Arbor knew he had the advantage now. “Go, take care of the girl!” he yelled at Fang.
Arbor wasn’t finished. He lifted his rival up and threw him through the closest wall, chasing him through the hole. He felt like a hungry predator, ready for the kill.
Revolution couldn’t focus. His vision was fading in and out. He couldn’t stop it. The drugs were swimming in his veins, but they were too little, too late. He fired the flame blast his armor had absorbed at Lithium, but his double vision meant he’d aimed at the wrong Lithium.
Arbor just laughed.
The world went dark. Revolution lay there no longer moving, no longer struggling.
Arbor took it as his cue.
He lifted the Revolution in his powerful grasp and raised him above his head, the servos in his armor screaming at full power, and heaved him at the drywall.
Hard.
Revolution ripped through it like it was made of papier-mâché.
The force from the big man’s throw was so powerful—and the wall, floor, and furniture so flimsy by comparison—that Revolution simply smashed right though them with a booming crack, tearing them to shreds. Drywall, steel, rebar, plumbing, everything in his path, cracked and shattered, spewing their guts in every which direction.
Floor after floor he fell, angled toward the outer wall. Four floors in all. Finally, he smacked into a concrete and steel load-bearing wall, which stopped his momentum with violent resistance.
Arbor peered down at his motionless body through the ragged hole his descent had left behind and grinned like a madman. He bent at the knees, preparing to leap down the hole and finish off his prey, when a wave of nausea swept over him.
A single thought entered his mind.
It scurried up his spine; he felt his mouth go dry.
He realized that last time he had faced the Suns of Liberty the Fletcher girl had shown up to help them. Just about the time they’d all been beaten.
Just like right now.
What if the intel was wrong? What if she really was loyal to the Suns? How would he stop her? She could rip him apart with the flick of her finger.
He thought about the stories out of Sacramento. What she had done to the buildings there—demolished them with a wave of her hand! Whole buildings!
A cold sweat broke out on Arbor’s forehead. Trickles of it dribbled down the Lithium mask and coated his upper lip.
Something just felt wrong. A gut instinct. Just like back in the jungles of Nairobi. His gut had saved his life in the African Conflict more times than he could count. He’d learned to trust it.
And he couldn’t get the Fire Fly’s image out of his head. She was coming. He knew it.
Panic.
“Come in, come in! Ray! Is there any sign of the Fletcher girl?”
There was no reply. Fuck!
“Someone answer me! Jesus Christ! Is the Fletcher girl here? Are we looking for her? Do we have a lock on her energy signature?” He was practically screaming in the com, but he didn’t care. Hoping she wouldn’t come was no defense, no plan! How had he been so stupid not to create some kind of contingency for her?
Finally, a response from his communicator, but it sounded like chaos. A cacophony of voices, arguing. “Goddamn it, focus!” he screamed at no one. Or everyone. Or anyone who would listen. “What the hell is happening out there?”
The heart of the building would be the safest place. As far away as possible from the outside where the Fletcher girl could see him, find him. His mind settled on a destination.
The control room.
He needed to get there anyway. They already had enough footage of the Suns to make their next move. It was time to play their final card. If the fighting stopped, maybe she wouldn’t come.
It was a plan.
As he ran toward the room, toward the center of the building, he began to feel better. The panic began to subside. The Fletcher girl wasn’t coming. She didn’t save Revolution from those soldiers in Boston; she’d only gone after the Man-O-War. She had no loyalty to Stars and Stripes. She wasn’t a member of the Suns. Yes, this was going to work.
Time to play his masterstroke...
Ward saw the big white bulky guy come bursting through a wall on the other end of the office. He had bounded forward and followed Lithium through the hole after the Revolution. But now he was back.
All the while, the girl in black was whizzing around the room taking shots at both him and Helius. Sophia was doing her best to blast her out of existence.
“I can’t hit the damn bitch!” Sophia yelled. And just then, Veronica slammed into her, sending her smashing through a row of desks.
Ward leapt after her. It had to be better to stay together as much as they could. But just as he got to her, Veronica sideswiped him. Fortunately, he’d seen—or rather heard and felt—her coming, and he tried to fire a disabling dart at her, hoping it might work on her armor.
He missed, but it caused her to swerve at the last millisecond, and Ward only crashed though a single desk—one of the few left intact. “This is nuts!” he yelled to Sophia.
“I’ve got an idea!” she yelled back. “Stand behind me, back to back.”
Ward shot over to her as fast as he could. Bulky was gone again. So was the girl in black. She had to be zipping in and out of the room trying to minimize their ability to hit her, not to mention increase her surprise factor.
Ward was no battle strategist, but as he got to Sophia, he saw her eyes scanning the exits. Scratch that. The entrances. He could see where Sophia was going with this. “I’ve got you,” he said.
They stood back to back, both pointing their respective weapons toward an entrance.
“Each time she’s zipped in here, she’s made one trip around the room. I think to get her bearings. Then she attacks. So, as soon as she comes back, just start firing, high and low. Between the two of us, let’s just hope we get her,” Sophia said.
There was no time to utter a reply. Ward heard the noise, felt the surge of air. She was back.
They opened fire.
“Ahhh!” A flash of blue and a scream—that seemed to swirl around the room. Sophia’s blue ray of power had intercepted Velocity, blasting Veronica across the room, smashing her though the piles of debris that used to be the office.
She lay in a clump across the room from them.
“Hell, yes! Now that was a good ide—” Ward swallowed.
Bulky was back.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” Fang said to him behind the white bulky armor.
“No, but I’m going to give you something to remember me by,” Ward said. He raised his arms and aimed the disabling darts.
Just as a small eight-pronged harpoon shot through the opening in the wall from the other side of the room and headed right for the sweet spot between Ward’s eyes.
“Look out!” Sophia screamed, and Ward turned.
But there was nothing he could do.
He closed his eyes and waited for the impact—
Just as a bright blue beam of energy burned the spear to oblivion right in front of his face. The harpoon dart exploded. Ward was slammed to the floor.
Sophia realized she’d hit Ward too! She bounded over to the professor.
“Pa—Spider, are you okay?” she said, nearly slipping from protocol with his name. It was so hard to think of this guy as Spider Wasp. He was just Paul.
“Thanks to you,” he said, bounding to his feet. He leapt forward to kill Fiddler and—
Ran headlong into the Revolution.
“Shit!” Ward said.
Sophia finally remembered to breathe. Both men were still alive.
Revolution wobbled. He was clearly not doing so well. Ward steadied him. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” he said to Revolution. “I want to kill that son of a bitch!” Ward pointed toward the gang leader and... blinked.
Fiddler and Fang were gone.
“But clearly,” Ward said, looking at Revolution and the dried
blood on Sophia’s face, “we’re not going to last much longer.”
Just then, Rachel’s voice broke through, breathy and straining from obvious pain. “Boys and girls... I hate to break it to you... but I don’t think the chamber is here. I can’t tell where it is, but from what I am reading... it looks like the fucker’s off site,” she said.
Ward smiled. Hearing Rachel’s voice was a relief. Only she could make fucker sound cute.
“Stealth!” Revolution said with obvious relief, perking up. “Are you okay?”
Lantern’s voice broke in. “Actually, I have a new reading on it, sir. Seven floors directly above you,” he interjected.
“I don’t...I don’t think so...hot pants.” Rachel’s voice was weak, but they could all tell she’d said it as a warning.
“Lantern, how sure are you?” Revolution trusted Lantern’s judgment immensely, but he did not want to be fooled a second time.
“It reads clean, sir, but so did the other,” Lantern said.
Lantern had been highly confident about his find of the chamber at Freedom Rise. So this second find had to be treated with skepticism.
“I understand,” Revolution said, recognizing Lantern’s own skepticism dripping from his voice, “but Helius was right. We’re here. Might as well check it out while we can.” Revolution paused for a moment. This was all on him now. His entire team wanted to leave. Even Sophia had gone back on her suggestion to search for the chamber. If things went south, it was all on him. He peered over at Sophia. “Can you lead us up?”
Sophia winced, shook off the pain and the cobwebs, and readied her blasters. “As long as that bitch doesn’t show up again.” She pointed over to where Velocity had fallen, and Ward was horrified to see she was no longer lying there. They’d stood around and let them all escape.
Sophia raised her arms, and the bracelets calibrated. A blast of blue energy ripped through the ceiling above them, making a perfect car-sized oval.
Sophia launched herself through the hole and blasted away at the floor above.
Ward embraced Revolution from behind and gazed up at the giant hole in the roof. “That ought to be big enough.” Ward smiled. “You know, we keep doing this, we’re going to get a reputation.”
Moments later, they arrived on the floor Lantern had designated.
A large, cavernous empty room.
Almost.
In the center sat the Fire Fly chamber. To their left, the windowed exterior wall of Freedom Rise.
“We’ve found it,” Sophia said over her com.
“Stealth, get yourself to safety, we’re done here,” Revolution said.
Stealth said nothing.
“Stealth?” Ward asked.
“Sir, she’s in that same room. But she’s not moving.”
“Let me go after her,” Ward pleaded.
“Stay here,” Revolution said gruffly.
Suddenly a crackle of interference came over their coms. Or it seemed to be coming from the coms. Revolution realized quickly that the sound wasn’t in their helmets; it was coming from inside the room. A sharp shock of fear ran down his spine.
The chamber.
Was it about to blast them to kingdom come?
“Say hello to the cameras,” boomed Clay Arbor’s voice across the room.
Revolution breathed a sigh of relief—it wasn’t the chamber. But then what the hell was Lithium doing speaking to them over an intercom? He could only think of a few reasons for that. Revolution scanned the ceiling and found the camera. A tiny dot recessed into the paneling. “No...” he said. Understanding now what was happening.
Another setup.
“You were right about one thing. You are done here, sweetheart.”
“Sir, it’s a bomb!” Lantern yelled over the com.
“What?”
But then Revolution realized what Lantern meant.
The chamber was a fake shell covering some kind of explosive device. Their only hope was that it was not too powerful for his armor; otherwise, he could not protect the others. He screamed at them over the com, “Get behind me, don’t—
BOOM!
The unit exploded in a starburst of light and flame. Revolution tried to expand his body, block the blast from reaching Ward and Sophia. The bulk of the energy absorbed into his armor, but the blast took him off his feet. The trio shattered the windows behind them.
And lost consciousness.
The three most famous Suns of Liberty were flung out into the bright, wide-open New York sky.
CHAPTER 17
The blast shook the foundations of Freedom Rise.
A large plume of smoke and flame erupted from the side of the building. People all over New York felt the impact and scanned the sky in terror. Old memories still lingered in the collective mind of America’s greatest city. Others feared the hurricane had struck early.
Later, rooftop security and cityscape cams would capture the moment of the blast. Some would even show the three figures being hurled out the shattered windows one hundred stories above the ground.
The three Suns fell to their deaths in a spray of shimmering glass with no one able to help. No one watching.
Almost no one.
Lantern reacted immediately. He’d been fooled and allowed his team to be ambushed in the heart of the enemy, but there was no way he was going to let them all die.
As they fell, Lantern’s Hollow materialized above them, diving at the same rate of descent at which the three were falling.
The ground was rapidly approaching. He had only a matter of seconds.
The Hollow sent a digital signal into Ward’s and Sophia’s armor that effectively took control of their suits. It was an emergency protocol he’d been told never to use.
Almost never.
With only seconds to spare, any kind of complicated command would be impossible to program. Fortunately, he only needed both suits to do one thing.
Go up.
The blasters on Sophia’s boot-jets and the engines on Ward’s wings ignited and launched them skyward. Lantern wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but the hard part was still to come.
The Revolution couldn’t fly.
But he could release stored-up energy. Like that from a bomb blast.
His body was spinning as he fell; the hard, unforgiving concrete of Sixth Avenue awaited him below. If he crashed into the ground, the armor would survive, but the Revolution’s human body would be minced tomatoes inside it.
Lantern would have to time this perfectly. The easiest way for the Revolution’s armor to release stored-up energy was straight out in front of him. With the chaotic spin his body was in, Lantern knew he would have only one shot at timing the release of energy from the bomb blast with the front of his torso facing the ground.
But this was downtown NYC.
The street below the Revolution was crowded with cars. The blast he was about to unleash would undoubtedly kill anyone who was in its path. And looking at the massive traffic jam on Sixth Avenue caused by all the commotion at Freedom Rise, Lantern knew there were going to be plenty of people in its path. The cars weren’t even moving.
For a moment he thought of simply letting him hit.
What would Revolution want him to do?
Sacrifice civilians or save him?
He knew the answer to that. Sometimes it seemed like the Revolution almost welcomed his own death. A not-unheard-of attitude for a soldier. But it was not Lantern’s call to let the leader of the movement die when he knew he had a chance to save him. And he was a leader who was needed. What was it the General had told him so many times before?
“In war there are casualties.” Sometimes it was just unavoidable.
He waited.
Revolution kept spinning. He was falling faster than Lantern had calculated. There was no more time. The Hollow sent the signal.
Revolution’s armor could control the release of absorbed energy in several ways. First, it could release it from virtually anywhere: hands, ch
est, full body. Second, it could choose to narrow the beam of released energy or it could widen it. Lantern had only seconds to choose.
He set it for chest release, narrow. A bright orange blast of energy erupted from Revolution’s armor. It fired out at a sixty-degree angle, incinerating half a dozen vehicles before it met the roadway. The narrow beam sent back a concentrated shockwave of energy that struck the Revolution, jolting him back up into the air, but at a sixty-degree angle. The release of energy acted like a jet engine, launching him high into the sky.
The Hollow, floating in the air just above the roadway, turned and sent a beam of light from its “helmet” that calculated the path that Revolution’s careening body would take. The line shot across the sky, and Lantern blanched when he saw it. At his current trajectory he was going to rip right through the top of the Chrysler Building
Lantern had another problem.
Ward and Sophia were climbing rapidly. He would have to stop them, and soon. If they ripped through the atmosphere, they would die. Either from freezing to death in the thin air or suffocating in the deadly vacuum of space. Helius, at least, had the power to go that far.
One thing at a time.
Revolution’s eyes popped open.
He was hyperaware. It was as if his entire brain had been stimulated at once. Like nothing he’d ever felt before. It was more than just waking up hurtling through space. He’d had the unfortunate experience of doing that before.
No, this was something else. As he snapped his head around, sizing up his situation, he realized it was this something else that had just saved his life. He wondered if Lantern had found a way to send a jolt of electricity into his suit to wake him up. Not a bad idea, actually. He would have Leslie take a look at that later.
If there was a later...
The world zoomed by in a blur of speed. He needed to slow down.
His cape snapped rigid. He rolled his body, pushing the cape’s glider so that he angled his trajectory, rising sharply and veering right. He would just miss the Chrysler Building’s steel tower. So, for the moment, no more being smashed like a bug. But that still didn’t solve the problem of how he was going to stop.
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