Newton had managed to get on one foot and was hopping as quickly as he could away from the helicopter.
Eddie’s eyes began to roll back in his head. The helicopter pitched forward began to lose altitude.
“Eddie!” Suzy cried. But Eddie had passed out, slouched over in his seat. The helicopter was in freefall. “Eddie!” Suzy screamed again, slapping him across the face.
“Eh?” said Eddie, looking around crazily.
“We’re falling!”
“Oh,” said Eddie.
Then the helicopter hit the ground.
It landed head-first, throwing Suzy against her restraints and knocking the wind out of her lungs. The windshield shattered and the cockpit crumpled. Then the helicopter rolled onto its left side, rocked a few times, and was still. Suzy was dazed but conscious, as were Zion Johnson and the pilot. Eddie had passed out again. She could only assume that Eddie had managed to break their fall at the last moment. There was no other explanation for why they were still alive.
Suzy managed to free herself from her restraints and then unfasten Eddie’s.
“Don’t try anything,” said Zion Johnson, who was lying sprawl on the wall of the helicopter, still holding his gun on her.
“Will you stop saying that?” Suzy snapped. “I get it, you have a gun. I don’t. Now will you help me get Eddie out of here?”
Zion Johnson nodded to the other men. The pilot climbed out the door of the helicopter, which was now overhead. The other man grabbed Eddie around the middle and hoisted him onto his shoulder. The pilot grabbed Eddie’s belt and dragged him on top of the helicopter. Then he gave Eddie’s limp body a shove, and Eddie slid across the top of the fuselage to the ground, landing with a thud.
“Hey!” cried Suzy. “Be careful! He just saved your life!”
The man next her shrugged.
Zion Johnson went next, managing to climb out with minimal assistance despite his immobile left leg. When he was out of the way, the two men helped Suzy out. She scrambled down the fuselage to the ground, followed by the other man. Eddie was lying crumpled on the ground, moaning. Zion Johnson and the pilot stood nearby. The man who had fallen from the rope, Newton, was nowhere to be seen.
“Newton!” yelled Zion Johnson. “Get back here!”
Suzy helped Eddie sit up. He lay blinking in the sunlight. “Wow,” he said, staring into the distance.
It didn’t take long for Suzy to figure out what Eddie was looking at: the remnants of a mushroom cloud hung in the sky. “The city…” she gasped.
Eddie shook his head. “Too far away. He did it. Mercury saved Grand Rapids.”
“Newton!” yelled Zion Johnson again. “Get back here with that cube!”
“Eddie,” whispered Suzy. “Can you walk? If we can get far enough away from that cube…”
Eddie nodded, glancing over at the three men, who were still staring into the cornfield.
“Where the hell is Newton?” growled Zion Johnson.
Eddie quietly got up and the crept away between two rows of corn.
“Hey!” yelled Zion Johnson. “Didn’t I tell you not to try anything?”
Suzy stopped, raising her bound hands above her head. They turned to face Zion Johnson, who was training his gun on them.
“If you fire that gun, I’ll make it blow up in your face,” said Eddie.
“Why wait?” replied Zion Johnson with a smirk. “Just make it blow up now. Go ahead, do it.”
Eddie glared at him.
“You won’t,” said Zion Johnson, “because you can’t.”
As he spoke, Newton crawled out from a wall of corn stalks. His face was ashen, and in one hand he clutched the Balderhaz Cube. He dropped it and fell face-first into the mud. His left ankle was bent at a completely unnatural angle.
“Now here’s what we’re going to do,” said Zion Johnson, plucking the Balderhaz Cube out of Newton’s hand and handing it to the man to his left. “Purple-hair and Jenkins are going to go for a nice walk to that tractor over there. Eddie, you’re going to fix Newton’s ankle and my leg. If you try anything funny, Jenkins is going to shoot Purple-hair in the head.” He glanced at Jenkins, who nodded and drew his gun. “Then, assuming we’re all still alive and ambulatory, we’re going to walk to that farmhouse and commandeer a vehicle with four fucking wheels and some drink holders. Everybody on board with that?”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Heaven, Washington, D.C., and Plane 4721c; 1789 - 1793
To Mercury’s astonishment, his plan of angelic non-involvement in North America met with some interest in the higher reaches of the Heavenly bureaucracy. The main concern was the difficulty of enforcing the agreement. If Heaven pulled its agents out of North America, it would have no way of knowing whether Lucifer and Tiamat had done the same.
Another problem was that various Heavenly agencies not involved in military intelligence insisted that it was necessary for them to have free reign in North America. Prophecy Division, for example, claimed that it was a violation of their charter to agree to any sort of neutrality treaty. Mercury’s own organization, Apocalypse Bureau, also expressed misgivings about going along with an agreement that would limit its ability to manifest the Divine Plan.
Mercury’s solution to this problem was to limit Heaven’s activities only in regards to political endeavors. He argued that there was no reason both Prophecy and Apocalypse Bureau couldn’t fulfill their obligations without attempting to directly influence political decision-making. They’d be free to do whatever they wanted in the nascent country except to partake in the process of governing or manipulate political officials. He called it the Separation of Angels and Government.
Prophecy was skeptical, but Uzziel said he thought he could sign off on the concept if Lucifer and Tiamat could be convinced to go along with it. Presumably Uzziel assumed that would never happen—a safe assumption, given the fact that Lucifer and Tiamat rarely agreed on anything, and almost never agreed with Heaven. But Mercury pulled some strings with the Diplomacy Corps, and ultimately a meeting was set up on neutral ground[6] between the archangel Michelle, Tiamat, and Lucifer. The meeting was rancorous and vitriolic, but after three days the three parties had hammered out a basic agreement.
It was Tiamat, surprisingly, who offered a solution to the problem of enforcement. Tiamat had for centuries been experimenting with ways of manipulating interplanar energy to bend the fabric of space and time. She’d had limited success with this, but in the course of her research she had learned a great deal about the nature of the mysterious energy that permeated every plane of the multiverse. Angels, although they instinctively know how to use interplanar energy to bend the laws of physics, generally know about as much about the nature of this energy as fish know about the nature of water. Tiamat had realized early on that if she could discover the basic principles by which this energy operated, she might very well exercise dominion over all the other angels, who were so thoroughly dependent on it.
The most brilliant angel in her employ had been an eccentric cherub named Balderhaz, the inventor of the Balderhaz Cube.
[7] Balderhaz had left Tiamat’s employ not long before, having been recruited by Michelle to be her chief weapons supplier. Tiamat knew that when Balderhaz left, he had been working on another sort of device based on the technology used to create the Balderhaz Cube. He called it the Meta-Energy Oscillation Weapon, or MEOW. MEOW would create a field like that emitted by a Balderhaz Cube, but instead of cancelling out the Interplanar Energy, it amplified it and altered its frequency. The result was that any angel within range of MEOW would not only be unable to harness the energy; he or she would also experience a constant ear-splitting screech that sounded like a cat being slowly turned inside out.
Tiamat also knew, though, that Balderhaz had run into apparently insurmountable technical difficulties with MEOW. She divulged this fact at the meeting—as well as making the claim that Tiamat herself had found the solution. Michelle, who had been hoping to use MEOW aga
inst Tiamat, was loath to reveal anything about the new weapon, but she was even more concerned that Tiamat might successfully build one before Heaven did. Tiamat, who was missing some key components and the brains behind most of the development, had similar fears about Michelle. Tiamat suggested that she and Balderhaz meet to complete the design, and that the first working device be placed in the capital city of the United States. The effect would be to prevent any angels or demons from entering the city limits. There would be nothing preventing them from attempting to influence politicians outside of this sphere, but it was thought that making the capital itself completely off-limits to supernatural influence would prevent the most blatant attempts at manipulation. Lucifer knew nothing of MEOW, but he was happy to go along as he didn’t currently have the manpower to try to corrupt the entire U.S. Congress.
So Balderhaz and Tiamat met and hammered out the technical details, and a few weeks later they had a working prototype. After testing indicated that the device caused excruciating pain to any angel within a one-mile radius, it was decided that it was ready for deployment. By this time Washington, D.C. had been selected as the location for the U.S. capitol, and designs were being finalized for the Capitol Building. Mercury arranged for the device to be hidden inside the cornerstone of the capitol, which was laid on the first of March, 1793. From that date until late in 2001, neither angel nor demon came within a mile of the U.S. Capitol.
And then something changed.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Somewhere in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean; August 2016
Some time after being blown into a billion pieces by a nuclear bomb, Mercury found himself in a bar called La Traviata on an island in the Azores. If asked, he probably wouldn’t have been able to answer precisely when he reincorporated or how he got to the bar exactly. Being vaporized tended to wreak havoc on one’s short-term memory, and having eighteen beers in the course of four hours didn’t help either.
He supposed that he ended up here because it was a familiar place, a sanctuary of sorts. He’d sought refuge here several times in the past. He came here when he was in danger, or when he was feeling at loose ends. Right now, he was both.
He should feel good about saving Grand Rapids. That had been a good thing. But Eddie and Suzy were now Michelle’s captives. At least, he assumed they were. Eddie had sent a transmission via Angel Band shortly before the bomb went off indicating that Michelle’s men had found them. Eddie said that they had a couple of Chaos Faction members with them, so Eddie decided not to put up a fight and risk hurting Suzy. That was the last Mercury heard from them. He had no idea where they were or what Michelle planned to do with them. And even if he did, what chance did a lone cherub have against Michelle’s massive security apparatus? She had the whole U.S. government at her disposal, not to mention hundreds of angels. Perhaps it was best just to lay low. Eventually the truth would come out about what Michelle was doing, and then she wouldn’t be able to get away with it anymore. He was a little fuzzy on who was going to stop her and how, but presumably things would work out in the end. They always had in the past. Like during World War II, when it looked like the Nazis were going to take over the whole world, but then Michelle and her angels… OK, well, that was a bad example. It was more like the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it looked like the U.S. and Russia were going to get into a full-on nuclear war, but at the last minute Michelle…
It occurred to him that he couldn’t think of an example of a potential worldwide catastrophe that hadn’t been forestalled at least in part by Michelle and her Heavenly army. That was back when Michelle was taking orders from the Heavenly Senate, though. When the job was done, she was always called back to Heaven to await the next crisis. Now there was no one to call her home, and no home for her to go to. Michelle was the ultimate authority on Earth, and there was no one who could challenge her. Well, almost no one. But there were some possibilities that were even more horrific to consider than an all-powerful Michelle.
“Hey, Jorge,” said Mercury to the bartender. “Can you turn that off?” The talking heads on the news had been blathering non-stop about the explosion near Grand Rapids. They kept showing shaky video of the blast and then three pictures: Eddie, Suzy and Mercury. Eddie’s looked like a security camera photo; Suzy’s was her employee ID photo from the Brimstone project; and Mercury’s was a composite drawing that made him look a little like the lead singer of Coldplay. He resented this almost as much as the implication that he was some kind of terrorist. Various government officials were blaming Chaos Faction, the Babcock administration, and lax security protocols for the blast, and crediting “quick-thinking federal agents” for getting the bomb out of the city in time. It was repeatedly stressed that other attacks, perhaps with chemical or biological agents, were expected. Martial law would continue indefinitely in the high-risk cities, and the list of high-risk cities was expected to grow as more intelligence was gathered.
Jorge shut off the TV and handed Mercury another beer. Nobody in the bar complained; apparently all the other patrons were sick of hearing about it too. There wasn’t anything anybody could do about nuclear bombs going off halfway around the world, so there was no point in obsessing over it. At least, that’s the general impression Mercury got of the sentiment in the bar. Being rather addled at this point, he may not have been the best judge.
In fact, it seemed that he was now hallucinating. For he was looking at what appeared to be a small child wrapped in an overlong coat, nursing a beer in the corner of the bar.
“Do you see that?” he asked Jorge.
“What?” Jorge replied.
“That little guy over there.” Mercury blinked several times, but he still saw the diminutive figure.
“Sure,” Jorge said. “That’s Pete. He’s been coming in here almost every day for the last three years. Odd looking guy, but nice enough. Just don’t ask for his advice on anything.”
“Why’s that?”
“He never shuts up once he gets started. Always talking about how to unstick zippers or keep mushrooms fresh or something.”
“You don’t say,” replied Mercury, regarding the tiny figure. He realized why he hadn’t noticed the weird little guy before: the overcoat covered most of the stool, giving the impression that he was a full-sized person. He wasn’t hallucinating; he was suddenly seeing things as they really were.
Mercury stumbled over to the table where the little person sat. “This seat taken?” he asked, indicating a stool on the opposite side of the table.
“Portugal is a free country,” said the little figure. “For a little longer, anyway. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Mercury took a seat. “Your tips have gotten a bit more philosophical,” he said, setting his beer down on the table.
“I don’t have much practical advice to give these days. Everything seems so… Mercury!”
Mercury grinned. “Good to see you, Perp. What are you doing in Portugal? For that matter, what are you doing on the Mundane Plane?”
Perp sighed. “I’ve been here for three years. When I opened that portal to get your friends back here, I decided to slip through myself. Not that I didn’t trust you to defuse that bomb…”
“You made the right call,” said Mercury. “Who knows what would have happened to you if you’d stayed in the planeport.”
“What happened to you?”
“Er,” Mercury said. “Hard to explain. I’ve sort of been on vacation. I got summoned back here by some idiot wannabe Satanists.”
“Should have known when that bomb went off in Michigan,” replied Perp. “Stuff explodes wherever you go. That’s two nuclear blasts you’re responsible for. And you imploded most of Anaheim. Plus the Moon thing. What is it with you and explosions?”
“Technically Anaheim and the Moon were implosions. And I’m pretty sure the second nuke was Chris Martin from Coldplay,” said Mercury. “How did things get so screwed up, Perp?”
Perp shook his head. “Those who woul
d give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
“But where did it all go wrong, Perp? I was here. I was around when Lucifer was infiltrating the U.S. government with his agents. How did I not notice? How did he manage to get demons into D.C. in the first place? What happened to the barrier?”
“Flight 93,” replied Perp quietly.
“Huh?” asked Mercury.
“September 11, 2001. Flight 93 was one of the four planes that were hijacked. Two of them hit the World Trade Center in New York and one hit the Pentagon. Those were distractions, though. Flight 93 was the important one. That’s the one that hit the Capitol Building.”
“Holy shit, Perp, that’s it!” cried Mercury. “It must have damaged the MEOW device. How did that not occur to anybody?”
“It did,” replied Perp. “Lucifer was fully aware of it, obviously, since he was the one behind the attacks. But he was clever about it. Rather than send in his agents right away, he waited for Heaven to figure out the barrier was down. He suspected that Michelle would try to take advantage of the situation by infiltrating D.C. with her own agents. In fact, he knew exactly which angels she would likely send, since they were mostly double agents working for him. Once Michelle had her agents in place, Lucifer knew she was in no position to insist that the Non-Involvement Agreement of 1791 be honored. Over the next several years, he filled dozens of key advisory posts inside the government with demons. Having planned for this for over a decade, he was much better prepared to seize the reins of government than Michelle, and by the time Michelle realized she’d been hoodwinked, it was too late for her to say anything. The best she could do was to secretly plot against Lucifer behind the scenes, trying to turn his agents against him. Her recruiting efforts were not very successful.”
“Until Lucifer was captured. And Michelle was stranded on this plane.”
“Right. She was perfectly situated to take over where Lucifer had left off. And although Lucifer had managed to fool her once, she’s quite a bit more capable than he, as you well know.”
Mercury Revolts: (Book Four of the Mercury Series) Page 17