Lizard People Read Online Free PDF

tree, transparent from the inside. He caught his breath and walked to a building.
    He followed a sidewalk-type path to the front wall, and when he got a couple of feet away, a section of wall slid back. He went inside. The floor was a glossy tile that didn’t make any noise when you walked on it. Immediately in front of him were a series of terminals that looked like computers on stalks.
    Marco figured that this was where you got your directions. He walked to the nearest one and put his fingers on the keyboard. The keys were in the same script that had been flashing on the metal disk. He moved the cursor to the open address box at the top of the screen, closed his eyes, and tried typing using the key positions he knew. He typed “Google.com” and hit what he thought was the “Enter” key.
    While Marco was watching the screen, he felt a poke on his arm. A tube with a hose had attached to him. He gave a tug to break loose, but it did no good. The tube made a noise like a short song in a foreign language.
    â€œI don’t understand,” Marco told it.
    A tiny door opened in the top of the tube and a plain earphone and wire mike pushed out. Marco put them on.
    â€œWho are you?” he heard when the earphone was in place.
    â€œMarco Lasalle.”
    â€œWhat are you doing here?”
    â€œI’m, uh, I’m a visitor. I’m looking … for a cure. For mental illness,” Marco said, trying to make it sound like his business here was important. “Not for me,” he added, but he didn’t think anyone heard him. The machine was already leading Marco out the door and over to a waiting skateboard—floatboard? Marco stepped onto it and began gliding through the city at high speed.
    Once away from the park, there were lots of people gliding but no cars in the streets. Everything was spotlessly clean. No paper, no trash, no plastic bags caught on trees or bushes. No trees or bushes! The machine stopped abruptly near the entrance of a huge building that looked like four blimps joined together at their noses. A steady stream of people was going in and coming out. The gliders, or floatboards, were parked in a line along the edge of the walk. The tube led Marco inside to a front desk. Service counter? Nursing station?
    The person ahead finished, and the tube propelled Marco forward. A large-chested middle-aged woman in a light blue apron uniform looked him over carefully.
    â€œHow can I help you?”
    Marco heard her clearly, though those words didn’t seem to match the words her lips formed. Then he heard what sounded like another foreign song, this, he thought, from the tube.
    The woman’s eyebrows lifted. “Wait here,” she said. She leaned her head down to her shoulder and sang something to a button that rested there. The tube pulled Marco to the side so the person next in line could step up.
    In less than a minute, a light blue metallic tube came and attached to Marco. The silver tube let go and left. Light Blue led Marco at a leisurely pace down a long corridor, past a series of doors. Beside most of the doors were chairs, and sometimes people sat in them as if waiting for an appointment.
    After a right turn into a perpendicular hall, the tube stopped in front of the nearest door and emitted a tone. The door opened and Marco was escorted inside. The tube released him and left. A coffee-colored man in a blue smock with black piping was waiting. He had five stripes where a chest pocket would have been, with a row of small medallions beneath. He was in his thirties or forties. Cleft-chinned, handsome, dapper, no smile. He combed his hair in a complicated arrangement of swirls. Marco wondered if the man was really conceited.
    â€œAre you loose?” the man asked.
    â€œI’m not sure,” Marco said.
    â€œThen you are loose,” the man said. The man pressed a button on the console he was standing behind. The silver tube returned.
    â€œTake