Awakening to Judgment (The Rimes Trilogy Book 3)

by P. R. Adams

  “Shit,” Meyers said. “Well, we never expected this to be easy.”

  Meyers opened a shared workspace for Barlowe and Rimes. A series of images and video showed the complex’s layout. Nine buildings formed a cross, with a tower rising at the midpoint.

  What is it with towers?

  Rimes rotated his head to work the tension out, then turned back to the display. He spotted a building at the complex’s southwestern edge. It was a simple structure, two-storied, with a red brick facade and white, Doric columns. In the image, young children played in the enclosed green space in front of the building.

  “What’s this building?” Rimes asked, highlighting the image.

  Barlowe dragged the image into a query. “Kennesaw Advanced Academy for Learning. Looks like a private education facility. K through nine. Used to be the city hall. They’ve expanded it over the years.”

  Rimes frowned. Calvin and Jared moved within the image. Rimes froze. He blinked, and they were gone. He pushed forward. “How many students?”

  “One hundred and change.” Barlowe flashed a questioning look at Meyers. “About thirty staff.”

  “When do they leave?” Rimes drilled down on the building, rotating it, pulling away the roof to get a sense of the structure.

  “It’s an academy, a boarding school,” Barlowe said. “The kids live there all through the year with a good bit of the staff.”

  Rimes pulled up an aerial shot of the complex. He circled the southwestern corner and drew a line back to the tower. “The academy would be…here?”

  Meyers nodded. The rest of the team gathered around, sensing the mission was finally developing. Barlowe looked at them and smiled uncomfortably. He brought up the workspace on the bank of displays for all to see.

  “That’s just about four hundred meters,” Rimes muttered to himself. He rotated the Barkley Complex image. “Is there anything closer in?”

  “No.” Barlowe pulled up a live image of the area. Ant-sized figures patrolled a fenced-in expanse of gentle, grass-covered hills surrounding the complex. “Looks like it’s clear a few kilometers out from the tower.” He tapped the tower image and brought up a label: Tower One. “They probably planned to expand the complex and ran out of money. Happens all the time. I can pull up the records, see what happened, why they didn’t move the academy.”

  Rimes nodded. “Do that. Lonny, see if we can find out anything more on why SunCorps chose that complex. It obviously offers excellent security—clear lines of sight, plenty of places for them to garrison troops and store supplies, sturdy buildings, and it looks like a couple of shuttle pads there on the northeast. Is that heavy equipment? Construction? Anything more?”

  “What more could they want?” Meyers’s voice was soft, as if he was asking himself.

  “Just check. Please.” Rimes stared at the complex. “Maybe there’s something we’re missing. Maybe there’s something they missed. Ladell, check when SunCorps moved in. See if you can get us some estimates on numbers, maybe even which buildings are in use. Traffic imagery, power consumption, anything like that. I want to know the weather, too. Visibility, rain, winds, humidity. And check on whatever background you can dig up on Jenny. Get me something I might be able to use to reach her if they’ve sucked her into this nightmare again.”

  “Sure.”

  “Is this it?” Gwambe asked, pointing to the aerial view of the complex. “They’ve dug in here, Colonel?”

  “Looks like it.”

  Gwambe breathed in loudly. “We’re going to need more than pistols and shotguns.”

  Around him, the others nodded and muttered in agreement.

  “Weapons are only one part of the equation,” Rimes reminded them.

  “Of course, Colonel. But that’s easily forty on patrol right there. They must have close to two hundred on-site. They probably have body armor.”

  “They probably do. Put together a shopping list, then figure out where you can pick up what you want. Benning’s out of the question. We’ll need this to be a single, continuous operation, so keep it close.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Steven?”

  “Sir?”

  Rimes fixed Gwambe with a fierce gaze. “We need this by tonight.”

  42

  16 June, 2174. Atlanta, Georgia.

  * * *

  It was dark out, the night black and empty except for a sprinkle of distant stars and the moon’s dull glow. The air was thick and calm, threatening a storm and punishing everyone until it came. Rimes imagined he could hear distant thunder rumbling.

  He stretched his neck and shoulders against the hauler’s seat until he felt a pop. Then, he relaxed slightly. Meyers drummed his fingers on the dashboard, a loud, persistent, annoying sound. Slate Road was a narrow, black strip of cracked asphalt with only the faintest glow of white stripes. The hauler was nestled against the oak trees that lined the rarely used road. To the south, lay the expanse of what had once been Fort Gillem, a National Guard facility shut down when the United Nations established the Combined Military Force. The post was slated for reclamation, but Atlanta was a dying city, Georgia a dying state, and the US a dying country. Delays inevitably crept in, but the post survived in reality if not in name. It was home to an impressive little stretch of woods, a lake, and more than twenty collapsing buildings.

  It was also home to a half-dozen bunkers filled with abandoned weapons systems.

  Meyers finally stopped drumming and turned a heated glare on Rimes. “Why didn’t you at least tell Ladell?”

  Rimes stared straight ahead. “Operational security.”

  “All these years on, and you don’t trust him?” Meyers shook his head, clearly annoyed. “What does it take to regain your trust, Jack?”

  “I trust him. We wouldn’t be where we are without him. I just needed him to take care of some other work for me. If he’s not here he doesn’t need to know about the operation.”

  “You think it’s safe leaving him at that rally point? If it’s not compromised already, it will be soon enough.”

  “I’ve never seen you so worked up over someone, Lonny.”

  “I like Ladell. He’s had a lot of tough breaks. He’s smart. I’ve never seen anyone do what he does with systems. I don’t want to see him screwed over again.”

  Rimes smiled as wind rustled the treetops. They looked like a silver ocean in the moonlight. Far overhead, thick clouds moved languidly. A storm is coming, all right. When? “He won’t be there when they raid the maintenance shop, assuming they ever even get around to it. I’ve been stunned by their incompetence to date.”

  Meyers stewed for a moment, staring out the hauler’s front window at the empty road. He rubbed his thumbs over his palms slowly. “He respects you. He said you stood up for him when no one else would.”

  “He was a good kid in a bad situation. Older people, more powerful people, people who should have been looking out for someone like him, they were taking advantage of him, setting him up to fail. It happens too often for it to be some sort of oversight. Too many people in power want leverage over the vulnerable, the cheap and easy resource, the helpless scapegoat. It’s all part of the broken systems we’ve perpetuated.”

  “That’s why you helped him? Seriously?”

  “No. At the time I was too young and naive to realize all that. It should have been the reason, though.”

  “Then why?”

  “I helped him because he had something I needed.”

  Meyers laughed and shook his head. “Jack, you are probably—”

  Rimes’s earpiece hissed.

  “In position.” It was Gwambe.

  Rimes started the hauler and looked to Meyers for the signal to go. Meyers pulled his pistol from the gray coveralls he wore and gave a thumbs-up. Rimes put the hauler in gear and pulled onto Slate Road.

  He kept the speed below thirty KPH, driving without lights until the road curved to the intersection that crossed Moreland Avenue. He flicked the lights on and t
urned south on Moreland, slowing a few seconds later as he approached Hood Drive. He turned right onto Hood and came to an abrupt stop as a guard jogged forward, arms waving.

  “Rent-a-cop,” Rimes said. “Let me handle this.” He lowered the window and leaned out. “Evening, officer.”

  “You need to turn this thing around.” The rent-a-cop was in his thirties, skinny, pale, and greasy-haired. He frowned at the two of them. “Are you two lost or something?”

  Rimes chuckled. “Is it that obvious? Yeah, stupid navigator fritzed out about an hour ago, and we’ve been going in circles ever since. We’re supposed to pick up a load from a site on Forest.” Rimes dug a card from inside his coveralls. Magenta letters glowed on its black surface. He held it to where the rent-a-cop could see the glow.

  “Forest?” The rent-a-cop hopped onto the running board and stuck his head in the window. “You’re about—”

  Rimes struck the man in the throat. It was a stunning blow that knocked the rent-a-cop out immediately. Rimes caught the man by the shirt before he fell, then jerked his head, signaling for Meyers to come around and grab the body. Meyers took the unconscious man and carried him to the guard shack, activating the gate to allow the hauler through. Once Rimes passed the gate Meyers closed it and cut a strip of cable running along an inner wall to bind the rent-a-cop. That done, Meyers jogged back to the hauler and settled in to the passenger seat.

  “You’re getting soft,” Meyers said as the hauler accelerated away from the gate.

  Rimes merely nodded.

  Hood Drive passed beneath the hauler’s headlights in relative silence. Suddenly, headlights flared to life southwest of their position. The lights accelerated north, heading from an unknown road that intersected with Hood somewhere in the distance. Rimes braked. The hauler slowed with a furious squeal, then stopped.

  “Maybe they’re not so pathetic after all.” Rimes drew his pistol and set it beneath his right leg. “Let’s see who they are before we act.” He calmly raised his hands above the steering wheel.

  The headlights turned onto Hood and headed toward them. Rimes could make out two security crawlers.

  Metacorporate.

  The crawlers braked loudly, and their gull wing doors lifted while the vehicles were still slowing. Three security agents stepped from each vehicle, bulky pistols held high.

  “Don’t move,” the lead agent shouted as he came parallel to Rimes.

  Another agent stood behind the lead agent, two stood in front of the hauler, and two stood on the passenger side with their guns trained on Meyers. Rimes held his hands motionless. Meyers held his up slowly.

  “Is there some sort of mistake here?” Rimes asked innocently.

  “Yours, asshole.” The lead agent looked back along Hood. “How’d you get through the gate?”

  “The guard let us through.”

  “Bullshit. Step out of the vehicle. Slowly. Hands where I can see them.”

  The rear agent on either side of the vehicle jogged to the doors and opened them before falling back, guns quickly returning to cover Rimes and Meyers. Rimes twisted slowly, hands still raised. He pushed the gun onto the seat with his thigh. Beside him, Meyers did the same.

  “Don’t get trigger-happy, guys,” Rimes said. “We’re going to drop to the ground, okay? Nice and easy. No threat here. Just let us get to the ground.”

  “You’re damned right you’ll get on the ground!” The lead agent’s gun tracked Rimes from cab to knees to a prone position on the ground. “Hands on your head! All right, check the hauler! Bed and cab!”

  “Guns in the cab,” one of the agents shouted. “Two pistols!”

  “Guns? What did you think you were gonna do?” the lead agent asked, walking quickly toward Rimes, pistol extended. “Huh? Think you were going to cause trouble? Is that it? I asked you a question. What did you think you were gonna do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Damned right you weren’t gonna—”

  “Now,” Rimes said.

  Gunfire erupted. Shotgun blasts, pistols, the piercing whine of the energy weapons. It was a slaughter that ended in seconds. The security guards lay on the ground, twitching, some moaning, some dead.

  “Hold fire,” Rimes said.

  The firing stopped. Forms jogged from the darkness. Banh and Dunne stopped to finish off the wounded. Gwambe and Trang approached the cab.

  “Colonel?” Gwambe crouched next to Rimes and extended a hand.

  “All good.” Rimes accepted Gwambe’s assistance. “Lonny?”

  “Good. Could you have taken maybe a little longer before giving the order to fire? I’m pretty sure this guy was only a couple seconds away from blowing one of my hands off. I’ve been looking forward to that big, fat military medical severance package.”

  Rimes took the pistol from the lead agent’s dead grasp and climbed into the cab. He retrieved his own pistol from the seat, checked it, then put it away. Once Meyers was buckled in Rimes checked that everyone else was on the flatbed. He put the hauler into gear and headed for the street the security crawlers had come from. A dreamlike haze settled over his perceptions as he drove, and he realized he would need another stim before things began in earnest.

  As he suspected, the hauler’s headlights reflected off a sign that revealed it was South 11th Street. He passed South V Avenue, then South Z Avenue, then a dirt road before hanging a left onto a second dirt road. He followed the road’s slow curve, accelerated slightly as he drove, finally passing a slightly raised mound. He backed the hauler into a small lane in front of the mound and parked it.

  The soldiers exited the vehicle and took the steps down to the sealed entry. Rimes walked to the front, sighted on the door’s heavy lock with the pistol he’d taken from the security agent, and fired. In the still of the night, the weapon’s blast was deafening. Rimes kicked the door, felt it give but not completely. He fired again. The door opened of its own accord after the second blast. He led the others inside.

  Rimes came to a stop in front of rows of weapons and ammunition and faced his men. “More than a century ago, one of the biggest blunders in military history led to the death and maiming of thousands of soldiers. A defeated enemy, even a broken enemy, can fight back. If you’re foolish enough to give them access to weapons, they can be an absolute terror. Even if you’re not a military scholar, common sense should tell you this, but they repeated the mistake, worrying about budgets instead of keeping the enemy away from their weapons. You don’t run war as if it’s a business.”

  “Hoo-ah,” the soldiers shouted in agreement.

  “Sergeant Gwambe’s shopping list, gentlemen! Three mortars. One hundred rounds. CAWS-5s, whatever configurations we can make of them, as many rounds and magazines as we can manage. AP if they have it. Their armor isn’t going to be the best available, but it could be a problem at range. Grenades, grenade launchers. Keep it realistic, but remember that we’re heavily outnumbered. Explosive charges and body armor if you find any. Ten minutes. I’ll be at the second bunker. Contact every minute.”

  Rimes exited the bunker and jogged up the steps. Even though it had been to their advantage it pained him to see such utter incompetence from leadership. Soldiers—even private security forces—were wasted by greed and arrogance. He would never succumb to such failings, but he worried he still might fail his team.

  43

  16 June, 2174. Atlanta, Georgia.

  * * *

  The hauler shot through Atlanta’s heart at an unnerving speed, the tires kicking up a hum that resonated deep into the bones. In spite of the speed, Rimes found his eyes drawn to the mirror, expecting a gunship or airborne crawler or even a helicopter to drop from above at any moment. The sky was clear and the air hot, still, and thick, tinged with a metallic, chemical undertone that sank into the center of his tongue. It reminded him of combat.

  Just my imagination. And memories. No more reliable than dreams.

  They passed crawlers now and then, and Rimes chuckled at the dri
vers’ looks shifting from surprise at the speeding hauler to disbelief at the tarp-covered crates. The tarps were forest camouflage, out of place in the heart of the city.

  They were traveling I-75, an old interstate once closer to a parking lot through most of Atlanta. His father had spoken of times when multilane roadways like the interstate had been filled with vehicles. Although Rimes was somewhat skeptical, he believed his father to an extent. The country—the world—had undergone so much change in the last century. Maybe every meter of the road hadn’t been covered by speeding vehicles; maybe it had. What mattered at the moment was that the road was open and they were approaching Marietta.

  “You think they’re dead?” Meyers stared at his hands with surprising calm. He blinked as he glanced out the window at the lights passing overhead, some functional, some not.

  Of course they’re dead. Everyone we love is dead. Everyone is dead.

  “Who?” Rimes wasn’t sure Meyers was even awake. When they were under the device’s influence they talked in their sleep.

  “The genies.”

  “No.”

  Meyers seemed to think about that. A minute passed in silence, then the functional lights overhead became more frequent.

  “Why didn’t Dana come back with you?” Meyers seemed further away, deep in some parallel line of thought. He turned suddenly, his eyes focused. “Did you want her to?”

  “Yes.” Rimes stared ahead, counting the meters as they accumulated, and the Marietta exit drew closer. His hands gripped the wheel tighter. Yes, I wanted her to. I wanted her.

  “So why didn’t she?”

  “It wasn’t meant to be. There were too many things between us. You asked what it takes to regain my trust? I think it’s easier to answer what it takes to lose it. I’m a trusting person. Too trusting, really. That was always a problem for me. Some people took advantage of that, some didn’t.”