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  “When’s the baby due?” I asked.

  “Few weeks yet. But those Betas, they punched me here.” She clasped her hands tighter around her stomach, cradling what was inside.

  I let out a sigh. “How far is your place?” I asked.

  “Not far. I’ll show you. Don’t be afraid-you can trust me.”

  As I scooped her up in my arms, I felt wetness drenching the back of her thin skirt.

  Good Lord, the girl was bleeding badly. Her baby could die.

  Chapter 29

  She told me her name as we hurried along to her place. It was Shanna. I asked a few harmless questions, trying to keep her mind off the pain-and the blood-as best I could.

  Turns out, Shanna had been on her own since she was ten, living with various destitute groups of humans until Betas, disease, or hunger forced her to move on. Shanna didn’t know where she’d been born, who her parents were, or even who her baby’s father was. She said that she was a “Southerner” and a “Baptist” and a “Bible-thumper,” none of which meant anything to me.

  “How old are you, Shanna?” I finally had to ask.

  “Fourteen,” she told me. “I’m fourteen. Old enough.”

  As we went farther into the human neighborhood, the air became rank with the sickly sweet stink of rot. All manner of insects buzzed, fluttered, and scurried around Shanna and me. I was coming to realize that I’d taken several comforts of Elite life completely for granted. Also, that I’d given almost no thought to the terrible living conditions of humans. This place was unendurable.

  “Here,” Shanna said. She weakly raised a hand to point down an alley that had patches of high weeds thrusting up through its cracked concrete.

  As we entered the alley, the voice of a lookout shouted, “Betas! Two of ’em.”

  I heard fast shuffling, like a pack of huge animals scurrying closer to us.

  I bent to set Shanna down so I could fight them off.

  “It’s OK,” she managed to call out. “He helped me. He’s a good man!”

  The shuffling sounds stopped. Then, pale faces came slowly into sight, peering out of a dark building at the alley’s far end. There could have been a dozen of them, or twice that many. They were hard to tell apart-all so thin and furtive. Even the very young ones radiated extreme fear and suffering of the sort I had never encountered before.

  “It’s a trick! Why would a Beta help ya?” a tall woman demanded, stepping forward defiantly. She was older, but far from infirm, and gave off a sense of intelligence and self-possession that I was surprised to see in this slum.

  “Oh, I’m not a Beta-I just borrowed some clothes… after I fought a few of them,” I said. “Look here, Shanna’s in a bad way. She’s bleeding a lot. Where do you want me to take her?”

  “He’s telling the truth. I think the baby’s coming, Corliss,” Shanna said in a trembling voice. Then, very softly, the girl started to cry like, well, a little girl.

  Concern spread across the older woman’s face. “This way,” she said, and led us quickly into a small room in a run-down warehouse. There was a mattress of rags on the floor and a table covered with rancid food scraps. Human photographs were pinned on the walls.

  I’d studied the biological phenomenon of human birth, even seen footage of it on the Cybernet, but I’d never witnessed it in person. Chloe and April-as with all Elite babies-were born in synthetic wombs in government-regulated natal centers.

  The difference was one of the most fundamental between humans and Elites.

  Or so I believed at the time.

  Chapter 30

  How strange it was-being among these humans, pretending to be one of them.

  After I settled Shanna on the mattress, she began to tell her friends what had happened with the Betas, speaking haltingly in a human street dialect I could barely follow.

  Their looks toward me became cautiously admiring. “How can we repay you?” Corliss finally asked.

  “I just need to rest awhile. That’s thanks enough,” I said. “I’ll be on my way soon.”

  “Stay here as long as you wish,” said Corliss. “You’re a friend now. And I can see you’ve been injured yourself.”

  “I’ll be fine. Honestly.”

  I walked farther back into the building-an abandoned warehouse with the doors and windows long since gone. There was no electricity, no running water, but at least it was shelter from the rain and wind that had started outside-not to mention any Elite satellites and drones that might be scanning the city for signs of me.

  I stepped into a large room nearby and found ragged children huddled there-playing with, of all things, Jessica and Jacob dolls. It seemed ironic that these street urchins had been able to steal the most sought-after toys of the season-but that wasn’t what bothered me. When I really thought about it, there was something just wrong about dolls that acted out everything we did… but were only a foot or so tall. It was just weird to me. Also, dolls used to be about children exercising their imaginations, about real play. How were children going to exercise their minds if the dolls did the playing by themselves?

  “Those things aren’t good for you,” I told the kids. “They’ll rot your brains.”

  “If you’re so smart, what are you doing here?” one of them snapped back.

  The others giggled and muttered in their coarse slang, insulting me. It was disturbing to see people so hard-edged at such a young age. No doubt some of them would go on to become Betas-if they survived that long.

  But I was actually heartened by the kids’ smart-aleck reaction. There was surprising verve, an underlying vitality, in this human ghetto. The skunks were a little more clever, and more rational, than I’d formerly believed. I was also detecting kindness alongside the cruelty, passion within the desperation.

  Strains of music drifted through the air-and I caught, in the shadows, the whispering, giggling sounds of lovemaking.

  I finally found a quiet corner to settle in. I needed to rest and regenerate. A few minutes later, Corliss brought me a basket of food-a half loaf of fresh bread, along with scraps of cheese and vegetables. My stomach growled like an animal’s. I couldn’t remember ever being so hungry, and though part of me shuddered at the thought of eating nutritionally unbalanced, germy, possibly toxin-laden human food, my mouth watered at the sight and smell of it.

  I took a couple of tentative chews and then began tearing into what was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner of the day.

  But simply eating their food didn’t make me one of them. Every time the words he’s human resurfaced in my mind, I shuddered and shook my head in confusion. What had happened to me, and to my family? I couldn’t be human-I wasn’t.

  And that’s when I heard Shanna’s bloodcurdling screams.

  Chapter 31

  Why did I feel responsible for this girl? Why should I?

  Still, I rushed down the hallway, hoping it wasn’t Betas attacking or, worse, the city police looking for me.

  But it was just Shanna-in labor. The baby was coming already, probably prematurely.

  The others had dragged her rag mattress next to an old iron storage rack. Her small bare feet were braced against the uprights.

  Some delivery room. Filthy, no proper instruments, no drugs to ease the girl’s pain.

  Corliss, looking nervous and worried, was kneeling between Shanna’s thighs.

  “Good, we need someone strong,” Corliss said as she saw me enter the room. “Hold her hands.” Then she added, “Do you have a name?”

  “It’s Hays,” I said.

  “All right, Hays, hold this poor girl down. Hold her good! She’s in for a world of pain.”

  So I crouched behind Shanna’s head and took hold of her. The girl’s fingers tightened around my wrists, her nails digging in, drawing blood. And then she began to scream again-and to curse Corliss, then me, and, finally, life itself.

  Corliss patiently soothed and coaxed the girl. “You have to push like a madwoman, hon,” she kept saying. “I know how bad it hurts, but you have to push so hard. Come on. Push hard, dear. It’ll be over soon. I promise. Push.”

  “You’re lying! You’re all liars! Assholes!”

  On and on like that.

  Finally, though, the human baby’s head started to appear. This was unbelievable to me. It almost seemed like a miracle.

  “Push!” Corliss urged. “The baby’s crowning! Push! You’re almost there. I promise you, Shanna. I’m not lying this time!”

  The girl’s screams and grunts continued-until quite suddenly, a little boy, slick with blood, slipped out into Corliss’s waiting hands.

  Corliss raised and examined the infant carefully, even lovingly. He was small, but seemed perfectly formed as he kicked his tiny feet and started to wail.

  Except for the blood and the umbilical cord running into his belly, he looked just like April and Chloe had when Lizbeth and I had first seen them, fresh from the incubator.

  Tiny. Perfect. Heart-stopping.

  I let go of Shanna’s wrists and stood up. I was sweating, rattled worse than I’d ever been in the line of duty.

  My God, that was something-helping in a human birth.

  I got another unexpected jolt when Corliss brought the baby’s belly up close to her face-and bit off the umbilical cord.

  Smiling, Corliss settled the tiny tyke on Shanna’s breasts and kissed the new mom’s forehead. “Congratulations, darling,” she said. “You did so well. You were brave and you were strong.”

  There was no reason for me to stay any longer, and I started toward the room’s exit.

  “Please stay,” Shanna said. “You saved me. You saved the baby.”

  I was startled-not just by her words, but by the intense feelings that rose up in me. I’d never cared about humans. Far from it. But now it struck me that maybe I’d never considered their plight fairly. Why hadn’t it seemed possible that there was more to them than what the Cybernet said? Why had I been content to study and enjoy their colorful history, literature, art-their music especially-but dismiss humans themselves as self-destructive animals?

  Shanna’s imploring eyes brought me back to the moment.

  “Look, I have to keep moving,” I said. “But”-I hesitated, realizing that I was about to make an insane promise-“I’ll come back. I want to see your baby again.”

  She nodded slowly, and so did Corliss.

  Then I did something truly amazing.

  I reached down and touched the baby’s soft cheek. His eyes were still closed, but his little mouth smiled at me.

  “I have to go now,” I said. “But thank you-for letting me be part of this.”

  Chapter 32

  I had finally figured out something useful. I knew what I had to do now and where I had to go-if I wanted to solve the mystery that had suddenly become my life. It was so obvious.

  “I want to buy your car,” I said.

  The man I was speaking to, a midlevel Elite just about to climb into his sporty Mazda ZX-740 airpod, looked stunned. I probably could have broached the subject more subtly, but I was in a hurry. I was a man with a plan now.

  “Huh?” said the man. “I don’t want to sell you my car.”

  “Yes, you do. Now come on, I’m in a real bind here. Name your price.”

  He glanced around quickly, a grasp of the situation slowly creeping across his face. After walking to the edge of the human slums where Shanna lived, I had hopped on public transit and ridden to a commuter suburb of the city. A place with resplendent green lawns, backyard wave-pools, choreographed fountains, gold-plated driveway gates, and cozy commercial centers with boutiques, spas, high-end jewelers, and cafes that sold cups of organic coffee that cost more than the average human salary. A place, in short, where crime was almost unheard-of.

  But the bottom line was that it was six o’clock in the morning, it was drizzling, there was not another soul in sight, and this poor guy was facing someone who looked like a human thug-and who was possibly crazy, or high on wyre.

  “I’m not selling you my car. You should leave this neighborhood. Now,” he finally said. We were standing outside the only twenty-four-hour establishment in the area, a convenience store.

  “Listen,” I said, talking fast enough to keep him off balance. “This is the all-environments model, right? Works on-road, off-road, airborne? Can safely dive to one thousand meters underwater? Gull-wing doors? Ultrasonic massage seats? THX six-point-three holographic surround sound? What’s the sticker price? Like three twenty? Tell you what, I don’t have time to haggle”-I rummaged in the pockets of the pants I’d taken off the Beta and came up with seven dollars and some change-“but I’m a little short of cash right now. So I guess I’ll have to borrow some money from you too.”

  His mouth opened in complete disbelief, but then his face took on a cynical smirk. “This is some kind of joke, right? It has to be a joke.”

  I stepped forward, gripped his lapels with one hand, and lifted him off his feet.

  “No joke,” I said. “I’m sorry about this-but I need your car. My life depends on it.”

  Chapter 33

  I got in the ZX and quickly overrode the vehicle-identification circuits and security beacons so that the car’s computer wouldn’t recognize me as an unauthorized driver. “Sorry about this,” I called to the poor guy outside. “I will pay you back eventually. This really is life or death for me.”

  The ZX took off in a streak while I settled back in the driver’s seat. It flew like a dream and had all sorts of features I hadn’t used before-like Level Two Priority Traffic Access, which let me cut right through the city’s elaborate air-traffic-control patterns by steering me to the shortest routes available to nonemergency or police vehicles. A total Elite VIP perk.

  I stopped at a high-end Toyz store along the way and came out wearing new clothes: black jeans, a fitted T-shirt, a leather jacket, wraparound shades to hide my face. I had also downloaded some tattoo art at the Toyz Corp iTattoo booth. Like many Elites, I went in for tattoo-zone implants as a teen-one on the back of my neck, another on my right forearm. I can activate either to become visible-or fade back to skin tone-at a moment’s notice.

  I also purchased an ultrasonic shaver and a tube of Elite-Man follicle-activation cream-one quick application and you could instantly grow yourself a fashionable hint of stubble.

  Back in the car, I shaved my head-right to the scalp-and quickly gave myself a five o’clock shadow on the chin and cheeks. Then I activated the new tattoo art-a fist-sized tarantula on my forearm, a Harley-Davidson logo on the back of my neck.

  Now I looked nothing like the old Hays Baker; I was just another of the wealthy, weekend-warrior civilians you’d expect to see in the Baronville Toyz store, where eleven executives had recently been murdered. That was where I was headed now. I’d made up my mind; I needed one more look at the crime scene where my life had begun to be shattered.

  I needed to know why my life had been blown to pieces.

  There had to be clues I’d overlooked. Also, why had Jax Moore insisted on calling me there, even though it was well outside my area of operations? What had happened to make the in-store witnesses forget everything they’d seen?

  Hopefully, I’d learn something soon-because there was the Toyz store, less than a hundred yards straight ahead.

  The place where everything had gone all wrong for me, and for my family.

  Chapter 34

  That last thought reminded me of the girls-and suddenly I had another idea, probably my most constructive one so far.

  Chloe and April both carried phones to school-and maybe, just maybe, I could talk to them now.

  I dialed Chloe’s number first, then I couldn’t believe it when I actually heard her voice come on the line. Thank God, it was her!

  “This is Chloe Baker,” she said. An odd first line, but it was definitely my baby.

  “This is your daddy. Hello, Chloe Baker,” I said.

  “Daddy, what happened to you? Mommy said you’re in trouble-bad trouble. Is that true? It couldn’t be, right?”

  “Chloe, sweetie, it’s just a misunderstanding. I’ll be home soon.”

  There was a silence, which I didn’t understand. Chloe tends to talk and talk.

  “Chloe? Chloe? What’s the matter? Something is-I can tell-”

  Chloe blurted out, “Daddy, the police are listening! The police are at my school!”

  Then she clicked off the phone.

  Talk about a heartbreaking call.

  But why did I feel things so deeply?

  Like a human would?

  Chapter 35

  I knew I’d better hurry-the police could be here soon. It was almost surreal being back at the murder scene, especially since the Agency and city police were now searching for me. I strained to keep my vitals in check so that I wouldn’t set off any biometric-profile monitors in the Toyz store, but my nerves weren’t helped any by having to go past the window display of Jessica and Jacob dolls. They were strutting around like they owned that little world.

  The customers inside Toyz were the same mix of Elites and the occasional upper-level humans I’d seen here the other night.

  Almost immediately, I recognized a face-the pretty Elite woman I’d first interviewed, the one who said she’d been standing right next to two of the victims but hadn’t actually witnessed the murders.

  How could she bear to come back here so soon after that hideous crime, and then wander around clothes and baubles, shopping as if nothing had happened? Was she that callous? Or had something mysterious happened to her? If so, what was it? I needed to find out why nobody had seen eleven murders.

  The woman was talking to a salesclerk, so I’d have to wait for a chance to pull her aside. That wasn’t good-I wanted to get out of here now.

  Meantime, there were security personnel posted all around the lobby floor. I couldn’t just stand there looking like a police investigator. So I walked to the nearest bank of SimStims and picked out a diversion that was consistent with my general appearance.