The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (31 page)

     “I retired, remember?” she said, straightening her
ivory shawl.

     “And joined the hero movement,” Arbor countered. “But
I’m talking about coming in from the cold and finally letting Spectral here off
the leash.” Arbor motioned to the great machine, which remained motionless.

     “You mean exposing him.”

     “No, I mean making him a hero.”

     Scarlett glanced over at Spectral. “People remember the
Aztech; they’ll never accept him.”

     Fiddler noticed Veronica take an involuntary step back
at the simple mention of the word:

    
Aztech
.

     The Aztech had been the military’s greatest weapon...
and greatest blunder. An android-robot thing that went haywire and nearly
destroyed Eastern Europe and almost started a war, as he recalled.
It was an
early sign this country was going to hell
, Fiddler thought.

     It was supposed to have ended the conflict in Africa, but instead it dragged the war out by diverting precious resources away as they
moved Heaven and Earth to try and stop it.

     “They will accept Spectral if the Council tells them
to,” Arbor countered.

      “And what will the Council tell us to do?” Scarlett
demanded.

     “You’d approve all the targets and only...”—Arbor was
careful with his words—“
take out
those you want.”

Arbor
saw the pair exchange a quick look as the Spectral finally moved.

     Of course, he couldn’t read the android’s face. It was
as emotionless as ever. Red eyes darting quickly over at Scarlett. 

     But her face. A slight smirk curled the edges of her
mouth and a gleam sparkled in her eyes that he could see she instantly tried to
conceal, but Arbor knew bloodlust when he saw it. She was stunningly gorgeous,
but there was a distinct lethality about her beauty.

     And why not?

     Her father was one of the most deadly terrorists on
the planet. She had assisted him in killing countless innocents in her youth.
She still had the bloodlust, Arbor could feel it. But now, that deadly desire
was aimed at the very people who committed the kind of crimes her father had
brainwashed her into doing. And she had another, lesser known ability to
disable any computerized systems. Something Arbor hoped to exploit frequently.

     And
she
had a bodyguard. 

     The Spectral was a walking arsenal. It could phase
into pure light form, rendering it invulnerable to any weapon known to man. Even
the Fire Fly herself. It had incredible strength, a super computer for a brain,
and its ocular lenses doubled as laser weapons, just like a pterodactyl drone.

     Having these two on his team would guarantee victory
over the Suns. They had no defense for the pair.

    
precisely
?>
the android asked.

     Arbor noticed everyone except Ray had been startled by
the Android finally speaking again. He smiled at Spectral and turned back
toward Scarlett. “Only people like your father. Terrorists and traitors.
Starting”—Arbor paused for effect—“with the Suns of Liberty”

     “Yes, we’ll do it,” she said quickly.

     Arbor gawked at her. Then closed his eyes and let out
a deep bellow of a laugh.
That had been too easy.

     How long had she been sitting here just waiting to be
called back to duty? Too proud to volunteer herself. Not the way it had ended,
anyway. She’d probably grown bored and stir crazy, Arbor figured. Regretted
she’d forced her way out and now couldn’t think of a graceful way to get back
in.

     People don’t change their basic nature. She was a
killer. And she was ready to get back out there and do her thing. How long can
a cat just sit by and watch the mice play without striking?

     Scarlett looked taken aback by his response. But then
she too began to chuckle and soon they all were. All but one.

Behind
them, Fiddler was feeling queasy again. The voices were returning. The
bloodlust was pounding in his head, and the stress of having to listen to this
frail-looking woman act all lethal while Arbor tip-toed around her like a
school girl was more than he could bear. The blood kept hammering in his
temples and his vision began to swim. He wanted to kill. He needed to.

     Then Fiddler heard something. Arbor’s earpiece had
suddenly crackled. Fiddler’s finely tuned senses, stoked on manic overload, had
registered the noise. It broke the spell.

     Arbor stepped back, motioning for them to give him a second.
“That’s perfect. Nice work, son,” he said finally to the person on the other
end. When he looked back up, he peered over at Scarlett and said, “Looks like
your debut is going to come early, sweetheart. There’s a hostage situation not
twenty minutes from here. One, maybe two victims. Your country”—Arbor flashed
his toothy grin—“and its mass media need your help.”

     This was going to get interesting. Fiddler breathed a
sigh of relief as his panic and desire to rip the lungs from her fucking
throat, faded. Now they’d see what these two were made of. “What are we waiting
for?” he said.

CHAPTER 32

T
he
hostage situation might have been twenty minutes away, but it took them
forty-five to get there. By that time, the perp, Walter Conroy, was on a hair trigger.

     The Legion descended on the scene like conquering
heroes. They touched down in the shopping mall’s parking lot with cops and
cameras popping all around. They were all dressed in their uniforms now, ready
for full media display. Ray kept admiring the giant blue X again stretched
across his battle-armored chest. They rode in a CH-60E Super Stallion, the
largest helicopter in the US military’s impressive aerial arsenal. They were
flanked by half a dozen Sikorsky’s all full of Council Guardsmen called up at a
moment’s notice by Arbor.  They circled low overhead like eagles awaiting a
weakening prey as the Super Stallion landed. Thus was Clay Arbor’s new-found
authority.

     It was true what Howke had said earlier.  Arbor had
been passed up for promotion many times in exchange for being Lithium.  The
fame, the money, the lifestyle.  He’d sacrificed rank and power for the mansion,
for the fancy cars, for a salary no Marine Corps captain could have ever hoped or
dreamed of. Not to mention the merchandising deals, the comic books, the toys,
the novels, and the movies. Made him a pile of money. That shit had gotten old,
though. Made him long for a more conventional path. For the rank and the power.

     But now he had that, too.

     And he was loving it.

Walter
Conroy, not so much. Already driven to kill two people, he had the barrel of
his pistol held firmly—too firmly—to the head of his ex-wife, Carol. Carol was
the manager of the small shoe store Conroy had turned into a shop of horrors.
Five terrified customers were lying on the floor. Only two feet from one of the
bleeding corpses. 

     The circling helos above were driving him out of his
mind. He screamed at the negotiator on the other end of his cell phone to stop the
noise or he would kill more.

“So
what do we know about the perp?” Veronica asked.

     Ray looked up from his RDSD. “Former Army Ranger. Came
back from Africa scrambled. In and out of VA psych wards. Says here he was a
hotshot when he still had his shit together, though.”

     force is a wise course of action for a psychologically unstable individual,>
Spectral said as they felt the Stallion
bump down on the asphalt.

     “That’s why we got to make this fast and impressive,
and you two are out front,” Arbor replied.

     Spectral and Scarlett moved for the big bay doors as
they opened. Arbor stepped in front of them. “Right after me, that is.” And
Arbor stepped from the bay into a sea of flashing bulbs.

     A great murmur went up when the Lady Rage exited the
chopper. They all knew who she was. It fell equally silent when Spectral
descended, his cloak billowing in the helo’s afterwash. No one even knew
what
he was.

     Arbor wasted no time in approaching the officer in
charge and taking control. The Council had authorized him, and there were no
questions of jurisdiction asked. He simply told the rest of them what was going
to happen.

     In full view of the media, the team spread out around
Ray. On his RDSD, he located the gunman.

     “If I show you exactly where he is, can you scan for
him from here?” Ray asked Scarlett.

     Spectral’s eyes glowed white, and he answered for her.

     “Okay, then,” Ray said and pointed to a blip on his
screen. “That’s him.” Ray raised his head and pointed at the structure. “And...
he’d be about right there from us.” He was pointing ahead of them at about two
o’clock. 

     Scarlett gently moved out of the circle, toward the
building; she closed her eyes and stopped. She raised her head until her face
was gleaming in the sunlight.

     “I have him,” she said.

     Arbor stepped toward her. “Can you tell if his weapon
is microchipped?” Most weapons were, so he knew the chances were good.

     Scarlett’s eyes closed more tightly, lines forming
around them. “Yes. They all are.”

     “Scramble them,” he said.

     Scarlett raised her right arm and aimed it at the
building. Neurons fired across the span of her brain and channeled into the
circuits of her unique Neural Transmitter. An invisible beam of energy shot out
from behind her tiara and entered the room where Walter Conroy sat, terrorizing
his victims.

     The soft hum of his pistol’s auto-fire CPU fell
silent. Conroy watched as a small light on the gun’s stock turned from green to
red, indicating it was no longer fire-ready. His rifles beside him did the
same.

     “The hell?” he exclaimed. He reset the safety, but
there was no response. And there wasn’t going to be. The weapons were useless
now.

     Scarlett’s Neural Transmitter had randomized the
little ones and zeros that made up the digital brain of Conroy’s weapons. Though
the effect of this was somewhat unpredictable—she recalled it backfiring on her
while taking down the Pterodactyl-Prime drone in Trenton, resulting in Spectral
being blasted across the sky—normally it meant that whatever
computer-controlled device she focused on would simply fall inoperable for as
long as she wanted.

     Back in the parking lot, Scarlett nodded to Arbor.

     “Okay,” he said, eyeing Spectral, “do your thing.
Bring him out alive, unharmed, and unconscious. We’re coming in right behind
you.”

     The great android raised its arms, and its cape
suddenly became rigid and fanned out like a parasol. Spectral lifted from the
ground and flew, still standing upright, over to the building.

    
Oohs
and
aahs
, worthy of a Fourth of
July fireworks display, rose up from the crowd.

     As the android approached the wall, Spectral turned
transparent and disappeared inside the concrete.

     The press and the cops assembled behind them gasped.

     Arbor was grinning. So far, so perfect. He turned to
one of the cameramen and pointed at him. “You. Come with us. Stay behind, stay
focused, and don’t turn that damn thing off,” he said, pointing at the camera.
The cameraman gulped, slung the camera on his shoulder, and stalked forward
behind them.

     Inside the shoe store, Walter Conroy never saw it
coming. Though a spectacularly powerful machine, Spectral made virtually no
noise.

     The rest of the team, on the other hand, with Lithium
in the lead and Fang clanging on the concrete floor in his impact armor,
announced their presence like a million light bulbs shattering at once. Bounding
through the closest mall entrance to the store and tromping loudly down the
corridor, Arbor hoped to provoke Conroy. It would make for better footage.

     Conroy grabbed his ex-wife’s throat and kept the gun
pressed into her temple. The gun might be useless, but nobody knew that but
him.

     Or so he thought.

     The android beamed into the room completely invisible.

     In the deserted atrium of the mall, the Legion bounded
around a corner and came in full view of the glass front of the little shoe
store. Lithium told the team to watch closely and smirked over at Scarlett, who
returned the gesture.

     The camera rolled.

     Conroy began to choke the life out of Carol with his
left hand as he held the pistol to her temple with his right. Carol’s face
turned from red to purple, and her eyes bugged.

     Spectral floated behind Conroy and placed his arm
inside of Conroy’s chest cavity. The experience was not something Conroy’s
conscious mind could register. No more than the body registers an x-ray passing
through it.