Mercury Rests

by Robert Kroese

  “Call it a miracle, or I’m not doing anything.”

  “Seriously, Mercury?” asked Christine. “You’re going to pick this moment to be an asshole?”

  “No,” replied Mercury. “I’m going to pick this moment to not stop being an asshole. Seriously, ask me nicely to perform a miracle, or I’m not doing it.”

  “Fine,” said Christine. “Mercury, can you please perform a miracle and get us the hell out of here?”

  “Not you, him,” said Mercury. “Captain Unck.”

  “Why is it—unck—so important to you that I call it a miracle?” Jacob asked, growing more irritable.

  “Why is it so important to you that you don’t?”

  “Whatever,” grumbled Jacob. “Mercury, could you please perform a miracle, and get us out of here?”

  “Wish I could,” said Mercury. “They’ve got a Balderhaz Cube somewhere nearby. Can’t get a fix on the energy channels.”

  “You son of a—unck—bitch,” growled Jacob. “You mean you can’t do anything?”

  “I can do plenty,” said Mercury. “Just no miracles.”

  “Damn it, what is that?” asked Jacob.

  “A Balderhaz Cube is a device specially constructed to interfere with the interplanar energy channels, preventing—”

  “Not that,” said Jacob. “Water. Dripping on my head. Unck! It’s like Chinese water torture.”

  “How can you tell what kind of water it is?” asked Mercury.

  “This is going to drive me insane,” said Jacob.

  “Hey, you’re not exactly my top choice for the sack race either, Rain Man,” said Mercury.

  “I was talking about the water,” growled Jacob. “And don’t call me...Hey, is it raining?”

  “Holy crap, enough about the water dripping on your head.” said Mercury. “Can we talk about something else, like how dry and comfortable I am?”

  “Mercury,” hissed Jacob through clenched teeth. “Shut up. I am asking a serious question. Was it raining when they brought us into this building?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Christine. “But it may have just started. It did feel like the pressure was dropping. Why?”

  “I think I know where we are,” said Jacob. “Unck. I think we’re at the top of the Beacon Building.”

  “Finch’s building?” asked Mercury. “What makes you think that?”

  “Other than the fact that I just got off the phone with him? I’ve been here before. It seemed familiar, the way it smelled, and the elevator. Did you notice—unck—they punched some kind of code into the elevator. The Beacon Building has a hidden floor at the top. I tried to find it the last time I was here. But it was the water that clinched it.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Christine.

  “Well, we’re inside a building. If that’s rainwater dripping on my head, then we must be on the top floor. But why is it only dripping on my head? Well, the other thing about the Beacon Building is that it’s not a perfect pyramid. There’s a little flat area at the top, just a couple feet wide, for antennas and lightning rods and stuff. I think there’s a hole in the roof right at the top of the pyramid. Right above my head. After all, the rain comes from above. Unck.”

  At this, Mercury started to chuckle. The chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh, and the laugh turned into guffaws. Soon he was gasping for air.

  “What’s up with Miracle Man?” asked Jacob.

  “Beats me,” said Christine.

  “The rain...” wheezed Mercury, “comes...from above.”

  Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance.

  “See?” said Jacob. “Thunder. It is raining.”

  “Yeah,” said Christine. “So you have any ideas for getting out of here?”

  “Sorry,” said Jacob.

  Mercury continued to giggle uncontrollably.

  “You want to let us in on the joke?” asked Christine irritably.

  “That was the message...I got from Michelle,” said Mercury. “About the flood.”

  “What flood?” asked Jacob.

  “I think he means the flood,” said Christine. “You know, in Genesis.”

  “Oh,” said Jacob. “Wait. Are you saying there’s going to be another flood? Like in the Bible?”

  “I’m not saying anything,” said Mercury, who was starting to regain his composure. “It’s just a stupid note I got from Michelle when I was trying to figure out who sent the flood. At the time I thought maybe it had some deep meaning, but I’m pretty sure it was just a red herring to keep me from sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. When you said it, I realized how pointless this all is. It was like the Universe’s final ‘fuck you’ to me.”

  Thunder rumbled again, closer this time. The timer read 5:03.

  “Wish I had learned to control the weather,” Mercury said wistfully. “I always meant to. Not that it would matter with the Balderhaz Cube here. Sort of a Catch-18.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Mercury?” asked Christine.

  “Oh, the thing about Balderhaz Cubes is that they aren’t a hundred percent reliable. Energy surges, like lightning strikes, can knock them out briefly.”

  “For how long?”

  “Maybe two, three seconds.”

  “Long enough for you to break these ropes?”

  “Sure,” Mercury said with a shrug. “If I was concentrating.”

  “So if the Beacon were hit by lightning?” Christine asked. “Jacob, didn’t you say that there were lightning rods at the top of the building?”

  “Yeah,” said Jacob. “Unck. There are lightning rods atop most large buildings. But the chances that a particular building will get hit by lightning in any given storm, even if the storm passes right overhead...well, I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

  “Is there anything we can do to increase the odds?”

  “Well, like I said,” replied Mercury, “I could theoretically make lightning strike the building. Except that, number one, I’m lousy at controlling the weather and, number two, the Balderhaz Cube is preventing me from using interplanar energy. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t need the lightning to take it out. Catch-18.”

  “It’s a Catch-22, Mercury,” said Christine. “It’s from a book.”

  “What book?”

  “Catch-22.”

  “Well, maybe I’m thinking of a different book.”

  “Oh? And what book would that be?”

  “I believe it was called Catch-18,” Mercury sniffed.

  “Of course,” replied Christine dryly. “So to sum up, you could deactivate the Balderhaz Cube if the Balderhaz Cube weren’t preventing you from deactivating it?”

  “Exactly. Maybe. Assuming I could get lightning to strike us.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Jacob. “I thought miracles were supposed to be, you know, miraculous.”

  Mercury snorted. “Says Mr. I-Won’t-Say-the-Word-Miracle.”

  “You understand my—unck—point. If you’re going to throw around the word miracle, it should mean something. If you can’t do your miracles because of some stupid magic cube, then maybe they weren’t miracles to begin with. I mean, it’s like me saying, ‘Well, I could miraculously untie us if I just had my miracle pocket knife with me.’ ”

  “Do you?” asked Mercury excitedly.

  “No,” said Jacob. “That was just an example.”

  “Oh,” said Mercury. “That was a bit of an oversight, wasn’t it? If I had a miracle pocket knife, I’d take it with me everywhere.”

  “I don’t have—unck! Never mind. The point is that miracles are by definition inexplicable. If you can say, ‘Oh, I can’t perform miracles right now because of phenomenon x, then you’re fitting miracles into a rational, scientific schema. And once you do that, they aren’t miracles anymore. And they probably never were. That’s why I don’t like using the word.”

  After a moment of silence, Mercury muttered, “They are too miracles.”

  “Prove it,” said Jacob.

 
“How?”

  “Make one happen—unck—despite your Balderdash Cube.”

  “Balderhaz. I told you, I can’t.”

  “Then they aren’t miracles.”

  “Hmph.”

  Thunder boomed again, still closer.

  “Jacob, are you sure you could defuse the bomb?” asked Christine.

  “Pretty sure, yeah. It looks like an N27 trigger. Nothing fancy. Just pull the green wire. But this is all—unck—academic. I can’t get to the bomb.”

  “How much time do we have?” asked Christine.

  “Three minutes, ten seconds.”

  “Get ready,” Christine said.

  “Ready for what?” asked Jacob.

  “Mercury, you too. When the Balderhaz Cube shuts off, you need to be ready to break through the ropes.”

  “Am I missing something?” asked Jacob.

  Mercury shrugged.

  “Lightning is going to strike,” said Christine.

  “You can’t predict a lightning strike,” said Jacob.

  “Actually...” began Mercury.

  “Trust me,” said Christine. “Lightning will strike. Now shut up and concentrate.”

  “Concentrate on what?” asked Jacob, bewildered. “On a one-in-a-million chance that lightning is going to strike this building in the next two minutes?”

  “Yes!” shouted Christine. “Yes! Concentrate on that. For two minutes, concentrate on something that probably isn’t going to happen. What are you afraid of? That you’re going to be wrong? That you’re going to waste the last two minutes of your life hoping that somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, that things are going to be OK? I happen to think that there’s a reason that all this stuff is happening. I think that as chaotic and crazy and hopeless as things seem right now, there’s someone in charge who knows what’s going on and is keeping things from going too far off track. And yes, I do happen to believe in miracles. I think there are signs all around us, if we care to pay attention. Like that message from Michelle—‘The rain comes from above.’ What if that’s God’s way of telling us, ‘Hey, don’t give up. I’ve gotten you through worse shit that this’? I suppose that makes me naïve and childish, and I’m sorry if it violates your sense of scientific integrity, and I will totally be respectful of your right to go to your grave insisting that there are no such things as miracles. I’m not asking you to believe in God or angels or Heaven or anything else, even though you’ve seen a hell of a lot more evidence than most people. But for the love of whatever it is that you do believe in, could you at least shut the fuck up for two minutes?”

  Jacob shut up.

  Whatever he did for the next minute and fifty-two seconds, he was not going to spend it pissing off Christine. If they did somehow make it through this, she’d never let him live it down. Mercury, remaining conspicuously silent, had presumably come to a similar conclusion. Although if what Christine had told him about the “angels” was true, Mercury had little to fear from a conventional explosive device. He would simply “reincorporate” eventually. Must be nice.

  What about me? Jacob wondered. Will I “reincorporate” in some other dimension or plane or whatever? There’s no reason to think so. The human mind is a biochemical system. Blow it to smithereens and that’s the end of it. Consciousness couldn’t exist outside of the physical system. Still, it’s a nice thought. Maybe God will put me together right next time.

  When the hair on Jacob’s arms stood up, he momentarily wondered if he was having a religious experience. The deafening roar that filled his ears a second later knocked that thought—along with every other thought hanging out in the area—right out of his head. It felt like his teeth were going to rattle out of his skull. If he hadn’t experienced it, he wouldn’t have believed it. A lightning strike, right when they needed it. Absurd! The fluorescent lights flickered and went dark. Other than the dim glow remaining in the fluorescent tubes, the only light in the room was the digital timer on the bomb, which now read 00:17.

  Jacob strained reflexively against the rope and it bit into the flesh of his arms. Wonderful. Mercury hadn’t been ready, hadn’t been concentrating. A one-in-a-million chance, and they were still going to die because Mercury had the attention span of a gnat.

  Then the rope unexpectedly gave way, disintegrating like it had suddenly aged a thousand years in a second. Jacob tumbled out of his chair, landing headfirst on the carpet. His hands and feet were still tied. His left elbow brushed up against someone in the dark, and he rolled onto his left side.

  “Mercury! My hands!”

  After an agonizing moment of groping in the dark, Mercury’s hand touched the bonds around Jacob’s wrists, and the ropes fell apart. Not bothering with his feet, Jacob threw his body forward, moving like a drunken inchworm across the carpet.

  00:13.

  When he reached the bomb, he came to a sickening realization: in the darkened room, he couldn’t see the green wire. He felt under the timer, his fingers feeling two wires traveling from the timer to the detonator. One of them was red and the other green. On an N27 trigger, pulling the green wire would defuse the detonator. Pulling the red wire would collapse the circuit that was being kept open by the timer, triggering the detonator.

  00:09.

  Shit! Which one was it? Why weren’t the lights going back on? If he could just see the wires, just for half a second, he’d know which one to pull. It occurred to him, though, that even if he knew which wire was the right one, he might not be able to pull it out with his fingers. It would be crimped down, and once the wires were attached, they were meant to stay attached. Where’s my miracle pocket knife when I need it?

  00:06.

  Screw it. Pick a wire and pull. He wrapped his finger around a wire at random, trying to get as much leverage as possible, and then pulled. The wire remained securely attached.

  He pulled harder, his whole body straining against the stubborn thread of copper. It felt like it was going to slice his finger in half. How did the saying go? “Better to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with half a finger...”

  Pull, man, pull!

  The wire let go, sending Jacob sprawling backward across the room. As his head hit the floor, the lights overhead flickered on. The timer read 00:03. When it remained on that number for a few seconds, Jacob let out a laugh of relief. “Three seconds to spare,” he said. He lay back on the carpet, his whole body shaking with adrenaline.

  “YES!” exclaimed Mercury, leaping awkwardly to his feet, which were still bound. “Didn’t I tell you? Lightning! KAPOW!” He lost his balance and fell over, crashing into the chairs.

  The Balderhaz Cube having silently reclaimed its hold on the interplanar energy channels, Mercury was helpless to do anything but pick at the knots with his fingers until they loosened. Christine turned out to be far more proficient at this. While Mercury was still cursing the ropes around his ankles, Christine walked over to the bomb resting on the chair.

  “I thought you said you were going to pull the green wire,” she said.

  Jacob, who had managed to get his feet untied, walked to the bomb and examined his handiwork. The red wire stuck out like a stray hair while the green wire remained firmly attached.

  “Yeah,” he said, swallowing hard. “They, um, reversed the wires. Luckily I—unck—figured it out.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Christine, smirking at him.

  “Got it!” Mercury exclaimed, holding up the rope triumphantly. “I’m like freaking Henry Houdini. What are you guys talking about?”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  As Lucifer’s limo glided to the curb in front of Christine’s condo building, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Call Ramiel,” he said.

  “Did you say, ‘Call Hugo Chavez?’ ” the phone asked.

  “Call Ramiel,” repeated Lucifer.

  “Did you say, ‘Call Vladimir Putin?’ ” the phone asked.

  “Call RA-mee-el,” shouted Lucifer into the phone.

  “Did you say, ‘Call Nancy Pelo
si?’ ” the phone asked.

  “Useless fucking piece of shit!” Lucifer snarled.

  “Calling Ramiel,” replied the phone.

  Lucifer saw a figure through the window of Christine’s apartment tossing refuse to and fro. While he was waiting, the door of the limo opened and Dirk Lubbers slipped into the seat next to him, carrying a heavy metal briefcase. Lucifer held a finger up and pointed to the phone.

  After several rings, Ramiel finally located the cell phone and picked it up.

  “Hello?” he said uncertainly.

  “Ramiel,” said Lucifer.

  Ramiel’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Master? Is that you?”

  “It’s time, Ramiel.”

  “So you want me to...”

  Lucifer hung up.

  Through the window, he saw the silhouette of a man walking up to another man from behind and pounding him on the head with a can of SpaghettiOs. The second man fell over, disappearing from view. Ramiel went to the kitchen and returned with a long serrated knife, then knelt down where Nisroc had fallen.

  “Damn,” murmured Lubbers, observing the scene.

  “Decapitation will ensure that Nisroc doesn’t alert his superiors. The element of surprise is crucial. Is that what I think it is?”

  Lubbers nodded. He slid his thumb along a pad on the top of the case. A red light turned green. He pulled at a catch on either side of the handle and the case popped open. Nestled in foam padding was an object about the size and shape of an Oxford Dictionary. The components were encased in thick brownish-green plastic, but Lucifer could see the outline of a cylindrical object running diagonally across the device, with several other squarish components filling out its bulk. On top of one of the squarish components was a small timer. The cylinder was where the chunks of plutonium would be smashed together to create critical mass, resulting in a nuclear explosion. The other components were neutron generators and batteries, presumably. It certainly didn’t look like much, but the name fit: the drab plastic covering made it look like a rotting hunk of wood.

  “Ordinarily, it would be detonated remotely,” said Lubbers. “But my understanding is that you are going to detonate the device personally.”