I do not own The Maze Runner or any of its characters.

Janson: *most likely* You're disrespecting-you're disrespecting a future WICKED soldier!

WICKED Employees #581/#456
Amelia & Jake
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Amelia didn't ask for much. Usually. She just wanted a stable job, where she could study people's brains. WICKED found her at a 'safe haven.' She was too old to join the subject list, but she was a Munie and seemed smart. They took her and decided they could use her for something. Amelia had started on as a trainer. She had proven to be adept at reading people and started teaching some children the skill at the behest of WICKED. Amelia had applied to become a Psych when the position opened and started training.

When she completed it, Amelia found out that she would be paired with a subject to study. Only a few Psychs did it, and Amelia was, well, psyched. She wanted to be paired with the one person who seemed to give people the most headaches. Lauren. Subject B-17. Her former student. Other Psychs called her the Behemoth. She was one of the more complicated subjects that WICKED had pulled in. Lauren was defiant, stubborn, and one of the most challenging kids to handle when she was younger. Her brain could be read like a children's book, but no one could justify any of her actions.

Amelia loved a challenge. And Lauren was a challenge. So she put in a special request to her supervisor and got Lauren right away.

Lauren used to know who Amelia was. She had been an enormous part of the girl's life. But all of that seemed like it was the one memory she wasn't going to get back. Amelia still remembered her and knew more about her now than Lauren knew herself.

Jake, on the other hand, had a more rocky start. When WICKED found him, he was holed up in an abandoned building with a rifle in his hands and dead Cranks around him. Like Amelia, he was too old to join the subject list, being a whopping 16 years old, but he was a Munie and was bright enough to have lasted this long.

He was offered a position to train to become a scientist and possibly a Psych but declined to become a guard. Jake got very far, but then suddenly stopped his work and started to become a scientist instead.

Jake didn't have as strong of a connection to Lauren as Amelia did, but he was still a massive part of her life nonetheless.

|~^-^~|

*22:37. 34 Hours before Lauren's prison sentence*

"Lauren's getting another memory. Should we be concerned?" Amelia looked at her coworker, Jake. Lauren's brain was spiking. Amelia was puzzled why Lauren seemed to be getting more memories than anyone in the Glade without getting stung. It had been keeping Amelia up day and night, but she couldn't figure it out.

"I don't know. Lauren doesn't know anything about the way out, does she?" Jake wondered.

"No, but she might tell people about the other Maze."

"Let's wait and see. If anything, maybe hearing about the girls will spur them on." He wasn't too concerned.

The two lapsed into silence, Amelia wondering what Lauren was going to do next. She studied her screens and asked the question that she had been pondering for the last two weeks.

What was different about Lauren that made her get so many memories?

*17:19. 16 Hours before Lauren's prison sentence*

"She's telling people!" Amelia called. This was what she was talking about. Nothing made sense with Lauren.

"Oh, no." Jake paled. Even with all of his talk about how it could be helpful, Jake didn't think she would do it.

"What should we do?"

Amelia started pacing the tiny room, which didn't amount to a lot of steps. What were they going to do? Nothing in the handbook said anything about a subject getting memories without a sting. WICKED had an unflinching loyalty to their 'Swipe.'

After about an hour of panicking and bouncing awful ideas to each other, another Psych came into their room.

"What, Gerald?"

"Everyone's wondering what we're going to do about Subject B-17." The mousy man asked.

"We've given them names, it would do you good to use them. And we've got it covered, Gerald." Amelia said his name like it was an insult.

Jake was astounded at how quick Amelia could shove her feelings under the carpet.

"I see." Gerald left.

Amelia took three quick steps and unplugged the little camera in their room.

*19:20. 14 hours before Lauren's prison sentence*

"I've got it!" Amelia exclaimed, causing Jake to drop the stack of papers he was trying to tidy.

"What?" He asked while grabbing the white sheets that now littered their floor.

"We'll just do a brain override."

"Isn't that what you swore you'd never do?" When Amelia had learned that in extreme cases, WICKED was allowed to entirely override a subject's brain using the chip they'd implanted, she had gone off on a long speech to Jake, ending with a solemn swear that she'd never do it.

"I said I'd never do a complete one. This would just be a nudge."

"Okay? It's still breaking your oath."

"Oh, stuff it." Amelia turned to her computer, starting the necessary procedure to activate Lauren's chip.

After a few moments of silence, the red-haired woman swore loudly.

"Do I need to get some soap?" He joked and mentally patted himself on the back. Usually, Amelia was the one to say a witty comment.

"Now's not the time, Jake."

Jake gave his coworker a concerned look, then went to see was Amelia was upset about.

"Her chip's damaged." How did they manage to overlook that when they gave the all-clear to send Lauren into the other maze?

"We can't report it." She said immediately.

"Amelia, we've already broken so many rules. If we don't do anything about this, we'd lose our jobs. It's protocol."

"Screw you and your protocol! We can't let her die!" His best friend looked betrayed. "If we follow 'protocol', they'll kill her. Do you want her blood on your hands? They're already dirty enough." She stormed out of the room, slamming the door.

Jake tried to justify Amelia's actions by bringing up his past. She was going to lose the closest thing she had to a kid. But it still didn't stop the pain.

Amelia returned a while later, her eyes red and puffy with faint mascara trails down her face. She said nothing, not even an explanation as to where she went or what she did. Jake didn't ask.

An awful quiet settled itself in the room. It was the type that made you want to scream and say a thousand words in a second, but it was too thick. Too heavy. It would take everything in you to say a word, and you knew you needed to say something, or it would be there until the end of time. But you didn't.

After about an hour, Amelia went into the main room, Jake trailing behind her to see what she was doing. He knew it couldn't be good.

"Jake and I have got the situation all under control." She announced.

It took a lot not to look at Amelia. He just went with it, trying to put on what he believed was a sure face. He'd figure out what she was doing later.

"There will be no need to go to Ava or anyone else higher up. I will personally give a detailed report, and we all know no one likes to do that. Also, if I catch anyone messing with Lauren or her chip, I will make it first priority to get you fired. We all know the rules of a subject paired with a Psych." With that, she exited.

Jake just nodded and followed the red-haired woman out of the room.

Once they were back in the office, Amelia went back to what she was doing. Before Jake could ask her what that announcement was all about, Amelia beat him to saying something.

"It would do you good to follow the rule as well." She said quietly, not bothering to turn back around.

He didn't say anything, more out of shock than anything that Amelia had threatened her best and only friend. Jake opened his mouth a couple of times, feeling like a fish, but he couldn't find the right words.

"I hope Lauren's worth all of this." He finally said.

*21:07. 12 hours before Lauren's prison sentence*

Jake looked over at where Amelia was sleeping, his heart heavy. They usually were out of the office, but the two stayed in there trying to figure out what to do. She had just fallen asleep.

They had both settled into the awful quiet again after Jake's retort, and it was even worse than before. This one hurt.

Typically, Jake was the one to apologize after fights (being cooped up in a tiny office with a fiery redhead was bound to cause a couple of fights now and then), but after the dig at his past and the threat, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

But he still felt like he needed to do something.

Even years after the incident, Jake was still awake at night, wondering what possessed him to forgive Amelia and risk his job and go against his unflinching loyalty to WICKED. Jake wasn't a religious person, which was more Lauren's thing, but you could have called it divine intervention.

At 21:24, Jake walked over to his sleeping coworker, Lauren's chip diagnostics on the computer in front of her, and swept her up into his arms bridal style. She stirred slightly and whispered an almost inaudible apology. Jake wasn't sure it was to him or Lauren.

He got a look from a guard while he was walking to Amelia's room, but upon seeing Jake's face, the guard just nodded.

After making sure that Amelia was comfortable, he backed out of the room, the door shutting softly behind him.

And at 21:38, WICKED employee #456 crept silently back into the small room.

*9:47. Lauren's prison sentence*

"You locked her up?!" Amelia yelled.

"Technically, Alby did," Jake started.

"If you have to use the word technically, you're already in the wrong. Explain." She didn't even have an inkling as to what Jake did.

"Well, since Lauren's chip is damaged, we couldn't get her to stop telling people about her memories. But by the time I got an idea, she had already told the leaders. The damage was done. So then, I figured, why not get her in trouble with them so that she wouldn't want to tell them any more memories?

"I tinkered around with the chip, trying to see what worked and what didn't, and with the whole malfunction, instead of doing a brain override, the chip instead could a project a voice to nudge Lauren in a direction. Not exactly as clean as an override, but it's the best thing I could do. And if done right, she won't suspect anything."

"And how does that work with getting Lauren locked up?"

"I'm getting to that. So I caught Lauren a couple of hours after she told Newt and Alby about her memories. So I thought, what could we do to cover up the fact that she was getting so many memories from the other Psychs?"

"A Griever sting," Amelia whispered.

"Yes. I wrote an elaborate program for the voice, to where it's sole purpose would be to push Lauren to get a Griever sting. When it was completed, the voice will shut down. After that, I crafted this whole scene where Lauren would be talking to herself, planted another subject outside the door to where they would only hear Lauren's side to the conversation, then tell Alby but fudge a couple of things, and then-" a bone-crushing hug cut off Jake.

"Thank you."

Just like that, they healed the relationship.

After a few moments of silence, Jake spoke up.

"Do you want me to let Lauren out of jail?"

Amelia sighed. "After we tell Ava."

"That's going to be a lot of paperwork."

"I'll do the lying."

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Aha! All is revealed! Now Alby makes sense! But there are so many more questions!

Writing!

Amelia and Jake are my BABIES now and it HURT to write them in pain. Even if we've only known them for.....a chapter.

If I'm being honest, you most likely will not see the two of them for the rest of this book, and possibly the second. (it's been a hot minute since I've read the rest of the series, don't hold me to my claims) But I can promise you will see them in the third book tho! foreshadowing?? we don't know her.

I still wanted to put their faceclaims in the cast bc they're still a pretty big part of the book, even if you'll only see them in this chapter.

Side note, I freaking LOVE this chapter title. Hands down, one of my best ones.

Questions!!

-Do you guys like Amelia and Jake?/Would you like to see more of them?

-On a scale of one to ten, how much did you like this chapter?/Would you want to see more like this?

-Do you think Ava will suspect anything?

-Questions, comments, requests, or CC?