Ashes of Foreverland (17 page)

He tasted the pain. And that was good. It was real.

Too often, he had awakened to find himself in the throes of reality confusion, not sure if he was indeed in the flesh or Foreverland. It was difficult to trust life when he didn't know where he was. Or who.

Pain, he had learned, tasted different in the flesh. It was immediate and fresh. It grounded him. Made him real. If he didn't taste the cold burn, he knew he had awakened in Foreverland.

Did that matter?

The cell door was unlocked. Gramm was still dressing as he skipped down the hallway and took the waiting elevator to the pool.

Chlorine stung his nostrils.

Gramm raked his thinning hair and watched Tyler swim another lap in the Olympic pool. His strokes were long and methodical. Gramm waited with a towel and an open robe. The old man climbed out of the water, his flesh soft and puckered, like soaked leather. It was gray and patchy, moles dotting his hairless chest.

Only his forehead was red and puffy.

“Thank you.” He took the towel.

A pool of this size and quality was unheard of in a correctional facility. But the warden seemed to see it Tyler's way.

We all do.

An inmate met them at a small table against the wall, placed two mugs in front of them, poured coffee and slid a plate of fresh fruit toward Tyler. They watched three other men begin maintenance on the pool.

Tyler chewed like he swam: slow and methodical. “You are aware of what has happened?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Gramm sipped the coffee, watching the men untangle the hose and test the water. He didn't meet Tyler's eyes, but felt the tension emanating from the old man's chest, felt the twist in his gut. Felt his pain, his fear.

It had been that way ever since Gramm had received biomite remediation. It was experimental, the state's attempt at rehabilitation. He volunteered and would get time off his sentence by taking biomites. Days later, he sensed thoughts that weren't his own, moved his fingers when he hadn't wanted to.

Felt the probing of another mind.

And then the barrier between Tyler and Gramm dropped like a curtain. The illusion of their separation—that they were individuals—evaporated. Like fingers, they belonged to a hand.

The hand of God.

Tyler had synced their brain biomites. Gramm watched him do the same to the guards, the staff and even the warden, watched him slowly take control. The takeover happened years ago.
Seems like yesterday.

“Alessandra is on schedule,” Gramm said. “She'll sleep, I promise. She will become the host.”

Tyler hummed. Alessandra was happy. She was satisfied, drifting toward a blissful state of open awareness. Soon, she would be sleeping. She would become the unknowing host of Foreverland.

“And Danny and Cyn?” Tyler said.

He wasn't asking. He knew what had happened. Gramm had promised that it wouldn't. And now, for a second time, the kids were gone. He didn't know how. Or why.

They need to be terminated.
He wanted to say it. Instead, he let the thought linger for Tyler to see.

“There is an infection in Foreverland, Gramm. A virus.”

Tyler wiped his mouth thoughtfully.

“I've assured Patricia that everything is under control, that these complications were not unexpected. I don't want her to worry, you see. But Alessandra has received information she should not be receiving. She saw a photo of the child, you see, so let's not be naïve. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I believe it is Reed; let's accept that. He has been communicating with them.”

“But there's been no communication, I assure you. No email, phone calls, or texts. His presence has been nonexistent since his death. There's just no evidence he exists. It's just not possible. He's dead, sir.”

“And mail?”

“Pardon me?”

“You've been monitoring the mail, as well?”

Gramm hadn't thought of that. A letter wouldn't be detected, it would have to be intercepted. That wouldn't be difficult to do, he just hadn't thought of it.

“Alessandra has been receiving dubious mail and photos of the island through magazines and false advertisements, correct?”

Gramm nodded.

“Our perpetrator is using outdated means. Surely he knows we've discovered it by now—a very audacious move to send her a photo of the child. He wanted us to know that, I believe. He wanted us to know that his pieces are in place. The question is, where is he? Mmm? Where is Reed?”

“I just...I don't see how he could be anywhere.”

“You mean you don't see him?”

“Correct.”

“So what you don't see doesn't exist?”

“That's not what I'm saying. It's just, there's no evidence he exists.”

“The evidence is right in front of us, Gramm. Let's move past the doubt and accept that we've been outplayed and answer the question. If you can't see him, does that mean he doesn't exist?”

“Not necessarily.”

“If you can't see him, then where could he be?”

The old man chewed the last cube of cantaloupe and waited for an answer. Waited for Gramm to say it first.

If you can't find someone in Foreverland, they can only be in one place.

“The Nowhere doesn't exist,” Gramm said. “Not anymore.”

“There is always a Nowhere. We can't be so arrogant to think that we have obliterated it. There will always be a boundary, a perimeter outside the realm of knowing, where nothing exists. And where nothing exists, everything exists.”

Gramm felt nauseous. “I don't believe it,” he muttered. “There is no Nowhere.”

“What we believe does not shape reality.”

“I beg your pardon?”

A wry smile curled the corner of the old man's mouth like the dry twist of a senescing leaf.

“What we believe doesn't shape reality?” Gramm stammered. “I thought...”

Belief was the basis of the new reality, the creation of Foreverland. The inner reality that Harold, Tyler's son, had created was based on his imagination. The inner reality that Patricia, Tyler's wife, had created was the result of her imagination. What she believed came true. The Foreverland she hosted was her mind; she made the rules of its existence. She invented the physics by which all of life had to abide.

What we believe becomes our reality!

“There are other forces at work, Gramm. In this case, I believe that other force to be Reed. And while our reality is shaped by our convictions, it cannot bend the unbendable truth, the true nature of existence, that Reed is throwing chaos into our well-laid plans. We need to deal with it. We cannot close our eyes and wish him away. In this case, we deal with life on life's terms.”

“But how could he exist?”

“Ah, yes. How?” Tyler pushed his plate away. An inmate swept it up and replaced it with a fresh cup of coffee. “You recall how Reed was introduced to Foreverland when he was first brought to the island?”

Of course. Reed was the boy that refused to take the needle, the one that stole Harold's body.

“But Reed didn't destroy Foreverland.” Tyler picked up Gramm's thoughts. “Who destroyed Harold's Foreverland?”

It was Reed's girlfriend. Lucinda.

That was the true anomaly. Her memory escaped Reed when he was brought to the island. That memory was intact, a fully embodied awareness that woke up in Foreverland. She went from being a memory to a conscious being.

In Harold's mind!

She fled to the Nowhere, the gray static where nothing survived. She lived out there and watched the boys and girls arrive in Foreverland to play their games before they were sucked into the Nowhere themselves, where they were pulled apart, their skins left behind for the old men and women to inhabit.

“Is it not a coincidence, then,” Tyler continued, “that it is Reed that haunts us?”

“What are you saying?”

“Maybe Lucinda didn't escape his memory in the first place. Maybe he was capable of sending her there, whether he was aware of it or not. And we underestimated him, Gramm. All this time, he was the one that ruled the Nowhere, not Lucinda.”

They always thought Danny was the intelligent threat. Now there was the possibility that Reed had somehow survived in Foreverland without a physical body.

Could survive in the Nowhere.

If it is Reed, we have indeed been duped.

“The next question,” Tyler said, “is what is he planning?”

“Revenge.”

“Too shallow. Vengeance is for children, and a child cannot play this game. There is something larger at stake, a whole new universe. No, these are calculated disruptions. He's patient. And there's a pattern, I believe.”

“Perhaps we're not looking at it from the right angle.” The words spilled from Gramm's mouth as if they were not his thoughts.

“Precisely. We are not seeing the pattern because we are not looking at it the right way.”

They finished their coffee.

The table was cleared. The pool was clean. Just the hum of the pumps filled the silence.

“What would Reed want, if not vengeance?” Tyler pondered.

“Lucinda.”

The old man snapped his fingers, nodding with a smile. “True love is quite a motivator, yes. But what else would he want?”

“Justice.”

“Yes, justice. His perception is that a great injustice has been done and he is the equalizer, that he will right the wrong.”

“What injustice is he after?” Gramm asked. It was obvious, but he had asked it, the words tumbling out as if they did not belong to him, once again.

“Sacrifice, Gramm. Revolution requires sacrifice, it has always been thus. And who perceives injustice more greatly than the ones that have been sacrificed?”

“The children.”

In the making of Foreverland, children had been forced to leave their bodies and were sentenced to the eternal Nowhere.
But don't they realize we are creating a new universe, an entirely new reality? Even the physical universe demands a price for its creation. There are black holes that gobble light, there are volcanoes and asteroids and predators and prey. Sacrifice is the nature of creation. Even children.

“Bring her to me,” Tyler said.

“Alessandra?”

“Yes. Grant her the interview she requested.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“I want to make contact with her, see where she is, feel her out. See her from another angle. The sooner she sleeps, the sooner she is ready for Foreverland. We don't know where Reed is, Gramm. We don't know what he's doing, and time is not on our side.”

“When do you want to see her?”

The old man stood. “Soon.”

That was all he said. His guards appeared, the two he most relied on. His personal attendants.

“What if we fail?” Gramm said. “Contacting her could make her unravel into madness. Maybe Reed is planning that you'd do this.”

“Maybe.”

A cold chill passed through Gramm. It didn't emanate from the old man this time.

Tyler eschewed the wheelchair Melfy was pushing and shuffled away holding her elbow instead, like he had all the time in the world. But if time were currency, the old man was nearly broke. Yet he walked like a prince.

A prince that would become a king.

The old man stopped at the door. “Maybe we're already in Reed's Foreverland and don't know it yet.”

He was joking, of course. They couldn't be in a Foreverland without knowing it. Certainly not in Reed's mind.

Gramm twisted the webbing between his finger and thumb.

The pain was good.

ADMAX Penitentiary, Colorado

T
he table was metal.

Cold.

Alex rubbed her hands on her thighs. But it wasn't the table or the metal chair that drove a shiver deep inside. It was the white light. It was the putty walls with hairline fractures. It was the smell of suffering.

This was the Alcatraz of the Rockies.

She'd been in federal prisons before, even the extant Russian gulags and Nazi gas chambers, where ghosts tugged at her soul. But this...this felt colder, like apparitions floated around the table, taking turns sitting in the empty chair across from her.

She'd flown out of New York the same day she got the invitation, and stayed in the nearest hotel for two days. Now she tapped her toe and rubbed her thighs for warmth.

She spread the folders on the table to get her mind off the chill and organized two stacks of photos that still smelled of new ink. In one stack, there were photos of a tropical island, the palms tall and bending, the grass green and lush. The other stack contained desolate hills and harsh living and gray skies.

The walls shuddered.

Momentarily, the floor jiggled like gelatin, the colors smeared. Lately things had been a little off, like a camera constantly trying to autofocus. She rubbed her eyes. When she opened them, a door was open in the anteroom.

Through the wire-mesh glass, Alex watched a guard enter, his belly filling the doorway. He was followed by an old man dressed in a saggy blue shirt and loose-fitting pants. The hunch between his shoulders caused him to look at the floor. He was followed by another guard, this one female. She held the old man's elbow.

Alex stood. The legs of the chair raked the concrete.

The big guard held the interview room door open. The old man's slippers scuffed the floor. He paused at the empty chair, wheezing. The guards remained until he waved his knobby hand.

As if dismissed.

“Dr. Ballard?” Alex said.

The old man blinked slowly, lazily. The gray eyes rested on her. His nostrils flared. He tipped his head, examining her as a collector might evaluate a new possession. His eyes appeared to smile, but his lips remained a grim slit beneath a lumpy nose.

“I'm Alex Diosa. Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.”