The Annihilation of Foreverland

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    Harold found the island. He found the money.
    And he continued destroying.
    Eventually, he used his own technology to rewrite his life, erasing all his memories and the atrocities he’d committed. He came to know himself as a good-natured man that served the best interests of humanity. A man of God.
    He even shed his name.
    And became known as the Director.
    The Director knocked the book from the pedestal.
    His rage burst out like a telekinetic tidal wave, wrenching all the books from the walls and ripping out their pages and setting them on fire. The room shook and cracks opened on the ceiling, raining bits of concrete on the marble floor. He searched for an escape, a way to dissolve back into data and escape the library, to slip back into the network and find a way back into the world. He might even go back to his body and DESTROY THE BITCH THAT DID THIS TO HIM!
    But then he found himself standing in the library, again, the shelves reassembled, the cracks repaired, the books back in order. And a pedestal in the center with Harold Ballard’s book opening to play out his history.
    He experienced it again.
    And again.
    And again.

71
    Lucinda laid the trap.
    The Director was right, she was getting smarter. His only mistake, he had no clue just how much she knew. In the end, she knew everything.
    When Danny was caught in the Looping Program, she knew he was not in the real world. But it gave her access to all of the Chimney’s data. Danny was only able to see a few of the records – his and Reed’s – before he returned to the Nowhere. But Lucinda absorbed it. She knew the real purpose of the island, she knew all the Investors, and she knew the Director’s true past.
    She knew everything.
    She also knew that the Director would eventually get Reed to go inside the needle. And when he did, she would cease to exist. She would return to being a memory. She was not sad about that. After all, it was her true identity. In fact, she yearned for it. Being away from Reed had been… difficult.
    But what she couldn’t accept was the future of Foreverland and all the boys it would continue to destroy to satisfy the gluttony of men.
    While the Director ruled Foreverland – he was Foreverland – Lucinda ruled the Nowhere. She knew all the random thoughts, all the lost boys. She knew, also, the Director’s thoughts and his desire to be free. She knew the Looping Program was a dead-end, a virtual cul-de-sac with only one way in, one way out.
    She laid the trap.
    He attempted to leave the island through the only data conduit to the outside world and, like Danny, mistook the path into the Looping Program as the way out. Before he recognized his mistake, the door closed behind him, trapping him inside. Lucinda had programmed the loop with the data of all the island’s records, most importantly that of Harold Ballard. He would see his true identity, his authentic past. He would exist in the loop until he knew what he had done. As long as there was power on the island, the Director would live in the hell he created.
    Lucinda also knew that Reed’s body was beyond repair, that he would likely be physically dead. With the Director’s identity in the Looping Program, his body would be abandoned and vacant. When they embraced, he absorbed her. No longer conscious, she was part of him. Her thoughts and memories of her time in the Nowhere became part of Reed.
    He knew everything, too.
    Including her best laid plans.
    When the Director exited Foreverland, Reed couldn’t go back to his dead body. But he made his exit, as well. And entered the Director’s body at the top of the Chimney.
    My body, now.

72
    Danny was on one end of the bag. Zin on the other.
    They let it rest on the floor of the elevator until they reached ground level. Zin was blowing on his hands to warm them up. Ice crystals had formed on the bag.
    They managed to get it outside without dropping it. They slid it onto the bed of a cart. They both began blowing on their hands. Zin took the wheel. They drove away from the Chimney.
    The Yard was bustling.
    It was another day in paradise and all the boys were outside, playing cards, throwing discs and everything else. Not an Investor in sight.
    Danny checked the tablet. A few strokes of the finger told him the old men were all exactly where they were supposed to be. The Mansion.
    About half of them survived the prolonged blackout. Mr. Jones was not one of them. Most of their bodies were sick with disease or just