Mercury Revolts (13 page)

The cabin was even smaller than it seemed at first sight,
and in worse repair. Suzy doubted any self-respecting chicken would voluntarily
live there.

“So what now?” asked
Suzy.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, is there some kind of special angel greeting?”

“Yeah, it’s called knocking.”

They walked up to the door, which seemed to be basically a
sheet of plywood on hinges. Suzy knocked three times. They waited.

“Maybe he’s sleeping,” said Suzy.

“Angels don’t sleep.”

“Maybe he’s out for a walk.”

“Angels don’t walk.”

“Maybe there’s some kind of secret knock,” said a voice from
behind them. “Try knocking three times, waiting, knocking again, waiting a
little longer, and then knocking six more times.”

“Mercury!” cried Eddie, turning around to face the lanky
angel. Suzy turned and backed away a step. Eddie was right: this guy would be
hard to miss.

“Hey there, guy!” said Mercury enthusiastically. “And you!”
he exclaimed, turning to Suzy. “How
are
you?”

“You have no idea who I am, do you?” asked Eddie, a bit
dejectedly.

“Of course I do!” cried Mercury. “You’re… that… guy… that I
met that time… in that place. And how could I forget your adorable
purple-headed friend!”

“We’ve never met,” said Suzy coldly.

“Exactly,” said Mercury, “You’re unforgettable, so obviously
we’ve never met.”

“I’m Ederatz the cherub,” said Eddie. “I used to work for
the Mundane Observation Corps before… well, before you blew up the planeport
with a nuclear bomb, trapping me here forever.”

“Right, right,” said Mercury. “And we met at the…”

“In Los Angeles.
Remember? I was
the one who told you about the bomb.”

“Of course!
The
bomb that blew up the planeport.
Man, how do you sleep at night?”

“We’re here because Eddie thought you could help us,” said
Suzy, who was getting irritated at Mercury’s antics.

“Sure, sure,” said Mercury. “Come on in.”

He pulled on the block of wood that passed for a handle on
the plywood door, eventually managing to wrench the badly warped door open, and
gestured for them to enter. Eddie ducked under the low doorway and Suzy
followed. Mercury had to get almost on his knees to get inside.

The cabin was so small that once
inside,
Mercury could simultaneously touch all four walls, the floor and the ceiling.
In fact, he didn’t have much choice in the matter. He arched over Suzy and
Eddie like a curious pterodactyl. There was no furniture in the cabin except
for a lumpy mattress that covered half of the floor.

“It’s rustic,” said Mercury, by way of apologizing for the
tight quarters.

“It’s cramped,” said Suzy, wrinkling her nose. “And it
smells like pot and urine.”

“Not urine,” said Mercury.
“Ammonia.
The previous owner was a little eccentric.” He leaned over and put his face
close to a discoloration on the carpet. “And he seems to have spilled some…
well, no, that’s pretty clearly urine.”

Suzy threw the door open and stomped outside. She could
hardly believe she had driven halfway across the country to find this buffoon.
This
was the guy that Eddie thought could help them shut down Brimstone? She
pondered getting in her car and leaving the two nut cases to catch up while she
figured out what the hell she was going to do with whatever was left of her
life. Or would Eddie miraculously cause her car to break down as she drove
away? Even a mechanical dimwit like Eddie could give a car a flat tire. What
was the range of his miraculous power, she wondered—if that was what it was.
And could this Mercury character perform “miracles” as well? If so, why hadn’t
he done something about that
smell
?

“How about if we talk outside?” said Mercury, emerging from
the cabin. Eddie followed behind him.

“We’re leaving, Eddie,” said Suzy.

“What?” asked
Eddie.
“Why?”

“This guy can’t get a urine stain out of his carpet,” said
Suzy. “What makes you think he’s going to be able to help us with our demon
infestation?”

A hurt expression appeared on Mercury’s face. “It’s not that
I can’t get the urine stain out. It’s just that I’ve been busy.”

“Busy doing
what
?” asked Suzy.

“I’m writing a manifesto,” announced Mercury proudly. “Hey,
Eddie, aren’t you some kind of writer?”

“I’ve dabbled a little with—” Eddie started.

“Hang
on,
you’re going to love
this.” Mercury ducked into the cabin and then reappeared with a sheaf of paper.
“Now keep in mind that I’m not a professional writer like you, so this may be a
little rough.” Mercury cleared his throat and began reading. “Mercury’s
Manifesto,” he began.
“By Mercury.”

“I would like to talk to you today about some political
issues that I think are important. First, I want to talk a little about a
woman’s right to choose. I strongly support a woman’s right to choose. It
should go without saying that I also support a man’s right to choose. To my way
of thinking, they should take turns. For example, first the man might choose a
nice restaurant for them to go to. Then the woman could choose a top to go with
her beige capri pants without asking the man whether he likes the blue one or
the green one better. Then the man might choose to have cheesecake for dessert,
and the woman might choose to get her own cheesecake rather than eat all of the
man’s.

“Next, I would like to talk about flag burning. A lot of
people say flag burning isn’t a serious issue, because hardly any actual flag
burning takes place. These people are missing the point. The point is that
without a law forbidding flag burning, anyone could hypothetically burn a flag
whenever he or she sees fit. And that’s what I have a problem with: the
hypothetical flag burning. I believe that we should not only outlaw burning
flags; we should also outlaw the hypothetical burning of flags. Let’s say, for
example, that you were to burn a flag in your backyard. Under a typical
anti-flag burning law, you would go to jail. But under my enhanced anti-flag
burning law, you and I would
both
go to jail: You for burning the flag, and me for suggesting a
hypothetical situation in which you burned the flag. And there we would sit, in
our respective jail cells—mine real, yours hypothetical—reflecting on our
respective real and imaginary crimes.

“I also have some opinions on the War on Terror. I am
strongly in favor of the War on Terror. In fact, I think the War on Terror
should be drastically expanded to include all other unpleasant states of mind,
such as boredom and ‘the heebie jeebies.’ I don’t think we should stop fighting
until we are all happy all of the time. But we must stop before we hit
Complacency, because the war will be on that too.

“Finally, what is the deal with the climate controls in cars
today? I mean, can they make these things any more complicated? It’s like
somebody decided—”

“STOP!” shouted Suzy. “That is the worst manifesto anyone
has ever written, and I’m including
The Communist Manifesto
, which led
to the deaths of ten million people in Stalinist Russia. Ugh. For someone who’s
supposedly thousands of years old, you sure act like a hyperactive
middle-schooler.”

Mercury smiled and turned to Eddie. “I like her. She really
gets me.”

“Let’s go, Eddie,” growled Suzy.

“No, wait,” said Eddie. “Look, I know he’s kind of a lot to
handle, but I really do think he can help us.”

“Help you with what?” asked Mercury. “It’s not urine stains
in the carpet, is it?”

“You know Wormwood?” said Eddie. “The program that created
the bomb you detonated at in the planeport?”

“Um, sure,” said Mercury.

“Well, they’ve re-launched it. It’s called Brimstone now.”

“So?” Mercury replied. “The U.S. government has
like
eighty bajillion nukes. What’s one more?”

“Those nukes are tightly controlled by the military. And
they’re not exactly easy to steal. You saw the Wormwood nuke. You could fit it
in a backpack. The only real reason to build a weapon like that in the first
place is to stage a false flag terror attack. And it’s outside the military
chain of command, so it could easily go missing… just like the last one did.
And this isn’t theoretical. We have intelligence indicating the second bomb has
already been built.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Mercury. “False flags, rogue nukes, secret
programs… typical political bullshit. Not interested.”

“Hang on, you haven’t heard the worst of it,” said Eddie.
“It turns out the whole government is lousy with demons. They were the ones
behind Wormwood, and now Brimstone. The whole thing was probably Lucifer’s
idea. And you know who’s running the show now that Lucifer is out of the
picture?”

“Karl Rove?”

“Michelle.”

“
The
Michelle?”

“Yep.”

“Well,” said Mercury. “That’s… um, good, then, right?”

“You tell me.” said Eddie. “Would you trust Michelle with
control over the U.S. government, now that she has no one in Heaven giving her
orders?”

“Hmm.”
Mercury said. “I’ll grant
you that Michelle can be a little… overzealous at times.”

“A little?
Am I the only one who
remembers the Crusades?”

“Hey,” said Mercury. “Back up a minute. How can the
government be overrun with demons? They can’t get into Washington. What, are
they telecommuting from Virginia?”

Eddie shook his head. “That’s the problem. Whatever barrier
there used to be to angels and demons getting into Washington, D.C., it seems
to have fallen. The place is crawling with them. We came to you because I
remembered that you were around when the barrier went up. I thought maybe you
could help us figure out what happened and fix it.”

“What difference, at this point, does it make?” Mercury
asked. “The demons are there now, and the bomb already exists. Even if we were
somehow able to chase the demons out of D.C., the damage has been done. You
think this country is going to be better off with
humans
running it?”

“Alright,” said Suzy, putting her hands on her hips. “Now
you’re just pissing me off. We did just fine running this country until you
guys came along with your secret programs and plots and schemes. If you don’t
want to help put things right, that’s fine, but don’t act like we’re better off
because your kind is in charge now. From where I’m sitting, it looks like you
guys have royally fucked us all. What is that?”

This last was in reference to a faint whistling sound that
could be heard in the distance. It was quickly growing louder.

“Get down!” cried Mercury, tackling both of them.

The cabin exploded with a deafening blast and a great orange
fireball. A sound like prolonged thunder followed and then subsided into a
dopplerized whine as the jagged silver shape of a small jet airplane shot
overhead, not a hundred yards up.

“Into the woods!” yelled Mercury, grabbing them by their
arms and hoisting them to their feet. The three of them ran for cover as the
jet arced back toward them.

Chapter Fourteen
           
 

Apocalypse Bureau Building,
Heaven; December 3, 1773

Mercury
sighed as he knocked on the door to Uzziel’s office. As if his weekly status
reports weren’t bad enough, he was required to show up in Heaven once a month
for a face-to-face meeting with the director of Apocalypse Bureau. This
required flying halfway around the world, from Boston to Megiddo, Palestine,
taking the interplanar portal to the planeport, and then taking another portal
from the planeport to Heaven. The trip usually took about ten hours, depending
on the weather, and it was almost always completely pointless. Uzziel was a
typical bureaucratic paper-pusher: he rarely had any real guidance to give, and
Mercury was convinced that he insisted on these meetings primarily to remind Mercury
of his authority.
Mercury, who didn’t like being reminded of
anyone’s authority, tended to look at the meetings as an opportunity to make
Uzziel rethink just how badly he really needed to see Mercury.

“Come in!” Uzziel barked, and
Mercury opened the door.

“Ah, Mercury,” beamed Uzziel.
“How go things in the colonies?”

“The colonies,” said Mercury,
“are brimming over with patriotic fervor. Parades, fireworks… it’s like the
fourth of July over there.”

“Huh?” replied Uzziel.
“What’s happening on the fourth of July?”

“Don’t you remember the
supernova that started on July four, 1054? The whole sky was lit up.”

“Hmm, yes,” said Uzziel.
“That was quite something. So it’s going well?”

“More or less,” replied
Mercury. “There have been some complications, though.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Tiamat showed up
yesterday.”

“Tiamat!
What does that crazy bitch want?”

“I did some investigating,
and it looks like she’s working for Lucifer. I know, I know, I didn’t believe it
either at first. They’ve got some kind of deal worked out. Anyway, Lucifer does
not
want the colonists to revolt, and he’s got Tiamat doing everything
she can to dampen the patriotic fervor I’ve striven so hard to cultivate.
Striven? Strived? I’ve strived to cultivate.
Striven.
The patriotic fervor I’ve been working so hard on. STROVE! That’s it.”

“Are you going to need help?
I can probably free up a couple of agents…”

“No, no, you know me,” said
Mercury. “I can handle it. But I’m going to be working a lot of overtime
dealing with this whole Tiamat situation. Going to need some extra time off
when this assignment is done to decompress.”