In James Dashner’s dystopian novel The Maze Runner, WICKED is the organization behind the maze trials.
WICKED conducts experiments on young people in an effort to study human responses to extreme conditions. The organization places Thomas and other boys in the Glade, a settlement surrounded by a dangerous maze whose layout changes. The trials are presented as part of a larger attempt to find solutions to a devastated world.
The name is commonly styled in capital letters, emphasizing that it is an institutional organization rather than an individual villain. Later revelations complicate the group’s role because its stated goal is connected to humanity’s survival, even though its methods involve coercion, memory manipulation, and dangerous experimentation.
Readers sometimes confuse WICKED with the Gladers, the name used for the young people living inside the maze. The Gladers are subjects of the experiment; WICKED is the organization running it.