As he came back with our regular no-carb drinks—a glass of sauvignon blanc for Lizbeth, vodka with a twist for me—Chloe and April came charging into the room and threw themselves into our arms. Ah, my sweet baby girls.
“Did you bring us Jessica and Jacob dolls?” they asked their mom. Chloe, who’d just turned four, pronounced dolls dows. She was an elfin beauty with her mother’s violet and ivory coloring, while April, six, was tawny-skinned with thick blond hair like mine.
“I’m not feeling very good about those dolls, sweeties,” Lizbeth confessed.
“Neither am I,” I added in support. “Sorry, ladies.”
“Noooo,” the girls wailed in a chorus of grief.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, OK? It’s bedtime—go get settled, and Daddy will come tell you a story. Won’t you, Hays?”
“Of course I will. That’s why they call me Daddy, isn’t it?”
Chapter 10
ALTHOUGH DISAPPOINTED, the girls were mostly obedient at this age, and they scampered away to their room. “C’mon, Daddy!” they called to me. “You have to tell us a story now. Two stories. Because you’re denying us our dolls.”
I followed close behind and turned my thoughts to choosing a favorite bedtime story for my babies. I scrolled through the library menu on Chloe’s wall… maybe Don’t Let the Pigeon Land the Car, or Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
The thing about the girls and me back then, we had sort of a secret life. On the weekends, we loved to go off to the city’s very large library to read together. We listened to Mozart on earphones on the way there, then settled in to read Charles Dickens aloud. The point—if there has to be a point to everything—is that you can hate humans, but nobody should hate Mozart or Charles Dickens or J. K. Rowling.
As I was reminiscing about our little secret times together, my earring phone chirped—three quick beeps signaled an Agency emergency of some sort. “Damn!” I muttered. “This can’t be happening.”
“Daddy!” April said with a frown. “You just said a forbidden word.” I wasn’t supposed to curse.
The caller turned out to be Owen McGill, my partner at the Agency of Change and a longtime friend, probably my best friend—other than Lizbeth, that is.
“Grab your boots, Hays,” McGill said. “There’s been an ugly incident at the Toyz store in Baronville”—a tony Elite suburb at the northern edge of New Lake City, about twenty miles away. “They want you here right now. It’s homicides, plural.”
“Me? Now? I already had my ugly incident for the night. Lizbeth and I were attacked—by skunks. Besides, I’m supposed to be off.”
“Sorry, buddy. Jax Moore specifically requested you. ‘I want Hays Baker on this!’ That’s what he said.”
I exhaled. “All right, all right. I’m on my way.”
So much for reading bedtime stories, a romantic interlude with my wife, or even getting to taste my vodka with a twist of lemon. What a letdown, and what a shit night this was turning out to be.
I hadn’t even had time to take off my tux jacket before I was heading off to face, well, whatever was so important that Jax Moore had requested me at the crime scene.
Homicides—plural.
Chapter 11
OUR APARTMENT BUILDING’S superfast express elevator whisked me up to the rooftop garage, and I jumped into my own car—a teardrop-shaped sports-pod just big enough to comfortably fit me and a passenger. Although the touch of a button would extend it rearward, enabling it to carry as many as four others.
As the hatch slid shut, the instrument panel lights blinked a message: “Ready when you are, Dr. Baker.”
“Toyz store, Baronville, max speed,” I said.
Usually, I operated the vehicle myself, but right now I needed a break, even—as it would have to be in this case—a very short one.
“Roger that, Dr. Baker,” replied the interactive pilot’s crisp voice.
Suddenly, the sports-pod shot straight upward, then forward, pressing me firmly back into the custom seats. These superlight pods were among the fastest models available, capable of doing zero to sixty in two seconds flat, maneuvering in the air like a hummingbird, and cruising comfortably at three hundred miles per hour, even on a surface road.
“Airspace clearance is set. Estimated flight time: four minutes and twenty-three seconds,” said a different voice, female and as familiar as an old friend. “Would you care for a drink? Entertainment of any kind? Sensory stimulation?”
This was Elle, the artificially intelligent attendant. I hadn’t named the pilot—our relationship was more businesslike—but Elle deserved a name.
“How about some Bach?” I said. “Please, Elle. That would be terrific. Just what I need.”
“If I might make a suggestion, the Brandenburg Number Six, Allegro, would just about fit our flight parameters.”
“Perfect.”
“Perhaps with a multisense track?” she said.
“Something light, yes.”
Elle didn’t have a full body, just a pair of slender robotic arms, but they functioned with a precise efficiency that could be spellbinding. She slipped the car’s mood helmet onto my head, and I relaxed with the classical music—another of the very good things that humans had given the world. How bizarre was that?
Actually, to be fair, humans were still making a few worthwhile contributions to the world. We Elites weren’t numerous enough to fill every role in our society, so we had to concentrate on managing the vital ones—government, medical, military, law enforcement, telecommunications, media. Consequently, well-trained and strictly supervised humans were still manning the orchestras, bands, and studio sessions that we required. Humans also had many necessary subservient roles, especially those involving cleaning and waste collection.
But I believed it was Elite technology that really took classical music to the next level—when the Brandenburg began, I wasn’t just listening, I was experiencing with all my senses…
… drifting along a pure, clear river, with the scent of lilacs in spring wafting through the air.
Trees along the banks thrust their strong trunks up from the earth, while their branches reach like slender, red-tipped fingers to caress the sky.
Rich, ripe fruit of all varieties hang within easy reach, and alluring nymphlike shapes frolic in the water around me, waving at me to come join them in their play…
The exquisite concerto ended with its last, very memorable drawn-out chord.
“We’re here, Dr. Baker,” Elle said in the quietest whisper. “Toyz store, Baronville.”
Damn. I could have used a little more Bach.
Chapter 12
OWEN MCGILL CERTAINLY hadn’t exaggerated—the crime scene was ugly all right. Eleven dead! The first thing I saw was a butchered male body in what looked to be a very expensive navy blue pin-striped suit. The poor fellow’s torso was twisted horribly and partly submerged in a veritable lake of his own blood.
I’d seen plenty of gore before, but this was possibly the worst yet. The most nightmarish aspect of the scene was that the victim’s blood had splattered all over some miniature toy horses that had been let out of a stable-themed play set.
The cat-sized horses were covered head to hoof in blood and were walking around, leaving tiny, crescent-shaped red prints on the synthetic marble floor, apparently looking for some miniature oats or hay.
Creepy didn’t begin to describe it.
But the full measure of the massacre, the carnage, was much worse than that initial impression.
A second corpse, this one female and partially dressed in an expensive gold lamé pantsuit, was lying nearby. Close to that were two more female victims. Their trademark pink and blue Toyz shopping bags were scattered everywhere around the courtyard.
They had been cut in a way that sickened me—torsos savagely ripped open, organs removed, the heads completely gone. Missing, in fact.
As I stared at the gore, and shooed away one of the little horses from the male’s body, McGill
came striding over. As always, I was glad to see him. My friend is rock solid, dependable, and a good ally when things get rough. He’s built like a gorilla, six foot six, and close to three hundred pounds.
“Where are the killers?” I said, assuming the humans responsible had been arrested by now. The city police would have been on the case immediately.
“So far, no sign of them, Hays. You believe it? They got away with this.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I hear you. Gets even stranger though. Listen to this. Every single one of the security cameras in the place just happened to malfunction at the same time.”
“What?”
“It gets even better. There must have been close to a hundred customers in the store—nobody remembers a goddamn thing. Not even the security guards.”
That was impossible. Elites have crystal clear memories and would never lie to authorities. They aren’t capable of it.
“Go ahead, ask ’em,” Owen McGill challenged me. He gestured at the civilians gathered beyond the cordon. “Maybe it will start coming back to them—once you turn on the old Hays Baker charm.”
As with most of the company’s consumer outlets, especially ones in respectable Elite communities, this Toyz superstore was open twenty-four hours, and it was crowded with customers.
“Who can tell me what happened?” I stepped forward and called to the blank-faced, clearly confused crowd. “Somebody must have seen these terrible murders. I need witnesses. Please. Anybody? Speak up now.”
A pretty, young Elite woman, wearing skintight jeans and a bodice that barely covered her nipples, shrugged helplessly. “I was standing right there, looking at the iSpielberg imagers,” she said, pointing at a display of equipment that allowed you to star in your own movie.
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.
Chapter 13
“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.
Chapter 14
“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.
Chapter 15
I COULD DEFINITELY see the humans motoring at full speed up ahead. As if on cue, the cluster of bikes suddenly split apart, peeling off in different directions like campfire sparks scattered by high winds.