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  Just as I realize this, arms suddenly embrace me from behind. I want to turn, but I can’t. I’m paralyzed. Hair stands up on the back of my neck as a chin rests on my shoulder.

  Michael, a soft Irish-accented voice whispers in my ear.

  It’s my dead wife, Maeve. She’s alive. I can feel the warmth of her hands, her breath in my ear, on my cheek. I check myself, feel my side where Apt stabbed me, feel my face for the dent in my fractured face, but everything is impossibly smooth. An incredible sadness rises in me like an overflowing spring.

  No, she admonishes me when I start to cry.

  But it’s over, I cry.

  No, she says again as a finger wipes away a tear and presses against my lips.

  It’s not the end. There is no end. That’s the good part. How are all my babies?

  I have trouble breathing, I’m crying so hard.

  Baby, you should see Juliana. She’s so brave and capable, just like you. And Brian, he’s this huge, wonderful, polite young man.

  Just like you, Maeve says.

  And the rest of them. Eddie’s so funny, and Trent. The younger girls have left me in the dust, honey. Pink is cool one second, then it’s so babyish. I can’t keep up. Oh, God, you’d be so proud of them.

  I am, Michael. I see them sometimes. When they need me, I’m with them. That’s another good part.

  I reach out and suddenly hold her thin wrist. I move over to her hand, run my finger over her wedding ring.

  I made it back to you. I knew I would. I never doubted it.

  When she squeezes my hand back, my sadness evaporates, and I’m overcome with a pulsing warmth. I’m being filled inside and out with peace. Suddenly there’s a pop, and a rushing sound fills my ears, like water roaring violently through a pipe. The bed starts to shake.

  Will you show me everything? I say, holding on to her hand for dear life.

  Of course, Michael, she says as she lets go of my hand. But not now. It’s not the right time.

  But I don’t want to go back, I yell. Not yet. I have so many questions. What about us? What about Mary Catherine?

  I know you’ll be good to her, Michael, Maeve yells over the increasing roar. I know you. You would never play with a person’s heart.

  That’s when I turn.

  But Maeve isn’t there.

  Nothing is. Everything is gone. My room, the block, the city, the planet. There is nothing but the roar, and my breath and sight fail as it swallows me whole.

  Chapter 106

  FIRST, there was just blackness and pain and a relentless chirping beep. It was like a bird had gotten inside of me somehow and was trying to peck its way out. Two large predator birds. One in my side, one in my face.

  I opened my stinging eyes. Outside the window beside me, sun sparkled off an unfamiliar parking lot. On a highway in the distance, cars passed normally under a blue, cloudless sky.

  A red-haired nurse with her back to me was moving some kind of wheeled cart in the corner. When I opened my mouth to call to her, I tasted blood again. I felt dizzy and weak, and nausea crowded up on me, and I slipped under again.

  Next time I woke up, my eyes adjusted to the gray shapes. At first I thought there were people hovering above me, but then I realized they were balloons. Red and blue and shimmering Mylar ones. About as many as floated out of Carl’s chimney in the movie Up.

  I looked away from them, wincing in pain. My face and my side were hot and tight with an itchy, horrendous stinging. The head-to-toe tightness was the worst. I felt like a sheet being pulled apart.

  “Thank the Lord. Oh, thank you, God,” someone said. It definitely wasn’t me.

  A second later, Seamus’s face appeared.

  “Please don’t tell me it’s last rites.”

  “No, no, you’ve got at least another fifty years to suffer in this vale of tears, you crazy SOB. You scared the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of us all.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “This would be day three.”

  “How’s…?”

  “Apt? Deader than dog excrement,” said another voice.

  Emily Parker appeared next to my grandfather.

  “Mary Catherine followed you down to the beach. She said when she saw you fighting, she ran back and started ringing doorbells. I guess it pays to have half the police and fire department for neighbors when you’re on vacation.”

  I nodded.

  “How’s…?”

  “Your condition?” Seamus said.

  I shook my head.

  “Mary Catherine.”

  “She cried for two days,” Seamus said. “But now I believe she’s fine, Mike. She’s one remarkable girl, or I should say, woman.”

  “It’s true,” Emily agreed. “She saved your life. And Ricky’s. All of your lives. Feel better, Mike. Call me when you can. I have to go now. There’s about a thousand people waiting to see you.”

  I squeezed Emily’s hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?” she said.

  “For leaving the hotel.”

  She smiled.

  “You’re where you’re supposed to be, Mike. I know that now.”

  The redheaded nurse came back then, looking pissed.

  “Visiting time is over,” she said as she shoved Seamus toward the door.

  “Get better,” ordered Seamus.

  “I will.”

  “Promise,” he called back.

  I smiled.

  “I swear to God, Father,” I said.

  I slept for another stretch. When I opened my eyes, it was dark and all my kids were there.

  At first, I flinched. I didn’t want them to see me this way. Their mother had died in a hospital bed. They’d seen enough horror in their young lives, hadn’t they? But after a minute, I found myself smiling as I looked from concerned face to concerned face.

  They were all trying to be brave and to make me smile, I saw. Mary Catherine most of all. A wall of concern and love and support was bearing down on me whether I liked it or not.

  After a little bit, I smiled back through my tears. I couldn’t have helped it if I’d wanted to. Resistance was futile.

  “Go give your Da a kiss,” Seamus instructed my kids.

  And incredibly, somehow, all at the same time, that’s exactly what they did.

  HAYS BAKER: FATHER. HUSBAND. PATRIOT. HERO. #1 MOST WANTED.

  FOR AN EXCERPT, TURN THE PAGE.

  “MY, MY. The president wants to meet us,” Lizbeth whispered in my ear as we followed Jax Moore farther into the mansion.

  “Of course he does,” I said with a wink.

  Actually, Lizbeth and I were considered stars at that particular moment in time. We’d just returned from Vegas where we had saved countless lives while arresting a gang of moderately clever human bank robbers who had been terrorizing the West.

  Anyway, Jax Moore whisked us through eight-foot-tall carved oak doors that led to the mansion’s private living area. Well-concealed scanners examined every pore of our bodies as we walked to the entrance of the president’s oval-shaped office, which was modeled after the famous original in the now-sunken city of Washington, DC.

  I was immediately reminded that humans had created some good things in the past, such as this fine neoclassic style of architecture. But they’d also severely ravaged the planet, hadn’t they? A couple decades ago, the first generation of Elites had barely managed to save it from total destruction. Washington, DC, was one of many cities on the casualty list, along with most of the low-lying eastern seaboard, including New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia, all of which had been swallowed up long ago by the rising oceans.

  When we stepped into the Oval Office, President Hughes Jacklin was standing in front of a full-length mirror, fumbling with his cravat. At his side was his faithful bodyguard and supposed lover, a behemoth named Devlin.

  Seeing us, the president let the tie go and strode across the room to greet Lizbeth and me, as if we were old friend
s. He was a hugely impressive man, classically educated, firm-jawed and broad-shouldered, and his thick dark hair was just beginning to gray at the temples.

  “My dear, the sun is down and it’s still as bright as day around you,” he said to Lizbeth, kissing her perfect cheeks, one, then the other.

  “Mr.—Mr. President,” Lizbeth stammered ever so slightly, “I’m speechless—almost anyway.”

  “What you are is incredibly charming,” countered the president.

  He turned to me and gave a firm handshake. “Hays Baker, this is a great pleasure. You’re beautiful too. Look, I’m late for my own party—we’ll have time to get better acquainted later. But I want you to know I’ve followed your careers at the Agency closely. And I’m a big fan. That operation in Vegas was pure genius. Efficient and effective. Just what I like.”

  “We’re proud to help, Mr. President,” Lizbeth said, actually blushing a little now.

  “Then would you help me out with this thing?” He flapped the loose ends of his cravat with good-humored exasperation. “I never could get the hang of it. Or the significance of ties, damn them.”

  “I could do that,” said Devlin, but the president waved the bodybuilding guard away.

  “Lizbeth?” he said, exposing his throat to her. “Let’s see how you would garrote a world leader.”

  “IT WOULD BE my pleasure, sir!”

  Lizbeth laughed like an impressionable schoolgirl and took over. As her nimble fingers arranged the president’s tie into an expert knot, he gave us a conspiratorial wink. Off to the side, Devlin was grimacing and fidgeting, and I hoped we hadn’t made an enemy of the giant bodyguard.

  “I will tell you this much about my future plans,” the president said. “My best people have developed a program to—let’s just say—complete the work of making our world a safer, cleaner place with respect to the human strain. We’ll be launching it soon. In days, actually.”

  Lizbeth and I had heard rumors that a sweeping human-containment initiative had been taking shape. It was hard not to be relieved. The foolhardy and dangerous humans had only themselves to blame. They had blown their chance to make the world a better place. It was undeniable that they had accomplished quite the opposite.

  “I’m counting on you both for important help with the launch of the human cleanup. Meantime, you’re the best we have at holding the gross and undesirable elements in check. Please keep up the good work. Bigger, better things are coming for you two. For all Elites, actually.” He checked himself in the mirror. “Come to think of it—humans are responsible for ties!”

  President Jacklin smiled, then he said good-bye with effusive warmth—he was obviously an expert at it, perhaps aided by the prototype Cyrano 3000 implant he was rumored to have. I’d only read about the device, but what I knew was that it was surgically attached to a person’s inner ear and could offer guidance through any social interaction. The amazing appliance had wireless access to a database of pretested social cues, pertinent information about whatever person you were talking to, and other useful facts, names, quotes, and quips that might fit a given situation. The irony: a human had also invented it.

  Jax Moore took my elbow, then Lizbeth’s, and walked us back to the oak doors. He lit up another of his cigars and puffed contentedly.

  “Not a word about this. There can be no security leaks. Check with me first thing tomorrow,” he said. “I have classified information we need to discuss. The president specifically asked for you two on the ‘human problem.’ You’re both—beautiful,” Moore closed, giving us an icy grin that could have frozen vegetables. I doubted he’d undergone a Cyrano 3000 implant, or even heard of them.

  After the doors closed, Lizbeth took my arm and said, “One of the best nights of our lives, don’t you think?” She’d handled the president with perfect poise—and charm—but she was also clearly starstruck after meeting the great man in person. To be honest, so was I. I just didn’t let on.

  “Definitely in the top hundred or so,” I teased her.

  “Really,” she said archly. “You’ll have to remind me of the others. Such as?”

  “How about the night when we met? Michigan Avenue, New Chicago.”

  She laughed. “Hmmm. Well, that might be in the top hundred.”

  “I guess I asked for that,” I said as we exchanged a kiss that I’m sure caused a whistle or two in the president’s security-camera control room.

  WHAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION next was the incredible number of high-ticket toys at the party.

  Sometimes it seemed like toys were all the world cared about in the second half of the twenty-first century. Humans and Elites had both fallen under their spell and become addicted to the endless pleasures and nonstop excitement they could provide. And the toys were only getting better, or worse, depending on your point of view.

  Even in the presidential mansion—where you might think the serious business of the country would be getting done 24–7—toys were playing a big part in the celebration. Wide-eyed, deep-pocketed guests were crowded around a display where employees from Toyz Corporation were giving demos of some of the choicer items in the forthcoming, but thus far unreleased, catalog.

  As Lizbeth and I reentered the ballroom, we were surrounded by a menagerie of cloned, genetically tamed animals—birds of paradise, Galápagos tortoises, enormous butterflies, pygmy hippos—and then we almost got knocked over by a beautiful woman in a gold gown and matching high heels, who was laughing while riding on a thick-maned lion.

  “Oops, sorry,” she said breathlessly as she raced by. Then she called over her shoulder to Lizbeth, “You’ve got to try this, Liz. You’ve never felt such muscles.”

  “Now that’s certainly not true,” Lizbeth whispered as her hand delicately grazed my upper leg. “My beauty.”

  Other women were draping defanged cobras and wondrously patterned tropical vipers around their necks like mink stoles, and one demented man showed off by thrusting his head into the jaws of a docile baby Tyrannosaurus rex. I almost wished the toy would take a bite.

  While Lizbeth admired the fauna—Elite and otherwise—I stepped up to a bank of SimStims, the hugely popular, addictive simulators that offered a variety of different experiences, all so intensely real that it was illegal to sell SimStim machines to anyone with a heart condition. You could choose from any number of different simulations—have passionate sex with a movie or government star, for example, rock out onstage surrounded by a vast audience of screaming fans, or fight for your life in the heat of combat.

  I slipped on a mood helmet at one of the simulators and scanned the on-screen menu. The range of choices was staggering—Moorish Harem, Eye of a Hurricane Experience, Pagan Barbarities, Tennis vs the Pro, Pig Out: No Calories, Death Experience: A Final Sixty Seconds, Visit Your Former Lives.

  Movie buff that I am, I picked the general heading of Great Moments in Cinema.

  I barely glimpsed the words “This Program Has Been Edited For Your Enhanced Pleasure,” and then I was there. Bogie in Casablanca.

  I gazed into the liquid blue eyes of Ingrid Bergman sitting across from me—then I raised my whiskey glass to touch hers.

  “Here’s looking at you, kid,” I said, losing myself in her answering smile.

  Then the door of the noisy café burst open and a toadlike little man ran in, looking around in panic. The great human character actor Peter Lorre had arrived.

  “Rick, you have to help me,” he gasped in a heavy accent, thrusting a sheaf of papers at me. “Hide these!”

  I strode to the piano as he rushed out the back door, and I had just managed to shove the papers under the lid when gunshots sounded in the street outside. Suddenly, jackbooted soldiers stormed in—

  My heart raced, and I felt myself instinctively backing away toward the bar. There was a Luger right there under the counter.

  This was amazing. I was living Bogie’s part in the great film masterpiece. And then—surprise of surprises…

  Table of Contents

/>   Front Cover Image

  Welcome

  Dedication

  A Preview of Toys

  Prologue: Sexy Beast

  One

  Two

  Book One: Down by the Sea

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Book Two: Double Down

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67