The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (17 page)

“All fatal. Now no one wants to
try. We can't exactly advertise for volunteers. And we have a limited
population here. But I believe we're getting very close to the answer. What we
need to find is a human compatible with the energized DNA of the luminescence.”

“Have you identified contra
indicators?” Ward was thinking like a physician now. Every problem was a case
that could be diagnosed.

“Yes. Everything. Therein lies the
issue. With no successful tests, that's
all
we have been able to
identify.”  

“I see the dilemma. And the
Council would kill for this if they ever found out.”

“That's why Scott never really
shared the information with anyone. It's why we've had to start over from
scratch. Reverse engineer to get where we can improve it. There are some things
we still don't understand. If we ask for help from the outside, we know they’ll
find out about it.”

Revolution looked Ward in the eye.

“We always knew that if the rumor
got back to us, it would mean they had gotten desperate. And that would tell us
two things. One, they would be more dangerous than ever. No longer content to
leave us be. Two, they would be at their most vulnerable.” 

Ward said nothing, but his look
indicated his confusion.

“Because” Revolution explained, “a
snake is never more exposed than when it stretches out to strike. Much better
to stay coiled up in the bushes and out of sight.”

“So you think they'll overplay
their hand?” 

“I don't know that for certain. I
hope so. All I know is that if they try to up the stakes, they'll risk exposing
themselves. You’ve done us a great service by bringing us this information,
Paul. Never thought it would come from an outsider. We expected it from one of
our people on the inside. We will have to be ready to countermobilize.”    

Ward couldn’t help but feel proud.
He tried to shake it off and stay focused. “So, you're playing chess.”

“Basically.”

“But how could they believe they
are working on an ultimate weapon when they really aren’t? The information I got
was well placed.”

“We have people in very high
positions in the Council’s inner circle. Especially when it comes to weapons
and technology. A few years ago, the CIA developed a parallel agency you’ve
never heard of. Officially, it’s called CIA Special Division S-1. Unofficially,
it’s just called
SHADOW.
And the CIA
assigned one of
our
people to lead it. All these years they’ve never known that one of our top
operatives is one of their top operatives. And we have others in their ranks.
It’s a twisted game we’re playing. But we have no choice.”

Ward shook his head. It dawned on
him that here he was, a former Harvard professor and celebrated academic,
speaking with a guy who spent his nights pummeling bad guys, and yet that guy
was schooling him on a biochemical compound Ward couldn't begin to understand,
not to mention the art of war and espionage. 

“Can really make your head spin,”
Ward said, mostly to himself.

Revolution nodded.

“All this technology,
you
understand all this, don't you? I mean what can be understood?”

Revolution nodded.

“Man, who the hell are you? 
What
were
you in your past life?”

Inside his armor, Revolution just
smiled, thinking his answer would apply in more than one way. “Younger.”

CHAPTER
29

W
ard
sat down across from Leslie Gibbons in a large, well-designed boardroom. The
table was long and rectangular. The entire far wall was nothing but a video
screen. Smaller screens circled the room. They called it the situation room.

He was more than a little
starstruck. Leslie Gibbons was another legendary scientist. One of many great
scientific minds that had gone missing after the Purge. It was like finding out
Elvis really was still alive.

“Dr. Gibbons, thanks for taking
some time to talk. It really is an honor,” he said.

  “From what I hear, the
honor should be mine. It's not every day we find someone who takes such an
active interest in what we do. Or in the General.”    

Ward wasn't sure how to take the
first part, but the latter caught his attention. “Why do you all call him
General
?”

“That's what he is around here. We
are a lot more organized than you might imagine, Dr. Ward.”

“Please, call me Paul.” He glanced
around at all the equipment, thought about everything Revolution had told him.
About having insiders in the Council’s operations, the operative at the top of
SHADOW
,
whatever that was. Not to mention the ultimate weapon that turned out to be
just a rumor. Their rumor. “Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“The Revolution is the commander
of the Resistance.” 

“Is that what he was? You know,
before? A real general?”

“Oh, you're not going to get that
from me. Even if I did know, I wouldn't tell. But if I had to guess, I'd say he
was some kind of military scientist. Who knows? He is who we need him to be
right now. That's all that matters.”

Ward chuckled. “I read an article
by a postmodernist who claims that your General is just a creation of our
collective imagination.”

“Imagine that.” the Revolution
walked in behind him.

Ward laughed. “Well, problem is, more
I get to know you, the more I think he might be right. But don’t go beat him up
or anything. I think he meant it metaphorically.”

Revolution sat next to Ward.
Leslie nodded to Revolution and excused herself for the evening. She explained
to Ward that she was traveling out of state the next day and had to get
prepared. Despite what he might have heard, the Resistance had a national
network.

Highly organized. Right.

As the two men talked about that
network, their conversation drifted to the Freedom Council. Ward saw an
opportunity to make another pitch and now—given all that he was learning—find
out more of what Revolution knew about the Council. “A lot of people still
think the Freedom Council's the good guys. There's tons of good old street
crime out there to fight, you know?”

“Look around, Paul. This country's
rotting. Technology's gone backwards, inequality's soared. The Council profits
off the misery. They block innovation by owning all the patents.  You of
all people should know that.”

Ward thought about his wings, his
two serums, and the blood accelerators that allowed them to work in one
heartbeat. None of them could be marketed or mass-produced due to the Council’s
control of the
conceptual category
they all fell under. Revolution knew
that, too. The guy was scary smart.

 “You say you want to stop
street crime?” Revolution continued. “Half the gangs in this town work for the
Council. But Scott had the thing they fear most. The thing that could send
their profits crashing. Bioluminescence is actually renewable energy. And we
still hold the patent. We just need more time to make it work.” 

Revolution was excited suddenly.
He pointed behind them. “Look!” It was the first time Ward had heard his voice
slip out of that controlled middle range he used. Both men turned, and as if on
cue, a team of Leslie’s scientists started shouting at each other. Ward had
been so enthralled with the conversation he hadn’t noticed them. The Fire Fly
chamber was visible through the doorway, but Ward had had his back to it. Now
he could see clearly that in the middle of the chamber was a small burning sun.
Yellow-green. The glow was pulsing bright to brighter. Both men swiveled in
their chairs to watch.

And then it began to shift to red.
The scientists seemed to go into crisis mode. They started to panic about
something. Revolution’s body language told him nothing. Stoic as always.

Just then, the orb pulsed from red
to white and there was a bright flash of energy. The lead scientist darted
across the room. He slammed the shutdown button. The orb fizzled into darkness,
and the team breathed a very visible sigh of relief. Revolution turned back to
Ward, having never changed his body language. “It’s rarely boring around
here.” 

Ward raised his eyebrows, nodded.
He needed more information to have a debate with this man. None of the
assumptions he'd had about the Revolution or the movement he represented had
proven to be true. Alison had already told him about the gangs and the Council,
so that wasn’t a surprise, but the rest of it...

He leaned back in his chair and
again marveled at the large lab. Maybe it was time to explore another avenue of
inquiry. “How the hell do you afford all this? I thought the insurgency is run
on a shoestring budget?”

“In a way it is. But we have a large
science division. A lot of those scientists that went missing after the Council
was established? They work here.”

“They faked their own
disappearances?”

“In some cases. Others were just
presumed to be taken. The Purge was useful in that respect. The Council only
tolerates the science that it likes, so naturally, we're a much better
alternative.” 

“So the Council gets no results
with a big bureaucracy and high salaries while you guys are on the cutting edge
with no resources and beans and rice?”

“They get results, trust me. They
have brilliant people working for them. It’s all about profits for them. Battle
armor, for instance, has never been made up to the level it could be. It's not
cost-effective to mass-produce, not profitable, so the Council is never going
to do it. And we”—Revolution waved his arms about, indicating the Resistance
movement—“can't make a lot of it because we don't have the Council’s resources.
But for one person, we can do
that
. We can keep them supplied with
whatever they need. A team of supersoldiers and spies, for us, is doable.
That's the bottom line. We have people in every major city.” 

“The hero movement. That's
you?” 

Revolution nodded. “Only some of
it. Most of it just happened organically. Every now and then, though, we’ll
make contact with someone or recruit them.”

Ward thought about that. If the
Council used the gangs and the heroes were fighting and disrupting the gangs,
then the hero movement
did
take on the Council. In a way. But no one
would ever know who was trying to take down the gangs just because they hated
crime, and who was doing it because they were actually working for the
insurgency. No wonder Revolution had told Ward to go help the hero movement.
Either way, Ward would have been helping him.
Genius.

“But like I said, we’re in other
institutions as well,” Revolution was quick to add. “Even the Council’s
organization itself. They have many disgruntled employees. Like your friend, I
suppose,” he said, meaning Alison. Ward nodded. “We run things democratically. That’s
the difference. What they have is oppression. What we have is a crusade.”
Revolution glanced through the doorway and saw something that made him stop and
take notice. Fiona was looking at him again. “And some of us have to sacrifice
everything.”

CHAPTER
30

T
he
hour was late. Ward was long gone. The regular workforce had turned in for the
night. It was a Friday, and even some in the insurgency took weekends (besides,
if they were really needed, a thousand workers would be only a few floors away).
A skeleton crew worked the active parts of the building.

Revolution slipped into a small
storage space just off the lab where he kept spare parts for both his armor and
the Fire Fly chamber. During his conversation with Ward, his armor's internal monitoring
system had warned him that the absorption unit was malfunctioning and needed a
diode replacement.

The Revolution's armor could
actually absorb a charge of energy and store it. If need be it could then
release that energy to withstand another charge or to use as a weapon—something
he had used to devastating effect against that tank so many years ago. Sort of
like technological-superhero-judo, he thought. Scott had designed it to prevent
the Revolution from being electrocuted, either accidently or otherwise. Were he
struck by lightning, for instance, the Revolution could actually store the
energy and use it later as a weapon.

The special diodes that Scott had
invented were the key to the system. They acted like traffic signals, telling
energy where it could go and when it could be released. And they could store an
enormous amount of energy. If needed, the diodes could also redirect any stored
energy into powering the suit. Though he did have his own perpetual battery
that powered his armor—another of his closely held secrets. Without the diodes,
though, it was even possible for the suit to become a danger itself. Revolution
had to fix it.

He'd been in the small room no
more than fifteen minutes when Fiona slipped in behind him. He was not facing
her. Nor did he turn to see her. Still, he knew she was there. His helmet
contained a contiguous mirror device that shot images from all angles back to
his visors. This allowed him to see 360 degrees at crucial moments. A similarly
placed motion detector helped to sense nearly all movement around him, even at
far distances. Fiona knew none of this.

She didn't speak to him when she
entered. She just began dusting the equipment. Something she did frequently
these days anywhere he was. Even if she'd dusted there the day before. The
silence grew increasingly awkward. Finally, she stopped, turned.

“Sir, why don't you ever talk to
me?”

Revolution snapped the final diode
into place and closed the cover on his arm plate where they were housed. “I
don't talk to anyone.”

“I see how you look at me. I'm not
stupid.”