Free Toys by James Patterson

by the intense feelings that rose up in me. I’d never cared about humans. Far from
     it. But now it struck me that maybe I’d never considered their plight fairly. Why hadn’t it seemed possible that there was
     more to them than what the Cybernet said? Why had I been content to study and enjoy their colorful history, literature, art—their
     music especially—but dismiss humans themselves as self-destructive animals?
    Shanna’s imploring eyes brought me back to the moment.
    “Look, I have to keep moving,” I said. “But”—I hesitated, realizing that I was about to make an insane promise—“I’ll come
     back. I want to see your baby again.”
    She nodded slowly, and so did Corliss.
    Then I did something truly amazing.
    I reached down and touched the baby’s soft cheek. His eyes were still closed, but his little mouth smiled at me.
    “I have to go now,” I said. “But thank you—for letting me be part of this.”

Chapter 32
    I HAD FINALLY figured out something useful. I knew what I had to do now and where I had to go—if I wanted to solve the mystery
     that had suddenly become my life. It was so obvious.
    “I want to buy your car,” I said.
    The man I was speaking to, a midlevel Elite just about to climb into his sporty Mazda ZX-740 airpod, looked stunned. I probably
     could have broached the subject more subtly, but I was in a hurry. I was a man with a plan now.
    “Huh?” said the man. “I don’t want to
sell
you my car.”
    “Yes, you do. Now come on, I’m in a real bind here. Name your price.”
    He glanced around quickly, a grasp of the situation slowly creeping across his face. After walking to the edge of thehuman slums where Shanna lived, I had hopped on public transit and ridden to a commuter suburb of the city. A place with resplendent
     green lawns, backyard wave-pools, choreographed fountains, gold-plated driveway gates, and cozy commercial centers with boutiques,
     spas, high-end jewelers, and cafés that sold cups of organic coffee that cost more than the average human salary. A place,
     in short, where crime was almost unheard-of.
    But the bottom line was that it was six o’clock in the morning, it was drizzling, there was not another soul in sight, and
     this poor guy was facing someone who looked like a human thug—and who was possibly crazy, or high on wyre.
    “I’m not selling you my car. You should leave this neighborhood.
Now,
” he finally said. We were standing outside the only twenty-four-hour establishment in the area, a convenience store.
    “Listen,” I said, talking fast enough to keep him off balance. “This is the all-environments model, right? Works on-road,
     off-road, airborne? Can safely dive to one thousand meters underwater? Gull-wing doors? Ultrasonic massage seats? THX six-point-three
     holographic surround sound? What’s the sticker price? Like three twenty? Tell you what, I don’t have time to haggle”—I rummaged
     in the pockets of the pants I’d taken off the Beta and came up with seven dollars and some change—“but I’m a little short
     of cash right now. So I guess I’ll have to borrow some money from you too.”
    His mouth opened in complete disbelief, but then his facetook on a cynical smirk. “This is some kind of joke, right? It has to be a joke.”
    I stepped forward, gripped his lapels with one hand, and lifted him off his feet.
    “No joke,” I said. “I’m sorry about this—but I
need
your car. My life depends on it.”

Chapter 33
    I GOT IN the ZX and quickly overrode the vehicle-identification circuits and security beacons so that the car’s computer wouldn’t
     recognize me as an unauthorized driver. “Sorry about this,” I called to the poor guy outside. “I
will
pay you back eventually. This really is life or death for me.”
    The ZX took off in a streak while I settled back in the driver’s seat. It flew like a dream and had all sorts of features
     I hadn’t used before—like Level Two Priority Traffic Access,