The Annihilation of Foreverland (30 page)

They climbed onto a golf cart and cruised down the path. As they crossed the Yard, they both noticed the white parrots flying out of the top floor of the Chimney.

They stopped the golf cart next to all the others.

The Investors had all arrived at the Chimney to watch Sid’s graduation and crossing over. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t have to wait for the Director to finish the round. Sometimes the crossover took place without him, when there were no issues. They needed to have very few problems. They needed to be assured everything was on course, that when it came their turn to cross over it would happen without a problem. Mr. Jones didn’t like the way things had changed.

He didn’t like a lot of things.

They stepped onto the elevator and held the door for late-arriving Investors. They arrived at the fourth floor. There was only one hallway. Halfway down, there was a door on the left, another on the right. The one of the right was the network computer room. Mr. Jones had never been in that room. There was no need, he knew very little about that part of the program.

He followed the others to the one on the left.

They passed Sid lying motionless on a bed, a needle protruding from his forehead. A cable was attached to the needle, plugging into the equipment that was beside the bed. The technician, Mr. Jackson, pulled the curtain across to hide Sid’s Investor, Mr. Williams, lying on a bed parallel to Sid’s. A needle protruding from his head as well. Eyes closed.

Mr. Jones averted his stare.

He did not like thinking of the needle. He imagined it would feel like a cold, steel nail when
it
came to his turn. He hoped it would be quick and numb, that he wouldn’t remember it. That when it came his turn for the crossover, he wouldn’t remember any of this. That he could leave all the memories in the past, start a new life.

He followed the Investors into the side room where they would watch the progress. It would be quite boring. Many of them resented being forced to sit in the waiting room like outsiders. Mr. Jones didn’t mind it so much. He could sit in a way that he didn’t see the needle sticking from the boy’s head. And he didn’t have to smell the antiseptic that clung to the back of his throat.

He got comfortable in one of the chairs at the back, happy to let the others sit in the front row. Besides, the air vents were on the ceiling and aimed at the back wall. It was a relief to have fresh air on his face. The room was so stuffy.

He leaned back and folded his hands over his belly. He thought, maybe, he might take a short nap. It could be hours before there was any progress. It was like waiting for a baby to be born. It was like that in more ways than one. And sometimes, when the crossover was slow, they went back to the Mansion. You never knew when the delivery would take place. You just hoped you didn’t miss it.

His eyelids became heavy.

“Okay, my boy.” Mr. Campbell’s voice was muffled outside the door. “It’s time to lock up. I hope you boys found your books because I have a meeting to attend.”

Danny’s hands were slick with perspiration.

He stopped to take a breath in order to steady his hand. It quivered over the scrolling text and he needed to be touching with accuracy. He had circumvented the security without setting it off and located the power grid. It would be simple to overload the power distribution and cause a blackout but he needed to find the tracker net before he did that or he wouldn’t be able to activate them and there would be a horde of old men looking for them.

“Yes, sir,” Zin answered. “We got them, thank you for letting us find them. You know, we don’t want
to
waste any more of your time, but you know how important it is that we do well in our studies. They say that a brain that is active in studies is one that will be stronger and healthier. In fact, research has shown that higher brain activity increases the—”

“Where’s Danny Boy?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Son, you’re playing games. Where is Danny Boy?”

Found it.

The tracker net wasn’t difficult to open. He had gotten past the hardest part of the security system, but the database of trackers was large. He did a quick search for names, located his own tracker. Now he need to find Zin… Zin…

Brain cramp
.
He couldn’t remember Zin’s real name.

“He had to take a dump, sir,” Zin said. “He ate some spicy food at the cafeteria an hour ago, I think it was a bad burrito or something. Anyway, he was—”

A shadow passed in front of the window. Danny moved down the wall, all the way to the corner, squatted behind the last desk. He did a global search for…

The cabinet is open!

Keys jingled outside. “Son, you better locate Danny Boy in the next five seconds.”

Metal connected with metal as the key slid inside the lock.

The knob turned.

Danny crouched down as low as he could, inputting a global search for
Zin
. Dozens of names scrolled over the interface. He went down the list. Everything with a Z was showing up. No time for another search. He went through the names.

The light went on.

Cameron. Nicholas. David.

Mr. Campbell stepped inside. Shuffled over to the cabinet.

Anthony. Benjamin. Theodore.

Closed the door. Looked around.

Hayden. Dane—

He saw him, stooped in the corner. Cheeks flushed, Mr. Campbell
moved his hand
quicker than Danny thought possible.

ERIC ZINDER!

Mr. Campbell’s hand reached inside his pocket—

Danny punched the tablet.

The classroom went dark.

Desks slid and tumbled. Mr. Campbell fell into a heap of overturn
ed
chairs. He
laid
motionless, hand buried in his pocket.

Eric Zinder
was still highlighted on the tablet.

“Cut that sort of close.” Zin leaned inside the room.

He had drifted away – how long, he couldn’t say – when the rattle of the air handler went quiet.

The air stopped blowing.

The lights went out.

The room was pitch black.

“What the hell is going on?” someone said.

Mr. Jones felt a tingle on the back of his neck. He had never had the sensation before. He was told that the tracker was installed for his own protection, that everyone had one in case something went wrong. Even the Director had one. But, he was assured, no Investor ever had experienced the unconsciousness brought about by the tracker voltage that shocked the nervous system and overloaded the senses.

But they all felt it.

It was sudden. Like a hot wire spiking the back the head.

The old men dropped like sacks of meat.

Mr. Jones’s foot twitched in the dark. He would never experience pain that intense again. He would never feel anything again.

None of them would.

His last thought.
We deserve this.

The Director walked around the sundial, taking his time to let the grass slip between his toes. The gray Nowhere had blotted out the blue sky, descending like a plague of locusts.

She thought she could take his world.

Not anymore.

The girl was on her hands and knees inside a circle of dirt. She wouldn’t escape the ring where the Director focused all his attention. He willed her to experience her flesh curling off her bones, willed her to sense the smell of fried hair and boiling bones. None of it actually happened to her.

But she felt it.

He took a knee. Her red hair hung over her face, shimmering as she convulsed. He lifted her chin. Her face contorted. Eyes filled with tears.

“It’s all over,
Lucinda.
”

She lunged, snapping her teeth at his hand. He pulled back, laughing.

She cried out, curling into a ball.

Now that she was out of the Nowhere and into the open, he knew everything about her.
Everything
.

“You know what you are
, don’t you?” he said. “You’re
just a thought. A memory. You’re nothing different than data. You are a reflection, a shadow, of a girl that once lived. A girl that is now dead.
Your
body has long since fed the worms. How does that make you feel?”

He waited.

Her skin fluttered in waves. Her nervous system fired uncontrollably. It appeared her flesh was trying to strip itself from her body.

“I am Foreverland, Lucinda. This whole existence,” he stood up, waving his arms, turning in a circle, “that you’ve been trying to destroy is me. It is my mind that creates this. That’s why I’m a little bitter you’ve been pissing on it.”

He wiped the hair from her face so she could see him.

“You’re one dimensional, darling. You can’t understand what I’ve done to help people. You don’t know what I’ve sacrificed to give them a new life. I pulled their memories from their damaged minds to heal them.

“At first, Foreverland was just a computer program but it didn’t work. It was too scripted, too artificial. Their identities didn’t survive and they turned into vegetables. I discovered they needed an alternate reality that’s organic. I became that, Lucinda. They plug the needle into their brains and transfer their identity into my mind where they can live their fantasies. Where they can heal their lives. I am the beautiful mind that heals them. I am the new dimension of existence.”

He leaned closer.

“And you tried to take that away. Shame on you.”

Another wave of pain. She shook, bouncing on the ground. This made the Director smile. He began pacing around the circle, observing the trees barely visible in the gray fog.

“I gave you life when I pulled you from Reed’s mind, Lucinda.”

He breathed the sweet air.

“You’re dead, but I made you live, again. And how do you repay me? A thank you? Maybe a kiss on the cheek?”

He looked down on her trembling body.

“You’re an ungrateful little bitch. But not for long.”

She was inferior. He could control her, but he couldn’t destroy her. And as long as she was inside Foreverland – inside his mind – she would be a distraction. But any moment now, his solution would arrive and absorb her, take her out of Foreverland—
“I know what… you are.” Her words scratched her throat. “I know… what you hide… from yourself.”

Something vibrated in the Nowhere.

“Your true memories…” she said. “The ones… you want… to forget… I know what you are.”

Something buzzed around the Director.

He closed his eyes, but a thought still entered him. A boy’s voice, pleading. It came from above.

No! No, please, please don’t! Please! PLEASE!

“You are not who you believe. You try to forget…” She sat up. “What you’ve done.”

The thought he heard was more than a voice. It was a vision. A young boy, his African skin was black. His arms skinny.

His eyes, empty.

A needle in his head.

Stop. Stop, stop, stop… STOP!

The Director spun and pointed. “WITCH!”

Lucinda was lifted by invisible hands. A stake emerged in the ground, her hands bound behind her back. Kindling at her feet.

“You will poison me, no more,” he said.

He refocused his efforts, pushed away the thoughts of dead and dying children, willed them back into the Nowhere. Pushed them far away until he forgot them, until he was strong again. Sure of who he was. He was a man that brought healing to the world.

The 21
st
century Buddha.

A body began to form near the sundial. Translucent and fetal.

The Director smiled. He released the girl from the witch’s stake. She collapsed in a pile.
Pathetic.

“Your end has arrived.”

Reed tried to count a breath. Tried to be with the pain.

He could not.

The bars were crushing him; his chest had no room to inflate. His breaths were shallow, quick and stabbing. When he supported some of his weight, the bars would relax. He had more room to breathe. But that brought more pain. And there wasn’t much feeling left in his legs.

The lucid gear brushed the top of his head.

“They want to keep us apart.” Lucinda stepped out of the dark
aisle
. “They’ll win.”

“They—” He grimaced, took a dozen tiny breaths. “They want me to take the needle.”

He went limp. The bars squeezed. He whined.

“Why do you think they brought you to the island?” She reached out.

The room was darker.

Reed couldn’t see the ceiling. Or the fan.

But he could see her. Like she was in a spotlight. Her fingernails candy red. Like her hair.