Murder Genes

by Mikael Aizen

  "And that's why I've prepared proof," Andre said. "Proof that my data is clean, proof that Kyle doesn't have The Code."

  "Proof?"

  "One. One. Seven. Six." Andre answered. "Two. Two. Eight."

  "What are you saying?" mustache man asked.

  "Twenty South Public Road," Andre's voice challenged. "Find it, and you'll find a lockbox in a school locker with a vial of Kyle's blood, found and taken within the last months right before Kyle's adoption into my family." The vial that Tim had taken, then. Hidden at the school where Kyle had gone. "See for yourself if I'm lying," Andre continued. "Or if the government is lying and trying to keep the truth from coming out. I've given you the passcode to the lockbox, the rest is up to you. The public. The world. I await your reply. And while you find out the truth of Kyle, you can find my website and download the data I've collected and see for yourself what The Code really means."

  The mustache man looked like he was going to faint, shock on his face.

  Minutes passed staring at the clearscreens before the reports flooded in. "He does NOT have The Code. I repeat. Kyle Mollinda does not have The Code. Independent researchers have confirmed through repeated trials that the blood belongs to Kyle Mollinda. He does not have The Code."

  The courtroom erupted. People yelled at everyone, each other, the judges, the Public Security. All across the country, it would be the same. Everyone was angry.

  The judge kept yelling for order.

  It was almost over.

  Mustache man spoke, his display made him look pale and weak in his last statement. "One isolated case is an exception. You can't deny the evidence showing that the levels of murders have dropped dramatically over time. Kyle's the exception, not the rule."

  "And," Mr. Mel added, trying to get his last words in too. He stared into the cameras following him even as mobs fought in the background of his image, "We've yet to prove that Kyle is responsible for these murders. I argue that even if he did them, before Andre Mollinda and his experiments, Kyle was just another boy like any other boy. He..."

  If there was one thing Kyle had learned from Andre, he'd learned that it was easy to control the masses with public propaganda.

  It was time for his own propaganda. To make sure that Pa was freed and that Kyle got his revenge. In the chaos, the Public Security threw themselves at the perimeter of people pressing in. Reinforcements were pouring into the courtroom and violence broke out as fists were thrown like a psychological release that anyone could be violent.

  They weren't watching Kyle.

  Kyle grabbed the short chain between his handcuffs and leapt over the short witness stand. Then he ran low and fast until he was right in front of him.

  Only at that point did he look at Andre in the eye. He rolled onto the table his "dad" sat behind and jumped off it, flying out hands first and knocking the scientist over his chair to the ground.

  Andre fought, but Kyle was strong because of the injections.

  "Hi, Dad. Sacrifice for science, right?"

  Andre screamed in terror as Kyle dropped his knee straight into Andre's throat, cutting the sound off. Then he spun around, hooked the chain under Andre's limp neck and pulled and twisted as hard as he could, using his feet on the back of Andre's head for leverage.

  There were many snaps. Loud in the courtroom because everyone had suddenly fallen silent.

  Andre went limp.

  Only then did he look up. The Public Security stared, in shock, unmoving as Kyle rose to his feet and Andre's head flopped to the floor with a thud. Mustache man whimpered and tripped over himself, crawling away. It wouldn't matter if Kyle was the exception, now. The most powerful propaganda was guided by emotions.

  "I am a murderer," Kyle said to the cameras. "See?"

  Chapter 33

  After the trial involving Dr. Andre Mollinda and Kyle Mollinda, public revolt and outrage spread across US media and worldwide information networks. The political corruption involved and the discovery that the US had nearly been invaded by the DPRK from within its own country has alarmed citizens to how powerful political propaganda has come.

  The demand for accountability and full disclosure and the freedom of press has brought one man back to Presidency. President Barrack Obama once again leads the country towards change, as he once did back in 2009.

  -Thes, Orlan. “History on Behavioral Genetics: The Fall of Behavioral Genetics.” History. Ed. Jon Pulmat. New York: Elibrary, 2030. 213-214.

  Years later...

  Life imprisonment.

  Jay heard the verdict and fell to his knees. Karah, his wife, caught him, whispering something to him. But Jay didn't hear anything she said. Life. The word rang through his head, louder than any sound he'd ever hurt. Years of waiting on deliberations, hoping that someday they could be reunited as a family again.

  "No!" Jay bellowed. He rushed to his feet and charged forward toward his son. "You can't do this! It wasn't his fault!"

  Public Security got in his way, they pinned him back, holding him by his suit. "Mr. Nelson, please. Don't make us use force."

  Jay ignored them, shoving them aside. They mobbed him and managed to stop him halfway to Kyle. Jay stopped struggling, standing in the middle of the courtroom. The Public Security didn't push him back, but stood around him with their palms out at him. "I'll fight this," Jay promised, calling to Kyle. "We'll find a way to get them to let you go. I'll make it happen, I know important people now. You've a lot of support from the public and we can challenge this."

  Kyle cut him off. "Don't," he said back.

  "It was that bastard Andre's fault. He made you do this."

  Kyle just shook his head. "Don't," he said again. "Just don't, Pa. Just let me go. Let, me, go." His eyes were shadowed. He'd wanted capital punishment to be revived just for him. He'd wanted the death sentence.

  The way Kyle had said the words to let him go. Jay knew his son, even so many years later. Even as a teen, now. Jay knew that Kyle would take what he thought justice was into his own hands. He'd kill himself.

  "Kyle," Jay whispered, saying his son's name again because he didn't know what else to say.

  "I'm a real murderer," Kyle affirmed. "Not like you." He looked at the cameras focus on him. "And murderers shouldn't live."

  Jay reached in his pocket quickly, and pulled free a small, cold metal piece that clanged. One of the bells that used to hang from his face. The security began pulled him away and he threw it to Kyle. "Take it!" Jay yelled.

  Kyle caught the bell in one hand. "What is it?"

  Security pulled Jay back and he yelled his answer. The answer he hoped from his deepest insides that Kyle would understand. "It means a life. And choice!"

  Kyle just held it, the last bell from Jay's time in Morir. Before the pardons had been made to those in Morir and the closing of the Murderer Cities. It'd been Jay's last bell. It was Jay's life.

  Now it was Kyle's.

  "You always have choice!" Jay screamed as they took his son away.

  He saw Kyle cradle the bell in both hands, his head down all the way as he left the courtroom. He didn't look back.

  Epilogue

  Callie Mollinda came to visit him. It mattered because in his room where there was no one else...

  He'd forget, sometimes, what it was to feel.

  Other people make you feel. When you see other people, your heart gets faster and your eyes tear up and you think about things that matter deep inside. When you're alone, you don't feel anything. You look inside yourself and know only emptiness.

  He'd been waiting for her. Wanting to see her before he tried.

  "Hi Kyle," she said. She was grown up now, around thirteen years old. Others visited him regularly, his father Jay, his new mother Karah. But their adopted daughter, Callie, never came. Until today.

  "Hi Callie," he said.

  "Did you really mean to kill all of them? Even Jess and Ryant?"

  Kyle walked right up to the thick plastic wall between them. She was taller
while he was still short, her face was longer and looked a lot like Jess' had. But it was Callie, through and through. "You heard the verdict," Kyle answered.

  Callie shook her head. "I don't care about the verdict, Kyle. Just tell me the truth."

  Kyle nodded. "I meant to kill them."

  She swallowed, and nodded. "Why, Kyle? Why would you do that to me?"

  "I did it for you."

  She shook her head. "How? How could you kill my father and brother and sister for me? How does that even make sense?"

  Kyle wanted to touch her because he felt like if he could she'd realize how much he cared for her and understand why he'd done what he did. Just a hug, a touch. "I did it for revenge. For Mom. But also...I've realized that somewhere inside, I actually did it just to get your father away from you. I knew that if I let him continue the experiments, you would suffer. I couldn't let that happen. The truth was that I cared about you more than The Code or anything else."

  "How does that work? How can you change why you did something after you already did it?"

  "Time changes everything," Kyle answered. "You realize things about yourself that you didn't know before."

  "No. You did it because you wanted my father to suffer," Callie challenged. She didn't believe that he'd done it for her.

  His heart fell. Maybe she was right, maybe he was still making excuses for himself. No, she WAS right. It was an excuse. Even now he was making excuses. Perhaps this was how all murderer became murderers. "You're right," Kyle answered. "I did it to make your father suffer. For killing Del because he didn't have to. I was angry. And also to get Jess and Ryant back for what they did to you and me. But that's why I'm here, because I made wrong choices. The only time I actually had a choice, I chose to murder. I guess...it's who I am. I'm sorry, Callie."

  The way she looked at him showed him how much she'd grown up. He felt young and childish before her, like they were a lifetime apart.

  "I understand," she said. "I always understand you. Even when you're wrong, I understand. Sometimes it takes me some time, but I always know deep inside what you're feeling."

  "Callie..." This is it. Goodbye.

  "Do you have the bell your father gave you?" she asked.

  Kyle nodded. He took it out, the bell that looked like it'd been taken from a cow. It was rusty, dented, and ugly.

  "Has he told you what it means?"

  "Each time he comes, he tells me it means choice. It doesn't make sense because I've already murdered and I'm already a murderer, I've made my choices and I'm going to lose the rest of life because of my choices." And after today, after she'd finally come and seen him, he planned to lose his life for good.

  Callie smiled sadly. She looked deep into his eyes. "He means, Kyle, that whatever you've done. You can choose to be whoever you want in this moment. Right now. You can choose NOT to be a murderer, and you won't be. Even if it doesn't change anything you've done, even if you've murdered in the past, you still have that choice of who you are today. Your father had to make the same choice in Murderer City. Many times. He decided not to be a murderer, and he hopes you will too."

  "Why does that even matter if it doesn't change anything?"

  "Because it matters to your father. It matters to me." She turned to leave. "I've already forgiven you, Kyle, before I came here today."

  He stared at her. What did that mean?

  "And if I can forgive you, why can't you forgive yourself? You were the nicest boy I've ever met and I think that you still are the nicest boy I've ever met--if you want to be. Don't be like a duck, just...be you. I'll see you soon, Kyle. I want to see you soon."

  She gave him a sweet, sad-less smile.

  "Forgive yourself," she said again. "Then you can be anyone you want to be. It's up to you."

  She left.

  The words. The words she said were similar to Pa's. But the way she said it sunk deeper into him than any words had ever done. She knew what Kyle wanted to do, but she left anyway like she knew he would be around the next time she visited.

  Unlike the other times that Pa had visited and said he loved Kyle, weeping and pleading with Kyle, Callie's words made Kyle feel something. She forgave him for murdering her entire family. The realization broke him. How could someone be so kind? How could she not hate him?

  And all she wanted was for him to forgive himself.

  It bubbled up like a spring, straight from his heart to his throat. A choking sound filled with sadness that he'd refused to let himself feel. Why hadn't he been allowed to live a normal life? Grow up like every other kid? Why had this happened to him? He'd been innocent, he'd never wanted any of this on himself or anybody.

  It wasn't fair.

  But what Callie and his father were saying was that it didn't matter if it was fair. It was what it was and he was who he chose to be.

  Even if he was alone, even if he was going to be in this little room for the rest of his life. Even if he and Callie would never get married and Pa and him would never become a family again.

  Kyle began to cry.

  And finally, long after, he forgave himself.