The Immunity Illness

CHAPTER 2

For a quick second after he came to, everything was fine. He drifted through memories of the Glade, the ones he'd been dreaming about.
       But he wasn't back there. And nothing was fine.
       Shadows flickered through his eyelids. Thomas couldn't figure out what was going on until everything came tumbling back.
       He sat up gasping for air. A deep ache ran through his head and his spine tingled. Moaning, he gazed around to orientate himself. He'd been cocooned by someone on an itchy bed of grass near the woods. The shadows he'd glimpsed were rustling leaves overhead, which parted randomly to cast honeyed beams of sunlight into his vision. Was it noon? Stiffly, he rolled onto his side.
       Frypan waved down at him, sporting a loose smile. "Afternoon, sleepyhead."
       Thomas winced at the dagger twisting in his skull. He mumbled a complaint and rubbed his eyes. More coherently, he questioned,
       "How long have I...?"
       "A couple days. Minho feels awful about it, Thomas. Really, he does. Said it was a horrible accident."
       Two days. Panicking, he attempted to climb to a sitting position and whistled through his teeth in distress. Frypan hurried to nudge him down again.
       "Easy," he ordered. "The doctor here told us you gotta rest. You took a mighty fall, around twelve feet."
       Thomas settled, but he continued to drill Frypan,
       "Where's everyone? Where's Brenda? What'd I miss?"
       "Relax your bones. She's been payin' you visits like clockwork. Your luck must be bad, since this is the first time she's left you and gone off to join Group B's lumber-collecting group. Minho's skulkin' around somewhere. Not much has changed during your big nap."
       "What'd the doctor say? Why was I out for so long?"
       Frypan shifted into a cross-legged stance, crushing the dead leaves below him. He studied Thomas tiredly. "You got yourself a nasty concussion. Do ya remember stuff okay?"
       Thomas reached up to massage his head and felt a bruised lump. Cringing, he muttered,
       "Yeah, I'm just pretty dizzy. A little confused."
       Frypan patted him on the shoulder. "You're tough. You'll heal up soon." He looked around distractedly. "I oughta get Minho over here."
       "And Bren—"
       Frypan wisely cut him off. "Don't soil yourself. I'll fetch your girlfriend." He stood up, popping his kneecaps.
       Thomas exhaled in relief. He flattened his scalp on the ground once more. His temples erupted in a series of shooting pricks.
       He wasn't sure how much time passed, a minute or an hour, but he sensed the sun creeping along on its path, blinding him in spurts through the foliage. His imaginative paranoia made him believe that he'd been deserted for a clan of woodland monsters to consume him, and he reminded himself over and over again like a mantra that he was safe. There were no creatures here to pick the meat off his skeleton.
       A century later, he heard footsteps behind him. Thomas craned his neck curiously, although it pained him to make more than subtle movement.
       "I'm on my way to get Brenda now. Here's Minho," Frypan alerted from above.
       Minho paused where he couldn't see him. Frypan headed off before Thomas could so much as thank him. A rustle of the leaves signaled his absence.
       "First thing's first," Minho announced, walking into view, "I'd like to clarify that I don't regret the punch. You, well, you shot Newt and didn't tell me, so I think a fist to your gut is more than deserved." He stuttered at the mention of Newt and it tore at Thomas, who stayed quiet. Minho plopped down next to him, adding, "But you didn't deserve to fall onto a pile of rocks, that's for certain. Sorry about that."
       "It's oka—"
       "I'm gonna try to not be a slinthead and give it another go with you. That doesn't mean I'm gonna sit down and have a tea party with your ugly face, so slim it. It means that I'm tryin' to forgive you, because if anyone or anything was gonna put that little sucker out of his misery, it was you. I mean...he gave you the note, bro."
       Shaken by his change of heart, Thomas said softly,
       "Okay."
       "Now, once you're back on your feet, we need to get—"
       The piercing scream of a girl drowned Minho out.
       "What's going on?" Thomas asked, jerking forward.
       A deafening metallic rumble brought their eyes up to the sky. The noise was big. Loud. Impossibly big and loud. Jarring webs of white electricity pulsed through the clouds, and the energy almost mimicked lightning, alive in how it branched and spread out like a radiant bubble across the atmosphere.
       For a horrifying millisecond, the Horizon flickered.
       The sky turned a dull gray, becoming a perfect mirror image of what the Glade had looked like in its final days. Both of them gawked over the incident. Thomas couldn't think. Couldn't function. One peek at Minho confirmed his deepest, darkest worries: they were surrounded by barriers. Everything was a lie, yet again. The only explanation was that WICKED still functioned in pristine condition, and it wasn't done using Thomas—or anyone else—for that matter.
       "It can't be...," he mumbled to himself.
       "Thomas. C'mon, Thomas. Don't fall apart on me now, dude!" Minho jerked him on the arm.
       There were more words pouring out of his mouth but Thomas couldn't understand them. He felt paralyzed and glued to the grass. WICKED was destroyed, it had to be. Dust. Rubble. They were safe. Minho lifted him by his shoulders and onto his feet. There was a constant ringing in his ears that seemed to intensify with every breath he took. Was he going deaf? No. Minho was shouting something at him.
       "We need to go figure out what's happening! Can you hear me, Thomas? I need to know if you can hear me!"
        Dazed, he met Minho's eyes and gave the first thing that came to mind, a thumbs up. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and seemed to find some sensation in doing so. More to himself than to Minho, he whispered,
       "I'm okay."
       "For all the klunk it's worth, I hope you are."
       The next thing Thomas knew, they were running toward the woods. With each step, it felt like a nail drove into his brain. And his coffin. He pumped his legs harder, praying that the task would push away the pain and increasing sense of hopelessness in his gut. Thomas snapped into awareness, and all the hate and rage he'd tucked away since being trapped in that padded white room for four weeks came rushing back. He had to get his head in the game. If they weren't safe, he couldn't stand around and watch.
       "We'll end this," he growled, hearing determination creep into his voice. That earned him a supportive slap on the back from the former Runner beside him.
       "You bet we will."
       Maybe their friendship hadn't completely crumbled after all.
       It took them two minutes to reach the epicenter of the disaster in the woods, but time from there seemed to cease altogether. Sunlight struggled to touch anything beneath the many crowded leaves. Through layers of crooked branches, he depicted multiple figures hunched around something.
       "Do you see that?" he asked Minho, who nodded slowly in turn. As they drew closer to the gathering, Thomas spotted Brenda's pale, frightened facial features. He quickened his pace and yelled out to her, "Brenda!"
       She spun around, hollering back to him,
       "Thomas, you're awake! We've hit something huge!"
       A collection of girls circled a specific area in the trees, clamoring eagerly to one another. Gally and Frypan mixed in with the bunch as well. When Thomas and Minho approached, their collective concentration fixed onto them.
       Thomas initially noticed nothing wrong. He squirmed through the horde, ignoring a few warning glares. Nothing out of the ordinary. There had to be a landmark somewhere to keep them imprisoned, like a chain link fence or a giant rock wall straight out of the Maze. He kept walking—or limping disorientedly, unsure of what to expect until he slammed into something extremely cold, solid, and smooth as glass. The image of the woods in front of him shimmered and bent like a piece of tin foil getting balled up.
       "It's holotech," he recollected, "like what the Cliff in the Maze was made of. Minho, do you remember?"
       Minho grunted to himself, obviously distraught by the memory. He nodded. Thomas crossed over to Brenda; he stared at her in doubt of everything he'd ever known. They were supposed to be done. He'd come to terms with it. He'd wedged the concept into his mind that one day they'd be happy here. Brenda reflected his shattered expression. When he spoke again, he didn't look away from her.
       "We're probably walled in on all sides if it's blocked off here. This has to be a dome or a room."
       Gally strolled through the cluster of girls to confront him. "Then where's the other three barriers? Won't the Immunes find 'em after this fiasco?"
       Thomas returned to the strange invisible wall and ran his fingers across its icy tiles. He mused,
       "WICKED must be running more Trials after all. This place is built to look as real as the Maze sky, so the Munies won't catch on yet."
       One of the Group B girls broke down sobbing. Sonya and another person rushed to comfort her. Devestatedly, Frypan lumbered over to join Thomas's small assembly of conspirators, and Minho glowered at the grass at their feet, trembling in anger. Then, one by one, all eyes fell on Brenda.
       She gaped at them in awe. "You don't think I have something to do with this. Chancellor Paige promised me we were safe here. I trusted her with my life, I swear!"
       Harriet stomped into their group, seething to her,
       "Chancellor Paige is a lying, crooked stick! You burned down our only way out and now we're trapped here!"
       Brenda's nostrils flared. She glanced between her and Thomas before responding guardedly,
       "I didn't know."
       Gally huffed. "Neither did I. Can't believe I fell for the Right Arm for a minute." His features soured. "My mistake."
       Aris emerged from the girls. Thomas hadn't realized he was with them.
       "We can't stay in these woods forever," he expressed. "People will start asking questions."
       Harriet nodded at him. "I think..."
       The chatter transitioned into dull background noise. Thomas combed a hand through his hair frustratedly, flinching as he grazed the bruised part of his head. At least the dizziness seemed to be dwindling.
       That was when he heard it. Warped and broken like an out of tune radio, but still there.
       Tom. Tom!... —Can't talk...—staged! ...—Don't listen to—
       Thomas squeezed his eyes shut. It couldn't be real. It was Teresa's voice, and Teresa was dead. But lately his whole world was flipping upside down, so he reached out to her against his better judgement.
       Teresa, what? How're you alive? Slow down! Who's faking what?
       I can't tell you. They'd kill me for real, Tom. I didn't die in that explosion. What you saw wasn't—I have to go. Don't try to contact me again.
      Wait! Teresa!
      But she was gone. His chest had the familiar emptiness of when their connection got cut. A thousand questions swirled through his head. Teresa was alive. That would mean that she'd tricked him into believing she was on their side. His heart thrummed rapidly. Saved only to be baited into another trap.
       "Thomas! No, not again. Snap out of it!" Minho barked at him. Thomas jolted out of his thoughts and defended,
       "No, it was Teresa in my mind! She's alive!"
       "Oh man, falling on those rocks shucked with your head," Minho moaned.
       "It's not my concussion. She really spoke to me!"
       "So Hans' surgery on us was some sort of fluke, then? I don't know, I think the wires that slithered into my ears that day would beg to differ."
       "Not a fluke. He must've done something to us, but kept on our communications so..." Thomas's sentence dissolved. He decided not to share with them what Teresa had said.
       Brenda hovered close to him and squeezed his hand. Her brow furrowed in distress. "Don't listen to her. She's a snake if she's on the other side of this wall."
       Minho piped out,
       "She's worse than a snake! I'd love to see Teresa smashed by a ten story building next time if that's what it takes to kill her!"
       Roars of agreement echoed around him. Thomas held Brenda's hand tightly in disbelief. He was stranded in the middle of a lake and she was his life jacket. Stupefied, he mumbled to the group with a hint of his determination from earlier,
       "We're settling this now. We should get out of these woods like Aris said and find a private place to talk. If anyone asks, that was lightning in the sky and the weather here is off the charts because of the solar flares."