Текст книги "The Death Cure"
Автор книги: James Dashner
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
“I’ve only known you a few weeks.” He smiled again.
“Whatever.” She put her arms around him and spoke into his ear. “I know I was sent into that Scorch city to find you and pretend to be your friend. But I want you to know that you are my friend. You…”
He pulled away so he could see her face again, which was unreadable. “What?”
“Just… don’t let yourself get killed.”
Thomas swallowed, not sure what to say.
“Well?” she said.
“You be careful, too” was all he could get out.
Brenda reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard you say.” She rolled her eyes again but smiled.
And her smile made everything seem a little brighter to Thomas. “Make sure they don’t screw things up,” he said. “Make sure all the plans make sense.”
“I will. We’ll see you in a day or so.”
“Okay.”
“And I won’t get killed if you won’t. I promise.”
Thomas pulled her into one last hug. “Deal.”
CHAPTER 54
The Right Arm gave them a newer van. Lawrence drove and the pilot sat in the passenger seat next to him. She was silent and not very friendly, keeping mostly to herself. Lawrence wasn’t in the greatest of moods, either, probably because he’d gone from being a food distributor in a locked-down facility to serving as designated driver through a city of Cranks. Twice.
The sun had risen, glinting off the buildings of what seemed like an entirely different city from the night before. For some reason the light made the world feel a little safer.
Thomas had been given his pistol back, fully loaded, and he had it stuck in the waist of his jeans. He knew a round of twelve bullets wouldn’t do a whole lot if they got ambushed again, but it went far for his peace of mind.
“Okay, remember the plan,” Lawrence said, finally breaking the silence.
“And what was the plan?” Thomas asked.
“Make it to the hangar without dying.”
It sounded good to Thomas.
They lapsed back into quiet, the only sounds those of the engine and the bumps of the road. Such a moment couldn’t help but force Thomas to think about all the horrible things that could go wrong in the next day or two. He tried hard to shut his mind off, focus on the fallen city passing by outside.
So far he’d only seen a few people here and there, most of them at a distance. He wondered if the majority had stayed up late, scared of what might jump out of the darkness-or whether they had been doing the jumping themselves.
The sun gleamed on the high windows of the skyscrapers-the massively tall buildings seemed to stretch in every direction for eternity. The van drove right through the heart of the city, down a wide road scattered with abandoned cars. Thomas saw a few Cranks hiding in vehicles, peeking out the windows as if they were waiting to spring a trap.
Lawrence turned off after a mile or two, then headed down a long, straight highway that led to one of the gates of the walled city. Barricades edged both sides of the road-probably built in better times to keep the noise of countless cars from disturbing the city residents whose homes were set close to the thoroughfare. It seemed impossible that such a world had ever existed. A world where you weren’t scared for your life every day.
“This’ll take us all the way,” Lawrence said. “The hangar is probably our most protected facility, so all we have to do is make it there. An hour from now we’ll be up in the air, happy and safe.”
“Good that,” Thomas said, though after the night before it sounded far too easy. The pilot remained quiet.
They’d gone about three miles when Lawrence started to slow the vehicle. “What in the world?” he murmured.
Thomas turned his attention back to the road ahead to see what the man was talking about and saw several cars driving in circles.
“I guess I’ll just try to get past them,” Lawrence said, almost talking to himself.
Thomas didn’t respond, knowing that every person in the vehicle understood very well that whatever was going on could only mean trouble.
Lawrence picked up his speed again. “It’ll take us forever to backtrack and try a different way. I’m just going to try to get through.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” the pilot snapped. “We certainly won’t get there if we have to walk.”
As they approached, Thomas leaned forward in his seat and strained to see what was going on. A crowd of about twenty people were fighting over a big pile of something he couldn’t quite make out, tossing debris and pushing and shoving, throwing punches. Maybe a hundred feet past them were the cars-swerving and spinning out and crashing into each other. It was a miracle no one on the road had been hit yet.
“What are you planning?” Thomas asked. Lawrence hadn’t slowed one bit, and they were almost there.
“You need to stop!” the pilot shouted.
Lawrence ignored the command. “No. I’m going through.”
“You’ll get us killed!”
“We’ll be fine. Just shut up for a second!”
They neared the group of people, still going at each other and whatever was in that huge pile. Thomas slid over to the side of the van, tried to get a better look. The Cranks were ripping apart huge sacks of garbage-pulling out old packages of food and half-rotten meat and scraps of leftovers-but no one was able to hold one thing in their hand before someone tried to steal it. Punches flew and fingers clawed and scratched. One man had a huge gash under his eye, a smear of blood dripping down his face like red tears.
The van swerved with a screech and Thomas turned his attention ahead. The drivers of the cars-old models, their shells dented, most of the paint gone-had stopped, and three of them were lined up facing the oncoming van. Lawrence didn’t slow down. Instead he turned, heading for the larger gap between the car to the right and the one in the middle. Then in a flash the car on the left bolted forward, turning sharply to try to catch the van before it got by.
“Hold on!” Lawrence screamed, then gunned it even faster.
Thomas gripped the seat below him as they shot toward the gap. The two cars lining the gap didn’t move, but the third car was banking and heading straight for them. Thomas saw that they had no chance, almost had time to shout it out, but it was too late.
The front hood of the van had just crossed the threshold of the gap when the third car slammed into the back of its left side. Thomas flew to his left and hit the bar between the two side windows, which shattered with a horrible crunch. Glass flew in all directions and the van spun in circles, its tail end like a whip. Thomas bounced all over, trying to get a grip on anything. The sounds of squealing tires and metal scraping against metal filled the air.
The noise stopped when the van finally hit the cement wall.
Thomas, battered and bruised, was on the floor, on his knees. He pulled himself up in time to see all three vehicles driving off, the sounds of their engines fading as they disappeared down the long, straight road, back the way Thomas and the others had come. He glanced over at Lawrence and the pilot, both of whom were fine.
Then the strangest thing happened. Thomas looked out the window and saw a banged-up Crank staring at him from twenty feet away. It took him a second to register that the Crank was his friend.
Newt.
CHAPTER 55
Newt looked horrible. His hair had been torn out in patches, leaving bald spots that were nothing more than red welts. Scratches and bruises covered his face; his shirt was ripped, barely hanging on to his thin frame, and his pants were filthy with grime and blood. It was like he’d finally given in to the Cranks, joined their ranks fully.
But he stared at Thomas, as if he recognized that he’d stumbled upon a friend.
Lawrence had been talking, but Thomas only now processed his words.
“We’re okay. She’s shot to hell, but hopefully she’ll get us another couple of miles to the hangar.”
Lawrence shifted into reverse and the van wobbled away from the cement wall, the crunch of broken plastic and metal and the squeal of tires erupting in the complete silence that had fallen. Then he started to drive off, and it was like a switch clicked in Thomas’s head.
“Stop!” he yelled. “Stop the van! Now!”
“What?” Lawrence replied. “What’re you talking about?”
“Just stop the freaking van!”
Lawrence slammed on the brakes as Thomas scrambled to his feet and went for the door. He started to open it when Lawrence grabbed his shirt from behind and yanked him backward.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man yelled at him.
Thomas wouldn’t let anything stop him now. He yanked the gun out of his pants and pointed it at Lawrence. “Let go of me. Let go of me!”
Lawrence did, throwing his hands up in the air. “Whoa, kid. Calm down! What is wrong with you?”
Thomas backed away from him. “I saw my friend out there-I want to see if he’s okay. If any trouble starts, I’ll run back to the van. Just be ready to get us out of here when I do.”
“You think that thing out there is still your friend?” the pilot asked coldly. “Those Cranks are way past the Gone. Can’t you see that? Your friend is nothing but an animal now. Worse than an animal.”
“Then it’ll be a short goodbye, won’t it,” Thomas answered. He opened the door, then backed out onto the street. “Cover me if I need it. I have to do this.”
“I’m gonna kick your butt before we get on that Berg, I can promise you that,” Lawrence growled. “Hurry. If those Cranks by the garbage heap head this way, we start firing. I don’t care if your mommy and uncle Frank are out there.”
“Good that.” Thomas turned away from them, slipping the pistol back into his jeans. He walked slowly toward his friend, who stood alone, far away from the pack of Cranks still working on their pile of refuse. For the moment they seemed satisfied with that-they didn’t seem interested in him.
Thomas walked half the distance to Newt, then stopped. The worst part about his friend was the wildness in his eyes. Madness lurked behind them, two festering pools of sickness. How had it happened so quickly?
“Hey. Newt. It’s me, Thomas. You still remember me, right?”
A sudden clarity filled Newt’s eyes then, almost making Thomas step back in surprise.
“I bloody remember you, Tommy. You just came to see me at the Palace, rubbed it in that you ignored my note. I can’t go completely crazy in a few days.”
Those words hurt Thomas’s heart even more than the pitiful sight of his friend. “Then why are you here? Why are you with… them?”
Newt looked at the Cranks, then back at Thomas. “It comes and goes, man. I can’t explain it. Sometimes I can’t control myself, barely know what I’m doing. But usually it’s just like an itch in my brain, throwing everything off-kilter just enough to bother me-make me angry.”
“You seem fine right now.”
“Yeah, well. The only reason I’m with these wackers from the Palace is because I don’t know what else to do. They’re fighting, but they’re also a group. You find yourself alone, you don’t have a bloody chance.”
“Newt, come with me this time, right now. We can take you somewhere safer, somewhere better to…”
Newt laughed, and when he did his head twitched strangely a couple of times. “Get out of here, Tommy. Get away.”
“Just come with me,” Thomas begged. “I’ll tie you up if it makes you feel better.”
Newt’s face suddenly hardened into anger and his words shot out in a rage. “Just shut up, you shuck traitor! Didn’t you read my note? You can’t do one last, lousy thing for me? Gotta be the hero, like always? I hate you! I always hated you!”
He doesn’t mean it, Thomas told himself firmly. But they were just words. “Newt…”
“It was all your fault! You could’ve stopped them when the first Creators died. You could’ve figured out a way. But no! You had to keep it going, try to save the world, be the hero. And you came to the Maze and never stopped. All you care about is yourself! Admit it! Gotta be the one people remember, the one people worship! We should’ve thrown you down the Box hole!”
Newt’s face had colored to a deep red, and spit flew from his mouth as he yelled. He started taking lumbering steps forward, his hands balled into fists.
“I’m gonna blast him!” Lawrence yelled from the van. “Get out of the way!”
Thomas turned. “Don’t! It’s just me and him! Don’t do anything!” He faced Newt again. “Newt, stop. Just listen to me. I know you’re okay in there. Enough to hear me out.”
“I hate you, Tommy!” He was only a few feet away and Thomas took a step backward, his hurt over Newt turning to fear. “I hate you I hate you I hate you! After all I did for you, after all the freaking klunk I went through in the bloody Maze, you can’t do the one and only thing I’ve ever asked you to do! I can’t even look at your ugly shuck face!”
Thomas took two more steps back. “Newt, you need to stop. They’re going to shoot you. Just stop and listen to me! Get in the van, let me tie you up. Give me a chance!” He couldn’t kill his friend. He just couldn’t.
Newt screamed and rushed forward. An arc of Launcher lightning shot from the van, skidding and crackling across the pavement, but it missed him. Thomas had frozen in place, and Newt tackled him to the ground, knocking the breath out of him. He struggled to fill his lungs as his old friend climbed on top of him and pinned him down.
“I should rip your eyes out,” Newt said, spraying Thomas with spit. “Teach you a lesson in stupidity. Why’d you come over here? You expected a bloody hug? Huh? A nice sit-down to talk about the good times in the Glade?”
Thomas shook his head, gripped by terror, very slowly reaching for his gun with his free hand.
“You wanna know why I have this limp, Tommy? Did I ever tell you? No, I don’t think I did.”
“What happened?” Thomas asked, stalling for time. He slipped his fingers around the weapon.
“I tried to kill myself in the Maze. Climbed halfway up one of those bloody walls and jumped right off. Alby found me and dragged me back to the Glade right before the Doors closed. I hated the place, Tommy. I hated every second of every day. And it was all… your… fault!”
Newt suddenly twisted around and grabbed Thomas by the hand holding the gun. He yanked it toward himself, forcing it up until the end of the pistol was pressed against his own forehead. “Now make amends! Kill me before I become one of those cannibal monsters! Kill me! I trusted you with the note! No one else. Now do it!”
Thomas tried to pull his hand away, but Newt was too strong. “I can’t, Newt, I can’t.”
“Make amends! Repent for what you did!” The words tore out of him, his whole body trembling. Then his voice dropped to an urgent, harsh whisper. “Kill me, you shuck coward. Prove you can do the right thing. Put me out of my misery.”
The words horrified Thomas. “Newt, maybe we can-”
“Shut up! Just shut up! I trusted you! Now do it!”
“I can’t.”
“Do it!”
“I can’t!” How could Newt ask him to do something like this? How could he possibly kill one of his best friends?
“Kill me or I’ll kill you. Kill me! Do it!”
“Newt…”
“Do it before I become one of them!”
“I…”
“KILL ME!” And then Newt’s eyes cleared, as if he’d gained one last trembling gasp of sanity, and his voice softened. “Please, Tommy. Please.”
With his heart falling into a black abyss, Thomas pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 56
Thomas had closed his eyes when he did it. He heard the impact of bullet on flesh and bone, felt Newt’s body jerk, then fall onto the street. Thomas twisted onto his stomach, then pushed himself to his feet, and he didn’t open his eyes until he started running. He couldn’t allow himself to see what he’d done to his friend. The horror of it, the sorrow and guilt and sickness of it all, threatened to consume him, filled his eyes with tears as he ran toward the white van.
“Get in!” Lawrence yelled at him.
The door was still open. Thomas jumped through it and pulled it shut. Then the van was moving.
No one spoke. Thomas stared out the front window in a daze. He’d shot his best friend in the head. Never mind that it was what he’d been asked to do, what Newt had wanted, what he’d pleaded for. Thomas had still pulled the trigger. He looked down, saw that his hands and legs were shaking, and he suddenly felt freezing cold.
“What have I done?” he mumbled, but the others didn’t say a word.
The rest of the trip was a blur to Thomas. They passed more Cranks, even had to shoot some Launcher grenades out the window a couple of times. Then they were through the outer wall of the city, through the fence to the small airport, through the enormous door of the hangar, which was heavily guarded by more members of the Right Arm.
Not much was said, and Thomas just did as he was told, went where he was supposed to go. They boarded the Berg, and he followed as they walked through it and did an inspection. But he never said a word. The pilot went to fire up the big ship, Lawrence disappeared somewhere, and Thomas found a couch in the common room. He lay down and stared at the metal grid of the ceiling.
Since he’d killed Newt, he hadn’t thought once about what he had set out to do. Free of WICKED, finally, and here he was voluntarily going back.
He didn’t care anymore. Whatever happened, happened. He knew that for the rest of his life he’d be haunted by what he’d seen. Chuck gasping for air while he bled to death, and now Newt screaming at him with raw, terrifying madness. And that last moment of sanity, eyes begging for mercy.
Thomas closed his own, and the images were still there. It took a long time for him to fall asleep.
Lawrence woke him up. “Hey, rise and shine, boy. We’ll be there in a few minutes. We’re dropping your butt, then getting the hell out of there. No offense.”
“None taken.” Thomas groaned and swung his legs off the couch. “How far will I have to walk to get there?”
“A few miles. Don’t worry, I don’t think you’ll have too many Cranks to deal with-it’s gotten cold in the wilderness. Might see a few angry moose, though. Wolves might try to eat your legs off. Nothing much.”
Thomas looked at the man, expecting a big grin, but he was busy in the corner, putting things in order.
“A coat and your backpack are waiting for you at the cargo door,” Lawrence said as he moved a small piece of equipment onto a shelf. “You’ve got food and water. We want to make sure you have a nice, enjoyable hike-relish the joys of nature and all that.” Still no smile.
“Thanks,” Thomas muttered. He was trying so hard not to slide back into the dark pit of sadness in which he’d fallen asleep. He still couldn’t get Chuck and Newt off his mind.
Lawrence stopped what he was doing and turned to him. “I’m only going to ask you this once.”
“What?”
“You sure about this? Everything I know about these people is rotten. They kidnap, torture, murder-do anything to get what they want. Seems crazy to let you waltz in there all by yourself.”
For some reason Thomas wasn’t scared anymore. “I’ll be fine. Just make sure you come back.”
Lawrence shook his head. “You’re either the bravest kid I ever met or plain crazy. Anyway, go get yourself a shower and fresh clothes-gotta be some in the lockers.”
Thomas didn’t know how he looked at that moment, but he imagined something like a pale and lifeless zombie with dead eyes. “Okay,” he said, and headed off to try to wash some of the horror away.
The Berg pitched and Thomas held on to a bar in the wall as the ship lowered to the ground. The ramp door started cranking open with the squeal of hinges while they were still a hundred feet up, and cool air blasted inside. The sound of the thrusters burning roared louder. Thomas could see that they were above a small clearing in a large forest of snow-dusted pine trees-so many that the Berg wouldn’t be able to land. Thomas would have to jump.
The ship descended and Thomas steadied himself.
“Good luck, boy,” Lawrence said, nodding toward the ground when they got close. “I’d tell you to be careful, but you’re not an idiot, so I won’t.”
Thomas gave him a smile, hoping for one in return. He felt like he needed it, but got nothing. “Okay, then. I’ll get the device planted as soon as I get in. I’m sure everything will go down with no problems. Right?”
“I’ll have little lizards flying out my nostrils if we have no problems,” Lawrence replied, but there was kindness in his voice. “Now get. Once you’re out there, go that way.” He pointed to the left, toward the edge of the forest.
Thomas pulled on a coat, slipped his arms through the straps of the backpack, then carefully walked down the big metal slab of the cargo door and crouched on its edge. It was only about four feet to the snow-covered ground, but he’d still have to be careful. He jumped and landed in a soft spot-a fresh snowdrift. All the while, his insides were numb.
He’d killed Newt.
He’d shot his own friend in the head.
CHAPTER 57
The clearing was scattered with trunks of trees felled long ago. The tall, thick pines of the forest surrounded Thomas, reaching up to the sky like a wall of majestic towers. He shielded his eyes from the fierce wind as the Berg boosted its thrusters and rose into the air, and he watched as it vanished into the southwestern sky.
The air was crisp and cool and the forest felt fresh, like he was standing in a brand-new world-a place untouched by disease. He was sure that not many people got to see anything like this today, and he felt lucky.
He tightened up his backpack and set out in the direction Lawrence had indicated, determined to make it there as quickly as possible. The less time he had to dwell on what he’d done to Newt, the better. And he knew that being alone out there in the wild would only give him too much time. He took the last few steps out of the snowy clearing and entered the darkness of the thick pines. He allowed their pleasantly overwhelming scent to wash over him and he did his best to shut down his mind again and stop thinking altogether.
He did pretty well, concentrating on his path, the sights and sounds of birds and squirrels and insects, the wonderful smells. His senses weren’t used to such things, since he’d spent most of the life he remembered inside. Not to mention the Maze and the Scorch. As he hiked through the woods, he found it hard to believe that such a different place-the Scorch-could exist on the same planet. His mind wandered. He wondered what life would be like for all these animals if humans really did go away for good.
He’d walked for over an hour when he finally reached the edge of the woods and a wide swatch of barren, rocky earth. Islands of dark brown dirt, devoid of vegetation, dappled the treeless expanse where the snow had been blown away by the wind. Craggy stones of all sizes dotted the land, which sloped toward a sudden drop-off-a huge cliff. Beyond that lay the ocean, its deep blue ending on the horizon, where in a sharp line it changed to the light blue of the brilliant sky. And resting on the edge of the cliff, about a mile ahead of him, was WICKED’s headquarters.
The complex was enormous, made up of wide, unadorned interconnected buildings; the walls were peppered with narrow slits in the white cement, allowing for an occasional window. One rounded building rose up amid the others like a tower. The fierce weather of the region, mixed with the moisture from the sea, had taken its toll on the facades of the buildings-cracks spiderwebbed the exteriors of the complex-but they looked like structures that would exist there forever, unyielding to whatever man or weather threw at it. It called to mind a barely held memory of something from storybooks-some sort of haunted asylum. It was the perfect place to house the organization trying to prevent the world from becoming just such a madhouse. A long, narrow road led away from the complex, disappearing into the forest.
Thomas set out across the rock-strewn section of earth. An almost disturbing quiet settled over the land. The only thing he could hear besides the thump of his footsteps and his own breathing was the sound of distant waves breaking on the bottom of the cliff, and even that was faint. He was certain that the people at WICKED had spotted him by now-the security was surely thorough and tight.
A scuttling sound, like clicks of metal against stone, made him stop and look to his right. As if summoned by the thought of security, a beetle blade stood perched on a boulder, its red eye gleaming in Thomas’s direction.
He remembered how it had felt the first time he’d seen one of them inside the Glade, just before it scurried away and into the small woods there. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
He waved at the beetle blade, and then he kept walking. In ten minutes he’d be knocking on the door of WICKED, asking, for the first time, to be let in. Not out.
He made his way down the last section of the slope and stepped onto an icy sidewalk that encircled the campus. It looked like there’d once been an effort to make the grounds a little prettier than the barren land around it, but the bushes and flowers and trees had long succumbed to winter, and the patches of gray dirt he could see amid the snow bore only weeds. Thomas walked along the paved lane, wondering why no one had come to greet him yet. Maybe the Rat Man was inside, watching, guessing that Thomas had finally come over to their side.
Two more beetle blades captured his attention, both roaming the snow-covered weeds of the flower beds, scanning left and right with their red beams as they scuttled along. Thomas looked up at the closest set of windows but saw only darkness-the glass was heavily tinted. A rumble coming from behind made him turn to look. A storm was moving in, its clouds dark and heavy, but it was still a few miles distant. As he watched, several bolts of lightning zigzagged across the grayness, and it took him back to the Scorch, to that awful rain of lightning that had met them as they approached the city. He could only hope the weather wasn’t so bad this far north.
He resumed his path along the sidewalk and slowed as he approached the front entrance. A large set of glass doors awaited him, and a sudden, almost painful surge of memory pounded inside his skull. The escape from the Maze, the flight through the corridors of WICKED, coming out these doors into the pouring rain. He looked to his right into a small parking lot, where an old bus squatted next to a row of cars. It had to be the same one that had run over that poor Flare-infested woman, then whisked them away to those dorms, where their minds were played with and a Flat Trans eventually took them to the Scorch.
And now, after all he’d been through, he stood at WICKED’s threshold, there by his own choice. He reached out and knocked on the cold, dark glass in front of him. He could see nothing on the other side.
Almost immediately, a series of locks disengaged, one after the other; then one of the doors swung out. Janson-who’d always be the Rat Man to Thomas-extended a hand.
“Welcome back, Thomas,” he said. “No one believed me, but I’ve been saying all along that you’d return. I’m glad you made the right choice.”
“Let’s just get on with it,” Thomas said. He’d do this-he’d play the part-but he didn’t have to be nice about it.
“Sounds like an excellent idea.” Janson stepped back and bowed slightly. “After you.”
With a chill along his spine to match the frosty weather outside, Thomas walked past the Rat Man and entered WICKED’s headquarters.
CHAPTER 58
Thomas stepped into a wide lobby with a few couches and chairs, fronted by a large, empty desk. It was different from the ones he’d seen the last time he was there. The furniture was colorful and bright, but it did nothing to perk up the dreary feel of the place.
“I thought we’d spend a few minutes in my office,” Janson said, and pointed down the hallway that branched off to the right off the lobby. They started walking that way. “We’re terribly sorry about what happened in Denver. A shame to lose a city with such potential. All the more reason we need to get this done and get it done quickly.”
“What is it you have to do?” he forced himself to ask.
“We’ll discuss everything in my office. Our lead team is there.”
The device hidden in his backpack weighed heavily on Thomas’s thoughts. Somehow he had to get it planted as soon as possible and get the clock ticking.
“That’s fine,” he said, “but I really need to use the bathroom first.” It was the simplest idea he could come up with. And the only sure way to get a minute alone.
“There’s one just up ahead,” the Rat Man replied.
They turned a corner and continued down an even duller corridor that led to the men’s room.
“I’ll wait out here,” Janson said with a nod toward the door.
Thomas went inside without saying a word. He pulled the device from his backpack and looked around. There was a wooden cabinet for storing toiletries above the sink, and the top of it had a lip just tall enough that Thomas could slip the gadget in and it would be concealed. He flushed the toilet and then turned on the water at the sink. He activated the device as he’d been taught, wincing at the slight beep that sounded, then reached up and deposited it on top of the cabinet. After shutting off the water, he calmed himself while the hand blower ran its course.
Then he stepped back into the hallway.
“All finished?” Janson asked, annoyingly polite.
“All finished,” Thomas replied.
They continued walking, passing a few crookedly hung portraits of Chancellor Paige just like the ones on the posters in Denver.
“Am I ever going to meet the chancellor?” Thomas finally asked, curious about the woman.
“Chancellor Paige is very busy,” Jansen answered. “You have to remember, Thomas-completing the blueprint and finalizing the cure are only the beginning. We’re still organizing the logistics of getting it out to the masses-most of the team is working hard at it as we speak.”
“What makes you so sure this will work? Why just me?”
Janson glanced at him, flashed his rodentlike smile. “I know, Thomas. I believe it with every ounce of my being. And I promise you’ll get the credit you deserve.”
For some reason Thomas thought of Newt just then. “I don’t want any credit.”
“Here we are,” the man replied, ignoring Thomas.
