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

room. The ceiling is creaking. The pipes are whistling. The black box is still dark, inactivated, but the wires are all loose around the floor. Four lifeless bodies lie scattered around them.

Red lights start flickering through the ceiling next to the sign. Water starts seeping down the cracks of the opening. He hears the muffled sound of men yelling.

“We’re down here!” Josh yells. “Hey! We’re down here!”

Josh supports Tracy’s head with his hand, waves at the opening with his other.

“They can’t … hear you.” Tracy shakes her head.

“In the basement! Down here!” Josh begins to wave frantically as if someone can see him.

They can’t.

He tries to move Tracy’s head from his lap.

“Go,” she says.

“You’re coming with me.” He scooches a little more.

“It’s too late.” Tracy is expressionless. “Go.”

Josh takes Tracy’s head in his hands. Her face is paler, her lips more purple.

He looks at the tiny ceiling opening next to the sign, shards of cement and rebar poking through. He looks back at Tracy, who is struggling to breathe. The alarm, the computerized evacuation procedures being heralded over the speakers, the fire trucks outside—all the noise and lights and confusion begin to fade away.

The tension in his body subsides.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Josh places her head back in his lap. He crosses one foot over the other, and exhales a deep, surrendered sigh.

Tracy closes her eyes. She grunts as she breathes. “Please, dear Jesus. Please help me.”

Josh lays there, silent. He closes his eyes. He prays. Tears begin to pour, forging streams of dust down his face and onto his wrist. He starts twirling Tracy’s hair with his fingers.

Tracy takes a deep, rattling breath.

Josh can feel her moving. He opens his eyes, looks at Tracy. Their eyes lock. They smile at each other.

Tracy’s face is different. Content. Resolved. She breathes in another breath. “My article … came out today.”

Josh continues to look deeply in her eyes. “Yeah?”

“My … best work.” She coughs. “People … are talking about it.”

“That’s incredible, Trace.” Josh holds her tighter. “I’m so proud of you.”

Tracy nods. “It’s time. Go upstairs. Let me go.”

“No.”

Tracy closes her eyes. “I’m proud … of you too, Josh.”

Josh laughs and cries at the same time. “Why?”

“You’re not … panicking.” Tracy lets out a chuckle, a little blood sprays on her lower lip. “White people … problems.”

“White people problems.” Josh laughs, then sniffles. He rocks Tracy back and forth. “Shh, shh.”

Tracy shivers. Her face crumples. “I’m scared.”

Josh holds her tighter. Rocks her. Back and forth, back and forth. “Once there was this girl. A lady. The prettiest lady I’ve ever seen.”

“No. Not one … of your stories.”

Josh smiles. “She used to be a model, adored by millions of people all over the world. When she grew up, she said she wanted to do something bigger, something better for the world. She became a writer, she became a voice for the underdog, a hero for the abandoned.”

Tracy lets out a laugh. “I like this one.”

She shivers again.

“And if that wasn’t enough …” Josh keeps rocking her. “… one night, when a big bad building was about to come down and crush all the people inside, she did everything she could to make sure everyone got out. She called the hotel where people stayed, she called the restaurants where the people ate, she called the buildings where people lived. They listened to her. Then the people that stayed in the hotel, that ate in the restaurants, that lived in the buildings, they all started running out the doors to safety. They started living their lives again, never knowing about the beautiful Tracy Heissman, and what a wonderful gift she’d given them.”

Tracy takes a deep breath. She doesn’t move again.

Josh kisses his finger, places it on her lips. “She was gonna change the world. She ended up saving it instead.”

Through blurry eyes, Josh finds a place to gently lay her head. He takes off his jacket, lays it over her face.

“Josh!”

He hears a voice.

“Josh!”

The voice is louder, coming from the opening.

“I’m down here!”

A chubby hand waves at him through the opening. “We’re coming to get you guys!”

He hears Agent Pillsbury yelling at the men outside. Something about a ladder, something about help.

A few seconds later, a loose rope ladder dumps itself in the middle of the opening.

“Can you get that?” Pillsbury asks.

“I think so.” He maneuvers the ladder around the sign, starts climbing up through the shards of concrete and rebar.

“Not much for chivalry, huh?” Agent Pillsbury grabs his hand, pulls him up to the sidewalk. She yells down into Sublevel One. “Tracy!”

Josh grabs her shoulder, turns her around. He shakes his head.

“Oh, honey.” She sees the tears well up in his eyes. She grabs him, throws her arms around his waist.

They start to walk out of the atrium, into the courtyard toward the FBI van on the street. Agent Pillsbury picks up the pace.

“How is everyone?” Josh asks. “Are they out?”

“They’re still trickling out of the stairwell, but you saved a lot of people tonight, Josh.”

“Tracy. Tracy saved a lot of people.”

Suddenly, Josh turns around. “Shawn!”

Agent Pillsbury points to the roof deck.

C h a p t e r   7 5

WITH HIS ARM around Mrs. Maddox, Shawn guides her toward the stairwell. “We’re trying this.”

“It’s eighty floors.” She limps the best she can. “I can’t do it.”

“You don’t have a choice!”

Just then, they hear the whirring of blades. They turn around to see a second helicopter hovering. An FBI logo is emblazed on the side.

An older man in a flight suit screams from the fuselage. “Somebody order a chopper?”

Shawn smiles and nudges Mrs. Maddox. She steps onto the landing skids. The older man lifts her inside, places her in a seat, wraps a seatbelt around her.

Just as he reaches for Shawn, they hear another explosion. Then another. The force of the explosion causes the front of the helicopter to lift up, throwing Shawn off balance. He falls.

Another explosion.

“Sir, come on, we need to get out of here!” The older man extends his hand.