Toys

Chapter 20

I relaxed and managed to give Lizbeth maybe a quarter of a smile. I knew I was in the best possible hands and that Elite medicine had reached a point where I could be good as new-hopefully within a week or two.

But the damn pain was getting worse, and I was weakening in a way I’d never felt before-like the very life was ebbing out of me.

Was that possible-could I be dying? And no one would tell me? Not even Lizbeth? I didn’t want to die, especially not so suddenly.

I managed to whisper, “Love you, Jinx. Love the kids.”

And she, “Love you, Hays. More than anything in this world. Hang on, sweetheart.”

Then the operating room doors swung open and I saw lots of lights. Hospital attendants pushed me inside, then lifted me from the gurney to the table. There, masked, gowned surgeons were already waiting with ultraprecise, computer-moderated surgical tools.

“No time to lose with him,” one of them said grimly. “He’s on his way out.”

Dammit, I didn’t need to hear that.

With swift precision, the medical experts adjusted the overhead lights, hooked me up to the banks of monitors and machines, and deftly slid a catheter into my arm. The blessed sedative relief started flowing through my veins, soothing the fiery ache of shrieking nerves.

As I began to slip over the edge of oblivion, I felt the pressure, although no pain, of a laser scalpel opening up my torso.

Then I must have gone into another dream.

Faint and far away, I heard these incredible words:

“My God, look at that! You see that line? That’s scar tissue. He’s had some sort of surgery here. I think the skin’s been grafted. You see how the follicles are different over here from over here?…

“Look here, underneath… It looks like… Holy shit! You see that?… You see what that is? That’s the remains of a navel cavity! This guy used to have a belly button! Hays Baker is no Elite.

“He’s human. This man is a skunk.”