Mercury Revolts (35 page)

“Oh, no,” he said when the
supposedly locked door opened without warning. “No more. I quit.”

A tall man with angular
features and ridiculous silver hair strode in. “You can’t quit now,” the man
said. “I promised Judy you’d be at her birthday party next week. You don’t want
to disappoint Judy, do you?”

“Who in the hell is Judy?”
Prowse demanded.

“Wow,” said the man. “I am
not
going to tell her you said that. So, how’s the job treating you these days?”

“The job?” asked Prowse. “How
would I know? I haven’t been in charge of anything for months. First it was
Michelle, and then that horrible Tiamat person, telling me exactly what I can
and can’t do. I can only assume you’re next in line?
Another
‘reorganization’?”

“Mmm,” said the man.
“Something
like
that. My name’s Mercury. I’m here to
advise you.”

“Yeah, that’s what Michelle
said.
And Tiamat.
And if I didn’t take their ‘advice,’
they’d find someone to replace me.”

“Well, I’m not going to
replace you,” said Mercury. “And frankly I don’t have the patience to hang out
with you and give you advice on trade deals with Guatemala or extradition
treaties with Bulgaria. Bulgaria. That’s a real place, right? Bulgaria?”

Danton Prowse nodded. “I
think so, yes.”

“Anyway, like I said, I don’t
have the patience for that crap. And I don’t have any grand schemes for scaring
the shit out of people with bombs or shoving computer chips in their skulls.
But I do have an agenda that I need you to follow. And if you don’t, I’m going
to make things as unpleasant as I can for you.”

“I knew it,” said Prowse
bitterly. “So what’s the agenda?”

Mercury pulled a sheet of
paper from his pocket, unfolded it and began reading.

“First,” he began. “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…” He trailed off. “Hey, this is my
manifesto! I thought I left this in the woods!”

Prowse looked aghast at him. “
That’s
your agenda?”

“Oh, goodness no,” said Mercury. “This is my manifesto.
Here’s the agenda.” He pulled another sheet from his pocket and handed it to
Danton Prowse.

Prowse frowned, unfolding the paper. It began:

We the People of the United
States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure
domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general
Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

“This is the Constitution,” said Danton Prowse.

“Damn straight,” said Mercury. “And like I said, you’re
going to follow it or I’m going to make things very unpleasant for you.”

“Who made you the judge of whether I’m following the
Constitution?” snapped Prowse. “What makes you think you understand it better
than I do?”

Mercury laughed. “I’m no judge,” he said. “I’m just a guy
keeping you honest. I’m not going to interfere with you doing your job. But if
you start sticking computer chips in people’s skulls, then there’s a very good
chance people are going to find out about a certain illegal bomb-making program
that you were intimately involved with. Understood?”

Danton Prowse nodded. “So you’re really going to let me run
the country?”

Mercury shrugged. “Frankly,” he said, “I don’t particularly
like you. A president with any balls would have told Michelle to take a walk
rather than be her lapdog. But the people of this country elected you, so what
do I know? Grow a spine, do your job, and you have nothing to worry about from
me.” He turned to leave.

“What, that’s it?” asked Prowse. “You throw a copy of the
Constitution on my desk and then leave, just like that?”

Mercury grinned. “A better man than you taught me an
important lesson,” he said.

“Which is what?” said Prowse.

“Know when to leave the stage,” Mercury said, and walked out
the door.

Postlude

Philadelphia;
August 1796

Mercury
walked quietly up the steps to the second floor of the four story house, made
his way down the hall and knocked on the door.

“Come in, Mercury,” said a
man’s voice from inside.

Mercury opened the door and
walked inside, shaking his head. “How do you do that?” he asked.

Inside the room a tall, lean
man sat hunched over an old oak desk, his massive, gnarled hands gripping a
sheaf of papers in front of him. He looked up as Mercury walked in. “I know
your walk,” said the man. “I know the gait of every man who works for me. I
could identify every one of my officers as they walked up from behind me, even
at Valley Forge, where the snow was three feet thick.
Makes
it difficult to sneak up on me.”

“Next time I’ll levitate,”
said Mercury. “We’ll see if you can hear
that
.” He added, after a
moment, “Mr. President.”

“What brings you here,
Mercury?” asked Washington. “I frankly never expected to see you again. I thought
you angels had sworn off politics.”

“Technically that restriction
only applies to the District of Columbia,” replied Mercury. “I assume that
Philadelphia is still swarming with demons.”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” said
Washington.

“Really?” asked Mercury. “So
you haven’t seen any of the demons I described to you? Lucifer, Tiamat,
Gamaliel?”

Washington shook his head.

“Huh,” said Mercury. “I guess
they figure they’d be wasting their time with you.”

Washington sighed. “With me,
yes. Even so, I must remain vigilant. My trust was betrayed once, and I cannot
let that happen again.”

Mercury nodded. Washington
had never really gotten over Benedict Arnold’s betrayal. It was the one wound
from the Revolution that had never healed.

“I’m sorry about that, Mr.
President. If I had…”

“It’s not your fault,
Mercury,” said Washington. “I should have seen that Benedict was motivated more
by his ego than love for his country. He felt that he had become a pawn in a
struggle he didn’t understand, and that was more than he could take.”

Mercury nodded. “Sir,” he
said after a moment.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what about
you?”

“What do you mean?” asked
Washington.

“I mean, it must have been
quite a shock when you found out about us. About the angels and demons, that
is. Don’t you sometimes feel like a puppet of forces beyond your
understanding?”

Washington shook his head.
“The hand of Providence guides us all, men and angels alike,” he said. “I do
what I can with what I’ve been given.
To wish for more than
that is foolishness.
And in any case, we’ve somehow managed to keep both
angels and demons out of the District of Columbia. The Capitol Building is
nearly finished, as is the new presidential residence, which they are calling
the White House. The next president will live there, inside the protective
field we’ve put in place.”

“
You
put it in place,”
said Mercury. “You laid the cornerstone. And the whole thing was your idea.”

“But you convinced your
superiors of the wisdom of the idea, Mercury. This wouldn’t have happened
without you. Imagine!
The first government in the history of
the world completely free from the meddling of angels and demons.
Just human beings, free to govern themselves as they see fit.
What a wonderful thing that is!”

Mercury nodded, trying to
share the president’s enthusiasm. “You said the next president will live in the
White House. Does that mean you’re not running again?”

Washington nodded. “I’m
getting old,” he said. “I’ve guided this country as well as I know how, but now
it’s time for someone else to take the reins.
Hamilton,
maybe.
Or Adams.”

“With respect, sir,” Mercury
said, “do you think that’s wise? You’re still a relatively young man. The
situation with Britain is tense, and war is brewing in France. Meanwhile there’s
the Indian problem, not to mention the rebellion in—”

“There’s always going to be
some crisis, some conflict,” said Washington. “If I don’t leave at the end of
my second term, I’ll be tempted to stay forever. And then where will this
country be? We’d have thrown off the yoke of one King George only to be
enslaved by another. No, Mercury, sometimes the wisest thing you can do is to
quit while you’re ahead.”

“But what if the country
isn’t ready?” asked Mercury. “What if the presidency falls into the hands of a
power-hungry tyrant or a weakling who fails to protect it from its enemies?
What if you’ve done all this work for nothing?”

“That was always a
possibility,” said Washington. “But as I say, we’re all under the hand of
Providence. Will the republic last, or will it crumble, rotted from the inside
by petty partisanship or crushed by foreign enemies? I do not know. But the one
sure way I know to stifle this new experiment in human governance is to insist
that it be kept completely under control. The more tightly I grip the reins,
the easier it will be for some future tyrant to exert his will. No, the
solution is not for me to hold on as tightly as I can; it’s to trust the people
of this country with their own destiny.”

“And you think the people can
be trusted not to fall for some silver-tongued demagogue who promises them
security in exchange for their freedom?”

Washington stood and walked
to the window, where he could see shopkeepers and tradesmen passing on the
street below.

“We’ll see, Mercury,” he said.
“We’ll see.”