Toys

Chapter 24

“What the Hell happened?” one of the doctors yelled at his staff. “You’ve been monitoring him from central control. The skunk was doing fine five minutes ago.”

“Don’t ask me-I never wasted any time learning medicine for skunks,” another doc said. “We’d better get him out of that jacket though. Take him to a trauma room. He’s up to three sixty!”

“Whoa, no you don’t,” one of the guards said and stepped in. “Our orders are not to let Hays Baker leave the room for any reason. That’s not happening. Unless he’s in a body bag.”

“He’s about to stop breathing for good. How’s that for a reason?” the lead doctor snapped. “You can explain it to your boss, unless you’d rather explain that you’re the one who killed him. Now get out of our way. He’s dying!”

Reluctantly, the guard stepped back.

Next, a pair of burly orderlies wheeled a gurney alongside my bed. They started to release the restraints.

I had never thought I would harm another Elite. But I’d never had Elites threatening to put me to a slow death either.

I kept up the act, but my muscles were tensed and ready to spring. The instant the shackles were unsnapped and the metal jacket pulled from my arms, I reared straight up out of the bed. I punched the nearest orderly and felt his nose break against my fist. He stumbled back in pain. I caught the second orderly with a chop across the neck, trying not to hurt him too badly. I was also careful to keep the orderlies between myself and the guards’ guns.

The Elite doctors were rooted in shock. I pushed them aside and went for the guards, who were already clawing for their pistols. Fortunately, the room was full of equipment, including several monitors on stands.

As I lunged forward, I wrenched one free and swung it like a mace. I took out both guards before they could administer a “fast death” with their guns.

Alarms were shrieking and strobes were flashing all over the building by now. I could hear footsteps pounding down the hallway.

I grabbed a doctor by the neck-the one who’d never wasted his time learning human medicine-and held him in front of me as a shield.

“One more step and I start throwing around his body parts,” I yelled at the approaching security team. “And, yes, I’m completely serious about it, and I’m capable. I’m human, right?”

I backed down the hallway to where it turned. I swung the doctor horizontally, then I sprinted toward the front of the building. Now I was using him like a battering ram to crash through everything and everyone in my way.

Carts went flying, gurneys were overturned, wide-eyed, shrieking nurses leaped back against the walls to avoid being trampled.

Still holding on to my screeching hostage, I bounded down an escalator to the lower level. Next, I burst into the cafeteria’s kitchen, where blank-faced robot workers tended the huge, metallic complex, churning out no-cal grub that was also virtually no-taste.

As I raced through, I dropped the doc into a bin of scraps. I caught a glimpse of his bulging-eyed face as he flopped around in the rank garbage.

“That’ll teach you to call me a skunk,” I told him.

Then I charged out through a loading-dock door into an alley-and, hopefully, the freedom of the night.

Unfortunately, I thought, maybe I am a skunk.