Authors: Mikael Aizen
Kyle nodded.
"I promise.
You'll learn to love me."
He gave Tim a winning smile and held up two fingers in an ancient symbol.
"Peace."
Chapter 5
A new genetic sequence, its finding spearheaded by the BGA (Behavioral Genetics Association), has been informally named 'The Code.'
Researchers have found an alarming convergence of data associating convicted felons of 1st degree homicide and The Code imprinted within the felon's DNA.
This has caused a resurgence in Behavioral Genetic theories, not in small part amongst the homosexual community as they revive the search for the 'gay gene.'
While further research is necessary as to discover the propensities and the exact mechanism of The Code to human behavior, this finding has reopened a realm of science that has obvious and frightening implications.
-Bix, Caleb. "The Code: A Murder Gene?"
CNNHealth
, Dec 27, 2012, www.cnn.com/Health/10/28/TheCodeMurderGene/index.html.
Jay put his back to the brick wall and slid down its length, falling to his butt on the floor.
He needed to rest.
Sweat stung the edge of an eye and he blinked.
It didn’t change anything.
Everything was midnight dark.
He entered this building to stay hidden from whoever might be haunting the night, but without help he wondered if he could survive.
The bleeding had slowed, not stopped, and he didn't know anything about gunshot wounds except the obvious.
That if the bleeding didn't stop he'd be dead.
All he could do was put more pressure and hope it stilled.
Jay re-tied the bloody cloth, pulling hard as he could with shaking arms.
He rolled to his back, lifting his legs onto the wall.
He poured the last of the water in his mouth and tossed aside the canister.
Paul must've been a thirsty man before he died, there hadn't been much water left.
Jay sighed, closing his eyes, resting.
A few minutes passed and it seemed to help but he struggled to stay awake.
He was sinking...sleeping.
He heard a sound like jingling bells.
Santa?
He came to his feet, swaying.
A flashlight's beam touched the floor at the doorway, following a path he hadn't realized he'd left.
Bloody footprints.
Jay limped around a corner wall, feeling his way along.
He had to find a way outside where he would be harder to track.
The jingling got closer.
Jay quickened his steps, working his way around edges blindly.
His heart beat rapid, faintly, and though he hurried his pace he realized it would do no good.
He'd never escape, not injured and blind as he was.
Better to face whoever followed--reindeer or man--boldly, than to be caught fleeing.
Jay stopped.
The flashlight's beam came around and through the doorway, Jay saw that he was cornered.
It would have changed nothing if he had continued to run.
Black dots speckled in his vision and he leaned into the wall.
The beam traced his bloody tracks leisurely, stopped at Jay's feet, rose to his face, down his uniform, halted back on his leg.
"Not looking too good there, Enforcer," a young voice said.
The flashlight came back up to Jay's eyes.
Jay winced, blocking it with an arm.
"Put that away."
It flicked off and steps approached, more than one pair.
Jay couldn't tell how many.
He peered into the darkness.
"Who are you?"
"You're not supposed to be up this late, it's past your curfew."
The voice was taunting.
The flashlight clicked on and the light turned on its bearer.
The first thing Jay saw was a necklace of teeth strewn together, each flaked in dried blood.
The light continued up to a face.
Jay half expected to see a scarred or mutilated visage.
Instead, he saw a freckled, teenage boy with a confident grin.
The light flicked off.
"My mom says I'm old enough to stay up this late," Jay said.
"What do you want?"
"What do I want?
You came to me, to my land."
Sounded like a gang.
And Jay was trespassing into their territory.
Jay groaned and his body slumped on itself.
He answered like he knew what was going on, faking confidence.
"Fairly obvious, isn't it?
I'm injured."
The boy spoke in a voice like out of some horror flick.
"You're breaking all the rules today, Enforcer.
You stay out of our business, we stay out of yours.
Right?"
The light came on again, flooding light from underneath the boy's chin.
"But you're in my home now.
And you shouldn't be, should you?"
For all the childish dramatization, there was a sincere vileness in the boy's eyes.
"I can return the favor," Jay promised.
He looked like an Enforcer and if he acted like one he might have some kind of protection.
The light flicked off.
"Looking the other way?
Extra supplies?
I don't think so, Enforcer."
Jay heard someone approaching from the side, the jingling accompanied their movements.
"I can get you more," Jay tried.
It sounded good, at least.
"I've enemies, allies, soldiers and servants.
I'm in the
Game
.
What else do I want, Enforcer?"
There was a ringing by Jay's ear.
Bells dangling, held by some invisible hand.
"You know the rules."
No, I don't.
I have no clue what this Game is.
Jay struggled for a response that wouldn't give him away.
The bells dropped on the floor.
"Pick them up."
"Um...no."
"Pick up the bells," the boy said again, turning on the flashlight and pointing it at the object on the floor.
It was a thin bar, shaped in a complete half pie with miniature bells--like tiny cowbells--hanging off the arcing side.
There was a tiny line, a joint in the center of the straight side of the bar.
"Didn't your mom teach you never to bother bigger boys?"
Jay pointed at his gun, forcing himself to stand straighter and look intimidating.
"I'm not playing your game."
"Yes, you are."
A light red glow emerged in front of Jay's head, it was followed by the sound of a gun being cocked.
So much for Enforcer-only guns.
"How...?"
"Pick.
Up.
The.
Bells."
A sigh.
"Bitch, go."
"Catch me if you can!" a voice rang out.
'Bitch,' Jay guessed.
He had a kid's voice, early teenager or younger.
Running steps faded away.
Jay didn't move.
"Losing sight of him is as good as a death sentence, my friend."
Jay took a chance.
"I'll get you the Chief," he said.
"Hunter."
"...Yes, Hunter."
"What's your name, Enforcer?"
"Paul," Jay answered.
The gun lowered, slightly.
"Take off your leggings."
"The Chief trusts me."
"I know the rules.
And you aren't fucking following them.
Your leggings."
Rules again?
Jay gave in, reaching to his side and unstrapping his leggings with shaking fingers.
He really needed to sit down.
The flashlight tracked his motions as the leggings came off.
Blood soaked everything.
You couldn't tell where the wound was without the tourniquet marking the spot.
"Damn," came the amused reply, "like a pig."
The boy handed the flashlight to someone, someone Jay had not noticed or heard yet.
He walked right up to Jay, gun in hand.
"You killed Paul?"
It was only then that Jay saw how he had used the gun.
His hand wore a glove of human skin around it, still fresh.
"Who are you and what's your real name?"
"I'm new," Jay admitted.
"My name’s Jay."
"Ahh."
The boy nodded and sniffed as if satisfied.
"Compliments."
He gave Jay a big grin and held his gloved hand out.
"I'm
Gamer
," he emphasized the word oddly, speaking slowly.
"Pleased to meet you."
Jay reached out his hand, took the skin glove in a firm grip, and shook it.
It slipped a little as he did.
His legs were weakening.
"Hey!
What's the deal?" the one who had run off, demanded.
A scroungy figure stepped into the light.
He was short and skinny, shoeless and in rags.
His hair tugged wildly around his neck.
"Is he playing or not?"
Gamer looked at Jay and shook his head, taking his hand away.
"No, I don't think so.
I'd have to say he forfeits."
Jay blinked, relieved as he leaned heavily into the wall for support.
He was dizzy.
"Fine."
The kid walked up and swept the bells off the floor and crossed his arms.
"But he's gotta pay the price."
"Thought Santa was supposed to bring gifts..." Jay mumbled.
They ignored him.
"I know that," Gamer said, stepping back and waved a hand at the bell-carrying boy.
"Jay, meet Bitch.
Bitch, meet Jay."
"Pleased to meet you, Jay," Bitch said.
"The punishment, Gamer."
Gamer shrugged, he put the gun to Jay's cheek.
"Rules are rules."
He pulled the trigger.
"Damn good shot, Gamer," the voice, Bitch's, spoke admiringly.
"Straight.
Right through the teeth, just grazing the tongue...it's fucking textbook."
"Yeah, but I caught his cheekbone here.
Now it's in the way."
There was a taste of metal and a sliding, then a shove.
Jay's head jerked to the side, halting abruptly.
"See?
Hold on."
Pressure on his face.
Jay opened his eyes just in time to see the boot slam down on the side of his face.
Red light exploded through his vision and faded slowly, pulsating like a heartbeat.
The metal bar emerged from just under his opposite eye, a bit of chipped bone attached to it's rounding end.
Jay tried to scream, but only moaned.
Another shove, and a there was a click in his mouth.
His head slapped the ground and Jay gagged on the bar within his mouth.
"There.
Got it," Gamer said.
Jay squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the bubbly numbness running through his body, the queasy need to empty his stomach.
The cold bar.
He moved his tongue around the bar where teeth used to be.
Chipped bone, pain, the taste of blood that kept filling his mouth when his tongue moved.
Through it, his mind sharpened and instead of fogging his thoughts the pain seemed to make Jay
more
aware.
He searched out the torn path the bullet had taken through his broken teeth and part of his palate.
The ache traveled through his whole face, radiated into his temple, across his whole face and around to the back of his head.
He coughed blood and bone from his mouth and a unwilled tear joined the puddle under his head.
Hands rolled him over and he heard the jingle of bells.
"Get him to the infirmary.
Can't have our newest Bondsman dying of blood loss, can we?"
"Fuck no."
Then Bitch's voice was whispering at Jay's ear.
"Merry Christmas, Jaybird."
Jay almost sat up and hit the kid, but the acute awareness, the painfully sharp cognition--