Alby continued. “Two years, I’ve been here. Ain’t none been here longer. The few before me are already dead.” Thomas felt his eyes widen, his heart quicken. “Two years we’ve tried to solve this thing, no luck. Shuckin’ walls move out there at night just as much as these here doors. Mappin’ it out ain’t easy, ain’t easy nohow.” He nodded toward the concrete-blocked building into which the Runners had disappeared the night before.
Another stab of pain sliced through Thomas’s head—there were too many things to compute at once. They’d been here two years? The walls moved out in the Maze? How many had died? He stepped forward, wanting to see the Maze for himself, as if the answers were printed on the walls out there.
Alby held out a hand and pushed Thomas in the chest, sent him stumbling backward. “Ain’t no goin’ out there, shank.”
Thomas had to suppress his pride. “Why not?”
“You think I sent Newt to ya before the wake-up just for kicks? Freak, that’s the Number One Rule, the only one you’ll never be forgiven for breaking. Ain’t nobody—nobody—allowed in the Maze except the Runners. Break that rule, and if you ain’t killed by the Grievers, we’ll kill you ourselves, you get me?”
Thomas nodded, grumbling inside, sure that Alby was exaggerating. Hoping that he was. Either way, if he’d had any doubt about what he’d told Chuck the night before, it had now completely vanished. He wanted to be a Runner. He would be a Runner. Deep inside he knew he had to go out there, into the Maze. Despite everything he’d learned and witnessed firsthand, it called to him as much as hunger or thirst.
A movement up on the left wall of the South Door caught his attention. Startled, he reacted quickly, looking just in time to see a flash of silver. A patch of ivy shook as the thing disappeared into it.
Thomas pointed up at the wall. “What was that?” he asked before he could be shut down again.
Alby didn’t bother looking. “No questions till the end, shank. How many times I gotta tell ya?” He paused, then let out a sigh. “Beetle blades—it’s how the Creators watch us. You better not—”
He was cut off by a booming, ringing alarm that sounded from all directions. Thomas clamped his hands to his ears, looking around as the siren blared, his heart about to thump its way out of his chest. But when he focused back on Alby, he stopped.
Alby wasn’t acting scared—he appeared … confused. Surprised. The alarm clanged through the air.
“What’s going on?” Thomas asked. Relief flooded his chest that his tour guide didn’t seem to think the world was about to end—but even so, Thomas was getting tired of being hit by waves of panic.
“That’s weird” was all Alby said as he scanned the Glade, squinting. Thomas noticed people in the Blood House pens glancing around, apparently just as confused. One shouted to Alby, a short, skinny kid drenched in mud.
“What’s up with that?” the boy asked, looking to Thomas for some reason.
“I don’t know,” Alby murmured back in a distant voice.
But Thomas couldn’t stand it anymore. “Alby! What’s going on?”
“The Box, shuck-face, the Box!” was all Alby said before he set off for the middle of the Glade at a brisk pace that almost looked to Thomas like panic.
“What about it?” Thomas demanded, hurrying to catch up. Talk to me! he wanted to scream at him.
But Alby didn’t answer or slow down, and as they got closer to the box Thomas could see that dozens of kids were running around the courtyard. He spotted Newt and called to him, trying to suppress his rising fear, telling himself things would be okay, that there had to be a reasonable explanation.
“Newt, what’s going on!” he yelled.
Newt glanced over at him, then nodded and walked over, strangely calm in the middle of the chaos. He swatted Thomas on the back. “Means a bloody Newbie’s comin’ up in the Box.” He paused as if expecting Thomas to be impressed. “Right now.”
“So?” As Thomas looked more closely at Newt, he realized that what he’d mistaken for calm was actually disbelief—maybe even excitement.
“So?” Newt replied, his jaw dropping slightly. “Greenie, we’ve never had two Newbies show up in the same month, much less two days in a row.”
And with that, he ran off toward the Homestead.
CHAPTER 8
The alarm finally stopped after blaring for a full two minutes. A crowd was gathered in the middle of the courtyard around the steel doors through which Thomas was startled to realize he’d arrived just yesterday. Yesterday? he thought. Was that really just yesterday?
Someone tapped him on the elbow; he looked over to see Chuck by his side again.
“How goes it, Greenbean?” Chuck asked.
“Fine,” he replied, even though nothing could’ve been further from the truth. He pointed toward the doors of the Box. “Why is everyone freaking out? Isn’t this how you all got here?”
Chuck shrugged. “I don’t know—guess it’s always been real regular-like. One a month, every month, same day. Maybe whoever’s in charge realized you were nothing but a big mistake, sent someone to replace you.” He giggled as he elbowed Thomas in the ribs, a high-pitched snicker that inexplicably made Thomas like him more.
Thomas shot his new friend a fake glare. “You’re annoying. Seriously.”
“Yeah, but we’re buddies, now, right?” Chuck fully laughed this time, a squeaky sort of snort.