Ashes of Foreverland (29 page)

“No,” she cried.

A truck blew through the red light; its front bumper crushed the driver's side door. Glass shattered.

The car spun away from the delivery truck.

The radiator hiss cut through the crashing rain. Steam poured from the grill. Fluid dripped to the pavement; glass scattered like ice chips.

The headlights askew, one working.

Samuel was trapped, the steering wheel wedged deep into his belly. There was blood on his bald scalp, his eyes blank.

Alex put her hand to her mouth and tried to stop the tears.

She tried to open the door, but the handle had been sheared away. She reached through the window and grabbed her husband's shirt, muttering his name as if she could wake him up because this couldn't be happening.

Because she forgot this was a memory.

It was happening again.

So consumed by Samuel—broken ribs poking through the shirt, the empty eyes—that she'd forgotten about the backseat.

Until she saw a yellow dump truck.

And a small shoe.

She backed away from the car and closed her eyes.

Lightning struck one of the buildings. She was on the ground. She'd fallen. Her legs too weak to stand, she pulled herself up the steel carnage to see into the backseat.

To see the little body.

“No.”

Lightning struck again. It filled her with rage. The memory had settled in place. She remembered now. Remembered leaving the Institute, remembered it was Samuel that picked her up with Lucas in the backseat. They'd gone to the museum while she was touring the facilities. They were going to drive around and wait for her so they didn't have to park.

Coco opened her eyes.

She'd gone to the doctor, but the accident wasn't a hallucination.

“No. No, no, no, NO, NO, NO!”

Lightning. Thunder.

The creak of metal, the tinkle of glass.

She tore the back door off its hinges, flung it like a plastic toy, pulled her son from the backseat.

His body so small, so fragile.

The rain washed the hair from his eyes.

She cradled him while tears flowed. And the rain fell harder, muting her sobs, her cries. Her anguish.

The screens were blank.

She cried for the loss of her son and husband, but more than that, she wept for forgetting them. How could she let this happen? How could she go on with her life without their memory?

How could I forget his name?

The screens flickered and began to play forgotten memories. They played out what had happened after the accident, how she had survived, had gone home, how her parents cared for her, brought food to her bed, took her to physical therapy, moved into the house. Did everything a parent would do for their child.

But Alex couldn't carry the pain and loss. Life no longer had meaning and she wanted out. She wanted everything to go away.

The Ballards did that for her.

She'd gone back to the Institute and never left.

The images on the screens proved it: Alex on the table, a needle in her head.

Her past rewritten. The accident erased.

Too risky to ever remember having a child. She loved him too much. It was best to forget him. They erased it all.

Entirely.

Forever.

How could I?

The rain continued. She wouldn't let it stop.

Alex curled over Lucas's body until her back ached, her knees throbbed. Her eyes swelled. Her grief had no sense of time. Her tears flowed for eternity.

Shallow rivers coursed down the gutters, falling below the street. The city was still empty, cars parked at the curb. The accident was still in the intersection, the engine no longer steaming.

“It doesn't have to be this way.” The screens were filled with faces. An older woman, her hair gracefully gray, cheeks rosy and plump and dented with a comforting smile. “Those are just memories.” Her voice echoed down the empty street. “Thoughts.”

“You're so much more than memories.” It was an older man—handsome, genteel, hair graying like the woman. He looked so familiar. “You are much more than any man, woman or child. You've given birth to a universe, Alessandra.”

“You are a goddess,” the old woman added.

“We chose you because you are a strong woman that loves deeply; a woman with the potential to create new worlds, give rise to a home for millions of souls where suffering no longer exists.”

Alex squeezed her son. He was so cold, so still. “Why did I forget?”

“He's not dead,” the old woman whispered. “In your new world, he lives. Love, Alessandra. You are so filled with love. Even now, you can feel it swelling inside you. The memory of your pain only serves to hide that love. Put down your suffering, Alessandra. And be your love.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“This is your Foreverland, where anything can exist,” the old man said. “Only you can bring heaven to earth. You, Alessandra. Only you.”

Alex couldn't let him go. She would never put him down; she would hold him in her arms until her life ended. She would never forget him again.

“Don't end your life over a memory,” the old man whispered. “You
are
Foreverland.”

They weren't here; she could feel it. They were in another world. That's why they were on the screens—they were projections.

They did this to me
.

They were the ones that put the needle in her head, rewrote her memories, made her life perfect. They were the Ballards. She hardly recognized the younger versions of their elderly selves. She was seeing their idealized forms. They wanted her to be here.

They erased Lucas.

And they needed her.

I am Foreverland.

She was the buildings, the pavement, the rain. When she was sad, it rained. When she was happy, it was sunny. The sky above, the air she breathed, the food she swallowed...
this is all me
.

But something was out there, something above the sky, far beyond the atmosphere. The noise was out there. The static.

The voices.

She had heard them ever since she woke up in this Foreverland, but now she could feel them. Out there—where the voices were calling from—that was where true suffering existed.

But this is my lilac world.

“Yes,” Patricia said. “You are this world, Alessandra. You are the Foreverland no one could be. You have given rise to all of this; it is you that has sacrificed so much for so many. Even your son, your only son, will find life again in your world. He will live again.”

There was nothing she could do to save them. She couldn't bring them back, not on earth. But here, where she was a goddess, where she, Alessandra, was the universe, where it would be her laws that physics obeyed. It would be her will that determined reality.

She could bring them back, will them into existence.

“Yes.” Patricia's face loomed larger. “No more sadness.”

“No more suffering,” Tyler said.

“Only love.”

“Love.”

“If you sleep,” Patricia said. “Sleep and give your love to the world.”

Alessandra began to rock her boy. His face so perfect, so peaceful. She sang to him, promised she wouldn't let anything hurt him, ever again. If she had to sleep, she would sleep for him.

“Mama's here,” she whispered. “Mama's here.”

Her eyes grew heavy.

The weight began to lift from her. Lightness filled her heart. The gray sky parted. A beam of light fell on her like she was the only thing in the world that existed.

Because I am the world.

“Mama's here.”

She would sleep for her son, for her husband. For the world.

A shadow fell over her.

Two strong hands gripped her shoulders. They coaxed her to stand and lifted her to her feet. The old man and old woman raged, their voices echoing throughout the city.

Alessandra wanted to sleep, wanted to take away the world's suffering, to soothe her baby boy. But she let the hands pick her up and put her on her feet. They held her upright and shook her until her eyelids—her impossibly heavy eyelids—became slits.

The voices grew louder.

“Wake up.” A woman held her steady, jewelry jingling on her wrists.

Lips painted bright red.

New York City

T
yler paced around the rooftop pool and splashed frigid water on his face until his shirt was soaked. He kneeled on the concrete deck. Water dripped from his nose, shattering his reflection in the pool.

It's over. Just like that.

A lifetime of work had come undone in a matter of hours. Was it Reed? Was he that far ahead of them?

He wanted us to see it.

It wasn't enough to destroy everything, he wanted them to see it unravel. Tyler and Patricia peered like voyeurs into Alessandra's world from the safety of Patricia's Foreverland. They watched her walk down the street, watched her memories come to life. They watched her wake up. She was going back to sleep, this time willingly. She would give herself to Foreverland, for her boy, for her husband.

And then Barb arrived.

“How the hell did she get there?” he said.

“It's over,” Patricia said.

“I want to know how the hell she got there!”

“Don't raise your voice to me.”

“One of your Investors, Patricia, waltzed into Alessandra's Foreverland like a goddamn revolving door!”

“Isn't it obvious? She was sent to wake her.”

“I want to know how she separated herself from Cynthia!”

He ripped the sodden shirt from his chest and slammed it into the pool. It floated like a dead body.

How could Barb separate herself from Cynthia? And why? Barb shared that body; why would she leave it? It didn't make sense. At the very least, she should be helping the Ballards, not tearing down a lifetime of work. She would know the potential of Foreverland, would know that she could be immortal. It's why she went out to the wilderness in the first place, why she kidnapped Cynthia. If Alessandra went to sleep, Barb could have anything she wanted.

So why is she there?

On his hands and knees, he stared at his rippling reflection—the younger version of Tyler stared back. “Why?” he said. “Why is she helping him?”

Patricia shook her head. She didn't know. Didn't care.
Did it matter?

She turned her back on him and went to the rooftop's ledge. The folds of her angelic dress fluttered. She laced her hands and sighed. Deflated of hope, she overlooked the traffic in the streets below, all the simulated people rushing to nonexistent jobs, to meaningless families.

They were alone. But it was more than that.

On the horizon, just past the setting sun, the crinkle of the Nowhere, the limitation of Patricia's Foreverland, shimmered. In comparison to Alessandra, this was a shoebox.

Patricia was feeling the claustrophobia.

Even with Tyler, they would be alone.

He went to her and stood on the ledge. “It's not over,” he said. “We can still intervene. We'll have to bridge into Alessandra and throw Barb into the Nowhere. It's not too late, but we have to do it now.”

“We can't.”

“I'm not going to let a lifetime of our work go away. A lifetime, Patricia! This is our dream. We owe it to humanity. We can't turn our backs—”

“We can't risk it!” She spun around, her heels hanging off the ledge. “We can't go inside her world, Tyler. We'll invoke her rage and never leave. She has to be asleep!”

“We can still manipulate her thoughts, change her memories...”

She shook her head. A smile crept over her face, one of joyless acceptance. “She knows what we've done. She won't forget this time.”

“There's still time.”

“We walk away. We start again.”

His physical body was doing well. With the new infusion of biomites, he could continue another five or ten years. If he could find the special biomites that Gramm spoke of, it could be longer.

Where is Gramm?

But it wasn't his body that made starting over impossible. They abandoned the prison. Federal agents would be looking for him very soon. They would discover his ability to transport his awareness. They would change that, make sure he never connected with Foreverland again.

He would never see Patricia again.

They had to abandon their bodies, exist in Alessandra's Foreverland. Their bodies were just vehicles. Their identities, their souls, were free to roam.

Reed had done it. So can we.

The breeze rose up the side of the building, chilling his bare chest. Patricia closed her eyes and breathed it in. He did the same.

His hand found hers.

He couldn't be a god without his goddess, couldn't live without her breath. The Institute was funded to operate in secrecy for another hundred years. Patricia's body would survive. He would abandon his body in the back of the transport van and stay with her until they found a host.

If not Alessandra, then another.

He wrapped his arm around her waist, lifted her hand and swayed his hips into hers. Soft music came up on the portico, a tune from the year they were married.

He inhaled the essence that was Patricia.

She laid her cheek against his chest. He rested his chin and closed his eyes. They danced that way—slow, close and loving.

Let Alessandra's Foreverland burn. Let Reed have his victory. Let them all wake up and go about their lives.

Tyler and Patricia would dance.

They danced until the sun set and the city lights speckled the streets and buildings. The pool glowed blue. All was perfect, all was happy. They ignored Alessandra, let their lifetime of work fall apart and swayed in each other's arms. They could live this way for quite some time.

Nausea crept in.

Tyler felt it in his gut. A queasy sensation, like he was falling.

No, not falling.

About to.

Like he was leaning over the ledge, his balance tipped too far, committing him to the fall. It was that feeling, just before it began, that he felt tugging his stomach.