The Scorch Trials is the follow-up to the modest 2014 hit, The Maze Runner, based on the 2010 YA novel by James Dashner.  We continue to follow Thomas and his fellow Gladers, now out of the original maze, taken to a research facility where they meet the main administrator, Janson, who tells them that they will be taken to a place where they will no longer be in danger, once they pass a series of tests.  Thomas soon discovers that not everything is what it appears to be, and comes to the conclusion that their lives will be in danger if they remain there.  They take their chances surviving out on the Scorch, the desert-like surrounding area where a deadly Flare virus has run rampant and has turned much of the infected into miserable and deadly zombies, dubbed Cranks here.  Hoping just to survive, the crew soon discovers that there are other humans left out there, who may be instrumental in fighting back against WCKD (WICKED), the original organization that enslaved them in order to harvest a vaccine to combat the Flare virus.