Mercury Rests (21 page)

It’s often erroneously reported that the American inventor, philosopher, and kite aficionado Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity. This is not true. Electricity was a known phenomenon before Franklin was born. What Franklin discovered was that lightning was a kind of electricity, no different in theory from the shock you get when walking across your carpet and then touch the cast-iron door of your wood-burning stove. In fact, he realized, you don’t actually have to touch the stove to get the shock. If the built-up charge is strong enough, it will arc through the air from the stove to your finger—or, more accurately, from your finger to the stove. Franklin decided, rather arbitrarily, that the stove was “positively” charged and that your finger was “negatively” charged. Nature abhors this imbalance between positive and negative and will even things out as soon as it possibly can, by spewing negatively charged ions (electrons, which were too small for Franklin to see, even with bifocal lenses) into the stove. The greater the imbalance, the greater distance the arc can span. When there’s a massive imbalance of charges between the earth and the sky, caused, for example, by the sudden formation of a thick mass of water vapor, you get a
really
big arc. Observe:

Somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred quintillion pent-up electrons leaped from the clouds to the zenith of Mbutuokoti, easing the imbalance between earth and sky and shedding
a trifling amount of energy along the way in the form of light, sound, and the disruption of the molecular structure of one overconfident angel and one very unlucky goat. The goat, mercifully, was already dead. The angel, being immortal, was not. If the goat’s spirit were watching from some sort of goat heaven, it might be somewhat heartened to see that the twelve men who had recently cut its throat were now also dead, their central nervous systems having been shut down by an electrical charge a trillion times bigger than their conduits were designed for.

The angel’s central nervous system, being essentially identical to that of a human being, also shut down. The only qualitative difference between angelic biology and that of humans is that when the human machine shuts down, the ghost that occupied it is evicted permanently. Where it goes exactly is anybody’s guess. Where the angelic spirit goes, on the other hand, is well known: nowhere. The spirit of the angel simply hangs around in a noncorporeal and unconscious state, doing its best to repair the machine until it’s in fit shape to be inhabited again. Thus did Gamaliel’s charred and effectively dead but still entirely reparable body fall to the plateau atop Mount Mbutuokoti, where it was virtually indistinguishable from the dozen men lying splayed like paper dolls around the remnants of their altar.

Mercury might have cheered at the sight of Gamaliel’s demise except that, for one thing, it was really gross. For another, he was still in a ridiculous amount of pain. And on top of that, it now seemed that Christine, running down the side of a mountain during a thunderstorm with a doomsday device in her pocket, was determined to kill herself and quite possibly destroy the world in the process.

While the two angels had been fighting in the sky above, Christine had retrieved the glass apple from the cave and was
now fleeing from a volcanic eruption that seemed to have been triggered by the lightning strike, followed closely by that malignant bastard Horace Finch. The pressure inside the volcano must have been building for weeks, and the lightning had weakened the rock just enough to allow the lava to break through. Dumb luck, thought Mercury. Or synchronicity.

It was clear that Christine wasn’t going to make it. Even if she somehow managed to keep her footing on the wet, slippery rock slope and avoid falling to her death (and undoubtedly triggering the anti-bomb in the process), it would take a miracle to keep her from being struck by one of the globs of molten rock spewing from the mountaintop. Fortunately for her, a miracle was something that Mercury could provide.

With his left arm still hanging by strands of muscle and sinew and his rib cage shattered, what he really wanted to do was land on the plain out of range of the volcano and lie down for a day and a half or so. But there was no time for that. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he forced himself to focus on the invisible channels of supernatural energy that riddled the Mundane Plane. Grabbing ahold of the energy, he formed an invisible umbrella of warped gravity just above Christine, causing any lava clumps that would have hit her to change their trajectory just enough to land a few feet away from her. Unfortunately, Finch was following so close that the umbrella protected him as well.

The farther down the mountain they got, the better their chances of survival were, but from Mercury’s vantage point far above the mountainside their progress was excruciatingly slow. They were no more than a quarter of the way to the plain. Dizzy and nauseous from pain, Mercury began to fall, unable to spare any energy maintaining his altitude. He skittered to a stop on the slope above Christine and Finch, still focusing on deflecting the
lava raining down all around them. The rain intensified, and his vision blurred, making it difficult to keep track of the two distant figures clambering down the mountain. Just a little farther, he thought. Just a little farther and you’ll be safe. We’ll be safe.

And then Christine slipped and fell. Mercury held his breath, waiting for the anti-bomb to go off. But a second passed, and then another, and they were all still around.

But then, of course they were. This had all happened before, hadn’t it? Christine had told him how she and Finch had run down the side of Mbutuokoti, escaping safely from the lava and the lightning. If they hadn’t, Finch never would have gotten the apple and Mercury would never have stolen it from him and imploded the moon. None of what was happening now couldn’t be happening if it hadn’t already happened.

Mercury shook his head dimly, trying to make sense of the situation with his addled brain. Down below, Finch was dragging Christine’s limp body behind an outcropping that would offer some shelter. They were safe. Mercury smiled and passed out, tumbling like a ragdoll down the mountainside.

“All right,” said Lubbers, trying to conceal his impatience. “How are we going to strike back against the BIOs?”

Lucifer smiled. He had no reason to delay any further. He had Lubbers and Babcock eating out of his hand. “I was thinking,” he said, “that we would use Wormwood.”

Travis paled at the word. Lubbers looked from Lucifer to the president, trying to figure out what he had missed. “Wormwood? What’s Wormwood?”

“How do you know about that?” the president demanded, his voice betraying a combination of anger and fear.

“As I said,” Lucifer replied calmly, “I have many contacts within your government. Little of importance happens without my knowledge. I would say that the development of a ten-kiloton nuclear device that can fit in a standard carry-on bag qualifies as important, wouldn’t you?”

Lubbers’s jaw dropped. Rumors of so-called “suitcase nukes” had circulated among conspiracy theorists for better than thirty years. While Lubbers knew that such a device was theoretically possible, it was generally agreed that any nuclear device small enough for a person to carry would have any number of practical
problems. The main problem was that the explosive yield of a bomb was limited by the amount of fissile material used. For a suitcase-sized bomb, the yield would be less than one kiloton, given current technical limitations—less than a tenth the size of the of “Little Boy” bomb used by the Americans on Hiroshima. The other problem was that having a nuclear bomb in a suitcase required someone to
carry around a nuclear bomb in a suitcase
. The sort of person who would be willing to do that was the sort of person that in no case should be allowed to operate anything more dangerous than a belt sander.

But apparently someone in the government had decided that there was a need for such a device. Unbelievable. The potential for misuse if a portable nuclear weapon fell into the wrong hands was off the scale. No wonder Lubbers had been left out of the loop. His boss, FBI Director Keith Hansen, probably didn’t even know.

“The thing must weigh a hundred pounds,” said Lubbers.

Travis eyed Lubbers and then Rezon. Neither of them was cleared for this information. Project Wormwood was known about by only a few dozen people. Half of them were scientists and high-ranking military personnel and the other half were government officials—Travis, the vice president, a few cabinet members, and a handful of senators. Officially, the project did not exist.

“Look, Mr. President,” said Lubbers. “We can play the security clearance game if you want, but clearly Mr. Rezon already knows about your super-top-secret project, and he’s just told me about it. In any case, we’re all on the same team here.”

Travis nodded slowly. Lubbers was right. There was no point in standing on protocol now. “All told, the device weight is eighteen pounds,” he said.

“Bullshit,” said Lubbers. Then, remembering his place, said, “Sorry, Mr. President. In my opinion that statement sounds like bullshit, Mr. President.”

“Ultra-grade plutonium-239,” said Lucifer. “Ninety-nine point nine percent pure. Virtually no contamination from plutonium-240 or other isotopes. As far as most of the world knows, impossible to produce. With ultra-grade PU-239, you can build a ten-kiloton bomb that fits in an attaché case and emits less radiation than a typical microwave oven. The power to level a small city in a package that can fit in a backpack.”

Travis nodded gravely. He didn’t remember all the details, but Rezon’s account sounded about right.

“Is that enough to take out the BIOs?” asked Lubbers. “Our intelligence isn’t very specific about how many BIOs there are, or how spread out they are.”

“We don’t need to take them all out. Doing so would only be a temporary measure in any case. The important thing is that all of their technology, all of their power, is based on a form of transdimensional energy that is unknown to your scientists. They call it interplanar energy. The source of all of that energy is a pyramidal structure in the center of the city that they refer to as the Eye of Providence. If we can detonate Wormwood within a quarter mile of the Eye, the BIOs will be essentially helpless.”

“So that’s it?” asked Lubbers. “Blow up the pyramid, and the BIOS are done for? What about you? Won’t it affect you as well?”

Lucifer nodded. “It won’t kill the BIOs; it will merely remove the source of their power. The existing interplanar energy will continue to bounce around the Universe for a few thousand years, gradually dissipating until it is finally depleted. The other BIOs and I will continue to live, but with greatly diminished powers.
And most of our technology—notably the anti-bombs that took out Anaheim Stadium and the moon—will stop working. The attack won’t hurt us; it will simply render us impotent. Think of it as neutering a dangerous animal.”

“And you’re OK with being neutered?” asked Travis.

“I will survive,” Lucifer said enigmatically. He did not add that he had long ago built a miniature pyramid on the Infernal Plane that acted as a battery, soaking up stray energy and storing it for his own personal use. The battery would provide for his own needs over the next few thousand years. That was how he had been able to maintain his power despite being unable to return to Heaven. The destruction of the Eye of Providence would make him, by default, the most powerful being in the Universe. After all, in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. By the time his own energy source was depleted, the Universe itself would have begun to fall apart. Without the power of the Eye to sustain it, reality would gradually disintegrate. And that was perfectly fine with Lucifer. He’d wreak havoc for as long as the party lasted.

“OK, so how do we get Wormwood that close to the Eye?” asked Travis. “They must have defenses against such things.”

Lucifer smiled. “They have defenses, to be sure. It would be impossible, for instance, to get an anti-bomb anywhere near the Eye of Providence. But a nuclear weapon in a backpack? I doubt the idea has ever occurred to them.”

Travis frowned. “Nuclear weapons have been around for seventy years. It’s never occurred to them that someone might use one on them?”

“Airplanes have been around for a hundred years,” answered Lucifer. “And yet it took you completely by surprise when someone flew one into the Pentagon.”

“Point taken,” said Travis dryly.

“I don’t want to give you the impression that this will be easy,” said Lucifer. “Not as easy as flying a 747 into a building, for sure. You will have to send a team of men through the portal to deliver the bomb. These men will have to traverse an intermediary location that we call a planeport in order to get to another portal, which leads to the BIO city. The planeport will be heavily defended. However, I have something that will even the odds between your troops and the BIOs.”

“What is it?” asked Lubbers.

“An artifact called a Balderhaz Cube. Within a limited range, it makes it impossible for the BIOs to utilize interplanar energy. To conduct what you might call ‘miracles.’ Your soldiers will have the advantage, because they are used to fighting with conventional weaponry. And you will have one additional advantage.”

“Which is what?” asked Travis.

“Me,” said Lucifer. “I will be carrying the bomb.”

By the time Mercury regained consciousness, the thunderstorm had passed and the volcano was no longer spewing chunks of molten stone into the air. Some twenty feet away, a stream of lava was oozing down the mountainside past him.

Mercury got uneasily to his feet. His shoulder was stiff but had fully reattached itself, and only a mild ache remained to remind him of his previously shattered sternum. He climbed to the top of the mountain and surveyed the vista below. Christine and Finch were nowhere to be found. He remembered Christine saying something about escaping from the volcano in Finch’s helicopter, but he had no idea where he had taken her. All he could remember was that Finch had somehow absconded with the apple and returned to Eden II. Christine had flown back to Los Angeles and taken the portal in her condo to warn Heaven about the anti-bomb.