The Immunity Illness

CHAPTER 8

The landscape grew rocky and the vegetation died with it. The trees that did sprout were crisply frail, and their leaves barely grasped the wood they budded on. Grass traded itself only for thick shrubs and prickled plants capable of sustaining the dry air. Raptors swarmed overhead. Their scrawny beaks cracked open, preparing to seize any prey that came within reach.
       By a sliver, the sun welcomed the morning into fruition. Streaks of orange light banked out onto the plains. The Mountains had since tripled in size, and less than a mile separated them from the lowest foothills. Unlike the ones in the Scorch, these had their summits mounted with snow.
       Their caravan had little more ground to cover. Brenda tracked her footsteps with the compass, poring her attention over its wobbly needle. Once she came upon a mossy rock she claimed was a landmark, she described to them,
       "We're here."
       Thomas analyzed the landscape before them puzzledly. "Where's the Gate?" he asked.
       No one said anything. Brenda stretched her arms out in front of her. Instead of open air, she hit a solid wall. The Dome's illusionary image of a faraway mountain range separated into billions of crystallized pixels. When they rejoined themselves to form the original scene, Brenda stuck her thumb on an invisible plate. Thomas watched in awe as the screen pixelated itself again to reveal a massive circular metal hatch. In its center were printed letters:

GATE 34

       Minho whistled, impressed by the technology. Thomas, on the other hand, wasn't sure what to make of it. He wondered if Teresa had fled to a door like this one after injecting him with the Serum.
       "Play time's over," Jorge declared ruthlessly.
       The branch smashed into their backs and both of them yelped. As Thomas wrestled with the sting, Brenda typed on a small keypad adjacent to the hatch door. A drawn out hiss followed, and a small metal slot jutted out from the doorframe. She grabbed something inside of it. A glimpse of polished onyx metal made Thomas's blood run cold.
       As promised, a pistol. The concept of cheating death by Harriet's boot almost humored him now. He'd crawled out of a drain pipe only to plummet down a waterfall. Minho, battered as he was, hurled Thomas a conspiratorial look. He hopped from foot to foot to warm up his legs.
       "No," Thomas mouthed, shaking his head. "Gally."
       "Stop whispering!" Jorge boomed.
       Thomas froze in place, his gaze still connected with Minho's. Their betrayers circled them, raptors themselves with their coy sneers. Thomas bit his tongue as Brenda strolled over to him. She tucked a bang behind her ear, staring everywhere but at him. Then the barrel of the gun was at the side of his head, frigid and hard as ice. Her hand pushed him to his knees.
       "Any more questions? You usually have a lot." She spoke tightly. The metal quaked against his temple.
       Thomas made his posture as straight as he could and grinded his teeth together. He waited a second to reply, practicing how not to stutter.
       "Why?" he breathed. It was one word, yet it meant so much.
       He didn't miss Brenda's deep frown in the corner of his eye. She answered in the way she was trained to.
       "The Variable is made to betray everyone in a ripple effect. Gally and Frypan will be betrayed. Then the chain will move down to Aris. That's why."
       Thomas tilted his chin daringly to see her in full. "No. Why you, Brenda?"
       The gun shook in her palm, and for the first time, he detected despisement in her tone. "My brother didn't die in your Maze for nothing," she hissed. "I wanted to pay him the justice he deserves, and you happened to fall in my way."
       George.
       Thomas opened his mouth to say something, but the pistol thumped in the soil in front of him. He jumped at the motion, perplexed by the turn of events. Brenda stabbed a finger at Minho across from him. He'd also been forced to kneel.
       "Shoot him, then yourself," she directed.
       Thomas scoffed in denial, bobbing his aching head back and forth. Out of all the ways to die. His gaze floated down to the weapon. He could fire it at Brenda or Jorge and never have to so much as point the thing at Minho. But he was weak, Minho was weaker, and the branch's impact on him remained fresh in his memory.
       Where was Gally? Thomas scoured the barren field with wistful eyes, locating the boy in a patch of brittle shrubbery. He hunkered down low—his exposed jean cuffs made the only indication that he was there. Thomas centered his focus back on Minho. He had to talk to him. Just in case Gally wasn't on their side. Just in case a bullet landed in both of their heads. As he folded his fingers on the gun, he said nervously,
       "I won't do it." His voice came out high and distressed.
       Minho lurched sideways. Jorge caught him in a one-handed chokehold, raising the branch to his neck.
       "Get it over with already," Minho blazoned. "Blow my shucking brains out!"
       Thomas couldn't breathe. His index finger repelled from the trigger. This was ridiculous. They'd saved each other's lives yesterday in order to play a rigged game of Russian Roulette today. What was taking Gally so long? Why wouldn't he just do something already?
       "Don't make me do this," he begged Brenda.
       Jorge squashed the branch against Minho's windpipe, bellowing,
       "Now! Shoot now or he chokes!"
       Thomas lifted the safety clasp on the gun, close to passing out from his nerves.
       "He don't gotta do anything, slinthead!" Gally screeched in a war cry, appearing in Jorge's shadow.
       He weaved in and out of sight and yanked the branch over Minho's head, then swung it backward into Jorge's jaw. The man cried out viciously. He lost his grip on the large tree limb and the attack progressed into a brawl. It also formed a brilliant distraction as perceived by Thomas. He turned the pistol on Brenda. Inattentive to him, she hardly noticed until it touched her forehead.
       "Move a muscle and I won't hesitate," Thomas rumbled.
      Her eyebrows arched in fear. "Do you...have the guts to do that? Kill your girlfriend?"
       Something about the way she said that made him detest her. He retorted unkindly,
       "It wasn't a problem for you."
       To this, Brenda did not argue. He glanced over at Minho; he'd accumulated the branch at some point and was making it his most powerful defense. Gally also had the lucky advantage over Jorge. Thomas was smarter than to think it would last forever. As authoritatively as he could, he instructed Brenda,
       "Open the Gate."
       "In your dreams."
       "Get it open or you die!" he repeated. "You're overpowered, and I bet Minho would be happy to show you what the branch feels like!"
       Minho grinned and rattled the bough at her. Cornered, Brenda told them,
       "You wouldn't last a minute in the complex."
       "It's better than dying in here," Minho bargained strictly, holding the branch above her head as an invitation to cooperate.
       And she did.
       Brenda led them to the humongous iron contraption. It resembled a vault door that was extremely out of place—a hovering piece of reality in a holotech landscape. She held her thumb on a glass plate and the small bulb above it blinked green. The Gate released a squeal. A crevice split down the middle of it, and, gradually, the two parts shifted apart from each other to vanish into the holotech wall. A shaded corridor introduced itself within. Accomplishment washed over Thomas.
       Then Brenda elbowed him in the stomach.
       He fired at her misguidedly. The bullet pinged harmlessly in the dirt, bursting his eardrums, and she grabbed for the gun amongst the chaos. Thomas ripped his arm out of her range. He shouted for Minho to take it, but Brenda intercepted the weapon and whacked the branch out of his grasp. Thomas smacked her wrist. The three of them watched, gaping, as the pistol skittered across the dry terrain. Seizing the chance, Brenda broke away from Thomas to jog after it.
       It landed between Jorge and Gally.  
       Thomas was so entranced that Minho had rattle his arm. The door was open. They could go. Thomas followed him into the facility beyond the Gate, but their thoughts did not leave Gally.
       "Gally, come on!" Minho squawked.
       Thomas tapped his foot on the ground in anticipation. Gally rotated to face them in the middle of blocking Jorge's punches, hollering breathlessly,
       "Not yet! I've almost got 'em down, trust me!" He continued with his scuffle. "I'll be there in a sec!"
       Minho pounded his fist on the Dome Wall. "Gally, if you don't get your freaking shuck-face over here!"
       Brenda intervened, tripping him to obtain the gun. He landed on his spine and briefly became paralyzed from the impact. Thomas scanned the floundering movement of his lips—he gasped for air.
       A pulse of moving metal. The Gate doors were suddenly closing, and fast.
       "Paige's Board must be doing it," Thomas described uneasily.
       Minho wasn't listening and gave the impression that he was about to go fetch Gally himself. "It's not safe for him out there," he yapped, starting for the opening.
      "You won't make it back in time!" Thomas reasoned with him, grabbing his shoulder.
       "We can't abandon our friends, you shank!"
       The Gate reduced itself to a foot long opening, restricting them to view the scene through a fragmented window.
       Gally lay immobilized from the hip down. He would have been able to conquer Jorge any other way. His fists pounded at Jorge's sides, expecting him to retaliate, but the man's main purpose was to keep him pinned down.
       "Get off of me, old man!" Gally asserted, pointlessly twisting his body. "Can't you fight?"
       Brenda had the pistol. She moved to stand over the two of them.
       The opening reduced to a skinny crack. Jorge—whose glare was maddened, ironclad, and vengeful—called out to Thomas and Minho in a shrill,
       "Your Trial will never succeed!"
       Bang.
       The fire of a single gunshot. Gally's face imploded into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp.
       The Gate plunged them into darkness.