The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (27 page)

A new reality settled onto her.
She was in a new prison. She had no one to turn to. She was alone. Betrayed by
those closest to her. Now she had destroyed their lives and killed their
leader. The man who had protected her all those years. Fiona just bowed her
head and began to cry.

Still alone. Utterly alone.
Standing on the surface of an enormous lake.

By the time the first squad cars arrived, dim morning
light was cracking the horizon. Firefighters put out what blaze was left to
fight. The air was acrid and harsh and filled with a foggy smoke. The giant
compound was now a debris field. A charred and ugly caricature of what had been
before. After an hour, teams of agents from all branches of the government were
there: FBI, CIA, and, of course, the Council Guard. They all searched through
the rubble. In time, they would locate the underground levels. In time, they
would realize the scale of the operation here. But not before one of Boston's
finest would discover the most noteworthy find of the day.

A young, tall officer rounded a
pile of blasted-out concrete, large chunks splayed across the ground. A rescue
and recovery crew was digging through the solid layer of rubble. Their scans
had indicated bodies might be located underneath. The officer stumbled and
tripped on the debris. And then, as he reached out for leverage, he saw it. Red
and blue. A man in armor. He knew exactly who it was. Buried under a mound of
concrete and steel. Then he scanned forward and his jaw literally dropped.

“Holy shit!  Cap'n, take a
look at this!”

The captain lumbered over. His
eyes grew wide. In the rubble, not ten feet apart: Revolution and Spider Wasp.
Both being uncovered from the heap of ruins. After they had both been pulled
out, the officer examined Ward. His flight suit was ripped in places. The Fire
Fly had hurled him against the wall hard enough to crack the seams on the suit.
The grooves that held the mask onto the neck plate had cracked open. The
officer checked for Ward's pulse on his exposed neck.

“They alive?” the captain asked in
wide-eyed awe.

“This one is,” the officer said.
Then he pointed toward the Revolution “Who the hell can tell about him?”

The captain peered down at
Revolution's armor. “Good point.”

CHAPTER
43

B
ecky
Collins Steered her pickup down the twisting road as the forest whisked past
her window. In her passenger seat, Fiona was wrapped in a blanket. Asleep. A
fitful sleep. Every few moments she would twitch or stir or moan. She needed to
get the girl home. She'd figure out what to do from there. The smart thing was
just to call the police or the hospital, but since the moment she’d first found
the girl naked and crying in the forest, doing so just hadn’t
felt
right. She was sure the girl wanted none of that. How the hell could she know
that?

She just did...

What the hell would she tell them
anyway?

Becky parked the truck. She woke
Fiona gently and carried the girl in her arms into the house. She was
surprisingly light. Alarmingly thin, actually. Once inside, she tried to get
Fiona to clean up, but the girl was too tired. In the spare bedroom, Becky
pulled the sheets over Fiona as she snuggled into the bed. Fiona opened her
eyes fully for a moment.

“Pain is gone,” Fiona said.

Becky smiled down at her, stroked
her hair. “Sleep now. You're safe here.”

Becky stayed with her for most of
the afternoon. She fretted over what to do. If this girl was really from the
Resistance, then she couldn't call the authorities. But if her condition
worsened, there were only a few people she knew that could administer any kind
of medical attention. And somehow she knew the girl didn't want her to do that
either...

Sometime around three o'clock that
afternoon she decided to turn on WebTV for the first time that day. She saw the
story from Boston. The unexplained fire. Revolution's capture. The Internet was
all ablaze with stories and blog posts about it. The man the media had dubbed
Spider Wasp had also been taken into custody, and his identity had been
revealed as a former Harvard professor. It was a big news day. But Becky
wondered if the biggest story from the day wasn't sleeping quietly in her spare
bedroom.  

Becky spent the rest of the
afternoon reading the stories. Then she went into check on her guest. Fiona had
tossed and turned but seemed to be resting peacefully. She pulled up a chair,
and just as she did the girl stirred. She looked up at Becky with grateful
eyes.

Becky smiled. “I have a cool rag.”

Fiona nodded. Becky wrung the
cloth out over a small bowl of fresh tap water. The splashing droplets in the
quiet room seemed to sound soothing to Fiona, as she smiled at their din. Becky
patted the cool liquid onto her forehead with soft, gentle strokes.

Fiona winced with the first touch,
and her breath caught in her throat. But then she seemed to relax. She closed
her eyes and grinned.

Becky pulled the sheet down from
her shoulders, and she noticed the splotches. Her skin had become raised and
red. “Does it hurt?” Becky asked, and the girl nodded. “I'm going to raise the
sheet,” Becky said. Fiona made no protest, so Becky lifted the cover and saw
her entire body covered in splotches. They looked like mild first-degree burns.
She dipped the rag into the bowl and brought it back up to Fiona’s neck. She
was amazed to see that the spots on her forehead were now gone. She ran the
cool, wet rag gently across her neck, and the redness faded there, too.

Fiona pushed the sheet down to her waist. The water
felt so good. “What's your name?” Fiona asked the woman. It hadn’t concerned
her that she didn’t know. This woman was
supposed
to be here, no matter
who she was. She was part of this. Whatever this was. And Fiona knew she was in
control here. She had no idea how she knew, she just did. She’d survived the
experiment. She had beaten it. And now she was in control. And this woman was
playing her part.

“I'm Becky Collins.”

Fiona smiled and closed her eyes.
Everywhere Becky ran the cool rag the redness faded, and Fiona moaned soft
breaths of long-awaited relief. When she was finished, Fiona was covered in a
cool wetness that felt like heaven. She stopped Becky from pulling the sheet
back up, and she just lay there. After a moment she fell back asleep. Becky stayed
with her until the sun went down. She turned on a light in the hall that
allowed her to still watch the girl. Fiona slept peacefully. She didn't stir,
she didn't moan. And she didn't dream.

It was a large, gray, nondescript room. It smelled
damp and musty. Guards dragged the still unconscious Revolution into a large
holding cell. When they dropped him to the ground his armor made a thunderous
clang.

Outside the cell, around a corner
on the far wall, well away from any gadget Revolution could use to turn it off,
they engaged a red power button. The bars of the cell buzzed with electricity,
blue bolts danced over the steel.

He was trapped.

On the other side of the compound, Ward was strung
up by his arms and legs. Spread-eagle. His back was to the room. He was naked
and unconscious. His head hung from his shoulders. He had suffered a bad
concussion. Across the room, a fat owl-faced guard picked up the Revolution’s
whip. He held it out in front of him. Showed it to his skinny partner, a
fox-faced guard who chuckled at the sight of it. The whip was famous.

“This outta be fun.” Owl Face
steadied his hold on the whip. He flicked the weapon with all his might. It
smacked into Ward's thigh with a slap.

A chunk of flesh ripped out of
Ward's thigh. He screamed awake.

“Wakey wakey!” Owl Face was
clearly enjoying this. Their laughter filled the room. Tears streamed down
Ward's face as the shock of the pain and his situation settled over him. Ward
shook in the chains with all his might, trying to rip them from the walls. An
effort he knew was futile.

Becky held Fiona's hand as they sauntered down the
hallway toward the round whirlpool tub. Fiona stepped cautiously, as if every
step hurt her. Her toes curled. Becky had prepared a large bubble bath. Fiona
wore one of Becky's old nightgowns. At the tub’s edge, Becky helped her slip
out of it. Fiona just stared at the water, apprehensive.

Becky grinned at her. “It's warm,
just try it,” she said.

Fiona dipped a toe in. Then her
foot. The water was lukewarm, soothing.

“Is it okay?”

Fiona lurched forward without a
word and slid into the water; she closed her eyes and moaned. She felt the
comforting water encircle her. She waved her arms in it. She dipped her head
back into the water; her breasts lifted out, covered in suds that ran down her
sides.

Fiona was so beautiful. Becky’s
face flushed, and she looked away. She’d admired the beauty of other women
before, but she'd never been attracted to one. She tried to shake the feeling
off. This girl was young, too young. Becky watched Fiona glide over to the side
of the tub and settle into a covey. She smiled at Becky.

Too young.
“Um. Are you
thirsty? You want some water?”

“Water would be good.”

Becky retreated back to her
kitchen. Glad to have an escape from her previous thoughts. She poured the
water into the glass. Her hand was shaking.
What the hell is wrong with me?
There was something intoxicating about the girl. She took a moment to collect
herself, straightened her back, and returned to the bathroom.

When she entered, she panicked.

Fiona was nowhere to be found.

She rushed to the tub. She could
see nothing but bubbles in the water. She parted them anxiously.

A bright yellow-green glow covered
the bottom of the tub. There was no other sign of Fiona. She stretched out,
reached down cautiously into the soapy water, and placed her hand on the glow.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The feeling was ecstasy. Like
being wrapped in electric silk.

She just sat there, eyes closed,
letting feelings wash over her. Pulsing from head to toe. She lost track of
time. The feeling finally began to fade, and when she opened her eyes, she saw
Fiona emerge from the water. Becky just watched as the girl came closer.

“You're amazing,” Becky said.

Fiona rose, dripping, from the
water and settled into Becky's lap, half in, half out of the tub. “Okay,” Becky
said softly as she stroked Fiona's wet hair out of her face and the girl closed
her eyes.

Owl Face paced back and forth. “We have lots of
questions. Who's in the leadership?  Where did all the tech come from? Who
built it? What caused the explosion? And most importantly, who is the
star-spangled freak?”

Ward said nothing. Just glared at
the Guard.

“Not feeling chatty,
huh?”  

Owl Face fumbled in his pockets.
Pulled out something small and metal. He waved a pair of pliers in Wards face.

Shit.
Ward swallowed hard.

“Now pliers are good for a lot of
things. I find they're especially good for loosening up things that are
stubborn. That are hard to...turn. Let me show you.”

Owl Face pinched a fold of flesh
from Ward's lower back and squeezed it with the pliers. Ward moaned. His face
scrunched. Behind him he could feel the big man put his whole body into it.

“I find sometimes I just have to
let it rip!” He
ripped
the pliers with all his might. The pain sliced
into Ward as the sharp pincers tore the chunk of flesh away. His face contorted
behind a hoarse scream. His body shook and convulsed from the pain as blood
streamed down his back, buttocks, legs, and onto the floor. “You really need to
tell us what we want to know. All this can end”—Owl Face snapped his fingers in
Ward's face—“just like that.”

CHAPTER
44

R
evolution
held a newspaper they had left for him, feigning interest in the day's
headlines, which were all about he and Ward's capture, but what he was really
doing was scanning the room's tech for vulnerabilities. He had feared
incarceration for so long that, now that it was here, it didn't seem so
threatening.

Sometimes he forgot what a Fort
Knox his armor was. If they had tried to take his helmet off while he was
unconscious, they had not succeeded. His internal security system would alert
him had they done so. His bet was they hadn't even tried. The worst thing was
the dull thudding in his head. The drugs were keeping most of the pain away,
but he was finding it hard to concentrate. He took a few deep breaths and
willed himself to feel better. The drugs doubled their dosage at his command.

Revolution scanned the empty room.
He was searching for any sign that he was being monitored. The strange thing
was, he couldn't find a trace of any kind of monitoring device. This
all-important room wasn't being video or audio recorded.  

This was puzzling. You always
wanted to know what was happening in an interrogation room. There were a thousand
reasons you would want to.

And then it hit him.

They didn't want anyone to
know
what went on this room.

His thoughts zipped to Ward. A
cold dread scurried up his spine. He'd been here before; he'd been trained for this.
And he was as well protected as a soldier in a titanium tank.

But Paul was not.

If the roles were reversed, he'd
go after Paul first. And he'd go after him hard. Even if it killed him...

Revolution scanned the buzzing
bars of his cell with greater urgency. The bars seemed to be blocking any
attempt he made to contact Lantern. If he could redirect the energy running
through them, he might be able to drain them of their power or short-circuit
them. But after only a moment, his spirits fell.