by P. R. Adams
Rimes spun, CAWS held at waist level.
One of the ruined genie corpses was staggering from the hallway toward him, blood and viscera trailing in its wake.
Its eyes were dead.
“Sergeant,” Rimes said.
It waved a hand dismissively, a familiar gesture.
“Perditori,” Rimes finally realized.
“Rimes,” Lopez said over the earpiece. “Come again?”
Bhat had his weapon centered on the corpse’s chest, hands shaking. “Colonel? A c-couple rounds to the head and he can’t tell rank?”
“Rimes?” Lopez sounded worried.
“Hold on, Lopez,” Rimes said.
The corpse leaned on a wall. “You denied us the resources of the Powell and Valdez, and we had hoped to do the same to you, out of courtesy. However, the time for fun and games is at an end, and we must leave this dead cradle.”
Bhat leveled his CAWS at the corpse’s forehead. “I could try to kill it again. Or at least get it to shut the hell up.”
Approaching the corpse, Rimes held up a hand. “No.” He looked into the dead eyes. “Why this … display?”
“You have changed, Colonel. We have both changed. Even in defeat, we grow stronger. You are unreachable by my previous methods. I knew the time would come, even though I did not correctly anticipate the moment or method.
“So here we are—you, the misguided angel of death, me the creator speaking through one of your victims, an innocent bystander in an unnecessary war. I could warn you not to pursue us, but it would be futile. You will come, and we will kill you, or you will kill some of us.”
The corpse smiled, dripping blood from its mouth. “In the end, it will not matter. My kind will survive and flourish, and yours will pass. You will all pass.”
“Where are you going?”
“For now? Away. Eventually, beyond any place you know of. Goodbye, Colonel.” The corpse bowed and gave a slow wave, then slumped to the ground.
Bhat whistled. “Shit, Rimes, what the hell was that?”
“I couldn’t begin to explain.” Rimes knelt to examine the corpse. After a few seconds, he stood, wiping the gore from his hands. “Let’s get to the hangar bay and see if we can raise Colonel Weatherford. Something tells me this isn’t over yet.”
45
22 March 2164. Grandfield, Oklahoma.
* * *
Rimes stared out a filthy window at the dying lawn outside. More weeds than grass, and more barren earth than weeds, it was fenced in by cracked and rotten split rails. Beyond the fence, the ruin was worse.
So much ruin, so many failures.
A cough drew Rimes’s attention back into the room.
He saw the room in a dreamy twilight where memory and reality met. He’d spent many a school night studying here, Cleo snoring noisily in the same leather chair.
In his memories, the room was larger, the furniture newer, the air fresher, Cleo stronger. Dust hung, suspended in what sunlight leaked through the windows and paper-thin curtains.
Grandfield was a ghost town, only a handful of houses still occupied. Its streets were broken pavement, its municipal buildings scabrous shells, its breath weak gusts of sand.
He sat on a battered, sagging couch next to Molly and his younger brother, Michael.
“When were you planning to tell us?” Rimes asked.
Molly squeezed his hand.
Cleo made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a cough, then took a drink from a smudged jelly jar and set it on a scarred end table. The table was as much a part of Rimes’s childhood memories as the old man’s penchant for cheap whiskey.
“You know now, so what’s it matter?”
“How long?” Rimes asked.
“A few months,” Cleo muttered. “Maybe less.”
Memories lied.
The old man had never been strong, the house had never been a haven for Rimes. It had always been dirty.
Broken.
Cheap.
“I’m sorry, Cleo,” Molly said, squeezing Rimes’s hand again.
Cleo took another drink from the jelly jar. “For what? You didn’t cause it, sweetie.” He looked at Rimes. “Your brother wasn’t supposed to tell you. He can’t keep his damned mouth shut for nothin’.”
“He told me because he knew I was considering going away for a while. He thought I’d want to see you again.” Rimes breathed deep, tried to calm himself.
Cleo waved dismissively. “You’re always goin’ away. You ain't nothin' like your brothers. Never have been.”
Rimes pinched his nose and rubbed his eyes. Dealing with his father was never easy. Saying goodbye was proving even more difficult.
The house was nearly silent—the hum of a failing console, the drip of a leaky faucet, the quiet groan of the foundation settling.
And their breathing.
Cleo looked at them with jaundiced, judging eyes, the same eyes that found them lacking as far back as Rimes could remember. Even sunken as they were, shadowed by a bony brow chiseled by the ravages of disease, they held power.
“Where now?” he said, his voice dry reeds rattling. “Another cesspool you can’t even afford to take your wife to?”
“Georgia,” Rimes said. He wiped away tears he hadn’t realized were there before. “Fort Benning.”
Michael anxiously looked from Rimes to Cleo. He rubbed his hands together. “He’s going to be an officer.”
“Officer?” Cleo shook his head in disgust. “What’re you gonna make as an officer? Enough to move out of that little place you call an apartment? No. I could fit that place in my garage. How do you expect to have a family with a place like that?”
“They’ve got one on the way,” Michael said.
Molly leveled a dark gaze on Michael, and he lowered his eyes.
Cleo blinked for a moment as he absorbed the news. He reached for the jelly jar with his shaking, talon-like hands and nearly knocked it over. “One on the way?” He leaned back in his chair. “Well isn’t that somethin’? Wasn’t sure you knew what you was doin’.”
“We were going to tell you last week,” Molly said. Her smile faltered. “Things went a little crazy at Jack’s job. It was in the news.”
“A dyin’ man doesn’t waste money on the news, sweetie.” Cleo grimaced at Molly—it was what passed as a smile for him. “So what’s this officer gig gonna pay? You gonna finally be able to afford your own car, like Steven?”
“Steven was a pimp,” Rimes said.
Cleo winced, and took another drink from the jar, and turned to Michael, giving him a reproachful glance. “And I expect you’ll still be tryin’ to suck them dry, huh? Even when they need to provide for their own.”
Rimes shook his head. Cleo was just lashing out. Rimes had to get Cleo back on track. “No car. We’ll save more. When Molly finishes her degree, we’ll both be making enough to get the boys a good start.”
Cleo raised his eyebrows. “Boys? You got twins comin’?”
Molly smiled and kissed Rimes’s cheek. “Not twins, but Jack’s convinced we’re going to have two boys eventually. He’s already got names for them.”
Cleo took another drink from the jelly jar. “I knew when I met Alejandra we’d have Steven.” He stared out the window for a moment, then sighed and grimaced again. “Steven was my plan. Michael and Taylor were hers." He waved the jelly jar at Rimes. "Ain't no one planned for you.”
Rimes settled his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his hooked thumbs. He didn’t want to waste time fighting with his father. Every second now seemed more precious than ever before, and he wanted to spend it with Molly.
“Cleo.” Rimes struggled to find the words that had been so easy when he’d rehearsed them the previous afternoon, before he’d found out the old man was dying. “Things are changing. A lot of things are changing. I know you’ve never cared much for my career, but it’s my calling, and there’s not really much else out there folks can even call a career anymore.”
&nb
sp; Cleo snorted. “Careers ended before you were born. They were endin’ before I was born, unless you consider bein’ wealthy a career, or sellin’ your soul. If you don’t got money you can spend your life turnin’ into more money, you ain’t got many choices. All we got today is crime or law, mercenary or soldier. Not another option for someone not born to it. And one day, there's gonna be a reckoning. You hear me? A reckoning!”
Rimes patted Molly’s hand. “Once I complete officer training, we’ll be moving. Probably to Germany to start with. Other places after that.”
Cleo glowered at him. “I won’t be here to see your baby.”
Rimes looked at his feet. His Army-issue sneakers were worn from miles of jogging. They were comfortable. Something about them felt every bit as right and natural as talking to Cleo felt awkward. “Cleo. I wanted to say goodbye and tell you that …” Rimes took a deep breath. “Tell you I love you.”
Cleo looked away, his eyes watering as he drummed his fingers irritably on the chair’s arms. Finally, he wiped his eyes and said, “When I was a little younger than you, everythin’ was so different. Oh, it was changin’. Things’re always changin’. But if you looked at it hard enough, you could see it was changin’ in a whole new way, the sort of change they probably saw back in the 1930s, maybe the 2000s.
“We’d just come off the Big One. Well, it was the Big One before this Big One. Every damn depression is the Big One. Everyone seems to want more and bigger change, so we end up with these here disasters. It was 2065, and things were boomin’, relatively speaking. No more cannibalism, least not out of necessity. Jobs were there if you had the education and will to take a contract that could feed you and your family, but not much more. The land of milk and honey, just like it used to be.”
Cleo stared out the dirty window, at another time. Finally, he closed his eyes and sagged slightly. “But you know what the real change was? The military. The generals said they were done firing on civilians. They were done shootin’ up those who’d had enough of living like animals and wanted access to food and water the wealthy bastards had. They were done being at the beck ‘n’ call of corporations who offered them nothin’ for the favor of eliminating some starving women who were saying no more to spreadin’ their legs so they could feed their kids.
“And do you know what that resulted in?”
“The Corporate Security Laws,” Rimes said, again rubbing his eyes. “They were forced to shoot anyway. I’ve studied history. The military’s refusal to shoot only changed the uniform of who was pulling the trigger.”
“Studyin’ history ain’t the same as livin’ it,” Cleo said. “They were pilin’ corpses into mass graves, like you’d see in movies about the damned Nazis.”
“The riots had to be dealt with, Cleo.” Rimes hated discussing the military with his father, and he could see Molly was becoming upset as well. “The government felt the military was the right solution.”
Cleo snorted and reached for his now-empty jelly jar. His hand shook in fury. “The right solution? Nazis had that term for killin’ millions a couple centuries ago.”
“So now we’re Nazis?”
Michael held his hands out in a sign of peace. “Dad, no need to make it ugly.”
“Ugly,” Cleo said, indignant. “It is what it is. You kill millions, you kill thousands, you still killed your own people. And for what? To protect the wealthy? Revolution made this country from nothin’. Burning down those mansions, taking away what those people took from everyone else, maybe that’s the only way to get us back to where we were. A reckoning! I tell you right now!” Cleo coughed and scowled. He pointed through the filthy window at the sprawl of dead grass, mud puddles, and trash that marked his yard. “You think there’s a solution for what we have today? Not every problem has a solution, Son, and the military sure as hell ain’t the hammer for every nail.”
Rimes took a heavy breath. “It’s my career, Cleo.”
Cleo slapped his hands down on the chair’s arms. “Billions of people go their whole lives movin’ from contract to contract. And when they’re asked to do something they don’t agree with, they say no.”
Rimes stood. “I’ve made my choice. You can’t hold me responsible for the horrible things that the military did in your time, and you can’t expect me to give up what I love out of some misplaced belief it will fix everything that’s wrong with the world.”
Cleo’s face darkened, and he took a breath to start shouting.
Rimes interrupted him. “We’ve got to hit the road. The rental place said this car’s sensors don’t handle darkness well, and I don’t want to do the driving myself. Not at night. Michael, we’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”
Cleo deflated. He looked away when Rimes offered his hand. “Tell Alejandra I said hello.”
Rimes stepped outside without another word.
Molly let him take a few steps onto the broken concrete before hugging him—out of sight from the window.
He held Molly close as the tears flowed.
46
22 March 2164. Grandfield, Oklahoma.
* * *
Alejandra’s duplex was immaculate—brightly painted, carefully organized, and perfectly balanced between cluttered and open, if somewhat aged and yellowed.
Rimes watched her from across a small, aluminum folding table as she set her teacup down and patted her thin lips with a faux-cloth napkin, then folded it in half and set it on her lap. It was all very proper and dignified.
Molly gazed into the steam rising from her cup. Rimes brushed a handful of crumbs from the urethane-coated tabletop and dumped them onto his plate.
As usual, Alejandra had fixed a small French pastry for them, something that grated on Molly every time they visited. It could have been the way the place smelled of something freshly baked, the way Alejandra set her modest yet perfect table with china and imported tea, or the way Alejandra claimed to have baked it herself, rather than just buying whatever was on sale and heating it up before they arrived.
Alejandra looked at him as if here were still a child. “In any organization, there are leaders and there are followers. The odds of you being a meaningful leader are much greater if you are an officer.”
“Service is a noble cause regardless of the rank, don’t you think?” Molly said, without meeting Alejandra’s eyes.
Alejandra smiled condescendingly at Molly. Alejandra’s face was still pretty, despite losing its color and accumulating wrinkles at an alarming pace, and it could project cruelty with frightening ease. “But it’s rank that gets you recognized.”
She looked back at Molly, waiting for eye contact. When Molly finally looked up from her tea, glaring, Alejandra continued.
“A leader doesn’t just tell someone else what to do, my dear. A leader does. It’s how respect is attained. When you begin your career—you’re still hoping to have a career one day, aren’t you? Well, once you begin it, you’ll see what sets people of higher status apart from the others.”
Molly returned Alejandra’s insincere smile with a perfunctory one. When Alejandra turned her attention to Jack, Molly dropped her gaze to her tea again.
Alejandra coughed quietly into her napkin. “You know, Jack, you could always go into politics. Get a law degree, leverage your reputation and contacts. You wouldn’t have to travel and risk your life all the time. You could help raise the family, too. Raising children isn’t easy, and not everyone is cut out for it.”
Molly gathered up the pastry dishes and noisily set them into the sink. Alejandra turned in her chair to glare; Molly opened her eyes innocently. “I’m sorry, did I do something wrong? I am tired. I’m not going to be much for talking tonight, I’m afraid.” Molly rubbed her belly. “Travel and the baby have really been a strain.”
Alejandra stood. She brought her teacup to the sink and set it carefully on the bottom without a sound. “Oh, I remember what it was like carrying Steven around. Eight months along and traveling to Texas. You know, I drove us six hours t
o Dallas and Cleo—he was recovering from that knee injury he suffered in his senior year—couldn’t lift a thing. What a sight I must have been, my belly out to here, carrying those suitcases up the stairs to our new apartment, and me half-asleep from the drive. You go clean up and get some rest, Dear. I’ll get this. I cleaned the guest room and put fresh linens in it this morning. You’ll sleep better than you do at home.”
Molly glared over her shoulder at Rimes as she left the kitchen. She hated the guest room. She called it Alejandra’s trophy room. It was full of memorabilia dating back generations, but mostly focusing on Alejandra’s younger years as a star student.
The digital awards from her career as an accomplished businesswoman could be shut off, but nothing could hide the plaques, portraits, and diplomas in the glass cases lining all four walls.
On top of that, the bed was narrow and short, and it squeaked with the slightest move, killing any opportunity for intimacy. Rimes gritted his teeth and finished his tea. He’d known when he’d suggested the trip there would be hell to pay. There was no way around such things, though, especially with reassignment guaranteed should he pursue OCS. And with Cleo’s terminal diagnosis, it was their last chance to see him.
Visiting one parent meant visiting the other.
“She seems on edge,” Alejandra said loudly as she inspected the dishes Molly had set in the sink. “Cleo’s situation has her upset?”
“There’s a lot going on right now.” Rimes carried his teacup to the sink and set it down gently but not silently. “She didn’t get into the PhD program again, the baby is coming … and I haven’t been the best husband.”
He didn’t mean for it to slip out, but once out, it didn’t seem too painful.
Alejandra looked up disapprovingly at the last statement. “Your father always said that when he tried to apologize for his infidelities, Jackson. Please tell me that isn’t the case with you. You were always the special one. We all expected so much from you. I can't believe you would fall into such behavior, especially given the distance between you and Cleo.”
