The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (43 page)

     Sophia blasted her boot-jets at full power and burned
away from him, making a beeline for the Spore on the right. Her wake was so
strong Ward nearly fell out of the sky. “Be afterbirth in the after burn.
Evidently,” he mused to himself.

     He set his sights on the other Spore and blasted
toward it.

Sophia reached hers first, and just as she was about to
blast it out of the sky, the thing fired. Sophia banked left, turning her body
on its side as the beam narrowly shot past her. She fired at the damn thing,
but her angle was awkward. She missed, wide right, and now the Spore turned a
hard arc in the sky and came at her head-on.

     Maybe that was the only way. She pointed her arms out
in front of her just in time to block a red beam with one of her own. The two
rays of energy haloed at the point of contact, blocking her view.

     But she kept on firing. And less than a second after
she saw the Spore explode in a fiery burst from one of her propulsor blasts,
she felt the air knocked out of her and the world exploded in red flash of
heat.

     She was falling.

     The Spore’s last shot had struck home.

     In that moment, she realized she was going to die. It
had been a one-in-a-million shot. But as she peered down to assess the burning
in her belly and saw the flayed skin, the charred flesh, the already dried
blood, cauterized from the extreme heat of the laser blast that had ripped open
her suit and cooked her flesh, she also realized the blast had taken out her
flight system. She was falling to her death. Ward was too far away to catch
her. Lantern was not there to send the Hollow, and even if he were, there was
no guidance system for it to commandeer.

     The loneliest thing about falling to your death, she
thought, was that you had the time to think about it. “Get that goddamn thing,
Paul! Tell the General I’m sorry,” she said to Ward over his com.

     Ward spun. “What?” he shouted. And then he saw her in
free fall. “Oh, hell no!” he yelled.

     But his Spore had turned, and it was zooming toward
him. Ward grunted and arced to his right with all his power, put his thrusters
on full, and dove toward Sophia.

     She saw the maneuver and screamed. “No! Don’t you do
it, Paul Ward! Don’t you do it! You get back up there and stop that Spore!”

     Ward said nothing. He just kept coming, but the Spore
was fast. Faster than him. It was gaining on him quickly.

     “Forget about me. You’re only going to get yourself
killed and you can’t get to me in time!” she screamed at him.

     “The hell I can’t!” he yelled back.

     Ward put the thrusters into overdrive—a move he’d
never made because the likelihood of overheating was far too high. He began to
catch up with Sophia.

     The Spore opened fire. Ward banked left, and the laser
shot screamed by him on the right. But it had been close, and it was just luck
he’d guessed the right direction to dodge.

     Ward closed the gap with Sophia, despite the Spore’s
pursuit. Twice more he narrowly dodged shots from the machine. He was nearly on
Sophia now, who looked astonished he had caught up to her. But the ground was
fast approaching—too fast. If Ward did not pull up now he would not have time
to do so.

     The Spore made the same calculation and began to slow.

     Ward scanned the ground and in a split second made a
decision and kept on going. He angled his body for a final time, just as Sophia
turned in midair to get a better view of what was happening behind her. Ward grabbed
Sophia in a bear hug and then hit his reverse thrusters.

     “You know we’re too late for that, right?” she said,
the two of them face to face.

     “I know. This is gonna hurt,” he said apologetically.

     “Thanks for trying,” she said, and the last thing Ward
felt before they hit was Sophia burying her head into his shoulder, hugging him
back. Hard.

CHAPTER 46

S
carlet
stopped in her tracks. “Uh-oh. Spectral, do you feel that?”

     “What? What is it?” Arbor growled.

     The android lifted its head.

     Scarlett scowled. “It’s a disabling beam.”

     “Can you stop it?” Arbor asked.

     She raised her arm. “I’m trying. It’s very powerful.
Like nothing I’ve ever felt before!”

     “Where the hell is it coming from?”

     “I don’t know,” she said.

     “It’s got to have a source,” Arbor growled.

     Scarlett stared back in frustration. “I can’t find it.
There doesn’t appear to be anything here that could do that!”

     Arbor decided it was time to leave the roof. “Just
keep looking.” He bounded toward the door. “You two find it and stop it, then
join the rest of us!”

     “Wait!” she shouted suddenly. “It’s attacking!”

     “Where?” Arbor’s cheeks flushed with anger under the
mask.

     She pointed to their left, still concentrating. “Over
there, the Spores.”

     Arbor spun to peer out where she pointed. The northern
side.

     No sooner had she said it than all three Spores fell.
Crashing into the Earth, one clattering along the concrete of the street. Completely
useless.

     “Fuck!” screamed Arbor. The Spores were the trap.
Without them, this was all going to be a shit-load harder!

     “And there!” Scarlett shouted, pointing to the other
side and the three Spores flying side-by-side, making another run on the Minutemen
from the south. Again they fell, this time exploding on impact, catching fire,
and burning.

     “Let’s go!” Arbor shouted to all of them. “Everyone in
the field. Take out the Suns first!” Arbor bounded to the door, Fiddler and
Fang in close pursuit. He grabbed the door handle—

     And was then flung against it by a massive impact and
flash of red. Fiddler and Fang were slammed to the turf.

     Arbor spun back to see one of the remaining Spores
floating above Scarlett and Spectral. It fired at them again.

     “Ray, what the hell are you doing? You got the Spores
attacking the wrong target, dumbass!” Arbor was furious. How the hell had everything
turned to shit so quickly?

    
“I’ve put them all on autopilot. The Chairman’s ordered
me away. Guess I’ll see you when it’s over.”

     “Away?” Arbor barked. First he’d heard of it. Pissed
him off.

     Spectral raised its hands, and the Spore’s red beam
seemed to coil across the force field the android created. The residual energy
struck Arbor again, this time throwing him to the turf.

      “It’s attacking us! The virus has turned it against
us!” Scarlett yelled.

     The Spore fired again.

     “Can you stop it?” Arbor shouted over another blast from
the Spore.

     “Go!” she yelled. “Get out of here! We’ll handle
this!” Scarlett said.

     By the time they reached the street, only two Spores
were left. The third was out in the city, taking care of Ward and Sophia.

     And the thing that Arbor noticed, as he bounded out
the front door, was all the bodies. Council Guard bodies.

     “Ray, where the hell is Crustac?” he shouted over the
com.

He’d
angled his body. He tried to slow their descent, but there was no way to stop
them from being crushed by the fall. And that’s probably why the Spore backed
off and fell back into an observation mode, waiting to verify its primary
targets had been neutralized.

     But Ward had gambled. At this height, at this speed,
hitting concrete guaranteed death. But below him he saw a deep retention pond.
The only one this side of the city. Hitting the water was not going to be much
better than hitting concrete, but he did not need it to be much better. Not if
they angled their bodies just right, not with a little luck, not if the pond
was deep enough.

     He knew those were a lot of
ifs.

     They splashed into the water in an enormous spray.

     It hurt.

     Ward felt his ribs snap, his back wrench. Sophia
grunted as well. But they both remained conscious, and they both held their
breath.

     But they hadn’t needed to. Ward had warned her what
was coming, and she had followed his lead by activating Leslie’s new safety
features that allowed their helmets to close in case of gunfire, extreme heat,
or any underwater adventures they might fall into. In her case, an
accordion-like neck piece unfolded and connected with the bottom of the glider
helmet she wore. It was a slower process than Ward’s, and it snapped into place
just before they knifed into the water.

     They both had the same thought as they plunged:
stay
under.
Long enough that the Spore eventually flew down to search for them,
to verify its mission parameters were completed. And as it skimmed over the water’s
surface, Ward rocketed up, using the stored oxygen in the wings—which proved to
be just enough—and the duo broke through the pond’s glassy sheen. The Spore aimed
to fire, but it was too late. Ward’s Disabling Dart was already on its way to
puncturing its steel skin.

     The Spore splashed into the water. And sank at speed.

     Ward and Sophia limped onto shore and collapsed on the
bank, looking like a couple of drowned rats. 

Fiona
awoke from the strange dream, still hearing the man’s voice echoing in her
head. She peered around in the dim light and realized that she was lying on the
floor of the Fire Fly chamber.

     Just as she had been in the dream.

     Everything was just the same. She was in the same hospital
gown, the room looked the same. The same odd black machine.

    
The machine!
She spun to get a better look at
it. Jet black. But at the top were five glowing buttons, all glowing the exact
same color as her bioluminescence.

     Slowly it came back to her. She remembered her power
being taken from her. Sucked into this very chamber—a chamber of permanent
darkness.

    
“You just need to unleash your power from the darkness.”
That’s what the man in her dream had said. Only Fiona realized at that moment
that this had been no dream at all. Michael Crustac, the Krill, had rescued
her. How did she know this?

     Fiona gazed at the machine.

    
Could it really be that simple?
She reached out
and touched the needle-like gun of the machine. And the whole assembly began to
quake, rumble—with the power of the Fire Fly. And as she looked down, she saw
that power seeping back into her body. Riding up the veins in her arm, neck,
face, forehead, feeding her the power she now realized she had missed. The
power that she craved.

     If for nothing more than to exact her revenge.

     She thought about letting go, stopping the process.
Would she regret taking back the power? Since the moment the Revolution tricked
her into climbing in this chamber, she’d wanted to go back, to be normal again.

     But really, what choice was there? If she stayed
human, they would never let her leave this place. And what of Becky or Arcadia? What of her followers? What kind of vengeance would the Council seek at their
expense?

     What had they already done? She was unsure how long
she’d been out.

     For now at least, she was the Fire Fly, whether she
liked it or not. But this machine had proven she didn’t have to be forever.

     Fiona smiled and let the luminescence take control.

     The energy lifted her into the air once more, and she
found herself floating at the top of the chamber. Lab techs were running into the
room now, flipping on lights, finally alerted to what was happening.

     Her gown burnt away, and her skin faded to the
chartreuse glow of the Fire Fly. She thought about Crustac’s last words to her.

    
Fascism
. What did he mean? Had to be the
Council. But what was she supposed to do about it? Go kill the chairman? She’d
thought about that before.

     And then suddenly, like a peal of thunder, everything
fell into place, the memory returning. 

    
Philadelphia
.

     Only it wasn’t a memory. It was a message, or a
connection, or something—she didn’t even begin to understand. She was still
mystified by her new abilities. She would go there, but she had a more important
priority first.

     One second later, she was back at Lake Tahoe.

Lantern
was watching the feed from the Hollow in his visor. The holographic robot was maneuvering
the last sub out of the way, grounding it at the bottom of the river. The
Hollow was remotely operating the submarine in a manner similar to how it had controlled
Ward’s and Sophia’s flight systems at Freedom Rise.