The beam struck a solid block of steel. The block sat upon a steel pedestal like a sacrificial lamb. The light surged across it. Enveloped it. When Revolution pushed the button again the laser went dark, but the steel block continued to glow. It pulsed.
“Looks like we're ready,” he said.
“Speaking of being ready, you ready for this?” came a voice from behind them. Willard, Leslie's tall, lanky assistant, in his midtwenties, lurched up to them. “Found what you wanted on your Spider Wasp friend,” he said.
“Who is he?”
“Name’s Paul Ward. Used to be a hotshot surgeon, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.”
“Harvard,” Leslie added. “I’ve heard of him. But several years ago he became a general practitioner.”
“Not your normal career path.”
“No, not at all,” said Willard. “Get this, his son was killed in a drive-by. Caught between rival gangs. And guess what gang?”
“Of course. I kind of remember that now,” Leslie said.
“The police fingered Fiddler himself as the shooter.”
“Now we have a motive.” Revolution nodded.
“For the bug suit? Yeah. And the police couldn't make it stick with Fiddler. This is before Fiddler was in charge, back when he was a main enforcer. So, now we know what he wants more than anything.” Willard smiled at them, feeling important.
“We also know he's legit,” Revolution said.
“I hope so, since you showed him the candy store already,” teased Leslie.
Revolution nodded. “Then let's see how much of sweet tooth he really has.”
CHAPTER 27
Just past the lab was that large steel door that led to the second half of the complex. The part Ward had not been shown. On his fifth visit, two weeks later, Ward got to see it. The whole thing had been converted into something resembling an aircraft hangar. They even called it the hangar.
Revolution and Ward toured the facility. The room was used for battle practice, as evidenced by the large array of weapons and targets of all kinds and sizes. Some of which showed the charred signs of recent usage. It was straight out of the military. Ward’s jaw dropped when he noticed that the “Media Corp” chopper from their encounter with Lithium was there.
“I'll be damned. Is that what I think it is?” He pointed at the chopper.
Revolution nodded.
“That was a rescue! And Lithium just let you fly away!”
“It’s been well used. No one ever stops a Media Corp helicopter, and the irony makes for good press if I’m ever spotted. I even rode it to State Street the night of the massacre.”
Ward was impressed. Then he looked up. “Wait. How do you get it out of here?”
“See those?” Revolution pointed up toward a large mechanized system of sliders. Ward marveled. A whole section of the roof could slide away allowing the chopper to lift off without anyone on the street realizing it. From the ground it just looked like it was taking off from the roof. There was rarely anyone around to see it anyway. Ward smiled.
“Hey, I could fix you up with a jet pack. It's a lot more convenient, and no more flying coach.”
“I have a thing about flying.” Revolution was his normal deadpan.
“Oh yeah, what's that?”
“I don't like to.” Revolution stopped and put his hand on Ward 's shoulder like he was about to tell him something important. “There are a few rules we have to get straight.”
“Well, I already let you blindfold me on our first date. I think that speaks for something.” Ward laughed, but Revolution was a tough crowd.
“You have to be comfortable with being Paul Ward around here, while knowing me only as the Revolution.”
Ward's mouth dropped open. He unlatched the helmet and slipped it off. Revolution gave him another nod, and they walked on past the helo.
“Wow. That was easy. Who else knows?”
“You can trust everyone inside these walls with your life.”
“So…everyone.”
Revolution said nothing.
“And who knows your identity?” Ward asked.
“Not even my mother.” Revolution stopped. Put his hand on Ward's shoulder again. “Paul. There is no ultimate weapon.” His tone was sympathetic.
“What?” Ward was confused. First, he was pretty sure the man had just told a joke—that was nearly headline worthy; and second, he wasn't sure he had heard the last part right. And even if he had, it made no sense. From what he’d been told, it was the warning he gave them about the ultimate weapon that had gotten him a ticket behind the curtains. “What do you mean?”
“Council isn't working on an ultimate weapon. That was a rumor that we planted. Waited for it to come back to us.”
“But how? I mean, my source is really reliable.” Ward couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“I've no doubt. But Council isn't working on it. We are.”
CHAPTER 28
Fiona plopped onto her bed and cuddled up to the small mountain of pillows piled against her headboard. Blinky, her sleek black cat with streaks of white above each eye, bounded across the bed and leaped onto the floor. Everything was a game to that cat. Chalk it up to cabin fever.
Fiona twisted over and grabbed the remote from her bedside table and aimed it at the TV. The screen blinked to life from the wall in front of her. Fiona hated her room. Its stone walls, flat ceiling, and concrete floor. She’d done her best to hide them. The walls screamed teenager, covered in posters of the latest singers that teens her age obsessed about. Slashes and splashes of vibrant, neon colors were everywhere. Lighted butterflies were strung around the periphery of the room, just below the ceiling. Normally these were the only light source she used, unless she was reading or studying, which was quite often. Images of hot actors and actresses were also in abundance.
And the Revolution. Lots of the Revolution.
The video was old. It beamed to life with wavy lines across the screen and blips of static. A woman with long, blonde hair glided gracefully across the screen, dancing a ballet to barely audible music. The woman was Fiona’s mother. She watched her dance, and as the film continued, Fiona found herself rising from the bed. Taking in her every move. She began to mimic the moves. She’d watched this a thousand times. She knew it by heart. So did Blinky. When her mother pirouetted, she pirouetted. Her mother had been a professional dancer. Ballet, Latin, Middle Eastern. Her mother had done all of them and done them well. But it was in belly dance that she’d found her true calling. She had traveled the world with the Bellydance Allstars. And she had combined all three of her other styles into a fusion that confounded purists in all three camps. Fiona respected that. She emulated it. Every month or so she would put on a recital of sorts for the entertainment-starved staff of the HQ. Like her mother, she would dance a fusion of all three styles. Fiona knew her true path lay in science, just like her father. But her real passion was dance.
She wondered if this war would ever end. If someday she might be able to see more of the world. If she might be able to dance for audiences she didn’t know by their first names. How different would her life be if there was no war, no Resistance? She dreamed of getting out. Going to a university. Meeting people her own age that she could actually interact with and get to know, not flee from—pretending she was better than they. She hated that game. Fiona had no choice but to be a loner. Regulations.
But there were benefits of being locked up in here. She thought of him. Every woman in the world wanted him, Fiona was convinced of this. Why wouldn’t they? And she was the closest thing he had to a girlfriend. Right on cue, Blinky leaped onto a bookshelf and rubbed herself against a full-length portrait of the Revolution. “Good girl.” Fiona laughed. “See, even you know.” Blinky rubbed the poster again and let out a little mew. The fact that Blinky’s empty food bowl sat just beneath the poster had nothing to do with it.
Fiona wondered what Revolution’s ultimate role for her would be in the Re
sistance. She knew what she wanted it to be. She knew she could dance her way into his heart. In fact, she was sure she already had. He could deny it, but she knew his interest in her had changed in recent months. She could feel it.
She clicked off the set, tossed the remote onto the bed, and went out to find him.
The Revolution led Ward around the large see-through chamber. He explained that they referred to it as the Fire Fly chamber and promised to explain. It was a smaller laboratory inside the larger. The walls of the chamber reached to the ceiling. High-tech work stations abounded inside it. Ward found himself scanning the various machines. A few were familiar, but he had no idea what the purpose was for most of them. Revolution was trying to explain the insurgency's ultimate weapon. Even for a Harvard professor, it was a stretch. Revolution tried to keep it simple.
“We call it bioluminescence, or Fire Fly,” he said. “A new form of energy. And our plan is to apply it to a human being. A person we have codenamed the Fire Fly”
“The Fire Fly chamber creates the Fire Fly.”
“Exactly,” Revolution said.
“Okay. What will it do to them?”
“We don't know for certain. We do know what it does to inanimate objects. Take the whip.” They strolled over to the far wall of the chamber. Revolution pulled his whip out of a small compartment. It was fully charged. Glowing and pulsing. He held it out for Ward to see. “With it, we can cut through steel, elongate its reach, speed it up.” He flicked it toward a solid steel cylinder target that sat on a steel pedestal at the other end of the chamber. The whip stretched impossibly—twice, three times its normal length—and sliced the target in half. The two halves clanged loudly to the floor, confirming their solid steel construction.
“Essentially, bioluminescence converts matter to light. Very intense light. A moldable laser.” Revolution gave him a proud glance. “No known element can resist it. It cuts through everything.”
Ward was amazed. “What about this glass? Does this contain it?”
“Only its residual energy. A direct hit would burn right through it. We have to be careful when we are running tests, as you might imagine.”
Ward laughed at the understatement. “How in the hell did you come across this?”
“It was discovered by Dr. James C. Scott.”
Now there was a name Ward knew. Every academic did. Scott had been a legend before his death ten years ago.
“There was an accident,” Revolution said. “A project that Scott was supervising. Many lives were lost...” Revolution paused, as if he was remembering the event.
“Anyway. Out of it, Scott realized that he could bind DNA protein to this new light substance.”
“So, it's alive?” Ward asked.
“In a way. Think of it as supercharged algae that alter the properties of their host—”
“Yuck.”
“But he died before perfecting it. Our engineers have been working on it ever since.” Revolution regarded the whip for a moment. “Truth is, Scott never intended it to be used on anything other than a human being. That's why he called it bioluminescence. The living cells needed a host to survive, or so he thought. He believed it would create a human of unlimited energy and power. Power that could be called on at any time, just as a firefly with its light source. He died testing his theory. He was test subject number one.”
“He tried it on himself! That’s not exactly protocol.”
“Scott always wanted to be a hero. He was convinced it would work, but he also knew it was dangerous. I don’t think he wanted to risk anyone else’s life. I don’t have that luxury. Now we're looking for lucky number thirteen. We've not been so lucky.”
“What happened in the other tests?”
Revolution glanced toward Fiona, who was working on the far side of the room. For months now Revolution had noticed that she had requested office or lab tasks that kept her within sight of him. If he was there, she would watch him all day long. It concerned him. Her searching eyes caught his glance, and she smiled. She never failed to smile at him. And he never failed to notice. He quickly turned back to Ward.
“All fatal. Now no one wants to try. We can't exactly advertise for volunteers. And we have a limited population here. But I believe we're getting very close to the answer. What we need to find is a human compatible with the energized DNA of the luminescence.”
“Have you identified contra indicators?” Ward was thinking like a physician now. Every problem was a case that could be diagnosed.
“Yes. Everything. Therein lies the issue. With no successful tests, that's all we have been able to identify.”
“I see the dilemma. And the Council would kill for this if they ever found out.”
“That's why Scott never really shared the information with anyone. It's why we've had to start over from scratch. Reverse engineer to get where we can improve it. There are some things we still don't understand. If we ask for help from the outside, we know they’ll find out about it.”
Revolution looked Ward in the eye.
“We always knew that if the rumor got back to us, it would mean they had gotten desperate. And that would tell us two things. One, they would be more dangerous than ever. No longer content to leave us be. Two, they would be at their most vulnerable.”
Ward said nothing, but his look indicated his confusion.
“Because” Revolution explained, “a snake is never more exposed than when it stretches out to strike. Much better to stay coiled up in the bushes and out of sight.”
“So you think they'll overplay their hand?”
“I don't know that for certain. I hope so. All I know is that if they try to up the stakes, they'll risk exposing themselves. You’ve done us a great service by bringing us this information, Paul. Never thought it would come from an outsider. We expected it from one of our people on the inside. We will have to be ready to countermobilize.”
Ward couldn’t help but feel proud. He tried to shake it off and stay focused. “So, you're playing chess.”
“Basically.”
“But how could they believe they are working on an ultimate weapon when they really aren’t? The information I got was well placed.”
“We have people in very high positions in the Council’s inner circle. Especially when it comes to weapons and technology. A few years ago, the CIA developed a parallel agency you’ve never heard of. Officially, it’s called CIA Special Division S-1. Unofficially, it’s just called SHADOW. And the CIA assigned one of our people to lead it. All these years they’ve never known that one of our top operatives is one of their top operatives. And we have others in their ranks. It’s a twisted game we’re playing. But we have no choice.”
Ward shook his head. It dawned on him that here he was, a former Harvard professor and celebrated academic, speaking with a guy who spent his nights pummeling bad guys, and yet that guy was schooling him on a biochemical compound Ward couldn't begin to understand, not to mention the art of war and espionage.
“Can really make your head spin,” Ward said, mostly to himself.
Revolution nodded.
“All this technology, you understand all this, don't you? I mean what can be understood?”
Revolution nodded.
“Man, who the hell are you? What were you in your past life?”
Inside his armor, Revolution just smiled, thinking his answer would apply in more than one way. “Younger.”
CHAPTER 29
Ward sat down across from Leslie Gibbons in a large, well-designed boardroom. The table was long and rectangular. The entire far wall was nothing but a video screen. Smaller screens circled the room. They called it the situation room.
He was more than a little starstruck. Leslie Gibbons was another legendary scientist. One of many great scientific minds that had gone missing after the Purge. It was like finding out Elvis really was still alive.
“Dr. Gibbons, thanks for taking some time to talk. It really is an honor,” he said.
; “From what I hear, the honor should be mine. It's not every day we find someone who takes such an active interest in what we do. Or in the General.”
Ward wasn't sure how to take the first part, but the latter caught his attention. “Why do you all call him General?”
“That's what he is around here. We are a lot more organized than you might imagine, Dr. Ward.”
“Please, call me Paul.” He glanced around at all the equipment, thought about everything Revolution had told him. About having insiders in the Council’s operations, the operative at the top of SHADOW, whatever that was. Not to mention the ultimate weapon that turned out to be just a rumor. Their rumor. “Yeah, I’m getting that.”
“The Revolution is the commander of the Resistance.”
“Is that what he was? You know, before? A real general?”
“Oh, you're not going to get that from me. Even if I did know, I wouldn't tell. But if I had to guess, I'd say he was some kind of military scientist. Who knows? He is who we need him to be right now. That's all that matters.”
Ward chuckled. “I read an article by a postmodernist who claims that your General is just a creation of our collective imagination.”
“Imagine that.” the Revolution walked in behind him.
Ward laughed. “Well, problem is, more I get to know you, the more I think he might be right. But don’t go beat him up or anything. I think he meant it metaphorically.”
Revolution sat next to Ward. Leslie nodded to Revolution and excused herself for the evening. She explained to Ward that she was traveling out of state the next day and had to get prepared. Despite what he might have heard, the Resistance had a national network.
Highly organized. Right.
As the two men talked about that network, their conversation drifted to the Freedom Council. Ward saw an opportunity to make another pitch and now—given all that he was learning—find out more of what Revolution knew about the Council. “A lot of people still think the Freedom Council's the good guys. There's tons of good old street crime out there to fight, you know?”
The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution Page 13