The Participants (3 page)

“You should've stayed dead, Zack,” Maggie
said.

I wish it was that
easy,
he thought. Aloud he said, “I'm on
break. You handle the register.” Zack went outside to the employee
break pavilion and sat on a picnic table, watching his wife cry in
her car and wondering why the Creator needed an Observer. He did
nothing about the former and came to no conclusion on the
latter.

Half of the women abducted with Elza were claimed
on the first day. Kallig, the leader of the brutes, granted each
claim after a dramatic pause. His men seemed to have a good sense
of their place in the social order and none made a selection before
his betters were done. The division of spoils was handled in a
solemn fashion by the brutes. The women all wept quietly in
acceptance of their fate except for one who chose to struggle. That
one was held down while her new man claimed her before everyone.
The others were too numb to resist.

Hess watched the proceedings from a
distance, scowling his disapproval. Kallig shouted for Hess to
leave several times, but the other men pretended not to notice
their witness. Elza already had a good feel for the group dynamic
of this tribe, but Hess did not fit into the system. The tribe was
ruled by fear and intimidation. The strongest and fiercest men
commanded great respect. The weaker men endured the abuse of their
betters. The women born into the tribe presented a meek face to the
men but had a parallel power structure among themselves. The only
person who didn't fit was Hess.

She didn't understand why Kallig constantly
berated Hess, nor why Hess ignored the insults and commands. Kallig
would not tolerate disobedience from someone he could kill.
Affection obviously did not exist between Hess and him, so fear
must hold his hand. But if Hess was superior in battle, why did he
restrain himself? Did his status as an outsider mean that the other
men would not follow him? Or did he object to the brutality of the
others? If so, then why did he stay?

The puzzle of Hess was a welcome distraction
from speculating on her fate. When the selections were done that
first night, the un-chosen women slept fitfully on the bare earth
while their relatives and friends were taken into the tents of the
men. Elza noted the condition of her unwanted companions that
night: gray hair, rotted teeth, unsightly blemishes, and sickly
frames. Despite her apparent youth and health, in terms of
attractiveness men grouped Elza with the old and disabled. She
liked to think it made her more objective, but tonight she worried
that the rejection of the men would come to cause her greater pain
in the morning.

All of the women knew their future was grim.
Being taken tonight would be bad, but being taken tomorrow would be
worse. They had no future in this tribe of brutality but to suffer.
If Elza could not slip away soon, the men would discover that her
wounds vanished in moments. Given their sadistic streak, that could
lead to a rather long torture session.

Elza spotted a sentry the moment she sat up.
His outline turned towards her movement. She lay back on the
ground. They were waiting for someone to attempt an escape.
Throughout the night, she periodically checked to see if the
sentries were awake. They always were. Morning dawned without her
sleeping a single moment.

The camp came awake slowly, first children
bringing the embers of the previous night's fires back to life,
then women grinding acorns into meal for bread cooked on hot
stones. The men ate smoked meat and bread before separating into
hunting parties and guards. The unwanted women huddled together as
the camp went about its normal activities. They remained unmolested
unless they tried to move beyond the circle of earth where they had
been left.

When Hess approached at
midmorning, the women were grateful to receive a visitor. The
guards averted their eyes when Hess passed. One of the old women
asked what would happen to them. Hess knelt in their center.
“
Do you have a skill?
You may be able to save yourself if you can tan hides or braid rope
or mix medicines.” Hess's normally firm gaze darted to the scenery
as he spoke, and Elza knew his words were lies.

The women began to throw out useful skills
they knew. Hess deliberated on each offering before agreeing it
would be nice to have someone in their tribe who could weave fish
traps and knap flint and work clay. The mood rose as the women
latched onto the hope Hess provided them.

Elza pondered the question Hess had posed
the previous day. Why did no one besides Hess care about the
condition of the women? It was the question of a child too young to
understand that concepts such as fairness and justice were a
fiction created by doting parents. People always did what provided
them the most benefit in their circumstances. They raised children
with affection to ensure care in their old age. They cooperated to
maximize food and safety for all. They fought strangers to preserve
their own lives. In some tribes, like this one, they brutalized one
another to avoid being the victim.

But Hess did not fit into this tribe. He
violated the natural order and survived. She waited until his gaze
crossed hers and spoke. “Do you have an answer to your own
question? Why is it that no one else cares what happens to us?”

“I've been thinking about you, woman. What
is your name?”

Her cheeks burned as she answered.
“Elza.”

“You don't fit in with your people, Elza.
You are smart. You notice things.” His eyes darted to the other
women. “Don't you think things are better now than before? Imagine
if every person tried to make the world better. Life does not have
to be the way it is.”

Elza noted the firmness of his voice
contrasted with his hunched posture. There was some conflict within
him. “You didn't answer the question.”

“I guess I didn't. This probably won't mean
anything to you, but the answer to my question is that He made this
world wrong.” Hess placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke softly.
“I'm sorry, but the only help I can give is false hope. You would
make a fascinating study under better conditions.”

After he departed, one of the women spoke to
her. “I think he may choose you as his woman.” Another nodded.
“This is a good time for a man to like you, Elza. He can protect
you from the others.”

She tried to support their delusions with a
hopeful smile. They didn't know how to watch people. Hess didn't
see a woman. He saw a subject to study, the same as when she looked
at people. Elza had never expected to see it from one of them. What
caused such a thing to develop in a man? If she survived, maybe she
would have a chance to ask him. Of course, her observations would
be contaminated once she survived her execution.

One of the guards came over to them. “What
did Hess say? Is he going to kill Kallig with his powers?”

A woman hastily responded that Hess only
wanted to know if they had useful skills for the tribe. The guard
pondered that. “No one knows what Hess will do. The men are
frightened.”

Elza frowned. “What powers does Hess have?”
This was something she had never encountered before.

“Hess is older than my father's father and
cannot be hurt by weapons. They say he knows your thoughts just by
looking at you.”

Elza stood slowly and faced
the direction Hess had gone. He sat on a rock nearby, looking in
her direction. His last words echoed in her ears.
You would make a fascinating study under better
conditions.
Everything turned surreal as
she realized something completely unexpected. Other Observers
existed –she was looking right at one.

Zack turned off his cell-phone when reporters
discovered his number, which was towards the end of his shift. By
the time Zack got home, the news had run not only the picture
Maggie snapped with her phone, but also the damning video from the
store camera, which someone had uploaded to the internet. The
confrontation with Lacey began the moment he walked through the
door and lasted for over an hour, only ending when Lacey began to
cry. Zack uttered false assurances that he was happy, did love her,
and thought life was great.

They ate a dinner of tater tots and chicken
nuggets microwaved to a soggy mess while they watched the local
news. Zack listened to a segment on road construction around
Pittsburgh while Lacey pushed food around on her plate. “One of us
needs to learn how to cook before the baby gets here.”

“I know how to cook,” Zack said.

“Microwaves don't count, hon.”

“I cook food at work every day.”

“That thing at your work is just a big
toaster. I'm talkin' about real food.”

The news anchors began discussing a recent
crime spree targeting hubcaps. “Real food, huh? Don't you think
it's hard to define real food when no one is certain what is real
in the first place?”

“Real is when you can see and touch
something. It's not complicated, Hon.”

“It's not just seeing and touching. It's
perceiving and remembering, which are unreliable mental processes.
Let's give a hypothetical situation where the world began five
years ago.”

Lacey snorted. “World's lot older than
that.”

“How can anyone really know the age of the
world? If the world sprang into existence five years ago, fully
formed with a complete but false history, no one would know. Fake
memories would match fake records.”

“And Santa Clause has a magic sleigh too,”
Lacey said.

Zack smiled. “Who knows, right?”

“Pretty sure I know.”

“You
think
you know.”

“I know what you do at work ain't real
cooking.”

“How about making candy bar milkshakes? Is
that real cooking?”

“Hell no. And you still owe me a new blender
for that.”

“It tasted good, though.”

“Not as good as Dairy Queen.”

The news returned to the story of the
shooting. “Today in Sarver, a robbery goes bad and an employee
loses his life. Except he's completely unharmed. Watch the security
footage and decide if this is a miracle or a hoax.” Zack turned off
the television. Seeing himself on the news drove home the
realization of how bad he had screwed up.

“Wow,” Lacey said, “I didn't think anything
could make you skip the news.”

“Just make sure the baby comes at a
convenient time.”

“You watch the news in the delivery room and
I'll put the remote where you don't want it.”

After they finished dinner,
Zack washed the mismatched dishes in the sink and replaced them in
the cupboard while Lacey painted her nails at the table, filling
their cramped trailer with fumes that couldn’t be healthy. Zack
grabbed a Penn Dark from the fridge and sat across from his
wife.
Cue a comment about the cost of
microbrews.

“Y’know, if you didn’t have to buy fancy
Penn Brewery beer, we could get cable.”

“Cable costs a bit more
than that, Lacey.”
Next she’ll mention
texting.

“
We could at least get
texting on our plan. I’m the only person at work without
it.”

Zack began to peel the label, watching Lacey
from the corner of his eye, waiting for her to mention Kelly Green,
a former friend and compulsive label peeler whom Lacey
despised.

“You know that annoys the hell out of me,”
she said.

Zack grunted. Usually he could direct her
side of the conversation for at least five exchanges. Once he got
twelve in a row, but he hadn’t managed a roll like that in over a
month. Instead of becoming more predictable with familiarity, Lacey
grew increasingly temperamental. Zack thought that was his fault.
His intimate influence rendered Lacey a contaminated subject.
Instead of observing her behavior, he was observing her reactions
to him.

He turned his attention to the bottle in his
hands. The brewery was half an hour south, on the north side of
Pittsburgh. It produced a range of beer varieties, but Penn Dark,
their version of a German Dunkel, was his favorite. He thought it
might be nice to visit the place one day, but his daily routine
already demanded too much energy from him.

Zack wondered if he would have been happier
under different circumstances. When this world sprang into
existence, he was given the identity of Zack Vernon,
twenty-year-old heir to a recently deceased business executive and
owner of an investment portfolio worth seven million dollars. In
his first day of life, Zack had contemplated his options. The money
afforded him the ability to travel, live an extravagant lifestyle,
pursue an education, or walk the world without the requirement of
working.

In the terrifying darkness of his first
night, Zack resolved to get rid of the money. The rash decision
survived into the light of day and Zack arranged for everything he
possessed to be donated to helping orphans. Zack had been surprised
by how little transgressing the Divine Command bothered him.

Faced with the requirement to work, Zack
took the first opening he could find that would allow him to
observe people. Five years later, he still worked at the same gas
station convenience store. The only significant change to his life
had been the appearance of Lacey.

Zack threw the empty bottle in the trash and
prepared for bed. He changed clothes, washed his face, brushed his
teeth, checked the nightlight was plugged into the outlet, and
climbed under the covers. He stared at the cheap glow-in-the-dark
star stickers he had plastered to the ceiling and imagined the
aftermath of his death. People screaming, robbers running, Maggie
snapping her photo, Lacey crying, paramedics racing, and him in a
puddle of blood and brains, feeling nothing. Tears slipped free of
his eyes. He had almost escaped.