Mercury leaped off the Buick onto the street and began sprinting down the street away from the Vanden Heuvel building. If he was going to get airborne, he needed to get farther away from the Balderhaz Cube. When he was half a block from the building, he shot into the air, to the abject surprise of the pedestrians.
Soaring above the buildings, Mercury gained velocity as he left the Balderhaz field behind. His greatest fear was that the bomb would go off while he was only half a mile or so up. He’d done enough research after his experience with the Wormwood bomb to know that a ten kiloton bomb would actually do far more damage if it detonated several hundred yards up than at ground level. That had presumably been the reasoning behind putting the bomb on the thirty-fifth floor of the Vanden Heuvel. If Michelle had really wanted to maximize destruction, she’d have had someone carry it a few hundred yards higher into the sky, right above downtown—exactly like Mercury was doing right now. The Little Boy bomb, which had destroyed Hiroshima, was of comparable explosive power, and it had been designed to detonate at 1,900 feet for maximum impact.
He assumed that whenever the bomb went off, it was going to take him with it. He didn’t particularly like the idea of being blown to a billion pieces far above western Michigan, but it was a painless way to disincorporate, and of course it wouldn’t be permanent. His angelic life force would gradually reassemble his body over the course of the next several hours, and he’d be as good as new. The same was true for any other angels caught in the blast radius. Human beings, of course, would not be so fortunate.
When he was about half a mile up, he began to think he might just make it far enough away to save most of the residents of the city. In the interest of making better time—and out of concern for the residents of Lansing, about an hour downwind to the east—he turned north toward what looked like a mostly forested, unpopulated area. He continued to climb gradually, and soon was a mile up and about five miles from downtown Grand Rapids. He’d made it. If the bomb went off now, it was far enough away from the city to cause minimal damage. Maybe Michelle’s people weren’t as smart as he had figured.
He wasn’t sure what to do with the bomb, though. He could try to stash it somewhere and maybe use it as leverage against Michelle, but what if they had some way of tracking it? He could destroy it, but he wasn’t sure how to do that without either detonating it or spreading highly radioactive material all over the place. He could put it into orbit, but that would be a catastrophe waiting to happen. He could bring it to the Moon, but that would take days. And really, hadn’t he done enough damage to the Moon?
He’d finally settled on the North Pole when the bomb went off in his hands.
Chapter Twenty-six
Apocalypse Bureau Building, Heaven, 1783 A.D.
“Enough!” cried Mercury, to the astonishment of Uzziel, who jumped nearly out of his chair.
Uzziel had been expounding on Heaven’s latest plans for America. The war had been won, but now Heaven had turned its sights to France, where Tiamat was stirring up rebellious sentiment. It was thought that if there was a revolution in France, war could spill over into Britain. If America joined the French cause, it could be very bad for the prospects of parliamentary government in Western Europe. So now Mercury was to be tasked with the precise opposite of his previous mission: he was to stoke the fires of American affection for the mother country. It was thought by the higher-ups that pro-British sentiment could dampen the Americans’ enthusiasm for the cause of Liberté, égalité, and fraternité. Not that there was anything wrong with Liberté, égalité, and fraternité per se. Heaven was all in favor of Liberté, égalité, and fraternité in principle, but it was generally agreed that France wasn’t quite ready for a big helping of all three at once.
Mercury, though, was thoroughly fed up and for once simply refused to follow orders. “First of all,” he growled, “I’ve got nearly ninety years of vacation time saved up, and at the rate you’ve got me working I’m going to hit the century mark pretty quick. You know payroll won’t let me bank more than a hundred years, which means that I’m going to lose that time. Don’t make me file a report with the Wage and Hours Commission.”
Before Uzziel could respond, Mercury went on, “Second, I’m sick to death of interfering in these complex political situations. First nobody wants war. Then Lucifer wants war, but we don’t. Then we want war too. Tiamat doesn’t care one way or another, but she pretends to help bring about war so that she can take over France. War breaks out and everybody’s happy, except for me and all the guys getting shot to death, of course. Everybody except George Washington is convinced that the British are going to win, but for some reason we support the Americans anyway. Then Lucifer changes his mind and decides to support the British. The British lose and Lucifer gets distracted by something shiny in South Africa. Meanwhile we’re just thrilled about the American victory for about five minutes, when we realize that, hey, big surprise, Tiamat has fucking taken over France. So now suddenly we have to get the Americans to remember that they’re best pals with the country that a few years earlier had hired a bunch of Germans to kill them. It’s insane! How do you not see this?”
“I’ll admit it’s a complex situation…” started Uzziel.
“A round robin tournament of monkeys playing Parcheesi in bumper boats is a complex situation,” yelled Mercury. “This is a fucking disaster! How can anyone with an ounce of sense think that getting involved in this sort of situation is a good idea? There are so many alliances and counter-alliances and double-crosses, it’s completely impossible to foresee the outcome of anything you might do anyway! What is the point, man?”
“Well, that’s just the thing,” said Uzziel. “Lucifer and Tiamat aren’t going to stay out of the situation even if we do, so we’ve got to have some presence on the ground. And while it’s true that in a chaotic system it can be difficult to anticipate—”
“What if we all just stayed out?” Mercury asked.
Uzziel’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Lucifer and Tiamat don’t understand the situation in America any better than we do. What if we all just got together and agreed to stay the hell out of their business?”
“That would free up their demons to do a lot of damage in Europe and Asia…”
“And it would free up a lot of angels to counteract them,” finished Mercury. “Look, I get we’re supposed to be doing what we can to bring about the Divine Plan, and we’ve got a lot of vested interests in Europe, the Middle East, and plenty of other places on the Mundane Plane. But we don’t really have much going on in North America yet. It’s mostly just me running up and down the eastern seaboard changing wigs. Lucifer has pulled out most of his guys, and Tiamat’s focused on France these days. Why couldn’t we all just agree to let the Americans decide their own fate?”
Uzziel shook his head. “That’s not the way it works,” he said. “We’re charged with unfolding the Divine Plan on the Mundane Plane, and currently that means we’re supporting the cause of representative government in the New World. That means boots on the ground.”
“Do you even hear yourself talking?” Mercury asked. “What part of ‘representative government’ do you not understand? How can you say you’re in favor of ‘representative government’ while simultaneously being opposed to letting the American people govern themselves without our interference?”
“I get the point you’re trying to make, Mercury…”
“Do you? Because it kind of seems like you don’t. It seems like you’re all ‘rah-rah democracy’ until someone wants to actually have a fucking democracy.”
“What has gotten into you, Mercury?” asked Uzziel. “It’s not just the vacation days, I can see that.”
“I’m tired, Uzziel. Tired of messing with people’s lives for no good reason. What’s wrong with letting people make their own decisions for once?”
Uzziel sat back in his chair, regarding Mercury somberly. The fact was, Uzziel was right: there was somethi
ng that had prompted him to make this suggestion—someone, actually. But it would help matters if Uzziel knew that. It was best if Uzziel thought Mercury had come up with the idea on his own.
“I’ll float the idea up the chain,” Uzziel said at last. “No guarantees.”
“Fantastic,” said Mercury. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“All right,” said Uzziel. “Now get out of here. Take a few days off. You look terrible.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Near Grand Rapids, Michigan; August 2016
The man who had abducted Suzy and Eddie—his name was apparently Zion Johnson—lost no time in reacting once Suzy told him about the bomb. Whatever could be said about this guy, thought Suzy, he was decisive. He threw poor, beat-up, bleeding, spray-painted Nisroc out the door of the van, got back in his seat, and started barking orders. The van peeled out of the garage and got onto the road, the engine roaring and horns blaring as smaller vehicles scattered to get out of its path. Suzy tried to figure out where they were headed, but Zion Johnson also had her and Eddie fitted with cloth hoods that prevented them from seeing where they were going. After a lot of squealing tires, honking horns, and rolling around on the van floor, the van screeched to a stop, the door was thrown open, and she was lifted bodily out of the van and carried to another vehicle nearby. From the sounds it made, she was pretty she was in a helicopter. Somebody strapped her in, and she felt someone—presumably Eddie—being strapped in next to her. She heard the pitch of the engine increasing as the rotors spun faster and faster. After a few seconds, she felt the vehicle leave the ground. Suzy was strapped tightly into her seat, which was good because her hands were tied, making it difficult for her to brace herself against the movements of the cabin.
“Don’t bother to try any fancy tricks,” barked Zion Johnson over the whine of the motor. “I’ve still got the Balderdash Cube, so your magic powers won’t work.”
“Balderhaz,” muttered Eddie.
“Shut up!” yelled the man, and she felt Eddie jerk backwards as if being struck. Then he went limp and stayed quiet.
The helicopter pitched forward and began to pick up speed. They arced to the right and then continued straight for some time, rapidly gaining altitude. Then everything became very quiet, as if the motor had suddenly cut out. Suzy felt the tiny hairs on her arms stand up and the cabin became suddenly warm, as if being showered with bright sunlight.
“Get us the fuck—” yelled Zion Johnson. The rest of his words were drowned out by the whoosh of a sudden wind, followed by a deafening boom. The helicopter pitched forward and Suzy was thrust back against her seat. Eddie stirred next to her.
There was another moment of eerie near-silence, in which only the hum of the rotors could be heard. The helicopter began to fall.
Another rush of wind followed, this time pulling them backward. Suzy felt the helicopter pitch and roll crazily.
“We’re going down!” yelled a man farther away, whom Suzy took for the pilot.
“Wha… happened?” murmured Eddie.
“I think the bomb went off,” Suzy said urgently. “We’re falling! Is there anything you can do?”
“Ungh,” said Eddie. “Balderhaz.”
They were now losing altitude rapidly, the helicopter wobbling lazily from side-to-side in the chaotic wind.
“Can’t you get the rotors going?” barked Zion Johnson.
“EMP must have fried something,” said the pilot. “Everything’s dead!”
“Jesus Christ,” growled Zion Johnson. “Whose idea was it to take a fucking helicopter? We could be in a fucking Cadillac right now. I bet an EMP wouldn’t take out a Cadillac. And if it did, who cares? You’re in a fucking Cadillac. You pull over and wait for fucking Triple A.”
The helicopter continued to fall.
“Drop the cube,” said Suzy suddenly.
“What?” snapped Zion Johnson.
“Drop the Balderhaz Cube! Eddie can save us if you get rid of the damn cube!”
“Not a chance,” said Zion Johnson. “He’ll use his powers to escape.”
“He’ll escape for sure if we crash,” replied Suzy. “We’ll all be killed, but he’ll escape. Is that what you want?”
There was a momentary pause, in which Suzy wondered whether the regimented stupidity of military thinking was going to prevent Zion Johnson from making the only possible correct decision.
“Throw out the cube!” he barked at last. “Now!”
“Yes, sir!” shouted another man.
“OK, it’s gone,” yelled Zion Johnson. “Do something!”
“Take my hood off,” said Eddie. There was some commotion next to Suzy. “Hers too,” Eddie said. Suzy’s hood was jerked off.
“Alright, now do something!” shouted Zion Johnson. He was a gruff-looking man who seemed to be in his early fifties. His left leg was encased in a cast. Besides Zion and the pilot, there were two other young men in combat gear in the helicopter.
“Can’t,” said Eddie.
“Why not?” demanded Zion Johnson.
Suzy chanced a look down and could just make out a farmer on a tractor in a cornfield staring up at them. The farmer waved.
“We’re falling almost as fast as the cube,” said Eddie. “I can feel the field weakening, but I’m going to need a few more seconds.”
“We don’t have a few more seconds!” Zion Johnson yelled.
Eddie shrugged. “Should have taken a Cadillac,” he said. “Or not detonated a nuclear bomb.”
Suzy saw that the farmer had gotten off his tractor and was now fleeing through the cornfield. She could make out individual ears of corn. She had remembered hearing something a few years back about some mutant strain of corn that was taking over South Africa. She wondered whatever happened with that.
The helicopter continued to fall. She could feel Eddie straining his muscles next to her, as if he were using every cell in his body to try to stop their fall. Then she felt a strange tingling, as the hairs on the back of her neck were being pulled upward. She felt the descent of the helicopter slow.
“OK, now land us,” said Zion Johnson, drawing his sidearm. “And don’t try anything or I’ll shoot the girl.”
“Doing… my… best…” Eddie gasped. “Cube… right… below us….”
“He can’t set us down,” Suzy said. “The closer we get to the cube, the weaker his power is.” She turned to Eddie. “Can you get us higher? Or move us horizontally away from the cube.”
Eddie’s face had turned red and sweat was pouring down his brow. “All I can… do… to keep us… in air.”
They were now floating a little over a hundred yards off the ground. The helicopter’s rotors were spinning so slowly that Suzy could see the individual blades. A fall from this height would kill them as surely as a fall from ten miles up.
“Rope!” yelled Zion Johnson. The other man handed him a bundle of rope, securing one end to a metal clip in the floor. Zion Johnson tossed the rope out the door and it unwound as it fell. The end of the rope hung about thirty feet off the ground.
The man who had handed Zion Johnson the rope shrugged. “That’s all we have,” he said apologetically.
“Are you shitting me?” asked Zion Johnson. He turned to Eddie. “Can you drop us another thirty feet?”
Eddie stared at the man in horror, his whole body trembling. His face was purple and his clothes were drenched with sweat.
“I think that means no,” said Suzy. “I mean, he can drop us, but we’ll keep dropping.”
“Alright,” said Zion Johnson. He turned to the other man. “Get down there.”
“Sir?”
“Climb down the goddamn rope until you run out of rope. Then fall to the ground. Find that cube and get it as far away from us as possible. Preferably before we crash into you.”
“Yessir!” The man gripped the rope and lowered himself to the helicopter’s landing gear. Then he disappeared from view.
Suzy moved closer to the door so she coul
d see what was happening.
“Don’t try anything!” growled Zion Johnson.
“Like what?” demanded Suzy, holding up her hands, which were still bound with a zip-tie. “Falling to my death?”
The young man had made it about halfway down the rope, and was continuing to move hand-over-hand toward the ground. The helicopter jerked suddenly and fell a few heart-stopping feet before halting its descent again. Suzy looked over at Eddie, who looked like he was about to pass out. “Just a little longer, Eddie!” she said. “You can do it!”
The man had now reached the end of the rope and was looking uncertainly at the ground, which was still a good twenty feet below him.
“Jump!” yelled Zion Johnson. “We don’t have time for this! Jump, Newton!”
The young man, evidently named Newton, let go of the rope, plummeting to the cornfield. The ground looked rather soft and muddy from the helicopter, but Suzy supposed it didn’t feel that soft when you fell onto it from twenty feet up.
Newton yelped in pain, rolling to his side and gripping his ankle.
“Find the cube!” shouted Zion Johnson.
The man got on his knees and began crawling around the cornstalks.
“I can’t…” Eddie gasped.
“Just hold on a little longer, Eddie!” Suzy cried.
Down below, Newton was still crawling around in the mud, trying to find the Balderhaz cube.
“Got it!” he shouted at last, holding a black object about the size of a Rubik’s Cube.
“Get away from the helo!” yelled Zion Johnson.
Newton began crawling away.
Eddie continued to shake, and he eyes began to glaze over. He looked like he was having a seizure, but the helicopter remained levitating just over a hundred yards up.
Mercury Revolts: (Book Four of the Mercury Series) Page 16
