The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution

by Michael Ivan Lowell

  And widened in shock.

  Fiona stood behind him in her patient's gown.

  They all knew who she was. They’d all heard the story. For months she had been in a coma. No longer.

  He turned, following their eyes. His heart was stopped dead cold by her icy glare.

  “I trusted you and you betrayed me.”

  Revolution tried to remain calm. Inside he was screaming. Be delicate. Remind her of the mission. “Yes. I did. But for the greater good. For the Republic.”

  Her pupils burned with energy and narrowed.

  The sight of it sent a thrill down his spine. The Fire Fly was a reality! “You don't realize the power you have. All the things you're capable of.”

  “No. You don't.” But you’re about to.

  Her body suddenly glowed, and the hair on everyone's necks rose. It wasn't electricity. The power felt cold. But it had the same kind of effect. The gown she was wearing was incinerated in the bioluminescent power that enveloped her. For a brief second she was naked, and she might have felt embarrassed, but she was quickly cloaked in the pure, raw power of the Fire Fly. Only her lips and the whites of her eyes remained unchanged. She was no longer Fiona.

  She was something far more powerful.

  The flash of light was too bright. They all covered their eyes. When they opened them Fiona had been replaced by the Fire Fly. But it was more than visual, it was visceral. The entire room shuddered, as if every molecule in the space around them had been singed by her cold fire. Even Sophia took a step back.

  Only the Revolution stood his ground. He made a motion for the others to flee. Leslie had to pull Helius away. Fiona’s transformation might have startled her, but Sophia Lihn was not one to run from a fight, no matter who it was with.

  John Bailey did not want to leave either. Out of instinct he reached for his weapon, but no weapon ever constructed could take down this girl. And negotiating with a pissed-off all-powerful seventeen-year-old was definitely not his forte. He did what he was told and retreated, motioning for the rest to do the same. They did.

  Fiona glared at the Revolution. “You wanted a Fire Fly. Here I am.” Her arms rose from her sides. Blasts of energy coned outward from her hands as the coolness returned to her veins—it would literally feel good to her to rip this place apart.

  When the energy hit, the walls around them splintered away. The gust of power hurled Revolution to the ground.

  Fiona stepped toward the sprawled Revolution. “You tore my life apart. Now...” Revolution opened his eyes—the roof, nothing was holding it. It hovered in the night sky. The walls were gone. The dark warehouse district outside had replaced them. The Fire Fly's hand was above her head, holding up the massive roof with pure energy. A flick of her hand. The roof launched upwards and shredded into a million pieces that sparked into the night sky and burned into nothing.

  Fiona glared back down at him. “Now I get even.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Revolution leapt to his feet, tried to retreat. “Don't you see? I gave you everything!”

  “Then have some of it back.”

  She raised her hands. And blasted him. The beam of light struck him in the chest. It heaved him into the air and across the compound. His armor immediately began the absorption process, but the energy level was enormous. While it had blocked the beam itself from entering the suit, the power overloaded its circuits. He couldn't hold a charge that high. He would have to release it.

  That was a first.

  He smashed through a far lab wall. Concrete and steel exploded. The barrier splintered from the impact like balsa wood. He slammed against the hard floor, and a ring of her energy rippled out from the armor as the charge released. It was like a wave on water, displacing matter as it fanned out. It disintegrated the nearest things to him: chairs, wastebaskets, desks, computers. And then it was gone. Revolution never saw it. He lay motionless somewhere under the pile of rubble. Anyone brave enough to have stayed and watched fled at that moment.

  Fiona glanced back at the Fire Fly chamber. She could have destroyed it then and there. It was designed to contain residual bioluminescent energy, but no known substance on Earth could withstand a full blast of her power. Instead, she clung to some hope that maybe she could be restored to the way she was before. The chamber would be her only hope for that. If she destroyed it, she would be the Fire Fly forever.

  The entire compound was exposed, roofless. People scattered into the night. Into a Boston that didn't even know most of them existed. They would have to find places to hide, to live, to survive. Leslie and COR had developed an emergency evacuation plan. But it was new, and it was predicated on dispersal of Resistance members to Minutemen households and dependent on an orderly evacuation. This was nothing of the kind. A second plan based on a quick escape was still in the works, and many of them knew details of it and followed it as best they could. But they all knew one thing for certain. First they had to escape the wrath of the Fire Fly. So, they fled.

  All but one. Who had hid in the shadows. And was cussing at himself the whole time for doing so.

  Ward was in horrified awe. She had taken out the Revolution in one blow—though he noticed it was the crash that had gotten him, not the blast. He'd been conscious, moving, before he hit the ground. Why he had focused on that, Ward wasn't sure. His analytical, puzzle-solving mind was always at work. Even when he needed it not to be. Maybe he could use it to talk her down. Appeal to her mind. Though these people had treated Fiona like a princess, she was actually quite intelligent. Maybe she would respect his own intellect.

  Fiona stalked forward, passing though the long expanse of the structure. She took her anger out on everything. She blasted her home, her lie, her prison to smithereens. Now she understood. It had always been her prison. She hadn’t lived there. She’d been doing time. Just waiting for her captor to execute her. And she'd thought she loved him. She'd thought he loved her. The idea made her sick now. He had cared so little for her he had been willing to kill her for a science experiment. No matter. He was the one that was dead now. Good riddance. His sacred fortress would soon be a smoldering pile of ash.

  Behind her, the compound burned into the night sky. She took another step toward Revolution’s buried body, and Paul Ward, in hastily donned Spider Wasp armor and taking a deep, nervous breath, stepped out from behind a partially standing support beam. He stood directly in front of her.

  “Fiona, stop!”

  She did stop, but the Fire Fly stared at him with her glaring eyes. “Get out of my way.”

  “Please. I'm sorry for what happened. But this isn't the answer.”

  “I don't want answers.”

  “Let me help you. We're on the same side.”

  “There are no sides anymore. Not for me. Just stay away from me.”

  “What he did was wrong,” Ward said. He thought of his little boy, his little David. Innocent, vulnerable. Just as she had been. “You're just a kid.”

  She glared at him. Uh-oh. Ward shuddered in his armor. Kid was the wrong word.

  Her eyes were tiny infernos. She threw her arms forward. A band of energy shot out and then wrapped around him. Lifted him.

  “What are you doing?” Ward screamed, his eyes bulging and his body snapping rigid. The power holding him was immense, indescribable. He was immobilized by it as the night swirled around him. Numbness spread across his body. He gasped for breath. She pulled him close to her, and the world started to go black.

  “I told you to stay away!” she growled. She flung him across the compound, into a pile of jagged rubble. He smashed through it with tremendous force. Ward cracked concrete with his body. The sickening thud was the last thing he would remember before all went dark.

  Fiona looked around her and realized she had done it. Only the blaring of the compound's alarm and the crackling of the fires filled the night. The compound was no more. She had destroyed her prison. She had destroyed her home.

  Home. She felt a chill run down her s
pine and a pain split her in two as a sudden surge of power washed through her. She closed her eyes and tried not to scream. A brilliant flash lit up the night—and she was gone.

  Two seconds passed.

  Fiona opened her eyes. To utter darkness.

  For a moment she panicked. She was back in the black place. In the deep of space. She spun to fight off the black matter—and felt water under her feet. Across the darkness she saw something she couldn't make out.

  Lights.

  A sound.

  Bells.

  Then her eyes adjusted, like no normal human’s ever could. She could see it clearly.

  A boat, it was a trawler!

  She looked down. She was crouched defensively, standing on top of the surface of a lake. Fiona gasped. She could see lights on the banks. A long way away. The lake was huge. Where had she gone? How had she gotten here? Was this a lake, or was it an ocean bay? It clearly wasn’t Boston Harbor. She reached down and put her hand in the water, tasted it. Fresh water. What the hell?

  She shook her head, tried to understand all of this. She'd heard Leslie talk about the Fire Fly many times, but she couldn't think, couldn't focus. Had she teleported somewhere? If so, where? It came back in spurts. Leslie had said the Fire Fly would be able to travel like light. Light speed. Is that what this was? It must be. She was afraid to move, afraid to speak, afraid to think, for fear she might launch herself away again.

  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

  Becky 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 but
ton. 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.