The Annihilation of Foreverland (31 page)

She reached for him.

“They want to keep you away from me. They don’t want us together.”

Her fingers touched his ribs. Cold numbness spread across his ribcage. She traced up his side, to his arm, numbing a path as she went. It was cold and freezing and pleasurable.

He took an easy breath. It came out smooth.

Her hand was on his shoulder.

Touched his collarbone.

Erasing the pain.

“I can’t,” he said. “I won’t—”

“You die. They win.”

A black tunnel closed around him, ate up the cells across the
aisle
. Closed in behind Lucinda as she leaned closer. Her lips were full. They touched his ear.

“Bastards,” she whispered.

The pleasurable numbness spread across his face.

Down his neck.

“I miss you,” she said.

Her fingertips touched his lips. His upper lip frosted over.

“I miss you, Reed.”

His lips fluttered.

“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me.”

“I…”

She hooked her finger beneath his chin. Sensation left his bottom teeth.

“I miss you.” He closed his eyes.

Let her lift his chin.

Let her lift the crown of his head into the lucid gear.

The strap tightened around his scalp. The knob snugged up to his forehead. He was losing feeling in his head, but could feel the coldness of the needle searching for the hole that had healed long ago. It sensed the stent embedded in his skull and centered over it.

Lucinda’s lips hovered over his.

The needle shot through.

Cracking the skin. Piercing the frontal lobe.

His head snapped back. He saw a bright light. His body stiffened against the bars. Crackled. Then let loose.

He went inside the needle with his eyes open. Head cocked to the side.

Body, limp.

He went to Foreverland.

Danny and Zin left Mr. Campbell in the classroom. They didn’t bother to check his pulse.

They stood outside the entrance of the building. The sun was up. The sky was blue. It was like any other day, except for the four bodies in the Yard.

“How long did you put them out?” Zin asked.

“I don’t know. I just activated every tracker in the system, besides ours.” He looked at the tablet. “I think I hit them pretty hard. And I crashed all the solar and hydrogen power systems, so everything’s off. Well, everything except the building with a backup generator.”

“Which one is that?”

“Guess.”

The Chimney was pouring smoke.

“We can stop him,” Danny said. “This is our chance. Maybe our only one.”

“What about Reed?”

Danny looked at the tablet. There was no telling how much time the trackers would keep the Investors unconscious. He could always zap them again, assuming the system didn’t lock him out this time.

They sprinted toward the Haystack.

The Haystack smelled like sewage and piss.

Maybe that was how it always smelled during a round, they weren’t used to it. But it was stronger, more pungent. Danny’s eyes watered when they entered. It took a few moments to adjust to the darkness. They went down the
aisle
, past their empty cells—
Reed was crushed.

“Oh, no.” Danny got there first. “Oh, no, no, NO!”

Zin was on his knees, working the lock. Danny could tell, even in the dim light, that Reed’s face was blue. His tongue swelled in his mouth.

“HURRY, ZIN!”

Zin fumbled with the lock, but it was taking too long. Danny reached for the lucid gear—

“Don’t take that off!” Zin shouted. “It’s too soon, he might be in there and won’t be able to come back if you take it off.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His hand brushed Reed’s cheek. It was cold. “He doesn’t… he shouldn’t have died like this.”

Danny slid the back strap off his head. The needle was wedged firmly in his forehead. It came out like a cork. Watery fluid leaked from the hole.

The lock clicked.

Reed’s dead weight threw the door open. Danny caught him before he hit the ground. Zin helped lay him down and started to arrange his hands in a dignified manner.

“Not in here,” Danny said. “I don’t want him staying in here anymore.”

His body was limp, but not as difficult to carry as it should’ve been for someone his age. He weighed less than Danny. They stopped outside the door.

“Let’s take him to the beach,” Danny said.

Zin shaded his eyes, looked at the sun. “We don’t have time.”

Danny retrieved the tablet. He was right. There was no telling when someone would recover. Once the island was back to full power, there would be nowhere to hide.

They left Reed’s body outside the Haystack, hands folded over his chest.

Eyes closed.

Dozens of golf carts were parked around the Chimney.

Danny and Zin hid in the trees, just in case someone was watching. No one was in sight, awake or unconscious. Danny started out first. Zin made a lot of noise.

He was holding a stick the size of a bat. “Just in case.”

Together, they crept to the front door. Still no one. Nothing.

Danny took a deep breath. “We’re in deep, man. There’s no going back, now.”

“So what are we waiting for?”

Zin started to inspect the lock. Danny yanked the handle and the door opened. No jokes, this time. They moved cautiously inside. The ground floor was open floor space with bunches of comfortable furniture and tables for informal meetings. Large monitors were mounted on the large cylinder elevator, showing an overhead tour of the island on a continuous loop. It looked like an area to entertain company or tourists. Or potential clients.

They stepped inside the elevator. There were four buttons.

“Where’s the fifth floor?” Zin asked.

“Fifth floor is the Director. No one goes there, he brings them.”

“Where then?”

Danny dragged his finger over the tablet, rearranging data and tapping commands. He searched the Chimney for clues. “Most of the power consumption is on the fourth floor.”

Zin pushed number four. “We have a winner.”

The doors closed slowly. The floor shifted. The elevator began a slow ascent, the numbers ticking off above the doors.

Second floor, we have the doctor.

Third floor, where we wake up.

The elevator eased to a stop. Number four appeared. The doors jerked a bit, then began to slide open. Zin cocked the stick. Danny stood off to the side. They waited.

The hallway was reflected on the back silver wall. Empty.

Tentatively, they looked out.

One hall. Nothing branching out, just one long hall. Near the end, there was a door on the right, one on the left.

Someone was on the floor, halfway inside the left door. Legs in the hall.

“It’s Mr. Lee.”

Zin gently rolled the old Asian man onto his back. He felt cold. Zin put his fingers on his throat, looking for a pulse. He didn’t really know how to do that, so he put his ear next to Mr. Lee’s mouth and listened.

“I think he’s dead.”

“Oh, man.” Danny looked at the tablet like it would tell him what happened. But he knew. “Oh, man.”

“It’s not your fault, Danny Boy. You weren’t trying to kill him.”

Danny shook his head. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, despite what the old bastards had been doing. He just wanted off the island. He wanted his life back.

“What the hell?” Zin went inside the room. “Is that Sid?”

Danny followed.

There was a hospital bed with white sheets and a curtain next to it. Sid was on his back, hands folded over his chest and a needle poking from the center of his forehead. Danny approached with the tablet at his side. Zin cocked the stick back, ready to swing.

Sid looked skinnier than usual. Sort of gray. His mouth was open, breathing. At least he was alive. Danny followed the wire from the end of the needle to a machine next to the curtain.

“What the hell is going on?” he said. “I thought he already graduated.”

Maybe that was the last step, one last trip to Foreverland where they download the rest of the memories, all reprogrammed for a better, more efficient mind.

Danny reached for the curtain—

“Take a look at this, Danny Boy.”

Zin was looking inside a large window with the stick at his side. It looked like a waiting room. Danny could see the old men piled on the floor as he stepped up to the glass. They must have been standing there, watching, when Danny ignited their trackers. Some of them had knots on their heads where they hit the floor.

Mr. Jones was in the back, laid back on a lounge chair. His fingers laced over his belly. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

Zin tried the door. “Want me to pick it?”

“No.”

He didn’t want to find out if he killed all of them. Especially Mr. Jones. The guy cared about Danny in his weird way. He didn’t want to live with the thought that he accidentally murdered him. Even if Mr. Jones did
acquire
him.

Even if his name was really Constantino.

“What’s over there?” Zin asked.

It appeared that the room was fairly large, separated by the curtain. Zin snuck up to it with the stick ready for action. Danny grabbed a handful of the fabric and yanked it to the side—

A flash of silver.

Zin wasn’t fast enough to stop the aluminum table leg from cracking Danny’s hand. The tablet hit the floor, the glass screen spiderwebbed. The old man jumped back, table leg back and ready for another swing. Danny got behind Zin, his hand already tingling.

“You all right?” Zin asked, faking a swing at the attacker.

“What the hell you kids doing up here?” the old man said.

“None of your business!” Zin shouted. “What the hell you still doing awake?”

The old man huffed, his eyes darting around. “You did this? You knocked out the power and killed the Investors? You did this?”

He shook his head.

“You boys are done, you hear me? You’re done, out of the program. You had your chance but you’re finished now. The Director will be down any second.”

“Why is he still awake?” Zin muttered back to Danny.

“I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t on the tracker net.”

“And neither is the Director,” the old man said. “You can say goodbye any second now. Any second.”

He stepped behind the hospital bed that was on the other side of the curtain, this one parallel to Sid’s. An old man was on it, same position as Sid and a needle in his head that was attached to the same machine. They had never seen an Investor with a hole. They never went to Foreverland.

“Isn’t that Mr. Williams?” Zin asked.

Yeah,
thought Danny.
Sid’s Investor.

Side by side, same machine. Needles in their head.

That’s how Parker graduated. And when he was done, they never saw his Investor again.

After that, Parker began parting his hair on the left.

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

“I think I know.”

Reed felt nothing.

Saw nothing.

And liked it.

He’d been trapped in a broken body for too long. He couldn’t remember the last time he was without pain.
If this is death, then it is sweeter than imagined.

But it wasn’t death.

He drifted in the black nothingness, his identity drawn inside the needle, drifting toward Foreverland. He only knew the sweet release.

But another body formed around him. This one firm and pain-free. Curled up. Fetal.

He clutched at tufts of grass with his eyes tightly closed. There was wind in his ears. Light on his face. There was sound—

“Reed.”

Her voice. It was feeble. It was near.

It was not a dream.

He blinked. A blurry layer of fluid smeared over his eyes. But he could see her. She was out of reach. She was on the ground, curled up like he was. Her head turned so that she could see him.

Blink. Blink, blink, blink.

Her lips quivered. Her body shook. She was in pain.

He tried to move his hand, tried to reach for her, but he couldn’t feel his body enough to control it. Barely felt the ground below him. But his heart ached. He couldn’t reach her. Couldn’t help her.

Couldn’t save her. Again.

She managed to crawl out of the circle scratched from the grass. She pulled her body over the ground, dragging her legs behind her. Her breath was labored. Tears in her eyes. She stopped to gather her strength, then pulled herself closer. One handful of grass at a time.