Toys

Chapter 110

“This way!” he pointed. “Termite soldier scum!”

The staccato crack! crack! of weapon fire was ringing in the air as I burst up through a trapdoor and onto the next level. I had my rifle ready, expecting the president’s guards to be there.

The first thing I saw was one of the Elite militia men. He caught a bullet and his head exploded like a sledgehammered watermelon-except it was filled with silvery microchips instead of black seeds.

“Kill the head! Like I said, Hays.”

Lucy had come through like the warrior she was! She had met up with her team, and they had used their old-fashioned rifles with stunning accuracy to clear a path to Hughes Jacklin and the other leaders.

And then-there he was! The president spun around and stared at me like I was, well, some kind of human scum.

He stabbed a forefinger in my direction. “Kill him!” he commanded his guards, who were led by a guy I could have sworn I’d just killed-Devlin. Could they all have been clones?

The outsize bodyguard made a quick study of the expression on my face.

“Hello again, Hays,” he said, stepping forward and waving the president and the other VIPs back toward a door, which led off of the dais. “You didn’t possibly think I’d have been hanging out in the parking lot with my clones while my president was unveiling the dawn of our new free society?”

“Funny how one doesn’t usually hear termite colonies described as ‘free societies,’ ” said Lucy, edging forward with me and Tazh Khan as Devlin leveled his guns at us and his remaining thick-necked brethren formed a defensive wedge behind him.

There was no turning back-and there was no delaying. We couldn’t let the president escape. We had to kill the head before it reconnected with the larger body of Elite muscle beyond that door.