They went back to their old bedrooms in J wing. It was as if nothing had changed, the past two months hadn't happened at all, all the WICKED personnel seemed determined that if they acted that way towards them it would be so.
But Thomas knew entering the Trials, losing and regaining his memory and everything else had irrevocably changed who he was, had changed everyone.
Though for better or for worse remained to be seen.
"Whose room are we crashing in?" Rachel asked. Before that had always depended on who had the least messy room but someone would have definitely cleaned since they had last been here.
"We can use mine." Thomas said, they usually ended up there because Teresa did not like other people in her personal space, Aris left dirty clothes and miscellaneous trash on the floor until the resident bacteria invented the wheel and Rachel piled her books everywhere, which wouldn't have mattered so much if she didn't have almost three hundred.
Thomas smiled at the memory of the time Rachel had pushed a stack of books onto Teresa for waking her and called it a defense system. He loved his friends.
They all settled themselves on the bed, neatly made, the room looked the same way it did when he left. It could have been yesterday.
"Where do we start?" Teresa was sat so close to Thomas she was almost on his lap, not that he was complaining.
"What happened after you left for the Box?" Aris suggested, it was as good a place as any.
Thomas considered his memories of that day; waking, having breakfast with his friends, saying goodbye. The dream in the Scorch had been altered, he now knew, Aris certainly hadn't mentioned the Swipe.
Thomas had left with Rachel, then Chancellor Paige had pulled him away from her, taunted him, drugged him, Swiped him. What they had done to Rachel he didn't know.
"These masked guards came and grabbed me, one of them injected me with something. Then I wake up in the Box." Rachel shrugged, then they all looked to Thomas.
"Chancellor Paige meade me go talk to her, she told me how she infected the first Creators, Anderson and all that, so the Trials would go the way she wanted. She drugged me, then I don't remember." He explained, that left Teresa and Aris. Teresa had told him the basics but there had to be more.
"We were going to watch the cameras." Teresa twisted a lock of hair around her finger. "Then Janson made us go speak with the Chancellor." Always Chancellor Paige, they had to get rid of her.
"She said she knew about our 'silly, insignificant rebellion', but not how. Talked about how Tom was vital to the Trials, but Rach's death might be of more value than her continued participation. She told us we would keep our memories, but pretend we'd lost them, and telepathically coordinate everything, or she would hurt you, maybe even kill you. She made me write an email to the staff, pretending it was all my idea."
It all made sense. The 'voices' Rachel had heard must have been a punishment for Aris not letting her die.
But who was that even supposed to punish? Thomas wondered for a moment before he realised. It had been to punish Aris, to make him see Rachel in that much distress and not be able to help her, when if he hadn't saved her her pain would have ended.
It must have been a torture for Teresa and Aris to watch him and Rachel, to interact with them knowing that they didn't remember even a sliver of the years they had shared. They had been together since they were nine years old, not even the Trials had been able to separate them
Thomas told them his ideas of what needed to be done, it was evolving rapidly:
Get answers from Chancellor Paige.
Meeting with Jorge and Brenda.
Fire Janson, or arrange an accident, possibly the same for Chancellor Paige.
Plan escape with other Gladers.
Make sure no one gets their brain removed.
"Those aren't in any particular order." He amended when everyone was staring at him.
"That's all well and good but I want breakfast first." Aris laughed, according to the clock it was only 8:00 AM but seemed much later.
They walked down to the semi closed cafeteria and persuaded the cook to give them toast and a boiled egg each, then went back to their rooms to eat.
This time they went into Aris's room, which had actually been cleaned, one of the strangest things Thomas had seen yet.
"This is unnatural." Rachel joked, running a foot over the clear floor.
"I can fix that very quickly." Aris smiled at her, they had kept up their odd routine of arguing even without Rachel's memories. Teresa had been a little different but Aris had stayed the same, unlocking the part of Rachel's personality the Swipe couldn't quite take away.
"Please don't." Teresa perched on the desk in the corner. "What's on the cards for today?"
"The Chancellor will be starting that meeting I requested, and she implied we're banned from seeing the other Gladers." Thomas said, it wouldn't stop them but they would have to be discreet.
"So we have a day off. I like that plan."
They spent most of the day sitting and talking, like nothing had ever changed, at one point Rachel went into her room and started reading a novel from exactly where she'd left it.
At 4:00 PM Thomas and Teresa were summoned for their meeting with Jorge and Brenda. Aris and Rachel had been discounted as always, Thomas always considered that a serious mistake, they were every bit as clever.
The impersonal guard led them to one of hundreds of utilitarian white rooms. That was one of the things about the WICKED compound, the incessant sameness of the rooms, the food, the workers.
It could be enough to drive you crazy even without the Flare.
They had to wait ten minutes for Brenda and Jorge to arrive. It was those little things WICKED did, to irritate you with the knowledge that you couldn't do anything about it. Too bad Thomas knew how to play that game too.
"What is this hermanos?" Jorge asked as soon as he walked in and collapsed into a chair, Brenda was more reserved but certainly looked curious.
"Tom knows, so he talks." Teresa gave him a mischievous look. What was he supposed to say?
"So, first of all you aren't going to rat us out to the Chancellor or anyone else?" That did have to be got out of the way.
"No. What's this supposed to be?" Brenda looked around.
"We're pretending to discuss the state of the Scorch so Tom can practise his interrogation skills." Thomas galred at Teresa.
"You didn't tell me what else we're doing here. Get going." Thomas thought he should have brought Aris, he would at least have not thrown him that far under the bus.
Thomas didn't actually know if he could trust the pair sitting across from him, they had been part of WICKED and helped with the Trials, and Brenda had told him to trust Chancellor Paige which was not happening, but he did now remember that she had been a trusted friend at one time.
"Why did you tell me to trust the Chancellor?" He addressed Brenda first, that was the most important question.
"She told me to do that, she's still running everything behind the scenes." That was good to know, they needed to take out Paige and Janson, preferably with bullets.
"So you know what she did before the Maze?" Teresa inquired.
"That you and your friends have terrible planning skills and should have known better than to try that?" Jorge looked between the three of them. "Do I even need to be here?"
No one answered.
"That she infected the first Creators so the Trials could go her way, and is planning to remove our brains until they get a Cure." Teresa finished. The shock Thomas saw on Jorge and Brenda's faces was surprising, if they were working with the Chancellor wouldn't they have known something about that. Or maybe she had only confided in Thomas, Teresa and Aris to gloat.
"We're not lying." Thomas amended, "we need a way out of WICKED and we were hoping you could help us with that." He was pretty sure Brenda would be in, and Jorge wouldn't let her go alone, he was also a Berg pilot. It would all work, as long as they said yes.
"Who's 'we' and where to?" Jorge's question did make Thomas feel slightly more optimistic.#
"For the first question, us, Aris and Rachel, and the rest of the Gladers. As for where to, far away from here."
"So when?" Brenda asked, Thomas looked over to Teresa and smiled. They really could do this.