ACT I   SCENE XXI
MANTEIS

   THE HOMESTEAD had been tightly boarded up, all lights extinguished to avoid attracting attention. Three nights had passed, and the Grievers had taken one boy each time. Zart had been one of them. Cassandra tried to sleep, but closing her eyes was the farthest thing from her mind. She had squeezed into a room upstairs with Minho, Newt, Thomas and a few other boys. Everyone was tossing uneasily as they tried desperately to get some shut-eye.

Eventually, Cassandra leaned her head on Minho's shoulder and slipped into a restless sleep. Only a couple of hours passed before a loud bang jolted her awake. Panic flared as instinct took over and she reached for her knife—until she saw Gally.

She stared at him, frozen, as if he were a ghost. Gally stood there, bloodied, clothes torn, with a wild look in his eyes. Thomas had fallen over and was scrambling to get up. Minho reached out, dragging him back to safety.

"It can't be solved," Gally muttered, his voice low and distant, "The shuck Maze'll kill you shanks... The Grievers'll kill you... one every night till it's over... It's better this way. They'll only kill you once a night... their stupid Variables..."

Cassandra frowned at his choice of words. Variables. It seemed so odd, so out of place for him to say something like that. Then she remembered. World in Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department. None of it was real. The sky. The Glade. The Maze. They were simply test subjects in a grand scheme.

"Gally, shut your bloody hole," Newt hissed. "There's a Griever right outside the window. Just sit your butt down and be quiet—maybe it'll go away."

"You don't get it, Newt." Gally turned on him. "You're too stupid—you've always been too stupid! There's no way out—there's no way to win! They're going to kill all of you! One by one!"

He suddenly let out a yell and hurled himself at the window like a rabid animal, clawing at the planks boarded across it. He managed to rip one off, threw it to the side and immediately grabbed a second. Newt yelled out and lunged forward to stop him. Gally ripped the second plank out and swung it around. It collided against Newt's head. There was a spurt of blood as the boy fell back onto the bed unconscious. Cassandra shrieked his name, darting across the room to his side.

"Stop it, you slinthead!" Minho shouted angrily.

Cassandra turned Newt onto his back to examine the wound. Blood now matted his hair, trailing down his face. She didn't know what to do, she wasn't a Med-jack. Looking around, she grabbed a blanket and pressed it against his wound to staunch the bleeding.

Gally tore the last plank free and instantly, there was a burst of shards as a Griever rammed itself through the window. Cassandra screamed, throwing herself over Newt. A metallic arm reached for her and she scrambled backwards, dragging the blonde with her. The Griever's pulsating grey flash oozed through the window. Its whirring gears and appendages rammed against the outside wall in a horrendous cacophony.

"No one ever understood!" Gally wailed in dismay. "No one understood what I saw, what the Changing did to me! Don't go back to the real world! You don't... want... to remember!"

With another anguished scream, he threw himself at the Griever. Cassandra shot up from the bed and grabbed hold of his arm. "Gally! No! You stupid shank!"

"You don't want to go back, Cass! It's not worth it!" Gally yelled.

The Griever dug its metal claws into his skin as it sucked the boy deep into its flesh. Her face twisted, stomach churning at the sight before her. Cassandra tugged hard at his arm, her fingers tight as a vice. But the Griever was stronger, her feet slid against the floorboards as it pulled Gally deeper. She lurched forward, through the window, and gasped in surprise. A pair of arms wrapped around her waist, yanking her back.

"Let him go!" Minho shouted in her ear and she released her fingers.

Gally disappeared into the mass of grey flesh. The Griever landed on the ground outside, its engines revving loudly as if cheering in triumph. Three others came forward to join it and together, they started back towards the Doors.

"Shuck!" Minho exclaimed, shoving Cassandra to Thomas. "Both of you don't move!"

With that, he sprinted out of the room and down the stairs. She blinked in shock then turned to Thomas, who appeared equally bewildered. They headed towards the window and looked out over the chaos. Minho was sprinting across the Glade towards the Doors, after the Grievers.

   Cassandra sat on the grass by the entrance to the Maze with Thomas. Dawn had broken, or whatever semblance to dawn did. Her fingers fidgeted with her knife as they waited for Minho to return. In the distance, there was a trail of smoke coming out of the Map Room. She couldn't believe so much had happened within a single night. The image of Gally's fear-struck face, his last words to her, replayed in her mind.

But what other choice do we have, Gally?

If they didn't find a way out of the Maze, they would all die. At the back of her mind, a thought whispered: we'll die anyway when we get out. Was there really no hope for them, after all? Her hands balled into fists, nails digging into her palms. A familiar, red-hot coil of anger twisted in her chest. WICKED. Somewhere within her foggy memories, she recognised that name.

Newt's figure emerged from the Map Room and he made his way to them. He was still holding a bloodied rag to the wound on his head, and his face was grim.

"We have worse things to worry about," he told them.

"Why?" she asked.

"Someone—"

"There he is!" Thomas shouted, interrupting them. They turned to look and saw Minho rounding the corner up ahead, running back to the Glade. Thomas cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled, "What were you doing, idiot?!"

The Runner came through the Doors and stopped, bending down to catch his breath. He sucked in gulps of air before starting, "I just... wanted... to make sure..."

"That you could have died a grizzly death?" Cassandra chided.

"'Lotta good you'll be, taken with Gally," Newt added.

"Who has a death wish now?" Thomas quipped.

"Slim it, guys!" Minho straightened up, hand on his hip. "I just wanted to see if they went to the Cliff. Into the Griever Hole."

"And?"

"Bingo."

"I can't believe it. What a night." Newt threw his arms up in the air. "By the way, all the maps got burned last night. Someone jumped Alby and lit the place on fire."

Minho raised a brow, exchanging glances with them. He didn't look particularly bothered by the news. "Oh, really, they did?" he asked.

Cassandra sighed. "What is happening to this place?"

Newt shrugged. "Beats me."

Before they could unravel the mystery of the burnt maps, Thomas started, "Guys, I need to tell you something. And we need to let Teresa out—she's probably starving and we could really use her help."

"That stupid girl is the last thing I'm worried about," Minho retorted.

"Hey, come on." Cassandra tugged at his shirt. "Don't be mean to her. He's right, she must be starving by now."

"Just a few minutes—we got an idea," Thomas continued. "Maybe it'll still work if enough Runners remember their Maps."

Minho folded his arms, curious. "An idea? What idea?"

"Just come with me," Thomas said impatiently.

He made his way across the Glade and they trailed after him. Cassandra felt a chill over her body when she spotted the Slammer. It had only been a few days since Andy attacked her. She shouldn't take his words to heart, but it still bothered her. Maybe if she could talk to him and explain what had really happened. That she had always been an unwilling participant, now and back then too.

Thomas stopped in front of the barred door. They couldn't see the girl through the shadows shrouding the pit, but she was definitely there waiting for them. Newt rubbed the back of his head warily.

"Tommy, this is—" he started.

"Please, just open it," Thomas interjected. "Let her out. Please."

"How can we trust her?" Minho questioned. "She admitted she triggered something and now the whole shuck place has fallen to pieces."

"He's got a point," Newt commented.

"It can't be her fault," Cassandra said. "She got put here like the rest of us. It's just the same as when Golden Boy came along."

Thomas nodded his head fervently, glad that she was on his side for once. Minho and Newt exchanged a long look with each other.

"Come on. What's she gonna do? Run around and stab every Glader to death?" Thomas asked.

"Fine." Minho rolled his eyes. "Just let the stupid girl out."

"I'm not stupid!" Teresa shouted through the bars. "And I can hear every word you morons are saying!"

Cassandra liked her already.

"Real sweet girl you picked up there, Tommy," Newt commented dryly.

"She's not half as sweet as Cass, though," Thomas remarked.

"Cassie's mine," Minho added. "Go away."

Newt walked over to the Slammer and unlocked the door, pulling it wide open. Teresa climbed out, her blue eyes blazing as she glowered at both Newt and Minho. She went to stand next to Thomas, managing a small smile in Cassandra's direction. There was something about Teresa that made her feel like she could trust her. Though she still couldn't muster any memory of the girl, it was just a feeling that she couldn't explain.

"Alright, talk," Minho demanded. "What's this idea?"

Thomas looked to Teresa uncertainly, and she glanced back unhappily. "What? You talk—they obviously think I'm a serial killer," she said.

"Yeah, you look so dangerous," he muttered before starting to explain. "Just listen to me first, okay? So uh, Teresa and I can talk to each other... telepathically—and she told me that the Maze is actually a code!"

Minho and Newt exchanged long glances with each other. Cassandra was just dumbfounded. A telepathic link? Could that have explained the voices in her head this entire time? Come to think of it, she hadn't heard those voices since Thomas and Teresa arrived in the Glade. Was it them? Were they the ones talking to her? Her mind raced at the new information.

"Talk into each other's heads?" Newt repeated incredulously.

"Look, I don't know how or why, but that's not important right now," Thomas brushed the question off quickly. "We think the Maze is a code, that it's trying to spell something out each day. I didn't think the Maps mattered before, but—"

"A code?" Minho interjected, frowning. "How's it a code?"

"The Maze isn't a way out. It's an answer to a question we haven't asked," Cassandra started slowly. "The patterns change everyday. Always the same patterns each day. But we've been looking at them sector by sector, not day by day."

Thomas nodded eagerly. "Yes! That's what we thought too!"

Minho glanced at Newt questioningly, and the blonde nodded his head in return. Thomas looked between them suspiciously. "What? You guys keep acting like you have a secret."

Cassandra snickered. "'Cause they do. We hid the Maps in the weapons room."

Thomas blinked, unable to compute her words. "Huh?"

"We hid the freaking Maps," Minho pointed. "Put dummies in their place. Because of Alby's warning and because of the so-called Ending your girlfriend triggered. They're all safe and sound. Every last one of those suckers. So if you have a theory, start talking."

Thomas' face suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree, and a wide smile started to spread across his face. "Take me to them," he requested eagerly.

"Okay, let's go." Minho nodded, turning around.

Cassandra took a step to follow him, when she heard someone call out her name. It was different, a new voice that she hadn't heard before. He was panic-stricken, anxious, afraid. But she knew who it was, as familiar as the back of her hand. A face quickly crossed her mind, and her knees buckled from the shock. His voice was the only thing anchoring her, her heart squeezing with remorse and guilt.

"Help me, Cass! Help me!!"

She cried out as her head throbbed painfully. Her episode was different this time. Images kept flooding her mind, as if someone had glued her eyes open, forcing her to watch a flashing screen. She saw a shadowy abyss, faint light at the end of a dark corridor, a computer terminal lit up with numbers. She could see herself inputting a familiar code, eyes darting across the screen to commit the words to memory. Push. Open. GONE.

Then there was blinding white light. She found herself in a room, the same one she remembered talking to Thomas in. There was a figure hunched over the table, a row of Rorschach cards neatly aligned in front of him. A thin, bony hand reached out, pointing to the middle card. It looked like a coronal dissection of a Griever. The boy lifted his head and she saw familiar olive eyes staring back at her.

"...Lenn?"

"Cassie! Not again!" Minho cried in dismay, dropping to a knee beside her. He shook her gently, pulling her hand away from her face.

She suddenly let out a sharp rasp, inhaling oxygen into her lungs as if her head had been stuck underwater. The vision she saw continued to swim behind her eyes. Minho jerked back in surprise and she reached out to grab hold of him. She looked up, eyes briefly unfocused as she regained her bearings. Her breaths came out in ragged pants like she had just been running for her life. Thomas crouched on her other side.

"Who's Lenn?" he whispered.

Cassandra turned to him, eyes searching his face. Had she said the name out loud? How did he know? Did he hear her? In her mind?

"I—" she started, shaking her head. She decided now wasn't the time to dwell on that. "I think I just saw the way out."

"Hang on there," Newt said. "You mean a way out of the Maze?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

Thomas gasped and grabbed her shoulders, seemingly forgetting about the question he had just asked her. "Cass! This is amazing! What is it? How do we get out?"

"Hey, hey." Minho placed a hand on his chest and pushed him away from her. "Back off."

"Damn, Minho, aren't you protective of your girlfriend?" Newt teased.

"I'm his shucking princess," she joked. "And don't you forget."

"I don't know whether to bloody laugh or cry."

"Okay!" Minho raised his voice. "We got a clue—the Maze is a code and Cassie is gonna tell us how to get out of here. Easy."

"We just need to figure out the code first," she pointed out. "There's a computer terminal somewhere in the Maze. We input the code in that and it'll shut the entire place down."

"What are we waiting for?" Thomas asked eagerly. "Let's go figure out that code."

Minho helped Cassandra off the ground, then led the way to the weapons room. He switched on the light, then opened a creaky old wooden door at the back. Cassandra scrunched her nose as she entered the musty room. It looked more haphazard than she remembered. Thomas accidentally bumped into a table, and various blades clattered to the floor. She sighed.

Newt helped Minho drag some cardboard boxes out of the storage closet. "I put each trunk's worth in its own box, eight boxes in total. They're all in there," Minho told them.

Thomas opened a box, peering in to find a messy heap of Maps for Section Two. Cassandra stepped over and opened another box that held Maps for Section Five. She rifled through the stacks for a Map of the sections on the same day. Then she held them up to the light. Thomas leaned in close and they could both see the intersecting lines of the Maze on top of each other.

"Wax paper..." he murmured. "We need wax paper and scissors. And every black marker and pencil you can find."

They spent the next few minutes gathering the supplies they needed, wax paper from Frypan and pencils lying in odd places around the Glade. There was one in the bathroom, and she couldn't explain how it got there. Their scissors had mysteriously disappeared amongst the disarray in the Glade so they had to settle with their knives instead.

"Okay." Thomas handed out wads of wax paper to them. "Start cutting rectangles, about the size of the Maps. Newt and Teresa, help me grab the first ten or so Maps from each section box."

"What is this, kiddie craft time?" Minho looked at him in disgust as he picked up his knife.

"Seriously, Minho?" Thomas looked at him in exasperation. "Just do it."

Minho sighed in irritation and glanced at Cassandra, who was already cutting the wax paper up methodically. Then he followed her, but not as neatly, and threw the rectangles in a haphazard pile in front of him. After they had enough wax pieces, they started tracing the Map sections on them one by one as efficiently as they could. Cassandra didn't even realise that hours had already passed by the time she was done with her second sector.

"I've had enough!" Newt exclaimed while throwing down his marker. "My fingers are bloody burning like a mother. See if it's working."

Thomas started pointing at sections and telling them to sort the pieces out into stacks. They did as he asked and piled the map pieces up in an orderly manner. With shaking hands, he picked a piece from each pile and placed them on top of one another, making sure each section corresponded with the same day. Once he was done, he leaned back and stared dumbly at the finished work. There was nothing; no word, not even a letter.

"Great, that was a bloody waste of time." Newt sighed.

Thomas rubbed his eyes in frustration. "I was so sure..."

"Wait," Minho called and pointed. "There's a line out of place here going diagonal over the others. See? And over there."

"I see them too," Teresa said.

Thomas sat up straight in his seat again and examined the papers, then he started shuffling them around. Each time, he did it, the lines shifted across the page, always around the same area in the middle of the grid, but there was still no hint of a word or letter.

"What is this?" he asked with a deep frown. "There's something there, but I can't figure it out."

Cassandra looked hard at the lines as she tried to connect the clues together in her head. She was analysing the section patterns, the layout of each sector, when she realised something. It had nothing to do with the Maze at all. She stood up excitedly. "It's a sequence!"

"Huh?" Minho frowned.

She grabbed his shirt. "Where is it? The box!"

"What box?" He looked at her in bewilderment.

"The one that Lee found! From the Griever!" she said. "There were numbers in it, remember?"

"Oh." His eyes opened wide as he stared back at her. Then he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him in a hurry. Cassandra quickly explained to the others and Thomas instantly gasped as he finally figured it out as well. He looked like he would have flung himself over the table to kiss her. That would have been gross. Once Minho was back with the box, they reshuffled the section pieces according to its sequence.

7  1  5  2  6  4  8  3

All of them leaned over the table with bated breaths as Thomas placed the pieces on top of each other one by one, and the lines started to fit into place. Instead of overlapping over each other randomly like before, they were now repeating themselves in a uniform pattern around the middle of the map grid. Slowly, it finally became clear.

A large F sat in the middle of the completed map.

Each vote and comment is dedicated to Thomas' love song for WICKED: A B C D E F U and your mom—