The Annihilation of Foreverland

he was trying to buy.
    So the Director’s argument was very compelling. The pressure they had put on Reed still had not succeeded. The Director and Mr. Smith agreed that Reed was likely to die before succumbing to it. His health was already on the decline and his time was very short. It wasn’t going to benefit Mr. Smith if he destroyed him. He was willing to try anything.
    The Director twisted the curly whiskers on his upper lip. The event behind the dormitory was taking an unforeseen turn, but Mr. Smith didn’t flinch. He watched as it unfolded. This made the Director smile. He trusts me.
    “There’s hope yet, Mr. Smith. The two are bonding. Keep them close, let them continue to develop a relationship.”
    “What about Mr. Jones? He will not be pleased with this approach.”
    “I’ll handle Mr. Jones. Danny Boy made contact with Reed’s ‘problem’ inside the needle. We can’t let that opportunity go to waste.”
    The Director didn’t lie. There was a problem. The extent of that problem, however, was not fully explained to any of the Investors. Reed’s problem was a threat to all of them. Mr. Jones, included. If Danny Boy was part of the solution, there would be no discussion about how to handle it.
    The boys behind the dormitory fell to the ground as Mr. Jones and other Investors arrived on the scene. Mr. Smith took his leave to attend to Reed.
    “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 toward s 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