After the doors closed, Lizbeth took my arm and said, “One of the best nights of our lives, don’t you think?” She’d handled the president with perfect poise—and charm—but she was also clearly starstruck after meeting the great man in person. To be honest, so was I. I just didn’t let on.
“Definitely in the top hundred or so,” I teased her.
“Really,” she said archly. “You’ll have to remind me of the others. Such as?”
“How about the night when we met? Michigan Avenue, New Chicago.”
She laughed. “Hmmm. Well, that might be in the top hundred.”
“I guess I asked for that,” I said as we exchanged a kiss that I’m sure caused a whistle or two in the president’s security-camera control room.
Chapter 5
WHAT CAUGHT MY attention next was the incredible number of high-ticket toys at the party.
Sometimes it seemed like toys were all the world cared about in the second half of the twenty-first century. Humans and Elites had both fallen under their spell and become addicted to the endless pleasures and nonstop excitement they could provide. And the toys were only getting better, or worse, depending on your point of view.
Even in the presidential mansion—where you might think the serious business of the country would be getting done 24-7—toys were playing a big part in the celebration. Wide-eyed, deep-pocketed guests were crowded around a display where employees from Toyz Corporation were giving demos of some of the choicer items in the forthcoming, but thus far unreleased, catalog.
As Lizbeth and I reentered the ballroom, we were surrounded by a menagerie of cloned, genetically tamed animals—birds of paradise, Galápagos tortoises, enormous butterflies, pygmy hippos—and then we almost got knocked over by a beautiful woman in a gold gown and matching high heels, who was laughing while riding on a thick-maned lion.
“Oops, sorry,” she said breathlessly as she raced by. Then she called over her shoulder to Lizbeth, “You’ve got to try this, Liz. You’ve never felt such muscles.”
“Now that’s certainly not true,” Lizbeth whispered as her hand delicately grazed my upper leg. “My beauty.”
Other women were draping defanged cobras and wondrously patterned tropical vipers around their necks like mink stoles, and one demented man showed off by thrusting his head into the jaws of a docile baby Tyrannosaurus rex. I almost wished the toy would take a bite.
While Lizbeth admired the fauna—Elite and otherwise—I stepped up to a bank of SimStims, the hugely popular and addictive simulators that offered a variety of different experiences, all so intensely real that it was illegal to sell SimStim machines to anyone with a heart condition. You could choose from any number of simulations—have passionate sex with a movie or government star, for example, rock out onstage surrounded by a vast audience of screaming fans, or fight for your life in the heat of combat.
I slipped on a mood helmet at one of the simulators and scanned the on-screen menu. The range of choices was staggering: Moorish Harem, Eye of a Hurricane Experience, Pagan Barbarities, Tennis vs. the Pro, Pig Out: No Calories, Death Experience: A Final 60 Seconds, Visit Your Former Lives.
Movie buff that I am, I picked the general heading of Great Moments in Cinema.
I barely glimpsed the words “This Program Has Been Edited for Your Enhanced Pleasure,” and then I was there. Bogie in Casablanca.
I gazed into the liquid blue eyes of Ingrid Bergman sitting across from me—then I raised my whiskey glass to touch hers.
“Here’s looking at you, kid,” I said, losing myself in her answering smile.
Then the door of the noisy café burst open and a toadlike little man ran in, looking around in panic. The great human character actor Peter Lorre had arrived.
“Rick, you have to help me,” he gasped in a heavy accent, thrusting a sheaf of papers at me. “Hide these!”
I strode to the piano as he rushed out the back door, and I had just managed to shove the papers under the lid when gunshots sounded in the street outside. Suddenly, jackbooted soldiers stormed in—
My heart raced, and I felt myself instinctively backing away toward the bar. There was a Luger right there under the counter.
This was amazing. I was living Bogie’s part in the film masterpiece. And then—surprise of surprises…
Chapter 6
I FOUND MYSELF staring at the menu screen, a little miffed at the next message. “Presented by Toyz Corporation,” it blinked in stark black and white. “We hope you’ll come back soon.”
“Great,” I sighed. “Well, it did say great moments in cinema, didn’t it?”
Lizbeth was watching me with folded arms and raised eyebrows as I removed the mood helmet.
“Have a good time?” she asked and started to grin mischievously.
“A little short-lived,” I said, wondering if any of the other programs were full-length—maybe next time I’d get into something like a Viking raid, or maybe visit that Moorish harem.
Actually, I was quite a student of human history. I never would have turned the government back over to them, but if one thing’s true about the Homo sapiens, it’s that they almost never let you down in the drama department. I mean the scandals, the three World Wars, the artistic movements, games, literature, films… and the music! I adored Mozart, but also Bob Dylan and Edith Piaf.
I took Lizbeth’s hand and we strolled back toward the center of the great hall.
“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!
Chapter 7
T
HIS 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.
Chapter 8
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.
“Close, guy. I’m impressed.” I gave him his due.
Then I followed the arc of his knife with my own slashing left hand, slapping the weapon out of his grasp as my right hand crushed his other elbow from behind. Next, I jammed his head between two vertical bars in one of the neighborhood’s iron fences and bent them around his neck to form a snug, but not quite strangling, collar.
“Not to worry,” I said. “The police will be here to rescue you soon.”
I absolutely needed to keep a couple of these skunks alive for interrogation. Had to keep that in mind.
I glanced over at Lizbeth to make sure she was doing OK. My lovely bride was just dispatching her next assignment with a graceful rib-cage-collapsing ballet kick. In her spare time, she’s a dancer, a private dancer for the kids and me.
“Way to go, Dr. Baker!” I called to her.
“You too, Dr. Baker!”
I turned my attention to the last of the group, the one who had registered on my sensors as far and away the most dangerous. The criminal was still in the driver’s seat of the car they’d rammed into ours—he only watched while the others fought. Coward, or mastermind? I wondered. If there is such a thing as a human mastermind.
Only it wasn’t a he, I suddenly realized. The creep’s shaggy blond hair was cut short, but the body and facial structure was definitely female.
She was staring at me through the open car window, and the emotion she projected, the undisguised hatred in her eyes, made my scalp bristle. Then she completely shocked me—she knew my name.
“You think you’re a hero, Hays Baker, but you have no idea what you’re doing,” she said softly. “You’re the criminal here.”
Then she pulled back on the car’s wheel and it accelerated straight skyward. My muscles tensed to leap and catch hold of the rear bumper. I could have done it. But I stayed rooted to the ground. I had no idea why.
Lizbeth was watching me, suddenly looking concerned. “Hays, are you hurt?” she called. “Hays?”
“No, I’m… I’m fine.”
She looked puzzled. “Why didn’t you go after the driver?”
“I… I thought it was too risky,” I said, though that wasn’t it at all. “If the car had taken off and we’d crashed… we’re in a residential neighborhood. Don’t worry, we’ll catch her.”
“Her? It was a woman?” Lizbeth asked in amazement. “I thought all human females were pregnant and working behind a stove.”
“Good one, Jinxie,” I said and gave her a hug. She could tell a human joke with the best of them.
Chapter 9
THE LOCAL POLICE arrived in the next sixty seconds and very quickly and professionally cordoned off the automobile crash and crime scene. The Agency had already been in touch to verify our vitals and to dispatch another car to take Lizbeth and me home.
We arrived at our apartment, a beautiful tenth-story floor-through in one of the most desirable lakefront locations in the ci
ty.
When we stepped through our front door, the first thing we heard was the jangly, atonal pulse of robo-rap music coming from our house android, Metallico, who was prancing around the living room and singing along with the tunes.
Metallico hastily turned off the sound and stared at us in shock. “What in the world happened to you two?” he asked. “Lizbeth, your beautiful hair is a mess!”
“Never mind about that,” she snapped. “What happened to this place? It looks like all the closets exploded.”
“Well, excuse me. I suppose I’m too lazy to shop, cook, play nanny, and clean, all at the same time. If you must know, I just finished giving the girls their bath and was starting to tidy up. I wasn’t expecting you home so early.” The robot’s supple, bronze-tinted silicone skin glowed a little brighter, indicating his annoyance.
“We had a slight change of plans,” I said calmingly. I always tried to smooth over these little sniping matches between the two of them.
The apartment didn’t seem all that bad to me; Lizbeth had a tendency toward tidiness that could go over the edge. There were games and clothes strewn on the coffee table, but Metallico was right: with our two little-girl cyclones racing around at full speed, even he—a machine designed to clean—sometimes got maxed out before day’s end.
His skin had returned to a normal hue, although he still managed to convey that his “feelings” had been hurt.
“All right, let’s kiss and make up,” he said. “I’ll get you both a drink—you look like you could use it. Your clothes—Lord.”
He gave us quick hugs and pecks on the cheek, then bustled off to the kitchen, crooning again, shaking his booty, and making us both smile, though Lizbeth did mutter “hopeless heap of metal” under her breath.
Besides being incredibly helpful, Metallico could be a lot of fun. He was the size and shape of a normal adult but built for work and, thus, without the refined exterior of the high-end entertainment androids. But he could move with such speed and grace that he made the simplest household task look like an Olympic event. He was also a perfect playmate and teacher for the girls, a vast encyclopedia of knowledge—robots like him were of course interfaced to the Cybernet, with all the information of our entire civilization at their instant command—a witty conversationalist, a master of adult games (such as four-dimensional chess), a gourmet chef, and a thousand other useful things. Also, like the rest of our family, he despised and distrusted all humans.