Thomas
Thomas sat at the control desk, his hands quivering slightly. The piece of paper was lying on the keypad, slightly ripped at the edges. He had tried his best to smooth it out, so he could read the numbers he had hastily scribbled down more clearly, but he still had to squint in order to make them out.
'Is that a 5 or a 2?' he muttered under his breath, bringing the paper closer to his face. It didn't help that he was running on very little sleep, and the control room was dark. He had gone after he was sure Teresa had gone to sleep, because he knew she wouldn't be happy with what he was doing. He also wanted to be there, to see if Newt was safe. He barely slept with anxiety.
In the end, though, Newt, Alby and Minho had made it out, and had collapsed at the feet of the other boys soon after the doors had opened, with barely a scratch. He was grateful for Teresa then, for her persistence in trying to stop WCKD from sending any more grievers to where the boys were. This made Thomas feel guilty. He had a list of all the co-ordinates of all the WCKD compounds open on his screen, and had the intention of sharing all of them with Mary; the woman who's details he had grabbed from Janson's office a day before.
She had lost her job only weeks before, trying to gather the information herself, but was caught. Thankfully, her information had yet to be wiped from the database. Thomas expected this was because Janson was able to track her if she happened to register at another WCKD compound, but Thomas was sure she wasn't dumb enough to do that.
His hand hovered over the final number.
What if she wasn't awake? What if the call was bugged and intercepted? He was scared of what would happen. Not so much to himself, but to Mary. He already had enough guilt pressing on his shoulders, he didn't need to be responsible for anything else. But he had to do it.
He pressed the final number, and placed his headphones on his ears. He heard a beep, one that was unfamiliar to the usual sound he heard when a call was picked up. He waited anxiously.
"Thomas. This line isn't safe, we don't have much time. Tell me everything you can" A voice said. He knew it was Mary.
Thomas took a deep breath and spoke rapidly, pausing between co-ordinates, waiting for her to show she had got them down. He was engrossed and focused on giving the numbers, that he didn't hear the door click open behind him. He had reached the set of co-ordinates 3rd from the end, when a heavy hand was placed on his shoulder.
"Are you sure about what you're doing, Thomas?" A raspy male voice said. Janson.
As quickly as he could, he hung up the connection with Mary and slipped the piece of paper into the pocket of his jeans.
"Yes, I am" he said, turning his chair to face Janson, who looked more angry than Thomas had ever seen him. "Haven't you heard, Janson? It's for the greater good"
Janson sighed deeply. "Your time here is over, Thomas. You have no idea what you've done"
His time here? What did that mean? If the state of the world was as bad as they made out, surely they couldn't send Thomas out into the world, just like that.
"What, you're gonna send me out so I can get sick, and if I don't get sick, I'll burn to death? Sounds like a plan, Janson. You've always been good at them" Thomas said, trying to use humour to disguise how uncomfortable he was feeling.
"No no no, Thomas. You misunderstand me. You're not going out into the Scorch, you're going down there" Janson said, with a smirk that made Thomas squirm. Janson raised a pointed finger towards the screen in front of Thomas, the one that showed a birds eye view of the Glade.
"You're sending me to the maze?" he yelled, jumping up from his desk, sending his headphones flying. "Chancellor Paige wouldn't let you do that. You can't wipe my memory too. I made this maze what it is"
He was becoming frantic, and it was just giving Janson more power over him.
"Chancellor Paige already said yes, Thomas. You'd be a valuable addition to the experiment, your reaction to the injection you got back at school has always been fascinating to us"
Thomas felt his heart beating against his ribcage, and his breathing becoming shallow in his chest. He was going to forget everything; everything about his family, everything about himself and most painfully, everything about Newt, just like Newt had forgotten everything about him.
He was going to come up in that box, and meet Newt and talk to Newt like they were strangers, like they hadn't loved each other, like their relationship had never even existed. Thomas felt his heart sink, to a place of genuine despair. This was it.
Janson had been speaking to him, but everything felt fuzzy and bleak and he didn't have the energy to listen to him anymore. If he was grateful for anything, it would be never having to see Janson's face again.
"We're sending you down tomorrow morning. We've pushed the other kid out of the schedule for now. Don't try to resist, it's not worth it" Janson said, watching Thomas walk slowly out of the room.
Thomas couldn't think. He felt no comfort, even though he knew he'd be seeing Newt again, because he wouldn't be Thomas anymore, and Newt wouldn't be the Newt he once was. He was just going to be a part of a hopeless experiment.
He walked slowly through the hallway, the bright fluorescent lights making his head ache, the smell of steriliser making him feel nauseous and overpowered. He was headed straight for Teresa's door.
"Are you up?" he asked, reaching out to her telepathically.
"Yeah, I am now. What's up?"
"I'm coming to you. It's urgent"
"Give me five. I'll leave the door open, but knock first"
He reached her door and stood outside for a moment, breathing in deeply. In through the nose, out through the mouth. He wasn't afraid of her, but he was afraid of what she would say. As different as their views on WCKD were sometimes, she had always been there for him, and showed up for him, even when she didn't agree with what he was doing. He didn't want her to be disappointed, but he knew she would be. He knocked.
"Come in, Tom"
He walked in to her standing in-front of the mirror, brushing her black hair into a bun. He didn't really know what to say, or how to start, so he just stood, staring, feeling slightly calmed by the repetitive movement of the brush running through her hair.
"Hey, Tom. I thought you said this was urgent? Are you gonna speak to me?" she said, turning around and waving a hand in front of his face. He blinked.
"It's difficult for me to say. Especially to you" he said, sitting down on her perfectly made bed, leaning against the cold wall.
"Okay" she said, sitting down beside him and turning to face him, concern in her eyes.
"You're gonna be mad, I know. Just save whatever you have to say until I'm done, okay?"
She nodded.
"A WCKD worker, her name was Mary, lost her job, a couple weeks back. She tried to take the co-ordinates to every WCKD compound. She tried to take them, and share them with someone outside. She doesn't like the maze trials, she doesn't like what they're doing here, to those boys."
Teresa nodded again.
"She spoke to me, a few days before she was fired. She told me what she was going to do. She knew it'd get her fired, but I got her contact details yesterday, and this morning, I finished what she started. I gave her the co-ordinates to almost every single WCKD compound in the database"
"But then Janson found me. He told me "your time here is up" and at first, I thought he was sending me to the Scorch, to catch the flare and to die, but I misunderstood. He's-"
Thomas paused, looking at the conflicted feelings of anger and sympathy that were fighting on Teresa's face.
"He's sending me into the Maze tonight, Teresa. He's wiping my memory and sending me in"
hi :)
thank u so much for 13.5k , i appreciate it so much!
the next chapter is one i've been looking forward to writing for a while, so i hope there's still people reading who will be excited to read it.
on another note, i've decided i am moving to ao3. this is kinda final, as in, if i start any other work, it won't be on here, but i've decided - for now - to keep updating this fic on here. i am undecided on whether it's a good idea to copy everything i've written here over to there, so let me know what you think regarding that.
i've started a new newtmas au fic, which you can find at the link in my bio. i feel very new and lost on ao3, so if anyone could go read it, i'd appreciate it a lot. it's a little slow paced to begin with as newt appears in the 2nd chapter (which i haven't written yet), but i'm excited about it! i think the chapters might be longer on average on there too, so there's that.
as always, thank you so much for reading and for the support & i hope ur all doing ok