The rumbling sound of engines finally, mercifully, ripped him from these increasingly depressing thoughts. Three trucks had appeared around the corner of a street that led away from the city, although calling them trucks was like calling a tiger a cat. The things were massive, 40 or 50 feet long and half that in height and width, heavily armored, windows tinted black with steel bars reinforcing them against attacks. The tires alone were taller than Newt himself, and he could only stare, wondering in awe what he might be about to witness firsthand.

A horn sounded from all three vehicles at once, a thunderous noise that made his eardrums rattle in their cages. It was the sound he’d heard earlier from inside the Berg. Some of the surrounding Cranks ran at the sight of the monsters-on-wheels, still smart enough to know that danger had arrived from the horizon. But most of them were oblivious, looking on much as Newt did, as curious as a newborn baby seeing lights and hearing voices for the first time. He had the advantage of distance and plenty of hordes between him and the new arrivals. Feeling safe in the most unsafe of places, Newt watched things unfold—though he did unzip his backpack and place one hand on the cool metal surface of the stolen Launcher.

The trucks came to a stop, the shattering noise of their horns ceasing like a shattered echo. Men and women piled out of the cabins, dressed to the hilt in black and gray, some with red shirts pulled over their torso, chests armored, heads covered with helmets as shiny as dark glass, all of them holding long-shafted weapons that made Newt’s Launcher look like a toy gun. At least a dozen of these soldiers began firing indiscriminately, their aim fastened on anyone who moved. Newt didn’t know a single thing about the weapons they used, but flashes of light shot from their barrels with a noise that reminded him of Frypan—when he’d bang a heavy stick against a warped piece of metal they’d found somewhere in the nether parts of the Glade. To tell people his latest and greatest meal was ready to be devoured. It made a vibrating whomp sound that made his very bones tremble.

They weren’t killing the Cranks. Just stunning them, temporarily causing paralysis. Many of them still shouted or wailed after they’d fallen to the ground, and continued to do so as the soldiers dragged them with the least amount of tenderness possible toward the huge doors at the back of the trucks. Someone had opened them while Newt observed the onslaught, and beyond those doors was a cavernous holding cell for the captives. The soldiers must’ve eaten a lot of meat and drank a lot of milk because they picked up the limp bodies of the Cranks and tossed them inside the darkness as if they were no more than small bales of hay.