by Brian Blose
Hess pulled his blade free, moved to place his next target between him and the two other men, and watched his previous opponent collapse. When they hesitated, Hess feinted a slash to the face and then opened the man’s middle. Now they couldn’t retreat without abandoning a friend. He approached a different man and pointed his blade at his face. When the man swung at his blade, Hess jumped in to kick the side of the knee. The third man turned to run and received a stab in his back.
“I’m sorry this was necessary,” Hess said. “None of you deserve to die. But I’m committed to my survival.” He finished off the two wounded men as humanely as possible. He avoided people for the remainder of his journey to the hotel, skirting the tree line for part of it, then slinking through alleys and jogging down empty streets.
Back in his room, he disassembled a lamp to dump the oil and scrubbed out some of the residue with a pillow case. Briefly, he considered washing it with soap and water. A quick sniff deterred him. A little olive oil in their water wouldn't hurt them.
Hess went to the communal bath and lifted a mirror off the wall hook. Before the other man present in the room could complain, he took one of the lamps and returned to his room. He cleaned up the second lamp, then tinkered with the metal brackets until he was able to attach the two lamp bases together.
One of the lamp bases would hold saltwater and sit on top of the mirror. Water vapor would rise to condense along the glass of the upper portion of his still, where it would roll down the sides to be absorbed into rags placed around the perimeter for that purpose. They would be drinking small amounts of water wrung from rags, but at least it wouldn't be saltwater.
He raided the linen closet, using two nails to pick the lock. All of it went onto his bed, where he wrapped the breakables, then made a sling to carry everything. When he finished, he went to the first floor to check the time piece. It read a quarter past nine.
Chapter 31 – Hess
He jogged into the conference room, transitioning to a quick walk at the threshold. To Erik's silent query, he returned a somber nod.
“How nice of you to show up,” Greg said. “It's nice to know you can be counted on to out-do the rest of us, even when the competition is demonstrating complete disregard for our mission.”
Hess placed a hand on the man's shoulder as he passed. “Shut your jaw, Greg, or I will break it.”
All eyes on him, he spoke as he sank into the last available seat. “I apologize for being late. For anyone who hasn't heard, Erik and I are escaping the island tonight so we don't have to die when Jerome opens the sky. There is a lot of prep work involved, some of which has me avoiding the authorities.”
Hess caught his before continuing. “I would like to share two observations with the group. The first I had at the very beginning. The great flaw in the worlds is the inability of the people to work in their own best interests. They are so short-sighted that they cannot understand how less for them today can translate into more for everyone tomorrow. They treat life like a zero sum game, scrabbling after pieces of the pie when they could be playing a positive sum game and making more pie than everyone together can eat.
“To my way of thinking, the people are their own greatest problem. I saw them in Iteration after Iteration and thought that their lives were not worth living. I blamed the Creator for bringing into existence flawed beings who could never be happy. It seemed perverse to me.
“Then several of you decided to throw me in a crypt for a few hundred years. Between begging to die and trying to escape the inescapable, I went crazy. At the start of Iteration one forty four, I became Zack Vernon, the most pathetically miserable person I have ever had the displeasure of knowing.
“His greatest desire was to stop existing. Every moment of life brought pain and relief refused to come. With all of my past suppressed, I couldn't understand how other people could be happy. I obsessed over the question. I considered the possibility that they were too stupid to grasp the tragedy of their lives, but I could never commit to it. So I watched them. Constantly, I watched them, trying to figure out the key to the puzzle.”
“If he starts talking love, I'm out of here,” Griff muttered.
“You can relax,” Hess said, “this isn't what you expect from me. When I came back to myself, I wasn't depressed anymore. To be honest, I have trouble remembering what being Zack Vernon felt like. Which should be impossible, considering we have perfect memories, but it's true. The pain isn't the same when I'm not him.
“One thing did have a permanent impact on me. I never noticed it before because I was so fixated on the flaws of the worlds. Most people are happy most of the time. Perhaps that fact struck me as profound only because I spent so long assuming it was not the case.
“The people are happy, more or less. Which means the worlds are not as flawed as I once believed. Except possibly the disaster last Iteration.”
“I set off a nuke,” Erik said. “That was a fucking kumbaya moment right there.”
Hess glanced to the clock. “That's all I have to report.”
Chapter 32 – Hess / Iteration 1
He stumbled through mountainous terrain in the company of a hunting party, breath rasping with every step. The other men traded jokes and ignored the scrawny Observer struggling to match their pace.
When the world sprang into motion, the Observer had assumed the identity of Hess the fatherless, who had been graciously included in a group hunt by men who usually mocked him. His role, both before and after the world's start, had been to drive game with the young men towards where the real hunters waited. Essentially, he had walked up and down mountains the entire day in an attempt to move deer.
Two of the men carried the benefit of his hard work between them – the meat of three animals wrapped in valuable skins. Very little of that meat would go to Hess. Only what the lead men chose to share with him. If they chose to share with him. It hardly seemed fair that those who did the most work on the expedition received the least, but the tribe rewarded skill above all else, including effort.
The Observer smiled when he saw the tents appear in the distance. Though he had never actually been to the camp he remembered leaving that morning, coming home represented something very special to him: an opportunity to stop walking.
So far, his experience of the world consisted of making tiresome hikes on an empty stomach. His feet ached inside his moccasins, sweat plastered his garments to his flesh, every muscle in his body demanded rest, and the dull pain of his middle reminded him that he had, in fact, never eaten. Filling his stomach was an observation he would gladly make for the Creator.
Women and children met the returning party, swarming them to see what prizes they carried. The Observer watched the grand presentation of their future feast, listened to the dramatized tale of its acquisition, and wished the day was over. He wondered briefly if his attitude might not be appropriate for his position, but he was too exhausted from the day's labors to care.
Had the Creator placed him into the identity of a better hunter, things might be different. Instead, he was Hess the fatherless, a man who had never been taught how to be a man. A clumsy outcast unable to hunt or fight or claim a woman.
The hunters settled around the fire to watch the women prepare the feast. Hess collapsed to the ground some distance from the others. I do not know if I care for this world, he thought. Perhaps the Creator was as poor at creating as Hess was at hunting. That would explain why an Observer was necessary. His complaints would presumably inform the creation of the next world. Why else would the Creator need input?
Things are too far apart, Hess thought to himself, starting a list for the Creator to address in the future. The next world should have less walking. Maybe make the deer live closer to the people. And everyone in the tribe should get a fair share of the food. All the children should have fathers to teach them hunting. And definitely less mountains.
“And do we share with Hess?”
The Observer perked up at the sound of his n
ame.
“Not one scrap,” said Ron, the man who had brought down two of the three deer. “His stomping scared away all the animals. I bring down four or five on a good day. Only reason I did bad today was that boy.” Ron turned to fix a sinister look on Hess. “You have to earn food in this tribe. If you're not man enough to hunt, then you should try to earn it on your back. Let me know when you are hungry enough to be a woman, Hess.” The other men barked rough laughter in response.
Hess glared back at the brute. I can learn to hunt on my own. When he grows old and weak, I will bring back meat enough for the entire tribe and forbid it only to him. How long would a world last before the sky opened? Surely longer than it would take a grown man to become frail. Otherwise how could he see what this world had to offer?
He looked down at his hands. Hess the fatherless didn't know how to do much beyond tending fires and gathering plants. But he wasn't Hess the fatherless. He was Hess the Observer, sent to watch this world for the maker of worlds.
All he had to do was learn the things every father taught his sons. It would take longer without a teacher, but he had more than enough time and motivation to learn. In fact, there was no reason he couldn't become better than the men of his tribe.
So what skill do I learn first? Hess frowned. His identity truly did not have much talent to build upon. Twenty years of children's chores and begging for scraps of meat. He would need to start at the beginning, mimic what the older children did. Learn to navigate the wilderness on his own away from the camp. Spear fish in creeks far from their home. Track animals on the land. Take down prey.
Actually a smaller list than what a woman would be expected to know. A man's duties were few in the tribe, but those few were vital. Ironically, in order to be successful at procuring food, one needed the benefits of eating well, namely strength and stamina.
Fishing would require less exertion than hunting, so he would begin his journey of self-improvement with that. The biggest problem would be the hike from the tents to the streams, but he could endure it. After all, his feet had already healed from this day's exertions.
While the rest of the tribe feasted, Hess located the women's stock of roasted tubers and helped himself to one. He ate alone, planning his future. Some day, he would reverse roles with the great hunters of the tribe. And if their old age didn't come fast enough, he could always arrange a crippling injury. Or would that type of action conflict with his duty to observe?
He still mulled the issue when his sister Cora approached. Hess studied the girl, recalling that she had made every effort to disassociate herself from him in the past year, ashamed to be known as sister to a non-man. Cora squatted beside him, pressing her back to the same tree so that their shoulders touched. Her hands unclasped from before her to reveal a prize. She held the back straps from one of the deer. The best cut of meat.
Hess slowly reached out to accept the gift. “Why?”
Cora shrugged her shoulders. “Ron gave me the back straps because he said I was pretty. And I thought about you helping him all day and not getting to eat dinner. It's just not fair, Hess.” Inexplicably, glimmering tears began to flow down her cheeks. “And I thought about how I never do anything nice for you. You're my brother, Hess, and I think you might die soon for want of food. Why haven't I ever done something about that?”
Awkwardly, he patted her shoulder, his eyes fixed on the gift held in his other hand. The cure to the pain in his stomach. An investment in his future as an expert fisher and hunter. The start of his journey towards becoming a man the tribe would admire.
“It's not your fault,” Hess said, eyes still on the food.
“Yes it is,” Cora said. “There is enough food to go around. Everyone eats well except you. Because the men want you to die for being another man's son. Anyone in the tribe could split their share with you, but no one ever does. All of us are killing you, Hess. Why would we do that? What kind of tribe are we?”
They were the kind of tribe the Creator had made them to be. Hess turned his eyes to his sister. Watched as she silently wept under the weight of transgressions made in a past that never happened. And he realized this girl was not what the Creator had made her to be. A single day had passed and she was someone different. Someone better.
Hess wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into an embrace. “You are a good person, Cora. Maybe our tribe will be kinder when you are a mother and I am the best hunter.”
She laughed through her tears. “Promise me you won't give up, Hess. Don't let them kill you.”
“I promise.” He kissed the crown of her head. “Now help me eat our meal before it grows cold.”
Chapter 33 – Hess
Natalia watched them over steepled fingers, the ghost of a smirk upon her thin, aged lips. “I suppose,” she rasped, “I should begin.”
Drake leaned forward. “We're dying to know if you really had sex with tigers like Griff says.”
Natalia's nose lifted higher. “The lot of you are positively primitive.”
“So,” Drake said, “you're denying you had sex with tigers?”
“Jaguars,” Griff muttered.
“Of course I didn't,” Natalia said.
“Smart,” San said. “Cats and bestiality mix badly.”
Drake shifted his attention to the other woman. “Is that a fact?”
San clawed at the air. “There's very little I haven't done, big boy.”
Natalia cleared her throat. “I would appreciate it if you would provide me the same courtesy I extended to each of you in turn. If you're an attentive audience, I promise to show you a magic trick at the end.”
Erik snorted. “Like what? How to pull a specific number out of a hat? Your sleight of hand is fucking atrocious.”
“Nevertheless,” Natalia said, “I insist upon respect while I provide my testimony.” She met each of their eyes in turn, then nodded.
“Very well. My tale begins in what we naively termed the First Experiment. When the Creator finished winding the mechanism and set things into motion, I inhabited the form of a sturdy lass in her first year of medical school.”
“Um,” Griff said, “bullshit.”
Greg cleared his throat. “Natalia, I don't want to offend, but this is meant to be a serious affair. We are here to discuss truths and not fictions.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Natalia took obvious care in choosing her next words. “All I ask is for the courtesy provided everyone else. Whether you think my words fabrications or metaphors or delusions, trust that I speak in service to the Creator.”
Erik snickered, but there were no other reactions.
Natalia's gaze drifted into the distance. “It was a marvelous place, that First Experiment. Our method of inquiry was natural philosophy, which was not the combative and artificial science Elza follows. Indeed, that entire planet celebrated civilization – ironic, how often the etymological relationship between civilization and civility is overlooked.
“But not by the civilization of that Experiment. Or Iteration, if you prefer the intellectually pretentious terminology foisted on us by Elza. Anyway, I studied medicine for a few years before deciding that the mind interested me more than anatomy. I became a clinical psychologist. Quite a good one, I say without exaggeration. I helped a lot of people in exchange for the opportunity to plumb the depths of the human mind.
“Then came a day when I met an enigmatic anthropologist at one of those social functions where everyone pretends they are enjoying themselves far in excess of reality. We both homed in on the most fascinating character at that event, a man who unintentionally crashed the party because the host had attempted to invite a famous composer of the same name. This man, a wig-maker by trade, thought quite a lot of himself and assumed he belonged in the esteemed company he found himself.
“This wig-maker would ask a second question before his target had answered the first, interleaving his hasty interrogations with self-aggrandizing anecdotes, off-color humor, and ignora
nt assumptions meant to seem profound observations. This man may have been a blight on the party, but he was a gold mine of mental disorders to a young psychologist. I never had a chance to properly diagnose him, but I would wager pathological narcissism co-morbid with hyperactivity and oppositional defiant disorder.
“As I was doing my best to observe this fascinating individual, I found myself sharing an orbit with the aforementioned anthropologist. Time and again, she got between me and the witless wig-maker. This would not have particularly bothered me if she had engaged the man in a meaningful fashion. Yet she only watched from the background, invisible to everyone but myself as I found my view obstructed by her more often than not.
“Finally, I made an ironic comment that we both seemed intent on studying the same fool. To which my new friend replied that she was more interested in how the other guests were responding to him. We exchanged brief biographical blurbs that identified her as an anthropologist and myself as a psychologist. Our snooping became easier to disguise as we effortlessly used each as cover.
“My companion made a passing remark that I seemed perfectly suited for observing. I replied that the entire world was a grand experiment and I was there to observe it all. No doubt all of you can tell where this is leading. This anthropologist, remarkably inscrutable all evening, turned pale and stared at me. Oblivious, I moved to follow the wig-maker, but my companion seized my arm and exclaimed 'you are an Observer'. The way she said it, the capital O clear in her voice, was a revelation.
“We left the party to have what remains one of the most energizing conversations of my long life at a nearby beer garden. From then on, we met up once a week. Neither of us could have been more pleased to have company. Yezzen was her name. Dear Yezzen. My best friend throughout my entire existence. And lest one of you savages feel the need to put your crude curiosity into words, we were never physically intimate. Our mutual attraction was unadulterated by lust.
