Agents of the Demiurge (11 page)

The fruit of his frantic socializing was the
knowledge that the Deputies performed their test by piercing the
palm with a sterile lancet and then observing both the wound and a
handkerchief dabbed in the resulting blood. Returning with this
knowledge, Hess set about painting fake flesh onto all three of
them in the specified region.

Jerome spent the day working on a laptop and
filling a notepad with her findings, while Elza diagrammed her
weapon complete with measurements in the margins. They all took an
hour break to receive another blood transfusion, then went back to
their various tasks.

His assigned labor complete, Hess turned his
attentions to preparing a meal and acquiring small arms. The meal
consisted of lamb tips basted in ginger soy dressing, wild rice,
and sauteed vegetables. His weapon purchases included two nine
millimeter semi-automatic handguns, a twelve gauge shotgun, and a
tiny .22 caliber suitable as a backup weapon – all bought second
hand through an anonymous online market.

When he returned that evening with all four
weapons, Hess microwaved a quick dinner of mostly edible noodles in
flavorless sauce, then sat down for another blood transfusion. He
discovered that the Deputies had returned to the house while he was
gone.

Jerome and Elza had passed the prick test,
but the Deputies insisted that they needed to conduct the official
test on Hess. Then Jerome informed them that she had managed to
contact several of the other Observers online and, more than that,
had invited San and Drake for a visit.

Which ignited the requisite argument over the
fact that Jerome had invited people into their lives without even
the courtesy of asking – though their main argument was the
inclusion of Drake, who had assisted Ingrid in burying Hess and
Elza alive during Iteration one forty three and then helped Erik
hunt down Hess in one forty four. San had a standing invitation
from Elza to visit whenever she wanted, which typically meant a
month spent in her company every few Iterations.

Their conflict expired before anyone
retracted a position, its heat smothered by needle induced
frustration. In a conciliatory gesture, Jerome agreed to inform
them before she contacted any of the others.

When they completed their infusion, Elza
asked a question. “How did San react when you revealed your
existence?”

Jerome cleared her throat. “That remains to
be seen.”

“Does that also remain to be seen with
Drake?”

“Yes.”

Elza's lips peeled apart in a snarl. “Then
you must be posing as one of us. I expect a different answer the
next time I ask that question.”

When Jerome shot a look at him, Hess lifted
one of the nine millimeters he had purchased free of a holster
strapped below his armpit. “If Drake tries to pick things up where
we left off last Iteration, I'm ready. He won't find me confused
this time.”

Jerome compressed her lips to a fine line.
“They hurt you worse than I realized. Maybe they even deserve your
hatred. But we serve the Creator.”

“We are the Creator. You told me that.”

“Hess, we are fragments of the Creator's
consciousness. That makes us special as hell, but it doesn't mean
we are equal to the One we serve. The needs of the Creator
supersede all else.”

Hess shoved his handgun home in its holster.
“I never believed that. Not even when I thought I was the only
Observer out there. Bringing a world into existence carries moral
obligations. Creating worlds of brutality for our entertainment is
wrong.”

“Enough with the lectures already,” Jerome
said. “I will never accept that your morality applies to the
Creator.”

The next morning, when they met up for
another session of needle work, Jerome informed them that she had
revealed herself to San and Drake the previous evening over the
phone and proved her identity as the twelfth Observer by revealing
intimate details of their lives.

Hess endured a poke from visiting Deputies,
then went with Elza to pick up a length of heavy steel pipe and
finalize the lease on a dilapidated garage within the business
district of the city. After, they separated with separate shopping
lists. Explosives and blasting caps topped his list. On Elza's were
all the various tools she would need to machine a length of pipe
into the core of a nuclear device.

When they arrived back home in the afternoon,
pulling in front of his house in their separate vehicles, a stout
middle-aged woman met them in the driveway, dressed in a rumpled
woman's suit and smoking a pungent cigar with such aplomb that she
could only be one person.

Elza embraced San warmly the moment she
exited her car. “I can't wait to hear what you've done since we
last talked!”

“Please tell me you've gone male already,”
San said. “The Creator owes you some variety in your sex. And the
rest of us would adore seeing Hess get familiar with a man.”

Hess waved on his way to the house. “Always a
pleasure, San.”

Inside, Jerome stood with bony arms crossed
and head tilted. “It seems I am not very popular among my own
kind.”

“We have no history with you,” Hess said.

“Nor am I likely to have the time to develop
one.”

Hess glared out the window towards the
reunion. “She voted already?”

“So far it's three to one in favor of
annihilation.”

After a moment, Hess nodded towards the
kitchen. “Come help me hide the premium ingredients.”

“If you are worried about the balsamic
vinegar, you're too late. San emptied the entire bottle glazing odd
items.”

Hess grunted. “That bottle cost two hundred
dollars. Knowing her, she wasted it on crackers and lemons.”

“Canned tuna, mixed nuts, tea leaves, and
chocolate chips. She reports it all tasted horrible.”

“Just give me a hand with the wine,” Hess
said.

Beeta's family
surrounded her all night. Mott spent the evening meal elaborating
on his story of treating his fictional sister's madness. The
village elders hung on every word. Before he retired to a pallet in
the guest pavilion that night, Beeta's mother stopped by to beg for
his help.

So it was that the villagers delivered a
crazy woman into his care the next morning. Beeta sagged between
her escorts, an expression of profound apathy on her face.

Mott schooled his features into the concerned
smile he had practiced. “Hello, Beeta. My name is Mott. Did they
tell you about me?”

Beeta's lips formed into an innocent pout.
“Dead sister.”

Her escorts froze in mortification until
Mott's laughter rang out. “Dead sister indeed. You go right to the
heart of things.”

The crazy woman's cultivated detachment
slipped enough that she openly studied him. “What do you want?”

Mott shrugged. “All sorts of things. Isn't
that how it is with everyone? If we wanted only one thing, life
would be boring.”

“What do you want with me?”

“What do you think I want with you?”

Beeta looked away from him. “You think you
can fix me.”

“Is that what they told you?” Mott put enough
amusement into his tone that Beeta's eyes came back to him. “That
is what they wanted to hear and not what I told them.”

“You're not trying to fix me?”

“Have you ever thought that maybe you aren't
broken?”

She kicked over the chamber pot he had filled
the previous night. “You don't know anything about me.”

“Neither do the people of your village. They
think you are broken, but so far I haven't seen anything to
convince me of that. I see a woman with a strong spirit. You see,
Beeta, the more tightly the rules bind us, the more we want our
freedom. People say it is wrong to say mean words. Wrong to think
violent thoughts. Wrong to want unpopular things. But we have a
choice, Beeta. We can believe the people and despise ourselves or
we can reject everything they hold dear and take our freedom.”

Mott stepped closer to Beeta and dropped his
voice to a whisper. “You see, Beeta, when I told everyone that my
sister had a touch of madness and I was able to speak sense to her,
I may have reversed a few of the details.”

He glanced to her concerned escorts and spoke
loud enough to be heard by all. “Do you think that your troubles
come from your own mind, Beeta? Or is there a chance that other
people provoke the anger from you? What do you think?”

She furrowed her brow in thought. “I don't
know. Sometimes my thoughts run fast and I know I am right no
matter what anyone says. But other times I believe everything they
say of me and I only want for the pain to go away.”

“Yesterday you were sad.”

“Yes.”

“And what of today?”

“I don't know. I'm just tired. So tired.”

Mott nodded to her escorts. “Too tired to
escape?”

Beeta recoiled. “I can't do that!”

“Why not?”

“My mother would worry!”

“Just for a day, until you came back.”

She shook her head. “I can't hurt her any
more.”

“Whose rule is that? Yours? Or theirs?”

A pause. Then a smile. “You're worse than
me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You ran away, didn't you? So your sister
couldn't make you behave anymore. Now you're free and you can do
anything you want.”

“I don't want your guards to know my story.
So if you want to hear the truth about me, then we have to
escape.”

The corners of Beeta's lips twitched.
“Promise me you will tell me the full truth of any question I ask
you.”

“The full truth?”

“You have to promise if you want me to come
with you.”

“Very well, Beeta. I promise to tell you the
full truth.”

“On three, then.” Her eyes sparkled. “One.”
And then she was running, leaving him waiting for additional
numbers that weren't coming. Mott followed after a moment, barely
ahead of the two villagers on guard duty.

Beeta never looked back, running straight for
the edge of the village. Mott lagged behind, then spun when the
first of the two escorts, a man, passed by. Mott locked his arms
around the man's neck and used every iota of torque his legs,
torso, and arms could generate to cause a delicious popping noise,
followed by the collapse of a warm corpse.

Before the second guard, the woman, could
decide how to react to the violence, Mott punched her in the throat
hard enough to hurt his knuckles. As she stumbled back, her mouth
open to release a scream that could not escape her crushed
windpipe, Mott swept her legs out from under her.

The woman landed on her back and Mott knelt
down to firmly grasp one of her ears. He pulled hard, fast, and it
came free to hang by a thread of skin, the wound oddly bloodless at
the instant of its appearance. The woman's eyes bulged, but still
no sound escaped her. Mott shoved the severed ear into her open
mouth, then resumed chasing his crazy woman.

He watched San
dunk tater tots into maple syrup and place them on top of a thick
layer of corned beef sandwiched between slices of french toast. “It
works, in a weird way. But you have to use grade A syrup. None of
the cheap stuff.” She smirked at Hess as she spoke.

Hess turned away from the spectacle to face
Jerome. “Looks like the two of us need to pursue an alternate
dinner. Again.”

Jerome nodded. “I'm not eating that.”

“Jeeze, Jay, why you hating on my San-wich?
This will be as big as the pretzel burger.” San winked. “Besides,
what you gonna eat? Pantry's bare as an Observer's womb, ya
know?”

Hess dredged up the best smile he could
manage. “We'll stop somewhere on our way to the shop.”

“What's happening at the shop? You two
shacking up?”

“We're guarding the device,” Hess said.

Jerome folded her arms. “And being less
suspicious. Two white women spending nights in this neighborhood
will not go unnoticed.”

“Well,” San said, “if any midnight action
happens, I want in on it.”

Elza's voice boomed from the other room.
“Wait fifteen minutes and we'll go with you.”

“Elz, hon, you going to try my culinary
delight?”

“Sure, San, bring me in a sample.”

Hess jerked his thumb to the door. “Come on,
Jerome. We'll leave now and get lamb wraps from a shop downtown.
The ladies will beat us to the shop anyway.”

“You know, I'm one of the ladies,” Jerome
said.

“Not if you want a lamb wrap.”

They didn't speak again until Hess parked his
car beside Elza's, outside the garage they had leased for the
purpose of constructing their doomsday weapon. “Why does Elza like
San?”

Jerome blinked at the question. “I don't have
the slightest clue.”

“Your executive summary left that out?”

“The mental stuff isn't covered. My only
insights into your emotions and motivations are the result of
assumptions.”

Hess grunted. “That so? Well, assume
something for me.”

“Maybe because they are so different from
each other? Elza is hyper rational and San is whimsical. Their
interactions might provide some kind of balance to them.”

“Opposites attracting? By that logic, Erik
and I should be best buds.”

Jerome raised an eyebrow. “While I don't
think I can categorize whatever is between you and Erik as
friendship, it is most definitely significant. Besides you, Erik
never sustained much interest in the other Observers.”

“He felt a special bond because me and Elza
were the first he encountered,” Hess said. “When you met him, he
was busy punishing me. But he would have done just as bad to
Elza.”

“No,” Jerome said. “Erik only spoke of Elza
in connection with you. He wanted to use her to hurt you. Why do
you think he talked Kerzon into posing as Elza? She was supposed to
make you think Elza hated you. Erik wanted you all to himself,
Hess.”