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
Revolution 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.
The bars had been engineered with multiple backups and numerous charging points. This meant the bars sent constant pulses of superhigh-voltage electricity across the metal. At least five pulses per second. His armor could withstand a single charge of nearly unlimited electrical power. He could even drain the power and send it back out if he needed to. But he couldn't do it from multiple sources at once. The bars would literally fry him inside his own suit.
Ward was on his own.
Becky and Fiona sat drinking tea at the small breakfast nook in Becky’s kitchen. Liquid seemed to ease the pain Fiona felt, both inside and out. Her throat had been dry most of the time since the coma, and spending long hours in Becky’s large tub had soothed her skin. With each passing hour she found the pain bothered her less. She could also control her transformation into Fire Fly form better. She was getting stronger.
The day had offered her the chance to fill Becky in on the past. She told her all she knew about the Fire Fly and bioluminescence. How the Revolution had practically raised her, yet kept her at arm’s length.
How he had led her on.
And then how she had gotten her revenge on him. When Becky had told Fiona that the media were announcing Revolution was still alive, she had been surprised to notice Fiona looked relieved. But the hatred returned any time she mentioned him in any other capacity. Becky told her she could stay as long as she wished. And Fiona seemed grateful, but she kept a distance. She only let Becky in so far. After what the girl had been through, Becky knew it would take some time for Fiona to trust anyone again.
Becky tried to talk with her about the past, her parents. She'd gotten a degree in clinical psychology, though she had never used it professionally. After the divorce she had been tempted a few times but had never wanted a career that would take her away from this cabin. Or the lake.
She was intrigued by the faint memories Fiona had of her early childhood. It had jogged free one of her own memories. “So you grew up in Sacramento?” Becky asked.
“Yeah, like I said, I don't remember it well. I was really young. Ten years ago.”
“When I was married to Tom I used to work in the Freedom Council's Office of Records in Sac. Where the Council keeps local secrets. There was a case no one was supposed to talk about. We called it the Fletcher case.”
Fiona set down her teacup.
“Honey, I think that might be your parents.”
It did not take long for Fiona to devise a plan. She had already sensed what she could do when she transformed into pure light. Not only was the feeling amazing—the pleasure Becky had experienced was just as strong on the other end, as opposed to the constant pain she felt in human form—but she could go anywhere, do anything a beam of light could do. And more. Much more.
Becky’s connection to her parents had to be more than coincidence, Fiona thought. It was almost as if she were being guided toward something. These new powers of hers were mysterious, but they seemed to have a mind of their own.
Becky’s pickup sped down I-80. She made it to Sacramento in less than two hours. Fiona could have gotten there in a second flat. A fact she kept pointing out during the drive. But Becky was not letting Fiona out of her sight. Once she learned no one else had ever survived the Fire Fly experiment, she had insisted on coming along. The connection she felt to Fiona was much stronger than anything that made any sense. And she knew it. But that did not change what she felt she needed to do. A solemn duty.
Becky pulled the truck int
o the large, empty lot and parked at the very back. “Do you need help?” Becky asked.
“Not with this part.” Fiona smiled. “I will later,” she said and then patted the bathrobe lying on the seat between them.
Becky nodded and watched the girl exit the truck and trudge toward the large building. She knew such a long walk was still difficult for her. Fiona described it like walking on thumbtacks. In high heels. With thumbtacks in the high heels. But each hour proved a little better. She was determined to rid herself of the pain. Fight through it. Fiona was tough.
Fiona reached the building's front steps. Large windows framed the entrance. Fiona closed her eyes and instantly the bioluminescence burned around her. Her cells liquefied and energized. She was flush with power. Concentrating on the tall, wide windows that formed the facade, her body stretched and then disintegrated into a single ray of light that beamed through. She materialized inside the window, glowing brightly. All in a single second of time. Amazing! She laughed out loud.
She stayed in Fire Fly form and walked. Enjoying the ease of motion. The lack of pain. Somehow her memory for locations was vastly improved. Becky had described the layout for the Office of Records perfectly, it seemed. Fiona had never been here before and Becky had only described it once, but she instantly visualized it. And now she was standing in the room and it looked just as she had imagined it.
Actually, it looked amazing. Her Fire Fly eyesight scanned all the spectrums simultaneously without overlap or interference. She could see in the dark, through solid objects, or stare directly at the sun. The details of the world popped in a vivid multiverse of sensations and colors. She’d spent hours underwater in Becky’s tub just staring at the fantastic ripples, layers, and particles in the water. It was like seeing an alien world for the first time. It had been hard to leave. But she had to know about her parents.
Large rows of filing cabinets stood from floor to ceiling, holding the hard copies of every file on record. The Fire Fly looked them up and down. Sacramento's history since the Purge. Was her past really in there? Had the Revolution lied about that as well? She closed her eyes tight and concentrated, telescoping as a ray of light inside the giant filing cabinet. Row by row she searched.
This took some time. The files contained everything: financial records; the details of stock deals—some illegal, some not; transcripts of wiretaps; photos from stakeouts; and lots and lots of written reports by Council Guard leaders tasked with arresting, interrogating, or “eliminating” people the Council deemed as problems during the Purge. Why would the Council keep such detailed records? Revolution and Leslie always said that the Council covered their tracks. But right there were the details of hundreds of incidents during the Purge. Hard proof of Council involvement.
She got faster at the scanning as she went. She could browse an entire drawer at once, each taking around three seconds. It was like she had a thousand eyes, all scanning the spectrums of light. It was thrilling but also disorienting. It took several moments for her senses to adjust.
The cabinet drawers glowed from inside as she passed from one to the other, moving back to front. Finally, the glow settled in a drawer low to the floor, halfway down. She’d found the file.
Though she didn’t want to leave the room, Fiona quickly returned to the truck and let Becky into the building by disabling the alarm system, which was based on infrared sensors. Fiona did not have to learn to do this. She could see how it worked and seemed to do it on instinct alone: anything having to do with light seemed second nature to her now.
Becky brought the bathrobe in for Fiona to wear once she had shifted back to human form. At this rate, being the Fire Fly was soon going to wipe out the new wardrobe Becky had loaned her. On the other hand, having to buy a new outfit every day could have its advantages. Becky probably wouldn’t think so, though.
That thought had crossed Becky's mind as well, but with considerably less enthusiasm, just as Fiona had feared. Becky's consulting job allowed her to work from home and also allowed her a handsome income for a single woman in her late thirties. But to satisfy the ravenous fashion tastes of a teenager who literally burned through her clothes was going to get expensive. Very expensive. Wasn’t that alone enough to start charging this girl she hardly knew rent? Wouldn’t any sane person do something like that? Make her pay her way? Work at a shoe store? Something? Why did she know she wasn’t even going to bring it up?
The two pored over the stack of files. The entire history came spilling out of them. In some cases, blow-by-blow accounts. Becky also wondered why they would keep such detailed records of events. Even for a former employee, this surprised her. The Council officially denied that the Purge ever occurred.
Both women found multiple references to Fiona's father in the records. His had been one of the local Council office’s largest cases for a while. Finally, Becky's eyes grew wide. “Look at this. Your parents are mentioned again and again in this memo about James Scott. Didn’t you say he developed the Fire Fly system?
Fiona’s jaw dropped. “Yeah. What were they doing?”
For a moment Becky didn’t speak, just continued to read. Fiona’s eyes were burning a hole in Becky. And since they probably really could, she decided she’d better speak. “Your father was the federal regulator over Scott's project. The Council was trying to build a case against Scott, to get rid of him or something,” Becky said, still reading. “At some point your father switched sides. Tried to hide the nature of Scott’s research from the Freedom Council. But they caught him.”
“What?” Fiona felt a rush of anger. She had never been told any of this. She knew her father had worked for the government. She knew that he had opposed the rise of the Council, but she had always been told her parents’ death was an accident.
Becky motioned for Fiona to wait. She raised her head, and Becky’s face was pale.
“Oh my God. Read this.” Becky handed the file to Fiona. “Your parents were killed because they were protecting Scott...and...you better just read it.”
As Fiona read, her memories, long since repressed, of a night her psyche had decided she needed to forget, came flooding back.
CHAPTER 45
“They are coming to kill him.”
It is her father’s voice.
James Scott, a tall, graying professor, hurriedly packs notebooks into a backpack as a young couple helps him gather them.
Her parents. They are in her living room from when she was a child. This is part memory, part imagined memory.
An urgent knock on the front door.
They panic. Behind them a sliding glass door jolts opens. Standing silhouetted in the rainy night is the Revolution.
“Stall them. I'll get him out of here,” says the Revolution.
Revolution leaves with Scott, fading into the wet, fog-shrouded night. The young couple looks at each other wide-eyed.
A dozen more vehicles screech to a halt in front of the house. The sounds of a door being busted down, and agents swarm the room, overpowering the couple. She cries out, as Mommy and Daddy are slammed to the ground by the men. She glares out into the rain for the man in the cape. She see him.
In the forest, Revolution hears the cry. He and Scott stop in their tracks.
“Stay here,” she thinks he tells the older man.
Revolution sprints back toward the house. The couple and the agents scream at each other.
Her mother sweeps the room with her eyes and locks onto her. She has never seen her mother like this. It terrifies her. Her mother screams for her to run. She does. The men are too busy with her parents to notice or care.
She runs. Runs as fast as she can. Fear is all she can feel. The water floods her eyes immediately. She keeps running. A flash of blue and red streaks out through the rain. She’d forgotten about the man in the cape. He snatches her up as she darts past him. She tries to scream, but he places his armored hand over her mouth.
“Shhhhh. I'm a friend of your mommy and daddy's.” Something in his
voice is soothing, familiar. She believes him and calms down.
From the house, they can hear the Guards warn her parents that if they don't tell them what they want to know, they are going to die. They swear they don't know anything.
Revolution hesitates. He looks over at Scott, the man they’d come to kill. She knows that he has to get Scott to safety; it’s what her parents want. Then he can return and rescue the her parents. “C'mon, Fiona. We have to go. We'll meet up with your parents later.”
As they run through the forest, she hears the shots ring out from the house...
Fiona lifted her head from the file. How much was memory, how much was her imagination? But she did remember what the files described. She had it back now. She could feel the tears wet on her cheeks. She saw Becky's searching gaze. Conflicted emotions swirled inside her. “I don't want to talk about it. Let's just go.” Fiona wiped her eyes and took the files with her.
On the drive back, she didn't speak a word. When Becky finally decided to break the silence, she was surprised to look over and see the girl sleeping. When they were home, Fiona went straight to the spare bedroom and shut the door.
In the morning, Becky rose early but Fiona stayed in bed, her door shut. Becky sipped tea, ate cereal, read the paper, drank more tea. Becky was on the couch reading when Fiona slunk in and sat next to her. The girl stared at the floor. They didn't speak for a long time. Becky kept thinking about how the Revolution had saved Fiona as a child. Maybe his motives were more complex than the girl realized. Somehow she knew Fiona could tell exactly what she was thinking. She’d known it the moment she’d lifted her eyes from that report. But how could she possibly know? What was this connection they had? Finally, Becky broke the silence. “Fiona, I know this is hard, but I think this is all more complicated than we thought. I just think you ought to consider going back and talking with—”
The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution Page 22
