Toys - James Patterson [77]
I looked down at the city again. There were still lots of people in the streets—humans and Elites—fighting hand to hand.
“Lizbeth helped—involuntarily, of course,” Lucy said. “Those clever, second-guessing Elites had a fail-safe device in case something went wrong with their toys of death. Lizbeth told us where it was, and—poof. No more killer dolls, killer phones, killer simulators. There’s still a problem though—big problem, actually. This war is far from over.”
“And the problem would be?”
“If you want to kill an Elite, you have to kill the head. We haven’t done that, have we? That’s our mission, Hays. We’ve managed to throw up enough electronic jamming to cut off the presidential compound for a very short window of time. We can surprise them. We can kill the head before the body wakes. Let’s go—you and I.”
So now I understood our destination. The presidential mansion was just starting to glow with the light of dawn, and the flying penthouse was settling in for a landing on the rooftop. President Hughes Jacklin, that goddamn war criminal, and his upper-crust cronies would be finished dividing the world up among themselves. It was like the old human days—with the corruption of banks and Wall Street shenanigans.
A huge crowd of Elites was already gathering on the grounds below, eagerly waiting for the president to step out and deliver his long-anticipated 7-4 Day speech.
“Let’s go cut off the head,” said Lucy.
Chapter 106
LUCY AND I landed directly behind a parking lot, which was filled to the brim with the most expensive cars on the planet. Interesting to note, almost all of the car designs were human in origin—no one had ever understood personal transportation better, or had more passion for it. Mercedes, Daimler, BMW, Cadillac, Lexus—these were still the most desired names on hood ornaments, even for rich Elites.
“You know your way around this place, right?” Lucy asked me.
“I do. I used to work security here all the time. Let’s go.”
A loud, commanding noise interrupted. “You’re Hays Baker. I remember you. And you—you’re just some human scum.”
“Actually,” I said, “we’re both human scum. We’ve come to kill the president. You have a problem with that?”
Of course he did—since he was Devlin, the president’s bodyguard. At least I thought the speaker was Devlin. He was surrounded by eleven nearly identical clones of himself—just as large, just as formidable, just as threatening. I’m sure it was in vain, but I prayed the clones didn’t have the same deadly level of Elite fighting augmentations.
“We have a problem with that. Which means that the two of you have a big problem—with us.”
The twelve deadly Devlins started to close in.
“Plan B,” said Lucy. “Run!”
That’s exactly what we did—very fast. But the bodyguards weren’t exactly challenged in the foot-speed department. They sort of reminded me of old-fashioned tackle-football players—the kinds who took massive doses of steroids. Lucy and I gained a little ground, but not enough. That’s when the Devlins started to fire laser rounds, as if merely crushing us with their bare hands wasn’t good enough.
“We have to take these guys out if we’re ever going to get to the president!” Lucy yelled to me.
“Yeah, my thought that they’d get tuckered out from chasing us isn’t working so good,” I yelled back. “Got any other brilliant ideas for stopping a dozen commando-programmed behemoths?”
“Not a one.”
“Maybe I do,” I said, inspiration flashing as another round exploded inches from my head. “Grab a car, any car. The keys’ll be there. No person in his right mind would steal an Elite’s vehicle, much less from the president’s driveway.”
“Good thing we’re just a couple of crazy skunks!”
Lucy took an oversize Mercedes pickup truck while I leaped into a sporty BMW. Both top-of-the-line, of course.
“In this case,” I said to her through my combat headset as we started the cars, “it’s great if you get them in the head,