James Patterson: Toys

Her shaking finger moved toward the homicide scene.

“Those two-I don’t think they were a couple… they acted more like they worked together… Anyhow, they were walking past me, talking to each other. It was all perfectly… ordinary. Then-they were lying on the floor. Just like they are now. Cut open! It’s the weirdest thing, but it was like there was nothing in between.”

Others in the crowd nodded their heads in complete agreement.

“Hey, why don’t you tell us what’s going on?” a man in front called out to me. “The police are supposed to protect us, aren’t you? How could you let something like this happen? In a Toyz store of all places?”

It was a fair question, but I didn’t have a clue what to say. How could I? Basically, these murders just couldn’t have happened.

“Come on, there are more bodies up front,” McGill said in a quiet voice, respectful of the occasion or, perhaps, the deeply disturbing mystery of it. It was rare for Elites to be crime victims-now here were eleven of them dead, and Lizbeth and I were still recovering from an armed attack. What the hell was going on?

I followed Owen through the distraction-crammed store, trying to keep my focus on the grisly task at hand and my head clear of the Toyz siren song.

But what a collection of playthings. Sex and adventure simulators, domestic servants that could do everything but think your thoughts, genetically tamed wild animals that never needed feeding, personal submarines, personal airpods, role-playing worlds, antigravity chambers, celebrity “clone” androids you could bring home and interact with as you pleased… Toys, toys, toys for all good little girls and boys. That line-from the Toyz store’s famous jingle-you couldn’t get it out of your head without using a ThoughtCleanser, another Toyz store favorite.

“One thing’s for sure-it had to be skunks,” McGill said grimly, hatred for the despicable human killers burning like hot coals in his eyes.

I nodded. No Elite would commit a vicious crime like this. Almost by definition, it’s what separates us from those murdering animals. Genetically speaking, of course, Elites are more than 99 percent human. It’s not something we tend to dwell on, but we’re rational-and it is what it is.

Quite simply, our kind was geneered from human stock. In our case, it was deliberate science rather than blind natural selection-but it’s essentially similar to how “modern” humans themselves are said to have evolved from Homo erectus or Australopithecus or other primitive forms.

But even more significant than our DNA blueprint-genes, after all, are simply sets of biological instructions-is the final product. Unlike humans-or any organism that’s ever walked under the sun for that matter-we aren’t just flesh and blood. We contain circuitry and nanomachinery. Although it isn’t visible from the outside, we are, in fact, part machine.

One other difference between us and them is that rather than being born from a woman’s uterus, we grow in artificial wombs. This means Elite women don’t have to endure the old-world pain, inconvenience, and health risks of pregnancy.

Artificial wombs also permit us to gestate for longer-we spend a full two years developing before birth, as opposed to the typical nine months of human pregnancy. Among other things, this makes it possible for doctors to integrate the biocircuitry and other augmentations that enable us to rise above humankind’s dangerous shortcomings: greed, immorality, self-destructiveness, rage. I could go on and on, of course. Even the best human artists understood humanity’s frailties and failings. Just read Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Swift, Rand, Solzhenitsyn-even pop culture writers like Stephen King and Philip K. Dick got it right.

The brutally dismembered bodies at the Toyz store reminded me once again these human flaws should never be underestimated. Too often the outcome was tragic.

Looking around the scene, I noticed something interesting. The organs taken from the bodies were all those linked to uniquely Elite biotechnical augmentations-especially our circuitry-enhanced brains. It suggested something even more disturbing: the massacre at the store wasn’t random, or motivated by robbery-this wasn’t an explosion of shortsighted rebellion and rage that occasionally flares in the human ranks.

Instead, this had all the elements of a complex and premeditated murder plot.

I shook my head and walked the route between the two crime scenes, cataloging traces that the cold-blooded attackers had left.

They’d come in at the rear-the blood of the first corpses I’d seen was more congealed than the others-and they’d moved fast to execute their daring plan. Footprints in the blood-sizes ten and a half, twelve, and two size elevens, all popular-brand athletic shoes-told me that there’d been four of them. Large males. Animalistic. Acting without any regard for right or wrong.

A forensic team was on its way, but I already knew my assignment: I had to go bag myself four murdering skunks before they could kill again.

The Toyz premier items on display tonight were, of course, Jessica and Jacob dolls. Dozens of them had been placed in the store’s huge front window, undoubtedly to lure in traffic. Scary didn’t start to cover that tableau.

The dolls had wandered away from their display stations and were now standing behind the glass barrier.

They were staring at the mutilated Elite corpses, pointing at them, talking among themselves like so many looky-loos at a terrible, terrible traffic accident.

To the Jessicas and Jacobs, the crime scene seemed to be the featured amusement for tonight. Talk about disturbing- dolls being entertained by real-life tragedy.

Lizbeth was right-there was no way our Chloe and April were going to get any of these little bastards for the holidays. Not while I was Dad.

“Dr. Baker, Sir. Our street surveillance cameras have picked up four skunks on motorcycles fleeing the area,” a city cop called out, hurrying toward me. “They’re heading north along the lakefront. We have emergency units-”

I was already running for my car. I wanted in on this capture in the worst way. I had never investigated a crime as daring and unspeakable as this one.

This time I took over the driving controls. As I sped out onto the streets, I barked a command at the dashboard computer: “Four motorcycles, north lakefront. Rapid pursuit until intersect.”

That order activated a link to the city’s network of surveillance cameras.

Instantly, a grid appeared on-screen, showing a cluster of four shapes hunched over their bikes.

The readout gave their speed as 187 miles per hour and their location as 7.347 miles away. Other shapes on-screen showed me that airborne police pods were already chasing them and ground vehicles were forming roadblocks ahead.

The fact that they’d gotten as far as they had was astonishing and made me feel anything but secure about a peaceful arrest.

McGill’s avatar suddenly appeared on my display. I blinked my eye at the communications icon, signaling the computer to pick up his call.

“Hays, we’ve ID’d the vics at the store,” he reported to me now. “They were all Toyz Corp execs.”

“What?”

“Yeah, and we’re not talking district managers either. They were members of the Toyz board. Moore’s crazed about it. So, you know, no pressure or anything. Just catch-and kill-the bastards. No mercy.”

“I’m closing in on the vermin right now,” I said, then clicked off McGill’s feed with a blink.

No mercy indeed.