Mercury Shrugs (27 page)

“What in the name of all that’s eternal is going on here?” John asked, a stunned look on his face. “How did you two get in here?”

“Kind of a funny story,” said Red Mercury, still hanging in mid-air. “We used the—”

“The quoin,” said John. “I should have known. Hey!” He had noticed Balderhaz. “Get away from that! You don’t know what you’re doing!” As he spoke, Balderhaz flew backwards, slamming into the wall behind him. Stunned, Balderhaz sunk to the floor.

John stepped to the podium, staring at the display overhead. “What is this? You’ve made hundreds of copies of my backup universe. What did you think you were going to do with all of these?”

Another warning began flashing on the display.

“Blast it!” John growled. “You can’t have nine hundred active universes open at once. You’ve overrun the compile buffer.”

“That sounds bad,” said Red Mercury. “Is it bad?”

“Too much ontological strain on the Outpost’s systems,” John said, reaching his hand toward the glass dome on the pedestal. “Nobody move. The slightest jolt could cause an uncontrollable—” John screamed as something like lightning arced from the glass to his hand. The overhead display went black and John slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Chapter Forty-Six

“Forty-three million to one,” Lucifer grumbled again. “We shouldn’t be here. None of this should be here.”

“Take it easy, Lucifer,” said Green Mercury, standing guard in front of the Eye. “I’m just as upset about existing as you are, and you don’t see me being a big baby about it.”

A few dozen cultists, including Lucas, the Cravutius lookalike and the Tiamat lookalike, gathered around them in a rough semicircle. Most of the cultists seemed to have some idea that something momentous was happening inside the pyramid, but were unclear on the details, to say the least. Some of the people had gathered in groups to babble apocalyptic theories to each other; others continued to inspect (or try to climb) the pyramid. A few particularly dim bulbs had started whacking each other with bones. Those gathered around Green Mercury and Lucifer seemed mostly content to listen in on their conversation in the hope of obtaining some insight into what was happening. These people were disappointed. The mood of the crowd was surprisingly upbeat, however—due in part, no doubt, to a low pressure zone that had moved in, bringing with it cooler air and some cloud cover.

“Admit that I’m right,” said Lucifer. “Admit that we shouldn’t be here.”

“I admit the odds appeared to be against it,” said Green Mercury. “But here we are. It’s the eternal existential dilemma: why am I here?”

“You think it was destiny or fate or something, don’t you?” said Lucifer. “Maybe it was God’s will that we survived. Is that what you think?”

Green Mercury sighed. “I honestly don’t have any idea. I guess I still believe there’s some reason for us to exist, though, yes.”

“Then let’s try it again.”

“What?”

“Let’s try another combination.”

“We know the correct combination. It’s penguin on fire, crashing spaceship, upside-down eagle, one-legged robot, guy with—”

“You said there’s a reason we’re here,” Lucifer interrupted. “There’s a reason we picked the right combination. If that’s true, then we shouldn’t be able to pick the wrong combination. God wouldn’t let us survive forty-three million to one odds just to let us vanish into nothingness a few minutes later.”

“You’re nuts, Lucifer. We’re not trying another combination. We know what would happen.”

“Do we?” asked Lucifer. “Wouldn’t God stop us, if there is a God? Why would he let all of creation lapse into oblivion?”

“He won’t, because we’re not trying another combination. See, God just saved the universe. Problem solved.”

“Step out of the way, Mercury.”

“Not a chance, Lucifer.”

“Move or I’ll move you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Lucifer. Not even you can be this spiteful and nihilistic. We just survived forty-three million to one odds. I have no idea if this universe-creation plan is going to work, but it deserves a chance, doesn’t it? Just let things be for once. Accept the possibility that we’re going to actually get through this. That means more world domination schemes for you. You used to love world domination schemes.”

Lucifer thought for a moment. “You know,” he said, “you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it that way. How am I going to impose my will upon billions of people if the universe doesn’t exist? Okay, we’ll do it your way. I’ll just go sit over here with the future subjects of my unquestioned dominion over all reality and…” He suddenly stopped and darted toward the pyramid.

Green Mercury, anticipating the move, shoved him aside. Lucifer stumbled and smacked his forehead against the pyramid wall several feet from the panel.

“Damn you, Mercury,” growled Lucifer, rubbing his head. “Get out of the way!”

“Not going to happen,” said Green Mercury.

Lucifer got to his feet and charged Green Mercury. Green Mercury tried to dodge, but was too slow. He and Lucifer thudded to the ground. Lucifer got up first, but Green Mercury grabbed his ankle and pulled, causing Lucifer to fall on his face. Green Mercury scrabbled forward and climbed on top of him, pinning him down. “Yield!” Green Mercury yelled.

“Mmph!” said Lucifer, his face in the sand. Their audience had now grown to more than a hundred people, watching the contest with great interest.

Mercury grabbed the blond hair on the back of Lucifer’s head and pulled. “Yield?” he said.

“Yield,” moaned Lucifer.

Mercury got up and gave Lucifer a kick in the ribs. Lucifer groaned. “Get away from the Eye,” he said. “You get within a hundred yards of it again and I’ll break a boulder over your head.”

Lucifer scurried away on his hands and knees, like a frightened animal. The crowd parted for him as he fled. “It’s not fair, you know,” Lucifer said, getting to his feet and brushing the dirt off his knees.

“Cry me a river,” said Green Mercury, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. The air had cooled a bit, but it was still warm and the humidity seemed to have gone up. He wished it would rain. He hadn’t had a chance to clean off since diving into the dirt to save the shard from the bunker buster. And eventually the cultists were going to need water, which meant a lot of transmogrification.

“Oh, I didn’t mean for me,” said Lucifer, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “I meant for you. It’s unfair that you have to try to outwit me with that feeble little brain of yours.”

“What are you blabbering about now?” said Green Mercury, wiping his brow.

“Don’t worry,” said Lucifer, backing away from Green Mercury. “It will hit you eventually.”

In the distance was a low rumbling sound, and suddenly Green Mercury realized why the weather had changed so abruptly. While Lucifer had been distracting him with talk and amateur attacks, he’d been amassing clouds overhead—thunderclouds. Green Mercury had been struck by lightning before, and it wasn’t an experience he was keen on repeating.

Lucifer must have seen realization dawn on Green Mercury’s face, because he suddenly turned and ran. Mercury launched into a sprint, diving at Lucifer’s legs just as a blinding flash lit up the sky. If he was going to be hit, Lucifer would be as well. He could only hope the cultists were far enough from the strike to be unharmed.

A deafening boom sounded as the two hit the ground. Green Mercury’s ears rang from the sound and every hair on his body seemed to be standing at attention, but he and Lucifer were both unharmed. The lightning had missed them. The two of them turned to see what had happened. Many of the people who had been closest to the Eye were now lying on the ground, dazed, but no one looked seriously injured.

“The pyramid!” somebody yelled. “It hit the pyramid! Look!”

Something did indeed seem to be happening with the pyramid. The top several feet had taken on a pulsing orange glow, almost as if it were on fire.

“It’s just lightning,” said Lucifer. “It’s got to be able to handle lightning.”

“You would think so,” said Green Mercury. “It’s been around for billions of years. This can’t be the first time it’s been struck by lightning.”

But the orange glow seemed to be intensifying and spreading to the rest of the pyramid.

“Something is wrong,” said Green Mercury, getting to his feet.

Lucifer stood up next to him. “Yes,” he said, a hint of excitement in his voice. “Very, very wrong.”

“It’s some kind of power surge,” said Green Mercury. “We need to get everybody away from the Eye. Hey, everybody! Get away from the pyramid!”

A few of the dazed and confused cultists turned to look at Green Mercury, but most were transfixed by the sight of the pyramid, which was now almost entirely engulfed by the orange glow.

“Run!” yelled Mercury. “It’s going to…” He trailed off, realizing that he had no idea what it was going to do. In any case there was little hope of getting anyone to run away from the mesmerizing sight of the transfigured pyramid, and probably no chance of any of them getting safely away. If the pyramid exploded, it would take the rest of the universe with it. Might as well just sit and watch the show.

“Burn, baby, burn,” said Lucifer, staring gleefully at the Eye, his face aglow with orange light.

“There is seriously something wrong with you,” said Green Mercury. “What happened to you to make you such an asshole?”

“This is what I was born for,” said Lucifer. “I’ve waited for this for seven thousand years. To see everything gone. Erased, as if it never was. Where is your God now, Mercury? Sleeping, perhaps? Out for a stroll?”

But Green Mercury wasn’t listening. He simply stared at the Eye, taking in the sight. It was beautiful in a way, he thought. The whole pyramid was now glowing orange, aflame with an energy it seemed powerless to contain. If this was the way the universe ends, he thought, I’m ready for it. Blasted apart by ontological energy, overwhelmed by the power of Being itself. He and everyone else here would become too real to exist. It seemed appropriate.

A wave of energy swept out slowly from the Eye, engulfing the cultists and everything around them. As it approached Green Mercury, he glanced at Lucifer, who was still gleefully anticipating his own doom, along with that of everyone else. Green Mercury couldn’t help laughing. The great Lucifer and all his plotting had been reduced to this: literally rooting for absolutely nothing. For all his cleverness and charm, Lucifer was an empty suit—more than that, an empty shell, like a snakeskin left behind by a molting snake. Nothingness personified.

And what about me? thought Green Mercury, as the wave struck him like a blast of hot air from an open furnace. Am I an empty suit as well? What good have I done, considering how everything ended up? None at all, I suppose. For the most part, I was just a leaf on the wind, a bubble of mercury pulled one way and then another by forces I didn’t understand, and still don’t. And yet, somehow I don’t believe that all is for nothing. There is still hope, I think, even when all else is oblivion. And there is some small value in what I am, and who I have been. Mercury, he thought to himself. I’m Mercury.

And then there was nothing.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Both Mercurys fell to the floor with a thud. The Iris was dark except for the glow of the floor tiles.

“What the hell happened?” asked Red Mercury. “Balderhaz, are you okay?”

There was no response. The two Mercurys got to their feet and made their way to the pedestal. John was lying on one side of it, face up, spread-eagled on the floor. Balderhaz was curled in a corner on the other side. Something resembling a swirling yin-yang symbol appeared overhead.

“Progress indicator?” Blue Mercury asked.

“Maybe it’s rebooting,” said Red Mercury.

“Let’s hope,” said Blue Mercury. “How’s John?” He went to check on Balderhaz while Red Mercury inspected John.

“Unconscious,” said Red Mercury. “Whatever advantages he has over us, he doesn’t seem to be immune to electric shock.”

“Same here,” said Blue Mercury.

“Hopefully Balderhaz comes around first,” said Red Mercury. As he spoke, the display lit up overhead once again. It looked the same as it had when it shut down: several hundred little windows showing copies of the backup universe had appeared.

“Is it done?” Blue Mercury asked. “Did Balderhaz make enough copies of the universe?”

“Dunno,” said Red Mercury. “How do we deploy them?”

“Beats me,” said Blue Mercury. “Try that swirly galaxy thing.”

“I’m not trying anything,” said Red Mercury. “I’m waiting for Balderhaz to wake up.”

There was a sound like a scream from somewhere outside the Iris. It was followed by a cacophony of clattering and crashing.

“What the hell is that?” Blue Mercury asked. “Did somebody get inside?”

“I’ll check it out,” said Red Mercury, heading for the door.

“No, don’t check it out!” said Blue Mercury. “I need someone to keep an eye on John!”

“I’ll be right back,” said Red Mercury. He exited the room, closing the door behind him.

On the floor on the other side of the pedestal, John groaned.

“Shit!” said Blue Mercury, scanning the series of hieroglyphs at the bottom of the display. Which one of them would deploy the universes? The three-legged cat? The melting ice cube? The stapler being eaten by a snake? None of the icons meant anything to him. “Balderhaz!” he yelled, giving him a nudge in the side with his toe. “Wake up!”

But Balderhaz didn’t wake up. John began to pull himself to his feet. Outside the room, the crashing and banging and yelling continued.

Blue Mercury didn’t know what to do. He’d always been a loner, but he’d grown accustomed to having another version of himself (or two) to bounce ideas off. Now he had to decide the fate of the universe alone. He could run around the pedestal and give John a kick in the head to try to buy himself some time, but having another minute to stare at the indecipherable icons wasn’t going to do him any good. Balderhaz might come around eventually, but he showed no signs of rousing, and Balderhaz’s guess probably wouldn’t be any better than his own. So, pick an icon, he thought. Quick, while I still have control over my limbs. But which one? Iguana on a stepladder? Log cabin floating on a pond? Banana peel windsock?

Then he saw it. An icon that looked like a glass apple. It didn’t make any sense; there was no logical reason for the glass apple to be the deploy icon. It probably wasn’t even really a glass apple. But it was the right button. It had to be.

“Get… away… from that…” John groaned, pulling himself to his feet with the pedestal.

Blue Mercury pointed at the red apple, and it lit up. An indecipherable message popped up. Three digits of it were numeric; he recognized them from the door code panel. The Iris was asking him if he was sure he wanted to deploy all nine hundred ten universes. There were two options, one of which he didn’t recognize. The second one was the ‘cancel’ button. He pointed at the one he didn’t recognize. The display went dark again, except for the whirling yin-yang.

“What… did you do?” gasped John.

“I’m not entirely sure,” said Blue Mercury, “but I think I just created 910 universes, give or take.”

The display came alive again, this time with a message in green.

“What does it say?” asked Blue Mercury.

“It says,” John said, looking from the message to Blue Mercury impassively, “that the operation was a success.”

“Woohoo!” cried Blue Mercury, then suddenly became very serious. “Please tell me that means you’re not going to erase them all.”

“My request for an exemption was rejected,” said John. “I’m to shut down this universe immediately.”

“Okay, but the situation has changed,” said Blue Mercury. “Now there’s—”

“However,” John went on, “the situation has changed, so it behooves me to reassess matters.” He tapped a series of icons, bringing up various windows displaying graphs and charts, which he spent several seconds reviewing. “It would appear,” he said at last, “that the universes are stable.”

“It worked!” Blue Mercury cried. “Balderhaz, it worked! So there’s no need to shut them down, right?”

“From the perspective of my superiors,” John replied, “the situation has not changed. These universes were not authorized to be brought into being, and this project and all dependent universes are to be shut down immediately.”

“But the—”

“But there has been a complication,” John went on. “Any time a universe is annihilated, a UG-473 must be filled out, in triplicate. That’s thirty-six pages of paperwork
per universe
. For a total of—”

“Thirty-two thousand, seven hundred sixty pages,” murmured Balderhaz from the floor.

“That’s correct,” said John. “And the Iris keeps a record of all deleted universes, so unfortunately there is no way around this chore, assuming the Outpost is returned to headquarters according to protocol. Of course, occasionally a causal breakdown is so severe that it infects the Outpost itself, requiring that the Observer, shall we say, scuttle the ship.”

“You’re going to leave the Eye here?” Blue Mercury asked, helping Balderhaz to his feet.

“I don’t seem to have much choice. It’s either that or spend the next three years doing paperwork. The Outpost will be on autopilot, of course. I’ll disable the door so no one can enter. It will remain only as an energy source to power the universes you’ve created.”

“It’s much appreciated,” said Blue Mercury.

“Don’t thank me,” John snapped. “You’re lucky the weight of the bureaucracy is on your side. I have half a mind to annihilate the lot of you, just out of spite.”

Suddenly the door slammed open and Red Mercury, looking dazed and haggard, stumbled in. “Um, guys?” he said. “I could use some help out here. Lucifer has gone insane.”