Mercury Shrugs

by Robert Kroese

“Excuse me?” said Burton.

  “All three Mercurys could be over there right now,” said Jacob. “And if they are, that means they stopped Lucifer from rewriting history. But we’ll never know, because you have ‘strict orders.’ So I guess we’ll all just—unck—live in constant fear of being annihilated from here on out.”

  Burton glared at Jacob. Then he looked at the three FBI men standing nearby. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Go check on our prisoners.”

  “Yes, sir,” said one of the men. The three of them marched off.

  “You know how to work that thing?” he said to Jacob.

  “I can do it,” said Eddie. “I’ve watched Balderhaz. Piece of cake.”

  “All right,” said Burton. “I go through. No one else. If I’m not back in five minutes, shut it down.”

  “What do we tell the FBI?” asked Christine.

  Burton shrugged. “The fuck do I care?” he said. “If I’m not back in five minutes I’m either dead or trapped in an alternate universe. Tell them I left to be a roadie for Linkin Park.”

  Eddie went to the portal generator and turned it on. He selected the coordinates Balderhaz had entered for the Blue timeline and a moment later, the familiar glowing blue ellipse appeared.

  “So I just step on it,” asked Burton.

  “That’s all there is to it,” said Eddie. “Be back in five minutes or you’re stuck there.”

  Burton nodded. “All right,” he said. “See you shortly.” He stepped on the portal and disappeared.

  Christine, Jacob, Eddie and Suzy waited silently for him to return. Three and a half minutes later, he reappeared on the portal, looking no worse for wear. Eddie went to shut down the portal generator.

  “Wait,” said Burton. “There’s somebody else coming.” He cupped his hands together. “Rogers, Dexter!” he yelled. “Get over here.” The two agents came running.

  Those assembled watched as another figure materialized on the portal. Christine was holding her breath.

  It was Lucifer. He was wearing a crimson robe with flared lapels and an odd-looking pyramid-shaped hat that seemed to be made of velvet.

  Christine let out a heavy sigh.

  “Curse you and your black cubes of mundanity, alternate version of Special Agent Burton!” cried Lucifer. “You shall rue the day you interfered with my conquest of the other version of this plane!”

  “What the…?” Jacob said.

  “Put him with the others,” said Burton to the other two FBI agents.

  “The Mercurys weren’t there either,” said Burton. “But they had an extra Lucifer on their hands. I said I’d be glad to take him.”

  “Curse you, alternate Burton!” shrieked Lucifer, as Dexter and Rogers dragged him away.

  “Is that even the real Lucifer?” asked Eddie. “He seems… different.”

  “He’s from some other alternate universe,” said Burton. “Probably doesn’t have a clue about our Lucifer’s plan to erase history. But it doesn’t matter. He calls himself Lucifer and matches the description of the BIO of that name. By the time my bosses figure out he’s just some fruitcake refugee from a screwed up universe, I’ll be the head of my own division.”

  “Well, it’s really great this is going to be a career stepping stone for you,” said Christine.

  “I’m sorry,” said Burton. “I was hoping they’d be over there too. But they aren’t. The good news is that if I still have a job, I can probably use all of you. Particularly you, Eddie, since you’re a BIO.”

  “Angel,” said Eddie.

  “Right,” said Burton. “An angel. But I could use the rest of you as well, since you’ve all had some fairly extensive experience with angels and Heavenly politics.”

  “We’ll think about it,” said Suzy.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Christine and the others were transported by the FBI to Salt Lake City, where Burton had reserved rooms for them. He apologized for the length of the drive; evidently all the decent hotels within twenty miles of the portal facility had been gobbled up by members of the media. The luxury was mostly wasted on Christine, though; she was so exhausted after the night’s events, she could have slept on the floor of the portal generator facility. That is, if it hadn’t been blown to a million pieces. Or had that been a dream? She thought she remembered an explosion, but the whole experience had been so surreal that she couldn’t be sure.

  She slept for ten hours and then got up and took a long shower. It was her first for either three months or seven thousand years, depending on one’s perspective; either way, it felt very, very good. She brushed her teeth and got dressed in shorts and a t-shirt—the toiletries and clothing courtesy their FBI chauffeur, who had had the foresight to stop at a twenty-four hour truck stop for some basic necessities. The shorts were too large and the t-shirt read NO PANTS ARE THE BEST PANTS, but as least she wasn’t wearing seven-thousand-year-old clothes anymore. Those went in the garbage.

  Once she felt more or less human, she went down to the lobby. It was now mid-morning and she wasn’t sure if she was expected to check out at eleven. Perhaps Burton or their FBI escort had told her, but if so, she had been too hazy to retain such details. The cheerful front desk clerk informed her, however, that the room had been reserved for two more days. Good. She had no idea what she was going to do when those two days were up; she had no money, no identification, no transportation, no home. She supposed she had no choice but to go to work for Burton’s task force, but at least he’d had the decency to give her three days to consider alternatives—like hitchhiking to Vegas and becoming a stripper. Hopefully more options would present themselves to her addled brain after she’d had a couple of cups of coffee.

  Coffee!

  She had forced herself not to think about it for the three months she was in prehistoric Africa. Along with hot showers, it was one of the things she missed the most. For a moment she considered continuing her abstention, but then the odor wafting over from the restaurant adjoined to the lobby caught her nostrils and she came to her senses. She walked over to find Jacob and Suzy already in a booth. It figured. Those two had forged an immediate connection. Good for Jacob, she thought. She liked Jacob okay in a platonic sense, but as hard as the universe had tried to get them to end up together, it just wasn’t going to work between them. Even when he was the last man on Earth—well, the last man who spoke English, understood the value of flossing, and didn’t think the sun was three hundred feet away—she just couldn’t see it happening, and she suspected Jacob felt the same. She was reluctant to interrupt their chat, but Suzy noticed her and waved her over. Christine walked over and sheepishly sat down next to her, across from Jacob.

  “Good morning,” said Jacob. “Nice to sleep in a bed, isn’t it?”

  “Oh God, yes,” said Christine, noticing a carafe in the center of the table. “Is that…?”

  “Coffee,” said Suzy. “I made them bring a whole pot.”

  “You are my favorite person in this universe,” said Christine, pouring herself a cup.

  Jacob and Suzy traded glances but said nothing.

  “Oh, stop,” said Christine. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I miss the big jerk, just like you guys do. But, well, he’s an angel. And sort of a jerk, as I mentioned. Anyway, I just get the feeling that his time on this planet… this universe, this plane, whatever… that his time here is done. Like, the world needed somebody like him at this particular moment, and now the moment is passed. This probably isn’t making any sense. Where’s Eddie?”

  “Outside,” said Suzy. “Talking to Burton.”

  “About what?”

  “Tracking down angels, I suspect,” said Suzy.

  Christine frowned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  Jacob shrugged. “Eddie’s feeling is that the FBI—and probably agencies of other governments—are going to be working on trying to track down and recruit angels anyway, and if we’re involved, we might be able to keep them from starting another interplanar
incident.”

  “Sounds like you’re sold on the idea,” said Christine.

  “Well,” said Jacob. “It would mean a fresh start with me and the FBI. I don’t really have a lot of career options after going AWOL and getting mixed up with all this Apocalypse stuff.”

  “Me neither,” said Suzy. “With Mercury gone, I’m unemployed. And probably unemployable.”

  “I’m not judging,” said Christine. “If you guys think you can do some good for angel-human relations, go for it.”

  “What about you?” asked Jacob. “You’ve seen more of the multiverse than any human being alive. I’m sure Burton would love to have your help as well.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Christine. “I don’t imagine I have much choice.”

  “You could give it a few months,” said Jacob. “Until you’re back on your feet, at least. Then maybe get back to that novel you were writing.”

  Christine shrugged. “My manuscript is lost seven thousand years in the past. I’d have to start all over. I don’t know, maybe sitting alone in a cubicle somewhere in Washington, D.C. is a fitting end to all of this. You can only fight bureaucratic stupidity for so long. Eventually everyone is assimilated.”

  Jacob and Suzy were silent for some time.

  “Morning, everyone,” said a man approaching their table. It was Special Agent Burton. Eddie was right behind him. “I hope you all got some rest and had some time to think about my offer.”

  “Excuse me,” said Christine, getting up from the table.

  “Everything okay?” asked Eddie.

  “Yeah, fine,” said Christine. “I just need to get some air.”

  “No worries,” said Burton, as he sat down next to Jacob. “We’ll wait for you.”

  Christine nodded and began to walk away. Eddie came after her.

  “Hey,” said Eddie, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I know you and I have never been, like, close, but I just want you to know that I understand.”

  “You understand what?” asked Christine.

  “The story,” he said. “Somewhere along the way, we lost the plot. Things got so crazy there with all the time-travel and universe-hopping that after a while it seemed like nothing was ever going to make sense again. But it’s human nature to believe in the power of the narrative. The flow of cause and effect, actions and consequences. So through it all, we keep hoping that it’s all going to make sense eventually. That everything is going to come together.”

  “Happily ever after,” said Christine.

  “Exactly,” said Eddie.

  “But real life isn’t a story,” said Christine. There’s no beginning, no middle, no end. Just stuff happening, for no reason. And then you go work in a cubicle until you die.”

  Eddie shook his head. “No,” he said. “There’s still hope. There’s always hope. Just because we don’t see the end, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Things will get back to normal, yes. Life will go back to being mundane. But mundane can be wonderful, if you want it to be.”

  Christine smiled at him. “Do you really believe that, Eddie?”

  “I try to,” said Eddie. “Every day, I try. As hard as I can.”

  “Try for me too, okay, Eddie?” said Christine. “I’m not sure I can do it anymore.”

  Eddie nodded. “I will.”

  “Thanks, Eddie,” she said. “You’re a good guy. A good angel.”

  Eddie grinned.

  “Go keep an eye on our pal Burton,” said Christine. “I don’t trust him.”

  “Will do,” he said. He smiled at her once more, then turned and walked back to the table.

  Christine walked out through the lobby and went outside. It was a beautiful day, sunny and in the seventies, with just a slight breeze. Salt Lake City was a nice place, she thought. A beautiful city the people here had carved out of the wilderness. Like Heaven on Earth. No, better than that. She had seen Heaven, and she preferred Salt Lake City.

  I could live here, she thought. Maybe get a job in a little coffee shop or something. I don’t need much. But then she sighed as she remembered that even that modest dream would require more than she had: she couldn’t very well apply for a job wearing a shirt that read NO PANTS ARE THE BEST PANTS, and in two days she would be homeless. Even getting replacement driver’s license was going to be a challenge in her present circumstance.

  So as she strolled through downtown Salt Lake City, she resigned herself to going to work for Burton, as a “BIO consultant,” whatever that meant. Burton was going to be disappointed if he thought she had any special insight into the minds of angels. To her, angels were just people, albeit people who had been given the ability to bend the laws of physics. They had all the same faults as any other people. Some were vain, some were foolish, some were power-mad… and some were just downright unreliable. She envied those who could still believe in angels the way she once had—angels who had all the answers, who did the right thing unwaveringly, and who would swoop in and save you when you needed it the most. For all the wondrous things Christine had seen over the past months, that was an illusion that was no longer available to her.

  After a circuitous walk through the downtown area, Christine found herself on the opposite side of a small municipal park from the hotel, and decided to cut through it. As she neared the other side of the park, she could see the hotel in the distance and was struck by an overwhelming sense of melancholy. She didn’t want to go back there. Not yet. She found a bench next to a small pond and sat down. The others would be waiting for her, wondering where she had gone. But that was okay. They could wait five minutes longer. Just five minutes. And then she’d go back to normal life, whatever that was.

  “Hey,” said a man’s voice behind her. “Want to see a card trick? I’d bend a spoon, but I don’t have any of my trick spoons with me.”

  Christine turned slowly, not believing her ears. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. A very tall man with silver hair was walking toward her. “Speaking of which,” he went on, “you wouldn’t happen to have a deck of cards, would you?”

  She stared at the man for several seconds, unable to make herself speak. At last she managed, “Mercury?”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  “One in the same,” said Mercury, walking around the bench toward her.

  “One and the same,” Christine corrected.

  “Ah, okay,” replied Mercury. “Cool, I was hoping there’d be someone in this park who could correct my grammar. What do I owe you?”

  “How the hell did you get here?” Christine asked.

  “I walked,” said Mercury, taking a seat next to her. “Same as you.”

  “No, I mean, I thought you were trapped seven thousand years in the past.”

  “I was.”

  “Then how did you get here? And don’t say you walked, or I will slap you.”

  Mercury grinned. “I kind of like it when you slap me. In answer to your question, I got to the present time in the usual way: I waited.”

  “You waited,” said Christine flatly. “For seven thousand years.”

  “That’s right,” said Mercury.

  “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “Well,” said Mercury, “the first five thousand years were pretty dull. But folks in Sumeria started digging irrigation ditches, which I realize doesn’t sound that exciting, but stick with me, because once the city-state of Eridu was formed, it didn’t take long for a trade route to—”

  “Hold on,” said Christine. “I realize that you’ve been around a long time. But you’re not just saying you’ve been around since prehistoric times; you’re saying that you’ve now lived through all of human history twice.”

  “All of human history so far, yes,” said Mercury. “I had John drop me off on the Mundane Plane just a few minutes after it split off from the… you know what, the details aren’t important. The key point is that yes, I’ve lived through it all twice.”

  “But… why?”

  Mercury shrugged. “The alternative
was oblivion,” he said.

  “I think I might have gone with oblivion,” said Christine.

  “I almost did,” said Mercury. “But then I remembered something.”

  “What?”

  “That I told you not to give up hope,” Mercury said. “I couldn’t choose not to be when I knew you’d be here waiting.”

  Christine just stared at Mercury for a long time. At last, she said, “You waited seven thousand years for me?”

  “Well, you and hot dog stuffed crust pizza,” said Mercury. “But yeah.”

  “That’s… unbelievable,” said Christine.

  “Actually,” said Mercury, “it’s a fairly logical progression from the other types of stuffed crust pizza, if you think about it.”

  Christine realized she was grinning like a crazy person, and she didn’t care. “You know what, Mercury? You can make dumb jokes all you want, but you’re not going to ruin this moment. You waited seven thousand years for everything to happen all over again, just so that you could meet me here at this moment. You went through the great flood, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Crusades, both world wars… wait, why didn’t you kill baby Hitler?”

  “I made a pledge not to interfere in history,” said Mercury. “Also, the line of time travelers waiting to kill baby Hitler is insane. You’re much better off trying to kill baby Leopold II. That guy was a serious asshole. But no, it wasn’t my place to meddle. I let things happen the way they happened, for better or worse. I only used my foreknowledge of events once, to buy three hundred shares of a company called Quicksilver Fabrication, under the name Marcus Uittenbroek. And I only used my angel powers a dozen or so times, only to save lives, and even that almost got me in serious trouble. For the most part I’ve just lived a normal life, keeping to myself.[12] Figured if Jesus didn’t use his powers to get down from the cross, I could manage.”

  “You saw Jesus on the cross?”

  “Well, no,” said Mercury. “I heard about it after, though. I did meet him once, a few years before.”

  “Really? Did he say anything to you?”

  “Yeah,” Mercury replied. “He said, ‘Don’t lose hope.’”