Mercury Shrugs

by Robert Kroese

  “What?” Christine asked, craning her neck to see the display.

  “Two blips,” said Mercury. “The portal is opening. Come on!” He took off running toward the dome in the distance.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Let’s go,” said Jacob. Christine nodded, and they set off together after Mercury. Christine heard Nisroc close behind. They went through an open door and followed Mercury to a clearing in the wilted jungle. When they got there, Mercury was on his hands and knees in front of it, combing through the dirt.

  “Mercury,” Christine gasped, out of breath. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for something to use as a weapon. A rock, anything.”

  “Can’t you just use, you know, miracles?”

  “Sure. So can Lucifer. But a nice big rock would give me an edge.”

  “How about, unck, this?” asked Jacob, stepping into the glow of the portal holding a rock a little larger than his fist.

  “Perfect!” cried Mercury, seizing the rock. As he did so, a massive horned demon flickered into being on the portal. Christine recognized him; she had met him once before: Azrael, a minion of Lucifer. He was still standing on the portal, trying to adjust his vision to the dim light, when Mercury smacked him in the forehead with the rock. Azrael staggered backwards and fell to the ground.

  “Woohoo rock!” exclaimed Mercury. “Nothing beats rock!” He drew the rock back over his shoulder, ready for someone else to come through. Christine, Jacob and Nisroc waited breathlessly.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Azrael groaned.

  “Nisroc,” said Mercury. “Make sure he doesn’t get up. Hit him with another rock if you have to. Jacob, find Nisroc another rock.”

  “Is Lucifer coming through?” asked Christine.

  “I would think so,” said Mercury. “He must have sent Azrael through to check things out. It’s funny, because when I left, Azrael had… oh.”

  “What?”

  Mercury’s brow furrowed. “This is… he sent Azrael through first. Before I went through. Then he reset the portal for later, so I got here before he did.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Azrael went through the time portal before I did, but it was set for a few hours later, so he’s just showing up now.”

  Azrael groaned again.

  “I thought I told you to hit him with a rock,” said Mercury.

  “We can’t find any,” said Nisroc. “Can we borrow yours?”

  “Why did you hit me?” asked Azrael, sitting up and rubbing his head.

  “You’re working for Lucifer,” said Jacob.

  “Sure, but I don’t mean any harm,” said Azrael. “I’m just checking things out. Hey, how the hell did you get here?” Azrael had apparently recognized Mercury.

  “Long story,” said Mercury, taking a step toward Azrael, rock still at the ready.

  “Wait!” cried Azrael. “You don’t have to hit me! I’m not going to do anything!”

  “Okay, listen,” said Mercury. “I need you to go back through the portal and tell Lucifer the portal didn’t work.”

  “But it obviously did work,” said Christine. “I mean, Lucifer is going to know he went somewhere.”

  “Right, right,” said Mercury. “Okay, tell him it’s not safe. Tell him you were attacked. But not by me. You can’t tell him I was here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Look, Azrael. Lucifer is messing with stuff he doesn’t understand. Paradoxes, causal loops, impossibilities. You know what I’m talking about. I shouldn’t even be here. And if we let him get away with this, it’s going to get worse. We could all just disappear and it would be like we never existed.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I’ve seen it,” said Mercury. “I’m from the future.”

  “And I don’t exist?”

  “Nope.”

  “You mean I just vanished?”

  “No, you never even existed. I never even heard of you.”

  “Then how did you know who I was?”

  “I didn’t,” said Mercury.

  “But you called me by my name.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Mercury. “See, now you’re remembering things that never happened. It’s the first step in the annihilation process.”

  “Gaaahhh!” cried Azrael. “What do I do? How do I stop it?”

  “Calm down,” said Mercury. “Just go back through the portal. Tell Lucifer it’s not safe here.”

  “Not safe how?”

  “Who cares? Tell him you were attacked by cavemen.”

  “Cavemen?” said Azrael, frowning. “Like, actual people living in caves?”

  “I feel like you’re getting a little bogged down in the details here, Azrael. Just tell him you were attacked. It’s not safe.”

  “Then what do I do?”

  “Damned if I know. Whatever you want, I guess. If I were you, I’d get the hell away from Lucifer, but that’s your call. Just do it quick, before Lucifer sends somebody else through.”

  Azrael nodded slowly and got to his feet. “Okay,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you later.”

  “Yep,” said Mercury. “Have a nice trip.”

  Azrael stepped onto the portal and vanished.

  Christine turned Mercury. “Okay, now what?”

  “Now Lucifer has Drekavac set the portal back a few hours, and I go through and show up here.”

  “No, I mean now what do we do? Should Jacob and I go through the portal?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Mercury. “You’d be walking into a hostage situation. Being stuck in 7,000 B.C. is better than being dead.”

  “Maybe you should go through,” said Christine. “Stop Lucifer from ever coming back.”

  “Oh, no,” said Mercury. “I just got out of a hostage situation. Besides, I’m already there. Another of me isn’t going to help things any.”

  “This is all very confusing,” said Nisroc, shaking his head.

  “Also, I still have this.” Mercury held up the shard. “Lucifer’s already got one shard. Imagine what he might do with two.”

  “But…” Jacob said, “if you bring the shard into the future, after the time machine was built, then the shard wasn’t in the past when Lucifer found it. And if Lucifer never found it, the time machine would never have been built.”

  “So,” said Christine, “you can foil Lucifer’s plan by giving him the one thing he needs to complete his plan.”

  Jacob frowned. “Unless Lucifer uses the—unck—time machine to take the shard back in time so that he will have it to build the time machine.”

  “I can’t see Lucifer doing that,” said Christine. “He’s a narcissistic megalomaniac. He’s not going to willingly help someone else take over the world, even if that someone is an earlier version of himself.”

  Mercury nodded. “I tend to agree. Lucifer is the sort to go back in time and murder his own grandfather, even if it means he’ll never exist.”

  “You’re saying we should take the shard to the future,” said Christine.

  Mercury shook his head. “Too many variables. I still think we’re better off—” As he spoke, the portal suddenly faded, leaving them in the near-darkness. “Well, I guess that’s decided,” said Mercury.

  “And we aren’t going home after all,” said Christine.

  “Sorry,” Mercury replied. “The good news, though, is that Lucifer hasn’t come through yet.”

  “But he still could,” said Jacob. “At any second.”

  “Yes,” said Mercury. “So you all need to hide. I’m going to fly to the middle of the ocean and drop this shard off, like that decrepit door-hogger Kate Winslet.”

  “No!” cried Nisroc, and for a moment they were all startled, having forgotten he was there. “I will get in so much trouble if you do that!”

  “Look, Nisroc,” said Mercury. “It’s not safe to keep this thing around. Lucifer is going to get his hands on it eventually and
wipe out history.”

  “It belongs in Heaven with the proper authorities,” declared Nisroc. “It’s the safest place for it.”

  Mercury, Jacob and Christine traded glances.

  “What do you think?” asked Christine. “Would it be possible for Lucifer to retrieve that thing from the bottom of the ocean? Like if he had one of those things?” She indicated the miracle detector Mercury was holding.

  Mercury sighed. “I suppose so,” he said. “Even the Mariana Trench is only six miles deep. Any place I could hide it, he could find it, given enough time. And he’s got seven thousand years.”

  “Then Nisroc is right. Heaven is the safest place for it. And while you’re there, you can tell them about Lucifer’s plan and maybe get some reinforcements.”

  Nisroc nodded, emboldened by this show of support. “I will call for a portal and we can bring it there together.”

  “Fine,” said Mercury. “Nisroc and I will deliver the shard to the authorities. You two stay here in case Lucifer shows up. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  As he spoke, a portal once again appeared on the ground in front of them.

  “Um, Nisroc…?” Mercury asked.

  “That’s not me,” said Nisroc nervously. “I haven’t even called yet.”

  “It’s the same as the last one,” said Christine. “Quick, grab your rock!”

  “Hold on,” said Mercury, watching the portal. “This could be your chance.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Christine.

  “Nobody’s coming through,” said Mercury. “If you go now, you might be able to sneak through while Lucifer is distracted.”

  “You mean—”

  “Go!” exclaimed Mercury. “You’re not going to get another shot.”

  “What about the shard?”

  “I’ll have to stay behind with Nisroc. You and Jacob go.”

  “Can’t Nisroc take care of it?” asked Christine. “All he’s got to do is call for a portal and bring it to Heaven. You can do that, can’t you, Nisroc?”

  Nisroc nodded. “Easy-peasy,” he said.

  “Come on!” Jacob exclaimed. “Let’s go!”

  “Can’t risk it,” said Mercury. “I need to stay. You two go.”

  “I’m not leaving without you,” said Christine.

  “You’ll be stuck seven thousand years in the past!”

  “So will you!”

  “Yeah, but I’ve done it before.”

  “Well, I’m going,” said Jacob. “With or without you.” He took a step onto the portal and vanished.

  “Your turn,” said Mercury.

  “You first,” said Christine.

  “Damn it, Christine!” Mercury snapped. “Fine.” He turned to Nisroc. “Nisroc, call for a portal immediately and take this to the authorities in Heaven. Do not stop, do not pass go, do not collect $200. You have one mission in life: get this shard to Heaven. Do you understand?”

  Nisroc nodded, taking the shard from Mercury. “Piece of cake,” he said.

  “Godspeed,” said Mercury. He grabbed Christine’s hand. “Let’s do this.” They stepped onto the portal together and vanished. A split-second later, the portal was gone as well.

  Nisroc stood alone for a moment, staring at the shard. “I don’t know why nobody thinks I can do anything,” he said. “If they’d just give me a—” He felt something strike his back and looked down to see a spear protruding from his abdomen. “Oh,” he said, and fell to the ground. Before he lost consciousness, he felt someone take the shard from his hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  We can only speculate as to what happened to the shard after it left Nisroc’s hands. The most likely scenario appears to be something like this:

  Three members of the tribe known as the Pistons had been stalking Mercury’s group for some time, finally seizing on their chance to attack when most of the group disappeared through the portal. Perhaps they knew Nisroc had the shard and killed him to get it back; perhaps they were just grumpy after a day-long trek through the desert. In either case, they took the shard and left Nisroc for dead, unaware that he would in short order recover physically, if not emotionally, from his ordeal.

  Unfortunately for the three Pistons, on the way back to their village they encountered a hungry lion, which devoured a significant portion of their party along with the shard itself. The lion was later injured in an inconclusive struggle with a bull elephant and limped off to die alone of starvation. Its body was picked apart by vultures, one of whom swallowed the shard.

  The vulture survived for several weeks with the shard in its belly, but the added weight eventually made it easy prey for a crocodile while the bird was bathing in the headwaters of the Nile. The crocodile carried bird’s carcass in its belly, along with the shard, all the way to the Nile delta, where it was attacked by hunters. The crocodile escaped after suffering a fatal blow from a spear; it sank to the bottom of the river where its corpse slowly rotted over the next several months. The shard remained on the bottom of the delta for the next three hundred years.

  During an uncharacteristic drought one year, the waters in the delta receded enough that a child playing in the river spotted the shard. He swam down to recover it. Realizing it was very valuable, the child ran to bring the shard to his father, but in his excitement he tripped on a tree root and fell on his face, dropping the shard. The shard was picked up by a passing merchant, who insisted he had bought the shard from a street vendor in Khartoum. As there were no witnesses to the contrary, the merchant’s claim was sustained.

  That night, however, the child’s father broke into the merchant’s home to recover the shard. The merchant awoke and put up a struggle; the child’s father killed him and ran with the shard. He was apprehended shortly by a soldier, who delivered the shard to the local strong man-cum-mayor. At the time, a young prince was attempting to unify the towns in the area into a single kingdom, and the strong man-cum-mayor, fearing attack from the neighboring provinces, gave the shard to the prince in an effort to buy his protection.

  The shard remained in the prince’s family for seven generations, while his small kingdom gradually grew to encompass most of modern-day Egypt. The prince’s great-great-great-great-grandson was buried with the shard in an elaborate tomb protected with all manner of traps, ruses, hidden doors, and truly stomach-churning curses. It remained involiate until the late 18th century, when tomb robbers broke in and stole virtually everything. The only thing they missed, in fact, was the shard—which remained safely ensconced in the mummy’s right hand. It remained there, undisturbed, for another 40 years.

  In 1831, an Irishman named Darius Finlan borrowed $80,000 to launch an Egyptian treasure-hunting expedition. Sadly, Finlan arrived after most of the easily-accessible tombs had already been raided and he failed to uncover any previously untouched tombs. After six months, facing the prospect of having to return to Britain with nothing to show for his venture, he made a final sweep of a tomb long since thought to be picked over. The mummy once respectfully enshrined in the tomb had been dumped in a corner, its headdress and other accoutrement removed. On a hunch, Darius Finlan checked the mummy’s left hand, which was clamped shut. He had to break off three of the fingers, but he was rewarded for his efforts with a stunning gem of the purest blue. He slipped it into his pocket to hide it from his employees, who were owed six weeks of back pay, and managed to skip town, hopping on the next train to Damascus. Three weeks later he was back in London, where he was promptly beaten to death by his creditors. He was found bleeding to death in the street, not ten paces from his front door, by his eight-year-old son, Christopher. Darius Finlan handed the shard to his son, murmured, “Here’s something,” and died.

  Chris Finlan kept the shard on him from that moment on, never revealing its existence to his mother or anyone else for fear that his one keepsake from his father would be taken from him. Over the next several years, the previously friendly and gregarious Chris Finlan developed an unnatural attachment to the
shard; he began to eschew relations with other people and could often be seen walking the streets of his neighborhood addressing a person or persons unseen. Chris Finlan attended university in London, eventually graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering. He spent the next thirty years pursuing a stable if unremarkable career at a London firm, where it was often remarked by his coworkers that he hadn’t appeared to have aged a day since he was hired. When the tone of these comments began to change from amusement to bewilderment bordering on fear, he put in his notice and moved to Boston.

  Over the next hundred years, he continued to work as a mid-level engineer, changing cities every ten years or so in order to avoid suspicion regarding his unnatural youthfulness. His antisocial tendencies worsened with each move; he found it harder and harder each time to go through the motions of initiating friendships. Ultimately he stopped trying. A few months later, he quit his job and bought a shack in a remote area of Montana, where he started mailing bombs to public figures and writing a manifesto that would, he believed, “explain everything.”

  Unfortunately, Chris Finlan’s manifesto was universally misinterpreted as a cry for help, specifically the sort of help that can only be delivered by an FBI SWAT team with a shitload of automatic weapons. He was arrested, given a trial in which he threw himself on the mercy of the court. Mercy was granted in the form of seventeen life sentences, to be served in sequence. He was only a year into this sentence when he died in prison, under highly suspicious circumstances. He was not missed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The BOX, just outside Elko, Nevada; April 29, 2017

  Christine found herself in a large warehouse-like building that was filled with odd-looking devices and machinery. Next to her stood Mercury, and standing a few feet in front of her was Jacob. Wherever they were, one thing was clear: they were no longer in prehistoric Africa.

  “Hey,” said a man’s voice behind them. “How did you get back here?”

  Christine turned to see a small, balding man standing next to a contraption that looked like a steamer trunk with a satellite dish on top of it.