the now emptier room.
"Did you only take watches when you were here?" Thomas asked Sonya since neither she nor the others in her group appeared to have any new clothes.
"No, we took clothes too, we left them in our room," Sonya explained.
After that, they started walking, and before long they were outside the gladers' room
"I should get going, are you coming with me?" Sonya asked, looking at Teresa
Thomas wondered for a split second why Teresa would do that, then he looked at his new watch and realized that it was getting kind of late, and Teresa would sleep with group B like the previous night.
"Yeah, I'm coming with you," Teresa said, "Goodnight guys. Oh, and you might want these," she added, gesturing at the stack of books she was carrying. She handed the books to Minho, who glared at her but took the books, instead of glaring back, she smiled teasingly, which didn't make Minho look any happier.
"Goodnight," Thomas said before a fight broke out, "is Aris coming to us or should we go get him?"
"Actually, I don't think he wants to sleep in the same room as you again, he told me you guys snore really loudly," Sonya said.
"He was right about that," Newt mumbled, "see you later then."
"Bye," Sonya said, then the girls walked away.
Thomas opened the door to their room and was surprised to see none other than Rat man standing inside.
"There you are," he said, "I was beginning to think you'd gotten lost."
"What do you want?" Minho demanded. He'd moved in front of Thomas and the rest of the group.
"Come in and I'll tell you," Rat man said patiently.
The gladers obeyed. Once he was inside the room Thomas saw that Rat man had brought two security guards with him.
"Are you gonna tell us now?" Thomas asked. He wanted to know what it was that was so important.
"Yes. As you know, you're about to be sent on a fifth trial. I can see you have already prepared, which is good because the trial begins tomorrow morning." He paused to let the statement sink in.
"Tomorrow?" Thomas asked, unsure if he'd heard that right.
"Tomorrow," Rat man confirmed, "you want to find the cure as fast as possible, don't you?"
Thomas didn't respond. Of course he wanted to find the cure as fast as possible, he was just taken aback. He guessed he shouldn't be too surprised, seeing as they'd never had a long time to recover after the previous trials.
It was just that the next trial had seemed far away, something to worry about later, and now they were apparently supposed to leave next day.
"We have another facility, it's not far away from here if you're traveling by Berg, but you'll be walking there, so it will take a while. You will probably be happy to hear that we have some of your friends over there, the ones that were taken by grievers and some of those that got stuck out there after the walls closed," Rat man continued.
"How many of them?" Newt asked, somehow managing to look worried and relieved at the same time
"You'll see once you get there," Rat man answered before continuing, "you will be given supplies and directions tomorrow, now I suggest you get some sleep, you'll need it."
Then he left the room along with the two guards.
"Wait!" Thomas said as the door closed. How could he just leave? Thomas had a bunch of questions he wanted answered. He tried to go after, but the door was suddenly locked. He groaned in frustration.
"Well that was rude," Minho said.
"Rude indeed," Newt agreed, "should we start working on our strategy now?"
"Yeah," Minho said, "so, we don't have all the information yet, but what we do know is that we'll be walking a long distance. I don't know what kind of supplies we'll get, but we should try to take as much as we can without getting weighed down. Now we need to get as much sleep as possible and we'll talk more about this when we know more about what we're up against."
No one argued, though Thomas knew he wouldn't be able to fall asleep easily. His mind was spinning, trying to process everything. He guessed the others felt similarly.
No one said anything as they got into their bunk beds.
Thomas forced his eyes shut, but sleep didn't come, he was too busy wondering what would happen the next day. And what about the gladers in the other facility? He wondered if Ben was one of them, he could have been taken out of the maze after he was banished. How would he react to seeing Thomas? Would he blame him for getting banished? Try to kill him again?
His banishing seemed to flash before Thomas' closed eyes over and over again until he opened his eyes.
He looked around the room at the other gladers. It was dark, but he'd gotten used to the darkness by then. His eyes met with Newt's. They simply looked at each other for a while, it made Thomas feel calmer for some unknown reason, before he knew it his eyelids started to feel heavy. He closed his eyes again, this time feeling tired, and finally fell asleep.