The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (11 page)

     Ward said nothing.

     “And there’s another thing,” Leslie added. “The big
guy. He considers you his friend.”

     “Oh, don’t do that. That’s not fair.”

     “Lots of things that are true are not fair. You know that
as well as I do.”

     “Besides, I hardly contributed
anything
last
time. I informed you all of a lie you already knew about, got myself captured
and humiliated, got my ass kicked by a giant jellyfish, and ended up getting
saved from a firing squad by a bunch of soccer moms.”

     Leslie snorted a laugh. She shook her head and faced
him directly. “You did more than that, Paul. You kept the team together. You’re
the glue.”

     Ward blinked. He’d never thought of himself that way.
He tried to think of something witty to say...   

     “He’s got a plan. He needs you,” Leslie said.

     Just then Willard, Leslie’s tall, young assistant,
strode into the Situation Room. “He’s ready for you now, Dr. Ward.”

     Ward nodded a good-bye to Leslie and headed for the
door. Just as he reached it, Leslie said, “Paul, if you really don’t want to do
this anymore...then…” She peered down at the table and then back up, into his
eyes. “Stick to your guns in there.”

Ward’s initial glimpse of the Revolution’s living quarters
were not what he had expected. He found the Revolution sitting in what was
essentially a large library. Behind him he could see a hallway that splintered
off into a laboratory of some sort on one side and on the other what looked
like it might be a training/workout room.

     Revolution offered Ward a seat in front of his large,
ornate desk. Ward made to sit, and a black-and-white blur that Ward instantly
theorized might be a cat bounded across the chair, up onto Revolution’s desk,
took a flying leap into the hallway, and was gone.

     “Was that a cat?” Ward asked.

     “Yes, it was.”

     Then it clicked and Ward knew where he’d seen the
feline before. “That’s Fiona’s cat, isn’t it? Blinky, right?”

     Something crashed down the hall.

     “The cat is only here temporarily.”

     “Fiona hasn’t come to get him yet, has she?”

     “No. She. Has. Not.” Revolution said, peering back
down the hallway as a second metal clanging rattled in the distance.

     “Sounds like you’re already under attack, if you ask
me,” Ward grinned.

     He heard Revolution sigh.

     “Paul, I asked you here because I need you to stay in
the Suns of Liberty. You are our non-lethal force. Our soldiers that died—”

     “Good to see you, too. I’m fine, by the way,” Ward
deapanned. He shot Revolution the evil eye. “Let’s not forget, Alison died
too.” Ward had no intention of being lectured, filibustered, or sold to.

     Revolution looked at him hard for several seconds.
He’d not really talked to Ward in the months since Alison’s death. They’d seen
each other, but always in the context of a mission. A friendship that had
seemed to be forming had been put on ice. Ward knew that was mostly his own
fault.

     Revolution took a deep breath.

     “Alison
was
a soldier,” Revolution said

     “She was a spy,” Ward corrected.

     “Yes. But a solider too.” Revolution folded his red
titanium-gloved hands on the desk in front of him. “Paul...” Revolution paused
in that way he did just before he told you something important.

     Ward braced for impact.

     He didn’t brace hard enough.

     “I knew she was spying on us.”

     Ward’s forehead crinkled. “You knew? What do you mean,
you knew?” Ward’s face blushed red as the idea sunk in. “You knew!” An accusation.

     He was out of his chair now.

     “So did Bailey,” Revolution said calmly.

     “You knew?” Ward’s voice was louder than he wanted,
but his anger was in control.

     “We didn’t have evidence. Alison was good. She didn’t
leave tracks. But we knew.”

     “How could you not tell me? And how could you possibly
expect me to come back? You expect me to—”

     “She was on our side, Paul. She was on
your
side. There was no upside to telling you.
She
didn’t tell you. We
respected that decision.”

     “You respected...” Ward let out a breath. Pacing now
and back and forth in front the Revolution’s desk. “That’s such bullshit! No
wonder you don’t have any friends. Oh man! I really thought—”

     “Paul. We let her give the Council the chamber to try
to save her life.”

     “What?”

     “We underestimated how much the Council knew about bioluminescence.
They’d already figured out it was behind our weapons, they’d just never figured
out how to make it themselves until they got their hands on the chamber.”

     “Until Alison gave it to them, you mean.” Ward spat,
still pacing, guilt now mingling with the anger.

     “That was our fault, our call, to tell her where we
hid it.”

     Ward stopped. “Who told her, anyway? It wasn’t you, we
both know that.”

     Ward tried not to think too much about the time he and
Revolution spent in the Council’s prison back then. Ward did not want to
experience that kind of interrogation ever again. It had nearly broken him.

“Bailey told her while we were being held captive,”
Revolution said. “He knew they would be putting pressure on her to find out. He
was worried it might blow her cover if she didn’t deliver. I put him in charge
of deciding what we let her know. Nobody knew how to live a double life better
than Saratoga.”

     “Wait,” Ward said suspiciously. “Did you know it was
gone before we went there to retrieve the chamber?”

     “No. We pieced all this together after the fact.”

     “Jesus, what else did she tell them?”

     “We think she told them we’d have surveillance in the
harbor.”

     Ward closed his eyes. “Hollis.” His hand flew to his
stomach, and he bent just slightly at the waist. Hollis had died because Alison
had tipped the Council off that he would be there! And Alison was his fault.
He’d brought her into their world when he’d nosed his way in. He was starting to
feel sick.        

     Revolution could obviously see it in his face. Ward
could tell his color had changed, his face was pale. Sweat had started to dot
his forehead.

     “Paul, there are going to be casualties. None of us
can do it all by ourselves. This is a war we’re fighting.”

     “I’m not. I’m not a soldier, I’m not a spy, I’m not a
secret agent-whatever-the-hell you all are. I’m just a guy.”

     “You asked to be part of this. You sought it out”

     “Yeah, and now I’m seeking to not be a part of it.”

     “We need you, Paul. Lantern found the chamber. We have
to destroy it. You saw what they’ll do with that kind of power. You saw the
Man-O-War. Imagine if they had an army of them.”

     Maybe it was just the sick feeling in his stomach, but
the thought made Ward shiver. He still remembered being struck by the thing.
Its enormous, spine-shattering power...

     “Where they have the chamber held, we can’t get it
back,” Revolution said. “But we
can
destroy it. And that’s what we are
going to do. No matter the cost.”

     “Great, I’m all for it, but why do you need my help?”

     “Same reason as always. You can do this without
casualties.”

     “Yeah, but—”

     “I was made to kill. So was Sophia. Holding back is
harder than just letting go. In a firefight, she and I will always resort to
deadly force. You’re the pacifist, and we need to win hearts and minds. We’ll
be in and out fast. But there will be resistance and we don’t want this to look
like a terrorist attack.” Revolution leaned back in his chair and looked
directly at Ward with an intensity that made Ward take immediate notice. “And
there’s another reason...”

     Ward narrowed his eyes. It was the way Revolution had
said that. Like he was reeling him in, about to hook him. “What?”

     “Lantern intercepted a message from Clay Arbor.”

     Ward raised an eyebrow. “Well, that is his
superpower
.”

      “It’s the identity of the recipient that’s
important.”

     “Okay, I’ll bite.”

     “The message was to Fiddler. We think the Council is
using Lithium to reconstitute the Brown Recluse.”

     Fiddler. The man who had murdered Ward’s son in cold
blood. The man who had made him put on the bug suit to begin with.
The man
who had gotten away.

     And that was all it took. Revolution had him, so did
the Suns of Liberty. He would say yes, he would suit up. At least for a little
while longer. At least until Fiddler was locked away.

     Forever.

CHAPTER 11

B
uried
deep underground below the towering Freedom Rise was an extensive,
state-of-the-art medical facility. The best in the country. Catering to the
members of the Freedom Council themselves and their senior staff, it also
doubled as a research facility. As such, Eric Von Cyprus, Director of the
Council’s Science Division, frequented the premises often.

     So to see him standing in the doorway of one of the
facility’s swanky waiting rooms was not unusual. More striking were the three
individuals inside the waiting room. Clay Arbor, the man most people knew
simply as Lithium; Kendrick Ray, also known as X-Ray; and the Chairman of the
Freedom Council himself, William Howke.  A dozen heavily armed Council Guardsmen
lined the hallway.

     The new Chairman liked to play with people’s
expectations. As such, he couldn’t wait to tell Arbor and Ray the news. He was
getting to it just as Von Cyprus stepped to the doorway.

     “We’re giving them one last chance,” Howke said. “I’ve
sent an offer of amnesty to them through the usual channels. I don’t expect
they’ll accept it, but if they do...”

     Howke paused for a bit, sizing up their responses, and
grinned his distinctive smile that was all upper teeth. It reminded Arbor of
someone about to bite a corn cob. Or maybe a gopher.

     No, this chairman was nowhere near as slick as the
last one.

     “It will just add to their humiliating defeat. If they
don’t, our plans continue unabated.” 

     “Excuse me. She’s ready for you,” Von Cyprus said from the doorway.

     So off they went. Von Cyprus briefed Howke quickly on
the status of Veronica Soto. Just down the corridor in a high-tech hospital
room, the thirty-year-old woman with dark brunette hair was just blinking awake
as they strolled in. She had all the signs of someone who had just come out of
surgery.

     “You did beautifully, Veronica,” Howke said to her.
Turning to the others he said, “Gentlemen, this is Commander Veronica Soto. But
you’re going to know her as Velocity.”

     Von Cyprus smiled his notoriously insincere smile and
said, “We’ll have you up in no time, Commander Soto, and then we will begin
training your new limbs.

     “You’ll be amazed at how fast you take to them,” Von Cyprus added.

     Veronica looked at her right arm. She remembered
seeing it mangled and bloody just after the crash. The memory was like a
burning spear into her heart, and she flinched. Tears streaked down her cheeks,
her lips trembled.

     “The pain will go away in a day or two,” Von Cyprus said.

    
As if.
You weren’t there, dipshit.
She
lifted her arm. It was surprisingly easy. No pain at all. She swallowed back
the tears. “Feels good already,” was as much as she could say. Then her mind
raced back to Howke. “I’m sorry, sir.”  She started to slip away. “Mission...failed...” She could feel the drugs hit her. Her eyelids fluttered. “Bitch was
on me so fast...nothing...”

     “You did a fine job, Veronica. I’m proud of you.
You’re going to do even greater things for us when you recover.” The smile was
back. “Those parents of yours will want for nothing.” Veronica’s face broke into
just the hint of a smile, and she was gone again.

      Howke turned from her. “Let’s give the commander some
rest,” he said.

     The men moved back into the waiting room. Howke had
Von Cyprus explain Project Velocity to Arbor and Ray. It was their bionic man
program, or woman, as the case may be. The military had recruited volunteers
among their active troops for robotic enhancements in the case of catastrophic
injury. Major financial incentives went along with the deal, in exchange for
human guinea pig status. He told of the failed strike on the Fletcher girl, the
crash, and Veronica’s surgery.