Toys

“Mom! Dad!” I yelled. “Where are you?”

It didn’t take me long to find them-two charred corpses, their hands extending toward each other as if they’d been reaching out to touch one last time.

How could anyone kill these good people? Massacre them? Who would do such a cowardly thing? But I knew the answer to that: Elites had already annihilated hundreds of millions of humans. What were a few more?

Standing there with my heart breaking, I whispered, “I love you, Dad. I love you, Mom.” I hated myself for not saying it more when they were alive. “You will have your revenge. I promise that-at least that.”

My God, I had just seen both my parents-dead. I couldn’t make myself think straight, could barely capture a breath.

Numb with shock-ready to die now myself-I swung around to fight the rest of the Elites. I could see them creeping out of the woods.

Suddenly, I hated them, hated all Elites-but especially their leader, whoever had planned this cowardly attack.

Then I saw who it was. On the crest of a nearby hill, Jax Moore was walking toward what remained of our house. He was dressed as a commando, gun in hand, smoking one of his victory cigars.

I had lost my concentration. A flying body slammed into me and threw me to the ground, gripping me in an iron-tight headlock. I hadn’t seen him coming.

“Don’t fight me!” Lucy whispered into my ear.

Chapter 50

“Jax Moore!” I told her. “He’s behind this.”

“Doesn’t matter. Not now. This isn’t the time or place, Hays. Come with me!” Lucy took off then-fast. “Hays, come!”

“Where have you been?” I called, racing behind Lucy as she headed toward the bay. Maybe she could run faster than me? Or was it because my legs felt like nothing right now? I could hardly breathe, and I couldn’t get the image of my murdered parents out of my mind. The tragedy, the outrage. And Jax Moore, that bastard!

“Killing the commandos-where do you think I’ve been? I just couldn’t kill enough. I finished off that rocket crew-they were about to fire again and take you out. I’m sorry we couldn’t save your mother and father. Or stop to kill that fucker Moore!”

Yes, so was I-and on top of everything else, now I owed Lucy my life!

She must have had some kind of signaling device because, as we got close to the water, the gleaming black shape of a car came rising up out of a well-hidden underground chamber. It was the same style as my own car back in New Lake City-a no-nonsense model built for speed and maneuverability.

“Let me drive,” I said. I needed to drive very fast. I needed to stop seeing the faces of my parents-murdered.

“You’re in no shape, Hays. You’re riding in the trunk.”

“What?”

“If we meet anybody, I smile and wave. I’m just a silly, harmless woman out for a ride. But you look like you’ve been eating babies for dinner-they’d freak out. Besides, you’re all worked up, and you might do something stupid.”

“I don’t do stupid things,” I said, although a recent list to the contrary popped into my mind.

“Shut up and get in, Hays. They’re gaining on us. We have seconds to get out of here. Seriously, Hays. Come, or stay here and die.”

Chapter 51

I cursed out loud, but then I jumped into the open trunk as Lucy slammed down the lid.

A moment later, the car shot forward, skimmed the surface of the water for a minute, then landed under expert control on the opposite shore.

Lucy’s voice came through the alloy barrier: “Don’t worry your pretty little head. I know these back roads cold, and I know exactly where we’re going.”

“Where’s that?” I called back from the trunk. “Don’t leave me-in the dark.”

“Canada.”

“No way!” The Canadian border was at least four hundred miles away. I struggled angrily to sit upright, but succeeded only in banging my head. “You expect me to stay in here for an hour and a half?” I yelled.

“Longer than that, I’m afraid. Sorry. We’ve got to get across the border station, then on into New Vancouver. There’ll be cars all around us. And police.”

“I can break out of the trunk in a second,” I warned. “You have no idea.”

“Go ahead-that’ll get us killed for sure. See what I mean about doing something stupid?”

I slumped back down again. She was right, of course. We drove the next couple of minutes in silence. I had to admit, she was an expert behind the wheel. I could tell from the way the car cornered-we were moving at close to top ground speed.

“I loved your parents too, you know.” Lucy finally spoke again. “Sorry if I seem cold, but we don’t have time to grieve right now.”

That reminded me that her own parents had also been killed by Elites. By that monster Jax Moore. My old boss. Lizbeth’s boss too. And what else was he to my wife?

I exhaled sadly. “How did we get into this awful mess? The big picture?”

“Humans made the mess, to start with,” Lucy said. “Elites got that eco-disaster stopped, but now they’re making a worse one. It will give them what they think they want, a sterile, orderly world. But it will leave their kind with a huge weakness-they don’t have much in the way of imagination. Something about all that helpful machinery in their brains. It makes them almost too rational to take the necessary creative risks. You probably didn’t know this, but Elites don’t even design the machines. They have covert facilities where they force human scientists to do it.”

I’d never even heard a whisper about that-it must have been one of the most closely guarded state secrets. But I didn’t say anything. In the insane new picture of the world I was forming, it made perfect sense.

“That’s the one thought in all this that gives me a glimmer of satisfaction,” Lucy said. “Without humans, the Elites are probably going to end up dying of boredom. The irony of it is almost poetic.”

I settled deeper into the trunk, which wasn’t actually all that uncomfortable. It was the recent memories in my head that were torture-images of my murdered mother and father, repeating themselves over and over. Images of Lizbeth and our daughters. Would I ever see them again? Finally, an image of Jax Moore smoking that victory cigar of his.

“I don’t suppose you can think of anything cheerful to talk about,” I said. I sure couldn’t.

“Well-do you remember, when you were five, playing a game with a little girl?” Her voice was softer now.

I frowned-it seemed an odd question. But I tried to think back.

“What kind of game?” I asked. “Give me a little more to go on.”

“It was on the beach at your parents’ house. She’d find small stones in the sand and bring them to you, and you’d build them up into a castle. The two of you would do it over and over, building a new castle every day. Never tiring of the game.”

A flicker of memory crossed my mind. A towheaded, blue-eyed toddler hurrying toward me with a few stones clutched in her tiny fists, watching with solemn fascination as I fitted them together into a crude wall or tower, oftentimes directing the castle’s construction, then tottering off to fetch another handful.

“That was you?” I asked. “That pretty little blond girl?”