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processes, slows you down to a drunken stupor so you don’t feel much. Keeps the Flare at bay because the virus thrives in your brain. Eats at it, destroys it. If there’s not a lot of activity, the virus weakens.” Thomas folded his arms. There was something very important here, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “So … it’s not a cure? Even though it slows the virus down?” “Not even close. Just delays the inevitable. The Flare always wins in the end. You lose any chance of being rational, having common sense, having compassion. You lose your humanity.” Thomas was quiet. Maybe more strongly than ever before, he felt that a memory—an important one—was trying to squeeze its way through the cracks in the wall blocking him from his past. The Flare. The brain. Going mad. The numbing agent, the Bliss. WICKED. The trials. What Rat Man had said, that their responses to the Variables were what this was all about.
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