The Annihilation of Foreverland (10 page)

The commands came from somewhere deep in his subconscious. He didn’t stop to think about the letters or the meaning of what he was writing, he just let it flow through his fingertips until line after line of code began scrolling rapidly from top to bottom. He was looking for a combination of words that would give him an encrypted password. He didn’t know what it was, just trusted he’d know it when he saw it.

AW34uT!69fEW&8990.

There it is.

He tapped the glass and stopped the word flow, then dragged his fingertip over the password and dropped it into the upper right corner. The screen went black again. One second. Two. Three.

And then color swirled into focus.

A light blinked in the upper right. He had hacked into the network. That blinking light meant he had access to the Internet. To the world outside.

Danny began to download a browser from an FTP site that popped into memory—

“Aw, what?”

Every single tablet went blank.

Danny looked up. The class was moaning, some of them trying to shake their tablet back to life. “What happened?” someone whined.

“Class! Class!” The teacher held up his hands. “I need you to hand the tablets back to me in an orderly fashion…”

Danny quickly slipped into the middle of the room and exchanged his tablet with one of many abandoned on a desk. Then he switched with another one, careful no one was watching.

“Class, please!” The old man cleared his throat. “Please! It’s important you give me your tablet so we don’t lose your data. Line up, keep orderly, please. Keep orderly.”

Danny did
what
everyone else did and began moaning. He told the guy next to him about the idea he had for a lemonade stand. When he was checked off and dismissed, he left the classroom smiling.

We’re not alone. There is an outside world
.

They had a match in the game room in an hour.

It had only been a week since Danny woke from his first round and he’d put them firmly in first place. In fact, they were so far ahead they would still be in first after the second round. Sid didn’t even pretend to be running the crew anymore. When they talked about strategy, he got everyone quiet and then looked at Danny.

They were in the cafeteria, talking about the second round only days away. Most had met new girls in the first round and Sid was having a hard time getting them to agree on another match once they were inside the needle.

Danny pushed his tray away and checked out of the conversation. He looked around for Reed. He had to come back to eat but maybe he did it at night when everyone was sleeping.

Danny pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket. He had continued the doodling he started in economics class and fleshed out the details of the girl’s hair, added plump lips and eyebrows. He hoped to see her again once he was inside. Danny didn’t know what he was supposed to do and craved some direction. Craved some answers.

“What’s that?” Zin plucked the paper out of his hand. “Ooo, you’re a Michelangelo
and
a war hero, huh? Who would’ve guessed?”

Danny snatched it back. Zin didn’t seem alarmed by the overreaction.

“That your girlfriend?” Zin asked.

“Yeah,” Danny said. “I meet her every night in my dreams.”

Zin opened a box of juice and sipped, absently. When no one seemed interested in what they were doing, Danny unfolded the paper and smoothed out the wrinkles.

“You ever see her, Zin?”

He glanced. “No. Why, you?”

“No, no. I was just wondering, you know, for the next time we’re…” Danny stumbled over his directionless conversation. Again, Zin took no notice.

“Where do they come from?” Danny asked.

“The girls?”

“Yeah. I mean, are they real or just part of Foreverland?”

“No, they’re real all right.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged. “
Sandy
describes a camp kind of like ours. They do the same things we do, only they don’t call it the Haystack. I think they call it the Vase, or something girly.”

“How do you know it’s real?”

He shrugged, again. “I don’t, but it makes sense. We’re a boys’ camp and they’re a girls’ camp. Why not?”

Danny looked at the face in the doodle. She was different than the rest. Maybe she wasn’t real.

“But how do you know?” he said. “Who says that this, right here, isn’t real? Maybe this is the dream.”

Zin shook his head, took another sip and grimaced.

“I mean, what proof do I have that any of this is real? Maybe this is just another Foreverland that we think we woke up in and we’re really still in a dark room somewhere freezing our asses off
while
we wander around another Foreverland—”

“Look! This is real!” Zin slammed his juice down. “It just is, so get that through your little punctured skull, all right? This is real, Foreverland is real, it’s all real.” He grabbed the paper and held it up to Danny’s face. “She’s real, too, Danny Boy. You know why?”

Danny backed off.

“Because we got nothing else. It’s just this, and that’s all. My girl is real, you got it? Stop pissing all over my party, why don’t you?”

He finished the drink in one long sip and crushed the carton on the table. His leg was shaking. Then he got up and left.

Sid didn’t see any of it, just figured Zin was making an early exit for the game room. In seconds, all of them followed Zin out. Everyone on the island had a nerve, Zin once told him.

Danny just stepped on Zin’s.

Danny woke early for the second round.

Mr. Jones walked him to the Haystack. They walked inside without introductions from another clipboard carrier as the last bell faded.

Danny wasn’t nervous until the air inside hit him and the steel fan loomed overhead and the smell of dank misery crawled up his nose. By the time he reached his cell, his insides had turned to jelly. Mr. Jones had sensed his hesitancy and placed a firm comforting hand on his shoulder. Danny turned quickly into his cell to get away. He waited until everyone was inside their cells before getting undressed, doing it quickly and folding everything neatly so that Mr. Jones would leave.

“Hey, Danny Boy,” Sid shouted. “I want you fully lucid this time and get to the sundial, my man. You hear? Once you’re inside the needle, none of this exploring crap like a new poke, you stay in the Yard and meet us at the sundial. We need to clock some real kills in the game, son. We only need to stay in first place another week!”

Someone whooped and shouted, “
FIRST PLACE
!”

And then everyone joined the seemingly random celebration.

“Zin, you, too!” Sid shouted above the melee. “You be at the sundial, boy, or I’ll dot both your eyes. You’re screwing with my time if you get lost inside the needle.”

And the chant continued.
FIRST PLACE
!
FIRST PLACE
!

“What’s the obsession with the game?” Danny said.

Zin was already sitting on the floor with his back straight. “There’s a reward for any team that captures first place for three straight weeks. They drop the needle as soon as we get here. No getting naked and no suffering.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Danny grabbed the bars. He wanted to pull them apart and throttle Zin sitting so composed and unmoved.
No suffering? I’d be in that game room every waking second!

“Bad luck to tell you,” Zin said. “It’s a jinx.”

Danny wanted to argue, but he was right. They were in first.

“Don’t fight it, Danny Boy.” Zin took a deep breath. “Suffering is part of life. Either way, we go inside the needle.”

“You mean you like this?”

“Hell, no. But it doesn’t matter how I feel.” Another deep breath. “Be here, no matter what.”

“Fine.” Danny crossed his arms and began pacing. “If you want to freeze your ass off, be my guest. I want out.”

Reed was standing in his cell with his back to Danny. He was as motionless as Zin was sitting. The skylights began to turn, followed by another round of cheers. Light faded. Darkness settled like thick soup. Forms disappeared. Voices became bodiless chatter.

The second round had begun.

“Danny Boy?”

Zin’s voice was soft, blending in with the docile conversations that were beginning to trail off into the silence of impending pain.

“The game, it’s a waste of time,” he said. “We’re going to explore once we’re inside the needle. I’m going to give you the tour, show you Foreverland.”

Danny resumed breathing like Zin had taught him. He finished his count to ten. “Sid’s going to be pissed.”

“Good thing he’s not running the show.”

“Then who is?”

“You are, Danny Boy.”

“Me?” He cringed, hoping Sid didn’t hear him. “Dude, I’m a poke, I’m not running anything.”

“Don’t be a clown, you’re the whole reason this place was cheering about a half hour ago. They’re all watching you, Danny Boy. Not Sid. He’s just a cheerleader.”

“You’re cracked, man,” Danny hissed. “Sid will put a black mark under my eyes after he’s done with you.”

“You think the old men are going to let him do anything to you or me or any kid in this place? Nothing’s going to happen, Danny Boy. This place is locked down tight.”

Danny imagined a mob of old men charging through the Yard wielding stun guns. It wouldn’t matter if they were carrying nuclear weapons, they’d throw a hip before they got anything under control.

“What about when they threw you in a trash can?”

“It was a trash can, who cares. It was funny. Even I laughed.”

“So how’s a bunch of crypt keepers going to keep us from getting pummeled?”

“Right here.” Zin’s dim figure tapped the tracker on the back of his neck. “They got some sort of remote in their pocket. They put their hand in there and they can kick a volt or two into your spine and you’re sleeping, my friend. And Sid knows it. The geezers load you on a cart and it’s over.”

“What’re you saying over there?” Sid’s voice carried from across the dark
aisle
. “You got something to say about me?”

“Nothing, Cap-i-tan,” Zin said. “Just girl talk over here, that’s all.”

Sid grunted. His teeth ground together. He said, “You just make sure—”

Click. Hmmmmmmmm.

The fan engaged. The blades began to crawl.

Conversation died.

“Let’s get on with the suffering,” Zin said.

Danny was already counting his breath. He glanced at Reed, still standing, still facing the other direction. It would be long and hard for him. Maybe if they held first place, he’d get a reprieve.

But he wouldn’t take the needle, so then what?

Danny thought about doing the same. He could talk to Reed when everyone was out. He could tell Danny more about the underlying secrets of the island, the redheaded girl, and why he resisted. Maybe they could talk long enough to sort through each other’s memories, figure out which ones were their own without having to go inside the needle.

But then the sprinklers began to hiss.

Moments later, Danny looked at the top of his cage. He knew he’d reach for the needle as soon as it dropped. Just like everyone else.

Reed settled into the rhythm of breathing.

The wet cold had reached his bones, but he found peace with it. Even the shivers seemed to fall into rhythm. He was at peace with misery.

He didn’t like the suffering, didn’t prefer it. If the gates opened, he’d gladly leave. But he didn’t resist it.

He found space for it.

Mr. Smith’s familiar walk-shuffle came down the
aisle
. Reed could smell him.

In-out
, he breathed.
In-out
.

“Reed, look at me.”

Reed saw a haggard face that was losing the battle with time and gravity, the cheeks sagging like an old dog that needed put
ting
down. The eyes were hidden in the shadows.

“You’ve put me in a very difficult position, my boy. In an effort to convince you what’s best, the Director and I have decided to alter your experience. We hope you’ll make the best of your opportunity.”

Reed drew a long breath through his nostrils.

“You understand we put you under duress to facilitate your progress. It’s not meant to harm you, you see. Only to propel you forward. But you refuse our guidance, Reed; therefore, we’ll need to push harder.”

The back of the cell began closing. It did not stop until the bars were pressed against his chest and back. Reed was sandwiched tightly in place, barely able to move. The lucid gear dropped from the top of his cage and brushed the top of his head. He would only need to lift himself onto his toes to let it slide into place.