Terminator: Trial By Fire

by Zahn, Timothy

  He hurried back to the others.

  “It opens into some kind of pit,” he reported. “I can’t tell how deep.”

  “You’ll have to chance it,” Yarrow said firmly, wincing in pain. “All of you—down the rabbit hole. Now.”

  “Just as soon as we get you out,” Callahan insisted.

  “It’s too late,” Yarrow said, his voice suddenly as cold as death. “Besides, they’ll see the backpacks. They’ll know someone’s here.”

  “I can cut them down,” Kyle offered, reaching for his knife.

  And froze. Yarrow had drawn a Colt from inside his jacket and was pointing it squarely at Kyle’s face.

  “I gave you an order, Reese,” he said. “It’s too late for me. It’s not too late for you. Get your butts into hiding.”

  “But—” Callahan began.

  “Because you have to get back alive,” Yarrow cut him off. “The machines aren’t digging this damn tunnel for the fun of it. It’s heading straight for the camp. You’re the only ones who can warn Connor.”

  “We can’t just leave you,” Callahan said, his voice pleading now.

  “You have to,” Yarrow said. “Besides, it was my stupid mistake. I’m not going to have you paying for it.” He waved the gun. “Now go, before I have to die with your deaths on my conscience.”

  Callahan’s face was screwed up like he was going to cry. But he jerked his head in a nod.

  “Go,” he told Kyle.

  A few seconds later, they were at the gap.

  “I’ll go first,” Callahan said, sitting down on the edge of the hole and sliding his legs through the gap. “See if I can find some footing.” Half turning, he dropped down into darkness.

  Kyle looked back along the tunnel, at Yarrow leaning against the wall, the Colt in his hand pointed down the tunnel toward the heavy footsteps Kyle could now hear coming toward them.

  “There’s a ledge,” Callahan called softly from the hole.

  Kyle tapped Zac on the shoulder.

  “Go.”

  The younger teen dropped and maneuvered himself into the opening. Again Kyle looked over at Yarrow, suddenly aware of the shotgun tucked into his waistband. If he and Yarrow together had enough firepower to disable the machine— “Reese?” Callahan whispered.

  “Reese, move it,” Zac hissed. “They’re almost here.”

  Kyle caught his breath. They?

  And then, abruptly, the approaching footsteps seemed to leap into focus. Zac was right—there wasn’t just one set there, but several.

  Turning back to the gap, he hurriedly slipped his legs into it. One Terminator they might have been able to handle. But not a group. All Kyle could do from Yarrow’s side, with or without the shotgun, was put his death on Yarrow’s conscience.

  His head was still above ground when he caught a distant glimpse of red Terminator eyes around a bend in the tunnel.

  Flinching, he ducked down, nearly losing his balance as his feet hit the narrow ledge and almost slid off. For a second he fought for balance before Callahan and Zac grabbed his sleeves and steadied him. The edges of the hole itself were jagged and broken, with twisted pieces of exposed rebar on the underside of the slab. Kyle got a grip on one of them—

  Just as the boom of Yarrow’s Colt thundered through the tunnel.

  He tensed, squeezing the rebar hard. There were two more shots, then three more in rapid succession.

  And then, silence.

  Kyle looked beside him at Callahan. The other’s face was tight, his mouth working wordlessly. Zac, on Callahan’s other side, had his face pressed against his upper arm as he held tightly with both hands onto the rebar. The silence stretched like a piece of old cloth...

  And then, Kyle heard the footsteps start up again.

  He felt his throat tighten. Had the machine he’d glimpsed as he dropped into the hole spotted him, as well? Yarrow should have been blocking most of the Terminator’s view, but with Terminators you never knew. The footsteps came closer... closer... reached the hole...

  And passed by without breaking stride.

  Kyle stole another look at Callahan. He was facing up and over his shoulder, his eyes focused on something back there. Kyle followed his line of sight, and spotted the faint shadows passing across the hole as the Terminators filed by.

  There was a long line of them. T-700s, Kyle guessed, from the clink of bare metal on the concrete above them. Several had gone by before it occurred to Kyle that he should probably be counting the shadows. Another eleven of the machines made it past after he started his count.

  Finally, the last one passed, and the sound and vibration of their footsteps faded away. “Eighteen,” Zac breathed, his voice trembling. “There were eighteen of them.”

  “Where do you think they were going?” Callahan asked.

  “You heard Yarrow,” Kyle said. “The tunnel’s heading into the camp.”

  Callahan muttered something under his breath.

  “Come on,” he said, shifting his grip to the edge of the tunnel floor. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Hold it,” Zac said suddenly, grabbing his hand and pulling it back down out of sight. “There’s more coming.”

  Kyle froze, holding his breath as he listened. A few seconds later, he heard the metallic footsteps again headed in their direction. He looked up at the wall, waiting for the shadows to appear.

  A minute later they did.

  Only this time they were heading the opposite direction.

  Kyle peered up at the shadows, a risky plan starting to take shape in the back of his mind. He had no idea what kind of peripheral vision T-700s had, and sneaking a single eye out of cover to see what was going on could conceivably get all three of them killed.

  But Zac had counted eighteen Terminators in the last pass. If he was right, and if this was the same group heading back again...

  He waited, counting until the eighteenth came by. The footsteps changed tone—it was indeed the last one in line. Shifting his grip on the rebar, Kyle eased his head up for a quick look.

  It was a T-700, all right. But instead of the usual submachinegun, it was carrying a huge, jagged chunk of concrete. Kyle threw a quick glance behind it, confirmed there weren’t any more machines, and craned his head up a little higher.

  He was only able to see the last three Terminators in line. But that was enough. All three of the machines were lugging pieces of broken concrete or twisted metal.

  Kyle lowered his head again. Callahan and Zac were looking at him questioningly, but he shook his head, nodding toward the retreating line of Terminators.

  Once again, the sound and vibration of their footsteps faded away.

  “They’re not attacking the base,” he murmured to the others. “At least, not yet. They were carrying pieces of debris. Big pieces.”

  “Debris?” Zac asked.

  “Debris, as in they’re still digging,” Callahan said. “That means we’ve still got time.”

  “The big question is how far they have gotten,” Kyle whispered. “The front of the tunnel can’t be too far ahead, not with that quick a turnaround.”

  “Unless this was a different group,” Callahan pointed out. “There could be two shifts running, with some place up there that’s wide enough for them to pass each other.”

  “But this doesn’t make any sense,” Zac objected. “How can Skynet be running Terminators with all the radio interference blanketing everything out there? Skynet uses shortwave to communicate with the machines, right?”

  “I guess that means the interference isn’t blanketing everything,” Kyle replied.

  “Or the interference has been carefully designed so as to leave the right frequencies open,” Callahan said grimly. “That alone shows this plan’s been up and running for a while.”

  “So what do we do?” Zac asked.

  “Like Yarrow said, we get out of here and alert Connor,” Callahan told him. “Reese, could you see if the backpacks were still there?”

  Kyl
e shook his head.

  “The machines were in the way. I’ll try now.” Carefully, he again eased his head up through the hole.

  Yarrow was lying on the tunnel floor, pressed up against the side wall as if he’d been shoved or kicked there. In the faint light coming through the conduit Kyle could see the bright red blood spreading out over the concrete.

  Standing over the body, its metal skin shimmering in that same diffuse light, was a Terminator.

  Instantly, Kyle ducked down again.

  “Terminator,” he whispered urgently.

  All three froze. Kyle strained his ears, trying to hear past the thudding of his heart. If the Terminator had seen him, it certainly wasn’t in a hurry to come and investigate.

  Which, given that it was a Terminator, meant that it hadn’t seen him.

  Callahan and Zac were staring at him, their expressions tense. Motioning them closer, Kyle leaned his lips close to their ears.

  “It’s standing guard over Yarrow,” he whispered. “Right under the conduit.”

  “But it didn’t spot you?” Callahan whispered back.

  Kyle shook his head, playing back the memory of that quick glance. Now that he thought about it, he realized he hadn’t seen the glow of the machine’s eyes.

  “It was facing the other direction.”

  Callahan nodded, his lip twisted.

  “Skynet’s not sure he was alone. But they don’t know who else, or how many, or which way. So it’s watching both directions for us to come back.”

  “What do we do?” Zac asked.

  Callahan huffed out a breath.

  “If we can’t go back, the only other direction is forward,” he said.

  “You mean go in further?”

  “Skynet’s trying to punch this tunnel into the camp, right?” Callahan said. “Then sooner or later, it has to open up the far end. If we can get up there, maybe we can find a way to crack it open ahead of them and get out.”

  “We’re sure not using the tunnel with that T-700 back there,” Kyle warned.

  “I know,” Callahan said. “That means we’ll have to go that way.” He pointed downward. “There’s empty space down there—you can feel the air flow. Maybe we can travel underneath the tunnel and find a way back up some place where the machine back there can’t see us.”

  “And if we can’t?” Zac asked.

  “Then we won’t be any worse off than we are now,” Kyle said. “I’m game.”

  Zac sighed. “Me too.”

  “Okay,” Callahan said. “Any idea how we get down there without bringing the whole metal nest down on top of us?”

  “We could wait until the next group is marching by,” Zac suggested. “Their footsteps should cover any noise we make.”

  Ten minutes later, as the Terminators again went marching back toward the front of the tunnel, the three of them slipped down the angled piles of debris into the darkness. Distantly, Kyle wondered what they would find down there.

  Or whether any of Connor’s people would ever find them.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Barnes and Williams had been trudging through the forest for over an hour, and Barnes was starting to regret he’d ever agreed to go on this little nature hike, when they found the bridge.

  “What do you think?” Williams murmured as they crouched in the undergrowth about thirty meters away.

  Barnes eyed the structure through the branches, wishing he’d thought to grab a pair of binoculars before leaving San Francisco.

  “Looks solid enough,” he murmured back. “I suppose someone could have crossed on it.”

  “Mm,” Williams said. “Pretty hard to tell how solid a bridge is without trying it.”

  “Go ahead,” Barnes offered. “I’ll wait here.”

  Williams grunted. “Funny. What do you want to do?”

  Barnes looked around. Aside from the bridge, there was nothing here but more forest, the same as the stuff they’d already tromped through. No people, no buildings—no Terminators.

  “I guess we could look around a little,” he said doubtfully. “See if we can find some trace of this visitor Preston’s so hot to bring in. Or just call it a bust and go back.”

  “Can’t say I’m overly thrilled by either option,” Williams said. “But you’re right. You want to flip a coin—?”

  “Shh!” Barnes hissed, snapping his head around to the left. Something had rustled over there, loudly enough to be audible over the noise of the river churning through the deep gorge beneath the bridge.

  Williams froze, her Mossberg already pointing that direction. Barnes kept his eyes moving, sweeping the area where the sound had come from, while also keeping an eye on their flanks. A nice, loud rustling in the bushes was the oldest trick in the book...

  The noise came again. This time Barnes spotted its source: a small rippling in the branches of a thorn bush forty meters away.

  “If that’s a Terminator, it’s awfully small,” Williams said softly.

  “Aerostats and hydrobots aren’t exactly huge,” Barnes reminded her. It would be just like Skynet to have seeded the forests with some new kind of ground-hugging nasty that they hadn’t run into before. “Stay here—I’ll check it out.” Watching the rippling bush and the ones right beside it, searching for the glint of metal, he started to rise from his crouch.

  “Freeze,” a quiet voice ordered from behind him. “Don’t turn around.”

  Barnes hissed a curse. And he’d been watching for this trick, too, damn it. “Easy, friend,” he soothed.

  “What makes you think I’m your friend?” the voice countered. “Who are you?”

  “Barnes, she’s Williams. You from the town back there?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Your friendly approach to strangers,” Barnes growled. “They say hello with hunting arrows.”

  “So you’re not from Baker’s Hollow, either,” the man said. “What are you doing here?”

  “We were heading home when we spotted the smoke from the town,” Williams said. “You may have heard our helo coming in early this morning. What’s your name?”

  “Where’s home?” the man asked, ignoring the question.

  “At the moment, San Francisco,” Williams said. She twitched her left arm, jiggling her red armband. “We’re with the Resistance.”

  “Yes, I already saw the armbands,” the man said. “If you’re Resistance, I assume you listen to John Connor?”

  Barnes snorted. “All the time.”

  “Good,” the man said. “What was in his last broadcast?”

  Barnes frowned. Connor’s last broadcast had been over a week ago, before the attack on Skynet Central. He had no idea what Connor had said in that message, and it was clear from Williams’s silence that she didn’t either.

  “I don’t know,” he told their captor. “We don’t have time to listen to every broadcast. Who does?”

  There was a short pause.

  “Skynet does, for one,” he said. Oddly enough, the tension level in his voice had actually gone down. “That’s a point in your favor, actually.”

  “Wait a minute,” Barnes said, frowning. “You think we’re Skynet? What, we don’t look human enough for you?”

  “You look very human,” the man said grimly. “But that isn’t a defining quality anymore.” He murmured some sort of curse under his breath. “Unfortunately, aside from cutting you open, I don’t know any way to prove you’re who you claim.”

  The skin on the back of Barnes’s neck began to tingle.

  “Let’s not do anything drastic,” he said carefully. “There’s got to be some way we can prove ourselves.”

  “While we’re thinking, how about telling us your name?” Williams suggested.

  There was a short pause.

  “Call me Jik,” the man said.

  “You a pilot?” Williams asked.

  “No,” Jik said. “Why?”

  “Jik sounds like a pilot’s call sign,” Williams said. “Who�
��s your friend out there?”

  “My friend?” Jik asked. “Oh. This.” The distant bush rustled again. “Some rope tied to a small branch. Simple but effective. If you spotted smoke in Baker’s Hollow, what are you doing way out here?”

  “Hunting a Terminator,” Barnes told him. “It headed up this side of the river, and we wanted to see where it went. Or whether it just gave up and went away.”

  “Oh, it didn’t go away,” Jik said sourly. “It’s somewhere to the south, I think—I caught a couple of glimpses of it while I was trying to get to the ford.”

  “So you’re the one it’s hunting?” Williams asked.

  “So it would seem,” Jik said. “And be advised that there are two T-700s on this side of the river, not just one. I shot the other one earlier, during all the gunfire. But I only had one round left, and that wasn’t enough to kill it.”

  Barnes felt a cautious stirring of hope.

  “You only had one shot?”

  “But I got its weapon away from it before it recovered,” Jik said, an edge of warning in his voice. “In case you were thinking I’m bluffing back here.”

  “No, of course not,” Barnes said. “Those G11s are heavy, aren’t they?”

  “Heavy enough,” Jik agreed. “But I’m sure I’d be able to get off a couple of rounds before my biceps gave out.”

  “What did you mean, looks aren’t a defining quality anymore?” Williams asked.

  “I mean that Skynet’s come up with something new,” Jik said grimly. “A human heart and organs wrapped up inside metal.”

  Williams inhaled sharply. “You mean Marcus?”

  “Was that its name?”

  “His name,” Williams corrected harshly. “His name was Marcus Wright.”

  “Well, its name isn’t Marcus Wright anymore,” Jik told her. “I killed it. Or destroyed it, however you want to put—”

  “Wait a second,” Barnes interrupted. “You killed it?”

  “I just said that,” Jik said.

  “Yeah,” Barnes muttered.