Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire

CHAPTER TWENTY

The concrete turned out to be tougher than Kyle had expected when he’d suggested the plan. Callahan did his first shift, digging away with his knife until his arms were too weary to lift anymore. Kyle had taken over from him, then Zac. After that it was back to Callahan and once again to Kyle.

Along the way they ruined both Callahan’s and Kyle’s knives, first dulling the edges and then grinding down or breaking the blades themselves.

It was on Kyle’s turn, as he was dragging a piece of bent metal through the enlarged groove, when it finally happened. The section of slab abruptly shifted, the end swinging down half an inch as if on hinges, closing the groove and trapping the end of their cutter.

“Got it,” he whispered down to the others, trying to blow out the concrete dust that had settled into his lungs without the noise of a cough.

“Okay, get down,” Callahan whispered back. “Hurry—they’ll be back any minute now.”

Carefully, Kyle climbed down from his perch on the door frame, wincing at the fresh cuts and scrapes on his hands as he steadied himself on Callahan’s and Zac’s shoulders.

“Wait—you left the cutter up there,” Zac said, pointing urgently.

“I couldn’t get it out,” Kyle told him. “It’s wedged in too tight.”

“But—”

“It’s okay,” Callahan said. “It shouldn’t fall until the slab breaks. Once it’s mixed in with the rest of the rubble, there’ll be no way for Skynet to make a connection.”

“Assuming we’re not in the open at the time,” Kyle said. “Where are we going?”

“Over here,” Callahan said, picking his way quickly across the debris. “Watch your step.”

Callahan’s hiding place turned out to be all the way across the chamber, behind a heavy and nearly intact slab of concrete that was leaning up against another equally impressive piece. The angle between them wasn’t very big, but there was enough room for the three humans to squeeze in between them.

Kyle shivered as he wedged himself into place just inside the open end, sitting with his knees pressed up against his chest and Zac pressed against his side.

“It’s like cold storage in here,” he muttered.

“Cold is good,” Callahan murmured back from over on Zac’s other side. “Helps mask infrared signatures.”

“Shh!” Zac hissed. “Here they come.”

For a few seconds there was silence. Then, once again, Kyle heard the familiar rumble of metal feet overhead. He listened closely, wondering just how fragile the slab was. Wondering whether this line of T-700s would do the trick or whether they would have to wait here pressed against cold concrete until the next cycle before the floor gave way.

And then, abruptly, with a thunderous crash, it did.

A crash that was followed by utter silence.

Kyle froze, staring out at the underground chamber, wanting desperately to lean an eye far enough out of their shelter out to see what was going on.

He fought back the temptation. If any of the Terminators happened to be looking in his direction at the time, that would be the last mistake Kyle would ever make.

So he sat there quietly, listening to his thudding heart and waiting for something to happen. The silence stretched out...

And as Kyle strained his eyes, he spotted a small, subtle red glow out in the chamber. Not a stationary glow, but one that slowly swept across the walls and rubble.

The glow from a Terminator’s eyes as it carefully and systematically scanned the chamber.

Kyle’s reflexive impulse was to press closer to Zac and get as far away from the opening beside him as he could. Once again, he resisted the urge. The Terminator out there might pick up his heat if he stayed where he was, but it would certainly pick up any noise he made while trying to change position. The glow brightened as the Terminator’s sweep reached the slab in front of them, then disappeared as it passed by. Kyle held his breath...

And then, from the direction of the collapsed tunnel floor came the soft scrabbling of metal on concrete.

Kyle hesitated. But this time, risky or not, he had to look. If the Terminator had spotted them, and the scrabbling sound was more of the machines coming down from above, he and the others would need the next few crucial seconds to get clear of their hiding place and try to make it to an exit that was too small for the Terminators to chase them through.

Keeping his movements slow, he leaned his head out of cover.

His first, horrifying thought was that his fears had been right, that it was all over and he and the others were dead. A T-700 was dangling down through the hole in the tunnel floor, its arms held by two more of the machines standing on opposite sides of the gap. A fourth Terminator, obviously the one that had fallen through, was balancing on the remains of the broken slab, its back turned toward Kyle.

And then, to Kyle’s relief, the Terminator took hold of the hanging T-700’s ankles and climbed smoothly up its legs and torso to the hole in the ceiling. Shifting its grip to the edge, it pulled itself the rest of the way up and out. The two Terminators on top pulled up the one still dangling, and all four machines moved away out of Kyle’s view.

A few seconds later, what looked like a metal door was lowered across the opening, blocking off most of the dim light.

Most, but not all. As Kyle’s eyes once again adjusted to the relative darkness, he saw that there was still a gap between the ceiling and the wall. It was narrow, but it might be big enough to squeeze through.

The soft thud of footsteps resumed their familiar cadence as the Terminators headed back down the tunnel with their latest loads of debris.

“Reese?” Zac whispered anxiously.

“It’s okay,” Kyle whispered. “Quiet, now.”

The march seemed to take longer this time. Possibly the Terminators were avoiding walking on that section of presumably weakened concrete, which would affect the flow and efficiency of their passage. Possibly it was just Kyle’s imagination, driven by his impatience to get over there and see whether or not their gamble had paid off.

Finally, the vibrations faded away, and the Terminators were once again gone.

Kyle frowned, a shiver running up his back.

Or were they?

He held his breath, listening hard. He didn’t have Star’s hyper-sensitivity to Terminators’ presence, but years of dodging the machines had amplified and trained the small bit of that sensitivity that he did posses.

And right now, that sixth sense was screaming a silent warning.

On Zac’s other side, Callahan started to stir.

“Shh,” Kyle breathed, quickly reaching past Zac to touch Callahan warningly on the arm. The other froze in place, tapping Kyle’s hand twice in acknowledgment.

Kyle held still, counting off the seconds. Two minutes passed, then three, then four, then five.

And as his count reached its sixth minute, a sound finally drifted into the silence wrapped around them. The sound of Terminator footsteps.

Only they weren’t coming from somewhere in the distance, marking the return of the digging crew. These footsteps were coming from somewhere near the hole. As Kyle listened, he heard the Terminator head back down the tunnel in the direction the others had gone.

He looked across at Zac and Callahan, their faces just barely visible in the faint reflected light. Both expressions were tense, but Callahan’s lips were also twisted in a wry smirk. Cute, he mouthed silently.

Kyle nodded. We sit tight? he mouthed back.

We sit tight, Callahan confirmed. Let’s see if Skynet was smart enough to leave two of them.

Kyle nodded, resting his forearms on his knees and turning back to gaze out at the rubble of the chamber. And trying to ignore the cuts and bruises and hunger and weariness.

The already long afternoon was getting even longer...

From the kitchen came the sound of an opening door.

“Trounce?” Preston’s voice came.

“In here,” Trounce called back.

Barnes looked at Williams. She returned the look, a grim downward turn to her mouth. This was their last chance, and she knew it as well as he did. If they couldn’t convince Preston there was a Theta lurking under his nose, they were probably dead.

And not just him and Williams. Probably the whole town.

Preston walked into the room, his expression that mixture of satisfaction and weariness that Barnes had seen on dozens of Resistance fighters over the years.

“You get them?” he asked the mayor.

Preston nodded, glancing at Smith and Trounce as he dropped into the big overstuffed chair directly across from Barnes and Williams. He winced a little as the holstered Desert Eagle dug into his side, and reached down to adjust it.

“Two T-700s, freshly converted into pieces of junk, which Halverson and the others will soon be dumping into the ravine on the far side of the river,” he said. “The whole thing wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting, actually. I hope you managed to get some rest.”

“Kind of hard to rest when there are Terminators nearby,” Barnes told him.

“I suppose,” Preston conceded.

“No resting, but they’ve been doing a lot of talking,” Trounce reported. “So Connor came through, huh?”

“He did indeed,” Preston said, his eyes on Barnes. “Two Terminators down, and we didn’t lose anyone.”

“Good,” Trounce said. “‘Cause these two have come up with the world’s craziest idea.” From the direction of the kitchen came the sound of a knock on the door. “They think—”

“Hold that thought,” Preston interrupted, frowning in the direction of the door. “Who is it?” he called.

“Oxley and Lajard,” a faint voice came back. “We need to talk.”

“Mayor, we need to talk, too,” Williams spoke up quickly. “In private.”

“Oh, no, you gotta let them in,” Trounce said before Preston could reply. “You gotta see their faces when Barnes drops his theory on them.”

“Mayor?” Williams repeated, her voice urgent. “Please.”

“Hello?” Lajard called again from outside. “Can we come in?”

Preston gazed hard at Williams.

“Make it quick,” he said.

And then, suddenly, it was too late. Across the room came the sound of an opening door, and Oxley and Lajard walked through the kitchen into the living room.

“I didn’t say you could come in,” Preston growled.

“Didn’t you?” Oxley asked innocently. “We thought we heard you.”

Preston’s lips compressed briefly. “What do you want?”

Oxley gestured toward Barnes and Williams.

“Now that Connor has proved himself, it occurred to us that our other guests might want to make some revisions in their story.”

“When exactly did this grand proof happen?” Williams asked.

Oxley snorted as he crossed to the window behind Trounce and Smith and took a quick look outside in both directions.

“Wrecking a pair of T-700s without losing anyone is all the proof I need,” he said.

“You’re remarkably easy to please,” Williams told him.

“You got any other theories, we’d love to hear them,” Lajard invited, walking over to Preston and coming to a halt behind the mayor’s chair. “But do try to keep them simple. We’ll have to explain it to Susan later, and twisted conspiracy theories always confuse me.”

“She’d have been here with us, but she went out hunting,” Oxley put in, a subtle edge to his voice as he turned back around to face the room. “She’s with Preston’s daughter Hope.”

“Though personally I don’t really care who you are,” Lajard added with a nonchalant shrug. “You’re trouble, and I’d be just as happy to see you get on that helicopter of yours and go away.”

An icy sensation settled onto Barnes’s back. So he and Williams had been right. This whole thing—this whole damn town—was nothing but a big Skynet test lab. Now that Jik was firmly established in his John Connor role, the scientists in charge of the lab rats were hoping to kick the two visiting troublemakers out of town so that they could get their little experiment back on track.

And just in case the troublemakers were tempted not to cooperate, Lajard had layered a bit of extra extortion to their demand: Hope, somewhere out in the woods, with an armed woman who Hope thought was her friend.

He looked at Williams. She’d gotten the message too, both parts of it, and Barnes could see the fire simmering behind her eyes.

But if Williams could occasionally get overemotional, she also wasn’t stupid. A quick flight back to San Francisco, a quick report to Connor, and they could be back here by dawn tomorrow with a full Resistance strike team. Whatever experiments Lajard and the others were planning, surely they wouldn’t be ready to close up shop before then. The best thing Barnes and Williams could do right now would be to confess that they were con artists, or mercenaries, or whatever it took to satisfy Preston, and get the hell out of here.

And then, before he or Williams could speak, the decision was snatched away from them.

“This’ll kill you,” Smith spoke up sardonically from the window. “They think Connor is one of these Theta Terminator things, and that all you have to do to prove it is wave a magnet at him. And they say that you—” he shot a glance over his shoulder at Oxley “—and you, and Valentine are running the show for Skynet.”

Lajard shook his head. “Now it’s gotten ridiculous,” he said.

“Probably,” Preston agreed. But his voice was thoughtful, and his eyes were steady on Barnes. “Easy enough for Connor to clear away any doubt, though. Maybe when he and the others get back we’ll go see if Chucker has a magnet stashed away in one of his junk drawers.”

“Well, if you want to play games with these lunatics, that’s up to you,” Lajard said. “Fortuna favet fortibus, as they say. Personally, I have better things to do.” Patting the top of Preston’s chair once, he headed toward the kitchen.

“Just a minute,” Preston said, standing up and turning to face Lajard, his hand dropping to the grip of his holstered gun. “What’s your hurry?”

And abruptly, Lajard’s measured pace became a flat-out run as he sprinted toward the kitchen and the door beyond.

“Kill them!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Watch it!” Barnes snapped, leaping off the couch and grabbing the arms of the chair Preston had just vacated. “Smith, Trounce—behind you!”

He was too late. Standing behind the two thoroughly bewildered guards, Oxley reached up and caught each of the men just above their shirt collars.

And as Barnes heaved Preston’s chair off the floor, Oxley gave a quick double twist of his wrists and snapped both men’s necks.

Barnes swore viciously as he charged toward Oxley, his legs shoving hard against the floor, putting every bit of speed and power into his attack that he had. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flurry of motion as Williams grabbed one of the wooden chairs near her, ran to the kitchen door, and hurled it at Lajard’s retreating back. There was a crash and a muffled curse, and Lajard was gone. In front of Barnes, Oxley let the two dead guards drop to the floor and reached for the rifle Trounce had dropped.

With the chair pressed to his chest like a combination shield and battering ram, Barnes slammed straight into him.

The impact threw Oxley backward, and for a stretched-out second the two men and the chair moved together toward the window, Oxley’s feet scraping across the floorboards, his arms trapped between the chair’s legs. He managed to get one hand free and reached around the side, trying to get to Barnes’s arm.

He was still trying when he and the chair went hurling backwards through the window.

Barnes nearly went through with them. He was scrabbling for balance when a hand grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

“Come on!” Preston snarled. Letting go of Barnes’s arm, he snatched up the two rifles from the floor, shoved one of them at Barnes, and sprinted across the room toward the kitchen.

Williams was already in there, looking cautiously out the open door.

“Clear,” she announced as Preston reached her. “What’s the plan?”

“Go to ground while we figure out what the hell is going on.” Preston handed his rifle to her. “Here.”

Williams shook her head.

“Keep it,” she said as she reached over and plucked her Desert Eagle from the holster around Preston’s waist. “I’ll take this.”

“Right,” Preston said, peering past her out the door. “Let’s go.”

“Wait a second,” Barnes said as he caught sight of his backpack lying on the floor beside the kitchen table. Grabbing the straps, he slung it over his shoulder and followed Williams and Preston outside into the late afternoon sunlight.

“This way,” Preston said, making a sharp left-hand turn toward the back of the house. They ran between two dilapidated houses, rounded a third, and finally came to a thick, chest-high hedge at the western border of a small garden. Preston ran them around to the other side and motioned for them to drop down behind it.

“Okay,” he panted. “We should have a minute. What the hell is going—?”

“No, we don’t have a minute,” Williams cut him off, throwing a quick look around her end of the hedge. “We missed a step, Barnes.”

“What step?” Barnes asked. “What did we miss?”

“In the Theta program,” she said. “You wouldn’t start by installing a complete, floor-to-ceiling false memory like Skynet did with Jik. You’d start by giving one of them a few little pieces of false memory. Patches that cover over any parts of genuine memory you don’t want him remembering.”

And then, Barnes got it.

“Like the memory of getting hauled out of your nice little Skynet lab and turned into a Terminator,” he snarled. “You’re right. Damn it.”

“What are you talking about?” Preston demanded.

“Oxley is like Jik—he’s a Theta,” Barnes told him. “He’s been in Baker’s Hollow as Skynet’s grand experiment to see if Thetas could mingle with normal people without being spotted.”

“It’s been ramping up this whole time,” Williams added. “First you see if people can tell there’s something wrong with your Theta, even if they can’t guess what that is. That was Oxley’s role. Then you tell them what Thetas are, and see if they can spot one. That’s what Jik’s doing.”

“Only now that we’ve crashed it, the party’s over,” Barnes said. “I’m guessing their next job will be to clean out the lab.”

“Wait a minute,” Preston said. “You said Oxley was a Theta. What about Lajard and Valentine?”

“Not Lajard,” Williams said. “He was genuinely hurt when I nailed him with that chair.”

“Valentine?”

Barnes saw Williams wince. “Probably.”

“Damn,” Preston breathed. “We’ve got to get to her—”

“Mayor?” Oxley’s distant voice came. “Mayor Preston? Come now, you’re being foolish. You can’t fight us, and there really isn’t anywhere to run. Come on out and take it like a man. I promise I’ll make it painless.”

“Don’t answer,” Williams whispered urgently.

Preston shot a look at her, his jaw muscles tight. But he kept silent.

“If you’d rather do it the hard way, that’s okay with me,” Oxley’s voice came again, possibly a bit closer this time. “We’ll just kill however we have to, painful or otherwise. Here’s an idea—we’ll start with your daughter.”

Watching his face Barnes saw the disbelief and horror were starting to fade away, and Preston was starting to think again.

“If you want to blame someone, blame your friends there,” Oxley continued. The voice was definitely closer now. “They’re the ones who forced our hand. We’d have been perfectly happy to keep things going the way they were.”

“He’s lying,” Williams muttered. “None of them had the slightest idea of what Skynet had turned them into.”

“Why the hell is he talking so much?” Preston muttered.

“He’s buying time,” Williams said. “You saw how Lajard took off back there. If he’s the one real human among them, he’s probably the only one who did know what they were.”

“He was the experiment’s observer?”

“And its controller,” Williams said. “That Latin he spouted just before Oxley’s attack was probably the code to activate them.”

“And to put them under his and Skynet’s control,” Barnes added.

“Right,” Williams said. “I think Oxley’s stalling to give Lajard time to get to cover.”

“Wait a second,” Preston said, frowning. “If the Latin was code, then Oxley should be the only one who got activated.”

Williams shook her head. “Sorry. They’re all linked via short-range radio through the control chips in the backs of their heads. When he activated Oxley, he activated Valentine and Jik, too.”

Preston hissed a sigh. “And Valentine’s got Hope.”

“Yes,” Williams said grimly.

“Mayor?” Oxley called.

“You know how to kill these things?” Preston asked.

“We know how to make them hurt,” Barnes said, thinking back to his target practice with the chained-up Marcus. “They’ve got human skin, and all the nerve endings that go with it.”

“It’s a start.” Preston took a deep breath. “Okay. We don’t have a whistle signal for a situation like this, so the quickest way to warn everyone in town will be to fire off a few shots. We might was well put those shots to some use. Get ready.”

He stood upright and looked over the hedge.

“Oxley?” he called. “You want me? Come and get me.”

Barnes felt his lips pull back in a tight grin. He’d seen first-hand how tough Thetas were, as tough as any other Terminator model Skynet had come up with. With these wholly inadequate weapons, and with a lot of the town’s best hunters out of reach across the river, he and Williams were going to have a serious fight on their hands.

But at least they finally knew who their enemies were. That was worth something.

He hefted the rifle, throwing a quick glance behind them and then settling down with his eyes and weapon toward the town.

Bring it on, he thought silently toward Skynet. Bring it on.