The days when they’d had basement get-togethers were long, long, long past. Surely some cosmic catastrophe had forever shifted the normal passing of time, stretching it out.
Thomas lay in his bed that night, his uneaten dinner sitting on the desk. He’d barely had a bite for hours, and his stomach had made sure to leave nothing inside. He was empty in every way.
He was also exhausted, yet unable to fall asleep. Instead, he closed his eyes, listened to himself breathe.
Something buzzed in his head.
He sat up, looking around the room. He’d heard…or more like…felt…a buzz somewhere deep in the pounding ache within his skull that had been plaguing him all day. He shook his head, pressed his fingers against his temples. He stood up to call Dr. Paige, to ask for something to knock him out for the night, when the buzz came back, this time stronger.
He fell to the bed, rolled into a ball, and held his hands over both sides of his head. The buzz didn’t hurt, really. It was just so strange, so foreign. What ridiculous test had WICKED come up with now?
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Louder and stronger each time. It felt like an invasion of his body; it scared him, made him think of Cranks. Going crazy. Seeing and hearing things that weren’t there.
Maybe they lied to us, he thought. Maybe we’re not immune. They’d said Newt wasn’t. Could it be possible—
BUZZ.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, his hands still glued to the sides of his head, as if that could do anything to help. Dr. Paige. He had to call Dr. Paige.
Thomas.
This time it was a voice. But at the same time, not a voice. A vibration, a rattling of his mind, a disturbance that felt like the buzzing had formed into a solid word. He slowly stood up, hands out for balance.
Thomas, this is Teresa.
He was going crazy. He was actually going crazy. It was the oldest and most common symptom—hearing voices in your head.
“Uh…,” he said aloud.
Is this working? Is this working?
The last word landed between his eyes like a thunderbolt. The pain knocked his legs out from under him and he collapsed onto the floor. Never had the world felt so fluid beneath him, as if nothing solid existed, no form, no substance.
“Teresa?” he asked aloud, disoriented. “Teresa?”
No answer. Of course there was no answer. He’d gone crazy. He had the Flare; he’d be a Crank soon. His life was over.
Listen to me, the voice came again, the series of words like a horse galloping in his mind. If you can hear me, pound on your door. I’ll be able to hear it.
Thomas pulled himself to his knees. He supposed he had nothing left to lose, so, the world swimming around him, he crawled across his room toward the door. As strange as it sounded, the odd voice in his head was more like a presence, and he didn’t know how to explain it, but it felt like Teresa.
He made it to the door, tall as a mountain as he knelt before it.
Thomas? came the voice. Thomas, please. Please tell me this works. It’s taken me months to figure it out. If you can hear me, pound on your door!
She shouted the last part, another series of thunks in his skull that hurt like an ice pick.
He steadied himself, raised his hands to rest on the door’s surface, then squeezed his fingers into fists. What you’re about to do, he told himself, just might be the last nail in your Flare coffin. If you’re wrong, you’ll know you’re truly crazy.
The voice again. Teresa.
Thomas? Thomas? Make the sound.
He did it. He reared back with both fists, then banged them against the door, beat it like it might be the last barrier to his freedom. In for a penny, in for a pound. He’d read that in one of those classics they’d given him. For a solid ten seconds, he threw his fists forward onto the hard surface until his knuckles ached and the pain shimmied up both arms.
Then he collapsed to the floor again, struggling to catch his breath. He heard shouts down the hall, footsteps, someone coming to check on him. But before anyone arrived, one last sentence surfaced in his mind.
Good, got it, Teresa said, a sense of excitement somehow attached to her voice. I’ll teach you how to do this later.
And then she was gone. Not just her voice, but her presence as well. Gone. Like an extinguished light.
The door swung open and Dr. Paige stood there.
“What in the world’s come over you?” she asked.
225.05.12 | 7:44 p.m.
The next day passed in agony for Thomas. He could barely wait to see Teresa in the flesh—for just ten minutes. Five minutes. All he needed was enough time to look her in the eyes and ask her. Was it you? He’d know in an instant, and he needed the confirmation desperately. As he ate breakfast, had a checkup, went from class to class, the same question ran through his mind.
Am I crazy?
He’d even tried to ask Dr. Paige about his fears when she’d first retrieved him that morning.
“So how do you know I’m immune?” he’d asked her, watching her expression carefully as she answered.
“It’s fairly straightforward,” she replied easily, walking next to him down the hallway. “There are very specific markers in your blood makeup, DNA, and cerebrospinal fluid that are consistent among all those who are immune. The markers are missing in those who are not immune. It took a lot of study to get to that point, but it’s solid now.”
He considered that. It certainly sounded like she was telling the truth.
“Also,” she added, “it’s doubly confirmed in someone like you and the other immune subjects we’ve gathered.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we can verify with brain scans that the virus itself has taken hold inside you, that it’s made a home for itself. And yet it has no effect whatsoever on your physical matter, your mental capacity, your bodily functions. And you’ve had the virus for years, with no change. Unless it’s some sort of massive mutation of the virus—which our studies have shown no evidence of—then we can say with almost certain scientific and medical accuracy that you’re immune.”
He nodded, fairly confident she was being honest with him. “So if I started showing symptoms of the Flare, say, tomorrow, how shocked would you be? On a scale of one to ten?”
She looked over at him. “Ten, Thomas. I’d be beyond shocked. As shocked as if you sprouted a third ear. What’s all this about?”
He stopped in the hallway and faced her. “Dr. Paige. Do you swear, swear on your own life, that I’m immune? That this isn’t some kind of…I don’t know, some kind of test? I know you guys are really fond of tests. How do I know I’m not like Newt? Not immune?”
Dr. Paige gave him that smile—that smile that always made him feel a little better. “I swear to you, Thomas. I swear on the graves of the countless loved ones who have died…I swear that I’ve never lied to you. You’re as immune as science and medicine can possibly conclude. And if there was any chance of anything endangering your life, I wouldn’t allow it.”
He stared into her eyes. He found that he truly believed her, and that made him feel warm inside—as if a little piece of the wall he’d built up to protect himself had crumbled away.
“Why are you asking me these things?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
He almost told her the truth. That he’d heard a voice inside his head. He almost told her.
“Dreams,” he answered. “I keep having these dreams that I go crazy. And the worst part is that I’m not even aware it’s happened. Do any of the Cranks actually know that they’ve lost their minds? How do we know we’re not Cranks?”
She nodded, as if that was a completely valid question. “That sounds like something for your philosophy class. Next month, I believe.”
She’d started walking again, and the conversation was over.
—
Thomas sat in his room thinking over the morning’s conversation with Dr. Paige once more. Ever since the wake-up, he’
d hoped that Teresa would talk to him again, while at the same time hoping she didn’t. Maybe that in itself was another sign he’d lost his mind to infection.
But the more he thought about it, the more he believed Dr. Paige. She was either sincere or the best actress the world had ever known. Finally Thomas was too tired to worry anymore, and he turned off his lights and hoped sleep would beat the odds and take him away.
It was only an hour or so later, just when he’d begun dozing off, that Teresa spoke to him again.
Thomas, are you there?
It didn’t shock him like it had the first time. This time there was no buzzing, and on some level he’d been expecting it, so it wasn’t as disorienting. Even so, any trace of sleep vanished at her words and he sat up, got out of bed, went over to sit at his desk.
“I’m here,” he said aloud, once again feeling like an idiot for doing so. He had absolutely no idea how to respond to her with his mind.
I can feel you trying to answer, she said. The implants they put in our heads—I’ve been trying to figure out what’s felt different since they did it, and as soon as I pressed through to make contact to you, it all clicked.
Thomas sat there, nodding to himself like a dummy. It didn’t escape him how strange it was that it already felt somewhat normal to have a girl speaking to him telepathically.
You have to focus, Teresa continued. Probe your mind to find the foreign object, then focus on it. Press through it. You won’t know what I’m talking about until you try.
Her words came in a rush now, no longer painful but still disorienting.
“Okay,” he said, knowing she couldn’t hear him.
Try it as you go to sleep tonight, she said. I’ll contact you every night until I hear back. Don’t give up!
He could sense the weight she put on the last three words. The importance of what she was telling him.
“Okay,” he said again. Then, confident he’d heard the last from her, he lay back down in bed and started tinkering with his own mind.
—
For several days and nights he worked at it, and it was the most frustrating thing he’d ever done. All he had at his disposal were mental tools, nothing physical. Maybe if he could take a scalpel and open his own head up, it would’ve been easier to pick and probe until he found something like a huge old-school light switch that needed flipping. But no, he had to close his eyes and search with fingers that only existed in his own imagination.
Once he let go of thinking about things in such a black-and-white manner, he was able to start seeing his own thoughts and conscience as things he could mentally manipulate. That was when he started making progress. He let his thoughts disappear and focused on nothing, until suddenly it was clear—there was an area that didn’t seem to belong. And then he pressed on, working against it and thinking the one word he wanted to send: Teresa.
Then finally one night he felt more than heard Teresa receive his message. It was as if he’d poked her with a cattle prod.
He whooped, lying in bed, knowing he was close. Hoping he hadn’t hurt her too much.
Keep going, she’d said in his mind. You’re almost there. And next time, try not to electrocute my eyeballs.
He had no idea what that meant, but he smiled all the same.
And kept trying.
226.03.09 | 8:12 p.m.
I can’t fall asleep, Thomas said to Teresa. Almost a year had passed since he’d finally mastered the implanted telepathy.
Maybe that’s because it’s barely past eight o’clock, she responded. And last time I checked you’re not a seventy-year-old man.
Hey, I like my beauty sleep. How do you think I maintain this fine specimen of a face?
She snorted. It felt similar to those buzzes she’d communicated when she’d first spoken to him this way. Yeah, I swoon every time I see you.
Which is never.
Exactly.
There was a long pause, but the great thing about their trick was that even when neither one of them spoke, whatever connection they had in their minds made them feel the other’s presence. After months and months of practice, he could almost believe that she was in the room with him. He craved it every night, and missed it whenever he was idle during the day. Whenever he happened to have a spare minute.
How’s the plan coming along? he finally asked, even though he knew it would annoy her. He almost enjoyed asking her the same thing every night for weeks just because it annoyed her. But this time he didn’t get the usual irritated response.
I think I figured it out, she said.
Thomas sat up. Really?
No, not really. Go get your beauty sleep.
Thomas just rolled his eyes. He could sense that Teresa got his response.
—
Even though Thomas’s and Teresa’s doors had remained unlocked, Thomas knew they were being observed, and that they were still feeling the aftermath of their trip outside. They’d tried to sneak out to meet their friends a few times since that night, but the moment they left their rooms a guard would appear and kindly but firmly tell them to “Please go back. It’s for your own good.” Always, everything was for their own good.
And even though they didn’t have the best gourmet chef in the world, food was one of the few things Thomas looked forward to in life. At the very least, WICKED considered quantity more important than quality, and that was just fine with Thomas. Growing like crazy, he was always hungry.
But maybe he’d have more than food to get excited about very soon.
Teresa, learning more and more about computers and information systems—their studies track had been diverging lately, becoming more specialized—had been told that the physical construction of the mazes was almost complete and WICKED would soon be ready for their help with things like programming the false sky and testing the optical-illusion systems. Aris and Rachel, two people they still hadn’t met, were also on the work schedule.
Teresa had a knack for the computer systems side of things, so that was where most of her training took place. And she was much, much better at it than they knew.
Much better.
—
We can do it, she said one morning, waking him up from a dead sleep.
Thomas rubbed his eyes groggily, not bothering to ask her what she meant. She’d tell him soon enough. She always did.
I know the security camera system like the back of my hand now. I’ve cued up all the recordings we need to loop for the night, then backtracked and erased my movements. It’s all set up.
Thomas was totally awake in an instant. His excitement made him almost laugh with happiness, but he was also scared to death. Their punishment the last time they were caught out of their rooms—the Crank pits—still haunted him, but after so long without his friends, he was desperate to try anything.
Are you sure we won’t get caught? he asked.
Very sure. I know where the guards are stationed. Everyone else will be asleep. And the lighting at night is so low that it will be really hard for someone to notice the loops. We’ll be okay.
One hundred percent okay?
Ninety-nine.
Good enough for me.
Then we go exploring tonight.
—
Open your door in twenty seconds, she told him just after midnight. I want to be in your room as fast as possible.
Thomas did exactly as she instructed, and less than half a minute later she joined him inside his quarters. It was the first time someone other than a WICKED employee had gone past his door. He surprised her—and himself—by pulling her into a fierce hug, squeezing her like she’d disappear if he let go. Thankfully, she returned the effort just as strongly.
Man, it’s good to see you, he said, still speaking with his mind, he’d grown so used to it.
She responded by hugging him even tighter.
Eventually, sadly, they let go. He sat on the bed and she sat at his desk.
“Let’s give it a few minutes, make sure the first loop
is working,” Teresa said to him, smiling with anticipation. He’d never seen her so full of energy and excitement.
“What will we do if they catch us?” Thomas asked, relieved to use his real voice with her again. “This might set us back. I mean, we’ll be working more on the mazes and stuff. Are we sure we want to risk it? What if they take it away?”
He didn’t know why he bothered. Teresa answered only by rolling her eyes. They were going to explore and that was that.
After a few minutes of silence, Teresa spoke into his mind.
Let’s go, she said. And let’s stick to the telepathy just in case. The video will work great, but who knows who might hear us if we’re talking out loud. We can only speak if we run into our friends, and then only whisper. Sound good?
Sounds like a plan, he replied.
They opened the door to his room, looked both ways, then went for it.
I’ve got it all timed, Teresa said. When I say we have to leave for the next area, no arguing. Or else someone is going to catch us when the loops run out.
Thomas merely nodded, and then they were running, his chest on fire.
A few turns, a trip through the elevator, a few more turns, always pausing to peek around corners, make sure no one was wandering the halls.
Their first stop was the sector of Group B. The goal was to meet Aris and Rachel—they had placards on their doors just like Thomas’s and Teresa’s. But when Teresa knocked on Aris’s door, there was no answer. They tried Rachel’s. Again, no response.
Teresa spoke with their special ability. These guys are either heavy sleepers, extremely obedient, or they’re out breaking the rules just like us.
Thomas nodded. Oh well. Should we go say hi to Newt and them now?
Teresa nodded and he took the lead, winding through the halls and stairways, glad for the dimmed lighting. Teresa communicated the pattern she’d set up with the camera loops to figure out the best route, and where to stop and wait. Finally they turned the last corner before the Group A sector and stopped dead. Thomas sucked in a breath. There was a young boy in the hall; he had to be only seven or eight years old, and was a little on the pudgy side. He sat with his back against the wall, arms wrapped around his knees. Tears covered his face. When he saw Thomas and Teresa, he went as pale as the moon and jumped to his feet.