The Annihilation of Foreverland

a problem.
    Before she infected Foreverland, it was an expanding universe that started at the sundial and extended hundreds of miles past the shoreline. The Director envisioned it encompassing the planet, the solar system, and eventually the universe. The growth was exponential and the system operated flawlessly. He had great plans for humanity’s next evolutionary step. Foreverland wasn’t just an imaginary place where the kids went to play.
    Everything was right on schedule. Until they inoculated Reed.
    He appeared to be a healthy, normal subject. As he lay in a medically induced coma – after his body healed from the car accident – they strapped him with the initial needle-piercing for false memory infusion, but when they drew his memories out, this girl had slipped out of his subconscious. Memories always ended up floating around the Nowhere like bits of chicken in a bowl of soup.
    But the girl was conscious!
    Initially, she was merely a nuisance, a cockroach that would eventually run into the bottom of the Director’s heel. But she found cover in the Nowhere where the Director was blind. And ever since then, Foreverland had been collapsing.
    The misty Nowhere was less than five miles off the shore, shrinking every day. He predicted that it would take a month to collapse all the way back to the sundial. If there was no Foreverland, the program would come to a screeching halt. The Investors would not be pleased. Not with the sums of money they were putting up.
    But Danny Boy found her and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
    It was the first time she’d stuck her neck out of the Nowhere. The Director missed it, this time. He wouldn’t the next. She wanted Danny Boy and that meant she would do it again. If he caught her – no, not if… when he caught her, he would put a stop to the collapse. And then he could co ntinue with the original plan: g et Reed inside. He knew that once Reed was inside Foreverland, he would absorb her like a memory. Because that’s what she was. She would go back inside his mind and leave Foreverland.
    And Foreverland would grow, once again.
    Why Reed had resisted all this time he still couldn’t understand. Somehow, the kid seemed to know he was the antidote to the Director’s problem. That’s why he needed Danny Boy. He needed him to tell Reed about what she was doing, what she looked like, how much she needed him. Danny Boy would apply the pressure the Director needed, he would help bring him to Foreverland.
    He swallowed the drink and mixed another.
    Someone was crossing the Yard. Reed was the first one out, clutching his hands to his stomach. There were Soldiers of Fortune that didn’t have balls half the size as his. The Director would have to get medieval, very soon. Reed would discover that every human had a breaking point.
    “Director?” the intercom called.
    “Yes?”
    “At your convenience, could you come down to the network floor? I think you’ll find this interesting.”
    He finished the drink. He was tired and already a little buzzed. But there was data to observe from Foreverland.

30
    Lucinda watched Foreverland recede.
    She knew everything about the Nowhere. She knew all the thoughts of the boys that had been there. Knew all the… suffering, too. But it was Danny Boy that cracked the system open. He showed her how to work with the code, how to see into the network that helped operate… Foreverland.
    The Nowhere fog circled the sundial as the boys went back to their bodies. And Foreverland went to sleep. Until the next round.

31
    Danny woke on the floor, shivering. His clothes were still piled up where he left them. The door of his cell was open. A sharp pain gouged his ribs as he sat up. He couldn’t remember falling before taking the needle. He got dressed and wiped something off his cheek, like snails raced across his face.
    The Haystack was empty, except for Zin.
    He was awake and sitting with his arms propped on his knees. His throat bobbed up and down like he was trying to swallow something that just wouldn’t go down.
    “Zin.” Danny squatted in front of him. “You all right?”
    A string of saliva dangled from his lip.
    Danny pulled him onto his feet. At least he didn’t have to dress him. He threw Zin’s arm over his shoulders and guided him out of the Haystack and through the woods. Zin continued to swallow at nothing until they emerged into the Yard. When daylight hit their faces, Zin looked up. Focus returned.
    “Thanks, Danny