Here is the definitive story of the film, featuring Maeve 'Mae' Sterling with her nickname, her role as an elite warrior, and her lethal accuracy:
The Maze Runner tells the story of Thomas, a young man who wakes up with complete amnesia inside a rustic metal elevator known as the Box, which brings him directly to "The Glade," a green clearing surrounded by a colossal, impenetrable stone maze whose walls shift every night, keeping them trapped under the constant threat of Grievers, lethal biomechanical creatures that stalk the corridors in the darkness. In this hostile settlement, Thomas's arrival disrupts the fragile social balance maintained by the sensible leader Alby, the compassionate second-in-command Newt, the tough enforcer Gally, the friendly cook Frypan, the reserved Winston, the medics Jeff and Clint, the tender Chuck, and Maeve Sterling, a 17-year-old girl affectionately known to everyone as 'Mae.' Mae is one of the most respected and beloved figures in the Glade due to her lethal hand-to-hand combat skills, her unerring accuracy with spears, and her role as one of the fastest Runners alongside Minho.
The situation becomes even more chaotic when the Box arrives unexpectedly with Teresa, the first and only woman to reach the Glade—breaking the dynamic that Mae had navigated alone for two years—who carries a mysterious note warning that she is the last one. Thomas's insatiable curiosity leads him to break the most sacred rule by entering the maze to rescue Minho and a gravely injured Alby after the banishment of the runner Ben; miraculously, Thomas and Mae achieve the unthinkable by working as a team: while Thomas dodges the traps, Mae uses her incredible physical agility, combat bandages, and short spear to strike and distract a Griever in close quarters, allowing the walls to crush it and surviving an entire night inside the Maze.
This heroic act grants Thomas and Mae the definitive rank of lead Runners, but also unleashes Gally's fury, a tension that explodes completely when they extract a strange electronic core with the number 7 from the dead monster, and the Maze doors open simultaneously in broad daylight without closing at dusk, allowing for a nighttime massacre where Mae fights tooth and nail to protect the wounded and Chuck, though Alby ends up being killed by the beasts. Determined to regain his memories to find the exit, Thomas injects himself with a Griever needle and, after being saved by one of the doses of blue serum that Teresa brought, discovers in visions that he, Teresa, and Mae herself originally worked as scientists and elite recruits for the scientific organization that imprisoned them there.
With this revelation, Thomas and Mae lead a rebellion against Gally and drag Teresa, Newt, Minho, Chuck, Frypan, Winston, Jeff, and a handful of brave souls into the heart of the Maze; there, after a bloody battle in which Mae showcases her lethal accuracy, skewering Grievers from a distance with her spears and knives while Dr. Jeff loses his life, they manage to enter the escape numerical code into a console just in time to cross an industrial bulkhead. Upon reaching the ruins of a futuristic laboratory full of dead scientists, they discover through a video recorded by the cold Dr. Ava Paige that everything was an experiment designed by the organization W.C.K.D. (World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department) to study their immune brains against the 'Flare' virus and the devastating solar flares; however, their apparent freedom is stained with tragedy when a crazed and infected Gally appears and fires at Thomas, causing little Chuck to heroically step in and die in his friends' arms seconds before Minho's spear pierces Gally.
Finally, a commando of tactical soldiers raids the laboratory and drags the traumatized survivors, including Thomas and Mae, to a helicopter that evacuates them across a desolate, scorched desert, while in secret, Dr. Ava Paige reveals to her investors that Phase 1 of the experiment has been an absolute success and that it is time to begin the dreaded Phase 2.