T2 - 03 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Times of Trouble

by Russell Blackford

  For a moment, it seemed that the tank had been taken out completely, but then it moved again, plowing up more dust. The grenade had failed to penetrate its armor, or do much damage. Still, whoever was in there was completely without support.

  Someone called out in Spanish from behind a point of cover, "We surrender. We want to come out."

  "Cease fire. Everybody, cease fire," Cecilia shouted back, meaning the Terminators as much as the enemy soldiers. Then, just for the enemy, she added, "Drop your weapons. Come out into the open with your hands in the air."

  One soldier appeared. He carried an assault rifle, which he laid down theatrically, before stepping away.

  "The rest of you, come out now," Cecilia said. "Right now! Just do it!" About a dozen enemy soldiers showed themselves, holding their arms up. The Terminators covered them, ready to mow them down with rapid fire. More appeared. Cecilia counted: eighteen in all.

  The tank was getting away. "Take it out!" Cecilia

  said to the nearest Terminator, which was well-equipped with 40mm. grenades and a launcher. 'The tank, take it out!" Even as she said it, she realized the Terminator was ahead of her. It had loaded its launcher, and now it fired.

  Other Terminators followed, hitting the tank with more grenades. The tank's turret swiveled, and for a moment Cecilia found herself staring down the bore of its main gun. But one of the T-799s had an old M-79 grenade launcher, and had popped in a grenade. As the turret continued its arc, the Terminator aimed. The grenade flew straight into the gun's barrel before it could hurl another shell. There was an explosion, rending metal.

  Cecilia had imagined the grenade might find its way right down the barrel into the body of the tank, taking it out completely, but it didn't happen that way. She guessed that kind of magic shot was impossible even for a Terminator. Nonetheless, the result was more than satisfactory: the gun barrel warped out of line, inoperable. More grenades hit the tank's tracks, and it stalled, totally crippled.

  The guy with the RPGs, who'd taken out the helicopters and fired on the tank, walked toward Cecilia as she got to her feet. She ran to join him as quickly as she could, her rifle at the ready in case anyone opened fire. She passed the "wounded" Terminator, still crawling forward to engage the enemy. "Halt now," she said to it. She'd worry later about what to do with it. Not surprisingly, she found that she recognized the man who'd helped her out. It was Curtis Suarez, who'd been born here nineteen years before.

  He pulled off a pair of earplugs, as she nodded to show that she knew him. She kept watching the tank, which could still attack them—though it would not win. Disabled as it was, it was now easy prey for their explosive weapons. What would its crew do now? She soon had her answer: the turret's hatch opened, and four men climbed out, hands in the air, just like all the others.

  "Curtis," she said, "it's good to see you. Are you okay?"

  "That last shell came close," he said. "I saw what was going to happen and got into one of the tunnels. I'd been holding out there."

  "Where's everyone else?"

  "A lot of them are dead. There might be some prisoners, I don't know. I was in one of the trenches. They left me for dead.. .I don't know how I lasted this long. I was working out what to do, how to create maximum damage, before—"

  "Before they could kill you? Well, it won't happen that way now."

  He allowed himself a relieved grin.

  "Not this time," she said. She addressed one of the Terminators. "The soldiers coming from the tank: Take them prisoner. We'll get all our prisoners together. I want to interrogate them." She gave another of the Terminators, the T-800 that had been damaged superficially in the first of the fighting, the task of rounding up the four who'd been in the Humvee.

  It occurred to her that others could be in hiding, even down in the bunkers. She organized the Terminators to undertake a thorough search, and to find any prisoners who were being kept here.

  She didn't know how many people had been killed, and it didn't make her happy using Terminators to kill human beings, but it could have been a lot worse. The news for General Connor would be grim, but she'd achieved her first objective. It looked like she'd reclaimed the estancia. What was left of it.

  Cecilia's group had taken twenty-five prisoners and had killed at least nineteen, entirely in the firefight at the end. Given the totality of their victory, it now seemed unfortunate that they'd destroyed, or rendered inoperative, the most impressive military assets that the Rising Army had deployed here: the two helicopter gunships and the Abrams tank. Nonetheless, they were assets no longer in the Rising Army's hands, and their destruction had helped them win this battle. They'd gained three five-ton trucks and a fair range of materials, including mortars, light arms, ammunition, and radio equipment. That was a good day's work.

  Cecilia posted three Terminators outside to stand guard. A fourth still lay on the open ground, damaged and inoperative, though even it would continue to fight for her if she ordered it to. With another two of the T-800s, she herded their prisoners into one of the bunkers. The Terminators had found ten loyal Resistance fighters who'd been taken prisoner by the Rising Army and held here. Apart from Curtis, no one was still alive in the trenches and tunnels that guarded the estancia.

  She knew almost all of the Resistance fighters. That was the thing about having grown up here: she had all the local knowledge. These ten included older men, women, and a couple of children whom she didn't know, since she'd spent most of the last decade away from Argentina. Peter Ranly, an old farm worker whom she'd known when she was just a child, took her hand to thank her. He was white-headed and frail now, looking as if he could blow away like a dry leaf in the breeze, but she'd known him when his limbs had been round with muscle, and his hair thick and black.

  "I'm only sorry it took so long," she said.

  With the Terminators, she armed the survivors, using equipment seized from the Rising Army. The next question was what to do about those who'd surrendered. She almost wished that she hadn't ordered the Terminators to minimize casualties. The Terminators never slept, and could certainly guard them, but this number of people could use up too many resources. After what they'd done to the estancia and the number of people they'd butchered in their attack, she felt no merciful urges.

  The first thing to do was interrogate them, and the Terminators could help. She had no intention of torturing or abusing anyone—she considered herself too decent for that—but she would put some fear into them, with the Terminators' assistance. Then they'd start planning more actions against the Rising Army and other militias controlled by local warlords. Give It a few weeks, and anyone who'd joined the warlords would wish they'd never even thought of mutiny. She organized everyone, both the freed prisoners and the Rising Army members, into a large, concrete-floored room that her parents had designed years before as a meeting hall. It had been intended as a place to transact business, if world war and nuclear fallout had forced the family and its workers to live a long time underground. The Terminators herded the Rising Army members into one corner. Nobody made any move to disobey. Right in front of them, she had told the Terminators to tolerate no escape attempts, and to shoot to kill. If these murderers and ingrates »d anything, it was on their own heads.

  "All right," she said to everyone. "I'm going to order the Terminators to find all the dead—on both sides. They'll all get a decent burial in the morning. The Terminators can work overnight once we have found everyone. That's the best I can do for the sake of their humanity. You guys who mutinied, just be thankful that we're still merciful. I will need to interrogate you, and I don't expect any name, rank, and serial number stuff. I'll be wanting precise information. You'll cooperate if you know what's good for you and want further clemency. As far as we're concerned, you're traitors to our cause, not some kind of honorable enemy."

  "How honorable are you?" one of them said—the woman who'd been in the Humvee that had first attacked them.

  One of the Terminators aimed its rifle right be
tween her eyes. "Don't fire," Cecilia said quietly...then, to the woman, "Don't whine because you picked the wrong side."

  "You go to Hell," the woman said. "Why did come here with those...things? This is between men and men now. There is no more Skynet. You betray us all, using the machines."

  Cecilia had to laugh. "You think you are the good guys? If only you knew what you were talking about." To the Terminators, she said, "Guard them. You know your orders."

  As she left to radio General Connor, the nearest Terminator said, "Affirmative."

  TEN

  NEW YORK CITY SEPTEMBER 5, 2029

  John slept for two hours on an unclaimed upper bunk, not even removing his overcoat or boots. When he awoke, Jade and Anton were nowhere to be seen. He guessed they'd just gone off to make their own plans. Sarah looked asleep in a bunk nearby, but her eyes opened as soon as he moved. She was as wary as a cat, always had been.

  General Connor, Gabriela, and Isaac walked into the room, talking in normal voices, not exactly softly, though not shouting, either. He must have heard them in his sleep. "What's the story?" Sarah said, lowering her feet to the floor.

  "We had a radio call from Cecilia," the General said.

  Instantly, she tensed—though her voice gave away no emotion, no fear, or excitement, or hope. "What's happened?"

  "It's good news, up to a point."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning that they've had some success. Cecilia Is okay."

  John looked from face to face as the General

  spoke—from his mom, to Gabriela, back to the General. "So what's the bad news?" he said carefully.

  There's more good news, first. We've regained the estancia, including the bunkers. They're intact, but there's nothing much left on the surface. The casco is a ruin."

  "Bastards!" Sarah said, glancing away for just a second. Then she looked the General in the eye. "What about the others? Any survivors at the estancia?"

  "Most of the defenders were massacred by the Rising Army," Gabriela said in a low voice. "Cecilia and the Terminators rescued some prisoners. One other had survived, young Curtis Suarez. The Rising Army had left him for dead in the trenches. That was their mistake—Cecilia said that he fought well."

  John didn't recall any Curtis Suarez from the estancia. . .not in the time he'd spent there back in the early 1990s. He'd known the Suarez family, who'd worked for Raoul Tejada, but Curtis mustn't have been born back then.

  Sarah's eyes bored in. "What now?"

  "The Rising Army took heavy losses," the General said. "Cecilia has taken prisoners, a large number of them."

  "Meaning?"

  "A couple of dozen. We've lost just one Terminator, and reclaimed some of the enemy's weapons and vehicles. She'll interrogate her prisoners, and recommend an action plan to wipe out the warlords. It's clear she'll need reinforcements. If nothing else, we'll have to start a POW camp until this is over, and we have work to do with people that we capture. I don't want to control a prison with Terminators...I've seen enough of concentration camps run by Skynet's machines. That's a step I'm not prepared to take. We'll need human volunteers, as well as sending some additional Terminators."

  A minute later, Jade and Anton entered the hall. "Is there news?" Jade said.

  "I've just taken the others through it," the General said. "I'll brief you in a minute. The guts of it is that Cecilia and her group of Terminators have recaptured the Tejada estancia from the Rising Army. She'll call again tomorrow, when she knows more. Then we'll plan what more needs to be done in South America."

  "What about us?" John said. "I mean, now?"

  "Now? Tomorrow, we all rest a little, and make some more detailed plans. The next day, we take out those aerial H-Ks. That hasn't changed. After that, I'm returning to Colorado. I expect you'll want to come with me. You, Sarah...all of you here, except Isaac."

  "Fine," John said. "That's when the action really starts."

  TEJADA ESTANCIA

  Cecilia found a flashlight, and gestured to one of the T-800s. "Come with me. There's another job to do." Outside, not far from the bunkers, they'd left that badly damaged Terminator. She'd ordered it to stop moving on the Rising Army's forces, so it must still be there. With one leg blown away, it was no use in combat. Repairing it was out of the question—they lacked the technology for that. The one thing they must never do was leave Skynet's war machines to fall into the wrong hands years, decades, or even centuries, down the track.

  They left the other Terminators to guard their Rising Army prisoners, answerable to Curtis if anything went wrong and they needed orders. The sky was now totally dark; she'd spent hours interrogating prisoners, letting the Terminators do much of the work. That had been worthwhile: she had far more knowledge of the Rising Army than she'd started with. But there were other jobs that couldn't wait.

  "Can you see the damaged Terminator?" she said. "The one we left behind?"

  "Affirmative," the T-800 said. "My infrared sensors have detected it. It still generates heat." "Take me to it, and then destroy it." "Inadvisable. It could be a valuable asset." "I know that. Just do it. I order you to." Without a word, the T-800 led her to where the badly damaged T-799 lay sprawled on the ground, perfectly still. The T-800 reached down the T-799's head, and took a powerful, claw-like grip, then ripped away the upper layer of hair and flesh to expose the shining metal "skull" underneath, lit up by Cecilia's flashlight. Cecilia crouched to peer more closely at the small circular area in the skull's surface, above the right temple, with an indentation like the head of a screw. She'd seen this before, though not often. The quickest way to destroy a Terminator was usually from a distance with the one weapon they were lacking here, some kind of powerful phased-plasma device. "Can you get it open?" Cecilia said. "The surface is too smooth," the Terminator said. "I cannot open it without sustaining damage. Alternatively, I require tools. What are your orders?"

  She didn't need to consider what damage the Terminator might suffer—perhaps just to the flesh on its fingers. The estancia's workshops had been badly damaged, almost totally destroyed, but it shouldn't be too difficult finding tools such as knives and screwdrivers amongst the wreckage. She pointed out the nearest workshop, and said, "Find what you need."

  "Affirmative."

  "Do you want the flashlight? How well can you see?" The starless, moonless nights were far too dark for humans to operate without artificial light, but the Terminator's sensors were something else entirely. As well as functioning in the infrared, its "eyes" gathered light, much like nightvision devices.

  The Terminator seemed to consider the question. "Keep the light," it said. It headed for the workshop that she'd pointed out, knocking aside broken masonry and other wreckage, then rummaged in there noisily for several minutes. It returned with a fistful of screwdrivers and bladed tools. Testing these, it took another few seconds to remove two tiny screws on opposite sides of the circular area, then discarded a cover plate and finally levered out a structure that seemed to be made of intricately-connected cubes.

  "The nanochip," Cecilia said.

  In one powerful hand, the T-800 crushed the Dyson chip into a useless, unrecognizable tangle of metal. "Terminated," it said.

  NEW YORK CITY SEPTEMBER 6, 2003

  There was a workshop set up on the floor above the barracks. A large woman stood guard, armed with a shotgun and a grenade launcher, though there was so much firepower gathered here today that she might as well not have bothered. A scruffy-looking dog sat on its haunches beside her. Among the benches, car parts, disassembled engines, power tools, electrical and welding equipment, guns awaiting repair or modification, and improvised weapons was an expanse of open space where a dozen men, women, and children huddled around the heat of a small fire, some of them wrapped in threadbare blankets. Many of them were disfigured by wounds or scars. Most were missing teeth. Two or three had a crazy look in their eyes, as if they were seeing demons.

  Another fifteen people stood around the metal crate that J
ohn and the others had brought back from Europe. General Connor, Jade, and Anton stood close, all armed with laser rifles, as a team of welders cut through the bolts to open the crate. A little further back, John and Sarah leveled shotguns at the crate. Gabriela, Isaac, and a group of others stood nearby, all well-armed. Some were Isaac's people; some were Canadian and Spanish fighters who'd flown here in the Hercules.

  This was like opening a vampire's coffin, John thought. You didn't know what might happen when you let it free, whether it would lie there helplessly, with its arms folded across its chest—an easy target for your knife or your stake. Or whether it would leap at your throat with long, sharp, bloody fangs.

  The welders finished their job, and Anton stepped forward with a six-foot crowbar in one hand and his laser rifle in the other. He didn't use the crowbar as a lever; instead, he smashed it hard against the heavy metal lid, shaking the entire crate. He did it again, just trying to loosen the fitted lid. Then, satisfied he'd found a crack, he forced the hooked end into it—still one-handed—and pried it loose. He dropped the bar and put down his rifle, got his fingers under the lid, then suddenly lifted it with a tremendous effort. He seemed to lose his grip for a moment, but then he simply tore the heavy lid from the crate with much the same ease that as a normal man flinging aside a piece of orange peel.

  "Right," he said. "Let's see what we have."

  Nothing stirred in the crate. Jade stepped forward to cover Anton more closely, and the others followed, crowding around. Some of the people from near the fire came over to join them; others didn't seem to care. Within the crate, John saw a silvery body like an abstract, sexless statue. It was a shapeshifting T-1000 Terminator, made from a polyalloy liquid-metal" stronger than steel.