“Sorry we got off to a rough start,” Gally interjected. “I guess I’m just nervous being down here. But I promise you guys this can work.” He looked around at the group then and added, “Anyone coming with us?”
His words were met with graveyard silence.
“When?” Newt asked, breaking the quiet.
Minho and Gally answered at the same time.
“Tomorrow night.”
226.11.14 | 3:17 a.m.
They came for Thomas hours before dawn.
Randall, Dr. Leavitt, and Ramirez. The three musketeers. Thomas knew, despite his grogginess, that the three of them coming together meant that something really bad had happened. Or was about to happen. He was on his feet seconds after they shook him awake.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I have an inkling you know very well what’s going on,” Randall replied, sharp and loud in the quiet of the night. “And that’s why you’re coming with us, right now. We need your help.”
Thomas started to ask another question, but Dr. Leavitt cut him off immediately.
“Come on, Thomas. Everything will be okay. Just do as you’re told.”
“Quickly, now,” Ramirez added, the first time Thomas had ever heard the chief of security speak.
—
The three men escorted Thomas through the building, often grabbing his arm at a turn in the hallway or getting off the elevator, even though he didn’t need it. They weren’t rough with him, but they were clearly in a hurry.
They stopped when they reached a heavily fortified door. Ramirez pressed his fingerprint to a glass panel and said his name. The door opened. Randall gave Thomas a little nudge to go through.
Thomas wanted answers, but he decided to suck it up and remain quiet. Randall was being nicer than he had the night of the Crank pits, and Thomas didn’t want to push him past some boundary he wasn’t yet willing to cross.
Thomas looked around the room he’d stepped into. It was new to him—what looked to be a control center for security. There was a large wall full of monitors showing everything from the medical rooms to dorms to progress on the maze construction. Oddly, the video feeds for the maze moved around skittishly, as if their cameras had been strapped to the backs of very angry cats. Nestled in the middle of the room, and facing the monitors, was a deck of equipment fitted out with more display screens and several chairs perched behind it. Two guards sat there now, their gazes fixed on a monitor to the right side of the wall.
Thomas looked closer and felt his heart drop. It showed Minho in a small room, strapped to a chair—the ropes digging into his skin—his face bloodied and bruised. He stared straight at the camera, unwavering, and his look of resolve made Thomas feel a little proud. And a little ashamed. He hadn’t wanted Minho to run and doubted he’d actually try.
“Hurts to say this,” Randall said, “but it looks like your friend didn’t learn from his last attempt to go outside. I guess we were too easy on him, on everyone. Now we have no choice but to step things up. Don’t you agree?”
Thomas stared at Minho. Minho stared back. Could it be possible there was a two-way camera? Thomas suddenly felt self-conscious.
“Silence is probably not your best option right now,” Dr. Leavitt said. “Sit down and we’ll talk. People like Minho and Gally—people who think they’re above the effort to help us here—have to be dealt with. Hopefully you can learn something by watching.”
Ramirez put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and gently helped him find a seat between the two guards.
“You’re excused now,” Randall said.
For one split second Thomas thought Randall meant him, which would have been awfully strange since they’d just had him sit down. But it quickly became clear he was wrong when the guards got up and left.
Ramirez took the chair to Thomas’s left, Dr. Leavitt the one to his right. Randall stepped into the space between the controls and the monitors, then clasped his hands behind his back as if he were about to give a lecture.
“Thomas,” he began, “let’s be honest, here. You know we’ve been watching you and your friends gather at night, correct? You might be young, but you’re way too smart to think you were getting around us somehow.”
Thomas opened his mouth, then closed it. He’d at least hoped they were outsmarting them. He didn’t know why they’d let them continue to gather, but as he thought about it, he realized it had been wishful thinking. He nodded.
Randall placed his hands on the outer edge of the control deck and leaned forward, closer to Thomas. “Listen,” the man said. “We’re not here to beat you up over Minho’s mistake. If anything, we were able to see that most of you tried to talk him out of it. But there are some valuable lessons to be learned from all this, and we’re going to take advantage of the situation.”
Thomas wished desperately that the guy would make his point already.
“You are going to sit with us and watch how we’re going to teach Minho his lesson. We need witnesses, to be frank. We need the word to get around. We can’t let something like this ever happen again. Our subjects need to know that actions have consequences.”
“What’re you going to do to him?” Thomas shouted, really scared for his friend.
Randall flinched at the sudden loud noise, then continued as if he hadn’t heard the question. “After this is done, we’ll bring in Teresa and show her. Same for Aris and Rachel over in the control room for Group B. But we wanted you all to be alone on this, all reactions your own and not influenced by friends.”