Mercury's Orbit

by Lia Black

  Mercury returned to the cot and slid his hand gently over Sean’s face, then pressed the flat head of the injector to Sean’s neck and squeezed the trigger.

  There was a sharp pinch as dozens of tiny needles bit into his skin and released their chemistry, followed immediately by a warmth that began to spread outward. Sean let out a shuddering sigh as the pain became muffled by a fresh blanket of numbing haze. A soft sob of relief rose from his chest.

  Mercury popped out the cartridge, letting it clatter to the floor, then he inserted another. In the lamplight it shimmered like silver.

  “Tetrahaze...” Sean mumbled softly, recognizing the unmistakable narcotic. It was so…pretty.

  “Tetrahaze,” Mercury confirmed and pressed the injector to the side of his own neck. The red mark left behind looked like a rose against his pale skin and Sean stared at it, fascinated to watch it bloom.

  Sean had seen addicts. Humans, and most humanoid species to which this drug was not immediately lethal, eventually suffered from debilitating hallucinations; sensitivity to light, touch, and sound. Never having been addicted to more than cigarettes, he could never understand the draw. Why would somebody, knowing the risks and final outcome, allow themselves to be swept up in whatever sensations the drug provided long enough to become addicted? With each passing moment, it was becoming more obvious. The pain was almost pleasurable. It registered in his brain as sensation, but his neurotransmitters were being bathed in confusing chemistry. Had his body been in a healthier state, Sean could imagine that sex would be at the forefront of his brain, and it would probably be incredible.

  Mercury sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh. He curled his hand in Sean’s so their fingers were interlaced once more, his gaze resting there. He glowed like an angel; Sean stifled another sob. Instead of tears, his mouth was flooded with a sweetness like fresh strawberries.

  Even through the filter of the drug, Sean was very aware of Mercury. Mercury moved to lie behind him in the bed and pressed up against him, throwing the blanket over them both, careful not to let it rest on Sean’s injured shoulder. Mercury’s skin was cool except in a few noticeable places, as though he had small fires within him. His chest...his groin...His breath was warm too. Mercury breathed in and out, slow and even, as though he were lining up a target in his rifle scope. Sean felt it on the back of his neck like a caress.

  “You called me Evan,” Mercury whispered.

  “Did I?” The name—word— felt out of place in his brain. It was as if it belonged there, but had been set someplace where it shouldn’t be, like a kitchen table standing on a bed.

  Mercury’s hand skimmed lightly over his hip, running along the seam of his trousers. It felt like everything was slightly out of sync; he could feel the light pressure of Mercury’s hand, but didn’t feel the pleasure of the caress until a second after. The gesture seemed more compulsive than seductive, but it felt good, nice, and Sean wouldn’t have minded staying here forever. The pleasure centers in his brain rushed to smother rational thoughts and worries about a career that was very likely all ready over.

  It took him a few heartbeats to realize Mercury was speaking, asking him a question.

  “Did he take care of you when you were hurt?”

  He assumed Mercury meant Evan. “Sssssnnn…No.” Sean slurred. He’d nearly said sometimes, but that wasn’t really true. Evan had wanted to take care of him. He’d wanted to try to understand how to help him when he was hurting, but Sean always pushed him away. He’d use sex to distract himself and Evan— fucking instead of talking or crying, or whatever he really needed to do to heal. Later, that became too routine and Evan began to resent being used rather than loved. He’d had every right to feel that way. Evan deserved so much better, but Sean wasn’t capable of becoming that man for him.

  “But you called out for him. Do you still want him?”

  “Habit.” Was that the word? “We were together for…years. I don’t want our relationship back.” It was far more difficult to admit the truth when he wasn’t stoned out of his gourd. Maybe if he actually survived this, he might have to look into developing a drug addiction, just to remain honest with himself.

  Hours had melted together and were forgotten. Every time Sean had a thought that he was hurting, or hungry, or thirsty, Mercury was right there as if he’d spoken the words aloud. Mercury changed his bandages, making sure Sean was well and truly stoned before he did. Sean was so detached from his body, it was like watching something happening to somebody else. He could feel what seemed to be light touches that were immediately forgotten as Mercury worked.

  The slug had gone through just below his clavicle. He couldn’t see much because of its location, but the bruising was extensive; it made his skin look foreign, like it belonged to someone else. He’d watched Mercury take care of his own injuries as well; Sean vaguely remembered seeing him dig a bullet out of his own leg, and thought at the time, if he wasn’t so stoned it might have made him sick.

  There was no worry about more Red Salamander mercenaries showing up. Mercenary units remained loose, largely disconnected, and functioning as independent teams. They’d probably assumed this group had gone dark because they’d been killed, and there was no reason to collect the dead.

  After a day or so, when Sean finally had enough food and water in his system to produce waste, Mercury helped him to the latrine. He’d seen the blood splatter as they moved through the campsite, now just dark brown stains across the walls, but unmistakable in its patterns. This had been a battle zone, and the man who’d initiated it, who’d killed god only knew how many men—who’d threatened at one time to kill him—was holding him steady. Mercury helped him get up and guided him where he needed to go, then brought him back and tucked him into bed. Whether it was his slowly building drug addiction, or his time spent getting to know Mercury better in the desert, Sean found very little about Mercury so alarming anymore. But this new side of him, the nurturing, serious aspect of him, was something Sean never could have expected and was still finding hard to believe.

  26

  If Sean never saw another MRE again, it would be too soon, but food was food, even if it had the flavor and consistency of salted paste. Three, maybe four days had passed since they’d arrived at the base, and he was finally metabolizing the narcotics to the point that he could stay awake for more than a few minutes at time.

  He was sitting on the cot, his back against the wall, as hazy sunlight cast horizontal stripes along the floor from the slats in the window blinds. Mercury had just finished changing Sean’s bandages again. Sean’s body was struggling to fight off a gradually forming infection and heal damage that would be impossible to repair with time alone. Mercury had done an excellent job caring for the injury, but the damage was beyond what first aid could handle. Without the drugs Mercury was giving him, any movement at all would be excruciating.

  “We’ll get to a port, get you fixed up, clean up, go on a date…” Mercury was rambling, probably talking to himself more than to Sean as he broke into a footlocker at the end of one of the cots.

  “And then what?” Sean asked, watching Mercury sort through some items, tossing most of them aside with barely a glance.

  Mercury looked over at Sean, as if just remembering he was there, before he turned back to his task. “Then, after a night of passion, we part ways. You live happily ever after.”

  “And what about you?”

  Mercury sighed, his shoulders slumping. “We’ve had this conversation before. I go kill my father. The end.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that. We could find a place in the neutral zone, outside of the Federation’s reach.” Sean wanted to blame this sentiment on the drugs, but wasn’t sure how much of it was true. He’d spent so much time with Mercury, and seeing him in this new light, needing him, was messing with his judgment. Whereas before he couldn’t wait to get rid of him, now he felt anxious when Mercury was out of his sight for too long. With Mercury’s confirmation that he’d be lea
ving, Sean couldn’t help but feel defeated. Although his own mission to take Mercury to the Tribunal was no longer on the table, Mercury’s single-minded mission to destroy his father hadn’t wavered. It was ego-bruising in the strangest sense.

  “Oh.” Mercury looked back at him; his expression was surprise, but Sean thought—hoped—he saw regret in his eyes. “That’s very romantic of you Precious,” he said softly, turning away. “But you know that’s not possible.” Mercury had found a faded bandanna in the trunk and shook it out before pulling it up over his nose and mouth. He turned, raising an eyebrow before slipping some tinted goggles on over his amethyst eyes. “What do you think? Anonymous enough?”

  Sean looked him over. It was difficult for a six-foot three, silver–haired beanpole to blend in most places, but hopefully with his face covered and lax port security, they could get through without being too formally scrutinized. “Anonymous enough,” he answered. It was difficult to tell what kind of condition the port would be in. Some were mainly for military; some were just a skeleton crew of janitorial staff and security, and some were empty shells. Unfortunately, they really didn’t have a choice of where to go. They just had to get to the closest one and hope they had an active and decent medical facility on site. As long as whatever port they reached wasn’t decommissioned, there should be at least a clinic.

  “If you could run away, where would you go?” Mercury asked suddenly.

  It was surprising that he had, but Sean knew better than to get his hopes up. It was just Mercury being cryptic, talking around subjects that he wanted to avoid by giving the conversation focus back to Sean.

  Sean had thought of it many times over the last few years. Someday, when he retired, or otherwise left the CSD, he thought it might be nice to disappear. It was a fantasy at best, kept for his more cynical days as a comfort. “Maybe the Straetos System. There are a lot of little islands on Streatos 31 ABb.”

  Mercury turned, sitting down on the footlocker. “You’ve been there?”

  “Military maneuvers.”

  “I love a man in a uniform,” Mercury hummed with a smile. “Why is the planet still called 31?”

  Sean shifted, grunting a little when a dull throb of pain came down like a wet, woolen blanket on his shoulder. “Laziness, I guess. It’s got a high enough viability to sustain human life, but it’s mostly uninhabited because it’s so far out.”

  “Islands, you said…Is the water there blue?”

  “Not completely. There’s this algae that releases gasses that create purple and red streaks when it’s alive and yellow when it dies. It reminds me of a sunset.” Sean remembered how he’d been in complete awe of the beauty as he’d flown over the tiny planet. The other guys in his squadron hadn’t seemed to notice; too busy complaining that their R&R was going to be wasted because of the length of time it would take to get back

  “We should call it Sunset then, and plan to meet there someday.”

  “You’re planning on surviving now?”

  Mercury offered him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You were a pilot. How does one calculate azimuth with multiple suns?” he asked instead of answering.

  Sean sighed, understanding that his question had been deliberately ignored. There was no sense in tying to resurrect that line of dead discussion. “It can be done, but you’re asking for a lot if you want an explanation right now.”

  Mercury gave a non-committal hum and began picking off the Red Salamander insignias from the uniforms he’d found. They were black paramilitary gear; not uncommon for even civilians in ports. “We’ll leave soon. It might take a day. While you were sleeping, I located a signal with enough frequency variation to be a port.” Mercury pushed the goggles back on his head and pulled down the bandanna as he came to stand closer to the bed. “I want to be certain you’ve eaten enough before I give you another dose of tetrahaze. I should probably mix in some lithanus…”

  “No. I can’t be that drugged up. I can still hold a weapon and if you’re driving, you’ll need me riding shotgun in case we run into more hostiles.” Sean wasn’t entirely certain he could be that helpful, but maybe by propping him up and giving him a gun he could look intimidating enough to make anyone who might try attacking them reconsider.

  “You’re so brave, Precious. That’s one of the many wonderful things I like about you.” Mercury leaned closer and nuzzled Sean’s cheek. “But I hate your scratchy beard.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” Sean sighed. These little almost intimacies had become more commonplace between them. Even up until a day ago, Sean had to rely on him for pretty much everything. Mercury could have taken advantage of him a thousand times by now, but he’d kept his contact to the kind that provided comfort. This didn’t feel like the same man who’d stuck a gun in his face and sexually assaulted him, and in a way, it wasn’t. The drugs he was taking were giving his brain the chemicals it needed, more so than the sugary meals and post-orgasm spikes. Sean didn’t know if Mercury would revert to how he’d been before when the drug supply was depleted, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

  If they did find a medical facility, would they be aware of who he was— who Mercury was— and report them? Sean hated not having contingency plans, but there wasn’t much else they could do. Hopefully Mercury had some ideas. Hopefully some of them actually made sense.

  27

  One of the vehicles at the mercenary base was a simple two-person crawler. Looking around, Sean was somewhat irked to see that a mercenary group was so much better funded than his department at the CSD. But it was nothing new. With funding from Sol Labs and its investors, had the mercenaries been successful, they probably would have made enough money to set themselves up for the rest of their lives. Figures.

  Sean was only coasting on the remnants of the last fading dose of tetrahaze; he needed to feel enough to remind himself they had to keep moving. His shoulder was throbbing, but more than that, he just felt exhausted. His legs were rubbery as Mercury helped him to the crawler, and by the time he got into the passenger seat, black spots were popping at the edges of his vision.

  “There. All set now?”

  “Guh-gun,” Sean stammered, swallowing back the burning paste of his breakfast coming back up.

  “Right.” Mercury stood back, sucking in his bottom lip, his finger resting on his chin. He looked around then walked just outside the range of Sean’s vision, coming back a few moments later with some rope and a piece from a broken supply bin. Sean had been shot through the left shoulder and he was a left-handed shooter, but nobody else needed to know that as Mercury propped his right elbow up on the bin and used the rope to rig the gun so the weight of it was mostly held by the parts of the cab. From a distance nobody could tell that Sean wasn’t holding the weapon out the window. He just prayed that he’d have no reason to use it. His head was foggy, but even with the drug, Sean could feel his shoulder throbbing.

  Mercury brought a canteen filled with water near his face. “You’re sweating.”

  “Yeah.” No surprise there. Just sitting upright was taking a lot of effort. He took a sip; the water wasn’t very cold and tasted a little smoky from the charcoal filters in the canteen, but it offered some small relief. “Let’s get moving. I don’t know how much good I’ll be or for how long.” The fever had set in this morning just after Sean woke up, but he didn’t mention it to Mercury. He was trying to fool himself into believing it was anything but the infection he knew was starting to form. Although Mercury had been diligent about keeping the wound clean, it was too deep, and the spinning dart had shredded muscle and shattered bone as it passed through. Even fingerprints on something that destructive could harbor enough bacteria to wreak havoc on his immune system.

  Mercury hopped into the driver’s side, giving Sean a small nod before starting the engine and pulling away from the base.

  Mercury was singing. Over the growl of the engine as the crawler scaled the dunes, Sean could hear the androgynous, repetitive melody of his voice. He could
n't make out the words through the rush of wind in his ears but had to assume it was something from one of those kids’ shows he watched.

  He must have drifted off without knowing it. He could feel a mark on his face where he’d been resting it on the gun and the fingers of his right hand were numb. Wiggling them, Sean grimaced at the pins-and-needles sensation moving sluggishly up his arm. The sky was dark above them, gradually lightening from the horizon where the last hints of red and gold blended upwards into violet.

  “Good morning, Precious; or should I say evening?”

  “How long have I been asleep?” Sean’s body felt both too heavy and light at the same time. His skin was clammy under his clothes from sweating. On top of that, guilt was gnawing at his spine. Logically, he understood that if they had been attacked by a group of raiders or even more of Sol Lab’s militia, there was very little he could have done, but he’d hoped to at least remain vigilant.

  “You drifted off around noon.”

  “Shit.” That had to be seven hours ago.

  “It’s just as well. We’ll be there shortly and we’re nearly out of tetrahaze. I saved the last dose for you.” Mercury tipped his head towards the open space of seat between them where an autosyringe sat loaded with a few milliliters of the sparkling drug. That meant that Mercury had delivered several doses to himself. It was worrisome; it could have been because his brain was misbehaving and he was struggling to keep it under control. A thudding, stabbing pain blossomed through Sean’s shoulder, making his eyes lose focus and his stomach roll. He winced, unable to hold it in and Mercury shot a look in his direction.

  “Do you need help?”

  “I…don't want to take it. You’ll need it.”