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He’d hug her hard, squeezing her like his own personal teddy bear for comfort. And every time, she’d pat him on the back. He loved her so much it made his heart hurt. He’d squeeze her tighter, silently swearing he’d never let the crazies hurt her, looking forward to feeling the flat of her palm thumping him between his shoulder blades.
‘How can it snow, Mummy?’ Lizzy asked, her eyes drained of sleep and filled with a joy that pinched his heart. He reached down and tugged on her braid, hoping she knew just how much she made his miserable life worth living.
‘Stay here,’ Dad said carefully. ‘Stay with the children.’ Mum started to speak but stopped, looking down at her daughter and son, her priorities obvious. She pulled them into a hug, as if her arms could protect them, and the boy let the warmth of her body soothe him.
A long moment passed when no one moved, most of all Mum and Dad. They’d never move again. All eyes went to the two orphaned children. ‘Grab them both, dammit,’ one of the men finally said. ‘They can use the other one as a control subject.’ The way the man pointed at him, so casually, like he was finally settling on a random can of soup in the pantry. He would never forget it. He scrambled for Lizzy, pulled her into his arms. And the strangers took them away.
Stephen, Stephen, Stephen. My name is Stephen. He figured he had two things to hold on to: his memories and his name. Surely they couldn’t take the first away from him, but they were trying to steal the second. For two days they’d pressed him to accept his new name: Thomas. He’d refused, clinging desperately to the seven letters his own flesh and blood had chosen for him.
‘Once upon a time, I wasn’t such a jerk, trust me. The world, the people I work for’ – he gestured to nothing in particular all around him – ‘it’s all turned my heart into a small lump of black coal. Too bad for you.’
The man looked away and paused a long time, staring at the floor. ‘How could you hurt me?’ Stephen asked through his raw throat. ‘I’m just a little kid.’ Young or not, he understood how pathetic he sounded.
I’ll never forget, he told himself. I must never, never forget. And so, inside his mind, he chanted a familiar phrase, over and over and over. Though he couldn’t quite put a finger on it, something did seem different. Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. My name is Thomas.
He had a hard time speaking ever since the incident with Randall. He had a hard time sleeping, eating, and just about everything else, too. Only in the last few days had he started to get over it, little by little. Whenever a trace memory of his real name came forward in his mind, he pushed it away, not ever wanting to go through that torture again. Thomas worked just fine. It’d have to do.
Mr Glanville – a gruff, grey-toned man with barely any hair. Unless you counted his eyebrows. Those bushy things looked like they’d commandeered every follicle from the rest of his body.
Thomas closed his eyes and worked through the numbers. In this class, everything was done in his head – no devices, no writing. It strained his mind like nothing else, and he actually loved it.
Had he left the service of Thomas’s caretakers, racked with guilt for doing such things to a boy hardly old enough to start school? Thomas was just as happy to forget Randall for ever, though he still couldn’t help that spike of panic whenever a man in green scrubs turned a corner. Always, for just an instant, he thought it might be Randall again.
‘And today’s the best of all, right? Religious or not, everyone celebrates Christmas in one way or another. And hey, let’s face it, who’s been religious the last ten years? Except the Apocalyptics, anyway.’ The man fell silent for a moment, staring into space. Thomas had no idea what point the guy was trying to make, other than to depress the poor kid sitting in front of him.
Chancellor Anderson asked. ‘You’re ready to play a role in the important things we’re doing here?’ Thomas nodded. The chancellor tapped a finger on the desk a couple of times. ‘Fantastic. Then go on back to your room and get some rest. Big times ahead.’ Thomas felt a little rush of excitement, followed immediately by a shame he didn’t even understand.
‘Where’s Dr Paige?’ Thomas asked, a little crestfallen. As much as he sometimes hated the routine, disrupting it made him uncomfortable.
‘Okay.’ Thomas took a step towards the bathroom, when he heard a girl scream out in the hallway. He looked at Leavitt, who met his eyes. For a long moment they stood like that, waiting to see who’d act first. Thomas did. He was at the door in an instant. He threw it open and practically jumped into the hall, feeling Leavitt right on his tail.
He knelt down and stuck the needle in Thomas’s neck, compressed the syringe with his thumb. Before he passed out, Thomas looked at Teresa again, their eyes meeting for just a few precious seconds. The world had already started to blur when they dragged her away, but he clearly heard what she called out to him. ‘Someday we’ll be bigger.’
What had happened to him today? From the splitting headache to the overwhelming sense of déjà vu – it made him feel off-balance, scared to stand up for fear of tipping over. Like he wasn’t in tune with the spinning of the earth. He tried hard not to think of the worst possible answer. He tried not to think of the Flare.
McVoy stood up, then shook both Thomas’s and Teresa’s hands. ‘This will be a fun project. You’re becoming more a part of WICKED every day!’ She said it as if it were the biggest compliment she could give. As they left the conference room and headed back to their rooms, winding through the hallways, stairs and lifts of the complex, McVoy’s parting words echoed through Thomas’s mind. A part of WICKED. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
He looked at his door. It was closed, as always. And for as long as he could remember, it automatically locked upon closing. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d tried it. For months, maybe even a year or two, he’d just always assumed it was locked and didn’t bother. Well, now he had a reason to give it a shot. He rolled out of bed and went to the door. Slowly, he reached out, as if it might electrocute him upon touch. He grabbed the handle and turned. The door popped open. Thomas pushed it closed and ran back to his bed, his heart thumping in his ears. He looked around, wondered about
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He stared at the door, pretending, even to himself, that what would happen next was actually up for debate. It wasn’t, and he knew it. Something would have to strike him dead to prevent him from exploring.
Something clicked and then the door swung several inches towards him. At first he didn’t understand what had happened – he actually looked down at his hands to see if they’d acted on their own and turned the handle. But they were at his sides, palms sweaty. No, someone had opened the door from the other side. He leaned his head around the edge of the frame and his heart leaped when he saw a complete stranger staring back at him. A boy about his age. No, not a stranger. The kid just looked different because his blond hair wasn’t covered with a bandage and he was a little older. ‘Hey, I’m Newt,’
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Who needed a maze when their very complex served as one? Thomas expected Dr Leavitt or someone worse to pop out at any minute, catching them in the act. Things had been looking up that day – he really didn’t want to ruin it. But then again, he was having the time of his life. It felt good to take a risk, step out on a ledge.
‘You two seem cooler than I thought,’ Minho said as he stepped back. ‘I was expecting a couple of greasy-haired, buck-toothed weirdos quoting Shakespeare and writing out maths problems on your hands. You actually look half normal!’
Newt bent down and opened the little door, then crawled through. Thomas gave Alby a questioning look, and Alby leaned in to whisper something in his ear. ‘This is sort of like a ritual for us.’ Teresa had come close so that she could hear too. ‘Newt thinks up reasons to make it happen. See, they have his little sister over there, and when he says he wants to go see her …Well, we learned months ago that you better just go along with it or there’ll be hell to pay. You got me? Family, man. It’s something most of us don’t have any more. Come on.’
Thomas saw a girl curled up under a blanket, her arms wrapped around a pillow, dark hair spilling out. ‘Yeah. That your sister?’ Newt looked at him in surprise. ‘That’s right. Her name’s Lizzy.’ A long pause, during which his head sank until it rested against the window. ‘At least, it used to be. They may think they have us all brainwashed with our new names, but no way I’ll ever forget hers.’
‘Can you believe that? They renamed her Sonya.’ He coughed. Or sobbed. Something. His eyes glistened in the gloom. ‘And WICKED’s so mean about it. They won’t let me see her, and I’ve had to pretend that I’ve forgotten it all or they … punish me.’ Thomas was stunned. For the first time since the man named Randall had hurt him, he felt a sudden and shocking anger towards the people behind it all. Towards WICKED. Here stood a boy, a few dozen feet from his own sister, and he couldn’t even pretend to know her.
‘I did as they asked, I stopped using my real name,’ Newt continued. ‘I think I was one of the last holdouts. But hers I’ll never forget. They’ll have to kill me first.’
Newt stood up straight and wiped the tears from his eyes. He appeared to feel no shame whatsoever at letting anyone see him cry.
They searched the administrative offices on the third night, even catching a man and woman lingering behind after work hours for some lovey-dovey private time. Alby barely stopped Minho in time from jumping out and scaring the poor couple to death. Thomas almost wished he’d let it happen.
‘Hey, people,’ Minho said, holding a hand up as if to say slow down. ‘You think we’re morons? Would we have gone out there fifteen times if we’d lost a finger to a Crank every time or had our privates zapped by radiation? Come on, now.’ Newt waggled his fingers in front of Thomas’s face. ‘Still got ’em all. And I’m not too worried about down under just yet.’ A laugh exploded out of Thomas’s mouth that sent spray everywhere.
‘Let’s show them the woods,’ Minho said. ‘Maybe we’ll get lucky and see a deer. And maybe it’ll let us pet it.’ Thomas had the feeling he’d never be sure whether Minho was joking or not. He used the exact same tone – his words tinged with amusement – no matter what came out of his mouth.
He pointed at Newt. ‘That one’s not immune – get him back to his room and call a doctor in to test him. Pronto!’ As one of the guards moved towards Newt, Randall sighed loudly, then waved a hand towards Thomas and the others. ‘Take the rest of them to the Crank pits.’
The third guard stayed at the building, Newt by his side, looking at the ground, his face unreadable. Thomas looked for Randall, but the man was on the phone, several yards from his friend. Thomas lost sight of them as they turned a corner, but he couldn’t shake what Randall had said about Newt – that he wasn’t immune. It didn’t hit Thomas until that moment just how enormous the implications of that were. And then, why was Newt here if he wasn’t a Munie?
‘This is spooky,’ Minho spoke quietly, though it seemed loud in the still darkness. ‘Alby, hold my hand.’ ‘Dude, chill,’ was Alby’s response.
He looked nothing like the Cranks behind the bars, but he also didn’t appear to be well. His blond hair was dirty and uncombed, his clothes rumpled, his eyes bloodshot. But he had no wounds that Thomas could see, and he stood straight and still, calm. The strangest thing of all, though, was that he held a small chalkboard in the crook of one arm. Without speaking, he pulled it out and used the piece of chalk in his other hand to write on it. Then he held it up for the group to read. The three words seemed to glow in the dim light:
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.
‘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?’
‘What’s up, Tommy?’ Newt exclaimed, his face filled with genuine happiness at the pleasant surprise that’d been sprung on him. Thomas couldn’t remember exactly how long it’d been since the last time he’d seen Newt. ‘You look bloody fantastic for three in the morning.’
‘I’m Chuck. I just got here.’ Alby nodded. ‘Cool, man. They’ll probably move you into the barracks with us soon. It’ll be fun, don’t worry. This place is all fun and games.’ Thomas had never heard such kind lies.
Chuck’s demeanour had gone from blurry eyes and a tear-streaked face to the joy and wonder of a kid at a birthday party. And that made Thomas feel good.
‘Tommy?’ It was Newt, breaking him out of his thoughts. ‘I can see your wheels spinnin’ up there.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Care to share?’
‘So WICKED isn’t bad?’ Chuck asked, perking up. There was so much hope in the boy’s voice that it hurt Thomas a little.
‘You make it sound like a bloody holiday,’ Newt murmured. ‘It could be a lot worse,’ Thomas countered. ‘Not to mention the small fact that we’re trying to help save the entire human race.’ ‘And that means you, Newt,’ Alby added. ‘I don’t wanna watch you go all Crank on me someday.’ That sobered Newt right up.
And it was always the same group: Alby, Minho, Newt, Thomas, Teresa. And sometimes little Chuck. He’d become their favourite. He was goofy, innocent and gullible, and he took all their jokes in his stride. He’d become like the little brother they’d lost or, in Thomas’s case, never had in the first place.
One day, maybe with just a few years of intense research and testing, WICKED would have its cure. And Thomas could always say he’d been a big part of it. He’d started telling himself this a lot. It was easy, and it made him feel better.
Chuck didn’t pause for a second. He continued to eat as if a cure for the Flare might depend on it.
Still, Gally seemed … pathetic somehow. His eyes, maybe. If you looked into his eyes, you could tell that something had broken inside him a long time ago.
‘And this will help you how?’ Alby pressed, making it clear how he felt about an escape plan. ‘You going to push Minho to the woods in a wheelbarrow?’ Newt sniggered, then caught himself. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. Gally, instead of getting offended, smiled right along. ‘If anyone gets to be pushed around in a wheelbarrow, it’s gonna be me. Minho owes me.’
Thomas looked closer and felt his heart drop. It showed Minho in a small room, strapped to a chair – the ropes digging into his skin – his face bloodied and bruised. He stared straight at the camera, unwavering, and his look of resolve made Thomas feel a little proud. And a little ashamed. He hadn’t wanted Minho to run and doubted he’d actually try.
