Mercury Rests

by Robert Kroese

  “You know I like you,” said Merc, “but if you take your diaper off, I’m screaming.”

  Perp didn’t seem to hear him. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”

  Mercury frowned. “You mean for imploding the moon? Perp, come on. I don’t think that’s even technically illegal. And in any case, there were extenuating circumstances. Michelle was there, she can back me up. It was the only way to save the Earth.”

  Perp stared at him, open-mouthed. “Mercury, what are you talking about? This isn’t about the moon. It’s about going AWOL and screwing up the Apocalypse. You’re in a lot of trouble. When designing an outdoor pen for a tortoise, you should provide a pen that is at least ten times the length and five times the width of the tortoise.”

  Mercury shook his head. “No, I worked that out with Uzziel when I turned myself in. The Apocalypse thing, not the tortoise thing. He’s going to have to sort out his own tortoise husbandry issues. They gave me leniency because I turned in Gamaliel.”

  “You turned in Gamaliel?”

  “Well, no. But Uzziel seemed to think I did. He called it a ‘token of goodwill.’ I wasn’t about to contradict him.”

  “Mercury, Gamaliel is still on the loose. He’s still out there somewhere, doing Tiamat’s dirty work. They’ve got about a hundred angels scouring the Mundane Plane for him.”

  “Well, sure, he’s out there now. Because Uzziel let him go. Uzziel’s in league with Tiamat. I thought you were supposed to be in the know, Perp. Next thing you’re going to tell me you haven’t heard about the moon.”

  “Mercury, listen to me,” said Perp. “Don’t pull the choke in a motor boat if the motor was running within the past forty minutes. You never turned in Gamaliel. I don’t know anything about Uzziel working with Tiamat. And your obsession with the moon is frankly scaring me. What on Earth happened to you?”

  A queasy feeling arose in Mercury’s stomach. Something wasn’t right here. Perp always knew everything before anyone else. If he didn’t know about it, it hadn’t happened.

  “Perp, what day is it?” Mercury asked.

  “It’s Saturday. October twenty-seventh. Two thousand twelve Anno Domini.”

  All the air rushed out of Mercury’s lungs. He leaned against the wall of the closet to steady himself.

  “What is it, Merc? What’s wrong?”

  “I came back before I left,” Mercury said numbly. “The moon hasn’t been destroyed yet.”

  “I’m not sure I like the way you said ‘yet’ at the end there,” replied Perp.

  “And I haven’t turned myself in yet. I’m still wanted by Heaven. And Gamaliel is still out there.”

  “OK, so now we’re both up to speed on what hasn’t happened yet,” remarked Perp. “I feel like we’ve made real progress today.”

  “I’ve got to turn myself in,” said Mercury.

  “What?” exclaimed Perp. “No!”

  “I have to warn them about Wormwood. It’s the only way.”

  “What the hell is Wormwood?”

  “Not sure, exactly. But apparently it’s the cause of a lot of bad shit. I have to warn them.”

  Perp frowned. “OK, first? They aren’t going to listen to you. You have no credibility at this point. Second, even if they did listen, what are they going to do about it? You don’t seem to know anything other than the fact that some ‘bad shit’ is going to happen. And third, you keep forgetting that you’re in a lot of trouble. If you turn yourself in, you’re going to spend the next couple hundred years in lockup.”

  Mercury rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Perp had a point. Turning himself in now would be futile. It also occurred to him that if it was only Saturday, that meant that Christine hadn’t yet found the anti-bomb inside Mount Mbutuokoti. And that meant that there was still a chance to intercept the anti-bomb before it fell into the hands of Horace Finch. This time around, Mercury would have time to get the anti-bomb somewhere safe before it detonated. There was still time to save the moon.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Mercury said. “Back to Kenya.”

  Perp shook his head furiously. “You’ll never make it out of the planeport,” he said. “It was a miracle that I intercepted you before security ID’d you. The odds that you’ll make it back to the Megiddo portal are practically nil.”

  “I’ve got to try,” said Mercury.

  “And if you fail? If they catch you?”

  Mercury considered this for a moment. If he got caught, then he wouldn’t be able to intercept the anti-bomb or stop Wormwood. And he’d get thrown in prison.

  “You know what?” said Mercury. “You’re right. Change of plans. I need to turn myself in.”

  “Good, now you’re starting to...wait, what? Didn’t we already decide that was a bad idea?”

  “I mean, not me. I’m going to turn in the other Mercury.”

  “The other...?”

  “I need a pen and a sheet of paper.”

  Perp produced both from his swaddling clothes. Mercury regarded the implements suspiciously for a moment, then shrugged. It was best not to think about Perp’s storage system. He put the paper on the floor and pulled the archangel Michelle’s card from his pocket. On the back was written:

  The rain comes from above.

  - M.

  Mercury smiled grimly as he remembered getting this message from Michelle in answer to his quest for answers about the Great Flood. He never did find out what the cryptic message was supposed to mean. He set the card next to the paper and started writing, doing his best to mimic Michelle’s graceful but no-nonsense script.

  “What are you doing?” Perp asked.

  “Writing a note to myself.”

  “Of course,” replied Perp dryly.

  Mercury knew exactly what to write. He shivered as he experienced an eerie sense of déjà vu. When he was done, the note read:

  Christine needs your help.

  Turn yourself in.

  - M.

  He could have written something different, he supposed, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  “Why don’t you sign your own name?” asked Perp.

  “Please,” replied Mercury. “I’m not exactly trustworthy, am I? I need myself to think the note is from Michelle. Then I’ll turn myself in, and I can get out of here.”

  Perp’s face was twisted in confusion. “You’re lying to yourself?”

  “I’m letting myself believe an untruth,” said Mercury. “If I fall for it, it’s my own fault for being gullible.”

  Perp was speechless.

  “OK,” Mercury said, folding the note and handing it to Perp. “I need you to deliver this to me. I’ll be at a bar called La Traviata on Santa Maria Island, in the Azores. Just give the note to the bartender and tell him to give it to me when I arrive. Make sure I don’t see you.”

  “I don’t...” Perp started. “You’re going to be in a bar in the Azores?”

  “Yes. In about five hours. I’m at a bullfight in Pamplona right now. I’d like to go back and tell myself not to bet on the matador with the eye patch, but sometimes you’ve got to let yourself make your own mistakes. Otherwise, how am I ever going to learn?”

  Perp seemed to have reached some sort of mental overload threshold. Realizing he was never going to fully understand what Mercury was talking about, he focused on the instructions he had been given. “OK, so I give this to the bartender and tell him to give the note to you when you show up. Does he know your name?”

  “Nope,” said Mercury. “Haven’t met him yet. Nice guy, Jorge. We talked about football together. American football, that is. Not a lot of Denver Broncos fans in the Azores. Just tell him that a tall guy with silver hair will be coming in.”

  Perp nodded slowly. “And you’re sure you aren’t completely insane?”

  Mercury considered this for a moment. “Can’t be one hundred percent sure,” he admitted. “But if you do this for me, I promise to
sit here in this broom closet until you come back.”

  “No turning yourself in?”

  “None.”

  “And then what?”

  “You come back and help me get back to the Mundane Plane. I have to get to Kenya to stop a crazy billionaire from making me destroy the moon.”

  “All right, then,” said Perp. “You realize this is going to take a while. I can’t get authorization for a temporary portal. I’ll have to use the Megiddo portal and fly to the Azores and back.”

  “I know,” said Mercury. “We’ve got plenty of time. I’ll just hang out here until you get back.”

  Perp opened the door and walked onto the concourse.

  “If you see me, just play dumb,” Mercury said.

  “Not a problem,” said Perp. “Zigzag to outrun a crocodile.”

  “And you have to promise never to tell me that I did this. I’ll never forgive me for pulling such a dirty trick on myself.”

  Perp sighed and closed the door behind him.

  SEVENTEEN

  Lucifer sat in a waiting room reading a six-month-old copy of Reader’s Digest and listening to the somnambulant strains of Jack Johnson leeching out of speakers recessed in the acoustic ceiling tiles. He had been reading selections from “Humor in Uniform” to a dour-looking gentleman sitting across from him, deliberately misstating the punch lines to ratchet up the severity of the man’s torment.

  “And then the corporal says, ‘I’ll wait as long as you need me to, but that’s not the general’s briefcase.’ Ha! Ha! Get it? That’s not the...Wait, there’s another line after that. Oh, then the sergeant says, ‘Then why are his pants in it?’ I suppose that’s the punch line there. ‘Why are his pants in it.’ I’m not sure I get that one. Ah, ‘Life in These United States’!”

  The dour man flapped his newspaper loudly, holding it up like a ward against Lucifer’s insipid commentary.

  “Anyhoo!” Lucifer exclaimed, making the man jump a little. “What are you in for, chief?”

  “Excuse me?” said the man, lowering his paper to glare at Lucifer.

  “Oh, that’s what I say when I’m stuck in a waiting room,” said Lucifer. “Sort of an icebreaker. ‘What are you in for, chief?’ As if we were in prison together.”

  “Hm,” grunted the man, returning to his paper.

  “We’re not, of course,” added Lucifer.

  “What?” asked the man irritably.

  “Not in prison,” clarified Lucifer. “We can leave whenever we want.”

  “Hm,” grunted the man.

  “Why, you could leave right now if you wanted to,” Lucifer went on.

  The man made no response.

  “If I’m bothering you, I mean. You could leave right now.”

  The man muttered something under his breath.

  “What’s that?” asked Lucifer.

  “I could leave right now,” the man repeated.

  “Yes!” Lucifer agreed. “You could! Leave right now!”

  The man folded up his newspaper and walked out the door without a sound.

  Lucifer chuckled to himself. “Still got it,” he said. He loved pulling this Jedi mind trick shit.

  The receptionist, a dumpy old broad with dishwater-colored hair, announced, “Mr. Thomason. Director Lubbers is ready for you.”

  Lucifer stood and approached the woman. “Mr. Thomason had to leave for an emergency meeting. I’ll be taking his place.”

  “And you are?”

  “My name is Rezon. R-E-Z-O-N. Lawrence Rezon. You can call me Larry.”

  “Well, Mr. Rezon,” she replied, “you’re not on Mr. Lubbers’s schedule. I’m afraid I can’t—”

  “Don’t be afraid!” Lucifer exclaimed. “There’s no need to be afraid of anything. Rules, procedures, et cetera. These things are just guidelines, correct?”

  The receptionist nodded dumbly.

  “We shouldn’t substitute the tyranny of the bureaucracy for good old-fashioned common sense. If Director Lubbers is expecting Mr. Thomason, and if Mr. Thomason has selected me to act in his stead, then it stands to reason that Director Lubbers should be allowed to see me. Correct?”

  “Correct,” the receptionist mumbled.

  “Listen to reason!” exclaimed Lucifer.

  “Reason,” the receptionist repeated.

  “Yes?” Lucifer asked.

  “Um, I’m sorry?”

  “You called my name. Mr. Rezon. R-E-Z-O-N. I’m here to see Director Lubbers?”

  “Oh,” replied the receptionist, confused. “Oh, um, I suppose you can go in, then.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” said Lucifer, bowing slightly at the woman. She blushed and looked away.

  He strolled down the hall to a door that read:

  DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR DIRK LUBBERS

  He opened the door to find Deputy Assistant Director Lubbers scowling at a stack of papers on his desk. He looked up with a start as Lucifer entered.

  “Who the hell...?” he began.

  “Director Lubbers,” cooed Lucifer. “It’s an honor to meet you. My name is Mr. Rezon. R-E-Z-O-N. Lawrence Rezon. You can call me Larry.”

  “I’m ten seconds from calling a security escort to haul your ass out on the street, Larry,” growled Lubbers, his right hand reaching for something under his desk. “How’d you get in here?”

  “No need for that,” said Lucifer. “I’m here because we have mutual interests.”

  “Speak plainly,” said Lubbers, waving a .38 caliber revolver. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

  “Fine,” said Lucifer. “I happen to know that you’ve just lost your best leads into Black Monday and the Anaheim Event. You let two very troublesome individuals, Christine Temetri and Jacob Slater, slip through your fingers. I also know that this puts you in a precarious position, career-wise. Fortunately for you, I’m in a position to help.”

  “How’s that?” asked Lubbers dubiously.

  “I have information,” Lucifer said coolly, “regarding a certain extradimensional portal in Southern California.”

  Lubbers glared at Lucifer for a moment and then put the pistol away. “Close the door,” he said. Lucifer shut the door and took a seat.

  Lubbers studied him thoughtfully. “Who are you, Mr. Rezon? How do you know about this portal?”

  Lucifer’s eyes lit up as he saw the cover sheet of the papers Lubbers had been reading. The first line read: “To Your Holiness the High Council of the Seraphim.” So, somehow Lubbers had gotten a hold of one of the MOC’s reports. Clearly Lubbers was smarter than Lucifer had given him credit for. He wondered how much Lubbers already knew about Heaven.

  “Who I am is immaterial,” replied Lucifer. “The important thing is that I know how dangerous these supposed ‘angels’ are. You see, I’m one of them. Used to be, anyway.”

  “You expect me to believe—”

  “I expect you to use your head, Director Lubbers. You know as well as I do that there are no such things as angels. Angels are mythical creatures, the stuff of fairy tales, correct?”

  Lubbers nodded.

  “However,” Lucifer went on, “alternate dimensions are quite real. Your scientists have long suspected as much. And some of those dimensions are populated by intelligent beings. In some cases, beings who possess technology and military capabilities that dwarf those of even the great United States of America. For example, destructive devices in the form of glass apples that make your most powerful nuclear warheads look like children’s toys. But I know their weaknesses. I can hand them over to you.”

  Lubbers appraised Lucifer skeptically. It certainly did sound like he knew what he was talking about.

  “You find this troubling, yes?” Lucifer asked.

  “Find what troubling?”

  “The idea that there’s somebody out there who is more powerful than you.”

  Lubbers snorted. “Of course I find it troubling!” he spat. “We’re the big kid on the block. Our whole foreign policy—hell, our whole worldvi
ew—is based on the idea that nobody can tell us what to do. And now we find out that we’re at the mercy of an alien race from another dimension? Alien beings who have no compunction about blowing up entire cities or even planets? Hell yes, I’m troubled.”

  “Ah,” said Lucifer, smiling beatifically. “But surely you don’t mean nobody can tell you what to do?”

  Lubbers frowned. “I’m not following you.”

  “Nor should you be,” said Lucifer. “But I was under the impression that...well, isn’t America a Christian nation?”

  Lubbers scowled. “I don’t know about all that. My job is to protect the American people from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

  “Indeed,” said Lucifer. “But you must understand something. Although I am a traitor to my race, I am not without principles. It is, in fact, my principles that prompted me to rebel against my superiors. What happened in Anaheim is an absolute atrocity, and I am very eager to help you prevent something like that from happening again. But before I can enter into any sort of agreement with you, I need to know that you are on the right side. The side of good.”

  “Of course we’re on the side of good!” barked Lubbers. “We’re the United States of America, goddammit. We’re a beacon of freedom and justice!”

  “So you would say that the United States is a Christian nation?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Please do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Say it.”

  “Jesus Christ,” grumbled Lubbers. “What are you, some sort of zealot?”

  Lucifer leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Far from it,” he said. “Just someone who wants to make sure he’s picked the right man for the job. The United States government is a vast entity, Director Lubbers. I could have gone to the secretary of defense or Homeland Security. I could have approached the president directly, if I had wanted to. I’m a very persuasive man with a lot of connections. But I chose you, because I believed you are the right man for the job. Was I mistaken?”