The Immunity Illness

CHAPTER 11

Two guards followed him training Launchers at his back. They were inhumanly stoic, seldom speaking except to scold him for slacking his pace. He rarely earned glimpses of their features, but the one on the left was a brunette woman with an accented drawl. The right one had an intimidating height and a low, pronounced voice. They walked as a singular unit, devoid of any indicators they were people beneath their uniforms.
Thomas landed in front of a comically showy bathroom door. Its golden plaque and curved knob served as considerate reminders that he'd be able to take a klunk in luxury. The male guard slipped out a brass key and unlocked it, ordering him,
"You've got five minutes. Do your business and get out."
Thomas restrained from rolling his eyes, ducking into the room. Stalls crammed on one side while a gigantic mirror and a row of sinks enveloped the other wall. It wasn't a very private setting, but at least no one was around. He crossed to the mirror and studied a folded stack of clothes waiting for him. A checkered gray flannel, regular jeans. Aggravatedly, he scooped up the items and changed himself swiftly in one of the stalls—which, yet again, was less than an ideal setting for changing.
Once he was done, he trudged over to the massive mirror to take an actual look at himself for the first time in what? A week? Two weeks? His appearance astounded him. Sunken, gaunt cheeks. Dark circles ringed his eye sockets, and numerous strands of his usually healthy hair were brittle and bleaching at the roots. His skin glowed wanly under the bright light bulbs. Thomas didn't recognize himself.
"Two minutes!" the woman shouted behind the door frame.
He ripped his gaze from the glass and patted his Serum vial through his shirt, double-checking that it wouldn't fall off. It stayed sturdy, hidden well from view as a terrible secret he'd have to protect. Thomas savored the last minute to memorize his complexion. It was a mix of the new and the old, burdened by illness and preserved by what used to be immunity. He was sane but not sane. Alive but already dead.
The door unlocked and the nose of a Launcher poked through the entryway. "Time's up," the woman grunted, waving her hand for him to exit the bathroom.
With feet made of lead, he sauntered to the guards, halfheartedly complaining to them,
"When do I get my shoes back?"
Tall Guy scrutinized him. He replied firmly,
"That's classified."
"Of course it is," Thomas scoffed. "Everything here's classified. Pardon me if I want my shoes back."
"Walk," Brown Hair commanded ruthlessly, pushing her Launcher into him.
They traveled through a hallway system, crossing through E Block, D Block, C Block, B Block, and up a flight of stairs into A Block. This area was, by far, the most spacious and intricate. The corridors expanded wider and the cream floor tiles morphed into polished silvery marble. Paintings lined the spaces between the doorways and glass replaced the usual concrete walls, displaying the rooms as more open and interconnecting. When he went past the windows, workers beyond them looked up to gawk at him. It was difficult to ignore that everyone in the WICKED complex knew who he was. It was like being an infamous celebrity.
They passed into an intersection flaunting a rotunda above. Yellowish moonlight pooled in from its top. Doors circled them on all sides. Brown Hair pulled a keycard out of her uniform and swiped it into a slot on a random frame.
"Demetri, hold him back," she said to the other guard. Demetri. So that was his name. Thomas puzzled over her intentions until the door opened.
He spotted her figure in a crowd within an instant. He could pick her out of a thousand. A million. Every fragment of his rationality shattered then, either due to the Flare or the natural hatred he'd developed for her. He hurled himself forward at a pretatorial speed. He was the lion pouncing on the antelope, the eagle swooping in for the mouse. The ugliest of profanities wrestled past his lips—a majority stolen from Minho's vocabulary. He bounded the final stretch, rounded in for the kill, and his fingers grazed the baby hairs on Teresa's exposed neck. But someone slammed him to the ground to divert his attempt.
"I told you to hold him back!" Brown Hair yelled uproariously.
Guards with Launchers emerged from everywhere to surround Thomas. Teresa slipped from his grasp to safety.
"Should we carry on with the deployment?" a voice he hadn't heard before asked.
"Yes. Transport him to the loading dock," Teresa advised shakily.
Her bland tone made him loathe her more. The guards yanked Thomas upward as a prisoner for all to see. He twisted and turned in place, crying out, but the effort only caused their grips to increase. Minho appeared nearby. Unlike Thomas, he was taken forth in chains. The guards herded them through an archway and into a short, moldy tunnel. Its flowery scent matched the field, so Thomas guessed that was where they were getting shipped to.
The hatch of a lofty iron tube hung ajar at the end of the expanse. At its bottom rested a fresh plot of tallgrass, and dimly, beams of daylight radiated from overhead. The tube reminded him of the Box. The guards ushered him and Minho into the skinny compartment and the hatch closed on them. Minho's chains automatically unclasped, jingling to the grassy floor.
In a lurch, the platform elevated. Its rusty iron system grinded its gears, and Thomas wobbled into Minho as they plummeted up a small distance. Tick, thud, tick, thud. After they reached the top, the sphere of grass they stood on sealed into the landscape with a hiss, blending into the field without flaw.
A new pair of tennis shoes tangled in the greenery in front of Thomas, socks included.
"Welcome back to the Glade, Greenie," Minho muttered humorlessly.
Yet they both knew this place was nothing like the Glade.
Thomas craned his neck to observe the landscape. Vaguely, he made out the rubble of the old shed on the Hill. It would take ten minutes to get to that side of the coast on foot, maybe fifteen. The tallgrass overran them in this area. Flourishing white flowers grew up to chin height, prickly on their leaves. He peered down at his socks and sneakers and decided to continue straining himself, bending over to put them on. Minho balanced a hand against his brow and scoured the field for something unknown.
"You got the speech too?" he quizzed Thomas sourly. "And the vial of death?"
He nodded, tying the knot on his left sneaker more tautly than necessary. A pair of bumblebees hummed in the thicket ahead of him. They crawled on a rotting patch of berries, searching for nonexistent nectar in the moldering fruit cores. The odd sight unnerved Thomas. He stood from his kneel and started in the direction of the coast, not waiting on Minho to catch up.
"Hey, hold it! What's the plan?" he interrogated, jumping in his path.
"No plan." His mind was faraway.
"Frypan doesn't know we left the Dome," Minho prodded, battling for his concentration. "Shuck-face probably thinks we're dead as dirt. We gotta head to him first."
"All right," Thomas said dully.
He didn't care where they went or what they did. A heavy weight sat on his shoulders. Brenda's betrayal stung fresh within him, and he blamed himself for Gally and Group B's deaths. He blamed himself for letting Teresa slip through his fingers. Immersed in a dark state, he tramped through the humid field, and Minho had to wrench on his arm to quiet his inner demons.
"Thomas, we're gonna fight this," he spoke softer than he'd ever spoken before. Even then, his voice wavered with uncertainty.
Thomas shrugged from his grasp. He inspected Minho closely, preaching from the depths of his heart,
"Yeah? And how many others will die while we fight? Better yet, how do you figure we can beat the Flare? Because I'm out of plans."
Minho tensed at his fiery demeanor. "You can clear your head and come with me to find Frypan or you can rot yourself away in this field." He leaned forward, jabbing Thomas in the chest. "Death can destroy you. Don't let it while those sick cowards in HQ still have the advantage."
Their attitudes mellowed at this, and Thomas agreed,
"Let's go, then."
They waded through the tallgrass as lone wanderers. If not for the occasional distant shout, he might have thought they were the only people in the Horizon. Subtly, the Hill enlarged, and the smell of charred wood from the shed's former blaze choked their nostrils. Minho took the lead; he sliced through the weeds as if they were the thick vines of the Maze. Their stroll fell to a crawl once they encountered a clearing, the clearing, and bile rose in Thomas's throat. There, to his right. That was where Group B had attacked them. Minho placed his palm on the middle of his back to steady him momentarily.
"Don't stop," he prompted Thomas lightly.
They boosted up to a jog. The ocean spread out across the skyline, bringing in a refreshing breeze to mask the sweltering heat. The tallgrass receded to shrubbery, and the shrubbery shrunk into spongy crabgrass. Immunes flitted from location to location, carrying wood, deer carcasses, and handmade nets. Though a mere few days had passed, people had taken their unwanted clothing and tacked them into messy tarps. Branches cleverly held the cloth squares up to birth miniature tents.
The Trial was here to corrupt it all. All of their efforts would be for nothing.
They broke into a full run, keeping their eyes peeled for one person out of two hundred. When they came across hunting groups, Frypan wasn't in them. When they barged uninvited into picnics, he wasn't there either. They talked to farmers—no Frypan. Miraculously, Minho chanced upon a cook who gave them their first lead in twenty minutes.
"He's down on the beach with the twins. Tell 'em he's due here for his shift soon." The woman was tender but busy, bustling away from them to attend to her duties.
"Who's talkin'?" Minho called after her. "What's your name?"
The young woman smiled over her shoulder. "Tracy LeBlanc. The best cook of the Horizon, and don't you forget it."
Thomas and Minho exchanged glances. Perplexed, Thomas said to him,
"The twins?"
"S'pose we're about to meet them. Let's kick it up a notch."
The wind felt wonderful as they zipped across the natural plains, racing for nobody but themselves. There was so much land to cover, and the Maze walls were comfortably absent. Thomas wiped the hair out of his face and didn't slow until the slope grew uneven and rocky. They steadily climbed downhill on slippery stones, then sand tickled their ankles. He scanned the deserted beach, worried they'd made the trip for nothing, but Minho lifted a finger to his lips, listening intently to something that Thomas couldn't hear.
"What is it?" he breathed.
"Laughter on the other side of the Cliff. C'mon."
They dashed along the rocky wall, inhaling the briny sea spray. Sure enough, Minho's ears were correct. Frypan sat on a piece of driftwood near the cave with two people on either side of him, and they did look alike. The boy was fair and muscular with jet black hair. The girl had similar features, wearing a short braid decorated by white flowers. Frypan flew up from his bench, exclaiming,
"Guys! Where've you been? How did your wounds heal so quickly? Why—"
"It's a long story," Thomas interrupted. "Can we talk about this in private?"
Isaac glowered at Thomas, but Iris blushed and looked away. Frypan stiffened, taking in the severity of his tone.
"Of course. Um, Isaac? I'll talk to you later, okay? Thanks again, Iris."
"No problem." The girl grinned, but the warmth didn't reach her steely pupils. Isaac simply nodded.
Thomas shrugged off the unwelcome vibe he got from them and ushered Frypan toward the ocean, where the waves would cloak their voices. Once the tip of his sneaker touched the lapping water, he broke his stride and frowned. The wind knotted his hair. Minho puffed out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck.
"What's the story?" Frypan demanded anxiously. "Tell me you know that Gally—"
It was Minho's turn to cut him off. "We're aware of that. Brenda shot him to screw over the Trial."
"People in the camp investigated the site," Frypan answered rigidly. "They never found Brenda and Jorge, those slinthead traitors. Only thing left was the body. How'd you escape?"
Thomas picked at his shirt button. "We got past the Walls, but Paige locked us up in a medical ward. Then she met with me and...explained some things." He continued to summarize the impact of Serum AB-6 as fast as he could. He also added how Group B went berserk due to the abstraction database.
To Frypan, that final part was news.
"Woah," he contradicted him. "We thought Group B got massacred by a fox pack. There were howls and everything. The girls were shuckin' torn to shreds."
For a moment, Thomas cringed, furrowing his brow. Next he understood: the foxes were WICKED's alibi. A group of girls couldn't drop dead without encouraging suspicion. Resentfully, Minho spoke up,
"I can guarantee you it wasn't foxes."
Frypan shuffled his feet and sucked in a queasy breath. "We're toast, aren't we? Cranks. Spent my whole life thinkin' I was safe from the Flare and now you're sayin' they found out how to make us Cranks? Shuck it, I just wanna cook." He buried his hands in his hair, breathing harder.
Minho moved to pat him on the shoulder. "Stop this hopeless talk. The end of the world ain't coming yet." His confidence merged with anger. "I got tossed through the ringer for two years in the Maze, and another couple weeks here can't hurt us more than a Griever can. We're not insane. Not yet. So pull yourselves together before Jack and Jill over there catch on that something's off."
Frypan unexpectedly bristled at Minho. He fired back,
"Eleven of us just died! Don't you have a heart?"
"Uh, yeah, and a bigger one than yours!"
Thomas felt like a shadow in the argument. He intervened, murmuring to them through a slit in his lips,
"Can we save this for a better time and place?"
Minho and Frypan faced each other with underlying dislike. They replied together, low and irritated,
"Yes."
Thomas stood a little straighter. "Great, 'cause you have a chick named Tracy waiting for you, Frypan, who believes she's the best cook in the Horizon."