Mercury Revolts (4 page)

“I can’t move!” he gasped. His vision was starting to blur
at the edges. “I don’t feel right!”

“Ugh,” said Izbazel in disgust. “All right, we’re going to
have to swing him. Konrath, climb down the nose and see if you can get him
going.”

Konrath clambered down the nearly vertical rock face. When
he reached the edge, he lay down, with his left hand clutching the rope and his
head hanging over the edge. He reached down with his right arm and began to
pull sideways on the rope. Soon Nisroc had begun a slow, back and forth swing.

“I don’t think I can do this,” groaned Nisroc, whose face
had turned a bright shade of purple.

“Keep quiet and swing!” Konrath yelled at Nisroc, who didn’t
have much choice in the matter.

Soon Nisroc was swinging in great arcs back and forth, like
a gnat buzzing across Jefferson’s chin. He was on the verge of losing
consciousness.

“Almost there!” shouted Konrath.

“Hyeergh,” Nisroc replied. The arc was now bringing him
within a few yards of Washington’s shoulder, but there was no way he was going
to be able to grab hold of the rock and halt his motion. His fingers had gone
numb and he could barely move his one free arm. As he swung over the shoulder,
he managed to grab hold of enough interplanar energy to weaken the rope around
his waist. It snapped and he fell to the rock. He rolled uncontrollably for
several yards, finally managing to get enough control over his appendages to
stop before he tumbled off the edge of Washington’s shoulder.

“No miracles!” shouted Izbazel disapprovingly from atop
Jefferson’s scalp.

Down below, a huge crowd of spectators had gathered, and
were watching the exploits of Chaos Faction with great interest. A large black
Humvee pulled up and men in heavy tactical gear jumped out. They began working
their way up the trail to Lincoln’s left.

“Hurry!” yelled Izbazel. “Get the rope back up!”

They pulled the rope up and Izbazel threaded it through the
handles of the duffel bags and the loops at the top of the backpacks. He tied
the end of the rope to itself, making a loop, and he and Scalzi began to slide
the several hundred pounds of explosives down Jefferson’s forehead. Konrath
helped the package over the brink of the nose and they lowered it another
thirty feet so they could swing it to Nisroc.

Nisroc, for his part, was sitting with his back against
Washington’s lapel, trying not to vomit.

The load of explosives was considerably heavier than Nisroc,
and Konrath had a hard time getting any momentum going. The bags were lazily
swinging back and forth in an arc of about three feet.

“Hurry!” yelled Izbazel, who was watching over his shoulder
for the arrival of the cops.

“I can’t get it going!” Konrath shouted back.

“Try harder!” yelled Izbazel. “The cops are here!” It was
true: the SWAT
team had reached the plateau and were
cutting across the field right toward them. It was pretty rough going,
particularly for guys in combat gear, but it wouldn’t take them more than two
minutes to close the distance. Izbazel fingered the radio detonator nervously.

Konrath had managed to get the load of explosives to swing a
bit farther, but he was having trouble keeping the trajectory straight, and the
pendulum was still several yards out of Nisroc’s reach. The cops were almost on
them.

Now none of the four assembled demons was particularly
bright, but they did each possess some basic mental faculties and a fairly
robust sense of self-preservation. And so it occurred to each of them,
simultaneously but independently, that what they needed right now was a
miracle. Nisroc, Scalzi and Konrath were convinced that Izbazel wouldn’t go
along with the idea, and Izbazel didn’t want to admit his plan wasn’t working
out. So what happened is that each demon simultaneously harnessed a bit of
interplanar energy and gave the pendulum just enough of a push to get it to Washington’s
shoulder. These four small pushes combined to form one big push, causing the
load of explosives to jerk violently toward Washington’s head. Before Konrath
could let go, he was jerked off his feet. He slid off Jefferson’s nose,
plummeting to the rocks below. The explosives smacked against Washington’s wig
and then fell directly on Nisroc, knocking him flat. The combined mass of
Nisroc and the bags then began to slide down Washington’s shoulder. Nisroc,
dazed, was unable to do anything but marvel at the sensation of granite sliding
under his backside.

The SWAT team was now within fifty yards of Izbazel, and
they were yelling at Izbazel to get on the ground and drop the detonator.
Izbazel, realizing that his carefully thought out plan had gone awry, did what
leaders generally do under such circumstances: he panicked. Izbazel pushed the
button on the detonator.

A deafening explosion sounded below, accompanied by a shock
wave that knocked Izbazel and Scalzi against Jefferson’s hairline. Dazed, the
two demons stumbled, lost their balance, and fell forward onto the great
statesman’s brow. They rolled head over heels down the forehead, slowed
momentarily when they reached the gentler slope of the left eyebrow, and then
pitched into the open air, plummeting to join Konrath and what was left of
Nisroc.

Up above, the SWAT team had reached Jefferson’s coif. At the
head of the group was a stocky young sergeant named Daniel McCann, who was as
well-known in Rapid City, South Dakota for his impressive marksmanship as for
his ridiculous handlebar moustache. Daniel stepped to the edge of Jefferson’s
hair and peered into the gravelly hillside that led away from the monument. At
the bottom of the hill lay the body of one of the terrorists, and two others
were rolling down the slope toward him, their limbs flailing crazily. Finally
they came to rest as well, and the three lay motionless on the rocky valley
floor. Behind a wooden fence a hundred yards or so away, tourists gawked and
gasped at the horrifying scene.

Then something unexpected happened.

The first of the terrorists to fall slowly sat up and began
rubbing his head. The other two were soon moving as well, and after a moment
the three of them were on their feet, rubbing bruises and dusting themselves
off as if they had just fallen off a hayride. One of the terrorists walked a
few feet away and picked up something that Daniel at first took to be a rock
about the size of a human head. When the man held it in front of his face and
began talking to it, Daniel realized it was, in fact, a human head.

“Well,” said Daniel, observing the strange scene unfolding
below, “that’s not normal.”

Another man came up from behind and stood next to him. “No,”
he replied. “It isn’t.”

The other man was taller than Daniel, close to six foot two,
and had the build of a heavyweight boxer. His skin was a dark chestnut brown
and his short-cropped hair was black flecked with gray. Rather than the
loose-fitting combat gear of the SWAT team, he wore a precisely tailored dark
gray pinstriped suit and aviator-style sunglasses. He wore no badge or nametag,
but he didn’t need to. Those who didn’t know his name called him
sir
.
Those who did called him Zion Johnson.
Or sometimes Mr.
Johnson.
Or occasionally sir.
Nobody on the
mountain knew who Zion Johnson was exactly, or who he worked for, but they all
knew he was in charge.

Daniel brought his radio to his mouth. “Hey, Jim,” he said.
“You got these guys?”

After a moment a voice crackled over the radio. “Say the
word and we’ll take ’em out.”

Daniel glanced at Zion Johnson, who tilted his head half a
degree to the left.

“Stand down,” said Daniel.

“Seriously?” said the voice over the radio. “We’re going to
let these assholes go?”

“Out of my hands,” said Daniel.

Daniel and Zion Johnson watched as the three figures fled
the scene. One of the men had the fourth’s head under his arm.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Daniel to Zion
Johnson.

“This is just a distraction,” said Zion Johnson. “Chaos
Faction is up to something much bigger.”

Daniel frowned. “The intel I have says there are only four
members of Chaos Faction unaccounted for. And we just let them go.”

Zion Johnson shook his head. “We didn’t let them go. I’ve
got eyes on them.”

“Oh yeah?” said Daniel. “Funny how your ‘eyes’ didn’t keep them
from almost giving George Washington some unnecessary rhinoplasty.”

“It was a calculated risk,” said Zion Johnson. “Chaos
Faction is more dangerous than you think.”

Down below one of the men lost his footing and stumbled into
the man carrying his compatriot’s head. The head slipped from under his arm and
tumbled into a ravine below, causing the two men to erupt into loud
recriminations while the third man clambered down to retrieve what was left of
the fourth.

Daniel McCann cleared his throat.

“You’ll see,” said Zion Johnson.

“Uh huh,” replied Daniel.

Zion Johnson turned to leave.

“Your work is done here, huh, Johnson?” said Daniel.
“Back to Washington for you?”

Zion Johnson stopped and looked back at Daniel. “That’s
Mister
Johnson, Sergeant.”

“Back to Washington,
Mister
Johnson?”

Zion Johnson sighed. “Let me introduce you to a phrase
that’s going to come in very handy over the next few days, when the press
starts asking questions about what happened here today.”

“Oh yeah?” said Daniel. “What’s that?”

“No comment,” said Zion Johnson, and walked away.

Chapter Three
            
 

Milhaus, Texas; August 2016

Mercury walked out onto the street,
blinking in the bright Texas sunlight. It seemed like a long time since he had
seen the sun. How long had he been away from the Mundane Plane?
Days?
Years?

He stopped a young man on the street and asked him what the
date was.

“August nine,” said the man.

“The year!” cried Mercury, gripping the man’s lapel. “What
year is it?”

“Twenty-sixteen!” yelped the man, tearing himself away from
Mercury’s grip. He ran off down the street.

“OK, thanks!” yelled Mercury after him.

2016, he thought. He’d been gone for almost four years. He
wondered how much had changed in that time. He hadn’t seen any flying cars or
teleportation pods yet, but this looked like kind of a backwater town. There
was some kind of crowd gathered up ahead; he hoped they were handing out
Soylent Green. Mercury could go for some Soylent Green, and maybe a Guinness.

But as he approached, his hopes faded. The people in the
crowd were chanting something, and many of them were holding signs and waving
them at passing cars. Some of the messages had strange, cryptic phrases on
them, like

RFID IS NOT
OK!

and

KEEP YOUR
CHIPS OUT OF MY BODY

and

WE DON’T
TRUST MENTALDYNE

There was a red circle with a line through it superimposed
on “MENTALDYNE”, so whatever MENTALDYNE was, it was hard to say whether the
protester was against MENTALDYNE or against
not
MENTALDYNE, making him
pro-MENTALDYNE.

Others had Bible verses. Revelation 13:16 seemed to be
particularly popular:

IT ALSO FORCED ALL PEOPLE, GREAT AND
SMALL, RICH AND POOR, FREE AND SLAVE, TO RECEIVE A MARK ON THEIR RIGHT HANDS OR
ON THEIR FOREHEADS, SO THAT THEY COULD NOT BUY OR SELL UNLESS THEY HAD THE
MARK, WHICH IS THE NAME OF THE BEAST OR THE NUMBER OF ITS NAME. THAT NUMBER IS
666.

“Oh, man,” groaned Mercury. “Not this again.” Mercury had
been through so many Apocalypse scares that he had lost count of them. As he
approached the rear of the crowd, he strained to understand what they were
chanting. “Hey,” he said, tapping an elderly woman on the shoulder. “What are
you guys saying?”

“RFID is not OK!” the woman shouted in his face.

“Gotcha,” replied Mercury. The woman turned back to face the
street. After a moment Mercury tapped her on the shoulder again. “What’s RFID?”
he asked.

The woman turned around again, now a bit irritated. “Radio…
something. Don’t you watch the news?”

“I’m a bit behind on current events,” said Mercury. “You’re
against radios?”

“Not radios,” the woman spat. “The chips, you know.
Mentaldyne.”

“What’s a Mentaldyne?”

“They’re the company that makes the chips.”

“Right,” said Mercury.
“The chips.
Oh, I think I get it. These chips, they’re made of people, right?”

The woman stared aghast at him. “What? No! They put them
in
people. There’s this whole secret government program. They’re already putting
them in prisoners and mental patients. They’re going to make us all get them.”

“Oh,
chips
!” Mercury cried.
“Like
tracking devices.
But, um, what does the Mark of the Beast stuff have to
do with anything?”

“Wow, you really don’t know anything, do you?” the woman
said, shaking her head. “It’s all in here.” She handed Mercury a tract. On the
front was a cartoon of a man, woman and child bowing before a hideous horned
creature, who seemed to be touching the child on the forehead.

“What’s this?” Mercury asked, pointing at the picture. “Why
is Mr. Gruesome Pants violating Timmy’s personal space?”

“It’s the End Times!” the woman shouted in exasperation.
“Just read it. It’s all in there. The government making us get chips
implanted,
the great winepress of God’s wrath… Just read
it.”