The Death Cure - James Dashner [85]
Thomas didn’t know what he’d expected, but the guy started to chuckle. “I think I’ll let you see the boss just so you get the damn idea out of your head that we’d ever do anything like WICKED.”
Thomas shrugged. “Fine. Let us see your boss.” The man seemed sincere in his disgust with WICKED. But it still didn’t make sense why they’d taken all those people.
“You better not be blowing things out your butt, kid,” the guy said. “Lawrence, bring them in. Somebody else check the van for weapons.”
Thomas kept silent as he and Brenda were led up two flights of dingy metal stairs. Then through a weathered wooden door, down a dirty hallway with one lightbulb and wallpaper peeling from the walls, then finally to a large space that might’ve been a nice conference room fifty years earlier. Now all it held was a big, scarred table with plastic chairs scattered haphazardly around the room.
Two people sat at the far side of the table. Thomas noticed Gally first, on the right. He looked tired and disheveled, but he managed a slight nod and a small smile—nothing more than an unfortunate wrinkle in the mess that was his face. A huge man was next to him, more fat than muscle, his girth barely contained between the arms of the white plastic chair he sat in.
“This is the headquarters of the Right Arm?” Brenda asked. “Consider me a little discouraged.”
Gally answered, his smile gone. “We’ve moved around more times than we can count. But thank you for the compliment.”
“So which one of you is the boss?” Thomas asked.
Gally nodded at his companion. “Don’t be a slinthead—Vince is in charge. And show some respect. He’s risked his life just because he believes that things should be made right in the world.”
Thomas held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “I didn’t mean anything. The way you acted in your apartment, I thought you might be the guy in charge.”
“Well, I’m not. Vince is.”
“Does Vince know how to talk?” Brenda asked.
“Enough!” the large man yelled in a deep, booming voice. “Our whole city is overrun with Cranks—I don’t have time to sit here and listen to childish spats. What do you people want?”
Thomas tried to hide the anger that had lit up inside him. “Just one thing. We want to know why you captured us. Why you’re kidnapping people for WICKED. Gally gave us a lot of hope—we thought we were on the same side. Imagine our surprise when we found out the Right Arm was just as bad as the people they’re supposedly fighting against. How much money were you going to make selling humans?”
“Gally,” the man said in response, as if he hadn’t heard a single word Thomas had said.
“Yeah?”
“You trust these two?”
Gally refused to meet Thomas’s gaze. “Yeah.” He nodded. “We can.”
Vince leaned forward, resting his massive arms on the table. “Then we can’t waste any time. Boy, this is a look-alike operation and we didn’t plan on making a single dime off of anybody. We’re collecting Immunes to mimic WICKED.”
The response surprised Thomas. “Why in the world would you do something like that?”
“We’re going to use them to get inside their headquarters.”
CHAPTER 51
Thomas stared at the man for a few seconds. If WICKED really was responsible for the disappearance of the other Immunes, it was so simple he could almost laugh. “That just might work.”
“I’m glad you approve.” The man’s face remained unreadable and Thomas couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “We have a contact, and the deal is already arranged to sell them. It’s our way in. We have to stop those people. Prevent them from wasting even more resources on a pointless experiment. If the world is going to survive, they need to use what they have to help the people left alive.