Ashes of Foreverland Read online

  “What happened to the money?”

  “What?”

  “After the rings fell apart, what happened to the money?”

  “Authorities got it, mostly. Used it to set up a Foreverland fund to help the survivors. They’re a little cuckoo with the hole in the head and everything.”

  Geri put a finger gun to her forehead.

  “Where’s the rest of it?” Alex asked.

  “Rest?”

  “You said ‘mostly’. Where’s the rest of the money?”

  “Some of it went to fund the Institute.” She avoided looking at Alex, knowing that was where things got weird, and flipped through the pages on her lap. “I got it noted in there somewhere. There were also a number of accounts that went missing, which they figure was moved when Harold disappeared.”

  “How much?”

  “Millions.” Geri flicked the photo on Alex’s lap. “Twisted pups, right?”

  Alex heard the rumors, she knew the story about the Ballard family, but no more than the general public. Most of it sounded like science fiction and the family no more than characters with split personalities. If pressed, she didn’t believe most of it. It was tabloid fodder.

  But now it was sitting on her lap. There were documents from reputable sources, things no one would know, from people she trusted.

  A quiver of fear shot through her midsection and lit up the nerves in her arm. Her hands began to shake, coffee spilled through the lid. She pretended to sneeze, clasping her fingers together.

  Geri looked at her phone and explained freelance work was picking up. She threw her bag over her shoulder. “I can still do some research for you, if you need me.”

  “I need to pay you.”

  “I’ll bill you with PayPal.”

  Alex looked at the folders, careful not to release her hands. They would shake if she let go. What’s wrong with me?

  The trees began to quiver. A rogue breeze swept through the park. Alex slammed the folders down before the papers ended up littering the park. A crowd roared somewhere, but she knew better. There wasn’t a crowd.

  She closed her eyes.

  Geri sneezed as the dust rode past them.

  Alex was staring down, waiting for the wind to die, but losing track of time. Time seemed to be doing that—speeding up and slowing down. Had she been staring at her lap for one minute or one second?

  “What happened at the Institute?” Geri was still there. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Getting old. I don’t recommend it.”

  “I heard a rumor about you. Want to hear it?” She waited, but continued without Alex’s consent. “Rumor is you tripped out, tried to activate some enhancement during the tour that short-circuited your senses. Like pushing 240 volts through a hair drier, you know.”

  Alex chuckled. She didn’t respond because it was stupid. But then the time lapse thing happened again and she lost track of how long she’d been chuckling, how long Geri had been standing.

  “Why do you want to do this?” Geri pointed at the folders.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is heavy. Why do you want to get involved? You’re getting old, like you said.”

  There was a time when that would’ve pissed her off. Now she couldn’t disagree. She was sitting in the park trying not to let someone see her hands shake. Why am I doing this?

  “You ever feel an untold story?” she said.

  “What?”

  “It’s a journalist’s gut feeling, a sort of sixth sense you develop when there’s more to a story than what’s being presented, a piece that wants to be told, that wants you to know it. That wants you to tell others.”

  “That’s what this is all about?” Geri tapped the folders.

  “Yes.”

  “Seems pretty open and shut to me. Old people with money and poor people with something they want. A tale as old as time.”

  Alex wasn’t sure about that. She was letting her instincts lead the way because something was out there, an untold story that even the secrets didn’t know. She felt it at the Institute, a wave welling up in the ocean, something just below the surface. A monster in the deep and she was sitting directly over it in a little boat.

  The wind had died.

  Geri said goodbye. She was running late for another appointment. Alex sat with the folders on her lap until her coffee was cold. She opened her briefcase and placed all of Geri’s research on top of the torn travel agency photo and National Geographic.

  She stopped.

  It took a moment to find the photo in Geri’s folder. She placed it on the bench, side by side with the travel agency photo and National Geographic.

  The exact same island.

  The monster in the deep.

  13. Alessandra

  Upstate New York

  The backyard felt like carpet. Deep, lush green carpet.

  Alex slid her shoes off, wiggled her toes, turned her face to the sky like a sunflower and listened to her call go to voicemail.

  “This is Shane Lee, director of photography at National Geographic. I can’t take your call right now. Please leave your name and number. Thank you.”

  This time, she decided to leave a message. “Shane, this is Alex Diosa. We have a mutual friend, Amy Ferris at The Washington Post. I had a question about a photographer in one of your back issues. I won’t take much of your time, please give me a call.”

  She continued her walk to the vegetable garden while thumbing a text to Mr. Lee. If she didn’t hear back by the next day, she’d call again. Some folks never returned a call until after the third message.

  How did he get that shot of the Foreverland island? And why was a travel agency using it, a travel agency that wasn’t returning her calls, either?

  First, find the photographer.

  The lilacs were spent but still fragrant. Weeds choked the garden. A month ago, it was as clean as the driveway. That was before Geri delivered a gold mine in Central Park.

  Alex rolled her shoulders. Knots were bunching up beneath her shoulder blades and a perennial ache took root in her spine, keeping her awake when she did make it to bed. She didn’t need a chiropractor. She fell on her knees and sank in the composted soil; puffs of organic dust filled her nostrils.

  Just a little horticultural therapy.

  The weeds easily came out. She crawled to the next row and recalled playing in the garden while her mother pulled weeds, setting up dolls and rolling cars between the stalks. She’d sit in the shade of sweet corn and pretend it was a forest.

  She was halfway down the third row when she noticed something yellow tucked between the tomato plants. Sweat stung her eyes. She wiped her face with the bottom of her shirt, but everything seemed a little out of focus.

  Samuel’s car rolled up the driveway.

  “Hey.” His tie was loose, his collar open. He dropped his leather briefcase on the ground. “What are you doing?”

  She got up and wiped her hands on her thighs.

  “Got a call from the Institute today,” he said. “Know anything about it?”

  “What?”

  “They said you were dropping the lawsuit.”

  “I...I told you, Samuel, I don’t want to sue.”

  “Nah, nah, nah, that’s not what this is about.” He tugged the knot on his tie. “You’re angling.”

  “What?”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Samuel, I don’t like the way you’re talking to me. I told you in the hospital I didn’t want to sue.”

  “You’re trying to go back there.”

  She stepped out of the garden and pushed all the weeds together. The ground swayed. Am I dehydrated?

  The Institute wasn’t supposed to tell him she was negotiating an interview with their executives. We drop the lawsuit, I come back for another tour. And this time I see Patricia.

  It was a long shot.

  “We’re not doing this,” he said. “You’re not going back. Write whatever you want, yo
u’re not going back to the Institute.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “I’m worried.” His hands were on his hips, jaw set. The words didn’t match the body language. For a second, he looked like someone entirely different, like a man ready to break something in half.

  “I need some water.”

  She went into the shade of the garage. Samuel came out with a bottle of water. He set up a chair and watched her drink until she waved him off.

  “I’m all right. Get out of your suit; we’ll talk later.”

  He paused, unsure if she would be all right. Or just didn’t trust leaving her alone. Eventually, he went inside. Alex finished the water but still felt wobbly.

  Her phone buzzed. Alex took it on the third ring.

  “You busy?” Geri asked.

  “No, I’m fine. What do you got?”

  “I got more weird for you.”

  Something squeaked. Samuel was rolling the wheelbarrow into the backyard, the axles squealing for oil. He loaded the mound of weeds, significantly more than she thought. Have I been out there this long?

  The sky had cleared, clouds on the horizon. Everything was back in focus and she felt good again. Normal. Just needed water.

  “I’m sending over more notes,” Geri said. “This Ballard family is a bunch of dysfunctional geniuses. You should consider writing a book on them. At the very least, a novel. They’re like characters out of a science-fiction movie.”

  Alex had been through her notes. She was having the same thoughts.

  “The father’s been in a maximum-security prison for over thirty years. He was only sentenced to twenty years.”

  “Twenty?”

  “Yeah, twenty.”

  “So, why is he still incarcerated?”

  “It gets a little murky there. Best I can find is that his sentence was extended twice, but there’s no reason.”

  “Even bad behavior doesn’t extend your sentence.”

  “See what I mean?”

  “Can I get an interview?”

  “I made some calls, talked to a few people, but it doesn’t sound good. He doesn’t take visitors.”

  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.

  14. Tyler

  ADMAX Penitentiary, Colorado

  Tyler 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.

  ——————————————

  Hot 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.”