In The Maze Runner, the Gladers escaped the Maze in which WICKED (World in Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department) trapped them after extracting their memories. They next survived the threatening pandemic Flare disease in The Scorch Trials.
James Dashner's third and final installment, The Death Cure, begins with the Gladers inside WICKED's headquarters, where the Rat Man offers to "remove" the Swipe and return their memories. But Thomas, whose memories have started coming back, would rather forget his time as an agent of WICKED and all the experiments and trials he engineered. The Gladers escape WICKED in groups, hoping to reunite in Denver's quarantined zone, where Munies (those who are Immune to the Flare) are despised. Thomas is being chased down by bounty hunters for being the Final Candidate--the one whose memories are the last piece to the puzzle.
This action-packed conclusion brings readers full circle with its return of old enemies--some mortal, others monstrous, such as Grievers and Cranks. Thomas may also have to return to where it all started for him and the others--the Maze itself--in order to complete the blueprint for the Flare's cure. It's truly the best of the trilogy with its explosive ending, in which Dashner answers the trilogy's biggest question: Is WICKED good? --Adam Silvera, a bookseller and intern at Figment