James Patterson - Toys

Afew hours later, I was fully alert and back at the wheel. The personal attendant gasped excitedly as I made a sharp left turn and plunged the ZX headfirst into the lake that surrounded the island where my parents lived. Stabilizing fins shot out from the sides of the pod, and the drivetrain instantly disengaged from the wheels and connected to the rear water jets.

“Oooh, I’m so wet,” the attendant chirped seductively. This was a sports model after all, a boy’s toy.

I loved the car for its performance attributes, if nothing else. I’d already decided that if I survived long enough, I was going to find the guy I’d taken it from and buy it for real.

It glided along smoothly, skirting sunken logs and sending schools of bass and perch darting away. When I was a kid, I’d spent a lot of time up here on the lake with my dad, fishing for walleyed pike, lake trout, even eels, which can be surprisingly delicious when cooked up fresh after the catch.

I hadn’t seen my folks much since university-and then I’d become an Agent of Change and married Lizbeth. I loved and respected my parents, but, well, they weren’t the easiest people to be around.

I’d always known they were unusual, even odd. Before I was born, they’d invested in the biotech industry and done well. But they decided they wanted a simpler life, so they moved to this faraway, wild north country on the lake. Now they spent their time gardening and tinkering without much connection to society, and they seemed to like it that way. They saw Lizbeth, me, and the kids once a year, and that seemed enough for them, which was strange to me. My parents had always been warm and loving when I was a child.

The ZX shot up out of the water and onto a pebbly beach, then it snaked through a stretch of thick, tangled forest while tree limbs brushed its roof and windows.

It was late morning now, cloudy and warm, the leaves glistening with dew and the air thick with birdsong. The forest opened into a large clearing-and there was the sprawling, old-fashioned house where I’d grown up. Everything looked just the way I remembered it, cedar shingles and all. Even the smell of the pine trees was familiar.

Except that someone I didn’t recognize was up on a ladder, working on the roof. It was a woman who had her hair tucked under a painter’s cap. She must have been a human my parents had hired to do the chores, although I didn’t recall them mentioning it, or ever doing that before. They’d always taken care of the place themselves. Well, they weren’t getting any younger, were they? Nobody was.

“So you made it here on your own,” the menial worker called as I climbed out of the car. “I’m impressed. You’re more resourceful than I would have guessed.”

The timbre of her voice registered immediately in my brain, and it was like I’d been zapped with a Taser-the woman was the leader of the gang of skunks who had attacked Lizbeth and me, the one who got away.

I fought back wild surprise-and then a wave of rage-and managed a frosty smile worthy of my former rank and station at the Agency. Am I walking into an ambush? Are my parents here-are they even alive? I wondered, in that order.

“Well, well,” I said. “Last time we met, you tried to kill me.”

“If I’d tried,” she said, putting down a hammer and removing leather work gloves, “you’d be dead.”

Was the woman deliberately trying to provoke me? Clearly she and whomever she was working for were a step ahead of me. Maybe several steps. How was that even possible?

“Where are my parents?” I asked as I judged the height of the roof and got ready to leap up there, fight her, and kill her.

“They’ll be out in a minute to say hello to their favorite son. Calm down, Hays. No need for you to come up here and try out your fancy commando moves on me.”

This time her condescending tone-as if she were soothing an upset child-was a little too much for my nerves.

“Don’t tell me to calm down. You’re a common killer-a criminal and a skunk.”

“I guess by your standards I am. But by most other standards, you’re the criminal. How many humans have you killed in your life, Hays Baker?” she shot back. “Or have you lost count? And what does that say about you?”

Just then the front door of the house swung open, and out came my mother. She hurried toward me with a welcoming smile and open arms.

“Hays, darling, it’s so wonderful to see you! I’m so happy you’re here.”

Mom was thinner and noticeably older than the last time I’d been here, but her eyes were more luminous than ever. She looked healthy and spry enough.

“I see you’ve met Lucy,” she said, gesturing up at the roof. But then her eyes were back on me, her favorite son. Of course, I was her only child.

“What a sight you are,” she said, looking me up and down, then clasping me again in her warm embrace. Ah, the feel of her, the scent of her skin, the sound of her voice… I really was home, wasn’t I?

She finally stepped back, taking hold of my hands and looking me over again. “But for heaven’s sake-what happened to your beautiful hair?”

I ran my hand over my bald head. “It’s the new look in the city,” I said. Then I asked, “Who is she, and why is she here?”

My mother looked deep into my eyes, and then she said, “She’s here because she’s your sister.”

I immediately swiveled my head back and forth from the smart-mouthed criminal-and, perhaps, murderer-up on the roof to my mother. My mom was clearly not under any kind of duress or threat. If anything, I sensed embarrassment coming from her.

“What do you mean, my ‘ sister ’?” I asked the obvious question.

“We just couldn’t tell you about Lucy. It would have been too risky,” my father said, stepping out of the house. “It was too important that you accomplish what you’ve done so well. Become one of them. Become an Elite bastard.”

What the hell was going on here?

What was my father talking about? What had they done? Had my parents played me like some sort of unwitting pawn? Had they purposely set out to make me a traitorous “bastard”? Was I a sleeper agent?

“Come with me. Please, Hays,” he said. “Just come. I have something to show you.”

I obediently followed him to the outbuilding that he used as a workshop. It was all so very familiar, especially the cloying smell of oil and paint inside.

“Nothing changes, does it?” I muttered. “It’s as if I never went away.”

“Looks just like what you’d expect from a harmless, bumbling eccentric, right?” my father said, gesturing with his hand at the contents of the musty, cluttered space. Several tables were covered with a jumble of random electronic gadgetry. None of it seemed to point to any unified purpose or goal.

“That’s a good way to put it,” I agreed. Like most young kids, I had never paid too much attention to what my parents actually did in their work.

In my human-history studies at university, I’d come across countless descriptions of the “hippie” movement of the 1960s. Richard Brautigan, Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey, a movie called Woodstock. I soon realized that my parents-with their off-the-grid, tuned-out-of-the-mainstream lifestyle-bore more than a passing resemblance to the long-haired movement of that time, years before the humans had taken their full-on path toward world destruction.

In fact, my parents had even dressed the part of hippies. My mom usually wore her hair in a long, graying braid, and she favored baggy jeans, or sometimes ankle-length dresses. My father, almost always in a beat-up leather hat and faded work clothes, had sported a heavy commune-style beard. And they kept a large collection of books, magazines, and other print-based relics from the era before 7–4 Day. I’d read most of the material myself.