Chapter 38 Chapter Thirty-Eight The Lawyer Who Has the Disease

Thomas woke up in the dark, feeling as if he had been pressed onto some ancient torture device. Nails were slowly being driven into his limbs from all sides. He made a groan, a limp, horrible sound that only intensified the pain in his head.He forced himself to be quiet, trying to reach out to wipe... His hands won't work, something's holding them down, something sticky is pressing down on his wrist.It's tape.He tried to kick with his legs, but they were also bound.The torment set off yet another wave of pain through his head and body; he was limp and moaning softly, wondering how long he'd been there.

"Brenda?" he said softly.no respond. A light came. Bright and dazzling, he closed his eyes tightly, then opened one eye just enough to squint his eyes to look at the situation around him.Three people stood before him, but their faces were hidden in shadow, and the light source of the lamp came from behind them. "Wake up, wake up." A hoarse voice said, and someone snickered. "Want to have some more of that flame juice?" This sentence was said by a woman, and the man snickered again just now. Thomas finally adjusted to the light and opened his eyes fully.He sat in a wooden chair, his wrists bound tightly to the arms of the chair with wide-sided gray duct tape, and his ankles bound to the legs.Two men and a woman stood in front of him.A blond man, a tall ugly man, a woman with ponytails.

"Why don't you just kill me in that alley?" Thomas asked. "Kill you?" the blond man replied.His voice seemed hoarse than before, and it sounded like he'd been screaming on the dance floor for the past few hours. "Who do you think we are, some twentieth-century mafia family? If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already, bloody on the streets." "We don't want you dead," Ponytail interjected, "that would ruin the flavor of the meat. We like to eat our victims while they're still breathing. You won't believe how sweet and... much juice."

The tall ugly man laughed, but Thomas couldn't tell if the ponytail was telling the truth.Whether it was true or not, he was terrified to the point of collapse. "She's kidding," said the blond man. "We only eat other humans when we're absolutely desperate. Human flesh tastes like pig shit." The tall ugly man burst into another chuckle, not a snicker, not a laugh, but a giggle.Thomas didn't believe they were serious - he was more concerned that they seemed a little out of their element. The blond smiled for the first time since Thomas met him. "Jokes again, we're not that crazy yet, but I do bet human flesh doesn't taste very good."

Both Tall Ugly and Ponytail nodded. Dude, these guys are literally losing their minds.thought Thomas.He heard a muffled groan from his left and looked over.Brenda was in a corner of the room, bound as tightly as he was.But her mouth was also taped, leading him to wonder if she had fought on longer before finally passing out.It looked like she had only just woken up at this point, and when she noticed the three lunatics, she was writhing and writhing in her chair, spitting out through the gag. Whoosh, her eyes were ablaze with fire. The blond man pointed at her, and as if by magic, his pistol suddenly appeared. "Shut up! Shut up or I'll bang your brains out against the wall!"

Brenda didn't move, Thomas expected her to start whimpering or crying or something, but she didn't, and he was instantly ashamed of the thought, she'd already shown how strong she was. The blond man put down his gun and put it beside him. "It's better, thank God, we should have killed her when she first started screaming and biting in there." He looked at his forearm, where there was a long arcing scar, Shining red. "She's with him," said Ponytail, "and we can't kill her yet." The blond man pulled a chair from the far wall and sat down a few feet in front of Thomas.The others sat down with him, looking relieved like they'd been waiting hours for permission.The blond put the gun on his lap, pointing the muzzle straight at Thomas.

"Okay," said the man, "we've got a lot to talk about, and I'm not going to talk crap with you. If you waste your time or refuse to answer questions or whatnot, I'll shoot you in the leg. Then It's the other leg. The third time a bullet hits your girlfriend in the face. I'm thinking it goes in somewhere between the eyes and I bet you can guess the fourth time you piss me off What's going to happen when." Thomas nodded. He thought he was strong, that he could stand these crazy people.But common sense overcomes everything.He was taped to a chair with no weapons, no allies, nothing.Although, to be honest, he had nothing to hide.Whatever the guy asked him he would answer.No matter what happened in the end, he didn't want any bullets in his leg, and he suspected the guy was just bluffing.

"First question," said the blond man, "who are you and why are there signs with your name all over the city?" "My name is Thomas." As soon as he said this, the blond man's face wrinkled in anger.Realizing he had made a stupid mistake, Thomas hurried on, "You already know that. Well, how I got here is really a fantastic story, and I doubt you'll believe it, but I swear I'm telling the truth." "Didn't you come on a 'Borg ship' like the rest of us?" Ponytail asked. "Borg spaceship?" Thomas didn't know what that meant, he just shook his head and continued, "No. We came out of a tunnel under the ground, about thirty miles to the south. There We also went through something called a plane traverser before, and before that—”

"Stop it," the blond said, raising a hand. "Planetravers? I want to shoot you right now, but there's no way you'd make something like that." Thomas frowned suspiciously: "Why?" "You'd be foolish to try to get away with such an obvious lie, you went through a plane traveler?" The man was clearly surprised. Thomas looked at the other delirious patients, who all had similar shocked expressions on their faces. "Yeah, why is this so hard to believe?" "You know how expensive the Plane Traverser is? It was just out to the public before the Flare event. Only governments and billionaires can afford it."

Thomas shrugged. "Well, I know they're rich, and that's what the guy called it—a planar traverser. Some kind of gray wall that stings like ice when you walk through it." "What guy?" Thomas didn't know where to start, his thoughts were in turmoil.How can you tell a story like this? "I think he's from WICKED. They're planning to put us through some kind of experiment or test. I don't know what's going on. Our... memories were wiped. Some of my memories came back, But it's not much recovered and it's not complete." The blond man didn't respond for a second, just sat there and stared at him.His gaze almost seemed to penetrate him, to the wall behind him.Finally, he spoke: "I'm a lawyer. This was before the Flare hit and it ruined everything. I knew when someone was lying. I was very, very good at the job. .”

Strangely, Thomas felt a burst of relief. "Then you know I didn't—" "Yes, I know, I want to hear the whole story, let's get started." So Thomas said, he couldn't say why, but it didn't seem to matter.His instincts told him that these lunatics were just like everyone else—sent here to live out their horrific final years before dying of the Flare.They're just like anyone else, just trying to find a little advantage, a way out.And meeting him, a guy who's got his signature all over the city, was a great first step.Had Thomas switched roles with them, it's likely he'd have done the same thing, probably without the guns and the bondage, hopefully. He had told Brenda most of the things that day before, and was repeating them almost exactly as they were now.The maze, the escape, the dormitories, were forced to accept the task of traversing this scorched earth.He paid particular attention to making the quest sound important, emphasizing the part about the antidote that awaits them at the end.Now that he's lost his chance to get through the city with Jorge's help, maybe he can start over with these guys.He also expresses his concern for the other Gladers, but when he asks if they've seen them—or a large group of girls—the answer is no. Again, he didn't say much about Theresa.Somehow he just didn't want to take any chances and put her in danger, though he didn't know how talking about her would put her in danger either.He also lied a little bit about Brenda, well, he never really lied outright.He just made it sound like she'd been with him from the beginning. When he finally finished talking about the three people they encountered in front of him in that alley, he took a deep breath and adjusted his position in the chair. "Could you please take this tape off me now?" The tall ugly man flicked his hand lightly, which attracted his attention. He looked over and found that a very sharp and shiny knife had appeared in his hand. "What do you want to do?" he asked the blond. "Of course, why not?" He put on a deadpan expression throughout the story, and still hasn't shown whether he believes the story. The tall ugly man shrugged, stood up, and walked over to Thomas.He leaned forward and extended his knife when there was a sudden commotion overhead.There was a bang on the ceiling, followed by several screams.Then it sounded like a hundred people running.Crazy footsteps, running and jumping, more knocking.There were more screams. "Some other team must have discovered us." The blond man's face suddenly turned pale.He stood up and waved to the other two to follow him.After a few seconds they were gone, disappearing down a set of steps leading into the darkness.A door opens and closes, and the chaos overhead continues. All this scared Thomas almost mad.He looked at Brenda, who was sitting there very quietly, listening.Her eyes finally met his.Still gagged, she could only raise her eyebrows. He didn't like being left here like this to his fate, with duct tape around him.None of the lunatics they met that night could have beaten such a character. "What if it's a bunch of lunatics up there?" he asked. Brenda mumbled something through the tape. Every muscle in Thomas tensed, and he began to hop the man and the chair toward where she was sitting, step by step.When he had moved about three feet, all the fighting and rumbling stopped suddenly.He stood still, looking up at the ceiling. There was no sound for a few seconds.Then there was the sound of footsteps, perhaps of two persons, shuffling across the upper floor.There was a loud bang, followed by another bang.Then there was another sound.Thomas imagined the body being thrown to the ground. The door at the top of the steps opened. Then came the sound of footsteps, swift and heavy, running all the way down.Everything was in the shadows, and a chill of terror swept through Thomas as he waited to see who would come down. Finally, someone came under the light. It was Minho, dirty and bloodstained, with burn marks on his face.Holding a knife in each hand, it was Minho. "You guys look comfortable," he said.