Author's note:
I apologize for taking even longer than usual to write a new chapter, though in my defense it was largely due to NaNoWriMo. Merry Christmas and a happy new chapter.
Chapter 32: Before
Thomas was dismayed to find his path blocked. He heard it before he got close, but he hadn't expected the chaos he was faced with. Everyone in the building wanted to see what the commotion was about, which Thomas wouldn't have minded if he'd only got there before they did.
He couldn't even see where the entrance was. People were spilling out into the corridor in a loud river of excited faces and impatience.
"Excuse me," he said, trying to squeeze past a group of guys gathered at the back of the whole mess.
They didn't notice him, save for a short boy that Thomas could vaguely remember from the Glade. He didn't offer any help, only some sort of grimace that might be a contemptuous sneer.
"Hey! Alby! Some help over here?" Thomas shouted, trying to make himself heard over the noise.
Alby said something he couldn't quite make out. It wasn't anything pleasant, judging by how annoyed he looked.
Let us through," he ordered, and the crowd parted to let him through.
Thomas walked behind Alby as he cleared the path.
The entrance hall was a small room with see-through walls. A few uncomfortable-looking chairs had been pushed against the walls to make room, along with a white coffee table. A ceramic vase had fallen on the floor, lying in pieces on top of a piteous plastic sunflower. Thomas stepped over the chards carefully.
He could see the top of Harriet's head behind the people in the room, but he couldn't get any closer than that. The twenty or so girls from group B would not let anyone get past.
"Harriet!" He called. "Newt! Teresa!"
"Thomas?" He heard, faintly. It sounded like Harriet.
The crowd parted reluctantly, creating a pathway toward the center. He saw Harriet and a girl he didn't know who was hugging Group B's leader like a long-lost sister.
"Ximena," Harriet complained half-heartedly. Ximena let go. "I'm so glad to have you back, Harriet," she said.
"I'm glad too, but we don't have a lot of time. Get the girls out of here. Find out where Sonya is."
They fist-bumped and Ximena stepped aside, trying to steer up the crowd.
"Not that I'm not glad to see you, but where are the others?" Thomas asked, looking around the room as if Newt and Teresa were hiding behind something and he could find them if he looked enough.
The softness had left Harriet's voice when she spoke.
"They let me take Sonya with me here. A medic took her away as soon as we entered. Teresa and Newt are with the Right Arm. The plan is to bring them with once they attack."
"Oh." The small bubble of hope that had grown within him burst, touched by something razor-sharp.
"Then we have to… to come up with a plan. We need to…" Thomas gestured vaguely. Go somewhere to discuss, get everyone to shut up so he could think. His thoughts were occupied by his friends, being held somewhere by enemies. Had they gone back to that stupid base of theirs? Were they out in the cold forest, just out of sight? What if they had tried to escape? What if they had both been killed while trying to escape? No, they wouldn't. They had to keep up the pretense of cooperation. They were fine- they were too important to be harmed. But what if?
"Stop loitering in the corridors! You're clogging them for goodness' sake! Go to the Big room immediately!" A woman commanded. He recognized her as Joan, the leader of sorts he had met earlier.
The entry hall and the corridors emptied quickly, leaving only Thomas, Harriet, Joan, and Alby. Alby glared at Joan, muttering "I had the situation under control."
"Harriet, welcome. I'm Joan," Joan said hurriedly. "Do you know how much time we have before they come?"
"No. I was told we would know when the time was right to let them in."
A good idea, Thomas thought, makes it harder for us to plan something if we don't know the specifics. The question was whether it meant that he and Harriet and were supposed to come up with a plan to distract the guards and open the doors, or whether it meant the Right Arm had a distraction of their own planned.
Thomas had meant to sit next to Harriet in the Big room, but she was pulled into a seat amid a group of her old friends, and Thomas ended up next to Alby. Gladers had squeezed in on Alby's other side, but the seats next to Thomas remained vacant, despite the lack of space on the other side.
"I told you the Right Arm would send them," Thomas told Alby, but the older boy only scowled. "You said they would send Newt. Remember him? Tall guy, has an accent?"
"I expected they would send all of them, but Harriet and Sonya still came, didn't they?" Thomas wished he hadn't said anything from the beginning.
"Who's Sonya?" Alby asked.
"She's in group B and she's here. Or, somewhere in here at least."
"I still don't know where my friend is," Alby grumbled.
"Neither do I. Ask Harriet."
Alby glared and turned away.
"Quiet down!" Joan ordered. "Alright. Harriet, tell us about the Right Arm."
Harriet cleared her throat. "They captured me, along with Sonya, Thomas, and the others in Group A and B. They sent a few of us to a building nearby to wait until we could help them with their plan. She looked at Thomas. "Thomas ran here because they were taking too long. Teresa and Newt were with him, but they were captured. A few hours after that they took Sonya and me to their camp a few minutes away from here. Teresa and Newt were there- I think they're going to be brought in with the Right Arm. They didn't tell me what to do, only that I would know when the time was right, and they wanted me to give this to Thomas." She rolled a water bottle over the table, and Thomas caught it. He turned it over, inspecting every angle. Metallic, a bit warm, heavy. Nothing out of the ordinary. He pulled off the cap and peered inside. A brown liquid made darker by the lighting and strong-smelling.
"It's not poison. I had some earlier, and so did the Right-Arm people."
Thomas closed the bottle, assuming it contained some sort of alcohol. A joke, perhaps.
"Is that it?" Joan asked.
Harriet nodded. "Will you help us?"
"Of course we will. We need to make a plan immediately. Harriet, Thomas, I'm afraid you need to leave."
"What? We need to know the plan!" Thomas protested.
At the same time, Harriet said "they are our friends. You can't expect us to trust you with their lives!"
"And the two of you can't expect us to trust you. You may be working with the Right Arm for all we know."
"We're not. They captured us." Harriet spoke slowly.
"If you want your friends to be saved, then we're on the same side. This should not be a problem."
"And how are we supposed to know that you're not lying to us if you won't let us stay?" Thomas asked. He knew any argument would be discarded, but what else was there to do?
"You came to us for help. We are trying to help. You must be hungry, maybe you should go to the kitchen. Alby, will you accompany them?"
There was no point in trying to resist. While he couldn't trust anyone from WICKED, he knew that they wouldn't let anybody steal their subjects and keep them. The goal of their trial was to get to where he was now. All of them were supposed to be here, but they had been interrupted by the Right Arm. WICKED would make sure to fix the mistake.
He wasn't sure what the trial would have been like without the interruption. Nothing significant had happened before their capture save for the run-in with the Cranks. There were probably traps in the forest that would have raised the stakes. Would they have to partake in a new trial to make up for the faulty one?
Unless the trial had not been a failure.
With all their resources, would WICKED really be unaware that their rivals were hiding so close to them? And even if they were, there was no doubt that they had some means of surveying their subjects. The fact that they did not intervene would indicate cooperation. Could that be the case? It wouldn't be above WICKED, but there were other possibilities. From what he had seen, they were understaffed. Maybe they wanted to lure the Right Arm to home territory and get rid of them once and for all. They might not have the numbers to risk a rescue mission, so they waited until they could outsmart them. And the ones discussing strategy in the big room were not only those who worked for WICKED. There were people from groups A and B, who would certainly not condone such methods.
"Get up, greenie," Alby grumbled.
Thomas did just that, leaving the room with the bottle clutched in his fist, next to Harriet, who was making her anger know by glaring at each of the adults in the room.
Alby closed the door behind them, and they stopped.
"That door's soundproof, you won't hear anything," he said, "may as well go to the kitchen like she said."
"Screw the kitchen. Take me to Sonya," Harriet demanded.
"Who?"
"You know very well who she is. Now take me to her, unless you want me to reconsider helping the Right Arm!"
"I don't know who that is, and I don't give a klunk about the answer! And I don't care who you're helping as long as I get my friends back."
"This is why we shouldn't have sided with WICKED in the first place," Harriet said, glaring at Thomas this time.
"He's not part of WICKED. He used to be the leader of my group," Thomas explained.
"He still knows where they took her!"
Thomas looked at Alby, who was rolling his eyes.
"I know where she might be, if you quit yelling."
Thomas recognized the corridor Alby led them to. The door to the room he had woken up in stood open, though they walked past, to the one next to it.
Two grey-haired women in scrubs were dashing about the room, barely stopping to look at them as they went inside. He didn't see Sonya at first, until he noticed the dirty blond hair sticking out from behind a curtain.
"Sonya!" Harriet pushed past one of the doctors to get to her friend, but the woman held her back.
"Please, she is in an unstable condition," the doctor said.
Harriet shook her off. "Then fix her! I'm not stopping you!"
The woman shook her head and returned to whatever she was doing. "If you won't leave, you might as well help. Get that brown bottle on the top shelf, and the one next to it."
Harriet helped prepare whatever procedure they were doing, but the woman said that three people were enough and shooed the boys out.
They went to the kitchen for some food while they were waiting.
"You're lucky. There's still some chicken left," Alby said, taking out a covered bowl from a refrigerator.
"This doesn't look dried or anything. Do you have a chicken coop in the yard?" Thomas asked as he inspected the meat.
"Not here. WICKED's got some farms nearby that send food. Some of 'em, anyway."
"Why only some? Is it because of the Flare?"
"So they say."
The chicken was cold and tasted burnt, ironically enough. It was still the best thing he'd tasted in a long time. Most food to be found was stale and dry, and the rare piece of meat was salted to last longer. He had unconsciously concluded that all food would be like that forever; that maybe wildlife had just died out, and only a few types of grains and roots could be grown. It was funny how a dead bird gave him hope. It reminded him of warm summer days, soft grass under bare feet, the crackling of a grill and the wonderful smells wafting from it.
"What's with the happy-face, Slinthead?"
Thomas looked up from the chicken. "Do you want some?"
"Nah. I'm more curious about what you've got in the bottle."
Thomas shook the bottle once, the liquid within sloshing about. "Alcohol, I think."
Alby took the bottle from him and pulled the lid open. "Whiskey," he concluded after smelling it cautiously.
"You can have it if you want," Thomas offered. He didn't think getting drunk was what he needed at the moment, not that he liked the smell of it in the first place.
"You take a sip and wait a few minutes, and I'll gladly take it off your hands." He handed back the bottle.
"Not trying to poison you," Thomas mumbled as he poured some of the liquid into a glass.
"Bottoms up."
He felt the strong taste and wanted to spit it out, but he swallowed it all. He couldn't help but grimace. Alby waited to see if he would die or not.
"How'd you know it's whiskey, anyway?" Thomas asked between bites of chicken.
"Ben found some a few weeks back. Best night of our lives and one of the worst mornings." Alby smiled, before remembering who he was talking to. "Ya don't look dead, Shank, so I might as well."
He took several deep swallows straight from the bottle, without any hesitation, though he pulled a face afterward, as Thomas had.
"Man, that's some good stuff. Maybe the Right Arm's not so bad."
"It's not like they're holding our friends captive or anything," Thomas said.
"I'd let them keep Gally if they got me some more of this."
A loud Bang! Followed by loud voices made Thomas jump.
Alby snorted. "The meeting's over, you chicken."
"That's not funny."
"You are what ya eat, shank."
"Whatever. I'm going to see what they decided."
He put down the empty plate on his way out of the kitchen. Alby didn't follow, but he knew how to get to the big room on his own.
He hoped they would at least tell him what the plan was. He had, after all, an important role in this matter. He could at the very least be certain that the plan would be good. This was much too important for WICKED to mess up, and they were not lacking in the mental department. It had been an awfully short meeting, though that may be a good sign.
He hoped there was still somebody in the room who could tell him. Judging by the lack of sound from that direction, it was mostly deserted by now.
"Excuse me, is there—" He stopped abruptly. He'd walked around the corner —ready for some answers— and found a body, motionless on the floor.
He rushed at the doorway. If there was a Crank or an enemy, they'd have heard him by now. He looked inside, ready to run or fight, but all he found were still bodies, dozens of them. Dead?
He knelt by the one halfway through the door. It was Ben, he realized. He thought the boy had died once already, was it for real this time?
No. His pulse was strong, and he could see his back rising and falling with each breath. No evident damage. He turned the body over to make sure, but there was no sign of any physical injury. He checked two more bodies to make sure, but they were the same. All were asleep. Maybe a poisonous gas.
They had lost consciousness, Ben had tried to escape but was too late. It had dissipated quickly because he felt just fine. Now he had the attacker to worry about.
It had to be the Right Arm. Someone on the inside, a spy. He ran to the kitchen. Survival was easier in a group, assuming Alby was neither asleep nor drunk.
"Did someone tell ya there's more chicken?" Alby asked, looking as impatient with him as always.
"They're asleep! All of them," Thomas said, slightly out of breath.
"What?"
"In the big room. I went there and they were just lying on the floor."
Alby stood up abruptly. "They're dead?! Who—"
"No, I told you, they're asleep. They looked fine, except—"
"They were asleep, I get it! What do you expect me to do about it?"
"We need to see if Harriet and those doctors are still awake. They might know something. Was there anyone else who wasn't in the room when we left?"
"No." Alby followed Thomas, running through the corridor. Whoever was in the building was sure to hear them, but it was easier to outrun than hide from somebody who might have access to security cameras.
Alby wanted to check on his friends in the big room, but there was no time. They had to see if the others were with them, and if they weren't, then that was all the more reason to go there. They had been about to perform some kind of surgery on Sonya, and if the doctors had fallen asleep during it they had to get there fast.
He relaxed a bit when he heard shuffling and muttering from the inside. Inside he saw Harriet standing by Sonya, pressing a bloody towel to the back of her head. The two doctors were sprawled on the floor.
"Don't just stand there. Get some help, you sticks!" Harriet shouted.
"There is no help. Everybody's asleep," Thomas said.
Everyone except for the three of them. But why?
The whiskey, if that's even what it was. Of course! They wanted him to drink it for a reason. They had given Harriet some for a reason. Everybody who had not drunk it was unconscious. They had taken the antidote.
"Somebody's in here. They sent poison gas through the building and that drink protects us from being affected," Thomas said.
"So get the bottle then!" Harriet said.
"Alby, do you have it?" Thomas asked.
"It's in the kitchen. I'll get it."
"You can't! Somebody's in here. You weren't supposed to stay conscious, who knows what they'll do if they find you."
"We need the antidote! Sonya might be dying and I don't know what to do. We need to wake up the doctors!" Harriet argued.
Alby left, running at full speed. If he hadn't gone, Harriet might have, and she was the only one who knew what was up with Sonya.
Thomas rummaged through drawers in search of a weapon. All he found were a few scalpels and a pair of scissors. They wouldn't do much against a gun or a launcher, but he wasn't going down without a fight.
"Make yourself useful and get a clean towel," Harriet said.
Thomas obliged. Harriet folded it and pressed it to her friend's head, tossing the old towel over her shoulder. There was a lot of blood on it, he noted.
"What did they do to her?" He asked.
"They had to remove something from her head, said it was keeping her from waking up."
"What is 'something'?"
"I don't know what it was. It was the size of a pebble and covered in blood, but I didn't get a closer look. Anyway, they were about to stitch her up when they collapsed."
"They didn't tell you how to do that, perchance? Use thread and needle, I mean."
"I know how to do it. If you come over here and hold this against the wound, I should be able to…" Harriet swallowed hard, looking absolutely disgusted.
It seemed to work, not that Thomas was looking anywhere near the stitches. He moved the towel a bit to the side every other minute so Harriet could reach the area.
"Did the doctors show any symptoms before passing out?" He asked.
Harriet took a while to respond. "Drowsiness and dizziness, but not anything else that I noticed."
"It doesn't tell us much. Hopefully, it's just a sedative, but it could be anything."
"If somebody in here used the gas, there must be a container for it that says what it is. That guy knows this place. If he knows where they keep stuff like that, we might be able to find it, unless the person has it with them."
"What if they brought it with them from outside the building? Then there probably won't be more of it or any documents about it. Alby wouldn't have a clue either."
"This place is too well-guarded. They wouldn't let somebody bring something like that inside for no reason and not record it somewhere."
"I suppose it makes more sense to use something that's already in the building, then. It's easier, at least," Thomas admitted, "but we can't expect to find what we need just lying around. The attacker knows we're here."
"Wait. If they are from the Right Arm, why are the others not here yet? What's the point of hiding from us?"
"Could be a loyalty test, or something more psychological."
"The Right Arm is not WICKED. I don't think they have the brains to plan out variables and get anything from them."
"Maybe the attacker is scared we'll try something before the backup gets here," Thomas suggested, though he wasn't all that sure as he started to really think about it.
He put away the blood-stained towel as Harriet finished the last stitch. It looked neat, even though the thread had turned red, and it wasn't bleeding anymore. The sight of blood in blond hair reminded him of Newt, that day on the train when he had clawed at his head in a Flare-induced fit. But this wasn't his friend; it was his friend's sister. Newt was out there somewhere, and she was here.
It dawned on him then.
"I don't think the attacker is inside the building at all. I think you and Sonya brought something here."
"How? Was it in our clothes, or…" Harriet checked the pockets on her clothes but didn't find anything.
The door flew open, slamming into a cabinet with a loud clang.
Thomas held up the scissors menacingly, but it was only Alby.
"Put the scissors down, shank. I got you the bottle. Still some left, I think."
Thomas crouched on the floor, bottle in hand, next to the nearest of the two doctors. She had fallen on her stomach and he had to turn her over. His attention was immediately drawn to something dark red that had been beneath her. A small thing, no larger than a pea, right out of the clutches of a pair of pincers right next to it.
"Is that the thing..?" He gestured vaguely at his head.
"Yeah," Harriet confirmed. She knelt next to him to examine it up close, and Thomas, meanwhile, returned to his task.
He poured some of the antidote into the woman's mouth, just enough to make sure it would go down, and waited. There was no immediate reaction, though that didn't necessarily mean it wasn't working.
Harriet had plucked the thing up with the pincers and was rinsing it carefully with tap water.
He looked over her shoulder and saw a tiny, metallic tube with a hole in one side. Seeing it made his brain tingle. Some distant memory was trying to push its way to the surface.
"Do either of you know what that is?" He asked.
"I think I've seen somethin' like it, but I can't remember where," Alby said.
Harriet turned it over, observing from every angle.
"If they did send us in with poisonous gas, couldn't it have been in here?"
The memory made it through, finally, and Thomas knew exactly what it was.
"Those tubes contain gases, which are kept in by a thin surface. They're designed to break easily, and they are put in a person's head so that it prevents consciousness. To wake the person up, it has to be removed, and removing it will break the tube and release the gas. They were made illegal, but WICKED kept some around, like they were souvenirs." He could remember somebody showing it to him, in a voice that was too blurred to identify.
"So there's nobody in here with us?" Alby asked.
"Probably not. They just needed to make sure we could let them in without being stopped," Harriet said
"I think there might be more to it," Thomas speculated. "They want to make sure we won't plan an ambush with WICKED, or at least that we won't be able to carry it out alone."
"Then they succeeded. They're probably coming any minute and we can't do anything to stop them," Alby scowled.
"Not necessarily," Harriet argued. "If we think fast, we might come up with something."
Thomas nodded. "Alby, would you mind showing us all the weapons you've got hidden away in here?"