“Hays!” the robot groaned. “How could you?”
The kitchen lights flickered, and the appliances bleeped as their backup batteries kicked in—Lizbeth now had a seriously deadly weapon in her hands!
I clobbered Metallico across the head with his own arm, then hurled it like a spear at my wife—just as she was swinging the power unit around toward me.
Metallico’s spiky fingers pierced and drove through her upper arm, pinning Lizbeth to the kitchen wall. Talk about domestic squabbles.
She shrieked with pain and fury, and the power unit went clattering across the floor. I scooped it up just in time to meet Metallico’s next charge.
I rammed the feed-out prong right into his chest.
Ssssssttt! Ssssssttt! Ssssssttt! The sound was like a giant bug repeatedly hitting a red-hot grill. Very satisfying.
You’re deactivated now, you homicidal sonofabitch, I thought.
I shoved the shell of the pesky robot out of my way, leaving the prong embedded in his melting torso. Then I turned back to Lizbeth.
She was still struggling to free herself from the wall, and her flesh was starting to bleed. But the wounds weren’t serious, and whatever qualms I’d had about fighting her were quickly gone.
In fact, I was grimly pleased—the shock and pain might make her more cooperative.
That was when I heard a familiar little voice scream, “Stop hurting Mommy!”
Just then, something completely unexpected and unrecognizable came hurtling through the air, smacking me in the face. It was something furry and wiggling, and it was making cheerful arf arf sounds.
It took me a second, but then I recognized it as the girls’ robot dog, Fuzzy! Yet another demonic toy in our house.
April, with her face scrunched up by tears and panic, was swinging him by the tail and flailing him at me.
At the same instant, I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my ankle.
Flabbergasted, I looked down to see my little sweetheart, Chloe. She was sinking her teeth into me just as hard as she could.
“Human!” My daughter screeched the dreaded H-word.
Chapter 100
“WOOF! RARF! WOOF! Rarf!”
The robotic little mutt kept snuffling happily and trying to lick my face as April proceeded to batter me with the toy. Luckily for me, it was programmed so that it had to be affectionate—at least Lizbeth hadn’t modified that too. Meanwhile, Chloe was still chewing on my ankle.
The nightmare I’d tried to shield the girls from was officially in session. Now it was down to damage control—getting them out of this horrifying mess and keeping them safe.
But how could I do it without manhandling them and making things even worse? It didn’t seem possible. So what next—would I have to harm my own little girls?
Then Lizbeth stunned me in a way I never would have expected. She took my side.
“Girls—stop!” she said sharply. “Your father’s not hurting me. Metallico went crazy, and Daddy saved me.”
The girls backed away, their bewildered little eyes taking in the robot’s torn-off arm that pinned their mother to the wall, his sizzled remains that lay on the floor.
Suddenly, April smiled through her tears. “Daddy, you’re better!” she squealed. Then both girls rushed into my arms as if everything were back to normal.
For a few seconds, it actually was. I could have wept. “I am much better, honeys,” I said. “Now go to your room and wait for Grandmère. Everything is going to be fine, I promise, and you know I always keep my promises.” I try to anyway.
Fuzzy had trotted over to Metallico, sniffing and snuffling curiously. I grabbed him before he got zapped, and scooted him off after the girls.
With my heart aching, I watched their bedroom door close behind them. “Don’t think for a second I did that for you,” Lizbeth snapped. “It was for them. I love my children.”
“Lizbeth, I know by now that you wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire. I’m just surprised that maybe you’ve got a shred of decency.”
“I’ll come quietly. I won’t fight you, Hays. No more trouble in our house.”
“Thanks for saying that. But I still trust you like I’d trust a scorpion. Probably less.”
“As you should.” She smiled and nodded. “Just remember your promise—to the girls.”
I jerked Metallico’s hand loose, drawing another gasp of pain from Lizbeth. Then I knotted a towel around her upper arm. Next, I opened the refrigeration unit and swept its contents onto the floor. The unit was just about the size of an old-fashioned coffin.
“What are you doing?” Lizbeth, ever the neatnik, asked.
“Get in,” I said. “In!”
Lizbeth’s murderous glare returned, but she obeyed and crawled inside the empty fridge.
I snapped the door shut, hoisted it onto my shoulder, and headed for the rooftop garage. Once up there, I had to ram the thing through the rear window of our family wagon to fit it inside. It still stuck halfway out, looking like the fin of a marauding shark.
Lizbeth started kicking and pounding, and I could hear her muffled yells.
“Quiet down or you’ll run out of air,” I yelled at her. That seemed to work, at least for the moment, as Lizbeth did the math in her head.
If there was one blessing in all this, it was that I didn’t have to endure the sight of her crying. I took the station wagon airborne and flew out of New Lake City—fast and low—on the most important mission of my life. Or anybody’s life, for that matter.
I was the one entrusted to save an entire civilization, wasn’t I?
Chapter 101
EVERYTHING WAS COALESCING now. Or perhaps coming apart at the seams—it was impossible for me to tell. Lucy had given me a rendezvous spot in the desolate, wooded outlands to the north. As I got close, I could see that the dark glen below was gloomy and silent. So much so that I became afraid I’d made a mistake in navigation.
But the coordinates checked out, so I landed the car cautiously in the thick cover of a coppice of evergreen and spruce trees.
The instant I stepped out of the vehicle, it was like someone had flipped a switch. The forest started moving. Shadowy shapes suddenly appeared from behind tree trunks, dropped down from branches, rose up out of the brush.
Humans! I realized with a start.
They came striding toward me with assault rifles in their hands—except for a few who held short bows and had quivers of arrows slung over their shoulders. One of them bared his teeth in a wide, fierce grin.
“Hays Baker!” shouted the man.
“Tazh Khan!” I roared back. “You’re here to fight. So am I!”
As we clasped forearms, he sniffed the air and his face turned serious and concerned.
“Blood of you,” he declared. “You hurt?”
“It’s nothing. Hand-to-hand combat. I’ve been hurt a lot worse. By you, matter of fact.”
Tazh Khan kept sniffing, then jerked his head toward Lizbeth’s prison cell, aka the family refrigerator, where she remained concealed.
“Other blood there.”
“She’s OK. For the moment. I’m keeping her on ice, so to speak. It’s my wife. Where’s Lucy?”
“Come.” He and some of his men took off in a loping run. By now I’d realized that they weren’t the only soldiers here. The forest was filled with moving shadows—an army of tens of thousands, men and women both, stretching as far as I could see. They must have been converging for days, landing at remote locations and traveling here covertly. Suddenly, I felt like I was in one of the World Wars that the humans once fought—I, II, or III, take your pick.
My pulse quickened with both anxiety and, strangely, pride. Humankind might not have much of a chance against whatever outrage the Elites had planned, but their courage was inspiring. It really was.
I hoisted the refrigeration unit up onto my shoulder and followed Tazh. Almost immediately, Lizbeth started to cry out, but it made no difference to me. I was committed to this betray
al.
I felt like I was carrying the weight of the world—and in all probability, that’s what I was doing.
Chapter 102
I WAS ESCORTED to the human army’s fleet of vehicles—armored cars and a few tanks, which were camouflaged in the brush. A cluster of jeeps and trucks had been pulled together to form a command post.
What a sight when I stepped inside! The station was crowded with the human leaders of the world—faces of those whom I’d last seen dying under ruthless Elite gunfire in France, not knowing that they were clones and all part of a master plan to fight back, to survive somehow.
And survive not just here—all over North America, Europe, Asia.
The leaders went silent for a second—then they burst into excited conversations as they realized who I was and what I was bringing to them: Lizbeth.
The real Chantal Dugare came hurrying toward me, looking even more stunning and imposing than her double had. “Hezz! How nice to really meet you!”
“How nice to see you alive,” I said.
“Yes, I much prefer it that way too. You are very handsome, Hezz.”
The crowd quieted and moved aside as she led me to the front of the compound, which had been set up like an operating-room theater. I suspected that I already knew why.
Lucy was waiting there, busily arranging surgical equipment on a table. She didn’t burst out with any thrilled “Oh, Hays, you did it”—just flashed me a quiet smile. She’d obviously never doubted that I would come, which was high praise coming from her.
“Set it over there. I mean—set her over there!”
She pointed at the operating table. Then Lucy started putting on a surgical gown.
“You’re going to do this operation yourself?” I said, astonished. I’d assumed that she was prepping for a physician who had yet to arrive.
“Of course I’m going to do the operation. Who else would do it?”
“Where’d you learn… to be a doctor?”
“From your parents—where do you think?” she said impatiently. “I didn’t spend all those years just fixing roofs and gutters on the cabin. I’ve worked with them in the lab since I was a little girl. They taught me everything they knew. I happen to be a great surgeon. Lucky for you, Lizbeth.”
Lizbeth was ready to kill, but, hoo boy, was this going to frost her.
I set the refrigeration unit down and opened the door so she could see exactly where she was, and maybe get an idea about what was going to happen next.
“Lizbeth Baker,” said Lucy with a modest bow. “Welcome to my operating table.”
Chapter 103
LIZBETH CAME SPRINGING up like a viper ready to strike. But the first thing she saw was Tazh Khan—knife in hand, and with a look on his face that said he was eager for an Elite-skin belt.
Next, my darling wife’s gaze darted around to the assembled leaders, who were glaring at her like a jury at the trial of a mass murderess.
“Don’t even think about touching me,” she snarled at Lucy.
Lucy didn’t even bother to answer. She just rolled her eyes and picked up a scalpel.
“We are not here to appeal to your conscience, madame—you obviously have none,” Chantal declared.
I had never seen Lizbeth frightened before, or even nonplussed, but she definitely was now. She must have thought that she was dead and facing the final judgment—from humans.
But she caught on fast that whatever this was, it involved a fully equipped operating room. She tried to cover her lapse into fear with haughtiness.
“So you didn’t really blow yourself up?” she said to Lucy with acid sarcasm. “What a pity.”
“But she really did blow Jax Moore up, Lizbeth,” I said. “She killed Owen McGill too. Two for two. So far.”
That set Lizbeth back again—neither of those two were riding to her rescue. She took another look at the medical equipment—and Lucy’s surgical gown.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to play doctor now,” Lizbeth snapped.
“I just need to borrow something of yours,” Lucy said calmly. Meantime, she was unhooking an anesthesia mask from an overhead rack.
“Borrow? What are you talking about? What of mine could you possibly want? We’re hardly the same shoe size.”
“Your brain, sweetie. That’s what I need to examine. Relax, you won’t feel too much. Oh—maybe you will.”
Lizbeth exploded in a fury, scratching and biting like a wildcat. But several soldiers slammed her down and held her immobile.
“Don’t you dare touch me, bitch!” she panted. Lucy ignored the command and brought the anesthesia mask down over Lizbeth’s face.
“There, there—I’ll patch you back up when I’m done. If I have time.”
A few seconds later, Lizbeth went completely limp on the operating table. For once in her life, she actually looked, well, trusting.
Lucy hung the mask up and turned to her instrument tray—a gleaming selection of scalpels, clamps, and bone saws. I already knew that the operation required opening up Lizbeth’s brain and connecting it by probe to a hologram imager. The probe would then scan her memory bank for information about the Elite genocide plan.
Lizbeth had to know the plan, or at least some important details, and this was our only way to find out before it was too late. It would be better if we had that bastard Hughes Jacklin on the operating table, but Lizbeth would have to do.
I’d managed to keep myself relatively hard-hearted about all this, but now I had to leave—go back outside with the troops and not watch the actual brain surgery. The resistance soldiers were crouched on their haunches, looking like they could stay that way for days. I stood there alongside them—and waited.
I didn’t feel much pity for Lizbeth, no more than I had for McGill or Moore. But she had been my wife and mother to our children. One way or another, this was good-bye.
Chapter 104
I HAD NO idea what to expect next—none of us did. Not in the next few minutes or the next few days, if truth be told. Maybe the human race would end; maybe the entire planet would be finished. Hard to predict.
The minutes crept by, an eternity of waiting in a dense, thickly treed forest, which felt primeval, except for the ghostly army of soldiers who rustled around with their tense preparations for war.
Then I heard an unexpected sound coming from the command post. It started as a murmur of voices, but quickly rose to excited shouts.
There seemed to be both outrage and triumph, but there were so many languages, it was hard to tell what had just happened.
There was no mistaking Lucy’s voice though: “Hays, this is it! Come in! Hays! Please come and see the insides of your wife’s bloody brain.”
As I ran back inside, I was startled by Lizbeth’s violet hair. It was streaming away from her head like it would if she were in a windstorm.
Then I realized that the top of her skull was actually separated from the rest of her head. I knew I would take that image to my grave.
“She’s fine,” Lucy said. “I told you—I’m a very good surgeon. Look through—there.”
My gaze swung to the hologram imager, where everyone else was staring. On the screen was the most horrific thing I’d ever seen in my life, and that included the film of 7-4 Day I’d watched at my parents’ house.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Jessica and Jacob dolls were wandering through a squalid human settlement. And the dolls were exploding— a staccato boom boom boom, like from an artillery barrage that wouldn’t end. Each doll was a walking, talking bomb.
Every violent flash released a fireball through the streets, along with billowing clouds of what had to be poison gas. The screaming humans, some of them small children, slapped desperately at the flames that crawled on their skin until they collapsed from the toxic vapor that seared their lungs.
It must have actually happened—an experiment maybe, a test run held in some isolated town. Obviously, Lizbeth had witnessed it personally since the images came from her
memory.
In true Elite fashion, it was incredibly simple, brilliantly evil. And there were other terrifying images: simulators that appeared to give their users fatal strokes; phones that killed when they came in contact with human skulls; a vibrator, which I don’t even want to describe; video games that overstimulated players to the point of death.
The assembled human leaders pushed past me, rushing to communicate the frightening information back to their nations. They were still shouting in different languages, but this time, I knew what they were saying: Destroy the toys! Stop the Elites.
Meanwhile, the massive human army was finally on the move. I could actually see tens of thousands of soldiers readying their weapons and piling into armored transports, prepared to launch an attack against the better-equipped Elite forces in the city.
This was Armageddon—and at least I was on the side of good.
I walked up to Lucy, who was—well—Lucy to the end. “The Elites,” she said, “they don’t have a chance in hell.”
Chapter 105
NEW LAKE CITY was burning!
I could already see that the heart of the great city, where I had lived most of my adult life, might be no more by morning. The same could be said for the human race if we failed now.
Lucy and I began to see columns of smoke and flames from miles away as we approached the city, flying high above in Lucy’s car. The fires were moving around, not just spreading, but tossing and twisting with an eerie life of their own.
“It’s the dolls!” Lucy said. “Those horrid little beasts are setting whole neighborhoods ablaze. Look at them!”
“And the simulators, video games, computers, phones—Lucy, I’m not feeling real good about this,” I finally admitted to her.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s just your old prejudice about Elite superiority coming through. Watch closely now, Hays. This is what we call a game changer. Look down there.”