Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

From the puzzled look on Hope’s face, though, the message itself wasn’t nearly so clear.

“Well?” Blair asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Hope murmured back. “That was one of our hunting codes. It means an assigned area has come up dry, and that the hunt team is moving on to the next one. But why would anybody be out hunting now?”

Blair looked around through the fading light at the densely packed tress and bushes hemming them in from all sides. The snaky, Hope had called this route. Blair would probably have named it ‘the claustrophobic.’

“You said the hunt team. But you’d normally have more than one out at a time, right?”

“Right,” Hope said. “Yes, I see—the team leader’s code should have been attached. But there wasn’t one.”

“So it probably wasn’t talking about a normal hunt team,” Blair said.

Hope pondered that a moment.

“You think they’re telling us to give up?”

“More likely that Barnes and your father are leaving the river ford,” Blair said.

“To go where?”

“I don’t know,” Blair said. “Maybe once we’re in the air we’ll be able to figure that out. How much farther?”

Hope looked around them.

“Ten minutes,” she said. “Fifteen if we want to be extra quiet.”

“Let’s make it fifteen.”

Blair’s best-case scenario was that Lajard wouldn’t have been able to locate the Blackhawk at all. Her next-best hope was that he would locate it, but decide to set up an ambush along the trail from town that Hope’s route through the snaky would circumvent.

No such luck, on either count. They arrived at the edge of the clearing to find Valentine already in the Blackhawk, sitting straight and tall and motionless in the pilot’s seat.

The way a Terminator would sit.

“We’re too late,” Hope whispered, her whole body slumping.

“Easy,” Blair soothed, frowning. They’d come out on the helo’s portside bow, and between the portside door and the broken windshield she could see into most of the cockpit. Valentine was there, but where was Lajard?

And then, she heard a soft, metallic click.

“Try it now,” Lajard’s voice came faintly.

Valentine stirred, hands moving across the controls.

“Nothing.”

There was a muffled curse from the cockpit, and Blair smiled tightly. Lajard wasn’t off somewhere on some dangerous errand. Instead, he was lying on his back under the control panel.

Trying to figure out how Barnes’s kill switch worked.

Blair looked up at the sky, her smile fading. Unfortunately, the stalemate wasn’t going to last much longer. The minute the sun was fully down and long-range transmitters began to function, Skynet would probably download every scrap of data it had on Blackhawk piloting and tech into Valentine. At that point, it would be simple for the Theta to sort through Wince’s jury-rigs and patches and figure out where Barnes had diverted the starter circuit.

And when that happened, the game would be over. Lajard and Valentine would fly out of here, rendezvous with Jik somewhere, and they’d all be off to play the John Connor charade in front of some other trusting and doomed Resistance group.

There was only one way Blair could think of to stop them. One nasty, bloody way.

“We can’t let them leave here, Hope,” she murmured. “We have to take them out. Both of them. Do you understand?”

For a long moment the girl was silent.

“Yes,” she said at last. Even in a whisper her pain and grief were clearly audible. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to stay right here while I work my way around the tail to the other side,” Blair told her. “Once I’m there, I’ll find a way to get Susan to turn in my direction. Remember that shot you made across the river this afternoon, where you hit the T-700’s motor cortex?”

Hope’s breath came out in a strangled huff.

“Oh, no,” she breathed. “Please. I can’t do that.”

“I know it’ll be hard,” Blair said gently. “But we have no choice. You saw what Oxley did to those people in town. If Susan and Lajard get away, they’ll do the same to other people somewhere else. Maybe hundreds of other people. It has to stop here.”

Hope didn’t answer. Her face was lowered toward the ground, her eyes squeezed shut.

“That isn’t Susan Valentine,” Blair said. “Not anymore. It’s a Terminator. But if you can nail its control chip, about an inch above the spot where you shot the T-700, there’s a chance that Susan may be able to come back out.”

“And then die?”

Blair sighed. Unfortunately, she was probably right. Shooting the T-700 had disabled the cortex but done little additional damage to the metal skull and processor banks behind it. In Valentine, though, the space inside the metal skull was occupied by a human brain.

Marcus had managed to disable his chip without doing any further damage. But Hope’s arrow probably wouldn’t be that selective. If it hit a seam in the armor and slipped through, Valentine would almost certainly die.

But it had to be done.

Hope knew it, too. The girl took a deep breath and raised her head again.

“All right,” she said, opening her eyes. “But you should stay here. I’ll go around to the other side.”

“It’ll be dangerous to move around this close to the helo,” Blair warned.

“I know this forest,” Hope reminded her. “You don’t. I’ll go.”

Blair hesitated, then nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “But once you’re there, stay under cover until I get their attention to me. How long will it take you?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Hope said. “Maybe twenty. I’ll have to go straight out into the forest, out of sight, then do a big circle around the clearing.”

Blair looked up at the sky. Twenty minutes, with sundown less than an hour away. It was going to be tight.

“Take whatever time you need to keep from being seen,” she said. “And be careful.”

Hope nodded. Holding her bow vertically in front of her where it wouldn’t snag on anything, she slipped silently away into the forest.

The minutes ticked slowly by. Gazing at the helo, listening to Lajard’s cursing, Blair found herself staring at the motionless Valentine.

Wondering what was going on behind the Theta’s stolid expression.

Marcus hadn’t known he was a Theta until the magnetic mine at the Resistance base had blown his body open. Even then, he hadn’t realized he was operating under a secret directive until he reached Skynet Central and Skynet itself revealed the truth to him.

Did Valentine understand what had happened to her? Had the memory of her transformation been erased from her mind, the way Jik’s entire false John Connor memory had been put into him? Or had she always known who and what she was?

Marcus had hated the thought of what he’d become. Oxley, in contrast, had seemed to revel in his new power, strength, and supposed invulnerability.

What was Valentine thinking? The last five minutes, Blair knew, would be the most dangerous, as Hope made her approach back toward the Blackhawk’s starboard side. Blair gave the girl ten minutes, then lifted her Desert Eagle with both hands to point at the cockpit and took a deep breath.

“Lajard?” she called.

There was a moment of silence. Then, beside Valentine, Lajard cautiously raised his head above the control panel, just far enough to see through the broken windshield.

“Williams?” he called back.

“Having trouble starting my helo?”

“Just amusing myself while we wait for sundown,” Lajard said. “I prefer flying at night. You know, it’s really too bad Smith had to open his big fat mouth. It would have been so much better for you and Barnes to leave peacefully. That way, Susan could have intercepted you along the way and killed you more quietly. Or better, I suppose, after you’d gotten the helicopter started.”

“Well, she and I are both here now,” Blair pointed out. “You want to see how we do one-on-one, go ahead and send her out.”

Lajard chuckled. “What, so that Barnes or whoever’s lurking in the bushes can shoot me? Thanks, but I think I’ll keep her right here where she is. Speaking of killing, Susan tells me you killed Nathan.”

“Baker’s Hollow killed Nathan,” Blair corrected. “It takes a village, and all that.”

“That’s cute,” Lajard said with a snort. “You think that one up all by yourself?”

“We all have our moments,” Blair responded, searching the woods on the other side of the helo for signs of movement. So far, nothing.

“You know, your Thetas aren’t nearly as tough as you think. A T-600 or T-700 can take a lot more damage.”

“But Thetas are far better at infiltration,” Lajard pointed out. “I don’t think you’ve grasped the full implications of our time here in the backwater. My Thetas lived among these people for three months—three months—without anyone even suspecting they were anything other than what they seemed.”

“Sounds impressive, all right,” Blair agreed. “Until you realize that once they knew what to look for they picked them out in two hours.”

“Don’t flatter them,” Lajard said scornfully. “You picked them out in two hours. You and Barnes. On their own, Baker’s Hollow would have gone another three months without getting a clue.”

“While Jik played Connor for everyone within reach of his voice?” Blair suggested.

Lajard snorted. “You really don’t understand, do you?” he said contemptuously. “Jik was a late model, a full test of the false-memory system, but programming him to be Connor was pure improvisation.”

“And pretty much useless,” Blair said, putting some contempt in her own voice. Lajard might be stuck here until sundown, but he really didn’t need to be telling her all this. Obviously, the man liked to brag and gloat, and the more detail Blair could goad out of him, the better. “He doesn’t look a thing like the real Connor.”

“So what?” Lajard countered. “I mean, really, how many people have ever seen the real Connor? All we need is the voice, and you have to admit we got that one down cold.”

“Maybe,” Blair said. “It’s still a pretty weak plan.”

“You still don’t get it,” Lajard insisted. “I already said Jik was a last-minute throw-together. The plan—the real plan—was to get hold of Connor himself for that job. The real John Connor.”

“What are you talking about?” Blair asked.

“Oh, come now,” Lajard said his voice loaded with scorn. “Did you really think Skynet had Marcus Wright lure him to Skynet Central just to kill him?”

Blair felt her breath catch in her throat. That part of the operation had been bothering her for a week now, ever since Barnes and Marcus came charging out to her helo with a bloodied and battered John Connor stumbling along between them. There had been hundreds of Terminators in that facility, T-1s, T-600s, and T-700s. And yet Skynet had held them all back while it sent a single Terminator against Connor?

Now, suddenly, horribly, it all made sense.

“Skynet was going to turn him into a Theta,” she breathed.

“Bingo,” Lajard said sarcastically. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”

Blair shook her head. “That’s insane.”

“On the contrary, it’s brilliant,” Lajard said. “Think about it. You take Connor alive—maybe just barely, but alive—and remake him in Skynet’s image. Then we delete all memories of what happened to him, from the moment he walked into Central until the moment he walked out.”

“And you send him back to the Resistance.”

“Exactly,” Lajard said. “With probably a few little enhancements to take with him. Enhancements like wonderful oratory skills, limited tactical abilities, and jealousy of subordinates.”

“Especially the more competent subordinates,” Blair murmured.

“Of course,” Lajard said. “After all, they’re the ones we’d want him to destroy. All we do then is let him regain his title as savior of humanity, and watch as he builds, nurtures, and destroys the Resistance.”

An eerie feeling spread over Blair’s skin. It could have worked, too. Connor had been inside Skynet Central at the exact time that Skynet’s little kill-code deception was supposed to annihilate most of the Resistance cells around the world, including Connor’s own group. Those few who survived would have more important things on their minds than to wonder where Connor had been during the weeks or months of his Theta transformation.

Lajard was right—it had been a brilliant plan. And it had failed only because Marcus wasn’t as firmly under Skynet’s control as Skynet had thought, and Connor’s distrust of Skynet’s kill-code gambit had left his team in position to swoop in and finish the rescue that Marcus had started.

“I’m sure Skynet would have been very pleased,” Blair said. “Not so sure you’d have had such a happy ending. You really think Skynet would have left you and the others alive once the rest of humanity was gone?”

“The others, as in Susan and Nathan?” Lajard asked. “No, I imagine they would have eventually been dumped along with everyone else. Not much call for molecular biology and metallurgy once the Thetas and Terminators have served their purpose. But Skynet’s a computer, and I’m a computer programmer. There’ll always be a place in this new world for people like me.”

“That’s your shining hope?” Blair scoffed. “To live out your life as Skynet’s pet?”

“It’s not exactly the way I envisioned my future when I was a kid,” Lajard conceded. “But it beats the hell out of being a corpse.”

“You may still end up that way,” Blair said. “Because Skynet didn’t get to Connor. And you can forget your improvised substitute, because we are going to find and destroy Jik.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Lajard warned. “Nathan was never programmed with tactical skills, but Jik’s going to be a much harder nut to crack. And now that we have this nice Resistance helicopter to fly around in, he’ll do a terrific job of being John Connor.”

“Except that we know the truth,” Blair pointed out.

“Well, of course we’ll have to kill you and everyone else in Baker’s Hollow first,” Lajard said casually. “I assumed that went without saying.”

“Go ahead and try,” Blair said, fighting back a sudden shiver. “Even if you succeed, sooner or later the real Connor will figure out what’s going on and track you down.”

“Maybe,” Lajard said, his voice suddenly all sly and amused. “You assume he won’t already be on our side by then.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“Oh, nothing,” Lajard said. “It’s just that when you said Skynet didn’t get to Connor... well, never assume, Williams. That’s all. Never, ever assume.”

“How many more are there?” Callahan asked as Kyle and Zac set down their latest satchel charges.

“Just the two,” Kyle said, eyeing the four bags Callahan had already placed against the tunnel walls and the two he and Zac had just delivered. “These ought to be enough, don’t you think?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Callahan said, grunting as he picked up one of the charges. “Go get them.”

Kyle frowned. There’d been something in Callahan’s voice just then.

“Go ahead, Zac,” he said. “I’ll stay here and give him a hand.”

“Both of you go,” Callahan ordered darkly. “I don’t want Zac having to lug two charges at the same time.”

“Go on, Zac,” Kyle repeated.

Zac didn’t move.

“What’s going on?” he asked suspiciously. “Callahan— oh. No, you can’t.”

“Then how?” Callahan snapped. “You saw the plunger. One of us has to stay here and trigger it. So quit arguing, and you and Reese get your butts back to the front of the tunnel.”

“We draw straws,” Zac insisted.

“We obey orders,” Callahan shot back.

“Wait a second,” Kyle said, staring down at the plunger. “It just has to be pushed in, right?”

“Right,” Callahan said, frowning. “Why?”

“I need a slab,” he said looking quickly around. “Concrete or metal, not too big.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zac stiffen.

“They’re coming,” he murmured.

Kyle looked down the tunnel. In the distance, he could see the faint glow of red Terminator eyes.

The T-700s were on the move... and if they hadn’t spotted the intruders yet, that discovery was only seconds away.

“I need a slab,” he repeated, giving the area a second quick sweep. But there was nothing around them of the right size.

“Wait a minute,” Callahan said. He took the detonator and turned it over to point at the ceiling, then picked up one of the charges. “Grab that other one,” he told Kyle, setting his charge on the ground beside the detonator and angling it to the side so that releasing it would send it falling onto the plunger. “Brace its end against this one.”

Kyle obeyed, leaving the two satchels balanced against each other with the plunger beneath them.

“That should do,” Callahan said, glancing back at the Terminators as he got back to his feet. “Back to the tunnel face. Reese, you want me to do it?”

“No, I’ve got it,” Kyle said as the three of them sprinted down the uneven ground.

Seconds later, they were at the tunnel face.

“On the floor,” Callahan ordered Zac, dropping onto his face between the younger teen and the approaching Terminators. “Reese: go.”

Kyle dropped into a crouch, pressing the shotgun’s stock to his shoulder. The T-700s were coming up fast, their eyes bright enough to paint the tunnel walls and ceiling in a red glow. Lining up his sights on the satchel he’d braced against Callahan’s, Kyle fired.

The blast slammed into the charge, knocking it backward out of alignment and sending the other one dropping toward the plunger. Kyle squeezed his eyes shut—

With an ear-hammering explosion, the whole cluster blew up.

The blast of sound and superheated air slammed into Kyle’s face and chest, knocking him backward onto the tunnel floor. For an instant his mind flicked back to the massive gasoline explosion and fire back near the Moldering Lost Ashes building, the one where he’d thought he was dying—

And then someone had his arm and was hauling him back to his feet.

“Look!” Callahan shouted, his voice barely audible through the ringing in Kyle’s ears. “It worked!”

Wincing at the grit still swirling past his face, Kyle opened his eyes. Through the floating dust he could see an angled pile of debris where that part of the tunnel had been ten seconds ago.

And at the very top of the pile was a jagged hole and the beautiful light of a late-afternoon overcast sky.

“Come on,” Callahan called, urging Kyle forward. Zac was already halfway up the rubble, his feet kicking up dust and little pebble avalanches as he climbed. Blinking a few more times, Kyle followed, with Callahan still gripping his arm beside him.

Hours of toiling their way through twisted passageways and switchbacks had completely ruined Kyle’s usual sense of direction. But his assumption as they traveled had always been that the tunnel itself was running more or less straight from where they’d entered it, except for the small curves and jogs that had been forced on the diggers. That direction, combined with the distance they had traveled, should by his estimate have put them inside the nighttime perimeter somewhere near the mess tent.

But, as he clawed his way out into the open air, he found he’d been only half right. They were indeed inside the inner perimeter, but somewhere along the way the tunnel had taken more of a turn than he’d realized. Instead of being by the mess tent, the tunnel had taken them to within fifty meters of the medical recovery tent.

The tent where John Connor was currently lying weak and nearly helpless in a hospital bed.

“It’s all right!” Callahan shouted, waving his hands toward the guards by the tent.

But the guards weren’t listening. To Kyle’s surprise and dismay, they were hastily unslinging their rifles and bringing them to bear.

“It’s all right!” Callahan shouted again. “We’re your people.”

And then, abruptly, Kyle realized the guards weren’t aiming their weapons toward him and Callahan. Spinning around, he looked back toward the hole they’d blasted.

Their exit wasn’t the only hole anymore. Fifty meters further back along the tunnel, the force of explosion had collapsed another section of the roof.

And clawing its way up to the surface was a T-700.

Kyle looked frantically around them. But the search and clean-up teams were still out working the smoking wasteland, and the perimeter guards hadn’t yet pulled back from the outer daytime ring to their nighttime stations. Just as he’d predicted earlier, all the fighters and heavy weapons were miles away.

Against all odds, Kyle and the others had made it out of the tunnel alive.

Just in time to watch the Terminators kill John Connor. Sweating, Barnes followed Preston across the old rope bridge, trying to ignore the churning water beneath him. Several of the boards were cracked or rotted, and the only safe places to step were the points where they were fastened to the supporting ropes.