The Horizoners rebuilt their creations from a mass of soggy rubble. They uprighted stilts and raised their torn blankets, yet what the camp had once been was permanently tarnished. There were no more sustainable shirts to weave into tarps and no more wood to use that wasn't waterlogged. While Minho shepherded the group through the wreckage, Thomas noticed many angry faces.
An old man writhing on the ground, submerged in mud, clutching a bloody leg. A child screaming for his mother. A woman cussing somebody out as she tried to snatch a man's watch—a Glader's watch, probably, at one point. Thomas felt like he stuck out worse than a sore thumb among them. The Immunes glared at him, chanting with their livid eyes: WICKED kid. Their filthy cheeks glistened with dirt and sweat. The bones of their rib cages poked through their ratted shirts. They were Cranks without the disease.
Frypan pushed ahead of Minho. "I see Tracy," he pointed out. "Don't think she's got any food for us, though."
Thomas hugged his arms around his chest. His teeth chattered in the chill of the morning air, and a light drizzle wetted his skin. After a slow, solid breath, he said,
"No one'll have food prepared. We should..." He blanked out. A veil draped over his scattered solutions. We should do what?
Minho hesitantly took over the conversation, tossing him a puzzled glance. "Easier on all of us if we get more stuff from the Box Gate."
"Look at these people, dude," Frypan instilled. "I'm not gonna be responsible for them starving to death. They gotta eat too."
"There's nothing we can do for them," Aris reasoned.
The boys stood in the middle of the rain-beaten path, dwelling over the upheaval of the settlement. Thomas massaged one of his temples and fought to subdue the bubble of vexation about to pop in his mind. He chained his malice behind a welded iron door—no more outbursts could occur if he wanted Minho to live. And he did want that. He wanted it more than anything, more than a stupid cure that could save the trash pit they called civilization. Saving Minho was the biggest goal he'd ever set for himself.
Because next time, there would be no practice run. No lifesaving letter from an overly helpful chancellor would come to either of their rescues. No magical Safe Haven would be conveniently placed on the other face of a Flat Trans to whisk them away to paradise. As Thomas registered the information that his best friend was also eligible to die, choosing death for himself didn't hurt as much. He would choose Minho's life a thousand times before his own.
"Is he good?" Isaac's sentence penetrated his thick contemplation.
"Yeah, he does this a lot. He's a daydreamer," Minho explained.
Heat rose in Thomas's face. He snapped out of his funky stupor and marched in step with their caravan, tuning out the round of snorts that followed. It took him a second to understand that they were headed to the coast, not the Box Gate. When he asked Minho about this, he got told,
"Isaac's taking us to meet this Rosalía chick. He says she's got some chips and junk for us to snack on."
Isaac gladly assumed the leadership role of their group, steering them out of the camp altogether and toward the slope of the beach. Rather than turn left in the direction of the cave, he ventured right, escorting the boys to the rocky bottom of an unscalable ridge. Aris skidded up from the rear of their procession to murmur,
"You'll hit the Dome Wall if you go much further. Where's Rosalía?"
"My name's Rose," a voice channeled across the acre of beach.
Aris jumped in fright, and Frypan stiffened. Isaac simply laughed at them. He strutted forward another foot and summoned the unseen girl,
"Come on out, Rose. You're not getting points for being dramatic."
The outline of a teenage girl manifested from behind a jutting rock, and she gripped the hand of a young child. The pair drifted over to the boys at an idle pace. Rose was pretty, but even more definingly, she was inscrutable. She clutched the child close to her side—a little sister or a niece? They came to a halt before Isaac.
"What are you doing?" Rose growled at him. "Are these the subjects?"
Isaac chortled on reflex to mask his distress. "Yes, they are," he admitted. "We've been having some conversations, to put things lightly."
Rose noted his battered face, and her words caught in her throat. Finally, she whispered,
"Isaac, what are you doing? I thought—"
"—Things are different now, Rosie. Remember that I'm not an Intel anymore." Isaac looked at her for an extended moment. Unspoken worries and memories passed between them.
Thomas hovered toward Minho, and they communicated their own stupefaction with a wordless stare. These people, who were they? What did they want? Thomas broke their exchange to gape at the youngest girl. She had pink cheeks and the same straight cinnamon-brown hair as Rose. She seemed so frightened, and Thomas craved to give her a hug. Rose's snapping voice brought him to attention.
"I'm under so many threats and you lead them here to me. Why?" She directed her argument at Isaac, though her focus trained on everyone else. "I've been trying so hard to keep her safe." Her tone dropped an octave. She tilted to comb her fingers through the little girl's hair.
Isaac reacted subtly. His lips parted a centimeter, then closed. After gathering his bearings, he pronounced,
"Technically, this is allowed. They figured me out all by themselves and Ava can't punish us for that."
Rose marched up to him. "Could you still be in danger? And Iris?"
Isaac blinked at her, playing more secretive tricks with his eyes. Minho shoved through their group.
"Hellooo?" he crowed. "Talking about us like we're not standing right here is rude. We'd like to eat."
The little girl crept around Rose to wave at Minho. The action made him freeze. Thomas watched in fascination as she waddled forward and asked,
"¿Nos vas a ayudar?"
Minho's wittiness faltered, melting to a half stammer.
"I—uh, don't understand."
Rose murmured a string of fast Spanish in the girl's ear that made Thomas's head spin. She stopped to sneer at Minho,
"The answer is ni un poco, not like you'd understand that either. But by all means, come along and dig into the garbage of WICKED's 'courtesy'."
She spun on her heel with the kid in tow and disappeared around the jutting rock of the ridge. Isaac gestured for them to go with her. Thomas trudged through the wet valley of sand, peering around the bend. Rose crouched over a red backpack. She pulled out chips and crackers and cookies.
"Where'd you get all this?" Minho said to her.
Rose climbed to her feet and chucked a packaged cookie at his head. "Oh, they're gifts. Go ahead and enjoy them." Loathe dripped from each syllable. In a gentler manner, she cupped a brownie into the little girl's outstretched palms. "Aqui tienes, mi mariposa," she crooned.
Minho picked up the cookie and tore it open. The others scrambled to collect the goods, yet Thomas stood his ground. He analyzed Rose rigidly, riding on a powerful urge to learn more. He accused,
"You work for the rebels."
Rose spun around. "Uh, no," she shot back. "I was living my best life until you crazies barged into it and took everything from me. You think this was my choice to be here? Mi mamá has no idea where I am. She doesn't know where her baby is." Rose cradled the little girl in her arms, visibly pained. She kissed the top of her head. "The deal was to keep my mouth shut and she'd stay safe. Can you honor at least that, Isaac?"
Isaac bowed his head in momentary shame, but he relocated his confidence and inched over to her. "She is safe. These subjects, they're not the problem anymore. I might've taken some roughhousing for the effort, but I'd say we have everything under control now."
Minho snickered. "Nah, this is the opposite of under control. Who gave you the food, Rose?"
Her pupils shifted from person to person, never once settling. Rose raised her foot above a chip bag and mercilessly stamped its contents to crumbs. Her explanation tore through them like an icicle.
"This food is a bargaining chip from WICKED. Isaac contacted me about the extended Trials with literal minutes to spare before my local park got raided for the Immune bounty. You wanna know what your rich saviors did, huh? They ripped us from a bench. They ripped my four-year-old sister from her mother." The whites of Rose's eyes burned red. She paced around the group fearsomely. "I tried to help you out, too. Isaac said to warn the subjects, so I did. I found a Group A boy in the giant courtyard place and I told him about the Endtime."
Thomas watched Minho physically condense, gasping as if he'd seen life after death and returned to tell the tale. He uttered before Rose could continue,
"Clint. Oh God, we forgot about Clint."
Frypan flinched. "No, he got left behind. The walls must've flattened him when they fell."
Minho lurched for him, shouting in a panic,
"No they didn't, you idiot! The collapsing walls weren't real, it was a shuckin' simulation! What happened to Clint?" He whirled toward Rose, more frazzled than ever. "He's short, kinda annoying—"
"Yeah, I'm aware. He told me his name," she grumbled. "The kid freaked out, and after we got out of the big maze, a bunch of guards showed up. They took Clint away and accused me of trying to sabotage the next trial. I denied it. I thought I was dead meat, but then they threatened me with Gabriela's life if I ever said a word about the Endtime to the Munies. They gave me this backpack, told me to hide it, and shipped me off through the Flat Trans. The guy in charge said I'd have a hard time getting much else to eat besides fish, and he promised I'd be paid after the Trial's termination. Like that's supposed to justify it."
Frypan puffed out an unsteady breath of air. He asked Rose,
"And Gabriela is your sister?"
She glowered at him. "Duh."
Muttering under his breath, Minho stomped around the curve of the ridge. When he passed Isaac, he pondered aloud,
"Wait, what makes Rose so special? Why warn this chick out of hundreds? If she's not an Intel or a rebel, what's the connection between you two?"
Isaac grimaced. "Childhood friends."
"I'd say acquaintances," Rose rebutted.
They squinted at each other, confusing Thomas even more. He allowed the prospect of Clint being alive to sink in. Granted, he'd never actually gotten to know the guy, but this was obviously big news for Minho and Frypan. They appeared shaken up, more so than if they had been told Clint was flat out dead. It sickened Thomas that a person's life in this world held a greater shock value than death. He wondered if his own death would amount to anything besides a couple discouraged grunts.
Aris came to stand next to Minho. "Clint could still be at the old complex."
Minho clucked his tongue. "You would know, traitor."
"You should've taken the bullet to the face!" Frypan barked at Aris. "Not Gally!"
"We're all upset right now. Let's simmer it down a notch," Thomas attempted to mediate, but the yells carried on.
"This whole time, I was right! He's a spy, and did you listen to me, Frypan?" Minho exclaimed. "No! Then Thomas got freaking stabbed! Did you listen to me about Aris, Brenda, Jorge or Teresa? No! You shanks never listen to me!"
Thomas mindlessly touched the site on his abdomen and sensed a warm prickle underneath the wrap. The medicine numbed most of the pain, but blood was leaking through the gauze and printing a stain on his new shirt. A sticky purplish liquid dampened his fingers.
"You don't even have the Flare, Frypan! You're just a slinthead!" Minho prattled on.
"Oh, I'm the slinthead? I'm the slinthead? You're the one who forgot about Clint!"
"Clint was supposed to be dead!"
"So was Teresa! That's no excuse!"
"Both of you, shut up!" Thomas boomed, jarring the Gladers into silence. His voice sounded loud. Scary. He didn't recognize it, yet it did its job. Everyone shut their mouths real fast. His hands trembled with adrenaline, so he slid them into his pockets. "I'm done hearing us go back and forth with the same arguments. A betrays B, C betrays D. I'm sick of it." He grinded his teeth together. "I propose that we all shut our holes, eat our crap, and cool it. Stop scaring the kid."
Everyone's attention centered on the crying toddler clutched in Rose's arms. Gabriela's skittishness put an instant end to the conflict. Minho parted his hair with his hands and turned a blushing cheek to her. Frypan shuffled his feet. Out of politeness, no one spoke again until Rose managed to soothe her sister.
"Anybody want my chips? I hate barbecue and misread the label," Isaac muttered. He shook the bag at Frypan, who snatched it.
Thomas gave up on asking questions. He perched onto a dry area of the sand and reached for a bag of trail mix, but Minho grabbed it first, issuing him a lame smirk. Only one of you makes it in the end. Thomas held his breath and gazed at the patterns of the pebbles below. He prayed that his emotions remained beneath the surface of his demeanor.
Minho didn't linger by him. "Can I see your Mark?" he asked of Isaac, leaning above him.
"Sure." Isaac rotated and pulled at his shirt collar. "I got it when—"
Aris's body snapped into a straight, pencil-like line. Emptiness filled his eyes. "Walk away from Isaac, or Aris dies," he droned.
"What kinda klunk is this?" Frypan vented. "Why's he sayin' that about himself?"
Minho forged ahead of Isaac to confront the hollow shell of a person. He spat,
"'Cause that's not Aris, genius. He's possessed like Gally was outside of the Maze."
"Walk away from Isaac, or Aris dies," Aris repeated lifelessly. Mechanically, his arms twitched upward and wrapped around his neck, preparing to squeeze.
Thomas had seen the threat played out enough times to assume that the Board meant business. Isaac appeared to know this too as he forced himself upright, becoming ill at ease. He replied in a strict, adultish voice,
"I'll go. You leave that boy alone, Paige. I know you hear me."
"Walk away from Isaac, or Aris dies." Aris's fingers clamped tightly around his throat, restricting the sentence from being fully audible. A soft wheeze filtered through his swiftly paling lips. He stood there stiff as a board, motionless while Thomas observed him in horror.
Minho raced to his side.
Isaac hurried around the ridge and darted across the beach. "Let him go, Paige!" he called back to them. "I'm leaving!" He paused, hesitant to abandon the scene, then vanished up the slope.
Frypan jumped around Aris and worked at tugging on his arms.
"What's happening?" Rose squeaked. She pressed against the rocky slant and hugged Gabriela close in her arms. "Is he okay? What's happening?"
Thomas discovered his strength at last and pivoted to help Minho and Frypan. He wormed into the middle of the three boys and lost himself in a sea of grappling hands and bulging red veins. Aris slid off his feet, choking for a breath. His fingers didn't loosen despite Isaac's compliance.
"Stop!" Thomas begged the invisible tech-gods of the sky. He hated them so much. He hated Teresa. Hated Paige. "Let him go! We did what you asked! Isaac left!"
In strangulated, husky segments, Aris whistled to them,
"Do not...interact...with the Walkers." Then his hands broke from his neck. He gulped hastily, one breath sucking in swifter than the last. Crimson-faced, he went limp on the ground and coughed. His eyes rolled up into his head.
"Oh, great," Minho snarled.
Frypan fumbled for Aris's pulse, blabbering,
"He's not dead, is he? That wasn't just him kicking the bucket?"
"No. He's still breathing." Thomas backed away from the body and adjusted the cuff on his shirt sleeve.
He felt strangely detached from the aftermath. His vision fixed on Rose, and he stepped over to her. She handled herself better than he'd predicted; not like his opinions meant much to her, anyway.
"Wherever you go, trouble follows." Her statement struck him coldly.
A grating sound drew Thomas's concentration back to Minho as he lugged Aris's body against the ridge. Panting, he said to Thomas,
"He's not waking up. Going to the rockbed is our best bet with the Box Gate accessible there. There's not a whole lot of other places to drag him in this shucking dome."
Rose swept a bang from her forehead, interjecting,
"I'm sorry, a dome? You're joking."
After a couple perplexed glances, Minho told her in an equally oblivious tone,
"You didn't know? How did you not know? This whole place is barred off by walls, chick."
Rose whispered something briskly in Spanish and strolled to the waterline of the ocean, leaving Gabriela alone for a moment. Slowly, she craned her neck toward the sky, mumbling more incoherent words before returning to her senses.
"Rose?" Frypan posed. "You okay?"
"Where are the walls?" she breathed. Her eyes sparkled a muddy hazel in the daylight. "Show me or I don't buy it."
Thomas recalled the dull pain in his side and decided he would rather go rest on the rockbed than take a stranger on the grand tour of the place. Abruptly, he asked,
"Minho, how about you take care of that? Me and Frypan can move Aris."
Yikes. Maybe he should have worded that better, because hauling a body seemed even worse for his wound. Minho balked at him. He glanced moodily at Rose and groaned,
"Why me? Ugh, fine. We'll swing by the Wall in the Woods."
Frypan humphed as he lifted Aris up by his waist. He grunted to Thomas,
"Help me out here, dude!"
Thomas rushed to his aid, grabbing the body by the legs. Together, they raised Aris upward as his midriff sank. He weighed more than a suitcase full of rocks. Thomas propped him up better and gave his spine some elevation with one hand. Holding the position strained him beyond belief, though. Beads of sweat formed on his skin.
"My best wishes go to carrying that ugly shank," Minho said with false sweetness. He sounded like he was beginning to favor his own task. "Make sure to drop him on the head as many times as possible."
"Are you gonna go already or keep yapping?" Frypan complained. He lost his grip and released Aris's torso. Thomas dropped his legs with a thump.
Minho pointed the way for Rose and Gabriela, content to respond with a smug half-grin. They jogged around the ridge wall, and soon, the shallow crevice was deserted to Thomas, Frypan and the body. Frypan placed his hands on his hips, examining Aris without pity. He walked around him in the mushy sand and proposed,
"New approach. The Med-jacks used to do it a certain way. You"—he uncomfortably sidled next to Thomas—"bend down, face away, and heft him up by the knees. I'll get him under the shoulders. It'll be easier on your injury."
They acknowledged each other awkwardly. Thomas replied,
"Go ahead, whatever works. I'm the know-it-all Greenbean, right? So this has gotta work if I agree." He crossed his arms.
Frypan frowned while kneeling over Aris's head. "Pardon me for not being a ray of sunshine lately, man. Everything's gone to klunk."
"Well," Thomas told him. He didn't finish the thought.
They seized their assigned body parts and hoisted Aris into the air, triggering the start of a long trek to the rockbed.
YOU ARE READING
The Immunity Illness
Science-FictionParadise. They had walked straight through a cold wall into paradise, where time remained perfectly still. Thomas's mind finally silenced itself of all things related to the trials, tests, and lies. The Cranks of his dreams became just that: dreams...
