Mercury Shrugs (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Inside the Machine, Lucifopolis, Gray Timeline; Luciprex IX, MMMMMMMXXVI

“This is a terrible idea,” said Red Mercury, once Green Mercury had explained their plan. The three Mercurys were waiting in the grim gray room of Lucifer’s Machine while Balderhaz reprogrammed the portal generator to take them to the Green timeline.

“That’s what I said,” replied Blue Mercury.

“Me too,” added Balderhaz, not looking up from the portal generator display.

“Then why are we doing it?” asked Red Mercury.

“I’m not sure we have a choice,” said Blue Mercury.

“How do you figure?”

“Think about it,” said Blue Mercury. “The three of us split off from each other less than an hour ago, reckoning by my time at least. Before our timelines split, there was just a single timeline.”

“Wow,” said Green Mercury, nodding thoughtfully. “That’s a good point. If Lucifer succeeds in rewriting history on the Green timeline, he succeeds on
all
of our timelines.”

“Because before the split, there only was one timeline,” said Red Mercury. “Shit. Okay, I’m on board. But even if this works, how are we going to foil his plan? Lucifer has almost taken over this plane half a dozen times, and this time through he’ll have all the experience he didn’t have the first time. He knows exactly which agents in Heaven he can turn, who will betray him, the whole Heavenly leadership structure, how they’re going to build the planeport… how exactly are we going to stop him?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Green Mercury. “I think I know a way we can get the upper hand. The portal generator has a builtin range limit due to the size of the shard, right? It can only hold a certain amount of interplanar energy.”

“One point two billion Balderhazes,” said Balderhaz, still tapping at keys. “Give or take.”

“Right,” said Green Mercury. “But we have two portal generators and two shards.”

“Slap me with a spatula and call me Meredith,” said Blue Mercury. “You want to leapfrog back in time.”

Green Mercury grinned and nodded.

“I must be the slow one of the family,” said Red Mercury, frowning, “because I’m not following you at all.” It struck him as odd that there could be such a stark divergence in the thought processes of the three Mercurys. Intuitively, it seemed that they should always be completely simpatico. But the slight variations in their respective histories, as well as varying motivations, had resulted in this weird situation where sometimes they were completely in sync and other times—like now—he could have no idea what the other two were talking about. Was it evidence of free will, or just of the unpredictable nature of his own thought processes?

“Simple,” said Green Mercury. “When Balderhaz gets the portal open to the Green timeline, we drag the Blue portal generator through. Then we set the Blue portal generator’s coordinates for the Gray timeline—”

“And then drag the Gray portal generator through to the Green timeline,” said Red Mercury, suddenly back in sync with his counterparts. “I see what you’re getting at.”

“Right,” said Blue Mercury. “So then we have two portal generators and two shards on the Green timeline. We open a portal with one of them to sometime in the recent past, and drag the other portal through, with the other shard. As long as the shard is uncharged, there shouldn’t be a problem taking it through a portal.”

“And the we set the second portal generator’s coordinates for as far back as it will go,” said Red Mercury.

“No,” said Green Mercury. “We set the second portal generator’s coordinates for the current time. That way, we can drag the first portal generator through to our stopover point, so we’ll once again have two portal generators.”

“Got it,” said Red Mercury. “
Then
we set the second portal generator’s coordinates for as far back as it will go. We go through the portal to caveman times and take the first portal generator through with us.”

“Right,” said Blue Mercury excitedly. “If all goes well, we should arrive in caveman times before Lucifer gets there. We can be ready when he shows up. And since we’ll have brought a portal generator with us, we can return to the present time when we’re done. We aren’t dependent on somebody here keeping a portal open for however long it takes us.”

“Exactly,” said Green Mercury.

“This is,” said Red Mercury, after a momentary pause, “without question, the most absolutely batshit crazy plan that anyone has ever come up with in the infinite histories of every plane in the multiverse.”

“So we’re agreed then?” asked Green Mercury.

“Hell yes,” said Blue Mercury. “Let’s do it.”

“Balderhaz,” said Red Mercury, “did you get all that?”

“Sure, sure,” said Balderhaz absently. “Leapfrogging back in time to prevent somebody from stopping things from happening that have already happened. Pretty tame stuff. Okay, it’s ready. Everybody through. Chop-chop!”

The portal to the Green timeline had reopened, and the three of them went through, taking the Blue portal generator with them. They appeared at the scene of the destroyed facility to find themselves surrounded by black-garbed men and others in uniforms. Special Agent Burton approached.

“What on God’s green Earth is going on?” Burton asked. “I saw the second Mercury show up, then the first one vanished, and now there are
three
of you!”

“No time to explain,” said Green Mercury. “We have to leapfrog back in time to stop Lucifer.”

“Balderhaz,” said Blue Mercury, “are you going to be able to open a portal to the Gray timeline in time?”

“It’s going to be tight,” said Balderhaz. “Time is moving at the same rate on the Gray timeline as here. The Machine could blow any second. Whoever goes through will be lucky to make it back, with or without the portal generator.”

“Who’s going through?” asked Red Mercury.

“I’ll do it,” said Green Mercury. “This is my timeline. My Lucifer.”

The other two Mercurys nodded.

“Okay,” said Balderhaz. “It’s ready.” The familiar blue-white ellipse of the portal once again appeared on the ground. “Try not to get yourself blown up.”

Green Mercury nodded and took a step onto the portal. In a split-second, he was gone. For a few seconds, those assembled simply stared at the glowing ellipse on the ground.

“By the way,” said Red Mercury, “What happens if the Machine blows up while the portal is open?”

“Well,” said Balderhaz, “the stabilizers should absorb most of the energy, but with an explosion that size…”

“Will the blast come through?” asked Blue Mercury.

“It might,” said Balderhaz with a shrug.

“Is it safe for my men here?” asked Burton.

“Safe as anywhere,” said Balderhaz. “If the blast comes through, it’s going to destroy the shard. And if that happens…” He trailed off, making an explosion gesture.

“Mmm, banana bread,” said the two Mercurys together.

A moment later, Green Mercury reappeared, dragging the other portal generator behind him.

“Shut it down, Balderhaz!” cried Blue Mercury.

“I’m on it,” said Balderhaz, furiously tapping keys. A few seconds later, the portal faded.

“Whew,” said all the Mercurys together.

“Now what?” said Burton.

“Now we save the world again,” said Green Mercury.

“How long will it take to set the portal to caveman times?” asked Blue Mercury.

“Not long,” said Balderhaz. “But that’s not the tricky part. The real challenge is going to be setting the second portal generator to go farther back. The Gray portal generator hasn’t been adapted for the shard. So we’re going to have to use the Blue portal generator to go back first, then cannibalize it for parts and bring the parts along with the Gray portal generator and the second shard back, then adapt the Gray portal generator in the field, so to speak.”

“Is that even possible?” asked Red Mercury. “Disassembling the Blue portal generator while it’s active?”

“I just have to remove Drekavac’s adapter,” said Balderhaz. “The portal will remain active for a few minutes after the shard is disconnected. It’ll be tight, but I can do it.”

“And what happens if something goes wrong?” asked Blue Mercury. “Like, if you forget a part?”

“Then we’ll have to either manufacture the part or wait. Depending on the part, waiting might be simpler.”

“Wait?” asked Green Mercury. “For what?”

“For us to build the portal generator. Then we can cannibalize our own portal generator to get Lucifer’s to work.”

“That would defeat the purpose,” said Red Mercury. “We’d have gone back in time only to end up in the present. We’d have to figure this out all over again.”

“Yes, but the second time we’d know what mistakes to avoid,” said Balderhaz.

Green Mercury sighed. “Well, if it’s our only option,” he said.

“We should only go back a few days, then,” said Red Mercury. “That way, if something goes wrong, we won’t have to wait very long.”

“But…” began Blue Mercury, thinking this over. “If we had done that, we would know about it. We would have seen ourselves suddenly appear in the portal generator facility a few days ago.”

“So we’re doomed to fail,” said Blue Mercury.

“Or create another alternate timeline,” said Balderhaz. “But I wouldn’t bet on it. Time is stubborn. It doesn’t like to split unless it has no choice.”

“Can we please stop anthropomorphizing time?” Red Mercury said. “Time hates that.”

“What if we go farther back?” asked Green Mercury. “Not thousands of years, in case something goes wrong and we need to wait for the present to fix it, but sometime before we built this place. Then there’d be nothing here but desert. We could show up, jerry rig the portal generator, and be on our way.”

“Nobody would ever know we were here,” said Blue Mercury. “Not even us.”

“So there’s no paradox,” said Red Mercury. “I like it.”

“Pick a safe margin,” said Blue Mercury. “Like four years. After all the Apocalypse nonsense but before Tiamat started causing problems again. And well before we ever thought about buying this property.”

Balderhaz nodded. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll set it for four years on the dot.” He went back to work.

Burton didn’t look happy. “I was hoping to get your help with Tiamat and the others,” he said, looking at Green Mercury, whom he apparently identified by the dirt stains on his clothes.

“Probably should have thought about that before you put her on the FBI payroll,” said Green Mercury. “Fortunately for you, I’ve been dealing with Tiamat for a while now. Just ply her with flattery until we get back and I’ll take care of her. Right now, Lucifer is the bigger threat.”

“All three of you are going?” asked Burton. “Is that really necessary?”

“We’re in this together,” said Red Mercury. “Fate, or something, has thrown us together, and we’re going to see this through.”

The other two Mercurys nodded, having apparently come to the same conclusion.

“I wonder if we should—” started Red Mercury.

“No,” said Blue Mercury.

“What?” asked Green Mercury. Then, realizing what Red Mercury had been about to say, added, “Oh.”

“You know,” said Burton, “We don’t all share a single brain. Anybody want to clue me in on what’s happening?”

“They’re wondering if we should tell… people… before we go back in time,” said Blue Mercury. “The answer is no.”

“What if we never come back?” asked Green Mercury.

“What if we do?” asked Red Mercury.

“Look,” said Blue Mercury. “The fact is, there are two Christines on two different timelines, one here and one on the Blue timeline. There are three of us, and we can’t even agree which Mercury goes with which Christine, if such a thing were possible, which it isn’t, because we’re angels. We’re going seven thousand years back in time and we have no idea if any of us will come back or when. What exactly do you geniuses plan to say to her?”

Red Mercury and Green Mercury looked at each other and shrugged.

“Exactly,” said Blue Mercury. “It was obviously a mistake to bring her back here in the first place. But now she’s here, and we’re going back there to prevent someone from preventing all of this from ever having happened, and everything is so fucked up that I’m not even sure what the point is, but it certainly isn’t going to help things to start getting into blubbery goodbyes.”

“Damn, dude,” said Red Mercury. “I can see why they call you Blue Mercury. You’re a real—”

“Yeah, Green Mercury already made that joke. Hilarious. Can we go now?”

Balderhaz glanced at a gauge on the box connected to the portal generator. “The shard is charged,” he said.

“No use standing on ceremony,” said Blue Mercury. “Balderhaz, let’s do this.”

Balderhaz nodded. He tapped a series of keys and once again the portal appeared.

“Tell me again where you’re going exactly?” said Burton.

“Right here,” said Red Mercury. “Four years ago. If all goes well, we should show up again right here in a few minutes. Then we’ll drag our portal generator back to four years in the past. And then from there, we’ll go back another 7,000 years.”