The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (38 page)

“Stop there!” he yelled as the
Hollow's eyes scanned over the energy tube again. “That's its control center.
The power's pulsing off the spectrum. If we can force it to overheat, it might
just rip apart.” It was clear to him. This machine may have existed for a long
time, but the Council's use of bioluminescence had not. They'd only acquired
the capability since Fiona's attack, and they had not had time to test the most
basic element—the machine's limits. Undoubtedly because they thought nothing
could stop it.

Inside the great machine, the
Hollow asked, “How do we do that?”

And that sent reality crashing
back in on the Revolution. Overheating was all theory. No way to put the theory
into practice. Maybe the Council had been right. Maybe it was unstoppable. “I
don't know,” he said meekly.

“I do.”

Revolution spun and cleared his
visors to see…

The Fire Fly.

Floating above him, her power
pulsing off of her. “Fiona!” Revolution shouted. He didn't know if he should be
overjoyed or ready to die, but his voice jumped with excitement anyway. And
Fiona nodded to him. Then she telescoped directly in front of the massive
machine.

CHAPTER
59

R
achel
placed the small metal cylinder on the steel panel above her head. The magnet
mechanism secured to the chassis with a
thunk
.

She froze.

That had been louder than she'd intended.
She was crouched below a semitrailer, and of course, she was invisible. Rachel
relaxed. The sounds from State Street were drowning out any small noise she
might make—and these trailers were empty of people anyway. They were
essentially giant radio receivers.

Rachel turned the cylinder's front
dial and locked it in place. Then she punched two minutes into the small timer
on the bottom and clicked the engage button down. Rachel scanned the empty
street and, seeing no one, pulled herself out from under the trailer and
strolled down Federal Street. She hauled out her RDSD and pressed a button.
Underneath the semitrailer the metal cylinder's counter moved to 1:59 and began
a countdown.

Rachel pulled up a photograph of
her friend John Bailey on the small device, and tears filled her eyes. She
wanted to collapse. She wanted to just sit and cry for her friend. They had
known each other for a decade. Both CIA, both in the secret fraternity of
Agency insiders who had rebelled. She wanted to sit and cry, but she couldn't.
In fact, looking at the counter ticking away at the upper right of the RDSD,
she knew she had to quicken her pace. She had a job to do, so she did it.

She spoke into her com, the
emotion still quivering in her voice. “Lantern, are you there?”

“Yes, Stealth, I'm here.”

Rachel swept a strand of her
invisible hair out of her invisible face and stiffened her invisible spine. The
confidence returned to her voice, and in the strange psyche that is Rachel
Dodge, so did the little girl's voice.

“Let me describe what you are
going to do for me.” Across the com, Revolution and Lantern could hear the
jumpy staccato of her voice, like she was moving fast. In fact, she was
running. She kept her eye on the timer as she trotted with urgency down Federal
Street toward State. “I'm a girl that really likes massages. Hot oil, mind you,
not lotion. Got that, Lantern?” She looked back to gauge her distance.

“Uh...Stealth, what?”

“Of course, massages are done in
the nude. I just can’t wait to see the
equipment
you have under that
helmet of yours.”

Lantern lay flat on his back in a
small grassy patch of the giant dusty clearing, trying not to think about the
pain screaming from his leg. He'd broken it in at least two places that he
could tell. “General, this is highly inappropriate.”

On Federal Street, this brought a
smile to Rachel's face. She'd always gotten underneath that man's beautiful
skin. If she couldn't get under those tight pants of his, this was the next
best thing. She heard Revolution intervene.
“Yes, Stealth, is there a point
coming?”

“Well, Lantern will have
a
point
when he gives me that massage, but yeah. I'd say you boys owe me
big-time. Ask L to pinpoint the signal on those MagCharges you gave me.”

MagCharges were the small metal
cylinders Rachel had placed on the semis. Three of them on three semis parked
conspicuously up Federal Street, one after the other. They sent out traceable
signals—if you knew their encoded frequency. They could be programmed with
great flexibility, making them very hard for anyone not having the code to
detect.

Of course, they were also powerful
explosives. Revolution had given Rachel four of them to use on tanks or other
heavy artillery. She'd found a better use for them.

“Go ahead, Lantern,”
Revolution said.

Inside his helmet, Lantern scanned
the State Street area and found their signal. “Got it. I have three of them
lined up on Federal Street. Just a few blocks from your location,” he said to
the Revolution.

“Three...two...one...” Rachel
smiled and crouched on the sidewalk, ducking behind a large concrete pillar.
She had reached the intersection of Federal and High Streets. Behind her…

BOOM!

The three semitrailers lined up at
the other end of Federal Street exploded, sending mushroom clouds of flame that
shattered windows and reflected off the glass of those that didn't.

“And the crowd goes wild,” she
said. “Remember to tip your servers.”

“What the hell was that?”
Revolution asked.

“That, boys, was the external controller
going up in flames,” she said. “Found it. Bombed it. Whatever kind of AI they
have programmed into the son of a bitch is all it’s got left now.”

They could actually hear Lantern's
smile through the com.
“Somewhere there's a room full of geeks pissed off at
you, Stealth,”
he quipped.

In fact, he was right. Nestled
deep inside an underground bunker beneath the massive Freedom Council HQ in New
York City—a location even the Chairman, sitting thirty stories directly above
it, knew nothing about—there were three of them. They watched their screens go
to static and their controllers fall dead.

“You would know, handsome,” Rachel
shot back at Lantern.

Lantern actually laughed over the
com, and Revolution said,
“Good work, Stealth. Now get out of there and keep
yourself safe.”

“I'm going to find Lantern. Sounds
like he can't run away from me tonight.”

“Not funny,”
Lantern said
back, but the levity was still in his voice.

“Keep this line clear,” Revolution
said, returning to seriousness. Rachel had given them a small victory, but a
far more dangerous enemy had just arrived, and while she seemed to be on their
side for now, Revolution could not stop thinking about what Fiona had done the
last time he saw her.

Rachel spoke only to Lantern’s com
this time. “Lantern, no bullshit. Are you all right? Do you need help?”

“I'm okay. Don't worry about
me. Just help the General.”

Up top, the explosion of the
semitrailers jolted Paul Ward awake. His head was pounding and his vision was
blurred. But he was able to sit up and then slowly rise to his feet. He leaned
back against the shattered glass and steel frame of the building and looked
down to see the Fire Fly's tiny glowing form confront the Man-O-War. Ward
thought he must have been dreaming.

Fiona floated in front of the
machine. Its sensors scanned her, trying to figure out what she was. Nothing in
its database matched her energy signal. It was like looking at a mirror, and
without the external controller, Man-O-War had no idea how to respond.

So Fiona opened her palms and
blasted a massive sphere of luminescent fire that exploded across its
cylindrical face. The machine quaked from her blow and whipsawed its tentacles
at her in automated response. She slung her hands up defensively, creating a
wall of chartreuse energy to block them—as brilliant light haloed off the
contact points. The Man-O-War pulsed with power, pushing through the energy
wall as it phased red to white with increased effort.

Revolution saw the colors of the
machine shift and moved further out into the street. “It's working!” he yelled
to no one.

Fiona pushed, the Man-O-War
pushed. Inching closer to one another as an electrical grinding noise thundered
through State Street. The pressure grew and grew—and then it broke. A supernova
of energy blasted the two combatants across the sky as the strain of their
power combusted against them. Fire Fly recovered and jetted toward the machine,
but a glowing tentacle sliced at her, catching her off guard. Then another and
another. Energy beams blasted from the machine and locked her in a scarlet
prison. She screamed in agony as the red blaze burned through her body. She
felt pain in the Fire Fly form for the first time.

Revolution watched her in horror.
He had to consider that she might lose. And he had to admit to himself that if
she couldn't force Man-O-War to overheat, the red energy was more powerful than
hers.

Then something caught his
attention.

His sensors detected a bogie
flying in from his left. He spun to see Spider Wasp gliding in beside him. He
had two rifles in his hands. Ward tossed one to Revolution. “Got these off a
couple of Guards who made it out of the War Zone. They're sleeping like babies
now.” Ward noticed Revolution's mangled arm. Blood covered his blue armor, and
flaps of loose flesh hung off the metal in several places. “Boss, you okay?” he
asked.

“I've been better.”

Ward nodded and cocked the rifle.
It emitted a low hum of energy that Revolution knew meant they were charged
with luminescence. Revolution followed suit.

“Little declaration of
independence anyone?” Ward said, and turned toward the great machine floating
in the sky. They nodded to one another. And opened fire…

The luminescent bullets slammed
across the machine, leaving multiple bruises. Man-O-War lurched from their
fire, its attention diverted for a split second. And that was all the Fire Fly
needed. She slipped free of its grasp. The machine swung its mighty tentacles
at her. She threw up her shoulders and blocked them with her forearms. Beads of
lava sprayed out of her with every blow. The blood of the Fire Fly. Pain burned
through her body. She cried out, and the scream echoed across the square.
Revolution and Ward tried to ignore it, but it made their blood run cold. If
Fiona failed, what possible chance did they have?

The machine was relentless in its
attack. Somewhere inside its programmed mind, it could tell its prey was
weakening. The great towering tube of energy inside it pulsed harder, and the
red power phased to white. Revolution began to feel himself sweat as he watched.
It was a contest of who could hold out the longest. But Fiona was becoming
visibly weaker as the machine grew stronger—too strong, he hoped.

Fiona's head was reeling; her arms
began to fall. She couldn't block all the blows. The massive tendrils sliced
through her neck, her chest, her face—sending beads of lava splattering across
the glass walls of the skyscrapers. Her glowing blood ran down the steel
mountains of State Street. Fiona's tattered head drooped. Her eyes were no
longer visible, covered in the glow of her own fluids. The Man-O-War pulsated
white hot. Its energy spiked for the kill. 

And then Fiona surrendered.

CHAPTER
60

F
iona
raised her head to the sky, her arms extended outward. Her eyes were suddenly clear
once again. Her ruby lips set hard in concentration. She wasn’t fighting
anymore. She was completely open, defenseless. Man-O-War raised its deadly
tentacles and stabbed them into the center of her body with a sickening
slosh
of static and light. She screamed out as lightning coiled across the sky in
every direction. The energy snapped and popped in the air.

Revolution couldn’t believe what
he was seeing. With all her power and all her strength, she had just given up.
Guilt racked him. This was his fault. He
had
betrayed her. Destroyed her
will, broken her spirit. He wished so badly that it was him up there floating
in the sky.

First, because it would save Fiona
from this awful fate. Second, because he knew he could do what was necessary.
He would be able to reach in and find the extra strength to go on, not
surrender as she had just done. That was why Scott tried it on himself, made
himself the first test subject, despite all the risk. Scott did whatever was
needed. He was, in his own way, a fearless man. Revolution still looked up to
him.

And now he had failed Scott.

In his reckless haste to create
the Fire Fly he had misjudged himself, misjudged Fiona, misjudged everything.
Fiona was not up to the task. She had been too sheltered. Scott had made it
clear to him that it was his responsibility to look after her if anything ever
happened to him. After Scott’s death, he knew it was his job to protect her, to
mold her. He had tried his best, but now he saw the error of his ways. He had
failed to create the Fire Fly, but he had also failed to create a strong young
woman. He had failed Fiona, and yes, he had failed the entire Resistance. There
was nothing more he could do. He and Ward kept firing at the giant machine, but
in reality he was simply waiting to watch Fiona die.   

Moments earlier
... Fiona had felt like she
would die. She couldn’t lift her arms. The world was fading in and out; she
could feel herself slipping away as the monster ripped into her again and again
and again.

She’d felt this way before.