The Last Revolution (30 page)

A growing thunder of applause, determination and joy erupted across the cavernous room once more.

“Sleep well my friends, everything changes tomorrow!”

Alden was caught off guard by the sight of Kira wiping the smallest tear from her eye. She caught his look and quickly acted as if nothing was wrong. She smiled and leaned over to give him a kiss.

General Stone and the other soldiers vanished once more. The mood had increased dramatically, even compared to the moments of their arrival. Alden realized that for the first time, people felt something they had never felt before: hope.

Kira reached out and grabbed his hand, kissing one of his fingers. She stood and pulled him along. They weaved through the euphoric crowd back to Alden’s room. She tore off her flight suit and threw it to the ground. She was so alive. He ran his hand down her sides, feeling the soft curvature of her body. They ferociously kissed each other and she jumped up into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. Kira playfully bit at his lip as they walked over to the bed. He threw her down, and then fell on top of her.

Several hours later the room was completely quiet and Kira was fast asleep. Alden tossed and turned under the sheets. The memories were always the worst when there was nothing to occupy his mind. He could still sense the sweet, warm feeling of the afternoon showers on the island.

He stepped outside; there was still a faint drizzle in the air. He didn’t have an umbrella, but it didn’t really matter. After countless hours in class, the weather made him feel alive. The entire campus was bustling as students walked to class between periods.

He started past a group of boys when one of them leaned their shoulder out and smacked into him, pushing him off the path.

“Murderer,” they whispered. The group laughed and continued on.

Anger rose in his veins. Like he didn’t know it was his fault they were gone? He had been living through hell since the funerals. He stormed back onto the path and continued towards class.

One of the girls who sat next to him in Strategy gave him a dirty look as she passed. He glanced down at his feet, unable to handle the expression of disgust.

Screw everyone.

He glanced up just in time to the see another person as he bumped into them. “Watch where you’re going!” Alden snapped.

The individual turned around. Of everyone on campus, it had to be Gabriel. They hadn’t said a word to each other since the mission. Gabriel was flanked by a half-dozen other guys. Alden had tried to reach out to him several times. He had tried to grab him before a class, or catch him in the hall. He wanted to apologize for everything that had happened. Each time was the same. He’d just pretend like Alden hadn’t said anything and continue on his way.

Standing there on the wet path with Gabriel, he wasn’t sure what to say anymore. Students had formed a circle around them. The other guys he’d been with urged him to throw a punch.

“Kick his ass!”

Alden stepped back and raised his hands. “I don’t want to fight you.”

Gabriel just stared at him with a cold, dead look in his eyes. He made no attempts to talk or communicate.
How was he supposed to handle this?
After what he’d gone through on Hyperion, he didn’t want to hurt him.

Gabriel approached. Alden took a step back off the path and felt his boots sink into the mud. It didn’t matter. Gabriel circled in front of him, and Alden cautiously circled in the other direction. They moved closer and closer until they were only an arm’s length apart.

Gabriel jabbed his right fist forward. Alden lifted his left hand to block but missed the other fist that slammed into his temple. Alden dropped to the ground. His vision blurred and he struggled to lift himself out of the mud. He’d never felt so much force in a single punch before.

He slowly regained his stanceand took advantage of his lowered posture. Alden swung at Gabriel’s side; kidney shots always hurt. He took a few steps back in shock but then threw another punch. Alden instinctively lifted his arm to block the shot. He pushed off the blow and used his momentum to land another punch, but it was deflected as well.

Gabriel was moving at the same speed and accuracy as he was. Had they both gone through the surgery at the same time? It would have made sense. They were both badly wounded, why upgrade one soldier when you could do two? He never once bumped into him on Hyperion and no one had ever mentioned him.

Another blow aimed for his face; Alden lifted his arm for protection. Gabriel took advantage of the open space and thrust his fist into his abdomen. The wind evaporated from his lungs. He took a step back, and coughed several times to get the air moving again. Alden instinctively threw up his hand and blocked one punch, two, three, four! What the hell was wrong with him? Then a fifth shot came in and connected squarely with the side of his face. All he could see was red.

“Argh! You son of a bitch!” Alden couldn’t think straight, he lurched from his position and used the full force of his body to swing his leg around and connect with the back of Gabriel’s knee. It buckled slightly, but he continued to stand. The shot caught him off guard and Alden used his momentum to swing at Gabriel’s stomach and land a crushing blow.

Reeling from the attacks, Gabriel dropped ever so slightly. Alden used his remaining energy to swing for Gabriel’s nose, but his attack was deflected. Gabriel’s fist connected with Alden’s chin. Blood spurted into the air. The power knocked Alden backwards and Gabriel landed another painful blow that sent him sprawling into the mud.

Blood streamed down Alden’s face, ran across his chest and seeped into the ground.

The crowd of kids stopped cheering as Gabriel jumped on top of Alden. Despite the blood in his eyes, Alden saw him coming and rolled out of the way. Gabriel splashed down into the mud. Before he could move, Alden grabbed his arm and dropped blow after blow into his rib cage. Gabriel blocked the last punch and squirmed away. Before Alden could stand, Gabriel lunged at him. It happened so fast, the next thing Alden knew was hit after hit connecting with his face.

Instinctively, Alden rammed his knee into Gabriel’s gut, and used the break in the attack to get himself out. He was filled with rage. He threw as many punches into Gabriel as he could. Anger and pain surged through his soul and all he could see was red; he wanted to kill him.

Two security guards emerged from the now-silent crowd and pulled them apart.

“I hate you!” Alden screamed as his chest heaved up and down.

“You killed them,” Gabriel yelled back. “All of this is your fault. They’re gone because of you!” Blood streamed down his nose, staining his shirt.

“Alright you two, knock it off!!” one of the guards yelled. “Get to the infirmary to be checked out.”

Alden ripped himself out of the guard’s grip and stormed through the circle of students. He didn’t want anybody to see him; he was so angry he could scream. He hated this place more and more. One of the girls in the other groups reached out to see if he was okay. He jerked away from her and pushed out of the crowd.He used his shirt to wipe the blood out of his eyes. He was having a hard time focusing. At first he headed towards the hospital, but then he noticed that Father McKinley’s church was lit up.

He walked over at once, and pounded on the door. After a few moments, it flew open.

“Dear me child, what happened?” Father McKinley asked. “You’re bleeding…”

“It was Gabriel, he attacked me!” Alden responded.

Father McKinley put a hand on his shoulder and ushered him inside as he shut the door behind them. “Tell me what happened.”

“Gabriel, they made me fight Gabriel!” Alden dropped into an empty chair with force. “But you know what? I don’t care! I’m glad they made us fight. That traitor is the one spreading the lies about me!” He slammed his fist on the table, before standing up to pace around the room.

“Please, sit down.” Father McKinley motioned him back to the chair. He moved to the kettle and poured some hot water into a cup along with an Earl Gray tablet. “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

Alden stormed to the chair and crossed his arms as he sat. He was trying to contain the heaves of anger, but it felt like he would burst.

“Now, use this to clean your wounds.”

Alden grabbed the hot cloth that Father McKinley was offering him. He dabbed it on to his forehead. His breath finally started to slow.

“Now, tell me what happened.”

“The other students told us to fight. They just wanted to see someone get hurt!” Alden dropped the bloody rag onto the table. “I hope they’re satisfied!”

“Why do you think they wanted you to fight?”

“It’s because of what they did to us on Hyperion! Just look at this.” Alden pointed at the gash on his forehead. He knew it was already healing. “Another twenty minutes, this won’t even be here.”

“Please take deep breaths, Alden. I understand your frustration, believe me I do. However, at the time, the doctors felt it was the only way to save your life. There were more internal wounds than they were capable of repairing. They had to infuse your system with the nano-bots to repair your internal organs. What they did saved your life.”

“Everything is always done
to
me! No one asks what I want, what I would like to be doing. Why am I even here? I never signed up for this school. What gives them the right to tell me what to do?”

“I know that you are mad, and you have every right to be. Horrible things have happened to you, but you should be proud of yourself. You succeeded at your mission; you stopped the Federation from building a fusion reactor. That technology always leads to a bomb. After the Helsinki invasion and the peace treaty brokered by the Council, those weapons were outlawed. The fact that you were able to deactivate their device,
and bring one back
, is the most heroic thing I’ve ever seen. Your actions have saved millions of lives.”

“I don’t care about millions of lives,” Alden retorted. “I care about Daniel, Mary, and Gabriel. And now I’ve lost all of them.”

“You can’t keep beating yourself up over this. You were sent on a mission that was too dangerous. It wouldn’t have turned out any better if Gabriel or somebody else had been in charge. You did the best you could.”

“That’s not what the students are saying.”

“Alden, life is tough; the sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be. You can’t focus on, or worry about, what everybody else thinks of you. All that matters is what you think of yourself.”

Alden couldn’t look up at Father McKinley, he felt so ashamed. “I’ve been having headaches that are so painful I can’t concentrate. I’m never able to sleep more than a few hours each night. I’m just so tired all the time.”

Father McKinley sighed. “That is perfectly normal after what you have been through. Daniel and Mary wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up over this. You have to let them go and forgive yourself for what happened.”

“How can I possibly do that?”

“Only you can know. Now, how’s that tea?”

Alden opened his eyes. It was still pitch black inside the room. A small ray of light came in from underneath the hall door. Was last night a dream? He rolled over, but Kira was still sound asleep. She looked so peaceful. The thin sheet barely covered her figure.

He quietly slipped out of bed and left the room. The message from his friend was still on his wrist deck from the night before.
hasn’t appeared on black market. still looking. use extreme caution. reactor involved in crisis.

Alden clicked to add a new entry,
Thereon said he didn’t move weapons through Apollo City, but arms dealer said he was the contact. Why the discrepancy?

He moved through the various corridors, still half asleep. A few minutes later he wasn’t surprised to find himself in front of the empty tubes that used to house the zero-grav suits. He walked around the corner. There was a surprisingly large and well-lit work area. The white and blue suits hung from the ceiling. The feet were just a few centimeters off the ground.

His wrist deck beeped, new message:
One of them lied. It’s your job to find out which.

Alden touched the suit; it was so cold. He tapped a few commands on his wrist deck and the automated pulley system moved the suit to one of the work tables and then laid it down across the bench. He’d been so angry with Thereon for not coming clean the day before, but in retrospect it was ludicrous to think someone would give up that kind of intelligence so quickly. He hated to admit it, but he still had a lot to learn.

“I saw the way you moved in that suit, impressive.”

Alden jumped. He’d thought he was alone. At the edge of the room, General Stone emerged from the shadows. “I assumed you’d be down here this morning. I haven’t had the opportunity to thank you for my rescue yet. Without you, I’d still be rotting in that cryo chamber.”

“It was nothing, really. The resistance would have freed you whether I was there or not.”

“Either way, it was a huge act of bravery.” General Stone extended his hand.

“You’re welcome.”

“Remind me of your name again.”

“Alden.”

“Ah. Thereon and I have already discussed your situation at length. It’s not unusual for military defectors to end up here. Welcome, and thank you again for your service. So, I see you’ve taken an interest in my blue suit.”

Alden nodded. “It’s an incredible thing you built. I felt like I had the speed and capabilities of gravity combat.”

“They’re lethal machines alright.”

“Thereon said they haven’t been able to fix or upgrade the systems since you were arrested. I had planned to pull it apart and see if I could find the problem.”

“Alexander and I built in a number of safety protocols and encryptions to stop the suits from being used if they fell into the wrong hands.I’ve passed on all my knowledge about these suits to Thereon. Please work with him to get them running once more.” He indicated the other suit that still dangled from the ceiling.

“Did I hear that my services are required?” Thereon entered the room with a gun slung over his shoulder.