Toys

Chapter 51

I cursed out loud, but then I jumped into the open trunk as Lucy slammed down the lid.

A moment later, the car shot forward, skimmed the surface of the water for a minute, then landed under expert control on the opposite shore.

Lucy’s voice came through the alloy barrier: “Don’t worry your pretty little head. I know these back roads cold, and I know exactly where we’re going.”

“Where’s that?” I called back from the trunk. “Don’t leave me-in the dark.”

“Canada.”

“No way!” The Canadian border was at least four hundred miles away. I struggled angrily to sit upright, but succeeded only in banging my head. “You expect me to stay in here for an hour and a half?” I yelled.

“Longer than that, I’m afraid. Sorry. We’ve got to get across the border station, then on into New Vancouver. There’ll be cars all around us. And police.”

“I can break out of the trunk in a second,” I warned. “You have no idea.”

“Go ahead-that’ll get us killed for sure. See what I mean about doing something stupid?”

I slumped back down again. She was right, of course. We drove the next couple of minutes in silence. I had to admit, she was an expert behind the wheel. I could tell from the way the car cornered-we were moving at close to top ground speed.

“I loved your parents too, you know.” Lucy finally spoke again. “Sorry if I seem cold, but we don’t have time to grieve right now.”

That reminded me that her own parents had also been killed by Elites. By that monster Jax Moore. My old boss. Lizbeth’s boss too. And what else was he to my wife?

I exhaled sadly. “How did we get into this awful mess? The big picture?”

“Humans made the mess, to start with,” Lucy said. “Elites got that eco-disaster stopped, but now they’re making a worse one. It will give them what they think they want, a sterile, orderly world. But it will leave their kind with a huge weakness-they don’t have much in the way of imagination. Something about all that helpful machinery in their brains. It makes them almost too rational to take the necessary creative risks. You probably didn’t know this, but Elites don’t even design the machines. They have covert facilities where they force human scientists to do it.”

I’d never even heard a whisper about that-it must have been one of the most closely guarded state secrets. But I didn’t say anything. In the insane new picture of the world I was forming, it made perfect sense.

“That’s the one thought in all this that gives me a glimmer of satisfaction,” Lucy said. “Without humans, the Elites are probably going to end up dying of boredom. The irony of it is almost poetic.”

I settled deeper into the trunk, which wasn’t actually all that uncomfortable. It was the recent memories in my head that were torture-images of my murdered mother and father, repeating themselves over and over. Images of Lizbeth and our daughters. Would I ever see them again? Finally, an image of Jax Moore smoking that victory cigar of his.

“I don’t suppose you can think of anything cheerful to talk about,” I said. I sure couldn’t.

“Well-do you remember, when you were five, playing a game with a little girl?” Her voice was softer now.

I frowned-it seemed an odd question. But I tried to think back.

“What kind of game?” I asked. “Give me a little more to go on.”

“It was on the beach at your parents’ house. She’d find small stones in the sand and bring them to you, and you’d build them up into a castle. The two of you would do it over and over, building a new castle every day. Never tiring of the game.”

A flicker of memory crossed my mind. A towheaded, blue-eyed toddler hurrying toward me with a few stones clutched in her tiny fists, watching with solemn fascination as I fitted them together into a crude wall or tower, oftentimes directing the castle’s construction, then tottering off to fetch another handful.

“That was you?” I asked. “That pretty little blond girl?”

“That was me, Hays. And you. I had such a crush on you. When you were five.”