Author's Note: This is the first chapter where it doesn't have both Ada's and Newt's point of view, but Newt's voice will be back next chapter.
Despite Newt's promises to the contrary Ada wasn't finding it any easier to get herself up on time in the mornings. Instead, she'd woken each of the previous few mornings to Newt's face as he shook her shoulder gently.
The morning a full week after she'd arrived was no different. She was pulled from her dreams by a hand nudging her shoulder and blinked open her eyes to see Newt offering her a tired wave before he moved away from her hammock to let her get up.
Ada thanked the universe silently for sticking her with a boy who seemed to have the patience of a saint. She didn't know much about her previous self but it would appear that she wasn't a morning person. She also had a strong suspicion she had owned an alarm clock and not relied on her faulty internal clock to get to places on time.
Although there was always the possibility that in her previous life she hadn't had to worry about such things. Maybe she was fabulously wealthy and never had to lift a finger. Anything was possible she supposed, but it wasn't exactly the most realistic scenario her mind had conjured.
Ada sighed and swung her legs out of the hammock and onto the floor. At least the fact that it was dirt and not tile meant that it was fairly warm to the touch.
Wherever she had been before, were there cold tile floors?
She sat perfectly still for a moment hoping that if she tuned out her surroundings she might be able to project herself into her past and remember something, anything.
After a few seconds she had admit it wasn't happening. Sighing again Ada stood and grabbed her clothes from the neatly folded pile where she had left them. So far she only had the one outfit and a large shirt Newt had given her to sleep in. He said the creators might send up more for her when the supplies came next month and in the mean time the sloppers did laundry once a week. She had been told she could borrow one of his outfits for laundry day. He only had three so she knew this was a bigger favor than it sounded like and she was grateful.
She was also all too aware that Newt was only a few feet away as she quickly removed his shirt and shrugged on her clothes. He may have been respectfully keeping his back to her but this whole arrangement made her incredibly uncomfortable. Something about living in close quarters with anyone felt remarkably strange, let alone a boy she had just met who couldn't venture out of her sight.
Once she was dressed Ada cleared her throat to let Newt know she was decent. He peeked carefully over his shoulder at her and once he had confirmed her readiness he nodded and led her out of the homestead and toward the mess hall.
After breakfast Ada trudged behind Newt over to the garden, reluctantly taking the spade he handed her once they'd arrived.
They had spent the last few days planting, weeding and watering. It didn't sound too bad but Ada's muscles ached and her skin was already pink and sore from spending so much time in the sun. Maybe she had been fabulously wealthy in her former life after all. She certainly hadn't been doing a lot of gardening or manual labor in general.
Newt had assured her that she was doing fine but she could see the annoyed glances from the other track-hoes as she stumbled along behind Newt filling in with dirt the carefully dug holes he had placed seeds in. It wasn't the biggest contribution in the world but just like the days before they had to find ways for her to do her part while also sticking close to his side. They continued this way for several hours, only speaking when Ada inevitably bumped into Newt's back and mumbled an embarrassed "sorry" before they continued on.
"Alright, shanks, lunch time," Zart, the keeper of the track-hoes announced finally.
All around them boys dropped their tools and set off in the direction of the mess hall. Ada stood straight, carefully stretching out the muscles in her back, fearing the hunch there might become permanent if she wasn't careful.
Newt straightened as well, tugging off the gloves he wore and dropping them to the ground.
"Hungry?" He asked, though it was a bit of a rhetorical question.
Ada shrugged. She wasn't particularly hungry but she would eat, just like the rest of them. She'd learned pretty quickly to eat when it was offered because Frypan wasn't in the habit of accommodating people's schedules. Besides the further away from supply day they got the less and less appetizing the offerings got. She wanted to take advantage of the relatively palatable meals right now before the warned of dry spell hit next week.
"Cheer up, Greenie," Newt ordered as she fell in beside him as they headed for the mess hall. "It could be worse, you could be trailing along after a slicer."
Ada shuddered.
He had a point.
It wasn't that she was afraid to get her hands dirty and she very well understood that the meat they ate had to come from somewhere. Even the idea of slicing open an animal didn't seem completely off putting to her, though in the scenario she could imagine it was already dead and the goal was to glean information from it. Somehow the concept of being the one to actually take a life, any life, was enough to make her eyes prick and her hands clammy.
She appreciated what the slicers did for the Glade though. Everyone had a part to play.
Everyone but her.
Ada sighed and Newt frowned.
"That doesn't sound like cheering up," He pointed out.
Ada did her best to plaster on a smile though it felt at least half like a grimace.
That earned her a chuckle from Newt just as they reached the mess hall.
"That's the spirit," They were quickly being surrounded by other gladers who were crowding around trying to find each other or claim a good spot in line. "Now stick close to me this time, ok?"
Ada nodded innocently, but as soon as Newt turned his head she purposefully took a few steps back and melted into the crowd of boys. She continued to weave in and out of clumps of gladers until the buzzing in her mind became just painful enough. Then scrunching up her face in concentration and to resist simply running back to Newt, Ada began touching other gladers. From the outside it seemed random, in fact if any of the boys noticed her contact at all she took pains to try to make it look like an accident.
An elbow brushing an elbow over here, a hand steadying itself on an arm over there, bumping into a boy's back for good measure. Ada's testing was based on opportunity but it was still systematic. She had a list of all the boys she had attempted this with, folded carefully in her pocket alongside a small, collapsible pen. The pen actually hadn't been that hard to come by, the creators sent them up by the box for the builders and the runners to use and no one had seemed to bothered by her request to have one. It was actually the paper that was more of a problem. Each runner had their own small notebook and the builders had one collective sketchpad but that was it as far as she could tell. At first she'd thought she was out of luck until Newt had told her that the supplies sometimes came with inventory lists. Frypan had been willing enough to offer her a crinkled sheet that said FLOUR 10lb and OATMEAL 10lb on one side. The other side was blissfully blank though.
The buzzing was starting to get to Ada, and little white dots danced into her vision. Still, it seemed to her that her ability to separate slightly from Newt was actually getting better. On the first day she wasn't sure she could have maintained this small distance for this length of time. She would have to devise a way to find out exactly what her capabilities were later. For now she wasn't interested in pushing it. Making a mental note of those she had tested contact with, none of which had any notifiable effect, Ada pushed through the pack of boys in front of her searching for Newt.
She found him almost immediately, peering around for her with a worried look on his face. Well, worried might not have been the best term. Stressed was more like it. His face melted into relief for one moment when he spotted her, though it quickly settled into his more characteristic frown.
They each took a few steps forward until they had reached each other, Ada reaching out to grab the first part of Newt she came to which happened to be his hand. The buzzing instantly disappeared and Ada sighed again, this time in relief.
"You alright?" He asked, leaning forward and down slightly so he could get a good look at her face.
"Oh yeah, fine," Ada assured him. "It gets so crazy in here at meal times, can hardly keep track of you."
Newt eyed her skeptically but seemingly decided not to press her any further.
"Could you shanks hold hands somewhere else? Some of us are hungry," A voice from behind them called out and Ada felt her face instantly heat up.
She hadn't even realized she was still clutching Newt's hand but she dropped it like it was suddenly burning her. Newt seemed to be embarrassed too, but he did his best not to show it.
"Slim it, Winston," He barked out, before steering her by the elbow towards the table where Frypan was distributing sandwiches and fruit.
They got their food and took a seat at a table where several boys already sat, some Ada recognized, some she didn't.
"Where's Alby?" She asked as they took their seats, Newt across from her and a boy she didn't know yet to her left. She knew that Alby and Newt were close and they usually sat with the leader during meals.
"He took his meal to go, some problem with the builders he had to deal with," Newt explained, already digging in to his sandwich.
Ada nodded, not bothering to start eating until she had reached into her pocket and extracted the paper and pen she found there. She unfolded the paper carefully and made a few marks quickly before Newt could get too good a look at it though she didn't miss his efforts to do so.
She couldn't exactly just make a big list of all the gladers names. For one thing she didn't know everyone's name yet and beyond that she didn't want them growing suspicious if they came across it. If Newt's reaction to the idea had been anything to go on, this whole "touch experiment" wasn't something she wanted to be public knowledge. So instead she made up code words for each glader, something based on appearance or personality that would help her remember as she came across them. Then she simply made a slash next to the word if the test had proved ineffective, as so far, they all had. Speaking of which, the boy to her left was a subject yet to be tried.
Ada reached for her sandwich and attempting to appear casual. She carefully bumped her waiting apple with he elbow sending it rolling across the table in the general direction of the boy next to her.
"Sorry, could you hand me my apple?" She asked, proud of her nonchalant tone.
"Oh, yeah, sure," the boy scrambled to do just that, a nervous air projecting thickly from him.
Sometimes there were advantages to being the only girl these boys had ever seen.
He practically shoved the apple into her hands and Ada made sure her fingers made good contact with his. It was true she was close enough to Newt that there wasn't much buzzing going on. Still, there was just enough in the back of her brain to make her confident this boy wasn't a solution either.
Ada set down her apple and picked up her pen, writing SPIKE (in reference to the boy's hair) with a careful slash mark next to it. She put down her paper and pen with satisfaction and reached for her sandwich only to be met with Newt's narrowed eyes.
He leaned across the table.
"What was that?"
Ada tried her best to look innocent.
"What was what?"
"I know what you're up to," He half-whispered, and Ada had to fight a smile. He was so serious.
"I don't know what you're talking about," She insisted lightly, taking a big bite of her sandwich for good measure.
Newt leaned back and grudgingly did the same, though she noticed his eyes drifting to her list again a few times as they ate.
After lunch everyone headed back to their stations, Ada trudging reluctantly back towards the garden. She was just wondering if Newt would let her be the one to drop in the seeds just for variety's sake when a strange sound filled the Glade.
Ada couldn't identify it. There was a semi-familiar grinding and crunching that sounded mechanical in nature but that seemed completely out of the question. With the exception of those...grievers, on the other side of the walls she'd yet to see anything with moving metal parts since she'd been here. Fear flooded her veins briefly as she wondered if this meant the grievers had found their way into the glade but the fact that no one else was running for their lives alleviated that fear fairly quickly.
"What the shucking hell..." Newt trailed off, his heard turned towards the middle of the Glade.
"What is it?" Ada asked, bouncing on to her tip toes in an effort to see around him.
"It's the bloody box," Newt was moving now, his limp slightly more obvious than usual as he half ran in that direction leaving Ada to follow him. "That's impossible. No alarm, but the box coming up three weeks early..."
He trailed off again and Ada swallowed nervously. The box was where she had come from. She couldn't explain the fear that unease that swept through her at the thought of it's unscheduled return but she sped up just a bit more to keep her closer to Newt.
When they reached the hole in the ground that would apparently soon house the box there was already a growing pack of gladers gathered around it. She and Newt must have spotted Alby at the same time because the boy beside her made a beeline for his friend and fellow leader right then.
"Any idea what's going on?" He asked the older boy, his tone obviously purposefully being kept calm.
Before he could answer a whoosh of air swept out of the hole and a slam of metal announced the arrival of the box.
There was silence for a moment before Alby shot Newt a look that spoke volumes, though Ada wasn't exactly sure what they were silently communicating.
"Let's find out," Alby strode forward and so did another boy, each grabbing one side of the cage like lid to the box and heaving it open on its hinges. Alby knelt by the edge and examined whatever he saw inside for a moment. Other boys started jostling closer and their chatter filtered back to Ada.
"No new greenie."
"Of course, not slinthead, it's only been a week!"
"There's something in there."
"What is it?"
"Let me see!"
"Slim it!" Alby called out, his words having an immediate effect before he hopped down into the box, grabbed something and climbed out.
"It's for her," the leader's voice pierced through the relative silence like a bullet and Ada shuddered.
Every eye in the glade turned towards her as Alby made his way over with a small bag.
He handed it to her and Ada took it reluctantly, something inside of her going off like a warning bell that once she accepted this package from the creators she couldn't go back.
The bag had her name embroidered on to the outside, the curly forms of the letters looking starkly out of place in their current surroundings.
"It's probably just supplies for you," Newt offered. "We figured they'd send some."
"No other greenies got supplies early," one of the other gladers hissed. "How did she get so cozy with whoever sent us here?"
A sea of chatter arose around them at this and Ada struggled to remain calm and not simply turn on her heels and run. It was too much. The questioning stares, the noise of a hundred conversations all around her, the inability to even truly argue for her innocence when she didn't remember a thing about herself.
"I said slim it!" Alby shouted and the glade once again fell into an uneasy silence. "Open it, Greenie."
Ada reeled back, horrified. She had to open it here? Now? In front of all theses doubting eyes where once wrong expression might lose her their trust forever?
"Alby..." Newt started to protest but one sharp look from his friend and he sighed before falling silent.
Ada reached shaking fingers down to undo the clasp on the bag and reached in half expecting something to jump out and bite her fingers. Instead she pulled out a shirt, pair of pants and undergarments, neatly folded and completely harmless.
Ada felt weak with relief. Not only had she not discovered anything incriminating so far but she had been given a spare set of clothes. She heard a few snickers as she set aside the bra and underwear but it hardly registered in her mind as something she should be embarrassed about. Now if she were in them and nothing else that was one thing, but she was hardly going to kick up a fuss about the items themselves.
She reached further into the bag and this time her hands closed around a plastic box. She drew it out and squinted her eyes cautiously at the label. It read "Menstruation Supplies".
Ada hadn't thought about her need for such things but it seemed that the creators had.
"What is it?" Newt peered over her shoulder then straightened quickly once he'd made out what the label said.
"What is it?" A voice from further back in the crowd called out.
"Nothing," Newt shouted back. "Slim it."
He was clearly mortified but Ada found it rather endearing. A boy who lived in a life or death survival situation day in and day out but couldn't handle conversations about poo and periods.
Ada set the box aside and reached into the bag one more time to make sure she hadn't missed anything. She wasn't expecting there to be anything else but to her surprise and rising dread her fingers closed around a single piece of paper. Ada drew it out slowly.
It wasn't much. Just bigger than a scrap really, the edges jagged as though it had been torn from something else. She turned it over carefully, her hands shaking as she made out the five words scrawled on its surface.
DON'T GO IN THE MAZE
At first as she stared at the words the chatter around her grew. She could hear people shouting back to those too far away to see what was happening, what it said. Their comments and shouts multiplied until all Ada could hear was a roar of white noise that reminded her of the buzzing pain she so hated. Then all it once it fell silent and the quiet was almost like a painful pressure of its own.
Ada looked up and found Alby, looking impossibly tall, glaring down at her.
"Anything you want to tell us, Greenie?"