Toys

Chapter 46

I had to retrieve the skiff, and when I got back to the house, my father was sitting out on the porch. Just the sight of Dad there brought back the most powerful memories of past times at the lake.

“I’d like to chat,” I told him. “I really need to talk some things through. Like 7–4 Day.”

“Can’t help you,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m a clone.”

Like Mom’s, this one appeared to be an exact duplicate-with a beard, hat, and worn-out work clothes. Anticipating my next question, it said, “We take care of most of the chores and require no pay. Slavery at its very best.”

“Where’s my father then?”

“Working in the lab. Where else? Nice chatting with you, son.”

Shaking my head, but smiling at the “slavery” line, I walked down the stairway to the underground lab and found my father sitting in front of a bank of monitors that lined one wall.

Some of them showed maps of different areas around the globe and contained colored clusters that looked like they represented populations. Others were flashing coded messages.

“Feeling better?” Dad asked, swinging his chair around to face me.

“Suppose I did agree to fight against the Elites,” I said. “Then what happens?”

He pointed to the bank of monitors. “I’m in contact with resistance leaders around the world. We were just discussing you.”

“Around the world? What are you talking about now? There’s nothing out there but… savages.”

“That’s what the Elite leadership wants everybody to believe, Hays. Things are actually much more organized on our side than they like to let on.”

So, more government lies. Supposedly, Elites made up only about 5 percent of the world’s population. But they controlled North America, and their military power kept the rest of the world cowed into submission. The official story was that other continents were crowded with humans, dirty and barbaric, and the only Elites actually allowed to travel there were government and corporate insiders.

So what was the real story? I suspected that I was about to find out.