The Participants

by Brian Blose

  Chapter 14 – Zack / Iteration 144

  The Observers placed him face down for the night, left hand cuffed behind his back to right ankle, right hand to left ankle. They had moved him to the house, where a cramped family room had been cleared to serve as a holding area. The room’s single exit led directly into the kitchen area, where two of his captors drank tea.

  The man called Ingrid spoke. “We should bury him immediately.”

  The voice of a woman responded. “Erik wants her fun.”

  “This isn’t about playing games. We serve the Creator,” Ingrid said. “Hess needs to be removed from events quickly so we can return to our observations.”

  “Just give Erik a few days with him.”

  Zack had twisted around to face the light that shone from the kitchen. In the night, fear of his immanent burial lurked closer to the surface. He concentrated on the soreness his unnatural position caused his shoulders. Pain was a safe thought.

  What does Lacey think happened to me? She probably assumes I abandoned her. Zack hoped that in time she found someone who could love her. It was such a simple thing for a person to want. He had thought he could fake the emotion for her, but Zack knew better now. He would make an even worse person than he did an Observer.

  The shadows from the kitchen moved from time to time. Even if Zack could free himself, the windows were boarded up and two armed guards prevented his escape through the kitchen. Still, he watched. After a few hours, the shadows stopped moving. If he knew a way to escape, this would be the time to do so. The darkness rose within and Zack had to suppress it. The darkness had been active ever since the shooting, threatening him day and night.

  One of the shadows from the kitchen shifted. Zack watched it move silently, growing larger. The form of the man called Ingrid appeared in the doorway. He placed a finger over his lips, bidding Zack to remain silent. Then Ingrid slipped over to kneel at his side. Ingrid seized Zack’s restraints. “When I free you, leave the house silently. The keys to the truck that brought you here are on the counter. Move somewhere far from here and don’t draw attention to yourself.” In rapid motions, Ingrid freed Zack, feet first, then seized Zack’s chin. “The woman downstairs is not who she claims to be. She’s Kerzon, trying to wound you in the way she thinks worst. Elza is still out there somewhere.”

  Zack crouched silently, cradling his arms close while strained shoulders healed. “I don’t know who Elza is. I am not Hess.”

  “I don’t have time to argue. You can’t go anywhere associated with your Zack identity. Drive to somewhere with public transportation and disappear. The truck has several thousand dollars stashed beneath the seat. Be quiet. Erik didn’t drink any tea.”

  Zack followed Ingrid out to the kitchen, where Ingrid settled back into his seat and slouched forward onto the table as if asleep. With swift motions, Zack swiped the keys from the counter and went out the kitchen door. He ran to the truck, clawed the door open, leaped inside, jammed the key into the ignition, twisted hard, shifted into drive, and hit the gas.

  The truck bounced the entire length of the dirt driveway, then shot into motion when it reached the road. Zack’s heart raced faster than the truck as he split his attention between the road ahead and the rear-view mirror. He took route twenty-eight south towards Pittsburgh, slowing to five over the speed limit. Can’t get pulled over now. I have to find a bus station or something. Zack punched the seat. He didn’t know where to find a bus station in Pittsburgh or anywhere else. He didn’t know where to find anything. In the past five years, he had rarely traveled more than ten miles from rural Sarver.

  He tensed every time he saw headlights behind him, until he was hunched over the steering wheel. I don’t know where I’m going. I am tired and confused and emotional. I need a map and some rest. One of the false memories that came with the identity of Zack Vernon recalled itself suddenly. It was of a road trip taken with his parents. They had stopped at a hotel. While his parents went through the process of checking in, Zack had perused a display on the local attractions, paying particular attention to a map of the area.

  Now where is a hotel? The answer to that was easy. Along route 28, just south of Tarentum, was a shopping complex known as the Pittsburgh Mills Mall, a beautiful facility full of retail locations suffering from lack of business. A hotel sat behind the mall. Hopefully he could discover the location of a bus terminal there.

  Interlude 2 – Hess / Iteration 143

  Hess paced while Elza read the document. They were inside their private sanctum, the central chamber of their palace. Outside, bells called out the hour. Elza's eyes rose from the parchment.

  “They want to surrender,” she said. “Sidon is sailing at us with an army, but his administrators write to request our aid.”

  “It's a hedging tactic,” Hess said. “Their King is away, the people are restless, and we keep winning battles. So far, at least . . . .”

  Elza compressed her lips. “You want to introduce liquid fire.”

  “King Sidon has a superior navy.”

  “Using a weapon like that undermines the principles of our Empire. How can we preach humanitarianism while introducing this world to chemical weapons?”

  Hess crossed his arms. “It was never going to be perfect.”

  “The Empire might fall short of its ideals, but we don't. You agreed that we would walk away before we violated the rules. No technological breakthroughs allowed. Sorry.” Elza crossed the room to wrap her arms around him. This world saw her in a body most kindly described as mature, while he was perpetually stuck in the final days of puberty. He sometimes suspected the Creator had a sense of humor. The age difference bothered Elza more than him. She always worried when his form was more attractive than hers.

  “Then we'll have to move our ships into the harbor and prepare for a siege. King Sidon can't beat us on land and we can't match his fleet.” Hess planted a kiss on Elza's nose. “I ever tell you I have a thing for bossy noblewomen?”

  “I smell mead. Did you open a fresh jug while I was meeting with the federal reserve chairmen?”

  “I thought you might need a drink after manipulating the currency.”

  “Math doesn't give me headaches.”

  “It doesn't cause me pain, Elza. I just don't think those types of studies are something an Observer needs to know.”

  “I thought you were an Emperor.”

  “That’s more of a hobby,” Hess said.

  “You couldn't do this without me. Conducting wars and giving speeches are very nice, but this Empire keeps running out of money. Your welfare state doesn't have the resources to fight wars. Fortunately, our trading partners are as bad at math as you are. Reserve banking and derivative options have turned this world upside down.”

  Hess poured two goblets of mead. “You know what else I can't do myself?”

  Elza took a sip. “So help me if you say this decrepit body is your favorite.”

  The mead stung his mouth. “Wow. This is strong.”

  “Do you remember Iteration twenty-six?” Elza swirled the contents of her cup and took a gulp. “You were such a beer snob.”

  Beer? What is Beer? Hess sent a query into the abyss of his memory, seeking for beer and Iteration twenty-six. He took another drink, feeling the liquid burn like fire down his throat. “This is my favorite body of yours,” he said.

  Elza rolled her eyes. “You say that about every body I wear.”

  “I mean it every time.”

  “You may love me every time, Hess, but not my body. I have been morbidly obese, disturbingly frail, cross-eyed, and now elderly.”

  “In their time, they were all my favorite.”

  “You just like to humor me. To be honest, it gets tiring.”

  The returning recollection bubbled up from the endless eternity of his memory. Hess recalled dragging Elza to the local brewery of every town they traveled through. They w
ore matching middle-aged, dark-skinned bodies in that world. Elza had rolled her eyes every time he asked the locals where the town brewer lived. An associated recollection burst into his primary memory, of Iteration ninety-five, when Elza produced the most vitriolic substance ever called a wine. She had been a breathtakingly beautiful blonde in that life, drawing the eyes of every man who passed.

  “At least I had the decency to give you something drinkable in twenty-six. Do you remember when you had a winery? That hellish liquid was not fit for human consumption. When it didn't sell, I had to help drink the entire inventory.”

  Elza blinked in surprise. “A winery?”

  “In a minute you'll remember why you don't recall it more often.”

  They drank more of the mead, which had subtle apple notes buried beneath its harshness. Playing remember when over a glass of whatever poured was a tradition longer than the entire recorded history of the current world. They remembered every moment of their endless lives with perfect clarity, though only a minute fraction of it fit into primary memory at any moment. The time required to pull forth the seldom-accessed memories grew longer as they continued to accumulate more experiences.

  Some Iterations lasted much longer than others, but a good approximation was a thousand years each, which meant he had close to a hundred and forty-three thousand years of life stored inside his eternal skull. Sometimes he felt ancient. But never a hundred and forty-three thousand years ancient.

  “You didn't drink more than a few bottles of my wine,” Elza said. “We sold the bulk of it to be distilled into grape liquor.”

  “Really? Well, you can't deny it was bad.”

  Elza laughed. “It was terrible. You tried so hard not to make a face when I let you do the first tasting after it aged. I knew it wouldn't win any awards when it was still in oak, but I didn't want to give up.”

  “I really mean it,” Hess said. “This body of yours is my favorite.”

  “You must be trying to annoy me.”

  “I'm serious.”

  “Which is your second favorite?”

  “The first,” he said.

  “Lazy eye and all?”

  “You know, I never knew I was lonely till the day I wasn't.”

  “Different question. Which body was the best for a cozy?”

  Hess swirled his mead. “You've asked this before. Iteration six, no question about it.”

  “I never understood your obsession with curves,” she said.

  “To be quite honest, Elza, neither do I. It just is.”

  They sat in silence. Hess slouched into his chair. “I'm tired,” he said.

  Elza put a hand to her forehead and spoke with slurred words. “I think we've been poisoned again. Annoying. Hope wears off fast.”

  Crap. Hope it kills us – effects will be shorter that way. If it's just inconvenient, it could take hours for our bodies to purge the poison. Hess tried to stand, but his legs couldn't support him. He eyed the bell on the table by Elza's elbow. “Call servants,” he said.

  Elza rang the bell and they waited.

  When the door opened, a servant and two guards entered. “Help us to bed,” Elza said. The servant ignored her and turned to face Hess. “Was your mead poisoned?”

  An inside job. Great. This will start all sorts of zombie rumors.

  The servant's eyes followed every twitch of his face in a familiar manner. “Observer,” he said. The servant, a plain young woman, nodded. “It's Ingrid, Hess. And your sick game of Empires ends now. We've debated among ourselves and decided that your disobedience has to be punished.”

  His tongue became too numb for speech. Hess sought Elza with his eyes as the other Observers placed him on the bed and wrapped him in linens. A frustrated anger boiled within him. I will make them regret this.

  PART III