Free Murder Genes by Mikael Aizen Page B

anxiously repositioning the cloth over the bomb.   Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle, his mind chorused.
    What could he do?   Run outside?   Where everyone on any team could see his blink-blink... SPLAT?   Seconds passed, and he let himself breathe just a bit in slow silence.   No blink.   Jay carefully tucked the re-bar under an arm and went to work retying the wrap, fumbling a bit.
    Jingling.   Right behind him.
    Jay abandoned the tie and seized the re-bar.   He swung the bar around him.   It cut air.   A foot kicked him in the stomach and an empty breath locked up his throat.   Jay collapsed, trying to breathe and scramble away.   Huge hands grasped him and he was lifted.   His fist smacked into the wall and he lost his grip on the bar.
    "Aaaarrrgh!" the bear man roared, charging the open entrance.
    Then Jay was flying.
    Down the steep valley-esque side of Haven--towards the light.   His legs and arms pumped air as he fell maybe fifteen feet, he barely got his feet under him as he hit the ground.
    His legs buckled and he was rolling.   The back of his head struck hard against something.   A high sound pitched.   "Shittt!"   Jay screamed.   He reached back and clawed at the strap around his throat, trying to unlatch the belt buckle-like clasp.   He yanked desperately, pulling, tearing.
    The strap broke.   Jay threw the bomb as hard as he could.
    Boom.
    Barrels of water, stone, wood, and colorful stuff exploded around him.   He was thrown back, wetness and then scorching heat flashed his chest.   A vacuum descended around him and he lay still, trying to breathe.   To think.
    Gradually, dulled screams and yells and sounds of primitive warfare enveloped him.   He groaned.
    His body refused to move but his mind flitted through thoughts, processing at a thousand miles an hour.   He opened his eyes.   Above him, wood boards and clothes covered him.   Muted impacts pressed painfully on his body and he realized that he was buried and people were running, fighting, and whatever, directly above him.   On him.   He probably could have grabbed a leg if he reached through the debris.   Jay managed to turn over.   He had to get out before someone unknowingly dug him out.
    Jay crawled forward.   Somehow, he moved through the ache.   Somehow he burrowed like a worm, downward.   It was like swimming though a pool of webs.   His ears were still pitching, and he felt wetness in one.   He touched it, tasted it.   Blood.   His hands touched earth, earth that felt like it had been paved with broken glass.   His leg didn't seem to hurt anymore.   Nothing seemed to hurt.   He felt light.   Endorphins flooded his system.
    He crawled low and used the earth to push him forward, hoping no one above noticed his movement.   A heavy pressure suddenly weighed into him, flattening him into the ground.   Jay didn't move.   Seconds later the pressure was gone and he was crawling again.
    His fingers touched something that felt like plastic with a stick attached to its side.   A flag.   Jay seized it, wrapping it.   When he did his hand touched another, made out of the same material.   He bundled the second one.
    He didn't plan on returning to Gamer.   With the bomb off and the fact that nearly all of Morir had seen him blow up, he had his ticket to freedom from the sadistic prick.   The flags were bargaining chips if needed, that's all.
    He prayed that the luck would hold.
    Jay grabbed nearby clothes and enfolded them around the flags.   He burrowed deeper, breathing hard and sweating.   His chest ached and he panted.   Feeling the hurt coming back at him full force.   His leg with the gun wound flashed.   His jaw, his head and face dug into his skull.   But instead of knocking him into disorientation, a sort of raw energy filled him, a weird excitement.   Vividness.   He was still alive and he would continue to survive.   Away from Gamer, he might have a chance.
    To see Kyle again.
    Jay managed a slow