Mercury Shrugs (31 page)

Chapter Fifty-Three

“One in the same,” said Mercury, walking around the bench toward her.

“One
and
the same,” Christine corrected.

“Ah, okay,” replied Mercury. “Cool, I was hoping there’d be someone in this park who could correct my grammar. What do I owe you?”

“How the hell did you get here?” Christine asked.

“I walked,” said Mercury, taking a seat next to her. “Same as you.”

“No, I mean, I thought you were trapped seven thousand years in the past.”

“I was.”

“Then how did you get here? And don’t say you walked, or I will slap you.”

Mercury grinned. “I kind of like it when you slap me. In answer to your question, I got to the present time in the usual way: I waited.”

“You waited,” said Christine flatly. “For seven thousand years.”

“That’s right,” said Mercury.

“Would you care to elaborate?”

“Well,” said Mercury, “the first five thousand years were pretty dull. But folks in Sumeria started digging irrigation ditches, which I realize doesn’t sound that exciting, but stick with me, because once the city-state of Eridu was formed, it didn’t take long for a trade route to—”

“Hold on,” said Christine. “I realize that you’ve been around a long time. But you’re not just saying you’ve been around since prehistoric times; you’re saying that you’ve now lived through all of human history
twice
.”

“All of human history so far, yes,” said Mercury. “I had John drop me off on the Mundane Plane just a few minutes after it split off from the… you know what, the details aren’t important. The key point is that yes, I’ve lived through it all twice.”

“But… why?”

Mercury shrugged. “The alternative was oblivion,” he said.

“I think I might have gone with oblivion,” said Christine.

“I almost did,” said Mercury. “But then I remembered something.”

“What?”

“That I told you not to give up hope,” Mercury said. “I couldn’t choose not to be when I knew you’d be here waiting.”

Christine just stared at Mercury for a long time. At last, she said, “You waited seven thousand years for
me
?”

“Well, you and hot dog stuffed crust pizza,” said Mercury. “But yeah.”

“That’s… unbelievable,” said Christine.

“Actually,” said Mercury, “it’s a fairly logical progression from the other types of stuffed crust pizza, if you think about it.”

Christine realized she was grinning like a crazy person, and she didn’t care. “You know what, Mercury? You can make dumb jokes all you want, but you’re not going to ruin this moment. You waited seven thousand years for everything to happen all over again, just so that you could meet me here at this moment. You went through the great flood, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Crusades, both world wars… wait, why didn’t you kill baby Hitler?”

“I made a pledge not to interfere in history,” said Mercury. “Also, the line of time travelers waiting to kill baby Hitler is insane. You’re much better off trying to kill baby Leopold II. That guy was a serious asshole. But no, it wasn’t my place to meddle. I let things happen the way they happened, for better or worse. I only used my foreknowledge of events once, to buy three hundred shares of a company called Quicksilver Fabrication, under the name Marcus Uittenbroek. And I only used my angel powers a dozen or so times, only to save lives, and even that almost got me in serious trouble. For the most part I’ve just lived a normal life, keeping to myself.
[12]
Figured if Jesus didn’t use his powers to get down from the cross, I could manage.”

“You saw Jesus on the cross?”

“Well, no,” said Mercury. “I heard about it after, though. I did meet him once, a few years before.”

“Really? Did he say anything to you?”

“Yeah,” Mercury replied. “He said, ‘Don’t lose hope.’”

“He did not!”

“Swear to God,” said Mercury. “Of course, he said it in Aramaic.”

“Did you say anything back?”

“Yeah, like an idiot I said, ‘you too!’ Doesn’t even make any fucking sense. ‘You too!’ I panicked.”

“Did he know? About you, I mean?”

“Hard to say,” replied Mercury. “I like to think so.”

“Did you ever meet the other you?”

Mercury shook his head. “I avoided myself. Was rarely even on the same continent.”

“And you never stopped by to see me either. Even when I was in ancient Africa.”

“No,” said Mercury. “Thought it best not to interfere.”

“Wow,” said Christine. “This is all so amazing. But what happened to the other Mercurys? And now that I think about it, how do I know you’re the real Mercury?”

“We’re all real,” said Mercury. “I’m the one called Red Mercury, but Green and Blue were Mercury too. Are. Well, Green is. Sort of. Can I explain this later? It’s kind of complicated.”

“Sure,” said Christine. “But can I ask one more question?”

“Shoot.”

“How did you know you’d end up on a timeline where I came back from ancient Africa? I mean, isn’t there a universe where you prevented yourself from going to get me?”

“I knew I’d end up on where you were,” said Mercury, “because that’s where I belong.”

“Oh my God,” said Christine. “You had no idea, did you?”

“Honestly,” said Mercury, “it was a crapshoot. I’ve been trying to figure it out for seven thousand years, and I’m still not sure it makes any sense. I’m just glad I’m here with you now.”

“Me too,” said Christine, smiling.

“So what do you want to do?” asked Mercury. “The future is finally here, and it’s ours for the taking.”

“Let’s fly to the Azores and do nothing for a thousand years,” said Christine.

“I knew I liked you,” said Mercury. “Shouldn’t we tell your friend back at the hotel? Suzy and weird guy and what’s-his-face?”

“Nah,” said Christine. “Let them wonder. They’re just going to try to recruit you for their stupid angel task force team thing anyway.”

“Sounds boring,” said Mercury.

“Incredibly boring,” Christine replied, getting up from the bench. “Pick me up.”

Mercury scooped her into his arms and she threw her arms around his neck.

“So,” he said. “We’re just not going to talk about your shirt?”

“No, we are not,” said Christine.

“Fair enough,” said Mercury, and leapt into the air.

“Strange how paranoia can link
up with reality now and then.”

                                          ― Philip K. Dick,
A Scanner Darkly

One

“That’s a really big sheep,” said Erasmus Keane, his observational powers functioning as flawlessly as ever.

The woman in the lab coat nodded curtly. “He’s a Lincoln Longwool,” she said. “Largest breed of sheep in the world.” She had introduced herself as Dr. Kelly Takemago, Director of Research for the Esper Corporation. We were standing in her lab, a vast white room filled with the low humming of vaguely terrifying machines that hung from the ceiling like colossal clockwork bats. Poised in the middle of the room was the sheep in question, which Keane and I were regarding with professional interest. The sheep, in turn, was regarding us. It didn’t appear impressed.

Keane, holding his chin in his hand, began walking around the sheep in a stooped posture that reminded me of a waddling duck. The sheep was nearly as tall as he was, and was looking back at Keane with scientific detachment. It was hard to say which was the odder-looking specimen, the quadrupedal area rug standing in stoic silence on the tiled floor of the lab or the lanky, balding biped creeping awkwardly around it.

“Can I touch it?” asked Keane, after completing his circumnavigation of the creature.

“Of course,” said Dr. Takemago, seeming mildly annoyed at the question. “The sheep doesn’t bite. They’re very docile creatures.”

Keane reached out nervously, his hand gradually disappearing into the beast’s lush fleece. He gave an excited yelp, which startled Dr. Takemago but had no appreciable effect on the Longwool’s equanimity. “You gotta try this, Fowler,” he said. “It’s like sticking your hand into Narnia.”

I demurred.

“They produce the heaviest and coarsest fleece of all the long-wooled sheep varieties,” said Takemago, as if reciting from an encyclopedia article. “That isn’t why the Esper Corporation keeps them, of course. This one is male. There are two others. John and Paul are downstairs.”

“John and Paul?” I asked. “What’s this one’s name, Ringo?” There was a tag on the sheep’s ear, but all it had on it was the number eight.

“Mark,” said Dr. Takemago.

I nodded, as if that had been the other possibility.

“Biblical, not Beatles,” mused Keane. He continued, “‘All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.’” He grinned at me, as if expecting recognition of some sort. I shrugged noncommittally.

“That’s from Matthew,” he went on. “The apostle, not the sheep.”

I turned back to Dr. Takemago. “So the missing one…?” I ventured.

“Mary,” replied Dr. Takemago.

“Of course,” I said. “And did Mary by any chance have a little lamb?” Very unprofessional of me, I know. But you can’t lob a softball like that at me and expect me not to take a swing.

“No,” said Dr. Takemago, without cracking a smile. I couldn’t tell if she was irritated by the joke or if the subtlety of my wit eluded her. I got the impression that Dr. Takemago didn’t go in much for jokes. She was short and stocky, and wore her straight black hair cut so short that it required a constant effort to remind myself that she wasn’t a twelve-year-old boy. Her expressive range seemed to encompass only detached bemusement and mild irritation.

“So they are sterile?” asked Keane, now with both of his hands sunk deep within the long-suffering animal’s fleece. The sheep bore this indignity with aplomb.

Dr. Takemago shook her head. “No, in fact the plan was to breed them. Unfortunately, Mary is the only female of the group.”

“And she’s been missing since yesterday?” I asked.

Dr. Takemago nodded. “Mary was gone when I arrived, shortly after seven. The security system had been overridden. The cameras didn’t catch anything. All of the animals wear a GPS tracking device on their collars, but Mary’s stopped transmitting at 4:29am, while she was still in the lab. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

“Who else has access to the building?”

“To the building? Several hundred people. But the research area is only accessible to about fifty.”

“We’ll need a list,” I said. “As well as details on your security system.”

“Of course,” said Dr. Takemago.

“You’ve called the police?”

Dr. Takemago was silent for a moment. “The executives didn’t feel that the police would appreciate the nuances of this case.”

I nodded, as if this were a perfectly reasonable answer. Keane had extracted his hands from the fleece and was holding them in front of his nose with a slightly revolted expression on his face.

“You said you don’t keep the sheep for their wool,” I remarked. “Why do you keep them?”

“Genetic research,” Dr. Takemago said.

I raised an eyebrow at her. Now she was being downright evasive. After a moment she sighed. “Organ transplants,” she said. “The idea is to raise genetically modified sheep specifically for the purpose of being hosts for organs that can be transplanted into humans. Livers, kidneys, even hearts and lungs. This is confidential, of course.”

Just at that moment the sheep let out an impassioned bleat that sent a shiver down my spine. It sounded precisely like the frightened cry of a small child. I turned to see Keane kneeling in front of the sheep, staring intently into its eyes. The sheep backed away, appearing frightened.

Dr. Takemago didn’t look pleased. “Stop spooking the sheep, Keane,” I said, by way of mollifying her. I had no real hope of having any effect on Keane’s behavior.

Keane continued to stare, and the sheep retreated, bleating its horrible bleat.

“What are you doing, Mr. Keane?” demanded Dr. Takemago.

Keane didn’t answer, continuing to stare at the terrified sheep. Then he stood up and turned to Dr. Takemago. “I have taken measure of this sheep’s soul,” announced Keane. The room was silent except for the low hum of the machinery for some time before I realized that Keane wasn’t planning to elaborate.

“And…?” I asked at last.

Keane remained silent for several seconds more. “Inconclusive,” he said at last. With that, he wandered to a corner of the laboratory and began staring at the wall. Dr. Takemago shook her head, clearly dubious about the Esper Corporation’s decision to hire Keane to find their missing sheep.

“He’s an unconventional thinker,” I explained without enthusiasm. “But he gets results.”

“One thing needs to be made clear,” said Dr. Takemago, turning to face me. “The Vice President of Research and Development left instructions to be cooperative. But hiring a two-bit private investigator to locate the missing specimen seems misguided, and frankly Mr. Keane’s attitude is doing exactly nothing to allay those concerns. That sheep is absolutely critical to the life-saving research Esper Corporation is doing, and if it isn’t found—”

“Phenomenological inquisitor,” I mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Mr. Keane doesn’t like being called a private investigator,” I explained. “He prefers the term ‘phenomenological inquisitor.’”

“Delusions of grandeur too,” noted Takemago coldly. “In what way does a ‘phenomenological inquisitor’ differ from a two-bit private investigator?”

I was ready for that one. “Phenomenology,” I began, “is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. The methods of a phenomenological inquisitor differ from those of a typical investigator in that the phenomenological inquisitor regards each case as a matter of resolving the tension between the appearance of things and things as they actually are. Further, the phenomenological inquisitor does not limit his understanding of the ‘real’ to merely physical phenomena, accepting that consciousness, memory and experiences are no less real than, for example, chairs, automobiles, or—” I glanced at the sheep—”farm animals.” I had this speech memorized, but I liked to occasionally improvise depending on the situation. Returning to the script, I went on, “Finally, the phenomenological inquisitor differs from a scientist in that he does not attempt to isolate himself from his subject or to observe reality under artificially created laboratory conditions, preferring to seek out apparent anomalies and explore them on their own terms rather than reduce them to preexisting categories.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” said Takemago.

I shrugged. To be honest, it sounded like bullshit to me too.

“Any idea who would want to steal your sheep?” I asked.

“The most reasonable hypothesis?” said Takemago. “One of the other biotech companies. Competition in this industry is cutthroat. Mary represents the culmination of a decade of top-secret research.”

I frowned. I was no scientist, but something about that didn’t seem to jibe. “You think they’re going to dissect Esper’s sheep to learn its secrets? Wouldn’t it make more sense to steal the research? Not to mention that it’s a lot easier to smuggle out a terabyte of data than to kidnap a sheep.”

Dr. Takemago nodded. “Security is looking into the possibility that research data was stolen as well. Stealing Mary may have been only one part of their plan.”

“Be sure to contact us if you find anything out,” I said. “If we’re going to solve this case, it’s vital that you not withhold any information.”

“Of course,” Dr. Takemago said, after a slight hesitation. I glanced at Keane to see if he had picked up on it, but he was oblivious, seemingly transfixed by the wall of the lab.

“What about someone needing an organ transplant?” I ventured.

Dr. Takemago shot me a dubious look.

“You said these sheep are engineered as hosts for organs intended for transplant. What if someone was desperate for a transplant, and couldn’t get an organ through legal channels for some reason?”

“Not a chance,” said Dr. Takemago. “Anybody with the resources to pull off a theft like this could easily have gotten hold of a black market kidney.”

I furrowed my brow at her.

“Black market trade in human organs from the Disincorporated Zone is well-documented. It wouldn’t be difficult for a motivated person with adequate resources to get their hands on a viable human kidney.” She was right of course, but something about the way she said it creeped me out. Takemago had a strange, clinical way of speaking that made me feel a little like I was conversing with a machine.

“What about a liver?” I asked. “Nobody’s going to sell their liver on the black market.”

“No one’s own liver, no,” Dr. Takemago said.

I nodded. She was right. You could get anything in the DZ, if you had the money. “Still,” I said, “it would help if we knew a little more about the potential uses for a sheep like Mary.”

“There seems to be a bit of a disconnect here, Mr. Fowler,” she said. “There are no ‘uses’ for a sheep like Mary. Her only value is as a subject of research. This is undoubtedly a case of corporate espionage. If the involvement of a ‘phenomenological inquisitor’ in this matter is unavoidable, then that’s where such a person’s efforts should be directed.”

“Humor me,” I said. “When you say that the organs are meant for transplanting into humans, do you mean that the sheep actually have human organs inside them?”

“More or less,” Takemago said. “Its heart, kidneys, and liver are designed from a subset of chromosomes common to sheep and human beings, so they can be transplanted from one to the other with minimal complications.”

“Minimal complications,” I said. “Not no complications.” I watched as Keane spun around and approached the sheep again. He sank his hand into the top of its fleece once more, and the sheep gave a quick bleat as it felt his presence. Dr. Takemago frowned, clearly agitated.

“There’s always the risk of complications with any transplant operation,” she said, her eyes on Keane. “Particularly cross-species—even if the animal is specifically designed for the purpose. That’s why it makes no sense to steal a sheep like Mary for her organs when one could more easily purchase a human organ on the black market. It’s always better to stay within the same species, if at all possible. Not to mention that these sheep are still experimental. There’s simply no advantage to harvesting organs from a sheep.”

“Then why breed them in the first place?”

“Because,” Takemago explained irritably, “Esper Corporation isn’t selling organs on the black market. The idea is to supply usable organs through legitimate channels, without anybody having to die in the process.”

“Except for the sheep,” I said.

“Of course,” said Takemago to me. “But better a sheep than a human being.”

I nodded. “Why do you use such a large breed of sheep?” I asked. “Even allowing for the volume of its fleece, that one has to weigh close to three hundred pounds. I would think its organs are too large to fit inside a person.”

Takemago nodded, still watching Keane anxiously. “Another reason it wouldn’t make sense to harvest organs from Mary. But in answer to the question, Esper uses several different breeds. These specimens are all experimental. Size is one of the easiest variables to control. Once the problem of organ viability has been solved, the next step is to breed a version with a mass approximating that of an average human being. What are you doing, Mr. Keane?”

Keane seemed oblivious to the question. He was running his hands through the sheep’s fleece, pulling away loose fibers and regarding them with apparent fascination.