Somehow he knew enough to keep his eyes shut, see if he could learn anything about the people who'd taken him. The people who'd evidently fixed him up and rid his body of the infection.
A man was talking. "Are we sure this doesn't screw anything up?"
"I'm positive." This from a woman. "Well, as positive as I can be. If anything, it may stimulate a pattern in the killzone that we hadn't expected. A bonus, possibly? I can't imagine it leading him or anyone else in a direction that would prevent the other patterns we're looking for."
"Dear God above, I hope you're right," the man responded.
Another woman spoke, her voice high, almost crystalline. "How many of the ones left do you think are still viable Candidates?" Thomas sensed the capital letter in that word―Candidates. Confused, he tried to remain still, listen.
"We're down to four or five," the first woman answered. "Thomas here is by far our greatest hope. He responds really sharply to the Variables. Wait, I think I just saw his eyes move."
Thomas froze, tried to stare straight ahead into the darkness of his eyelids. It was hard, but he forced himself to breathe evenly, as if asleep. He didn't know exactly what these people were talking about, but he desperately wanted to hear more. Knew he needed to hear more.
"Who cares if he's listening?" the man asked. "He couldn't possibly understand enough to affect his responses one way or the other. It'll do him good to know we made a huge exception to get that infection out of him. That WICKED will do what it has to when necessary."
The high-pitched-voice lady laughed, one of the most pleasant sounds Thomas had ever heard. "If you're listening, Thomas, don't get too excited. We're about to dump you right back where we took you from."
The drugs coursing through Thomas's veins seemed to surge, and he felt himself fading into bliss. He tried to open his eyes, but couldn't. Before he drifted off he did hear one last thing, from the first woman. Something very odd.
"It's what you would've wanted us to do."
CHAPTER 42
The mysterious people were true to their word.
The next time Thomas woke up, he was hanging in the air, strung tightly to a canvas litter with handles, swaying back and forth. A large rope attached to a ring of blue metal held him as he was lowered from something huge, the whole time accompanied by the same explosion of hums and heavy thumps that he'd heard when they'd come to get him. He gripped the sides of the litter, terrified.
Finally, he felt a soft bump, and then a million faces appeared around him. Minho, Newt, Jorge, Brenda, Frypan, Aris, the other Gladers. The rope holding him detached and sprang up into the air. Then, almost instantaneously, the vessel from which he'd been lowered vaulted away, disappearing into the brilliance of the sun directly overhead. The sounds of its engines faded, and soon it was gone.
Then everyone spoke at once.
"What was that all about?"
"Are you okay?"
"What'd they do to you?"
"Who was that?"
"Have fun in the Berg?"
"How's your shoulder?"
Thomas ignored it all and tried to get up, but realized that the ropes holding him to the litter still bound him tightly to it. He found Minho with his eyes. "A little help here?"
As Minho and a couple of others worked on untying him, Thomas had a disturbing thought. The people from WICKED had shown up to save him pretty quickly. From what they'd said, it was something they hadn't planned on, but they'd done it anyway. Which meant they were watching and could swoop in to save them whenever they wanted to.
But they hadn't until now. How many people had died in the last few days while WICKED stood by and watched? And why did that change for Thomas, just because he'd been shot by a rusty bullet?
It was too much to think about.
Once freed, he got to his feet and stretched out his muscles, refusing to acknowledge the second volley of questions flung his way. The day was hot, brutally hot, and as he stretched, he realized that he felt no pain other than the slightest of aches in his shoulder. He looked down to see that he was wearing fresh clothes, and that there was the bulge of a bandage under the left sleeve of his shirt. But his thoughts immediately went to something else.
"What are you guys doing out in the open? Your skin is gonna bake!"
Minho didn't answer, just pointed at something behind him, and Thomas looked to see a very shabby hut. It was made out of dry wood that seemed like it might crumble to pure dust at any second, but it was big enough to provide shelter for everyone there.
"We better get back under that thing," Minho said. Thomas realized that they must've run out just to see him delivered from the huge flying ... Berg? Jorge had called it a Berg.
The group trekked over to the shelter; Thomas told them a dozen times that he'd explain everything from beginning to end once they were settled. Brenda found him, walked right next to him. But she didn't offer her hand, and Thomas felt an uneasy relief. She also didn't say anything, and neither did he.
The miserable city of the Cranks lay a few miles distant, huddling in all its decay and madness to the south. No sign of the infected people anywhere. To the north, the mountains loomed now, only a day or so away. Craggy and lifeless, they sloped up higher and higher until they ended in jagged brown peaks. Harsh cuts in the rock made the whole range appear as though a giant had hacked at it with a massive axe for days and days, letting out all its giant frustration.
They reached the shelter, the wood dry as rotted bone. It looked as if it had stood there for a hundred years―maybe built by a farmer in the days before the world was ravaged. How it had withstood everything was a complete mystery. But one flick of a match and the thing would probably burn down in three seconds.