Ashes of Foreverland (11 page)

Samuel stepped into the garden to grab another pile of weeds. He waded to the end of the row and stepped between the tomatoes.

“You want me to submit a request?” Geri asked.

He picked up a yellow object, the one that was nestled in the weeds between the tomatoes. He kept his back to her and quickly threw it over the fence into the neighbor's yard.

“Hello?”

“Yes, yes,” Alex said. “File a request. I want to interview him as soon as possible. Tell them whatever you have to. I'll sign whatever, promise whatever. Let's get it started.”

“Done.”

Samuel stepped out of the garden and dumped the wheelbarrow in the back before going into the house, sweat stains on his shirt.

Alex stared at the fence.

Those neighbors were good people. They had two dogs, but no kids. Alex swore she saw him throw a plastic truck.

A little yellow plastic truck.

She was feeling dehydrated again.

ADMAX Penitentiary, Colorado

T
yler stood in front of a wide window, watching inmates play basketball and walk the track. The threat of rain sank into his joints like cold drips of mercury.

The door opened behind him. A middle-aged man in a starched white coat stepped into the room and docked a tablet next to a computer. Harvard educated, perennially optimistic and a believer in reform, he was a good man. A good doctor.

“Body of an old man,” he said. “Engine of a teenager.”

The good doctor patted the exam table. His eyes were sleepy, whiskers a few days old. He washed his hands, humming as he dried them, gently inspecting Tyler's forehead. The hole appeared to be an empty blackhead, but the surrounding flesh was puffy and red. Gramm was concerned about infection. The stent had been in place for over twenty years and there had never been a problem.

But his body was twenty years older.

“You need to stop with the needle,” the good doctor said. “You don't need it.”

“Don't lecture me.”

“Your current brain biomites are fully capable of digital transmission. There is a new biomite strain with improved frequency. It would only take a little training to make your...
connection...
without it.”

The good doctor always stuttered on the topic of Foreverland, as if the word only surfaced in his consciousness long enough to leap off his tongue.

Tyler winced when he touched the stent.

The good doctor apologized, but that's not why Tyler reacted. He liked the needle, had grown accustomed to it in the same way a long-distance runner enjoyed the burn.

Or a junkie craved the spike.

The good doctor tapped the tablet a few times. An image of Tyler's body—slightly hunched and crooked—illuminated on the wall monitor. The good doctor stared while tapping his lower lip.

He began to say something. Then froze.

Caught with an awkward expression, like a sneeze was coming, a sneeze flash-frozen on his face while his biomite-laden brain seized. It waited for a command.

Waited for Tyler.

The old man closed his eyes, drew a deep breath and let his thoughts sink into the good doctor as if he was clay. Tyler's thoughts were the fingers of an artisan penetrating his canvas. A violent shiver vibrated between his ears, an electric arc that made his brain itch. This always happened when he synced up with one of his people.

My people,
he thought.
The people that run this prison, the people that voluntarily seeded themselves with biomites. The people I own.

My people.

Tyler had hijacked them one at a time, recoded their brains like programmable processors, left suggestions in their subconsciousness, secret words that turned them catatonic, that opened their minds and allowed him to pick their thoughts like fruit. Afterwards, they had no idea a thief had run through them.

Life was so much easier when people did what you wanted.

The new biomite strain the good doctor mentioned was experimental, more research was needed to assess their stability and function. And that would take time.

Tyler didn't have time.

He didn't like experimenting. He was old and vulnerable. He was also nearing the maximum biomites allowed by the government.
No human being could be composed of more than 49.9% biomites, lest they be considered more machine than human.

The penalty was swift and eternal.

He didn't need the government sniffing around the prison. There were rumors of illegal biomites, ones the government couldn't monitor. These could be used to go over the 50% mark. In fact, an entire body could be made of them. But they were rumors.

There was no time for rumors.

“Seed a microliter of biotype Q into the brain,” Tyler said.

“Seed a microliter of biotype Q into the brain,” the good doctor repeated.

“Bypass brain-blood barrier via mucosa.”

The good doctor waited, eyes wide like a car accident was happening. “Bypass brain-blood barrier via mucosa.”

Tyler turned his attention to the wall monitor and focused on the colorations filling the brain. The right hemisphere, the creative half, the land of imagination—where Foreverland was born—was vivid and varied.

“Program a 100 ppm proliferation in the right hemisphere.”

“Program a 100 ppm proliferation in the right hemisphere.”

The good doctor turned to prepare one microliter of biotype Q that would increase Tyler's brain capacity. He inserted the seeder up his right nostril.

——————————————

H
ot tracks remained on Tyler's cheeks.

The good doctor sat on a stool, staring at the window. The wide-eyed shock was gone, but blankness still haunted him.

Gramm waited at the foot of the table.

Tyler lifted his hand. Gramm helped him sit and gave him a few minutes to sit quietly. The new seeding would need a few days to integrate. He expected more efficient wireless transmission of his thoughts, a more seamless transition into Foreverland. Still, he wasn't ready to give up the needle.

Rain streaked the window.

The good doctor maintained a glassy-eyed stare, his zombification proof that, little by little, Tyler was carving away his identity. The good doctor would return to normal, regain his own self within the hour. But there was always a little missing.

Tyler didn't hijack Gramm. He enjoyed the old-fashioned camaraderie. At the very least, he didn't want him to end up an empty glove like the good doctor.

“Alessandra has requested an interview,” Gramm said.

“What?”

“She's moving forward with her research.”

“I thought we took care of this, Gramm.”

“Her assistant keeps providing research, keeps her interested.”

“Where's she getting it?”

Gramm shook his head.

“Put a stop to it.”

“Certainly.” Gramm cleared his throat. “In the meantime, the interview...”

“Deny.”

“I think you should reconsider—”

“Deny her, Gramm. I don't want her coming here, not now. We need her to focus on normality. Acceptance. Once she realizes how happy she is, how perfect her life has become, then she'll sleep. That's all I care about.”

He trusted Gramm. His assessment was always unfiltered, unbiased and accurate. But this wasn't the time for Alessandra to know Tyler. More adjustment was needed. More acceptance.

She's our last hope, the one person capable of hosting a new reality, an endless Foreverland. Humankind will give eternal thanks for her sacrifice.

The gray sky was a smear of charcoal. A thunderhead was crawling over the distant mountain range. The men returned inside.

“Danny is going to Minnesota,” Gramm said.

“Duluth?”

“Yes.”

He turned at the shoulders. Gramm stood like a noble soldier. The good doctor remained on the stool, lower lip glistening with saliva.

“Interesting,” Tyler said. “He's looking for Cynthia.”

Gramm nodded.

“Why would he be doing that?”

“I...I don't know. I suggest we stop them both.”

“Stop them?”

“Permanently.”

“You want to terminate them?”

Gramm raked his hair and stammered. “We don't need them. Keeping them alive can only be trouble. Cynthia is, you know...contaminated.”

Tyler watched the former chemist pull the stray hairs from his fingers, watched his lips silently count. Uncertainty pained him. He was a scientist at heart; he liked control. Having the ability to eliminate Danny and Cynthia at will was too much temptation.

Tyler knew better.

Those two kids had potential. They couldn't host a Foreverland like he and Patricia wanted—certainly not like Alessandra—but they were not useless. And despite Tyler's willingness to sacrifice with callous decisiveness, he was not a cold-blooded murderer.

“No,” he said. “We'll not end them, Gramm.”

That moment of compassion would eventually be his undoing.

“Where did you find Danny?”

“He arrived in the States undetected,” Gramm said. “But we located him at Reed's last known residence.”

“Interesting. Why is he searching for Reed all of a sudden? Why now? Why in secret?”

“He spent an hour and a half inside the apartment. When he came out, he began driving and hasn't stopped.”

“How do you know it's Minnesota?”

“He programmed Cynthia's address into the GPS.”

“Where'd he get her address?”

Gramm stuttered without an answer.

Tyler turned at the sound of thunder. The skyline was hazy. “He found something in the apartment,” Tyler muttered. “Has he been in communication with anyone?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Every email, text and phone call has been verified, nothing to suggest a secret code or otherwise.”

“Reed?”

Gramm hesitated. “Reed is gone, sir.”

He wanted to say more, to argue there was no way Reed could be behind this. They knew that the boy named Reed, the one that took Tyler's son's body, no longer existed. Reed was dead.

Tyler had the proof.

The sinus on the right side of his face was beginning to throb. He was already feeling the euphoric effects of the new seeding. His thoughts felt crisper, his body thrumming with good intentions.

“Someone is guiding Danny,” Tyler said.

“There's no evidence—”

“He leaves his home, breaks communication with Santiago and goes directly to Reed's apartment? That is all the evidence we need; someone is guiding him. The young man does not take an interest in a long-dead friend out of the blue.”

“We need to stick with facts, sir. Reed is nonexistent; we have verified that. There must be another explanation.”

“Or we've missed something.”

Underestimation was not the mistake Tyler wanted to make. It seemed impossible that Reed was alive, but so did hijacking this entire prison.
My people
.

“Why would he go to Cynthia?” Tyler mused.

Gramm offered suggestions, but the old man wasn't interested. This hardly seemed threatening. It might even be beneficial. Cynthia was the girl that survived Patricia's Foreverland; she had trouble acclimating to normal life. Danny might be exactly what she needed. Maybe she would become an asset after all.

Still, why is he going? Why now?

Tyler started for the exit.

His newfound stamina was not to be wasted on pointless arguments. They would watch Danny and Cynthia, not let them out of their sight again. But now, real work needed to be done. Gramm followed him to the elevator.

They descended to the basement.

Duluth, Minnesota

C
yn didn't open letters.

There was a stack next to the coffee machine and another in a wicker basket. The bills were taken care of through a trust fund established by the Foreverland Survivor Fund, assets acquired from the old women that kidnapped them.

Cyn wasn't a survivor. She was a fighter.

But she was tired of bleeding.

The curtains were drawn, blotting out the afternoon sunlight. The television droned in the background, electric light dancing on the ceiling. She hardly watched the programs, just wanted the sound to drown out the chatter in her head.

Not chatter. Just a voice.

She had thoughts that she called her own. But she also had someone else's thoughts in her head. That was the voice she was attempting to mute
.

She dropped her foot on the floor, a sandbag thudding on the carpet. It took a minute to pull herself out of the swishing slumber. The cracks of light streaming around the front door told her it was daytime. The clock told her to get going. A meeting started in twenty minutes. And if she wasn't there, someone would come for her.

It was better, she learned, to act like a normal addict than someone with a special affliction—an identity crisis that no one would understand, that no one knew existed.

Then just kill yourself,
the voice told her.

Cyn pushed her short hair from her eyes. In the dusty light, it looked more muddy than blonde. She shoved a magazine off the low table, found the plastic prescription bottle under a newspaper and tapped out a white pill. A tiny pill.

A voice-dulling pill.

Shut up.

The voice had a name. It wasn't a name Cyn gave it because it wasn't just her imagination. The voice was someone that had a name, a name Cyn refused to acknowledge. She tried to ignore the ghost that lived in her subconscious, the identity that, without the pills, would rise to the surface like a leviathan, an old woman distorted by her nightmares, a demon with a massive maw, with row after row of teeth that wanted to devour Cyn whole.

I have a name.

Cyn wasn't bipolar. Not crazy, not unstable. The voice in her head was the old woman that kidnapped her, that dragged her out to the wilderness to steal her body.