The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (14 page)

     “Subtle. Really subtle,” Ward deadpanned.

     Revolution checked his HUD for the feed from Rachel.
She was headed down a crowded hallway deep inside Freedom Rise. Red emergency
lights flashed, no doubt in response to Sophia’s blast, causing the feed from
her glasses-display to wash out from time to time. He’d have to check back with
her when she could talk and when he could see her feed better.

      “We’re headed in,” Revolution said. There was no time
to waste. Success hinged on a fast surgical strike.

     They flew into the bombed-out windows. The red
emergency lights flashed from everywhere. Alarm claxon wailed across the structure.
The hallway, or what was left of it, was empty save for two Guards who were
sprinting toward the blast and stopped in shock when they saw the three Suns
land in the wrecked hallway.

      Ward turned and fired two paralysis darts expertly,
striking the Guards in their elbow joints—soft patches in their otherwise tough
armor—while they were unholstering their revolvers.

     In a heartbeat they fell.

     The trio stepped into the room containing the Fire Fly
chamber, which was dark as night, even with the light streaming in from the
hole Sophia had blasted.

     Revolution peered around in infrared. “Uh, Lantern.
We’ve got nothing here.”

    
“Okay. Auxiliary ought to be coming your way now.”
On cue, the auxiliary lights beamed to life, and Ward’s and Sophia’s eyes went
wide.

     “Yes, they’re on. That’s not the problem.”

     They all looked around in shock.

     “There’s nothing here. This room is empty.”

    
“No, look to your left. There’s a whole setup just
like we had back in...”
Lantern’s voice trailed off. The Hollow had teleported
into the room beside the Revolution and was doing the looking for Lantern now.

     “Lantern?” Revolution said as he glanced over at the
Hollow. It was looking right at him. It looked like it had just seen a ghost.

     Even though it was a ghost.

     “Ray,” it said.

     “What?” Ward asked.

    
“It’s a trap!”
Lantern yelled at all of them
over their coms.
“Get out of there, sir!”
 

     Sophia charged her bracelets on instinct and in that
same moment—

     Something streaked past Revolution.

     Just a blur. Too fast for even his computer-enhanced
vision.

     The thing smashed into Sophia and sent her flying into
the back wall. A tremendous booming thud.

     The concrete cracked and spidered.

     And just like that, their biggest gun was out. Sophia
lay sprawled on the floor, blood trickling from her forehead beneath the black
glider’s helmet and the sapphire-blue face shield.

     Revolution spun. The object that had attacked her was
nowhere to be found. Had it already exited the room?

     “What the hell was that?” Ward asked.

     “Stay close!” Revolution yelled. And in that same
moment the wall next to Ward
exploded
. From behind it came a large white
hulking figure that backhanded Ward with a huge fist that sent him sprawling.

     Ward never had a chance.

     The man known as Spider Wasp was sent hurtling behind
the Revolution as debris from the wall smashed into him as well. Ward lay
sprawled on the ground not ten feet from Sophia. Not out, but not getting back
up either.

     This operation was a disaster.
No, worse than that.

     “Stealth! Wherever you are get the hell out of there,
now! This is an ambush!” Revolution lunged toward the hulking white figure,
seeing now that it was a man in a bulky suit of armor.

     He blocked a left swing from the Bulk and slammed him
in what would have been his left jaw, sending the man crashing back into the destroyed
wall.

     More cracks ran up the length of the room, and the
edges of the ceiling began to give, dust puffing from their corners.

     “Stealth, Hollow, can you tell what is in the room
above us?” Revolution asked, gawking at the weakening ceiling. 

    
“Fuck!”
came the reply from Rachel.
“Drones.
Lots and lots of fucking drones! Get out of there!”

     The sound of Rachel’s panicked voice was drowned out
by the roar of a bright, hot blast of searing flame that smashed into Revolution,
sending him crashing through what was left of the back retaining wall and into
the damaged hallway. 

     Still peering up at the ceiling, he had never seen it
coming, and it rammed him like freight train.

     He landed on his side and skidded to a stop a foot
from the blown-out window. The stabbing New York wind pulling at him. He fought
it, his cape rippling out the window behind him, trying to pull him out into
the deadly current. Revolution reached back and snagged his cape, pulling it tight
to his body. He could see out the window. The one-hundred-story drop to the
streets below. He swooned. He shot to his feet and marched forward to see the
source of the blast, just as the slab of concrete he been lying on cracked and
fell away.

     There stood Clay Arbor, the man better known as
Lithium, the flamethrower on his wrist still sparking an orange afterglow.
Right next to Bulky, who was back up and looked ready for more action.

     “Welcome back, sweetheart. And here I thought you’d
fallen
for me,” Arbor spat at him, motioning to the window.

     Revolution could hear Ward struggling to his feet
behind him. Sophia was coming around as well.

     The Hollow materialized beside him too. Lot of good it would do.

     A black blur shot in from the adjoining room behind
Arbor, and before Revolution’s motion-capture lenses could freeze an image, the
blur stopped to reveal a woman dressed in a black bodysuit of shiny
form-fitting metal. She had on a polished black helmet and long black hair
flowed out from it. The lower half of her face was clearly visible though the
helmet’s visor. She looked to be in her late twenties-early thirties.

     “Oh well. I can live without you. As you can see,
you’re not the only one with friends,” Arbor said.

     Sophia and Ward were up again and standing behind Revolution.
But they looked bad, both staggering and bloody. Like Revolution, neither had
fully healed from Boston.

     Ward motioned toward Bulky and grunted, “Aren’t you
going to introduce us, then?”          

     A noise to their right. Fiddler stepped out aiming high-tech
harpoon guns—no doubt filled with his signature acid—built into the wrists of
his own battle armor.

     Even with the new get-up—the high-tech armor—Ward clearly
recognized who it was immediately. They all did. The helmet was an exact
replica of Fiddler’s signature spider-faced ski mask that had made him famous. Ward’s
heart rate and breathing increased markedly, according to Revolution’s internal
monitors, but he didn’t move a muscle. His rage in check for now.

    
But for how long
, Revolution wondered.

     “Meet the Legion,” Arbor said. “You’re outnumbered,
you’re outgunned. It’s time to take us up on our offer.”

     “We’re not joining you,” Revolution said. “Didn’t you
get the memo?”

     Doors on both sides of Arbor swung open, and the room
filled with Guardsmen, rifles up and aimed. Revolution kicked himself for
letting them sneak up on him. He had been so focused on Arbor and his new team
he had neglected to notice the sounds of the approaching Guardsmen.

     “A little warning next time, Lantern?” he whispered
into the com.

     The Guardsmen’s rifles hummed with power as the group
aimed their weapons, and Revolution realized that they were all loaded with luminescent
power. The bullets would be able to rip through their body armor, even his.

     “Oh, your little declaration. Maybe you ought to rethink
that.” Arbor barked. “Aren’t you tired of being a terrorist?”

     Revolution said nothing but motioned for Ward and
Sophia to come closer to him.

     “You want peace? You’ll get a full pardon. Even for
today,” Arbor said.

     “Today we came to keep a weapon of mass destruction
out of your hands,” Revolution said.

     “A weapon you created.” Arbor laughed. “You’re the
threat to public safety, my friend. You’re the one breaking the law.” Arbor had
clearly come to make speeches. It all seemed strangely futile to Revolution.
Arbor had to know what their answer was going to be, so why was he wasting—

     Revolution’s HUD beeped, alerting him to a camera on
the ceiling, placed within what looked like a light fixture. It was recording
the entire exchange. Suddenly it all made sense. Arbor was planning on
capturing their defeat on film. That’s why he was speechifying.

     Fiddler shrugged. “Oh well. Can’t join ‘em...kill ‘em,”
he said, staring at Ward, like he could barely contain himself from opening
fire with his acid-laced harpoons.

     “Patience!” Arbor hissed at Fiddler, then turned back
to Revolution. “One last chance, sweetheart. You can take your complaints to
the chairman himself—today, with me. Or you can take your complaints to the
grave. Your choice.”

     Revolution crafted a message inside his HUD, and with
a simple thought-command he sent the message to Ward and Sophia.     

     In response, the two of them stepped so close to him
their armors all touched.

     Ward spoke up, “Let me guess, you probably want us to
kneel before you, that sort of thing?”

     Revolution motioned for the others to follow him, and
the three of them began to kneel.

     “Don’t be stupid,” Arbor said. “I’m not the outlaw
here, you are.”

     Inside Ward’s and Sophia’s HUDs, a countdown was
winding down. When it reached zero—
WHOOSH!
—the three of them jetted upward,
Sophia blasting on her blue H3 jet-boots, Ward on the gust of his wings, and
Revolution leaping with a burst of his servos.

     The three ripped through the ceiling above them as the
Guards strafed them with fire, but too late. They crash-landed onto the floor
above them—

     And came face-to-face with a room full of bizarre
winged drones. The drones Rachel had warned them about.

     Their red electronic eyes blared to life.

     They were each the size of a person and they looked a
lot like pterodactyls, Revolution thought. Large crescent-moon wings on either
side, four retractable limbs ready to act like arms and legs if needed, and a
beak-like head with red optical sensors that no doubt doubled as energy weapons.

     The first blast from those sensors confirmed
Revolution’s suspicions on the matter. Revolution dodged it, and the wall
behind him exploded.
Shit!

     The Suns scrambled away from the gaping hole they’d
left, afraid the energy bullets would come launching up at them any moment, but
they heard Arbor below them bark, “Hold your fire! Get up there now!”

     Revolution had been counting on Arbor wanting to
prevent the destruction of all these drones, which the luminescent bullets were
sure to pulverize.

     It had been a gamble, but it seemed to have worked.

     Luminescent bullets would rip through anything until
their charges faded. That meant Arbor wouldn’t be able to use them unless their
trajectory was straight out of the building. Otherwise, they could do serious
damage to the personnel and infrastructure of Freedom Rise. It wasn’t much, but
it gave the Suns an advantage they’d have to use if they were going to get out
of there alive. Stay to the inside of the building and stay alive.

     Now, just to survive these drones.

     They made their move.

     They leapt again, Sophia sending an energy blast ahead
of them, smashing through yet another floor.

     Revolution could hear the drones below take flight,
trying to follow.  He looked around and saw they had ended up in a conventional
office space.  Desks and cubicles and paneled walls. Office workers in suits
and skirts were fleeing in all directions. A wall of windows was to their left.
Some of the debris from the floor had smashed through into the bright-blue sky.
The howling icy wind gusted in and blew papers around the office like a
hurricane of ticker tape.

“The drones are coming.” Revolution said.

     “I’ve got them. I’ll take them out one by one as they
come up!” Sophia said.

     “I’ll cover you,” Revolution told her.

     “We need to find Ra…I mean Stealth, and get the hell
out of here!” Ward screamed over the roar.

      “Do you think the chamber is here? Should we keep
looking for it?” Sophia said to Revolution over the wind.

     “Stealth! Lantern!” Revolution barked in response. “Can
you see anything? Is the chamber here or not?”

     Rachel answered first. “I’ve found a central
processing hub. From here I should be able to access all of the Council’s
encrypted files. If the chamber’s location is on here, I’ll know about it.  I
just need more time. This room is empty and on lockdown, so for now I’ve got
the fucker to mys—” she screamed out and then...

     Silence.

     “Stealth!” Ward yelled into his com. “Stealth, come
in!”

    
“Sir,”
Lantern said, dread in his voice, “
I
don’t see anything I trust. My advice is to abort the mission.”

     “No, we can’t abort. If the chamber is here we have to
find it!” Sophia said.

     “Damn it!” Revolution said. “Stealth, come in. Are you
there? Are you okay?”

     “Let me go after her!” Ward yelled to him.

     Just then, the first drone flew up through the hole in
the floor, and Sophia spun, blasting it to fiery bits.

     “Shit! We’ve got to make a decision!” Sophia shouted.

     “Lantern, if the chamber is here we have to destroy it.
We can’t take any chances. You’ve got to find it!” Revolution knew he was
sounding uncharacteristically panicked and that might cause panic in everyone
else. But time was of the essence.

    
“Stealth is down. And she’s thirty floors below
you. I think the console was booby-trapped. My advice is to abort,”
Lantern
said

     “We need to go get her!” Ward said.

     “We stay here. We stick together. We’ll get her when
we can,” Revolution said.

     Just then two more drones broke through the gash in
the floor. Sophia blasted them both, and they exploded like the first one. She
snapped a grin at Revolution that said,
This is not so hard
. 

     And then all hell broke loose.

CHAPTER 16

TRENTON, NEW JERSEY.

FREEDOM COUNCIL RESEARCH FACILITY

E
ric
Von Cyprus was watching the video feed of the fight in Freedom Rise with gleeful
amusement.

     “Oh, that’s it, that’s good!” he said as Lithium
blasted Revolution with the flamethrower.

     Von Cyprus froze the image.

     He put his finger on the screen, on top of the
Revolution. “Hello, my little Prometheus. You think you’ve been punished for
stealing fire from the gods?”

     Von Cyprus glanced across his vast laboratory, teeming
with his many assistants, to the large Fire Fly chamber on the far end. He
smiled even wider. “I haven’t even begun to punish you yet!”

NEW YORK CITY

Six
drones crashed through the floor together, the shockwave knocking both
Revolution and Sophia to the ground. The drones were on them in seconds.

     The red optical sensors of the nearest one fired a
direct shot at Revolution. This time there was no chance to dodge it.

     His armor absorbed the charge, and when the drone finally
came into range trying to grab him with its “arms,” he smashed the head of the
thing with the mightiest right cross he could muster—and instantly his injured
arm screamed in pain.

     Ward took up the slack, stepping up behind him and firing
three disruption darts into three separate drones. Blue electrical bolts
sparked across their forms, and the three drones went dark, falling where they
stood.

    
Okay, yeah, they were a good idea. Leslie’s right
again
,
what’s new?
Ward thought.

     Revolution nodded his thanks and turned toward Helius.

     Sophia blasted one of the two drones advancing on her,
but the second drone hit her full force with both of its optical blasters. The
force of the energy slung her across the room into the far wall and she cracked
through it. Revolution and Ward heard her scream in pain.

     Revolution raised his arms and fired the same energy
the first drone had blasted him with. It smacked the robot out of the large window,
but the bird-like machine simply righted itself and turned to fly back at him
as its eyes glowed red hot, preparing to fire.

     Ward shot out a dart that hit the machine between its
eyes, and the pterodactyl fell, smashing into the side of the skyscraper,
skipping and pounding the concrete, steel, and glass of the one hundred stories
as it fell, until it smashed into the pavement below. Where it exploded into
flames.

     The men ran to Sophia, who was breathing hard but
rising to her feet. “Okay, I’m with Paul. Let’s get Stealth and get the hell
out of here,” she said.

     “She’s thirty floors below us.” Ward said. “How do we
get down there?”

     “We can blast our way down,” Sophia said to
Revolution.

     “I can guide you there,” a voice said.  It was
Lantern’s. The Hollow was standing next to them now.

     “Where have you been?” Revolution asked.

     “Taking out drones below. And we need to move if you
want to avoid the rest of them. I’d say there’s a good dozen more down there,
sir.”

     That made sense. The Hollow’s work was always slow,
but if it got inside one of these drones it could deactivate it from the
inside, cracking its digital codes.

     “Okay, you and Helius get down to Stealth. Keep the
feed in our HUDs,” he said, meaning he and Ward.

     “Will do.” The Hollow turned to Helius. “Follow me.”

     With that, the Hollow faded into the floor below.
Sophia’s blue bracelets pulsed with power, and she blasted the floor away and
dove into the hole like an Olympic diver. Her boot-jets ignited, and she fired
the bracelets again, opening up another hole below her, and down the pair went
into the bowels of Freedom Rise.

The ride down was splendid. Sophia couldn’t help but smile
at the fact that she was systematically destroying heaps of the building’s structure
as she dove. It would take millions of dollars to repair the damage. And that
fact, despite the pain radiating through every part of her body, gave her an immense
sense of joy.

     Twenty floors down, ten stories short of her target,
that joy abruptly ended.

     Something slammed into her. She never saw what it was.
It was black and sleek. The Hollow had tried to warn her. At the very last
moment Lantern had broken through the shielding that was making every tool he
had obsolete. He saw two figures waiting one floor down. Heat signatures indicating
battle armor. But Sophia was really moving, a constant beam of energy roaring out
from her bracelets as she dove, with only a few seconds between floors. The
black blur had moved so fast that the holograph had little time but to speak a
syllable before...

    
Slam!

     It came from below her, and to her left, crashing into
her midsection, turning her around in midair and driving her to the right. Sophia
was out cold.

So
she never saw Arbor’s jet-boots ignite from the other direction. He lowered his
shoulders to pile-drive right into her, using Veronica’s momentum to propel the
trio back to the left and up into the hole Sophia had just blasted though. Up
they flew, retracing Sophia’s flight path, with the Hollow following close
behind. Arbor clinging onto both Sophia and Veronica.

Twenty
stories above, Revolution and Ward were making for the stairwell. Revolution
kicked open the door and they entered the small area. Revolution led, Ward
behind, arms raised, canisters ready to fire.  Paralysis darts from his right
hand, disabling darts from his left. 

     And that’s when they heard the roar. At first they
couldn’t tell what it was or from where it was coming. Revolution had minimized
the feed coming from the Hollow as soon as they entered the stairwell, thinking
he would need his entire attention.

     “It’s coming from that direction,” Revolution told
Ward, pointing back toward the center of the building. They opened the door to
exit the stairwell as Revolution brought the Hollow’s feed back up in his visor.

    
“Sir, we’re coming in hot!”
Lantern’s voice
yelled from the Hollow.

     Both Ward and Revolution were watching the feed from
the Hollow now in their visors. But it was just a blur of motion and flame.

     “What the hell are we looking at?’ Ward asked. They kept
running toward the sound.

     In front of them, the floor erupted in white light as
Sophia, Arbor, and Veronica all burst through the floorboards. Arbor slung
Sophia’s unconscious body at Ward, who tried to catch her but ended up just
getting waylaid by her full weight. The two Suns sprawled across the carpet.

     Arbor’s arms were free now, and he used them to
devastating effect. In an instant, he fired a small blast of flame at
Revolution, whose armor easily absorbed the energy, but he was still rocked backwards
by the impact. Second, Arbor and Veronica adjusted immediately and locked onto
Revolution, charging forward. They struck as one. Arbor’s titanium fist and
Veronica’s Velocity armor and robotic limbs slugged him full force.