The Fever Code (The Maze Runner 0.6)(78)

Hi, she said to him, sending as much warmth along with her greeting as she could.

Good to see you, he replied. Truer words had never been spoken. He missed her.

Dr. Paige got down to business. “I want to introduce a couple of new friends who will be helping with some upcoming projects.” She turned toward the two newcomers to her right, the man and the girl he seemed to hover over. “This is Jorge and Brenda. Jorge is a Berg pilot, a very good one. And Brenda has some training as a nurse, with big plans to become a Psych someday. Isn’t that right, Brenda?”

The girl nodded, not showing a hint of shyness or awkwardness. “Whatever it takes to find a cure,” she said. It seemed like an odd response, but something haunted hid behind her eyes, something that probably explained exactly why she’d answered that way.

“Hola,” the man named Jorge said, looking each of them in the eye for a moment. “I’m excited to work with you.”

“Work with us?” Teresa asked. “What’s going on?”

He’d gotten Thomas’s attention. He was now madly curious.

“We’d like you to help us on an upcoming expedition,” Dr. Paige said. “In a few weeks, Jorge, Brenda, and quite a few others will be sent to a place called the Scorch. We’re very interested in what we may find inside a nearby city infested with Cranks. Significant research potential.”

“A city infested with Cranks?” Thomas repeated. He had a bad feeling he wasn’t hearing the whole truth here.

“Yes,” she said, offering nothing else. “And we think it will be valuable to have you there. We’d like to test the long-range effectiveness of your implant technology, especially the remote monitoring of your killzone patterns and other measurements. We need to know it can work at long distances. Now, here’s what we have planned….”

Thomas worked over what she’d just said, tuning her out. Why would they need to know about long-distance monitoring? Was WICKED planning on moving them somewhere? There was more going on here that they weren’t telling him, and he had a bad feeling about it. A feeling he’d had for a while but could only now admit to himself. It made him feel sick.

WICKED was never going to stop.

They were never, never going to stop.





231.11.30 | 8:32 p.m.

Thomas walked with Chuck down the long hallway, which seemed to stretch out infinitely before him. That was how everything felt today. Long and never-ending. Really, he was just in a sad mood. The day had finally come.

Chuck was going to be inserted into the maze.

Thomas had asked for this hour with Chuck to eat a last meal of sorts and talk through things. Their own goodbye. Then Thomas planned to leave Chuck in the hands of the experts and make himself scarce. He didn’t think he could handle watching Chuck get his memory erased, see him handled like a corpse, watch him get thrown into the Box like a heap of trash. They’d have their goodbye, and then Thomas could hide in his room until the next morning rolled around.

The cafeteria was quiet during the lull between the breakfast and lunch crowds. After grabbing plates of breakfast leftovers, he and Chuck sat down by one of the few windows that looked out over the Alaskan forest. They’d barely talked since Thomas had retrieved Chuck from his room, and now they both picked at their food. Neither had actually taken a bite yet.

“I might as well get the dumb question out of the way,” Thomas finally said. “You scared?”

Chuck held up a limp piece of bacon and studied it. “You’re right. Dumb question.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

Chuck chomped on the bacon, his face wincing a little. “Tastes like klunk.”

“Of course it does. They fried it almost three hours ago. But your one wish for today was to sleep in, so they let you sleep in. Maybe your wish should’ve been for crisp bacon. Or, you know, a one-way ticket to Denver.”

Chuck gave him a polite smile, the most adult thing he’d ever done.

“Come on, man,” Thomas said. “Open up here, buddy. Tell me what you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. I’m worried about you.”

The kid shrugged. “Do we really have to get all cheesy like this? They’re sending me into the maze and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m going to miss it here, going to miss you guys. But there’s no point whining and crying.”

“You’ll have to go a while without seeing my beautiful face every day. You better be whining and crying. I’m talking puffy eyes, wet face, snot pouring into your mouth, the whole bit. I don’t see that in the next three minutes, I’m gonna be offended.”

“What happens after I get there?” Chuck asked, acting like he hadn’t heard a word Thomas just said. “I mean, this can’t go on forever, right?”

And just like that, all the air drained out of the room.

“Of course not forever,” Thomas said. “I hear they’re getting close to a full blueprint. And once they have that, the cure’s next. I’m sure we’ll be reunited before too long.”

Thomas didn’t know if he could actually count all the lies he’d just told on one hand. But what did it matter? Chuck was about to have his memory wiped, and Thomas didn’t think it could hurt to get his hopes up a bit.

Chuck was staring at him.