Toys

Chapter 41

During the next hour or so, my mother and father tried to rationally, but gently, explain the incredible story behind the home movie I’d just watched.

I’ll spare you, and myself, all of the painful details.

In a nutshell, they hadn’t ever been biotech investors at all. They were famous scientists.

Human scientists.

They had been part of the core group of medical and genetic specialists who had pioneered the technology necessary to advance humans into superior Elites, thus hastening their progress with saving the world.

But after 7–4 Day-after whatever happened during those mysterious twenty-four hours-my parents dropped out of the increasingly Elite-dominated society and went into hiding in the north country. Things were still chaotic in those first days, and their connections enabled them to retire to this faraway place, where their neighbors scarcely paid attention to them. They told the Elites they were retiring, but they’d begun to work in secret. And this time, they worked against the Elite nation and all that it stood for.

A centerpiece of the work was to turn me into a superenhanced human who could pass for an Elite-and who was, in many ways, more advanced than any Elite. They had essentially risked my life, and sanity, by sending me to live with the Elites as an undercover spy-without me having a clue about who or what I was.

“I’m sure you could use some time alone to think about all this,” Mom said, tears leaking from her eyes. “Please don’t think we came to the decision lightly, Hays. But we knew you’d make it. And we’re so proud of you.”

She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and she and Dad-also teary, but trying his best to hide it-left me alone.

But first, my father handed me another disc in a box that was labeled “7–4 Day.”

I figured that something called “7–4 Day” couldn’t be good news.

And it wasn’t.

Wham! — no slow reveal, no fade-in. There were bodies everywhere. Human bodies. That was the film that completely blew whatever was left of my mind, and changed me forever.

I watched the terrifying pictures of the first attempt at eliminating all humans. As I did, tears flowed freely from my eyes, and they just wouldn’t stop.