The Annihilation of Foreverland

Danny thought it was anger fading from her expression.
    Her fists were clenched. “What are we going to do… to make all this end?”
    An old man was getting out of the pool. He wrapped a towel over his shoulders and waved to someone back at the Mansion. A young man ran down the wide, curving steps off the balcony. Parker.
    “I’ll figure something out before the next round,” Danny said. “Can you bring me back here?”
    “Yes, but it’ll have to be like the last time… just look for a fight and I’ll get you back.”
    Danny looked across the island at the Haystack where Sid’s body was twenty feet away from his. “That shouldn’t be too hard.”
    The random voices began penetrating the walls and the grainy mist twisted across the floor, obscuring the view below.
    “There isn’t much… time. You need to figure something out… fast.”
    “I know,” he said. “I know.”
    The light began to fade.
    “Goodbye, Danny Boy.”
    The fog swirled around him. Her red hair faded to pink. “Wait! What’s your name?”
    The voices were louder, one after another. The gray fog thickened, wrapping him in a cocoon of silky darkness. The voices got farther away. Danny slid back to the space between Foreverland and the Haystack.
    Just before he felt his flesh and the hard concrete on his back, he heard one last word from far away.
    Lucinda.

ROUND

Real Estate Tycoon Missing at Sea

    LAS VEGAS , Nevada . – Local real estate and business billionaire, Franklin Constantino, 82, was reported missing after taking his yacht for a solo excursion out of San Francisco into the Pacific Ocean.
    Constantino had been diagnosed with lung cancer two months before his disappearance. According to one of his staff, he rarely boarded his 70’ yacht without a captain and crew, but insisted on a lone journey for some “soul searching”.
    The Coast Guard received distress calls about fifty miles off the coast but were unable to locate the ship. Evidence suggests the ship may have sunk but nothing has been confirmed.

29
    The top floor of the Chimney hummed as the electric motors began winding up the shades. Evening light – diffused by the window’s tint – filled the room.
    The Director was stretched out on a comfortable recliner. His lips began twitching before his eyes fluttered open. He stared vacantly at the black ceiling for a few moments before reaching up. He slid the needle out of the stent. He quivered. The sensation of the lubricated needle was a queer one that tickled the inside of his brain.
    He rubbed salve over the hole and sighed while the Foreverland world faded. It would take a few minutes before he felt all the way back in his body. He drummed his fingers on the cushiony armrests while the chair’s internal rolling pins massaged his back, legs and buttocks. Circulation was important after lying still for so long. When the tingling faded, he put his feet on the ground and slowly stood.
    He hadn’t eaten since he’d gone “inside the needle” (another term the boys invented) but he wasn’t thinking of food. He was thinking of what he just saw.
    He found her.
    The Director mixed a drink.
    He stooped over a telescope aimed across the empty Yard. The boys would exit the Haystack in a half hour or so. It always took them a bit longer to return to the flesh when a round had ended. After all, the Director had been doing it for years, one of the few people to master the ability to go inside the needle. They were still rookies.
    Only Danny Boy’s third round and he’d already managed to get control of his body. Maybe she was helping him, but he somehow doubted that was it. The kid was brilliant. The Director secretly wished he could somehow cryogenically freeze him for about twenty years; he could save the kid for his own personal use. But he didn’t have that technology. Not yet.
    The drink warmed him.
    She was clever, of course. He continued to underestimate her. She left that Christmas present as a clue and then sent the kid on a wild chase throughout the island. The Director already had a lot of responsibility keeping Foreverland stable, so keeping track of Danny Boy racing around was difficult. Somehow, she managed to construct a trapdoor in the Mansion and the kid found it without knowing it. By the time the Director realized what had happened, she’d collapsed the tunnel that led to the outer perimeter of the Nowhere. Out of his reach.
    She’s learning, that’s what’s happening.
    And learning was