Toys Read Free Page A

Pagan Barbarities, Tennis vs. the Pro, Pig Out: No Calories,Death Experience: A Final 60 Seconds, Visit Your Former Lives.
    Movie buff that I am, I picked the general heading of Great Moments in Cinema.
    I barely glimpsed the words “This Program Has Been Edited for Your Enhanced Pleasure,” and then I was
there.
Bogie in
Casablanca.
    I gazed into the liquid blue eyes of Ingrid Bergman sitting across from me—then I raised my whiskey glass to touch hers.
    “Here’s looking at you, kid,” I said, losing myself in her answering smile.
    Then the door of the noisy café burst open and a toadlike little man ran in, looking around in panic. The great human character
     actor Peter Lorre had arrived.
    “Rick, you have to help me,” he gasped in a heavy accent, thrusting a sheaf of papers at me. “Hide these!”
    I strode to the piano as he rushed out the back door, and I had just managed to shove the papers under the lid when gunshots
     sounded in the street outside. Suddenly, jackbooted soldiers stormed in—
    My heart raced, and I felt myself instinctively backing away toward the bar. There was a Luger right there under the counter.
    This was amazing. I was living Bogie’s part in the film masterpiece. And then—surprise of surprises…

Chapter 6
    I FOUND MYSELF staring at the menu screen, a little miffed at the next message. “Presented by Toyz Corporation,” it blinked
     in stark black and white. “We hope you’ll come back soon.”
    “Great,” I sighed. “Well, it did say great
moments
in cinema, didn’t it?”
    Lizbeth was watching me with folded arms and raised eyebrows as I removed the mood helmet.
    “Have a good time?” she asked and started to grin mischievously.
    “A little short-lived,” I said, wondering if any of the other programs were full-length—maybe next time I’d get into something
     like a Viking raid, or maybe visit that Moorish harem.
    Actually, I was quite a student of human history. I never would have turned the government back over to them, but ifone thing’s true about the
Homo sapiens,
it’s that they almost
never
let you down in the drama department. I mean the scandals, the three World Wars, the artistic movements, games, literature,
     films… and the music! I adored Mozart, but also Bob Dylan and Edith Piaf.
    I took Lizbeth’s hand and we strolled back toward the center of the great hall.
    “Let’s take a look at those dolls. I want to see if they’re suitable for April and Chloe,” she said. “They’re absolutely
begging
for them, Hays.”
    “They have more than enough toys already,” I said, but quickly relented. “Oh all right, Jinx. I can’t say no to them.”
    Lizbeth pointed at a demonstration of the season’s hottest new items—Jessica and Jacob dolls, beautiful miniature androids
     that looked and acted perfectly lifelike. Kids everywhere—including our own two daughters—were causing parents to line up
     around the block to purchase them at Toyz stores all over the country.
    The clever display was set up in a series of tableaux—separate scenes of home, office, store, and restaurant—with dozens of
     the lifelike dolls chatting, working, and eating just like real people, though only sixteen inches tall.
    To be perfectly honest, while I couldn’t quite take my eyes off them, I found the dolls more than a little creepy.
    But the crowd was riveted, especially a growing knot in front of a sign that read THESE MODELS SPECIAL ORDER ONLY .
    When Lizbeth and I strolled over there, we immediately saw why.
    “Oh my,” she said. “Oh dear, Hays. That’s just gross.”
    Underneath the sign was a doll-sized bed where a Jake and Jessie in the buff were thrashing around in primal delight. I mean,
     those two were really going at it.
    “I guess we can scratch the special orders off our list,” Lizbeth said.
    “They really
can
do everything. Energetic little devil, isn’t he?”
    Lizbeth rolled her eyes. “There’s more to it than slamming in and out like