Transparency by Charles Royce (children's books read aloud txt) 📕

wire. “I thought the pins could be untied from the wires.”

“Shh.” Josh gets closer to the hiss. “Gimme your flashlight.”

Tracy hands him her phone. “What’s happening?”

“The gas pipe is still intact, only a sliver of a cutout in the pipe is letting off gas into the room.” He grunts, pushing himself into the maze of pipes against the wall. “Oh, I see, the pins are supposed to stop the gas from pushing into the pipes without permission.”

“So only the one has permission?”

“Looks that way.” Josh shines the flashlight on a white tag on the screeching pipe. “There’s a tag on the leaking pipe. It says it’s a main pipe that runs to the South Tower, servicing floors twenty-four through thirty-six.”

“That’s what ArchEngine said. Aren’t those the floors with the condos that aren’t finished yet?”

“About half of them aren’t finished yet. Floors twenty-four through thirty have people living in them.”

C h a p t e r   7 1

“HONEY, GET BACK here!” screams the man at the dining room table. He’s trying to compensate for the alarm, and the computerized voice telling him to evacuate the building.

“The smell is getting worse.” The dark-haired woman checks the burners on the stove. “They’re all off, I don’t understand.”

“Nobody cares,” says her husband from the dining room. He tips his red visor, gnaws on an unlit cigar, flips over the turn.

“Check,” says the woman to his right.

“I can’t see that,” says the young man to his left with white blond hair. “Nothing like Texas Hold ’Em in the dark.”

“Eight of hearts.” The man with the red visor picks up a flashlight from the table, shines it on the cards.

“Fold.”

“You can’t fold yet.” The man in the red visor turns to his wife. “Honey, it’s an eight of hearts, do you remember what you had?”

She sniffs the air. “Seriously, this is bad, y’all.”

“So that’s a check!” he yells.

“Then I fold,” says the blond man.

“Anyone else before I deal the river?”

“I’m going out on the patio,” says the young blond man. “She’s right, this is bad.”

“Careful, we tried that. It’s pretty windy out there.”

The woman hears a knock at the door, sees light beams seeping through the threshold.

“Who’s there?” asks the woman.

“Ma’am? My name’s Charlie Hawthorne, I’m working security—”

“I can’t hear you.”

She opens the door, stands in the doorway, the number 2607 carved into the wood.

A man in a suit wearing a headset stands in front of her. “Ma’am, my name is Charlie Hawthorne, I’m working security at the party in the Center Tower. I’m sure you heard the fire alarms. We need everyone to evacuate, there’s a possible gas leak in the—”

Charlie’s eyes widen. He sees a young blond man at the patio doors, pushing open the glass door while raising a lighter to a cigar.

“No!” Charlie screams.

A slurping sound envelops the room just as the flame from the lighter ignites the air, catapulting the blond man through the patio doors and over the balcony.

C h a p t e r   7 2

THE HELICOPTER IS circling above the South Tower, about to make its fourth attempt to land on the roof of the Center Tower. Shawn and Mrs. Maddox are now fully seated, hugging each other in a crouched ball.

“I have a bad feeling about this one too,” Shawn says.

Boom!

Boom! Boom!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

“What the hell?” Shawn stands up, peers over the railing, just as a plume of smoke and fire rises from the South Tower to meet the helicopter, consuming it in a hungry cloud. “Dear God.”

Shawn ducks behind the railing until the fireball passes, shielding Mrs. Maddox from the brunt. He hears the whirring of copter blades, then an engine sputter.

C h a p t e r   7 3

AGENT PILLSBURY WATCHES the monitors, which are showing random feeds as they suck leftover power from a struggling generator. Shawn is huddled with Mrs. Maddox on the rooftop, Josh and Tracy are standing next to the black box, the top floors of the South Tower are completely on fire.

Agent Pillsbury shifts her focus to the external feed of an ailing helicopter whirling down from the roof deck. The chopper descends diagonally down the South Tower, down the Center Tower, heading for the courtyard just outside the atrium.

“Holy—”

She grabs her phone, runs out of the control room.

The helicopter continues to fall.

C h a p t e r   7 4

CRASH!

“What the hell was that?” Tracy turns behind her, looks up at the ceiling.

“Watch out!” Josh leaps toward her as a giant pillar turns loose from the ceiling.

The iron pillar falls on Tracy’s shoulder, cracking it, forcing her to the ground face first. The pillar rolls onto the ground with a bounce, then knocks into the black box, sending it sliding across the room.

The pins pop out of their pipes one by one, the hissing becoming louder and louder. The metal pins fall to the concrete floor, pinging like piano keys.

“Tracy!” Josh runs to her side, sits down, turns her over. Her white pearls are scattered all around her.

He pulls her into his lap.

Her eyes open. She struggles to talk. “Josh?”

“Yes, Tracy, honey, I’m right here.” He brushes the hair out of her face. Her normally flawless skin is now knicked and reddened.

“Something’s—” She holds her stomach.

Josh unbuttons the bottom of her blouse where she’s touching. A small piece of metal is lodged in her stomach, just below her abdomen. Blood is seeping out of the gash. “Oh God.”

“What?”

Josh puts his earpiece on. He hears nothing but people screaming. He turns the channel, presses his ear. “Can anyone hear me? Pamela, Pamela, Josh. Agent Pillsbury? Shawn?” He turns the channel again, hears nothing but screams. “Chris, Chris, Josh.” Then again. “Jamal, Jamal, Josh. Please help us!”

Tracy’s hand swats the earpiece off of his face. “Go.”

He looks at Tracy’s face. Her dark complexion is now a milky mocha.

“I’m staying here with you,” he says.

“You have to go.”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“Josh.” Her breathing is labored. “The gas.”

“Shh.” Josh rubs her forehead.

He looks around the