Through The WICKED Scorch | A Maze Runner Story (English Version)

26. A strange conversation

"Enjoying the view?" someone suddenly asked and I startled.
I hadn't heard Jorge come in because I had been so busy trying to get to my feet. Besides, I was currently hanging my head in the exact opposite direction to the one he had come from. All I could do was try to see what he was thinking in Minho's face, but that didn't help either. Straining, I tried to turn but could not speed up my rotation. Resigned, I let my arms dangle down again.
"What the hell do you want?" Thomas asked the man.
"That is the question. My men want to sell you back to WICKED. Life has taught them to think small. I'm not like that. Something tells me that you're not either."
"Is the blood rushing to my head or is this Shank not making any sense?" Minho asked now, looking at me with annoyance.
I would have shrugged my shoulders if I hadn't been hanging upside down from the ceiling. Still I had barely turned.
Jorge paused for a moment and I could imagine him eyeing Minho, but then he simply passed over his remark and continued talking to Thomas.
"Tell me what you know about the Right Arm."
"I thought you said they were ghosts," Newt now remarked.
"I happen to believe in ghosts. Especially when I hear them chattering on the airwaves."
Finally, with quite a bit of neck twisting, I could see him walking back and forth between Newt and Thomas.
"Channel 7," I groaned softly.
"What did you just say?" Jorge asked.
"Nothing."
He passed over my statement, which was incomprehensible to him, and walked over to the lever they had used to pull us up earlier. No one paid any further attention to me, only Teresa looked at me with interest.
"You tell me what you know, and maybe we can make a deal."
"We don't know much..." Thomas stated.
This was not the answer the man had wanted to hear. He eyed us briefly and then pulled the lever, causing us to abruptly drop down a bit.
"No! No!" Thomas cried in horror. "Okay, okay! Okay, all right! They're hiding in the mountains. And they attacked WICKED. They got out a bunch of Kids. That's it. That's all we know."
He raised his hands placatingly.
Jorge seemed to want to retort something and I could see on his face that this information surprised him when we were interrupted.
"Yo, Jorge, what's going on?" The man who had tied me up and nearly broken my arms in the process came around the corner and looked suspiciously from him to us.
"Me and my new friends were just getting acquainted. We're done now."
"Hey, wait! You're not gonna help us?" Thomas asked now, confused.
But I had understood. Jorge wasn't planning to tell his men what he was up to. And with his question, Thomas had put that plan in jeopardy, I could see that on his face. I hoped the man was as stupid as he looked and didn't suspect anything. But he was already looking suspiciously from his leader to us - even more suspiciously than just now.
"Don't worry, hermano. We'll get you back to where you belong."
With those words, he turned around, but not without giving us another strange look, as if he wanted to tell us something. Damn, was I really the only one who noticed that?
"Hang tight," he quipped, before disappearing from my field of vision, which was still restricted.
The man looked after him thoughtfully before giving us another appraising glance and disappearing as well, but in a different direction from Jorge.
We were silent for a moment until I was sure we were alone.
"He's planning something," I observed.
"What? What do you mean?" Thomas asked, still confused.
"Didn't you see that? He wouldn't tell his guy what we were talking about. And when you asked him about the deal, he tried to play it off."
"Well, it didn't make any sense to me. I think he's going to sell us out to WICKED real easy. And if we're not gone before they get here, we're in trouble," Minho opined.
"Anna's right. He was hiding something from that guy," Teresa said.
"We shouldn't rely on that, even if you are right. It didn't seem like these guys would listen to this Jorge. We should still try to get out of here." Newt looked at Thomas promptly.
"All right. We've got to get to that lever somehow. Teresa, can you swing over? You're closest," Thomas stated.
Teresa tried to take momentum, but it wasn't enough to get to the lever.
"Hey, Minho. Try to grab and push her," I urged.
"Okay, come here..." But he couldn't reach her.
"What if you grab her and push her over to Minho, Thomas?" Aris now intervened.
Thomas and Teresa tried to grab each other's hands and after a moment's trial and error they managed it.
"Okay, I got it," Thomas groaned.
"Shit!" Fry Pan cursed softly.
"Minho, ready?"
"Yeah!"
Now Thomas pushed Teresa over to Minho.
"Gotcha! Okay, one, two - here we go!"
"Ready?" Teresa asked.
"Three!" Minho shouted, pushing her with all his strenght towards the lever.
Tensely we chased her, but just as she almost got hold of the contraption, it swung back again and Minho let out an angry growl.
"Oh, shit," Thomas now cursed too.
"Take it easy. Try again!" I instructed Minho and Teresa.
Again Minho grabbed her and pushed her towards the lever, but this time she twisted while swinging and again couldn't get a grip on it. A curse went through the group.
"Come on, Minho. Push her harder!" Newt said, upset.
A third time he grabbed Teresa and turned her back in the right direction.
"This is it! One, two, three!"
Finally she had enough momentum and reached the device around the lever. She held on to it and everyone made a relieved noise.
"Teresa, hurry!" Thomas said, and the next moment she pulled the lever, causing us all to fall a little lower.
"Damn it!" Fry Pan groaned and I felt it throbbing in my head, which must be bright red by now. The jolt had catapulted more blood into it.
I held my hands to my forehead and tried to regain a clear thought.
"Okay, Teresa. Now pull Thomas over to you. We have to hurry!"
Again she pulled the lever, but this time to pull us all back up a little. Then she reached for Thomas and pulled him over to her to untie him.
Suddenly the sound of a helicopter's rotors was heard and even before I heard his voice I knew who it was.
"Good evening! This is the World Catastrophe Killzone Department. We have your compound completely surrounded. You find yourselves - through no fault of your own - in possession of WICKED property. Return them to us unharmed and we'll consider this a simple misunderstanding."
Janson's voice echoed in the room we were in.