Authors: Mikael Aizen
Kyle approached the car, and peered in.
The glass windshield had fallen clean off and the man with the hat lay unconscious inside with his arms flopped around him like he was hugging himself.
He didn't know how long he stood there, waiting for the man to move, but at some point the man's lips got pale and blue.
That was when Kyle decided to help.
He dropped his shoes and socks and took off his backpack.
He crawled inside and unbuckled the man's car belt and pulled the unconscious body out through where the windshield had been.
Snow kept blowing around them, and Kyle knew even with his strength that he wouldn't be able to lift cowboy man.
He crawled back into the car and looked around for something he could put under the man to drag.
In the rear, there was a latch to a doorway in the back.
He opened it.
Inside the back was a mess of stuff thrown by the crash.
Ropes, buckets, shovels.
A woman crumpled over herself.
Kyle's breath caught and he crawled forward and touched the woman with shaking fingers.
Her body was cold.
Kyle could see most her features in the dark but he couldn't tell her hair color, or the details of her face.
He dragged at her and pulled her toward the front of the car where the moonlight would let him see even better.
When her head popped out sideways out of the doorway with a sticky-note on it, Kyle dropped her.
He stared and stared and held his breath and closed his eyes as hard as he could.
But he'd already read the note.
It'd said, "You can't hide."
He grabbed his hair in a fist and gripped tight as he held his breath more, held and squeezed his eyes until a tear came free from his eye and a feeling came out from his heart.
It was Del's body.
Mom's body.
She was dead.
Kyle grabbed her under the arms and pulled her free from the car, into the headlights to see.
Her lifeless and limp body drooped over the windshield where bits of glass cut her.
She bled just a little and not for long.
When he put her down in the snow in front of the headlights, he threw aside the sticky-note so that he could see every characteristic of her face and the little smile she was supposed to have and the fluttering of her eyes she was supposed to do as she woke up.
Then her hand would reach up and ruffle his hair and tell him how much she loved him.
But first she'd wake up.
She'd wake up.
"Wake!" Kyle said.
"Mom.
Wake up, please."
She didn't listen.
She didn't care.
This time she wasn't faking, not like he wanted her to.
The raw red ring around her neck wasn't fake.
He should have trusted her.
The thought hurt worse than anything, because this time he could've had a mother and maybe, they could have loved each other like mothers and sons were supposed to love each other.
That was the last thing he said to her for the rest of the night.
He left the cowboy man to die and took Mom instead, dragged her body up onto his shoulders and began walking, leaving his bag.
Walking toward nowhere.
She was heavier than he'd ever carried, but he felt like he could carry her forever.
Because he loved her, and she loved him.
She always had, that's what she'd said.
That's what she always said.
I love you too, Mom.
And in the deep, farthest back part of his mind he knew something else.
After he found out why Mom was murdered, he'd get revenge on the person who'd done this--the person behind the experiment.
Callie's father.
And he'd do it in the worst, most painful way possible.
Chapter 25
This is not a future dystopia, this is now.
Behavioral genetics have taken root in our understanding and the correlations are astounding.
The only decision to be made now is: How do we use this information for the betterment of mankind?
-Rejen, Annujin.
"The Begging of the Gene War."
Times.
April 18, 2022.
"What the fuck are we going to do now?" Bitch asked Jay, then saying to Xiaos, "He gives away our guns and wants us to rescue people with nothing more than our cocks leading the way.
And I don't think the Korees will be up for 'sword' fighting."
"He is our Gamer," Xiaos said.
"Fucking dumbest Gamer I've ever seen," Bitch murmured.
"If the real Jesus were here, he'd kick your fucking ass, Jay."
"For what?" Jay asked.
"For throwing away the blessings he gave you to use, the
guns
you moron."
Jay grimaced.
"Again, I'm no Gamer.
And I need ideas before another poor bas..."
Bang!
"...tard get's a bullet in his head."
He looked at the lineup as a body slumped, then collapsed beside the others.
It was bright out so they had to hide pretty deep in one of Bitch's "watchditches"--one of many holes that Bitch that had good sight of the surroundings.
The Slant Eyes were talking over some of the weapons they'd confiscated from the Finger of Gods.
The Fingers, a good thirty people still alive, were lined up and blindfolded.
The other seventy lay on the ground collapsed and dead.
Jay counted two hundred Slant Eyes.
"Run for our own lives sounds like a plan to me," Bitch said.
"What do you say, Xiaos?"
"I say that there are many options yet unexplored," Xiaos rubbed at his chin.
"The best option is to thin out our enemies and use what resources we have."
"Which is?" Bitch prompted.
"You, me, Jay, his knife, your grenades, my suit."
Xiaos ticked off the list in quick succession.
Jay had to admit, it was a short list.
"I do not think it will be hard," Xiaos finished.
Bang!
Twenty-nine.
Funny thing was that none of the prisoner's legs were shaking and there weren't any pools of urine or begging.
Morir Natives were a hard bunch of defeated pessimists.
"What's the plan then?" Jay asked.
"Our goal is not to kill our enemies, only to save the prisoners we can, recruiting them to our side."
Xiaos shrugged.
"We have Bitch.
This is what Bitch is best at, why is this difficult?"
Because Bitch isn't a Thriller anymore,
Jay thought to himself.
He had been watching Bitch, no more was there the adrenaline excitement when they mentioned danger, only fear and survivalism.
Bitch had changed.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Xiaos.
It's too risky."
Bitch gave Jay an indignant look.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"It's too risky," Jay repeated.
Bang!
"It's not worth it."
"Twenty...eight Jay.
You're saying my life ain't the risk for twenty-eight soon to be twenty-seven lives?
What happened to that 'choose to be a Protector' shit you've been talking about?"
"I choose to protect
your
ungrateful ass over theirs," Jay answered.
"Aww how sweet.
Fuck you Jay, I'm not your replacement son while you're in Morir, I'm going."
Bitch nodded at Xiaos.
"If you can choose to be Protector, you can also choose to be Thriller.
How awesome is it that I'm prepped as a Thriller by my last Gamer?"
He grinned and began stripping.
When he was done and his skinny butt bones stuck out as much as his face did, he grabbed a hold of two grenades, one in either hand.
"The plan is that I lead them away and you blast away anyone left?"
"Bitch..." Jay started.
Bitch cut him off.
"Just 'cause you got to see my cry doesn't mean you know anything.
I'm going."
They hadn't talked about last weeks incident.
Jay hadn't noticed it until then, but Bitch did look like he was a mix-race.
He was always so dirty that you couldn't really tell.
"Get them, Bitch," Jay resigned.
"If you leave any of them behind, I'll have your half-black ass on a platter."
Bitch bobbed his head and turned.
"Don't die," Jay called after him.
"...fuck you shithead..." then Bitch was gone.
"Right.
What's the plan for us?" Jay asked Xiaos.
"Bitch left us six grenades.
With my suit I should be able to sneak in and deploy them on those who do not give chase."
"Fine, what do
I
do."
"Sit and watch," Xiaos answered.
"You are our Leader."
"Damn it Xiaos Wayng, you can't be asking me to do nothing."
Xiaos shrugged.
"You are our Redeemer.
If you die, there is nothing.
People will need you to look up to, and you have the reputation already.
We need it if we're going to succeed."
"Fine," Jay sighed, waving his hand at Xiaos.
"Go."
Xiaos gave him one of those approving, "you're doing the right thing" nods and snuck away.
Jay counted for about ten seconds before he took off, circling around to the Slant Eyes' prisoner side where Xiaos wouldn't see him.
Or at least stop him from helping.
Bang Bang!
Two more prisoners collapsed and the Slant Eyes were fiddling with a different gun this time, like they were experimenting with how each weapon worked.
The one they were messing with now had a handle that glowed.
Guess not all the Enforcer guns had been disabled.
Another gun was picked up, and the one shooting the guns--an officer--even tapped at the red side, speaking something to his partner.
The rest of the DPRK soldiers were wandering the nearby headquarters of the Fingers or standing guard around the perimeter.
The perimeter that Jay(and Xiaos, surely) had both pierced.
No matter how disciplined the DPRK were, they hadn't lived in Morir long and hadn't learned how to move and hide with the skill that any Native of Morir had become accustomed to.
The DPRK officer lifted the gun and put his tongue between his teeth as he aimed at one of the prisoners.
There was a sudden BOOM and bits of rock and goo rained all over the officer's side.
The officer blinked and looked at his gun like he was a dumb-butt.
He turned around and saw the half torso of his friend, still standing upright on two feet and half a pelvis beside him.
Nice throw, Bitch.
The Slant Eye officer figured it out and barked commands as he backed away from his comrade.
Troops fell into line in front of him.
Another boom took out the line, spraying rocks and fleshy bits and leaving the officer standing all alone again.
FUCKING good job, Bitch.
The officer panicked, screaming orders and pointing at where he thought the grenades had come from.
Soldiers seeped out of the headquarters like rats from a sewer.
Another line, a mostly formed line, blew up too, and forming lines became secondary to giving chase.
It had probably been Xiaos blowing up the last line.
Maybe twenty Korees went after Bitch, who at the moment was leading a bunny hop line and screaming like a happy lunatic.
Jay dubbed over the Korean's commotion inside his own head.
"Get him!
Where did he go?
Over there!
What is wrong with that boy?
Look at the tiny penis!"
Like those Godzilla movies that Jay's parents told him about all the time.
A soldier tripped over Jay's leg, falling on his face.
Jay grinned at him buddy buddy like.
Then he slugged the Koree in the face before the squishface could even lift his head off the dirt.
Four more explosions took off and Jay saw something like a blur working through the nearby enemies like a ghost.
Koreans gagged and choked and collapsed and Jay could've sworn he saw one of the Slant Eyes get his head knocked clean off.
On his shoulders one second and flying off the next.
Jay really wished he'd taken Xiaos up on his offer to learn to fight.
The man was kick-ass, Chinese Rambo.
One hundred enemies?
No problem, Xiaos Wayng's got it.
Heeyaaaww!