The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (8 page)

The assembled officers cheered.
They thanked the big man by name. Lithium was more than yet another masked man
who had risen to prominence in the aftermath of the Revolution. He was a
virtual celebrity.

And he had one thing that none of
the others had. The unconditional support of the Freedom Council.

Lithium dropped the thug to the
ground with a dull thud, and camera flashes exploded from everywhere. Somewhere
behind the silver reflective visors that concealed half his face, his eyes
twinkled with delight. He loved the attention.

The exposed lower half of his face
broke into a big, beefy smile that revealed a wide, toothy jawline and
prominent chin.    

“There ya go, sweethearts,” he
beamed.

The thug was unharmed. In fact,
what might have looked like unconsciousness at first inspection was nothing of
the kind. Lithium had gained his name from the unique brand of weapon he
brandished. He called it his lobotomy beam. It could render someone comatose
instantly, and depending on the intensity at which he fired it, the effect
could be permanent or it could only last a few minutes. 

The whole permanent coma thing,
that wasn't something the public knew about. He kept that to himself. In fact,
the Freedom Council had insisted on it.

The thug on the ground would only
be out for a few moments. Just long enough for Boston's finest to cuff him and
haul him away. And, more importantly, get him in front of the cameras.

Later, Lithium stood with his arms around a group
of kids who looked on adoringly at their hero. More kids were grouped behind
him. They all grinned into a camera, and Lithium spoke the lines that ran
across the camera's teleprompter.

“And remember, kids, that's why
it's always important to do the right thing. Trust the authorities. And
remember, don't listen to the Revolution.” 

The big man gave another of his million-dollar
smiles. He was “used car salesman meets superhero.” 

“That's a cut!” the director of
the video crew yelled from fifty feet away. Instantly, everyone near the scene
headed in a thousand different directions. This “production” was over. The cop
cars were long since gone save one that had been kept in camera shot. 

Lithium high-fived the kids and
strolled over to his rotund public relations manager, a middle-aged man named
Bob.

“How'd it look?” Lithium asked.
“We get a good shot?”

“Excellent. Be all over the six
o'clock news.”

“And remember, kids, don't listen
to the Revolution.” Lithium said, mocking himself. “Jesus, Bob! Do I really
have to say that
every
time?”

“Look, we're both just following
orders.”

“Yeah, but it's like banning
music. As soon as you tell some kid not to listen, they’re gonna listen.”

“You sound like one of ‘them.’”
Bob said with a shit-eating grin that pissed Lithium off immediately.

“No, I sound like somebody who's
not got shit for brains, that's what I sound like. Jesus!  Anyway, whadda
we got on the perp?”

“Uh, yeah...about that...” Bob was
clearly trying to think of how to break whatever bad news he needed to tell
Lithium, when at that very moment a voice interrupted them from behind.

“Hey, man, you got a light?” the voice
asked. A cigarette was stuck in Lithium's face.

“Aw, yeah, buddy, sure.” Lithium
was already holding his own lighter. He lit the cigarette and for the first
time looked carefully into the man's face.

It was the thug from the heist. In
different clothes and with a completely different hairstyle and color, but the
same guy.

“Thanks, man,” the thug said,
walking away casually. “Nice working with ya.”

Lithium gasped. A slickly produced
arrest was one thing, but to realize that the whole thing had been a setup,
that nothing about his day had actually been real… That was insulting, as well
as more than a little dangerous. Lithium waited until the guy was out of
earshot and then let loose.

“Jesus! Can't I ever fight a real
bad guy? Not some clown from central casting! We gotta connect the dots.
‘Criminals and insurgents, both scum. Both cause the pain in your life,’”
Lithium said, testing the line. Lithium lit a smoke for himself. “Ain't rocket
science.”

“Don't look at me, man. I've tried
to tell 'em. Truth is, not too easy getting hold of the Council these days. I
can't even get a human on the phone,” Bob said.

Lithium fumed. He was used to
bureaucratic bungling, but this was the ultimate insult. Turning a real arrest
into a publicity stunt, which they’d done plenty of times, sucked, but at least
it let him know not to do any real damage to any of the stuntmen or actors he’d
be facing. And it served the larger cause of showing the world that the
Revolution wasn’t the only guy taking out the bad guys.

But it was entirely unacceptable
to fake it and then not even have the courtesy to tell him—the guy who was
actually going to be taking down the perp! What if he had actually hurt that
guy? 

Lithium's real name was Clay
Arbor. And in another life, not that very long ago, he had been one of the most
decorated fighters the Special Forces had ever seen. He was a man known for his
extreme loyalty to the chain of command. He would do the jobs no one else
wanted to. He liked to believe that he thought long-term, big picture.
Sometimes to defend democracy, freedom, apple pie, and all the rest of that
shit, you had to do things that made you hold your nose.

Understandably, given the ol’
Stars and Stripe’s larger-than-life legend, Arbor’s persona was mainly
concocted to be a corrective to the Revolution.
The Anti-Revolution
.
Proud to be it! He'd gone up against the Star-Spangled Freak many times and had
always held his own. Their battle that destroyed the Brooklyn Bridge. The fight
on the Mall in Washington, and a dozen other scrapes in Boston itself. You
could always count on lots of real estate damage when the two went on a date
together. Their battles always sold lots of advertising, so no need to guess
why the Council kept the Revolution around.

But this dog and pony show was
getting old. Arbor had always done whatever he was asked, but he was accustomed
to being utilized to the best of his ability.

Fighting some limp dick from
Broadway was not going to get it done.

“I thought I was the great white
anti-Revolution hope. Why can't we kill him again?” Asking the questions he
already knew the answer to, Arbor added, “And why aren't we out stopping real
crime? Folks know the difference.” Arbor read Bob’s face. “Yeah, I know…I know
the answers. Sometimes I just like to hear myself ask the questions.”Bob was
holding his hands up, nodding to every word out of the big guy’s mouth. He was
entering what Arbor called Bob’s “time to talk his star down mode.” “Ask me,”
the rotund manager said, “I think they've got too much manpower diverted to
trackin’ him. We have to know where crime's gonna pop up—”

“Jesus!” Arbor howled, and Bob
immediately winced, like he’d been caught going into the dirty bookstore.
“They're too busy tracking the Revolution to help me beat the Revolution? They
need to either let me take him out or beat him at his own game. I mean, those
kids today. Now they're gonna remember that for the rest of their lives. Phony
or not, that shit makes a difference!”

Just then a burst of laughter
caught their attention. Beside them were a couple of temporary trailers set up
for the actors and film crew, but disguised as construction trailers for a fake
road repair, so Arbor hadn’t noted them before. Now, camped out in front of one
of the trailers they saw a group of young kids smoking cigarettes. They
recognized them instantly. The children from the bank.

Child actors.

“Jesus!” Arbor spat in complete
and utter disgust.

Neither of them said anything for
a long moment.

“Son of a bitch!”

Arbor stewed. The kids just continued
horsing around, oblivious.

Bob fought it as hard as he could.

Straining.

Sweating.

But finally he could hold it back
no longer.

He let loose a snort of a laugh
that sounded like a pig dying. And when Arbor shot him the inevitable “eat shit
and die” look, he totally lost it. A belly howl like a hoarse hyena erupted
from the fat man.

Arbor glared at him, revolted.
“Really?” 

Bob couldn't breathe. He was
whining and wheezing, and it looked like he could piss his pants at any moment,
and the angrier Arbor became, the harder he howled.

Arbor expected Bob would shit his
pants, too. Sure looked that way. Which was kinda funny.

A reluctant smile spread across
Arbor's face. He didn't know if he was laughing more at Bob or himself or the
whole damn situation, but he began to chuckle. And then they laughed at each
other. The two were bent over, roaring deliriously. Arbor peered up at Bob, who
was sweating and crying. He could barely make the sound:

“Jesus!”

CHAPTER
12

M
iles
away from the bank scene with Arbor, the ivy-covered brick of Covington South
Boston sat nestled into a quiet, wooded lot. A small and exclusive private high
school. Inside, children of Southie's
few
elite families and
those desperate enough to shell out the dough sat crowded into high-school
classrooms, working quietly.

Fiona Fletcher struggled silently
at her desk, writing the paper assignment. As was standard, several boys
glanced at her, obviously hoping to catch her eye in case she looked their way.
She never did.

Fiona never attended any social
functions or spoke much with her classmates after school. This could have made
her a pariah among her status-conscious peers, but instead it simply served to
fuel her legend. She was easily the most beautiful girl among an already stunningly
attractive teenage set. In the hallowed halls of Covington South, she was a
mysterious, ghostly goddess who disappeared every day as soon as classes let
out. A black SUV was there like clockwork, fifteen minutes before school ended,
waiting for her. Even on days school ended early.

Fiona grimaced at her notebook.
She had set up a story about a beautiful princess finally able to share
forbidden love with her gallant knight. War had kept them apart.

It wasn't Shakespeare. In fact, it
was pretty clichéd. Maybe that's why her mind wandered...

A blood-red sky. Thick, gray smoke billows in
the distance.

Fiona—an older, more mature
Fiona—stands upon a deep-green hill. She's wearing a corset and dress from another
time. She is stunning. Glorious feminine beauty that is at once the svelteness
of youth and the womanly confidence of age.

A knight on horseback gallops
up to her. The horse is majestic white and snarling its power into the crisp
air. On the stallion’s back is the Revolution. He dismounts his steed with
grace and confidence.

“Hello, Fiona.”

“Hello, my darling,” she says
with pent-up longing.

He runs to her, embraces her in
his powerful arms.

“I have won this war. For you.”

Suddenly her rather more
womanly body is speckled with golden body glitter. They lean into a deep bow,
and with one hand Revolution rips off his helmet and throws it away. He is the
poster child for tall, dark, and romantic.

This broke the spell for just a second. She
realized that the face in her vision had adorned that obnoxious romance novel
she had spied in the bookstore the other day. The only good thing about it
having been the male model on the cover.

Better try a different tack...

Though she cannot see his face...his jawline is
strong, his hair dark and tousled. Fiona throws her head back as he nuzzles
into her breasts and kisses them. He caresses her body, takes in the scent of
her, his breath hot on her skin. Moves his lips up to her neck with
spine-weakening precision. She feels her knees give a bit. His tongue leaves
hot trails. He crosses the threshold to her lips.

“I have fought a thousand
battles just to kiss these lips,” he purrs. “Finally we can be together.”

“I love you,” is all she can
manage.

Of course he knows this. All
women love him. The point is, he loves her too.

He kisses her. His tongue
plunges deep and torrid; he holds her tight to his own muscular body as she
swoons completely. Again and again they kiss. He begins to trail his hot, wet
mouth down her neck, her chest, back to her breasts...

She hears soft, romantic music
soar in the background. What could be more perfect, as if the heavens had
opened just for them.

Suddenly they’re dancing. Slow
and gentle.

And then Revolution spins her
away, and Fiona twirls with the skill and precision of a professional.
Revolution marvels at her grace. She dips low and stretches like a magnificent
swan, barely keeping hold of his hand. Then she twirls again and spirals back
into his arms in one rapid, majestic motion. As she wraps herself around him,
their lips close on one another, her legs lock around the humming heat of his
armor. He takes her fully into his arms.

She can feel her arousal
building when...

Reality hit hard.

Her cell phone blared music across
the now empty room. Only she and her clearly irritated English teacher
remained.

“Fiona!” the teacher yelled again,
openly frustrated she had ignored him the first time.

She swiftly killed the phone’s
ring.

“Sorry.”

“Yes, well. You have five minutes
left.”

CHAPTER
13