Ashes of Foreverland

by Bertauski, Tony

  “He’s missing.”

  “I think he left the practice.”

  He grimaced. “Leaving your coat and phone on the counter isn’t how most people retire.”

  “I don’t know where he is, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No one has been able to locate him.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  He paused for a long sip, swirling the remains. “You went to see him because of the incident at the Institute, right?”

  “More coffee?” Alex asked.

  Madre began to stand. Alex stopped her, went to the coffee pot and poured a cup. He looked at her forehead when he asked that. Not just a glance, but a question with his eyes.

  “Why are you asking questions you already know the answers to?” she said.

  “Helps me keep my thoughts straight.”

  She put the cup in the microwave and watched it go around.

  “I lost my balance while I was there. The smells, the lab...you know, it wasn’t what I was expecting.”

  “What were you expecting?”

  “Not that.”

  “I understand you were in a car accident. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  He muttered condolences to Madre, talked about how proud she must be of her family and she had every right to be. The death of a child was a terrible loss.

  “Have you sought treatment for your grief?”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Since the accident, have you done anything to process your emotions?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  He cleared his throat. “Have you gone back to the Institute?”

  They stared for a long moment. “No.”

  “Not even to research for your book?”

  “No.”

  “What happened with Coco?”

  “The orangutan?”

  “Yes. There are reports you said Coco opened his eyes.”

  “When did this turn into an interrogation?”

  “I’m just following trails, Mrs. Diosa. Anything that will help.”

  “Look, I don’t think I can help you. The Institute was performing illegal research. They were kidnapping suitable hosts to create an alternate reality and, thank God, someone stopped them.”

  “How do you know someone stopped them?”

  “Don’t play that. Those facts are all over the Internet. Someone woke up the hosts and wiped the computers clean. Some of them escaped before the alarm sounded and a car was recorded on a nearby security camera picking up two kids.”

  “Kids?”

  “The footage is on Youtube.”

  “No one said they were kids.”

  “If you can’t tell those are kids by the way they act, then you should turn in your badge.”

  He grinned and shrugged.

  “I’ll tell you what I don’t know,” Alex said. “What happened to all the employees that disappeared?”

  “What have you heard?”

  “The place was empty. And what about Mr. Deer?”

  He cocked his head curiously.

  “He was the one that organized these tours and invited the journalists,” she said. “We heard he was a major part of the operation.”

  “I can’t share that with you.”

  “And Patricia? Is she really dead?”

  He nodded.

  Alex sat down, cradling the warm mug for comfort. “And the unidentified hosts, the ones that woke up. Did you find out who they were?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m concerned, hope they’re all right.”

  He leaned forward. “I thought this wasn’t an interrogation.”

  “I just want to know that the children are safe.”

  She flicked a knowing glance at his forehead. It was unblemished, apparently untouched by a needle. But he knew the depth of the crimes committed in Foreverland. Maybe he didn’t hear the voices, but he knew that children paved the way to Foreverland. Alex wanted to be sure she wasn’t imagining she had quieted the voices, that she took away their suffering.

  That she ended the Nowhere.

  “They’re safe,” he said, unblinking. The tone suggested he answered the unspoken question, the real question.

  “Safe?”

  He nodded. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  He held up his mug. “For the coffee.”

  That felt like a lie. The thank you meant something else.

  A grin broke across his face. Madre’s arms were crossed, her head hung down. Soft little snores rattled in the back of her throat. They got up quietly and left the kitchen without disturbing her or the phone recorder.

  “Tell your mother it was nice to meet her.” He stopped at the door. “It must be nice having her here.”

  She nodded suspiciously. He seemed to know more about her than he should. Or maybe he was just a better detective than she’d thought.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  “What?”

  He held out his hand. They shook. “With your book.”

  “Yes, of course. The book.” She cocked her head, careful not to disturb her bangs. “Are you telling me not to write it?”

  “Not at all. The world needs heroes.”

  “Is that what you think I am?”

  He cupped her hand with both of his and gently squeezed. His tone softened, his eyes relaxed. He said, “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Diosa. I truly am.”

  She watched him get into his SUV, watched him drive away. She’d never seen him before in her life, she was sure of that. But he seemed so familiar.

  Madre was rinsing the coffee pot. Her phone was still on the table. Next to it was a business card. It looked legitimate, an agent from the Biomite Oversite Agency. It was just his last name.

  Johnstone.

  She’d later remember that name and call the number and get the office of her biomite doctor, the one that mysteriously left the practice. But she right then, as Madre took chicken from the freezer, as children laughed somewhere in the neighborhood and birds squabbled at the feeder, she turned the card over.

  Her breath caught short.

  The agent had written something on the back.

  She pinched herself, hugged her mother and wept.

  The sky was clear blue, not a cloud in sight. She wept and the birds continued to sing and the sun continued to shine. She wept because it didn’t rain.

  “Thank you” was written on the back of the card.

  In green ink.

  46. Danny Boy

  An island off the coast of Spain

  The sea breeze blew through the house.

  Danny slapped the papers against the table. Santiago rushed to close the doors, the curtain fluttering around him.

  “Just close one,” Danny said.

  The portly Spaniard hesitated, knowing one door would only make it worse. But Danny smiled, and Santiago nodded. Danny didn’t like the house closed up. The breeze should always blow through the house, Danny said. I want to smell the water.

  The smell of this ocean was different than the Foreverland scent. This was more authentic, natural. And it reminded him where he was. I am here.

  Santiago stood in the doorway, as if his rotund frame would block the wind. He held his mesh hat down, tufts of black curly hair escaping his open collar, the breeze carrying his musky scent into the room.

  Santiago, the overweight Spaniard with crooked teeth and always a shadow of whiskers. How could I forget?

  His compatriot. His business partner.

  The Foreverland imposter resembled him, could pass as a twin. But he didn’t have the mannerisms, not in the flesh. And now that Danny was back, it was all too obvious. The integration into Foreverland had been so seamless, his memories so well manipulated that Danny couldn’t remember at what point he had been inserted.

  The Institute.

  That was the turning point. Something happened when the scientists brought
him into the lab, when they had explained the experimentation. Danny had shuddered, appalled at their disregard for the animals’ suffering. Mr. Jonathan Deer, the man that had invited him, the man that arranged for Cyn to visit, wasn’t there during that trip. He was going to hear from Danny, though.

  Danny remembered flying home, remember crafting a tersely worded email on the plane, remembered landing in Spain and Santiago picking him up at the airport.

  The other Santiago.

  There was no plane ride, no coming home. They inserted Danny right then.

  “Daniel?” Mary tapped the table with her fingernail, a clear coat of polish and tailored business suit revealed her impeccable taste. “Everything all right?”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  Danny turned his attention back to the contract, a stack as thick as a roll of dimes. He signed where there were Xs, taking the time to read sections he could understand, jotting notes in the margins. Santiago eventually looked over his shoulder, grunting each time Danny scratched out a line or made a comment.

  It feels so good to be back.

  Danny had returned to the villa after mysteriously disappearing for almost a month. The Spaniard didn’t ask why or where Cyn came from or why they had covered their foreheads; he simply explained the state of his affairs.

  Normality returned.

  Danny tabbed each page he edited. When he reached the last page, the margins were littered with plastic strips.

  “Jorge tendrá que leer a través de él de nuevo,” Danny said. Jorge will need to read through it again.

  “Of course.” Santiago patted his shoulder.

  Someone crossed the open doorway, the curtain dancing around her. A lithe young woman was squeezing water from her hair.

  “Is everything all right?” Mary asked.

  Even Mary looked familiar, the client he’d met at the diner, when the Nowhere oozed out of her left eye. Danny still couldn’t understand how it was all accomplished, how Alessandra could absorb the details of the physical world and build a Foreverland world. Her mind was like a substance, a sponge that permeated the planet.

  We were even discussing the same deal at the diner. Or maybe my memories are corrupt and I only think she looks familiar.

  He couldn’t reason his way through the experience. In fact, the memories (false or not) put him at ease, like he’d practiced this negotiation already. Still, he was tempted to ask her if they’d met before.

  “Daniel?” she asked.

  “You will have to excuse us,” Santiago said. “There have been late nights.”

  Danny was watching Cyn on the portico. “I changed some of the language that I’d like my attorney to look at. If you’d like, you can look it over first.”

  Danny slid it to the man on Mary’s right. He efficiently scooped up the brightly flagged document.

  “We can have it back to you in the morning,” she said. “I’d like to conclude business before flying out tomorrow night.”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Well.” They stood. “Thanks for meeting us in person. It’s not that we don’t trust projection rooms. We’d rather meet face to face before investing in people.”

  “Ironic, don’t you think?”

  They didn’t trust the very thing they were investing in: technology. I don’t blame them.

  “The irony’s lost when you’re giving millions to a seventeen-year-old.”

  “Time is relative.” Danny smiled. “Einstein proved that.”

  “We’re not flying through space.”

  They shook hands across the table. He could’ve sworn she glanced at his forehead.

  “We prefer to shake hands,” she added. “In person.”

  “Even that’s not reliable,” Danny said. “Not if we both have biomite-created hands.”

  “If the government continues restricting biomite technology, we might be looking for work.”

  “It should be none of the government’s business,” Mary’s companion said. “If a man needs more than 49% biomites to save his body, he should have the right to do so.”

  “Can’t have people turning into robots,” Danny said.

  “Halfskin,” Mary said.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s what they’ve termed the condition when the body is more artificial than human.”

  “Arbitrary, if you ask me.” Her companion snapped his briefcase and dropped it on the table. “Man gets two prosthetic arms, two prosthetic legs and he’s just fine. Make those prosthetics out of biomites and the government wants to turn him off. You know the story about the diver? He found an illegal strain of biomites, ones the government couldn’t track.”

  Danny had heard of them and wanted no part of it.

  “He dove to the bottom of the ocean, almost three miles below the surface, and came back unharmed because his body was almost entirely biomites. You know what the government did when they found out, right? Turned him off, like a light.” He snapped his fingers. “Imagine what we could accomplish.”

  “That’s the world we live in,” Danny said. “So let’s change it.”

  “Let’s do so.” They shook hands again. Mary caught him glancing at Cyn and smiled. “I’ll let you get back to your business.”

  “It’s been a long year,” he said.

  “I understand.”

  She has no idea.

  ——————————————

  Cyn was tone and tan, one leg pulled onto the lounger while she painted her toenails bright red.

  Danny stood beneath the portico with two glasses of iced tea.

  “Meeting adjourned?” she asked.

  Her skin was perfect, barely a scar where the needle had pierced her flawless forehead. The cut across her hand had healed nicely, a white slash that would always remind her of the Institute.

  He was grateful she woke up first, that he didn’t see her with the needle in her head. It would’ve hurt to see her so helpless, so prone.

  She stopped painting. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “We going back to the States?”

  “No, not yet. Best we stay here a bit longer.”

  A year, he was thinking. Maybe more.

  The ripples from the Institute were still moving. Several months had gone by and the investigation was ongoing and would be for some time. Nothing had been solved. The Ballards had been found, but they had to have had help. An operation that expansive required men and women in high places.

  Jonathan Deer disappeared. And Zin, Reed, and all the other victims in the Institute...they no longer have a living body.

  There was nothing he could do for them. Cyn wanted to do something, but what? All they could do was follow the case from a safe distance. When things cooled down, maybe then they could find who was helping the Ballards.

  Danny felt like it was his fault, the survivor guilt returning. He was convinced Reed had written the notes, that he was the one that put the pieces together. But Reed was dead. Was it possible to untether from the body and live in Foreverland?

  That’s what happened to Lucinda.

  Cyn held out the sunscreen. She pulled her hair forward. Danny rubbed the lotion on her shoulders and across her back.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “We stay, maybe a year. Maybe longer. We can improve biomite production and efficiency, fund lobbyists to ease government restrictions, help those that really need it.”

  “No. I mean what are we going to do right now?”

  “Oh, you mean now? As in now-now?”

  “As in now-now.” She wrapped her sun-warmed arms over his shoulders. They swayed like the ocean was an orchestra, paradise their dance floor. She nuzzled into his neck and sighed, her hair pressed against his cheek. It was an intoxicating mixture of the roses and ocean.

  “Do we just live happily ever after?” she asked.

  “Was there ever a doubt?”

  They danced until their skin was hot, their
bodies thirsty.

  They swam in the sea, the water warm and buoyant. Danny floated on his back, staring at the blue sky, looking for the gray static to eat a hole through it, to fall on them. It would take some time to get out of that habit.

  No more lilacs.

  Somehow that fragrance pervaded Alessandra’s world. The lack of that scent, oddly enough, kept him grounded in the physical world. Because of her, the Nowhere was no more. The children were quiet. No more dreams. No more suffering. They helped her with that.

  And that eased the survivor’s guilt.

  Cyn swam into the deep and stayed under for a full minute. She emerged next to him and wrapped her arms around him. He thought about the diver, the one with the biomite body that went to the bottom of the ocean. He was the man that converted his body into biomites.

  Like he built it.

  And despite the bathwater temperature of the ocean, Danny felt a chill. He’d been missing the obvious.

  That night, he found one of the invitations he’d received to the Institute, the one that lured him in to be captured. It was from Jonathan Deer.

  Danny held it up to the mirror and read the last name.

  And began to laugh.

  Another door opened; this time a boy about the age of thirteen stepped out. One by one the children of the Nowhere stepped out of the fabricating tanks, their eyes wide with wonder. Born again into the physical world, their bodies just like they left them on the island or in the wilderness.

  Only now they were better.

  They were made of biomites, no different than flesh. Special biomites the government couldn’t see. The same biomites that composed Jonathan’s body, the body he fabricated himself so he could leave the body of flesh he despised. This one, the fabricated one, the body of biomites, felt more like his body than Harold Ballard’s body ever did.

  And Jonathan could use this body to look like anyone he wanted. Become whoever he wanted. He had morphed his face and body to look like many different people, had taken on many different names to make this day happen.

  But inside, he had never changed.

  The technicians went to the children, welcomed two hundred and three children to the world. Jonathan remained in place, eyes on the last tank at the end of the line, the door still cracked and unmoving. His heart thudded like falling stones.

  He drifted through the crowd, not hearing, not seeing, watching only one tank, the only one not to open.