Toys - A Novel Part 6

I didn't bother swatting it out. No time for that. Instead, I plunged headfirst toward the dark, roiling surface of the lake below. A blitz of searchlights and laser flashes followed me, but I somehow sliced into the cold water.

One good thing to be said for a 110-foot dive from a high-rise into a North American lake in the early summer: the freezing cold water quickly takes your attention away from the sting of slamming into the lake's surface.

It was hard to hold my breath and think straight when all I wanted to do was scream. But I stayed underwater, knowing that cover meant survival.

My brain was racing faster than my body now. What next? Normally, I could hold my breath for several minutes, but how far would I be able to swim in that time? Well, let's see! Well, let's see!

I swam straight for the opposite sh.o.r.e-my strokes actually getting stronger-and finally ended up in a partially submerged culvert. The storm sewer it connected to ran up under the Esplanade, an eight-lane highway that bordered the lake.

I entered the first manhole shaft I came to, climbed furiously up, and came out in the middle of a landscaped median full of tulips, roses, exotic gra.s.ses, and hybrid cherry trees in full bloom.

The city's ground traffic was heavy as usual, moving at a crawl-about thirty-five miles per hour.

It was just slow enough for me to sprint after the most anonymous-looking service vehicle I saw, grab hold of its rear b.u.mper, then tuck myself down between the rear wheels, hopefully hidden from overhead police scanners.

In a matter of a few seconds, I had disappeared into the flood of vehicles flowing in and out of New Lake City.

As in the theme song from that old movie-one of the James Bond films, I believe-"n.o.body does it better."

Chapter 27 27.

STILL PLAYING THE superhero in my head-it just might help me survive-I jumped off the service vehicle as it slowed for its destination, a distribution center on the edges of an infamous human slum on the south side of town. I smelled the humans before I actually saw one. No wonder they were called skunks.

Humans aren't the most fas.h.i.+on-savvy creatures on the planet, but even so, I figured I would stand out in my singed hospital gown. To avoid attracting too much attention, I stayed in alleyways and shadows, scouting for food, shelter, and, yes, clothes to replace the johnny.

It was a depressingly poor and bombed-out area of town, and there weren't a lot of inviting s.p.a.ces around. Mostly it was a long row of metal-sided buildings, shuttered loading docks, and gritty, litter-strewed sidewalks.

I'd gone maybe a half mile in the direction of what looked to be a human neighborhood when I rounded a corner and saw a group of jeering Betas-named so by Elite sociologists because they behaved like lawless young male wolves, living lives of opportunistic violence on the edge of the pack. The dangerous human thugs were armed with knives and clubs and were clearly not on their way to help out at an area soup kitchen.

They'd surrounded a girl-she couldn't have been much more than sixteen years old, and she looked very pregnant. As they shoved her back and forth, her pale, tattered skirt billowed up around her waist. She was screaming at the top of her voice: "Nooo, my baby!"

It was against my Agency training to put myself at risk for a human, but the girl was clearly in trouble. I had to help her if I possibly could. But could I?

"Nice dress, man," said the lead Beta as I approached the punks.

His friends stopped molesting the girl long enough to size me up and then pull a couple of knives from their belts.

"See anything you like?" I offered up a human-style wisecrack. "Maybe I I do." do."

"Watch it, pretty boy," said the leader, a bull-shouldered hulk with a scarred face and a broken nose.

"Aren't you going to ask me to dance?" I said.

"We'll dance with you all right-till you're bleedin' out of places you've never bleeded before."

"Sounds like fun," I told him. "Will it hurt? I like pain."

His buddies had stepped away from the terrified girl and were gathering around me now. The girl took off running down a nearby alleyway. Not even so much as a thank-you.

"Yeah," the lead trog went on, clearly pleased with himself. "Why don't we do some slam- slam-dancing? We stand in a circle like this, and you get slammed. slammed."

"Or," I said, not to be outdone in my knowledge of retro human dances, "we could break- break-dance. You know, you try to lay a hand on me, and I break break your ugly heads?" your ugly heads?"

His grin widened and then disappeared into an expression of stone-cold seriousness. "Kill 'im, boys. Rip 'im up."

It so happened that I was already having a very bad day and had some serious aggression to work out. In fact, the hardest part would be checking my fury so that I didn't overdo it and end up coming out of this fight without any usable clothes from this rat pack.

Of course, usable usable is a relative term. After I'd won the street fight-in under a minute-and stripped a couple of the skunks' semiconscious bodies, I almost decided to stick with my hospital gown. Their pants, boots, s.h.i.+rts, and jackets smelled is a relative term. After I'd won the street fight-in under a minute-and stripped a couple of the skunks' semiconscious bodies, I almost decided to stick with my hospital gown. Their pants, boots, s.h.i.+rts, and jackets smelled that that bad. bad.

At first I was convinced the clothes achieved what I wanted: they made me look-and smell-just like another Beta. But as I buckled up my pants, I realized somebody wasn't entirely buying the costume. Footsteps were coming up behind me lickety-split. Now what? Now what?

I took a breath and got ready for another fight.

It was just the young girl though, and she was very pregnant indeed. Poor thing.

Chapter 28 28.

NORMALLY, I DESPISED sentimentality-except when it came to Lizbeth and my girls-but I found that I couldn't help myself. Maybe my own recent circ.u.mstances were teaching me some compa.s.sion. I certainly hoped not.

The girl's teeth were broken and decayed, and her skin pockmarked by some childhood disease, probably treatable at the time. Sad to say, but hospitals and other medical care for the humans were substandard at best. It was a policy I didn't approve of, but the president had never asked my opinion on the subject.

"Can't b-believe you got 'em all, all," she stammered, with the slangy inflection of so many humans in these slums. "How'd ya do it?"

"Just dumb luck, I suppose. But I'm sure there are others lurking around. You should go someplace safe. Don't depend on me, girl."

She laughed, exposing several more infected teeth. "Safe? In Beta-Town? You're not from around here, are ya?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Come with me," she said. "Going to storm hard soon. I got a place."

She was right about the weather. The sultry air was thickening and held the promise of rain, and this was the time of year that flash floods were common. I was bone tired too-my body wasn't through with its healing.

Still, I was about to politely decline her offer when she moaned in pain and doubled over, clutching her swollen belly. Then she started to fall.

I caught the girl in my arms and eased her down to the ground. After a minute, her face smoothed out. Actually, the face was rather pretty, so long as she kept her mouth closed.

"When's the baby due?" I asked.

"Few weeks yet. But those Betas, they punched me here." She clasped her hands tighter around her stomach, cradling what was inside.

I let out a sigh. "How far is your place?" I asked.

"Not far. I'll show you. Don't be afraid-you can trust me."

As I scooped her up in my arms, I felt wetness drenching the back of her thin skirt.

Good Lord, the girl was bleeding badly. Her baby could die.

Chapter 29 29.

SHE TOLD ME her name as we hurried along to her place. It was Shanna. I asked a few harmless questions, trying to keep her mind off the pain-and the blood-as best I could.

Turns out, Shanna had been on her own since she was ten, living with various dest.i.tute groups of humans until Betas, disease, or hunger forced her to move on. Shanna didn't know where she'd been born, who her parents were, or even who her baby's father was. She said that she was a "Southerner" and a "Baptist" and a "Bible-thumper," none of which meant anything to me.

"How old are you, Shanna?" I finally had to ask.

"Fourteen," she told me. "I'm fourteen. Old enough."

As we went farther into the human neighborhood, the air became rank with the sickly sweet stink of rot. All manner of insects buzzed, fluttered, and scurried around Shanna and me. I was coming to realize that I'd taken several comforts of Elite life completely for granted. Also, that I'd given almost no thought to the terrible living conditions of humans. This place was unendurable.

"Here," Shanna said. She weakly raised a hand to point down an alley that had patches of high weeds thrusting up through its cracked concrete.

As we entered the alley, the voice of a lookout shouted, "Betas! Two of 'em." Two of 'em."

I heard fast shuffling, like a pack of huge animals scurrying closer to us.

I bent to set Shanna down so I could fight them off.

"It's OK," she managed to call out. "He helped me. He's a good man!"

The shuffling sounds stopped. Then, pale faces came slowly into sight, peering out of a dark building at the alley's far end. There could have been a dozen of them, or twice that many. They were hard to tell apart-all so thin and furtive. Even the very young ones radiated extreme fear and suffering of the sort I had never encountered before.

"It's a trick! Why would a Beta help ya?" a tall woman demanded, stepping forward defiantly. She was older, but far from infirm, and gave off a sense of intelligence and self-possession that I was surprised to see in this slum.

"Oh, I'm not a Beta-I just borrowed some clothes... after I fought a few of them," I said. "Look here, Shanna's in a bad way. She's bleeding a lot. Where do you want me to take her?"

"He's telling the truth. I think the baby's coming, Corliss," Shanna said in a trembling voice. Then, very softly, the girl started to cry like, well, a little girl.

Concern spread across the older woman's face. "This way," she said, and led us quickly into a small room in a run-down warehouse. There was a mattress of rags on the floor and a table covered with rancid food sc.r.a.ps. Human photographs were pinned on the walls.

I'd studied the biological phenomenon of human birth, even seen footage of it on the Cybernet, but I'd never witnessed it in person. Chloe and April-as with all Elite babies-were born in synthetic wombs in government-regulated natal centers.

The difference was one of the most fundamental between humans and Elites.

Or so I believed at the time.

Chapter 30 30.

HOW STRANGE IT was-being among these humans, pretending to be one of them.

After I settled Shanna on the mattress, she began to tell her friends what had happened with the Betas, speaking haltingly in a human street dialect I could barely follow.

Their looks toward me became cautiously admiring. "How can we repay you?" Corliss finally asked.

"I just need to rest awhile. That's thanks enough," I said. "I'll be on my way soon."

"Stay here as long as you wish," said Corliss. "You're a friend now. And I can see you've been injured yourself."

"I'll be fine. Honestly."

I walked farther back into the building-an abandoned warehouse with the doors and windows long since gone. There was no electricity, no running water, but at least it was shelter from the rain and wind that had started outside-not to mention any Elite satellites and drones that might be scanning the city for signs of me.

I stepped into a large room nearby and found ragged children huddled there-playing with, of all things, Jessica and Jacob dolls. It seemed ironic that these street urchins had been able to steal the most sought-after toys of the season-but that wasn't what bothered me. When I really thought about it, there was something just wrong wrong about dolls that acted out everything we did... but were only a foot or so tall. It was just weird to me. Also, dolls about dolls that acted out everything we did... but were only a foot or so tall. It was just weird to me. Also, dolls used used to be about children exercising their imaginations, about real to be about children exercising their imaginations, about real play. play. How were children going to exercise their minds if the dolls did the playing by themselves? How were children going to exercise their minds if the dolls did the playing by themselves?

"Those things aren't good for you," I told the kids. "They'll rot your brains."

"If you're so smart, what are you doing here? here?" one of them snapped back.

The others giggled and muttered in their coa.r.s.e slang, insulting me. It was disturbing to see people so hard-edged at such a young age. No doubt some of them would go on to become Betas-if they survived that long.

But I was actually heartened by the kids' smart-aleck reaction. There was surprising verve, an underlying vitality, in this human ghetto. The skunks were a little more clever, and more rational, than I'd formerly believed. I was also detecting kindness alongside the cruelty, pa.s.sion within the desperation.

Strains of music drifted through the air-and I caught, in the shadows, the whispering, giggling sounds of lovemaking.

I finally found a quiet corner to settle in. I needed to rest and regenerate. A few minutes later, Corliss brought me a basket of food-a half loaf of fresh bread, along with sc.r.a.ps of cheese and vegetables. My stomach growled like an animal's. I couldn't remember ever being so hungry, and though part of me shuddered at the thought of eating nutritionally unbalanced, germy, possibly toxin-laden human food, my mouth watered at the sight and smell of it.

I took a couple of tentative chews and then began tearing into what was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner of the day.

But simply eating their food didn't make me one of them. Every time the words he's human he's human resurfaced in my mind, I shuddered and shook my head in confusion. What had happened to me, and to my family? I couldn't be human-I resurfaced in my mind, I shuddered and shook my head in confusion. What had happened to me, and to my family? I couldn't be human-I wasn't. wasn't.

And that's when I heard Shanna's bloodcurdling screams.