Toys

were a bit more like hyenas, or wild dogs, in terms of the lives they led. Violence, deceit, and opportunism ruled their petty days and nights, just as it had through most of history. Hell, they had even written books about it, from Horace and Homer to Thomas Friedman and Stieg Larsson.

As Agents of Change, Lizbeth and I were dedicated to bringing fairness and justice to their barbaric ways and making them pay for their crimes. An act this outrageous-entering a restricted-access area and actually attacking Elites-made these vandals candidates for the harshest penalty there was: slow death.

I could see now that they were an ugly bunch, even for humans: grim-faced and menacing, armed with knives and scalpel-sharp box cutters, plus a few old-fashioned handguns.

My threat-assessment sensors instantly ranked their strength from lowest to highest. Three of them, I noted immediately, had biotech upgrades: enhanced musculature, joints, and reflexes. It wasn’t commonplace, but it was possible-through bioengineering-to augment a human to nearly Elite levels of power and conditioning.

“Shall we?” I asked Lizbeth. Besides being a doctor of engineering and possessing a genius-level IQ, my beautiful wife was a deadly hand-to-hand fighter. Besides being a doctor of history, I was also.

“I wish I’d worn sensible shoes,” Lizbeth said as she glanced at her party pumps and grimaced.

Chapter 8

I wrenched open the limo door on my side, using it as a shield to clear a path as I leaped out. Lizbeth followed close behind, one of her shapely legs flashing from under her evening gown as she planted a spiked heel in a punk’s ear. He staggered away, howling in great pain.

“Drop your weapons!” I yelled in warning.

They didn’t, of course. What a surprise.

So I began with the weakest-ranked assailant in my reach, slipping aside as he charged at me swinging a nasty-looking box cutter. I snapped the skunk’s wrist and tossed him across the street against a lamppost. He hit with a doughy crack-as an empty beer bottle wrapped in clay would-and slid down to the pavement.

I briefly wondered if he’d had a chance to hear the thud when his skull shattered.

The next piece of human scum charged, screeching like a savage beast. I feinted a lunge, then somersaulted over him, dislocating both his shoulders in midflight.

“Three of them are fully augmented,” I cautioned Lizbeth.

“Got it, Hays. Thanks, darling. I’ll take it easy on them.”

My next foe was a fast learner, and clearly had undergone impressive augmentations. Instead of fighting, he ran-or pretended to. It took me all of three 10-foot strides to catch him.

As my hand lashed out to crush the elbow of his knife arm, he whipped around at me like a snake-a preternaturally fast snake-holding a second knife in his other hand. It sliced past my throat so fast I could hear the whir of the blade through the air.

“Close, guy. I’m impressed.” I gave him his due.

Then I followed the arc of his knife with my own slashing left hand, slapping the weapon out of his grasp as my right hand crushed his other elbow from behind. Next, I jammed his head between two vertical bars in one of the neighborhood’s iron fences and bent them around his neck to form a snug, but not quite strangling, collar.

“Not to worry,” I said. “The police will be here to rescue you soon.”

I absolutely needed to keep a couple of these skunks alive for interrogation. Had to keep that in mind.

I glanced over at Lizbeth to make sure she was doing OK. My lovely bride was just dispatching her next assignment with a graceful rib-cage-collapsing ballet kick. In her spare time, she’s a dancer, a private dancer for the kids and me.

“Way to go, Dr. Baker!” I called to her.

“You too, Dr. Baker!”

I turned my attention to the last of the group, the one who had registered on my sensors as far and away the most dangerous. The criminal was still in the driver’s seat of the car they’d rammed into ours-he only watched while the others fought. Coward, or mastermind? I wondered. If there is such a thing as a human mastermind.

Only it wasn’t a he, I suddenly realized. The creep’s shaggy blond hair was cut short, but the body and facial structure was definitely female.

She was staring at me through the open car window, and the emotion she projected, the undisguised hatred in her eyes, made my scalp bristle. Then she completely shocked me-she knew my name.

“You think you’re a hero, Hays Baker, but you have no idea what you’re doing,” she said softly. “You’re the criminal here.”

Then she pulled back on the car’s wheel and it accelerated straight skyward. My muscles tensed to leap and catch hold of the rear bumper. I could have done it. But I stayed rooted to the ground. I had no idea why.

Lizbeth was watching me, suddenly looking concerned. “Hays, are you hurt?” she called. “Hays?”

“No, I’m… I’m fine.”

She looked puzzled. “Why didn’t you go after the driver?”

“I… I thought it was too risky,” I said, though that wasn’t it at all. “If the car had taken off and we’d crashed… we’re in a residential neighborhood. Don’t worry, we’ll catch her.”

“Her? It was a woman?” Lizbeth asked in amazement. “I thought all human females were pregnant and working behind a stove.”

“Good one, Jinxie,” I said and gave her a hug. She could tell a human joke with the best of them.

Chapter 9

The local police arrived in the next sixty seconds and very quickly and professionally cordoned off the automobile crash and crime scene. The Agency had already been in touch to verify our vitals and to dispatch another car to take Lizbeth and me home.

We arrived at our apartment, a beautiful tenth-story floor-through in one of the most desirable lakefront locations in the city.

When we stepped through our front door, the first thing we heard was the jangly, atonal pulse of robo-rap music coming from our house android, Metallico, who was prancing around the living room and singing along with the tunes.

Metallico hastily turned off the sound and stared at us in shock. “What in the world happened to you two?” he asked. “Lizbeth, your beautiful hair is a mess!”

“Never mind about that,” she snapped. “What happened to this place? It looks like all the closets exploded.”

“Well, excuse me. I suppose I’m too lazy to shop, cook, play nanny, and clean, all at the same time. If you must know, I just finished giving the girls their bath and was starting to tidy up. I wasn’t expecting you home so early.” The robot’s supple, bronze-tinted silicone skin glowed a little brighter, indicating his annoyance.

“We had a slight change of plans,” I said calmingly. I always tried to smooth over these little sniping matches between the two of them.

The apartment didn’t seem all that bad to me; Lizbeth had a tendency toward tidiness that could go over the edge. There were games and clothes strewn on the coffee table, but Metallico was right: with our two little-girl cyclones racing around at full speed, even he-a machine designed to clean-sometimes got maxed out before day’s end.

His skin had returned to a normal hue, although he still managed to convey that his “feelings” had been hurt.