James Patterson - Toys

“I’m fine-just like at the lake, I let them win.”

“Tazh Khan’s right-you’re crazy,” she then whispered angrily.

“Tell them they won,” I said. “And if they’ll get this damn arrow out of me, they can drink as much of my blood as they want.”

Well, it was a small price to pay-I heal quickly-but my Hays the Rabbit act won the horse soldiers over, even Tazh Khan, it seemed.

Toward evening, our merry band of Mongolians arrived at a small city, if you could call it that-a couple of square miles of gray streets and squat industrial buildings that rose up starkly out of the tundra. It was named Vlosk; mainly, it was a transport depot to ship ore from nearby mines, probably to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Lucy had already arranged passage for us on one of the cargo rockets that made constant flights to North Sea ports.

Then we’d be taken straightaway to England, where the human leaders we needed to meet were based-though Lucy told me there were also leadership councils in Berlin, Madrid, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Beijing. Of course, these were all cities that-according to Elite history books-no longer existed.

At any rate, Tazh Khan’s men obviously weren’t comfortable with Vlosk, or probably even with buildings; they stopped well short of the outskirts.

Khan rode on alone with Lucy and me to where a classic Russian motorcar was waiting to take us to our transport.

I gave my pony an affectionate pat as I jumped down to the ground. I’d become fond of the little brute. It was tough, loyal, gave everything it had, and asked little in return.

Tazh Khan spoke a quick couple of sentences to Lucy, but his gaze was on me.

“He asks how your shoulder feels,” she told me.

“Already better. I’m good,” I said, rotating it easily. He’d taken the arrow out himself, then washed my wound and dressed it with the soothing balm they used on their horses. My own rapid-healing powers had taken over from there.

Looking rather somber, Tazh Khan spoke again.

“He says he knows you deliberately let his arrow hit you,” Lucy said.

“Tell him I mean no disrespect, but he’s mistaken. His shot was so swift and sure that I barely managed to save my life.”

When she relayed this, his grin appeared, even as he spoke. Lucy kept on translating.

“He says you’re a bad liar but he’d be proud to call you his brother.”

“The honor’s mine,” I said, and I actually meant it.

“After this war is over, you must come visit him again,” Lucy said. “He’ll lend you his fattest wives to keep you warm at night, and take you spear hunting for wolves.”

Now it was my turn to grin. “Sounds like a dream vacation. Tell him- no way. ”

Tazh Khan clasped my forearm, leaned down from his horse to embrace Lucy, then rode off to rejoin his band-without a backward glance.

“That is some kind of man,” I said. “They all are.”

Lucy nodded sadly. “Exactly the kind of barbarian the Elites can’t wait to exterminate.”

It turned out that most of the mining labor in Vlosk was robotic; there weren’t many human inhabitants, and though they’d tried to add touches of warmth-brightly painted houses, for one thing; greenhouse gardens; a couple of roughhouse taverns-the place was still as grim as an addict’s funeral.

But our driver, a bristly-mustached young man named Sergei, seemed cheerful enough-maybe because, like the nomads, he wasn’t living with the Elite boot pressed down on his neck.

Our flight was ready to depart, so we said a hasty good-bye to Sergei and drove with a robot attendant to a bulky transport missile waiting on one of the launchpads.

Trouble was, these ships didn’t have passenger accommodations; there wasn’t much demand for them. The few occasional travelers were sealed into small cargo units that were pressurized, heated, and oxygenated.

Lucy and I climbed into the one that was ready for us. It was about the size of a double coffin and just big enough to get us both in-not all that different from the trunk of her car, only with a little more legroom.

After the jolts and metallic clamor of final loading and the fierce roar and terrific acceleration of blastoff, everything settled down into a deep, dark silence.

Lucy and I lay there side by side, close enough to touch, but not touching.

I could hear her breathing though. And I was surprised that she wore some kind of fragrance. She must have put it on before getting into the cargo space. Was the perfume for me?

“Just in case you’re getting any ideas, don’t, ” she said after a minute.

“Farthest thing from my mind. Hadn’t occurred to me.”

“Oh, really? It didn’t look very far from your mind when I found you in your car yesterday, making out with your dream girl.”

I could feel my face redden. “I can’t help what happens when I’m asleep.”

“Asleep!” she said scornfully. “You had the simulator on full blast.”

“I was just trying to relax. So I could get to sleep.”

To my surprise, she giggled. “You didn’t look very relaxed. Or sleepy either. You seemed rather alert.”

I didn’t have any snappy comeback to that, so I decided to go on the offensive.

“You’re the one who started a striptease for those bush pilots. Pardon the pun.”

“It was just business,” she said with the patience of a teacher speaking to a child. “Yuck-I just got your joke about the pilots.”

“That’s all it is for you, just business?” I demanded. “You’re the iron maiden?”

This time she sighed, a sound that might have been troubled, or just bone tired.

“No,” she said. “Not iron, and not a maiden either. Get some sleep, brother .”

“I definitely will,” I said. “By the way, you smell nice. For a human.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said. “Pig.”

“No- skunk. ”

When the ore ship finally landed-presumably in England, imagine that- I waited impatiently for the lid of our cargo unit to slide open and let us out. British allies would be there to meet us and take us on to London, a city I’d read about in countless books-books by Dickens, Austen, Amis, Smith, Maugham, Lodge.

I wasn’t expecting to be greeted with tea and crumpets-but I certainly wasn’t expecting what did happen.

The shipping unit was suddenly flipped upside down, dumping us into a mesh net, just as if we were a couple of fish.

Instantly, several threatening rifle barrels held by tight-lipped Brit soldiers were thrust in my face.

“What is this? What’s happening now?” I snapped at Lucy. “More lies?”

“Be calm, Hays. Be patient, please. No one is going to harm us.”

“Don’t even twitch, Baker,” one of the soldiers commanded in a crisp English accent.

Twitch? I was flooded with rage. How dare they treat Lucy and me in such a disrespectful manner!

“They’re just suspicious. They want to question you, but I couldn’t tell you that,” Lucy admitted. “I was afraid you’d-”

“Do something stupid?” I said. “Like maim several of them? Which I could do.”

The rifle barrels poked at my stomach and chest.

“You heard the major,” a sergeant growled. “Shut your mouth.”

“He said not to twitch, ” I corrected the insolent soldier.

“Please, just go along,” Lucy urged. “I’m sorry, but there’s no way around it, Hays.” She really did seem apologetic, for what that was worth. Not very much.

“Come along, miss,” the major said to Lucy. “Sir Nigel wants to see you straight off.” He led her away, leaving me alone with my new group of pals.