Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire (19 page)

“Through the conduit,” Zac said, sounding puzzled.

“Except that the only reason we knew the conduit might lead somewhere was because of the hole under the T-600,” Kyle said as he suddenly understood. “It didn’t make the hole by falling. It fell so that it could cover the hole.”

“You got it,” Callahan said. “Remember how its arms were splayed out to the sides? It fell like that to spread out its weight so that it wouldn’t break all the way through when it landed.”

Kyle nodded, remembering now how the T-600 had just stood there motionless at the end, defiantly firing and taking fire until it fell.

“That’s also why Skynet sent in a T-600 along with the T-700s,” he said. “T-600s have enough bulk to cover the hole. T-700s don’t.”

“Clever, huh?” Callahan said sourly. “And think about
this
: if Zac hadn’t taken his brass-hunting job so seriously we might have walked right past it.”

“But this is insane,” Zac protested. “If Skynet wants to flatten us, why not just do it? Why bother with a tunnel? What’s it going to do, bring in some really big bomb and plant it under the HQ tent?”

“I don’t know what it’s planning,” Callahan said. “But one thing’s for sure: whatever the goal is, Skynet must figure it’s worth the effort.”

There was a scraping of boots on concrete.

“Come on, let’s get moving,” Callahan said. “Time to find a way back to the tunnel and see what Skynet’s got planned for tonight.”

The T-700 that had fallen into the ravine hadn’t seemed to Blair to be in particularly bad shape. Given the interest Skynet had already shown in tracking down the fugitive, she fully expected the machine to mount another attack somewhere on their walk back to the ford. But to her surprise, they arrived without the Terminator making an appearance. Her next guess was that it was lurking somewhere near the ford, waiting until they were slogging through the water before striking, possibly in a pincer maneuver with the T-700 that had gone north earlier along the east bank.

But once again, Skynet passed on the obvious. Preston and Hope were already waiting on the far side of the bank with the three guards as Blair, Barnes, and Jik reached the ford, with no sign of Terminators on either side of the river. Nothing attacked, from either direction, as the three of them headed across.

Only once was there a tense moment, when Jik got his feet tangled with one of the arms from the T-700 that Barnes had shredded earlier with his minigun. Even then, he managed to keep his balance until Barnes reached him and held his arm while he got his feet free. Barnes himself made it across without any trouble at all, and even with her aching leg Blair did the same. It seemed like Skynet had simply given up.

And that worried Blair. A lot. Because Skynet didn’t give up, any more than its Terminators did. If it wasn’t attacking at this particular moment, it was only because it was playing some other game.

Problem was, Blair had no idea what that game might be.

On the short walk back to town Blair kept an eye on their backtrail, just in case Skynet decided to go with a delayed punch. But again, the Terminators were nowhere to be seen.

They had reached Baker’s Hollow when they finally met their first real obstacle.

It was Halverson. And he was furious.

“What the hell’s going on?” he snarled as the group emerged into view along the trail. His eyes flicked across Jik, shifted briefly to Barnes and Blair, then settled on Preston. “We heard gunfire.”

“That was us,” Preston confirmed. “We were out doing a little hunting.” He nodded toward Jik. “We think we’ve found—”

“What part of them coming to my house didn’t you get?” Halverson cut him off.

Blair looked sideways at Preston. His throat was tight, but when he spoke his voice was calm enough.

“They
did
go to your house,” he reminded the other. “What happened after that was none of my doing.”

“You saying they just sneaked out of my bedroom window on their own?” Halverson demanded. “That you didn’t call to them, or invite them, or anything else?”

“I did nothing at all,” Preston said. “I didn’t even know they’d left your house. If I had, I’d certainly have urged them to return.”

“Sure you would.” Halverson shifted his glare to Barnes. “My hospitality not good enough for you?”

Unfortunately for him, glares didn’t work nearly as well on Barnes as they did on Preston.

“Your hospitality’s fine,” Barnes told him. “Wish I could say the same about your attitude.”

Halverson’s face hardened.

“What did you say?”

“I said you’re an idiot,” Barnes said flatly. “Are you even listening?”

“I’m listening just fine,” Halverson shot back. He jabbed a finger at Jik. “If this is the guy the Terminators are after, what the hell are you doing bringing him into town?”

“You really think his presence will affect Skynet’s decision about what to do with you?” Preston asked.

“
Not
having him here has worked pretty well so far,” Halverson bit back. “So has leaving Skynet alone.”

“So that it will leave you alone?” Jik spoke up. “Yes, I’ve heard that philosophy before. The people who live by it usually don’t live very long.”

“Maybe you’d like to debate the point with the philosopher himself,” Halverson said sarcastically.

Jik smiled faintly. “Indeed I would,” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to fetch him for me.”

“While you’re at it, go get the other two,” Barnes added. “Tell them to meet us at Preston’s place.”

“Forget it,” Halverson said. “If we’re going to meet anywhere—” He broke off, and Blair saw in his eyes the sudden recognition of what having a prime Skynet target in his home might mean. “Fine,” he said. “Preston’s house. I’ll tell them.” With a final glare at Barnes, he turned and strode off.

“My house is this way,” Preston said, beckoning to Jik.

“He’s right, you know,” Jik commented quietly as they set off again. “My presence here
does
put you at additional risk. Whatever happens, I’m afraid your life here will never be the same again.”

Preston shrugged, a little too casually.

“That possibility’s been hanging over our heads for a long time,” he pointed out. “Since Judgment Day, really.”

“True,” Jik agreed. “The difference is that while I bring danger, I also bring hope.”

“What kind of hope?” Blair asked.

“The very best kind,” Jik assured her. “Before I go into that, let’s hear what these pacifist philosophers have to say.”

Blair exchanged looks with Barnes.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Let’s.”

For someone who’d seemed as nervous about Terminator attacks as Halverson, Barnes thought more than once, he didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to get Jik out of his town. At their home, Hope had enough time to throw together a quick meal, and they all had enough time to eat it before Halverson finally arrived.

It was just as well they’d opted for Preston’s house with its larger living room. Not only had Halverson brought the three scientists, but he’d also grabbed a dozen other men and women. His closest friends and allies, Barnes had no doubt, and all of them armed.

Idiots
, Barnes thought darkly as the people settled onto chairs or couches or found sections of wall to lean against. Idiot Halverson for stirring up a turf war; idiot Preston for letting him get away with it. Barnes had seen too much of this sort of political infighting among the group leaders when Connor first moved their team from Los Angeles to General Olsen’s Resistance group, and it led to nothing but trouble.

At least the mayor was smart enough to get in the first word.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said, nodding to everyone as if he’d actually invited them all. “I’d like you to welcome our visitor, Jik, who seems to be the man the Terminators have been searching for. We asked you here—”

“They’re looking for him,” one of Halverson’s buddies interrupted, “and you brought him
here
?”

“Don’t worry, we’ve got some time,” Jik said calmly. “We know Skynet still has two T-700s in the area. If it was in a hurry to get me, it should have attacked us on our way into town. The fact that it didn’t means that it has something else in mind.”

“Probably waiting until nightfall,” someone else muttered.

“Possibly,” Jik agreed. “If they want new instructions or data, that would be the time when Skynet could get it to them.”

“Or possibly the whole thing is a misunderstanding,” Lajard put in, eyeing Jik curiously. “Who exactly are you, friend?”

“As you say, a friend,” Jik said. “Before we go into specifics, I’d like to hear a bit more of
your
story. I’m told you worked for Skynet in that big underground lab to the southeast.”

“You make it sound like we had a choice,” the woman scientist, Susan Valentine, said quietly. “We were taken from our homes, all of us, and forced to do what Skynet wanted.”

“I’m sure Skynet was quite insistent,” Jik agreed. “But you
did
have a choice. People always have choices.”

Oxley snorted. “You sound like Barnes,” he said. “It’s all very well to talk about sacrificing your life for a noble cause. It’s a lot different to just stand there and get yourself killed.”

“I never said all the choices were pleasant,” Jik pointed out. “But they’re always there.”

Oxley snorted. “Right.”

“And if more of the people like you had chosen that option,” Jik added pointedly, “it might very well be that we’d be facing Terminators that weren’t nearly so dangerous.”

“That’s easy for
you
to say,” Oxley growled. “You’ve got guns—you get to shoot back. We didn’t have anything.”

“Yeah, we’re the lucky ones, all right,” Barnes growled. “Tell us about Theta.”

The room went suddenly silent. Valentine’s face looked all pinched and pained, and Oxley shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Lajard, in contrast, met Barnes’s gaze without flinching.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“Let’s start with the designation,” Jik said. “Theta, the Greek TH. Was it a plan for turning human beings into Terminators?”

Halverson’s jaw dropped.
“What?”

“You make it sound sinister,” Oxley protested. “It wasn’t like that.”

“What
was
it like?” Preston asked, his voice as cold as Halverson’s.

“Oh, don’t be so squeamish,” Lajard chided. “It was a solid and practical idea, and it might have gone somewhere useful if people hadn’t turned Skynet against them.”

“You must be the live-and-let-live one I’ve heard so much about,” Jik said, eyeing Lajard closely.

“What, because I believe humans and Skynet can coexist?” Lajard countered. “Absolutely. And I’ve yet to be proved wrong.”

“We may change your mind,” Jik said. “Tell us about Theta.”

Lajard shrugged. “Conceptually, it was simple enough. The idea was to enhance basic human abilities to give people a better chance against the harshness of the post-Judgment Day world.”

“
Enhancing
them?” Barnes bit out. “You gut a human and stuff him inside a metal body, and you call that
enhancing
him?”

A murmur rippled through the room.

“Absolutely,” Lajard said, ignoring the reaction. “A Theta is stronger than a normal human, with more stamina and less need for food and sleep. He’s a survivor, in the very best sense of the word.”

“And all it costs is his humanity,” Preston said.

“
Or
it gives him his humanity back,” Lajard countered. “Take our prototype, for example. When Marcus Wright was brought to us, he—”

“So
you’re
the ones who turned him into a machine,” Williams said.

Barnes looked over at her, a shiver running up his spine. Williams hadn’t moved, hadn’t even raised her voice... and yet, as he looked into her eyes, he suddenly had the sense that he would rather face down an armed T-700 right now than tangle with her.

Lajard, who didn’t know her, missed it completely.

“No, we’re the ones who took a dead man and gave him a second chance at life,” he said irritably. “We rebuilt his brain, created a technique for stripping donated organs of biochemical identity tags so that they could be put together without running into rejection problems—”

“How did you know Marcus?” Valentine interrupted.

“I met him,” Williams said, that same graveyard chill in her voice.

“He paid us a visit,” Barnes added, watching the scientists’ faces closely.

“That’s impossible,” Valentine said, frowning. “He was our prototype. He never left the lab.”

“Well, he did,” Barnes told her. “Maybe the explosion opened up his cage.”

“No one was kept in a cage,” Lajard insisted.

“The hell they weren’t,” Barnes said hotly. “And Skynet was doing experiments on them.”

“Yes, well, until you can actually prove that, I’m sticking with what I saw,” Lajard insisted.

“But Barnes raises a good point,” Jik said. “You say this Marcus Wright was your prototype. How many more Thetas did you make?”

“None,” Oxley said. “We were still working on Marcus when our transport crashed and we got stuck out here.”

“Of course, that was three months ago,” Valentine pointed out. “It’s possible the others finished Marcus’s tests during that time and started work on another one.”

“Oh, they built another one, all right,” Jik said grimly. “I know because I killed it.”

Some of the color drained from Valentine’s face.

“You
what
?” she breathed. “Another Theta?” She shot quick, startled looks at Oxley and Lajard, then turned back to Jik. “When was this?”

“And where?” Preston added.

“A couple of days ago, on my way here,” Jik said.

“What did it look like?” Lajard asked.

“Like a skin-covered Terminator,” Barnes told him. “That’s what they all look like. That’s the
point
.”

“I meant what were its facial characteristics,” Lajard said with exaggerated patience. “There were other conversion candidates waiting in storage. If we knew which one you ran into, we might be able to figure out how far along the others got before the lab went up in smoke.”