The Immunity Illness

CHAPTER 7

Whispers flung back and forth in the trees, harmonizing with the crickets. He almost flinched but remained frozen, compelled to listen in.
       "They'll have to end it now."
       Jorge. Stern. Matter-of-fact.
       "No, they can't. We've come this far, and George—"
       Brenda. Pleading.
       "Would you shut up about George?" Jorge snapped. "This is bigger than him now. We have to look out for ourselves and shouldn't be here when the Trial caves in. Minho was supposed to die in that field. That was the plan."
       No. Maybe Thomas had interpreted that wrong. It couldn't be what he thought.
       "It's the Board's fault for not securing the Variable properly," Brenda replied in a whisper. "Jorge, please, it's one mistake. Let's stay a little longer. There's still a chance for the cure."
       No, no, no. Not them. Not Brenda. Why her? Why did Minho have to be right? Why did Teresa? Thomas glued his eyes shut, struggling to uphold his motionlessness.
       "The answer is no," Jorge stated gravelly.
       "If it bugs you so much, go stab Minho in the neck. That'll kill him," she snarled.
       "Stop with the useless ideas. We'll have to perform the desert execution on them both and leave afterward."
       Brenda's voice cracked. "You know I can't do that."
       "Brenda, if you don't, we'll be here when WICKED collapses. We'll be arrested for crimes against humanity and electrocuted for treason. There is no hope for the Endtime, and that is final."
        Each word was a knife to Thomas's heart. Of all the people in the Horizon, Brenda was his betrayer? Brenda? And Jorge too? It was like him and Teresa in the mountains again without the burlap sack over his head. He wanted to yell and cry, but he didn't. He remained perfectly still.
       "Fine." Brenda went monotone. "Any theories on why Group B malfunctioned?"
       Malfunctioned. What were they, robots? Thomas felt sick to his stomach in more ways than one. He unintentionally breathed out a soft wheeze, then prayed they hadn't heard it.
       Jorge sighed gruffly. "The abstraction database is brand new. I suspect it glitches whenever it's in overdrive. That's why our pals over there got lucky." Thomas held his breath, bracing for discovery. Jorge continued on, however. "Thomas looks worse off than Minho. Getting them to the Gate will be a challenge."
       Someone shuffled to his or her feet, and Thomas's nose itched. Restlessness overtook him. Brenda's footsteps resonated closeby, and he imagined she was standing directly beside him while pointing out,
       "He's not going to like this."
       Thomas indeed hated whatever this was.
       "Neither will I," Jorge crowed. "I'm not in the mood to kill more kids."
       Thomas couldn't bear stillness for another minute. He trembled slightly, and shoe nudged his ribcage, rubbery and slick. With a rush of air, Jorge's footfall came rapidly in his direction. Caught red-handed. Thomas opened his eyes, noting that night had fallen. He glared face to face with his new betrayers.
       "Eavesdropping, Tom?" Brenda said disappointedly. She frowned down at him. "Quiet. The others are asleep."
       He redirected his gaze to Jorge, who hovered over him in a threatening manner. Outnumbered two to one. Thomas's lips quivered. He didn't answer Brenda in spite of wanting to share his own strong opinion. Minho and Harriet had seen through her from the start. She'd burned down the shed to ensnare them in the superdome. The weird predicaments, the easy explanations, all of it had been to set them up for the Endtime. Every kiss had been a lie.
       Jorge addressed him detachedly,
       "I reckon we have to travel to the Gate now because of you, hermano. The easy way is too easy for you, huh?"
       Thomas squirmed on the tree root, foul with rage. He bared his teeth, voicing croakily,
       "You're not taking me anywhere. I'll scream. Then Chancellor Paige will capture you for desertion."
       Jorge laughed. "If you scream, you'll take a bloody beating with...this branch here." He picked up a long bough from the forest floor and poked its sharper end at the nape of Thomas's neck. "Muchacho, I'm not really in the mood to do that either. You're a smart kid. I trust you'll do what's right."
       Fear bubbled in Thomas. He stiffened under the prick of the wood and didn't respond. Brenda pushed the branch aside, explaining quietly to Jorge,
       "Get Minho up."
       "I'm sure Thomas here is up for the task." He sneered, pointing at a sleeping mass in the thicket.
       "And if I'm not?" Thomas tested his limits. "I'm concussed."
       Jorge snorted. "Aw, cry me a river. Do what we say or this job will get difficult. Word of advice,"—he raised the branch in warning—"don't be difficult."
       Thomas hopelessly scanned the Woods for his friends. Frypan sprawled unconscious on a log a couple trees away, but there was no sign of Gally until a flicker of movement fell under his scrutiny. Standing in the underbrush, his towering height and messy black hair gave him away. Thomas looked down and fought a triumphant smile. Gally had the upper hand. At least he'd seen Brenda's lie and escaped.
       "Move it," Jorge barked.
       He jolted to full consciousness and carried himself unsteadily to his feet, swaying. He felt a bandage cloth dangling on his head while he walked over to Minho. Thomas poked him with his shoe, identifying his full body injuries—the lacerations on his arms had scabbed over, preparing to form into scars. Minho's lashes fluttered abruptly.
       "Mm?" he mumbled.
       "Get up, dude," Thomas stuttered, tongue tied. "We're in trouble."
       Minho rolled over and moaned. "Nah."
       "The betrayers are here."
       His lids snapped open. "Who?" Minho scanned past Thomas. He pieced things together in his mind and went rigid. "Oh, I shoulda known, chick!" he spat loudly at Brenda. "You're nothin' but two faced and—"
       Thomas shushed him as Jorge closed in with the branch. He tackled everything he told Minho delicately. "You have to do what they say."
       His actions would have been different had he not known that Gally was prowling the trees, tracking their every move. Minho gave him a look that could freeze fire to ice.
Thomas briskly mouthed,
       "Gally. Rescue."
       After a moment, he relaxed. Thomas helped him up and they both teetered like drunken old men. Brenda refused to make eye contact with them. She clutched the branch temporarily as Jorge dug in the gaping hollow of an ancient tree trunk. He pulled out a small backpack, denoting,
       "You'll get food and water at dawn. Move along, face forward." He snatched his weapon from Brenda and spun it in his palms. "Try anything and you'll get more than a tap on the shoulder blade with this."
       Thomas enviously crossed by Frypan sleeping soundly atop his log. Minho limped with assistance, though he complained under his breath about a strain in his ribs. The maze of darkened leaves glimmered in the moonlight. When Jorge ordered left, they swerved left. A clearing panned out to spoon them into the field. Brenda marched to the head of their precession and squinted at a handheld object: a compass.
       "Nash said three hundred and thirty degrees northwest," she reminded Jorge. "How long will that take?"
       "An hour, tops."
       Thomas exhaled heavily. Brenda had never cared for him. She was another pawn in WICKED's game. It hurt him that something so unbelievable wasn't so hard to believe. She would kill him and Minho without batting an eye, because that was what people did in this world. They manipulated and manipulated until they either caught the Flare or drove themselves nuts by natural causes. He recalled from his dreams that he'd gone along with the new Trials with little argument. Stupid.
       Whoever he was previous to when the Swipe stole his memories, Thomas hated him. He hated everything about him. The old Thomas was naïve, brainwashed, and coldhearted. He had watched his friends suffer in the Maze and taken notes on it. Had he ever known that he'd suffer through the Endtime as well?
       The branch came into coarse contact with his spine. Thomas gritted his teeth, realizing a second too late that he'd slowed down during his thinking process.
       "Faster" was all Jorge said.
       They trekked for another thirty minutes in terrible silence. None of it felt real to him. He expected for Brenda to giggle and reveal that it was all one big joke, and then she'd swoop in for a kiss. It didn't seem like he was hiking to his death. Paige couldn't actually want him dead, could she? And what was the point of keeping him alive for this long if she did?
       The Mountains emerged strikingly larger up ahead, and the field spread infinitely on all sides, humid even in the dead of night. Tallgrass constantly tickled their heels. Jorge's branch never fell short of nudging their backs. Randomly, Brenda halted their expedition. After pinching a finger to her ear, she fussed,
       "The Board hasn't updated me yet. The reception's down out here." She flared up with panic and swiveled toward Jorge. "God, you're right. This Trial is in shambles. Maybe we shouldn't do the ex—"
       Jorge's remark was scalding. "They will be executed regardless. Let's do our job and get out of here."
       Brenda looked over at Thomas, though he saw no trace of the girl he'd known when he stared back at her. She didn't want him alive out of sentiment, but guilt. Guilt and pity for the gullible WICKED subject. That whipped him as toughly as the branch on his tailbone.
       "I said move!" Jorge exclaimed.
       He'd accidentally zoned out. Scampering ahead, he swallowed the rawness in his throat while Minho scoffed at him.
       "Did he say execution?" he murmured to Thomas.
       "Uh, yeah. Haven't you guessed that yet? They're gonna try to kill us."
       "How?"
       Jorge's reply bounced plainly to them,
       "With a gun, hermanos."
       Unexpectedly, Minho snickered. "That's basic. Can't you host a grand finale or throw some confetti first?"
       Thomas stared at his feet, grumbling,
       "Dude, how can you joke about this?"
       He was beginning to feel eager for Gally's rescue. He peered into the tallgrass, and it parted expectantly for a slim instant. A telltale crooked face popped into the dim twilight. Thomas subtly waved to him, and Gally returned the action. He was their only hope. Without him, Thomas wasn't sure they were coming back from the Mountains alive.
       "This is screwed up, man. I'm speaking my mind because I can," Minho said to him. Wincing, he hugged his arms around his chest. "What happened to Group B, anyway?"
       Jorge became especially vocal. Perhaps knowledge was a free-for-all as long as they were about to die. "Group B is fried. Once the database glitched, they glitched. Paige dealt with them as logically as you'd expect."
       Thomas paled, nearly stopping in his tracks. He bit the inside of his cheek so hard it almost bled. Harriet. Sonya. Beth. Wait. "Aris too?" he whispered.
       Brenda turned around to confirm,
       "No. His presence is required for further Variables." She evaded his attempt to lock eyes again.
       Minho grunted to himself as his sarcasm faded to anger. The Horizon held a somber vibe from then on. The girls were gone. The thought made Thomas shudder, but Minho seemed even more appalled by the statement than he was. He stomped beside him, heaving with his bruised lungs, glowering at Brenda. He acted like a shark in a cage, pupils zipping this way and that. Thomas knew he was about to blow his top, but any reassurance he provided would be overheard by Jorge.
       Minho spat at Brenda's shoe. "Shuck-face! Really put your all into it, huh! Made us trust you so you could go and do this, shuckin' traitor! How can you live with yourself!"
       Thomas didn't see it coming—the branch that whacked into the rear end of his own cranium. He tumbled to the ground and whimpered, latching his hands over his throbbing head. He flipped off his stomach instinctively.
       "I don't wanna hear one more word out of you, Minho, or he gets another swing and then we move on to you!" Jorge thundered.
       Minho didn't get the memo and protectively yelled over him,
      "Both of you slintheads are murderers—!"
      The branch slammed into Thomas's ribcage and he groaned, losing his breath. He outstretched his arms to shield himself, but the wood crashed into them repeatedly, stinging his flesh. The blows plundered him again and again. Thomas shouted for it to stop, and Minho joined in. Finally, the branch ended its torment, leaving him shaking in the grass. Thomas closed his eyes, controlling his inhales.
      "Up," Jorge growled, "or we'll tug you by your ankles the rest of the way."
       Minho extended a hand for Thomas to pull himself up with, and he accepted it gratefully, rocking in his shoes. The man's dead eyes leered at them.
       "No rations for that outburst," he announced irritatedly. "Walk."