The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (32 page)

Sophia opened the door and entered
her room…and saw her roommate, Rachel Dodge, standing in their full-length
mirror buck naked, applying her lipstick slowly and carefully. Had Sophia
needed to come up with a poster child for what not to do, for whom not to call
on in a crisis, there she would have stood. Fake tits and all.

The anger swelled in Sophia’s
temples—it had been a long, stressful day. She couldn’t contain herself.

“For Christ's sake, put some
clothes on. Better yet, put your damn coat on and disappear.” The anger in her
voice was palpable.

“You're just jealous.” Rachel
smiled back competitively but trying to keep it friendly. She looked at her
body in the mirror. She was slender and muscular, just like Sophia. But she was
taller and her breasts...she lived in LA, what could she say?

“I'm not jealous. I think you're
going to get us all killed. We're being hunted night and day. You strut around
here distracting every penis on the premises.” Sophia then had a thought and
turned back to her with a scowl. “Or are you trying to get the girls, too?”

Rachel made a face. “Don't flatter
yourself.” 

“You know, you're a smart-ass
slut. You've probably never had a real relationship in your whole life, have
you?”

“I've had plenty.” Rachel’s tone
had changed. That last comment had pierced her steel veneer.

“Oh, I'm sure you've
had
them all right. But could you keep one?  Without screwing his best friend
or his brother? Take Lantern in there. He's hot, isn't he? I bet you'd like to
get your claws all over him. Except, guess what? He's got too much class to go
for a skank like you.”

Rachel didn't respond immediately.
Then she dropped the lipstick onto her dressing table. She turned with anger
burning in her eyes. “Yeah, I make you uncomfortable, I get that. I make a lot
of people uncomfortable. But you know what? I’ve read all about you. The only
thing you know about people is how to hurt them. So congratulations, honey.
You’re real fucking good at it.” And with that she stormed into their small
bathroom and slammed the door.

Sophia sunk onto her own bed and
sighed.
I do have a knack for hitting people’s buttons.
Still, she was
surprised Rachel had taken it so hard. She projected an “eat shit and die”
attitude any other time.

“Goddamn it,” she breathed to
herself. It was the wrong thing to do to lash out at Rachel like that, even if
Rachel did piss her off. It irritated her to no end that they had actually
bunked the two of them together. Just because they were women. Still, she knew
how to work with teams.  NASA was all about that, and yet she’d just
attacked a fellow teammate for no other reason than she was naked in her own
bedroom.

If she was honest with herself,
she knew why Rachel pissed her off. The team needed power, and Rachel was weak.
Worse, her flirtatious manner was a distraction and possibly a danger. No team
needed that.

As she sat there, however, she realized
that those things weren’t all there was to Rachel. The woman had invented
invisibility after all, when others had given up on it. She acted like a
vacuous tramp, but she really wasn’t one.
Well, not vacuous, anyway.

If the General thought she could
be of use to the team, then she probably could be, and Sophia knew it was her
job to get along with her. Who the hell could know what kind of demons were in
Rachel Dodge’s head? She was here, she’d come. Despite the risk.

Sophia slumped there for a long
moment then trudged over to the bathroom door, feeling contrite. “Rachel, look.
I'm sorry. I'm just on edge. I didn't mean to take it out on you.”

The bathroom door flew open, and
standing behind it was a completely transformed, confident Rachel Dodge. Hair
fixed, mascara just right, lips perfect, and still buck naked. She trotted past
Sophia and opened their small closet. What she brought out of it made Sophia
roll her eyes and turn away.
Better not go there,
she thought. Instead,
she said, “There's going to be a firefight, you know. Either tomorrow or the
next day or the next. It's coming, I guarantee it.”

“I guess.” Rachel pulled a tight
shirt over her head.

“You gonna know to duck when the
time comes? Bullets don't have to see their target to kill.”

“I'm not new to this,
Helius.” 

“No, I think you are. We're not
talking about covert ops, or whatever the hell you all call it. We're talking
about street warfare. I know what that's like and it's ugly and it costs lives
and bystanders and even pretty, invisible girls.”

Rachel had finished dressing. With
what she was wearing, it hadn't taken long. “I'm a woman,” she said as she
crossed the room, snagging her cloak. “And if you haven't noticed, I'm very
visible,” and with that she opened the door and strutted out into the
hall.  

CHAPTER
51

D
iego
Alvarez opened the door to his workroom. He was a quietly devoted man. Far too
reserved to wear his faith on his sleeve, but step into his sanctuary and it
screamed at you from every corner. Crucifixes adorned the walls. Pictures of
Christ and the Pope centered above his wall of monitors where he spent most of
his time. Old-world faith, new-world tech.

Lantern strode into his workroom
and stopped. Seated at the reading chair directly in front of him was Rachel
Dodge. She had on the cloak as usual and wore a tight, white tube top that
allowed lots of cleavage and a bare midriff. Her skirt was short and her boots
were long. Her legs were crossed. If Ward had seen her he would have thought
trouble
.
Lantern was out of his Lantern gear, in just a ratty T-shirt and sweats. Just
back from a workout.

Rachel thought he was still easily
the best-looking man in the complex. Lean and muscular, five o'clock shadow,
and everything
tall, dark, and genius
was supposed to be.

He nodded to her, tried not to
look at anything inappropriate, said nothing, and proceeded to his desk, where
the bevy of screens awaited his attention. Rachel watched him, waiting for a
response that never came. She shrugged and pulled out a cigar and lit it up.
Blew the smoke over in his direction. This got his attention.

“Really?” he said, swiveling his
chair toward her, irritation on his face.

“Is it the smoking or the blowing
you don't like?”

Lantern narrowed his eyes at her
but turned back toward his screens.

“Fine,” she said. Rachel searched
for a way to extinguish the stogie. “I like you better with your helmet off, by
the way.” She gave up looking, dropped the cigar on the concrete floor, and
crushed it out with a boot heel. “Leslie and Sophia seem to think a big fight's
coming. What do you think?”

“Doesn't matter what I think. Only
what I see.”

“What do you see here?” she said,
leaning in his direction; the little girl voice was back.

Lantern only glanced out the
corner of his eye. “A woman who is trying to keep me from my work.”

“That's my point. Haven't you ever
heard those this-could-be-our-last-night-on-Earth lines? Why don't you take a
break from that work; I've got something else you could work on.”

Lantern nearly turned away from his
screens, but stopped himself. “I don't want to have sex,” he said, sharper than
he'd intended. He tried to soften his tone. “Rachel, if I don't finish here,
you're all probably going to be dead.”  He stared at the screen, trying to
contain his rising anger at her. And then he realized she'd said nothing and
that she was no longer there.

“Who said anything about sex?”
came her reply from somewhere Lantern couldn't place. She sounded hurt or mad
or both.

Lantern scanned the room, but
there was no way to see her. Even with his helmet he would have had trouble.
“Where are you?” he asked finally.

“Leaving,” her voice trailed out
the door.

The next morning, Ward kept his promise. He went to
see the General about staying out of the fight. The Revolution was camped up in
a space that was half-office, half-laboratory. It reminded him he had never
seen Revolution's living quarters at the old HQ. He explained Alison's concerns
to the General. To his surprise, the Revolution seemed sympathetic.

“Alison thinks it's going to be
pretty bad. A full-scale invasion, was how she put it,” Ward said.

“So does Bailey, so does Lantern.”

“How does Lantern do that stuff?
How can he find them without them finding him?” Ward wondered about the
mysterious, quiet man. Alison had her contacts in the Council, Bailey had been
an insider too, but Lantern's technical know-how made him seem almost like a
mystic to Ward. It was such alien technology to him. He had trouble getting his
brain around it. Not a feeling he enjoyed.

“Well, you're asking the wrong
person, but you know the digi-sphere-cube he used for the destroyers? He's
working on one for the whole country.”

“The whole country?” How could
that be? The first one at the harbor seemed impossible, let alone a scan that
could encompass an entire continent. Lantern cribbed off satellites all across
global orbit, but maintaining a cube like the one at the harbor for the whole
country was a mathematical problem of unimaginable complexity. 

“At least the lower forty-eight.
We already have a pretty good one from Boston to New York to Philadelphia. More
like a rectangle, I suppose. The Council has this kind of technology too,
though; it's just not public knowledge. But Diego's on another level.” 

“Then we
could
both see
each other coming? Them and us?”

“He's done a pretty good job of
keeping us hidden all this time and anticipating their big moves. The details
are sometimes hard for him to discern. That's where we have to be careful.”

“Speaking of being careful,” Ward
said with a sigh, “Alison doesn't want me to go because I'm hurt. And because
she thinks we're not coming back. That you're not coming back. I realize we
never really discussed this at length, but she is kind of my partner. I mean, I
know COR didn’t accept her into the Suns, but she is my best resource.”

Revolution sat there for a long
moment. Finally, he said, “Well, you can make that call better than anyone else
here. You saw the report from the infirmary. You need rest. No one would blame
you if you stayed back. But I can do something for the pain, if that’s the
issue.” He rose and stepped behind Ward and flung open a large cabinet with
both hands. Behind the cabinet's double doors were rows and rows of shiny metal
cylinders, all with what Ward instantly recognized as medical labels. “You're
the doctor. See anything that might be of help?”

Ward limped over to the cabinet
and scanned the cylinders. Every kind of powerful painkiller he could think of
was represented. They each were ultrapotent with built-in accelerators, junior
league versions of those that spread the drugs in his darts within a single
heartbeat. They were also illegal. His eyes ran across a label,
ketorolac
tromethamine
, and widened. He pointed to it. “Does this have accelerators?”
Revolution nodded. “That's highly addictive,” Ward said.

“Not so far.”

Now that was a weird answer to
Ward. He knew a lot about this subject. The clinical trials on this were very
clear. The only thing that could block the addictive properties of this
accelerated drug would be a constantly supplied antidote, or “blood cleaner,”
as they'd come to be called. But this particular accelerated analgesic was such
a potent chemical stew that it would take a constantly renewing supply to
counteract its addictive effects. And that realization sparked Ward's memory.
“Back there, at the prison. That Guard said your suit was grafted onto your
skin. Is that true?”

“Partially.” Revolution just stood
there. That was clearly all he was going to say about that.

Ward grabbed the container of
ketorolac tromethamine and a syringe next to it. The syringe had a long tube
attached with another needlelike protrusion at the other end, which Ward jammed
into the top of the metal cylinder. It hissed.

“Well, I'll leave you to it.”
Revolution said, and he turned to go. “But if you’re in, the meeting briefing
is in thirty minutes.”

 
        “It's more than just a suit,
isn't it?

Revolution stopped, stood silent
for a moment. Then he turned and marched for the door. Ward thought he would
leave the query unanswered, but he said, “Yes,” as he passed through the
doorway, never breaking stride.

CHAPTER
52

BOSTON HARBOR

TWELVE HOURS LATER

PHASE ONE: GUARD THE HARBOR

A
sleek black speedboat zipped across the nighttime water. Hollis slowed the motor.
The boat coasted to a stop as Hollis scanned the waves with one of Lantern's
RDSDs. The tall southerner’s face broke into a crooked grin. “Can't hide from
the fox.”

He dropped the device into a tight
pouch of a pocket in his grey-and-silver suit, zipped it closed, and slipped on
his silver diving mask. Hollis leaned back and hurled himself over the side. A
couple of kicks and he rocketed into the black depths. The sapphire lights on
his diving mask glowed to life. His visor activated instantly as the entire
ocean world lit up in digital daylight. Ocean currents, pressure, and depth all
represented in three dimensions. The familiar smell of plastic and rubber met
his nostrils as he breathed in the filtered air.

Finally, he slowed to a stop.
Small lights on his suit illuminated the water around him. He pulled out the
RDSD again, and a faint blip appeared on its small screen. Hollis adjusted his
visor so that his field of vision grew narrower but elongated. He spied deeper
into the water. He could see five hundred yards into the digitally lit dark. He
searched for the source of the signal. He found nothing.