Murder Genes (29 page)

-Uthon, Tell.
 
"Biologic Basis of Behavior."
Behavioral Genetics
. Jan, 2021.

Kyle left his class early today.
 
Because it broke pattern and if anyone was watching as he suspected they were, there was a chance he'd confuse them.
 
And, a chance he'd see something he wasn't meant to and find another clue in how he'd trick them.
 
He'd already found a lot of clues.
 
Callie had been right.

The cameras were the obvious ones, they were all over the school anyway.
 
The watching eyes of the teachers were next, they watched him closer than most kids.
 
But more than the teachers was the way the other kids treated him.
 
They weren't as good actors and liars as the adults.
 
They were
always
watching him from the corner of their eyes.
 
They'd whisper and talk only when he wasn't close.
 
They'd stop acting as soon as he was out of sight and sound, back to their giggling and chatting as soon as he was gone.
 
No matter how Kyle acted--happy, sad, angry, distant, they always remembered where he was.
 
The corner of their eyes told him that.

Of course this wasn't everything he noticed.

He'd spotted Callie's father in the reflection of his spoon, in the mirror reflecting another and another and another mirror, the transparency through the window-glass when he pretended to nap in class.
 
It was the man with dark glasses and bright orange hair watching and holding a small tablet in hand like he was taking notes in a class.
 
He'd only stay for a second, never a minute, but Kyle didn't ever stop searching for the man because Callie's father could appear where he shouldn't, somehow.
 
In Kyle's bedroom he'd see a shadow in the corner.
 
In the bathroom he'd hear distinct gliding-swish footsteps in the hallway.
 
One time, Kyle swore he'd seen the man step out of a student's locker.
 
Cross his heart and hope to die kinda sure.
 
But the only person he could tell about this and the only person he could believe was himself.
 
Callie was gone from her class like she'd never been there.
 
Kyle'd bet he'd never see her again, either.

Kyle told his teacher he needed the bathroom, and while other kids didn't get let out to use the bathroom, Kyle stared at her hard because he knew that
she
knew about him.
 
That he'd murdered people.
 
A lot of people.
 
And if she got in his way he'd murder her too.
 
Then she'd be out of the experiment completely because she was dead.

The teacher looked like she'd say something to him, but she didn't.
 
She only nodded.

Kyle didn't say thank you, he just waited until she opened the door just for him and
 
walked out without a word.
 
She locked the door behind him just because she was supposed to pretend to return to her class and pretend to be teaching while he wasn't in the room.
 
She probably was, actually, just in case he'd peeked.

Kyle ran as fast as he could down the hallways toward the doctor's office where Del was supposed to be.
 
He burst through her door, panting from his run, and caught another clue.
 
The kind of clue he'd set out to find for weeks already.
 
That Del might be part of this, too.

Del was sitting in the bench where the student usually sat.
 
Above her was the boy Kyle had seen holding Jess down before Kyle had been kidnapped.
 
This time the boy had different people around him and the needle was in Del and not Jess.
 
And yes, she was in the room too--Jess.

They looked at him in surprise.
 
It looked so fake.
 
"Kyle!" Del said, pulling the needle out and standing quickly, coming toward him.
 
"What are you doing here?
 
Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

"What are you doing,
Mom
?" Kyle asked.

"I..."

"None of your business," the boy muttered.
 
Kyle hated him, him and his muttering and the fact that he seemed to know everything that was going on and everything that was happening and he, Kyle knew, was important to the experiment because he was one of the ones who'd done those horrible things to Kyle.

"I'm not talking to you," Kyle said.

Jess touched his shoulder.
 
"Kyle," she said gently.
 
"Come with me."

He brushed her arm off his shoulder.
 
"Touch me again and I'll kill you."
 
The three other boys laughed, but not the muttering boy, or Jess, or Del.

Del frowned.
 
"Kyle, that's not nice.
 
Apologize to..."

"What are you letting them do to you?" Kyle cut in.
 
A part of himself still wanted Del to be his real mom.
 
A part of himself that Kyle was killing more and more of every day he discovered another clue, clues that meant that Del was part of this, too.

"They aren't doing anything," Del said.
 
"They are students learning to take blood because they want to be doctors someday."

I'm small, but I'm not stupid.
 
When will people learn that?
 
"That's illegal and you'd be in big trouble if that were true," Kyle said.
 
"Come up with a better lie, Del."
 
She stared at him like she was hurt.
 
He knew she wasn't.
 
"Did I hurt your feelings just now because I didn't believe your fake story and didn't call you 'Mom?'"

Del looked at the others in the room.
 
"You should go," she said to them.

"No, I'll go," Kyle said.
 
"But come up with a better lie for tonight, I can't wait to hear it."
 
He left the room, not rushing but not taking his time either.
 
He knew he wouldn't get any real answers, not tonight or any night.
 
Just another pile of lies that could become clues to something bigger.
 
Something that until he got real answers straight from someone who actually knew something, he'd be guessing forever.
 
Kyle was smart enough to realize that, and so it wasn't worth forcing Del to answer him.
 
Not until Kyle found out which persons knew most about the experiment and then trick them into giving him more clues and one day force them to tell him the answers.
 
Someone like the muttering boy.

But everything started with clues.

Someday, he'd get answers.

Kyle went to the lockers where he'd seen Callie's father come from.
 
He pulled at them curiously, knowing they wouldn't open but trying anyway just in case he thought of something.
 
The lockers were clear so that teachers could see inside for drugs and kid stuffing.
 
Kyle peered into each one-by-one.
 
He hoped he'd see a latch or a secret wall in the back of the locker.
 
Something that would explain how Callie's father had come out from one of the lockers.
 
He didn't see anything.

Some knuckles rapped on a locker a ways down the other side of the hall.
 
"There's a door behind this one."

It was El.
 
He'd gotten even bigger with even bigger muscles and he wasn't shorter than Kyle anymore.
 
"What?" Kyle asked.

"There's a door behind this one.
 
I found it months ago after I switched lockers."
 
El smiled at him.

Kyle felt like the pawn again.
 
He was confused.
 
What were the experimenters doing right now?
 
What were they thinking?
 
"Show me," he said.

El shrugged and pushed his fingerprint up against the door.
 
It beeped and popped open.

Kyle walked up and stared inside.
 
He couldn't see anything.
 
"Where is it?" he asked.

"Watch," El said.
 
He pushed hard at the back of the wall and let go suddenly.
 
The whole backside popped open a crack, stuck by El's stack of 20th century books.
 
"Old school carpentry," El explained.

Kyle stared inside.
 
He began shoveling the books aside.

"Hey, be careful!
 
Those are valuable.
 
I already checked, there's nothing behind the door."

"Do all of them do this?" Kyle asked, not stopping.
 
If all the lockers had this kind of mechanism, then it meant that he'd actually seen what he thought he had.
 
Callie's father
had
walked out of one of the student lockers.
 
Something crashed onto the ground.

"Hey!
 
I said to be careful!" El bent to the ground, picking up some of the clutter--mostly toy cars.
 
Kyle managed to pull open the door.
 
Behind it was a brick wall.
 
"I told you already, nothing's back there.
 
I already looked," El said.

Kyle grabbed the front of El's shirt.
 
"What do you know?"

El stared at him.
 
"What's gotten into you Kyle?
 
I thought they were rumors about how crazy you've gotten!"

"What are you doing here?" Kyle demanded.
 
"It's not between periods, how come you're out of class?"

"How come
you're
out of class?" El retorted, ripping Kyle's hand off his front.
 
His big muscles flexed as he moved and he glared at Kyle.

"Bathroom," Kyle answered.

"Same here," El responded smartly.

Kyle punched him across the face where it'd hurt, right on the jaw and temple, right by the ear.
 
El's head jerked to a side and he stared at Kyle, rubbing his cheek.
 
"What the hell was that?"
 
He began backing away.
 
"You stay away from me, you freak."

"What do you know?
 
What did they want you to tell me?
 
What are you supposed to say?" Kyle demanded.

"Who?
 
Who's telling me what?"

"Tell me!" Kyle yelled.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" El yelled back.
 
"Jillia was right about you.
 
They must've messed up the test on you.
 
You should be in Murderer City like your father."

"How'd you know about that?" Kyle growled.

"Ha!
 
So it's true!"

Whatever El's message was, he'd already said it--that was clear.
 
The rest was playacting and pretend.
 
Well, Kyle would give
them
a message, something they hadn't planned.
 
He grabbed El by the throat.

El's eyes got wide and he clawed at Kyle's hands, both his arms bulging huge.
 
But even if you couldn't see it in Kyle's muscles, Kyle was stronger, and faster.
 
The injections had made him that way.
 
He squeezed real hard and felt El's windpipe crush under his fingertips.
 
The other boy gasped and fell, grabbing at his neck, trying to breathe.

But you can't breathe when your windpipe is crushed.

Kyle got behind El and shoved him into his locker.
 
The front of El's head smacked into the brick wall in the back and Kyle slammed the locker door shut behind him.
 
His hands were shaking.
 
Kyle looked up at the time.
 
Four minutes until classes took a break.
 
El would be dead by then.
 
If this didn't get the message across, Kyle didn't know what would.
 
Next time he asked someone he'd be getting answers, he was sure of that.

Kyle made his way back toward his class.
 
In the side of his vision in the reflection off one of the locker doors he saw movement.
 
Callie's father had been watching.
 
Definitely sent a message
.

Kyle stopped halfway through his plate.
 
"I'll leave," he said to Tim and Del.
 
"You guys can talk."
 
Dinner was quiet like it always was these days, but tonight the glances between the two were unbearable.
 
Kyle stood and walked into his room.
 
Even though they'd know he was listening, he couldn't help himself.
 
He stood right by the barely cracked door, listening.

"You hea...appe...oday?"
 
Tim asked, his voice muffled.