by Timothy Zahn
He looked over at Star. To his surprise, he saw the same grogginess in her face that he himself was feeling. She must have slept as long and as deeply as he had.
“Come on, Kyle, get it together,” Orozco said.
Kyle looked up at the man kneeling over him. There was a grimness on his face that made Kyle wince even harder. Had he and Star slept straight through the mission Orozco had talked about earlier?
“Sorry,” Kyle apologized as he scrambled to his feet.
“Didn’t mean to sleep so long.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Orozco said, his voice as gruff as his face. “In fact, I’m glad you did. You’ve got a long day still ahead of you.”
“We’re ready,” Kyle said, checking to make sure the Colt was still riding snugly in his holster. “What’s the mission?”
“Come over here,” Orozco said. He offered a hand to Star, who ignored it and climbed to her feet without assistance. “You’re going to start by taking Mr. Nguyen and his people to our gasoline supply.”
Kyle felt his eyes widen. The first rule hammered into the skulls of everyone who knew where the gasoline was located was to never, ever take strangers there.
“But—”
“And after that,” Orozco said, “you and Star will be going back to their farm with them. And you won’t come back.”
For a handful of seconds Kyle just stared at him, the words spinning through his brain like moths around a candle.
“What do you mean?” he managed at last. “Are you?
—We can’t do that.”
“You have to,” Orozco said, his voice low and earnest and with a pain that Kyle had never heard there before.
“There’s no future for you here. Out there, at least you have a chance.”
And then, abruptly, the circling words fell into place in Kyle’s mind. Into a horrible, terrifying place in a horrible, terrifying reality.
“They’re coming, aren’t they?” he breathed.
“I think so, yes,” Orozco said quietly. “That’s why you and Star need to get out of here.”
“What about the others?” Kyle asked, throwing a look across the empty lobby. “We have to warn them.”
“We will,” Orozco promised. “And we’ll do our best to get them all out. But you and Star are going first.”
Kyle looked at Star. Her eyes were wide, her lower lip trembling. Moldering Lost Ashes was their home, the best and safest they’d ever had. To just throw all that away...
He looked back at Orozco.
“Are you coming with us?” he asked.
“No, but if I can I’ll catch up with you later,” Orozco said. “But whether I do or not, you have to promise me you won’t ever come back here again. Not to look for me, or for anyone else, or to try to collect anything you might leave behind. Once you pass under that archway, you’re gone forever. Understand?”
Kyle looked again at Star. She was gazing up at Orozco, her face solemn and troubled. Then, lowering her eyes, she silently took Kyle’s hand.
“Yes,” Kyle said for them both.
“Good,” Orozco said. “Then go get anything you have that you want to take. And not a word to anyone else, okay?” He reached down and took Kyle’s Colt from its holster. “Here, I’ll load this for you.”
It took Kyle and Star only about five minutes to collect their few belongings. They returned to the lobby to find Orozco standing beside Nguyen, talking to him in a low voice. Lying on the ground at his feet was a bulky canvas shoulder bag.
“Ready?” Orozco asked briskly as Kyle and Star came up. “Good. Here’s your gun, Kyle, plus an extra clip.”
“You sure you can spare them?” Kyle asked as he hesitantly took the weapon and clip. If the Terminators were coming, Orozco and the others would need all the guns and ammunition they could get their hands on.
“Don’t argue with your sergeant,” Orozco chided, though his tight smile showed he didn’t really mean it. “Yes, we can spare them. We can spare this, too.” He nudged the bag with his foot.
Kyle stooped over and picked it up. It was heavier than it looked.
“What is it?”
“Six pipe bombs,” Orozco said. “I made them up this morning. And don’t worry—I kept plenty for us, too.”
Kyle swallowed hard. So that was what Orozco had been doing that had given him and Star time to sleep so much.
“Thanks,” he said.
“It’s just a precaution,” Orozco added. “Even if we’re in Skynet’s crosshairs, its attacks nearly always come after nightfall. You should be well out of the area by then. There’s a lighter in there with the bombs, too. But it’s stoked with a gasoline mixture and burns really hot, so be careful with it.”
“I will,” Kyle said, looping the bag’s strap over his shoulder. “I.”
He was still searching for a way to say good-bye when Orozco stepped close and wrapped him and Star in a single, massive bear hug. Kyle gripped the man tightly, his eyes squeezed shut, drinking in the warmth and the deepness of human contact.
For a long moment they held each other that way. Then, gently, Orozco disengaged.
“You’d better get going,” he said, and Kyle could see the tears in his eyes. “Take care of yourselves and each other. May you both live long enough to see a world finally at peace.”
Kyle tried to say something. But his throat and voice weren’t working right, and he had to settle for giving his friend a quick nod instead.
A minute later, he and Star were walking down the street beside Nguyen, wrapped in a silence broken only by the crunching of their footsteps and the snuffling of the burros. Kyle had lost many friends and acquaintances over the years, either through death or simple desertion, to the point where he no longer cried over those losses.
But it was a near thing. It was a really near thing.
Nguyen and his men were very impressed by the gasoline stash, commenting several times on both its layered concealment and the booby-traps set up to protect it. Kyle had expected them to take as much of the gasoline as their burros could carry, and was therefore surprised when they quit after siphoning off only thirty gallons.
Still, pulling even that much of the precious liquid took nearly an hour, and by the time the group emerged again into the open air the faint glow in the clouds that marked the sun’s position was already halfway to the horizon.
“What now?” Kyle asked as they headed east.
“We get out of this neighborhood,” Nguyen said grimly, “and then cover as much distance as we can before we have to turn in for the night.”
Star touched Kyle’s arm. Where will we stay? she signed.
“You have some place in mind for that?” Kyle asked Nguyen.
“There are a couple of possibilities,” the other said. “We have to see first how far we get.”
“What are they like?” Kyle asked. They were passing the spot where he and Orozco had had the confrontation with the new gang yesterday, and he wondered whether they’d actually left like they’d said they would.
Apparently not.
Even as Kyle eyed their ramshackle headquarters the door opened a crack and a single eye peered out. The eye flicked back and forth, taking in the size and armament of the group, and then the door quietly closed again.
“One’s just an empty building,” Nguyen said. He’d noticed the door and the eye too, Kyle saw, and his gaze lingered there another moment before turning away. “The other’s the home of some of our other customers. Much safer, but they’ll charge a hefty fee for putting us up.”
Kyle nodded, looking up over the broken buildings and piles of wreckage to Moldering Lost Ashes. Up there on the eighth floor, he knew, the sentries were watching, and he wondered if they’d spotted him and Star among the crowd of men and animals.
If they had, what were they thinking? Did they think he and Star had deserted them, the way Ellis had?
The group had made it three blocks east of Moldering Lost Ashes when Kyle spott
ed two figures standing motionlessly in the shadow of a broken wall, just two blocks farther ahead.
“Nguyen?” he murmured.
“I see them,” Nguyen said grimly. “Vuong?”
“Terminators,” Vuong said, squinting toward the figures. “T-600s, probably—haven’t seen a T-400 in ages.”
“Agreed,” Nguyen said. “I wonder what they’re doing. Terminators usually don’t just stand around like that.”
Vuong shrugged. “Maybe they’re on break.”
Someone in the rear of the group snorted.
“Well, whatever they’re up to, we don’t want to know about it,” Nguyen said. “We’ll turn north at the next street and try to get around them.”
Kyle peered at the distant figures. He didn’t know much about Terminators, only the little that Orozco had been able to tell him. He’d never even seen one close up, which Orozco had assured him was the way he wanted to keep it.
“Maybe we should split up,” he said. “Some of us head north, the rest head south.”
“Too risky,” Nguyen said. “If they decide to come after us, we’ll need all our firepower to stop them.”
Kyle stole a look at the gun in Nguyen’s holster. Did they in fact have enough firepower to stop a pair of Terminators? Orozco had always been a little vague on what it took to bring the machines down.
“Then let’s all just go south,” he suggested. “There’s an alley about half a block south off the next street, that would get us across that block without being seen. If they stay where they are by that wall, we should come out on their blind side.”
“Unless they take maybe two steps forward,” Nguyen countered. “No, I think the northern route would be safer.”
“But there’s no way of crossing the street without them seeing us up there,” Kyle persisted. “Not unless we go four or five blocks, and there are a couple of gangs up there we really don’t want to get close to.”
“There’s a big gang to the south, too,” Nguyen said. “There are gangs everywhere.”
“Right, but if we go south and the Terminators don’t take those two steps forward, we can get past without them ever seeing us,” Kyle said. “Star and I are willing to try it.”
“Forget it,” Nguyen said flatly. “I promised Orozco I’d keep you safe.”
Vuong murmured something in another language. Nguyen answered back, and for a few steps the two men talked quietly back and forth.
“I suppose it’s worth a try,” Nguyen said at last reluctantly. “But Vuong will go with you.”
Kyle nodded. “Where do we meet up again?”
“Vuong knows the rendezvous spot,” Nguyen said. “Just watch yourselves, okay?”
The two Terminators still hadn’t moved by the time the group reached the next street and split up. But Kyle could feel their eyes on him as he, Star, and Vuong headed south, and felt a sense of relief when they passed the nearest building and were out of the machines’ sight.
At least the Terminators hadn’t come charging straight for them. Maybe they really were on some kind of break.
Kyle hadn’t been in this part of the neighborhood for several months, but the place hadn’t changed very much.
“There’s the alley,” he told Vuong, pointing out the opening just past the midpoint of the block. “The footing’s kind of tricky, but we should be able to get through.”
“I don’t know,” Vuong said doubtfully. “We’ll be coming out awfully close. If those Terminators spot us, we’ll be sitting ducks. You sure we can’t go a little farther south?”
Kyle shook his head. “Not unless we go all the way around the Death’s-Head Gang’s territory. They’re the ones with all the cars up on their sides blocking the street.”
“Yes, we saw those on our way in,” Vuong said grimly. “We can’t go around them—if we do, we won’t be in position to back up Nguyen’s group if they need us. I guess it’s your alley, or nothing.”
“It’ll work,” Kyle assured him. “Besides, if we have to backtrack, the alley’s a good place to do it from. There’s a gap in a brick wall at the far end you need to get through, and I don’t think one of those Terminators could.”
“You don’t, huh?” Vuong said. “Ever seen a Terminator in action?”
“Not really,” Kyle admitted.
Vuong grunted. “Let’s hope we can keep it that way.”
The alley was as treacherous as Kyle remembered it, filled with angled slabs of pavement, a pair of rusting pickup trucks, and a small forest of exposed rebar. The three of them picked their way through, squeezed through the gap in the final brick wall, and reached the far end. Crouching down beside a bush growing tenaciously through a wide crack in the sidewalk, feeling terribly exposed now that they were back on an open street, Kyle looked carefully around it.
Half a block north, he could see the partial wall where the two Terminators had been loitering. The Terminators themselves were nowhere to be seen.
“Anything?” Vuong murmured from behind him.
“I can’t see them,” Kyle murmured back. “They could be there, but they could have moved.”
Carefully, Vuong lifted his head above the bush for a look of his own.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess for the moment we stay put.”
“Stay put here?” Kyle asked, looking around. Except for the bush, they had no cover at all.
“We have to be able to see when the others get to their jump-off point,” Vuong explained patiently. “Once they’re there, we’ll figure out our next move.”
The minutes ticked slowly by. The cloud cover was starting to thicken, bringing a new chill to the air, and Kyle could feel Star shivering at his side. Slipping off his jacket from beneath his bag’s shoulder strap, he wrapped the garment around her. She flashed him a quick smile of thanks, then went back to watching the street.
More minutes went by. Kyle was starting to wonder just how far north Nguyen had decided to go when Vuong touched his shoulder.
“There they are,” he murmured.
Kyle leaned a little farther around the bush. Three blocks north, he could see Nguyen and the others creeping as furtively across the street as the uneven footing and the presence of a dozen burros allowed.
“I don’t see anything,” Vuong said. “Maybe the machines left while we were climbing over all that rebar.”
“And went where?” Kyle asked, looking around.
“As long as they’re not here, who cares?” Vuong said. “Looks like our alley continues on past the street, through that gap in the vines. That’s where we’re going.”
“Okay.” Taking a deep breath, Kyle gathered his feet beneath him for a quick sprint.
And found himself suddenly off-balance as Star grabbed his arm and yanked backward.
“Hey—easy,” he protested, glancing at her.
What he saw made him take a second, longer look. The girl’s face had gone rigid, her eyes wide and terrified. Something had spooked her, but good.
“What is it?” Kyle asked. A movement past the bush caught the corner of his eye, and he looked up.
To see the two Terminators emerge from a broken doorway half a block south of Nguyen’s group and head straight toward them.
Vuong! he bit out.
“Stay here,” Vuong ordered. Drawing his pistol, he dashed around the bush and headed toward the figures that were closing in on his friends.
Again, Kyle gathered his feet beneath him. If he could get Star across the street and into the relative safety of the alley while the Terminators were focusing on the traders....
But again, Star’s grip brought him up short.
“Star, we have to go,” Kyle insisted, trying to pry her fingers off his arm.
She shook her head violently, wrapping her other hand around his arm for emphasis, and nodded sharply in Vuong’s direction. Wishing the girl could just talk to him, Kyle looked up again.
Vuong was still running, his arms pumping at his sides. The two Terminators wer
e still marching stolidly toward Nguyen’s group, apparently oblivious to this new threat coming up behind them. Vuong slowed a little, lifting his gun into a two-handed marksman’s grip and leveling the weapon at the Terminators’ backs.
And then, to Kyle’s stunned horror, as Vuong passed the half-broken wall, the two Terminators they’d seen earlier stepped into view.
Vuong spotted them the same time Kyle did. Twisting half around, he opened fire.
The Terminators jerked with the multiple impacts as the rounds slammed into their metal bodies. But they didn’t fall or even falter, but just kept moving.
Vuong must have known in that moment that he was a dead man. But that didn’t mean he was just going to lay down and give up. He veered away from the approaching death machines, emptying his pistol into them.
Kyle held his breath. But aside from more jerking the Terminators seemed completely unaffected by the attack. Shaking the clip from his gun, Vuong slammed in a fresh one and emptied it as well. Again, the Terminators shrugged off the hail of lead.
Vuong was reloading with a third clip when a second, more distant crackle of gunfire erupted. Nguyen and his men had formed a line behind their burros and were making their own stand against the Terminators bearing down on them. But their attack was no more effective than Vuong’s.
And then, suddenly, Kyle’s brain unfroze and he remembered his bombs.
He reached into the bag, snatching out the lighter and one of the cold metal cylinders.
“Stay down,” he muttered to Star as he popped the lighter’s top and thumbed the flame to life. He ignited the bomb’s fuse, gauged the distance, then rose to his feet and hurled the bomb as hard as he could toward the Terminators closing on Vuong.
But not hard enough. The pipe bounced off the pavement and skittered to a halt a good twenty feet back from the two Terminators. Even over the noise of the gunfire filling the air, the machines apparently heard the sound as the bomb hit the ground, and one of them turned to look.
