“Didn’t work too well for him,” Fang grunted.
Arbor found himself shrugging in agreement. The oaf had a point.
“Yeah, what about that?” Arbor asked.
“It was designed just to protect him, but he’s found over the years that he can stretch it. Protect others too,” Scarlett said, still not having taken her eyes off of the robot.
“Others,” Arbor smirked. “Like you, maybe?” he said.
“He saved you too,” she shot back, her eyes narrow points, glaring at him.
“Yes. I guess...he...did,” Arbor said. And it might have been his imagination, but when he peered back up at the android, he could have sworn the damn thing smiled at him.
The thought was swept away as the throng of cops and reporters swarmed them with gratitude.
CHAPTER 33
The Revolution was seated next to an examination table in the medical suite of his large personal quarters. A robotic limb, long, white, and spindly, with lots of joints for flexibility and movement, worked feverishly on the armor covering his injured right forearm.
The robotic arm hung from the ceiling and was connected there by cables that ran down to the array of computer consoles making up the bulk of the medical suite. Seeing as the patient was the Revolution, it meant there was as much tech in this room as there was actual medicine.
The device clamped onto a section of the armor and sent a digital code into Revolution’s CPU. He could feel the armor unfastening from his skin. The small sensors that attached to nearly every part of his body constantly monitored his physical condition and if needed, pumped medicine or stimulants into an injured area.
A large section of armor lifted off of his arm. The robot sprayed a thin sheen of gel onto his pale skin. It then ran a sensor back and forth over the arm, scanning the wound.
When it was finished scanning, two silver needles thrust out of either end of the mechanical arm and stabbed into Revolution’s forearm. The Revolution winced but drew his attention up to a monitor in front of him that showed small nanobots being delivered into the injured area. They were the final step in his unusual healing process.
The robot sealed his arm back up and recoiled back into the recesses of the lab wall. Revolution could feel the painkillers enter his bloodstream. In a matter of seconds his arm was feeling as good as new. He would need a few minutes to recover before he’d let the mechanical arm begin work on his chest wound.
It was about then that Lantern’s voice broke through his helmet-com. “Sir, we have an open-line holocom from Freedom Rise. It’s Lithium, sir. He’s asking to be beamed in.”
“Do we have secure digital shielding?”
“Yes, sir.”
Revolution thrummed his titanium-encased fingers on the side of the chair. Should he let this happen? Let in a hologram straight from Freedom Rise? Could this be some kind of sabotage attempt? His trust in Lantern was immense, but the Council had been getting the best of him lately.
“Sir?”
“Patch him through.”
A life-sized image of Clay Arbor in his Lithium uniform sizzled to life in front of the Revolution. Like the image of Revolution that would be mirrored back to Arbor, there were no other details in the surrounding environment where Arbor was broadcasting from. The holocom was both a message and a camera.
“You look pretty good for a guy who just slow danced with a twister, sweetheart.”
“What do you want, Clay?”
“First name basis now, huh? Doesn’t that put me at a bit of a disadvantage here? Or are you ready to take our relationship to the next level?”
“You’ve got thirty seconds.”
“I’m here to reiterate the offer the chairman made to you. A very generous offer, you ask me. I figured he’d decide to chew you up and squirt you out his asshole by now.”
“Why do you keep trying this? You know what the answer is.”
“Because supposedly you’re smart. And this is pretty much your last chance.”
“You’re just following orders aren’t you?”
“We’ve been on the same side before, remember?” Arbor asked.
“That was the Aztech. The fate of the world was at stake.”
“The fate of your world is at stake,” Arbor chuckled.
“My country is at stake and joining you is not going to help that.”
“The country thinks you’re a terrorist now. How is that helping?”
“The answer is no.”
“Think long and hard on this. You’ve seen what I’m packing on the webcasts, I’m guessing? You’ve still not seen the half of what the Legion has at our disposal. It’s time to be smart for the people you claim to care about.”
“Good-bye,” Revolution said.
“You’re signing all of their death warr—”
Revolution terminated the holocom.
“Lantern, analyze that call. Make sure there was nothing encrypted somewhere underneath it.”
In his religious shrine/communication hub, Lantern was projecting a digital representation of the communication lines they had just received from Arbor. They showed up as multicolored beams of light across the expanse of his room. Their eerie glow danced off the shiny metal consoles and the portraits of Christ and crucifixes that adorned the walls. Lantern ambled around the beams, analyzing every spec of data that filtered through them.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “I’m doing it now.”
In New York, Arbor’s com crackled in his ear as he exited the broadcast room.
It was Ray. “We’ve got it. Sending you the coordinates now.”
Arbor smiled his toothy grin. “Open war, my boy. Open war.”
MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
Scarlett stopped in her tracks. She and Spectral were back in their “castle.”
The android had simply stopped moving, halted in midsentence. Something he almost never did and the sign of a likely malfunction.
A Spectral breakdown was never good. Sometimes it meant that the Aztech robot had taken control of Spectral and was just around the corner. Something that had happened more than she cared to recall. The supposedly destroyed Aztech had a knack of rebooting itself through what some called the “Aztech Virus.” A virus that lived hidden in the world’s computer systems.
She raised her arms, ready to strike.
“From who?” Scarlett had asked him.
“Mohawk? Never heard of Mohawk.”
Spectral turned toward their computer, and its printer whirred to life. It printed out a full-page picture of a man’s face. Scarlett ran over and snatched it up. Her eyes grew wide. “I don’t believe it.”
Her ruby lips stretched into a broad smile, tinged with a bit of sadness. She traced the outlines of the face in the picture “We’re back in business.”
Spectral’s red eyes narrowed.
Scarlett peered into his crimson eyes. “More than anything in the world. The cause is more important than ever.”
Spectral nodded.
A video streamed to life inside of Spectral’s internal vision. The same face as before appeared on screen. A voice spoke. It was audible in the room, and tears came to her eyes when Scarlett heard it...
“Spectral, I am sorry I kept this secret from you and Scarlett. But I never doubted the two of you. And I knew I could always count on you. This is emergency protocol 001. Details are provided in the enclosed documents. As of now, we are an active unit.
“Scarlett, honey,” the voice said, and she immediately began to weep. “You have publically disavowed me. I know how ha
rd this has been on you. But for our plan to work, you must continue to keep up this front.”
A series of documents then flashed on the screen. Vulnerabilities for both the Freedom Council and the Suns of Liberty. Spectral interacted with it, filling in required information that the program asked for. By the time it was over, they had devised a battle plan of their own, and no one in the Legion or the Suns of Liberty knew anything about it.
Neither side would see it coming...
CHAPTER 34
TRENTON, NEW JERSEY
Eric Von Cyprus was ecstatic. The mirrors were everywhere. He just kept thinking to himself that had the Suns of Liberty gone down one more floor, none of this would be possible. At least not on the timeline the chairman had requested.
Across the room stood the Fire Fly chamber. A second Fire Fly chamber. Fully working now, built from the schematics of the original.
Von Cyprus had been pleased beyond all hopes to find that one of his secondary teams had made enormous progress in mimicking the original chamber. They’d been working on a duplicate ever since they recovered the chamber. So as soon as Fiona had destroyed the original, his entire team immediately went to work getting the duplicate up and running.
Ray had done his work well to conceal it. Von Cyprus had lost his entire drone program, but he still had an army of those left in New York.
Most hurtful was the loss of the Delaware. That ship had been the bulk of their non-human defense. Had this chamber not existed, the destruction of the Delaware would have dealt them a crushing blow. It made him want to kill the Revolution every time he thought about it. Made him want to exact some revenge.
And right there in front of him stood the means by which to do it. The chamber.
And now, Von Cyprus was going to get to play God, after all. A chill ran through him when he thought about what could go wrong, but it quickly passed.
“Taking risks is the only reason I’m standing here,” he breathed to himself.
“What was that, sir?”
Von Cyprus blinked and peered up into the eyes of one of his assistants. She seemed excited. “Oh, nothing,” he said. He noticed she was carrying a report of some kind. He nodded. “What is it?”
“We got the cybergenetic results back.”
Von Cyprus raised an eyebrow and nodded approvingly. “Have you looked at them?”
“Of course not, sir,” she answered defensively against the accusation. “Your eyes only, as always.”
The scientist took the paper from her and flipped over the cover page, glaring at her suspiciously as she hurried away.
Just then his cell rang. It was Tarleton calling.
“Hello, Mr. Tarleton. I figured I would hear from you on such an auspicious day.”
“Cut the crap, Eric. Are you ready or not?”
“We are. And the commander is just coming out of surgery now, so we should be only moments away.”
“You sure it’s okay to go ahead with this right out of the box? I mean, he’ll just be out from under the knife.”
“Trust me, the data we are downloading into that boy’s brain is going to bring him up to speed instantly. Remember, he’ll basically be under remote control.”
“It’s freaky shit, Eric. Just make sure it works.”
Von Cyprus thought of several witty things to say but all of them carried the possibility that he might not live to regret them, or worse, given Tarleton’s love of violence. So he kept quiet.
“And what about the other thing? Did the test come back?”
The test! How could he have forgotten? Von Cyprus flipped through the pages of the report he held in his hand, searching the T’s. Pages of test results filled the report. Rows and rows of names on the left-hand column, and page after page of the same result on the right-hand column:
Last Name: First Name: Compatibility:
Aaron Ezekiel 0%
Abbott Lawrence 0%
And on it went. Lots of zeros. Pages of them. Nothing but utter failure to find a compatible donor for the cybernetic gene therapy that could literally give an individual superpowers. Rather than treat disease, this kind of therapy could supplement human potential to create post-humans, meta-humans, or whatever you wanted to call them. The Rage girl was one of the first, but her abilities, impressive as they were, only manipulated the neurological aspect. Von Cyprus knew he could push things much further—physical strength, electrical conductivity, the list was endless—with the right donor. With the right Compatible.
His mother had been a leader in the development of the field, and he had always vowed to finish the work she had started.
Finally, he found the T’s.
Right near the top of the list was the name:
Last Name: First Name: Compatibility:
Tarleton, Bannister 100%
Von Cyprus nearly dropped his phone.
“Well?” Tarleton asked impatiently.
“Still looking for it,” Von Cyprus said, stalling.
“Tell me, goddamn it!”
“Ah, here it is!” the scientist feigned.
“Well?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Zero percent compatible, I’m afraid,” Von Cyprus lied.
There was silence on the other end. Finally Tarleton, breathed heavily. “Okay. Thanks, Eric,” he said in a low voice.
Von Cyprus breathed a sigh of relief, almost too loudly—and winced, hoping Tarleton wouldn’t notice.
“Let’s keep this between us,” Tarleton told him.
“Of course, sir. You can trust me. We’re in this together.”
Michael Crustac awoke to the strangest sensation.
He could feel his body, but not really. It was numb, but not tingly. As if his nerve endings were just on pause. His eyes fluttered open to see an entire surgical team standing over him. His eyes were the only thing he could move. And that’s when he noticed the shell. Reflected off the lights and the glimmering silver steel above him, his entire body was encased in it—some kind of metal frame.
No, not a frame—armor. A machine.
And at that moment a white-hot surge of adrenaline rushed through his being. Every cell in his body felt instantly energized.
And the data flow began...
“Project Krill initiated.”
“Neurological synchronization commencing.”
“Pain modifiers commencing.”
It took him a second to recognize his own voice saying these things. The words were coming out of his mouth, but not under his own control. He felt the sharp, cold steel pierce his body at two hundred entry points. It was the most horrific torture one could imagine. Two hundred long, thick blades stabbing deep into his central nervous system, fusing with his spinal cord and brainstem, but he was aware only of a slight swooning sensation. Almost as if he were about to faint, but not painful at all.
And then the world went black again...
Von Cyprus readied the chamber.
He’d held his breath when they first tested it. A small-scale test. Nothing so large as to draw the ire of the Fletcher girl. She’d only intervened when they had run a full test of the chamber. They’d been producing luminescent ammunition for months now, nearly around the clock, with no sign of her.
But something that could reproduce her own power? Oh, she’d be showing up for that. So, he got ready to face the Fire Fly for a second time.
Half a world away, on her latest mission, Fiona dove into the deep jungle canyon. Beneath her, the majesty of Africa’s Congo rainforest spread out as far as the eye could see.
The deep greens of the Congo basin mixed with the light emerald lushness. Clouds hung low over the canyon like fog. Somewhere in this beauty, in this paradise, lived a devil.
And she was going to find him.
Von Cyprus hit the switch, and the familiar deep hum of power droned out of the chamber.
The bright yellow-green laser streaked to life once again, searing across the glassed-in enclosure. The beam blasted out from the powerful cy
lindrical gun-like device in the center of the far chamber wall. A brilliant beam of luminescent energy enveloped the suit that encased Commander Michael Crustac and charged across its mass in pulsing fingers of chartreuse lightning.
The suit energized. The luminescence rode the currents of the armor into Crustac’s central nervous system. The Krill was born. A moment of joy for the entire team of engineers. Followed by an instantaneous sensation of dread as the entire room awaited a brilliant flash of light. They all braced for the impact.
And nothing happened.
No Fire Fly.
Fiona felt the disruption of the spectrum. Just a ripple. She’d felt them for months coming from the Trenton facility. Nothing to be concerned about. She’d decided she would not bother with the small-scale weaponry that the Council produced from the chamber. It kept the Revolution from getting what he wanted, evening the playing field. That was fine by her.
But as she flew further over the jungle, she could feel the ripple grow. She was, after all, not a continent away from the Trenton facility now, like normal. She was on the other side of the planet.
And just as the realization hit that this was a major test of bioluminescence—she saw her prey.
A platoon of Marines led by a rogue lieutenant who routinely ordered his troops to kill unarmed civilians. The girl Arcadia had chosen from the crowd that day had asked Fiona to help her older sister, who was stuck in the platoon even though her tour of duty had been over for more than six months. The lieutenant was not letting her return home, fearing what she would report when she did.
Fiona had seen a picture of the sister and a picture of the lieutenant. And there they were, trudging through the jungle below her. She floated there above them, torn between justice and the most dangerous weapon on the planet.
CHAPTER 35
The beam finally fell dark. The Krill glowed nearly as brightly as had the Fire Fly. The power pulsed off the normally copper-colored armor.
The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel Page 23
