Murder Genes Page 11

  "I think you'll really like it in Esperanza, buddy," Jay said to the snoring kid. Everyone in Morir understood that you did what you did because you had to, and not because you wanted to. As horrible as Bitch had been, Jay understood. Things were the way they were, and you could either die quickly or die slowly, not play, or play. The power of instinct ruled those in Morir stronger than most.

  It took maybe half a day to get to Esperanza. Jay didn't stop to rest. He never did. Maybe it was because he was looking forward to seeing the city so much that he couldn't stop, or maybe something inside told him that if he did stop he'd lose his way and never find Esperanza even if he'd gone there a hundred times before. Or most likely, Esperanza was his home and all he wanted after walking through Morir was to go home.

  And see Kyle.

  Kyle wasn't in Esperanza or in Morir...Jay had made sure of that. No, of course he knew that. But Esperanza would give him the time he needed to discover a way to escape and go back to his real home where his son was.

  Jay admired the town as they walked from the shadows. It was like a piece of heaven, here. The glistening prisms and gardens and running water. In the two months he'd been here, Esperanza had doubled in size, from maybe one hundred people to two. And the average survival rate here? Changing every moment, every second, every day. No one was being murdered in Esperanza. Jay would've cried at the thought, but he was too much a cold bastard now to do so. Issak, taking away the only time I ever thought I'd cry. Jay WAS bitter. Crying was an important psychological release.

  Bitch stirred. "We're here?"

  "Yeah, quit moving." Jay went for the only brick building in Esperanza. It was the closest thing to a headquarters they had. Jay pushed through the doors into headquarters and dumped Bitch onto a chair.

  "Hey, is that...? Shit." Carl, one of the 'soldiers' of Esperanza, stared at him.

  "Get Xiaos for me. No wait," Jay changed his mind. "I'll show him myself." Jay grabbed Bitch's bound hands and pushed him ahead of him.

  "Hey wait," Carl said.

  "What?" Jay glared at Carl, not waiting and using the boy's body to push through the next doors. Carl shook his head and shrugged as he turned away.

  "Ow," Bitch complained.

  They walked right in on Xiaos speaking with an Enforcer. What the hell is a Enforcer doing here? "...Hell's going on here?" Jay asked.

  The Enforcer turned, when he saw Jay his eyes took a look of amazement, and then fury. Jay recognized him. He was the other Enforcer Jay'd seen up close, the one that had been standing next to Hunter his first day in Morir.

  "What's your problem?" Jay asked, dropping Bitch onto the ground. Bitch let out a small grunt of protest.

  The Enforcer's gaze snapped to Jay. "Jay," he whispered. The dark rings around his eyes were darker than before, he looked gaunt.

  "Something wrong? Maybe something to do with an Enforcer by the name of Paul?" Jay spit. He hated Enforcers. They were like a team of their own, except worse. They used their authority to bribe their way into anything, they found ways to blackmail blackmailers, they moved like a poison, corrupting anything they laid eyes on, encouraging aggression. Encouraging murder. And when someone killed one of their own...they got revenge. Pack of wolves.

  Jay spit on the ground. Between the Enforcer's legs.

  The Enforcer just looked at him, a barely detectable sneer between his eyes.

  The Chief Enforcer--Hunter--was on Jay like a hound in heat. Since Haven and since it became known that Jay was the one saving lives for Esperanza, Hunter made sure to take a life for each one Jay rescued, taking from the same Team Jay'd infiltrated. It made the Teams hate Jay all the more.

  If Hunter had his way, he'd make sure the whole city drowned in its own crimson blood because of Jay. The more Jay tried to save lives, the more Hunter took them.

  Hunter would stop when Jay was dead.

  And here an Enforcer was, standing in the middle of Esperanza, chatting with Xiaos like long-lost buddies. "How 'bout I send a message back to your Chief with your body? One for one right? Get two with one stone?" Jay threatened.

  "Jay! Silence yourself before you make matters worse. Mike is on our side." Xiaos stood up and gave a big sigh. "You should dismiss yourself, Mike. We will speak another time."

  Mike nodded slowly, circling behind Jay. He suddenly shoulder-shoved Jay face first into the wall. Jay spun at the Enforcer with a growl and met a gun's barrel pressed up between the eyes. "Bang," Mike whispered. "Bang. Bang. Bang." He lowered the gun into his holster and turned around. Then he walked out.

  ...the fuck? Jay breathed heavily. His felt his heartbeat pounding in his head. "I didn't know we were working with Enforcers, Xiaos," Jay demanded. "What the hell else do you need to tell me?"

  "Mike has assisted us for some time, since before your arrival, actually. He is our man on the inside of Hunter's Enforcers. He informs us each time a new drop arrives, reports what is in each Misk box, who the newest arrivals are, what news there is on the outside. Esperanza is alive because of him. We need him, Jay."

  Jay swore.

  Xiaos walked around his desk. "If you did not observe, he hates you very much. That is why I did not tell you, or want him to see you here."

  Jay grit his teeth, his pulse beginning to cool. "And what's his deal with Paul?"

  "They were lovers."

  "Damn...Paul was one of us?" Didn't seem like it when I pulled a knife on him.

  "No. He never discovered Mike's secret. At the time, Mike was working up courage to tell Paul, we insisted he not because the risk was too great. Regardless, because of you, Mike never got the chance." Xiaos glanced at Bitch. It took him a second, but when he did he didn't hold back. "Jay! Is this...?"

  "This is Bitch. Bitch, meet Xiaos."

  Bitch lifted his still blindfolded head from the ground and raised his bound hands. "Nice ta mee..."

  "No!" Xiaos slammed his palm on his desk. "Absolutely not. We cannot accept Thrillers and Murderers in Esperanza, Bitch especially."

  "He begged me to join."

  "He is the right hand loyalist of your Gamer. Holy-Fuckin'-Damn-Idiotic," Xiaos suddenly cursed, hilariously. It was the closest Jay had seen Xiaos fall into incomprehension.

  Jay smirked. "Xiaos, I'm not dumb. He already knew where Esperanza was."

  Xiaos mouth clicked shut. "Gamer knows then."

  "Not according to Bitch, here." Bitch nodded as Jay spoke. "Bitch says he never told Freckles. I think he's more Survivalist than Thriller, Xiaos."

  "You are joking with me."

  "Nope."

  "Hell." It was Jay's fault for starting Xiaos on the cussing. The last months had gotten Xiaos mostly fluent in common language.

  "What do you want to do with him?" Jay asked.

  Xiaos sat down in his chair, brooding. Time clicked by and Jay took a seat in the corner to wait. Bitch, he just kept on the floor with his head down. The boy had good sense.

  "I never thought I would say this," Xiaos finally answered. "But I've trusted you all the way until now. Fool hearty or not. Show him the life, Jay."

  Jay nodded.

  Xiaos held up a finger. "On one condition."

  "Yep."

  "He is your shadow. When you are not here, he is MY shadow. Bitch never leaves Esperanza for any reason, ever. If he does, you or I will execute him." Xiaos leaned forward and tried to sound menacing. "Hear me Bitch? You are dead if you take a single step out of Esperanza, you will be our first murder-fuckin'-death." Jay wanted to laugh at Xiaos, but Xiaos would not likely appreciate it just now. The man cursed like any asian--it just didn't work.

  "Yes Boss," Bitch said.

  Jay smiled and untied Bitch.

  "Jay, there is something more. Mike just informed me."

  "Yeah."

  "Do you remember the rumors?"

  "...No shit, really? North Korea?"

  "Morir is the only Murderer City large enough to contain North Korea, the DPRK. After Immortal Leader Kim Cho-sung conquered
its Southern counterpart, the other nations turned against the DPRK. They are saying the DPRK is the last civilized nation noncompliant with the science of The Code because--the UN claims--the whole DPRK has The Code."

  "Yeah, right," Jay snorted. "The whole country? Is anyone believing this crap?"

  Xiaos nodded seriously. "Yes."

  "Well, why do we care? It's Morir, it won't be any different with some ethnic resurfacing."

  "Immortal Leader was assassinated."

  "Thought the man was immortal," Jay joked.

  Bitch snorted.

  Xiaos glared. "Not funny," he said. "Immortal Leader survived twenty-eight assassination attempts and war against every major power for the last four years. Of course he thought he was immortal. I thought the man was immortal. His self-godhood made him and his generals meaner than anyone." Xiaos thumped his finger to the table. "Those are the kind of people coming here. A whole country of them." Xiaos had that frown on his face Jay recognized to mean the sky was falling, at least to Xiaos. "Morir will become the DPRK," Xiaos said.

  "And you think the DPRK is just rolling over to be shipped to Morir?" Jay shook his head. "C'mon Xiaos! It'll take more than that. Chances are the UN's gonna take a beating before they realize the Koreans aren't to be messed with."

  "But the DPRK will arrive. Sooner or later they will be defeated and sent here. And there will be a deep grudge against all things American."

  "They'll have to find Esperanza, first," Jay said.

  "Morir is large, but the DPRK has a population of ten million. In time, they will doubtless find us."

  A thought came to Jay. "Hey, you think that's why they built Morir so big? I always wondered why they it the size of New York." It made sense, at least to him. "Think about it, the DPRK has been trouble for like, a century, so much trouble that it'd be easier to wipe the whole country out. If so, the Code's a cover, just political propaganda."

  "You speak like Issak. If you are right then The Code is too frail a propaganda to last long. I think you are wrong."

  "It's working so far."

  "Only for so long," Xiaos said. Xiaos was a firm believer in American ethics, he held faithfully on a hope that someday the American people would realize they'd been duped and demand Morir's destruction.

  "Long enough to accomplish their goal?"

  "I do not think your explanation is the case, Jay."

  "Hey, my idea is better than the Church thing."

  "Jay. Please leave." Xiaos rubbed at his temples.

  Jay shrugged, grinned to himself as best as he could through the bar. He pulled Bitch's blindfold off and clicked his tongue at Bitch and they left. Let the Damn People’s Republic of Korea come, Morir had something waiting for them. Plus, he'd take Koreans over the Gamers and Hunter any day. Least they believed in something more than a game.

  "Serious kind of guy," Bitch said as he followed Jay out. “Hey, you gonna untie me?”

  "Yeah. Sometime." Xiaos was serious, but he was also always right. Jay might not see it and he probably didn't have to worry about the DPRK for some time, but he'd be a fool to ignore Xiaos completely.

  Chapter 14

  WHAT IS EPIGENETICS?

  Epigenetics is the study of chemical reactions that turn segments of a genome on and off. These epigenes may be affected by stress, diet, behavior and numerous other factors that regulate gene expression. The factors change over time as environmental factors, physical activity, and even social interactions manipulate them, thus requiring increasingly significant impact or repetitive stresses to alter the epigene as the genome matures. When cells divide, the epigenetic tags are copied and the DNA sequence, however expressed, may become transferred from parent to child.

  It is in this that our research begins. How much genetic memory is transferred through embryonic development?

  -Raith, Whitley, Epigenetics Study Proposal.

  The first thing they did was starve him. The second thing they did was stab a needle in him, filled with clear fluid that burned as it went in and up his arm. "What are you doing to me!" Kyle screamed, struggling. But the two men in white suits and white masks walked out of the perfectly clean white room without saying anything, glancing back only to make sure Kyle didn't try to follow.

  Then Kyle was alone, with a huge mirror to stare at. A mirror that became a screen with an image of another boy, also dressed in a white gown who looked just as confused and scared. A different image, of Kyle, appeared on the screen. His image stood on the opposite side of the other boy, facing the same way as he. Kyle moved his hand and the image moved just the same and when he turned his body, the image of himself turned too.

  A big yellow word, "Fight!" appeared on the screen like a video game. Kyle and the other boy just stared at each other. Kyle shook his head and his image did too. He wouldn't fight the other boy, he wouldn't do what they wanted him to do. The other boy gave him a blank look, just as confused and then...he screamed.

  The other boy's image bent in half and held his body, and his image flew to the side like it was being hit. Kyle heard the start of a cry through the wall and almost simultaneously a scream, loud and clear, blasted out like it came from Kyle's room. The image of the other boy was bleeding, his face swelling red and purple, his arms up in front of him over his head. He was mumbling something, Kyle couldn't understand, it sounded like crying and blubbering. Unintelligible. Then the other boy's head jerked up with a loud crack. His image collapsed to the floor.

  Kyle approached cautiously. Uncertainly. His image copying him. This couldn't be real. "Are you OK?" Kyle voiced. If he could hear the other boy, maybe the other boy could hear him.

  The image disappeared.

  Moments later, Kyle's door opened and a shape fell through, the door slammed shut behind it. The boy, the real boy, lay bloody and twisted on the white polished floor. Kyle ran to him. Stopping before the boy, memories of Jeff, of the run over, of the broken body made him hesitate, but Kyle had to try.

  He rolled the body over, the mangled face made him gag but Kyle took the other boy's wrist and felt--nothing. He got on the right spot and pushed on the chest of the other boy, up and down, not looking down at the boy's face. Not looking at Jeff, because right now, the back of Jeff's head was staring at him. And once again, it was Kyle's fault.

  Kyle felt himself crying, hard. The tears kept coming out so that he couldn't see. But he could feel, and he could feel that the boy's skin was getting colder and colder and even with Kyle pushing on the other boy's chest, nothing was happening. The boy was dead. Just like Jeff had been.

  Kyle fell back, afraid of the body. He ran to the opposite side of the room and held his head. He heard the sound of the door open but Kyle kept his head down and refused to look, refused to see if there was another body that was going to fall through the door or men that would grab him and stick a needle in him. Kyle wanted Del, his mother, he wanted to be in her arms and he wanted to hold her and to realize this was fake. He wanted to see that he hadn't been kidnapped and that nothing this horrible could be happening. He wanted to stop crying.

  He didn't know how long he huddled in his corner, but when Kyle finally looked up, the body was gone. The bloody puddle and the streaks to the doorway were there, but no body. And the mirror was just a mirror.

  It took a while, but doubt settled in and Kyle had to know. He crawled forward on hands and knees, to the bloody pool, and touched it. Smelled it. He even, after staring at his fingertip and watching it dry into a brown crisp--tasted it. It was real. Salty and real.

  Kyle put his head in his elbows and squeezed his eyes shut again. It had to be fake. Somehow. They could fake a lot of things, this had to be one of them.

  A light flashed the edges of his lids, and he looked up. Immediately, he wished he hadn't. The mirror was a screen again, and Kyle backed away from it. He saw the other boy. This boy didn't look very confused. He had red hair and light brown freckles. He seemed angry. His image charged Kyle, fists striking out. Kyle's image r
eacted like it was being hit. On the face first, then in the stomach. The head again and the ribs. On the back. Kyle's image fell to the ground, not moving on the floor. Blood coming from his face.

  The red-haired boy's image backed up. There wasn't any look on his face except caution. He was crouching, staring at Kyle's body like at any second it would jump up and attack him. But Kyle didn't move. He held the opposite wall.

  The screen went back to being a mirror.

  Men came in through the door.

  Kyle ran from them, but they caught him, and punched him in the face, the stomach, the head again and his ribs. Hard on the back so that Kyle heard a crack and thought that he'd broken something. He fell to the ground and lay there, his face bleeding and dripping on the polished white floor.

  The men left.

  And not much later, the mirror became a screen.

  Kyle willed himself to stand up. He was crying again and he tasted tears through his teeth as he came upright. All he wanted to do was lay down because he hurt so much.

  The other boy came at him and Kyle tried blocking and only blocking. The other boy didn't seem to care that Kyle wasn't fighting back. After the fight, men came again and hit Kyle wherever he'd been hit on-screen.

  Kyle kept blocking in the next and next fight. Refusing to hit back. Even if he was in so much pain and he couldn't move, he wouldn't fight back. He couldn't. But it didn't stop the tears that kept coming out.

  The next body came through the door.

  The men in white would make him fight. Or they'd kill more. A part of Kyle wondered that if he continued resisting, maybe they would kill him. Then he wouldn't have to fight or hurt anyone because he'd be dead. But Kyle could already see that this whole thing was all about him and not the other boys. It was the other boys who got killed when Kyle made a mistake and the men in white were slowly making Kyle do worse and worse things. He could see that, already. And Kyle hated it because he couldn't do anything about it. If he didn't do what the men in white wanted, they'd kill the other boys. And anything was better than killing another boy, wasn't it?