The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (6 page)

All Sage knew for sure was that
the people he needed out of the way got out of the way just when he needed them
to. He dried his hands and turned away from the painting.

The Democratic-Republican Unity
party, they had called themselves. Unity Party for short. The party leaders
were on that plane. Stroke of luck? Devious plan? Only one thing Sage knew for
sure. They all died in the crash. They were all gone.

Then he appeared all over the
media and led the country through the nationwide period of mourning. He gained
the trust of the people. His popularity assured the passage of the Freedom
Council Act. The timid new president—himself, a man of great pragmatism—saw the
writing on the wall. He signed the act into law. Sage didn't like the idea of
killing a president. Let alone the leaders of Congress and even some of the
military. The regret began to show on his face.

“They had to be stopped,” she
said, nodding.

Sage remembered it like it was
yesterday. The Democratic-Republicans had laid out a plan. Scrap the Fed. Print
money interest free. Pay off the old debts with this new free stuff. They were
crazy.

Since its formation, the Fed had
created money. Money it then loaned to the government with interest. The
Chairman knew why this was a good thing. It kept the politicians out of the
money creation business.

“Much better to leave it to the experts.
Bankers know money. They know risk. Debt keeps people honest.” 

To do away with debt would pry
open Pandora's box.

“No one would care what the money
was spent on. The printing presses would run night and day,” he said.
Prices
would rise. Savings would dry up. Jobs would vanish.

“You weren’t going to let that
happen.” Marguerite said it like she was recounting a touchdown pass he’d
thrown in the state championship.

In a way she was. He wondered how
many times they’d had this same conversation.

“Hell no,” he grinned.

Yes, the financial system had
collapsed. Yes, the value of the dollar had plummeted in world markets, making
a bailout of the banks impractical. But to do what they were proposing was
madness.

The economy had boomed before the
Depression. The financial system had sucked up debt like a blood-starved
vampire. The Chairman had prospered. Most wealthy folks had.

Then came the crash.

The whole problem had been the
growing trend of burning through money too freely, like a casino in Las Vegas.
A casino that not even “the house” controlled. Banks had borrowed heavily. Then
invested stupidly in the riskiest of markets. And when everything went south,
it went
way
south. 

No one could pay their bills.
Everyone was in debt. In response, the president and his Unity party had
proposed simply doing away with debt. Instead of encouraging people to learn to
live within their means, they proposed doing away with the limits.

The government would print up
currency and pay it into circulation. It was just like Monopoly money. Only it
was worse.

“No interest rates. Politicians in
control of the money supply. Madness,” she said.   

“And nobody was going to make any
damn profit off of it, that was for sure. This country’s about making money.
Always has been, always will be. Take that away and you take the freedom away.
They’re one and the same.” With that, Sage took a hearty gulp of his drink and
enjoyed the slow burn down his throat.
Now that’s a martini!

The last thing Sage was going to
let happen was to see the people who made this country great, who made this
country work, become the scapegoats for everyone's screwups. And the group that
went down in the plane crash, they had been the ones holding everything up.

“The Council fixed the problem,
that’s all,” he said as if he were answering Roosevelt, whose fiery red hair
filled the room’s screens as Media Corp cameras panned back to a close-up of
the speaker in Boston.

The Council had helped organize
the International Banking Consortium. Now, credit policy was set outside of the
political system. The Federal Reserve was abolished, but for the right reasons.
Now, the Council borrowed money from the world's biggest banks on behalf of the
nation.

Sage strolled back to his chair and
plopped down with his martini in hand.

“As it should be,” she said.
“They’re just tilting at windmills, you know.” She pointed to Roosevelt. 
“Why don’t you throw them some kind of bone, darling? Give the stupid
Revolution a medal and shut them up for a while.” She leaned over him, giving
him a good look down her dress, and kissed him softly on the lips again. He
licked his lips but then quickly glanced back to the screens. Marguerite
frowned.

“It wouldn’t work. Besides, I
can’t make him too much of a hero. He
is
dangerous, you know.”

“He can ruin a good evening,
that’s for sure.”

Roosevelt was on-screen going on
about businesses corrupting the country or some other bullshit.

“The business of America is
business, you imbecile.” Sage shrugged his shoulders like he’d just announced
the most obvious fact of all time.

“Oh boy,” Marguerite sighed, “I’m
going to take my gin and tonic and see if some pool boy around her can’t give
me some attention. No one in this room is going to.”  She winked at him
and grinned as she turned.

“I wondered why we hired those
guys.” He smirked at her playfully, but his thoughts and eyes instantly spun
back to the news in front of him. He noticed her frown at the screens as she
exited. He’d have to make this up to her later. 

The Chairman sighed.

This world was a world based on
merit. That’s how the species progressed. And the best of the best maintained
control through the Council and the Consortium. Sage and others like him ruled
the country because they were the best. They deserved it.

People get what they deserve.

It was a motto to live by. Idiots
like the Revolution understood none of this. He railed about freedom and
democracy when what he was really espousing, what he would really bring about,
was anarchy.

 But Sage could always use
the Revolution for his own purposes. It made Media Corp look good to give him
airtime. Made coverage looked balanced.

Just like after the plane crash.

It took real talent to honor the
memories of his enemies at the same time that he put into place everything they
opposed, but his control of the media once again served the cause well. Media
Corp had long since done away with quaint notions like net neutrality or local
media.

Sure there were rebel outposts
that broadcasted any way they could, but for the vast majority of Americans,
everything they heard, everything they saw, everything they read came through
the Media Corp lens. The key was to let the dissenters have a voice in every
medium.

He just made sure that they were
drowned out by more rational voices, like his own.

People didn't even know the
difference. They logged onto the Internet the same way they always had. The
charges took place up-line from the everyday consumer. The Council regulated
content through money and access. For the consumer everything seemed the same.
Browsers still existed and still performed Web searches and e-mail and the
like. In fact, there was more “free” content on the Web than ever before. He
had cornered the market, his empire had taken control, and no one had made a
whimper. No one knew a thing.

Almost no one. 

CHAPTER
8

B
oston.
The sound of the Apaches invaded the square. Many peered up to the distant
lights behind Roosevelt.

“The media, owned and operated
through Media Corp, by the Chairman of the so-called Freedom Council itself,
still has millions of our brothers and sisters convinced that this is how it
has
to be.”

The buzz of the choppers was loud
now; they were closing in fast. Some in the crowd backed away. A slow rumble of
discontent began to ripple across the throng.

Roosevelt leaned into his
microphone

“Don't let them intimidate you!”
he reassured.

But the birds zoomed in on the
crowd at high speed. A loudspeaker on Apache One squeaked to life. Night Hawk
spoke in a controlled but firm voice that boomed and echoed across the square.

“This is an unauthorized
gathering. Disperse from this area and return to your homes. This is your only
warning.”

The choppers buzzed low over the
angry crowd and angled back up for another pass. The mass of protestors was
completely unmoved. Their fear vanished quickly, replaced by boiling anger and
determination to stay in the square, to stand their ground.  

“Follow the rules of engagement,
gentlemen.” Night Hawk looked back down at the crowd. He felt a familiar knot
grow in his stomach. The X-1s fanned out and skimmed the crowd like giant,
menacing wasps. “Cold ammo only. Fire on my command.”

Roosevelt saw them returning for
another run. He jumped back to the microphone, leaned out with his hands
outstretched; he tried to touch his listeners, as if he could radiate his calm,
his resolution to them, through his fingertips. He raised his voice and lifted
his arms above his head in the most dramatic gesture he could muster.

“To those still cowed by the
Council and their media, let us send a shot across their bow!”

Just then, the Apaches laid down a
round of rubber bullets.
Thwack, thwack, thwack!
  It seemed to
catch everyone off guard. In spite of himself, Roosevelt leapt off the podium;
his back and shoulders stung from the impact of the rubber. Though the bullets
hurt like hell, they did no real damage. The citizens scattered but then
regrouped, angrier than ever. In the past they might have fled, but this was a
moment many had waited for, hoped for, some had even
planned
for.

On the rooftop, the Revolution gripped the
building's ledge. His scanners read the ammo as nonlethal, but he didn't like
how this was unfolding. It looked like the Guards had just fired into a
hornets' nest.

The crowd awaited the next flyby with a noisy,
defiant resolve. The choppers fired again. Many raised their placards as
shields. The Apaches doubled back. This time, Molotov cocktails spun up to
greet them. They flared across the steel and glass of the X-1s and flamed out.
No real damage, but Night Hawk was pissed. Broken glass, open flames in a crowd
this thick was just irresponsible and more than a little dangerous, he thought.
And it had proved another thing to him: this crowd didn't come here just to chant.
They’d come here looking for trouble.
Nobody walks around with a Molotov
cocktail in their back pocket just for fun.

Somewhere in the midst of the
throng, a lone rifle lanced above the crowd. A serious weapon, military issue.
Rapid-fire automatic. As the Apaches laid down their third round of fire, the
rifle barked back. The high-caliber rounds sprayed across the nearest X-1 as it
zinged by. 

A match was lit, a fuse ignited.

The explosion was yet to come.

CHAPTER
9

T
he
bullets were high-powered—enough to puncture pure steel. They blasted toward
the nearest chopper.

Inside Apache Nine, young pilot
Harry “Buzzsaw” White watched helplessly as bullets chipped away at the
reinforced glass of his cockpit window. A few of the rounds pierced the underside.
It all happened in a matter of seconds.

“I'm under fire! Fire is ho—”

A shard of plastic flew off his
dashboard and struck him in the throat. He clutched at his Adam’s apple, which
felt like it had lodged itself in his spine. He coughed and gagged, eyes
watering. His X-1 swerved and rolled. The sleek chopper nearly fell out of its
safe zone, but he stayed the throttle at the last moment.

Night Hawk spied Buzzsaw’s erratic
wobble. He'd heard the faint gunfire from below, despite the roar of their engines.
“Is that live ammo, Nine?”

Buzzsaw said nothing. 

“Nine?” he repeated. “I say again,
is that fire hot?”

But Buzzsaw was clutching his
voice box, unable to speak. He punched the com, but he could make no sound. The
Night Hawk saw Nine's com light up, and then nothing. He thought that couldn't
be good. Suddenly, Apache Eight chimed in. He was flying in formation right
next to Nine.

“Sir, that did
not
sound
like civilian issue to me. I think they're the real thing. I think they're
hot!”

Inside Apache Nine, more bullets
slammed into the cockpit. The glass spidered all around. Buzzsaw could tell the
bullets were definitely hot. Glass spattered in. A round finally pierced the
thick glass shield cleanly and sliced into Buzzsaw's arm. He cried out from the
burning, searing pain. Fear gripped him like a raging inferno.

Desperate, angry, scared to death,
he switched to live ammo.
Motherfuckers try to kill me! I'll kill 'em right
back!
he thought.

Apache Nine dove from formation
straight at the crowd; Buzzsaw was firing like a mad man. His emotions had
overtaken him. The young pilot had never been fired on before. He wanted to
make sure no one would ever do it again. Bloodlust pumped through his veins.

Night Hawk saw him, but in the
split-second chaos of the moment he couldn't tell if he was diving or
crashing
out of the sky. “Pull up, Nine! Pull Up!”

Nine's turrets were full open. The
metal zinged out red-hot into a sea of humanity; small sprays of crimson
stretched like waves across their numbers. Eight hundred rounds per minute,
nearly fourteen per second, into a mass of living targets. 

“Harry!” Night Hawk screamed.