The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (9 page)

     To add to Arbor’s grievances today was the plastic
abomination he held in his huge fist. An action figure they said would be noted
for its realistic portrayal of Lithium. Yeah, realistic if you counted the
exaggerated wrinkles and the ass the size of Bob’s beer gut!

A
loud explosion flashes across the screen and a beat-up and clearly weakened
Revolution helps the overweight Lithium destroy what was a clearly cheesy
attempt to create the Man-O-War.

    
Lithium turns to the Revolution as the thundering
score crescendos. “You’ve earned yourself a reprieve! Till we meet again,
flag-waver!”

The lights rose in the small private theater, which was
tucked into one of the many basement floors of Freedom Rise. The studio guys
all stood and turned toward Arbor and Bob, clearly pleased with themselves.

     Arbor thought he might spontaneously combust. “Till we
meet again, flag-waver? Really?”

     “Yeah,” said one of the Suits. “Tracked really well
with suburban housewives over fifty.”  

     Bob finally turned toward Arbor, and damned if Arbor
had forgotten all about the Death Stare. But one look at Bob and Arbor could
tell his erstwhile agent had gotten the message—despite the fact that the
silver reflective visors of Arbor’s helmet concealed half his face. The exposed
lower half of his mug that Bob could see evidently spoke volumes. And those volumes
were all saying they wanted to kick Bob Bigley’s fat ass.

     Bob sprang to life. “No! How many times do we have to
tell you, the real money is in the Tweens!” Bob said, and then swung back with
a grin to get his star’s approval.

     “Jesus,” Arbor breathed. “Look, do whatever the hell
you want. Just leave me out of it from now on, okay?”

     At that moment the door opened behind them and the studio
guys’ mouths all dropped open. Arbor turned to see a seductive brunette slipping
into the room. She was wearing a dress that was so tight everyone in the room
realized she had no underwear on. “Hey, honey babe,” he said to her. “Ready to
go?” Arbor swiveled on his heel and headed for the door.

     “Wait, Mr. Arbor...I mean Mr. Lithium, we can reshoot
the scene. We can change the line, we can—”

     “Whatever,” he said, dismissing them with a wave.

     “But we still have the action figure to talk about!”

     Arbor stopped, still holding the toy in his gloved
hand, and he turned and tossed the Lithium toy into the air.

     And blasted it with a quick burst of fire from his wrist-flamethrower
that made the brunette squeal with delight and the studio guys crap their
pants.

     It plopped on the carpet in a gooey glob of green-colored
slime.

     “I’m sure they’ll be hot sellers, sweethearts. Now—and
I mean this in the most pleasant way possible—go fuck yourselves!”

     Arbor slammed the door behind him.

     In the hallway, Arbor looked at the dame at his side.
What was her name? Dorothy, Darla, Denise? Fuck it, what did it really matter?
“You feel like going to my penthouse and losing that dress of yours?”

     “Whatever you want, big fella,” she said. “I’m yours
all day.”

     “Good answer, babe.”

     Arbor put his arm around her just as two things
happened. First, from behind him, a red-faced Bob Bigley burst out of the
theater door, ready to try to do some major damage control with his star.

     Second, from in front, a group of five strolled around
the corner. Arbor recognized them immediately. The elite members of the Council
Guard whose job it was to protect only one person: The Chairman of the Freedom
Council itself.

     William Howke. Flanked by four of the elite Guard.

     Howke’s tall frame stood above the others, and he
spied Arbor immediately. “Captain Arbor,” the chairman said. “Mind if we step
into the lounge here and have a word?” Howke pointed to a small employee lounge
that was set up for hourly employees working the theater.

     Arbor stopped and looked at ‘Honey Babe.’ He handed
her a set of car keys. “Why don’t you take the Porsche out ‘til I give you a
call?”

     The woman squealed but then instantly pouted and held
out her hand.

     “Oh yeah,” Arbor said. He reached into the utility
belt that stretched from his shoulder down to his waist and back up and found a
pocket. He pulled out a wad of cash. She took it with another squeal and
click-clacked down the hallway in her eight-inch heels and short skirt.

     “That your niece?” Howke asked.

     “Something like that.”

     The two men stepped into the lounge. It cleared out.
The Council Guard closed the door but stayed close by outside, Arbor could
tell.

     “You’re not very happy these days, are you, Captain?”
Howke began. “You’re not feeling well utilized, are you?”

     Arbor blinked. “Well, I, uh...”

     “It’s okay. I know you’re trustworthy. I just see a
man who’s unhappy. You obviously have a taste for the good life. But you leave
the PR decisions to your manager. You look for love in what,”—Howke motioned
back to the hallway—“high-class escorts? Captain, you’ve served your country
and this Council with unmatched distinction. But Tom stopped using you to your
fullest potential sometime back, didn’t he?”

     “Yes, sir,” Arbor said quietly. He’d liked Thomas
Sage, but there was no denying the former chairman’s policies toward him had
left him feeling frustrated.

     “What if I told you that I want to give you your own
unit to command?”

     Arbor perked up. He was not sure what he was hearing.
“My own unit, sir?”

     “And what if we promoted the Captain? Fast-tracked his
promotion to where he really ought to be after all these years of distinguished
service to, say...Colonel?”

     “I’d say I sure as hell like how that sounds!” Arbor
said a little too excitedly. “Uh, sir.”

     “I thought you would.” Howke rose from his seat, Arbor
started to rise with him but Howke waved him off, so Arbor stayed put. “You
see, we have a problem with these Suns of Liberty. They’ve stolen the show, so
to speak. And no amount of shitty movies about you or poorly designed action
figures are going to turn that around.”

     Arbor smiled his big toothy grin at the chairman. He
couldn’t help it. How long had he been saying the exact same thing?

     “You see,” Howke continued, “I realized the night we
lost Boston that we needed to do something to take back the attention of the
country. Now, Tarleton, you know how he is, right?”

     Arbor nodded.

     “Iron Fist, Iron Fist,” Howke mimicked. “He wants me
to nuke that compound they have in Boston.”

     Arbor shrugged. He’d heard worse ideas.

     ‘I know, you’ve been at this a long time. Probably
like to see your little grudge match with Revolution come to an end.”

     “If it ended the right way.”

     “Yes, of course.”

     “But you had a chance to end it in Boston, didn’t
you?”

     Arbor squirmed in his chair. How could he know about
that? It wasn’t often anyone could make Clay Arbor squirm, but here he was suddenly
nervous as a cat. Howke was supposed to be a less effective communicator than
Sage had been. But Arbor was pretty fucking impressed so far. The guy was
unpredictable.

     “Well,” Howke said, rescuing Arbor. “Here’s my theory.
You want to beat him with honor. You want to beat him so the whole world knows
the truth. That you are twice the man he is. That you are loyal and patriotic
without plastering the fucking flag all over your face. That you are the true
hero.”

     Arbor pursed his lips and nodded. Sounded as good as
anything he would have come up with.    

     “I’m going to give you that chance,” Howke said, fire
suddenly burning in his eyes.

     Whatever his idea was, he was excited about. The
Chairman of the Freedom Council had a big idea and he wanted Lithium to be at
the center of it!

     “That sound good to you, Colonel?”

     “Fuckin’ A!” Arbor said, grinning ear to ear. “Sir.”

     “Good. Then you’re going to lead your own super team.
We’re already working on it. We’ll call it...the Legion!” Howke said it with a
sweep of his hand as if he were seeing it up in lights on the digital screens
of Broadway.

     “The Legion? I like it. Who’s in this team with me?”

     “We’re working on that, too. But you got anybody in
mind you’d want?”

     “Yeah. Kendrick Ray.”

     “X-Ray!” Howke said, like he’d already put him on the
roster.

     “Yeah. He’s a weird little fuck, but there’s nobody
better. And just what do you see us doing? I mean it’s still gonna be hard to
justify breaking down their door in Boston and wiping them out.”

     “Oh, that time will come. But first, we need to put
the new team on the map. And not like we did in the past. No more phony bank
heists.”

     Arbor’s grin was just getting bigger and bigger; he
could hardly believe what he was hearing.

     “I want you doing real hero stuff. We’ll outshine the
Suns, and then trust me, they’ll come to us. And we’ll expose them for the goddamn
traitors they really are. A terrorist can’t hide his true nature forever. At
some point he wants to come out into the light.”

     Howke sat back down in front of Arbor.

     “What we’re going to do,” the chairman said, “is give
them the light switch.”

CHAPTER 9

W
ard
flew to his apartment building.

     His chest was starting to burn from where the bullets
fired by Marconi’s thugs had bounced off his armor. Mostly he just wanted to
get back to his building and take a long shower. He owned the building and
rented the bottom twenty floors to families who now clamored to live at the
same address as the Spider Wasp. A management agency ran it for him, but it
made up the bulk of his annual income. The top five floors of the building made
up his home.

     Per usual, he landed on the roof and remote-triggered
an outside door to open with a simple thought-command from his implanted Neural
Transmitter. Security for his unusual five-story home had been significantly
updated since his identity had been revealed to the public some months back.
Ward’s main living areas were on the top floor. It was supposed to be his work
area, but he spent the vast majority of his time there, so he’d given up and
just made it his living space as well.

     Or that was until three months ago. Since then, since
the battles he’d faced and the losses he’d suffered, he spent less and less
time up there.

     He entered it now out of necessity. It was where he
stored his flight suit and wings. The large case they went in was open on the
wall when he stepped into his workroom, just off the roof.

     He stripped down to his boxers immediately.

     Ward lay the bug suit into the case. He pressed a
button and watched the lid slide closed over it. Done.

     He looked around his workroom. Neater than usual. The
truth was he just hadn’t had it in him to work much these days. Since the
Man-O-War, since Alison’s death, since Bailey’s death, since Hollis’s death.

    
Ramsey Hollis.
There was yet another name that
haunted his dreams. It was enough to lose his beloved Alison in the twisted,
awful way he had lost her. She’d betrayed him and saved his life all at the
same time. Blown to bits right in front of him.

     Adding Hollis to the mix was another layer of tragedy.
Almost more than Ward could hold in his heart. And his death had been overshadowed
in many ways by the death of Hollis’s own best friend, John Bailey. Bailey had
been so important to the Suns’ mission that his name just kept coming up since.
But not Hollis. His skills had been under the water and most days there was no
call for that. Hollis was being forgotten far too soon. They all were.

     But not for Ward. They haunted him. Like his dead
wife. Like his dead son.

     Ward reached for a large but nearly empty bottle of
Jim Beam. He unscrewed the top and leaned over, finding the glass he had been
drinking from yesterday, still out on the counter. He snatched it up.

     Ward peered down at the glass. At the dark brown ring
at the bottom, now long dried into the decorative ridges that were staring him
down in some kind of morbid mockery. He made a face, put the glass down, took a
quick swig from the bottle, and headed off to the shower, Jim Beam bottle in
tow.

     He set it on the ledge of his wide, open shower. It
was marble encased and had a rotating head with every massage setting known to
man. Ward spread his arms out under the spewing head, hands on the wall in
front of him, and let the steaming water run down his body. He stayed there so
long he nearly fell asleep standing up. Occasionally, he took another swallow
of the bourbon. He finished the bottle before he turned off the water.