Through The WICKED Scorch | A Maze Runner Story (English Version)

8. Lifeless bodies

We crawled through the ventilation shafts in a hurry and reached the flap through which we had observed what had happened in the corridor below us the previous night. Thomas briefly checked that the air was clear, then nodded to Aris, who opened the flap.
First Thomas lowered himself down, then Aris and lastly me, Thomas catching me.
"Thank you, Tommy," I whispered as he let go of me again.
We briefly looked around the corridor again, but no one was to be seen or heard, so Aris closed the flap so no one would suspect anything and then followed us to the door. Thomas swiped the key card through the terminal and it lit green, whereupon the door opened. We entered a kind of airlock where gowns were hanging and looked around. Through a large window on the right we could see several capsules containing large things that looked like deformed embryos that were far too big. Thomas and I exchanged a horrified look.
What are these things? What are these people doing here?
Now Thomas opened the second door and in front of us stretched a large room in which human bodies were hung in numerous rows, hooked up to tubes and somehow not alive and not dead either.
"What the...?" Thomas whispered and I slapped a hand over my mouth.
We walked through the middle row of people and I realised they were all teenagers. I recognised a girl who had been called the night before, her name had been Evelyn. I was overcome with a feeling of nausea and my heart beat twice as fast.
We need to get the others out of here. Now.
But Thomas was thinking of something else entirely, because just as I was looking at a vial dripping with something bluish that had been drained from the girl, I heard him gasp.
"Teresa?!"
I jumped up and followed him immediately. Was it her?
Please, please don't let it be Teresa.
And it wasn't her. Relieved, I expelled the air and exchanged a glance with Thomas, who still looked worried. Rightly so.
Aris had also stepped up beside us.
"It's Rachel. They took her the first night. I told her it was going to be okay..."
I could see sadness in his eyes. But that wasn't what had me so upset. The name he had just mentioned, it completely threw me. Now that I looked at the girl more closely, the scales fell from my eyes.
"I knew her," I groaned. "She was my friend."
Aris looked at me with wide eyes. "You remember before?"
I nodded. "Not all of it, but some of it. Always a little bit."
He eyed me curiously and reverently at the same time, but before either of us could say anything else, the sound of the outer door rang out. The next moment the inner door opened and Janson came in. Luckily for us, he didn't look up and didn't spot us.
"Shit!" I groaned, pulling Thomas behind a pillar at the last second. Aris scurried away and I didn't see exactly where he was hiding.
As Janson walked past us, we pressed ourselves against the pillar and walked around so that he couldn't see us. Without realising it, I had grabbed Thomas's arm and was clinging to it. Only now did I realise that he was not alone but had someone else with him, for he was talking to this other person.
"You sure this can't wait?" he asked, sounding annoyed.
"She was very specific sir. She wanted to speak with you personally."
Who did he mean by 'she'?
"As if I don't have enough to deal with."
Silence. Then the other man began to speak again.
"Just, uh, bear with me. I'm getting some interference from the storm."
I looked around among the people hanging from the ceiling and now spotted Aris hiding behind an oxygen tank. Again we walked a little way around the column and I turned my gaze back to the two men. Still holding Thomas's arm, he put his other hand on my arm as if to reassure me.
"Come on. It's good enough. Make the connection," Janson said impatiently and now the man pressed something on his tray and a hologram appeared in the middle of the unconscious teenagers.
It startled me how normal it seemed for them to be standing here among such a myriad of bodies and not even looking around for them.
The hologram showed a woman in a white coat sitting at a desk. My breath caught in my throat. I knew this woman. It was she who had told us on the video in the lab by the maze who we were and why we were supposedly so important to WICKED.
But she shot herself after all. We saw her body.
Had it all been a deception? What did it have to do with the people here? It couldn't be that we still hadn't escaped WICKED and they just wanted us to know that - could it?
"Good evening, Dr Paige. Lovely to see you again. Although I admit, I wasn't expecting to hear from you quite so soon." Janson's voice sounded insincerely friendly.
Thomas too had now recognised the woman, I could tell by the horrified and uncomprehending expression on his face. He crouched down, probably to be able to see even better, and I had no choice but to crouch down as well, because we were still holding each other.
"Change of plans, Janson. I'll be arriving a little sooner than expected - first thing tomorrow."
"Oh, we'll be delighted to have you. I think you'll be pleased with the progress we've made."
He made a hand gesture and the other man pushed again a buttom so that record seemed to appear before the woman.
"As you can see, early results have been extremely promising. Whatever it is you've been doing to them in there - it's working."
She looked at what the hologram was showing her for a moment and then shook her head.
"Not well enough. I just received board approval. I want all the remaining subjects sedated and prepped for harvest by the time I arrive."
"Dr Paige, we are going as fast as we can. We are still running tests..."
"Try something faster. Until I can guarantee their security, this is the best plan."
"Ma'am, security is my job. We're on 24 hour lockdown here. I am assuring you, the assents are secure."
"Have you found the Right Arm?"
I know that term!
I immediately associated it with Thomas and looked at him intently, but he didn't seem to feel the same way as I did.
"Not yet."
"Hmm," Paige made as if she had known.
"We tracked them as far as the mountains..."
"So they're still out there and they've already hit two of our installations." Thomas, Aris and I exchanged a look. What did that mean?
"They want these kids as badly as we do. And I cannot - I canot afford another loss. Not now, when I am so close to a cure. - If you are not up to the task, I will find someone who is."
With those words she turned and walked back to her desk.
"That won't be necessary. Might I suggest we start with the most recent arrivals?"
That's us. Oh God, that's us.
"Just get it done."
Janson turned to leave when Paige stopped him.
"Janson, I don't want them to feel any pain."
"They won't feel a thing."
With those words, he turned again and his companion followed him, turning off the hologram.