by Greg Cox
Tonight that barrier had failed.
Muzzles flared in the night as a handful of sentries sought to repel the invader. The strobe-like flashes revealed a battle-scarred T-600 on a rampage. The Terminator looked as if it had been through the wars. Deep scratches and scorch marks defaced its carbonized endoskeleton. Congealed blood caked the cold metal. A single blood-red “eye” glowed malignantly above its leering death’s-head grimace, and only patches of melted rubber skin and polyester were still fused to the metal. And was that a large yellow tooth stuck in its skull?
Molly experienced a sudden flash of deja vu. Had one of the T-600s aboard the snow plow survived the avalanche?
Who the hell knows? she thought. Fucking machines all look the same. Even so, she gritted her teeth at the thought that the machine might have followed her all the way back to the camp.
Flying lead sparked off the Terminator’s metal chassis and cranium. Reaching the playground, the machine wrenched the merry-go-round from the ground to use as a shield, effortlessly hefting the 300-pound cast-iron disk. It pushed forward against the gunfire like a bipedal bulldozer, holding the merry-go-round out in front. The inexorable advance forced the frantic soldiers to fall back, rapidly losing ground.
Why isn’t it shooting? she wondered, and that cinched it. It must be one of the ones we buried in the avalanche. It has lost its weapons. But that didn’t stop the invader from following its primary directive.
A foolhardy sentry attempted to get a better shot by climbing to the top of the slide, but the Terminator barreled straight into the structure, toppling it over onto the unlucky sniper. Pinned and unable to defend himself, the human whimpered in pain, his rifle having fallen out of reach.
“My leg!” he cried out. “It’s broken!”
Who? Molly thought. It was too dark to make out his face.
A second later, a fractured leg was the least of his concerns. The T-600 trampled over the mangled slide to get to the downed human. Bones and aluminum crunched in unison. A heavy titanium foot stomped on the soldier’s head. It exploded like an overripe melon.
Molly winced, but there was no time to mourn—or even to find out the poor bastard’s name. Spotting Tom Jensen at the rear of the defenders, she rushed forward and grabbed him by the shoulder. He started in surprise, then saw who she was. Wild eyes blinked in recognition.
“Chief!”
“Give me a sitrep,” she ordered. “How many are there?”
“Don’t know,” he blurted. Cold air puffed before his lips. “Maybe just the one. Maybe more that we haven’t seen.” A bushy red beard failed to mask his distress. His eyes bulged. Spittle sprayed as he gesticulated like a madman. “It came out of nowhere. Thank God for the guard dogs!”
Molly didn’t ask what had become of the canines. She didn’t want to know.
“Sound the alarm,” she said. “Full evac. We’re out of here!”
Jensen scowled.
“You sure about that? Maybe there is just one.” He pumped a smoking shotgun, eager to avenge his fallen comrades. “One T-600 against all of us—we can take it! You know we can!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Molly said. “Even if it is alone, it’s bound to have uplinked our coordinates to Skynet by now. The machines will know where we are.” Her eyes scanned the sky, half-expecting to see a Hunter-Killer swooping down from the clouds. “There’ll be more coming, bet on it.”
The burly ex-logger got the picture.
“Roger, chief!” He scurried away to carry out her orders, leaving Molly in charge. But he paused to call over his shoulder. “You show that murdering wind-up toy what for!”
“Count on it!” she promised.
She elbowed her way to the front of the fight. The Terminator kept on coming, as persistent as Geir’s goddamn proposals. A nervous soldier backed away fearfully, on the verge of breaking rank.
“It’s hopeless! Look at that thing! Nothing can stop it!”
“Keep shooting!” Molly ordered, and he flinched at the sound of her voice. “We need to buy time for the rest of the camp to get away. Aim for the back and shoulder joints!” According to John Connor, those were the T-600s’ most vulnerable parts. “Hold the line!”
Nailing the Terminator’s weak spots was easier said than done, though. Its charred black endoskeleton blended in with the night, rendering it all but invisible. The only light came from muzzle blasts and a handful of wobbly flashlights and kerosene lanterns.
A bullet ricocheted off the merry-go-round, winging another lookout. He dropped to his knees, clutching an arm. A lantern slipped from his fingers and rolled across the ground. The T-600’s single optical sensor turned away as it tracked the lamp.
Veering from its path, the machine lowered its circular shield long enough to grasp the lantern, then the glowing red lens scanned the vicinity. Its soulless gaze came to rest on a woodpile that stood outside the back entrance of the mess hall. The stacked logs made an irresistible target.
Fuck! Molly thought. She knew exactly what was going through the machine’s CPU.
The Terminator flung the lantern at the woodpile. The glowing missile arced over the playground before crashing into the logs, shattering with a splash of kerosene. Bright orange flames erupted as the wood caught fire. Quickly the blaze leaped from the logs to the adjacent building. Decades-old wooden timbers went up like kindling. A crackling roar began to compete with the blaring guns followed by cries of alarm.
A sentry rushed forward to try to fight the blaze.
“Leave it!” Molly barked. This camp was history anyway. They might as well leave Skynet nothing but ashes. “The metal’s our enemy, not the fire!”
At the sound of her voice, the Terminator turned its head toward Molly, perhaps identifying her as the leader. Lucky me, she thought, opening fire on the T-600. The recoil from the M4 bruised her shoulder, and the handguard rattled annoyingly. Nevertheless, high-caliber slugs vented her fury.
The Terminator swung its shield to block her assault. The carbine’s bursts dinged against the cast-iron. It marched toward the blazing woodpile. Hefting the shield with just one hand, it snatched a burning log from the fire. Then it turned back toward the defenders, brandishing the log like a torch.
Planning to set more buildings on fire, Molly guessed. Pyromania must be part of its programming.
Smoke billowed from the windows of the burning mess hall. The kitchen door banged open and panicked soldiers who had been bunking above the dining facilities came charging out of the building in various stages of undress, only to run head-on into the invader.
“Watch out!” Molly shouted, but too late.
A startled man clutching an AK-47 stumbled backward into the people behind him. His gun went off in his grip, firing uselessly into the center of the shield. Adjusting its strategy, the Terminator smashed the merry-go-round into the mob. The stolen playground ride hit the fleeing humans like a battering ram, splintering bone.
The intruder let go of its shield and began to swing the burning log like a club. It batted another soldier in the head, snapping his neck and setting his face on fire. The man’s AK-47 landed at the Terminator’s feet.
The T-600 dropped the torch in favor of the firearm.
“Shit!” Molly exclaimed. “It’s got a gun!”
Seizing the weapon, the Terminator wasted no time opening fire on the human defenders. A middle-aged former stewardess took a bullet to the forehead, while a redneck teenager dropped to the snow clutching his side. Spurting blood looked black in the dim light.
The other fighters scattered and dived for cover.
Turning away from the burning mess hall, the T-600 looked again for Molly. She saw its cyclopean gaze turn back toward her, only seconds ahead of the barrel of its gun.
Time to move.
She ducked behind the totem pole. Bullets tore into the carved red cedar, vandalizing Ernie’s Native Alaskan designs. The ammo chipped away at Wolf and Beaver. Wooden splinters went flying. Sorry, Ernie, Moll
y thought. The artist had put a lot of work into his creation. I owe you one.
Peering out from behind the pole, she tried to fire back. Setting the M4 for controlled three-round bursts, she squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
She whacked the loading mechanism against the wood, but it still refused to fire. Molly couldn’t believe it.
Of all the times for the fucking thing to jam!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
2003
“Get in!” the woman repeated. “Move your butts!”
That was all the invitation Losenko and his men needed. They sprinted toward the armored truck even as the surviving robot lurched into firing range once more. Harsh scraping sounds came from its damaged left tread, slowing it down, but it seemed no less determined to exterminate the rest of the patrol.
Losenko’s heart pounded. The prospect of being shot now, only seconds away from rescue, filled him with dread. That would be the cruelest blow of all.
But no more than I deserve, perhaps.
A cigarette lighter flicked inside the truck. The flame ignited a strip of cloth wadded into the mouth of a tinted glass liquor bottle. Losenko recognized an old-fashioned Molotov cocktail
“Head’s up!” the woman in the truck shouted. She hurled the flaming bottle at the robot. “This drink’s on me!”
The bottle crashed against the robot’s armored chassis, exploding on impact. A swirling orange fireball swallowed up the oncoming machine. Its sensors overwhelmed, it fired wildly from inside the inferno.
“All aboard!” the bomb-throwing stranger hollered. “Trust me, that’s just going to make it mad!”
Losenko hustled two of his men into the dimly lit hold before boarding the truck himself. A calloused hand grabbed onto his wrist and yanked him up into the waiting vault. He tumbled forward onto a padded foamboard floor.
“There you go!” the nameless woman said. She risked a glance out the door. “Is that all of you?”
Losenko took a second to glance around. Heartsick, he realized that only the two other sailors were still alive, out of a party of twenty-five. Blasko and Stralbov were both young midshipmen, in their early twenties. They looked like shell-shocked teenagers to his weary eyes.
“I think so.” There was no point in looking back. The pitiless machines would have already killed any stragglers or wounded. He spit the vile words out. “Yes, we’re all that’s left.”
“Lucky you.” The woman yanked shut the reinforced steel doors and locked them in place, then shouted at a man at the other end of the vault. “You heard the man, Josef. Let’s get out of here before another one of those metal assholes shows up!”
Her companion, a heavy-set man with a surly expression, pounded on the bulkhead separating the cargo hold from the driver’s compartment. The blows echoed in the enclosed, windowless vault. A narrow metal lattice let his voice through to the cab. “Hit the gas!”
“Da! I hear you!” a voice answered from up front. “Hold onto your balls!”
A sudden burst of acceleration slammed Losenko against a foam-insulated wall. Tires squealed as the truck peeled out, back the way it had come and away from the flattened robot. He was grateful for the lack of windows, that meant he didn’t have to watch as they left their fallen comrades behind.
Exhausted, he sagged against the wall. Stralbov sobbed uncontrollably. Blasko vomited onto the floor of the truck.
“Crap!” the woman exclaimed. She wrinkled her nose at the mess. “Oh, never mind, sonny. What’s a little puke after all you’ve been through?” She gazed at the young seaman in sympathy, her tone softening a bit. Plopping down onto a bench, she drew her muddy boots back from the pooling vomit. “It’s only human, which is more than you can say for a lot of things these days!”
As Losenko’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he got a better look at their rescuer. A round face, of good peasant stock, had been baked brown by the sun. Time and toil had etched deep lines into her careworn countenance. A faded red kerchief covered her scalp. She, too, was stocky, and Losenko put her age at fifty-plus. Wily blue eyes looked over the traumatized sailors. Nicotine stained her fingertips.
“Thank you,” Losenko croaked. His throat was still raw from the smoke. “If you hadn’t come to our rescue....”
She shrugged off his gratitude.
“Name’s Grushka.” She cocked a thumb at her companion, an intimidating bear of a man wearing a tattered raincoat over what looked like hospital scrubs. He was twice Grushka’s size and maybe half her age. “That cantankerous whoreson over there is Josef.”
The man grunted in response. He had a smooth dome and a florid complexion. A cataract clouded his right eye. The other one eyed the newcomers suspiciously. A shotgun lay across his lap. A meaty hand rested protectively on a carton of liquor bottles topped with improvised fuses. There were at least eight Molotov cocktails left.
“Losenko,” the captain introduced himself. “Captain Dmitri Losenko.” He gestured at the traumatized sailors. Neither man seemed to be wounded, at least not physically. “These are my men.”
Or what was left of them.
Grushka leaned forward. Her fingers plucked at the stripes on Losenko’s uniform. “You really with the Army?”
“The Navy,” he corrected her. “Our submarine, K-115, is docked at a fishing village about a hundred miles east.” He believed the truck was heading that way, although the lack of windows made it hard to verify. “Our base at Murmansk was destroyed in the war.”
In the past, he would have been averse to sharing such crucial intelligence with unknown civilians, but everything had changed now. These people had saved his life. They were the closest thing to allies he’d encountered since the bombs fell.
Grushka nodded. “I know that village. Used to have a cousin there.” A momentary grimace betrayed her grief. “Didn’t think there was anybody still alive out that way.”
“There wasn’t,” Losenko divulged. “The town was empty when we found it.”
Josef snorted. “About time you got here. We’ve been hanging on by our nails for weeks now, with no help from Moscow or the Army or any of you worthless uniforms. First you blow up the world, then leave us to fight those fucking machines on our own.”
Losenko didn’t argue the point. In the end, the Gorshkov and the rest of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal had failed to protect the people from the ultimate horror. The last thing either Grushka or Josef needed to hear was that the holocaust might have been caused by an overseas computer error. And that still didn’t explain why his men had died.
“What happened here?” he asked. “What are those machines? Who built them?”
Now it was Grushka’s turn to look disgusted.
“Tell you the truth, I was hoping you could explain that to us.”
“I’ve never seen those robots before,” Losenko confessed. “How long have they been hunting you? Does this have something to do with that factory?”
The woman nodded.
“This used to be our home, and I actually worked on the assembly line at the plant once, back when it used to churn out riding mowers. Hard work, but a decent living. Then those red-hot mushrooms starting sprouting in the sky, and everything changed. Hid out in my basement for as long as I could, until I ran out of food and water. And when I came out....”
A shudder passed through her body.
“Well, I’ll spare you the ugly details. Pretty much everybody was dead or gone, though. I thought I was all alone in the world until I ran into that overgrown sourpuss over there.” She nodded at Josef, who scowled back at her. “Knew him casually from one of the bars in town. Never liked him much, to be honest. Still don’t. But beggars can’t be choosers.” She glanced toward the front of the truck. “Found the driver, Mitka, about the same time. He was in the back of this rolling lockbox when the bombs came down. Figure that’s what saved him.
Losenko could only imagine what life had been like in the immediate wake of the war. How many friends a
nd loved ones had these people lost? The fallout alone would have inflicted heavy casualties—never mind starvation, violence, and disease. But that dreadful scenario, no matter how heart-breaking, wasn’t what most concerned him now.
“And the machines?” he prompted her.
Grushka spat onto the floor. Traces of crimson streaked the saliva. For the first time, Losenko noticed that the old woman’s gums were bleeding. Radiation sickness or just malnutrition? He snuck a closer look at Josef. How long had the man been bald?
And where were his eyebrows?
“The big army planes started arriving just days after the world went to hell,” Grushka recalled. Her gaze turned inward. “I could hear them flying over what was left of my cottage. At first I thought maybe it was the disaster relief people, but nobody came looking for me. Later, when the lights and noises started up at the factory, everybody hurried to see what was going on. There were a few more of us left back then, you see. Guess we all wanted to think that somebody was still in charge, that things were starting up again.”
So did I, Losenko thought. And Zamyatin and his party.
“That’s when we saw those machines for the first time.” Another shiver betrayed how much the memory cost her. She drew a half-empty packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her jacket. “There were just a couple of them at first, plus a bunch of armed storm troopers. Americans mostly, although there were some other nationalities mixed in. Even a few Russian quislings and translators. I thought the soldiers were controlling the robots. Took me a while to figure out that the machines were babysitting the soldiers.”
Machines in charge of humans? Losenko had trouble grasping the concept.
“What did they do to you?” he asked.
“Put us all to work, that’s what. Turned us into slave labor, refurbishing the factory to build more of those damn machines. Executed anyone who resisted, just to set an example. Herded up the kids and old people to use as hostages.” Another flicker of grief cracked her stoic pose. “What was really nauseating, though, is that there were those who didn’t even complain, who were grateful just to be taken care of and know where their next meal was coming from.” Her lips twisted in disgust. “Stinking metal lovers.”
