Trials Together (Book One): The Maze Runner

Chapter 21

Chaos ruled. From Miyoko's shouting over the noise so Sonya could hear her, Thomas learnt that Minho had run after the Grievers into the Maze to see if they took Gally and Beth to the Griever Hole, and that she hadn't even bothered to stop him because there wasn't a point.

Thomas stood in a corner, Rachel, Teresa, Aris, Chuck and Flo were gathered around him. Rachel was trying to comfort the younger two, Chuck turned to Thomas.

"Gally said there's no way out, no way home." His obvious terror made Thomas's heart ache.

"From what it sounds like I wouldn't trust anything that guy says. There wouldn't be a Maze if there wasn't a solution, and we'll find it." Aris spoke confidently, just loud enough for them all to hear.

"If any of us have a home left, we'll get there, I promise." Thomas vowed, and he meant it. He hated the Creators, for doing all of this to children so young, for taking their memories and their lives. He found himself wondering about the mysterious connection he felt to Teresa, Rachel and Aris, they must have been close, Thomas just wished he knew how close. The impulsive feeling that told him he could trust Aris and Teresa was just as strong as it had been with Rachel at the beginning.

"The bloody hell is that?" Thomas looked up to see Newt enter the room, a hastily placed bandage on his head, being supported by Sonya. Minho had just entered, breathing hard.

"I was right," he panted, "the Griever Hole."

"That's great," Harriet looked like her last nerve was about to snap. "Now go see why the Map Room is on shucking fire."

Somehow only then did Thomas notice the smoke.

All the map trunks had been burnt, destroying years of the runners' work, not that Thomas thought they had been worth all that much.

"Only a pair a night, trials and variables." Rachel mused. There was something there, Thomas knew, they just had to figure out what.

Let's make this telepathic. Thomas told them, they probably wouldn't be heard over the noise but he wasn't taking the chance.

The Maze is a code, but what for and how? Teresa continued, that was the main problem.

The walls move every night, so there's probably a pattern, and the code thing was important enough that we had to say it right after waking up. When all our memories started getting sucked away. Aris was right, it had to be important, probably vital.

They always compare each section's Map to the one from the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, day by day, just analyzing single sections. What if they're supposed to compare the Maps to other sections ... Thomas trailed off, his mind was on the brink of a breakthrough, he could tell, but what was it?

The first thing the word code makes me think of is letters. Letters in the alphabet. Maybe the Maze is trying to spell something. Rachel looked at Thomas, her mouth slightly open in surprise.

Then it clicked, audibly clicked. A code. Letters. Analyzing the sections.

"The patterns repeat, but they don't know what it means, because they've been analyzing single sections. It must make a letter a day." A word was too much, having seen the maps.

"So the maps are the code, and they've been studying them wrong." Aris picked up Thomas's line of thought. "Too bad they've all been burnt to a crisp."

That hit Thomas like a ton of bricks falling on his head. Any code there might have been was gone. They'd never find the way out, with no supplies or sunlight there would be no time to recreate the maps.