Mercury Revolts (9 page)

Chapter Eight
               
 

Near Elko, Nevada; August 2016

Izbazel drove until a little after
dawn, finally parking the truck in an empty stretch of asphalt behind a gas
station near Elko, Nevada.

“Why are we stopping?” asked Nisroc.

“Let’s take a look at what’s in the crate,” said Izbazel.

They got out of the cab and went around to the back of the
truck. Izbazel opened the door to find Konrath and Scalzi sitting hunched over
the crate, playing cards.

“Out of the way,” said Izbazel, climbing into the truck.
Scalzi scooped up the cards and the two demons backed away.

Izbazel waved his hand over the crate and the latch popped
open. He swung the hinged lid open and whistled as he looked inside.

“What?” asked
Konrath.
“What is
it?”

“Another crate,” said Izbazel. He reached in and pulled out
a smaller crate, setting it down next to the first one. He opened the second
crate and whistled again.

“Another crate?” asked Scalzi.

“No,” said Izbazel.
“One of these.”
He picked up a roughly rectangular object wrapped in brown plastic.

“What’s that?” asked Konrath.

“Cute little nuclear bomb,” said Izbazel.

“Awww,” said Konrath and Scalzi in unison.

“What are those numbers?” asked Nisroc. Someone had written
on the side of the bomb, in permanent marker:

LAT: 42.94 LON: -85.06

“What’s LAT mean?” asked Konrath.

“What’s LON mean?” asked Scalzi.

“Is there anything else in the crate?” asked Nisroc.

Izbazel looked. In fact, there was something else in the
crate: a manila envelope. Izbazel opened the envelope and pulled out a thick
sheet of folded paper. He unfolded it. It appeared to be some sort of
schematic. On the lower left corner was printed:

VANDEN HEUVEL BLDG—FLOOR 35

“Looks like some kind of map,” said Konrath.

“For the Vanden Heuvel Building, wherever that is,” said
Scalzi.

“Anything else in the envelope?” asked Nisroc.

Izbazel looked inside the envelope, finding a sheet of paper
on which was typed:

BLUE
PRINTS ARE FOR DIVERSION ONLY.

LEAVE IN
GRAND RAPIDS, MI
WHERE POLICE CAN FIND.

DETONATE
BOMB AT SPECIFIED
COORDINATES
ONLY
.

PRESS
RED BUTTON TO ARM.

BOMB WILL DETONATE 30
MINUTES AFTER ARMING.

DESTROY
AFTER READING.

 “Is there anything else in the envelope?” asked
Nisroc.
“Something blue?”

Izbazel looked in the envelope. “Nope,” he said.
“Just the note and this map thingy.”

“What’s that?” Scalzi asked, pointing at a red X in the
center of the map.

Izbazel shrugged. “Treasure?” he offered.

“Maybe that’s where we’re supposed to set off the bomb,”
suggested Nisroc.

“That’s it!” exclaimed Izbazel. “We’re supposed to bring the
bomb to the thirty-fifth floor of the Vanden Heuvel Building, in Grand Rapids.
The X is where we’re supposed to detonate it. Good thinking, Nisroc!”

Nisroc smiled. It was nice to be recognized for good
thinking. It didn’t happen to Nisroc very often. But something still bothered
him. “What about the blue prints?” he asked. “Why aren’t they in the envelope?”

“What difference does it make?” asked Izbazel. “It says
right here the blue prints are a diversion. From what I know about diversions,
we’re better off without them.”

“But it says to leave them in Grand Rapids where the police
can find them.”

“I think it means the bomb,” offered Scalzi. “We’re supposed
to leave the bomb where the police can find it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Konrath. “Why would he
want the police to find the bomb?”

“Beats me,” said Izbazel. “Why did he ask me to shoot him in
the knee?”

None of them knew the answer to that one.

“We’ll just leave the bomb at the spot marked with the X,”
said Izbazel. “If the police find it, it’s none of our business.”

They all agreed this was a sound plan.

“What does ‘destroy after reading’ mean?” asked Nisroc.

“I think it means the numbers on the bomb,” said Izbazel.

“What do the numbers mean?”

“Beats me,” said Izbazel. “But we read them, so I guess we’d
better destroy them.”

“How?” said Nisroc. “That’s permanent marker. He should have
put some nail polish remover in the envelope.”

There was general agreement that it would have been a good
idea for Zion Johnson to provide them with nail polish remover if he was
serious about them destroying the indecipherable markings on the bomb.
Fortunately, Nisroc came up with yet another brilliant idea: wiping down a
nuclear bomb with gasoline. It took a fair amount to completely obliterate the
markings, but they knew that Zion Johnson would want them to be thorough.

Once the bomb was completely clean and drenched with highly
flammable liquid, they put it back in the stolen army vehicle and got back on
the road, headed for Grand Rapids, Michigan. Things were going well for Chaos
Faction for a change.

Chapter Nine
                       
 

San Francisco; August 2016

Suzy regained consciousness on a
couch that she gradually realized was inside the apartment of the strange man
who had demanded to sample her margarine. The place was a mess, littered with
newspapers, magazines and fast food containers. A few feet from the couch sat a
small balding man who looked to be about forty. After a moment, Suzy recognized
him as Gary Rosenfeld, the former
Washington Post
reporter. He sat at a
small desk, tapping away at a laptop, apparently oblivious to her.

Suddenly remembering the hidden thumb drive, Suzy sat up and
looked around feverishly for her purse. She needn’t have worried: it was at the
foot of the couch, with the margarine tub still inside. As she removed the lid
to inspect the contents, the man she had met earlier walked into the room.

“Oh, hi,” he said cheerily. “Do you want some bread with
that?”

She ignored the man, turning toward Rosenfeld, who hadn’t
taken his eyes off his laptop screen. “Excuse me,” she said. “Are you Gary
Rosenfeld?
The reporter?”

Rosenfeld didn’t stir.

“Don’t bother,” said the other man. “He’s in the zone.
Can’t hear you.
I’m Eddie, by the way. Sorry about earlier.
Sometimes I get a little crazy being cooped up here all day. Did you say you
wanted bread?”

“I don’t want bread,” Suzy said. “I came here because of
this.” She reached into the margarine and dug around until she found the thumb
drive.

Eddie regarded her with a look of horror as she held up the
device covered in yellowy goo. “Why would you
do
that?” he asked.

“Figured nobody would look in the
margarine tub.”

Eddie shuddered. “What’s on it?”

Suzy began
unwrapping
the
cellophane.
“Information on Project Brimstone.
It’s
the—”

She jumped as the thumb drive disappeared from her fingers.
Rosenfeld had grabbed it from her and was greedily inserting it into the side
of his laptop.

“You said the magic word,” said Eddie.

“Apparently,” said Suzy, watching Rosenfeld tapping his
fingers impatiently on the desk as he waited for the files to come up. “So
what’s your deal? Do you guys run the website together?”

Eddie sat down next to her.
“BitterAngels
dot net?
Yeah. Well, it’s mostly Gary. I write a little, but mostly I just
help out.”

“What happened in the stairwell? Was that an example of you
‘helping out?
’”

Eddie shrugged. “You could say that.”

“Seriously, how did you do that?”

“Levitation,” Eddie said.
“Minor miracle.
All angels can do it.
Watch.”
He held out his hand and
the margarine container floated up from the coffee table where Suzy had set it.

“How are you doing that?” she asked. Her tone wasn’t so much
awed as accusatory, as if Eddie were pulling something over on her.

“Manipulation of interplanar energy,” he answered.

“Bullshit.”

Eddie smiled.
“Watch.”

The lid popped off the container and a glob of margarine
emerged from the tub, slowly forming itself into a vaguely humanoid shape.
Eventually she realized that it was the likeness of a young child, standing on
some sort of pedestal. As Suzy watched, the figure sprouted wings—and then
another, much smaller appendage. As she stared, open-mouthed, the appendage
began to emit an arc of yellowish effluent into the tub.

“Ew,” Suzy said, aghast at the image.

“It’s a cherub,” said Eddie.

“It’s revolting,” said Suzy.

Eddie frowned. “I thought it was pretty good. He’s a friend
of mine. His name is Perpetiel.”

“Keep your friend out of my margarine.”

Eddie shrugged and the figure melted back into the tub.

“What is this crap?” asked Rosenfeld suddenly, tabbing
through the contents of the thumb drive. “There’s nothing new here.”

“What?” said Suzy, who instantly forgot about the miraculous
work of margarine sculpting she had just witnessed. “That’s top secret stuff! I
know it doesn’t spell it out in so many words, but it’s pretty obvious that
they’ve resurrected Wormwood. The program intended as damage control for
Wormwood became a program to build another bomb! Brimstone is just Wormwood
Two!”

Rosenfeld shook his head. “Tell me something I don’t know.
Let me guess, the whole thing is run by angels who have infiltrated the
government and are using their miraculous powers to keep everybody in the
dark.”

Suzy looked from Rosenfeld to Eddie to the margarine tub and
back to Rosenfeld again. “Um, no?” she ventured.

“Ah,” said Rosenfeld, with a knowing smile. “So you’re still
in the dark yourself. You’ve glimpsed the machine, but you haven’t figured out
who’s running it yet.”

“I read some of the stuff on your site,” said Suzy. “So I
know all about your ‘angel’ theory…”

“You just witnessed the spontaneous formation of a peeing
cherub statue from a tub of margarine,” Rosenfeld interrupted. “How do you
explain that?”

“I also saved her life in the stairwell,” said Eddie proudly.

“I’m still processing that,” said Suzy. “I’ll grant you that
something unusual is going on here.”

Rosenfeld laughed.
“Unusual, right.
Here’s the deal: a while back, probably around 2002, Lucifer started assigning
demons to infiltrate the U.S. government in Washington…”

“Whoa,” said Suzy.
“Lucifer?
Like,
the Devil?”

“Correct.
Satan himself.
You’ve
read the Bible?”

“I saw the movie.”

“All right, well I’m going to assume you’re familiar with
the basic mythology. Lucifer rebelled against God and took a bunch of angels
with him. Those angels became demons. Really, it’s just a bureaucratic
distinction; it’s not like they grow horns and bat wings or anything. Demons
are just angels who aren’t doing their assigned job. OK?”

“OK…”

“So Lucifer has been wreaking havoc on the Mundane
Plane—that is, on Earth—for thousands of years. Some time in the past ten or
fifteen years, he started assigning agents to infiltrate the U.S. government.”

“Agents,” repeated Suzy. “You mean demons.”

“Correct.
Fallen angels.
Lucifer’s agents
kept a low profile for the most part; at first he was more interested in
collecting information than actively influencing policy. But then he found out
about Wormwood, and hatched a plan to get Babcock to use the bomb against
Heaven.”

“He did
what
?”

“It’s complicated. The point is
,
the bomb blew up in the hub that connects Earth to all the other planes. So all
the angels and demons on Earth are now stuck here, probably forever. Lucifer
was apprehended by Heavenly authorities, so now there was this whole
intelligence apparatus inside the U.S. government that had no one running it. A
headless monster, if you will.”

“So who’s running Brimstone, if the monster has no head?”

“Somebody stepped in to fill the gap,” said Rosenfeld.
“Another angel.”

“Like, a bad angel?”

Rosenfeld sighed and looked at Eddie.

“She didn’t start off bad,” Eddie said. “In fact, I always
kind of liked her. I think she probably had good intentions when she took over
for Lucifer…”

“She?” asked Suzy. “The angel is a woman?”

“Her customary appearance is that of a little girl,” said
Rosenfeld. “Her name is Michelle.”

“Michelle?” said Suzy. “That doesn’t really sound like an
angel name.”

“You probably know her by the male version of her name,
Michael.”

“Michael? You mean…”

“Right, the archangel,” said Rosenfeld.
“General
of God’s own army.”

Suzy thought for a moment. “Are you sure you aren’t just
imagining all of this?”

“Are you sure you didn’t just imagine a cherub peeing in
your margarine?”

“No,” Suzy said. “Actually I’m not. It occurs to me that
maybe I hit my head in the stairwell and I’m hallucinating all of this.”

Rosenfeld nodded.
“One way to find out.”

“What’s that?”

“Fall down the stairs again. This time Eddie won’t catch
you.”

She looked at Eddie, who smiled and held up his hands
innocently.

“OK,” said Suzy. “I’m going to provisionally accept that you
aren’t completely full of shit. But your story doesn’t hold together. If
Lucifer has been around for thousands of years, why did he just start
infiltrating the U.S. government a few years ago? Wouldn’t he have done his
best to get agents in every major government, starting centuries ago?”