“Remember the hair dryer,” said Perp to Mercury as they regarded the sad-looking contraption.
“Yeah,” said Mercury. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to remember that Balderhaz was a genius.
“What’s that noise?” asked Perp. There was a loud banging going on somewhere nearby.
“Balderhaz is trapped in the beet cellar again,” said Mercury.
Suzy finished the software patch a few hours later. Exhausted, she went to bed. The angels didn’t need rest, but if she was going to hack into the Myrmidon control system, she needed to get some sleep.
Tomorrow night they would execute their two-pronged attack on Tiamat’s authoritarian regime.
Chapter Forty-two
Provo, Utah; August 2016
Michelle crept along the shadow of the Mentaldyne building, with Eddie following about thirty feet behind, carrying a hair dryer. It hadn’t been difficult to get through the first layer of Mentaldyne’s security—just a matter of bending a chain link fence and then bending light to prevent the guards from spotting them. The next part, however, was going to be trickier. As expected, Tiamat had placed a Balderhaz Cube somewhere in the facility to forestall any attempts by rogue angels to use their supernatural powers to infiltrate the place. It was past midnight, but the parking lot was nearly full and occasionally someone would enter or exit the building. The facility was obviously working around the clock to meet the demand for the Myrmidon chips.
A door swung open a few yards ahead of Michelle, and she pressed herself against the wall to avoid being seen. A worker wearing an anti-static suit exited the door and began walking to the parking lot. Michelle, moving in complete silence, slipped behind the man and wedged her foot in the door before it swung shut. She peered through the opening, then stuck her head inside. After a moment, she pulled it back, motioned for Eddie to approach, and then slipped inside. Eddie, keeping his eye on the worker, who was now digging through his car’s glove box for something, managed to grab the door before it closed, and slipped in after Michelle.
He found himself on a sort of factory floor, with dozens of workers in anti-static suits carrying out tasks at assembly line stations and various machines. Fortunately, they were so busy that for some time nobody seemed to notice the two intruders. Michelle continued along the wall to the left, acting for all the world like she belonged there. Occasionally a worker would look over at her and immediately look away, as if he were the one trespassing. Such was the power of Michelle’s charisma: although she had the appearance of a thirteen-year-old black girl, she could generally go anywhere she wanted without being questioned. If Michelle had been in Alabama in 1940s, she might have ended segregation twenty years early through the sheer force of her will.
Eddie did his best to remain unnoticed in Michelle’s charismatic wake. He felt completely out of place—although, to be fair, Eddie usually felt that way even when he wasn’t skulking about a mind control chip factory. It didn’t help that in this particular case he was inexplicably carrying a hair dryer.
Neither of them knew exactly where the control center for the transmitter was; the plan was simply to get inside and snoop around until they found it. It seemed like a terrible plan to Eddie, but he couldn’t think of anything better, and in any case he had been overruled. So here he was, tailing Michelle through the Mentaldyne facility.
They must have been getting close, because suddenly Michelle was stopped by a burly foreman standing in her path. “This is a restricted area,” he growled. “Where’s your badge?”
“Where is my badge?” asked Michelle, with a tone of disgust. “Really? I count at least twenty ten-sixteen violations within thirty feet of here, and you’re going to fixate on my badge?”
The man shrank back, suddenly unsure of himself. “Ten-sixteen violations?”
Michelle sighed as if to indicate her disbelief at having to deal with such unfathomable incompetence. “Inadequate lighting, insufficient ventilation, ozone levels off the charts…”
“Ozone levels?” asked the man.
Michelle breathed deeply through her nose. “Ozone! You don’t smell that? My guess is that we’re up around eight-eight, maybe eighty-nine pee-pee-em.” She turned to look at Eddie. “What do you think?”
“Um, yes,” said Eddie. “Eighty, like, at least eighty-eight. Maybe eight-nine pee-pee-ems.” Then he sniffed for good measure.
“Even Eddie can smell it, and he lost sixty percent of his olfactory capability in the Halifax incident. You seriously don’t smell that?”
The man sniffed nervously. “I don’t… I’m not sure…”
Michelle produced something from her pocket. Eddie was pretty sure it was some kind of hair clip. She held it up to the man’s nose. “Do you smell that?”
“Um,” he said. “I think so?”
“What does it smell like?” Michelle asked.
“Um, vanilla?” the man ventured.
“Hell,” said Michelle to Eddie, shoving the object back in her pocket. “Get Houston on the phone. Tell ’em it’s Halifax all over again. We’ve got a Level Six with at least eighty percent olfactory loss.” She turned back to the foreman. “Any seizures?” she asked. “Paralysis?”
He shook his head.
“Tell ’em the paralysis hasn’t set in yet,” she said to Eddie. She turned back to the foreman. “Do you have a cot? Someplace to lie down?”
“Um, yeah,” said the man. “In the front office.”
“All right,” said Michelle. “Do you think you can get there on your own, or do you need Eddie to carry you?”
The man glanced at Eddie, whom he outweighed by at least a hundred pounds. “I can, um, get there on my own.”
“OK,” said Michelle. “We’ve got the TFZ team on standby. You go lie down, we’ll be right behind you. And remember to keep breathing!”
The man nodded and shuffled away with a worried expression on his face.
Michelle continued into the “restricted area” as if nothing had happened. Eddie followed, feeling nearly overwhelmed with anxiety. He wished he could go lie down on a cot until the TFZ team got here.
At last they found a door with the label:
MYRMIDON CONTROL AREA
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
A bad feeling, over and above his near-crippling anxiety, gripped Eddie. Their little mission was going way too smoothly. He somehow couldn’t believe that one easily cowed foreman was the only resistance they were going to meet.
Michelle turned the handle of the door and it opened. It was dark inside except for the glow of several dozen tiny LED lights. Michelle and Eddie slipped into the room and Michelle closed the door behind them. Eddie fumbled around until he found a light switch. A bank of fluorescent lights blinked on overhead, revealing a large room that was lined on three sides with computer workstations. Michelle took a seat in one of the dozen chairs and pulled a thumb drive from her pocket.
Eddie couldn’t believe it. All she had to do was plug that thing into one of the computers and upload Suzy’s patch, and they’d be done. Maybe he’d been worried for nothing. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and tapped the screen, bringing up a text message. He typed:
we’re in position. use gps to
But before he could finish the message, the door opened and six large men with assault rifles filed in. Michelle slipped the thumb drive into her pocket and stood up, backing away from the computers. Eddie had just enough time to hit Send before one of the men struck him in the temple with the butt of his rifle, knocking him to the floor. Eddie was vaguely aware of someone prying the hair dryer from his left hand and the cell phone from his right. His head throbbing, Eddie rolled onto his back in time to see a seventh man stroll into the room. This man was built like Bluto from the old Popeye cartoons. And he was smiling.
“Tiamat thought you might try breaking in here,” said Gamaliel, closing the door behind him. “I’m a little disappointed that Mercury’s not with you, but you two will do for now.” He took t
he hair dryer from the man who had pried it from Eddie’s hand. “And how considerate! You brought your secret weapon with you.”
“You’re making a mistake, Gamaliel!” shouted Michelle. “Tiamat is crazy. She’s going to make this world into hell on earth. Come work for me. We’ll overthrow Tiamat and—”
Gamaliel took two steps toward Michelle and punched her in the face, causing her to stumble backwards and crash into a monitor. She slunk to the floor, blood pouring from her nose.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that, you sanctimonious bitch.” He turned to one of the men. “Tie them up. We’ll lock them both in a closet until Possum Kingdom reopens.”
Chapter Forty-three
About a thousand miles above Earth; August 2016
Mercury shot into space, pushing in front of him the absurd contraption that Balderhaz repeatedly assured him was a fully functioning mind control transmitter. The existing transmitter had to be removed and this one put in place in order for their scheme to turn the tables on Tiamat. Of course, the new transmitter would do no good if Suzy’s software patch hadn’t been uploaded to the Myrmidon server, but Mercury was blissfully unaware of the challenges facing Eddie and Michelle. Balderhaz had told him the installation was simple: he just had to rip the old one off the satellite, duct tape the new one in place, and connect the signal cable. A roll of duct tape was tucked inside the oil drum for the purpose.
Finding a satellite that was roughly the size of a minivan in the vast expanse of space hundreds of miles above Earth’s atmosphere was tricky, even when you knew roughly where the satellite was. Mercury had managed to secure a GPS locator/altimeter, but it wasn’t perfectly accurate and it didn’t make it any easier to locate an object against the black canopy of space. He finally noticed the silvery outline of the satellite at the precise moment he spotted another object on the horizon. This second object was growing rapidly larger, and he quickly realized it wasn’t an object but a person: someone was rocketing toward him at immense speed.
Mercury shot toward the satellite in the hopes that he could get there and secure the transmitter before the figure closed with him, but it soon became clear this wasn’t going to happen. The figure was on a trajectory to intercept Mercury before he reached the satellite. Mercury put on a final burst of speed and then, just before the figure hit him, hurled the transmitter in the direction of the satellite. With a little luck, he’d be able to deal with the interloper and then catch up to the transmitter before it started falling.
Then the figure hit him like a freight train. Whoever it was, he’d been traveling several hundred miles an hour, and Mercury felt ribs snap as a shoulder impacted against his chest. He and the mystery man tumbled through space over the vast blue globe. Mercury could only hope that the attacker was in half as much pain as he was.
Mercury managed to wriggle out of the figure’s grasp and, trying to ignore the pain in his ribs, pulled his knees up and then kicked hard against the man’s chest. They had reached the apogee of their ascent and for a moment the two hung suspended in space, looking at each other. The man grinned at Mercury. He didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain.
Izbazel.
If there was one demon that hated Mercury more than Gamaliel, it was Izbazel. And while Izbazel was no match for Mercury in a battle of wits, it was anyone’s guess who would come out on top in a no-holds-barred exospheric donnybrook. Especially when Mercury already had half a dozen cracked ribs.
Getting his bearings, Mercury located the transmitter, which had nearly reached the apogee of its flight, still a hundred yards from the satellite. Within a few seconds, unless someone intervened, the transmitter would begin plummeting to the Earth below. Even at nearly a thousand miles above the surface, the grip of Earth’s gravity was very strong.
Mercury wanted to say something clever to Izbazel, like, “Congratulations, you’re not the dumbest person on Earth anymore,” but his broken ribs—not to mention the near complete lack of atmosphere—made talking problematic. He contented himself with mouthing the word asshole, and then shot past Izbazel toward the transmitter.
He caught the contraption before it had fallen more than a couple hundred yards, and once again hurled it toward the satellite. He tried to overshoot a bit this time, to give himself a little more time to deal with Izbazel. Hopefully his aim in the quarter-mile oil drum toss wasn’t any better than his aim with a ping pong ball, because if the transmitter hit the satellite at a hundred miles an hour, this whole plan was going to be moot.
Mercury was about to turn to face Izbazel when he noticed another figure rocketing toward him from the opposite direction. If he’d had any air in his lungs, and if he could move his chest without experiencing intense pain, he might have sighed. It figured that Tiamat wouldn’t leave her satellite guarded by a single demon.
Allowing himself to fall toward the azure sphere below, Mercury concentrated for a moment on repairing his splintered ribs. Angels ordinarily heal at about a hundred times the rate of a human being anyway, but with some additional effort an angel can further speed the process by fusing broken bones and knitting together torn tissue. He’d almost completed the process when the second figure shot past a few hundred yards overhead. The second figure met Izbazel and the two of them stopped and changed direction to pursue Mercury.
He halted his descent and shot spaceward once again. This was going to be tricky. The transmitter had—fortunately—missed the satellite and was now falling once again. Mercury needed to zoom past the two demons fast enough that they couldn’t catch him and then slow down to catch the transmitter without tearing it to pieces.
Barely slipping past the two demons, Mercury altered his course to intercept the transmitter. He caught it as gently as he could and once again hurled it toward the satellite. This was getting exhausting.
The transmitter had scarcely left Mercury’s fingertips when both demons slammed into him simultaneously. This time Mercury couldn’t wriggle away. Izbazel had his legs and the other one—whom he’d identified as Nisroc, possibly the only demon more dimwitted than Izbazel—had Mercury in a bear hug. The three angels focusing all their effort on the melee, they once again plummeted toward Earth. Mercury twisted, jerked, kicked and even bit, but the two demons wouldn’t let go. Far above him he saw the transmitter once again arc past the satellite and begin to fall.
He tried to keep it in view, but Nisroc’s hand clamped over his eyes. Meanwhile, Izbazel continued to hold his legs with one arm and pummel Mercury in the kidneys with his other. They fell for miles, with Mercury never ceasing to struggle. Finally he heard the faint sound of air whistling past his ears. As it grew gradually louder, the cold of space gave way to the burning sensation of reentry. Their rapid descent compressed the air beneath them, causing it to go from pleasantly warm to hellishly hot. Fortunately, since they were covering him so tightly, Nisroc and Izbazel took the brunt of it. He felt them twisting and turning to avoid being burned, but eventually they were either going to have to let go or exert some effort to keep from being incinerated alive.
Nisroc broke first, releasing his grip on Mercury’s head and pushing himself away. But Mercury took advantage of Nisroc’s shift to turn the tables on him, getting the demon in a headlock. A moment later Izbazel gave in, and as he tried to get away Mercury wrapped his legs around his neck, putting him in a scissor lock.
“What the hell are you doing?” Izbazel screamed. “We’re all going to burn up!”
Mercury grinned as he felt the skin on his knuckled blister. “If I’m going down,” he yelled, “you two dumbasses are coming with me!”
Chapter Forty-four
Provo, Utah; August 2016
Gamaliel’s men had just finished zip-tying Michelle and Eddie’s hands behind their backs when Eddie’s phone chirped. Gamaliel looked at the man holding the phone, who shrugged it and handed it to Gamaliel. “Text message,” the man said.
Gamaliel frowned as he read the screen. “You,” he growle
d at Eddie. “What does this mean?” He held the phone out to Eddie. It read:
ur covered :)
Eddie smiled. “You’re the one with the secret weapon,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Gamaliel glowered at Eddie and grabbed the hair dryer out of the man’s hand. He pointed it at himself and pulled the trigger, blasting himself with hot air.
“What the hell?” said Gamaliel. “This is just a hair dryer.”
“No shit,” said Michelle, getting to her feet and wiping the blood from her lip with the back of her hand. Gamaliel noticed that somehow she’d gotten her hands loose. “Eddie, do you mind taking care of the goon squad?”
“Um?” said Eddie. “Oh, sure.” Eddie waved his hand and the six men’s guns were suddenly jerked out of their hands. The rifles hung in mid-air over their heads for a split-second, and then jerked backward, the butt of each gun striking its owner in the temple, as Eddie had been struck a moment earlier. The six men slumped to the ground simultaneously.
Meanwhile, Michelle had leaped six feet in the air, soaring toward Gamaliel as she tucked her arms and legs against her body. Gamaliel, who was still in shock that Eddie had somehow performed a miracle while inside the Balderhaz field, was taken by surprise. When Michelle was an arm’s length from Gamaliel, she suddenly straightened, striking him full force in the mouth with the heel of her boot. Gamaliel’s head jerked back and he stumbled backwards, falling to the floor and striking his head on the wall behind him. Michelle landed in a crouch.
“Eddie!” she snapped.
“Huh?” asked Eddie, who was still admiring his handiwork with the goon squad. He turned toward Michelle just in time to see her throw the thumb drive. He managed to catch it as Michelle renewed her offensive against Gamaliel. She leaped at him, trying to drive his head into the wall behind him, but Gamaliel had just enough presence of mind to slide out of the way. The butt of Michelle’s palm slammed into the wall, crashing through the drywall. Gamaliel got slowly to his feet, spitting blood and broken teeth on the floor.
Mercury Revolts: (Book Four of the Mercury Series) Page 24
