by Libba Bray
“Yes, that would make sense,” he said.
His full name was Uzochukwu D’nnmma but he called himself Mmuo, which meant spirit in a Nigerian language. He was a hero to all those who were created or altered in Tower 7. Like Saeed, Mmuo had been taken from Africa. He said he was from “the jungles of Nigeria”. I did not believe he was from any jungle. He spoke like a man who had known skyscrapers, office buildings and digital television. He knew how to disable the security doors on several of the floors and was known for causing trouble throughout the building. Not that he really needed to do so to get around the tower. Mmuo could walk through walls. The only walls he could not pass through were the walls that would get him out of Tower 7. Mmuo could not escape; obviously his abilities were created by Tower 7 scientists.
Mmuo was a tall thin man with skin the color and as shiny as crude oil. He never wore clothes, for clothes could not pass through the walls with him. He stole what food he needed from the kitchens. He was the only person/creature who’d successfully escaped the Big Eye’s clutches.
Why Tower 7’s Big Eye tolerated him, I do not know. My theory is that they simply could not catch him. And since he was contained, they accepted the trouble he occasionally stirred up. Most of those in the tower were too isolated and damaged to be much trouble if freed, anyway.
“It looks like your skin is nothing but a veil over something greater,” he said, after an appraising look. It was something Saeed would have said and the thought made my heart ache again.
“Can you open the door?” I finally said. “I...I want to see what is down the hall, near Saeed’s room.”
Mmuo met my gaze and held it.
I frowned. “What did Saeed see?” I asked.
He only looked away.
“Show me,” I said, suddenly wanting to sob. “Then help me escape.”
He moved close to me and I was sure he was going to hug me.
“Don’t touch me,” I said. “You’ll...”
He raised a hand up and made to slap me across the face. “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.
“Wha...”
“Can you hear me?” I heard him loudly say through what sounded like a microphone. I looked around.
“Shhh! They’ll hear you!” I hissed. I frowned. His lips hadn’t moved.
“No,” he said. He held his finger to his lips for me to quiet down and grinned, his yellow-white teeth shining, his black skin shining, too.”They won’t. You are hearing this in your head.
“Not even the Big Eye know I can do this,” he said aloud, but lowering his voice. “Whatever they did to make me able to pass through walls, I can pass it into people and they can hear me, until the tiny nanomites are sweated from their skin.”
“I did this to a little 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 that was made of heat resistant thin plastic. The dress was long but light and allowed me to move very 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. 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. I ran out of my room.
“If you want to see, turn right and then go straight. Do it quickly.”
I jogged, my feet slapping the cool marble floor. The hallway was quiet and empty, and soon I was in a part of my floor that I had never graced. The side 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. Before they took it out, the carpet in my quarters had been black and flat. I wanted to kneel down and run my hands over it. I knew it would feel so soft and fluffy.
“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.”
“Ok,” 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 the rooms. 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. Powerful. Between them, the world fell away to ...another world where it was daytime and all that was happening was perfectly bluntly brutally visible. There were old vehicles, trucks from long long ago, boxy, ineffective and weak. But strong enough to carry huge loads of cargo to dump into a deep pit. And that cargo consisted of human bodies. Hundreds of them. Dead. Not Africans. These dead people had pinkish pale skin and thin straight-ish hair like most of the Big Eye. When was this? Where was this? Why were the Big Eye scientists just standing there watching with their clipboards and ever observing eyes?
It was not like watching a 3D movie. Even the best ones could never look this…true. Bodies. And I could smell them. The whole hallway reeked with their rot and feces and bile and the smoke of the trucks. My brain went to my books and recalled where I had seen this before. “Holocaust,” I whispered, fighting the urge to turn to the side and vomit. I shut my watering eyes for a moment. I took a deep breath and nearly gagged on the stench. I opened my eyes.
This genocide happened during one of the early world wars. The Germans killed many of these people because they felt they were inferior or a threat or both. The book I read spoke as if wiping them out was the right thing to do. It certainly looked wrong to me. Were these Big Eye looking through time? Is this all they could do? Look? And why this time? For a moment, the portal disappeared and there was lots of scrambling, adjusting machines, pushing buttons, cursing. And then the portal reappeared showing the same activities, in the same time period in the same place. Happening.
I could feel the surge of heat in my body. Like a deep heart beat of crimson flames. I shuddered and felt it ripple over every surface of my skin. But I couldn’t move. Saeed had probably stood here just like this, too. Acrid smoke stung my eyes. My feet were burning the red carpet. A fire alarm sounded. I ran.
The elevator was open. It was empty. I ran in and it quickly closed behind me. I wished Mmuo would say something. If it went up, I was caught. If it went nowhere, I was caught. If it went down, I might be caught, but I might escape, too. I shut my eyes and whispered, “Go down, go down, please, go down. Have to get out!” Sweat beaded and evaporated all over my confused body and the elevator quickly began to feel humid.
If I hadn’t rubbed all that shea butter on my skin at the last minute, I’d have been in horrible pain, my skin drying and probably cracking. I was hot like the sun, there was a ringing in my ears, as if my own body had an alarm and it was going off, too. I looked at my hands. They were glowing a soft yellow. My entire body was glowing through my dress.
The elevator jerked upward. I grabbed the railing, pure terror shooting through me. At least, I would make it outside. I hoped I could take two breaths before they caught me. I sunk to the floor. Saeed was dead and I was still trapped. Tears dribbled from the corners of my eyes and hissed as they evaporated down my cheeks.
Th
e elevator jerked again. “Sorry about that,” I heard Mmuo say in my head. He sounded distant. The elevator started moving down. I jumped up, grinning. I still had a chance. A louder alarm started to go off. They’d realized I was missing. “I can get you to nine,” he said. His voice was fading and I had to strain to hear it. “Two stairways in there. Run to the emergency one on the other side of the greenhouse, straight ahead when the doors open. You’ll be on the side of the greenhouse, just go straight ahead! Do NOT go near the center! There’s...” His voice faded away.
Had my heat burned away his nanomites? Probably. As the elevator flew down to the ninth floor, my feet burned the elevator floor. It came to a sudden stop and the doors opened. The blare of the Tower 7 alarm assaulted my ears but the most beautiful site I’d ever seen caressed my eyes. An expansive room full of trees, bushes, flowers, vines. In pots, on shelves, tangled within each other. I could see the city through the windows on my left. The sky was the deep rose of evening. I started quickly walking down the narrow path before me. Moss grew on the sides of trees. The air smelled green, fragrant, soily, I had never smelled anything like it.
I heard a rush of footsteps from amongst the plants to my right. Between the foliage, I could see them. Big Eye guards. In armor with shields, with guns.
“Hey!” one of them yelled, spotting me. All their guns went up. “Put your hands up. We will not hurt you.” The one speaking was a woman. I could see her clearly. She was short with long brown straight hair. She had pale skin and a hard voice.
Behind me I could hear the elevator rumbling. I still didn’t move. Saeed was dead. There was nothing for me here. I was two years old and I was forty years old. The marble beneath my feet absorbed my heat.
“Please, put your hands up,” the woman pleaded. “You know what you are. We can stabilize you.” She paused, obviously considering how much to tell me. I knew enough, though. Saeed was dead and it was all clear to me now.
“You’re a weapon,” the woman admitted. “If you wanted to know, now you know. I’m only here to help. You have to trust me. This wasn’t supposed to happen, you being like this. Please, let us help you.”
I heard the elevator doors opening just as I felt the light burst from me. There was warmth that started at my feet. It rolled up to my chest and pulsed out with a wave of heat. My shoulders jerked back and I stumbled to the side, getting a glimpse behind me. If I had blinked I still wouldn’t have missed it. My skin prickled as my glow became a light green shine. The light steadily radiated from me, bathing every plant in the room. The guards behind me in the elevator and on the far right side of the room all ducked down and for a moment it was quiet enough where you could hear it. All the plants began to grow. Snapping, pulling, unfurling, creeping. Thick vines and even tree roots quickly crept, stretched and blocked the elevator door. Leaves, branches and stems grew so thick around the guards to my right that they were blocked from view. They didn’t know I could do this.
The entire greenhouse swelled and flooded with foliage. Except a few steps ahead to my right. There was what I could only call a tunnel through the plants. It diagonally passed the cowering Big Eye. I ran into it just as the guards behind and to my right began to shoot toward where I’d initially been. Were they shooting through the plants or shooting at me, I do not know. And in many ways these two things were one of the same.
Mmuo had said to go forward to find the doorway. But I lost all sense of direction. So when I ended up standing before the giant glass dome I had no clue which way to run. My first thought was of the same book that spoke of the treacherous apple of knowledge. The Bible. Except that the man with enormous wings was not held up by any wooden cross. He was suspended in mid-air with his arms out and his legs tied together. His eyes were closed. His brown-feathered wings were stretched wide.
He was naked, his bronze-skinned body, muscled and very very tall, at least compared to my 6-feet. He had Arab facial features like Saeed and a crown of wooly hair like mine. He was magnificent. Behind the glass dome was a rough wooden wall. The Backbone.
Behind me, I could hear them coming. Hacking and shooting through the plants and calling my name. I wasn’t going to get out. I walked up to the glass and placed a hot hand on it. The glass was thick and very cool. Was there even air in there? Was that how they held him? Was it like being in outer space? What was space like for a creature made to fly?
His eyes opened. I gasped and jumped back. They were brown and soft kind eyes.
“Oh my God, Phoenix! Step BACK!” one of the guards screamed, shoving aside a bush. I noticed the guard did not point his gun. Nor did the others who emerged beside him. I looked back at the man with wings. He was looking right at me, no expression on his face. I was surrounded by guards, all begging me to step away, pleading that this creature was unique and dangerous. However, none of them came to capture me. I didn’t move.
Seeing the Big Eye cower, seeing their fear and sheer horror had a strange effect on me. I felt powerful. I felt lethal. I felt hopeful, though all was hopeless. I turned to the caged man and my hope evolved into rage. Even he was a prisoner here. I vowed that if I didn’t get out, at least he would.
For the first time I did it voluntarily. I was already so hot and I grew hotter when I reached into myself, into all that I was, all that I had been and all that I would be, I reached in and drew from my source. Then I turned to a nearby tree and let loose a pulse of light. I sighed as it left me, feeling relief. Immediately the tree’s roots began to buckle and creep toward the glass cage.
CRASH! They easily forced their way through and the rest of the dome began to crack in several places. The Big Eye turned and ran for their lives. I didn’t bother running. There was no better way to die. He burst through, knocking me aside with the intensity of his wake. Into the now dense foliage of the greenhouse. I saw none of it, but I heard and smelled it. Wet tearing sounds, screams, ripping, snapping, choking, not one gun fired. The air smelled like torn leaves and blood. It was still happening when I spotted the stairway between the plants and ran into it. I ran down and down flights and came to a heavy open door and entered the lobby.
For a moment, even after all that I had seen, I forgot what I was doing. The sight took my breath away. Tower 7’s lobby was more spectacular than I’d ever imagined. No words could make up for actually seeing this place. This space. I had never been in such a space. The ceiling was so high and the marble walls were draped with gorgeous flowering vines, the small trees and plants growing through the soil-filled holes in the floor. I fought not to fall to my knees. There was the base of The Backbone. Its trunk had to be over thirty feet in diameter.
I was dizzy. I was burning up. I was amazed. I was exhausted. There was a freed angel beast massacring its captors nine floors above. I could hear more Big Eye guards coming down the stairwell. The alarm was blaring and the lobby was empty...except for a lone figure standing near the exit doors. He was grinning. He’d been trying to get to this very spot for nine years and my escape gave him the chance.
“Hurry,” Mmuo cried. “Phoenix, MOVE!” I heard them burst through the stairway. I was running. I dodged small trees, scrambled around benches and leapt over plants. The door was yards away. I was going to make it. Outside, people walking by stopped to look.
Then I saw the guards come running onto the tower’s wide plaza. They seemed to come from all directions. They shoved gaping people aside. They pulled up people who were sitting on benches enjoying the lovely evening. Then they formed a line blocking the exit and stood there, guns to their chests. I ran to Mmuo and would have given him a hug, if it weren’t for my heat. We’d both almost made it.
“Go,” I told him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?” I was having trouble thinking straight and I could smell the floor burning beneath me. I didn’t know marble could burn. “Saeed would have been proud. I am proud. I set an angel free.”
His eyebrows went up. “You...”
“Go!”
I said, looking at the approaching Big Eye coming from the stairwell. They were flooding from doorways and were coming down an escalator on the other side of the lobby. “Don’t ever let them catch you!”
He sunk through the floor and was gone.
I stood tall. There were over a hundred of them. Men and women armed with the guns I had seen them carrying all my life. No Big Eye guard went anywhere in the tower without them. I knew how they sounded, too. Nearly silent. I had been hearing shots fired all my life, too. For a multitude of reasons, but always with the same result. Something or someone was dead or severely injured. “Protect the scientist from the subject.” “Observe and learn.” “We will be better for it.” “For the Research.” I was taking all the pieces I had read and finally putting them together. The Big Eye crowded around me, twitchy with anticipation as if I were evil. After all I had done, to them, I guess I was evil. Or crazy.
I held up my hands, feeling myself utterly shining. The light bloomed from my body. The release felt glorious and I moaned with relief. Then more sighing than speaking, I said, “I give...”
They opened fire and it was as if I were punched with steel fists in every part of my body—chest, neck, legs, arms, abdomen, face. I was blown back and my vision went red yellow. I lay on my back. Everything was wet, the smell of smoke in the one nostril I had left. Smoke and...the perfume of The Backbone. I was looking at it, gazing at how it reached, up, up, up, through the high marble ceiling, through the 39 floors above. Into the sky. Reaching for the sky.
I felt the radiance burst from me, warm, yellow, light, plucked from the sun and placed inside me like a seed until it was ready to bloom. It bloomed now and the entire lobby was washed. The Big Eye covered their faces and dropped their guns. A few ran to the stairwell, others to the far side of the lobby. Most of them ran past my mangled body and out of the building. Those ones must have known what would happen next.
I knew. I was burning as the light pulsated and pulsated from me there on the floor. My body convulsed with it as my clothes burned and then my flesh. There was no pain. My nerves were burning.