Chapter 26.
As the hours passed, the temperature seemed to drop.
Thomas sat on one of the long benches in the train-compartment with a blanket wrapped around him.
Newt lay on the same bench, his head only a few centimeters away from Thomas. He was snoring softly in his sleep; a noise which would annoy most people, but to Thomas, it had a sort of calming effect.
He kept thinking about what he and Teresa had talked about earlier: him having a crush on Newt.
If it was true, then shouldn't he have realized it for himself? And shouldn't the idea have made immediate sense to him?
But there was something that kept him from dismissing the idea. There was a feeling. A kind of gut instinct telling him the whole thing hadn't been a misunderstanding. Didn't that prove it to be true? Logically speaking it seemed a bit far-fetched, but wasn't love more about feelings than logistics?
He wasn't sure how much weight should be placed on feelings at a time like this, though. The Flare made being around Newt an emotional roller coaster, which just added to the confusion. He certainly cared for Newt, and he always worried about him, but he was unsure if that was because he had already lost him once or if he had feelings for him that were more than platonic.
He looked at Newt, asleep and blissfully unaware of Thomas' predicament. Newt looked very different when he was sleeping. It was almost eerie. Thomas couldn't help but feel worried. Newt had said it himself that he was getting worse faster than he should, and it seemed to grow worse by the hour.
It didn't make sense. WICKED had even given him medication to slow the virus down, but the opposite thing was happening. Then it clicked. WICKED wasn't trying to slow the virus, they were trying to speed up the process.
Thomas felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. At the same time, he felt a wave of betrayal wash over him, and he felt even more stupid for putting the slightest trust in WICKED. Didn't he know better than that? They were always making them suffer, so why should this come as a surprise to him? What if they were going to make him watch Newt die all over again? He hated WICKED so much at that moment it made him feel like crying, yelling, and breaking something, all at the same time. The worst was that he couldn't do anything about it. WICKED were the only ones that had a chance of finding a cure in time, and anything Thomas did to oppose them would only result in wasting precious time. WICKED probably knew that, too. They had made sure that their test subjects would stay in line and do as they were told. The only thing Thomas could do was make sure everything went according to plan and hope for the best, though the former was a massive failure already.
The only thing keeping Thomas from falling into a pit of pure despair was Newt. Seeing him so peaceful made Thomas feel peaceful himself, even though it made him slightly worried at the same time.
He leaned over to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen in his friend's face, but unfortunately, that was all it took to wake him up. He sat up suddenly, headbutting Thomas as he did. Thomas practically leapt backward in surprise and pain, and Newt scrambled away from him, very confused and somewhat panicked. When he didn't see any apparent danger he relaxed.
"What…?" He asked, not bothering to finish the sentence.
"You woke up and accidentally headbutted me," Thomas informed him, "I'm assuming it was accidental, anyway."
"Oh, right. Sorry," Newt said, still looking confused.
Thomas was too embarrassed to tell Newt the reason he'd woken up was that he had brushed the hair out of his face for no reason in particular. Why had he even done that in the first place?
He hoped Newt was too tired to question why Thomas had been close enough to get headbutted in the first place.
"Did you sleep well?" Thomas asked, trying to shift the focus away from what had just happened.
Newt nodded absently but didn't say anything.
The next few minutes went by slowly. Newt sat completely still, turned away from Thomas. Thomas stared at the back of his friend's head and wondered if he was giving him the silent treatment or if he was simply thinking. For every passing minute, the feeling that he'd done something wrong grew. Soon it was positively unbearable.
"Have you ever liked anyone?" Thomas blurted out, desperate to escape the horrible silence, though he wasn't entirely sure why he'd chosen that question.
Newt turned around and looked at Thomas in surprise. "Of course I have. I like you, and Minho, and Frypan-"
"No, not like that," Thomas interrupted, very impatient all of a sudden, "have you ever liked anyone romantically?"
"Oh," Newt said, "well, yes to that, too. Why do you wanna know?"
"I think I might have… um… a crush… on this person, but I'm not sure one way or another," Thomas explained.
"Really? Who's the lucky girl?"
"Not lucky, not a girl, and no offense, but I'd rather not say who it is," Thomas said.
"Okay, so you think you might have a crush on an anonymous, unlucky guy?"
"Something like that."
"Well, I suppose I could try to help you decide if you like that person, but don't expect any advice on how to confess your undying love or whatever. That, I've no idea how to do."
Thomas nodded, urging Newt to go on.
"Right," Newt said, now looking a bit uncomfortable, "I suppose you have a crush when you start thinking about the person all the time, and when you always want to be with them. Its when you feel all warm and fuzzy inside whenever they smile, and when you would do anything to keep him safe." Newt's voice had gone from hesitant, to sure, to dreamy, giving the distinct impression he was talking from personal experience.
Thomas was stunned. Because he thought about Newt all the time. When the two of them were separated, he found himself missing Newt almost immediately. He felt warm on the inside when he saw the other boy smiling, and he would do anything to keep him safe, otherwise, he probably wouldn't be where he was at the moment.
Of course, he knew romance wasn't an exact science. Different people felt different things. Some things could be signs of attraction to one person, and something entirely different to someone else.
But still, there were more things pointing toward him having a crush on Newt than away from it at the moment. He wasn't sure yet, but he decided to just continue with what he was doing and keep the possibility in mind; hopefully, the answer would become apparent over time.
"Do you want to talk about it or somethin'?" He asked, clearly hoping the answer was no.
Thomas shook his head. "Let's talk about something else. Unless you want to go back to sleep, of course."
"Maybe you should get some sleep. Aren't you tired?" Newt asked.
"Not even remotely," Thomas said. It wasn't strictly true, he was a bit tired, but he felt more like talking than sleeping.
"How about you clue me in on your brilliant plan for getting us out of this mess?"
"You think I have a brilliant plan? How touching."
"That was sarcasm."
"Figures," Thomas said in an undertone. Then, in a normal voice, "I do have a plan, though."
He told Newt about the plan to get Brenda on their side and have her trick Vince into bringing their friends to the WICKED-facility, where The Right Arm would be overpowered, removing them from the equation.
Newt nodded along as it was explained to him.
"That sounds like it just might work. As long as we don't rely on it too much, and are adaptable to any changes in the situation."
"Exactly," Thomas agreed, "so what do you think? Is it a brilliant plan?"
"Well, it looks promising, but I'm saving the answer for after the plan is executed."
"Sounds fair," Thomas said with a smile.
Newt looked away to the side, as if flustered. Then he tensed all of a sudden.
"What?" Thomas asked.
Newt pointed at the luggage rack above the bench opposite them. When Thomas didn't see anything out of the ordinary, he moved closer to Newt and finally saw what he saw. There, in the corner of the rack…
"A camera," Newt said.
It was, indeed, a camera. There was no mistaking it. The question was whether there were any listening devices hidden in the compartment. If it was just that one camera, there wasn't really anything to worry about. Due to the way it was placed, only Newt had been seen on it. He'd been turned toward Thomas, making it difficult to read his lips from the footage, and even so, he hadn't said anything incriminating. But if there were listening devices as well… That meant Thomas had just revealed their plan to the enemy.
Thomas crossed the room and tried to reach for the camera, but even as he stood on his tiptoes, the camera was out of his reach by mere millimeters.
Newt, being taller than Thomas, got hold of the camera easily. With a mighty pull, the camera was ripped off the wall, leaving only a few severed wires. Newt gave the camera a quick once-over, before handing it to Thomas.
Thomas studied the camera with more care than his friend. He wasn't an expert on cameras, but there looked to be more wires hanging from it than was necessary for only a video camera. It was very possible that some form of wiretap was attached to it.
To be on the safe side, he threw the device to the floor and brought his foot down on it.
"Do you think there're more of them?" Newt asked, "what if there are wiretaps hidden somewhere?"
"I think there was one on the camera we found, but we should check for others," Thomas said.
They proceeded to go through the room in search of more spying equipment, but they didn't find anything.
"Looks like it was just that one camera. The question is, are we being monitored, or was it just there from before?" Thomas said.
"We should just assume the worst. Rather safe than sorry, right?"
"What should we do, then? Do you think we have a chance of destroying the recording somehow before someone sees it?"
"It depends on whether someone's viewing it immediately or saving it for later," Newt said.
"That leaves a small chance, at least. Of course, we have to find it first. There's probably some kind of control room where all recordings are sent. If it's here on the train, then it's got to be on the other side of the train, probably where Brenda is. Maybe if we come up with a distraction of some sort. Lure her and whoever else might be there away. What should we do for a distraction?"
"I know what we can do," Newt said. Then he brought his hands up to his own head, and clawed at it, opening the recently closed wounds. Thomas stared at him, horrified, thinking he'd lost control of himself. "What are you doing?" He stuttered.
"I'm creating a distraction. Go. tell them I'm having a fit or something."
Thomas nodded and left. As he walked through compartment after compartment, he tried to make himself look distraught. He needed to pretend he was too upset to lead them to Newt. As he passed a bathroom, he got an idea.
He put some soap on his fingertip, then touched it to both of his eyes. It hurt like crazy, but it had the intended effect. The burning pain made his eyes tear up immediately. He glanced at the mirror above the sink and saw (between his rapid blinking) that his eyes were red.
After that, he rushed out of the bathroom, and through another compartment, until he reached the one Harriet, Sonya, and everyone from The Right Arm (except for Brenda) was in. He registered some of them standing up and demanding to know what was wrong, but he ran past them into the next compartment.
Brenda and Teresa were both in there. They'd been sitting and conversing, but both jumped out of their seats when Thomas bolted inside.
"What's wrong?!" Teresa asked, alarmed at the state of him.
"It's… It's my friend," Thomas said, gasping for breath exaggeratedly as if he'd ran all the way from the other side of the train.
"What about him?" Brenda demanded.
"He… I don't know what happened. He just…" Thomas said, trying to sound as scared and pathetic as possible before he buried his head in his hands and started fake-sobbing. He had to admit he was a good actor.
Brenda muttered something unintelligible and rushed out of the room.
Thomas dropped his act as soon as he heard the door slam shut.
Teresa was standing in front of him, an inquiring look on her face.
"What's going on?" She asked.
"We found a camera," Thomas explained, "and possibly a wiretap, too. I need to find the place the recordings are sent to, while they're distracted."
Teresa didn't ask any questions. She grabbed Thomas by the arm and led him to the other side of the compartment, where there was a door leading to another room.
"I asked Brenda about how the train works. She told me the control room is in there, and there doesn't need to be anyone in there while the train is moving, so it's empty," Teresa said quickly. She opened the door and shoved Thomas inside.
"See if you can find the footage, I'll go buy you as much time as I can."
"Thanks," Thomas called after her as she ran toward the other side of the train.
He closed the door to the control room and turned to see what he was dealing with.
There was a large window at the front of the room, though it was hard to see much in the darkness outside of it. There was a seat (empty, thank goodness) facing the window, surrounded by various levers and buttons. That had to be the driver's seat. Thomas dismissed that part of the room, and soon found something much more promising. There was a small, secluded area, which had a number of small screens in a cluster on the wall. The screens were turned off, but their purpose was clear. There was also a small desk with a computer on top of it. The screen was black, but it emitted a low, humming sound, which meant it had either been turned off recently, or it was still on. Thomas pressed the buttons on the side of the screen until he found the right one. The computer screen lit up.
Thomas didn't even have to search for the recordings, the programme containing them was already open.
Thomas couldn't remember having used a computer at any point, but he must've worked with this stuff before the memory wipe because he knew exactly what to do. There were fifteen tiny images, each titled with a number. 1, 1.2, 2, 2.2, 3…
Thomas moved the computer mouse across the desk until the little arrow was on the image titled 8.2. There was no 8, so it was fair to assume that was the camera he'd destroyed, and that 8.2 was in the compartment he and Newt had been in. He tapped it, and the picture grew slightly larger.
He heard the unmistakable sound of voices right next to him.
Thomas was instantly filled with panic, thinking Brenda had returned and discovered him. Then he realized that the sound was coming from the wrong direction for that to be the case.
He turned to look at the screens on the wall, one of which was now turned on. He couldn't hear what the voices were saying, and the camera only showed a corner of the room, so he couldn't see what was going on either, but the important thing was that he knew that there were listening devices (as well as another camera) hidden in that room, and almost definitely all the other rooms, too.
He shifted his focus back to the computer and saw that a number of options had appeared below the picture of 8.2. He chose the arrow pointing to the left, rewinding the video. He marked the recording of the last hour or so and chose the 'delete' option.
He'd done it. He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
Then he remembered that he'd had more than one conversation he'd rather keep secret. He'd talked to Teresa about his plans earlier, and then their conversation right before he went into the control room.
He deleted all the footage from fifteen hours back to the present on camera 3, and the footage from ten hours to one hour ago on camera 3.2. He removed a few hours from the footage from the room next to him just as easily.
He figured that would be slightly less suspicious than if he'd only deleted his conversations, but just to be sure, he deleted random amounts of footage from five other cameras.
There. Now he'd done it.
He turned off the computer screen so it was like when he'd entered, then he left the control room. He felt like running out at full speed, cheering; but he knew about the cameras in the compartment.
He walked out as slowly as he could manage, trying not to stare at the cameras he now knew the location of. He kept his head down and wiped at his face with his arm. In case anyone asked him why he'd gone in there, he'd just say he'd been upset and wanted to be alone.
Thomas couldn't believe his luck. Everything had gone smoothly. There wasn't even anyone in the compartment when he entered it.
He figured he should go to the other side of the train, where Newt and Teresa were buying him time. He was a bit worried that someone might get hurt, and he wanted to get there as fast as possible. But he couldn't drop the act now. He walked as fast as he could while still appearing hesitant.
Once he entered the next compartment, only Harriet, Sonya, and three of the people from The Right Arm were there.
"Thomas! What happened?" Harriet asked.
"It's N… Nothing to worry about," he said. He'd forgotten about Newt's fake name for a moment.
"Are you sure? Brenda just stormed past and took six people with her. Then Teresa came running after them."
"I better go there and make sure they're alright, then," Thomas said. He used this as an excuse to make his way to the distraction faster.
When he finally reached the door leading to the last compartment of the train, he hesitated for a moment. Not only for the sake of the cameras but because he wasn't sure what he would see.
After taking a deep breath, he opened the door.
It was absolute chaos.
Newt was fighting tooth and nail against four people, while Teresa was shooting questions rapidly at Brenda and two others, pulling at their sleeves and yelling louder at them whenever they tried to join the fight.
Thomas wasn't sure how exactly Newt had resisted four people for this long. Sure, he was big and strong, and he fought like a wild animal, but his opponents were much older than him, and each of them looked like they could win a fight against him.
Judging by the sheer ferocity he was fighting with, he was under the control of the Flare. It was very possible he'd given up control on purpose. He looked painfully similar to their last meeting in the simulation. Bloody, bruised, and out of control
Nobody had noticed Thomas, standing uselessly in the doorway, until Newt caught a glimpse of him. There was definitely something wild in his eyes. But when he saw Thomas, he stilled. The wilderness disappeared.
It was a mistake.
Thomas cried out, but it was too late.
One of the men raised a gun. He slammed the weapon into the back of Newt's head.
Thomas winced, though he felt relieved that the man hadn't shot his friend.
Newt stumbled forward, losing his balance and collapsing to the floor.
Thomas rushed forward to help him up, but the man that had hit him beat him to it. He yanked Newt up by the arm and slammed him against the wall. He pointed his gun at Newt's temple.
"Let go of him!" Thomas shouted, as that was pretty much the only thing he could do (seriously, that guy was enormous).
The man ignored him. To Thomas' horror, his finger was starting to press down on the trigger.
"You want me to shoot you right here? Huh? You filthy crank," the man snarled.
"No! Stop!" Thomas yelled, running up to the man and trying to pull his arm away to no success.
"John, that's enough!" Brenda called. For a terrible moment, it looked like he would ignore her, too. Then he backed off, muttering under his breath.
Newt slumped against the wall, rubbing the back of his head and glaring at John.
"Are you okay?" Thomas asked.
"I'm fine. You?"
"I'm great," Thomas said.
Newt smiled. He understood the underlying message. Thomas had succeeded.
The smile dropped when Brenda approached them, with Teresa in tow.
Brenda did not look happy.
"What happened, exactly?" She demanded.
"I lost control. I'm sorry. It won't happen again," Newt said.
"It better not," Brenda said, "if it happens again we might not have a choice."
She didn't sound angry like Thomas had expected her to. She sounded sympathetic.
She suddenly turned on her heel and exited the room without looking back. The other members of The Right Arm following closely behind.
Teresa looked at Thomas enquiringly.
"I did it," Thomas said telepathically. Or rather, he tried to. He could tell that it wasn't working at the moment. The only apparent effect was a faint pain in his head. Instead, he settled for a wink, which worked just as well. The three of them sat down on a bench, exhausted after the whole ordeal.
Crisis averted, Thomas thought as he curled up on the bench and fell asleep.