The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (5 page)

As the chopper approached State
Street Square, he let go, plummeting the eight hundred feet to the roof below.
The servos in his leg armor braced for impact. They were calibrated to respond
to his muscles, tendons, adrenaline, and a whole host of other internal
bioindicators—how this occurred was his closely held secret.

Still, his descent was rapid. His
cloak—like the rest of his armored disguise, a calculated symbol of insurgency
resistance—had a more practical purpose. It was also a glider. Though, as he
had found time and again, that function was highly overrated. In real life, he
rarely flew over Gotham City like a bat. Instead he tended to do what he was
doing right now...

Fall. Hard.

The roof loomed larger and larger
below him as he plummeted. The rest of the world blurred. The cloak snapped
rigid, slowing his descent. The last thing he needed was to actually crash
through
the roof. Not the kind of headlines he wanted. So the cape slowed his fall.
Still, this was going to hurt.

CHAPTER
6

H
e
slammed down on both feet. The cape balanced his landing, and with one step
backwards for good measure, he was on the roof. A landing he would feel the aftereffects
of for days. But you would not know that to look at him. He was, by design, a
one-man army. The scientist, whose life he saved all those years ago in the
shadows of that office, had served him well.

Below, Roosevelt seethed. “The trappings of
progress exist! Look around you, my friends!” He waved his arms about at
the half-dozen giant monitors that, on this night, reflected his own image back
at the throng like giant Jumbotrons. “Media Corp's digital billboards are
everywhere. They broadcast WebTV all over every major city. In almost every
home. And as the billboards go up, so do their profits. There’s plenty of
money for that! Yet they handed over basic services to private companies.
They told us this would fuel economic growth. Instead, we pay through the nose
for things your parents got for free—even clean water! While your children eat
spoiled meat...” 

Above the throng, the Revolution took in
Roosevelt’s words. At first, the symbolism of the armor, the costume, had been
a hard sell for the man who would become the Revolution. He'd needed
convincing. But the Freedom Council was a creature of media birth. So must be
its adversary.

It would take something that would
make an immediate impact to compete with the twenty-four-seven power of the
Media Corp propaganda machine. A superhero would make that immediate impact.
People had always yearned for a superhero. The subject of so many books and
movies. The idea was to draw on that desire and create one of the most
incredible technological feats ever known. A real
Iron Man
.

The people could not raise an army
to fight back. There was just too much power arrayed against them. The
Revolution would become that army. A one-man army.

The scientist, Dr. James C. Scott,
whose life he had saved all those years ago in that dark office, conceived of a
walking military base, with everything from an onboard medical center to
satellite communication. The viability of the project relied on two of Scott's
greatest achievements: the titanium-osmium alloy he had dubbed
Titanium-O4
for its ability to quadruple the strength and resistance of normal titanium;
and his creation of
bioluminescence.
By supercharging conventional
weapons, like the whip and the shurikens, with luminescent properties, the
Revolution would seem almost magical to opponents.

That magic would be draped under
an unmistakable image of the old Republic. “Darth Vader wrapped in a flag,” one
paper had quipped. Not a favorite comparison, but it would do in a fix.

The living symbol of the
resistance was the result. A scarlet cape in contrast to the dominant blue of
the Council's Freedom Flag. All of the armor made of the scientist's new
near-indestructible alloy. The name, that was his idea. Every time someone saw
the Revolution, the image would scream “superhero!” Every time someone said the
name, a mental frame of the insurgency’s desire for the country—a
revolution—would burn across the mind's eye. But the “iconic legend,” the
“mythic hero,” was just that. A myth.

The reality was just a man inside a
machine. A soldier commanding a mission. The armor was hardware, a weaponized
vehicle with functions and limitations, parameters and boundaries. A “high-tech
prosthesis.” Wasn’t that how Tony Stark had described it in the old
Iron Man
movie? Scott had taken the idea to its logical conclusion. Superheroes didn't
really exist, but the illusion of them, for the first time in history, was
alive and well.

Speaking of superheroes, it was
time to look the part...

He burst into a run. The
adrenaline pumped in his head. The leg servos roared to life again. Though they
were essentially silent to an onlooker, he could hear them plainly inside his
armor. They propelled him forward faster than any normal human.

A yawning gap stretched between
the buildings as one of Boston's major avenues cut through below. The servos
screamed in his ear as he approached the ledge, and with a blast of power, he
leaped. Up into the open night air. His cape snapped into a glider, and it
caught the wind like a sail, lifting him, just enough so that as the arch of
his trajectory fell, his titanium boots thudded on the concrete of the far
roof. He had made it. 

Below, the crowd was energized;
they were clearly ecstatic to be there together. This was more a pep rally for
the insurgency than a protest against the Freedom Council. Old Glory waved
everywhere. It made him proud, even relieved. He had feared trouble tonight,
but as he peered out at the crowd, those fears began to melt. In an earlier
time the sight below him would have been typical of the most ardent patriotic
event imaginable. Red, white, blue were ubiquitous. That this was an illegal
protest spoke to just how much the country had changed.

And just below the surface lay an
anger. An anger that could boil over at any moment. Left alone, this crowd
would be no threat, but challenged, they could explode. Desperation does things
to people. It makes them take actions they would never otherwise consider.
Events like these can relieve that pressure. If a people have no way to vent,
they will often build up their anger to a boiling point. The outpouring of
solidarity among the crowd was a welcome sight. No doubt about it.

The shouts from the crowd rose up,
careening through the steel peaks and concrete spires to fall with echoed
deference at his titanium-plated boots. He was in so many ways, despite the
aloof, desperado image he had cultivated of himself, the leader of this
movement. And he was a man of control. He may have called for a revolution with
regularity, but he did, in fact, desire a peaceful, controlled transfer of
power.

He knew how quickly the resistance
movement could spiral out of his control. And as he proudly scanned this
disciplined, organized crowd, something small caught his attention. Just a
ripple in his enhanced peripheral vision.

The scanners in his helmet caught
it a millisecond later.

He turned to see small blips of
light high in the sky to his right. Now he focused his eyes as his onboard
telescopic lenses sealed over his eye shields. They zoomed in. The analysis of
the blips, which scrolled across his eyesight, confirmed his fears: Apache X-1
attack copters. The vehicle of choice for Freedom Council Guards doing crowd
control...

Inside Apache One, Commander Trent “Night Hawk”
Preston scoped in on the mob. They filled most of the square. This was going to
be messy, Night Hawk could feel it. But he'd been here before.

Just a day at the office.

Typically it took more than one
flyby to move a crowd. In the old days, one show of force from the Apaches
would intimidate a crowd and disperse them. But now, it was more difficult.

And if he had to fire on them, his
“cold ammo,” made up of nonlethal rubber bullets, usually did the trick. And
his orders were clear. This rally was to be stopped. Period.

No one in the crowd was aware of the Apaches yet.
Roosevelt was hitting his fever pitch now. “In their desperation to find a path
out of these terrible economic times, they turned to the very men who plunged
us into ruin in the first place. Since those days we have seen our liberties
wither away, our jobs disappear, our infrastructure and our safety crumble.”

The crowd oozed with displeasure,
leering up at the Council windows. Roosevelt was hitting close to home. As his
topics turned more serious, the mood in the square began to change. The throng
of protestors began to seethe.

CHAPTER
7

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

A
room
of aristocratic opulence. Hardwood floors covered in the finest Persian rugs:
royal red, deep gold, and silver. Intricate hand-carved wooden walls ran along
the sides of the great room. Rare, priceless artwork adorned the walls. Pure
gold and platinum statues, urns, and planters stood all around. In contrast,
high-tech devices were built (hidden) into the room’s various sitting areas.

At the very center, in the throne
seat, a lone figure sat silhouetted before a main wall of television screens.
All on the same channel. He was Chairman Thomas Sage. The CEO and largest
shareholder of the Freedom Council. Referred to by most simply as “The
Chairman,” he was the most powerful man in America. Well-groomed. Early
fifties. Black hair, slicked back, gray at the temples. A man in top physical
condition for his age. He was accustomed to the finest things in life and kept
himself in the finest shape. He wore a designer suit that cost more than a
month of take-home pay for the average American worker. And these were his
scrubs. Work clothes.

As the CEO of Media Corp, the
largest single company in America, Chairman Sage had risen to power along with
the Freedom Council. There were no rules making it so, but the understanding
was that the CEO of the largest company would lead the Council. Anyway, the
Council had been his idea. He was the only chairman it had ever known.

The Chairman watched the protest
with amusement. Sage knew these things were necessary. His long years as head
of Media Corp had taught him well that to truly maintain control one needed to
hold on with a loose grip.

But a loose grip can slip through
your fingers at times. The Freedom Council was his idea, yet he had lost
control of it during
the Purge
.

In those early days things turned
ugly. Intimidation, sabotage, even assassinations. The elements of the country
that would resist Freedom Council rule were crushed. Legally if possible, but
by any means necessary. And Sage regretted it all. He brokered deals, not
death.

But he was also a pragmatist. He
came to realize that the Purge was inescapable, and that it might have to
happen again. He didn't like it. He thought it was just the kind of thing the
Freedom Council had to publically avoid. But it had been needed to get things
moving in the right direction. He just made it his mission to minimize the
Council's role in it.

He made sure everyone on the
Council had plausible deniability.

In fact, plausible deniability was
built into the very structure of things. Orders with no words spoken. Secret
programs with multiple layers of oversight, none of which knew enough to be
compromised if discovered by the public. The system worked well. The Chairman
didn't even know if the hit on the president and the Democratic-Republicans was
called by the Council. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure if it was, in
fact, a hit.

Sage rose from his chair, lost in
his thoughts. He ambled over to his small wet bar and poured himself a martini.
He glanced up at a painted portrait of the former president and took a
sip. 

“Things were so chaotic in those
days. A real power outage could have occurred,” he said to the picture. He
hadn’t expected a response.

“Excuse me, sir?” It was a female
voice. Chairman Sage spun to see the young woman who was in charge of the room.
She had been so quiet he’d forgotten about her.

“Nothing...” Sage realized he’d
forgotten her name. Christy, Chrissie, Chrystal, something like that. “Angel.”
She couldn’t be a day over twenty-two.  Just old enough to serve
alcohol.   

The girl smiled. “Yes, sir,” she
said back proudly, with a little silk in her voice.

Why not? The most powerful man in
the country just called her “angel.” Sage smirked.

“Isn’t there
anything
I can
get you, sir?”

“I can take it from here.” Another
female voice, but this time it was Sage’s wife, Marguerite, who glided into the
room, drink in hand, wearing a satin evening gown that caressed her slender form
like a second skin. Her dark chestnut hair piled elegantly atop her head with
curls falling gently down across perfect cheekbones. She gave the term “trophy
wife” a considerable upgrade. She made her way to Sage and kissed him softly on
the lips. A quick side glance toward the young woman met with an instant
response.

“Yes, ma’am.” The young woman left
with a bow of deference.

Marguerite was accustomed to
politics. She had grown up around it all her life; her father had been mayor of
New York when she was young. She saw the tension return to Sage’s face.

“You trying to convince him it was
an accident again? I don’t think he listens,” Marguerite said.  

“The dominoes could have fallen in
just such a way as to bring down Air Force One. Unlikely, but possible,” he
said with a simper. He ran his hands under the water of the wet bar’s small
faucet. “Technology’s not always perfect. Not even communications.” He smiled
at her.