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She veered around another corner, slowing as a row of baseboard lights began to blink erratically. Quickly she scanned the walls
. Never the obvious
, she reminded herself.
What’s it trying to distract you from?
Her glance upward came just in time. There had been no sound cue, the three drones simply dropped from the ceiling wearing holographic shields that gave them huge bat wings and the pale ghoulish bodies of vampires. As Nellie ducked the first two, she
felt the sharp dig of a knife into her upper left arm. A second later she’d pulled her stun gun and the drones were scattered, short-circuited, in the corridor. Running careful fingers over the cut in her arm, she winced. Not too deep. She should be able to manage until the end of the run when she could get to a Flesh Healer, as long as the blade hadn’t been laced with a sedative.

Slipping the stun gun back into her belt, she continued on. Most runners ran with a gun in the hand, but floor traps could open quickly and she’d had to grab hold of the edge of a sudden hole and pull herself back out more often than she cared to remember. You needed both hands free for something like that. Going through the floor meant the end of everything. Even if you were able to shoot your way through the dogs below, how would you get back out? Fat chance the drones would show mercy, let down a rope and pull you up.

A warm ooze of blood trickled down Nellie’s arm and she fingered it with a dismayed grunt. Pressing a button on her belt, she swallowed the capsule that was ejected from a tiny vial. It would count against her, adding thirty seconds to her final time, but in a few minutes her brain would be buzzing with adrenalin and the wound on her arm forgotten. Maze runners were allotted one capsule per run — one chemical second chance. After that, they were on their own. Except for the signs, of course, messages from the gods — like the Morning Star that glowed on the wall to her right and the Red Planet that loomed to her left. Sometimes she had dreams in which she hovered so close to the Red Planet, she could touch it. Red Planet, planet of the Gods, where all Black Core cadets hoped someday to be reborn. The color red was allowed only to those of the upper castes. Cats couldn’t wear it, eat it, even mention it aloud except in their prayers, but no one could stop them from bleeding it.

Ahead, the corridor widened into a small chamber. Slowing her pace, Nellie approached the entrance and sent her mind into the room, probing for movement or the pulse of a drone’s circuitry, but found nothing. From the vibes she was picking up, it looked as if
two of the preceding runners had survived this trap. The exit was a narrow door located on the far side. Cautiously, she entered.

Immediately the room filled with an eerie white haze.
Holograph
, Nellie decided, trying to finger it. The haze had no texture or scent and wasn’t dense enough to impair vision, but was still creepy enough to get the hair up on the back of her neck. And that sound coming from her left — a low whimpering voice, pitched so that it crawled under the skin and sucked blood. Shifting to the nearest wall, Nellie began to work her way forward.
Sound distraction
, she told herself grimly.
Just keep focused.
Cold sweat poured down the inside of her arms. Something about this place had every nerve in her body hissing like a snake. Pivoting, she scanned the thickening haze. She’d never seen anything like this trap, and yet it felt so familiar. Like a dream, or what lay hidden on the other side of a dream ...

The haze shifted and she saw a figure turn toward her. Squinting, Nellie tried to assess the dim outline, but the haze shifted again, partially concealing it. Human, the figure seemed to be human.
A drone in disguise
, Nellie told herself, raising the stun gun. Still, she hesitated, her finger pressed lightly against the trigger. What was it about this place? What
was
it?

Abruptly the whimpering cut off. In the waiting silence, Nellie heard the bones creak in her own neck. Then the haze shifted again and the figure came into view a second time, a woman in her early thirties. A wave of panic hit Nellie and she took a step back. Suddenly she had the shakes — quick violent quivers that swamped her legs.
SHOOT!
her mind screamed, but still her finger curved protectively around the trigger.

The woman lifted a pleading hand. “Nellie,” she whispered. Her voice had a bubbly quality, as if she was choking on her words. “Nellie Joanne, my darling.” The haze shifted again and the woman seemed to be several steps closer, yet Nellie could have sworn she hadn’t moved. Wisps of haze clung to her tangled blond hair,
bruised face and wide-set blue eyes. “Nellie,” she whispered again from bloodied lips, and then Nellie saw it — the gushing wound in the woman’s throat, blood leaping from it in a steady pulse. But she was alive, she was clearly
alive
. Fear roared in Nellie’s ears. Whimpering, she backed away.

“Nellie Joanne,” the woman whispered again, her hands reaching to touch the wound in her throat. “Don’t you remember me?”

Nellie’s trigger finger tightened, and the drone went flying onto its back, legs kicking uselessly. Immediately the haze began to fade, revealing the far wall with its narrow exit door. Stun gun raised, Nellie waited, but no further apparitions appeared, no more drones rushed into the room. Was this all there was to this particular trap? Wiping the sweat from her mouth, she stared at the drone. With the shorting of its circuitry, its holographic shield had been shattered and now it was nothing but a twisted chrome-colored mess. This was obviously the trap that had been designed to target one of her personal weaknesses. Why would it involve only a single drone? Usually she had to fight off a horde, coming at her in waves.

Slipping the stun gun back into her belt, Nellie tried to shake off the image of the woman’s pale face and the thick pulse of blood leaping from her throat.
File it,
she told herself angrily.
Cabinet thirty-one, drawer four, folder twelve.
Immediately the image of a filing cabinet appeared in her mind, the number thirty-one stamped on the top drawer. As she watched, the fourth drawer slid out, the twelfth folder opened, and the memory of the bleeding woman dropped into it. Then the drawer closed and the filing cabinet disappeared. With a sigh, Nellie straightened. It felt as if a skyscraper had been lifted from her back.

“Four down, one to go,” she whispered and took off across the room, her mind already through the doorway and probing the next corridor. Upon entering it, she was confronted by a three-way fork and followed the thickest trail of vibrations down the middle passageway. As she ran, she could feel a deep, almost soundless throb
in the floor that was almost concealed by the roar of helicopters and gunshots ahead. Deep-down sound was a drag on the mind, slowing the movement of arms and legs. Humming a high-pitched note to counteract it, Nellie veered around a curve and into the center of a battle-scene holograph. Lanced with the flash of laser guns and exploding grenades, the scene was packed with images of men shooting, stabbing and throttling each other. To her left she saw a man’s head blown from his neck; in front of her lay a woman missing both arms. Several children wandered through the chaos, crying for their mothers.

Pivoting, Nellie surveyed the surrounding melee. How was she supposed to decipher which of the images were computer-generated holographs, and which were disguises worn by drones? That kid coming toward her now, calling “Mommy, Mommy” — was it mere image or a deadly drone? With a grunt, Nellie switched the beam on her gun to wide and swept the entire scene, grinning as the child in front of her mutated into a collapsing drone.
No matter what they look like, she thought, they’re all out to get you.

In one swift movement her beam finished off the pack, ending with the figure of a man crouched in a corner. But as she took the figure down, it raised its arm and threw something at her. Nellie ducked but the object hit her stun gun, knocking it from her hand. The gun landed with a loud cracking sound. Snatching it up, she pressed the trigger, but there was no response. The gun was dead and so was she, if any of these drones were still functional.

Fortunately, none were. While she’d been recovering the gun, the holograph had faded, leaving the twisted bodies of eight collapsed drones. Standing with the useless gun in her hand, Nellie felt her knees wobble with relief. She’d passed the test, the last test. Maybe not with flying colors — setting a stun gun beam on wide meant an automatic loss of points — but even so, she was done. All she had to do now was work her way to the end of the pattern, and she was out of this place. From here on in, it was a free ride.

On the far side of the room she picked up the vibratory trail of the runners who’d successfully completed every test — a ten-year-old girl and a slightly older boy. A small smile caught Nellie’s mouth and she took off along the corridor. This time there would be someone to goof off with in the exit lobby, two kids with whom she could swap gossip and rumors while they waited for the last participant. It was one of the rare moments of play in a runner’s life — the waiting period at the end of a maze while the remaining runners completed a pattern. Head down, running full out, Nellie sped past images of stars with human faces and astronauts suspended in space, connected to their ships by long twisting cords. As she approached the end of the maze, it was always the same. The images grew fainter and more distant, astronauts and aliens climbed into their spaceships and flew away, the faces in the stars went to sleep, and there was the repeated sound of doors shutting — as if the maze was gradually closing itself down.

Just ahead, Nellie saw the entrance to the exit lobby. Sure of herself, riding her own anticipation, she put on a burst of speed and headed toward the faintly lit doorway without first probing the area beyond it with her mind. As she did, her foot kicked a small stone on the floor, causing it to ricochet over the threshold into the lobby. Immediately a stun gun beam lit up the doorway from the other side. Two steps from the entrance, Nellie dove to the right and the beam clipped her shoulder harmlessly. Swearing under her breath, she pressed against the wall. What the fuck had that been for? She’d completed the five tests, passed all the ordeals. This was supposed to be down time, when a runner got a few minutes to
relax
. Had one of the drones gone derelict or was this a runner, tipped into blood lust? It happened sometimes — a runner pushed too far who turned against her own.

Quick footsteps approached the entrance and a boy peered cautiously through the doorway, a raised stun gun in his hand. Nellie blinked once, her mouth coming soundlessly open. Then, without
hesitation, she drew her knife and threw it. The boy had no time to react and the knife landed clean, piercing the jugular. Without a cry, he slumped to the ground.

Slowly Nellie approached his body. The boy was dark haired, a little chubby. When she turned him over, his eyes stared blankly — as if she was nothing, merely the final obstacle he’d had to overcome and now he was beyond her, finally he was free. Nellie’s face twisted slightly. Then she stooped and removed the knife from the boy’s throat, ducking to avoid the thick spurt of blood. Wiping the blade on his shirt, she stepped over his body, pressed herself to the wall, and peered into the lobby.

On the far side of the room she could see the sprawled body of the ten-year-old girl, half-hidden behind the exit ramp. A quick scan of the room’s vibrations pinpointed the exact location the boy had taken her down. He’d let her approach, grinning widely, confident at her success in surviving the five tests. Then at close range, he’d stun-gunned her and slit her throat. A low growl rumbled in Nellie’s throat. She hadn’t picked up any crazy vibes in the boy’s trail. There was usually some kind of warning in a runner gone wrong, something you could
smell
.

As she stepped into the lobby, the far wall lit up with a dazzling floor-to-ceiling message. CONGRATULATIONS! it said. YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE FIVE TESTS, BUT ONE LAST ORDEAL REMAINS. TODAY THERE WILL BE ONLY ONE SURVIVOR OF THE MAZE. MAKE SURE IT’S YOU.

The words pulsed for several brilliant seconds before fading into the gloom. Then, as Nellie stood frozen, her mind a gaping hole, the exit lobby’s walls lit up with the star signs of all nine castes: the Mount of Ascent, the Temple, the Scales of Judgement, the Weeping Tree, the Twin Moons, the Warrior, the Hammer, the Cat and the Skeleton — each a reminder that everything stood in its proper place, every caste had its niche in the universal order and nothing happened without the Goddess’s approval. Still, Nellie’s mind argued,
since when had maze runners been set on each other? Sure, they were competitors, but runners ran against the clock, not the other participants. In some mazes they competed as teams. To require a runner to kill her own kind was unheard of, unthinkable.

Dully she stared at the body behind the exit ramp. Anyone who disobeyed the maze was automatically locked inside it and tracked by drones until killed. Today’s run had left her with only a knife, and it would be useless against drones. Sure, she could use the boy’s stun gun, but its battery would run out sometime, and without food and water she could only last so long. She was already dehydrated from today’s run, her tongue thick and clammy in her mouth.

Nellie shuddered, slow and long. There was no arguing with the stars. Turning, she walked to the entrance that led back into the maze. There she pulled the boy’s shirt up his chest and used it to staunch the flow of blood from his throat. Then she dragged him across the room and shoved him behind the exit ramp with the girl. Finally she removed the girl’s shirt and used it to clean as much of the boy’s blood from the entranceway as possible.

Knife in hand, she took up position pressed to the wall just inside the entranceway and waited for the last runner.

Two

U
P BY THE CEILING
the security alarm gave off its constant faint beep, a sound Nellie had been told was supposed to soothe the nerves and induce a relaxed state in the listener.
Fat chance
, she thought, lying on her bed and glaring at it. Either she was a freak of nature or someone was lying, big time. The beeping drove her crazy, and it was everywhere — in the bedrooms, hallways, classrooms and gym, even the cans. When she’d first entered the Black Core Program four years ago, she’d been told she would adjust to the omnipresent beeping and learn to convert it into background static, like the noise of her own heartbeat. But the beeping wasn’t a gentle
thumpthump
coming from inside her body, it was a mean narrow sound driving itself continually into the back of her brain. Giving a low growl, Nellie aimed a piece of oolaga candy through the ceiling fan that spun just below the alarm and hit her target dead on. Two years back she’d made it into the Advanced Section of the Black Core Program as one of their best-ever entry-level cadets, and still no one would listen to her and install a soundless security system that let the mind just be.