The Annihilation of Foreverland Read Online Free PDF Page A

vision to use cutting edge technology – revolutionary ideas – to help people like you, Reed.”
    “I didn’t ask for help.”
    “Yes, you did. You just don’t know it.”
    “I don’t know much of anything, thanks to you.”
    The Director ignored the insult. “You’re a kid, Reed. You don’t know anything about life and your place in it. And it’s a damn shame to see a kid like you with so much potential just waste away to nothing. I can’t accept a world that turns its back on people that need help, Reed. I can’t. I won’t.”
    Reed realized the floor was slowly rotating. His view of the Mansion was slightly askew from when he arrived. Eventually, they’d be turning back towards the dormitory and the Yard .
    “Why do you think I brought you here, Reed?”
    “You know I don’t know that.”
    The Director was nodding. He knew that Reed couldn’t make sense of the multitude of memories that crowded his mind; memories they both knew were implanted in Reed’s head to keep him confused, to keep him from remembering his past.
    The Director put his drink on a small table and opened the doors beneath it. He pulled out a small cage squirming with oversized cockroaches. The parrots flapped madly, squawking. Feathers floated out of the cage.
    “You think I brought you here to torture, mmm?”
    “It’s crossed my mind.”
    “You think I get my jollies by filling an island with young boys to torture?” He popped the lid and reached inside. The cockroaches hissed. “You think that’s me?”
    “I don’t know who you are, Director. Like you said, I don’t even know who I am.”
    A wingless cockroach clung to the Director’s finger, blowing air from the spiracles on its abdomen to hiss loudly. He held it close to his face. The cockroach hunched over and went quiet.
    “I like you, Reed. You remind me of myself, all full of piss and vinegar. For all I know, you’re refusing the lucid gear just to spite me, to spite Mr. Smith. And I can respect that. I mean, Jesus lord, you’ve withstood some discomfort, son. I don’t think I could’ve done it when I was your age and I was one tough son of a bitch. You believe that?”
    There was a long pause. The Director turned his hand over; the cockroach clung to it upside-down.
    Reed answered, “Believe what?”
    “That I was a tough S-O-B?”
    “Again, I don’t know you, sir.”
    “Yes, you do, Reed.” The Director glared, intensely. “You know me.”
    Reed turned away. He didn’t know the Director, but that look told him everything he needed to. You know what I do.
    The Director plucked the cockroach off his hand. It threw a fit, hissing and scratching for a grip. He pinched it by the abdomen. The birds jumped to the branch nearest the cage, their beaks jawing open and close, open and close. The Director dangled the cockroach just out of their reach. Feathers flew.
    The cockroach hissed and hissed, and then it ended with its exoskeleton crunching loudly in the curved beak of the larger bird. The Director took a sip of his drink, watching the bird pull half the insect’s body, legs flailing, out of its mouth with its claw, chewing on it like popcorn.
    “What makes you so tough, Reed?”
    “I don’t know , sir. Maybe my father was a Navy SEAL.”
    The Director stepped directly in front of Reed. They were eye to eye, only inches apart. Scotch was on his breath. “Every single boy that’s been to the island has taken the lucid gear the very first time they go to the Haystack. Not one has resisted, and you’ve done it… how many times, Reed?”
    Shrug.
    “Twenty-five,” the Director said. “You get it wrong again, I’ll slap you.”
    He stayed uncomfortably closer, staring. The bird grinding the insect into bite-sized pieces.
    Reed knew how he resisted, but how did he tell the man responsible for all the misery around him that it was a dream that told him not to take the needle? Sounds crazy, but what doesn’t?
    It happened when he woke up in the lab