The Participants (9 page)

Elza rolled her eyes. “You say that about
every body I wear.”

“I mean it every time.”

“You may love me every time, Hess, but not
my body. I have been morbidly obese, disturbingly frail,
cross-eyed, and now elderly.”

“In their time, they were all my
favorite.”

“You just like to humor me. To be honest, it
gets tiring.”

The returning recollection bubbled up from
the endless eternity of his memory. Hess recalled dragging Elza to
the local brewery of every town they traveled through. They wore
matching middle-aged, dark-skinned bodies in that world. Elza had
rolled her eyes every time he asked the locals where the town
brewer lived. An associated recollection burst into his primary
memory, of Iteration ninety-five, when Elza produced the most
vitriolic substance ever called a wine. She had been a
breathtakingly beautiful blonde in that life, drawing the eyes of
every man who passed.

“At least I had the decency to give you
something drinkable in twenty-six. Do you remember when you had a
winery? That hellish liquid was not fit for human consumption. When
it didn't sell, I had to help drink the entire inventory.”

Elza blinked in surprise. “A winery?”

“In a minute you'll remember why you don't
recall it more often.”

They drank more of the
mead, which had subtle apple notes buried beneath its harshness.
Playing
remember when
over a glass of whatever poured was a tradition longer than
the entire recorded history of the current world. They remembered
every moment of their endless lives with perfect clarity, though
only a minute fraction of it fit into primary memory at any moment.
The time required to pull forth the seldom-accessed memories grew
longer as they continued to accumulate more experiences.

Some Iterations lasted much longer than
others, but a good approximation was a thousand years each, which
meant he had close to a hundred and forty-three thousand years of
life stored inside his eternal skull. Sometimes he felt ancient.
But never a hundred and forty-three thousand years ancient.

“You didn't drink more than a few bottles of
my wine,” Elza said. “We sold the bulk of it to be distilled into
grape liquor.”

“Really? Well, you can't deny it was
bad.”

Elza laughed. “It was terrible. You tried so
hard not to make a face when I let you do the first tasting after
it aged. I knew it wouldn't win any awards when it was still in
oak, but I didn't want to give up.”

“I really mean it,” Hess said. “This body of
yours is my favorite.”

“You must be trying to annoy me.”

“I'm serious.”

“Which is your second favorite?”

“The first,” he said.

“Lazy eye and all?”

“You know, I never knew I was lonely till
the day I wasn't.”

“Different question. Which body was the best
for a cozy?”

Hess swirled his mead. “You've asked this
before. Iteration six, no question about it.”

“I never understood your obsession with
curves,” she said.

“To be quite honest, Elza, neither do I. It
just is.”

They sat in silence. Hess slouched into his
chair. “I'm tired,” he said.

Elza put a hand to her forehead and spoke
with slurred words. “I think we've been poisoned again. Annoying.
Hope wears off fast.”

Crap. Hope it kills us –
effects will be shorter that way. If it's just inconvenient, it
could take hours for our bodies to purge the poison.
Hess tried to stand, but his legs couldn't
support him. He eyed the bell on the table by Elza's elbow. “Call
servants,” he said.

Elza rang the bell and they waited.

When the door opened, a servant and two
guards entered. “Help us to bed,” Elza said. The servant ignored
her and turned to face Hess. “Was your mead poisoned?”

An inside job. Great. This will start all
sorts of zombie rumors.

The servant's eyes followed every twitch of
his face in a familiar manner. “Observer,” he said. The servant, a
plain young woman, nodded. “It's Ingrid, Hess. And your sick game
of Empires ends now. We've debated among ourselves and decided that
your disobedience has to be punished.”

His tongue became too numb
for speech. Hess sought Elza with his eyes as the other Observers
placed him on the bed and wrapped him in linens. A frustrated anger
boiled within him.
I will make them regret
this.

PART III

His plan was to rent a room, clean himself up,
buy clean clothes, sleep for a few hours, and make his way into
Pittsburgh to catch a bus early in the morning. What happened was
Zack lay on his bed and fell asleep before he dredged up the
motivation to move.

He woke midmorning to the sound of talking
in the room next to his. Zack checked the clock, saw it was after
nine, and rolled out of the bed. In the bathroom mirror, he
appeared normal enough save for his clothing, which was sliced and
faded from repeatedly soaking in his blood. While the blood may
have vanished from his shirt and pants, the damage it had caused
remained.

Studying his appearance,
Zack decided a change of clothes would be worth the delay. Anything
that made him harder to spot could potentially save him. Which was
why he needed to abandon the truck as soon as possible.
Why didn’t I learn anything about the closest
city that didn’t come from a television? I really am a terrible
Observer.

Zack tore the wrapper from
the tiny hotel soap and turned on the water. He thoroughly washed
his face and hands. While he was toweling dry, Zack glanced at the
wedding band perched on his ring finger. He imagined Lacey at home,
clutching her phone, unsure if he lived or not.
She deserves to know. Well, maybe not know the truth, but to
have some sort of closure. If I tell her I know the baby isn’t
mine, then she can move on with her life.

The hotel room phone felt
heavy in his hands as he dialed Lacey’s number. He took a breath
and prepared himself for the accusation that would be in her voice.
The phone rang twice and picked up. “Hello?” The voice was Erik’s.
“Is that you, Zack Vernon?
Hess?
”

What is she doing with
Lacey’s phone? Shit, this is so wrong.
“What do you want?” he said.

“Hiya Hess! Seems like just yesterday you
were on the farm. So anyway, I was thinking you could stop over for
another visit. Lacey’s here right now and we were just talking
about how much happier she would be if you joined us.”

Zack had to clear his throat to speak. “Why
take her? She doesn’t know anything.”

“Same reason I abduct anyone. Cause I wanna
play. Now I want two things from you in exchange for the little
darling’s life, Hess. First, come back to the farm. Second, tell me
which one of these shitheads helped you escape.”

He squeezed his eyes
shut.
Am I supposed to just abandon her?
There has to be another way.
The solution
struck him. “I’ll call back with my decision in an
hour.”

“I don’t think so,” Erik said. “You call the
authorities and things go very, very bad. Things look squeaky clean
at the farm right now. Ingrid’s got the legal right to be here.
Cops won’t find shit if they show. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

“I’m not coming back to the farm,” Zack
said.

“That’s a shame. Well, you called to talk to
Lacey. Here she is.”

“Zack?” Lacey’s voice climbed octaves as she
spoke. “Why are they doing this? I’m afraid for the baby. Oh, God,
Zack, I am so afraid. She smashed my fucking hand with a hammer.
Please, Zack, please . . . I don’t know what I’m asking. Just, it’s
the baby. I don’t want the baby to die.”

Erik’s voice returned. “I can do a lot worse
than a hammer, Hess. I can cut her unborn child out of her and
slice the thing into pieces while she watches. By the standard of
these creatures, I'm pretty deranged, Hess. This woman would die a
death more horrifying than you can imagine. Mutilation means
something to a mortal that it never could to us. We see a mangled
limb and wait for the thing to fix itself, but they see a piece of
themselves irreversibly destroyed. You can’t imagine how easy it is
to terrorize them.”

There was silence on the line as Zack
thought. Finally, Erik spoke again. “How about a compromise?”

“
You want to catch me. I
don’t want caught. Not much room for compromise.”

“We’ve just got to be a little creative,
Hess. Stop treating things all binary-like. Instead of caught and
not-caught, let’s deal in degrees of risk. I’m willing to release
Lacey to you in a time and location you choose. You can make it as
public or as remote as your soft heart desires. The only
stipulation is that you show alone.”

Zack sighed. “Deal. We’ll meet at the
parking lot of buffalo plaza.”

“Less than a mile from a police station.
Well played, Hess. Just make sure you show alone. The professionals
haven’t been playing these games for nearly as long as I have. How
long will it take you to get there from the . . . Tarentum
Hyatt?”

Caller ID.
He grabbed the room key. “I’ll be there at ten.”
The moment he slammed the phone home, Zack was running through the
door.
They are always two steps ahead of
me.

She watched Hess haggle with an elderly man. They
spoke a different way in this region and Elza could understand only
one word in four. Hess didn’t seem to have any trouble
communicating with the locals, which he often claimed proved him
better traveled than her.

The elderly man pointed at
her and Elza felt her cheeks heat. Her body had grown stronger
during the three months they traveled at the maddening pace Hess
set for them. Hess shook his head
no
. When they weren't hiking at a
reckless pace, they were either procuring food or sleeping like the
dead. While hiking, she thought they carried too many supplies.
While making camp, she thought they carried far too few. Though the
lifestyle was far from comfortable, she could not deny it had done
her body some good. Hess looked back at her and mouthed
this one offered a whole tent for you.

Elza pointedly ignored the rest of the
negotiations. In the distance, there were tall mountains with white
rock caps Hess claimed were snow. They had walked for the remainder
of the spring season and through the entire summer. The two of them
had settled into a daily routine almost devoid of words. There
seemed no point to speaking when they could understand each other's
intentions so well through observation and words added only
arguments.

As Hess returned, she saw the small smile on
his face and decided they would argue that day. “I've discovered
that the secret to selling a woman,” he announced, “is telling
people she can't talk. That's the third offer.”

“You don't own me,” Elza said.

“I'm pretty sure I do. I traded Dalana for
you.” His eyes sparkled in the daylight. Elza looked away. She had
dreamed of him saving her again the previous night. She wished that
had been where the dream ended.

“We're both Observers. That means we're
equal.”

“Men own women in this world. Probably
because the Creator is a man.”

He could tell I planned to
pick a fight and beat me to it.
Elza
glared at Hess. “Have I ever mentioned that I don't like
you?”

“Regularly, but it doesn't bother me.”

“Then I'll find something else to say.”

“You know, if you were one of them, you
would be the most interesting thing I've ever observed,” Hess
said.

Elza held out her hand. “What did you
buy?”

“Not a tent. Those things cost an entire
woman this far north.”

“You don't have a woman to trade.”

“A lot of the people we meet think
otherwise.”

“What did you buy?”

“Nothing.”

“That will make a wonderful dinner tonight.
Or perhaps we will eat those skins you insist we carry
everywhere.”

Hess shrugged. “He offered a bundle of
apples for a deer pelt. We need the material to build a tent.”

“D
o you intend to starve to death?”

“We're going to set up camp for a few days
so we can hunt,” Hess said.

“So
I have to spend all night making traps?”

“I thought we might try something different
this time. I want you to come with me. You can have one of my extra
spears.”

Elza raised a brow. “You say I scare away
the animals when I go with you.”

“Animals are a lot like men. Too much
talking keeps them away.”

“And they both smell,” Elza added.

Hess stopped walking and pulled his three
spears free of his pack. The things broke faster than the
fire-hardened variety used by settled tribes, but otherwise served
them well. He selected one and handed it to her. Elza hefted it
overhand.

“No, no, no,” Hess said. He dropped
everything to the ground except one spear and demonstrated the
proper stance. Elza mimicked him as best she could. When he shook
his head, she fixed him with a warning look. “What am I doing
wrong?”

Hess put his last spear down. “Try
again.”

She bent slightly at the knees and lifted
the spear up to her ear. Hess stepped close and placed one hand on
her shoulder. “Lean forward.” His other hand touched the hip
closest him. “Center yourself.”

“I'm not very good at this,” she said.

The breath of his laugh tickled her cheek.
“It might take some time.”