Agents of the Demiurge

by Brian Blose

  “How long has Hess been down?”

  “Too long! Start shooting!”

  They need me to take charge, he thought. Hess pushed himself to a seated position. He touched his scalp, winced at the pain, and squinted at the scene around him. The stairs before him were blurry for some reason. Gas. They gassed the room below us. Further from the steps, his comrades fired wild suppressing fire back the hall.

  Hess stumbled to his feet. “Down the steps,” he said.

  For a moment, it seemed he was going by himself. Then boots pounded beside him. Hess seized the railing with one hand and held his nine millimeter in his other. He raised the handgun when he left the steps, turned in a slow arc, trying to find an opponent to target, then lowered his hands.

  There were plenty of people in the room, all of them contorted in agonized death poses. Several stairways led back to the upper floor, but every door leading deeper into the compound stood sealed. The hazy room had signs everywhere instructing people on where to register and where to sit for mandatory briefings and where to wait for a proctor to escort them.

  Hess fought off a wave of nausea. This was not a good time to fill his mask with vomit. He looked from one steel door to another, trying to guess which one he should blow. Have to pick one fast. Our masks can't stand up to this much chlorine gas for long.

  “Now what?” San asked.

  Hess pointed at the door closest to the designated waiting area.

  San grasped the significance of the gesture and ripped off her rucksack to pull free a pipe bomb and its remote control detonator. As she worked, Hess winced at the pain of his scalp. He reached a gore-covered hand towards his wound.

  And the pain evaporated. Before his eyes, the blood on his hand vanished. Hess relished the relief a second before he registered the events around him. Jerome sat to one side with her back against the wall, handgun in her holster. Drake had his shotgun hanging from his shoulder on its sling and his arms were crossed. Meanwhile, San prepared to blast a hole through a door most likely separating them from armed and ready opposition.

  Hess had time to get his nine millimeter up before him, but his shout to form up got lost in the roar of the explosion. As the door rocked back and collapsed off of its hinges, bullets whizzed at them. Hess fired several times, then jumped to the side.

  He pulled a bomb from his ruck, activated it, and lobbed it through the open doorway. A twist of the remote control's steering wheel brought a rumble and then silence.

  Not more than three feet from him, Drake's mangled corpse leaked red ichor. Jerome shook as she patted her body, searching for damage. San stood frozen.

  “San, you drag Drake! Jerome, you watch our tail! I'm on point.” Hess pulled out another pipe bomb. His second to last. Judging by what little he remembered of the mess at the top of the stairs, the others were probably out of explosives. They had squandered their resources while he was out of commission with a concussion.

  He spotted movement around a corner and deployed his bomb. After that, they moved forward unopposed. Hess followed convenient markings painted on the wall, moving towards Punishment Center 1.

  Two men waited inside the designated room, watching the invaders approach through the reinforced glass wall. Behind them, a bound form hung suspended from the ceiling by chains affixed to a leather body harness. The soldiers held their handguns with tense expectation, waiting for someone to try the door.

  Hess met their eyes through the windows.

  “Does anyone have another bomb?” San asked.

  “Not necessary.” Hess gestured for the girls to stay to one side of the door, then moved opposite them before twisting the door knob and giving a swift kick to open it.

  One of the soldiers squeezed off a few rounds before realizing no one was coming inside. Following a quiet moment, a soldier shot at the glass beside Hess, startling him. He smiled and shook his head at the two men, then positioned himself so that he could fire into the room without opening himself up to them.

  Hess shot at the concrete wall. Inside the room, both men jumped at the sound of the strike and its ricochet. His next shot hit the metal sink in the corner. One of the soldiers shot into the hall, trying to use the same technique. Hess laughed. “Do you really think that angle works in your favor? Besides, I don't care if you shoot me. Haven't you realized by now that you can't keep a good Agent down?”

  When he fired his third shot into the room, the soldiers abandoned their place facing the door, rushing to stand across the reinforced glass wall from Hess. From a closer vantage, they looked shaken. Of course they're worried. They've met Erik. For all they know, we're all as monstrous.

  “The Demiurge has something special planned for the Church of Opposition!” Hess smiled at them through the glass.

  He gestured at San. “Get closer to the door and lay down covering fire. Keep them in the corner they've put themselves in.”

  As she squeezed off shots in three second intervals, Hess crossed back to where a revived Drake squatted. Hess took the shotgun. “Use handguns to support San,” he said.

  When Drake and Jerome started to fire into the room, Hess went to the floor, held the shotgun past the door frame, and fired. Both soldiers retreated further into the corner, one of them bleeding from an indirect hit. Hess pumped another shell into the chamber, got to his knees, ducked beneath the cover fire, and shuffled sideways into the room, firing at the men and pumping the shotgun in rapid succession until he emptied his weapon.

  He pulled his nine millimeter and put a final round through the head of each soldier before turning to the captive Observer. The man's eyes streamed tears as they fixated on Hess.

  “Take me out of here, Hess. Please. By the Creator, have pity on me.”

  Hess put a hand to Ingrid's face. “I've got you.”

  Chapter 23 – Erik / Iteration 145

  On numerous occasions, Erik had observed the frequency of his torture to be sub-optimal. Pain existed as an intersection of the biological and the psychological, a mental phenomenon that required an active mind. The Church's unending torment robbed him of the capacity to truly suffer. Their constant application of pain made everything a surreal experience.

  Which wasn't to say it didn't hurt. Or that he wasn't desperate for even a momentary respite. Time and again, he screamed, he wept, he begged, he threatened, he gasped, thrashed, flinched. His life was a torment to him. He no longer had the energy to taunt his attackers. Precious little remained of his former fire.

  And yet . . . . And yet, Erik could not help noting during scattered instants of lucidity that they could do so much better. With a perverse pride, he worked through the problem of how to maximize his own suffering. They should allow him time to rest between sessions so that he could better appreciate what they did. And vary the length of the sessions. Maybe wire up some machines to inflict pain at random intervals.

  As it was, he had no idea how long he had been tortured at the new compound. Time had grown elastic for him. Individual moments stretched long, but whenever he looked back in his memory, events squeezed together into a blurry mess of questionable duration. It could have been weeks or years. At this point, the difference in scale seemed vague.

  Then the torture stopped. Erik watched the guards rush his latest tormentor from the room, send away the line of paying customers, and seal the door. They exchanged concerned glances and listened intently to whatever they heard over their ear radios.

  For a time, Erik waited for something to happen. Then he slept. Sleep was hard to find in an unending torture marathon.

  When the door opened, Erik startled awake with the panicked certainty that his torture was about to resume. He knew that his tormentors had finally worked out the method he had outlined to maximize his pain. Knew with absolute certainty that they had let him sleep to intensify the next session.

  The crack of gunshots brought him out of his paranoia. Erik squinted at the scene before him, watching invaders fire through the open door. The two gua
rds sought cover from the suppressing fire, which allowed the four invaders to rush inside. They spread out and flanked the guards.

  Erik watched the movements of the invaders, subconsciously compiling the familiar motions of the forms until he realized Observers stood before him. Observers. The obvious explanation for their presence struck him when they finished off the guards and lined up to face him.

  The stupid fucks came to rescue me. Erik started to giggle. He recognized them now. Hess stood closest to him. Hess. Could he handle Hess now? No. Definitely not. When the Church first incarcerated him, he had been a brawny fellow. Now he was a stick figure. Crazy how the body of a Creator could become fat or thin or muscular over time.

  “Before I release you, I want your promise that you won't come after me again,” Hess said.

  Erik licked his lips. “Oh, Hessy, whatchya worried about? You're my hero. I'm practically president of the Hess fan club right now.”

  “Your promise.”

  His smile twisted into a sneer. Part of Erik froze at the words rising to his lips, knowing he could be damning himself. “Words are words, Hess. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. And I'm going to do.”

  The Observer at Hess's side nudged him. “We don't have to take him out of here, Hess.”

  Erik's eyes snapped to her emaciated face. Other than the heightened awareness common to all Observers, there was no tell to give away her identity. “Ah,” Erik said. “Number twelve. So happy to make your acquaintance, you backstabbing little bitch. Did you have fun sabotaging my operation last Iteration?”

  “We don't leave anyone behind.” Hess sighed. “Not even him.”

  “Then I'd better speak to him privately,” the girl said.

  “No,” Hess said.

  “Don't worry, crackhead, I'm not afraid of whatever you have to say.”

  The twelfth Observer hesitated, then nodded. “Very well, Erik. I am the twelfth Observer. Much as the rest of you are the Creator's eyes and ears, I am the Creator's hand in the world. I open the sky. And I prevent conflicts between Observers from escalating.”

  Erik bared his teeth. “Fucking liar.”

  “To enable me to do my job, the Creator gives me the summary of every Observer's life. I know things about you that no one else does, Erik. I know what your father did to you on the first day. I know how you repaid Cazzel for his advances. I know that Mannin was the first of your understudies. And I know what Beeta did.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Erik growled.

  The woman nodded. “I won't speak any more in front of the others, but if you want we can talk in private.”

  Erik struggled against his bonds for a moment, then stopped. “You said you open the sky. You can't open the sky. The Creator does.”

  “No, Erik. This might be hard for you to accept, but the Creator sacrifices Its very existence to birth worlds. For the duration of every Iteration, the Creator does not exist. Until the world ends, there are only twelve slivers of the Creator's consciousness.”

  He stared at the woman.

  “We are the Creator, Erik. That is why you cannot harm Hess or me or any of the Observers. Because the thing you serve with such loyalty is the sum of the twelve of us.”

  Erik twisted to gauge the reactions around him. The others believed it. Could she be lying? How could she know what happened on the first day? How could she know about Beeta?

  Hess stepped close enough to touch him. “We don't have time for you to process this. How about we compromise? If I get you out of here, you leave me alone for the rest of this Iteration.”

  “Fine,” Erik said. “The two of us can table our shit for an Iteration. I make no promises about number twelve here.”

  “He won't hurt me. And the name is Jerome,” the woman said.

  “Whatever, twelve. You gonna let me down?”

  The others watched him warily once he stood free. Erik shuffled his feet to one of the fallen guards and stumbled into a kneeling position. His breath came quick from the small exertion. “Did anyone think to bring something to eat? The Church had me on one of those no food diets.”

  “Hurry it up with the clothes,” Drake mumbled.

  “You say something, coward?”

  “He said to hurry,” San said.

  Erik fumbled at the buttons a moment, numb fingers slipping free. “In case the lot of you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly recovered.”

  Hess knelt down and began removing the blood-soaked garments from the corpse. “Drake and San, go make sure Ingrid isn't sleeping on over-watch duty. Jerome, collect any ammo you can find in this room.”

  While the others went about their assigned tasks, Hess dressed Erik with impersonal efficiency. “We can't afford to carry you out of here,” he said. “I know it's too much to expect you to run, but I need you walking under your own power and holding a weapon.”

  Erik grimaced. “I need fucking food, Hess. They never fed me once in all the years I've been here.”

  “Months,” Hess said. “And we didn't have room to pack you a lunch.”

  Erik glanced at the corpse beside him. “Any idea which parts are best to eat raw?”

  “I believe that would be the intestines,” Hess said.

  Erik cocked an eyebrow. “You're telling jokes now? How about you do something useful and pop this bastard's eyes out for me.” He watched Hess bend over the body. “Then cut out some belly fat.”

  Hess pulled a knife. “Fine, but this is all we have time for.”

  “You better have one hell of an escape plan,” Erik said.

  “We have a nuke.”

  “Nuke as in nuclear bomb? Thought this world didn't have nuclear.”

  “The people don't. We do.”

  Erik took the gelatinous yellow mass offered him. “Bout time Elza used that big ol brain of hers on something worthwhile. Tell you what. You get your woman to build me one of those toys and all's forgiven.”

  “Don't threaten her.” Hess spoke with cold precision. He sucked in one cheek, a tell that indicated he was contemplating something. Dear ol Hess has never been too soft to take care of business.

  “Relax,” Erik said. “I gave you a hall pass for the rest of this Iteration. That extends to your woman. But nothing warms up a friendship faster than the gift of thermonuclear weapons.”

  Hess reached to his side and brought out something. A phone. “I'll let you push the button.” He didn't release the phone when Erik tried to take it. “Speed dial one. You don't detonate it until I tell you to.”

  “Deal.” Erik pulled the phone close and studied its display. There was no reception inside the compound. He smiled. “The fuck we waiting on, Hess?”

  “You.”

  “I'm ready to get my freak on right now. I can take tubby's tummy butter to go. Just give me a hand up and we can go find some cell service.”

  The first few steps proved to Erik that it would be a challenging escape. He gritted his teeth and pumped his feet as fast as he could while Hess led the team of Observers through the halls. Ingrid trembled like a leaf in the wind and lagged behind until one of the others prodded him.

  Erik concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. He swallowed raw fat at infrequent intervals, waiting until he thought his gag reflex under control before each bite. What he really needed was carbohydrates to raise his blood sugar.

  Nevertheless, he managed. An unbreakable body could take infinite punishment. Over the Iterations, Erik had torn muscles, dislocated shoulders, broken bones, and received every type of injury imaginable at a prodigious rate. His work put him into some crazy situations. Over time, he had stopped caring about the temporary consequences of wounds. Pain was transient. Most damage only impaired performance if he let it. Pushing through was an ingrained part of who he was.

  Erik slowed his pace as his vision darkened. There was only so much pushing he could do at the moment. He had always thought it odd that an Observer's body could throw off damage within minutes – could repair any form
of death possible – yet remained vulnerable to lifestyle choices. Too much food made a heavy Observer. Too little food made the emaciated wreck that he was now.

  They paused at the entrance to a large room with stairs leading up in various directions. Hess raced ahead with the functional members of their group, leaving Erik and Ingrid behind. “Told you there was a twelfth.”

  “You were right,” Ingrid said.

  “Did you get the names of any of our guards?”

  “No.” Ingrid's voice trembled.

  “Oh, get over it already, cupcake. We're gonna get out of here, then I'm gonna go guard hunting. Right after I look up dear ol Simone. The good times are coming back. For me, of course. The Church people might disagree once I get started on them.”

  Erik licked his lips. “It's been forever since I've done spicy torture. If you combine menthol and capsaicin, you can trick the body's heat and cold receptors into firing at the same time. The sensation is excruciating. See, the only time both hot and cold senses fire together is when serious burning or frost-biting is happening. The brain interprets the combination as a big ol emergency. What I like best is so little damage is done that you can keep working for days on a person. Just abrade a patch of skin with sandpaper, apply spicy torture potion liberally, and observe.”

  Gunshots interrupted him. Erik glanced around, then took another bite of belly fat. He maneuvered it to the back of his throat and swallowed, then overrode the resultant urge to vomit by sheer force of will. “Tortured a group once with filth. Chained them in a pit and dumped sewage on them. Was fun at first, but not very productive. Most of them died of hypothermia. One died of an infection. Last guy begged to die so he wouldn't have to hang out with decomposing corpses. Kinda a failed experiment. Live and learn, right?”

  San ran back to collect and chaperone them to the main staircase, giving terse orders for them to avoid getting too close to the smaller stairs to each side. Erik followed as quickly as possible, pleasantly surprised that his body appeared stronger after the short rest.

  Then came the stairs. San had to haul both of her charges up the steps, which left her huffing nearly as much as them. Gunfire sounded from up ahead. As they hugged the walls of the corridor for the minimal cover found there, Erik ran through what he remembered of the compound's layout from the day he had been transported.