Toys

Chapter 112

Lucy embraced her fallen friend. I’d never seen a human expression of pain that held a candle to this one. Not even my own when my parents had died.

My heart screamed at me to comfort her, but now was not the time. I leaped through the door after the disappearing Elites and sprinted into the parking area, where they were spreading out toward their vehicles.

I immediately spotted my mark, President Jacklin, running a good dozen yards ahead of the others. My God, he was running fast. Top-of-the-line-Elite fast.

He must have been doing forty miles an hour-and was just a split second from his stretch limo when I dropped to a knee and took the surest shot I could manage, right at his center of gravity.

The burst of fire hit him in the small of his back and knocked him sprawling, but I hadn’t delivered anything near a fatal blow. He must have been wearing body armor. I was actually glad for it-I wanted him alive.

I cast aside my assault rifle and quickly closed the gap. He wheeled to meet my tackle in a neat blocker’s stance.

And oh, how he met me. It was like running into a pile of steel rebar… that really didn’t like me.

We grappled and rolled in the immaculate genetically modified grass of the presidential mansion.

I quickly discovered that Jacklin was enhanced more than any Elite I’d ever encountered. With some sort of double-jointed throw that sent me sprawling, he freed himself and backed up against the presidential transport, feeling for the door.

“So, my knuckle-dragging friend,” he said. “You see, you aren’t the only one allowed to have secret implants. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little piece of classified information: I’m the most enhanced being ever to walk the face of the earth-the docs tell me I’m eighty-seven percent tech, by body mass.”

“Judging by your general psychology, I’m guessing one of the first organs they ‘upgraded’ was your dick,” I quipped. I was hoping to get under his skin and cause a distraction. But his reply rendered me the more distracted party.

“Your Jinxie could straighten you out on that matter of speculation,” he said. “Personal experience and whatnot.”

I tried to will my mind silent, but it was no use. How had he known her nickname? Sure, he could have gotten that fact somewhere other than from her, personally. Who knows what kind of information our fellow agents may have kept on us. But was there anything to his innuendo? I didn’t want to care; I shouldn’t care-there was no time to care!

But even as I tried to compose myself, he yelled out, “Evac!”

His security-enhanced limo immediately recognized its master’s voice and sprang to life, hovering up off the ground as its doors flew open.

Oh no.

He leaped into its dark interior, and the vehicle lurched skyward. I barely managed to hurl myself after him in time to have the automated doors slam down on my hands.