James Patterson: Toys

“Let’s take a look at those dolls. I want to see if they’re suitable for April and Chloe,” she said. “They’re absolutely begging for them, Hays.”

“They have more than enough toys already,” I said, but quickly relented. “Oh all right, Jinx. I can’t say no to them.”

Lizbeth pointed at a demonstration of the season’s hottest new items-Jessica and Jacob dolls, beautiful miniature androids that looked and acted perfectly lifelike. Kids everywhere-including our own two daughters-were causing parents to line up around the block to purchase them at Toyz stores all over the country.

The clever display was set up in a series of tableaux-separate scenes of home, office, store, and restaurant-with dozens of the lifelike dolls chatting, working, and eating just like real people, though only sixteen inches tall.

To be perfectly honest, while I couldn’t quite take my eyes off them, I found the dolls more than a little creepy.

But the crowd was riveted, especially a growing knot in front of a sign that read THESE MODELS SPECIAL ORDER ONLY.

When Lizbeth and I strolled over there, we immediately saw why.

“Oh my,” she said. “Oh dear, Hays. That’s just gross.”

Underneath the sign was a doll-sized bed where a Jake and Jessie in the buff were thrashing around in primal delight. I mean, those two were really going at it.

“I guess we can scratch the special orders off our list,” Lizbeth said.

“They really can do everything. Energetic little devil, isn’t he?”

Lizbeth rolled her eyes. “There’s more to it than slamming in and out like a piston. Don’t you think, Hays? I’ll bet you anything these dolls were programmed by a man-and probably one between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five. They should let a woman redo the code if they really want them to sell.”

“Thinking about volunteering?” I said. Biocircuitry was Lizbeth’s specialty-she was one of the foremost experts at the Agency of Change. “And what would you do differently, dear heart? Have all the Jacobs look like me?”

Her lips brushed my ear. “That’s not such a terrible idea, Hays. Say, I’m thinking this party has served its official purpose for us,” she murmured. “What do you say we go home? Maybe play some games of our own?”

“Umm, coming through,” I said, taking her hand and leading her off the crowded floor. The best night of our professional lives was about to get even better, and on a much more intimate level.

Jinxie and I were going home.

Yippee!

This was where the slope began to get slippery, dangerously slippery indeed.

Outside the presidential mansion, more iJeeves butlers were escorting rich and famous guests to a long line of waiting limos. Lizbeth and I were soon settled back in our Agency-loaned driverless vehicle to enjoy the air ride through the beautiful Elite zone of New Lake City.

Glittering hundred-story buildings stretched out before us for miles, with impossibly fast-moving flying cars, trucks, and buses streaking between them. As Jinxie had said earlier, We really do run the world. In truth, we Elites had saved the planet, so why not?

Off toward the outskirts of the high-rises, you could see the dark gaps of the human slums. Sad stuff, even if you despised the humans. But maybe the president’s plan would fix that once and for all. The humans had proved they couldn’t be trusted under any circumstances.

Lizbeth and I snuggled together like giddy teenagers inside the limo, whetting our appetites for later on. She kept making jokes about how “beautiful” I was.

“I want you to try the new Rapture pill, Hays. Two-minute orgasms.”

“Contact your physician if orgasm lasts an hour or longer,” I said as I leaned in for a kiss.

Then-out of nowhere-it felt like a giant boulder had crashed into the roof of the Daimler. The impact buckled the incredibly strong titanium roof, rocking us from side to side, then bringing the car to a graceless, airbag-assisted landing on the street below.

“Hays?” Lizbeth said in alarm. “Are we being attacked? We are, aren’t we? How dare they? ”

At first I could see nothing outside the smashed-open windows. But I definitely heard yelling and pounding feet. Five, six, seven people coming toward us-fast.

Even as I ordered the limo to disengage our safety restraints, I could smell their foul body odor. Humans. Damn them. They must have crashed another vehicle on top of ours and forced us down, and they were now moving in for the kill. Robbery, of course, possibly rape-for both of us.

Like all Elites, I thoroughly distrusted humans. They were terminally lazy and stupid, and their flesh reeked of the greasy food they gobbled. The popular Elite term for them was skunks, although they were a bit more like hyenas, or wild dogs, in terms of the lives they led. Violence, deceit, and opportunism ruled their petty days and nights, just as it had through most of history. Hell, they had even written books about it, from Horace and Homer to Thomas Friedman and Stieg Larsson.

As Agents of Change, Lizbeth and I were dedicated to bringing fairness and justice to their barbaric ways and making them pay for their crimes. An act this outrageous-entering a restricted-access area and actually attacking Elites-made these vandals candidates for the harshest penalty there was: slow death.

I could see now that they were an ugly bunch, even for humans: grim-faced and menacing, armed with knives and scalpel-sharp box cutters, plus a few old-fashioned handguns.

My threat-assessment sensors instantly ranked their strength from lowest to highest. Three of them, I noted immediately, had biotech upgrades: enhanced musculature, joints, and reflexes. It wasn’t commonplace, but it was possible-through bioengineering-to augment a human to nearly Elite levels of power and conditioning.

“Shall we?” I asked Lizbeth. Besides being a doctor of engineering and possessing a genius-level IQ, my beautiful wife was a deadly hand-to-hand fighter. Besides being a doctor of history, I was also.

“I wish I’d worn sensible shoes,” Lizbeth said as she glanced at her party pumps and grimaced.

I wrenched open the limo door on my side, using it as a shield to clear a path as I leaped out. Lizbeth followed close behind, one of her shapely legs flashing from under her evening gown as she planted a spiked heel in a punk’s ear. He staggered away, howling in great pain.

“Drop your weapons!” I yelled in warning.

They didn’t, of course. What a surprise.

So I began with the weakest-ranked assailant in my reach, slipping aside as he charged at me swinging a nasty-looking box cutter. I snapped the skunk’s wrist and tossed him across the street against a lamppost. He hit with a doughy crack-as an empty beer bottle wrapped in clay would-and slid down to the pavement.

I briefly wondered if he’d had a chance to hear the thud when his skull shattered.

The next piece of human scum charged, screeching like a savage beast. I feinted a lunge, then somersaulted over him, dislocating both his shoulders in midflight.

“Three of them are fully augmented,” I cautioned Lizbeth.

“Got it, Hays. Thanks, darling. I’ll take it easy on them.”

My next foe was a fast learner, and clearly had undergone impressive augmentations. Instead of fighting, he ran-or pretended to. It took me all of three 10-foot strides to catch him.

As my hand lashed out to crush the elbow of his knife arm, he whipped around at me like a snake-a preternaturally fast snake-holding a second knife in his other hand. It sliced past my throat so fast I could hear the whir of the blade through the air.