Toys Page 12

  “Now I just can’t rid myself of the sense that what they’re doing is too obvious, even for their tidy minds. I don’t believe they want anything resembling a fair fight. They’re very cerebral, and totally ruthless. The Elites have zero respect for human life. We’re skunks, insects, ciphers. As you well know, Hays.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t help more,” I said. “But I am here to do what I can.”

  “It’s fine, Hays. Well, have a good look ’round. That’s why I brought you here.”

  He waved a hand toward a military installation that was visible in the distance-a large complex of buildings, airfields, missile launchers.

  “That base there is our defensive nerve center. You’ll get to know our best people, our best minds. I happen to think they’re the world’s best minds: analytical, very creative, and, most of all, compassionate. The human race has come a long way since 7–4 Day. I hate to say it, but we’re better because of it.”

  For the first time in my life, I was struck by the contrast between the ugly modern buildings and highways in New Lake City and these landmarks from the ancient past-the spire of Salisbury Cathedral piercing the sky and the fantastic pillars of Stonehenge. Like the Old Sarum tower, they weren’t just beautiful, they were magnificent-and all built by human minds and hands, long before the sound of a machine had ever been heard. Amazing feats of architecture and engineering.

  With Elites, newer and more efficient was always better, particularly with anything built before 7–4 Day. If they hadn’t torn it down already, it was only because they hadn’t gotten to it yet.

  Sir Nigel swung around to face me.

  “Hays, I want to believe in you-in the way I believe in Lucy-so I’m setting aside my usual caution,” he said. “I’ll be blunt as to why, and it’s not flattering. I simply feel that we’ve reached a point where my people have nothing to lose. But I must bring up one more seriously troubling issue.”

  His eyes drilled into mine with a gaze that seemed older than the blunt stones we were standing on. This was the kind of lie-detector test that no machine could match. Face to face, eye to eye.

  “Did you honestly have no idea that the chap you worked for, Jax Moore, was the driving force of the genocide on 7–4 Day?” he said. “That he personally planned and carried out the murder of millions of humans?”

  It was another jolt, but my armor of numbness was getting thicker all the time.

  Seven-four Day had happened before I was born, and I only knew what all Elite kids were taught-that it was the great celebration of saving the world from human destruction, a glorious victory without any hint of cold-blooded massacre.

  As Elite children, we were also taught that all humans were savage and evil and, on a purely rational basis, hopeless.

  “I trusted Jax Moore for years, then found out the hard way that he’s a lying snake,” I said bitterly. “I never heard anything linking him and 7–4 Day, but I can believe it. I do believe it. Jax Moore led the attack when my mother and father were murdered.”

  Not a muscle in Sir Nigel’s face flickered, and his eyes stayed locked on mine like all-knowing magnets.

  “Then, of course, you also weren’t aware that your charming wife, Lizbeth, was Jax Moore’s main accomplice,” he said.

  There was no amount of armor that could hold that shock off. I stared back at Sir Nigel, my mouth opening in disbelief.

  “Is-is this some kind of a trick?” I stammered.

  “Nothing of the sort. I couldn’t be more serious.”

  “But-it’s impossible! It can’t be true. She isn’t old enough, for one thing.”

  “Quite easy to prove to you, I’m afraid. I have documented her actions myself. Lizbeth’s much older than you think, Hays. Much, much older. Decades older.”

  What he saw in my face must have finally satisfied him, because he gave a grim little nod.

  “Right, then,” he said. “Let’s get on to London. There are people waiting to meet you. You’re seen as something of a savior there, lad. I sincerely hope that you are.”

  Chapter 65

  Well, I definitely knew that I wasn’t a savior in any way, shape, or form. On the other hand, I’d been wrong about so much lately, and maybe there were more secrets about myself I still needed to learn.

  At any rate, I was finally in London, and it was a gorgeous city, probably the most beautiful I had ever visited. Clearly, it had the most history.

  “I could go for a stiff whiskey just now. Perhaps a double,” Sir Nigel muttered as Lucy and I strode with him through a corridor in the famed Tower of London.

  I could have used a stiff drink myself. I was still reeling from the bomb, true or not, that he’d dropped on me about Lizbeth. But I did my best to shake off the shock and get ready for the grilling I was about to receive from England’s top government and military leaders.

  The meeting chamber’s massive wooden doors were guarded by a pair of the Tower’s yeomen warders, in ceremonial uniforms and tall hats-which seemed slightly odd to me, if not downright silly. No matter what I thought, however. They stepped smartly aside, opening the doors, and Sir Nigel led us to the front of the room.

  At least a hundred people were waiting in there, and heavily armed soldiers were stationed all around the perimeter.

  Savior? I thought. I don’t think so, ladies and gents. Just another human being under a death sentence.

  “You all know by now that Hays Baker is the only human who has lived and operated as an Elite Agent of Change,” Sir Nigel announced brusquely. “That and his extraordinary mental and physical abilities make him of immense value to us. So let us waste no time-”

  Suddenly, the huge doors swung open again and four of the yeomen warders appeared.

  But now they crouched in combat position-leveling rifles they must have kept hidden in their baggy uniforms.

  Could this be possible? Clearly, it was.

  “Elites!” Lucy screamed, with the loathing of a woman shrieking “Rats!” in a four-star restaurant. The room instantly erupted in a spray of murderous gunfire. The British soldiers, taken by treacherous surprise, barely had time to swing their weapons into action before they were cut down in shameful numbers. The crowd of leaders, cursing and shouting, scrambled for cover where none was to be found.

  I slammed my shoulder into Lucy and Sir Nigel, sending us all skidding across the floor into an alcove-a nanosecond or less before the wall where we’d been standing exploded in a hailstorm of dust and plaster.

  “It’s you they’re after,” Sir Nigel yelled. “For God’s sake, run! We can’t afford to lose you! You’re the most important person in this room. Run!”

  But there was no place to run to. The alcove was blind, without doors or windows, and the Elites had us pinned in there with their blistering cross fire.

  Obeying Sir Nigel as best I could, I sprang up in a charge at the alcove’s rear wall and crashed against it with all my strength. The old plaster was thick, but I punched on through to the next room-and rammed straight into a row of standing suits of armor.

  The metalware went flying in all directions with a clatter like a truckload of cymbals dumped off a high-rise building.

  Lucy was right behind me. “We have to jump!” She panted, yanking me to my feet, pointing toward a row of arched windows. “Don’t argue. Don’t think about it.”

  Just then, the Elites’ laser bursts hissed around us, spanging off the cascading armor and smashing glassed-in displays of ancient pikes and broadswords and such.

  “Yes, sir, ma’am!” said I.

  Chapter 66

  Savior? I don’t think so. I doubted I could even save myself right now. And why should Elites consider me so undesirable-just because I knew some of their secrets? Or was it Lucy they were really after?

  At any rate, Lucy went left and I went right, both of us diving headfirst through windows that were located only a few feet apart. We came down in a shower of glass, landing on opposite sides of a steep tile roof. Without pau
sing, I bounced off it and into a quad somersault, tucking and twisting to dodge the gunfire still flashing around us.

  As I spun, I caught a glimpse of Lucy bravely leaping over the Tower’s outside wall. A second later came the splash of her hitting the river far below.

  Thank God-underwater was the safest place she could be right now.

  The warders were still following us and shooting, their ridiculous hats sailing off in the breeze as they jumped out onto the roof. I leaped forward and landed on a turret wall, then I scuttled around to its far side.

  Next, I threw myself backward off the turret in another long, twisting flip and landed on top of the Tower’s outside wall, now facing the majestic Thames. I ran along the wall, sucking in air, straining to reach maximum speed.

  The afternoon fog had turned to drizzle, and the surface of the huge bridge cable where I landed next was slippery with moisture. The awful sound of laser fire still hissed with menace in my ears.

  But this was an acrobatic act that even the Elite assassins couldn’t follow. If I succeeded.

  I dashed across the bridge’s top span and slid on my feet down the cable on the other side. I was like a kid on a snowboard-being shot at!

  I finally saw Lucy again, dripping wet and running across the lower bridge past astonished motorists and a few stiff-upper-lipped Brit pedestrians.

  “Don’t even slow down,” she shouted up to me.

  “Couldn’t if I wanted to!” I called back. Then I dropped thirty feet or so to the pavement and continued to follow her lead. I had no idea yet why she was so important to the resistance, but she had certainly been a lifesaver for me.

  So far.

  Chapter 67

  Somehow we managed to get to shelter at a high-priority safe house run by MI7, right there in London. I had wanted to see the House of Lords, Westminster Abbey, the Tate-maybe even take a train to Paris-but I was stuck in an apartment under armed guard.

  “What’s going on with you?” Lucy finally asked, clinking her fork onto her dinner plate. “You’ve got to be starving. But you’re picking at your food like a weight-conscious canary. And you’re looking at me like I’m the cat.”

  It was our second day in the safe house, an apartment somewhere near Hyde Park that had an anonymous facade in a block-long building row that looked just like dozens of others around it. But were we actually safe here?

  I had no idea, but I doubted it. The Elites were definitely on our trail now, and they were very good at this kind of skunkhunt.

  The inside of the apartment was spacious and nicely furnished, complete with a servant android-who reminded me of Metallico, except female, much more polite, and armed. The gun-toting robot had set out a curious spread of roast beef, mutton, vegetables, mashed potatoes, scones, and jelly. Plus, a stiff drink for each of us.

  But my appetite simply wouldn’t kick in, and I decided to speak my mind, even though it might create a breach between Lucy and me.

  “Did you know about Lizbeth being in on 7–4 Day?” I asked. “You did, didn’t you, Lucy? You knew all this time, but never told me?”

  She kept looking at me steadily. “Yes, I’m afraid I did, Hays.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I knew Sir Nigel would want to handle it himself. He told me as much.”

  I set down my fork. Actually, I threw it at my plate.

  “I’m sick to death of being jerked around,” I said. “And you seem to be doing a lot of the jerking, sister.”

  “I’m sorry, Hays, I truly am. But that’s just the way things have gone so far. This is a crisis situation, no? It’s not me who wants to deceive you.”

  “Got any more little secrets to share? I’d like to know all of them now.”

  “Secrets?” she said scornfully. “If you want to talk about trust, we have a lot more reason not to trust you than the other way around. You were an Elite bastard until very recently. You were, you are, married to Lizbeth.”

  Lucy stood up abruptly and stalked out of the room.

  Well, that hadn’t gotten me very far, had it? In fact, it had been a disaster. I wanted to make a bond with Lucy, but I kept messing up. We both did.

  By now I’d had some time to think about Lizbeth. Part of me kept insisting that what I’d heard so far was impossible. To start with, she was two years younger than me-born after 7–4 Day.

  Or had she been?

  I’d met her twelve years ago in New Chicago, soon after I started working at the Agency of Change. About her past before that, I only knew what she’d told me. Of course, I’d seen the marriage documents listing her birth date. But documents could easily be altered… If Nigel’s story was correct, she’d have to be at least twice my age. But Elites stayed youthful far longer than humans, and with the science work she did, she had access to the latest anti-aging technology.

  I’d taken it for granted that Lizbeth loved me, but now I remembered her cold side. Everything in her life was chosen for maximum function and efficiency. And she had turned her back on me the instant my troubles started!

  Was the woman I’d given my heart to really a cold-blooded, scheming monster? Had she devoted her earlier life to helping the Elites annihilate much of the human race?

  Then what?

  She had coolly decided she was ready to start a family, saw a promising young agent, and lied to him about everything you could lie to someone about. Even our marriage vows-had they been calculated lies too?

  Others would have to have been in on it-but there were others, like Jax Moore.

  My brain and gut were giving me the terrible news about my marriage: it had all been a rotten, stinking lie. My entire life was one big lie.

  Chapter 68

  Speaking of deluding oneself-there were always amazing toys to play with, even in an MI7 safe house. I couldn’t resist. No one can…

  With eight seconds left in the World Cup soccer game, the score stood tied, one to one. The earth trembled under my running feet from the stamping of the hundred thousand screaming fans who packed the stadium.

  I booted the ball up in a high, looping pass and charged down the grassy field to receive it back, racing fiercely against the other team-the past year’s World Cup champion from Italy.

  Twisting and feinting, I cut sharply in and out of the sprinting figures.

  Then someone slammed into my legs and knocked me rolling-one of the Italian players had blindsided me.

  The crowd’s roar rose to a fury and the ground shook like an earthquake-but the referee was acting like nothing had happened!

  I came up off the ground in a footfirst lunge.

  I saw the ball.

  It had reached the top of its arc and hung there for an instant like the sun, then it quickly gained speed as it plunged downward.

  I launched myself toward it-with every stitch of its black and white hexagons, every scuff and scrape on its surface, crystal clear in my vision.

  The goalie leaped into position, his body tensed, arms spread wide.

  I feinted at the ball with my head, but at the last second, I ducked, flipped, and smashed it with my foot toward the far side of the net.

  The goalie spun to follow and made a desperate leap, but his fingertips only grazed it as the ball shot into the far upper corner.

  Boom! The sound of the final gun.

  The crowd turned into an insane human wave, tearing seats out of the stands, swinging them as they stormed the field.

  Abruptly, the yelling voices and vivid colors disappeared, leaving a blank screen flashing the words “GAME OVER.”

  I tugged off my headset and sank back on the couch, panting, soaked with sweat.

  This was one mother of a simulator! Everything had seemed so real.

  Anyone who hid out here at the safe house had time on his hands. So MI7 made sure there was entertainment-Toyz Corporation’s latest products. I’d been immersing myself in them, waiting for orders to come from Sir Nigel. Trying to keep my mind off Lizbeth and ou
r kids.

  Suddenly, a hand came to rest on my shoulder.

  Slender.

  Female.

  Impossibly soft.

  Tony red nails, long ones.

  “Hi, Hays,” said the house android, Anna. “I came to see if I could get you anything. Anything at all.”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” I said, glancing at her distractedly. “Honestly, I am.”

  Then my head swung back for another look.

  “Anna?”

  I’d realized that Anna was no ordinary servant model. She was definitely high-end-not only intelligent, but also with the capacity to morph into other shapes.

  Now she was wearing a slinky black dress with slingback high heels. Her eyes had turned liquid blue… and she’d developed a shock of blond hair. And I mean that-a shock of blond hair.

  She could have been Lucy’s twin.

  “You like?” she asked.

  Chapter 69

  “Besides, aren’t you getting bored with those silly-billy simulated games?” Anna continued, plopping down beside me on the couch. She smelled terrific too, with the same citrus fragrance Lucy wore sometimes. Like in the cargo unit from Russia.

  She’d even adopted an excellent imitation of Lucy’s voice. Now she kicked off her high heels and tucked her small feet under her shapely rear.

  “Anna, you might want to consider a different role model,” I suggested.

  “If you say so, Hays. But I’m programmed to be very observant. I pride myself on it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, come on. There’s so much tension between you two. You could cut it with… a butter knife. Competitive. Sexual. Gender-bending. Anyone could see it. But enough about you and Lucy.”

  I bristled. Just what I needed-an android playing shrink. And being right.

  “There is some tension, I guess,” I said. “And plenty of good reasons for it.”