Murder Genes (16 page)

Kyle took a risk.
 
"Hey!" he whispered.

The sobbing stopped.

"Are you OK?" he kept his voice low.

"Who's there?"

"I'm Kyle."

"W...what are you doing here?
 
This is the girls bathroom."
 
There was a softness to her voice that made Kyle feel really sorry for her, like she'd be someone who should never be hiding in the dark bathroom and crying because she was too nice to deserve it.

"I'm hiding.
 
What are you doing?"

There was a pause.
 
"I'm hiding too."

"From who?
 
I'm hiding from the teachers."

"I..."

The light flicked on and Kyle sucked in his breath.
 
An electric motor sound entered the bathroom.
 
Kyle tucked his head down, still pinned between the walls, and popped his eyes under the stall.
 

And lifted them just in time for a laser beam to pass right beneath him.

It was a really short, old-style bot--from when they used to try to make bots popular, square with four clunky wheels and lasers and other gadgets on its top with a sign draped by a knotted rope on its front said, 'Hall Monitor.'
 
A man's voice, slightly mechanical emerged from the machine.
 
"Return to your class immediately."
 
A second later it repeated the phrase.

Kyle didn't move, he didn't hear the other girl move either.
 
He peeked through the crack in the stall door.

"Return to your class immediately or an alarm will sound in ten...nine...eight..."
 
The machine had a beam pointed at somewhere off to Kyle's right.
 
He heard a latch pulled and the countdown continued.
 
"...seven...six...five..."

Kyle silently slid his own latch open really slowly and really quietly.
 
"...four...three...two..."
 
A slam and he glimpsed a black-haired girl running.
 
The bot went after her and a high-pitched alarm that hurt his ears screamed from its top.
 
It was faster than the girl and a square in its front was opening.
 
Kyle charged the machine.
 
He jump-kicked it with a foot and smashed his heel into the speaker looking part of the bot.
 
When he did, the machine spun and a rope-net-thing lashed out from a compartment in its front and wrapped on a stall leg instead of its original target--the girl.
 

She was older than him, high school-ish.
 
Her hair was actually red but with black dye going through it and she was staring at him with a hand over her mouth.
 
The bot began making garbled noises and dragged at the stall with surprising strength.
 
The stall rocked.

"C'mon!" Kyle yelled and grabbed the girl by her hand.
 
They ran out and down the hallways.

"Where are we going?" she said, resisting.

"I don't know!"
 
There was a loud crash and more alarms screamed behind them.
 
A whole bunch of bots, five, were rolling after them down the hallway.
 
The school must've bought them in bulk years ago.
 
There were double doors ahead and Kyle threw himself at them.
 
He bounced right off.
 
He threw himself at them a second time, with similar success.

"They lock the doors outside of class."
 
The girl knelt down and rubbed at the top of his head.
 
She had makeup that had smeared around her eyes and a really sad-sweet smile.
 
"You're very gallant, though."

The bots surrounded them and a bunch of classroom doors opened, students flooded curiously around them.
 
Right in front of everyone watching, the girl leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
 
Then she stood up and walked into the crowd where a guy teacher took her arm and walked her away.
 
There was another loud crash and a few yelps as Kyle saw water pooling at the crowds feet.
 
It was coming from the girl's bathroom.
 
Kyle saw his teacher staring at him.
 
She began a slow shake of her head that got bigger and madder as she waddled forward, a scowl on her face.
 
She took him by his hand and began dragging him down the hallway, mindless of the water pooling.

Kyle searched the watching students as he passed them.
 
At least this way, if Callie was in the school, she'd know Kyle was here.
 
Maybe she'd come to him.
 
Kyle spotted his classmates.
 
El winked at him in approval and pointed fingers at him like guns while Jillia and a few other girls fluttered their eyelids like butterfly wings as he passed.

Kyle sighed.

Dinner was quiet.
 
Really quiet.
 
Really
reaally
quiet.
 
Tim was glaring at Kyle.
 
Del was poking at her food and looking at Kyle out of the side of her eye with a "I'm trying to smile to look nice," smile.
 
He'd disappointed her again, he knew, and he was sorry.

Tim cleared his throat.
 
"Del, we should consider disciplining him.
 
He needs to learn."

Del nodded.

Tim gave Kyle a gruff and serious expression.
 
"What do you think, son?"
 
Tim had started to use that word, even though Kyle was pretty sure that if Tim knew he had The Code, he would've never said it.
 
Especially now.

Kyle nodded his agreement.

A moment.
 
"All right then," Tim said, "what do you believe is a fair punishment for your behavior at school today?"

Kyle and Del both raised an eyebrow at Tim.
 
Was he giving Kyle the choice to choose his own punishment?
 
Pa had never done that before.
 
He always
told
Kyle what his punishment was.
 
"If you're asking, Dad..." Kyle swallowed.
 
"I think it would be fair for me to be banned from school for a week to think about what I've done."
 
That way, he wouldn't be allowed to search for Callie and cause anymore trouble.

This time it was Tim and Del.
 
They both broke out laughing as if Kyle had made a big joke.
 
"All right Mr. Smartypants," Del said, "let
me
give it a go.
 
You're going to school whether you like it or not, and from now on
after
school you have to come to the clinic and help clean up and do chores for three weeks."

That didn't sound like much of a punishment.
 
"Yes, Ma'a...Mom," Kyle said.
 
He liked spending time with Del.

"And." Del continued.

And?

"Tim gets to decide what you have to do in the clinic."
 
Now, Kyle groaned.
 
That, was punishment.

Tim gave him an evil grin.
 
"Don't think I'll be nice to you because you're my son."

Kyle shook his head.
 
"I'd never think that.
 
You're really good at being mean."

It got quiet again.
 
He probably shouldn't have said that.
 
Whoops.

Chapter 12

In the 2019 case of Jong Kim, the Supreme Court of Louisiana found persuasive the argument that the defendant's genetics rendered the homicide a product of disease.
 
Thus dissociating it from will.

-Plicard, Alan. "Criminal Cases and Genetics:
 
Where is the Future Leading?"
 
Genomics
.
 
pp. 39-42, 2020.

It was a week later before Kyle saw the girl again.
 
Not Callie, he hadn't seen her and he was beginning to wonder if he ever would.
 
She wasn't in her classes and no one seemed to know anything except that her brother had died.
 
The rest were rumors.
 
What was strange was that no one in her class seemed to be friends with her, she'd been a loner.

This other girl, the one he'd tried to save in the bathroom, he ran into as he was throwing away trash for Tim and Del.
 
Her and a bunch a bullies.
 
He walked into them completely unexpectedly.
 
There were three guys around her who also looked like they were in high school.
 
One of them held a needle and the other two pinned the girl by either arm.

"Hey!
 
What're you guys doing!"
 
Kyle dropped the trash bags.
 
The girl had tears all over her face again.

The one with the needle turned and held the needle behind his back as if Kyle hadn't seen it.
 
"Ignore him, just do it," one of the boys muttered.
 
The one with the needle turned back to the girl.

"Leave her alone!" Kyle yelled.

The one who had spoken at first spoke again--still muttering.
 
"Hear that Jess?
 
The kid wants us to leave you alone."

Jess looked at him and gave him that same sad-sweet smile she had before.
 
"You should just leave, Kyle."
 
She suddenly gasped as the boy with the needle put it in her.
 
She began shivering and fell her knees buckled in.

"What did you do to her?" Kyle demanded.

They began walking toward him, clearly intent on walking past him and ignoring him entirely.
 
Kyle put his arms out in their path.
 
"Stop!
 
I'm not letting you get away with this."

"Get away with what?" the muttering boy muttered.
 
"You don't even know what we did."

Kyle didn't have an answer to that.
 
The three guys were so big.
 
He needed to scare them somehow.
 
"My mom's a doctor, she's be able to figure out what you did to her.
 
When she does, I'll find you and the cops will throw you in jail."

That stopped them.
 
But not because they were afraid of what he'd said.
 
Instead, they passed glances at each other and the muttering one gave Kyle the slimiest smile Kyle had ever seen.
 
"Your mom?
 
Is she the hot new nurse at school?"

"She's a
doctor
."

"Del, right?" he drawled.
 
"Doctor Del.
 
It's got a sexy ring to it.
 
She's your mom?"

Sexy?
 
Kyle tightened his lips closed, he didn't like what was happening.
 
He felt like he'd unknowingly put Del in danger.

"Lucky bastard," the other one who hadn't talked yet said.
 
He had a ring through his lip.
 
"Bet he doesn't even know what to do with that pecker between his legs.
 
If
she
were my mom...My God!" he gasped and shivered.

"I'd never lose my ups with her," the one that had been holding the needle said.
 
Kyle couldn't see where he'd put the needle, but it was gone.
 
"Have you seen down her shirt yet?
 
It's all over the school.
 
Some of the kids put the pictures on their tablet wallpapers.
 
If we could get her onboard..."

"Fuck up, you two."
 
The mutterer must've been their leader because when he snapped at them, they shut up quick.
 
He knelt down and stared at Kyle with hard eyes.
 
"We'll be seeing you soon, little buddy."
 
He slapped Kyle across the chest hard enough to throw Kyle into the brick wall besides them.
 
Not a single one of them showed any sign of being worried as they walked away.

Kyle balled his fists, hating how small he was more than ever.
 
He got up and ran to Jess and got under her arm, trying to lift her.
 
She moaned.
 
"You have to get up.
 
You have to go see Mom and Tim."

She rolled her head back.
 
"One second."
 
She breathed in and out like it was the hardest thing she'd ever done.

Kyle squatted helplessly beside her.

"You have to quit trying to save me.
 
You might make me like you."
 
She rolled her head at him and raised a hand to his head, rubbing slowly like she had the first day he'd met her.

"You're named Jess, right?
 
You have to stand up, I can't carry you without help."
 
He could've gone running for Del and got her to come here, but he didn't want to leave her alone in case the guys came again.