Toys

Chapter 103

Lizbeth came springing up like a viper ready to strike. But the first thing she saw was Tazh Khan-knife in hand, and with a look on his face that said he was eager for an Elite-skin belt.

Next, my darling wife’s gaze darted around to the assembled leaders, who were glaring at her like a jury at the trial of a mass murderess.

“Don’t even think about touching me,” she snarled at Lucy.

Lucy didn’t even bother to answer. She just rolled her eyes and picked up a scalpel.

“We are not here to appeal to your conscience, madame-you obviously have none,” Chantal declared.

I had never seen Lizbeth frightened before, or even nonplussed, but she definitely was now. She must have thought that she was dead and facing the final judgment-from humans.

But she caught on fast that whatever this was, it involved a fully equipped operating room. She tried to cover her lapse into fear with haughtiness.

“So you didn’t really blow yourself up?” she said to Lucy with acid sarcasm. “What a pity.”

“But she really did blow Jax Moore up, Lizbeth,” I said. “She killed Owen McGill too. Two for two. So far.”

That set Lizbeth back again-neither of those two were riding to her rescue. She took another look at the medical equipment-and Lucy’s surgical gown.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to play doctor now,” Lizbeth snapped.

“I just need to borrow something of yours,” Lucy said calmly. Meantime, she was unhooking an anesthesia mask from an overhead rack.

“Borrow? What are you talking about? What of mine could you possibly want? We’re hardly the same shoe size.”

“Your brain, sweetie. That’s what I need to examine. Relax, you won’t feel too much. Oh-maybe you will.”

Lizbeth exploded in a fury, scratching and biting like a wildcat. But several soldiers slammed her down and held her immobile.

“Don’t you dare touch me, bitch!” she panted. Lucy ignored the command and brought the anesthesia mask down over Lizbeth’s face.

“There, there-I’ll patch you back up when I’m done. If I have time.”

A few seconds later, Lizbeth went completely limp on the operating table. For once in her life, she actually looked, well, trusting.

Lucy hung the mask up and turned to her instrument tray-a gleaming selection of scalpels, clamps, and bone saws. I already knew that the operation required opening up Lizbeth’s brain and connecting it by probe to a hologram imager. The probe would then scan her memory bank for information about the Elite genocide plan.

Lizbeth had to know the plan, or at least some important details, and this was our only way to find out before it was too late. It would be better if we had that bastard Hughes Jacklin on the operating table, but Lizbeth would have to do.

I’d managed to keep myself relatively hard-hearted about all this, but now I had to leave-go back outside with the troops and not watch the actual brain surgery. The resistance soldiers were crouched on their haunches, looking like they could stay that way for days. I stood there alongside them-and waited.

I didn’t feel much pity for Lizbeth, no more than I had for McGill or Moore. But she had been my wife and mother to our children. One way or another, this was good-bye.