Agents of the Demiurge (7 page)

Hess leaned over to tap Elza's elbow.
Dessert special for you.

Her quizzical expression morphed into delight
when Jerome set their bowls before them. Walter frowned at the
pudding. “What is it?”

“Dessert.”

“What is it made from?”

“Bananas.”

Walter poked his spoon at it. “What did your
pale cook do with the bananas?”

“Actually,” Hess said, “I made this course
myself.”

Yolanda lifted her spoon to him in salute.
“Very impressive, Jed. I have always considered cooking akin to
art.”

“What did
you
do to the poor
bananas?”

“I froze them, pureed them, then added
vanilla and hazelnut milk.”

Walter shook his head. “Sounds rather
unappetizing.”

Hess shrugged. “If you don't care to try it,
you could pass your bowl to Theora. She seems to like it.”

Elza gave him the first unguarded smile he
had seen from her since the world began. Hess settled back into his
seat and savored the moment.

Her parents stayed another fifteen minutes,
then departed for home after Elza indicated she intended to stay.
The moment the door closed behind them, Elza spun on him. “What is
the fourth ingredient?”

“Elza, I don't know what you're talking
about.”

She advanced on him. “Bananas, vanilla
extract, hazelnut milk, and what else? Don't tell me there isn't
another ingredient. I've tried replicating your recipe a hundred
times at least.”

“It's an eternal mystery,” he said. “Only I
know the secret.”

“You had better tell me.”

“I'm the only one who can make my banana
pudding.”

Elza spun to Jerome. “Do you know?”

The emaciated woman folded her arms. “I do
not. There are more important things to discuss at the moment, at
any rate.”

“I'm sure your issue, whatever it is, can
wait,” she said on her way into the kitchen.

Jerome's deep-set eyes glowed with
frustration. “Damn it, Hess. We can't afford to operate on our
usual timelines. We're no longer dealing with eternity.”

Hess patted Jerome's shoulder gently, feeling
the sharp outlines of bird-like bones beneath parchment-thin skin.
He couldn't imagine what inhabiting such a body would be like. “You
told me your theory that our conflict gave the Creator a case of
split personality. Even if that is possible, it isn't something we
are in a position to immediately fix.”

The sound of cupboards slamming came from the
kitchen. Hess sighed. “She's going to tear apart the kitchen, upend
my trash, and then refuse to clean up.”

Jerome walked into the kitchen and raised her
voice. “I'm conducting a vote. The Creator wants to know if the
Observers should die at the end of this Iteration.”

He screamed and
wept, reacting to the pain and exhaustion and fear. The Punishers
of the Church always went about their job with fervor, utterly
convinced they were taking their vengeance upon the individual
responsible for their brother's death in a car accident, their
aunt's cancer prognosis, their girlfriend's infidelity, their bad
credit rating, and the fact that they stubbed their toe getting out
of bed that morning.

They came in teams of three, rotating often
so that whoever worked on him was always fresh. The teams
themselves switched out several times a day. The Punisher on duty
now, a hulking brute complete with lopsided nose and knife scars,
beat Erik with a length of cast iron pipe. Suspended from the
ceiling by manacles clasped to his wrists and chained to the floor
by his ankles, Erik hung taught as a piano wire. Each time the pipe
struck, his body shifted the limited extent possible, causing his
bindings to dig into the flesh of his extremities.

His ribs shattered time and again only to
reform. The time span between damage and repair was often long
enough that the brute could knock free fragments of bones and
organs to litter the cold cement floor. When the egg timer rang to
announce the end of another fifteen minute stretch, the brute
tossed the pipe aside and paused to catch his breath.

Erik cried, unashamed, as the pain continued.
Bit by bit, it lessened as injuries vanished. The team began to
gather their implements, so they must be done with their shift.
When the last of the damage done to his body evaporated, leaving
him whole again, Erik began to laugh.

“You fuckers don't know what you're doing.
Might as well be a group of school girls playing dolls.”

The brute rushed forward and punched Erik in
the face. After, Erik grinned through the blood pouring from his
nose and mouth. He had bared his teeth at the last moment and,
judging by the way the brute cradled his hand, damage had been
done. Damage that wouldn't disappear in five minutes.

“Aw, does that hurt? Worse than your period,
ain't it, princess? Your widdle hand got bit by a scawy Agent.”

The brute firmed up his face and flashed the
crazy eyes. “I'm gonna think up new ways to hurt you tonight.
Tomorrow I will hear you begging and crying and screaming.”

Erik spat his blood at the brute. “Oh, I
react to things. I admit it with no shame. Difference is, I've been
here two weeks and I'm still talking shit soon as you losers finish
your best work. Put one of you in my place for just an hour and
what happens then?

“One of these days, you dick-heads are going
to slip up, and I will leave an impression on every one of you I
cross that day. You will never be able to say the same to me. There
ain't a mark on my body, girls, and my mind is fucking dandy. I'll
bet this whole torture experience messes with you three more than
it does with me.

“See, I am better than you pathetic creatures
in every way. You think the Creator hates you? Don't flatter
yourselves. Your whole world is an idle amusement. None of you
deserve hatred. You should feel honored you get mild
curiosity.”

The brute came closer, wearing the crazy eyes
again. “You'll pay.”

“I know, cupcake. I just don't care.” Erik
felt his nose reform. “I once flayed the skin from a man's abdomen
and made him look at his organs. Freaked. Him. Out. He begged me to
kill him. I offered to stitch his skin back together and release
him, but he insisted on immediate death. He was a big guy like you.
Did the same bit with the clenched jaw and wide eyes. Thought
because he showed
alpha male body language
that he was
something special. He wasn't. Guy begged to die just from seeing
his insides. Wasn't even in much pain.

“I did the same thing to a six year old girl.
She begged for me to let her go. I didn't even offer to stitch her
up. Blew my mind that she was braver than the tough guy. I had to
actually start
pulling the organs out
before she requested
the easy way out.”

Erik studied the queasy expression on the
face of the brute. “Does the torture of children bother you? It's
not much different, really. Smaller cuts, so if anything it's
easier. You have to be diligent for shock, though. Their systems
just aren't as robust as ours.”

The brute turned away.

“You got a daughter? Niece? Little
sister?”

The brute whirled and punched in a fluid
motion. Erik was ready and managed to open his jaw, twist his neck,
and bite down as the fist made contact, effectively using his teeth
to fillet the flesh of the fingers from bone. Spitting shattered
teeth, Erik yelled at the brute who mutely stared at his mutilated
hand. “Scared now? Imagine what I'll do when I'm free!”

After the team left the room, Erik closed his
eyes. The sleep deprivation bothered him more than the torture.
Physical damage and pain were transient. Sleep debt was constant.
The round-the-clock torture made catching shut eye a bit
problematic, so he did his best to catch a few minutes of rest
whenever possible.

“That doesn't look terribly comfortable.”

Erik opened his eyes to find an ugly woman in
the room. Her square head sat atop a solid body. If a man had
possessed the same build, Erik would have said he looked like a
lumberjack. On a woman, the result was less flattering. “Neither
does your face,” he said. “Where's the rest of your team? Or do you
want to hit me all by yourself to take out all the rage you feel at
the Creator for making you so damn ugly?”

The woman studied him. Not with the inhuman
efficiency of an Observer with thousands of lifetimes' worth of
experience, but with the slow studiousness of a woman who wanted to
understand something. “You're very different from the other
Observer.”

“Oh, I'm unique, all right.” Erik shook his
head to clear it. She hadn't called him an Agent, but an Observer.
This woman wasn't one of the Punishers. “You the good cop to their
bad cop? I suppose the deal is I talk to you and things get better
for me?”

“You might consider it a deal of sorts. Talk
to me for an hour every day and that will be an hour less for them
to hurt you. That is the only thing I can offer.”

Erik grunted. “Do I have to tell the
truth?”

“You have to convince me our sessions provide
value.”

“So I have to make you
think
I tell
the truth?”

“We both know you will lie as much as you
think possible. I don't want to play games with you. I'm a
theologian, not an interrogator. My name is Simone Killian. Have
you heard of me?”

Simone Killian was famous. Descended from the
First Opposer. Aunt of the current Premier. Professor Emeritus of
Theology at the national seminary. Author of the Angolan
translation of the Book of Grievances. Writer of half a dozen
bestsellers describing how words and traditions from hundreds of
years in the past applied perfectly to the modern age.

“Anything you remember prior to four months
ago never happened,” Erik said. “You're famous for a back story the
Creator gave you. Kinda ironic if you think about it. Your whole
deal is opposing the Creator, but you owe the Creator everything
you are – even your opposition.”

“That's an ancient argument,” she said. “The
apologetics of antiquity responded by noting that if the Demiurge
caused the Opposition, then that proves the thing hates
itself.”

Erik recoiled as far as his bindings would
allow. “What? That's ridiculous! Look around you. This world is
glorious. Every complaint you creatures make can be summed up as 'I
want everything my way all the time or the world ain't fair.' Guess
what, sister. There are over three billion of you turds wishing to
be king of this world. That's something that can't ever work out
for more than one person. The only conceivable world that your
religion could accept has a population of uno. Sounds fucking
boring to me.”

Simone placed a hand to her cheek. “By my
dignity, you're right! Humans owe everything to the Creator and
need to start worshiping immediately! What fools we have been!”

Erik glared at her. “Is that how the
country's leading theologian answers a question about a logical
fallacy?”

“I was answering your childish outburst on
the same level. I always respond in kind to any argument. Logic
meets logic. Emotion meets emotion. Authority meets authority. I
feel that doing otherwise puts me at a disadvantage.” Simone
squinted at him. “Do you truly believe we demand some form of
paradise? I mistook that as a straw man argument meant to belittle
me, but now I think you were serious.”

She folded her massive arms across her chest.
“You claim that the world began four months ago. Let's accept that
assertion for the purpose of our discussion. At the moment of
creation, there were tens of millions of people dying of terminal
diseases. And millions more in jail for crimes that never truly
happened. I know men crippled in the service of this country and
children born with defects. None of this had to be. The Creator
chose to make those people suffer.”

Erik smirked. “People start wars all the
time. They die of drug overdoses and car accidents and all sorts of
self-inflicted fates. Why wouldn't the Creator give the world a
matching back story?”

“There's a very simple counter example.
Disease. Why create a world filled with so many harmful microbes?
There can be no benevolent purpose to it.”

“
Benevolent?
” Erik laughed. “So that's
where your major malfunction happened. I thought we already
established it's impossible for everyone to live a magically
fulfilled life.”

“Not creating dysentery doesn't qualify as
magic wish fulfillment.”

“Bacteria evolve rapidly,” Erik said. “Sooner
or later a bug would come along that did horrible things. Would be
awful suspicious if that event was unique in the history of the
world. The Creator kept the back story realistic.”

“And why are bacteria necessary at all?
Couldn't your Creator build a world without microbes?”

Erik rolled his eyes. “Let's cut through the
bullshit. You still think the world should be built to make you
happy.”

“Of course not. Just better suited to
us.”

“Right. To make all of you collectively
happier.”

“I don't care to argue the semantics.”

“Been there, done that.”

Simone's heavy brow drew down. “Excuse
me?”

“This ain't the first world, tubby. There
were plenty before this one. A couple of those matched your pretty
little picture of paradise. No war, hardly any disease, never any
starvation.”

“Then your Creator chose to make this one to
spite us.”

“Shit, sister, the Creator did you a
kindness.” Erik used his chin to gesture at a couple of torture
implements the previous team hadn't taken with them. “You may have
heard that I'm in the business myself.”

“I've read that you claim to be superior at
inflicting pain.”

“I'm a fucking artist. In comparison, your
boys are nothing more than monkeys smearing their shit on the
wall.”