Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: they headed for the door of the operating room.Everyone knew wherehe was being taken.The doctor and the nurse went about the businessof cleaning up—their job was done.Teresa nodded at them even thoughthey weren’t looking, then followed the men into the hallway.She could barely look at Thomas as they made the long journeythrough the corridors and elevators ofWICKED headquarters.Her wallhad weakened again.Thomas was so pale,and his face was covered withbeads of sweat.As if he were conscious on some level,fighting the drugs,aware that terrible things awaited him on the horizon.It hurt her heartto see it.And it scared her to know that she was next. Her stupid wall.What did it matter? It would be taken from her along with all the mem-ories anyway.They reached the basement level below the Maze structure,walkedthrough the warehouse with its rows and shelves of supplies for theGladers. It was dark and cool down there, and Teresa felt goose bumpsbreak out along her arms.She shivered and rubbed them down.Thomasbounced and jostled on the gurney as it hit cracks in the concrete floor,still a look of dread trying to break through the calm exterior of hissleeping face.They reached the shaft of the lift,where the large metal cube rested.The Box.It was only a couple of stories below the Glade proper, but theGlade occupants were manipulated into thinking the trip up was an im-possibly long and arduous journey. It was all meant to stimulate an ar-ray of emotions and brain patterns, from confusion to disorientation tooutright terror. A perfect start for those mapping Thomas’s killzone.Teresa knew that she’d be taking the trip herself tomorrow,with a notegripped in her hands.But at least she’d be in a comatose state,spared of that half hour in the moving darkness.Thomas would wake up in theBox, completely alone. 5 The two men wheeledThomas next to the Box.There was a hor-rible screech of metal against cement as one of them dragged a largestepladder to the side of the cube.A few moments of awkwardness asthey climbed those steps together while holding Thomas again.Teresacould’ve helped but refused,stubborn enough to stand there and watch,to shore up the cracks in her wall as much as she could.With a few grunts and curses, the men got Thomas to the edge atthe top. His body was positioned in a way that his closed eyes facedTeresa one last time. Even though she knew he wouldn’t hear it, shereached out and spoke to him inside her mind. We’re doing the right thing,Thomas. See you on the other side. The men leaned over and loweredThomas by the arms as far as theycould; they dropped him the rest of the way.Teresa heard the thump of his body crumpling onto the cold steel of the floor inside. Her bestfriend.She turned around and walked away.From behind her came the dis-tinct sound of metal sliding against metal,then a loud,echoing boom asthe doors of the Box slammed shut. Sealing Thomas’s fate, whatever itmight be. 6 THIRTEEN YEARSEARLIER Empty gaps for windows and oddly shaped doorways. In some spotsthere were nothing but holes in the ground,the bottom lined with plas-tic sheets,a few logs lashed together to cover it when the rains came.Itwas a far cry from the towering skyscrapers and concrete landscape of where he’d grown up.Alec greeted Mark and Trina with a grunt when they walkedthrough the lopsided doorway in the Central Shack’s log structure. Be-fore they could say hello, Lana came marching briskly up to them. Astout woman with black hair that was always pulled tightly into a bun,she’d been a nurse in the army and was somewhere between Mark’s andAlec’s ages—she andAlec had been together when Mark had met themin the tunnels below NewYork City.Back then,they’d both worked for the defense department.Alec was her boss; they’d been on their way toa meeting of some sort that day. Before everything changed.“And where have you two been?” Lana asked when she came to astop just a few inches from Mark’s face.“We were supposed to start atdawn today, head out to the southern valley and scout for another branch location.A few more weeks of this overcrowding and I mightget snippy.”“Good morning,”Mark said in response.“You seem chipper today.”She smiled at that; Mark had known she would.“I do tend to getstraight to business sometimes, don’t I? Though I have a lot of wiggleroom before I get as grumpy as Alec.”“The sarge?Yeah, you’re right.”On cue, the old bear grunted.“Sorry about being late,”Trina said.“I’d make up a great excuse,buthonesty’s the best policy.Mark made me go up to the stream and we ... you know.”It took a lot to surprise Mark these days, even more to make him 15 blush,butTrina had the ability to do both.He stammered as Lana rolledher eyes.“Oh,spare me.”Lana waved and added,“Now go grab some break-fast if you haven’t already and let’s get packed and marching. I want tobe back within a week.”A week out in the wilderness, seeing new things, getting somefresher air . . . it all sounded great to Mark, lifting his spirits out of thehole into which they’d fallen earlier.He swore to keep his mind on thepresent while they traveled and just try to enjoy the hike.“Have you seen Darnell and the Toad?”Trina asked.“What aboutMisty?”“TheThree Stooges?”Alec asked,followed by a bark of a laugh.Theman thought the weirdest things were funny.“At least they rememberedthe plan.Already eaten, gone to pack. Should be back in a jiffy.”Mark and Trina were halfway through their pancakes and deer sausage when they heard the familiar sound of the other three friendsthey’d picked up in the tunnels of NewYork.“Take that off your head!” came a whiny voice, right before ateenage boy appeared at the door with a pair of underwear pulled over his brown hair like a hat. Darnell. Mark was convinced the kid hadnever taken a thing seriously in his entire life. Even when the sun hadbeen trying to boil him alive a year past, he seemed to be ready with a joke.“But I like it!” he was saying as he entered the Shack.“Helps keepmy hair in place and protects me from the elements.Two for the priceof one!”A girl walked in after him,tall and thin with long red hair,just a lit-tle younger than Mark.They called her Misty, though she’d never toldthem whether that was her real name. She was looking at Darnell withan expression of half disgust and half amusement.TheToad—short and 16 squat, as his nickname implied—bounded in and pushed his way pasther, grabbing for the undies atop Darnell’s head.“Give me those!” he shouted, leaping as he reached. He was theshortest nineteen year-old Mark had ever seen, but thick as an oaktree—all muscle and sinew and veins.Which for some reason made theothers think it was okay to pick on him,because they all knew he couldbeat the crap out of them if he really wanted to. But theToad liked be-ing the center of attention.And Darnell liked being goofy and annoying.“Why would you even want those nasty things on your head?”Misty asked.“You do realize where that’s been, right? Covering up theToad’s nether regions?”“Excellent point,”Darnell replied with his own look of feigned dis-gust, just as theToad finally was able to snatch the underwear off of hishead. “Very poor judgment on my part.” Darnell shrugged. “Seemedfunny at the time.”The Toad was stuffing his recaptured possession into his backpack.“Well,I get the last laugh.I haven’t washed those suckers in at least twoweeks.”He started up with that laugh, a noise that made Mark think of adog fighting over a piece of meat.Whenever the Toad let it out, everyother person in the room couldn’t help but join in,and the ice officiallymelted. Mark still couldn’t tell if he was laughing at the subject matter or just at the sounds coming out of theToad.Either way,such momentswere few and far between, and it felt good to laugh, as it did to seeTrina’s face light up.Even Alec and Lana were chuckling, which made Mark thinkmaybe it was going to be a perfect day after all.But then their laughter was cut off by a strange sound. SomethingMark hadn’t heard in over a year,and hadn’t expected to hear ever again.The sound of engines in the sky. “No way,” Darnell scoffed.“They would’ve done that a long timeago.”Mark didn’t say anything as he ran along at the back of the group,still a bit stunned by the sudden appearance of the huge Berg. Theothers kept referencing some mysterious they , even though no oneknew who they were.There’d been signs and rumors that some kind of central government was organizing itself, but no news that was evenclose to reliable.And certainly no official contact yet. It was true thatsupplies and food had been brought to the camps around Asheville,andthe people there usually shared with the outlying settlements.The Berg stopped up ahead, its blue thrusters pointing downwardnow as it hovered fifty feet or so above the Town Square, a roughlysquare-shaped area they’d left bare when building the settlement.Thegroup picked up their pace and arrived in the Square to find that acrowd had already gathered, the people gawking up at the flying ma-chine as if it were a mythical beast.With its roar and its dazzling displayof blue light,it almost seemed so.Especially after such a long time sincethey’d seen any signs of advanced technology.Most of the crowd had gathered in the center of the Square, their faces pictures of expectation and excitement. Like they’d all jumped tothe same conclusion as Misty—that the Berg was here for rescue, or atleast some spot of good news. Mark was wary, though. After the year he’d just been through, he’d been taught many times over to never gethis hopes up.Trina pulled on his sleeve, then leaned in to talk to him.“What’s itdoing?There’s not enough room here for it to land.”“I don’t know.There aren’t any markings or anything to say whoseBerg it is or where it came from.”Alec was close and somehow overheard their conversation over theburning snarl of the thrusters. Probably with his superpowered soldier 19 hearing.“They say the ones that drop off supplies inAsheville have PFC painted in big letters on the side.Post-Flares Coalition.”He was practi-cally shouting.“Seems strange that this one has nothing on it.”Mark shrugged back at him, not sure Alec’s information reallymeant anything. He realized he was sort of in a daze. He looked backup, wondered who could possibly be inside the vessel and what their purpose might be.Trina squeezed his hand and he squeezed hers back.They were both sweating.“Maybe it’s God inside,” the Toad said in a high-pitched voice—italways came out that way when he shouted.“Come to say he’s sorry for all the sun flare business.”Out of the corner of his eye, Mark noticed Darnell taking in abreath, his mouth opening, probably to say something smart and funnyback at theToad.But the action was cut off by a loud wrenching soundfrom above,followed by the groan and squeal of hydraulics.Mark watchedin fascination as a large, square-shaped hatch on the bottom of the Bergbegan to open,pivoting on hinges to lower like a ramp.It was dark inside,and little wisps of mist came swirling out as the gap grew wider.Gasps and shouts rippled throughout the crowd; hands raised andfingers pointed upward.Mark tore his gaze from the Berg for a momentto take everything in, struck by the sense of awe surrounding him.They’d become a desperate, desperate people, living each day with theweighty feeling that the next one could be their last.And here they allwere, looking toward the sky as if the Toad’s joke had been more thanthat.There was a longing in many of the eyes he saw, like people trulythought they were being saved by some divine power.It made Mark feela little sick.A fresh wave of gasps spilled through the Square,and Mark snappedhis head to look up again. Five people had emerged from the darknessof the Berg,dressed in outfits that sent a chill racing down Mark’s spinal 20 cord. Green and rubbery and bulky—one-piece suits that covered thestrangers from head to toe.The suits had clear visors in the headpiecethrough which the wearers could see,but the glare and distance made itimpossible for Mark to make out their faces.They stepped carefully inbig black boots pulled up over the green material until the five of themlined the outer edge of the lowered hatch door, their tense body lan-guage showing the effort it took to maintain balance.Each of them held a black tube in their hands as if it were a gun.But the tubes didn’t look like any guns Mark had ever seen.Theywere thin and long, with an attachment at the end that made them re-semble plumbing parts someone had ripped out of an industrial pump.And once the strangers settled into their positions, they held up thetubelike things and aimed them directly at the people below.Mark realized thatAlec was screaming at the top of his lungs,push-ing and shoving people to move them away. Everything around themwas erupting in chaos—shouts and panic—yet Mark had fallen into atrance,watching the strangers with their odd outfits and their menacingweapons come out of the Berg as everyone else in the crowd finallywoke up to the fact that these people weren’t there to save anyone.Whathad happened to the Mark who could act fast? Who had survived the year of hell after the flares ravaged the earth?He was still frozen,watching,as the first shot was fired from above.A blur of movement,a quick flash of something dark and small and fastbursting from one of those tubes.Mark’s eyes followed the trajectory.Heheard a sickening thunk,his head twisting to the side just in time to seethat Darnell had a five-inch-long dart sticking out of his shoulder, itsthin metal shaft planted deep within the muscle. Blood trickled downfrom the wound.The boy made a strange grunt as he collapsed to theground.That finally snapped Mark out of it. the middle of the clearing. More darts thumped into the ground like asudden hailstorm.“Fire away, boy,”Alec growled.“And aim well, ’cause you’ve onlygot twelve bullets. Don’t miss. Now!”With that,Alec spun and ran to a spot about ten feet away. Markpointed the gun at the people on the hatch door of the Berg and firedoff two quick shots,knowing he needed to get their attention immedi-ately so they wouldn’t notice Alec.The three green suits backed up anddropped to their knees,hunching down to get the metal ramp betweenthem and the shooter. One of them turned and clambered to get backinto the ship.Mark tossed the wood shield to the side.He clutched the gun withboth hands, steadied himself and concentrated.A head peeked over theedge of the hatch above and Mark quickly set it in his sights,fired a shot.His hands jumped with the recoil, but he saw the red mist, a spray of blood in the air; a body tumbled off the ramp and crashed into threepeople below.Fresh waves of screams erupted from all directions as peo-ple saw what was happening.An arm stretched around the Berg door above, holding the tube-weapon out to take random shots.Mark fired,heard a sharp ping as thebullet hit the metal contraption, then watched the weapon fall to theground.A woman scooped it up and started examining it,trying to fig-ure out how to use it to fight back.That could only help.Mark risked a quick glance back at Alec. He was holding up thegrappling-hook weapon as if he were a seaman about to harpoon awhale. A pop sounded and suddenly the hook was flying toward theBerg, the rope spinning out behind it like a trail of smoke.The hookclanged against one of the hydraulic shafts keeping the hatch door openand twisted around it, catching hold.Alec pulled the rope taut.“Throw me the gun!” the soldier yelled at him. 28 Mark looked up to make sure no one had reappeared from insideto shoot another volley of darts; then he sprinted to Alec, handed himthe pistol.The man had barely taken it when Mark heard a click andAlec was shooting into the sky, his device pulling him up the rope,toward the hovering Berg. He held on to the grappling-hook weaponwith one hand and pointed the pistol above him with the other.As soonas he cleared the edge of the hatch door, three shots rang out in quicksuccession. Mark watched as the man climbed onto the ramp, his feetthe last things to disappear from sight.A few seconds later,another green-suited body was launched over the edge,slamming onto empty dirt.“The other hook!” Alec screamed down at him. “Hurry, beforemore come out or they take off!”He didn’t wait for a reply before turn-ing to face the main body of the Berg.Mark’s heart raced,almost hurting as it thumped rapidly against hisribs.He looked around,spotted the other hulking device on the groundwhere Alec had dropped it. Mark picked it up, examined it, felt a rushof panic that he wouldn’t know how to use the stupid thing.“Just aim it up here!”Alec shouted down.“If it doesn’t catch,I’ll tieit on myself. Hurry!”Mark held it like a rifle and pointed it directly toward the middleof the hatch door. He pulled the trigger.The recoil was strong but heleaned into it this time,felt the bump of pain on his shoulder.The hookand trailing rope shot toward the Berg,up and over the edge of the openhatch.It clanged and started to slip back,butAlec grabbed it just in time.Mark watched as Alec hurried to one of the hydraulic shafts andwrapped the hook tightly around it.“Okay!”Alec yelled.“Push the green retractor butt—”He was cut off when the Berg’s engines roared to a higher pitch andthe vehicle vaulted into the air. Mark gripped the end of the grapplingdevice just as it tore him off his feet, yanking him skyward. He heard 29 Trina shout at him from below, but the ground fell away, the peoplegrowing smaller by the second.Fear ripped through Mark as he held on,squeezing his fingers so tightly they turned bone-white.Looking downmade his head spin and his stomach lurch, so he forced his gaze to thehatch door.Alec was just scrambling back over the edge of the ramp door— he’d almost been sent sailing to his death.He kicked and pulled himself to safety, using the same rope to which Mark clung for dear life.Thenhe flopped onto his stomach and peered down at Mark with wide eyes.“Find the green button, Mark!” he yelled.“Push it!”The air was rushing around Mark’s body, the wind combined withthe power of the thrusters.The Berg was ascending, now at least twohundred feet off the ground,and moving forward,heading for the trees.They’d clip Mark within seconds and either tear him to pieces or riphim from the rope.He held on as he frantically searched the device for the button.There it was,a few inches down from the trigger that had shot outthe hook and rope.He hated to let go,even for a second,but he focusedall his strength into his right hand, clenching his fingers even tighter,then went for it with his left.His entire body flopped back and forth inthe air,swaying against the wind and jolting at every bump of the Berg.The tops of the pines and oaks rushed in.He couldn’t get enough con-trol to push the button.Suddenly there was a clank and a clanging and the squeal of metalabove him and he looked up.The hatch door was closing19413