Thomas looked at Aris—olive skin, brown hair, eyes sharp with awareness—then Rachel—dark skin, tightly curled hair, smiling. Nothing stood out about them, but they were instantly likable. Their faces were kind, and they had none of the arrogance or haughtiness that Thomas would have expected.
“Now,” Chancellor Anderson continued, “it’s been ten years since the first inkling of WICKED was conceived by John Michael, and we’ve come a long way in our research since we began gathering those who are immune to the Flare. The progress in those first years was slow, of course. Trying to understand the disease itself, testing our subjects to ensure that they were actually immune, learning about the virus and how it interacts with your bodies and your brains. Slow but steady. Not a year has passed when we didn’t have some kind of significant achievement, and I’d say that’s better than anyone could have hoped for.”
Ten years, Thomas thought. That seemed like such a long, long time to him. And they obviously weren’t close to a solution, or they wouldn’t be bothering with this whole maze thing.
“Thomas?” the chancellor said. “You have the biggest look of doubt on your face I think I’ve ever seen.” He offered another one of those goofy smiles.
“Oh…um…” Thomas shifted in his chair. “No, I just…it seems like such a long time you guys have been working on this. I don’t know. I guess it just hit me that it’s not going so well.”
Anderson nodded, lips pinched as if it were a reasonable observation. “Dr. Leavitt, you want to address that?”
The bald man seemed eager to do so. “Read your history, son. I challenge you to find any kind of virus throughout the last few hundred years that was cured within several decades, much less one. Anything from the common cold to Ebola to HIV to the early stages of certain types of cancer. It’s a long, long, long process. And those people didn’t have a half-destroyed world with mind-sick Cranks running around. The fact that we’ve had the patience and endurance to work at this with a long-term strategy is pretty much a miracle. But even if there’s only ten percent of the population left by the time we do find a cure, at least we’ll have saved the human race from extinction.”
“What about Munies?” Aris asked. “Could the human race continue if only they survive?”
Dr. Leavitt scoffed, then seemed embarrassed that he’d done so. “How many of those are going to survive a world full of Cranks?”
I really don’t like him, Teresa spoke to Thomas.
Yeah, me neither.
“Dr. Leavitt’s points are well made,” Anderson said. “We’ve done our best to gather the smartest people, the most advanced resources, and the best subjects, then ensured our protection from the outside world. We’ve planned for a long haul since we first began, and we don’t plan to stop until an answer to this sickness is in our hands and ready to present to the world. And it should be no surprise to the candidates who are here today that we’ve been testing and running trials as often as possible since day one. Am I right?”
Thomas nodded, even though he thought it was an odd question to ask the very people they were testing. In fact, the whole thing—having them there in the first place—just seemed weird. Who knew, maybe that in itself was some kind of test. One of the Variables they always talked about.
“The Maze Trials are very close to beginning,” Anderson continued. “And we’ve been prepping that for some time. But the progress we’ve made in the last few years toward our ultimate blueprint of the killzone…” He struggled to find the right words. “I think we’ve laid a solid foundation through the smaller tests and trials we’ve accomplished with our subjects so far. The chances are slim, but maybe we’ll have a blueprint after the Maze Trials. Who knows? Maybe we can avoid a Phase Two or Three. I’m feeling optimistic today.”
He paused, his gaze unfocused, as if his mind were several years in the future, imagining the perfect ending to what he’d devoted his entire life to. Next to Thomas, Dr. Paige started clapping. Slowly at first, until others joined in. Soon the entire room was clapping, the sound of it even getting Thomas a little pumped up. He felt ridiculous.
Chancellor Anderson held up his hands and the clapping slowed to a stop. “All right, all right. That applause, of course, is for all of us. And for all those subjects in Groups A and B. I really do feel like we’re on the right path. I really do.” He smiled, seemed to gather himself, then let out a big breath. “Okay, it’s time to get to work. We’re a month or two—four at most—from sending our first people into the mazes.”
Another one of his dramatic pauses—Thomas figured the man deserved a little moment in the spotlight after ten years of work—then he really began the meeting.
“The trials are upon us, folks. Let’s dig in.”
229.06.12 | 6:10 p.m.
That night was the biggest change so far in Thomas’s life. From that point on, Thomas and Teresa would be fully integrated with the other subjects of Group A, including meals, classes, and recreation time. It looked like slinking around would no longer be necessary.
Of course, that wasn’t the greatest gift in the world, because most of Thomas’s friends were slated to enter the maze with the very first group, sometime within the next few months.
Ramirez, of all people, escorted Thomas and Teresa to their first dinner in the cafeteria, where all the other kids had been eating for years. When they entered the wide room—all stainless-steel serving locations and long plastic tables and cookie-cutter chairs—the place went silent, every eye trained on the newcomers.