It took over an hour of staring into the dark, but Thomas eventually fell asleep. And when he did, his
dreams were a slew of scattered images and memories.
A woman, sitting at a table, smiling as she stares across the wood surface, directly into his eyes. As he
watches her she picks up a cup of steaming liquid and takes a tentative sip. Another smile. Then she says,
“Eat your cereal, now. That’s a good boy.” It’s his mom, with her kind face, her love for him evident in
every crease of her skin as she grins. She doesn’t stop watching over him until he eats the last bite, and
she takes his bowl over to the sink after tousling his hair.
Then he’s on the carpeted floor of a small room, playing with silvery blocks that seem to fuse together
as he builds a huge castle. His mom is sitting on a chair in the corner, crying. Thomas knows instantly
why. His dad has been diagnosed with the Flare, is already showing signs of it. This leaves no doubt that
his mom also has the disease, or will soon. The dreaming Thomas knows that it won’t be long before
doctors realize his younger self has the virus but is immune to its effects. By then they’d developed the
test that recognizes it.
Next he’s riding his bike on a hot day. Heat’s rising from the pavement, just weeds on both sides of the
street, where there used to be grass. He has a smile on his sweaty face. His mom watches nearby, and he
can see that she’s savoring every moment. They head to a nearby pond. The water is stagnant and foulsmelling.
She gathers rocks for him to toss into the murky depths. At first he throws them as far as
possible; then he tries to skip them the way his dad showed him last summer. He still can’t do it. Tired,
their strength sapped from the stifling weather, he and his mother finally head home.
Then things in the dream—the memories—turn darker.
He’s back inside and a man in a dark suit is sitting on a couch. Papers in his hand, a grave look on his
face. Thomas standing next to his mom, holding her hand. WICKED has been formed, a joint venture of
the world’s governments—those that survived the sun flares, an event that took place long before Thomas
was born. WICKED’s purpose is to study what is now known as the killzone, where the Flare does its
damage. The brain.
The man is saying that Thomas is immune. Others are immune. Less than one percent of the population,
most of them under the age of twenty. And the world is dangerous for them. They’re hated for their
immunity to the terrible virus, are mockingly called Munies. People do terrible things to them. WICKED
says they can protect Thomas, and Thomas can help them work to find a cure. They say he’s smart—one
of the smartest who have been tested. His mom has no choice but to let him go. She certainly doesn’t want
her boy to watch as she slowly goes insane.
Later she tells Thomas that she loves him and is so glad that he’ll never go through what they witnessed
happen to his dad. The madness took away every ounce of what made him who he was—what made him
human.
And after that the dream faded, and Thomas fell into a deep void of sleep.
* * *
A loud knocking woke him early the next morning. He’d barely gotten up on his elbows when the door
opened and the same five guards from the day before came in with Launchers raised. Janson stepped into
the room right after them.
“Rise and shine, boys,” the Rat Man said. “We’ve decided to give you your memories back after all.
Like it or not.”
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