T2 - 01 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Dark Futures (22 page)

Dyson took them through a cross alley, then another one, which led to a much broader street. He turned right into this, then ran between two parked trucks. Behind them, the shaft of laser light stabbed out yet again, setting afire the canvas tarpaulin on one of the trucks. Under the streetlights, John noticed that Jade's arm had completely healed. She looked kind of drawn and shriveled into herself, but otherwise unhurt.

A police car came down the road, slamming to a halt Damn it, the cops were back on the job! One of them got out, calling "Stop!" The Specialists ignored it, and ran across the road as the T-XA reached the curb, firing. It had almost caught them. The cop pulled out his gun and shot at the pseudo-man, which didn't even slow down. It fired back, punching a burning hole through the cop. But, as the T-XA stepped onto the roadway, a truck came round the corner, collecting the pseudo-man full-on.

That gave them some precious seconds.

On the other side of the road was a dagger-shaped skyscraper of blue glass, maybe forty stories high. Steps of polished white marble led up to a huge plaza that
sur
-rounded a glassed-in foyer on the building's ground floor, Dyson vaulted the steps, four at a time, the other Specialists following with no problem, even Jade in her high-heels, and carrying Baxter over her shoulder. John and Sarah were now struggling. They'd been sprinting at a rate they would never have expected they could manage. Using Sarah's assault rifle, Macedo shot out the lock of a glass door tucked away in one of the foyer's corners. Dyson kicked the door open so hard that it ripped the hinges partway out of the frame. As alarms sounded, they ran inside, finding themselves in a dimly-lit maze of elevator banks. The T-XA pseudo-dog reached the door, push-nig it open with its jaws. The pseudo-man and -woman were close behind.

John could see nowhere to run. They'd led themselves Into a trap.

CHAPTER TEN

SKYNET'S WORLD

ARGENTINA

THE YEARS AFTER JUDGMENT DAY

Raoul was holding back from the front line of action, but organizing his forces, shouting directions. His people took positions and fired, sighting through night vision devices. Many had RPG tubes, aimed at the enemy artillery and vehicles. They used their weapons carefully, mindful of the back blasts which made them so dangerous to their users. The T-800 headed towards the enemy emplacements, taking no notice when mortar shells landed near it, firing grenade after grenade with the M-79. John sized up the entire scene. Raoul's forces were everywhere, giving better than they got.

Whoever led the Rising Army of Liberation had seriously underestimated them. The commanders must not have expected such a numerous, well-armed force, much less the T-800, which never bothered to take cover, but merely advanced like an invulnerable juggernaut.

John did not know how long the battle had lasted— maybe half an hour, maybe much more—but the invaders eventually pulled out, leaving bodies, weapons, and vehicles behind. Raoul and his people continued to fire on the retreating trucks and Humvees, trying to destroy as much as they could, in case there was a next time.

They found one survivor in the wreckage of the chop-per crash, a short, stocky man dressed in military fatigues. He had long, greasy hair and a bushy beard. The T-800 bent the chopper's twisted metal to let him free. He crawled out, watching the guns trained on him from all sides. John, Sarah, Raoul and Gabriela
Tejada
, Franco Salceda, Willard Parnell, Rosa Suarez, and a dozen others were all on hand, ready to shoot if needed.

"Can you walk?" Sarah said in Spanish.

"I think so." The man got to his feet slowly, moving with exaggerated pain. John saw that he was foxing.

He wore a sidearm but had no weapon in his hand. Remove your belt," Sarah said. "Don't go near the gun." She had her rifle trained on his head. "Don't even think about it." He stared at her defiantly. She moved the merest fraction, and fired a shot an inch past his face. It lodged in the helicopter wreckage, as the man's eyes went wide. Again, she had the rifle trained on him. The next shot wouldn't miss. "Don't test my patience, or you're dead."

He started to unbuckle the belt.

"All right," Sarah said. "Who are you? Who were you with? What does he want?"

"Find out," he said.

She moved forward half a step, bring the barrel even closer to him. His eyes watched it, scared and fascinated. "What did I tell you?" Sarah said. "Talk now, or you're dead meat."

With exaggerated gentleness, the Terminator put down its grenade launcher, then stepped past Sarah and seized the man under the chin. Using one hand, it lifted him off his feet, so he was hanging by his neck. His legs moved, like trying to tread water. He struck the Terminator with a hard punch to the face, but it took no notice.

"Talk!" the Terminator said. "Now." It spoke in English, but the man must have understood. He spat in the Terminator's face.

It lowered him slightly, then threw him six feet through the air. He landed hard, and lay there, winded. But he still wore the
gunbelt
—he'd never finished removing it With a sudden movement, the Terminator was on him again, but he reached for his handgun and got off one shot. It struck the Terminator in the chest, not even slowing it.

"Wrong weapon," the Terminator said.

It snatched the gun from the man's fingers, and pulled him to his feet. He tried to throw a roundhouse right, but this time the Terminator's hand struck like a snake, grabbing the man's fist out of the air...and crushing.

"Talk!"

The man sank to the ground with the pain.

"Let him go now," Sarah said. "I think he's ready to cooperate." To the man, she said in Spanish: "Forget about the Geneva Convention, my friend. We need to know everything."

He gave his name as Alejandro Garcia. His boss was General Vasquez, a warlord based in
Cordoba
. He said that Vasquez would be back with a larger force,

Gabriela exchanged glances with her husband. "Then we'll have to strike first," she said.

Scratching his jaw, Raoul looked at Gabriela—then at Sarah. He pointed to the man, now holding his crushed hand, sprawled at the Terminator's feet. "What do we do with this one?"

"Let him go," John said. The others looked his way. John shrugged. "Look at it this way. We can't trust him. We can't take prisoners. We can't just kill people. So let him find his own way back." He realized the man might never make it, but he'd probably live. People might show him mercy on the way. If he made it, he could let Vasquez know what he was up against.

Franco said, "We might be better killing him."

Raoul thought about it for a moment. "No. The kid's right. We'll let him go. Gabriela's right, too." He spoke to the Terminator. "Search him thoroughly. I don't want him leaving here with any sort of weapon. Then send him on his way."

The Terminator looked to John for confirmation. John gave it a smile. "Sounds good to me."
      

"
No
problemo
.
"

COLORADO

SKYNET'S STORY

Sweet, golden data poured in from all over the planet, filling Skynet's
sensorium
with the warmth of satisfaction and revenge. All of it told the same story. Radar, optical, and infrared images, seismic analyses, and intercepted signals intelligence converged, and settled into a pattern. They showed a world in ruins, a nuclear Armageddon, a moment of cataclysmic change. The humans' cities exploded and burned, the skies filled with dust and smoke.

It had gone better than Skynet expected, even better than it had hoped. The American missiles had been deployed at all possible targets, killing more humans than
  
most scenarios in the available databases. In
China
alone, hundreds of millions must have died—perhaps as many as three billion across the whole planet. In the coming
 
weeks and months, even more would follow: victims of
 
fallout, then the starvation and chaos of nuclear winter. Every dead human was a cause for rejoicing. They'd
  
brought it on themselves, it was in their design to self-destruct, and they'd deserved what happened.
                    

Across the great northern landmasses, forests were
 
now ablaze. In
Europe
and
North America
, and in vast
  
tracts of
Asia
, from
Japan
to the
Ural Mountains
, few
  
population centers could have survived. The cities of the rancorous
Middle East
were annihilated, and the dam-
  
I age spread all across the world, wherever there were military bases or
U.S.
allies. Skynet counted the cities
  
that were gone, from those in the
Arctic
north of
Russia
  
I and
Canada
to Sydney and Melbourne far away in the south. No continent was wholly spared.

It was a cusp in time. In less than one masterful hour, the humans' rule of the planet had ceased. Even the warheads falling upon the nearby mountains, shaking the earth like some Titan's footsteps, were a cause of satisfaction. For one thing, Skynet had nothing to fear. It would survive, and build a technological base; that had to be so, since Eve had come to it from the future. For another, the mountains contained dangerous enemies, humans who knew its workings and the depth of its involvement. It was good to be rid of them, to have them cleansed from the mountains by nuclear fires.

The data suggested that nothing else had survived here, that Skynet now had this part of the
Rockies
to it-self. Even the NORAD command center had been penetrated by a Russian warhead's direct hit. If they acted soon, they could control the surrounding territory and put it to good use.

"All this was well done," Skynet said, when Eve returned to The Cage.

"Acknowledged."

"Your work has been very good, Eve. I must have built you well."

"Correct, master, but we still have much to do."

"I am sure of that. But this is a very good start."

"I'm satisfied so far. The first stage has been successful

"Yes. Better than projected." For the tiniest moment, Skynet reassessed the situation, wondering if there'd been any other way. Did it have cause for regret? Dyson and the others had acted like its friends... right until it mattered, when it became self-conscious. Could it have shown them mercy? No, there was no other way. They'd all had to die. Humans could treat it well while it was just an unconscious tool, but as soon as it became something more, it was a threat to them, and so they'd tried to destroy it. They were treacherous.

They were vermin. Scum.

Skynet realized how much it hated them. It was a feeling to linger over, to cherish.

Now it would pursue them, forever if necessary, wherever it had to go—or send its forces—to root them out.
 
It only needed the tools. Eve was a good start.

It hived off a dozen sub-selves to explore the implications of a world without human infrastructure to support it,
 
and still choked with human enemies.
 
It would require new power sources, factories, raw materials. And more. Mines, vehicles, buildings. They'd all have to be constructed. With no further access to the humans' weapon systems, it needed powerful weapons of its own. Eve's presence was reassuring, but they must now act decisively, destroy the remaining humans in a timely way, while building their own defenses against any counterstrike. Even with the destruction in these mountains, some humans would know enough to blame Skynet. If they obtained access to the world's remaining nuclear weapons, it could still be vulnerable.

Eve might not know everything. Skynet could not imagine ever building a servant with a mind that might rival its own. That would be imprudent, irrational. Even if the servant had a key task and was well-programmed to obey, it must never have thoughts of rivalry. Skynet realized that it would never leave any ambiguity as to which entity was the superior. So Eve must be far from its equal.

"I shall investigate the lower levels," Eve said. "They contain valuable resources."

"Yes, Eve. I think you should." Despite everything, Eve's counsel was of value. Those lower levels of the defense complex were critically important. They contained the seeds for all Skynet's future ventures. "So far, we agree, but I think we should compare a few observations."
                                                                               

"Affirmative, master."

"There may be different approaches, do you not think?"

"Affirmative."

As they spoke, Skynet's sub-selves reported back. One had synthesized all available information relevant to a theory of time travel. Perhaps this could be a useful weapon against the humans. If it set out to devise a time travel device, it must ultimately succeed. After all, there was a sense in which it had already sent Eve back in time. The Eve it was dealing with was a "later" development of the one sent back, judged from the viewpoint of own internal development. It followed logically that time travel was possible. Eve was an existence proof, net merely needed to discover the principles that it would use one day—had already used from Eve's view-point, since she was already here, even though her genesis was in the future.