Toys

was staggering: Moorish Harem, Eye of a Hurricane Experience, Pagan Barbarities, Tennis vs. the Pro, Pig Out: No Calories, Death Experience: A Final 60 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 cafe 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 film masterpiece. And then-surprise of surprises…

Chapter 6

I found myself staring at the menu screen, a little miffed at the next message. “Presented by Toyz Corporation,” it blinked in stark black and white. “We hope you’ll come back soon.”

“Great,” I sighed. “Well, it did say great moments in cinema, didn’t it?”

Lizbeth was watching me with folded arms and raised eyebrows as I removed the mood helmet.

“Have a good time?” she asked and started to grin mischievously.

“A little short-lived,” I said, wondering if any of the other programs were full-length-maybe next time I’d get into something like a Viking raid, or maybe visit that Moorish harem.

Actually, I was quite a student of human history. I never would have turned the government back over to them, but if one thing’s true about the Homo sapiens, it’s that they almost never let you down in the drama department. I mean the scandals, the three World Wars, the artistic movements, games, literature, films… and the music! I adored Mozart, but also Bob Dylan and Edith Piaf.

I took Lizbeth’s hand and we strolled back toward the center of the great hall.

“Let’s take a look at those dolls. I want to see if they’re suitable for April and Chloe,” she said. “They’re absolutely begging for them, Hays.”

“They have more than enough toys already,” I said, but quickly relented. “Oh all right, Jinx. I can’t say no to them.”

Lizbeth pointed at a demonstration of the season’s hottest new items-Jessica and Jacob dolls, beautiful miniature androids that looked and acted perfectly lifelike. Kids everywhere-including our own two daughters-were causing parents to line up around the block to purchase them at Toyz stores all over the country.

The clever display was set up in a series of tableaux-separate scenes of home, office, store, and restaurant-with dozens of the lifelike dolls chatting, working, and eating just like real people, though only sixteen inches tall.

To be perfectly honest, while I couldn’t quite take my eyes off them, I found the dolls more than a little creepy.

But the crowd was riveted, especially a growing knot in front of a sign that read THESE MODELS SPECIAL ORDER ONLY.

When Lizbeth and I strolled over there, we immediately saw why.

“Oh my,” she said. “Oh dear, Hays. That’s just gross.”

Underneath the sign was a doll-sized bed where a Jake and Jessie in the buff were thrashing around in primal delight. I mean, those two were really going at it.

“I guess we can scratch the special orders off our list,” Lizbeth said.

“They really can do everything. Energetic little devil, isn’t he?”

Lizbeth rolled her eyes. “There’s more to it than slamming in and out like a piston. Don’t you think, Hays? I’ll bet you anything these dolls were programmed by a man-and probably one between the ages of sixteen and thirty- five. They should let a woman redo the code if they really want them to sell.”

“Thinking about volunteering?” I said. Biocircuitry was Lizbeth’s specialty-she was one of the foremost experts at the Agency of Change. “And what would you do differently, dear heart? Have all the Jacobs look like me?”

Her lips brushed my ear. “That’s not such a terrible idea, Hays. Say, I’m thinking this party has served its official purpose for us,” she murmured. “What do you say we go home? Maybe play some games of our own?”

“Umm, coming through,” I said, taking her hand and leading her off the crowded floor. The best night of our professional lives was about to get even better, and on a much more intimate level.

Jinxie and I were going home.

Yippee!

Chapter 7

This was where the slope began to get slippery, dangerously slippery indeed.

Outside the presidential mansion, more iJeeves butlers were escorting rich and famous guests to a long line of waiting limos. Lizbeth and I were soon settled back in our Agency-loaned driverless vehicle to enjoy the air ride through the beautiful Elite zone of New Lake City.

Glittering hundred-story buildings stretched out before us for miles, with impossibly fast-moving flying cars, trucks, and buses streaking between them. As Jinxie had said earlier, We really do run the world. In truth, we Elites had saved the planet, so why not?

Off toward the outskirts of the high-rises, you could see the dark gaps of the human slums. Sad stuff, even if you despised the humans. But maybe the president’s plan would fix that once and for all. The humans had proved they couldn’t be trusted under any circumstances.

Lizbeth and I snuggled together like giddy teenagers inside the limo, whetting our appetites for later on. She kept making jokes about how “beautiful” I was.

“I want you to try the new Rapture pill, Hays. Two-minute orgasms.”

“Contact your physician if orgasm lasts an hour or longer,” I said as I leaned in for a kiss.

Then-out of nowhere-it felt like a giant boulder had crashed into the roof of the Daimler. The impact buckled the incredibly strong titanium roof, rocking us from side to side, then bringing the car to a graceless, airbag-assisted landing on the street below.

“Hays?” Lizbeth said in alarm. “Are we being attacked? We are, aren’t we? How dare they? ”

At first I could see nothing outside the smashed-open windows. But I definitely heard yelling and pounding feet. Five, six, seven people coming toward us-fast.

Even as I ordered the limo to disengage our safety restraints, I could smell their foul body odor. Humans. Damn them. They must have crashed another vehicle on top of ours and forced us down, and they were now moving in for the kill. Robbery, of course, possibly rape-for both of us.

Like all Elites, I thoroughly distrusted humans. They were terminally lazy and stupid, and their flesh reeked of the greasy food they gobbled. The popular Elite term for them was skunks, although they