The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (15 page)

“There's already a hero movement.
Go help that.”

“There
is
a hero movement,”
Ward retorted. “You started it. And they fight the gangs, not the Council. So
should you. Or you'll end up dead.”

Revolution turned and started to
walk. “You're wasting your time.”

The roof was long. Ward would have
a chance to catch him before he jumped this time. He'd been given a second
chance to warn him. He wasn't going to let it slip by again. He'd just have to
say it.

“Revolution, wait!” Ward bounded
after him. “I have a well-placed source at the Freedom Council. Says they're
building a weapon. A weapon like no one's ever seen before.”

Revolution stopped in his tracks.
He lifted his head slightly. Ward stopped short.

“To kill you,” Ward added.
Now
he’ll come back.
I knew he'd see the light.

Revolution turned to face him.
“Where did you say you heard this?”

“Please...just trust me.”

Revolution's arms swung forward. A
brilliant flash of light stabbed Ward's eyes. And then something hit him in the
throat so hard he nearly vomited. He felt his head slam against the brick wall
behind him.

He was stuck. Pinned to the wall,
a metal staple closed over his throat. It took a second before he could see
that the pin was glowing. Pulsing. Ward reached up for it and then realized he
couldn't breathe.

That’s when he panicked.

The glow began to fade, and as it
did, he could see Revolution more clearly—just watching, observing. As the glow
dimmed, his breathing became easier, but the metal was still closed tight over
his throat. He tugged on the pin with all his might.

“I don't trust anyone I don't
know,” Revolution said finally.

Ward was choking. It was more than
a little awkward. He tried his best to grin. “I'm
trying
to get to know
you,” he involuntarily whispered. He could hear Revolution chuckle under his
breath, but still he turned to go once again, leaving Ward in his predicament.

Ward tried to yell, which just
came out in a loud rasp. “It's a machine. Some kind of new power source.
Unstoppable. Almost online...almost...ready to go.”

Revolution froze.

He swiveled and headed straight at
Ward with a gait that meant business.

Ward freaked out.

For a split second he lost all
composure. Ward leaped about like a frog on hot coals. His legs left the ground
as he flopped here and there, but it was no use. He was about to get his ass
kicked, or worse. He tried to think of what he could do. He wasn't sure he
could speak again. His darts were no use against the armor. He could try to
kick Revolution, but he knew his flight suit was no match for titanium.
Finally, he decided to just play it cool, and went limp. And that’s about how
he would have described his dignity at that moment: limp. He peered up at the
big guy in the cape like a child who had just been grounded.

Revolution reached up with a speed
Ward couldn't begin to follow. He grabbed the staple and yanked it free. Brick
and mortar chunked out with it and scattered across the roof.

Ward lunged forward, gasping.
“Thought you were gonna kill me.”

“How good is this source of
yours?” Revolution asked.

Ward rubbed life back into his
throat and peered up at the metal man. Tears ran down his cheeks from under the
helmet. “This source has saved my life.”

Ten minutes later, the duo took an elevator from
the roof down to a deserted parking garage. Ward noticed an idling car in the
shadows. He couldn't make out the model.

“You're the Lone Ranger out there,
but you're trying to face down the whole cavalry. How long can you really rely
on luck?” Ward thought he might finally be getting through. Revolution’s demeanor
had seemed to change in the last few minutes. Then again it was so damn hard to
tell. Not like he could read Revolution’s facial expressions.

“A partnership. That's what you
want to offer, is it?”

“I think I can help you. I have
resources, connections. And I'm pretty good at strategy and diagnosis. It's
what I do.” 

“I am impressed. You’ve given me
important information. But...you can never be too careful. I've always expected
that the Council would send a spy—”

“I'm no spy.” 

“No, I don't think you are. And
I'm going to trust you. But first you're going to have to trust me.”

“I already do.” 
Sort of.

“Before we make any decision, I
need to take you somewhere, show you something.”  Revolution produced a
blindfold.

“Hey, when I said partnership, I
didn't mean...” Ward smiled as he let the thought trail off.

“You're funny.” Revolution didn't
laugh. He tossed him the blindfold. “First test of faith.”

“You mean getting my ass kicked
back there didn't count?”

Ward slipped on the blindfold, and
he heard the car approach. Revolution helped him into the backseat, tromped
around to the other side, and slid in beside him.

The drive was long. Ward tried to
follow in his mind. He kept track of where they turned. How far they traveled
before each turn. For the first eight blocks he kept up, but he lost the trail
after that. The truth was, he’d find out later, the driver drove in erratic
circles for the first ten minutes to throw him off, and then they’d proceeded
to a location in the middle of South Boston. Ward kept being distracted by the
burning questions in his mind. How does a guy in a titanium suit sitting in the
backseat not bottom out the car? How the hell can a guy in a titanium tank
actually sneak up on someone? How is it powered? What’s it actually made of?
Someday he'd build up the courage to ask the questions. Right now he just
really hoped he wasn't being driven to his death.

They stopped in front of an industrial warehouse.
No lights on inside. The dark building took up the entire block. They entered a
long, dim hallway. Light from streetlights spurted in at regular intervals.
Revolution led Ward by the arm down the lengthy expanse. Ward listened to the
echo of their footsteps. No other sound was present, save his own breathing and
his heart thumping in his ear.

“All right, you can take it off.”

Ward yanked off the blindfold and
squinted. In front of him, slowly fading into view as his eyes adjusted, was a
rusted steel door. Though it was disguised to look ordinary, Ward could tell it
was made of serious stuff. He had studied personal security extensively for his
own sake. This was reinforced steel, several inches thick, with trigger-alarm
electric deadbolt locks up and down its side. At least five that he saw.

Revolution swiped his hand in front
of the eye-level lock, and the whole assembly clicked and whirred to life.
Triggered by some mechanism in his suit, Ward guessed.

“This is why my luck won't run
out…”

He inserted a keycard Ward hadn't
noticed him holding before. The industrial deadbolts unlatched down the side of
the entrance. One by one. The massive door swung open.

“I don't rely on luck.”

Ward's eyes went wide. His mouth
dropped open.

“No way!”

CHAPTER
26

P
aul Ward
watched as the massive door swung open to reveal a well-lit, expansive office.
People were everywhere, hard at work.

In the middle of the night.

They toured the premises. The room
was cavernous and open. It took up most of a city block. Enormous. The ceiling
was high, nearly three stories. The first half of what Ward could see was an
office space. No cubicles, just desks. Open desks. The second half of the part
he could observe was a laboratory, a high-tech workspace with lots of computers
and other equipment he didn’t recognize. At the far end was a glassed-in
chamber. A long console with dials, gauges, and computer screens ran along the
side of the chamber. There was a large metal door just past the glass chamber
on the other end. The other half of the complex—the half he couldn’t see—no
telling what was on that side.   

As they walked, Ward felt very out
of place. This was no ragtag group of hippies, like many people thought of the
Resistance. These were professionals. It could have been the main office floor
of any company on the Freedom Council. Ward couldn't help but feel the stares
as they walked on. He felt like a circus freak.

“So, all of these people work for
you?”

“Work
with
me. I'm never
really alone out there.”

“Those quick escapes and lucky
breaks…”

“Not luck at all. I always have a
team with me.”

Ward thought about that. Suddenly
it all made sense. The stories he’d heard about how Revolution could throw his
voice in different directions to disorient someone. Or how he could hit someone
in the back with a shuriken when he was standing right in front of them. These
were legends about the man. Ward figured most of them were urban legends, in
fact. Now, he was not so sure.

Then another thought hit him. “So,
does this mean I'm in?”

“It means you're in the door.”

They entered the lab, and Ward
noticed a beautiful, young blonde staring at them. She smiled at Ward and then
returned her gaze to the Revolution. He thought she was going to say something,
but Revolution never looked her way, and they just kept walking. Finally,
Revolution offered him a seat in a quiet part of the lab.

“The people in the street, they
respond to us, not the other way around. We’re much more organized than you
realize.”

“Yeah. I’m getting that,” was all
Ward could think to say.

In fact, everything he thought he
knew about the Resistance was turning out to be wrong. The Revolution was the
public face of a much larger movement. A rebellion. Ward took a deep breath.
He'd just seen behind the curtain.

Soon the meeting was over, and he
was whisked back to the meet-up spot the same way he had arrived: blindfolded.

The next morning, most of the same insurgency
workforce began returning for duty in the large warehouse. This was no
nine-to-five job. It was a way of life. Coffee was brewed, yawns were shared,
and everyone wished they could see the sunlight. But there were no open windows
in this place. To the outside world, the home of the Resistance was an
abandoned relic of a long-gone industrial era. Few folks would ever wonder why
the owner of the building didn't do anything with it since most of South
Boston's industrial heart sat idle. Americans hadn't made much of anything for
decades. All of that was done in China, India, and on the robotic assembly
lines of the EU and Japan. An abandoned warehouse, even one as massive as this,
was not likely to stoke suspicion. But this one had subterranean layers. Seven
of them, dug into the Earth, housing the members of the insurgency and all of
their equipment. All of it concealed from satellite imaging.  

Inside, the workday was in full
swing. Young Fiona Fletcher attended to her chores. Which mostly meant basic
cleaning and maintenance on much of the machinery in the lab or serving as a
courier between divisions. Every now and then she even assisted with the actual
operation of the lab. Those days were her favorites, because science had become
her first love. Well, actually her second love. Possibly even her third, in
fact.

Because she found every excuse she
could to be as close to the Revolution as possible. She knew men thought she
was beautiful. She had gotten their attention far earlier than she had desired.
Earlier than was appropriate. Anytime that happened she thought it was gross.
Except when it was
his
attention.

She made it no secret to him that
she wanted him. He was the Revolution, after all. Lots of women fantasized
about the man behind the mask. The difference was, she knew he was interested
too, even if he tried to deny it. And she practically lived with him.

Fiona heard someone walking up
behind her and turned from dusting the computer banks. It was only a couple of
techs back from a break. They were easily ten years older than she.

“Hey, I think you missed a spot,”
one of them said.

“Yeah, you should do that again.
Man, no standards around here.” They both smiled at her, obviously hoping she
would joust back. Instead, her eyes went wide and twinkled with excitement. But
she was looking past them. They followed her gaze to see Revolution walking up
behind them. The techs turned silent, gazed at the floor, tried not to make eye
contact with him. Fiona could practically feel them tremble. She loved how he
could intimidate anyone simply by his presence. There was something primal
about it.
It's the very essence of cool.
  

“Hi,” she said.

But he just kept walking toward
the lab. A single-minded focus that those around him were used to.

“Shouldn't you be in class?” As he
spoke to her he didn’t break stride; he turned his head only slightly.

“No. They let us out early today.”

He said nothing, but he shot the
techs a second look. Instantly, the duo scattered.

Revolution continued toward the
lab. In the distance he could see an elegant African-American woman in her
midfifties. She was Dr. Leslie Gibbons, the director of the insurgency’s
science division and formerly one of the nation's most distinguished scientific
minds. To the rest of the world she was
missing.

Presumed dead.

Fiona followed behind him and
settled into a desk facing the large chamber and console Paul Ward had seen
earlier—just out of earshot. Leslie was busy adjusting gauges on the console.
In front of her, inside the chamber, a table was set up with a small arsenal of
weapons the Revolution used routinely: several whips, rows and rows of throwing
stars, and a dozen nunchaku. Leslie smiled at Revolution and shook her head as
he approached. She had seen the whole interaction with the techs.