The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (30 page)

     “Not anymore,” said Ray from the front seat. “And she
was number two, to be exact.”

     Veronica scowled behind him from one of the van’s
middle row seats. Fiddler was riding beside her; Fang was in the third and back
row of the van, by himself.

     “Who’s number one then?” she asked.

     “Her father,” Arbor grinned, looking sharp in his
Marine Corps dress blues. “Maybe you’ve heard of Doctor Rage?”

     “That’s a stupid name,” sneered Fiddler. 

     “Better hope she don’t have no daddy issues,” Fang
grunted from the back just as Arbor made a gentle right into a large gravel
driveway. A tall stone wall surrounded the property, and Arbor drove the van up
to its gate and a small call box.

     “This it?” Fiddler asked.

     Veronica shook her head. “Turned against her own
father. Bet he was a real bastard.”

     A polite, if robotic, voice asked for ID, and Arbor
answered with his real name. The gates opened, and Arbor eased up the drive
that stretched along the gently rising hill. The house the driveway belonged to
was still nowhere to be seen.

     Ray was scanning his RDSD. He peered up at Arbor and
smiled. “No activity.”

     They drove about two hundred feet down the drive,
bumping and rattling loudly on the gravel when...

     Arbor brought the car to a halt, and the rest of them
realized that the van’s engine was no longer running.

     “Why are you stopping?” Veronica asked.

     “Cause we’re walking from here on,” Arbor said,
putting the gear in park and opening his door. He stepped from the van, and the
others reluctantly piled out as well.

     “Why walk?” asked Ray. He peered back down at his
RDSD. “We’re still clear.”

     Arbor raised his eyebrows. “Because that’s what they
want.”

     Ray made a face.

     “
They
killed the engine.” Arbor shrugged.

     Fiddler stopped up short. “How could they kill our
engine?”

     “And who’s they? I thought this was just a chick?”
Veronica said.

     “Yeah, the chick,” Arbor said, never breaking stride.
“And her bodyguard.” He kept walking as the others followed behind.

     “Bodyguard?” Fiddler said skeptically. “I thought this
was Lady Rage:
the woman who can kill with a thought.
”

     “Yeah, why does
she
need a bodyguard?” Veronica
prodded impatiently, wishing Arbor would just tell them already.

     “Wait.” Fiddler said, grabbing Arbor’s arm and
stopping him in his tracks. “Are you saying there’s someone more dangerous than
Scarlett Rage on these premises?”

     The thought sent a cold sweat through the group.

     “Oh yeah, sweetheart, and you better get ready to meet
it.” Arbor smiled his toothy grin and marched ahead.

     Veronica raised her eyebrows.
“It?”

     Arbor led them into the yard from the drive, crunching
over the fallen leaves and pine cones. Tall, narrow evergreens, pines, and
large Burr Oaks spread across the wide yard.

     The group trudged up the gently sloping hill. The
terrain was on such a gradual slant that they hardly noticed. But the incline
was revealed as the tower of a small castle rose quickly on the horizon.

     Before they left, the team had been briefed on the
house Scarlett Rage lived in. It had been built decades ago by an eccentric
millionaire who had it styled after a medieval castle. Inside, the home had all
the furnishings of a modern abode, they were told, but its style was unmistakably
medieval. Were it not for the small size—comparable to the average-sized home
before the depression—one could truly mistake it for the real thing.

     As they slogged toward it, Fiddler couldn’t help but wonder
why their handlers had bothered to describe the architectural history of this
place but failed to mention the mysterious, and obviously deadly, bodyguard...thing.

    
Then again, maybe the answer lies in the question.

     After all, this was no group of cowards he was with,
yet they had all felt hesitation coming to the home of the woman who could kill
just by concentrating. People avoided Scarlett Rage as if she were a leper. It
was her curse. And according to some, the years living with that curse had been
none too kind to her.

     The rumor was that the government had wanted to keep
her in active service as further payback for all the years she helped her
terrorist father pull off some of the nation’s most spectacular terrorist
attacks. But when she insisted on retiring, no one challenged her, because, at
least in part, they were also relieved to have her out of their world. How
could you protect public officials from a woman who could assassinate them with
a thought?

     They could have sent agents in to kill her when she
pulled that retirement stunt. Others had been killed for less. But then they
would lose her as an asset that they might never be able to recreate. The
compromise was to isolate her. And keep her available should the need ever
arise...or anyone with the
cojones
to actually go and try to reel her
back in from the cold.

     As it turned out, it took a whole super team to try.

    
And this woman has a bodyguard.
An “it” kind of
bodyguard—whatever that meant. How dangerous would this thing have to be to qualify
for that job?

     The thought filled Fiddler with dread. He really
wanted to kill something. He glanced over at Ray.
Maybe the little black
guy.
He grated on Fiddler for some reason. They could do without him. How
good it would feel to stab his acid-spear right into the irritating little
man’s eyeballs and watch them melt down his cheeks as he screamed in agony...

    
Really good.

     Fiddler blinked and smiled. The thought had perked him
up. “Where’s that fucking bodyguard?” he chortled with bravado.

As they strolled closer to the house, Ray began to detect
dozens of cameras and electronic monitoring devices hidden in trees and bushes.
He began pointing to them. “I guess I know how the Spectral spends its time.”

     “What’s a Spectral?” Fiddler asked.

     “The bodyguard,” Arbor said. “And when you see it,
don’t nobody piss their pants, okay.”

     Ray glanced back and chuckled. “It’s a secret weapon.
Officially, she’s in charge of keeping it hidden from the public or anyone
else.”

     “Officially,” Arbor agreed. “Unofficially, she stole
it.”

     When they got to the door, a robotic female voice
asked them to identify themselves. Clay Arbor answered by his real name, and
instantly the door opened before the others even made a peep.

     Inside, the “castle” still looked a bit medieval,
though sparse and extremely clean. Spotless in fact. 

     “Someone’s a type A,” Veronica mused. “Can you say
anal?”

    
the top of the stairs,>
came a pleasant but clearly robotic voice. This
time male.

     Arbor and Ray stopped and exchanged looks. Arbor
grinned. Ray’s eyes never left the RDSD the rest of the way up the stairs.
Fiddler wondered how the hell he even saw where he was going.

     With each step Fiddler took, he could feel the
pressure returning. The tight spaces of the staircase—something he had never
liked—the attitude of Arbor and Ray, the whole thing. Made him really want to
kill someone.

     When they reached the top, they found a closed door.
Arbor knocked.

     Loud, thundering footsteps followed, coming closer to
the door. The group exchanged glances. Ray turned back toward them grinning,
placed his fist with his thumb straight out, down between his legs, and shook
his head “no.”

    
Nobody piss their pants.

     Fiddler really wanted to kill him.

     The door opened.

     Fiddler pissed his pants.

CHAPTER 31

I
t
was tall.

     As tall as Arbor would have been in his Lithium battle
armor. Six-seven, six-eight, Fiddler guessed. The shape was large, male. Muscular
too, but clearly this was no human; this was a machine. It wore a cape. Its
“skin” was solid with red and yellow-green in an almost tiger-stripe pattern.
As Fiddler looked closer he could see that the colors were pulsating, moving
across the skin, giving it the illusion of looking almost translucent.

     That ended at the robot’s neck and face, which were
almost entirely red. Its head was covered by an extra thick layer of the
yellow-green pattern that made it appear it was wearing a helmet. Its eyes were
pools of black with piercing red pupils that shone out like tiny spotlights.
The cape it wore was striped in wide vertical strips of red and yellow-green
that was attached to its body by a high yellow-green collar that extended above
and framed its head.

     The machine’s dark eyes suddenly glowed white, and
Fiddler felt his heart race. It was going to fry them or paralyze them or send
them to another dimension—or God knows what!

     And then...

    
Nothing.

     Its eyes just scanned them from head to toe and then
they returned back to being pools of black with piercing red pupils. Finall,y
it spoke.
Colonel Veronica Soto, and unknown guests, you may enter,>
said the machine.

     The voice had a calm human quality, but it was off somehow.
Detached, disembodied. As if it were emanating from somewhere other than the
machine, though clearly it was. It raised the hair on Fiddler’s neck. From the
look on Veronica’s face, he wasn’t the only one feeling that way.

     “It’s Colonel now, actually,” Arbor said, patting his
stripes.

     The android’s eyes scanned the metals and returned
back to Arbor’s face.

    
been informed of the promotion in rank. I will update my files.>

     “Been a long time, Spectral,” Arbor said.

     The machine did not respond but stepped aside and let
them pass. Fiddler had the feeling it was still sizing them up as they ambled
by.

     Seated on the far wall of the room was a beautiful
woman with red hair, all elegantly piled atop her head and held there in part
by a thin, blue, metallic headpiece. It wrapped around her head by two bands.
The top band was thicker and more decorative, and it connected to a center
piece that descended down her forehead nearly to the bridge of her nose in a
kind of arrowhead pattern, elegant filigree decorations running across it. The
lower band was more snugly fit around her head and was thinner, undecorated,
and probably served a more functional purpose. Fiddler had heard about the
device. People called it her tiara, like she was some kind of fucking princess.
It held her deadly brain waves at bay.

    
Supposedly.

     She was dressed in her signature white flowing shawl
that hung off her delicate shoulders like a cape and curled up around her neck
in a collar. As usual, she wore a choker the same color blue as the tiara.

     “
Colonel
Arbor, you’ve changed your uniform,”
Scarlett Rage said with a smirk.

     Arbor laughed, knowing she meant the Lithium armor,
and quickly introduced the group. When the introductions had concluded Arbor
got right to the point.

     “Do you know why we’re here?” Arbor asked.

     “I read the news,” Scarlett said, crossing her arms
over her chest.

     Arbor went right to the hard sell.

     “Then you know what I’m going to say. Join up, end
your house arrest,” Arbor said.

     Scarlett stiffened, her tone dark. “I’m not on house
arrest.”

     “Aren’t you?”

     “I can go anywhere I want.”

     Arbor wasn’t letting up. “Really? Then how ‘bout we
head on down to the White House, talk to the president.”

     Scarlett shuffled in her seat. Her long red nails rapped
the sides of her chair. Enough that Arbor noticed.

     The android noticed too. Fiddler swore he saw its
colors
deepen.

     “After all,” Arbor continued sarcastically, “you’ve saved
this country before, maybe even the whole world. I’m sure the Lady Rage would
get a hero’s welcome.”

     “I’m no hero,” Scarlett said. “Assassin was the word I
believe they used to use.” Lowering her face, she kept her eyes locked on
Arbor’s. She looked like a cat ready to strike.

     Arbor swallowed. “Wouldn’t you like to change that? I
can guarantee it this time. I’ve got a hell of a lot more authority these
days.”