XX

Aris and Brenda left Sonya vigilantly guarding the door while they made their way through a lab that was sitting right off of the control room.

Brenda chanced a quick glance around, noticing the sterilised utensils laid out on white plastic sheets, a series of a large, technological machines and a massive transparent tank filled to the brim with a liquid that looked like ... water?

Brenda froze. "Aris!" she hissed as she nodded towards it. "What the hell is that?"

Aris cast a glance over his shoulder, his boyish green eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. "Wow. Would you look at that? If I didn't know any better, I'd take a dip in there. Ah. It'd be so refreshing."

"If you didn't know any better?" Brenda repeated demandingly. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Because that, my friend, isn't water," Aris stroked his chin thoughtfully as he answered. "Can you smell that disinfectant? That's coming from this tank. It looks like it's some sort of chemical formula or something."

"Do you know what WCKD does with it?" Brenda queried, nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

Aris shrugged. "It could be a number of things, to be honest. I don't really know and to be frank, I don't want to know. Now, let's go. This place gives me the creeps."

"Tell me about it," Brenda muttered under her breath as she hurried across the floor towards the exit.

Keeping her rifle at the ready, Brenda scanned the area once more while she waited for Aris to disable the door leading into the control room. Once she was inside, however, she had to stop and take a minute to stare in awe at the sight in front of her.

A large sound-desk ran the length of the far wall. It was covered with dashboards and computers and associated pop-out keyboards. Mini lights were flashing on and off across the panel and a series of bright-coloured screens were clustered together nearby.

"Huh, awesome," Aris sighed in contentment as he looked around.

Speechless, Brenda nodded in agreement. Following Aris' example, she pulled out one of the plush wheelie chairs sitting beneath the sound desk and slid into it. Balancing her rifle precariously on her knees, she said, "Okay, genius, do your thing."

Aris ignored her as his tech-savvy mind got to work. As he logged onto a nearby computer and scrolled down through a list of jumbled names and pass-codes, Brenda allowed her gaze to wander to the screens that were positioned to her left.

A detailed display of the inside of the entire Maze was clearly showing through the camera reel, different screens revealing different sections.

Upon seeing a flash of movement occur on one of the screens, Brenda scooted her chair closer towards them and peered intently through the reel.

Her eyes were drawn to a single screen that was displayed by a hidden camera that was near one of the wall openings. It led into a large, luscious glade filled with long, thick grass and dotted with daises. An array of thatched bamboo huts covered one corner of the large, open sector while a forest of tall evergreens decorated the other.

However, Brenda wasn't admiring the view. She was staring, wide-eyed, at a large group of boys gathered around this particular wall opening. Something was going on. But what?

Unable to hear anything that was being said, Brenda had to content herself with just watching as the scenario unfolded in front of her.

After a few moments, a few people moved away from the main group of prisoners and faced away from them. They were led by a dark-haired teen with a sharp jaw-line. He was holding tightly onto a spear and pointing it towards the others gathered in front of him. He was agitated about something, Brenda could tell that by the way he was flinging his arms around.

Behind Dark-Hair, were four others. One was an Asian guy with really buff arms, the other was a tall blonde dude, the other was a shorter slim girl with tangled brown locks and the last was a chubby, curly-haired little boy ...

"Oh my god! Chuck!" Brenda's hand automatically flew to her mouth.

"What?" Aris questioned absent-mindedly.

"It's Chuck," she whispered. "Chuck's in the maze! I can see him!"

Aris' head snapped around. "Really? Where?"

Brenda pointed to the screen before sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. "This may be harder than we thought. They're still a good few kilometres from the nearest exit. It doesn't look like they even know where it is! I - I think we'll need to direct them there."

"Sure, but how?" Aris shrugged as he looked questioningly at her.

"You're the brains," Brenda scoffed. "Shouldn't you be the one coming up with the ideas?"

Aris set his lips into a long, firm line. "O-kay ... uh ... oh, hold on! WCKD's system contains the highest level of technological tools so it must have a P.A. or something similar connected to the maze! If I can log into the network's main-frame, I should be able to rearm the speaker and connect it to a microphone on the computer so we can talk to them through it!"

Brenda just stared dumbly at him. "You completely lost me," she grumbled. "But, yeah sure, do whatever the hell you just said." Glancing down towards her wristwatch, Brenda's breath hitched in her throat. "Aris. We only have thirty-five minutes left. This is really pushing it. We have to hurry ... or we'll get trapped in here."

Gif: Aris on the computer.

Q: Are you more smart like Aris or strong like Brenda?

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