The Suns of Liberty (Book 3): Republic

by Michael Ivan Lowell

  Fuck!

  The android strode toward her. Aggressive, angry. It stopped two feet in front of her. Scanning that corner of the room.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  An alarm blared out from a far back room, probably the bedroom.

  The android stopped in its tracks.

  “Of course not, I’ve got you.”

  Lantern, Rachel thought. He had to have sent the Hollow. She knew he was monitoring all of this, and the one thing he could do to get her out of this jam was to cause a distraction. The Hollow could turn an alarm clock on and remain invisible while it did it. This would give her the opening to get to the door and escape.

  Unfortunately, the android was too smart for that.

  Spectral turned to leave.

  Well, fuck! Rachel thought.

  “I’m not staying here,” Scarlett said, eyes darting about the room. She wrapped the towel around her, jumped off the table, and the couple made for their small bedroom.

  Rachel darted for the door. In an instant she was out and back into the hall, sprinting away, headed straight for Lantern’s room. She was going to give him the biggest hug of his life.

  If he’d let her.

  In the couple’s room, the alarm clock stopped blaring just before they reached it. At that exact moment, Spectral’s advanced parabolic hearing caught a distinct sound.

 

  Scarlett shook her head, her jaw set and clinched.

 

  Scarlett nodded grimly. “I told you we couldn’t trust them.”

  CHAPTER 12

  BALTIMORE, MD.

  Roderick Reynolds shot across the sky. Below him, the welcome sight of Patterson Park passed by. Reynolds had many fond memories of playing there as a little boy and bringing his own children there before the Council took over. It also meant he was getting closer to his destination. Reynolds concentrated and tried to bring up the suit’s communications array, and right on track, it blinked to life inside his visor. “Contact Baltimore HQ,” he said.

  “Yes, Commander Reynolds,” Jameson’s voice said back. A wave of emotion washed over him that he tried his best to put aside.

  Seconds later, a voice from Baltimore was on the line. Reynolds explained he was on approach and requested guidance on how to land and enter the facility, but before Baltimore could respond, he interrupted them.

  “Hang on...” Below him he saw a black SUV sideswipe a police cruiser. The police car spun around, out of control, its back wheels locking onto the curb and jolting the car to an abrupt halt.

  The SUV slammed on its brakes, its doors flew open, and two occupants leaped out and opened fire on the cruiser.

  The officers were sitting ducks.

  “Oh, hell no,” Reynolds said to himself and dove toward the scene. “I’m gonna be a minute, HQ.”

  Still in its communications array, the computer brought up a series of menu options in Reynolds’s HUD. “Offensive weapon mode is now online. Would you like to access it?”

  Reynolds smiled. “Oh, yeah I would.”

  Below him, the driver of the police cruiser ripped open his door and, wounded, staggered to the back of the car, where he took cover. His partner, still inside the car, wasn’t moving.

  In his HUD, the words scrolled across his visor as the computer confirmed it. “Energy beams have now been activated,” it said, and a 3D image of the suit’s gloves loaded into his HUD.

  “No way,” Reynolds breathed. What else did the kid put in this thing? He’d have to find out later.

  Below, the thugs from the SUV were approaching the cruiser, one aiming at the unmoving officer inside, the other crouching low, eyeing the wounded officer at the back of the vehicle. The officer soon popped his head up and took a shot at each of the thugs, but missed as both returned fire.

  It was now or never.

  The thug at the front of the vehicle raised his gun and aimed at the officer in the car. So, Reynolds did the same, arms out in front of him, palms up, aiming—and blasted a shot of golden energy at the thug before he could get his shot off.

  The gun was wrenched from his hand, and his body slammed into the turf. The guy was out.

  His partner spun and fired at Reynolds. This other guy was fast. Reynolds had no way to dodge it. He flinched, but the bullets bounced harmlessly away. He felt nothing.

  He wasn’t sure how badly he’d injured the first thug, so he decided to change tactics on this one. He dropped to the ground, and the suit’s auto-thrusters kicked in, controlling the dive and making for a perfect landing. Fast and smooth. He felt less of an impact with the ground than he would coming down from one of his morning jumping jacks.

  The guy started to run. So Reynolds turned on the gas and sprinted ahead of him, turned right in front of him, and stopped on a dime.

  SMACK!

  The thug slammed into him full speed—and was on the ground in an instant. Reynolds let him try to get back up, which, surprisingly, he did.

  Rising on shaky legs, he glared at Reynolds. “Who the fuck are you, man?”

  Reynolds thought about it a second and said, “Just call me the Ram.” And with that, he took one step forward and punched the guy in the jaw, shattering it and knocking him out.

  The officer raised his head cautiously, gun pointed up but at the ready in case he needed it.

  “Are you okay?” Reynolds yelled to him.

  The officer stayed behind his vehicle. “Flesh wound. Partner’s hurt bad.”

  Reynolds nodded and raised his hands above his head. “I’m gonna check on him,” he told the officer. The officer nodded but stayed where he was. Eyes never leaving Reynolds.

  It didn’t take long for Reynolds to see two things. First, his partner was a woman. Second, she was dead.

  Headshot. Middle of her forehead.

  “She’s dead. Headshot. Mid— ” Reynolds began, but he never finished his statement. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention a millisecond after a red warning flashed in his HUD.

  The SUV. Its back end facing him, windows blacked out, engines still running, suddenly kicked into reverse as someone slammed on the gas.

  Reynolds had no time to react. It smacked into him, knocking him down, and backed right over him.

  He landed on his back as the crushing weight fell upon him.

  The suit held. The van was rolling over him, bumping, thudding, grinding metal on metal, but he felt nothing. Reynolds saw something fly off the bottom of the SUV—the truck would give before his suit would.

  At the last moment, he snagged hold of the undercarriage, and with the servos churning, he held onto the vehicle, the tires churning black smoke. The suit’s power was enormous.

  Peering up, he realized the SUV’s engine was directly above him. So, letting go with one hand, causing the vehicle to skid sideways, he aimed his palm at the metal above him and let loose a golden beam of energy that ripped right through the undercarriage and melted the engine.

  The SUV’s power died. Reynolds pushed hard, and the whole vehicle flipped off of him and crashed down on its passenger side. As he picked himself up he heard bodies moving through the vehicle toward the rear. Two more thugs came limping out of the SUV’s back door. They sprinted down the street.

  Reynolds zoomed—fast—out in front of them, turned on his heels, reached up, and before either of them could react, slammed both thugs’ heads into each other.

  They collapsed to the ground.

  “Way to put your heads together,” he quipped.

  In the distance, Reynolds could hear sirens.

  “Help’s on the way!” he shouted over to the still hiding officer.

  “We got bigger problems if you still feel like helping,” the wounded officer yelled back to him. Now the man stood up and lowered his weapon, apparently trusting that Reynolds was on his side. “There’s an all-out assault go
ing on at the station. Edison Highway. They could really use some help,” the officer grunted through pain.

  Reynolds gave the officer the thumbs up. He knew it well. The department in question was located several blocks north. He activated the thrusters and launched into the sky.

  Reynolds had a soft spot for the Baltimore PD. In the neighborhoods he’d grown up in, the cops had largely been seen as the enemy. By his early teens the situation had come to a head. Reforms were put in place. Officers were recruited from the neighborhoods they lived in. Relations between the people and the police improved. Even after the Council came to power, the BPD stayed true to its community policing roots.

  These folks were good people—his people. And you did not threaten good people.

  When the police department came into view, he could instantly see the issue. Five black vans had lined up on Edison Highway, passenger sides facing the building. Shots were being fired from the vans, but at first Reynolds could not tell where they were coming from. The vans had no windows on their sides, but there were clearly multiple shooters in each of them from front to rear, judging by the bursts of orange tracer fire coming from each of the vans.

  Then he realized.

  Small ports had been cut into the sides of the vans, allowing the shooters to fire while still staying inside the safety of the vehicles. And judging by the way the officers’ return fire was just bouncing off the vans, they were all bullet proof.

  Five vans, five shooters each, Reynolds counted. All-out war. The building was being ripped apart. The long vertical windows that ran across the red-brick front of the building had already been blasted out. The high-powered ammo the assailants were using was chipping away and puncturing the brick and concrete. The thin square concrete pillars that topped the long row of steps running up to the front entrance were slowly being chipped away, as if in some macabre version of Jenga! He feared they could give way at any moment.

  From his vantage point up top he could also see that the vans had all pulled up from the same direction. Thus, their windshields—the assailants’ only visual access to the outside world—were all pointing in the same direction. This gave him an idea.

  “Set me down at top running speed,” he told the computer.

  “Commander, that is not recommended.”

  “Just do it!” he shouted back.

  His thrusters burst with power at the same time the suit autocorrected his flight path so that he was diving for the ground. Another adjustment by the thrusters and his legs were falling. He hit the ground running, and the jolt of the kinetic energy rumbled through him. He heard himself scream out as his spine felt like it was doing “the wave” at one of his games.

  But he stayed on his feet.

  The atoms in the suit hardened. He lowered his head.

  Reynolds slammed into the first van, hitting the rear end at an angle, smashing in left shoulder first, just as if he were blocking for his halfback in his playing days, pushing with all his might. The big black vehicle slammed forward with an enormous, earsplitting jolt. Anyone inside would have been slammed against the passenger side and then held there as the van came to land on its side. Reynolds smashed through all five vans.

  When he was done, all five were on their passenger sides. The deadly slots through which the assailants had been firing were blocked by the ground, but that turned out to be a precaution he hadn’t needed to worry about. Everyone in the vans were out for a long winter’s nap.

  A cheer rose up from the police station. Officers swarmed out of the building. Some taking the injured to the first waiting vehicle they could find. Others sprinting out to take the unconscious assailants into custody. Others just came to thank their savior.

  “What’s your name, friend?” one detective asked.

  “Just call me the Ram,” Reynolds said and, once again, rocketed into the sky.

  Reynolds mentally keyed his com. “HQ, I’m on my way.”

  It was not long before he was, once again, zooming over Patterson Park. Paramedics were on the scene of the first shooting, emergency vehicles everywhere, lights flashing. Up ahead he could see the Chesapeake Bay, and beyond that, as he telescoped in with the suit’s visors, he could make out the distinctive round clarifier tanks of the old water treatment plant on Wagner’s Point. It now stood abandoned and converted into a bizarre warehouse facility. It also housed the Baltimore HQ on its underground floors—of which there were many.

  The entrance he’d be using was actually inside one of the water tanks. The location was ideal. The entire area, once an industrial center, was now all but abandoned. He could drop right into the tank and no one would be the wiser.

  Reynolds marveled at how extensively the Resistance could build their HQs. When you got down to it, if you weren’t in the ritzy parts of town, the Council’s influence only went as far as local gangs or law enforcement would take it. And in places like Baltimore or Boston or Philadelphia, that wasn’t that far.

  Once inside the giant clarifying tank, he found an open door built into the raised concrete basin wall. A Minuteman volunteer was there to welcome him. The young man was especially deferential, and he had to remind himself that, in Diana Rocco’s absence, he was the acting commander of all the Minutemen across the country. It was a sobering thought brought home by the reaction of this Minuteman whose name he did not know.

  He thought about Diana and the horrific way in which she had died. Another wave of sadness washed over him. He knew what his next move had to be, blood loss or not. He had to see Dr. Gibbons and warn her that the Guard were coming after Resistance leaders.

  Once inside the facility he let his body relax—and immediately regretted it. His feet stumbled and his vision swam. Adrenaline had been keeping him going just like in his playing days, but now that he was home, the fatigue, the blood loss, the pain, were starting to get the best of him.

  “Sir, are you okay?” the young man asked.

  “No,” Reynolds said frankly, “but you’ve gotta get me to Dr. Gibbons.” The young man’s worried face went along with his hesitation. “Now,” Reynolds said with as much urgency and authority he could muster.

  “You’ve been shot, sir!” the man said.

  “Got news for ya, kid. I’m well aware of that. But you’re still taking me to Gibbons. Right now.”

  The young man led him into a meeting room, and it was only seconds later that Leslie appeared at the door. She was followed in by a team of medics.

  Her first words hit Reynolds like a linebacker. “Commander, I want to thank you for your quick thinking and selflessness today. Your actions at Willow Grove saved hundreds of lives.”

  Reynolds’s head was still swimming. “How many did we lose?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry about that right now, Commander. What’s important is that you fought back and turned what could have been a massacre into a sign of hope for every Minuteman out there.”

  The medics swarmed him, and he relented, letting the suit open up like a clam shell and stepping out with the help of those around him. They immediately began to tend to his wounds and started a blood transfusion with the bags of the red stuff they had in tow. Leslie kept talking to him throughout.

  “You’ve had a busy day, Rod,” Leslie said mischievously. “You may have gotten the wrong memo, because I’m the one who’s supposed to make all the news around here.” She brought up a holograph recording of his assault on the gunmen at the police station. A bystander had captured the whole thing on her cell phone.

  His stiff posture immediately relaxed. “Hey, they don’t call ‘em ‘glory days’ for nothing.”

  Leslie winked at him. “They’re calling you the Ram, I hear? Can’t imagine where you came up with that.”

  Reynolds chuckled. “The one and only.”

  “Well, COR’s already been talking about you. With your abilities here”—Leslie pointed to his armor—“maybe you ought to be on a different team than the Minutemen,” Leslie said with a twinkle in her eye.


  “Ma’am, I’m leader of the Minutemen. I think that’s where I’m needed most.”

  Leslie’s gaze fell to the floor. “Yeah, about that, Rod...”

  Reynolds could tell she was hesitating.

  “I’m not leader of the Minutemen?” he asked.

  “You’re acting leader, yes. And I have no doubt you’d win a vote of the Minutemen. You’re brave, you’re funny, you care about those under your command, and you tell it like it is. But, Rod, they don’t make that decision. COR does. There are members of that body who think you’re too brash, too blunt.”

  “I’m just saving everybody time by saying what needs to be said.”

  “The leader of the Minutemen needs to be politically savvy. Needs to know when to sugarcoat it. Not just say the first thing that comes to his mind. Like Jenkins.”

  Reynolds rolled his eyes. Randolph Jenkins was a gutless bureaucratic stooge. Reynolds said as much.

  “See, that’s what I mean,” Leslie smiled, then added, “I’m not disagreeing, by the way.”

  Reynolds nodded. “I know, I know. I'm brutally honest. Probably to a fault. Always have been. It comes off as arrogance, but it’s not that.”

  “I’m presenting a motion to COR that would make your interim status permanent. But I want you to be ready for the possibility that Jenkins could leapfrog ahead of you. I’m only one vote. He’s got his supporters, too.”

  Reynolds felt his head swim again. “Well, if you’re not gonna crown me King of the Sewage Plant then, I kinda need to get some sleep.”

  Leslie grinned. She started to slip away but then turned back. “We’ll get this armor of yours fixed up.” Then she winked at him. “The Ram, huh? Shouldn’t it be blue and gold?” She strolled out with a knowing grin on her face. Part of Reynolds wanted to know why.

  The other part just wanted to sleep.

  NORRISTOWN, PA

  The Revolution knew if the team was going to heal, it would need Ward to step into the role of physician. There were simply too many wounded Minutemen for the facility’s regular medical staff to handle by themselves.