The Book of Phoenix Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Don’t move,” he said. His hand passed right through my head. I felt only the slightest moment of pressure and there was a sucking sound.
    â€œWha . . . ?”
    â€œCan you hear me?”
I heard him loudly say through what sounded like a microphone. I looked around.
    â€œShhh! They’ll hear you!” I hissed. I frowned. His lips hadn’t moved.
    â€œNo,”
he said. He held his finger to his lips for me to quiet down and grinned, his yellow-white teeth and black skin shining in my glow.
“They won’t. You are hearing this in your head.”
    â€œNot even the Big Eye know I can do this,” he said aloud, but lowering his voice as before. “Whatever they did to enhance my abilities, I can pass it into people, and they can hear me until the tiny nanomites are sweated from their skin.
    â€œI did this to a little Tanzanian boy on the fifth floor. He had a contagious cancer, so they kept him in isolation for tests. Hearing me talk to him from wherever I was, kept him sane. At least, until he died.”
    His disease could have killed you, though
, I thought.
    He started to descend through the floor.
“Fifteen minutes,”
he said in my head, then he was gone.
    I whipped off my pants and t-shirt and threw on a white dress they’d recently given me made of heat resistant thin plastic. The dress was long but light, and it allowed me to move freely. I didn’t bother with shoes. Too heavy.
    For a moment, I had a brief flash in my mind of actually stepping outside. Into the naked sunlight, under the open sky, no ceiling above me. I could do it. Mmuo would help me. He and I would
both
escape. I felt a rush of hope, then a rush of heat. The scanner on my wall beeped. I had reached over 300 degrees.
    Just before the door slid open, I had the sense to spread some shea butter on my skin. Then I ran out of my room.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    â€œIf you want to see, turn right and then go straight. Do it quickly, they will soon know you are missing. I can’t delay it long.”
    I was working hard not to look at the floor. I’d never left my room without instruction from the floor. Usually a yellow line appeared that told me where to go. There was none now. With nothing to guide me, I felt like I was free-falling into the heavens; like if I didn’t fly, I’d die; I just had to figure out how to do it.
    I jogged, my feet slapping the cool marble floor. The hallway was quiet and empty, and soon I was in a section of my floor that I had never graced. This was where they kept Saeed.
His prison
, I thought
.
    I crossed a doorway and the floor here was carpeted, plush and red. I paused, looking down. I had never seen red carpet. How could a “guiding line” show through a carpeted floor? Before they took it out, the carpet in my quarters had been black, thin and flat. I wanted to kneel down and run my hands over the redness. I knew it would feel so soft and fluffy. I also knew that I wasn’t supposed to be here.
    â€œ
See what you must but you have to make it to the elevator in two minutes
,” Mmuo’s voice suddenly said into my head. “
Go down the hall and turn left. You will see it. Hurry. Do not press any buttons when you get in.”
    â€œOk,” I said aloud. But he could not hear me. One-way communication. I ran down the red hallway. Through glass windows and doors, I could see lab assistants and scientists in labs. Each large room was partitioned by a thick wall. There was bulky equipment in most of them. If I were careful, no one would notice me. After sneaking past three labs, I saw the one that Saeed saw. It had to be. I stopped, staring and moaning deep in my throat. This lab was much bigger than the others and ten black cameras hung from its high white ceiling.
    There were two wall-sized sleek grey machines on both sides of the room. I could hear them humming powerfully. Between them, the world fell