The godhead complex, p.1
The Godhead Complex, page 1
ALSO BY JAMES DASHNER
The Maze Runner Books
The Maze Runner
The Scorch Trials
The Death Cure
The Kill Order
The Fever Code
Crank Palace
The Maze Cutter Books
The Maze Cutter
The 13th Reality Books
The Journal of Curious Letters
The Hunt for Dark Infinity
The Blade of Shattered Hope
The Void of Mist and Thunder
The Mortality Doctrine Books
The Eye of Minds
The Rule of Thoughts
The Game of Lives
Adult Books
The House of Tongues
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by James Dashner
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Akashic Media Enterprises, also doing business as AME Projects. Visit us on the web at AkashicMediaEnterprises.com. Printed in China by We Think Ink. Interior formatting by Hannah Linder Designs.
Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data
(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)
Names: Dashner, James, 1972- author. | Dashner, James, 1972- Maze runner series. Maze cutter trilogy. Title: The Godhead complex / James Dashner.
Description:
Identifiers: Subjects:
[Red Bank, New Jersey] : Akashic Media Enterprises, [2023] | Interest age level: 012-018. | Summary: In the second book of The Maze Cutter Trilogy ... Sadina and the islanders are up against both man and nature as they navigate their way to Alaska. There, they hope to meet the mysterious Godhead, unsure of what separates myth from truth. But the Godhead, now led by Alexandra, is fractured. Within the cracks of their sacred trinity, secrets are revealed that blur the lines of good and evil forever. One person’s God is another person’s Devil.--Publisher.
ISBN: 979-8-9859552-2-4 (hardback) | 979-8-9859552-3-1 (ebook)
LCSH: Good and evil--Juvenile fiction. | Quests (Expeditions)--Juvenile fiction. | Survival-- Juvenile fiction. | Belief and doubt--Juvenile fiction. | Sacred space--Juvenile fiction. | Alaska-- Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Good and evil--Fiction. | Quests (Expeditions)--Fiction. | Survival-- Fiction. | Belief and doubt--Fiction. | Sacred space--Fiction. | Alaska--Fiction. | LCGFT: Dystopian fiction. | Action and adventure fiction. | BISAC: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Dystopian. | YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic. | YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Action & Adventure / Survival Stories.
Classification: LCC: PZ7.D2587 Go 2023 | DDC: [Fic]--dc23
ISBN 979-8-9859552-2-4 (hardback)
First Edition
Akashic Media Enterprises supports the
First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
To Tessa Shaffer, who has poured as much of her heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into this series as I have.
I’m forever grateful for her work and her friendship.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part II
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part III
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Part IV
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
About the Author
PROLOGUE
Night of the Evolution
31 Years Ago
Nicholas wasn’t one to avoid danger but he didn’t exactly go chasing after it either—except tonight. Testing the latest variant of the Cure required Nicholas to walk directly into the devil’s den, or as the locals in Denver, Colorado called it: Crank Palace. He pulled his black hooded cloak tighter around his face so that no man, woman, or Crank could see his features. In his right pocket he clicked two syringes together like Chinese medicine balls as he walked, each hypodermic needle circling the other in a relaxed rhythm as he entered the hallowed gates. CLICK CLACK, CLICK CLACK . . .
Screams and wails surrounded the inner walls of the dismal place. Fires ignited from Flare pits. Smoke hung in the air and bodies hung in the shadows. No matter how many times he’d visited these hellholes, and he had proudly visited them all, nothing prepared Nicholas for the fresh curdling cries of desperation he felt vibrating through his whole body when he walked through the gates. Screams of death that Nicholas imagined as souls being cooked from the inside out.
He continued to circle the syringes around each other in his pocket, CLICK CLACK, a dance of opportunity for someone tonight within the sacred walls of the original Crank Palace. What better way to rescue the past from itself but to come to Colorado? Nicholas felt someone approaching and looked to the footsteps behind him. A Crank stumbled past. He needed to be more careful with how his test went this time around. The last test subject nearly drew unwanted attention. In testing the Cure, he needed those possessed with only the purest of minds. And even then, his most recent experiment proved that anyone’s intentions, anyone’s mind, could change in an instant. A person became a different version of themselves when they were dying, and not just the part of them that slowly turned into a Crank. Even when using his telepathic gift, Nicholas found that a person could say almost anything when they themselves were closer and closer to the end, but when given the chance to live . . .
That’s when their own beliefs, fears, and desires came back into awareness quicker than what could be controlled. Quicker than what was safe.
Nicholas needed to be more selective this time.
And he wanted someone past The Gone.
If this worked as well as it worked last time, he needed to be sure the Cured Crank—reverted back to healthy DNA—could stay under his study for years to come without waver. Nicholas didn’t know how long the Cure held true. A year? Two years? A lifetime? He wasn’t sure of that, but he knew the variant within the syringes in his pocket worked more quickly than imaginable but might someday wear off just as quickly. Many more studies were needed.
A Crank more human than not walked past Nicholas and let out a deep-bellied groan. A sound that could have been from hunger or the vocalized grief of having his deepest memories resurface. A groan of one’s sanity slipping away. Nicholas walked on. He wouldn’t choose a walking Crank, no. He needed to choose a Crank more dead than alive. One on the ground who writhed in pain perhaps, but one close enough to death that the promise he or she made to Nicholas would forever be kept.
He had tested variants of the Cure on so many Cranks that he had lost count.
Of course, somewhere hidden in the journals of his library were the observational notes, the number of experiments and trials that attempted to prove his hypothesis right time and time again: that DNA changes from the Flare could be reversed, and that the same Cure that erased the Flare could unlock a multitude of dormant DNA in the human body. Dead-end genomes that scientists had called “junk DNA” for centuries in their scholarly journals. Nicholas tried to hold back his smile, thinking of the discovery, but how could something so monumental as evolution not make him feel like a God?
But it was a fleeting feeling, to be sure. CLICK CLACK . . . he circled the two syringes together as he watched the Cranks before him. A failed experiment was a failed experiment. Successes were only temporary. He reported back to the Villa what they needed to change in the next batch. Side effects, advanced symptoms, deaths. Most deaths happened naturally—not everyone’s DNA was reprogrammable and not everyone’s body could take the Cure. Death was a natural part of scientific advancements, even those deliberately caused by the advancer. As when Nicholas’ last Crank subject shouted about the Cure within the walls of Crank Palace and put Nicholas’ life in danger. “I’m turning back. My hands, look! He’s cured me! This man is a God!” The Cure itself was at risk as soon as one muttered of its existence. The Crank had promised to stay silent and obedient but as soon as his life became his own again, he betrayed his own thoughts and Nicholas had to end the life he brought back that night. Easy come, easy go, you might say. Nicholas wanted to test on someone past The Gone, someone easier to influence. Manipulate. Control.
Nicholas wandered toward an alley behind the westside buildings as it started to rain, and he squinted at the sight of a Crank on the ground with limbs as limp as a butchered deer. But huddled over the Crank sat another, and Nicholas couldn’t test on two subjects at once. He tightened the hood of his robe again, but the falling rain enhanced his telepathy and he couldn’t help but overhear the woman’s thoughts. I’d take this pain from you if I could. I wish I was infected with this, not you. Nicholas stopped walking and looked on from the shadows of the alley.
Why the hell was someone healthy inside Crank Palace?
Nicholas wasn’t infected, but his presence would be swift and purposeful. This figure in front of him seemed to be mourning her long-lost love. Had she no fear of the Flare? The only reason Nicholas proved fearless was because he had been a test subject of his own unique study, something the Villa knew nothing about. Using one of the variants as a preventative, Nicholas knew it couldn’t harm him with the Flare but might just protect him from it. What he didn’t expect were the powerful side effects—weird and frightening things like telepathy.
Human DNA was a funny thing. For a Crank, it was about healing. For the non-infected, the Cure resequenced DNA structures that had been left abandoned in humankind, opening new pathways and abilities whose potential had been lost or never discovered. Like clicking in the last pieces of a puzzle.
But Nicholas’ gift of telepathy was also his curse.
He could trust no one.
“Can you help us?” asked the voice huddled over the Crank writhing in pain. Nicholas read her mind again. Please. Please say you can help us. He suddenly felt naked, as though she could see right through his cloak to his hand that held the Cure. “Help us.” She spoke with an unwarranted confidence.
Nicholas was drawn to her. Her assuredness. Her fearlessness. He walked from the shadows, closer. “What makes you think I can help you?”
“Because you’re not infected.” I can tell you’re different.
Nicholas danced with her thoughts again as the rain came down harder.
“And why do you think that?” he responded.
“Your eyes.” Please help us. I’ll do anything to save him.
Nicholas leaned in and asked an impossible question. “Would you sacrifice your life for his?”
Without hesitation she answered, “Yes.”
He changed his mind. He’d do something unplanned that night.
Something he had never done before.
Once he saved the wretched Crank on the pavement of the alley, he’d also inject the fearless companion with the Cure and study them both, bring them into his inner circle and create the future one day at a time.
One infected, one not.
“I’d do anything to save him. Please.” She whispered without tears, “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
Nicholas palmed the two syringes in his pocket. “I’ll ask for your silence. Not just now, but as we leave the walls and for every single day beyond that. Whatever happens.”
“You have my word.” Her thoughts and intentions aligned. “Can you save him?”
“I can try. But I’ll have to inject you, too, just in case you have an asymptomatic infection.” Nicholas wouldn’t tell her of the DNA resequencing she’d undergo, needing to know how her gifts evolved naturally, if they evolved at all.
“Anything. Please. You’re a Godsend. Thank you.”
“God is nothing but a complex, we are all Gods. You’ll soon find out.” Nicholas gently tapped the inside of her arm to find the vein. He wondered how the sequencing might align her unique strands of DNA. “You’ll come with me after this to New Petersburg so that I can keep you under observation.”
“Alaska? That’s a little far from Colorado?”
“Yes, Alaska.” Nicholas engaged the syringe slowly so as not to flood her body too quickly with the Cure. “Not bad in a Berg.” He smiled and watched her face relax. “You mustn’t make a sound when I inject him next. Not a cry, not a scream, not a shout for the world to hear. If you mutter anything louder than a sigh of relief, I will have to-”
“Of course.” She watched on and Nicholas pivoted to the Crank with skin so thick the needle needed extra force to penetrate. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Nicholas.”
“Thank you, Nicholas. We’ll forever be in your debt. My name is—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Nicholas stood up from the damp ground and put the emptied needles back in his pocket. CLICK CLACK . . . “From now on you’ll be known as Alexandra, and he’ll be known as Mikhail.”
PART ONE
Natural Selection
I don’t know what awaits us after the Gone. I guess I might ‘meet my maker’ as someone in the Glade once said. Or I might just meet myself again . . . my whole self, memories, real name, all that. Maybe at the end, the broken pieces of life all come together.
Maybe they’ll make sense. Or maybe they won’t.
Maybe it’s a little of both.
—The Book of Newt
CHAPTER ONE
Forging Ahead
The flames danced higher from their nightly fire, and Isaac watched as his friends carried on in a circle around the camp as if they were all back on the island after a feast. As if everything were the same as it ever was. But, no. Everything had changed. He could see that change most in Jackie’s face, how the loss of Lacey and Carson took the spark out of her eyes. Or maybe killing a bald-headed half-Crank with her bare hands changed her. Either way, with every mile they traveled closer to the coast and farther away from the broken Grief Walker, away from Lacey and Carson, Jackie seemed further and further away too.
She didn’t talk about what happened all those weeks ago, and Isaac understood that perfectly. He never wanted to talk about losing his mom, dad, and sister either. Talking about it made it real. And it didn’t need to feel any more real than the empty space that remained in their place. Isaac half-smiled and half-frowned at Jackie, the only way he knew how to send a sympathetic but supportive look, letting her see that he knew the grief and torment of what she was going through. It wasn’t just the loss of her friends that Isaac understood all too well, but the feeling of what Old Man Frypan once called ‘survivor’s guilt’—the feeling of still being alive when those you loved weren’t. Jackie half-smiled and half-frowned right back at him.
“Hey, who wants to hear a spider bark?” Dominic stood up to stretch, and before Miyoko could push him out of the circle, he did it again. He let one rip. Since escaping the Bergs, Dominic’s gas had become the biggest weapon of destruction the group had to avoid. Trish glared at Dominic. She had a steadfast rule of not farting near the campfire.
“You’re going to catch us all on fire one day, you know.” Trish rolled her eyes and then inched closer to Sadina, intertwining Sadina’s fingers with her own. After Sadina and Isaac were kidnapped, Isaac couldn’t help but notice Trish tethered herself more than ever to Sadina, in whatever ways she could. Isaac understood that too. He was thankful for the group, but he himself felt untethered, as if a bad wind could come along and just blow everything away. Maybe because they slept outside as if they were on the run. He missed the safety of the yurt he’d built back home. He looked around at the trees and available resources; it’d take some time, but he could build a shelter here for everyone.
“Thanks for dinner, ol’ Man,” Isaac said as he collected the carved wood they used for bowls and helped clean up. Isaac had never seen Old Man Frypan happier than when they settled in between the mountains, eating rabbits and plants and cooking for everyone when he had the energy.
Minho leaned back to stretch. “You even managed to make Roxy’s stew taste better, which I swore wasn’t possible.”
“Some kind of spiky herb he added from the forest,” Roxy added as she helped Isaac clean up.
“It’s called Rosemary. I don’t know how I remember that, but I do.” Old Man Frypan inched closer to the fire.
Roxy took all the bowls from Isaac and stacked them together. “I’ll forage first thing in the morning, go out a little farther east and see what I can find up there.”
