Wright dealt with the confusion calmly. Among the innumerable emotions he was not heir to was mad panic. Searching the pile of tools he had dumped in back, he picked up an X-shaped tire lug wrench. While not exactly aerodynamic, it had the virtue of being as throwable as it was solid.
Opening the door on his side, he leaned out, took aim, and threw the tool. The speed and force with which it spun through the air aft of the jeep gave it the heft and appearance of some crazed ninja-throwing star as customized by a local auto repair shop. Amazingly, it smashed socket-on into the trailing Aerostat. Bits and pieces of the machine went flying.
Some of them must have been important, because seconds later the independently guided Skynet tracking device crashed into the ground. This resulted in an eruption of many more bits and pieces as well as a termination of the pursuit.
Leaning over the back seat, Star gawked in wide-eyed delight at the grounding of their pursuer. It had not been destroyed, but it was definitely grounded. Wright swallowed as he contemplated the unexpected efficacy of his throw. He remembered being adept at such destructive labors, but not quite this adept.
Though visibly relieved to be rid of the machine that had been on their tail, Reese was less sanguine about their chances.
“Too late. It would’ve transmitted our location to its friends within the first minute.”
Wright tried to take the teen’s knowledgeable assessment into account.
“We’re still going. Maybe they’ll find their damaged buddy but by that time they won’t know where we are.”
Glancing over, Reese studied the stranger’s face.
“You really don’t know anything about Skynet’s capabilities, do you? They’ll know exactly where we are—we’re in Los Angeles. That’ll be enough to get them started looking for us.”
After a moment’s thought, Wright leaned forward, reached out, and pulled hard on the emergency brake handle. Reese yelped as the jeep skidded into a half turn before finally coming to a stop. Simultaneously delighting and surprising Wright, the engine continued to run, if not exactly purr. Youth and man locked eyes.
“Then if the idea is to stay alive, I’m driving,” Wright informed the teen quietly.
“How’s it feel?”
Connor asked Barnes the question as he examined the heavy but sufficiently portable transmitter that had been strapped to the other man’s back. Another soldier was responsible for transporting the batteries that would power it while yet another carried the collapsing broadcast antenna. Still, when they were in the field and on the move, it was possible that Barnes would have to handle the entire one-piece setup by himself. The man’s answer was pretty much the same as Connor had come to expect from any soldier of the Resistance.
“The awkwardness is worse than the weight, but I’ll manage.”
Connor had received that same response from tired men and women who had at one time or another been confronted with an absence of food, a shortage of ammunition, or an approaching squadron of T-600s. Each time, they had managed. Each time, they had persevered. They would continue to do so, he told himself grimly, until Skynet and the last of its minions had been wiped from the face of the Earth.
They had no choice.
A tech came toward him as he was speaking with Kate.
“Just got word, sir.” She fiddled with the closed-channel communicator that had been fitted over her left ear. In another life, she might have been a model. Dirt, war, and the sight of too much death had aged her prematurely. But there was no sign in her voice of the depression or despair that might have been expected to afflict someone so young and attractive.
“We’ve got significant enemy movement north of L.A. Report’s not sure of type and quantity, but it’s definitely something bigger than isolated Ts or scouting Aerostats.”
Connor considered the possibilities. “Are any of our people operating in that area today? Search and rescue, or maybe a scavenger pickup team?”
The tech conveyed the query and waited for a response before replying.
“No one on the ground. Two A-10s in the air—Williams and Mirhadi. But they’re ninety miles away and on routine patrol. Too far to provoke this kind of reaction.”
Kate’s attention shifted from the communications tech back to her husband.
“Looks like some civilians decided to try and get out. I don’t know what else would rouse this kind of activity in what’s been a dead zone for so long.”
Connor nodded in agreement, looked at the tech.
“Let’s help them out. Since they’re not occupied machine-busting at the moment, send our birds over to the flare-up. If some unidentifieds are making trouble, they would probably welcome a little cover. And our people can guide them to a safe area.” Leaning toward his wife, he gave her a parting kiss as he and Barnes headed out.
“Okay.” She turned back to the tech. “Get on it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Even when it was new, the secondary road through the desert outside Los Angeles had never carried a lot of traffic. Now it constituted the first leg of a journey north for a single weather-beaten jeep.
At least, Wright thought to himself as he scanned both the pavement ahead and the scrub-covered hills off to his left, traffic wasn’t going to be a problem.
A glance at the passenger seat and in back revealed that his two companions were still asleep. He did not think of them as children. That identifier implied an innocence that was no longer present in this world. Competence existed exclusive of chronological age. He would far rather embark on the trip ahead in the company of a knowledgeable and experienced teen and a brave nine-year old than some fat fool of a forty-something.
In his short, brutish life he had known far too many of the latter.
Save for the comforting grumble of the jeep, the silence on the old highway was pervasive. Tough and resilient, the desert scrub appeared to have survived better than the largely transplanted and imported landscaping of Los Angeles.
Occasionally he thought he caught glimpses of movement among the stones, succulents, and cacti. Rats, mice, rabbits, ever-opportunistic coyotes and cats gone feral. He smiled to himself. Small mammals had survived the age of dinosaurs by fleeing to burrows. Perhaps humankind would survive the age of machines the same way. Something dark and winged soaring overhead drew his gaze upward.
He was not at all surprised that among the surviving species of birds, buzzards seemed to be doing particularly well.
If the 7-Eleven that hove into view was a mirage, it was a pleasingly solid one. Though for all that was left of it, it might as well have been vapor. Torn and battered, its windows and front broken out, with its filling island twisted as if by a tornado, it appeared to have been ravaged as much by the weather and human refugees as by Skynet.
Bent and rusted as they were, the presence of the gas pumps prompted him to glance down at the jeep’s dash. He was not surprised to see that the fuel gauge indicator was flirting with a large letter E. Determination would still get him to San Francisco—but another tankful of fuel would sure be a big help.
At the moment, he was not ashamed to admit that he needed the expertise of someone much younger than himself who knew about their present surroundings. Reaching over, he elbowed the sleeping teen awake. Reese muttered something unintelligible, but when his eyes opened, they opened fast. He was instantly awake, his awareness ignited like the flame on a gas stove.
Slowing further as he drew closer to the station turnoff, Wright indicated the silent structure.
“Looks dead. What do you think?”
Leaning out the side of the jeep, Reese squinted at the building. Excitement replacing exhaustion, he pointed to a symbol that had been spray painted on one wall. More than anything, it resembled a crude double helix.
“Hey...that’s it.” The youth pointed. “That’s the insignia of the Resistance. It means this place has recently been visited by its soldiers and found to be clean. Looks deserted, too. It should be all right to ge
t out here—at least for as long as it takes to pick up what we can. Pull over.” Reaching into the back seat, he nudged the jeep’s smallest passenger.
“Star, wake up! We’ve found a store.”
Sitting up, the girl rubbed at her eyes, and looked at Reese as if to say, What kind of store?
Settling back down in the front passenger seat, the teen studied the ruins absorbedly, dividing his attention between the relic and the now alert and attentive little girl in back.
“It’s kind of a mess, but it looks like a mini-mart.” At this her eyes widened hopefully. He had to smile at her reaction.
“Don’t get too excited,” he told her. “You know what these places are like inside. We went through plenty of ’em back in L.A.” He eyed the gaping, windowless front speculatively. “Maybe we’ll be lucky this time, maybe not.” He turned back to the older man. “Come on. You drive like a grandmother.”
His initial reaction after they parked the jeep and finally got inside was “not.” Star’s expression showed how her heart sank as she joined the two men in inspecting the rows of broken, crumpled shelves. The minimart’s interior had been ravaged and scavenged with a thoroughness fit to satisfy the most scrupulous barbarian. The store had been cleaned out. There wasn’t a paper clip to be had, much less anything edible. A long-silent freezer contained a single empty carton of milk.
Wright wondered why whoever had drained the contents had chosen to place the empty container back in the silent freezer. A choice made out of reason, respect, or madness?
Following close on his heels, Reese suddenly froze. Star wasn’t the only one whose senses had been sharpened by years spent surviving in the shell of the Southern California megalopolis.
“Someone’s here.”
He had barely uttered the exclamation when half a dozen figures suddenly materialized from different corners of the store.
Wright froze in his turn. They had guns. Not that this would stop him if he felt compelled to defend himself, but while the scruffy shapes wielding the weapons were clearly on edge, their trigger fingers were relaxed. Had their anxiety exceeded their curiosity, they would have fired without bothering to emerge from hiding. That they hadn’t done so indicated that their preference was to talk—at least initially.
Of course they would, he told himself. In this world all human life was precious, because it meant one more individual alive to rage against the machine.
That didn’t mean every survivor welcomed every other one with open arms. Survival still trumped friendship. Confirming this belief, the man Wright took to be the leader of the group kept his shotgun trained on the intruders.
At the first appearance of weapons Reese had stepped in front of Star to shield her. He too had singled out the same man as the group leader.
“We saw your sign,” the teen ventured by way of a hello.
“The old lady put up the sign. Not me. We can’t help you.” The shotgun’s muzzle gestured toward the pump island outside where Wright had parked the jeep. “Wherever you’re headed, you need to keep on going.”
Stepping forward, an elderly woman regarded the trio of arrivals a moment before finally nodding and turning to the much younger man holding the weapon.
“Ease off, Len. They’re okay.” Her shoulder-length hair had turned white as marble.
Licking his lips uncertainly, the shotgun wielder gestured with the end of the weapon again, this time singling out Reese and Star.
“These two might be. Ain’t seen a machine yet that tried to imitate a kid.” Cagey and alert, his eyes flicked back to the silently staring Wright. “But what about him?”
“We don’t want to cause trouble.” Wright kept his tone even and unthreatening. “We just need fuel.”
The man laughed bitterly. “Don’t we all. How about some steak and ice cream while we’re wishing?” His gaze narrowed. “The dark season is coming. We only have enough for ourselves.”
Wright stared back at him calmly. “Why? You planning on taking a long vacation some time soon?”
Tensing, the other man took a step toward Wright, only to be stopped by the exasperated elder.
“Len, put the gun down. You really think I’m going to let you send these children away starving?”
He looked at her sharply. “Virginia, we’re running out of food.”
Spreading his hands, Reese pleaded their case.
“We’re not asking for much. Maybe one meal and some gas for our jeep, then we’ll leave. We don’t want to stay. We’re trying to reach the Resistance.”
For the second time since they had entered the store, Len let out a burst of sharp, acrid laughter.
“The Resistance? What a joke! There is no ‘Resistance’. There’s only talk and wishful thinking. You can’t fight the machines. All anyone with any sense can do is try to stay out of their way.” He gestured at their teetering surroundings. “Why do you think this place is still standing?”
“Because the machines haven’t gotten around to it yet,” Wright opined quietly.
Len glared at him. “No! It’s because we don’t make trouble. We don’t shout our presence. We keep our heads down and they ignore us.”
“You keep your head down,” Reese told him. “They’ll come for you eventually. I’ve seen this before. They don’t ignore you. They don’t ignore anybody. What they do is set priorities. Pick their targets according to the possible threat they might pose, starting with any they consider potentially dangerous to them. Once those’ve been wiped out they start working their way down their list. No one escapes notice. No one gets left alive. They want us all dead.” In spite of Reese’s youth, it was easy to see which of the two men was the more mature.
“They want you dead. Whether you ‘make trouble’ for them or not. Maybe you can hang on here for a while longer yet, but they’ll get around to you eventually.”
Len was not about to have the agenda that had led to his continuing survival misrepresented by a garrulous teenager.
“We help you, maybe they will.”
Wright spoke up. “So give us some gas and we’ll get out of your hair.”
While the men had argued, the older woman had walked over to peer down at the silent Star.
“No one’s going anywhere,” she declared with resolve, “until this one has had something to eat.” Kneeling, she reached out to touch the girl’s cheek. Star did not flinch.
“Look how young you are.” The woman shook her head sorrowfully. “I had a granddaughter about your age. Before—everything. The world we’ve left to you, poor thing—I’m so very sorry for that. People acted without thinking. Not for the first time, but until now things always turned out all right. This time—I just don’t know.” She rose and smiled encouragingly. “Come on, let’s feed you. Unless, of course, you’re not hungry.”
Star nodded violently.
“I thought so.” Moving to a part of the store nearer the back, the woman called Virginia pushed aside an empty metal rack. Bending, she curled her fingers around a handle that had been painted to resemble the rest of the floor and pulled. A wooden hatch cover rose on sturdy hinges.
While Wright remained aloof, waiting, Reese could not help himself. Straining to see down into the opening, he was able to make out piles of packaged and canned food, vacuum-sealed loaves of bread, a startling variety of canned beverages that ran the liquid gamut from beer to soda to water, even some bundles of semi-fresh vegetables.
Len noted these actions with ill-concealed displeasure.
“We haven’t finished evaluating this bunch. We still don’t know who they are, where they come from, what they’re doing here, or how they managed to get hold of a functioning jeep.” He indicated the open hatch. “What are you doing?”
Virginia did not bother to look in his direction. Kneeling and bending down, she began pulling an assortment of provisions from the subterranean storeroom. Reese eyed the apparently unending stream eagerly. He hadn’t seen so much food in one place since—well, he c
ouldn’t remember when he had seen so much food. Plainly, living outside a major city and beyond Skynet’s immediate ken had its advantages.
“I’m using a mother’s intuition.” The older woman looked back at the disapproving Len. “Now put your paranoia away and come welcome our guests.”
Though she neither looked nor sounded like Reese’s conception of a survivalist leader, it was obvious who was in charge here. Around the interior perimeter of the ruined mini-mart weapons were lowered, including Len’s. Hands came off stocks and triggers. Several of those present helped themselves to bottles and settled down to drink.
Gesturing at the assortment of food she had laid out on the floor, Virginia smiled at the newcomers.
“Help yourselves.”
While a famished Reese and Star dove unhesitatingly into a pile of goodies the likes of which had vanished from their memories, Wright held back and continued to regard the older woman. In welcoming him and the children unconditionally she was revealing a pair of character traits that had been more or less entirely absent from his life. Trust, and kindness. Being as unfamiliar with such ordinary human touchstones as he was with the cultural norms of central Africa, he hung back, uncertain how to react to an offer for which nothing was expected in return.
Marking his hesitation, she put some food into a weathered basket and brought it to him. He eyed the packages. Some were familiar to him, some utterly strange. He shook his head “no.” Lowering the basket, she tried another tack.
“Are you all right, son?”
Len’s gaze narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“Life is lived moment by moment, Len. Choice by choice. It signifies what it means to be human.”
Lifting up his gun, he pointed it again. Not at Wright this time, or at Reese. At her.
“I can’t let you do this, Virginia. This is our food. Our fuel. It’s not your choice to make.”
Ignoring him, she turned back to the stolid Wright.
“You look so cold. We have a stock of spare clothing. I think some of it will fit you. Do you want a sweater?” Again he shook his head. This time not because he intended to further refuse the offering of food, but because he found himself distracted. His attention had been drawn to Star.
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