by Lia Black
Mercury puckered his lips into a moue like a doting mother. He wiped a smear of the oatmeal off of Sean’s bottom lip with his finger and sucked it into his mouth in a way too suggestive to be accidental, and anything but maternal.
“All done?” he asked.
Sean nodded, needing a moment to try and wrap his head around Mercury’s constantly shifting behaviors. Finding a pattern was important, because it would help him know how and when to respond in such a way to make escape possible. “Crazy” was a word batted too easily around; it lost meaning when applied to every high-profile criminal, especially when they had a clear modus operandi. But Mercury Fie was completely outside the norm. From moment to moment, Sean wasn’t certain if Mercury was going to kill him or kiss him or forget that he even existed as he had been doing for the last few hours. He was a seesaw of lucid and loony, and a strange combination of both. One wrong word and Mercury would shoot him…one right word and he might do the same. Every time he thought he was beginning to observe a pattern, Mercury changed it. It was no wonder he’d been so hard to catch. Sean hadn’t been on the investigation the entire time. His squad had just been brought in to secure the grounds leading to the large hall Mercury had acquired for the event. It had actually been an abandoned sports arena, stuck out in the middle of nowhere. If Craig hadn’t infiltrated, there was no way they ever would have found the place. Mercury had completely overhauled it until it looked like a fucking castle set on acres of open land, crawling with his regular guards and hired mercenaries.
“Uh, I...uh, hate to have to mention this, but I need to pee,” Sean said. There were some things that wouldn’t wait until he’d figured stuff out. Physiology, for instance.
“I see. All right, I suppose I can untie you, but if you try anything foolish, Pretty, I’ll shoot you in the back.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Sean mumbled.
Mercury came around behind him, raising the blanket to unfasten the handcuffs he’d used as restraints. Then he moved to the front and released the shackles—not by entering the code used to unlock them, but by pressing his fingertip to the insertion point. Sean smelled the sharp tang of burning electronics as the circuitry was fried and the cuffs popped open.
His joints felt like sandbags, heavy and resistant to being formed into a rigid shape, as he struggled to his feet with Mercury’s eyes upon him. Hopefully because he’d ruined the cuffs, it meant he was planning on leaving Sean untied and probably wasn’t going to kill him soon. Or maybe he didn’t want the pants to smell like piss when he killed him and took his clothes. Either option seemed possible, given the extent of Mercury’s behavior so far.
“When you’re finished, go sit over there.” Mercury was sitting cross-legged and he gestured with the pistol he’d pulled from the holster strapped to his thigh. Sean recognized it as his father’s gun. A dark cloud settled heavy in his mind; a criminal such as Mercury Fie having his father’s gun was an insult to Sean’s lineage. But there was nothing he could do if he wanted to survive, so he did his best to hold his indignation. He wobbled on aching legs to the edge of the clearing, keeping his back to Mercury as he unfastened his trousers and tried to get his bladder to cooperate.
In front of him was a seemingly endless forest. The only reason the forests hadn’t been plowed over by mining corporations was because the rare metals didn’t exist in the places where the trees grew. Mines were located in the areas where the soil was made up of black mud and sparkling silvery sand. The ebony rocks that surrounded the mines created large, circular patterns that seemed to indicate a concentration of rare metals. Nothing grew in those places, surrounded by flat plains and rolling dunes, and there was a constant headache-inducing smell like tar rising from the land. Although Terra Huygen could sustain life, much of the fauna had been obliterated in a war for the planet’s resources that happened long before Sean was born.
Sean finished up and was fastening his trousers when he heard the crack of gunfire and something whizzed by his ear from behind. A bullet. His heart froze as his body went into survival mode and he dropped to the ground. He looked across at Mercury, but Mercury was staring off into the trees. It seemed Mercury hadn’t been shooting at him but past him. For all Sean knew, it could be a hallucination, or maybe just boredom, that had the psycho shooting into the trees… except that someone shot back. A quick, short plasma burst came from a different direction and hit a tree not far from where Sean had been standing.
“What the fuck?” Sean hissed, crawling back to try and find cover at their campsite. Without a change in expression, Mercury fired two more shots into the trees, to his right. After a moment he bent his elbow, bringing the gun up perpendicular to his face, the barrel pointed skyward. His expression was serene, pensive, but his amethyst eyes were tracking something through the forest. Sean sat up and opened his mouth to ask what the hell was happening when Mercury brought the gun down, balancing his forearm over Sean’s left shoulder, and squeezed the trigger.
The world went white for a second as the report impacted Sean’s ear. It felt like a kick to the head as his eardrum squealed. Nausea created an oily taste in his mouth.
Mercury cocked his head, a coy little smile curled his lips as his eyes met Sean’s. He brought the pistol up, blowing at the end of the barrel like an old-time movie cowboy. “Lets go see if there is anything worth salvaging.” Mercury rose in one elegant move and offered his pale hand to Sean.
Sean stared at it, his ear still ringing and the world projected too sharp on a screen that wouldn’t stay still. Sean swallowed back the sick that had risen in his throat, fighting to keep it down. “You were shooting at someone? How did you even see them?”
“Four someones,” Mercury corrected. “The first one almost had you, Pretty, and that would have been a shame.” He withdrew his hand when he saw Sean wasn’t taking it and walked to the edge of the clearing, pausing to look over his shoulder. “Coming?”
“Y-yeah…” The world had finally begin to settle down and Sean struggled to his feet. His ear was still buzzing and felt plugged. Mercury flashed him a serrated grin as Sean caught up to him, then he led him into the trees.
“Ah, here we are,” Mercury announced when they came to the first body. It was lying twenty feet away from where Sean had taken a piss. The person was wearing the same armor that Mercury had on, but Sean couldn’t see a bullet wound anywhere.
“It’s here.” Mercury said as if reading his mind. He crouched down and pressed his finger to a small black patch on the right side of the armor, a few inches under the ribcage. He pushed his finger deeper inside to demonstrate the projectile’s entry.
Sean shuddered, “How could that possibly kill him?”
“This board controls an epinephrine release to the bloodstream if it senses cardiac arrest, injects pain killers if there is massive injury found. It all functions nicely assuming those conditions exist.” Mercury licked his lips. “However,” he said with a smile, “it’s prone to malfunction if it gets pierced by a projectile. And by luck and wonder, your antique gun shoots bullets just the right size.”
“How do you know this?” Sean asked as Mercury picked up the soldier’s dropped weapon, examining it with the proficiency of an expert. If he’d been thinking straight, Sean might have snatched up the weapon and turned it on Mercury. And Mercury would have shot him point blank in the face with his own gun.
“Really tragic design flaw,” Mercury said. “Not much better than the previous defibrillator mechanism. That was controlled electronically, which is a very bad idea when coming after me.”
Sean was familiar with that safety mechanism in armor design. The military had started using it, hoping that in times of war, it might keep some soldiers alive long enough to get medics out to them.
Mercury’s index finger was bloody from sticking it into the gunshot wound. Sean looked away, nausea rising greasy to the back of his throat.
“Pity. Her armor is too small for you. Wrong shape down there.” Mercury said
, standing. He nudged the body’s hip with the toe of his boot.
“She?” Sean looked down at the asexual, armored corpse.
“Of course. You should know this, Pretty: women can kill just as well as men. And she was about to kill you. Strong heart though. She did manage to get off a shot before she died. Come, let’s check the others quickly. I don’t doubt they’ll be sending more before too long.” Mercury waited for him, now with a gun in each hand. So he could shoot him double the amount of times in the back should he try to run.
The next body was roughly ten yards to the left of the first, hit in the same place, and just as dead. This time Sean made a grab for the rifle lying on the ground nearby, but his hand stopped short when he felt a gun barrel pressed against his head. Sean raised his eyes to Mercury’s face.
Mercury was smiling at him like an overindulgent parent watching his child misbehave. Sean muttered a curse under his breath and drew back. The gun was moved away.
Mercury moved close to him. Too close. So close that Sean could feel the chill of Mercury’s armor pressing against him.
When Mercury spoke, it was again in a low, seductive purr. His hot breath blew against Sean’s ear. “The weapon is jammed. Probably would have blown your hands off if you’d fired it. You are no good to me without hands, Pretty.”
Sean shivered when Mercury flicked his tongue against his earlobe before taking a step back. “This one looks bigger, and it’s getting too dark to bother with the others,” Mercury said. “His armor should fit you. Put it on. Not the helmet, though. I’ll need a target in case you try anything like that again.”
Sean gritted his teeth and began to work the armor off of the dead man, sure that Mercury wouldn’t hesitate to make good on his threat.
The armor was a strange composite, something Sean had never felt before. Extremely lightweight, yet rigid and padded with a material that would keep projectiles from bruising if they deflected off the outer shell. Each piece was bonded to a flexible mesh, and fastened to the other with an accordion-like membrane. Sean pulled on the lower half over his trousers and carried the top until he could get something to wipe out the blood from inside.
“The next wave won’t be as easy to take out. By then he will have figured out the design flaw and remedied it.”
“He who?” Sean asked.
“The Sun.” Mercury glanced at him for a moment then turned and began walking back towards their campsite.
9
Sean tripped over yet another something in the darkness of the forest as Mercury pulled him along on what had effectively become his leash. Mercury had tied his hands with some wires he’d probably yanked from the downed shuttle and was tugging him along by one he’d fashioned into a lead. While it appeared Mercury wanted to keep him alive and in one piece—for now—that wasn’t the case with those gunners in the body armor. He’d decided that Sean should wear a helmet after all, in case there were snipers about. Sean wasn’t sure what to make of it; it wasn’t solely to ensure his well-being, but then Sean had all ready figured out that Mercury’s motives were as alien as his appearance. He’d always assumed there’d been some digital tweaking of the images he’d seen of Mercury, but no; he was as pale and flawless as a doll, save for the light wash of lilac freckles that spread across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. It was unnerving, to say the least, being held captive by something that looked so fragile and pretty.
Mercury was humming as they trudged through some unworn path of his own making. It was the same goddamn tune that Sean had woken up to and he knew it would be stuck in his brain until his head was blown off of his shoulders.
“Hey, can you slow down?” Sean snapped as his toe got snagged on what he hoped was a fallen tree.
Mercury abruptly halted and spun on his heels to face him, his mouth set in a grim line. “You can’t see in the dark?”
“What? Of course I can’t.” Sean’s earlier fear was quickly being replaced by exhaustion and the accompanying crankiness of nicotine withdrawal, yet he still drew back when Mercury strode purposefully towards him.
Mercury holstered his gun and reached up, smacking Sean’s helmet on the side. The action startled him and rattled his brain but apparently also rattled something inside the helmet. There was a flicker, some static, and then Sean could see the entire world around them almost as bright as day.
“Night vision must have been malfunctioning,” Mercury said with a shrug. Sean blinked, looking down to see what he’d stubbed his toe on. Not a log as he’d thought, and not a rock either. It was coated in the slime-like moss that covered the forest floor, but Sean could see that it was a hunk of something inorganic, mechanical—maybe a piece off of a skid or small skimmer craft? That could mean that they might be getting closer to people, or at least an abandoned settlement.
With Mercury tugging his leash, he made his way around it, glancing around to see if there may be other pieces, or further indication that civilization was nearby.
“Do you have an idea where you’re going?” Sean asked.
“I have lots of ideas, Pretty, about so many things.” Mercury’s standard answer seemed to be a non-answer and Sean wondered why he was even bothering to try and engage him.
After a few more minutes of trudging through the underbrush, they did find what appeared to be an abandoned human settlement in the center of a small clearing. There was an old metal sign, bent and rusted, hanging limp from one remaining screw on a post. Sean squinted at it, trying to read the letters or find a logo within what was left of the orange and blue paint, but it was too degraded to read.
The settlement itself consisted of only three modular buildings connected by wires to a center pole, and a well that had become a pile of rubble. That seemed to happen a lot on Terra Huygen; there were great rivers that ran underneath the planet’s surface, but, like the trees, they would shift direction, so wells would suddenly dry up after months or years of reliable use. It was yet another reason the planet failed to be a popular region for humans looking to settle long-term.
Nearly everything at the site was covered in the same thin coat of slime as the piece of skid, or whatever it was, he’d seen earlier.
“Pick a house, any house,” Mercury said, gesturing towards each building.
The structures were each only about twenty feet long by ten or fifteen feet wide and had probably all once been identical in appearance. Sean pulled off his helmet, but the one-room modular shacks didn’t get any better looking. He considered just randomly picking one, but if this was the place Mercury was planning on bedding them down for a while, Sean figured he’d better pick well. Having a wall missing and most of the roof gone, the first one was a no-go. The second and third were both in the running, but he could see a little through the tall windows and the third one’s floor was covered with broken glass and some questionable stains.
“That one,” he decided, pointing to the second modular.
Mercury smiled at him and moved up close. Sean tensed when that cool hand came up to press against his cheek.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Precious? Our first home together.” Mercury’s voice took on a breathy purr, and his eyes narrowed in something that looked like seduction.
Sean grimaced, trying like hell to keep his gaze steady. “I thought you were calling me ‘Pretty’.”
“Pretty is your name, precious is what you are to me,” Mercury caressed his cheek, then abruptly turned, strode up to the ‘house’ and pried open the door.
Sean took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, until a jerk on his leash dragged him forward over the threshold. Apparently, Mercury wanted him inside.
The interior of the modular was free of the slime-moss that covered the outside, and it had that stale, mildew smell that places got when closed up for too long in a humid environment. Thankfully, it didn’t smell like anything, or anyone, had rotted away in here. Mercury cracked a luminescence stick that he must have confiscated from the ship. It lit the place up with an artificial
blue glow. From the looks of things, the owners had moved voluntarily, because there was really nothing left. There was an old heating unit on the far wall near what was probably the sleeping area, but it would be useless without power. The bathroom, the only place separated by a door, was Spartan, consisting of a toilet, small sink, and narrow shower stall. There were no windows save for one at the front next to the entrance. Mercury was in the kitchen area, banging through cupboards and drawers.
“Looking for something?” Sean couldn’t keep the exasperation out of his tone. He was ready to drop from their entire day of walking with very little rest, while Mercury behaved as though he could keep going for days.
“This was a human research outpost. I was hoping for some booze,” Mercury answered.
Sean crinkled his nose, staring at Mercury’s back. “I don’t follow...”
“A maximum of six people—six scientists—stuck in the middle of a forest. Likely researching the properties of the plant life or soil here. Need I say more?”
Sean chuffed. “You’re pretty observant.”
Mercury turned, raising an eyebrow at him, “One must be observant when being constantly observed.” He came around the narrow bar counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living space and hopped up to sit on it. “Come, Pretty. Stand here.” Mercury indicated the floor directly between his open legs.
“What for?” Sean wasn’t keen on getting any closer to Mercury than he had to. Not surprisingly, Mercury made him uncomfortable for a long list of reasons. His sexual innuendos were laced with threats, and his threats were not just words because he had every ability to carry them out.
Mercury’s eyes darkened to violet and narrowed, but a little smile played across his lips. “Don’t be naughty.” He snapped his fingers then pointed at the floor again.
As much as Sean wanted to remain obstinate, he wanted to remain alive—and in one piece. With a sigh he moved closer to Mercury. When he got within a couple of feet, Mercury pulled him the rest of the way in by wrapping his long legs around Sean’s hips and crossing them over his ass. Reluctantly, Sean let himself be drawn in.