Once again, he woke to a blinding white light—this one shining directly into his eyes from above. He
knew immediately it wasn’t the sun—it was different. Plus, it shone from only a short distance away.
Even as he clenched his eyes shut again, the afterimage of a bulb floated across the darkness.
He heard voices—more like whispers. He couldn’t understand a word. Too soft, just out-of-reach
enough that they were impossible to decipher.
He heard the click and clack of metal against metal. Small sounds, and the first thing he thought of was
medical instruments. Scalpels and those little rods with mirrors on the end. These images swam up from
the murkiness of his memory bank, and combining them with the light, he knew.
He’d been taken to a hospital. A hospital. The last thing he could ever imagine existing anywhere in the
Scorch. Or had he been taken away? Far away? Through a Flat Trans, maybe?
A shadow crossed the light, and Thomas opened his eyes. Someone was looking down at him, dressed
in the same ridiculous outfit as those who’d brought him here. The gas mask, or whatever it was. Big
goggles. Behind the protective glass, he saw dark eyes focused on him. A woman’s eyes, though he didn’t
know how he could tell.
“Can you hear me?” she asked. Yes, a woman, even though the mask muffled her voice.
Thomas tried to nod, didn’t know if he actually did or not.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” She’d pulled her head back a bit and looked away, which made
Thomas think she hadn’t meant that comment for him. “How’d a working gun get in the city? You have any
idea the amount of rust and gunk must’ve been on that bullet? Not to mention the germs.”
She sounded very angry.
A man replied. “Just get on with it. We have to send him back. Quickly.”
Thomas barely had time to process what they were saying. A new pain blossomed in his shoulder,
unbearable.
He passed out for the umpteenth time.
Awake again.
Something was off. He couldn’t tell what. The same light shone from the same spot above; he looked to
the side this time instead of closing his eyes. He could see better, focus more. Silver squares of ceiling
tile, a steel contraption with all kinds of dials and switches and monitors. None of it made sense.
Then it hit him. Hit him with such shock and wonder that he scarcely believed it could be true.
He felt no pain. None. Nothing at all.
No people stood around him. No crazy green alien suits, no goggles, no one sticking scalpels in his
shoulder. He seemed to be alone, and the absence of pain was pure ecstasy. He didn’t know it was
possible to feel this good.
It wasn’t. Had to be a drug.
He dozed off.
* * *
He stirred at the sound of soft voices, though it came through the haze of his drugged stupor.
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.”
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