Mercury Revolts (29 page)

Gamaliel, for his part, didn’t,
but then he pretty much did whatever Tiamat wanted anyway, and if he was going
to continue to be her second-in-command, he would need the chip to protect him
from the MEOW device. The actual implantation was quick, easy and relatively
painless: a technician at Mentaldyne had implanted one in Gamaliel and then
instructed him on how to implant the chip in Tiamat’s agents in Washington. You
simply held the implantation device—which, oddly, resembled one of those little
clicky label makers you can get for three dollars at an office supply store—at
the base of the subject’s neck and pulled the trigger. The subject would feel a
sensation like a bee sting and that was that: the tiny cilia-like neural
conductors would latch onto the subject’s brain stem. Gamaliel had managed to
meet with Tiamat and twelve of her other agents in Washington to implant them
with chips before returning to Costa Rica. She had many more agents, of course,
but they were outside the MEOW zone awaiting further instructions. The plan was
for Gamaliel to nab Baldherhaz and then return to Washington to chip the rest
of Tiamat’s minions. When that was done, Tiamat would be unstoppable.

Gamaliel gave the signal and
the demons moved in, three on each side of Balderhaz’s compound. Tiamat was
taking no chances: although there were only three angels inside—Perp, Eddie,
and Balderhaz—and none of them were a match for any of Gamaliel’s commandos,
she had erred on the side of caution. Each of Gamaliel’s men carried an AK-47,
in case their sheer numbers weren’t enough to tilt the odds in their favor.

As the three other groups
closed on the sides and back of the compound, respectively, Gamaliel and the
two demons flanking him approached the front door. The two demons held back,
pointing their rifles at the front of the building, while Gamaliel kicked the
door in.

“On your
knees!”
Gamaliel barked.
“Hands in the air!”

But the laboratory area was
deserted.

“They’re downstairs,”
Gamaliel said.
“In the rec area.”

He led his two men into the basement
while the others kept an eye on the lab. But downstairs he found only an
abandoned ping-pong table. On the table, underneath one of the paddles, was a
sheet of paper. Gamaliel picked it up and looked at it. The note read:

  
HOW DUMB DO YOU THINK I AM?

-
         
MERCURY

Chapter Thirty-eight
          
 

Washington,
D.C.; August 2016

The Cadillac pulled into a dark
alley and stopped about twenty paces from another car, which had approached
from the opposite direction. The driver got out of the car, grabbed a pair of
crutches from the trunk, walked to the passenger side, and opened the door.
Zion Johnson stepped out, irritably taking the crutches. Eddie had done a
half-assed job repairing his knee, fusing the kneecap together but leaving a mass
of torn ligaments and scar tissue. It had been enough to get Zion Johnson out
of the cornfield, but it was far from healed and the pain was getting worse.
After the walking he’d done on it, he’d had to get another cast put on to
immobilize the joint. It made walking difficult and driving impossible. For
someone who prided himself on self-reliance, that was hard to take.

On top of that ever-present annoyance, Zion Johnson was
furious at himself for falling for the spray-painted hair trick, not to mention
trusting those Chaos Faction morons to set the bomb off at the right location.
It had been a miracle that the bomb hadn’t gone off in the city. He had Mercury
to thank for that, he supposed, but he wasn’t disposed to be very complimentary
of Mercury right now, given the way Mercury had hoodwinked him. Grudging
respect as a worthy adversary was the best he could manage at present.

Zion Johnson limped on the crutches toward the other car as
a woman exited the back seat and walked toward him. They met in between the two
cars, in the blinding glare of headlights.

“So you’re the one in charge now,” said Zion Johnson.

“I’m just an advisor,” said the woman. “My name is Tiamat.”

“An advisor, huh?” said Zion Johnson. “Who are you
advising?”

“Right now?” asked the woman with a smile. “I’m advising you
to watch your step, Mr. Johnson. My people tell me you’re the one to go to if I
want to get something done. Is that correct?”

“I do what I can to serve my country,” said Zion Johnson.

“Patriotism,” said Tiamat with a barely concealed sneer.
“Such an old-fashioned value.
Useful, though. Mr. Johnson,
your country needs your help with some security arrangements.”

“Where?”

“Grand Rapids, Michigan. I believe you know the place.”

“Was just there, as a matter of fact,” said Zion Johnson.
“They had a bit of a terrorism scare recently.”

“Indeed,” said Tiamat. “You’ll be happy to hear that I’ve
come up with a plan to prevent anything like that from happening again.”

“To prevent it from happening in Grand
Rapids, or from happening anywhere?”

“First Grand Rapids, then everywhere else,” replied Tiamat.
“I’m hoping that the plan is such a brilliant success in Grand Rapids that
there will be little resistance in the rest of the country.”

“So what is this plan?”

“We call it Project Myrmidon,” said Tiamat. “We’re
implanting RFID chips in everyone within the city limits. You enter the city,
you get chipped. Once everybody is chipped, a terrorist attack will essentially
be impossible, because we’ll be able to track everyone all the time. Tracking
algorithms will be used to flag suspicious movements, so we can stop crimes
before they ever happen.”

“Interesting,” said Zion Johnson. “And these chips, would
they be similar to the ones that are being used on felons and mental patients?”

“Very similar.”

“Implanted at the brain stem,” said Zion Johnson. “Some have
postulated that such a chip could theoretically be used to control behavior.
Theoretically.”

“Is that right?” asked Tiamat. “Well, I’m sure that
capability is years off. And we’ll put safeguards in place to prevent those
sorts of abuses from occurring, in any case.”

“Oh, of course,” said Zion Johnson. “Manipulating the
behavior of ordinary citizens would be unethical.”

Tiamat smiled wryly. “You’re very perceptive, Mr. Johnson.
How would you like to be in charge of Myrmidon?”

Zion Johnson frowned.
“Why me?”

“I’ve read your file, Mr. Johnson. You’re a man of
discipline. You abhor disorder, crime, and weakness of the will. You’d love
more than anything to make the world a better place, but you’re stymied at
every turn by corruption and stupidity.”

Zion Johnson didn’t know who put together this file she was
talking about, but he’d like to commend them on their accuracy. “So that’s it?”
he asked. “I’m a control freak, so you want me in charge?”

Tiamat laughed. “No, it’s what
makes
you a control
freak that I care about.
Your affinity for order and your
aversion to chaos.
I believe you understand what’s at stake here. The
world has strayed too far toward chaos, and I need someone who can help me pull
it back from the brink. Is that you, Mr. Johnson?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Zion Johnson, without a second thought.

“Good,” said Tiamat. “Catch the first flight tomorrow to
Grand Rapids. Put things in order there, and then we’ll talk about the plan for
the rest of the country.” She turned to go, but then stopped. “Oh, and Mr.
Johnson,” she said, “
when
you get there, you will of
course get a chip implanted yourself. The leaders have to set the appropriate
example.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Zion Johnson again.

“Very good,” said Tiamat, with a smile. “Oh, and you should
have that cast taken off.”

Tiamat walked back to the car and got inside. The car backed
out of the alley and drove off, leaving Zion Johnson standing alone in the
headlights of the Cadillac. His leg had suddenly stopped hurting, and he had no
doubt that if he had the cast removed, he’d find it had been completely healed.
Just in time for his new assignment. Working for Beings of Indeterminate Origin
had its downsides, but you couldn’t beat the medical benefits.

Something was still bothering him though, and it irritated
him that he couldn’t seem to pinpoint what it was. He was still upset with
himself for the Grand Rapids debacle, but things had turned out OK in the end,
and in any case Tiamat either didn’t know or didn’t care what had happened with
the bomb. He was still angry with that Mercury character, but that wasn’t it
either. He was a little disconcerted that the United States government was
apparently now in the hands of a narcissistic megalomaniac, but this was hardly
the first time that had happened.

No, what bothered him, he realized, was that he had just
been given the assignment that he had been working toward his entire life, and
it scared the shit out of him.

Chapter Thirty-nine
                  
 

Somewhere
in Missouri; August 2016

Unfortunately,
Mercury seemed to be nearly as dumb as Tiamat and Gamaliel thought he was.
While he’d foreseen that they would attempt to abduct Balderhaz, he hadn’t
anticipated Tiamat’s scheme to make her agents immune to the effects of the
MEOW device. So while Balderhaz, Eddie, and Suzy had escaped, Tiamat remained
in control of Washington, D.C. And there didn’t seem to be much any of them
could do about it.

They’d regrouped in one of
Michelle’s safe houses—a rundown old farmhouse in Missouri. Mercury hadn’t had
much choice but to trust Michelle; they needed a place to hide where they could
figure out what to do next. Mercury had sent word of what had happened to Perp
via Angel Band, and instructed Perp’s group to meet him at the safe house as
soon as possible. Mercury, Michelle and Suzy arrived early in the evening, and
a few hours later Perp, Balderhaz and Eddie showed up.

“What a dump!” Balderhaz exclaimed
as he strolled inside the house. Eddie and Perp followed close behind. Mercury,
Suzy and Michelle were sitting in the living room. An ancient TV flickered
against one wall, showing the latest news from Grand Rapids and the other
cities that were still under martial law.

“I’m less concerned about the
décor and more concerned about the company,” said Eddie. Perp nodded in
agreement.

Michelle, sitting on an easy
chair in a corner of the room, seemed amused at Eddie’s distaste.

“Yeah, I get it,” said Mercury.
“Competing plans for world domination make for strange bedfellows. I’m not
thrilled about it either, but Tiamat’s double-cross means we’re stuck with
Michelle for the time being.”

“This sorry bunch of rejects
isn’t exactly my first choice of allies either, you know,” said Michelle. “This
morning I had the President of the United States under my thumb, and now I’m
stuck in Podunk, Missouri with the morons who put her in power.”

“We didn’t put her in power!”
snapped Suzy. “You did! You’re the one who set up this whole shadow government,
and you’re the one who made it necessary to create another…”

“MEOW device,” finished
Mercury.

“Yeah, I refuse to use that
name,” said Suzy, dropping onto the couch next to Mercury. “It’s idiotic.”

“And in Michelle’s defense,”
said Mercury, “it was Lucifer who set up the shadow government. Michelle just
took it over. And now the reins have unfortunately passed to Tiamat.”

“Because you gave them to
her!” yelled Michelle.

“You tried to nuke Grand
Rapids!” yelled Suzy. She nearly jumped off the couch at Michelle, but Mercury
held her back.

“OK,” said Eddie. “This is
getting us nowhere. We’ve all made some mistakes—”

“Putting another MEOW device
in Washington was not a mistake,” Mercury protested. “Michelle forced our hand.
We had no way of knowing—”

“You made a deal with
Tiamat!” cried Michelle. “What did you think was—
”

“Stop!” shouted Eddie.
“Enough! From here on out, nobody says anything unless it’s an idea for getting
Tiamat out of Washington!”

An eerie quiet fell over the
farmhouse. It seemed that no one had any ideas.

“Do we even know how she’s
counteracting the MEOW emissions?” asked Perp. “Balderhaz?”

“Eh?” said Balderhaz, who had
been transfixed by a pair of dust bunnies blowing across the hardwood floor.

“Any idea why Tiamat’s agents
aren’t affected by the MEOW device?” asked Perp.

“Oh,” said Balderhaz.
“Um, no?”

“Hey, turn it up!” Mercury
suddenly yelled. On the TV a reporter was holding up what looked like a tiny
computer chip.

Suzy turned up the volume on
the TV. The reporter was saying that given the ongoing threat of a terrorist
attack, all residents of Grand Rapids were going to be required to have a small
computer chip implanted so that security officials could track their movements.
When the reporter was done explaining how safe and innocuous the chips were, he
handed the one he’d been holding to a smiling man wearing a Homeland Security
uniform. The smiling man put the chip into a device that looked surprisingly
like one of those little clicky label makers you can get for three dollars at
an office supply store. He pressed the label maker thing against the back of
the reporter’s neck. There was a click, and the reporter winced.