The Participants (12 page)

He picked at the lock on his cuffs with the tip
of a pen. Quebec had left an hour ago to retrieve the rental car
she’d abandoned near his trailer. The pen made a terrible
lock-picking tool. Zack didn’t think he would do better with
anything short of the actual key. If there were real people who
could open a lock with nothing but a hairpin or a paperclip, Zack
wasn’t one of them.

The door ended his halfhearted efforts by
opening. Quebec entered bearing plastic bags.

“Did you go shopping while I was stuck to
the bed?”

Quebec cocked her head and looked at him. “I
abandoned a car along a back road, walked a mile to retrieve
another, and bought you a change of clothes. Be happy it didn’t
take longer.”

“Well, I have to use the bathroom.”

She pulled the key out of her pocket and
unlocked the handcuffs. “You should take a shower while you’re in
there.”

He took her advice. Fifteen minutes later,
he emerged clean from the bathroom wearing new clothes. Quebec
gestured at the array of vending machine food arranged on the
table. Something in her mannerism made him smile. “Did you spend
all your casino winnings on this?”

“Travel with me and you eat nothing but the
best,” she said.

A twinge of his stomach reminded him he
hadn’t eaten in close to a day. Zack sat across the table from
Quebec and opened a bag of mini-donuts. “Want to hear something
funny?”

Quebec’s brown eyes fixed on him as he ate.
“Always.”

“I am a great cook.” Zack gestured at the
junk food. “But I eat like this all the time. Up until the past
year, I used to make all sorts of things I found in cookbooks. I
stopped because right after we got married, Lacey told me I had to
learn how to cook because she wasn’t doing housework. I tossed out
everything in my kitchen that wasn’t nailed down and Lacey never
noticed. We’ve been eating freezer meals ever since. Tater tots are
the closest thing to a vegetable I’ve had in months.”

“You do realize Observers can get fat, don’t
you?”

“What about teeth? Will those go bad?”

“They’ll fix themselves before you notice a
cavity exists. Bad breath is something else. So either brush or
chew gum or eat parsley.”

“Parsley? Seriously?”

“It works. Remember Iteration five?” The
light in Quebec’s eyes dimmed. “No. Of course you don’t. You don’t
remember anything.”

Zack’s smile faded. “Sorry.” It always came
back to Hess. “What was he like?”

“Hess,” Quebec said, “was
the best man and the worst Observer. Out of all of us, he was the
best at
doing things
. It didn’t matter what body he had, Hess could always take
care of himself. But he didn’t do abstract. He hated higher
mathematics and never got the hang of counting cards despite having
a perfect memory. He was always stepping in to interfere because
behind all his disapproval, he really cared for the
people.”

She wiped her eyes with a
sleeve. “Every Iteration, he would tell me that
this
body of mine was his favorite.
There were times when it drove me crazy, but he never stopped
saying it. And he always found me. Even if it took centuries, he
would search every moment until we met. In worlds with computers it
took only days. Except this one. I did everything I was supposed
to.”

Quebec looked directly at him. “How could
you forget me? I need you, Hess.”

Zack looked down at his hands.

Hess sipped his tea as he read the news by the
early morning light shining through the bay window of their squat
house. Alan ran into the room wearing his gray school uniform to
stand attentively at his side. Hess shuffled the paper, pretending
not to notice the boy.

Across the table, Elza hid a smile in her
tea, watching the people pass by their window. They had bought the
house for that window. Impractical as hell in the middle of a city
noted for its crime, the thing nevertheless provided a perfect
picture of the world for their enjoyment.

“Good morning, sir,” Alan said in the
high-pitched voice of a nine-year-old.

Hess moved as if startled. “Good morning,
Alan. How did you sleep?”

“Very good, sir.”

“Would you like me to grab you a cup of tea
and some toast?”

Alan's shoulders slumped. “Uh, yes, sir.
That would be nice.”

“Quit teasing him,” Elza said.

Hess reached into the pocket of his vest and
pulled out two coins. “Almost forgot our deal. I owe you something
from the bakery for getting good marks at the academy.” He placed
the coins on the table.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Enjoy it, Alan. You worked hard for
it.”

Alan scooped up the coins. “I don't mind
studying, sir. I like going to school.”

“Keep it up and you'll land a nice job
that'll allow you as many sweets from the bakery as you can
eat.”

Alan turned to go and hesitated. “Sir, when
I am older, if I do well in my studies and land a nice job like you
say, then I want to adopt an orphan off the streets like you and
the madam. Maybe a couple of them.”

“You're going to make a good man,” Elza
said.

“Thank you, madam.”

“Spend every cent, Alan,” Hess said.

When the child scampered from the room, Elza
turned back from the window. In this world the body she wore was
plain and plump. “If one of our fosters ever took after you, it's
this one.”

Hess returned his attention to the paper.
“Thirteen people died in a fire yesterday.”

She returned her attention to the window.
“Third fire this month. That should motivate the city council to
pass stricter building codes.”

“Everything they do is reactive. All it
would take is a little foresight to prevent these tragedies.” Hess
crumpled the paper and threw it into the fireplace. “They can't
look more than a few days into the future.”

“What do you expect from them, Hess? We've
seen the consequence of every action a thousand times, but the
brightest of them are little more than children. Besides, you don't
really want a world without conflict. Do you?”

“Definitely not. The second Iteration was a
disaster.”

“Not entirely,” Elza said. “There are a few
moments from that Iteration I always hold in my memory.”

Hess moved his seat next to hers. Outside,
people rushed to and fro, off to work or running chores. Alan would
probably be at the bakery by now. The boy had been starving to
death a year ago. The turning point in his life had been when a
sudden blizzard prevented him from returning to the slums after a
day spent begging. Alan should have frozen to death that night.
Instead, two Observers saw him from their bay window and let him
stay the night in their spare room. He waited out the snow a few
days, then agreed to stay on as a serving boy in exchange for room
and board. After a while, Hess had insisted Alan get an
education.

He leaned towards Elza. “Did you know Alan
calls us his parents?”

“I haven't heard it,” she said.

“Just to his friends.”

“Have you been spying on him?”

“Elza, I am an Observer. What do you
expect?”

“An Observer doesn't take in strays.”

“You didn't object.”

“Hess, I stopped objecting long ago. It
never did any good.”

As he opened his mouth, creation began to
rumble and scream, announcing the end of the world. Elza turned to
him, wincing at sirens audible only to Observers. “I guess that's
it for this one. The timing is a bit inconvenient. I was hoping to
see how Alan turned out.”

Hess looked out the window, at the world in
motion, ignorant that its end was seconds away. Alan was probably
biting into a pastry or sucking on a hard candy. He reached out for
Elza's hand. “Do you really want to see how he will turn out?” The
sky opened. It was as if the Creator had torn away a wall, exposing
them to whatever existed beyond the world. Just a thought would
send them free of the world. “Because I think we can.”

She smiled at him. “Find me fast.” Elza
vanished.

As the rumbling and
screaming grew in volume, he stared out the window.
At least Alan dies happy.
Hess stepped out of existence.

PART IV

It took close to an hour of awkward silence for
Quebec to regain her equilibrium. Zack used the time to reflect on
his failures. When Quebec informed him they were leaving for New
York that night and started a shower, he found the pen that had
failed to pick his lock and wrote a quick letter.

The hours I have spent with you have been
the best of my life. I wish I was Hess, but I’m not. Maybe he is
still out there somewhere, lost in a rainforest or trapped in the
arctic. I need to leave now. If I stay with you, I will only cause
you more pain. Remember your promise to stay away from the
others.

Zack took the car keys and slipped out of
the room. In the parking lot, the key fob identified her rental car
for him. He had her Prius on the road before anyone could exit the
hotel. Zack forced his mind to stillness as he drove past familiar
sights. It wasn’t until he parked at the gas station where he had
worked the past five years that his stomach began to churn.

His manager Kelly scowled at him the moment
he entered the store. “The hell have you been?”

Zack ignored her, depending on the line of
customers at the register to keep her occupied. He punched the
digits to Lacey’s cell phone number into the store’s phone and
listened to it ring. When it picked up on the fourth ring, just
before the voicemail would kick in, there was only breathing on the
other side.

“Do you still have Lacey?”

Erik’s voice replied. “She’s been whining
about that hand of hers.”

“Are you still willing to release her in
exchange for me?”

“Deal’s still on, lover-boy.”

“Then come pick me up. I’m at the gas
station.”

“No tricks?”

“No tricks. I’m turning
myself in.” He hung up the receiver and went outside to sit at the
employee’s break pavilion. His hands shook as he sat on the picnic
table.
Lacey wants to live and I don’t.
Maybe this will make up for the love I could never give
her.

Kelly stormed out of the store before Erik
arrived. “You better be quitting, because I don’t need the trouble
you cause. You miss your shift. You don’t even call. You don’t even
answer when I call.”

“I quit, Kelly.”

“Thank God,” she said. “Now get the hell off
company property. Check’s in the mail.”

“Just waiting on my ride. This will be the
last time you have to see my face.”

Kelly started back towards the store.
“There’s something wrong with you.”

The truck he had driven only that morning
pulled up before the pavilion. Erik waved him over, eyes steady as
an eagle's. “Hop in, Hess.” A quiet expectation had replaced the
levity.

Zack circled the truck and climbed into the
passenger seat. “All by yourself?”

“The others don't have the stomach for this.
I think next Iteration I'll be hunting you solo.” She glanced
towards him often as she drove. “I prefer it that way. Might take
longer to find you, but I won't have to deal with their rules.”

He remained silent, unable to think of a
safe response.

“They think I'm as bad as you,” Erik said.
“But all of us have our quirks. Things that draw us world after
world. Drake with the science and tech crap. Ingrid and religions.
Griff does the migrant worker shtick every time. Serial murders are
just another quirk. A useful one. You wouldn't believe how much
people reveal about themselves in extreme situations. The rest of
you think you learn human nature watching them putz about their
routines, but only I discover the truth.

“There is something magical in the moment an
individual chooses annihilation over continuation. You can bring
them back to the side of sanity, but if they cross the line too
many times they are broken forever. This is what I show the
Creator. The true reaction of life to its existence. You would be
surprised how weak the will to live is in the most fortunate. The
downtrodden have so much more fight in them. I think that says
something about the nature of these creatures.”

She pulled into the long driveway of the
farm, slowing the truck to a crawl. “Why did you return, Hess? What
pushed you across that magic line?”

Zack swallowed. “I've always been broken,
Erik.”

“We're not like them. Wounds vanish. Even
experiences fade into the background. We have too many of them to
fixate on any one for long. So what tipped the scales from life to
death?”

The game with Bridgette
posing as Elza was supposed to hurt me. Maybe I can convinced her
to stop hunting Quebec.
“Elza doesn't want
me anymore. She blames me for what happened to her.”

Erik considered his words. “Did she steal
you away from Kerzon just to return your mix tape? I don't believe
that, Hess. I think you would do anything to save your woman.”

She laughed. “I used to think I had more in
common with you than any of the others. Sure, you saved the people
and I killed them, but at heart the two of us were men of action –
even when I was a woman. I know better now. Your sympathy with the
people turned you against the Creator. I am loyal, Hess. Absolutely
and completely loyal. I will never forgive you for your stunt last
Iteration.”

The truck pulled to a stop before the barn.
Zack nearly collapsed to the ground on his shaky legs when he
stepped out of the vehicle. Erik crooked her finger to move him
forward. “Now that you are separated from the other woman, the two
of us can get on with our relationship. It will be a bit different
from what you're used to. More kink, less kissing. And more time in
the dark. Lacey told me about your nightlight.”