by Brian Blose
Natalia tsked. “I didn't ask about your competition. Why do you deserve to live?”
Jerome hunched his shoulders. “I never got the chance to be one of them.”
“Of course you did,” Natalia said. “You didn't take it. There is a tremendous difference. Try again.”
“Because I have been an obedient Observer.”
“Not compelling.”
“Because I want to start over again. I want to live a different life.”
Natalia chewed on the answer a moment. “I'll accept the answer. It would be unfair to handicap you for lack of drama. Hess, I must confess that you bore me. I of course respect you as a man of honor, but the action hero persona never impressed me. While well-intentioned, you remain a primitive reactionary. Tell me why I should find you interesting.”
Hess blinked. Interesting? “Why should that matter? The only reason we ever considered you interesting was because of the rumor Griff started about you having sex with animals.”
“Hess, my preferences are of supreme importance in this matter. Convince me that you are worth my time.”
He sucked in his cheek. “Fine.” He pointed behind him. “Do you know how to operate a steam engine? I do. I could even rebuild it given the proper tools. In case you weren't aware, I'm not Elza's idiot sidekick. The perception that I'm dependent on her for technical support is ridiculous. I can thrive on a boat, in the desert, within the arctic circle, in the wilderness, at court, or even an electronics repair shop. I am capable.”
Natalia nodded. “I suppose it would be remiss of me not to grant you credit for our timely escape. Providing we do escape in time. Back to Erik. Assuming you are chosen, what would you do at the start of the next world?”
A portion of Erik's cheer returned. “I always like to start things off by hurting someone.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “This again? I hate them because they . . . scared me . . . once upon a time. Ta-fucking-da.”
“Why does torture bring you pleasure? Do you relish the sense of power? Does it reinforce your superiority? Does the sight of their weakness ease your lingering shame?”
Erik chewed his lip as the questions came at him. He flinched at the expectation on Natalia's face. “Maybe?”
Natalia's brows rose. “Are you asking me?”
“I don't know.”
“You don't know if you're asking me a question?”
“I don't know why I like hurting people. Why don't you ask Hess why he likes sex so much?”
“We'll give you some time to ponder the question, Erik. I would put the same question to Jerome. What would you do at the start of a new world?”
Jerome raised his chin. “I would find the other Observers.”
“And?”
“Talk to them. Tell them everything. No secrets.”
“Dear Sir, I'm almost too disinterested to ask, but why?”
“Because I want the next Cycle to be better than this one.”
Natalia rolled his eyes. “Hess?”
He stood looking at the volcano in the distance.
“Same question, Hess. New world. What do you do and why?”
The gentle rocking of the boat, the creaking of wood and crashing of waves, the taste of salt on the air all fell away. What did he do when a world began? He found Elza.
“Hess?”
For over a hundred Iterations – close to a hundred and forty thousand years – he had sought his woman with single-minded tenacity until she stood at his side. Though their tradition had grown ever more elaborate, its core had remained unchanged. She awaited him at the largest city she could find; assumed the name of an in-world state or province; worked at an intellectual trade or profession; frequented quaint watering holes where she would wait patiently for the right man to approach. He lived for that moment, that giddy anticipation, the thundering pulse and jittery legs as their eyes made contact. It brought him back to Iteration two every time. The weary walk that had threatened to never end. The endless wash of unremarkable faces. And then his name on her lips.
“Hess?”
He turned back to face them. “Feed more coal every twenty minutes, but don't let the pressure rise above the first tick before two hours are up. Then start sprinkling the rocket fuel. You should be able to figure out the engine room easily enough.”
Natalia raised a finger. “If you leave, you forfeit the contest.”
“I should never have been in it.”
Erik seized his arm. “The fuck, Hess? You giving up? Suiciding?”
“The opposite of giving up. I'm going to find her one last time.”
As Hess pulled his arm free of Erik, Jerome wrapped him in a firm embrace. Hess shoved the man away. “Enough of that, Jerome.”
“Sorry,” Jerome said. “I know the Ron thing still bothers you, but you can't say goodbye to your best friend without a hug.”
Erik scowled at them. “Fucking pathetic, Hess.”
“As much as I'd love to continue this conversation, I've got a woman to find. Good luck everyone.” All three stared at him, cataloging his actions with the alien, attentive gazes of Observers. He turned away to begin his hunt, his mind taking up the new puzzle. Where on this island would Elza go to await the end of her last world?
Chapter 35 – Hess
He found her on the roof of the resort, reclining against sun-warmed brick to face the rumbling mountain's outline against the setting sun. She didn't move at his approach other than to touch a wine bottle to her lips. “How did you find me?”
Hess slid down the wall to sit at her side, leaving a finger's width of space between them. He gestured at the view before them. “You always preferred to watch from a distance. How did you know it was me?”
Elza shrugged. “An unfounded assumption. I've spent so much time waiting for you.” She touched the full wine bottle to her lips once more. Several more, unopened, rested by her feet. “Who won immortality?”
“I had to leave before that was decided.”
Her eyes flashed to his. “Hess, no. What are you doing here?”
“Finding you. Did you know that a good woman is worth a whole tent?” He took the wine bottle from her hands, inspected the label, and took a large swallow.
“Don't do this for me, Hess. Please don't.”
“Do you know why I hate Zack Vernon so much?” Hess pressed the bottle back into her hands. “Zack despised existence. He was a miserable bastard who couldn't find a single reason to live his own life.”
“Then fight for your life, Hess.”
“The rest of them think I'm romantic by nature because of the circumstances they met me under, but you should know better. Hess of Kallig's tribe was an angry man who despised his own existence. He treated his women well while they were his, then discarded them when they showed signs of age – ignoring the plight of a childless older woman because he did not care. Hess of Kallig's tribe was not a happy man and not even a good man. He was an ignorant savage who blamed the Creator for everything. The best that could be said of him was that he had enough empathy to imagine a better world.
“I remember that man, Elza, even if you pretend not to. And I can tell you from first-hand experience that the distance between him and Zack wasn't as great as you think.” Hess stared at the setting sun. “For most of my life I've been someone very different, but only because I had you by my side.”
For a moment, the rooftop was silent. Then Elza took a swig from the bottle. “I may have glossed over a tiny sliver of your history, but I know who you are, Hess. You don't understand me at all.”
“That's ridiculous. I guessed where on the entire island you would be in five seconds.” Hess gestured. “And here you are.”
“Two Iterations ago, you thought I cared for the people.”
“What?”
She pointed a finger at him. “You thought I was upset because the people were dying!”
Hess blinked. “You really think I'm that naive?”
He
r finger drooped. “But . . . you kept trying to shield me from news.”
Hess cocked his head. “Because you kept getting upset.”
“I was responding to you. You are the one who loves the people.”
“No, it wasn't the people. It was science. Science was bad, Elza.”
For a moment, she stared at him, then Elza pushed the wine bottle into his hands. “Science is an experimental methodology, Hess. It's fundamentally amoral. It can't be bad.”
“It destroyed an entire world, Elza. That's pretty bad.”
“People destroyed their world,” she said. “And they didn't use science to do it. They used technology.”
“Technology made by science.”
“Science doesn't make technology. People do.”
“They can't make tech without science.”
“Of course they can. They do it all the time, Hess. Science isn't the only way to innovate technology.”
Hess raised a brow. “So you are claiming that the people could build a nuclear weapon without science?”
“Maybe not a nuclear weapon,” she said.
He drank and passed the bottle back. “This conversation clearly isn't going anywhere productive.”
Elza nodded. “You've never been good at abstract.”
“I never said you were right. Science was clearly a bad thing. But you like it, so you'll never admit it.”
She opened her mouth, then paused. After a moment she shook her head. “You never thought I was empathizing with the people?”
“Of course not. Don't you remember Iteration one four three? You only agreed to help me build an empire after I started bringing up all the technical challenges. You care about ideas and I care about people. The only thing we ever really had in common was we hate being apart.”
Elza took a violent swig and dropped an empty bottle. “Then I'm an idiot.”
“Sometimes.” Hess picked up an unopened bottle and read the label. “But at least you make a passable sommelier.”
A throaty giggle bubbled free of Elza, then turned fragile as she leaned into him. “I'm so sorry, Hess. I don't know why I keep messing up. I'm the rational one.”
“How about you promise not to do it again?”
Elza locked eyes with him. “Do you want to make a run for it? We might be able to escape the island. We could spend a few centuries here until we're ready to go.”
“I'm ready now,” Hess said.
“Are you sure?”
He shrugged. “It's too late to escape now. We would just waste our last moments running around this damn island. Besides, it might be that chasing eternity misses the point. Maybe we can't appreciate something until it ends.”
“The economics of immortality,” Elza said. “Would you care to discuss the marginal utility of life?”
“While I hate to disappoint you . . . .” Hess shrugged.
They drank in silence, watching the sunset darken with time and smoke, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder. Periodic shudders provided unsubtle reminders of their limited time.
“You know, I still don't understand what you ever saw in me.” Elza stared into the distance. “I did everything I could to drive you away.”
Hess pecked a kiss on her cheek. “Nice try, but you can't saddle me with the blame for all of this. You started it.”
Elza smiled. “I couldn't stand you, Hess. You wouldn't relent until I loved you back.”
“Sure, your words said you didn't like me.”
“Come now, Hess, you were the one who gallantly rushed in to save me from my attackers.”
Hess shook his head. “I would have done that for any Observer. I told you there was no reason for you to experience that.”
“And I was quite clear that I was willing to endure anything in service to the Creator.”
“I was able to tell the Creator everything He needed to know about what the men did.”
“But you couldn't report how it felt.”
Hess turned his face away. “I knew enough.”
“Witnessing and experiencing are two different -”
“I knew, Elza. No one else had to go through that for the Creator's curiosity.”
“You . . . . Oh.” She blinked. “You mean . . . .”
“We aren't discussing it.”
Elza cleared her throat. “Well, this actually makes our story more pathetic. I was a fat, unattractive woman with a lazy eye who threw my heart at the feet of a beautiful man because I mistakenly believed he liked me. Everything between us started with mixed signals.”
“You were beautiful.”
“Please, Hess. Your fondness for curves came later.”
“About the same time, as I recall.”
Elza took the bottle back and emptied it. “The important thing is that, contrary to everything I ever believed about our past, I loved first.”
“Well, if we're clarifying our time-line, let's do it properly.” Hess opened another bottle. “I liked you first, because you were so delightfully different. Then you like-liked me back even though you sorta hated my guts. Then . . . somewhere between leaving Kallig's tribe and the winter freeze I decided I would never willingly leave your side.”
“So perhaps you were slightly more pathetic.”
Hess pressed the bottle into her hands. “You wrote me a love letter. You dumped me in it, but I still think that cements your status as the romantic one.”
“I've lost track. Am I the pathetic one?”
“No. Mel is. And San. Greg, Griff, Erik, Drake, Ingrid, Kerzon, and Jerome. They are the pathetic ones who never managed to make a real connection with someone else.”
Elza stared at the red haze in the distance. “You forgot Natalia. Unless you think she connected with her friends from the last Cycle?”
A tight smile stretched across his face. “I know she connected with that little dog in Iteration eight.”
Her befuddled expression gave way to a grin. “She kept kissing that damn purse dog at the party! Do you think the animal thing was really all just an act?”
“Elza, you can't fake true love.”
She settled more firmly against him. In the distance, the dark smog emanating from the mountain lit up with a demonic backlight that quickly increased in intensity. Elza sought his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you for finding me all those times. It meant everything.”
“I would do it all again.” Hess held his woman as the land rocked in ponderous preparation. “Every last moment.”
You have reached the end of Full Vessels, the final part of the Participants Trilogy. If you would like to support the work of this author, please consider leaving a review at your favorite online retailer. Thanks for reading.
About The Author
Brian Blose is an Army Veteran, husband, father, software developer, and writer. He has a Bachelor’s in Computer Science and an MBA. In his spare time, he pursues interests such as rock climbing, skiing, kayaking, ethnic cuisine, and reading. He likes flawed characters, unreliable narration, and moral ambiguity.
Visit his author website at www.brianblose.com for bonus content.