The Annihilation of Foreverland Read Online Free PDF Page B

twenty-foot wide circular platform enclosed by a clear dome. Inside was a small scale layout of a war-torn city with smoldered buildings and overturned cars. Digital troops strategically stalked the cityscape and miniature helicopters rained bullets and missiles into clouds of smoke and fire.
    There was a group on each side that controlled the tiny figures and with each explosion and each death, numbers changed on the four-side scoreboard hanging from the ceiling. Names repositioned in the standings. An hour later, one team stood victorious.
    Zin smacked Danny in the chest. “We’re up.”
    The taunting started when they stepped onto the small stage vacated by the losers, a group of Middle Eastern boys in their early teens. Danny saw the other team on the opposite side of the dome – they were Russian, maybe – pulling on black gloves. Sid was trading insults with the crowd, pointing at the scoreboard and thumping his chest. Zin gave Danny a pair of gloves and knee pads.
    “No time for instruction. You’ll figure it out.”
    The gloves slid on like silk embedded with fine wire mesh. The knee pads strapped on without anything special. Sid passed out yellow-tinted goggles with embedded earbuds and miniature microphones. Danny was still playing with the goggles when he was assigned to a tower and told to keep his head down.
    “Watch and learn.” That was the only time Sid addressed Danny. “And try not to get killed, poke.”
    The game started.
    Instead of watching the action like the spectators, Danny saw it inside the goggles. The view was first person, like he was inside the dome, shrunk down to size. The goggles absorbed his vision. When he turned his head, the view changed.
    He was in a tower with a two-ton bell. For the first twenty minutes, he did what he was told, experimenting with the controls and not getting killed. He learned his movements were controlled by bending his knees. The gloves controlled his hands and weapons. After that, he watched half of his crew get slaughtered on one of Sid’s stupid ambushes.
    When there was nothing to lose, he went to the ground.
    He felt the rubble under his feet, the heat of burning automobiles. He ran from building to building and by the time he neared the action, Zin was the only one left. He was hiding inside a bunker that was about to be flamed.
    When Danny was later asked how he slaughtered the opposing team, he didn’t have a good answer. He just said that it made sense, that he didn’t realize he was intuiting the enemy’s moves and shot them with effortless accuracy and moved with the grace of a veteran assassin. He just did it.
    He sniped the last enemy from three hundreds. After that, everyone in the game room knew his name.
    There were classes, too.
    Although, like Mr. Jones said, it wasn’t really class. They talked about economics and geology and philosophy, but it was just talk. There was no homework, no tests. The instructors were the old men, of course, that insisted they exercise their whole brains when they thought about various topics, so they kept the discussion lively. The boys debated loudly, acted out their passion and shook hands when it was all over. It wasn’t bad, Danny had to admit. Without the busy-work of homework, he was interested in class.
    Sort of. Kind of.
    Strange thing, though. There was no Internet, no email, text messages or phones. There weren’t even computers. There was plenty of time for worldly things, the Investors said. Just not now.
    Occasionally, Danny would hear a bell ring three times like a gong. Then he’d see boys heading for the Haystack and sometimes leaving it. Once, someone was carted away from it. An Investor was driving a utility vehicle and another old man was on the flatbed with the boy lying down. No one said much and the Investors stared straight ahead as they drove around the dormitory toward the Chimney.
    In the first couple weeks, Danny saw the Chimney smoke three times.
     
    Danny sat with his camp