Trials Together (Book Three): The Death Cure

Chapter 8

It turned out Thomas's alarm clock was still set for 6:00AM and still set to the loudest setting possible. Aris and Rachel always said they could hear it from the other side of the corridor and Teresa often banged on the wall to make him turn it off.

After only one hour of sleep Thomas needed coffee desperately. He dragged himself out of bed, into the shower, and finally out of his room. The only positive was that he didn't have a hangover from the alcohol last night, the stuff had been strong but only one glass seemed to have little effect.

"Morning!" Aris sounded far too happy for it to be as early as it was. Thomas glared at him.

"No. No happiness this early with this little sleep." Teresa was still working on the wet tangles of her hair.

"You slept, I didn't bother." Rachel had a book, but that wasn't surprising, she always had a book. She would also often use one to hit at anyone who annoyed her, which Thomas had been a victim of many times.

They walked down to breakfast as normal but were intercepted by Brenda. It seemed to be her job to facilitate communication between the Elites and everyone else.

"You've got another breakfast briefing, same room as before. Rat Man looks happy so it can't be about anything good." She looked around and dropped her voice. "Jorge thinks the plan's good." After the last message Brenda turned and walked away from them as if she hadn't said anything untoward. Was Thomas imagining that she had nodded to Rachel?

"I hope there's breakfast involved this time." Teresa complained.

"And coffee, I need caffeine or I'm just going to fall asleep again." Thomas agreed. They had to listen to another one of Rat Man's smug speeches, then be tested to see whether they should have their brains removed for the good of humanity.

Really he doubted the whole 'Final Candidate' thing would even work. The Maze Trials were supposed to give all the data required for a Cure blueprint after their five year course. Then Chancellor Paige had to infect Anderson and the others and implement a Phase Two, then Phase Three as a final resort. Even after that they didn't have everything, perhaps it had all been for nothing. They should have let the immunes have the world as Anderson had once said, focussed on containment and prevention rather than an elusive Cure.

When they arrived in the room from yesterday all the Gladers apart from the Control Subjects were present. Thomas hated thinking of them like that, but he didn't know all their names.

Rat Man hadn't arrived, and there was actually food on the tables.

Thomas led his friends over to Harriet, Newt and Sonya. Minho wasn't present, either he was still asleep or too hungover to move.

Harriet was glaring into a huge cup of coffee Thomas thought he could smell from where he was sitting. Where could he get one of those? Beside her Sonya appeared to have just dozed off.

Minho walked in and slid onto the bench next to Newt, not even glancing at the food.

"Next time we don't stay up till five in the shucking morning." Minho was very hungover but no one else seemed affected.

"Next time don't drink the whole bottle of whiskey, or whatever that was." Newt rolled his eyes at him. "Wake up Lizzy." He prodded Sonya and she opened her eyes to look at them all through the curtain of her hair.

"I'm not asleep, just let me rest." She groaned and put her head back on the table.

"Why do they have to wake us so early anyway?" Rachel was managing to read, talk, and eat cereal at the same time. "The world won't end if we sleep in for once."