Night Three

The second Ada was shoved back into her room she was headed for the vents.

The dorms were deserted, each bed neatly made, an unusual silence ringing in the air. The door slammed shut behind her, and she heard the lock click as the overhead lights turned on, blinding in their intensity.

Two minutes later and her elbows were bashing uncomfortably against steel as she wormed her way through the narrow passage, heart slamming against her ribs. She had to see them, to know what they were thinking, because the others no doubt had questions and Thomas was, unfortunately, an idiot who preferred to act without thinking.

She didn't trust him not to do something stupid – not that going up against two guards with weapons twice the size of him could be considered smart. Her entire body was a vassal of urgency that screamed at her to do something, to move, to get away.

She reached the wider passage at last, the grate gleaming in the low light, and she kicked it in with no hesitation. It slammed into the floor, creating a racket she knew they ought to avoid, but she didn't care as she scrambled through the opening and crawled to her feet.

The room was echoing with raised voices, clamouring over each other to be heard, and she shoved herself between Frypan and Winston right as Minho turned on Thomas.

"What the hell was that?" He asked incredulously. "Are you stupid?"

"You didn't really think they were just going to let you through?" Newt scoffed. He didn't look at her, eyes fixed on Thomas with an intense glare that she hadn't seen on him since the early days of his arrival, and certainly never directed at Thomas. His fingers twitched at his side, a sure sign that he was distressed, and he was leaning heavily on his good leg.

"No, of course I didn't." Thomas reached into his pocket, yanking out a small laminated rectangle. Ada squinted at it and recognised it almost instantly as one of the key cards the guards carried. One that would no doubt let them into wherever those bodies were being wheeled. "I'm gonna find out what's on the other side of that door."

"Are you serious?" She raised an eyebrow, unsure if she was impressed or exasperated.

Newt tilted his head back, hands coming up to cover his eyes, shoulders rigid as he let out a frustrated groan.

"Newt." Thomas took a step forward until he was toe to toe with Newt, eyes beseeching. "They're hiding something, alright? The people are not who they say they are."

Newt lowered his hands from his face, and he looked absolutely wrecked.

"No, Thomas! You don't know that! The only thing that we do know is that they helped rescue us from WICKED." He gestured around at them, jaw clenched. "They gave us new clothes. They gave us food. They gave us a proper bed. Some of us haven't had that in a long time."

"Yeah, but-"

"Some of us a lot longer than others."

Newt could have stabbed her and it probably would have hurt less.

Ada knew that he was right – she had thought so herself, that waking up in that plush bed with no threat of Grievers or death was a mercy long since earned – and she knew that it was taking a toll on the others to grapple with the thought that it could all be a lie. That they could all be in danger again. Hell, it was taking a toll on her, but she knew she wouldn't rest until she knew if they were safe.

No more of them would die, they couldn't. She wouldn't let it happen.

She opened her mouth to speak, to say what she wasn't sure, when the sound of something squeaking against steel snapped their attention to the grate. Aris's head appeared, his eyes scanning the group until they landed on Ada. "Thought I'd find you in here. Hey, Thomas."

"What the-"

"Who is this kid?" Frypan asked.

"You got it, didn't you?" Aris asked, seemingly knowing automatically what Thomas had done. There was an eager glint in his eye she had never seen before, but there was something sad and haunted on his face that she knew came from the loss of Wyn, wherever she had ended up.

"Yeah," Thomas nodded. He turned to Ada, reaching forward to grab her wrist. "Come on, let's go."

"Hang on a second," Newt argued, hands on his hips.

The sight would have been funny if Ada felt like she could breathe properly. She was fidgety and anxious again in a way that reminded her eerily of her first few days in the glade, all those years ago, when she hadn't had a clue where she was or what was happening to her.

Thomas turned back to the other gladers, dropping her wrist when he was sure that Ada was at his side. "Alright, look, maybe you guys are right. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But I gotta find out for sure." He crawled into the vent, nodding at Ada as he passed her, and she turned back to the gladers to see their eyes fixed firmly on her.

"You're seriously going with them?" Minho asked.

Newt shook his head, rubbing his jaw anxiously. "Ada..."

"Better safe than sorry," she said eventually. She scooped her hair back into a poor excuse of a ponytail, securing it with the scrap of fabric she had kept around her wrist. "I told you, Newt, something isn't right. I'm not going to sleep properly until I know for sure that we're wrong. Just cover for us, okay?"

Newt hesitated before nodding tightly, jaw ticking. "Fine."

She didn't look back as she slid into the grate to where Thomas and Aris were waiting for her impatiently. "Do we have any semblance of a plan?" She asked bitterly, already knowing the answer.

Thomas simply shook his head. "When do we ever?"

—

The journey through the vents was silent, the only sound their heavy breathing and the scuffle of fabric against steel. Gone was that panicked urgency that had plagued her before, replaced now instead with the cold suffocation of sheer determination.

She had a goal, now, a mission – it was what she had been sorely lacking those past few days in the facility, floating aimlessly through each day in a panicked haze of loss and confusion. But now, Ada felt the same adrenaline and purpose that she had felt running the corridors of the maze day by day, that same sense of resolution that had been her reason for living for so long before they were rescued.

Her hands were shaking, she could feel it as she pressed them against the metal, forcing her body further through the tight space.

"We're here," Aris said eventually, hesitating over the grate. He glanced at Thomas, and then at her, and Ada stared back impassively as Thomas felt along the edge of the exit.

"You not gonna kick this one in?" He asked Ada, who levelled him with an unimpressed glare. "Right. Probably smart."

Ada rolled her eyes, moving forward to prod at the hinges of the grate experimentally. The grate opened outwards, which posed more of a challenge – they would have to be certain no one was moving underneath it – but it came loose easily enough.

Ada shoved her ear against the steel, peering through the gaps to scan the hallway below, but it was empty. There was no sound. The others must have either been still in the dining hall, or had all retired to their dorms.

She prayed it was the former – God knew the last thing she needed was the guards realising that she wasn't in her room.

"Alright, it's clear." She whispered, moving back slightly so she could push down on the grate.

It opened with a near-silent groan, the hatch swinging down until the hallway was a mere short drop away. Thomas moved forward to grasp at her elbow to ensure that she wouldn't topple forwards, his eyes eager and intense when she glanced over her shoulder at him.

"Ready?"

"Let's go." He nodded.

Ada didn't waste another second, sliding her fingers through the gaps in the grate and using them to lower herself down into the corridor. She was suspended for a moment, free falling for another, then her feet thudded against the ground with more noise than she would have liked. She hesitated, standing in the hallway, eyes scanning for cameras, but found none.

Thomas landed beside her, taking in her furrowed brow. "What is it?"

She checked again, but the walls and ceilings were sleek, no devices of any kind. "No cameras."

Thomas stared at her blankly. "Is that weird?"

"This is a high ranking facility where its inhabitants are constantly monitored. There are guards and cameras everywhere, but not here." She bit the inside of her cheek, brow furrowed. "Don't you think that's a little strange?"

Thomas grunted, moving to the side so that Aris could join them, and then lifted the grate back to its original position. "I think a lot of things around here are strange, and it's time we finally figure out what the hell is going on."

He pulled the keycard out of his pocket, moving with purpose towards the set of double doors in front of them. The windows were frosted, ensuring that no one could see inside.

Ada's hands were itchy with adrenaline, and she tapped her fingers against her thighs impatiently as Thomas studied the keypad. The words Access Card Required taunted them as he stared down at the laminated paper in his hand. "Here's hoping the dude you robbed has clearance." She mumbled.

Thomas slid the card through and the pad lit up green, the letters changing rapidly to Access Granted.

Ada raised an impressed eyebrow. "Well what do you know? Nice work, Greenie."

Thomas opened his mouth to respond, looking extremely unamused at her choice of nickname, but the words evaporated from his lips in a startled puff of air as the doors slid open. Ada took a hasty step backwards, accidentally bumping into Aris, who let out a rather undignified yelp.

The space inside was dark, pitch black almost, illuminated only by deep blue fixtures that threw into low lighting abandoned lab coats and what appeared to be empty vials. There was another door waiting at the end of the tiny room, and Ada's eyes landed immediately on the circular device above the door.

"Thomas," she reached out to grab his arm before he could enter, shaking her head. "Camera."

Thomas stared up at it, lips pursed, before he turned back to her with a sort of desperate shrug. "We've come this far."

Ada hesitated, right on the threshold of the doorway – part of her, a very big part, wanted to turn around and go straight back to the boys' room. To be with Newt and Minho and Fry, to pretend that everything was okay and that they were safe, just so she didn't have to deal with the reality that there was a very large possibility they were being used again.

All the answers were on the other side of that door, just two moving pieces of steel keeping her separate from something that could very well shatter the careful bubble of relative calm they had found themselves in.

The memory of Aris's face as he watched Wyn go slammed into her full force.

Her own friends would be picked off, one by one, vanishing into thin air. Or maybe she would be the first, and they would have to watch her leave, not knowing what would happen to her. The unknown was torturous, she knew that after living with it constantly for two years.

"Alright." Ada nodded. "Alright, let's just be quick."

They had barely made it two steps into the smaller room when Thomas froze, eyes fixed on something to their right. Ada came up beside him, frowning, heart hammering at the prospect of them already being caught. His face was painted in deep blue light, illuminating the horror that twisted his expression.

"What is it?" She asked, but got her answer almost immediately when she followed the light back to its source.

A light bubbling sound hit her ears, barely audible over the sound of her own heartbeat. She felt it thud to a panicked stop, and then start again with a vengeance as she stared at the adjoined room.

There were glass tubes, cylinders, she had no idea what they were – colossal, easily three times her height, stretching towards the ceiling, filled with bubbling water lit up by the same harsh blue lighting. Easily a dozen of them, perhaps more, kept separate from her by the thin pane of glass that made up the window. But it was what was inside the cylinders that had nausea creeping its way up her throat.

"What the fuck?" The words were out before she could stop them.

"Are those...?"

"Grievers." Ada nodded. The word was thick and sluggish on her tongue, her throat suddenly dry as she stared at the curled up creatures suspended in the water.

They were little more than infants, she supposed, but they were easily the same size as her even when curled up into the tight balls that they were. She hated, with every fibre of her being, that she knew exactly what they would look like when fully grown, when they would stretch out of their slumber and to their full size, every inch of them desperate for death and blood.

The curved legs were unmistakable, the gleam of metal, the wisps of hair and flesh protruding from their backs. She remembered feeling those strands of slime brushing up against her as the Griever pinned her to the ground in the glade, as it chased her through the corridors of the maze, as it flung her into walls and ripped her friends to shreds right in front of her.

So much terror, so much bloodshed, so much grief, and for what? For whoever was keeping them there just to be cooking up more of them in the basement? Why the hell would the facility have Grievers, of all things, and freshly made ones at that.

Ada reached out blindly to grab Thomas's arm, desperate to have something to hold onto to stop her from spiralling anymore than she already was, but he was already reaching for her. He grabbed hold of her hand, his palms sweaty and shaking, but she didn't pull away as he gripped her like she was a lifeline.

"Those are Grievers?" Aris's voice was precious more than a shocked whisper as she stared at the creatures with thinly veiled fear and disgust.

Of course, Ada thought, they didn't have Grievers in his maze. What was it they had instead? Shades, Wyn had called them, giant bat-like things. Dear God, please don't say they have those down here too.

"They will be," she responded after a moment. She cleared her throat, trying to slow her racing heart because why damnit, why were they there? "When they're grown."

They neared the other doors, and they slid open seamlessly, another dark room waiting beyond. This one was longer, considerably so, stretching easily as long as the canteen and just as wide. The second she entered Ada knew exactly why this room was off limits.

"Oh my God..." Thomas whispered, letting go of her hand to step further into the room, his face a perfect mask of abject horror. "That's... this is..."

A tomb, Ada thought, and it might as well have been.

There were bodies hanging from the ceiling.

Rows of them, dozens upon dozens, strung up to the roof by some sort of metallic vest clipped tight around their torsos. A single ring of light was suspended above each head, lighting up every feeding tube, every needle, every wire that vanished into skin. They were shoeless, feet mottled shades of purple and white, their heads bowed and limp.

The sound of artificial breathing echoed continuously around the cavernous space.

She was going to be sick, she was sure of it. All she could do was stare, horror and shock warring for dominance over her body.

A glimmer of light, of colour, caught her eye, and she stared in distant terror at the monitors hung at the side of each body. Diagrams of the human form, heart monitors, brain waves, all of it flashed across the screen, recording data for God knows what.

"Are they..." Thomas trailed off, gulping, moving idly towards the nearest person. Each step was careful, tentative, horrified. "Dead?"

Ada didn't respond for a moment, moving forward to carefully study the woman in front of her. Woman was generous, she realised after a moment. She was barely more than a girl, sixteen at the most, pale face gaunt and peppered with bruises under her eyes and in the shallows of her sunken cheeks.

Her eyelids were so thin and pale Ada could clearly see the blue veins spiderwebbing across the delicate skin. She was breathing – or rather, the machine was breathing for her. An oxygen mask was stamped over her nose, but there was no condensation or clouding to indicate that she was expelling air.

If it weren't for the steady rise and fall of her chest, and the heart monitor beside her indicating a weak but persistent rhythm, Ada would have truly believed she was looking at a corpse.

"They're breathing," she said, and her voice was far too loud in the room. It felt like if she even breathed wrong then something horrible would happen. "Barely."

"What are they doing to them?" Aris asked.

Ada stared at the tubes and wires protruding from raised and purple flesh. A small vial was filling up slowly, drop by drop, a blue so pale it was almost translucent. Something nagged at the back of her brain, words from one of the doctors that she wasn't meant to overhear.

"Janson has ordered that we prep them for harvest as soon as possible."

"Hook them up as soon as possible, then."

Hook them up. Harvest. And Janson was involved.

A desperate whine cut through the air, so gutted and broken it had the hairs on Ada's arms rising, and then Aris was moving. He stopped in front of a body, blocking it from view, his entire frame shaking as he lifted his hands to cup their face.

"No, no no no no no... Wyn?"

Ada's heart dropped. She moved without thinking, coming up on Aris's side, praying he was wrong. But she was there, sure enough, dark skin ashy and devoid of life. Her face was thin, unusually so, dark brows and plump lips lax as though merely sleeping.

Her wild hair hung in mussed strands around her face, and Aris brushed them away, his shaking fingers running over her cheek. He had to stretch onto his tiptoes to reach her, and each line of his body was wrought with desperation.

"Oh God, please no." He sounded broken. "Come on, Wyn, wake up. You gotta wake up, c'mon."

She was a world away from the spitfire girl Ada had met that first day there, from the woman who wasn't afraid to put people in their place but also made sure Ada was fed and well rested when it mattered. She was so much like Alby in that way.

Was.

They were both gone.

She's still breathing, Ada thought desperately, eyes scanning the monitor beside her for Wyn's heart rate, there's still hope. But she was hooked up to so many wires and machines that Ada didn't even know where to start untangling her, didn't even know if it would be safe to.

"Oh my God... Teresa?" It was Thomas's voice that cut through the quiet, and she turned right as he moved to the body a few over from where they were. Ada could just barely make out a slim frame, dark hair hanging over her face so she couldn't be recognised.

Ada moved from Wyn's side right as Thomas brushed the hair away from the girl's face. It wasn't Teresa, thank God, but someone they didn't recognize.

The girl beneath the oxygen mask was remarkably pretty. A sloped nose, high cheekbones, long lashes – they fluttered against her freckled cheeks feebly, and once again the rise and fall of her chest was the only indication that she was still alive.

"No..." Aris said again, and Ada thought for sure he was still talking to Wyn until his voice drew closer. "No, no, not you too."

He shoved Thomas out of the way, staring up at the girl as if he were watching his entire world trickle from between his fingers like sand.

"Rachel... no, Rachel please, c'mon, wake up."

Ada watched him carefully as Aris cupped her face, his grip so tender he was barely even touching her. There was something different in the way he looked at Rachel, something broken and soft and so gutting Ada had to look away.

Aris looked at Rachel the way Newt looked at Ada, with complete devotion and fear all mixed into one. She knew the look well, and her heart practically broke for the boy in front of her as she realised the magnitude of his loss.

"Rachel, sweetheart, come on, wake up." Aris tapped her cheek gently, as if the movement would rouse her from the deep sleep she was in. "Come on, Rach, wake up for me. We'll get you out of here, yeah? We'll – we'll take Wyn too, we can get to safety."

His movements were almost frantic now as he brushed the hair out of her eyes, his shaking thumb rubbing circles on the high of her cheek.

"Rachel, please..."

"Aris..." Ada's voice was little more than a sympathetic whisper.

"No." He shook his head. "No, she's fine. They're fine. She'll wake up. Both of them will. She'll – Rachel, come on sweetheart, please."

Ada shut her eyes, unable to watch anymore. She didn't know what to do with herself, standing in the middle of the walkway surrounded by the bodies of people exactly like her, children exactly like her. All of them, broken and bruised and strung up, left for dead, being drained for something none of them understood.

Aris was right, she thought dismally, no one ever really leaves this place.

"Rachel... please, open your eyes-"

Thomas lifted a sympathetic hand to Aris's shoulder, his eyes wary and pained. "Who was she?"

"She's... she's... they–" Aris couldn't speak, the words cracked. "They took her on the first night here. I... I told her it was going to be okay. That she'd be going somewhere safe, and the rest of us would follow." He took in a shuddering breath. "Oh God, she barely even got a full meal in. She never got to sleep in a proper bed, never got to even feel safe. It's my fault, I told her it would be okay, I said it would be fine-"

"This is not your fault." Ada said firmly, coming up on Aris's other side. "You hear me? Neither of them are your fault. This is the fault of whoever runs this place, okay?"

"Why are they doing this?" Thomas asked, staring around at the bodies, looking completely lost. "I don't understand."

"That's what we need to figure out," Ada said. Determination filled her, sparking a light inside her that had withered and died long ago. They had fought too hard to be reduced to this, all of them had.

She wasn't going to let it happen again, not to Newt or Minho, to Frypan or Jack or Winston. They didn't deserve this any more than Wyn and Rachel had.

"Aris," Ada said firmly, catching his attention long enough for her to see that his face was wet with tears. "We are going to figure this out, okay?"

A distant sound echoed in the room. Voices ricocheted of steel.

Ada froze, hand darting out to catch at Thomas's sleeve, and she barely had a moment to register the horrified look in his wide eyes as he grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to the side.

The door swung open right as she threw herself behind one of the pillars. A cursory glance at Thomas proved that he had done the same and was hiding behind the one beside her, but she didn't know where Aris had gone.

She prayed that he had enough sense to pull himself away from Rachel to hide behind something, but she knew damn well if that was Newt suspended there that she wouldn't leave his side no matter what was marching her way. Death could have come for her on swift wings and she would have merely let it happen, so long as her hand was still in his.

"Oh crap." Thomas's whispered voice filtered towards her, and Ada lifted her finger to her lips to frantically shush him as the sound of heavy footsteps grew louder and louder.

"You sure this can't wait?" Janson's familiar voice was too loud in the quiet room, and the sound of it sent goosebumps skittering up Ada's skin. She sank down as low as possible, tucking her knees to her chest, clamping a hand down over her mouth to quiet her breathing.

One wrong move, that was all it would take. One wrong move, and she would be suspended from the ceiling like the hundreds of bodies around her.

"She was very specific, sir." This voice was unfamiliar, but when Ada peeked her head around the corner she spotted a man she didn't recognise stood beside Janson in a lab coat, staring down at a large flat screen in his hand. "She wanted to speak with you personally."

Janson's voice was an irritated huff when she spoke. "As if I don't have enough to deal with."

She was reminded, so starkly then, of those nights spent shrouded in ivy at the base of the maze wall. George beside her, then Thomas, waiting and waiting for the Griever to pass by without noticing them. Both times they had been caught, and both times they had nearly died.

Please, she thought helplessly, pushing her spine farther into the stone at her back, using the cold to ground her. Please, please keep walking.

They did, right to the end of the hallway, where they came to a sudden stop. Ada's heart jerked frantically behind her ribs, but the two men didn't turn or give any indication that they had been spotted. Instead, the unknown man continued to tap at his screen, brow furrowed.

"Just, uh, bare with me. I'm getting some interference from the storm."

Movement from the other side of the walkway caught her eye, and Ada watched as Aris shuffled low behind a large tank of gas, fidgeting anxiously as he wiped his face with his sleeve. His breaths were still coming in harsh pants, and he lifted his hand to his mouth to silence them as he looked past where Rachel was suspended to watch.

It was a shit hiding place.

"Come on," Janson snapped, "it's good enough, make the connection."

Ada held her breath as a faint buzzing sound filled the room, and then watched with wide eyes as the previously bare hallway became filled with an image, staticky and blue-tinged.

She was sure if she hadn't already been sitting that her legs would have given out when the image cleared and the woman came into focus.

The white lab coat and pristine blonde hair was undeniable, despite every fibre of Ada's being screaming at her that it was a lie. The woman's lips lifted into a smile, a slash of red against a pale face.

It's not real. It's not real, it can't be.

They had watched her die. Watched her put a gun to her own head and pull the trigger, watched her reduced to nothing more than one of the many bodies that had been in that lab when they got out of the maze.

She couldn't be there, breathing and moving, none the wiser to the spectators hidden behind her life's work.

But why, why, would Janson be working with WICKED?

An oily smile slipped onto Janson's face as he slid his hands into his pockets. "Good evening, Doctor Paige. Lovely to see you again."

"My name is Doctor Ava Paige."

Ada filed it away in her mind as one of the many braids of lies to comb through later.

"Although, I admit," Janson continued, "I wasn't expecting to hear from you quite so soon."

Ava Paige didn't look up from her documents as she spoke, her glitchy voice droning and unimpressed. "Change of plans, Janson. I'll be arriving a little sooner than expected. First thing tomorrow." She stood up, rounding the desk to come face to face with Janson, and Ada flinched back instinctively as the woman's eyes scanned behind him.

"Oh, well, we'd be delighted to have you." The twitch in Janson's jaw suggested otherwise. "I think you'll be pleased with the progress we've made here." He gestured to the other man, who clicked somehow on his screen – a holographic display sprung to life, visuals of the same diagrams and monitors she had seen earlier. "As you can see, early results have been extremely promising. Whatever you've been doing to them in there... It's working."

Ada's heart dropped into her stomach. Janson wasn't just working with WICKED.

He was WICKED.

They never got away. They were never safe.

Ada glanced to her left, eyes searching out Thomas, only to see him pale with a fist pressed hard against his stomach, as if he were fighting off the urge to be sick.

Dr. Paige sent a cursory glance at the diagrams, that unimpressed look remaining on her stern face. Harsh disapproval flashed through her cold eyes. "Not well enough. I just received board approval. I want all the remaining subjects sedated and prepped for harvest by the time I arrive."

The fact that she had received board approval, that people had signed off on them being tortured and abused, made black spots appear at the corners of Ada's vision. Before, WICKED was just a group of scientists who had gotten ahold of them, and then they had gotten away to something bigger. Now, WICKED was that something bigger, and for the life of her Ada didn't know how to get around them.

This was so much bigger than she had thought, than any of them had thought.

Janson's jaw twitched again, as if he were restraining himself. It was strange, seeing him reduced to the rat-like creature she had initially thought of him as. "Dr. Paige, we are going as fast as we can. We are still running tests."

Ada rubbed the crook of her elbow bitterly.

"Try something faster." Dr. Paige shook her head, no ounce of compassion on her face. "Until I can guarantee their security, this is the best plan."

"Ma'am, security is my job. We are on a twenty four hour lockdown here. I am assuring you, the assets are secure."

She was silent for a moment before she shook her head. "Have you found the Right Arm?"

"... Not yet."

Ada frowned at the unfamiliar name, casting a confused glance to Thomas. His eyes were fixed intently on Janson, but when he felt her gaze he turned to her with a confused shrug.

Sensing the doctor's disapproval, Janson hastened to continue. "We tracked them as far as the mountains-"

"So they're still out there. And they've already hit two of our installations."

There were more? How many more facilities could there be, how many more children could there be? Ada sought out Aris, but he looked as lost as she felt.

"They want these kids as badly as we do," Ava Paige snarled, "and I cannot... I cannot afford another loss. Not now, when I am so close to a cure." She turned away from Janson at last, moving back towards the desk. "If you are not up to the task, I will find someone who is."

"That won't be necessary." Janson's voice was like oil over glass. "Might I suggest we start with the most recent arrivals?"

"Just get it done," Ava snapped as she sank back down into her chair. She picked up the documents in front of her, eyes scanning the numbers hurriedly, and there was a tense set to her shoulders as she leant back against plush leather.

Janson nodded and turned away from the screen, and Ada hastily ducked her head back around the pillar, clamping her hand back down over her mouth. Her hair had come loose from its ponytail, limp against her back, and she hastily brushed the flyaway strands out of her eyes with shaking hands.

"Janson." The doctor's voice was unusually soft as she spoke for the final time. "I don't want them to feel any pain."

Janson didn't respond immediately, and there was a cold malice in his tone when he did that had the hairs on Ada's arms rising. "They won't feel a thing."

Lying sadistic prick.

The connection closed, the hologram disappearing, and pure unrelenting dread set in as Janson's footsteps faded to nothing.

Ada scrambled to her feet, pushing herself away from the pillar with black dots dancing tormentingly at the edges of her vision. She looked at Aris first, then Thomas, and saw the same horror she was feeling reflected right back at her.

"He's... he's gonna-" Thomas's words were stilted and tight with terror.

Bile rose quickly in her throat. "Not if we get there first."

She took off at a sprint, not caring to see if the others were following behind her.