The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (28 page)

The bars had been engineered with
multiple backups and numerous charging points. This meant the bars sent
constant pulses of superhigh-voltage electricity across the metal. At least
five pulses per second. His armor could withstand a single charge of nearly
unlimited electrical power. He could even drain the power and send it back out
if he needed to. But he couldn't do it from multiple sources at once. The bars
would literally fry him inside his own suit.

Ward was on his own.

Becky and Fiona sat drinking tea at the small
breakfast nook in Becky’s kitchen. Liquid seemed to ease the pain Fiona felt,
both inside and out. Her throat had been dry most of the time since the coma,
and spending long hours in Becky’s large tub had soothed her skin. With each
passing hour she found the pain bothered her less. She could also control her
transformation into Fire Fly form better. She was getting stronger.

The day had offered her the chance
to fill Becky in on the past. She told her all she knew about the Fire Fly and
bioluminescence. How the Revolution had practically raised her, yet kept her at
arm’s length.

How he had led her on.

And then how she had gotten her
revenge on him. When Becky had told Fiona that the media were announcing
Revolution was still alive, she had been surprised to notice Fiona looked
relieved. But the hatred returned any time she mentioned him in any other
capacity. Becky told her she could stay as long as she wished. And Fiona seemed
grateful, but she kept a distance. She only let Becky in so far. After what the
girl had been through, Becky knew it would take some time for Fiona to trust
anyone again.

Becky tried to talk with her about
the past, her parents. She'd gotten a degree in clinical psychology, though she
had never used it professionally. After the divorce she had been tempted a few
times but had never wanted a career that would take her away from this cabin.
Or the lake.

She was intrigued by the faint
memories Fiona had of her early childhood. It had jogged free one of her own
memories. “So you grew up in Sacramento?” Becky asked.

“Yeah, like I said, I don't
remember it well. I was really young. Ten years ago.”

“When I was married to Tom I used
to work in the Freedom Council's Office of Records in Sac. Where the Council
keeps local secrets. There was a case no one was supposed to talk about. We
called it the Fletcher case.”

Fiona set down her teacup.

“Honey, I think that might be your
parents.”

It did not take long for Fiona to
devise a plan. She had already sensed what she could do when she transformed
into pure light. Not only was the feeling amazing—the pleasure Becky had
experienced was just as strong on the other end, as opposed to the constant
pain she felt in human form—but she could go anywhere, do anything a beam of
light could do. And more. Much more.

Becky’s connection to her parents
had to be more than coincidence, Fiona thought. It was almost as if she were
being guided toward something. These new powers of hers were mysterious, but
they seemed to have a mind of their own.

Becky’s pickup sped down I-80. She made it to
Sacramento in less than two hours. Fiona could have gotten there in a second
flat. A fact she kept pointing out during the drive. But Becky was not letting
Fiona out of her sight. Once she learned no one else had ever survived the Fire
Fly experiment, she had insisted on coming along. The connection she felt to
Fiona was much stronger than anything that made any sense. And she knew it. But
that did not change what she felt she needed to do.
A solemn duty.

Becky pulled the truck into the
large, empty lot and parked at the very back. “Do you need help?” Becky asked.

“Not with this part.” Fiona
smiled. “I will later,” she said and then patted the bathrobe lying on the seat
between them.

Becky nodded and watched the girl
exit the truck and trudge toward the large building. She knew such a long walk
was still difficult for her. Fiona described it like walking on thumbtacks. In
high heels. With thumbtacks in the high heels. But each hour proved a little
better. She was determined to rid herself of the pain. Fight through it. Fiona
was tough.

Fiona reached the building's front steps. Large
windows framed the entrance. Fiona closed her eyes and instantly the
bioluminescence burned around her. Her cells liquefied and energized. She was
flush with power. Concentrating on the tall, wide windows that formed the
facade, her body stretched and then disintegrated into a single ray of light
that beamed through. She materialized inside the window, glowing brightly. All
in a single second of time. Amazing! She laughed out loud.

She stayed in Fire Fly form and
walked. Enjoying the ease of motion. The lack of pain. Somehow her memory for
locations was vastly improved. Becky had described the layout for the Office of
Records perfectly, it seemed. Fiona had never been here before and Becky had
only described it once, but she instantly visualized it. And now she was
standing in the room and it looked just as she had imagined it.

Actually, it looked amazing. Her
Fire Fly eyesight scanned all the spectrums simultaneously without overlap or
interference. She could see in the dark, through solid objects, or stare
directly at the sun. The details of the world popped in a vivid multiverse of
sensations and colors. She’d spent hours underwater in Becky’s tub just staring
at the fantastic ripples, layers, and particles in the water. It was like
seeing an alien world for the first time. It had been hard to leave. But she
had to know about her parents.

Large rows of filing cabinets
stood from floor to ceiling, holding the hard copies of every file on record.
The Fire Fly looked them up and down. Sacramento's history since the Purge. Was
her past really in there? Had the Revolution lied about that as well? She
closed her eyes tight and concentrated, telescoping as a ray of light inside
the giant filing cabinet. Row by row she searched.

This took some time. The files
contained everything: financial records; the details of stock deals—some
illegal, some not; transcripts of wiretaps; photos from stakeouts; and lots and
lots of written reports by Council Guard leaders tasked with arresting,
interrogating, or “eliminating” people the Council deemed as problems during
the Purge. Why would the Council keep such detailed records? Revolution and
Leslie always said that the Council covered their tracks. But right there were
the details of hundreds of incidents during the Purge. Hard proof of Council
involvement.

She got faster at the scanning as
she went. She could browse an entire drawer at once, each taking around three
seconds. It was like she had a thousand eyes, all scanning the spectrums of
light. It was thrilling but also disorienting. It took several moments for her
senses to adjust.

The cabinet drawers glowed from
inside as she passed from one to the other, moving back to front. Finally, the
glow settled in a drawer low to the floor, halfway down. She’d found the file.

Though she didn’t want to leave
the room, Fiona quickly returned to the truck and let Becky into the building
by disabling the alarm system, which was based on infrared sensors. Fiona did
not have to learn to do this. She could
see
how it worked and seemed to
do it on instinct alone: anything having to do with light seemed second nature
to her now.

Becky brought the bathrobe in for
Fiona to wear once she had shifted back to human form. At this rate, being the
Fire Fly was soon going to wipe out the new wardrobe Becky had loaned her. On
the other hand, having to buy a new outfit every day could have its advantages.
Becky probably wouldn’t think so, though.

That thought had crossed Becky's mind as well, but
with considerably less enthusiasm, just as Fiona had feared. Becky's consulting
job allowed her to work from home and also allowed her a handsome income for a
single woman in her late thirties. But to satisfy the ravenous fashion tastes
of a teenager who literally burned through her clothes was going to get
expensive. Very expensive. Wasn’t that alone enough to start charging this girl
she hardly knew rent? Wouldn’t any sane person do something like that? Make her
pay her way? Work at a shoe store? Something? Why did she know she wasn’t even
going to bring it up?

The two pored over the stack of
files. The entire history came spilling out of them. In some cases, blow-by-blow
accounts. Becky also wondered why they would keep such detailed records of
events. Even for a former employee, this surprised her. The Council officially
denied that the Purge ever occurred.

Both women found multiple
references to Fiona's father in the records. His had been one of the local
Council office’s largest cases for a while. Finally, Becky's eyes grew wide.
“Look at this. Your parents are mentioned again and again in this memo about
James Scott. Didn’t you say he developed the Fire Fly system?

Fiona’s jaw dropped. “Yeah. What
were they doing?”

For a moment Becky didn’t speak,
just continued to read. Fiona’s eyes were burning a hole in Becky. And since
they probably really could, she decided she’d better speak. “Your father was
the federal regulator over Scott's project. The Council was trying to build a
case against Scott, to get rid of him or something,” Becky said, still reading.
“At some point your father switched sides. Tried to hide the nature of Scott’s
research from the Freedom Council. But they caught him.”

“What?” Fiona felt a rush of
anger. She had never been told any of this. She knew her father had worked for
the government. She knew that he had opposed the rise of the Council, but she
had always been told her parents’ death was an accident.

Becky motioned for Fiona to wait.
She raised her head, and Becky’s face was pale.

“Oh my God. Read this.” Becky
handed the file to Fiona. “Your parents were killed because they were
protecting Scott...and...you better just read it.”

As Fiona read, her memories, long
since repressed, of a night her psyche had decided she needed to forget, came
flooding back.

CHAPTER
45

“T
hey
are coming to kill him.”

It is her father’s voice.

James Scott, a tall, graying
professor, hurriedly packs notebooks into a backpack as a young couple helps
him gather them.

Her parents. They are in her
living room from when she was a child. This is part memory, part imagined
memory.

An urgent knock on the front
door.

They panic. Behind them a sliding
glass door jolts opens. Standing silhouetted in the rainy night is the
Revolution.

“Stall them. I'll get him out
of here,” says the Revolution.

Revolution leaves with Scott,
fading into the wet, fog-shrouded night. The young couple looks at each other
wide-eyed.

A dozen more vehicles screech
to a halt in front of the house. The sounds of a door being busted down, and
agents swarm the room, overpowering the couple. She cries out, as Mommy and
Daddy are slammed to the ground by the men. She glares out into the rain for
the man in the cape. She see him. 

In the forest, Revolution hears
the cry. He and Scott stop in their tracks.

“Stay here,” she thinks he
tells the older man.

Revolution sprints back toward
the house. The couple and the agents scream at each other.

Her mother sweeps the room with
her eyes and locks onto her. She has never seen her mother like this. It
terrifies her. Her mother screams for her to run. She does. The men are too
busy with her parents to notice or care.

She runs. Runs as fast as she
can. Fear is all she can feel. The water floods her eyes immediately. She keeps
running. A flash of blue and red streaks out through the rain. She’d forgotten
about the man in the cape. He snatches her up as she darts past him. She tries
to scream, but he places his armored hand over her mouth.

“Shhhhh. I'm a friend of your
mommy and daddy's.” Something in his voice is soothing, familiar. She believes
him and calms down.

From the house, they can hear the
Guards warn her parents that if they don't tell them what they want to know,
they are going to die. They swear they don't know anything.

Revolution hesitates. He looks
over at Scott, the man they’d come to kill. She knows that he has to get Scott
to safety; it’s what her parents want. Then he can return and rescue the her
parents. “C'mon, Fiona. We have to go. We'll meet up with your parents later.”

As they run through the forest,
she hears the shots ring out from the house...

Fiona lifted her head from the file. How much was
memory, how much was her imagination? But she did
remember
what the
files described. She had it back now. She could feel the tears wet on her
cheeks. She saw Becky's searching gaze. Conflicted emotions swirled inside her.
“I don't want to talk about it. Let's just go.” Fiona wiped her eyes and took
the files with her.

On the drive back, she didn't
speak a word. When Becky finally decided to break the silence, she was
surprised to look over and see the girl sleeping. When they were home, Fiona
went straight to the spare bedroom and shut the door.

In the morning, Becky rose early
but Fiona stayed in bed, her door shut. Becky sipped tea, ate cereal, read the
paper, drank more tea. Becky was on the couch reading when Fiona slunk in and
sat next to her. The girl stared at the floor. They didn't speak for a long
time. Becky kept thinking about how the Revolution had saved Fiona as a child.
Maybe his motives were more complex than the girl realized. Somehow she knew
Fiona could tell exactly what she was thinking. She’d known it the moment she’d
lifted her eyes from that report. But how could she possibly know? What
was
this connection they had? Finally, Becky broke the silence. “Fiona, I know this
is hard, but I think this is all more complicated than we thought. I just think
you ought to consider going back and talking with—”