Mercury Shrugs (7 page)

Chapter Ten

Mentzel Ranch, just outside Elko, Nevada; October 22, 2016

Mercury, Eddie, Suzy and Balderhaz stood on a small desert plateau a few miles outside of Elko, Nevada. The dry air was cool, but the sun climbing the sky to their left cast a warm glow on their shoulders, promising to bake the shit out of the already parched ground before the day was done. A tiny dust cloud on the horizon indicated that a car was headed their way.

“What a Godforsaken place,” said Suzy. “Does it really have to be so remote? Are we worried about radiation or something?”

“I am,” said Balderhaz, who was slathering some sort of thick gray cream on his mostly bald pate. He had applied the cream unevenly, so that while most of his thin hair was now cemented against his scalp, a few errant wisps still undulated in the breeze, reminding Suzy of seaweed on an ocean floor. “Zinc oxide with lead shavings,” said Balderhaz, holding the jar out to Suzy. “SPF eight hundred.”

“You know lead is poisonous, right?” said Suzy.

Balderhaz frowned, staring at the glob of gray goo he had just scooped up with his fingers. He gave the glob a sniff and then stuck his fingers in his mouth.

“Tashtes okay to me,” he said, working the stuff around his mouth.

Suzy grimaced and forced herself to look away. Despite his brilliance, Balderhaz was the sort of person who would long ago have been eliminated from the gene pool were he not immortal.

“Not radiation,” said Eddie. “Prying eyes. Building regulations. Zoning regulations.”

“That and the possibility of an uncontrolled surge of interplanar energy, sucking everything for miles around into another dimension,” said Mercury.

“You mean like what happened in Anaheim?” Suzy asked.

“Same principle, yes,” said Mercury. “Interplanar energy channels can be capricious beasts. Although obviously we’d have safeguards to avoid something like that.”

“Safeguards designed by him?” asked Suzy. She indicated Balderhaz, who was now on his hands and knees, dragging his tongue across the parched ground. Evidently he had decided he wasn’t enamored of the taste of the gray goo after all.

“Don’t let him fool you,” said Eddie. “He really is a genius. Nobody on Heaven or Earth knows more about manipulating interplanar energy than Balderhaz.”

Mercury nodded. “And frankly, if we have an uncontrolled energy surge, being a few hundred miles away from civilization probably won’t help much. I mean...” He glanced at the misshapen Moon that was still visible in the western sky.

“Holy shit,” said Suzy. “Are you saying
that
could happen on Earth?”

“Could and almost did,” said Mercury. “You know, I get a lot of shit from people about imploding the Moon, but they don’t realize how close the Earth came to—”

“Mercury,” said Eddie. “I don’t think you’re helping to reassure Suzy.”

“Oh, is that what we’re doing?” asked Mercury, regarding Balderhaz, who was now sitting up on his haunches, pawing at his tongue.

“Did you guyth bring any water?” Balderhaz asked.

“In the car,” said Eddie, pointing to the Lincoln Navigator they had driven out to the ranch. Balderhaz nodded and ran to the car. He opened the rear door and climbed inside, slamming the door after him.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” said Suzy, watching the dust cloud in the distance. She could now just make out a red pickup truck at the front of it. “I didn’t realize it was so dangerous.”

“Danger is relative,” said Mercury. “As much as I hate having to be the responsible one, Eddie is right about Tiamat and Michelle. They’re always scheming, and for once we have a chance to get out ahead of them. If we don’t reestablish interplanar communications, someone else will.”

“Hmm,” said Suzy.

“What?” said Eddie. “If you have doubts about this plan, you should let us know.”

“Hey, I’m just a hired gun,” said Suzy. “I’ll order materials, apply for permits, pay off local officials, whatever you need me to do to get this thing built. I’m happy to have any job after the Brimstone debacle.
[7]
But all this interplanar portal stuff is above my pay grade. You guys are the angels.”

“No,” said Eddie. “We’re a team. If something’s bothering you, you need to tell us.”

The red pickup was now only a hundred yards or so away.

“Well,” said Suzy, “it does occur to me that maybe you two haven’t been completely honest about your motivations.”

“Meaning what?” asked Eddie.

“Meaning that although my understanding of celestial politics is limited, from what I gather you two have been on the outs with the Heavenly authorities for some time now. Mercury in particular has been playing pretty fast-and-loose with the rules. He screwed up the Apocalypse, wrecked the Moon, blew up the planeport—”

“Saved the world, saved the world, saved the world,” Mercury muttered.

“Look, I get it,” said Suzy. “I’m on your side. But I know a little something about how bureaucracies work. And if Heaven works anything like Washington, D.C., when the dust settles the higher-ups are going to be looking for a scapegoat—or scapegoats—to pin all these debacles on.”

Eddie shook his head. “I’ve documented everything. We had no choice. Even blowing up the planeport was the least bad option. The Senate will see that.”

“You’re not listening, Eddie. Bureaucratic finger-pointing has its own logic. Somebody is going to have to pay.”

“Spit it out, Suzy,” said Mercury. “Eddie can be a little dense.”

“Fine,” said Suzy. “Eddie, I think Mercury talked you into building this plane generator because when contact with Heaven is reestablished, he wants to be in control of it. He wants to have a monopoly on interplanar travel so that the Heavenly authorities won’t dare try to punish him.”

Eddie frowned and looked at Mercury. “Is that true?” he asked.

Mercury shrugged, watching the red pickup come to a halt in front of them. “Does it matter? It doesn’t change anything. You know this is our best chance at forestalling Tiamat’s schemes.”

“It matters,” said Eddie, “because the whole point of this project is to thwart the plans of a power-hungry despot. It doesn’t help to stymie Tiamat if another despot steps into her place.”

Mercury laughed. “Me? A despot? I think you overestimate my ambition, as well as my attention span. Look, even if we can get the portal generator to work, it’s going to be capable of opening a single portal, connecting this spot to one particular place in Heaven. That’s it. It’s hardly going to give us absolute control over time and space. Might it someday lead to the construction of another planeport? Maybe. Would it be cool if the authorities decided to name the planeport after me out of gratitude, and perhaps commission a gigantic bronze statue of me in the center of it? Sure. But that’s as far as my ambition goes. I’m not cut out to be a dictator. All right, everybody, pipe down. Let me do the talking.”

A leathery, weather-worn old man had gotten out of the red pickup and was walking toward them. Mercury took a step forward and held out his hand.

“Marcus Uittenbroek,” he said, shaking the man’s hand.

“Good to meet you, Marcus,” said the man. “I’m Steve Mentzel. I understand you’re interested in buying my land.”

Mercury opened his mouth to reply, but was distracted by a knocking sound coming from his left. Looking to the Navigator, He saw Balderhaz’s face pressed against the glass.

“I’ve got it,” Suzy said, and walked to the car.

“Who is that?” asked Mentzel, watching as Suzy opened the door and climbed into the backseat next to Balderhaz.

“That’s Uncle Stan,” said Mercury. “He’s got an eight-inch stainless steel bolt in his head.”

“Oh my God,” said Steve Mentzel, staring at Balderhaz in horror. Balderhaz now had his head in Suzy’s lap, and was sobbing uncontrollably. “Construction accident?”

Mercury shook his head. “No, he was born that way,” he said. “Weirdest thing.”

Steve Mentzel regarded him speechlessly.

“So,” Eddie interjected, “I assume our offer is acceptable to you, Mr. Mentzel?”

Mentzel nodded. “More than acceptable,” he said. “Suspicious, even. You’re offering double what I asked.”

“We didn’t want to get outbid,” said Mercury. “The family is building a house for Uncle Stan, and we let him pick the location. He doesn’t get to make a lot of decisions, so this was kind of a big deal for him. Look how excited he is.”

Mentzel frowned, looking at Balderhaz and Suzy in the backseat of the Navigator. Balderhaz was still weeping, and Suzy was wiping gray goo from his scalp with Kleenex. “
He
picked this spot?” Mentzel asked.

“Well,” said Mercury, “he drooled on a map, which is about as about as clear an indicator as you’re going to get from Uncle Stan.”

“I see,” Mentzel said uncertainly. “You know, I’m not sure how I feel about taking advantage of a man who is clearly... mentally defective.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Mercury. “Uncle Stan is broke. I’m the one with the money.”

“You’re the one I’m talking about,” said Mentzel.

“Oh,” said Mercury.

Eddie chuckled nervously. “We’re an eccentric family, Mr. Mentzel. But we’re honest people. This is where Uncle Stan wants to spend the remainder of his days, so this is where we’re going to build. Assuming you accept our offer. We can pay in cash.”

Mentzel nodded slowly. “Well, that’s all good. I wanted to ask you one other thing, though.”

“Sure,” said Eddie.

“You’re not religious nuts, are you?”

“Uh,” said Eddie. “No. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve had some problems with these oddballs from California. End of the world types. I put up signs, but it doesn’t keep them out. I haven’t seen them for a few years, but I keep expecting them to show up again someday.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about them anymore,” said Mercury. “Once you sign the land over to us, they’ll be our problem.”

“Unless you’re them,” said Mentzel.

“We’re not,” said Eddie. “But even if we were, like Marcus says, it wouldn’t be your problem anymore.”

“Thing is,” said Mentzel, “I’m a little concerned you’re going to go all Heaven’s Gate on me. I don’t want to get a call from a TV reporter in six months and have to talk about how you all seemed like nice people and I can’t believe you all drank cyanide because you thought some damn comet was going to take you to Heaven.”

“No worries there,” said Mercury. “Next major comet sighting isn’t until 2037. What you should really be worried about is asteroids. Did you know that the Tunguska meteor knocked down 80 million trees? And it might have been less than a hundred yards in diameter. An asteroid the size of—”

“What Marcus is trying to say,” Eddie interjected, “is that we have no suicidal or otherwise destructive intentions. We just want to build a nice place where we can cherish our remaining years with Uncle Stan.”

“While he slowly dies of natural, non-comet-related causes,” added Mercury.

“That’s right,” said Eddie.

“Fine,” said Mentzel. “What you do on your own property is your business. I mean, as long as you aren’t trying to open some kind of mystical portal to Heaven.”

“Absolutely not,” said Eddie.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Mercury.

“So when can we start on the mystical portal to Heaven?” asked Balderhaz, who had wandered up behind them.

“Sorry!” said Suzy, grabbing Balderhaz by the shoulder. “Uncle Stan, let’s get you something to eat. There are sandwiches in the car.”

“Good idea,” said Balderhaz. “I’ll need to eat something before I start working on the mystical portal we’re planning to build here.”

Suzy smiled weakly, pulling Balderhaz back to the Navigator.

“He’s confused,” said Eddie. “Sometimes he repeats things without knowing what they mean.”

“The confluence of interplanar energy at these coordinates is really quite remarkable,” Balderhaz was saying. “We’ll still need proximal transducers to help inhibit the noise in the chaotic vector matrix, but any time you can leverage the topography to stabilize the metagenic field, I call it a win.”

“See?” said Mercury. “Pure gobbledygook. We’ve taken him to the best doctors in the world, but they all say the same thing. He needs an MRI.”

“So why don’t they give him one?” asked Mentzel.

“They can’t, because of the bolt in his head. It’s ironic, I suppose.”

Mentzel nodded. “All right, then. Why don’t you all follow me back to my office and we can sign the paperwork.”

“Excellent!” said Eddie. “We’re eager to get started. On the house for Uncle Stan, I mean.”

“Mystical gateway to Heaven, here we come!” yelled Balderhaz from the backseat of the Navigator. Suzy got in next to him and slammed the door.

“Are you sure he wouldn’t be better off in some kind of institution?” Mentzel asked.

“Nah,” said Mercury. “This is the best place on Earth for him to be.”

Chapter Eleven

FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.; October 24, 2016

Tiamat sat at a metal table, her hands cuffed in front of her. A chain ran through the handcuffs, securing her to a metal ring bolted to the table’s surface. In front of her, just out of reach, was the Balderhaz cube. She sat in silence, waiting. She had been in the small, windowless room for nearly two hours, having been escorted from a holding cell early that morning. After nearly two weeks in FBI custody, she had begun to think that Special Agent Burton and his superiors had forgotten about her.

The door to the opened and a man in a dark blue suit entered. He smiled at Tiamat.

“Special Agent Burton,” she said. “You’re looking dapper today.”

“First day in a new job,” he said, sitting down in the chair across from her. He placed a manila folder on the table in front of him. “You’re looking at the Director of the Task Force on Beings of Indeterminate Origin.”

“Euphemisms,” sniffed Tiamat. “Not an auspicious start. How do you expect to face your enemies if you can’t name them?”

“Again, you assume too much,” said Burton. “We’re a task force
on
BIOs, not
against
them.”

“If I’m not your enemy,” said Tiamat, “you could demonstrate that fact by unchaining me.”

“You’re a dangerous woman with a history of subversive activity,” replied Burton, “irrespective of your nature or origin.”

“Then charge me with a crime.”

“The courts can’t be trusted to deal with the likes of you. Fortunately, I’ve been granted the authority by the President himself to hold you indefinitely without trial. It’s the opinion of the White House lawyers that the Constitutional right to due process only applies to human beings.”

“I see,” said Tiamat. “But what proof do you have that I’m not human?”

“Good question,” said Burton, reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulled a metal object from his pocket and set it on the table next to the manila folder.

“What the hell is that?” Tiamat asked.

“Pruning shears,” said Burton. “I intend to remove one of your fingers.”

Tiamat reflexively pulled her hands back, straining against the chain. “Why on Earth would you do that?”

“To see if it grows back,” Burton answered matter-of-factly. “If it does, I’ll have documented evidence that you are a supernatural being.” He pointed at a tiny camera peeking out from the wall their left, just below the ceiling.

“Or you’ll have documented evidence of yourself using violent coercion against an unarmed suspect who has been charged with no crime.”

“After your miraculous recovery in the warehouse,” said Burton, “that’s a chance I’m willing to take. Unless you’d prefer door number two.” He reached into his jacket and withdrew a smaller object, setting it next to the shears.

“A pen?”

Burton opened the folder and turned it so the document inside faced Tiamat. “An admission that you are a Being of Indeterminate Origin, which effectively negates any claim you have to due process.”

“So I sign this or you cut off my finger.”

“Correct.”

“I could always say I was coerced.”

“You can say whatever you like. Nobody is going to hear it but me. Don’t get the idea that this is some kind of momentous decision on your part. It’s just a formality. Legally, the result is the same either way.”

“Unless my finger doesn’t grow back.”

“Sure,” said Burton. “But we both know it will.”

With a sigh, Tiamat picked up the paper and signed it.

Burton picked up the document and inspected it. The line at the bottom read “Katie Midford AKA Tiamat.” Tiamat had simply signed it “Tiamat.”

“Is this your full name?” asked Burton.

Tiamat shrugged. “It’s what I go by on this plane,” she said.

“What do you mean when you say ’this plane’?”

Tiamat sighed again.

“Look,” said Burton. “Here’s how this is going to work. You help me, I help you.”

“And how are you going to help me, Special Agent Burton?”

“For starters, I can make you more comfortable. Get you a bigger cell. Books and TV.”

“Internet access?”

“Maybe eventually. If you prove yourself reliable, I might even let you come with us on field trips occasionally.”

“Oh, goody,” said Tiamat. “Field trips to apprehend other angels, you mean.”

“Possibly,” said Burton. He paused a moment, then continued, “I’m going to level with you, Tiamat. I’m a bit out of my element here. I’ve done as much research as I can about these ’angels’ or whatever you want to call them, but frankly the reports I’ve come across are sketchy and often contradictory. Don’t get me wrong; the higher-ups are definitely believers. This task force was created at the request of the President himself. The problem is at the lower rungs of the bureaucracy. You see, law enforcement agents are trained not to see the supernatural. In this job, ninety-nine percent of the time the simplest explanation is the right one. An agent who goes looking for fanciful, complicated explanations is soon going to be unemployed. So even when I interview agents I know have had first-hand experience with angels, I get nowhere. They make up the most ridiculous explanations you can imagine to avoid admitting they’ve come across something completely inexplicable. I’ve talked to civilians as well, but they’re just as bad. They’ve got no training in observing details, so half the time you can’t even tell what they’re trying to explain away. And the other half of the time, they get so carried away with their own theories that you can’t separate conjecture from what they actually saw.”

“So you want a crash course in angelology.” said Tiamat. “What’s in it for me? And don’t tell me bon-bons and Netflix. I can’t be bought so cheaply.”

“Fair enough,” said Burton. “I’ll admit I have little to offer you in terms of material rewards. I can make you a bit more comfortable, but you and I both know that I can never let you go free.”

“If this is your idea of sweet-talking me, you might want to rethink your strategy,” said Tiamat.

Burton went on, “But it occurred to me on my way over here that what you really want isn’t material anyway.”

“Oh?” said Tiamat. “And tell me, Special Agent Burton, what do I really want?”

“Power,” said Burton.

“And you’re going to give that to me?”

“No,” said Burton. “But I fully expect you to take it. You see, Tiamat, whether you realize it or not, you’re actually in a very privileged position. You are the only angel on Earth in the position to influence FBI policy. The U.S. government is fully committed to getting control over the BIO menace. How we go about that and what angels we target first is largely up to you.”

“Why, Special Agent Burton, are you suggesting that I would use my influence to settle petty grudges with other angels?”

“Yes,” said Burton.

“Then we understand each other,” said Tiamat with a smile. “What do you want to know?”

“You can start by explaining what you mean when you talk about ’planes.’”

“Unchain me,” said Tiamat.

Burton thought for a moment, then reached into his pocket and withdrew a key. He reached over the table and unlocked the handcuffs.

Tiamat took them off and rubbed her wrists. “Thank you,” she said, glancing at the Balderhaz cube. “Planes are like alternate dimensions. Everything you experience, what you consider the ’universe,’ is actually just one of many planes.”

“Does this have something to do with the Many Worlds hypothesis in physics?”

Tiamat shrugged. “I don’t really keep up with Mundane Science. The idea has been around a long time. It’s had many different names.”

“So there’s another Earth on each of these planes?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Tiamat. “I haven’t been to all of them.”

“How many have you been to?”

“A few dozen, maybe? The ones I’ve been to have all had a version of something like Earth, but it’s often almost unrecognizable. One thing you have to understand is that the so-called ‘laws of physics’ are only laws here on the Mundane Plane. Everywhere else, they are more like suggestions. Maybe originally all the planes were identical, but a few thousand years of minor violations of the laws of physics can have some pretty dramatic consequences.”

“Are you saying that these different planes have only been around for a few thousand years?”

“That’s a conjecture based on the amount of variation I’ve seen in the planes. Nobody knows for sure how old they are, but the consensus seems to be that the known planes split off from each other about seven thousand years ago. Your turn, Special Agent Burton. What are you trying to accomplish with this task force?”

“The main purpose of the task force is to identify, catalog and track every angel on Earth, to assess the potential threat level of each, and to make recommendations regarding how to handle them. Every angel will either be apprehended and neutralized or be converted into an asset.”

“Fine,” said Tiamat. “But I didn’t ask the purpose of the task force. I asked what
you
are trying to accomplish.”

“I plan to turn this task force into a new division of the FBI, and eventually a cabinet-level department.”

“With you in charge.”

“Of course,” said Burton.

“What if the angels don’t cooperate?”

Burton smiled. “That’s the beauty of this task force,” he said. “Angels who resist being converted give me justification for requesting more funding and more power.

“Nicely done, Burton. Are you sure you’re not a schemer?”

Burton shrugged. “I never force things, but I’m always ready when the stars align. An opportunist, as you said. How many angels are there on Earth?”

“My best guess is around a hundred.”

“Where do they come from? Is there really a place called ’Heaven?’”

“There’s a plane called Heaven, although it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. And no, it’s not where you go when you die.”

“Where
do
people go when they die?”

“Schenectady. How should I know?”

“How many known planes are there?”

“The exact number is classified. Honestly, I’m not sure Heaven even knows. My best guess is around five hundred. Theoretically, there could be an infinite number of planes. But most of them are inaccessible. You can’t get to a plane unless you can pinpoint its location, for lack of a better term. You need a sort of address.”

“Like an IP address on the Internet. Not a physical location, but a unique identifier.”

“Something like that.”

“But it takes more than just knowing the address. You have to have some kind of portal, right?”

“Yes,” said Tiamat. “And to create a portal, you need to have a portal generator. But the only one in existence was the one that powered the planeport. It was destroyed by a nuclear explosion four years ago.”

“The planeport? What’s that?”

“Like an airport, but for connecting planes. Basically one big portal generator, with a bunch of portals open between various planes. Theoretically you can open a portal from anywhere, on any plane, to anywhere else, but it’s much more difficult in some places than in others. It all depends on the configuration of the interplanar energy channels. Anyway, the key point is that right now, nobody can open a portal anywhere, because the only portal generator in existence has been blown to smithereens.”

“So all the angels on Earth—that is, on the Mundane Plane—are stuck here.”

“Correct.”

“Who blew up the planeport? And why?”

“An angel named Mercury. He’s a bit of a troublemaker.”

“Sounds like somebody we should look into. Do you have any idea how to locate him? Or any other angels?”

“Sadly, no,” said Tiamat. “Mercury is hard to pin down. And after the failure of the Myrmidon project, my minions all scattered. If I had any idea where they were, I wouldn’t have had to resort to posting Craigslist ads.”

Burton frowned. “So you’re saying you can’t actually help me find any other angels.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” replied Tiamat. “My predicament was due mainly to my lack of resources. I assume you don’t have that problem.”

“If I can make a case that it will help us find the other angels, I can probably get it.”

“Good,” said Tiamat. “I’ll need a lab. Nothing fancy, just some room to work and some basic fabrication tools. I’ll get you a list. And three or four assistants.”

“Any particular skills you’re looking for? A background in chemistry or physics maybe?”

“Heavens no,” said Tiamat. “I don’t want them to have to unlearn all that nonsense. I need people who are good with their hands but don’t have a practical thought in their heads. Art students are always a good choice. Let’s see, what else? A photonic crystal laser. Ten grams of tritium. A hundred yards of thirty-gauge platinum wire. A Siamese cat.”

Burton was furiously jotting all of this down. “A Siamese cat? Really?”