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  “Children are going off of what the Creator programmed into their biology. Body says live, so they live. Teenagers got more brains, so they can override the program when their shorts give them a wedgie. But then adults get a jolt of self-preservation hormones when they have cum-stains running around. Then the inconvenience of getting all decrepit makes them ready to give up. Deep shit, right?”

  Ingrid slapped the table. “Do we really have to listen to this? Your insights aren't deep Erik. They're sick. They're twisted. They're simple-minded.”

  “Aw, honey, are you ragging it? Cause if you are, I still do not give a shit. I will start doing things if anyone interrupts me again. Try to get some objectivity! You're Observers, not people.

  “Anyway, here's some fascinating factoids. Men last longer than women. Soldiers do fantastic as a segment. Malnourished or diseased people got no will to live, but that's mostly biology, I think. Hoodlums probably win. They're survivors. Mostly, that is. They never survive some quality time with moi.

  “So the moral of the story is that creation despises existence. Which, I suppose, the lot of you suiciding turd-suckers already knew. But wait, there's more!

  “See, before I killed anyone, I asked a question. Why do you hate Creation? They told me some bullshit, I gave em a quick finish. Then, last Iteration, I made a friend while the Church of the Demiurge kept me in their lovely torture hotel. Made lots of friends, actually, but this one was a friend friend. Not a real friend – I'm still being ironic. But not like a gonna-hurt-you-so-bad friend. More like a wanna-see-how-you-react friend.

  “Anyway, bitch was quite the conversationalist. I told her all about my routine. Then my main man Hess broke me out of the slammer. So I reconnected with my friend friend from the inside. And before I even got started with my thing, she blows my fucking mind.

  “Said some stuff about fear taking over people. Then the big reveal. The people don't have a purpose.” Erik brandished his hands as if he had performed a magic trick. His eyes darted from face to face. “Did you fucking hear me? The people don't have a purpose.”

  Hess put a hand to his forehead. “Erik, I'm certain none of us are following your line of reasoning. Unless you're telling us that you have yet another excuse to hurt the people.”

  “Not at all.” Erik slumped in his seat. “You're all fucking morons. Let me lay it out for you. The Creator made animals as creatures of instinct. Made us with the mental power to ignore instinct but gave us the divine command. What about the people? Too much brains to go along with the instinct programming. No divine command to guide them.

  “They are the closest thing to a blank slate you can get with a conscious creature. People have no purpose. That's why they're always suiciding. No purpose means no reason to live. But no purpose isn't the end, cause they can adopt a purpose.

  “That's what we need to be studying. Much as I enjoyed my old job, a new way has presented itself. I need to study the people who make a new purpose for their lives. Like dictators or innovators or gladiators. Only problem is I can't use my usual methods if I want to get a good understanding of their raison d'être.

  “But that's cool, cause I realized that since I'm part of the Creator, I deserve a hobby. And my new hobby is – you guessed it – torturing! Even though it was my job all those years, I never lost the passion for it, which I think is the true sign of a good torturer.

  “That's my spiel, y'all. Bring on the debate.”

  Hess sighed. “I know I'm probably going to regret this, but why do you like torture?”

  Erik pointed a finger at Hess. “Good question, you brown noser. I like torture for many reasons. First, it's hard not to enjoy something you're good at. And I am like the gold fucking medalist of torturing. Second, it brings out all the legit emotions, cuts through all the fakey shit. Another reason is that people deserve it. Choosing not to embrace life is insulting to the Creator.” Erik turned to Elza. “Come on, lazy-eye, hit me up with a question.”

  “I have no questions for you,” she said.

  “Then maybe you have a comment? Criticism? Sick burn? Don't hold back, Fraulein, the two of us are tight as protons and neutrons.”

  Elza pursed her lips in thought. “You never made anything close to a logical argument, so there isn't anything concrete to attack. But I can criticize your experimental design. More accurately, your lack of one. I have observed in your recitations that your chosen methods are commensurate with your estimation of your victim. You put in extra effort to break challenging subjects and move slowly to stretch out your time with those you consider more delicate. There is no objectivity – not even the illusion of it. All your data is useless.”

  Erik shrugged. “We'll agree to disagree. We done, shitheads?”

  Chapter 18 – Erik / Iteration 1

  Before anything else, there was knowledge. A collection of simple, profound facts. The first formed the absolute bedrock of an identity: I am an Observer. The second provided context: It is my duty to observe this world on behalf of the Creator who made it. The third gave a sense of the future: Before the world is destroyed, the sky will open so I can give my report. And the final fact promised more: There will be other worlds. Those four facts and the minimal context necessary to understand them were everything.

  Then came sensation. Sight, scent, and touch erupted into existence. Smell of salty sea air and smoke. Feel of coarse clothing and smothering heat and sandy soil. Sight of a breathtaking expanse of sky meeting glimmering green-blue water at the horizon. The world. Nothing moved, and there was an intuitive understanding that this moment existed outside of time in the realm of creation.

  And the moment was glorious. The Creator's Observer studied the scene, content to exist and marvel at the display. How far did the world extend into the distance? Did it even have an end? What would change when things began to move?

  Memories poured forth, dim in comparison to the brilliant experience of the present, detailing a life lived in this world. A complete history arrived within the mind of the Creator's Observer, providing a meticulously prepared identity.

  The name of the identity was Ressi. She had lived among a tribe of fishermen for all sixteen years of her life, playing on the beach with the other children, cooking fish over smoldering flames with the grown women, stitching together the skins of animals with sinew to make clothing, swimming in the warm waters at every free moment.

  Ressi's prize possession was a crude doll fashioned by her deceased mother. Her favorite food was soup made from squid and seaweed. Her best friend was a girl named Annit. The men of the tribe often watched Ressi with desire, appreciating the grace of her body and the beauty of her face. So far, her father Kenja had refused to allow any man to take her, but the day would come soon when a man would do more than ask.

  The Creator's Observer devoured the memories. So many experiences awaited her in this world. She would collect every observation possible for the Creator. Learn everything about the people and their world.

  “Ressi, get over here,” Kenja barked. Her father projected a presence far grander than his slight frame. As the best spear fisher of the tribe, he commanded much respect. Though, given that the world had begun so recently, Kenja had never actually spear fished – a fact only she knew.

  Ressi slipped into her clothes as she approached their hut, noting the way her father's eyes chastely avoided the contours of her body. She recalled that he had never taken a woman since her mother died. Yet it was known in the tribe that men's passions were as wild and uncontrollable as the flames of a fire. Had grief truly quenched the heat of his loins?

  She noticed a tension in Kenja's jaw as she approached. Quick as the leap of a fish, his palm struck Ressi on the side of the head, sending her tumbling to the ground. She blinked away her startlement. “Get in the hut,” Kenja said.

  She moved to obey, then stopped. “Why did you hit me?”

  Kenja scowled. “You like running around bare for all the men of the tribe? Do you not see the
desire of their eyes? You are too young, Ressi.”

  The Creator's Observer remembered this man as a doting father still grieving for a woman he had lost more than five years past. He rarely struck her, but then again, swimming unclothed in the waters was something she had not done in years. She had swum nude today because in the thrill of her first day of existence, she had yearned to feel everything.

  Kenja pointed at the hut. “Get in.”

  She ducked inside their home, glanced from the roof of layered broad-leaf above to the dirt floor below. Between the two surfaces was an empty room holding two sleeping mats. Along walls of loosely bound bamboo rested personal items. So strange, to see a place she remembered falsely. She wondered if all the experiences of the people were as dim as her memories from before the world began. If so, that would make them rather dull of mind.

  “Go to sleep,” Kenja said.

  On her sleeping mat, Ressi listed to her father toss and turn. In the twilight of evening, she desired nothing less than sleep. The world called to her, promising to reveal wonders untold. She sat up, eliciting an angry grunt from Kenja. He would not allow his daughter, the remnant of a woman he loved in spite of death and time, roam the night.

  She glanced at the door, then at her father. The man was not yet gray, so surely he still felt passion. Ressi slipped free of her clothing. The resemblance between her and her dead mother was said to be strong. Surely Kenja would appreciate the similarity. Incest was common enough despite the stigma.

  Ressi rolled closer to her father, sliding a hand along his silhouette in the dark, touching knee, hip, side, belly, and chest. He lay silent. Ressi pressed herself against him, trying to piece together what she knew of sex. It was not much beyond the basic mechanics. Insert that into this. The women were divided over whether or not the act brought pleasure.

  Lacking any practical knowledge, Ressi decided to simply touch his manhood. Her fingers discovered him already hard. As she traced his anatomy, Kenja moaned softly. She wrapped her hand around him and stroked with silky slow deliberateness. Her father's hips moved counter to her own motion.

  “What are you doing?” His whisper came harsh in her ears.

  “I want to try sex.”

  “This is wrong, Ressi. Your mother . . . .”

  “Is dead,” she said.

  Kenja pulled away from her. “Why are you acting this way?” She stretched out her hand and he seized it. “Tell me why, Ressi. Why would you shame your mother's memory like this?”

  “I don't care about her memory. I want to try sex.”

  His fist connected without warning, hidden by the darkness. Ressi blinked tears free of the battered eye. She never anticipated his reaction would be so strong. “Your loins still have fire. Do you lust for a memory?”

  Whatever reaction she expected, it was not what happened. Kenja leaped on top of her and rained down his fists, growling in wordless fury. Ressi tried to block the strikes, but he effortlessly pinned her arms beneath his knees. As she lay gasping, heart racing, trying to flinch back into the ground to avoid each blow, Ressi began to scream.

  Stone hard fingers seized her throat, squeezing hard enough to crumple her windpipe and make the blood rush in her head. Ressi began to buck, trying to dislodge the beast on top of her. She couldn't escape. She couldn't even free a hand to claw at her throat.

  Her heart thundered. Ressi thrashed wildly. I'm going to die! No, I am the Creator's Observer! No! No! Her vision faded from the outsides to the sound of hollow ringing.

  The Creator did not appear to save her. The world faded from her perception. An Observer meant to outlast entire worlds died on her first day of life. Bitterness faded into nothingness.

  Ressi woke with a start, finding herself floating in the water. She got her footing in time to see her father disappear into his hut. For a few moments, her hands traced the lines of her unbruised throat, verifying she was unharmed. Then she left the water as quietly as possible and walked away from the huts of her tribe.

  Of course I cannot die, she thought. The people get old and die. And they are always taking injuries. If I am to live through whole worlds, then of course the Creator made me to survive.

  Her feet carried her around the bend and out of sight of her tribe. Ressi collapsed onto a rock and stared out at the quarter-moon rising over the crashing water. Despite everything, she had to admit that the world was beautiful. And if the experience with her father taught her nothing else, it taught her that she did not have to fear death.

  Now she could walk away from the tribe to wander the world. Everyone would think her dead. Her father would probably tell the others of the tribe some lie. They would believe him because he had a reputation. Fiery pain shot up Ressi's jaw, the first she realized she had clenched it.

  The things Kenja had done to her . . . . No one should be able to do those things to her. She was the Creator's Observer. She represented the one who had brought this majestic world into existence.

  Her brow drew down. She could not die, but her father could. Ressi wandered back towards the hut of her father. She stopped outside to grasp at one of the spears he used for fishing, sending the others crashing to the ground in her haste.

  “Who is that?”

  Ressi began to back away as the flap to the hut swung open. The figure before her startled. For a moment she froze. Then the fiery rage within her flared. Ressi drove the spear into her father's gut, pulled it free, and slammed it home again.

  Kenja stumbled back into his home and fell onto his back.

  The Creator's Observer approached, placed both hands on the haft of the spear, and rocked it back and forth, eliciting a moan from the man it impaled. “You wouldn't put your stick in me, so I'll put my stick in you,” she growled, wishing more hateful words existed to throw at him.

  “Ressi, don't do this, I'm your father!”

  “I am not Ressi!” She glared at him. “Do you really think a woman could come back to life? Do you think your daughter could shove a spear into your middle?”

  She pulled the spear free and stabbed again. The man who had seemed so powerful before wept as she claimed her vengeance.

  “Please,” Kenja moaned, “please.”

  She sneered down at the pathetic creature before her. “I can't believe I feared you. Never again. The Creator's Observer fears nothing.”

  Later that night, she departed the lands of her tribe. As she left, her sole regret was that she hadn't caused enough pain to the man who dared try to harm her, the Creator's Observer.

  Chapter 19 - Hess

  Following Erik's presentation, they rented horses and attached the travois Hess had constructed the previous night. With their advert for overpriced wood prominently displayed, they moved to their first target.

  The house sat outside of town, its fenced back yard holding a large coop packed with chickens. Outside the fence sat a large silo spilling kernels of maize from its base, and beyond that a shed with split logs aging at its rear and along one side.

  Hess led their horses a stone's throw into the forest, checked that the two travois were properly seated, and began liberating armfuls of aged oak. Erik matched his every move, slinking through the woods without a sound, hauling loads of ill-gotten boiler fuel.

  Sweat soaked every inch of their bodies and clothing by the time their travois were loaded to capacity. Hess brushed away splinters of wood and peeled damp clothing off his body. A sour musk emanated from him to assault his nose.

  Ignoring his discomfort, he led his horse along the road behind Erik. They passed through town and down the harbor road. It took an hour and a half walking their beasts of burden. They passed the piers, turned onto a windy private drive, and deposited their cargo in the main room of the shack Erik had procured for their use.

  They reversed their trip and got a second load from the same house. After unloading that, their next haul came from a small cottage closer to their destination. A single raid emptied out all the wood at that cottage.
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br />   Following a much needed break, they swung by another of the targets Hess had identified. Due to the presence of children in the yard, they had to give it a pass. They returned to the first house and claimed the remainder of the wood there. It was enough for half a load each.

  As they stood breathing hard, Hess studied the silo. Holding up a finger for silence, he snuck up to the structure and took a handful of maize. The kernels felt dry. He returned to Erik. “Better idea. Tomorrow we'll fill burlap sacks with corn. It burns about the same as wood.”

  “Sounds fan-fucking-tastic to me. I'm not a fan of the logs.”

  They unloaded the wood, hid the travois, returned the horses, and entered the hotel. Hess bathed, went to dinner, and passed out for the night seconds after his head touched the pillow. The next morning he woke late and had to skip breakfast to make it to the conference room on time.

  Chapter 20 – Hess

  Greg greeted each of them by name as they took their seats. When the last of them, Drake, appeared and slumped into a chair, Greg began his presentation. “Over the worlds, each of us drifted into a specialty. Mine was academia. I enjoy being around intelligent people and learning new things. Especially I enjoy historical analysis. And to head off the inevitable accusation, I also very much enjoy being safe and comfortable.

  “My understanding of our mission has evolved over time. At first, anything was worthy of my attention. Later, I came to the conclusion that diversity was the key feature. Thank you for the dramatic eye rolls, everyone – those were right on cue. Before you stop listening, allow me a few moments to put my revelation into context.

  “Piggy-backing off of Griff's ideas, I would like you to imagine nothingness. Ignore for the moment the impossibility of understanding non-existence, our limited imaginations should more than suffice for this illustration. There is a key defining feature of nothing. Have any of you pictured the concept as containing any contrast? I doubt it. The typical visualization is of blackness, which isn't quite right, but right enough.