Mercury Rises Read Online Free Page B

in a place like Los Angeles than a place like Iowa.
    "What are we going to do?" she asked Troy.
    Troy shook his head, trying manfully to maintain his characteristic smirk-smile. "Maybe I'll finally finish that novel," he said. Troy had been working for the past five years on a novel that was, as he described it, a cross between In Cold Blood and My Fair Lady ---a cross that Christine wasn't sure anyone could bear.
    "What about you?" Troy asked. "I hear the Times is looking for copy editors. Not glamorous, but you'd get your foot in the door."
    "Ugh," said Christine. "Maybe I'll go back to substitute teaching for a while. I need a change. Something drastic." Her eye fell on the poster of the African child. "YOU CAN HELP," reminded the poster. Below the words was the logo of Eternal Harvest, an interdenominational organization founded by Harry to alleviate poverty, famine, and disease in Africa. The logo was comprised of the letters EH followed by a sheaf of grain and a soaring dove, a combination of icons that had always looked to Christine like a question mark, so that the logo seemed to be saying, "EH?"
    Despite its ambiguous logo, Eternal Harvest was a worthwhile organization, probably Harry's greatest legacy, despite his belief that his primary mission on Earth was to usher in the Apocalypse. Eternal Harvest had provided hands-on assistance to remote tribes in various areas of eastern Africa, digging cisterns to provide them with clean drinking water, building chicken coops to supply them with eggs, and inoculating them against diseases, among other worthy endeavors. Christine had on occasion thought to herself that Harry's efforts to promote the Christian faith would be better served if he were to shut down the Banner and send the whole staff to Africa to work for Eternal Harvest.
    She had not, of course, been inclined to move to Africa herself , as she had a career as a journalist to pursue and linoleum to pay for. Things had changed, though. She jotted down the phone number of Eternal Harvest on the back of the envelope and walked out of the cavernous building for the last time.

FOUR
    Circa 2,000 B.C.
     
    After doing his best to rally the workers at the top of the ziggurat, Mercury reluctantly returned to Tiamat's palace to report on the situation. He sat across from her in the drawing room---so named because it was where she drew up the plans for the ziggurats.
    "I'm not going to lie to you," Mercury said. "We've got problems on the ziggurat. I'm starting to think we should tell these guys we're doing eight levels next time. When they begin to lose steam after level seven, we'd be like, 'Hey, guess what? We're done!'"
    Tiamat was busily examining sheaves of parchment laid out on a marble slab before her. "It doesn't matter," she said finally. "We're building in the wrong place. Again ."
    "Are you kidding?" cried Mercury. "This is the perfect spot for a ziggurat. High elevation, close to shopping, a stone's throw from the Euphrates...The only way someone could have picked a better spot for a ziggurat is if they, you know, actually knew what the hell a ziggurat was for."
    Tiamat looked up from the papers and regarded him piteously. "Poor Mercury," she said. "Your problem is that you're too smart to be a cherub. You'd make a pretty good seraph, but alas, it was not to be."
    "I'd make a lousy seraph," Mercury replied. "Too much pressure. Besides, I'd probably get stuck with some two-bit civilization like those idiots pushing stones around Britain. I don't know who's running that civilization, but whoever it is evidently has no idea we're in the middle of a global pyramid race here."
    Tiamat laughed. "You should be so lucky as to get your own civilization," she said. "Do you know what the competition is like to get into the Seraphic Civilization Shepherding Program? I could hardly believe it when they told me I got the Babylonians. I mean, I was hoping for Egypt; we all wanted Egypt, but Babylon is pretty damn