Their Deadly Design // Minho

Crank City

"You two haven't talked about the whole 'W.I.C.K.E.D's Daugther' thing yet?" I shake my head as we walk down the hallway together.

"Never had the chance. Too much is going on." Aris shrugged.

"Well, it won't be crazy forever." I snorted.

"I doubt it."

----

The large cement walls looked just like the ones surrounding Denver except these walls also had barbed wire. Brenda and I had already filled Thomas, Minho and Aris in on how the Infected Cities work. They're guarded 24/7 by Immunes. It's not meant to be a prison but it might as well be. Infected Cities were marketed as nice, quiet places to spend your last sane days. There's layers to the cities, different rings that people can enter. The outer rings are houses, a lot of them are poorly built and well managed. The rest of the ring have infirmaries, cafeterias, recreational things but the deeper you go in, the worse it gets. Cranks are only supposed to stay there until they're close to Gone but sometimes, the Munies don't catch them that fast.

"Let me do the damn talking." Jorge says as we exit the Berg. "They're not gonna like a bunch of whiny kids yelling at them." Nobody argues as we head towards the large steel doors. Before we get there though, the doors open and several people dressed as guards come out, they're all holding guns. We put our hands up.

"Who the hell are you people. You don't look like any of those Crank scientists that come here." One of the guards asks. Some of their uniforms are torn and they have scars, scratches and bruises on the exposed portions of their skin. I can only imagine how they got them.

"You wouldn't have known we were coming. We're a part of W.I.C.K.E.D one of our guys got picked up and we're here to get him back." The guard with the scar over his eye looked back at his friends and they all burst into laughter.

"Yeah, I believe you're from W.I.C.K.E.D just as much as I believe that you've come to pick up one of those damn Infecteds."

"We are here for someone." Thomas says. "Our friends in there. His name is Newt, walks with a limp, long blonde hair." The guards gave us all weird looks.

"Why the hell do you want him back? Are you all immune too?" Everyone nods and he shakes his head at us.

"They're crazy too!" He exclaims.

"We're not crazy!" Minho snap. "Now are you going to help us or not?"

"I'm not helping you lot unless there something in it for me. At least a thousand credits." We all turn to Jorge. He's the one with the cash here. He scoffs and pulls out a cash card.

"It's all right here muchachos. But you're not getting a dam cent unless we know he's here." Scar Face looked us over and then nodded to his two guard friends behind him.

"Fine, we'll bring you in but even if we can't find him, you're still paying us." Nobody argues and the guards brings us inside the City.

----

It smells worse than it looks. The first ring isn't too bad. Some of the houses are neatly constructed for those rich enough to pay for it. They're high off of Bliss trying to pretend they're not going to die but the rest of the rings are horrible. It smells like people have lost the sanity to use the bathroom properly. I almost ask the guards if they have adequate plumbing here but decide against it.

There are huddles of people here and there that look at us suspiciously or don't even notice us at all. Some are just laying on the floor, huddled up in trash and dirty clothes. I can't tell if they're still alive or not and I grew increasingly uneasy as we continue towards the center ring.