The Invisible Read Online Free PDF Page B

to see the screen.
    I stand on tiptoe and lean over Alexandra’s shoulder, assuming it’s a replay of Martha’s dramatic horse-bucking incident. But instead it’s a fast torrent of still photos, spliced to move faster and faster, each image more disturbing than the last, with a slick electronic beat and a few chords in minor keys laid over as a soundtrack. The images are punctuated by a deep, electronically modified voice. I hold my breath as the jumble of words and pictures starts to pile up, dread calcifying in my bones.
    A six-year-old boy picking through burnt rubble from a fire. The voiceover: HAPPY CHILDHOOD.
    A homeless mother with an infant in rags clutched to her breast. Voiceover: HAPPY FAMILIES.
    A guard with a BulletBlower 3000 pointed at an old man with a cane. Voiceover: FUN FOR ALL AGES.
    Then the scenes change to North Side pictures. Everything tinted a sickly green. The words turn grayish yellow.
    A group of laughing adults dressed in tuxedos and gowns. Voiceover: AND WE ARE ALL SO HAPPY.
    Two five-year-old girls wearing pearls, flanking an ornate cake with flowers dripping from its tiers. Voiceover: SO HAPPY IT HURTS.
    The mayor laughing with a group of cronies, his mouth open wide, a gleam of gold glitter smeared across his teeth. SO PROUD OF OUR FAIR CITY.
    And then the still images stop, and the music thumps faster. We see a large desk draped with a flag. The camera pans up to a white T-shirt with an open eye on it, the bottom of it done in black, fading to gray, and then disintegrating at the tip of the top lashes. A flood of sweat begins to pour from my torso as I flash on the three drugged-out creeps in the control booth at the arena. The unblinking, all-seeing eye. This is phase two of whatever they’ve got planned.
    The camera pans up above the shirt. A neck. A masked head. Molded white plastic. The mask a crude black-on-white drawing of a grinning face. A crayoned red mouth. Black dots for eyes on the blank white plastic surface. In a different context, the mask might look innocent. But here, after what I’ve just seen, it sets my teeth on edge.
    Could this be a Syndicate thing, some sort of new campaign to fill the void I helped create when Gavin fell off that cliff?
    The smiling mouth never moves, but the robotic monotony of the artificially deep voice that begins to drone beneath it sends a chill down my spine.
    “Citizens of Bedlam City: Things are about to change. We are a group of people dedicated to making the invisible visible. To making the comfortable less comfortable, and the unhappy a little happier. Ask yourself—am I too happy? Too smug? Too comfortable? Do I have so much that I don’t know what to do with it all? Could someone use a little of what I have?
    “We are here to help. We are here to right the wrongs. To balance the scales. We are the Invisible, and we are everywhere.”
    The screen on the girl’s phone goes static, then white.
    “Spooky-cool,” one of the girls sighs.
    “Right? I bet he’s hot under that mask,” another says.
    “My brother ordered a T-shirt,” someone offers. And the cluster of girls breaks into excited chatter. Their talk circles around me, not touching me. Not penetrating the growing sense of alarm punching through my head. I’m conscious of the skin on my arms crawling, my hands shaking slightly, a slick of sweat blooming in the small of my back.
    This is definitely not a Syndicate thing. It’s too professional. Too performance-based. And the goal is too vague. The Syndicate operates with one goal in mind—money. They steal from the wealthy and the poor alike. They’re not interested in making changes like this. This person—persons—is after something bigger.
    I step away from the crowd of girls and move down the hall, disgusted by how excited they seem about the video. We are a group of people dedicated to making the invisible visible. To making the comfortable less comfortable . Do they not understand that the people who will be