Chapter Six: Worries
Pullings watched as Blakeney left the tent. The poor boy seemed rather confused at the sudden change in the Lady's demeanor - which was not surprising, considering that she had been quite warm to him.
As soon as the tent flap fell back into place, Mercy spoke up: "How did he lose his arm?"
Dr. Maturin sighed, and made a gesture to indicate that he would be the one to answer that. "We were attacked by a French ship called the Acheron several weeks ago. In our first encounter, splinters were lodged in his arm, and there was nothing I could do to stop the infection from setting in. I had to...deal with it, in the best way I knew how."
Mercy nodded, and Pullings saw something that looked like sadness flash through her eyes. But when she blinked, it was gone, and replaced by hard, cold impersonality when she looked at him, and asked: "What about the bastard did you want to talk about?"
Pullings straightened up, putting an official tone in his voice. "We would like to learn all that we can about this...Romelien. How did he come to be involved in your appearance at the beach earlier today? Who is he, really? What does he do?"
Mercy huffed, and ran a hand through her hair, the strands shimmering slightly in the soft lamplight. "Figures. I guess I had to talk about it sooner or later." She glanced at the stools and crates nearby, and smirked. "I think you guys might want to sit down. This is going to take a while."
Pullings nodded, and glanced at Mowett and Allen, who then pulled up a stool and a crate, respectively, to sit on. Pullings himself got another stool, and the Doctor occupied the stool that Blakeney had left vacant.
When they were all seated, Mercy continued: "Dr. Jacques Romelien is a scientist, most known for his discoveries and innovations in the field of quantum electronics. I could rattle off an entire list of his achievements in that field, but that's not important.
"The most famous of Romelien's inventions was a machine that, through the use of quantum physics, could actually manage to send a person back in time, and pull them back into the present day again. There were problems with this technology initially, such as what are called 'transcription errors (1)' - don't make me explain what those are, it's too complicated. But someone had managed to work out a way so that these errors did not happen, hence making time-travel, if I may use the term, safe no matter how many times a person did it."
Dr. Maturin leaned forward. "And was that person Romelien?"
Mercy shook her head. "No. It was another scientist, also a Frenchman, named Antoine Salois. Salois was brilliant, much like Romelien, but with a manageable ego. I had met him once before, and he struck me as the sort of person who was happy as long as he was doing what he loved - someone who didn't care much for the glory or the fame. Regardless, though, his discovery made a potentially dangerous technology safe - and that meant that people would want it for their own ends.
"It was not just Romelien's rivalry with Salois that drove him to steal the safer and smaller version of the machine and kill Salois and his entire research team. My brother recently found out that Romelien was also working for someone else, someone higher and infinitely more powerful, but at the time when I set out for my mission our team still had not identified just who exactly was pulling Romelien's strings.
"When we found out that Salois and his team had been killed, we knew immediately that it had something to do with the fact that Salois had found a solution to the transcription errors, and that he had built his own machine that operated on that latest discovery of his. We knew that to have the machine out in the open, where it could be stolen or sold on the black market, was a dangerous thing, so we arranged for a mission that would eliminate Romelien, or, at the very least, take the machine off of him. The rest, I told you already."
Pullings did not say anything, continuing instead to gaze at Mercy, trying to come to grips with what she had told him. Though her explanation was brief, and she spoke of things that he did not quite understand, it was a strange and chilling plot - one laden with blood, intrigue, and deception.
He wondered what her time was like. He knew how so many people had high hopes for the future. Many people envisioned that, two hundred years or more from the present, human beings would be enlightened, and there would be no such thing as violence and war.
It was obvious, though, that those speculations were wrong. Hearing Mercy speak, and seeing the way that she spoke of killing a person in so matter-of-fact a manner, told him that the world was not about to get any better. Perhaps it would, in its own way, but some things would remain the same in the future as in the present.
His gloomy train of thought was interrupted when Allen spoke up. The Sailing Master looked at the young woman with a scrutinizing gaze, and then asked: "So you are saying that you will kill Romelien when you find him?"
Mercy shook her head. "Not necessarily, if he comes along peacefully and hands me the device. Otherwise, if he resists, I'm going to have to take it off his corpse."
"And how do you plan to find him?" That was Mowett now, speaking in a tone that seemed more curious than condescending, as Allen's voice had been. "Do you even know where he is?"
"I think that he's still here, on this island," Mercy responded. "It's the most logical thing to assume, after all. If I'm correct, he was also conked out by the machine's effects, which means that he should have woken up at around the same time that I did, maybe even earlier. If he's lucky, he'll have found a source of fresh water on this island, or a way to make it, at least, and is hiding out somewhere amongst the rocks: they're good places to hide."
Dr. Maturin nodded in response to her assessment. "That does sound quite plausible."
"But this island is fairly large," Pullings said then, remembering the map that the Captain had shown him earlier that day. "And the rocks, as you said so yourself, make excellent hiding places. It may take days, maybe even weeks, before we find him, if at all, and by then we would have to leave the Galapagos."
"You don't have to do anything for me if you don't think you can," Mercy said then, and her voice was laced with just a hint of what sounded like an injured pride. "As soon as my feet are okay I will go looking for him myself."
Pullings smiled at her. "We agree with what you have said: your business is yours, and we have no right to involve ourselves in it. However, you must remember that we cannot leave this Frenchman on the loose. If he is indeed from your time, as you say, then he could provide incredible amounts of information that could prove detrimental for our side. And this man, as you have implied, does not seem to have the same moral scruples as you do."
Mercy fell silent for a while, and then responded with a grimace and a nod. "Very good point." She scowled. "I hate it when everything gets complicated like this!"
Mowett offered her a comforting smile. "If it is any consolation at all, we shall send out a search party tomorrow, to see if they can find him before he gets too far."
"Personally, I really wouldn't mind if you brought back a corpse," Mercy said. "It'd make things much easier for me to handle. A dead person can't escape or complain."
Pullings raised an eyebrow as he looked at her, rather surprised by what she had just said. "Pardon, miss?"
She laughed, and waved her hand. "I know, I know, proper women shouldn't talk like that. It's the same lecture that my older brother gives me when he's not bossing me around to go on this or that mission."
"Well then perhaps your older brother should be stricter with you," Dr. Maturin said, his voice taking on a tone that Pullings was all too familiar with. It the same tone of voice he used when he was talking to the Captain - or rather, when he was lecturing the Captain.
Mercy rolled her eyes. "Psh, as if he could. I am a grown woman, Doctor, and nobody pushes me around without my permission. My brother is well aware of that fact, and I hope that all the rest of you know it too."
Pullings nodded his head. "We understand clearly, Lady- Pardon, Miss Mercy."
Dr. Maturin cleared his throat then, and stood up. "Well, I suppose we had best retire for the night, gentlemen. The hour grows late, and the young lady needs her rest."
Pullings opened his mouth to say that he had a few more questions to ask Mercy, but the look that the Doctor sent his way was one that said he would brook no argument. So instead, he smiled, and nodded. "If the Doctor thinks that it be to the benefit of the Lady's health, then so be it."
"Don't call me Lady," Mercy gritted out between tightly clenched teeth.
Pullings laughed softly, and bowed to her. "Good night, Lady." He turned, and headed out of the tent, leaving the Doctor inside to tend to Mercy before he, too, went to his tent to sleep.
"A spitfire, isn't she?"
Pullings grinned as he looked at Mowett. "That she is."
Mowett shook his head. "If the Captain were to see that look on your face..."
"He won't, as long as neither you nor I speak of it, and I do not look like this whenever I happen to be around both the lady and the Captain at the same time."
"That is, if he does not employ any ways and means to find out, and if the lady does not complain to him about it. And also, let us not forget the fact that this particular lady will not hesitate to do you grievous injury should you so much as toe the line." Mowett smirked. "There are consequences when attempting to charm a spitfire, Tom."
Pullings grinned. "Then I suppose I will just have to accept those risks."
Mowett laughed then as the two of them stepped into the tent that they shared. "If you fail and either your person or your pride gets injured, I am not to be held responsible. I tried to talk you out of this, but if you wish to risk yourself, then I will wish you the best of luck in your endeavor."
Pullings grinned as he patted Mowett on the shoulder. "And that's all I would really have ever asked of you, my friend."
Mowett rolled his eyes, but he still smiled. "Have it your way, Tom Pullings."
He watched as the minutes ticked away on the digital clock that lay at the corner of his computer screen, and sighed. It had been nearly two hours since she had last contacted him. Normally she was quick at doing her job, and it wasn't as if she would have a problem finding her target: there wasn't exactly a lot of places one can run and hide in on a luxury cruise ship.
No, what troubled him at the moment was the fact that she had gone completely and utterly silent. She would have contacted him somehow, someway, if something had gone wrong, but the fact that she hadn't told him that something was up.
But he didn't want to think the worst just yet. His sister was a strong girl, that much he knew, and she would be able to handle things herself. If she did not contact him, then that only meant that she was doing something more important than telling him what was going on with her, and that was something he could understand.
As the hours continued to tick by, and no word from her, he realized that something must have gone wrong.
"Bloody hell," he muttered as he pulled off the gloves that allowed him to directly interface with the screen in front of him (2), and climbed the stairs up to the ground floor of the palazzo that he, Mercy, and his fiancée shared.
She's most likely all right, he thought, trying to calm himself down as he strode through the hallways and corridors, while his shoes clicked softly against the marble floor. She would have contacted him somehow, to tell her if she was all right or if something had gone wrong. He had outfitted her with the latest and hardiest communication technology, so that she would be able to reach him, no matter what.
Something, however, niggled at the back of his mind, and told him that something had just gone horribly wrong.
He turned left, passed two doors, and then went right, going into the library, where a small figure with wavy black hair was lounging in one of the armchairs, her left hand holding a book open while she rested her head on the other one.
She looked up as he came in, her cat-like onyx eyes blinking back at him with curiosity. "Alec? What's the matter?"
Alec Marvail glanced at her briefly, and replied: "Mercy hasn't contacted me yet, Ami. I'm getting worried."
He did not need to look to know that Ami Tejada, his fiancée and Mercy's best friend, had stiffened in her seat. A few moments later, she was on her feet, and approaching him.
"You think something went wrong?" Ami asked, and in her voice was the worry that had been plaguing Alec since earlier that day.
"I really do not want to think that way, love," Alec replied. "I'd like to think that Merce can handle herself, but sometimes..."
"We can't prepare for everything that may happen," Ami murmured. She looked up at her fiancé. "Do you think that she took this mission because of...what happened to Tony? I mean, she really did love him, and to find out that he died, well-"
Alec shook his head. "Mercy wouldn't have done that. She wouldn't."
Or would she?
Alec squeezed his eyes shut, and opened them again. He would not think that way. Mercy would never do that. She always said how it was stupid for anyone to go on a suicide mission for whatever reason, and if he knew anything about his sister, it was that she stuck to her principles, though there were times when she wanted to go against them.
He picked up the phone, and punched in a number. The drone sounded back to him before a rather groggy voice answered him: "You had better give me a damn good reason for waking me up at...two in the morning, Marvail."
Alec allowed a small smile to quirk his mouth. "Sorry for waking you up like this McAlister, but I have favor to ask of you."
Gregory McAlister paused for a moment, and then asked: "What did you have in mind?"
"Well, I was wondering if you could do this for me..."
(1) This term is something that I picked up from Michael Crichton's Timeline. For those who have not read the book, transcription errors are injuries that occur in the body from too much time travel, oftentimes resulting in various maladies from insanity to severe heart failure.
(2) The computers that are used in Mercy's time are like the ones that appear in the movie Minority Report. Hence, like Tom Cruise's character in the movie, anyone who wishes to operate a computer like that will require special gloves that allow the user to interface with the screen.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Philrya - Thank you for the correction. I have edited the previous chapter accordingly. Mercy does have a soft spot of her own when it comes to children, as was seen when she was talking to Blakeney, but when it comes to other men, well...as was seen in this chapter, she gives no quarter.
ArcherofDarkness - I was not making fun of Napoleon, I assure you. It was just something I had observed when it came to "world conquerors," as it were: Alexander was fairly short (it was said that the Persian King, Darius, was taller than he was), and so was Genghis Khan. So, if anything, Napoleon is in very good company, in spite of his height.
As for Mercy following the Doctor's orders...that is something that remains to be seen. While she seems to be inclined to obeying him, she may not necessarily feel the same way when she wakes up the next morning. One thing is for sure, though: she will not necessarily feel inclined to obey the Captain, which will certainly cause quite a bit of trouble - and no end of amusement.
Miss Flossy - Yes, Blakeney does come off as the most matured of all the men in the previous chapter, does he not? Even the Doctor, who really should know better, was caught red-handed, as it were.
And when are you going to put up the sequel to Abbotsleigh Park? I saw that Bean02 already put up her sequel for her story, but what of yours?