Toys - James Patterson [26]
One of the huge amplifiers suddenly exploded, showering the spectators, and me, with debris. The crowd cheered louder, danced even closer to the stage, screamed the lyrics along with my vocals—
Abruptly, the concert was gone—and I was standing alone in the sound booth.
“Presented by Toyz Corporation,” a blinking message stated. “We hope you enjoyed—”
I wheeled around, tugging off the helmet. Honestly, I had been lost in the moment!
Then I looked for the witness.
It was a little disorienting, and dizzying, what you experienced after a SimStim even as brief as that. Could that be good for you? Especially for people who used SimStims as much as ten to fifteen hours a day?
Finally, I spotted the female witness, alone now, moving up an escalator. I managed to catch up to her on the mezzanine floor. I needed to be careful.
“So, did you ever get one of those iSpielberg imagers?” I asked.
She turned and looked at me, slightly confused. “Umm—do I know you?”
“We talked the other night. Don’t you remember? After the murders.”
“Murders? Oh. Here at the store, right? So terrible. Mindless violence.”
“I’m Ben,” I said, trying not to show surprise at her detachment. “You? Your name is?”
“It’s Chuzie. I’m Chuzie.”
“Chuzie, like—”
“Like I’m choosy about, well, all sorts of things,” she said, looking me up and down, apparently approving of something.
“So what happened? What did you see? The night of the murders?” I asked her.
“Why are you asking me? I don’t understand. You said you were there too.”
“I know. That’s the really strange part. I’m having trouble remembering any of it myself.”
Chuzie nodded her head several times. Then she frowned, looking confused again. “You know, I had this crazy dream about the murders…”
“What happened—in the dream?” I asked, gesturing for her to sit on the edge of an XRBed—a magnetic-field-assisted mattress that exercised your muscles while you slept.
“Well, there were a lot of city cops everywhere. I believe the Agency was here too. And something else I can’t quite remember.” Her shoulders twitched in a little shiver. “Whatever it was, it was bad.”
This was ridiculous. Why would a civilian, an Elite, be going to such lengths to distance herself from the truth?
“Chuzie, people were killed. You were standing right next to them. I saw you. Don’t you remember anything?”
She was biting her lower lip furiously, starting to look a little scared. “In the dream there was all of this screaming. Then blood everywhere.”
“Did anybody say anything? Do you remember any of the faces? The attackers?”
“A human… with a big knife. A machete? He was—he was cutting off someone’s head. And he said, ‘Now we’ll find out what you know.’ ”
Abruptly, she clapped her hands to the sides of her face. “Why are you asking me this? Who are you?”
And then a shrill voice yelled out, “It’s him! It’s Hays Baker. Get him! He’s human scum!”
Chapter 36
SPEECHLESS, I LOOKED down to see that one of the Jacob dolls had followed us. He was pointing an accusing finger at me. And then little Jacob said, “You are going to get the slow death, big man!”
“Well, better that than the swift kick,” I said, picking him up and punting him out over the escalator bank. I took some satisfaction in hearing his shrill little scream silence as he smashed through a Perfumone display case—but it was a short-term fix to a much larger problem.
The store’s alarms were blaring, security bolts on the doors began slamming shut, and police sirens started to wail in the distance.
“Thanks for your help,” I told the Elite woman. “I have to run.”
I picked up and heaved a 300- to 400-pound SimStim booth through a window. Then I leaped after it, landing on the street outside in a shower of splintered glass.
“Halt, Hays Baker!” a loud digitized voice boomed somewhere behind me. “We will shoot to kill! Repeat, we will shoot to kill!”
Tell me about it. I took off past the simulation booth, zigzagging my way back to the car.
Minutes later, I was in the ZX and weaving through the streets of