The Annihilation of Foreverland (A Science Fiction Thriller)

by Tony Bertauski

  “He’s worth saving,” the Director said, as Mr. Smith boarded the elevator. “They’re all worth saving.”

  Not a lie. But not exactly the truth.

  33

  DANNY RAN TOWARDS THE ONLY door that opened to the back of the dormitory. Zin must have come out of it to swipe a golf cart. His Investor was going to flip. And Mr. Jones was going to drop a nuke. That’s right. Danny is not a good boy.

  Maybe they could scout the other end of the Mansion but this time take the cart, drop a brick on the accelerator and send it over the edge. It was a horrible idea, but he’d run it by Zin, see what he thought. If he was game, Danny wasn’t going to stand in his way. May as well have some fun destroying personal property.

  He threw open the door—

  CRAAACK!

  Danny tumbled with lights in his head and the side of his face numb, the tang of iron on his tongue.

  “Booooom!” Sid shouted. “Where I come from, that’s called a boom-shot, son!”

  Danny touched his fat lips, pulled back bloody fingers. He spit a dark red pool into the dirt.

  The camp was throwing high-fives at Sid. One of the guys was down at the corner on the lookout for Investors. James nearly tripped over Danny on his way out of the back door.

  “Did I miss it?”

  “Hell, yeah, you missed it.” Sid shook his hand like it was hot. “I broke up his damn face. You should’ve seen the look he gave me right before I landed the boom-shot.” He high-fived James. “That’s what we call it where I come from.”

  Danny got on his hands and knees and spit red. “You don’t know where you come from.” He spit out a chunk of skin. “None of you morons do.”

  It got quiet. Sid squatted down. “I don’t care where I’m from, that’s what we call it.”

  He kicked Danny onto his back and got another round of hand-slapping.

  “I’m king of this island, Danny Boy,” Sid called. “And you’re the trash. You and Reed, a couple of crazy bastards getting naked. What’s wrong with your brains, son? Did the needle drive too deep? Did it suck the noodle out of your skull?”

  “Maybe I’ve seen the truth.”

  “Yeah, the truth of your mental illness. What is there not to love about this place, idiot? We got everything we could want, we don’t pay for a thing, and we got the best games in the world. I mean, sue me for not wanting to stay here forever.”

  “We get smoked, Sid,” Danny said, spitting. “You forget?”

  “Yeah, well we all got to die. That’s a fact, brain surgeon. May as well do it happy.”

  The clowns around him agreed. A pack of lemmings.

  “The Director is a genius,” he said. “You should be kissing the man’s feet.”

  “Excuse me for wanting to know what they’re doing to us,” Danny said.

  “Who gives a flying fart?”

  Danny was on his hands and knees, again.

  “And another thing.” Sid was back down at face level. “You’re getting your ass back in that game room to put us back in first place. I got a taste of that freebee and I like. We want another pass, you hear?”

  “Forget it.”

  “You might want to think about it because there’s more where this came from.” Sid kicked dirt in his face. “You got to sleep sometime.”

  “So do you.”

  They laughed. Sid led the way toward the corner of the building where they’d sit their fat asses on the card table and yuck it up. Danny just needed to sit it out until they were gone. He was going to need stitches, but what would he tell Mr. Jones? The truth would probably help the most, but that seemed boring. Besides, Danny sensed the thrill beneath the throbbing in his face. And that’s what made him stand up.

  “You forgot something!” He took a shuffle-step to catch his balance then threw up his middle finger. “Take this to the game room with you.”

  Sid thought about it. It would be easier to let this one go, but everyone was watching and Danny hadn’t learned his lesson. And that was the whole point. How could Sid really be the king if a little punk gave him the finger and got away with it? If he walked off, Danny wins no matter how many stitches it takes.

  Danny sealed the deal when he threw his hands out to the side. Still standing, bitch.

  Sid got a running start.

  Danny bent at the knees, balled his fists. He was going to start swinging before Sid got too close. He had no plan after that. But it didn’t matter.

  Sid launched himself – feet first.

  Danny went flying like a limp doll. Before his wits returned, Sid was on top. He tasted gritty blood, now. Sid planted his knees on Danny’s arms, grinding them into the dirt and sat on his chest. Danny’s legs flailed behind Sid. He grabbed a handful of Danny’s hair and held his head still. A bubbly glob of spit hung on Sid’s lower lip, then fell.

  “How’s that, munchkin?” Sid said.

  The others gathered around. Their shadows loomed.

  “That loogey matches the one I dropped on you in the Haystack. That was from me and you’re welcome.”

  The snail slime when I woke up.

  The pain radiating from his arms had extinguished the thrill and replaced it with rage. But he was too small to do anything, helpless beneath 180 pounds of Sid. He tried to spit on him but it only landed on his own face.

  “Listen, you crazy dwarf. What I say goes. You’ll game and shut your bloody mouth or I’ll spit in your eye every day you wake up. You’ll be begging to get smoked when I’m done with you. You think you can out-crazy me? Well, I got news for you, I’m the real deal. I’m a psychopath. I’ll climb inside you and eat your damn gizzard.”

  Danny started laughing. Gizzard. What an idiot.

  This caught Sid off-guard. Danny’s cheek lit up with a loud smack. But it only made him laugh harder. He didn’t care about pain. Sid would have to break his teeth out to get him to shut up. And that’s what he was about to do, pulling his fist behind his ear—

  Sid went rolling across the ground.

  Elbows flying.

  Danny was back on his hands and knees, catching his breath, listening to grunts and the slap of skin-on-skin. Sid was on feet, dragging someone with him.

  Reed.

  His shirt was pulled over his head, revealing his bony chest. Sid pushed him into the group and two of them pinned his arms behind him. Reed’s face was gaunt. Yellow-darkness hung beneath his eyes. He was out of breath.

  “A hero, huh?” Sid paced closer. “Hold him still, let me show you what we do to heroes.”

  He pulled his fist behind his ear, again, lined up a shot that would break Reed’s entire face—

  They all dropped on the ground.

  Sid, Reed, and all the rest. They fell like dead bodies.

  “It’s all right, Danny Boy.” Mr. Jones was on one knee. “We got things under control.”

  Golf carts pulled up and old men unloaded, each one of them going to their camper. They rolled them over, cradled their heads. Their eyes were rolled back and the Investors talked to them. Slowly, they came out of the tracker-zapping stupor and their Investors – each with his own look of disapproval – guided them away.

  “Come along.” Mr. Jones helped Danny up. “Let’s get you to the doctor to have a look. Don’t worry about those boys, it’s all right now.”

  Each of them was up and being cared for, tended to. All of them, except one.

  Reed was alone and still unconscious.

  34

  It was Danny’s second time inside the Chimney.

  Mr. Jones took him to the big, silver elevator shaft in the center of the first floor. He held Mr. Jones’s handkerchief to his mouth. It was white with major splotches of blood. They went to the second floor. Danny didn’t see a stairwell. Either Mr. Jones was too tired to walk or this was ultra-security. The only way up was in the elevator.

  Five floors in the Chimney. The third one was where I woke up. The second one is the doctor’s office. The fifth one is the Director’s penth
ouse. What’s on the fourth?

  The second floor was silent. Four hallways radiated from the center like spokes. They went down one of them and stopped outside an office door with a row of chairs against the wall.

  “Would you have a seat, Danny Boy?” Mr. Jones asked. “I’d like to speak with the doctor.”

  Danny grunted through the handkerchief. Mr. Jones helped him into one of the chairs and went inside the office. Danny couldn’t hear them talking. He flicked his tongue over his bottom lip, felt the hole carved out of it when Sid’s fist crushed his face against his teeth. Mr. Jones assured him that would never happen again. If Sid got within fifty feet, an alarm would sound on his tracker. If he got closer than twenty, he’d get knocked out.

  Danny wouldn’t mind testing the system. Maybe sneak up on him while he was in the bathroom, watch him crumple up on the toilet. He’d be in trouble – major, big time – but it would be so worth it. So, so worth it.

  He laid his head against the wall and closed his eyes. He was sinking in the chair, exhaustion weighing him down. He was breathing heavily when the elevator doors broke open. Two sets of footsteps came down the hallway. One was dragging a foot.

  “Hello, Danny Boy,” Mr. Smith said. “How’s your mouth feeling?”

  Danny shrugged. He could answer, but the bloody rag was a good excuse not to speak without being rude.

  “Listen, son. You’ll be all right. We’ve got a real sharp doctor on the island that will have you back to normal in a snap.” Mr. Smith snapped his fingers to illustrate his point. “No one hurts for long around here.”

  Mr. Smith turned to Reed, mumbled something about sitting. “Let me go inside and talk with Mr. Jones and the doctor, all right?”

  He winked at Danny, smiled, and went inside.

  Reed hunched over, hiding his hands in his lap. The silence was enormous.

  ______

  “You didn’t have to do that back there.”

  Reed didn’t respond. Danny took that as a sign to shut up. He said thanks. Move on. Danny pushed his tongue into the hole in his lip. The bleeding had stopped but he kept the handkerchief to his mouth.

  “He’s a psychopath, you know that,” Reed mumbled.

  “Yeah, he told me.”

  Reed sat back, holding his hands beneath his shirt. “Next time you’ll get more than a bloody lip.”

  “There won’t be a next time. Sid gets a warning if he’s within fifty feet of me. Twenty feet and the tracker knocks his ass out. I might sneak up on him just to watch him twitch.”

  “You’re playing with fire.”

  “We all are, Reed. May as well have some fun.”

  Zin would’ve liked that line; he’d tell him when he woke up.

  “Why are you here?” Danny asked.

  Reed hesitated. He unveiled his hands. The thumbs were purple and doubled in size. They stuck out like useless pegs. “To put Humpty Dumpty back together.”

  “So they can push you back off?”

  “That seems to be the pattern.”

  Reed put his hands beneath his shirt, again. His breathing was a little shaky. It hurt just moving them. Danny couldn’t imagine what it took to tackle Sid.

  “Why don’t you go inside the needle?” Danny asked.

  Reed chuckled, smiled at the floor.

  “What’s so funny?” Danny asked. “It doesn’t make sense, going through all this suffering when you know we’re going to end up in Foreverland anyway. Come on, Reed, give yourself a break. You’ve suffered enough, you’ve proved your point. You can take a beating.”

  Reed was quiet. He drew a long breath and let it out, thoughtfully. Then threw his head back with laughter. It echoed up and down the hallway.

  Danny watched him unravel. “You’re losing it, Reed.”

  “What’s so funny?” Reed said, wiping his eyes. “This is exactly what they want.”

  “Who?”

  “Them.” Reed gestured with a nod at the doctor’s office. “They want us to be friends so that you’ll talk me into taking the needle. And you’re biting, Danny Boy. You’re biting hard on the bait, son.”

  “I’m not biting on anything, I’m just making sense.”

  “You don’t know what you’re making.”

  “I saw her, Reed.” The fits of laughter trailed off, quickly. “Want to know what she said?”

  Reed hunched over, quietly.

  “She sees you, Reed. She sees you in everyone’s thoughts when they go inside the needle. She knows you’re staying in the Haystack and suffering and refusing to come for her. She’s alone and something is after her. You got to tell me why you’re not going inside to help her.”

  Reed bowed his head lower like he barely had the strength to hold Danny’s words.

  “She’s in your dreams,” Danny added, “but that’s a dream, man! Lucinda’s alive, I’m telling you.”

  Reed jerked. He turned away. No sound came out of him. Just quiet convulsions.

  “It’s a trick, Danny Boy. The Director’s got you fooled.”

  “It was no trick. She was—”

  “YOU THINK I LIKE THIS?”

  Reed shoved his hands in Danny’s face. They weren’t just swollen, they were misshapen and three different colors of purple, parts of them black. Thin red lines streaked down his wrists.

  “You don’t think I want to see her? That I just want to dream about her, that I don’t want to touch her, smell her? That I don’t want to be with her, Danny Boy, to know she’s okay? To know she’s alive? Is that what you think?”

  Danny pulled his head back.

  “It’s hopeless, Danny Boy.” Reed walked away. “It’s all hopeless.”

  ______

  Lucinda.

  Her name opened a memory.

  Reed suddenly remembered, with fine clarity, a time he was driving a truck – a twenty year old pickup – with torn seat covers. He reached for the stick shift between her knees.

  “We’re doing it, Reed!” Lucinda said. “We’re really doing it!”

  The landscape rolled past them with long legs of corn and bushy fields of soybeans, dotted with silos and lonesome houses. The wind blew her red hair around. Lucinda grabbed Reed’s face and planted a kiss. Her lips wet, warm and full.

  Bip. It ended. Memory, over and out.

  But it wasn’t a dream, it was a memory. He remembered her.

  He remembered that he loved her.

  She’s real.

  ______

  Danny stepped next to him. They were at the end of the hall, standing at one of the glass walls that overlooked the dormitory and the Yard. And, beyond that, the Haystack.

  “The world, it’s out there, Reed.” Danny told him about hacking the firewall, locating the island through the satellite system. “There’s hope.”

  “Can you do it again?” Reed asked, staring out.

  “I don’t know, it was some wild code. It was evolving like an organism, never seen anything like it.”

  “You can’t just send for help. They’ll have that figured out.”

  “I know.”

  “It has to be something the whole world will see, Danny Boy. You got to give them a reason to search for us.”

  Reed hung his hands inside his shirt like a hammock. He couldn’t fold his arms and it hurt too much to let them hang at his sides. Besides, hiding them kept Danny from staring. Reed just wanted to get to the beach where he could be in the sun alone with the memories. He wanted to drive down that country road, again. He wanted to kiss her.

  Lucinda. You’re in there and I’m out here. The Haystack is nothing compared to that.

  “Danny Boy?” Mr. Jones called from the doctor’s office. “Son, the doctor would like to see you now.”

  Danny waited a bit, turned and nodded at the old man. He started to say something to Reed then went on his way. Mr. Jones closed the door behind them. He’d get his lip fixed and be ready for the next round. Reed only hoped he could do it again. Yes, he hoped.

  Bec
ause he wouldn’t be able to resist much longer.

  35

  The cafeteria was full. But the table Danny was sitting at was empty.

  He was in the corner, far away from the windows. The compartments on his lunch tray were filled with pudding, Jell-O and noodles. No chewing required. The doctor patched the gaping hole with a gel adhesive, but it didn’t relieve the swelling. Pressure on his teeth hurt. His smile was lop-sided, but there wasn’t much to smile about.

  He slurped a spoonful of pudding and looked at the lined sheet of paper in front of him. He chose the corner of the room because it was the farthest spot from the rest of his camp eating at their regular table. They were in last place in the game room. Without Danny, they’d have to suffer every round they went inside the Haystack until they all got smoked. That gave him a little satisfaction. A few guys asked him to come back.

  You’ve got to be kidding.

  Danny glanced up and Sid flipped him the middle finger.

  He also wanted privacy and the lighting was weak in the corner. He wrapped his arm around the paper to cast a shadow over his notes. It was stupid to write these things down, but he had to organize his thoughts. He was just writing bullet points but they were still clues:

  Mutual Fund

  FBI

  Mt. Rushmore

  These were the three ideas he’d come up with to get the world’s attention. The first one, mutual fund. Get control of the largest mutual fund in the world and sell all the assets. The stock market suffers a flash crash and people lose money.

  Money is power and it will find you. If they found the rogue trader holed up in his parents’ basement, they would find an island in the South Atlantic.

  The second idea—

  “Danny Boy.” James flung a folded sheet of paper into his pudding. “Message.”

  Danny turned his notes over. James looked back. They were watching. And laughing. Danny wiped the chocolate smudge off and spread the note open.

  Turdbrain. You die in the needle.

  Sid was standing on the table with both birds flying. James nodded and smiled.