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and preheated the oven. With economical
motions, he went about cutting sweet potatoes into fries. Cooking
was a calming ritual for him. It combined simple tasks with the
freedom for nearly unlimited variability. When the fries were cut,
Hess pulled a tub of rendered duck fat from the fridge and tossed a
portion of it into a skillet to heat up.
    Elza's parents were coming over for a late
dinner. She had suggested eating out, but Hess needed the outlet
cooking provided. Despite what everyone in the community assumed
about Elza's frequent overnight stays, precious little happened
that Hess would consider an outlet.
    Whatever consumed Elza left no room for the
two of them. It was worse than the stretch in Iteration one hundred
and four when she had despaired that they had already witnessed all
the variety that humanity had to offer. Everything he had said to
comfort her then had driven her further from him until it
culminated in a year-long separation. When she had finally
returned, Elza had told him that even if the people never did
anything new, she thought there were further insights they could
discover.
    This time, he didn't know what problem
haunted Elza. She wasn't sharing and he knew better than to
push.
    Hess pulled a bag of fresh green beans from
the fridge and drizzled walnut oil onto a pan. While the oil
heated, he pulled a pomegranate from the fridge and prepared it
with deft strokes of a paring knife. The meal he had devised
consisted of a salad topped with pomegranate and a balsamic
vinaigrette, then a medium rare flank steak with a side of sweet
potato fries and sauteed green beans, with a dessert created from
frozen banana slices.
    Before he could start cooking the green
beans, a knock at the door interrupted him. Hess wiped his hands
before going to the door and peeking through the eye hole. On the
other side, a waif-thin white woman waited. Her faded eyes flashed
to the eye hole, no doubt noticing movement there, then rapidly
moved on, taking in detail after detail in a meticulous
fashion.
    Hess felt his lip curl into a snarl. Observer. He yanked the door open, seized the waif by an
arm, and pulled her into his house. As she swung past him, Hess
looped his other arm around her neck. A combination of her momentum
and his rapid shoulder roll snapped the woman's spine.
    Hess closed his front door and dragged the
Observer's body to his basement before she could resurrect.
     
     

Chapter 7 – Erik / Iteration 145
    People took one
look at him and melted into the background. His stocky build didn't
have much to do with it. The somber cap of the Investigator's Corps
scared people all by itself. In theory, Investigators couldn't
violate the rights of a citizen without the prior approval of an
elected judge. The restrictions were even greater for Deputy
Investigators like him. But the power of his office made the rules
nice and elastic.
    Of course, it wasn't all rainbows. The world
was four months old and he had yet to entice the ugly truth free of
one of the pathetic creatures. He liked to start every Iteration
with a creative interrogation. Last time he had combined two of his
favorite methods: silence and chemistry.
    The silence really messed with the people.
Turned the torture up a notch. His first victim last Iteration had
been a sinewy biker with steely eyes and a chiseled face. A tough
bastard. For the first hour, at least. Then the threats and manly
curses gave way to pleading and questions. Why are you doing
this? What did I do to you? Why won't you say anything? That
man had not particularly enjoyed having pepper spray squirted into
his eyes.
    Erik's lips twitched towards a smile. He had
broken that man by dribbling a solution of water and lye over one
of his feet until the skin melted off of him into a gory puddle.
Lye always ended the game quicker than Erik liked, but watching the horrified reactions of the people to their liquefied flesh
never got old.
    Four months. Every day, at least one of the
people did