Toys

Chapter 33

I got in the ZX and quickly overrode the vehicle-identification circuits and security beacons so that the car’s computer wouldn’t recognize me as an unauthorized driver. “Sorry about this,” I called to the poor guy outside. “I will pay you back eventually. This really is life or death for me.”

The ZX took off in a streak while I settled back in the driver’s seat. It flew like a dream and had all sorts of features I hadn’t used before-like Level Two Priority Traffic Access, which let me cut right through the city’s elaborate air-traffic-control patterns by steering me to the shortest routes available to nonemergency or police vehicles. A total Elite VIP perk.

I stopped at a high-end Toyz store along the way and came out wearing new clothes: black jeans, a fitted T-shirt, a leather jacket, wraparound shades to hide my face. I had also downloaded some tattoo art at the Toyz Corp iTattoo booth. Like many Elites, I went in for tattoo-zone implants as a teen-one on the back of my neck, another on my right forearm. I can activate either to become visible-or fade back to skin tone-at a moment’s notice.

I also purchased an ultrasonic shaver and a tube of Elite-Man follicle-activation cream-one quick application and you could instantly grow yourself a fashionable hint of stubble.

Back in the car, I shaved my head-right to the scalp-and quickly gave myself a five o’clock shadow on the chin and cheeks. Then I activated the new tattoo art-a fist-sized tarantula on my forearm, a Harley-Davidson logo on the back of my neck.

Now I looked nothing like the old Hays Baker; I was just another of the wealthy, weekend-warrior civilians you’d expect to see in the Baronville Toyz store, where eleven executives had recently been murdered. That was where I was headed now. I’d made up my mind; I needed one more look at the crime scene where my life had begun to be shattered.

I needed to know why my life had been blown to pieces.

There had to be clues I’d overlooked. Also, why had Jax Moore insisted on calling me there, even though it was well outside my area of operations? What had happened to make the in-store witnesses forget everything they’d seen?

Hopefully, I’d learn something soon-because there was the Toyz store, less than a hundred yards straight ahead.

The place where everything had gone all wrong for me, and for my family.