by Mikael Aizen
"They created TKD, the traditional style. It would be wise to be prepared."
"I'm busy," Jay said in his normal voice. "Just watch Bitch for me and we'll talk about this later."
"I'm not a dog," Bitch complained.
"Sit and stay," Jay replied, walking off. He was impatient today, antsy.
"Sneak me out," Bitch came up after him.
"You remember what type I am? Murderer-survivor. That means to survive Xiaos' wrath I'm gonna say 'no' and then promise to knock your head off if you try escaping while I'm gone."
"You know that if I wanted, I'd be gone. Take me with you, I can help."
"Talk to Xiaos. But right now, sit, stay," he said it again. "Stay."
Bitch glared at him, but there was an ease in his posture that told Jay he'd made the right decision. Not that Jay'd considered otherwise, he never did. Bitch didn't want to leave. He pushed the borders because it was his instinct and a part of himself missed the chase and the adrenaline of being frightened for his life. The truth was that Bitch pressured Jay because he wanted to assure himself that Jay was protecting him. Reminding himself that he wouldn't ever have to leave Esperanza again.
"Watch the...bitch, he might make a run for it today," Jay called to Xiaos.
Xiaos nodded and one of the twins, Evo, waved at him. "Kick some butt for me!"
"Yeah, kick some fucking ass!" Ti screamed at the top of his lungs.
Jay smiled and waved back. He'd like to say it wasn't his fault Ti's mouth had become dirtier than piss, but it was. And in an odd way Jay felt proud, kinda enjoyed the feeling of corrupting the kid into adulthood. He felt like a proud uncle.
Before he left, Jay made his rounds through Esperanza. He did the rounds because he needed to remember why he traveled out of the perfect town of Esperanza. For Brian, the guy with the blown off leg. Joanna, the lady who had a newborn child, as insane as having a kid in Morir was--she named him Sully. Emmy, the girl who was still too scared to speak or look anyone in the eye. They and the others acknowledged him in their own ways when Jay past them. A nod or wave or a shy smile as they worked the best they could, building, cultivating, being civilized.
Esperanza looked like a small town now, it was thriving. Minor roads and paths cut between the Crystal Onyx buildings and a community center had even been built, a place built by mere sweat where neighbors chatted, shared, and enjoy life like human beings. People had jobs now, and while there were those like Jay who left Esperanza for the good of everyone--warriors and gatherers, ultimately it was Jay that was Esperanza's reassurance that things would be OK. Life could be lived in Morir.
And just as much as Esperanza needed him for this reassurance, Jay needed them.
"Adrianna," Jay said. She was standing by the exit he most often took into Morir.
She walked up to him and leaned forward to kiss him on the lips. "Come back, hear me?" Adrianna was the first girl he'd saved. The same woman who'd been raped in the middle of Haven and forced to watch her fiancé's almost-corpse bumped in the mouth. Not a happy time. She was from somewhere near Texas in one of the few towns left where they still had slight accents.
"I always come back," he replied.
"You're goin' at her today?"
"Yeah, today."
"Well don' fuck up," she said with a scowl.
She always said that. Just this time she was actually worried, he felt it in the peck she'd given. There was a hesitancy to her that he only picked up on because she'd kissed him like that a hundred times before. Didn't blame her, because if he was planning on dying, this'd be the way to do it.
The dragon's lair you might say.
The plan was to get into Freckles' headquarters, "Lair", and rescue Karah right from underneath Freckles' nose. Yeah, it was a bit romantic, dastardly romantic really. But the truth was...he owed her one.
Sure, Freckles would shit his bed when he succeeded. Shit and then eat it, or at least hump the pile of shit since he was into that sort of thing.
...that wasn't nice. Gaywads were people too.
...even if they were the type that liked to hack and slash, inseminate corpses, and blow teeth off strangers.
Jay flicked one of the four bells left on his bar. In clanged weakly. One of these days he'd make sure Gamer got it back. Teeth and butt humping both, followed by death and more butt humping.
He took a turn through the passages that he normally didn't, he usually avoided this area with the bad memories and all. Bitch had shared several secret passages with Jay over the week he'd been in Esperanza. The kid probably could've been anything if it hadn't been for The Code. A spy, CIA, double-triple agent, a modern day Inglorious Basterd.
Maybe a gymnastics instructor.
Jay halted in front of the "small gap" in amazement. Bitch had jumped this? It had to be a fifteen foot drop to a ledge the width of his hand. He shook his head and whispered to himself. "Hell no." It looked like if he missed his bar could maybe catch him around the ledge, suspending the top of his head as the rest of his body kept falling. Jay didn't bother considering it any more than he already had. He turned around and went for the "longer but easier" path to Lair. Hopefully, this one would actually be possible to traverse.
The other path was more tunnel than path, and not so much long as slow. Too bad it dropped him off right outside Lair rather than inside it like the other had. Jay spent most the time on his belly through twists that felt like he'd break his spine in two. But it was doable. The truth was that with Bitch roaming Freckles' territory, Jay would've had no chance in heck to save Karah. But now that Bitch was helping Jay, things were different. Karah was possible.
The tunnel finally gave Jay the lung capacity to take full breaths. He slowed a bit as he poked his head from the pile of rubble that hid him.
There it was. Lair.
It looked like all the other buildings in Morir. Except that it crawled with Eyes.
With Bitch's recent disappearance, things would've changed, patterns would've change. Gamer was too sharp to let that detail pass. The positions of the Eyes and the where and when of the passing Guards gave him clues to blind spots and check points. The rotations told him schedules and sleep patterns, and their alertness told him that Freckles was under heavy pressure from the other Gamers. Jay wouldn't be the only one watching. As smart as Gamer was, he'd be changing up the rotations and positions of his Guards and Eyes. Maybe daily.
That was a problem.
A complete day of watching passed before Jay figured out his plan. It was almost dumb simple, but it was the only way he could be sure he'd picked out all the Eyes.
Jay took a deep breath and screamed at the top of his lungs. "Kim Cho-sung! Kim Cho-sung!" He tried to do it in his best Korean voice, but damn, he'd never heard a Korean talk.
Jay pulled his body completely out of sight as soon as he saw the movements. Jay smirked, he'd even managed to set off an alarm. A bunch of Freckles' men had emerged. Scouts. Jay watched through cracks as they sprinted like goat people over and around rubble, making big boomerangs back into headquarters as they scoured the surroundings. He grinned as they yelled out more alarm, coming across other scouts from other Teams. Jay had seen what he had needed to see, though. It was human nature to watch. The Eyes had shifted or poked their heads around in response to Jay's yell. That was all he needed.
The inside of Lair, on the other hand, was very characteristic of Freckles. The hallways were covered in teeth--without their owners of course. Rotting, chipped, noisemakers. It looked like a dentist's nightmare. Not that it stopped Jay from being stealthy, but it slowed him down enough to annoy the hell out of him.
Jay heard voices.
"Hey!" he called, marching toward them.
Two men dressed as Toothache Guards--meaning they wore a red ribbon around their left arm--squinched at him from down the hallway.
"Hey!" Jay called again, not slowing. It took too much effort to walk slowly and quietly over the bloody teeth.
"Yeah?" one of
the guards asked.
"I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the guy... Behind you!" he bellowed. They twisted their necks and Jay was close enough. "DUCK!" he yelled in their ears.
They ducked. He kneed one in the face and laid out the other with his elbow.
Too easy. Jay tied his shirt right over his nose over his bells like a cowboy and took one of the unconscious guard's red bands. He tied that to his arm. Now he was in business. There weren't that many people in the hallways, just other guards that he passed. Seemed that the alarm had moved most of them to the front.
Jay passed a room. Backtracked. Stared. And hid beside the doorway. Fucking Mike again? What the hell?
Gamer and Mike were chatting like best buddies, just the two of them. Alone. Jay put his back to the wall, right by the doorway. First, he never would have expected Gamer to be alone. Second, seeing Gamer and Mike together... There goes the rescue plan.
Simplicity and priorities dictated that this was too good an opportunity to pass. But damn, he wasn't ready for this.
There was a final guttural laugh from the two, and then Jay heard Gamer make his dismissal. "All right Enforcer, tomorrow," Gamer said.
"Tomorrow," Mike confirmed.
As Mike closed the door behind him, Jay grabbed him by the throat and pushed him into the opposite wall. "Gamer likes his boytoys alive, too?" he whispered harshly. "What the hell are you doing here, Mike?" Jay ignored the gun pressing into his gut.
"Jay," Mike said in recognition. The gun went back into his holster.
Not what I think then. Jay let the Enforcer go.
"I'm working," Mike said. "There's more to being an Enforcer than being stabbed in the throat."
"So your chummy chummy is an act."
"My chummy chummy is protection. You think the Enforcers have it easy? Protection goes two ways. There aren't many of us left. You'd know that."
"And you're looking for an out, are you?" Mikes stony silence told him the truth of it. Freckles and him had been alone talking because Mike was planning on betraying the Enforcers, not Esperanza...yet. "Gamer'll mess you up worse than the rest combined. Better sleeping with the devil."
"What are you here for, Jay. This isn't exactly your playground. Everyone knows you'd never step into Lair unless it was important."
Jay still didn't trust him. He'd make it simple for Mike. "I want you to go back in there and shoot Gamer."
"Fuck you. Not a chance."
"He's alone, isn't he?"
"Yeah, but I'm not risking my life cause you say so."
"Then give me your knife and I'll do it."
"Crazy hell..." Mike whispered, his eyes wide and dark. He handed Jay the knife.
Jay spun it in reverse against his forearm. Then he lunged at Mike, his other hand pinning Mike's gun hand. Jay pressed the knife against the Enforcer's throat as close as he could without killing him. "You think I trust you after seeing that? That I'm dumb enough to let you ruin everything Xiaos and I and everybody else worked for?"
Mike glared at Jay with a horrible expression. "This how you killed Paul?" His eyes said contempt better than words.
"Pretty close," Jay responded. Deceit was part of surviving, he was surprised people seemed to grasp so little of that concept here. "Now poke your pretty head back into the room and put a bullet into Gamer's head. If you don't, you're gonna end up looking like your lover."
More glaring like he couldn't hate Jay more. Jay hissed. "Move." He kept the knife real close to the Enforcer.
Mike took his gun and removed it, then took a step back to kick in the door.
Just before the foot struck the door, Mike's meaty hand slapped into the back of Jay's head, punching his forehead Smack into the door frame. Light buzzed across Jay's vision as he heard the door slam open and felt his body thrown forward. Jay kept his hand on the knife, willing himself to hold it as he crashed into the tooth covered floor.
"Look what I found," Mike said.
The shirt had slipped off from around Jay's face.
"Ho ho ho! It's one of Santa's reindeers," Freckles' voice chortled.
Jay shivered and his arms tingled with sensation, his hand barely held onto the knife. Mike, I'm going to kill you first, even before Gamer. Good plan? No. Did he mean it? Spawn fucking ass-shit yes.
"Bitch was right, he mentioned that you think you can play the Game, but you're always a step behind," Gamer mused.
Bitch too?
"You're too trusting he said. Said he could get right through your guard. Looks like Bitch was right."
No. The spinning inside his head slowed and he could almost feel his hand again. He craned his neck back. Six other men stood around Gamer, Bodyguards. Their massive arms looked like they could crush his head between arm and the wing-ish parts of their body they called "lats." He'd walked right into the trap. Bitch must've reported right before Jay'd left.
"Traitor," he spat at Mike. If Bitch were here, Jay’d mean it for him as well.
Mike shrugged, leveling his gun at Jay. "Want me to kill him?"
Freckles shrugged. "Sure, he's been more trouble than he's worth. Bye bye, Jay." Freckles turned his back.
BLAM!
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM.
I take it back. I LOVE you man.
Mike the genius. Mike the pure, God-blessed man of beauty. Good shot too. Every one of the Bodyguards had a huge exploded-bullet hole right in their heads. Freckles had fallen on his face with his back um, overexposed was a good word. Jay could see the torn up lung from here. A hand was creeping toward his gun though, not dead yet.
"Flthucker!" came Gamer's harsh gasp.
Mike walked up to Freckled Lemonade and pointed his gun down at him, another shot rang out. Gamer screamed as his flesh-gloved hand exploded along with bits of teeth from the floor like shrapnel. More gasps came from Gamer's struggling lungs. Mike looked at Jay. "You want the honors?"
Jay propped himself up to his knees. "Hell yes." He planted the knife into the toothy ground, stood, and hobbled over to Gamer.
"No hesit...ation?" Freckles gasped.
"Not for you," Jay said.
Freckles giggled. "Get oveer... yourself. Accept it, you're one...of us. You can't break...the rules."
"Not quite the same." Jay plopped himself on Freckles' desk, fiddling with his knife.
"We're born this... way. Get it? ...we never chose...to be... You're just...like me."
"OK, you're gay, I get it. You live your life, I live mine. God made you this way. I never had a problem with that. 'Cept I ain't gay." Jay stood up. Enough chit-chat.
Gamer's laugh came out in a choked wheeze. "Always joking... least we accept you for...what...youare...here. A murd...er..." Shallower and shallower breaths.
He wasn't going to let Gamer die, not before he killed him. Jay knelt down beside Gamer.
"...bells mean...nothing," Gamer wheezed, saliva leaked from the side of his mouth and he blinked, slow-like.
"Sure they do. You'll see what they mean in a sec." Jay put the blade to the side Gamer's neck. "Die." He didn't cut though. Some part of himself hesitated.
"Pro...blem?" Freckles gasped.
"Nope." Jay pulled the blade upwards, hard. Blood spurted from Freckles' neck, pumping from his carotid and spilling across the semi-white floor. Not as high as it could've, he was already bleeding out, after all.
Jay stood up. "Mind if I keep this as a souvenir?" In his dreams, he'd wanted to blow out Gamer's mouth and then keep his teeth. That's why he'd hesitated. Maybe. But now that he thought about it...it was just too morbid.
Mike nodded. "Hope you didn't mind my playacting."
"You had me convinced."
"I assumed Gamer couldn't be alone. Had to draw out his men."
Jay put an arm around the big man. "I don't care why, I just know I love you right now."
Mike didn't smile. "We have time, no one will think anything of gunshots coming out of here. But somebody could come by. You came for someone? Someone im
portant?" He seemed eager, too eager.
But Jay had to move fast. He led the way. "Yeah, the nurse."
It was the first time Jay'd seen Mike smile, and it was the creepiest thing. The man had some kind of demented puppy thing going. "Paul and I had the purest love I've ever dreamed possible."
Jay raised an eyebrow. For some reason he couldn't see it. Especially with that ugly dreamy look Mike had.
"I'd have done anything for him," Mike continued.
"Yeah, about that. I'm really sorry. And sorry for making fun of gays just a second ago. Nothing personal."
Mike smiled at him again. It felt uncomfortable. "It wasn't your fault," he soothed.
Jay could tell Mike didn't mean it, but Jay wasn't going to argue. "Well, I owe you one...two, now. I'll meet you outside," Jay said.
"No, I have your back," Mike nodded his head. "We'll be safer together."
Jay nodded. "Fine." Mike had earned the trust.
They tromped down the hallways. With both of them together there would be no problem with confrontations. Mike was expected and Jay, he retightened the shirt around his nose, was a 'Guard.'
The crunching finally faded and teeth no longer coated the ground. Jay recognized the surroundings. "Through here," he said.
They walked right into the medical ward where Karah was sewing up some other guy's butt, fish-hook needle in hand. "You must like asses," Jay said to her.
Both looked up and Jay walked up and knocked the wounded guy unconscious with the--butt--of his knife. She stared at him in shock. "Jay?"
"You remember me."
"You're Redeemer, right?"
He grinned. "Yes I a..."
"What the hell are you doing here? When Gamer finds out--and he will because I'm telling him--you're dead. You get it? And with an Enforcer, too? What's he doing here? What's going on?" Her cheeks had gone red from breathing hard.
He let her wait, and then he replied. "Gamer's dead."
"Not funny, Jay."
"I'm not joking. And I'm here to save you. Returning the favor, you know."
She was silent for a good while and he thought he saw her lip quiver. "I don't know if I should believe you," she said.