Agents of the Demiurge (16 page)

“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.”

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 guards 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.