Chapter 42 Chapter 42: The Secret Storage Room

Minho turned on the light, and Thomas narrowed his eyes, adapting to the light.Boxes of weapons littered tables and floors, casting horrific shadows.Knives, sticks, and an assortment of ugly implements seemed to be waiting, ready to come to life and kill anyone foolish enough to get near them, and the damp and musty smell added to the eerie atmosphere in the room. "There's a secret storage room behind here," Minho said as he walked past a row of shelves and stepped into a dark corner, "Only the two of us know about it." Thomas heard the creaking sound of the old wooden floor, and Minho dragged a cardboard box on the floor, the friction sounded like a knife on the bone. "I put each box of maps in a separate box, so there are eight boxes in total, and they're all here."

"What's this box?" Thomas asked.He knelt down by the box, eager to get started. "Open it and have a look, every page is marked, remember?" Thomas pulled back the overlapping lids, and the case opened.The maps of Sector Two were in a cluttered pile, and Thomas reached for a pile. "Well," he said, "walkers are always comparing day by day to see if they can find patterns and help us find the exit. You even said that you didn't know what you were looking for, but you didn't stop researching, yes ?" Minho nodded, arms crossed.He looked as if he was about to uncover the secret of eternal life.

"So," Thomas went on, "what if the movement of the wall has nothing to do with a map, a maze, or something like that? What if what we're looking for isn't a pattern, but a spelled word, or some kind of clue to help us escape? ?” Minho pointed to the map in Thomas' hand, and sighed in disappointment. "Dude, do you know how much we work on this stuff? If it's actually spelling words, wouldn't we notice?" "Maybe it's hard to see with the naked eye, if you just compare it day by day. Maybe you should not compare back and forth, but look at it one day at a time?"

Newt laughed. "Tommy, I may not be the smartest guy in the glade, but you sound like you're not thinking about it." Thomas's mind raced faster as he spoke.The answer was on his lips—he knew it was within reach, but it was hard to put it into words. "Okay, okay," he said, and started all over again, "you've been having one walker in each district, haven't you?" "That's right." Minho replied.He showed great interest and planned to find out. "Walker draws a map every day, and then compares it with the previous one, only for a certain area. What if what you should do is put eight areas together and compare each other every day? Will each day be an independent clue or code? You Have you compared the different districts with each other?"

Minho scratched his chin and nodded. "Yeah, sort of. We tried putting it all together to see if we could see something - of course we did, we tried everything." Thomas crossed his legs and studied the map on his lap.From the top one, he had a hard time seeing the lines of the maze depicted on the second.At this moment, it dawned on him, and he looked up at the others. "stencil." "What?" Minho asked, "What the hell—" "Trust me, we need wax paper and scissors, and all the black markers and pencils you can find." Frypan wasn't too pleased that a whole box of wax paper rolls was being taken away, especially now that they had been cut off from supplies.He argues that it's one of those things he uses a lot, for baking.They finally had to tell him what to do with it, which convinced him to let it go.

It took ten minutes to find the pencils and markers - most were lost in the fire in the map room.Thomas sat at the workbench in the underground weapons room, with Newt, Minho, and Teresa.They found no scissors, so Thomas grabbed the sharpest knife he could find. "It better work." Minho said, there was warning in his words, but interest in his eyes. Newt bent forward, resting his arms on the table, as if waiting for a magic trick to unfold. "Go ahead, rookie." "Okay." Thomas was anxious to get started, but also afraid that it might end up being futile.He handed the knife to Minho, and pointed at the stencil. "First cut some square paper, the size of the map. Newt and Teresa, you help me find the last ten maps from each box."

"What are you doing? Are you doing art work?" Minho raised the knife and gave a look of hatred, "Why don't you tell us, what exactly are you doing?" "I've explained enough," Thomas said.He knew very well that they must also see what was in his heart.He stood up and groped in the storage room. "It's easier for me to show you guys. If I'm wrong, I admit it, and we can go back to the maze and keep running like mice." Minho sighed, obviously irritated, he muttered something under his breath.Teresa remained silent for a while, but she spoke in Tomas' mind.

I think I understand what you're up to.It is indeed very clever. Thomas was taken aback, but he did his best to hide it.He knew he had to pretend he didn't hear voices in his head, or people would think he was crazy. Just... come... help... me, he managed to respond, thinking each word apart, visualizing the message before his eyes, sending it.However, she did not respond. "Theresa," he said aloud, "can you do me a favor?" He nodded toward the storage room. The two of them went into the small dusty room, opened all the boxes, and took out a small stack of maps from each.Thomas returned to the table to find that Minho had already cut twenty sheets of paper, piled up in a random pile to his right, and kept putting new ones on top.

Thomas sat down and picked up some papers.He held one of them up to the light, and a milky light shone through the center of the paper.This is exactly what he needs. He picks up a marker. "Okay, everyone put the last ten days or so of maps on this kind of paper. Remember to put the information on the top so we know what it is. When it's done, I think we might be able to find something. " "What—" Minho said. "Go ahead and cut your paper," Newt ordered. "I think I know what he wants to do." Finally, someone understood, and Thomas couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Several people set to work, rubbing the original map onto stenciled paper, sheet by sheet, trying to keep it as clean and error-free as possible, and as quickly as possible.Thomas used a wooden board as a ruler so he could draw straight lines.In no time, he had completed five maps, and five more to follow.The others kept up his pace, working with fury. As Thomas drew, he began to feel flustered, a sick feeling, a fear that what they were doing was a waste of time.However, Teresa, who was sitting next to him, was concentrating on her work, with the tip of her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, drawing lines up, down, left, and right.She seemed more confident that they would find something.

Box by box, section by section, the work goes on. "Enough is enough," Newt finally broke the silence. "My finger hurts like hell, now let's see if it works." Thomas put down the marker and stretched his fingers.He can only hope that his thinking is correct. "Okay, give me the maps of the last few days of each district, and lay them out on the table, from the first district all the way to the eighth district. The first district is here," he pointed to one end of the table, "the eighth district is in Over there." He pointed to the other end. A few people followed his instructions silently, sorted out their maps, and eight stacks of wax paper were neatly arranged on the table. Nervous and nervous, Thomas picked up a sheet from each stack, first making sure they were from the same day, and then putting them away in order.He stacked the maps one on top of the other, each map of the maze from the same day as before and after.In this way, he saw the maps of the eight districts of the maze at the same time.The results he got surprised him.Like magic, a picture gradually became clear and came into view, Teresa next to her took a breath of air. The lines intertwined up and down, held in Thomas' hands like a chessboard grid.However, some lines appear in the middle—and they appear more frequently than others, and are darker than the rest.The picture is light, but unmistakable, and the results are there. Appearing in the very center of the map is the letter F.