Chapter 10 Chapter Ten WICKED HQ

Thomas stood there for a full minute, staring at the man sitting leisurely at the table reading as if he had been there every day of his life.With thinning black hair on a pale, bald forehead; a long nose that twists slightly to the right; and quick-witted brown eyes that move back and forth as he reads—the man seemed relaxed and at the same time very relaxed. tense sense of contradiction. And that white suit, as well as shorts, shirt, tie, coat, socks, shoes, all white. What the hell is going on in this world? Thomas looked at the Glademen who were nibbling on fruit and some kind of snack bag that looked like a mixture of nuts and seeds, and they didn't seem to care much about the man at the table.

"Who's that guy?" Thomas yelled at everyone. A boy raised his eyes, stopped chewing briefly, then quickly finished his mouthful of food and swallowed it. "He wouldn't tell us anything except that we had to wait until he was ready." The boy shrugged, as if it was no big deal, and took another bite of a peeled orange. Thomas turned his attention back to the stranger, who was still sitting there, reading.He turned a page of the book, made a slight sound of rubbing the pages, and then continued to scan the words on the book. Perplexed, his stomach still rumbling and demanding more food, Thomas couldn't help but walk up to the man, wanting to investigate.

Recognize in all the strange things… "Be careful!" a Gladiator called out, but it was too late. Ten feet from the table, Thomas hit an invisible wall.His nose hit first, and it felt like a hard slam into a piece of cold glass.The rest of his body followed suit, bouncing off the invisible wall, sending him stumbling back a few steps.He instinctively reached for his nose, squinting, how could he not even see a glass barrier. This time, Thomas approached the place more slowly, reaching out with both hands.Soon he touched the completely invisible wall... what?It feels like glass—smooth, hard, and cold to the touch.But he couldn't really see anything, no sign of a solid wall standing there.

Frustrated, Thomas moved to the left, then to the right, making his way along the invisible but solid wall.It lay across the middle of the room; there was no access to the stranger at that table.Thomas finally couldn't help but pound the wall, making a series of dull thuds, but nothing else happened.Some Gladers behind him, Ares among them, told him they had tried that. The oddly dressed man, just twelve feet or so ahead of him, sighed exaggeratedly, lifted his crossed feet off the table and planted them on the ground.He put a finger on the book to mark the place he had just read, then looked up at Thomas, his annoyance undisguised.

"How many times do I have to repeat that?" said the man, his nasal voice, pale skin, thinning hair, and bony body perfectly combined.And that suit.That stupid white suit.Strangely enough, his words came through that barrier without being ambiguous at all. "We have to wait another forty-seven minutes before I will be authorized to carry out the second phase of the experiment. Please be patient and let me clean up for a while. This time is given to you to eat and recover, and I strongly recommend that you take advantage of it It, young man. Now, if you don't mind..."

Before they could reply, he leaned back in his chair and put his feet back on the table.Then, open his book, turn to the place he marked, and read on. Speechless, Thomas turned away from the man and the table and leaned against the invisible wall, the hard surface of which pressed against his back.What just happened?He must still be asleep, dreaming.For some reason, just thinking about it seemed to amplify his hunger, and he looked at the pile of food wistfully.Then he noticed Minho was by the bedroom door, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. Thomas poked his shoulder with his thumb, raising an eyebrow.

"Did you meet our new friend?" Minho responded, with a flash of sneer on his face, "This guy really has a set. I'm going to get a suit like that to wear, it's quite stylish." .” "Am I awake?" Thomas asked. "You're awake, eat something now, you look bad, almost as bad as that rat man over there reading a book." Thomas was amazed at how quickly he'd put aside the bizarre, the guy in the white suit who appeared out of nowhere, and the invisible wall.The numbness came again, and it had become so familiar.After the initial shock, everything feels less weird and everything feels normal.Throwing it aside, he dragged himself to the pile of food and began to eat.He ate another apple, an orange, a bag of mixed nuts, and then a bar of mixed granola and raisins.His body desperately needed water, but he didn't have the strength to move just yet.

"You have to eat slowly," Minho's voice came from behind him, "We already have people here who vomit all over the place because they ate too much. Dude, you should be good enough if you eat that amount." Thomas stood there, savoring the good feeling after filling his stomach, completely unable to feel the bite of the beast that had lived in his stomach for a long time.He knew Minho was right, he wanted to eat slowly.He nodded to his friend and walked past him to take a sip of water, all the while thinking about what would happen when the man in the white suit was ready to carry out the "Phase 2 Experiment" Something like this befalls them.

Whatever he means. An hour later, Thomas was sitting on the ground with the other Gladers, Minho on his right, Newt on his left, all facing the invisible wall and the man behind the wall at the table. sly man.With his feet still there, his eyes still flickering across the pages of the book, Thomas felt the spirit and strength slowly returning in his body. The new kid, Ares, had given him an odd look in the bathroom once, as if he wanted to talk to him telepathically but was afraid to do so.Thomas ignored him, but walked quickly to the sink and drank as much water as he could on his full stomach.By the time he finished drinking the water and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, Ares had already left.Now the boy sat by the wall, staring at the ground.Thomas felt sorry for him - it was bad enough for the Gladers, and it was worse for Ares, especially if he was as close to the girl he mentioned who was killed as Thomas was to Teresa if.

Minho was the first to break the silence. "I think we're all going nuts, like those... what do they call themselves? Crazies, those Crazies by the window. All of us sitting here waiting for the Rat Man to talk, like It's a totally abnormal situation, like we're in some kind of school. I can tell you that if he had anything nice to say, he wouldn't need to protect himself with a weird magic wall, no Let's touch, don't we?" "Just bear with it a little longer and listen," Newt said. "Maybe it's almost over." "Yeah, well," Minho said, "Frypan's about to have a baby, and Winston's bloody zit is almost gone, and Thomas is here to give us a laugh."

Thomas turned his face to Minho and gave him an exaggerated smirk. "That's it, are you satisfied?" "Man," he replied, "you're an ugly fellow." "You can say whatever you like." "Shut your mouth," Newt whispered, "I think it's time." Thomas looked up to see that the stranger—the Rat Man, as Minho mischievously called him—had put his feet on the ground and his book on the table.He pushed the chair back to get a better look at one of the drawers, then he pulled it out and rummaged through it for something Thomas couldn't see.Eventually, he pulled out a manila folder containing a mess of papers, many curled and sticking out at irregular angles. "Ah, here," said the Rat Man in his nasal voice, and he put the folder on the table, opened it, and looked at the boys in front of him. "Thank you for gathering here in an orderly manner, so that I can tell you what I was... appointed to tell you. Please listen to me carefully." "Why did you use that wall!" Minho exclaimed. Newt reached around Thomas and punched Minho on the arm. "Shut up!" The Rat Man continued talking as if he hadn't heard the shout. "You are still here because of an incredible willpower, the will to survive in the face of adversity, other than that... other reasons are not that important, about sixty people were sent to that forest Living in the clearing. Well, your glade, anyway. There's sixty other people from Group B, but let's forget about them for a moment." The man's eyes flickered at Ares for a moment, then continued to scan the group slowly.Thomas didn't know if anyone else had noticed, but he was pretty sure there was a tinge of familiarity in that quick glance.What does that mean? "Out of all those people, only a tiny fraction survived to be here today. I guess you've figured this out by now, and a lot of what happened to you was just to judge and analyze your reactions. However, It's not really an experiment, it's more like building a blueprint for... simulating a kill zone and collecting images of the results, merging those results together to achieve the greatest breakthrough in the history of science and medicine. "These scenarios in which you are tormented are called variables, and each one has been carefully thought out. I will explain more about this later. Although I can't tell you everything yet, you know But this is very important: the trials you are about to go through are for a very important cause. Continue to respond well to those variables and stay alive, and you will be rewarded for what you will do to save the human race. A contribution. And, of course, saving yourselves at the same time." The Rat Man paused, apparently for effect.Thomas looked up at Minho, raising his eyebrows at the same time. "This guy is out of his mind," Minho whispered, "How can escaping a strange maze save humanity?" "I represent an organization called WICKED HQ," the Rat Man continued. "I know the name sounds menacing, but it stands for the world in Calamity, the Killzone Experimental Division. Whatever you may think, It's not really threatening. We exist for one purpose, to save the world from disaster, and you in this room are an important part of our plan. We have resources that no other group in the history of civilization has ever Unheard of. Virtually unlimited money, unlimited human capital, and advanced technology beyond the imagination of even the brightest minds in the world. "As you work your way through these experiments, you have seen and continue to see evidence of these technologies and resources behind it. If there is one thing I can tell you today, it is that you should never, ever trust your The eyes, or your minds, are just that, and that's why we show hanging corpses and bricked-up windows. What I'm saying is that sometimes what you see isn't real, and sometimes What you can't see is real. We can manipulate your brain and neuroreceptors if necessary. I know this all sounds incomprehensible and a little scary, maybe." Thomas thought it impossible for the man to be more understated, more understated.And the word "kill zone" kept beating in his head.His still-recovered memory doesn't quite grasp what it means, but he first saw the word on the metal plate in the maze, and the initials of the word spelled out on that plate form the One word - WICKED. The man's eyes flicked slowly over every Gladiator in the room, his upper lip glistening with sweat. "That maze is part of the experiment, and every variable imposed on you has a purpose, and it all serves a purpose for us to collect the graphic patterns of the kill zone. Your escape is also part of the experiment, you and the Griever The fight, the killing of the boy named Chuck, the presumed rescue and the ensuing trip on the bus. All of that was part of the experiment." Anger burned in Thomas' chest at the mention of Chuck.Before he realizes what he's doing, he's standing up from a half-squat; Newt pulls him back to the ground. As if stimulated by the gesture, the Rat Man quickly stood up from his chair, pushed it back against the wall behind him, then put his hands on the table and leaned towards the Glader . "All of this is part of the experiment, do you understand? Phase 1, to be exact. And we're still desperately short of what we need. So we've had to up the ante, and now it's time for Phase 2 Now, it's time to make things a little more difficult."