Into The WICKED Maze | A Maze Runner Story (English Version)

39. Nick's plan

"... and then I helped Alby, who wanted to draw a plan for the Track-hoes, but Nick interrupted him because he wanted to talk to him urgently, he said he had a good idea how we might get out of here and was quite upset that you hadn't thought of it sooner. I was then allowed to help Newt for the rest of the afternoon and he said I did a good job. Soon I'll be allowed to use a machete, but only if I continue to do so well in the fields over the next few days. Zart said I was a big help and I had a feeling Newt was pleased, too."
Chuck - that was the little boy's name - stood in front of me with big, shining eyes, making sweeping movements with his arms as he talked like a waterfall.
Next to me was Minho, for we had just taken three steps out of the maze when Chuck had already intercepted us.
"That sounds great Chuck, I'm totally glad you had such a good day." I smiled at him and let him give me a high-five. "But now Minho and I need to get some rest until dinner, okay?"
The little boy nodded excitedly and made his way across the glade, probably to look for Newt.
"So Nick had an idea? What do you think he came up with?" Minho asked me as we walked over to our hut.
I shrugged my shoulders. "We'll soon find out, right?"
We entered our hut and I stretched out on my bed while Minho stood indecisive in the room.
"What is it?" I asked, yawning.
"I don't know, I'm kind of worried about Nick's plan. What if he puts anyone in danger with it? Imagine if he gets the idea to send us out there at night because he thinks there'll be an exit then."
I sat up. "Alby wouldn't let that happen. And we wouldn't do it either. After all, he can't make us. I can live with a night in the hole."
The hole was a sort of cell that Gally had built 2 ½ years ago, and into which gladers were locked as punishment when we decided to do so. There were often builders or slicers in there who tended to mess with each other. There were a total of three cells next to each other, which could be closed with a grille made of bamboo.
"I hope you're right." He now also settled down on his bed and stretched. I too lay down again and closed my eyes for a moment.
It stayed at that moment because suddenly someone yanked open the door and came in excitedly. I jumped up and looked around in confusion. Minho was also sitting bolt upright on his bed.
Chuck stood in the middle of our hut and looked at us with wide eyes before he began to speak. "Nick sent me. I'm supposed to round up all the keepers, there's a meeting in the meeting hut."
Indecisively he stopped.
"It's fine, Chuck. Thanks for letting us know."
I lowered myself back down and the boy left the hut, the door slamming loudly behind him.
"Well, I can't wait to hear what he has to tell us." Minho stood up and I did the same, even though I would have preferred to stay lying down.
We slowly made our way to the meeting room where we were the first to sit down. It didn't take long for Gally to settle down next to me before Winston, Clint, Zart and last but not least Fry Pan, who looked completely stressed, came in.
A murmur went around the room as everyone had an idea what Nick could want from us, with Minho and I just exchanging worried glances over and over again. Fry Pan complained loudly that he had been stopped from preparing dinner and now Chuck was in the kitchen. Gally joked that we would probably all have nothing to eat tonight, to which the cook only snorted more exasperatedly.
When Nick, Alby and Newt entered the room, everyone immediately fell silent, eager to hear what they had to tell us. I noticed Nick's triumphant and confident look and recognised a deep crease of worry on Alby's forehead, which could be seen on him more often lately. Newt looked at me and when our eyes met, he shook his head imperceptibly.
I swallowed. This was going to be fun. Despite all this, I couldn't imagine that Minho's fear would come true, because then Newt would definitely not be so calm.
"I'm glad you all got here so quickly," Nick began, his voice sounding strange, very different from before. While I had heard him speak on and off lately, I hadn't noticed it like that before.
"I hope you have something important, because I had to let Chuck have the kitchen to come here and we all know what happened last time." Fry Pan sounded almost exasperated.
"Don't worry, Fry, believe me, it will be worth it. Soon we won't need the kitchen."
Again a murmur went through the row of keepers, but Nick interrupted. "I had the idea, you'll see, tomorrow we'll be out of here."
Now everyone was silent, looking at him spellbound. An uneasy feeling spread through me. I felt Gally tense up beside me and remembered our conversation at the lake some time ago. He didn't want to leave here and I could imagine what was going on inside him right now.
"Our way out has never been in the maze - it's always been here with us, at the glade and I really don't know why we didn't think of it much sooner. All those runners we had to banish because they got stung by a Griever out there, they might still be alive. I'm sorry I didn't think of it sooner."
Now he was looking directly at Minho and me and for the first time in a long time I could see that his eyes were clear. Only now did I realise that they had been covered by a veil all this time, a veil of madness, as I'm sure Gally would say.
"Will you please come clean?" asked Gally, now bored again. I could guess that he was expecting a completely stupid suggestion, which we would have dismissed within minutes, as all keepers did. But from the look on Newt's and Alby's faces I could see that this time it was different.
"When the box comes back up tomorrow, I will get into the shaft and climb down. We'll just leave the hatch open and when the lift comes back down you'll rope me down."
There was a tense silence in the room and you could literally feel it rattling around in the minds of the keepers. Everyone was wondering if maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all, after all we had never tried anything like this before and of course it was possible to consider that it might work.
I could read on Gally's face that he seemed to believe in it too, but unlike the others, he didn't look like he liked the idea, he looked rather dismayed and stared at the ground. Minho, on the other hand, relaxed again, after all, we were not the ones to do anything this time and his fear had not come true.
Some began to whisper and share their thoughts and I was the only one who sat motionless. Newt's gaze had found mine again and this time he had shaken his head much more obviously than at first. He seemed to want to tell me something, as if he wanted me to interject, but I didn't know what. What could I do about Nick's decision when not even he or Alby said anything?
When he looked at me piercingly, almost pleadingly, I decided to say something anyway and raised my hand even before Nick could ask for our opinion.
"Yes, Anna?" he asked, looking at me suspiciously. Our relationship hadn't been the best lately - in fact, ever since we'd told him and Alby that there was no exit - and I could imagine that the look on my face didn't bode well.
I took a deep breath before I began to speak, crossing my own fingers that I found the right words. "What if there's no exit there, Nick? What if there's nothing good waiting for you there, but something bad? I mean, all we know is that the box comes up every week with stuff for us and that it's most likely the 'creators' who send it up. Did you ever think that maybe they don't mean us as well as we initially believed? Why did they lock us in here and why are there these things out there that want to kill us and change us when they sting us? Have you ever thought about that?"
Gally had sat up beside me and I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was looking at me with his mouth open. He had to be completely perplexed at my words, after all it had been me who had told him I wanted to get out of here when the opportunity presented itself.
"That's complete klunk you're talking! I will climb down there and find an exit. And if there really is someone waiting for me there, I will talk to them normally." He looked down at me as if he were talking to a child who didn't understand him anyway.
"And what about those who don't want to leave here at all? Aren't you going to let us vote at all, like you usually do?" Now Gally had found his voice and courage again.
"All right, let's vote. But I already know the result anyway, after all, the others aren't such slintheads as you two." Nick gave us a withering look and a very bad feeling spread through me.
"We'll see about that, won't we?" Gally had got up and was standing in front of Nick. I too rose and held him by the arm to stop him from going any further towards him. The situation was threatening to escalate.
The two boys glared at each other until Alby spoke up for the first time. He looked around visibly unhappy before asking, "All right, who's against Nick getting down there?"
Gally's hand shot up without once taking his eyes off Nick. I volunteered too, one hand still on my best friend's arm, just in case.
I looked around the room and saw exactly what I had feared. My speech had done absolutely nothing, because no one but the two of us spoke up, not even Minho. Only Newt had raised an arm, for which he received a nasty look from Nick, who now turned triumphantly away from Gally, whose pulse I could feel throbbing.
That settled it, Nick would descend the shaft tomorrow to look for an exit. I looked apologetically at Newt, but he just shook his head placatingly, after all, I had tried.
Just as we were all about to leave the hut, Nick called us back once more. "Not so fast, you two."
Without looking at him, I knew he meant Gally and me.