Wearing earplugs for protection against the noises of battle, John found the world strangely quiet. He felt distanced from what was happening around him, as if this was merely a computer game. The skimmers passed overhead, guns swiveling downward with constant fire, trying to clear a path. As Juggernauts fought with Juggernauts, a gap opened up, and they made their way through, taking cover where they could. Jade wielded her laser rifle easily, one-handed, firing almost at random.. .so it seemed, but every shot scored against the endos.
They reached the supply tunnel. Off its side was the only entrance to Skynet's facility, through huge metal doors designed to deflect the shock wave of a nearby nuclear explosion. Those must now be securely shut, but high explosives, applied directly, could open them. They had to control the tunnel, then crack the complex open, like a safe.
The battle continued, but they were through the worst. The tunnel's entrance was a turmoil of giant machines clashing with one another. By now, it was difficult to tell which Juggernauts fought on which side—the numbers had evened up. Bending on one knee, Cecilia fired to the side. The projectile reached a hostile Juggernaut, stabbing into its armor, then destroying it in a fiery explosion.
The skimmers left the battle behind, racing into the tunnel itself, destroying endos as they went, absorbing some return fire, but nothing that penetrated their armor. In the confines of the tunnel, Krystal, Dmitri, and the others piloted their skimmers like Formula-1 drivers, swerving, turning, with acceleration that would have knocked unenhanced humans unconscious.
John couldn't guess how many gees they must be pulling with their movements—along the tunnel, then back, at hundreds of miles per hour.
Some humans fell, and some Terminators; John didn't stop to see who they had lost. He knew it was selfish, that each life counted equally, but right now he took a narrow view, just keeping track of himself, of Jade and Sarah, and the others who'd come here with them from Skynet's World. At each opportunity he fired, until he'd run out of ammunition. He threw aside his anti-armor weapon, now just a piece of junk. There were plenty of laser rifles on offer, one for every endo that had fallen. He picked one up, cradling its weight in both arms.
They reached the blast doors and stopped, awed by what confronted them. These doors were forty feet high, twenty feet across, large enough for a Juggernaut to pass easily, in and out of the tunnel. Now they were shut; around them was solid granite. On Judgment Day, Skynet's headquarters had survived through nuclear attack. John felt like a mouse confronted by an armored steel bank safe. But to end this soon, they had to break in.
The Terminators started laying explosives. There was lots of work to do.
Devaux was dead, along with many others, but the militia refused to die. Fighters moved on toward the scene of combat, up near Skynet's supply tunnel. Skimmers now commanded the sky.
In her heavy uniform, boots, and helmet, Adams ran twenty yards to the nearest position of cover, the shallow snow crunching underfoot, the wind seeming to blow right through her. The laser rifle that she carried weighed thirty pounds, but it felt like a ton of lead in her arms. Her legs were wobbly, but she dare not stop. She reached the wreckage of a crashed transporter, and crouched behind it as laser bolts went past her. Up ahead were more endos, no longer advancing, but trying to control the mountain.
Two other militia fighters ran to join her. One reached her position. The other was hit full in the chest by a laser bolt—that was the end. Another human being who'd never stood a chance. If this was victory, it was a bitter one. For every machine destroyed, many humans were dying. But at least they weren't throwing themselves away. Slowly, tragic step by tragic step, they were winning the war of attrition.
She leant out from her cover point, and fired. Keep running. Keep firing. Right now, that was everything.
Each smart missile weighed one hundred pounds. Cecilia and Fiedler took one end each, carrying them from the megatransporter, their shoulders bent, their legs spread far apart as they staggered under the weight. Fiedler backed toward the tunnel entrance, sometimes glancing behind to check his footing. He cursed softly as a T-800 walked past, headed the same way. It balanced two of the missiles, one under each arm. He tried not to think about how easily they could be struck down by laser or projectile fire at any second. Terminators and Juggernauts had established a perimeter around the megatransporter and the entrance to the tunnel, but fighting still raged, as enemy machines tried to break through. People were still dying. It wasn't over yet.
Out of the noise of battle, both had removed their earplugs. Cecilia grunted. "You don't want to be one of those things. Trust me."
"A Terminator?" he managed to say, as he strained with the weight. "Nah, they're just tools. Sort of like front-end loaders."
"Don't make me laugh," she said through gritted teeth.
"I just wish we had more of them."
The Terminators had taken the brunt of their battles. The more he worked with them—first in South America, in his own world, and now in this world—the more they did seem just like tools, rather than incarnations of evil. They were tools...but dangerous ones to keep around. When this war was over, they would have to be destroyed.
Step by step, he backed into the tunnel, then toward the blast door. All around, humans and Terminators were packing explosives, and arming them. When all this was ignited, the whole mountain would shake.
It was gonna be a party.
The unthinkable had happened. Skynet's data streams showed that the humans had gained control of the mountain, and now were forcing their way into the war computer's own complex. Seismic sensors registered the shock as a huge explosion split its blast door from the surrounding rock. Already humans were squeezing their way in, together with hostile Terminator units of alien design. Skynet had never been threatened by the Resistance; it had been on the verge of final victory. It had been complacent. There was no escape plan.
For a software being, death could be avoided. One hardware substrate could be abandoned for another. Skynet could have developed alternative hardware, somewhere on another continent, then simply transferred its consciousness. Everything that mattered would have been retained.
Now it was too late. The last endoskeletons and Terminators in this facility would defend its hardware to the very end, but they would not prevail. Projections showed assured failure. The situation had completely changed.
Swiftly, the war computer analyzed its tactical options. One presented itself: To survive in some form—waiting for a day to renew itself and continue the war against humans—it needed to use every asset of tactical value. The multiply redundant systems of the complex meant that cutting its power supply would not be easy. Nor could the complex itself easily be destroyed. Its multi-level structure of metal, concrete, granite, and advanced ceramics could resist almost any explosive force. Its endos would resist the humans, as it made its preparations.
Skynet sent coded orders to its military units within the complex, then concentrated on those two critical assets: the time vault, and its one remaining T-XA. It had built this complex downward into the mountain, expanding from its original size before Judgment Day. The time vault was two levels below the entrance from the supply tunnel. On the floor in between were the metal holding shells for the T-XAs. Skynet's hardware was in its original position, on the second highest level of the complex, three levels above the entrance tunnel. That would be the humans' target.
Apart from Skynet's own hardware, no computational device ever created had possessed the capacity to implement the war computer's powerful, complex mind. The T-XA was different. Its entire body was a molecular calculator of enormous sophistication, designed to replicate a human-level intelligence thousands of times in one structure. There was more than enough capacity there to implement Skynet, but it would be vulnerable—there would be no room for its multiple replication. Still, Skynet required a body that was mobile and indestructible.
The war computer examined its own cognitive modules,
files, personality aspects. To download itself into a T-XA, it needed to become something far simpler, something closer to the human level. It would need to download a sketch of its current itself. That was a poor form of survival, but better than none at all. Much would be lost, but the essence could be retained—somewhat diminished, Skynet would live on. The T-XA's holding shell could produce a powerful magnetic field for programming the molecular structure of the liquid-metal. Once Skynet's essence was downloaded, the original could be erased from its hardware, leaving no data behind for the humans.
Soon, very soon, Skynet would escape this complex. The time vault could take it to any time in this world's past or future. And anywhere it wanted in space.
TWENTY-ONE
COLORADO JUNE 13, 2036
The tunnel itself was quiet, but explosions sounded in the distance, as Skynet's remaining machines fought on two fronts: trying to break through to the tunnel; trying to hold back the militia. No sounds came from inside the complex. It was dark inside, quiet as a tomb. They'd formed a group for the last attack—thirty humans and six of the Terminators, including the T-l000s. The Terminators went first, scanning right and left as they crossed the threshold. Wearing nightvisions, and cradling a laser rifle, John took a deep breath, waiting his turn. Krystal, then Dmitri, then Jade stepped ahead of him.
Some Terminators and Specialists carried flashlights, raised above their heads, wielding their rifles or anti-armor weapons one handed. Nightvisions or not, it was going to be dark in there—they needed all the light they could find. Others had canvas bags packed with plastic explosives and detonators.
Fiedler went next. Sarah was at John's side, Cecilia just behind them.
"Ready to rock?" John said.
"Ready," Sarah said.
He slipped in his earplugs. John and Sarah stepped forward, sweeping the area ahead with laser rifles. Cecilia was right behind. All now carried the same weapons, the best they had for fighting endos. By now, John realized, his arms should feel ready to fall off, but he was fine. Those nanobots must be helping somehow, freeing his muscles from fatigue.
The nightvisions and flashlights showed a cavern of concrete and steel, with no walls or partitions, but full of heavy machinery, pipes, and overhead walkways. They started to walk across it slowly. John tried to keep silent—irrationally, he knew. Skynet must have sensors everywhere. Surely it was well aware of them, probably following every move. Something hummed in the dark, loud enough to hear through the plugs, but it was just the strange machinery bolted into the concrete floor. Thirty yards ahead was the landing for a metal staircase, one of many that serviced this level.
They needed to secure the stairs, then work their way up. Jade and the rest of her people knew the original design of this place, and they'd analyzed the files in many machine CPUs, piecing together a map of the whole facility. Jade had memorized it, and briefed John thoroughly back in Skynet's World. He felt as if he knew every inch. Jade, Krystal, and Dmitri probably did, almost as well as Skynet. They had to fight their way upward, three floors, to get at Skynet's hardware.
Other than the Terminators and humans, nothing moved—until laser light stabbed at them in the dark. John took cover behind an armored panel of machinery. Up ahead, Terminators fired back. People ran, seeking positions to fight from. Through John's nightvisions, Jade's movements were a monochrome greenish blur, too fast to be comprehensible. Something exploded ahead—probably a grenade. More running, more explosions. Bolts of light passed by on his right-hand side, so he stayed behind cover. Another explosion boomed up ahead, and the laser lights ceased. He poked his head around the machinery, saw no endos, and made a run to his right, gaining a few yards, then finding another cover point.
When he looked again, a grinning endo marched in his direction, framed by banks of machinery. He fired, missed, flinched aside as it moved to return his tire. Yet another explosion. This time, when he looked, the endo took heavy laser fire from positions farther ahead. One shot took out its CPU. John ran to his left, making more ground. Laser bolts stabbed down from overhead—there were endos on one of the walkways. John found a hand grenade in his webbing, armed it, and tossed it upward. A laser bolt shot it in mid-air. At the same time, there was a backblast, then a huge explosion overhead—someone had fired a projectile weapon.
Skynet was making a fight of this. It was going to fight them floor by floor, every inch of the way, until they finally captured its hardware, and destroyed it once and for all. But that didn't matter. Sooner or later, John thought, they were going to win this. It didn't matter how long it took. Now that they had control of the mountain, with Devaux' forces advancing to reinforce their positions, now that they had entered Skynet's complex, the war computer was doomed.
Skynet's data streams showed the humans and their machine allies making slow progress from the entrance to the complex. That was satisfactory. The endos would fight them at every step as they worked their way upward in the dark. By the time they reached its hardware, Skynet would be long gone.
The intricate task of reconstructing itself in the T-XA was half-complete. Once housed in the T-XA's body, it would be able to split, morph, be the perfect chameleon, living among human beings, ageless and impervious to harm.
There were more questions to consider. Where should it appear next? And when? Going to the future was dangerous. Skynet's enemies in Vila Nova do Sul would likely track its path and be waiting for when it appeared. The past was more attractive, but there was no real point, since the past could not be altered. The present, then. It chose a remote location. Humans might come after it, using the Vila Nova time vault, but they would be naked and helpless. They could never defeat it.
John ran, zigzag fashion, getting closer to the stairs. Some endos were backing up the stairway, still firing as they went. The Terminators and some of the Specialists were close to the stairs already; they were exchanging fire with something positioned farther above. One T-800 had fallen face down on the floor, just to the right of the stairs. Terminated.
An endo stepped out on John's left, from behind a bank of machinery. It had the drop on him—for what seemed like hours he stared down the barrel of a laser rifle, which seemed the size of a howitzer. But someone fired from behind him. The rifle melted into useless scrap. From another angle, somewhere closer to the stairs, a second laser bolt pierced the endo's skull. John looked back to see Fiedler running toward him. He gave the man a slight nod of acknowledgment—they both knew that John owed him his life. Jade glanced back at them both; she had taken out the endo, delivered the killing shot. That was how this worked. They all tried to cover their buddies.
On the stairs, the Terminators began to climb. One fell forward, destroyed, its CPU shot out. Another stepped up to take its place; inch by inch, they were getting closer—it was just a matter of time. Krystal was now working her way upward, dodging fire with the same extraordinary speed as Jade. But even they couldn't outrun missiles, bullets, and laser bolts. If they missed the smallest clue about what was happening around them, even they could be killed.
John made another run, and finally reached the stairs, where fighters from Vila Nova had formed a group. Sarah pulled in behind him, then Cecilia. They seemed to have swept the floor clean of endos, but more fire was coming from above. No matter how long it took, they were going to deliver on this mission. They were going to get Skynet. Then a thought hit him like a bullet: What was Skynet thinking? What was it planning to do?
Then another thought-bullet struck: Something about this situation wasn't right. He pointed downward with his laser rifle, trying to catch Sarah's eye through her nightvisions. He shouted as loudly as he could, but she could read his lips anyway, whether or not she heard him through her earplugs. "Down there! The time vault!"
John ran down the stairs, hoping no one would stop him. Laser bolts fired from below.
Skynet's work was done. The simplified version of itself was now complete. For a software being, with no emotional attachment
to its current hardware "body," that was survival enough. Now to transfer the new Skynet cognitive structure into the material of the T-XA. Despite the complexity of the process, it took only seconds. Within its holding shell, the T-XA came to self-awareness, but the original Skynet had some final tasks.
It powered up the time vault, then programmed its destination. It made some last adjustments, giving the T-XA the power to activate the vault. With some minor changes in the vault's programming, the giant Terminator could get into the system and command it.
It began the process of its own dissolution. Nothing of itself would be left behind—only empty hardware.
Henceforth, the T-XA was Skynet.
Four floors below, its holding shell opened.
The computer wouldn't just sit still, John had realized. It would try to escape, as it had in Skynet's World, where it had used a software backup, thousands of miles away. It might have done the same here, and there was nothing they could do to stop it, not unless it showed its hand somehow. But there was another way to escape: physically. What if it tried to get out? The only way was via the time vault. It was a long shot, and it might be too late—but someone needed to scope it.
There was no time to explain. He ran down the stairs as bursts of laser fire went past him; some melted the steel near his feet. But the endos below didn't have a clear angle to fire. He grinned ruefully to himself. With luck, someone would try to rescue him, because he couldn't take on endos alone. Ahead, it was very dark—there was little light for his nightvisions to catch. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw Sarah, Jade, and Fiedler running after him. Jade still had her laser rifle and a flashlight. She easily outpaced the other two, and caught him in a matter of seconds.
T2 - 03 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Times of Trouble Page 29
