Mercury's Orbit

by Lia Black

“You would shoot me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. He was subdued, appearing somehow older, and very tired.

  “Yes. I think I have all the reason I need, so I wouldn’t even feel bad about doing it,” Sean growled.

  Mercury shrugged, and his eyes shifted away. “I want to take a shower first. Can you wait until I’m clean?”

  Sean’s gaze followed the blood running down Mercury’s stomach. Had the soldiers from the lab caught up to them all ready? “Were you shot?”

  “Once,” Mercury said, and absently smeared the blood away with his hand. He turned and went to the narrow, glass-enclosed shower stall. After a squeal and a shudder through the pipes that shook the entire unit, water began to come out of the showerhead. Initially it was dark, greenish and gritty from sediment in the unused pipes, but soon it cleared. Hot water; the steam was all ready fogging up the glass as Mercury stepped inside.

  “Water? How the hell did you get water? I thought the well was dried up?”

  Mercury turned his face towards Sean. Through the soft blur of steam, he could only make out his dark eyes and his lips. “It only moved about twenty feet north.”

  “Huh?” Outside, beyond the sound of the running water from the shower, Sean could hear the pumps working. He wondered who else might be listening. “Is this really such a good idea?” he asked, keeping an eye on the door.

  “Rose Garden Flutterby loves the rain because it makes everything fresh and new. It makes beautiful things grow,” Mercury said, guiding the spray over his body with his hands.

  Sean sneered. “Like you?”

  Mercury paused and wiped at the clouded glass wall, peering out at Sean. “You think I’m beautiful?”

  Of course Mercury was beautiful. He was so beautiful that it was wrong, yet made perfect sense; nothing that lovely could be natural. No one who looked like Mercury Fie could result from the coin-toss of breeding in nature. Sure, if one was wealthy enough, they could pay to have some genetic tweaks—eye-color, some light physical updates and chemicals to help with the formation of the brain. But this was beyond the current capabilities of consumer science. This was something that wasn’t even human; an amalgam of multiple species that had been molded into its own race. Mercury’s outer packaging obscured the damage inside, blinding with its brilliance. But Sean had all ready seen too much of what lay within.

  “I think you’re a monster,” he growled.

  Mercury stared at him until the glass fogged up once more. “Even monsters can be beautiful, Sean.”

  He winced, surprised to hear his real name coming from those flushed, lavender lips. “You called me by my name.”

  There was a squeal as Mercury turned off the water. He stood in the stall for a few moments, wringing out his long silver hair. “You’re not Pretty anymore.” He stepped out and Sean tracked him with his gun.

  “How many bullets left?” Mercury asked as he glanced around, probably looking for something to use to dry off. He gave up and went to stand near the heating unit in the corner.

  A light wash of freckles made an inverted vee down his lower back, barely dusting his tight, round ass. Sean bit his cheek and focused on the question; he thought that there should be one, maybe two bullets left.

  “Let’s see...” Mercury turned, his arms crossed, tapping his chin with one long finger. “One to kill the hunter in the shuttle, four in the forest, one just inches from your detestable face...that sounds like six. The magazine holds seven, yes? So there should be one bullet left.”

  He hadn’t known about the first one, but the rest added up. Sean’s throat was feeling tight when he realized what Mercury all ready knew: even if there was one bullet left, killing him would only guarantee that they would both die here, but Sean’s death would be much slower.

  “You could use it on yourself...” Mercury had moved closer, and stood in front of him now. Little puddles were gathering near his long toes as the water dripped from his hair.

  Sean’s stomach knotted around itself and filled with something cold and leaden. This was the choice he was left with…die now quickly or die of starvation when he couldn’t get himself untied. He wasn’t a fool; he was aware of false escape scenarios. Kill your captor, hope becomes obsession, and then despair. Mercury was again giving him one option: submit or die, but pretending to put it into Sean’s hands. Manipulation. Just like with the rape—the threats, then forcing the appearance of consent by letting Sean’s body decide. Defeat settled deep into his bones. Was this how his father had felt? So utterly without hope that there was only one foreseeable solution? He looked down at the gun and realized his hand was shaking. This was all he had that remained of the man. His father’s firearm. The one he’d used to blow a hole through his own head. Sean had sworn to himself that he’d never suffer the same fate, and yet, here he was.

  Sean was startled by a cool hand brushing his cheek, while Mercury’s other hand curled around the barrel of the gun. It was then he felt the hot tears running down his face.

  “You don’t really want to die, do you.” Mercury’s voice was soft, purposefully soothing as he bent over him.

  Sean felt himself shaking his head before he’d had a chance to consider his decision.

  Mercury wiped away a tear with his thumb, lifting Sean’s chin to look down into his face. “You’re still pretty when you cry.”

  The gun was slipped gently from his hands, and Sean felt his hope fade with it. He was fucked. Literally, figuratively, in every way fucked. He would have laughed at the irony of the whole thing if he didn’t feel so much like throwing up. “So what now?” he croaked, looking into those mocking amethyst eyes.

  “Now? Now I untie you and you clean yourself up, all the while understanding that if you try anything desperate, I’ll break your spine.” Mercury said the words as softly as he had the others and leaned in, pressing a dry kiss to Sean’s forehead.

  Sean swallowed the burning lump of bile that had come up the back of his throat. His meager meal of oatmeal probably twenty-four hours earlier seemed determined to transmute into something solid and poisonous in his guts.

  Mercury set the gun aside and slipped one finger under a loop in the thick wire bindings on Sean’s wrists. He curled it like a hook and pulled. The wire snapped as though it were only thread. “That should do it. I’m going to try to find something to wear.” Mercury stood up and turned on his heel, heading towards the large duffel bag Sean had been lugging on the way here.

  Sean stared, dumbfounded, at the broken wire. A little bit of dark blood was left behind from the wire cutting Mercury’s finger, but the wire was several millimeters thick and wrapped in a rubber sheath. It shouldn’t have been so easy to break; and that left no doubt in Sean’s mind that Mercury could break his spine with very little effort.

  Sean wiggled his wrists and hands until the binding loosened up and he was able to get free. He stood up, resting against the wall for balance, and pulled off his clothing. Taking a deep breath, he stumbled towards the shower. It seemed foolish to resist what might be his only chance to wash up, and at least it somewhat assured him that Mercury still found him useful.

  “There is a generator behind building one,” Mercury said as if Sean had posed the question. “It just needed a little spark to get going.”

  “And the pumps?” Sean asked, starting up the shower once more.

  Mercury smiled over his shoulder at him, “I found the feed line from the well and moved it. The trees told me where the water was.”

  “Of course they did,” Sean murmured under his breath, having little doubt that Mercury believed the trees were talking to him. Sean used the words psychopath and sociopath interchangeably, because frankly there were only so many epithets for Mercury’s brand of nuts.

  The shower cubicle was only large enough for one person, and barely big enough to turn around in, but the spray felt wonderful and warm and it helped release some of the pressure in his ear. Sean rubbed his skin clean as best he could, scratching at the stubble on his
jaw and hissing at the bit of pain from a cut on the side of his head he hadn’t noticed earlier. Likely it was a piece of the shattered floor tile like the flakes he found in his hair. He drew back, banging his elbow on the side wall when he opened his eyes and saw Mercury’s face right outside the glass.

  “Although I’m not certain if I like you, I’m glad you decided to come on our adventure,” Mercury said and then moved away.

  Sean swallowed his heart back down his throat. Yeah, this was going to be some adventure.

  11

  Mercury was sitting with one leg drawn up and his back against the door of the modular. He’d put on the button-down shirt Sean had worn on his “date” with Tim, and cinched it at his narrow waist with a belt— probably belonging to the dead pilot. He also had a pair of Sean’s boxer-shorts on, all of which Sean might have found pretty sexy if it had been Evan wearing them. But it wasn’t. It was a sociopath.

  The modular had warmed to a comfortable temperature after Mercury put the heater on. Although he was concerned that they might be getting a little too comfortable considering the circumstances, his body was protesting any argument against sleep. It was going to take a while for his equilibrium to settle down again so he could walk, and it seemed that Mercury understood this. Probably Sean’s yelp when he yawned and his ear popped helped drive the situation home a little. Smoothing out the blanket he was sitting on, Sean stretched out on his side, and watched Mercury watching him.

  Beside Mercury was a plasma rifle and a couple of hand guns that he’d taken off the bodies in the forest. If Mercury had wanted him dead, he would have been dead a million different ways by now.

  “Don’t you sleep?” Sean grumbled, rolling onto his back. He draped his forearm over his eyes.

  “No,” Mercury said.

  Expecting more, Sean raised his arm slightly to peer at him with one eye. “You’re serious?”

  Mercury tipped his head to the side. “I don’t sleep.”

  “Well, that explains why you’re batshit crazy,” Sean grumbled, closing his eyes again.

  Mercury hummed. It seemed neither an acknowledgment nor a denial.

  After a few restless minutes, Sean rolled back to his side facing Mercury again. “You seriously don’t sleep? How is that humanly possible?”

  Mercury raised an arched silver eyebrow.

  “Ah, right,” Sean mumbled. Not human. Not much, anyway. Enough to resemble a human, but that’s where the similarities seemed to end.

  “Sleeping was seen as a weakness. Something to be avoided.” Mercury’s voice was soft, and when Sean opened his eyes, Mercury’s were staring off into some dark corner of the room.

  Sean glanced back over his shoulder, hoping there wasn’t some monstrous alien bug crawling around back there, but there was nothing, just whatever Mercury saw out of those black starburst pupils of his.

  “So you have never dreamed?” Sean ventured. He really must be exhausted if he was engaging this monster in conversation.

  “Dream? No, I don’t think so. Do you?”

  Sean snorted. “Of course I do.”

  “What’s it like?” Those violet orbs slid slowly back to rest on Sean’s face.

  Sean felt his heart stutter though a beat. Mercury was almost calm now, but he knew it wouldn’t last. “What’s what like? Dreaming, you mean?”

  Mercury tipped his chin down in a slow nod.

  “It’s...I dunno. It’s kind of like those weird kid’s shows you watch, I guess. It’s just the brain sorting things out. Some people believe that it’s symbolism or prophecy.”

  “What do you believe, Sean?”

  Sean chuffed. So it was going to be his name from now on, huh? “I don’t believe in magic.” He yawned, less pain this time, and his eyes refused to open again. He was drained. Mentally, emotionally, physically drained. So much so that he figured if they were attacked, he wouldn’t even have enough energy to muster up being scared. He was even too tired to care about the fact that a predator was watching him at his weakest moment.

  REM came upon him quickly, and he dreamt that he was back at home, with Evan.

  When Sean came into his bedroom, Evan was sitting on the bed.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Evan looked over his shoulder with a smile, “I live here, idiot,” he laughed. He was wearing the charcoal sweater that Sean loved and the black pants that showed off his incredible ass. He rose up from the bed and moved to him as he hovered in the doorway.

  “Tough day?” Evan asked, reaching up to help Sean take his shirt off over his head.

  “Yeah.” Sean wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close. “I’ve missed you.” Under his hands, the sweater felt like velvet, and the scent of Evan’s cologne, warmed by his skin, blossomed and filled his head. He wanted to hold on and never let go, but part of him understood that this wasn’t real.

  “Kiss me, baby,” Evan said softly, raising his head from Sean’s shoulder.

  Sean tipped his head and slanted his mouth over Evan’s. His lips were warm and moist, and he parted them to let Sean’s tongue inside to explore him. He tasted like mint and wine and Evan. He tasted like all of the memories of their home together and a broken heart. And Evan clung to him, just like that first time they exchanged the words, “I love you”.

  “Bed. Now,” Sean said when their lips had parted and Evan giggled. It was a little joke they had; that Sean somehow regressed when the blood ran from his brain to his penis and he could only make monosyllabic, one word sentences. They’d shared a lot of little jokes once. It was something Sean probably missed most of all—having someone know you so completely, they could guess what you were thinking because they were thinking the same thing.

  Without letting go, Evan backed up until his knees touched the mattress of the bed— now their bed—the bed with the quilt sewn by Evan’s great-grandmother. The bed that they slept in, loved in, sometimes fought in, and certainly made up in.

  Then they were naked, because things like that happened in dreams, and Evan was wrapped around him as Sean thrust into his familiar heat. But something at the edge of his perception was nagging at him—a feeling like they were being watched...

  Mercury was a mere two inches from his face, staring at him earnestly as he held open one of Sean’s eyelids by pulling up the lashes.

  “Whathefuck?” Sean coughed, blinking in surprise and swatting Mercury’s hand away.

  “Your eyes; they move all over when your sleep. And you make a lot of noise...and this...”

  Sean hissed as Mercury’s hand cupped his erection.

  “Can I have this?”

  Sean’s brain felt like it was spinning in his skull. Yesyesyesyesyesyes! “No.” He rolled onto his back to put some distance between them and tried to sit up, but Mercury pressed his hand into his chest, holding him down.

  “What the—” Not again. This was not going to be good.

  Mercury’s violet eyes were narrowed as he reassumed the appearance of the predator that he was. He climbed on top of Sean, sitting on his chest. His knees pressed down, pinning his arms. “Then you’ll take mine.” Mercury fished his cock out through the fly of the boxer shorts.

  “Bring that thing near my mouth and I’ll bite it off,” Sean growled, though his tongue tingled and he felt himself grow a little harder down below. No. He couldn’t be into this—not even a little bit.

  Mercury leaned down, the man’s spine curving like a contortionist’s as he pressed his lips to Sean’s ear. “Then I’ll dislocate your jaw so you won’t.” His teeth grazed Sean’s earlobe, then bit the edge so hard that Sean heard the cartilage pop. “And I’ll bite your ears off.”

  He winced as Mercury’s fingers pulled his hair, waiting for him to force his cock into his mouth. But then he pouted and let him go, getting up and turning around.

  “Never mind. I’m not in the mood anymore. Get on your shoes and grab the bag. It’s time to go.”

  12

  It was almost mid-
day by the time they left the site. After spending some time filling up water bottles from a dubious purification system at the outpost, they started out again, following the path of the suns across the sky. Sean trudged behind Mercury, carrying the large duffel bag over his shoulder. His ear stung and felt hot where Mercury had bitten him. When he’d looked in the mirror after using the toilet this morning, he’d seen a crescent of bloody teeth-marks in the midst of the reddened skin. He hoped to god that Mercury wasn’t harboring some alien bacteria in his mouth that would eat its way into his brain, but if he really was created in a petri dish by Sol Labs, it seemed unlikely. Sean’s hearing, however, was probably irreparably damaged. Maybe if he lived he’d get an implant to fix it, or maybe he’d keep all of these scars as some screwed-up badge of honor.

  They hadn’t stopped walking; two of the three suns were all ready nearing the horizon and the trees were turning in unison to reach towards them. Sean shuddered beneath the verdure giants, walking several paces behind Mercury. He had no idea what to think of his situation. How was a man supposed to feel in those healthy final hours or days when having a knowledge of imminent death? When he was in the military, he was young enough and fool enough to still feel invincible. As a cop, he was confident but cautious. But those were just risks—this was a certainty.

  Sean finally broke the silence, trying to keep himself from going as crazy as Mercury all ready was. “How long has Sol Labs been after you?”

  Mercury glanced over his shoulder, quirking his mouth as if he’d forgotten Sean was behind him. He paused to let Sean catch up, then walked beside him.

  “Since I ran away at fourteen. I can’t take complete credit for my escape. One of the researchers developed a conscience and she smuggled me down to the shuttle bay.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Oh they killed her on the spot,” Mercury said indifferently with a little shrug.

  “Why are they after you? What kind of product are you?”

  Mercury grinned with his sharp, white teeth, “I’m one of a kind.”