Mercury Swings by Robert Kroese Page A

thousand miles too far east. He shook his head in disbelief. Prophecy had really screwed the pooch on this one.
    Then as now, Mercury’s employer, the Apocalypse Bureau, was often at odds with Prophecy Division. The functionaries at Prophecy get their funding based on how much information they release to the Mundane Plane, whereas the Apocalypse Bureau is graded on its ability to get human history to meet the milestones laid out for it in its charter, the Domesday Book. [1] To put it simply, Prophecy Division is like CNN: they want to get all the important information out immediately, without concern for order or context. Apocalypse Bureau, on the other hand, is more like one of the cable channels that produce those movies “inspired by true events.”For the Apocalypse Bureau, facts are nice as far as they go, but the important thing is to present information in a way that leads viewers in the desired direction. Prophecy accuses Apocalypse of censorship and Apocalypse accuses Prophecy of giving away the ending. [2]
    Mercury was never what you would call a particularly conscientious employee, but his superiors recognized early on that he possessed a certain finesse that made him the best choice for some of the thornier tasks that faced the Bureau. In the second millennium B.C., a lot of these tasks involved the undoing of the irrational exuberance of Prophecy Division – in this case, the unapproved dispensation of the gift of jazz music.
    “What’s your poison?” asked a sallow-faced man tending bar behind a slab of granite that resembled a bar only to the extent that it was a few feet higher than the surrounding granite and had a bartender behind it. On the wall behind the bartender was an iron sconce holding a massive torch that illuminated most of the cave.
    “Chivas on the rocks,” said Mercury, and the bartender glared at him uncomprehendingly.
    “Just testing,” Mercury said with a smile. “Give me a clay bowl filled with whatever fruit juice went bad about three weeks ago.”
    The bartender grinned. “House specialty,” he said, handing Mercury a vessel of fermented goo.
    Mercury took a sip of the foul liquid and turned to study the group of musicians jamming in anachronistic syncopation at the far end of the cave. There were four of them: a saxophonist, a drummer, a bassist, and someone playing the Bronze Age equivalent of a piano – a set of clay bottles filled to varying levels with liquid that the man was striking with sticks. The piano rang a bit hollow and the bass was a little flat, but overall the four men comprised a reasonably proficient jazz quartet. Their music was clearly influenced by both the Deep South and New Orleans, which was a problem because neither of those regions would exist, sociologically speaking,  for some 3600 years. The ringleader of the group was clearly the saxophonist; the other musicians were mostly just trying to keep up.
    “Who’s that on the sax?” Mercury asked the bartender, motioning toward the dark-skinned man wailing away, oblivious to both time and space.
    “He’s good, huh?” said the barkeeper. “People say he’s the best saxophonist who ever lived.”
    Mercury frowned. “Are there other saxophonists around?”
    The bartender shook his head. “Hell, no. Can you imagine trying to compete with that?”
    Mercury had to admit the man had a point. “What’s his name?” he asked.
    “That’s old Enoch. People say he was given his gift by the gods themselves. What’s your name, stranger? Don’t recall seeing you around these parts.”
    “I’m Mercury,” said Mercury. “I’m what you’d call a talent agent. My employer is very interested in your sax player.
    While they spoke, a gap-toothed whore sidled up to Mercury, smiling at him in a manner that might have been seductive about sixteen years and twelve teeth ago. Even in the flickering torchlight of the cave, it was clear she was well past her prime.
    “I’m Tana,” she said. “You want