The gentlewoman from Georgia rose, and the voices in the room quieted down. She then took her seat again and leaned into her microphone.
“Congressmen, I too share in the glee of our victory in Boston. But we must be realistic, without the Fletcher girl’s help our forces would have been greatly outmatched. We can’t count on her to come to our defense every time,” she said. “For all we know, she views us as great a threat as the Council.”
Leslie sighed. “We’ve been over this and over this. Fiona Fletcher is not a threat,” she said, with a bit too much of an edge. “She was simply a scared, angry girl. With good reason.”
Several eyes glanced Revolution’s way.
Revolution said nothing. He didn’t even move.
“Nevertheless,” said the gentlewoman from Georgia, “I think we would be foolish not to consider some kind of a compromise with the Council, now that they seem to be in the mood to negotiate. And I know I am not alone in these sentiments.” Several congressmen nodded their heads.
“How do we know this offer from Howke is genuine?” It was Livingston Roosevelt, representing New York. His big oval eyes locked onto Leslie’s. She knew he was just trying to help. Neither she nor he thought it a good idea to try and negotiate with Howke, but many did. Many at the New York HQ whom he represented did, in fact, so Roosevelt had to be careful. New York had more supporters of the Council than any other city. And even in the Resistance, New York was the most moderate unit.
But not Roosevelt. He had won his elections despite that.
“Lantern has confirmed the authenticity of the offer that was sent to Common Sense,” Leslie said, unable to stop the disappointment from clinging to her words.
“The message may be genuine, but what about the offer?” Roosevelt replied.
No one spoke for a moment.
“Would someone like to call for a vote on moving ahead on a compromise with the Council, then?” Leslie asked.
Revolution, almost imperceptibly, inched his head toward her. For Leslie, the subtle movement that most would have missed spoke volumes. But what could she do? There was clearly strong sentiment on the floor for a compromise. They could only hope it would fail.
“Yes, I so move,” said the gentlewoman from Georgia.
“Is there a second?” Leslie asked.
There was.
“All in favor?” Neither she nor Revolution raised their hands. Twenty-three members did. Not a majority. Now if only they could avoid enough members from abstaining. Leslie glanced quickly at Revolution, who, again, hadn’t moved. “All opposed?” Twenty-six members raised their hands. No one abstained.
A bare majority opposed the compromise.
Again, neither she nor Revolution raised their hands.
It was their custom not to vote unless they had to. Leslie was the chair of the committee, and tradition dictated that she not vote unless needed to break a tie. The Revolution felt strongly he should not over-use the voting privileges he’d been granted since he was the one non-elected member of COR.
“The motion is not agreed to,” Leslie said, trying her best not to sound relieved.
The gentlewoman from Georgia rose.
Leslie braced for impact.
“Given the failure of the compromise,” the gentlewoman said, her disappointment obvious in her voice, “I would like to fully support this declaration. It is important that this Congress take bold steps, whatever direction we go. I would have preferred the former path. But I will travel with you on this one instead if that is our judgment.”
She returned to her seat. No one said a word. The main battles had already taken place in the Living Quarters. Just as Leslie was about to again call for a vote, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the oldest member of the Congress, rose slowly to his feet. He peered about the circle with the grace of age and wisdom. His voice was gravely with time, but his tone was as sharp as a knife.
“Maybe it is my residence here in this city, as caretaker of this very facility,” he said, “but I feel we must consider what we are doing. We are painting a target on our backs. On our heads! I urge you not to take this course.” Slowly, he too returned to his seat.
The room returned to silence.
“Would someone like to call for a vote on moving ahead on this declaration of liberty, then?” Leslie asked.
“Yes, I so move,” said the gentlewoman from Georgia.
“Is there a second?” Leslie asked. Again there was. “All in favor?” Neither she nor Revolution raised their hands. Twenty-seven members did. A majority. Twenty voted against and three abstained or did not vote, including herself and of course the Revolution.
Leslie pulled up a new folder and opened it, bringing the next proposal out before her. “The next order of business is a somewhat different proposal,” she said as she prepared now to propose attacking Freedom Rise itself.
Back in Boston, they awaited word. When finally it came, Lantern entered the Situation Room to tell them all. It had been another close vote, he told them.
Twenty-six for the attack, twenty-three against.
Sophia, in command in the Revolution’s absence, got them up. Got them training, working the plan. The plan was to be swift; the plan was to be precise. A surgical strike into the heart of the Council’s tidy little world.
Now official, in a matter of days they would be headed off to New York to attack the most heavily protected fortress in the world.
CHAPTER 14
NEW YORK CITY
FREEDOM RISE
Kendrick Ray scowled. “Have they said whether they’re in or not?” Arbor grimaced at Ray. “I don’t think they really have a choice.”
“Which means neither do we, huh?”
Arbor frowned and scanned the door in front of him. “I’ve been assigned to units I didn’t want before, haven’t you, sweetheart? We’ll get through it.” And somehow he’d manage not to kill the bastards. Somehow.
Ray looked at the door and then back at the big man and said, “Just think of them as expendable, excisable.” He patted the big guy on the shoulder and strolled away, grinning.
“More like cannon fodder,” Arbor breathed, and he opened the door.
It was your basic interrogation room. Empty, other than a single table with three chairs. On the other side of the table sat Fiddler and Fang. Fiddler, midthirties, athletic build, and decked out in brown armor that had the violin-like markings of a Brown Recluse spider on its chest.
Arbor didn’t take his chair.
“Like my new duds?” Fiddler asked. But it wasn’t really a question. Sounded a hell of a lot more like a threat.
He raised a helmet up from his lap and set it on the table. It was similar to the signature ski mask Fiddler used to wear. A combination of a hideous spider face and high-tech armor.
Fiddler had been the notorious leader of the Brown Recluse gang that had terrorized Boston for years. And for the last ten of those years with Council cooperation. What really offended Arbor about Fiddler was his complete lack of principles. He turned on his own people at the drop of a hat, was probably a psychopath, and had no respect for the chain of command.
Three months ago, in the chaos of the battle of Boston and the Man-O-War, Lithium had turned the tables on the gang leader and brought Fiddler in himself. Since then, he had languished in prison next to his main enforcer, Fang, who sat beside him now.
Arbor smiled as he thought about it.
Fang, early thirties, was a huge, muscle-bound brute with a shaved head and not much to speak of in the brain department. He was clad in civilian clothes, just a muscle shirt and jeans, which for a guy the size of Fang—even larger than Clay Arbor himself—was intimidating enough.
But what had Arbor really worried were the acid-filled harpoons that adorned both sleeves of Fiddler’s new battle armor. Armor that could have only come from Von Cyprus and his merry band of science freaks. Arbor felt a very familiar feeling of rage building up inside of him.
Nothing had c
hanged. The Council still left him as the last to know everything. Even who the members of his own team were. Even if some of them would undoubtedly want to kill him!
“Just sit there and shut the hell up,” Arbor spat. “I got no love for either of you. But we all got our orders, don’t we?”
“Actually,” Fiddler said, rising from his chair, “I don’t follow orders. I give them. So, if you’re going be leading me, you’d bloody well better prove your up to it, old man.”
“Sit the fuck back down.”
“No, I don’t think so. Last time we met, you suckered me like a little girl. Not this time.” Fiddler shrugged and nodded. “You take me down fair and square, then we’ll think about joining your little costume party. Otherwise, you can just dump us right back in the Four Seasons where we were. Cause I’m a bloody god in there.”
Arbor’s eyes narrowed in fury.
“Oh, you didn’t think about that, did you? Prison is a bleeding vacation for me, mate. I already own that place.”
“Why the hell do you talk like an Englishman, you pretentious little shit? You’re from Bean Town, dumbass. Now sit the fuck back down!”
Fiddler reached down, snatched up his helmet, and snapped it on. “No. We’re doing this, and guess what? You can go ahead and twinkle your little flashlight. I’ve got that covered.” He tapped the visors on his helmet.
“Aw, dis gonna be good,” grunted Fang in his own thick Boston accent.
“You really don’t want to do this, sweetheart,” Arbor said, readying himself as Fiddler stepped from around the corner of the table.
“No, I really do.”
Fiddler raised his right arm with lightning speed and fired the acid dart from the armor’s sleeve cannon. As soon as it launched, a new dart loaded, ready to fire.
The dart shot out directly at Arbor’s face—
And he simply raised his arm into the path of the projectile and let it stab into his armor with a clunk.
The armor began to sizzle. The acid dripped off his arm onto the floor. The concrete bubbled.
Fiddler’s eyes widened. The acid was taking far too long to burn through the big man’s armor. He’d clearly not anticipated that.
Arbor yanked out the dart and tossed it across the room.
He flashed a smile at Fiddler.
And charged.
He seized the gang leader by the neck, his armored fingers squeezing against the inferior metal of Fiddler’s armor. Arbor slammed him against the far wall. And smiling his big toothy grin at the grimacing thug, he held his sizzling arm against Fiddler's own forearm.
The acid began eating into the armor, eating through it. Fiddler struggled, but Arbor had his other arm now too.
Fiddler’s eyes were huge. Arbor could see him wondering how the acid hadn’t gotten to him when it was burning away Fiddler’s own skin already. Fiddler howled in pain as the acid scorched his skin. The big man held him in place, grinning.
Fiddler screamed.
Arbor’s face fell. “You're the piece of shit that’s stinking up my life right now. But I ain't got time to mess with you. Trust me, that time will come, and when it does, I'm gonna cut you up with my knife and wash you into the sewer with a goddamn hose. You got that?”
Fiddler crumpled to floor, holding his mutilated forearm, the skin completely gone, the fascia starting to bubble. Arbor winced from the acid sizzling on his own skin—and then smirked.
“Now, get yourself cleaned up, you're making me sick. We’ve got work to do, not a lot of time, and I ain’t about to hear excuses. You don’t get leave time around here, sweetheart.” Arbor spun back toward Fang, who had risen from his chair but wisely not moved another inch. “I ain’t gonna send you back to prison. Either of you challenge my leadership again, I’ll send you to your fucking graves.”
CHAPTER 15
NEW YORK CITY
TWO DAYS LATER
Freedom Rise rose above the New York skyline like a metallic Mount Doom. It stood out among the other skyscrapers in its ominous magnitude. Whether this was by design or simply an effect of the psychological weight of the mission before them, none of them knew.
Some said Freedom Rise resembled a marriage of the Eifel Tower and the Empire State Building. Ward was thinking it looked more like the building from that now ancient movie Metropolis, which he’d watched a few weeks back.
The Suns glided forward, preparing to attack the most heavily guarded non-military structure in the world. The ice-cold wind blasted at them as they flew toward the towering edifice. Sophia rocketed forward, blasters ready. Ward had his hands full—of the Revolution. He bear hugged him as they flew.
“Lantern, can we see inside yet?” Revolution asked.
“Still blocked, sir.”
Far across the city and twenty thousand feet above the ground, Lantern monitored them from aboard the StealthHawk-1. On the horizon he saw the dark storm clouds of Hurricane Ana, the first storm of the spring, scheduled to hit the area in twenty-four hours.
He hoped it wasn’t a bad omen.
Sophia charged her bracelets. And grinned over at the Revolution. The rest of them might have been apprehensive about this attack, but she relished it. Every time she put on the black flight suit and became Helius, she thought about her family, about her father. Maybe it wasn’t healthy to devote your life to revenge, but if the revenge was channeled into a project to help others, to build something positive, she figured it was okay. The Council might not have pulled the trigger that killed her father, but they’d paid the bills that sent the hit man. She stared ahead at the monstrous building. She really hoped the Guards inside were going to resist. Revolution had made it very clear that they were to keep fatalities to a minimum, but damage to the building was acceptable.
And Sophia was hoping for maximum acceptance.
“All right, Helius, ring the doorbell for us,” Revolution said.
In their visors, Lantern’s guided blasting path glowed digital red across the face of the skyscraper. Sophia only needed to keep her energy rays on those lines and she would open up a direct path to the Fire Fly chamber.
The sapphire energy beamed out from her bracelets. She blasted the glass windows along Lantern’s guides and they erupted in a shower of glass and concrete.
Revolution applied his telescope-vision but could see nothing but darkness inside a blasted-out wall. “Looks like she got the inner wall too, but it’s dark in there. She may have taken out the power.”
“Subtle. Really subtle,” Ward deadpanned.
Revolution checked his HUD for the feed from Rachel. She was headed down a crowded hallway deep inside Freedom Rise. Red emergency lights flashed, no doubt in response to Sophia’s blast, causing the feed from her glasses-display to wash out from time to time. He’d have to check back with her when she could talk and when he could see her feed better.
“We’re headed in,” Revolution said. There was no time to waste. Success hinged on a fast surgical strike.
They flew into the bombed-out windows. The red emergency lights flashed from everywhere. Alarm claxon wailed across the structure. The hallway, or what was left of it, was empty save for two Guards who were sprinting toward the blast and stopped in shock when they saw the three Suns land in the wrecked hallway.
Ward turned and fired two paralysis darts expertly, striking the Guards in their elbow joints—soft patches in their otherwise tough armor—while they were unholstering their revolvers.
In a heartbeat they fell.
The trio stepped into the room containing the Fire Fly chamber, which was dark as night, even with the light streaming in from the hole Sophia had blasted.
Revolution peered around in infrared. “Uh, Lantern. We’ve got nothing here.”
“Okay. Auxiliary ought to be coming your way now.” On cue, the auxiliary lights beamed to life, and Ward’s and Sophia’s eyes went wide.
“Yes, they’re on. That’s not the problem.”
They all looked around in shock.
/>
“There’s nothing here. This room is empty.”
“No, look to your left. There’s a whole setup just like we had back in...” Lantern’s voice trailed off. The Hollow had teleported into the room beside the Revolution and was doing the looking for Lantern now.
“Lantern?” Revolution said as he glanced over at the Hollow. It was looking right at him. It looked like it had just seen a ghost.
Even though it was a ghost.
“Ray,” it said.
“What?” Ward asked.
“It’s a trap!” Lantern yelled at all of them over their coms. “Get out of there, sir!”
Sophia charged her bracelets on instinct and in that same moment—
Something streaked past Revolution.
Just a blur. Too fast for even his computer-enhanced vision.
The thing smashed into Sophia and sent her flying into the back wall. A tremendous booming thud.
The concrete cracked and spidered.
And just like that, their biggest gun was out. Sophia lay sprawled on the floor, blood trickling from her forehead beneath the black glider’s helmet and the sapphire-blue face shield.
Revolution spun. The object that had attacked her was nowhere to be found. Had it already exited the room?
“What the hell was that?” Ward asked.
“Stay close!” Revolution yelled. And in that same moment the wall next to Ward exploded. From behind it came a large white hulking figure that backhanded Ward with a huge fist that sent him sprawling.
Ward never had a chance.
The man known as Spider Wasp was sent hurtling behind the Revolution as debris from the wall smashed into him as well. Ward lay sprawled on the ground not ten feet from Sophia. Not out, but not getting back up either.
This operation was a disaster. No, worse than that.
“Stealth! Wherever you are get the hell out of there, now! This is an ambush!” Revolution lunged toward the hulking white figure, seeing now that it was a man in a bulky suit of armor.
He blocked a left swing from the Bulk and slammed him in what would have been his left jaw, sending the man crashing back into the destroyed wall.
The Suns of Liberty (Book 1): Legion Page 9
