Seven Wonders Book 1: The Colossus Rises Read Online Free Page A

“Seriously, dude. Best place in the world. Great breakfasts. All you can eat. We’re all happy here. Later.”
    Before I could say another thing, they were gone.
    For a moment I wanted to race after them, but I knew my head would explode with the effort. And I didn’t want to risk waking the guy with the gun.
    Plus, that was about the creepiest conversation I’d had in my life. Who were these losers? This felt like one big prank. Some crazy reality TV show. Postsurgical Punk’d .
    I sank onto the bed and pinched my right arm, just to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. No chance of falling back to sleep now. Morning light was beginning to filter in through the windows, and I could see the room more clearly. I noticed a flag on the wall to my right, with a symbol that matched the one on my shirt:

    The initials weren’t familiar. I searched for a call button, some kind of signal for a nurse. Nothing. No button, no medicine cabinet, no rolling tables or IV drips or hanging televisions. There was nothing hospital-like about this place at all.
    I tried to think back to what had happened at Belleville. Had anyone said anything about moving me?
    I’d had dizziness. I’d fallen into the street. In the hospital, there was this expert and Dr. Flood. She was worried. Some chaplain was there to perform last rites andthat confused her…
    But I never sent a request for a chaplain …
    The chaplain had grabbed my arm. I remembered him now. Huge face, bulbous nose. Red Beard . The same guy who’d passed my house only an hour earlier, barefooted and without a clerical collar. He had tied me to a table and injected me with something. He wasn’t a chaplain. He was helping Dr. Saark. But helping him do what?
    I wanted desperately to contact Dad. Just one phone call. I turned toward the window. The sky was brightening in the rising sun. Carefully I stood up. The pain wasn’t quite as intense as it had been. I guessed it was the sudden movement that had really torpedoed me. I’d be fine if I slowed down.
    I stepped toward the window and gazed out. Before me stretched a long, grassy lawn nearly the length of a football field, crisscrossed with paths. Surrounding the lawn were old-fashioned red brick buildings, most with tidy, white-shuttered windows. They seemed old, but some of them had sections with glass ceilings. If the lawn were a clock I’d be at the bottom, or six o’clock. To the left, about nine, was a grand, museum-like structure with pillars and wide stairs, kind of the centerpiece. At around two, tucked between the red brick buildings, was a sleek glass-and-steel structure that seemed out of place. The whole thing was peaceful looking, like a college campus plopped into the middle of ajungle. Trees surrounded the compound like a thick green collar stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see. Except for the left side—west.
    Way beyond the big museum building, a massive black rock mountain loomed darkly over everything. It thrust upward through the greenery like a clenched fist into the softening sky. It seemed almost fluid, changing its shape with the movement of the morning mists.
    A murmur of distant voices made me look across the compound. A pair of men dressed in khaki uniforms emerged from the side of a distant building. “Hello?” I called out, but my voice was too weak to carry.
    As they stepped into the dim light, I saw that both of them were carrying rifles. Big ones, with ammo.
    I ducked away from the window. This was no hospital. I was in lockdown. Were these people coming for me? Already they’d kidnapped me, drilled holes in the back of my head, and stuck me in some sort of bizarre prep school with a bunch of brainwashed zombies. Why? And what were they going to do for an encore?
    I made my way silently back across the room. The window on the other side had a much different view. It looked away from the campus. The only thing separating the building from the surrounding jungle was a scraggly