Agents of the Demiurge

by Brian Blose

  Chapter 18 – Hess / Iteration 145

  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.”

  “And he's out there looking for me,” Hess said.

  “Another reason to wipe our memories.”

  Instead of answering, Hess got out of the car. Jerome caught up to him and interjected her emaciated form between him and the entryway. “What happened last Iteration after I left? My cheat sheet only says you remained behind for a time.”

  Hess shook his head. “Nothing important.”

  “A nuclear war happened. I figured that much out,” Jerome said.

  “The people ruined their world. Business as usual.”

  Jerome squinted up at him. “What about you and Elza? The two of you seemed fine when I last saw you.”

  “I understand that you feel a special connection with all of us because you know so many of our secrets. But when we look at you, we see a stranger. I'm not going to confide in you, Jerome. Not now, not ever.”

  Drake arrived the next morning, wearing the body of a tall, skinny white man with an acne problem. He met Hess and Jerome at a grimy food court nestled between run-down office buildings and the campus of a fragrant distillery.

  Jerome waited at a table wearing a tacky floral-themed hat so he could identify her. Drake noticed her the moment he entered, froze in the doorway until someone shoved him from behind, then moved off to the side. He scanned the room while chewing his cheek. Finally, Drake approached the table.

  “You Jerome?”

  She nodded. “Hello, Drake. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Prove you are who you claim.”

  “I thought we did that online.”

  “Humor me,” he said.

  “During Iteration five, you tortured a man out of curiosity after meeting Erik. During Iteration seventeen, you became addicted to coca leaves. During Iteration one hundred and thirty four, you owned a brothel.” Jerome leaned forward. “Those facts, combined with our previous conversations, should be more than enough to convince you. If not, you are free to leave after casting your vote.”

  Drake laughed, a harsh throaty grumble. “Really? You have to ask that with all you know about me? What you think I'll vote?”

  “The Creator wants you to make your own decision, Drake.”

  Hess shifted slightly in his position at a nearby booth and Drake jumped. “Who is that?” He patted at his pockets, hastily seeking something. Hess shook his head slowly and Drake froze.

  “That would be Hess,” Jerome said.

  “Oh, shit,” Drake said. “Is he still sore about before? You said he was cool about me coming here.”

  Jerome cleared her throat. “Don't do anything to escalate the situation. Hess only wants to see for himself that you are not a threat.”

  Drake squeezed his eyes shut. “Look, Jerome, I'm two seconds from getting caught by this crazy Church. You got to make Hess help me. I know he and Elza figured out some way to outsmart the people. They'll probably wind up getting rich or taking over a continent or something. I don't care what they get up to. Just get them on my side.”

  Hess joined their table, sitting with his left arm draped over the back of his chair so that the upper half of his half-zipped jacket flared open enough that he could dart a hand in to retrieve his sidearm if necessary. He stared at Drake, barely blinking. His voice rumbled from his chest when he spoke. “If you ever try to hurt us again, I will do things to you that would shock Erik.”

  “It wasn't my idea. I was going along with the others. Both times. Ingrid and Griff and Erik and Kerzon are the ones you need to worry about.”

  “Shut up.”

  Drake's mouth snapped shut.

  “I'm not interested in being friends again, if that word ever even applied to us. You need help because you can't handle this world. I can give you that help, but there's a condition. We are extracting Ingrid from the Church headquarters. You can help us or you can walk now.”

  “After casting your vote,” Jerome added.

  “You forgive Ingrid but not me? That ain't fair, man.”

  Hess slammed his fist on the table, causing both Jerome and Drake to jump. He took a calming breath before letting himself speak. “Ingrid is not forgiven. None of you are. This is about doing the right thing. Maybe I'm the only one who cares about right and wrong anymore. Maybe I'm the only one who ever did.”

  Jerome's hand patted his arm awkwardly. “I care. That's why I kept an eye on you last Iteration. I moved to live in the same community as you after millennia of avoiding every other Observer because the internet was full of secret codes from Elza and you never responded. When you starred on the national news and the others started to stir, I posed as Ingrid to sabotage their hunt. I helped you escape. When against all sense you came back, I opened the sky for you.

  “I know you aren't fond of me, Hess, but I have never been anything other than your friend. When I knew you needed help, I was there for you. I would have done that for any of the Observers. That's why I invited Drake into your life – because now he needs help. And I am going to join you in attacking
what is essentially a military base because Ingrid needs help.”

  “You're also trying to end me and the woman I love.”

  “Hess,” Jerome sighed. “Look at the other Observers. Ingrid lived in misery long before the Church of Opposition existed. And Mel? No one can deny that death would be a mercy for Mel. Honestly, Hess, I think you're the only one who really wants to live. The others deserve a rest. Eternity is too much for them. Everything that is made must one day be unmade.”

  Hess had never moved his eyes from Drake. “Do you agree to my condition? Or are you leaving?”

  “I'll help out with your rescue mission. Just don't get me caught.”

  On the ride back to the warehouse, Drake voted to die. Hess did his best not to dwell on the numbers. Four to one so far, with Mel's vote guaranteed to go the wrong way. Two more votes would constitute a majority in favor of annihilation. Did Ingrid really want to die? What about Mariana? Who knew what Erik would vote.

  Still preoccupied with his thoughts, Hess hardly noticed Elza stride up to Drake and break his jaw with a savage swing of a wrench. By the time he realized what had happened, Elza had returned to work as if breaking someone's jaw was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Within five minutes, Drake's mild paranoia was the only remnant of the altercation. Jerome began infusing blood into their newest member while Hess went to speak with his woman.

  “What was the deal with the wrench?”

  “It was the heaviest tool on my workbench at the time.” Elza barely glanced up as she positioned lumps of metal inside of an aquarium.

  “Ah,” he said. “I guess that makes sense. Though I'm not sure why you hit him at all.”

  “The last time I saw him, he shot me.”

  Hess prodded her ribs with a finger. “Then you should have poked him with something pointy like a screwdriver or a jackhammer.”

  An almost-smile graced her lips. “There's never a jackhammer on my workbench when I need one.”

  “My fault,” Hess said. “I borrowed it to teach San a lesson after she used a five hundred dollar bottle of wine to cook my favorite leather jacket.”

  Elza spun to face him. “You're joking.”

  “Unfortunately. We don't actually have a jackhammer, you know.”

  “Did she try to cook leather?”

  Hess shrugged. “Not that I know of. But who can say for sure what insanity she has or hasn't done on her own time?” He pointed at the fish tank. “Are you planning to get pets? If you remember, the last time we owned fish they didn't live very long.”

  “Nothing is going to live for long in this tank,” she said. “I'm afraid most of the uranium we've received so far is depleted. The people of this world have been using it for armor plating for over a century. That's long enough to make a sample useless for our purposes.”

  Hess stepped closer to her. “So plan B is killing fish? The Church will never suspect it.”

  Elza leaned into him the slightest bit. “Plan B is improvising. I'm lining the inside of the pipe with Tungsten Carbide like before, but now I am going to add a layer of Beryllium around the central uranium mass.”

  “I was just about to suggest that.”

  “I'm sure you were,” she said. “The uranium will be surrounded by neutron reflectors and interleaved with layers of graphene to serve as neutron moderators. I'm also using more uranium than I planned.”

  “The fish will never see it coming.”

  Elza pecked a quick kiss on his cheek. “I submerged my samples to start a minor reaction. I'm going to time how fast the temperature rises and use that as a rough gauge of radioactivity.

  “We don't have enough time to properly enrich our uranium. I don't even have time to design an implosion device. So my grand idea is to build a gun type bomb with the uranium mass split into three sub-critical masses. It will be a minor miracle if the thing doesn't go off early and a major miracle if the explosion rates in the kiloton range.”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “None right now.” Elza pulled away from him. “Maybe tonight.”

  “I miss you. I miss us.”

  “Tonight. If you promise not to talk about things.”

  “Sure. Why not?” Hess grimaced. “We always manage to not talk about important things.”

  Chapter 19 – Erik / Iteration 145

  After a week spent suspended in the air by his feet, Erik was finally back on the ground. Unfortunately, the room temperature had been set uncomfortably low. Cold made the torture less painful, so they might switch things up soon. But then again, the cold made him miserable and too weary to fight back against people who were increasingly uncomfortable being in the same room as him.

  Simone didn't seem to mind the temperature when she arrived. No doubt her burly form was well suited to arctic environments. “Don't judge me, it's cold.” His voice trembled from the constant shivering.

  When she squinted at him in confusion, Erik sighed. “Dick joke.”

  “I can never understand your fascination with crudity.”

  “Just stupid rules,” he shivered. “Who the fuck decides one word is good and one word is bad? You people make those rules. I'm above them.”

  She began to pace. “They are moving you to a new facility tonight. Church members will be able to make a pilgrimage to the site and torture you for their grievances. My request to continue our interviews after the move has been denied. I was told that any further visits with you would require me to pay a tribute to strike you for fifteen minutes.”

  Erik forced a smile. “What, you'll only visit me when it's free?”

  “They are monetizing you. Whoring out the Church! Our whole religion is built on dignity and we are selling out.” Simone knocked a tray free of a table, sending scalpels, pliers, belts, scissors, razors, hammer and nails, and a curling iron scattering across the floor. “Is this the Creator's plan? To undermine everything we believe by sending two Agents as sacrifices?”

  Erik stared as the normally staid woman marched back and forth, hands shaking in rage. “Is that the Creator's plan? Tell me, Erik. Tell me the truth.”

  “The truth is the Creator doesn't care. Worship. Opposition. None of that matters. The only purpose that there has ever been is replacing nothing with something. You pathetic creatures don't have a fucking clue how honored you are just to exist.”

  Simone shook her head. “They're whoring out the Church. Like there isn't enough money in the coffers already. Sessions with the two of you are booked out three months in advance already. People can't wait to punish you for all the wrongs in their lives.”

  Erik cackled. “What do you think Deispite is?”

  “I'm not sure anymore.” She lowered her voice. “I am starting to wonder if blaming an external force is counter productive.”

  “It's a coping mechanism,” Erik said through his shivers. “You direct your self hatred outward onto another target.”

  “We don't hate ourselves.”

  “Been around hundreds of thousands of years. Everybody I ever worked on asked to die. They ask to die. Then I ask my question. Then they die. I don't prompt them. Never even let them know death is an option. They have to ask. Has to be their own idea.”

  Simone stared at him. “Maybe you're right about us wanting our own deaths. Maybe. But if so, there's another part to us. A part that wants to live. Just because you only see one side of the coin doesn't mean it doesn't have another.”

  “Instincts tell you to live. Instincts put there by the Creator. You people decide between those instincts and embracing death. And you choose wrong. Every. Fucking. Time.”

  “We don't have time to argue about it.”

  “So sad.”

  “What was the question?”

  “You mean my question? The one I ask my victims?” Erik smiled. “Only one way to hear that question, chica. If things work our for me, I'll be sure to let you know what it is.”

  After a minute of silence, Simone moved closer to him than
she had ever before come. She spoke just above a whisper. “Could you deliver a message to the Creator for me?”

  Erik cocked his head to the side. “You got me intrigued.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “I couldn't withhold something from the Creator even if I wanted.”

  “Will the Creator know what I ask immediately?”

  “I make my report after a world ends.”

  Simone sighed. “My message is for the Creator only. I want you to treat it as confidential. Agreed?”

  “You got me dying of curiosity, cupcake.”

  “I need your assurance.”

  “Scout's honor.”

  She hesitated a moment, then looked him directly in the eye. “By the time you receive my message, it will be too late for my world. Create again.”

  Simone got to her feet. “Good luck, Erik.”

  “That was blasphemy,” he whispered.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You agreed to my terms.”

  “So I did.”

  She left the room and Erik smiled. If he managed to escape in time, he was going to look that woman up. And Simone would answer his question.

  Chapter 20 – Hess / Iteration 145

  Two events accelerated their preparations.

  The first event was a Church announcement that not only would citizens be able to purchase fifteen minute sessions to punish an Agent for whatever they cared to blame on the Demiurge, but that there were in fact two captive Agents available for punishment. Hess and Elza joined Jerome, San, and Drake in front of a portable television set to study the footage.

  The second Agent, a wiry white man, screamed as he writhed in pain. The video reel consisted of many segments spliced together like the trailer to a perverse movie. All five Observers stared at the screen, frowning with near identical expressions.

  San gestured dramatically at the television. “Pure propaganda piece.”

  “No,” Elza said. “They showed a single, uncut torture session to great effect when they unveiled Ingrid. This doesn't let the audience see spontaneous healing.” She nodded with business-like finality. “They don't have a second Observer. This is a grand bluff.”