The Annihilation of Foreverland

began again. “And now you need to get out of bed, son! You’ve been sleeping for two damn days while we’ve been back in the real world. We need you, Danny Boy. We’ve been holding your slot open in the game room and we’re about to drop in the standings. We can’t wait any longer.”
    “Relax, Sid.” Zin stood between them. “The kid hasn’t eaten in two days, either.”
    “Then let’s eat,” Sid said. “Get dressed, we’ll eat. We’ll game. Daylight’s burning, son.”
    Danny put his hand up to pause the ceaseless slam dance. It was hurting his head.
    “Give him some privacy,” Zin said. “Kid’s in his underwear.”
    “He was butt naked two days ago. Underwear is a step up,” Sid countered.
    “All right, well, give him a second. We’ll meet down in the cafeteria, right, Danny Boy? When you’re ready, you come down. What do you say?”
    Danny nodded with his eyes closed. He listened to Zin push them out. The chaos faded down the hallway. Danny dropped his head on the pillow. He needed some silence, just enough space to let the sand settle in his head. The last grains were falling into place.
    We found you.

    Mr. Jones was the happiest Danny had ever seen him.
    No more hunching over. He walked upright and smiled all the time. He was proud of Danny, he said so every day. Looked like he was about to cry once or twice. Even the other Investors took notice. They shook Mr. Jones’s hand and congratulated him, like he’d done something himself. Mr. Jones stood up and shook their hand s back vigorously. Once, when he was walking with Danny to the cafeteria, another Investor stopped to congratulate him. The old man didn’t pay much attention to Danny when he shook Mr. Jones’s hand and said, “You got a good one there, Jonsy. Lucky you.”
    “Maybe he’ll graduate in five rounds,” Mr. Jones said.
    “Wouldn’t that be something.”
    They parted ways and the old man didn’t look back. Danny kept thinking. Got a good one there… lucky you.
    Like the pick of the litter.
    Danny didn’t feel special. All he did was follow everyone else into the Haystack, put the needle on his head and wake up two days later. It wasn’t like he did anything.
    Evidently, others thought different.
    He got high-fives in the game room, and those that didn’t raise their hand were staring. Zin was out front, making room for them to walk to the central game dock where Sid and the others were waiting. Danny strapped on the gear and felt the pressure of half the game room gathering around to watch.
    “Word gets around,” Zin said, pulling on his gloves. “Don’t disappoint.”
    And he didn’t.
    Danny took control of the game and Sid let him. Like before, he didn’t feel like he was doing anything special, it just happened. He thought faster and clearer. He knew where his enemy was going, like he knew their thoughts. He’d operated with the efficiency of a computer, and when he snuck into the enemy camp and put a bullet through the last one’s throat, the entire game room erupted.
    He forgot they were even there.

    Danny had discussed the first round with Mr. Jones, how he opened his eyes and what he saw. Mr. Jones listened, jotting down the details on a clipboard. When Danny was finished, he asked him to start from the top and go through it one more time, just in case there was something he was missing. “It’s sort of like dreams, Danny Boy,” he said. “The more you think about them, the more you remember. So one more time, my boy.”
    The more he remembered. That was the strange thing. Danny had the sense he got a bunch of his memories back when he was inside the needle, but now he couldn’t remember them. Just something about summer camp and the FBI.
    Danny got the feeling Mr. Jones just wanted to hear about it again. He added a few more details about people flying and the weird creatures that spawned from the ground ( Oh, yeah, and the Millennium Falcon had crashed; weird, huh? ).
    “That’s good. Good.” When Danny stared at the floor, twisting his fingers, Mr. Jones said, “Anything else?”
    “No,” Danny said. “No, that’s it.”
    But there was something else. He left out the girl. That felt secret and a gut-feeling decided to keep that part to himself. He waited another week before he did what the girl asked him to do.
    Danny went to the beach.

11
    Danny found the narrow path somewhere near the Haystack.
    It meandered without apparent direction. Clearly one less traveled.
    Palm