Toys

“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