The Book of Phoenix (12 page)

He looks up, and his eyes grow wide with surprise. I hold a hand up and wave. He waves back. He looks up to the side and all emotion drops from his face. His room is under surveillance. I quickly look at the ceiling in the hallway. As soon as my eyes notice the camera, a siren goes off.

The man's mouth opens with surprise, and he frantically points at me.

“Hey!” he shouts.

No, not at me.

“Behind you!” he says.

I turn just in time to see the guard about to grab me. There is a gun on his hip. I inhale. Then I am instinct and I'm fast. I pull my wings even closer to my body, whirl around and shove him backwards against the wall with one arm. I grab his face with the other. He is a big man but no taller than my six feet. And I am stronger. When did I become so strong? Was it the flight across the ocean? Or maybe it is the dying and coming back to life.

The guard has blue eyes, a sparkling earring on his left ear and a bushy black beard that is scratchy beneath my pressing hand.

My body floods with the rage that has wanted to burst from me since I left Ghana. I let it wash over the guard; I let it drown him. I slam his head to the wall, and there is a soft crunch. He goes limp. He sinks to the floor. There is blood now. I've crushed his head. His gun is still in its holster. He had no intention of killing me. But I have killed him. I shudder and frown, my nostrils flared. My belly flutters. What am I becoming?

I stare down at the man. My mind feels cloudy.
I am villain
, I think.

Bang, bang, bang!
The man in the room is kicking his door as hard as he can. “
Forget
him, o,” the man says. His thick accent sounds Ghanaian or Nigerian. “He is rubbish. And he don'
peme
, anyway
.
Go down ‘de hall! Look for ‘de square. Smash it.”

I blink. “Square?”

“Yes! You will see it! Go! Move, now!”

I can barely hear his words over the siren. I look at the glass door holding him in. There is no knob. I push at it. The door doesn't budge.

The man looks like he is going to go mad. “You cannot release me, o!!” There are tears in his eyes. “
Biko
,
do
something! They kill us every day. They kill you soon!” He is pressing his face to the door and looking down the hall. “Run!”

I nod. I don't run. I am gone. I slip.

 • • • 

The third time is easier. It is natural to me. I was made to do this, whether the Big Eye meant to make this so or not. I am like a horse who has just discovered what it is to run.

I have slipped to the same place just an hour earlier, just further down the hall, out of the camera's view. I have not killed the guard yet; I hang on to that fact and think nothing else of it. I run in the opposite direction, this time staying in the blind spots of the cameras. When I cannot, I slip and reappear where I need to be. What do I see behind all the glass doors? More cybernetic humans, more sophisticated than I have ever seen. That must now be Tower 1's specialization. Most have mechanical limbs, some more than others. One woman has a mechanical lower body, but with human legs. I see three people in the same room with skin that glows a soft green. At first I think they are what I used to be, but when I look more closely, I see that their skin is embedded with millions of miniscule screens.

“How can I get you out?” I ask them.

“Get to the glass box,” one of them shouts. “Break it!”

I'm relieved to hear the same suggestion.

“Keep going down the hall!” a young man with only one cybernetic arm says. He seems to expect me to run by.

I am fully convinced that they are all able to communicate electronically when I pass the next door several feet down the hall. The old woman inside is the first Caucasian captive I see. She is entirely robotic except for her head and left arm. “Don't let them see you!” she says.

“I won't,” I say. My heart is pounding like crazy. Heat pours from me, and I hope that my black sheet doesn't catch fire. For the second time in my existence, I feel that if there is a God then I am doing God's will. I do not think of the guard I will brutally kill in an hour. All who see me understand what I am. All creatures of the world want to be free, even when they've never tasted freedom. So all of these caged people are glad to see me.

A minute later, I stand before the large room staring at the wooly mammoth sleeping on an equally massive bed of hay. I am wondering why the enormous creature does not free itself. Then I see the square. It's the size and width of a sideways refrigerator and it's made of glass. There is something foggy and vaguely red inside. There are screens and other equipment along the far wall, but I am focused on two things. The sleeping beast and the glass square.

I think of the glass dome back in Tower 7; I'd made the plants crush it. I smile. Here I am again, unsure of the consequences but sure that I needed to break the glass. But what of the beast?

My desire overcomes my fear.

I slip.

Blackness.

I step out.

I look up. Its head is nearly as big as my entire room in Tower 7. It breathes. Deep. Calm. At peace in its unnatural life. It smells like freshly broken plants with a hint of manure. This human-made beast is my kin, too. It's resting its head on its thick folded hairy legs. Its eyes are closed, its thick brown eyelashes over an inch in length. Its sharp yellow tusks reach and curl many feet beyond me. Without thinking, I reach out and touch its huge furry forehead. The long brown-red hair is rougher than it looks. The mammoth's breathing doesn't change. Deep and full.

I move toward the glass case. Upon closer inspection, the thing inside looks like a ball of forming and disintegrating red dust. A soft hum vibrates from it, and I can feel it in the tips of my wings and in the back of my head. It's a pleasant feeling, however. Calming. Is this what is making the mammoth sleep? Is this why the mammoth doesn't free itself? Beside the case is a smaller glass cube about the size of a shoebox. It was also full of something red, but more solid.

Another louder siren sounds off over the still blaring one. There must be cameras in the large room. I make the decision and put my fist through the glass case. As the glass shatters, the thing inside sends out a vibration so strong that the rest of the case crumbles.
Puff!
For a moment, there is red dust everywhere. Then the dust particles pull into a solid ball of red sand on the shards of broken glass.

I am stamping on the smaller glass case with the heel of my foot when I hear a grunt from behind me. I whirl around to see the wooly mammoth rising slowly to its feet. It shakes its head and lets out a horrible trumpet-like roar. Meanwhile there is something tall and red standing behind me. I turn to it as the mammoth runs toward the glass. The red creature is tall and praying mantis-like, its body made of something like thick glass and full of red smoke. Even as I look at it, the glass-like shell of its face billowed out to form a second eye. The stuff in the smaller glass case was its exoskeleton.

“I need to free the others,” I tell it in Twi. Why not English? I have no idea. When you are terrified, you do what you do, logical or not.

The mammoth is ramming its body against the solid wall outside in the hallway now. The arm I punched the glass with is bleeding, cut by the glass. People are shouting. And shooting. When did more Big Eye get here? I focus on the thing in front of me. Did they create this? WHAT is it?

The air around me vibrates, and I stumble back. The creature looks up at the high ceiling and then, like a giant grasshopper, it leaps. It disappears into the vent. The mammoth throws its body against the wall again and there is a loud crash as the enormous thick slab of concrete falls out, revealing the night sky. There are Big Eye huddled in the blocked hallway shooting at the mammoth. But it's clear that its skin is too thick to be harmed. They cloned the creature too well. Or maybe they cloned it and then enhanced it. Stupid.

They seem to have forgotten about me. I slip.

It is still night. I stand outside of Tower 1 in the parking lot covered by a black sheet. I have slipped fifteen minutes into the future. The mammoth has left a path of destruction behind it. There is the enormous opening in the side of Tower 1. The five crushed vehicles below it, embedded with rubble and the imprint of the mammoth body when it fell out. The torn gates. The car accidents down the road from when it ran into the street. In the distance I can hear its wild roar.

And as I stand there, men and women run past me. As they run, some swing cybernetic arms, some run on cybernetic limbs. The woman with a torso of machinery slowly struts past me. “
Daalu
,” she says. Then she smiles and says, “That means ‘thank you' where I'm from.”

“You're welcome,” I say.

As I wonder what happened to all the Big Eye, I see the young man with cybernetic arms and limbs who first told me to find the glass box. He stands in the parking lot and turns toward the building. He holds up both of his hands and splashes of orange-yellow liquid fire shoot from them. The skunky smell of propane hits my nose. When the side of the building is burning, he brings his arms down and slowly walks up the parking lot. He will move round the building and set the other side on fire. And then another side, and another. Tower 1 does not have nearly as many stories as Tower 7. However, what it lacks in height, it makes up with width. Still, I am sure this half man half machine, this speciMen, this abomination—my kin—will find a way to single-handedly bring down Tower 1. Oh yes, Tower 1 will burn just as I had intended.

Before I slip, I see a backward shooting star. The orange-red light leaps from the top of Tower 1 into the dark night sky. I doubt this “shooting star” will burn out, though. I doubt it's a shooting star at all. I think it travels far into the night and then crosses the Kármán line and keeps right on going. Returning to wherever it came from before the people of Tower 1 captured it.

 • • • 

The Backbone is as tall as I remember. I look up at its spiked trunk and softly glowing leaves in the warming sky, all the way up until I can't see any further. It has grown so much since I last saw it. I clench my jaw, pushing all this aside.

It is the early morning before I disappear from the eyes of the Big Eye over the coast of Miami. Just before sunrise. The air is warm and humid, and I can hear the rush hour traffic; I can smell the exhaust. I am crying and the tears become steam before they can even roll down my cheeks. My black sheet burns up, the white make-up on my face turns to ash. My white heat resistant dress begins to crackle. I increase my heat, keeping my gaze on The Backbone. I am villain. I will break The Backbone's back. I will burn the entire city starting from this arboreal heart.

The tree shivers and some of its leaves fall. A groan comes from its roots; they are writhing deep below my feet. And the noise echoes across the city. I hear people exclaim from nearby, but I don't turn to look. They'll soon be dead, anyway. Good. These people are the same people who went about their lives, walking past Tower 7 every day, when it still stood. It made no difference to any of them what they were doing to us only a few floors above.

And even if I care to see these indifferent people, I can't see them. The mile wide area where Tower 7 used to stand is now gnarled wild jungle in the middle of the city. They have tried to contain the plants and trees by surrounding it with a high concrete fence. I smile with disgust. These people haven't learned from their many mistakes. You cannot contain The Backbone. But I can burn it and the rest of this remorseless city to ash. They made me here. I will be exactly what they wanted. Since no one else seeks revenge for all that the Big Eye have done, I will. Let me be the villain for the sake of justice.

“Is this what they've made you?”

I pull my wings in. He is naked, but I know it must be terribly hot for him. Immediately I pull in my heat. I am so glad to see him.

“Mmuo!” I whisper. I fall to my knees on the soil, suddenly very very tired. I look up at him. Now the tears fall down my cheeks, through the white ashes of make-up on my brown face. Wet. Water. They feel so cool. He reaches out a hand and helps me up. Mmuo, the Nigerian man who can walk through walls. Mmuo, who helped me escape Tower 7. Mmuo, one of the only two who survived its fall. Mmuo, who knew that I would rise from the ashes and had left me a dress to clothe my nakedness.

“He said you'd be here at 6:55 am, a minute before dawn. And here you are.” Sweat pours down his face. He blinks as a drop falls into his eye.

“Who?”

From above, comes the loud flutter of wings and a burst of air that blows the trees, cooling the air further. The winged man lands on one of The Backbone's lowest branches. Then he flies down and lands before me. He stands tall, peering down his nose at me. His eyes are still soft, still kind.

“Will you kill everyone in this city, Phoenix?” he asks. He speaks with his mouth now. His voice is fatherly, and I feel like sitting back down and listening to him tell stories as the children did with elders on moonless nights in Wulugu.

“Isn't that what they want?” I whisper.

Behind me, I hear Mmuo laugh.

“You're not a villain,” the winged man says.

“I
am
a weapon,” I insist. “I'm a bomb. Isn't that a villain? I'll be doing what I was made for.”

“Who made you?” The winged man asks, his beautiful face serious and intense.

“That's a tricky question,” Mmuo added. “Phoenix, it is not so simple.”

But I still want to do it. Not only do I want to do it, I want to burn so hot that I would not come back. Saeed is dead. Kofi is dead. My only home has been blown up. The alien seed is safe. Mmuo is my friend, and he can sink into the ground to safety. The winged man is my guardian, and he can fly away. Let them leave me. I want to do evil. I want to do great great evil. More tears fall from my eyes as the thought squeezes my heart.