Chapter eleven

Since its establishment, the Resistance base had always been a hive of activity, and tonight it was alive with more activity than ever. Pilots were suiting up and going over flight plans, ground troops had begun to assemble preparatory to moving out, backup forces were making sure everything was in place to shift supplies and reinforcements wherever they might be required, medical teams went over details for handling the expected rush of wounded, and communications specialists checked and rechecked their gear.

Coordination on the battlefield would be crucial. This was to be the biggest Resistance‑wide assault on Skynet anyone could remember. Everyone was eager to fulfill their assignment and do their part. They had been surviving through hit and run tactics for years now.

It was time to strike back.

As Williams and Kate accompanied Connor to the next checkpoint, the memories of his private, personal confrontation with the prisoner continued to trouble his thoughts. He glanced back at the pilot.

“Where did you find that thing?”

Williams moved up alongside him. “You diverted Mirhadi and me to provide cover for some civilians. He was one of them.”

“No,” he corrected her sharply. “He was with them. He isn’t one of them.”

“He sure acted like he was one of them,” she shot back.

A thin smile creased Connor’s face.

“Of course he did. Skynet’s whole exercise is useless if its creature isn’t accepted as human.”

She persisted. “If he’s a project designed to kill you, why would he let himself get blown up by a mine ten feet inside the base perimeter? What good would that do him? What good did that do him? You’ve got him all trussed up nice and harmless, in an old missile silo that’s secured against receiving or broadcasting. Even if he’s what you think he is, he can’t transmit out and nothing can transmit to him.”

Connor nodded patiently, confident that he had already anticipated every objection she might voice.

“If our scanners caught him broadcasting or receiving, it would instantly expose the charade. He had to be made to appear as human as possible or he never would have gotten as far as he did.” With your help. That was the unspoken addendum. “As to what ‘good’ setting off the mine did, that got him inside the base and close to me, didn’t it?”

Williams was still far from persuaded.

“That’s all it did.”

“Only because there must have been a misjudgment on Skynet’s part. Some of those landmines out there are newer models. Probably Skynet calculated that its creation could survive a blast well enough to sustain its programmed mission.”

“Then why didn’t it–why didn’t he –set himself off or something when you went in to interrogate him?”

Connor shrugged. “Landmine damaged the necessary pertinent circuits, or disrupted its programming. Like you just pointed out, it has been under a transmission lockdown ever since Kate opened it up. That includes internal transmissions. For all we know its been trying to explode itself ever since it regained functionality.

“That it hasn’t been able to do so by now tells me that it can’t, or like you said, it would already have done so. We’ll find out when we go in and locate the explosive, or gas cylinder, or whatever assassination module it’s hiding inside itself.” They turned a corner and he changed the subject.

“When you were flying cover for the civilians, or after you came down, did you see a teenage boy? About sixteen?”

Taken aback by the sudden shift in the line of discussion, she had to take a moment to reflect.

“I don’t know. Couldn’t say for sure. The survivors were taken off in a Transport. This Wright–he was the only survivor to get away.”

“Not ‘he,’” Connor corrected her once more. “’It’ was the only survivor, Blair. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Why did only ‘it’ manage to avoid being picked up by the Transporter? Don’t be naïve.”

Pausing, he turned on her.

“I’ve got work to do and not enough time in which to do it. Don’t pester me with any more simple‑minded entreaties on behalf of a machine, no matter how good it is at whimpering. I’m glad you survived, no matter the circumstances. Good pilots are harder to come by these days than planes. Get over this nonsense, remember who and what you are, and do your job.” With that he strode out of the hallway and into the nearby briefing room.

“‘ It ’ saved my life, John.” The door was already closing behind him and it was likely he hadn’t heard. She stared at the unresponsive barrier for a moment longer before turning to her commander’s wife. “Kate, what’s going to happen to him? To Wright?”

The other woman didn’t hesitate.

“It’ll be disassembled.”

“You mean killed,” Williams countered flatly.

“Don’t anthropomorphize, soldier. Some Terminators look more like humans than others, but whether bipedal, wheeled, tracked, or faceless, inside they’re all the same–all bits and pieces of Skynet. It doesn’t matter if one looks like a berserk tank or your long‑lost boyfriend–they all want you dead. To them we’re a fungus, a disease, a cancer that needs to be scrubbed out. Never forget that.” She looked back in the general direction of the sealed room where the prisoner was being held.

“Especially never forget it when dealing with something like that. The whole point of its design and programming is to make you forget. As to what’s going to happen to it, you know as well as I. It will be analyzed, by some of our best research people. Now that it’s been neutralized, it may have useful information on Skynet’s intentions. Information that could help our attack.”

Williams was shaking her head slowly.

“I’m sorry, Kate, but I’ve got to disagree with you, and with John. I know he’s not the enemy. I know that the individual called Marcus Wright is not the enemy. I’ve been shot at by the enemy. That’s not him. He saved me out there.”

Kate eyed the pilot compassionately. Plainly, Blair Williams was caught between an empathetic rock and an irrefutable hard place. Connor’s wife was sympathetic–but only to a point.

“Okay, I accept that it saved you–but only to gain access to the base. Which it did, because you brought it here.” She raised a hand to forestall the other woman’s budding objection. “Relax. No one’s blaming you. Until I got into it I thought it was human myself. It fooled everyone else who came in contact with it, too. We just got lucky that the landmine it triggered did more damage to it than was probably anticipated.

“It saved one human–you–so it could kill other, more important humans, John being the most prominent among us. That’s what they do. A gun is a dangerous thing. A gun with a mind of its own is a thousand times more dangerous. That’s what Skynet is–a very big gun with a dangerously big brain. And this ‘Marcus Wright’ is just one more bullet aimed at the heart of humanity.

“It acted like a friend, but it isn’t. It saved your life because that fit in with its programming. It gives itself a name, but it’s a machine. Its pleading, the language it uses, its false implanted memories–they’re all part of cold, logical, inhuman programming. A bomb with emotions is still a bomb, whether it’s put together by a human being or Skynet. It gained your trust, and used it. But it doesn’t deserve it.”

Under Kate Connor’s withering logic Williams was reduced to mumbling a protest.

“I’m just saying, just asking, do a little more research first. Try to find out more about him before you rip him apart like some kind of sick science project.”

“There’s nothing ‘sick’ about doing what you must to ensure your survival, Blair. You want us to wait, to study him as a–personality. We don’t have the luxury of time in this fight. There are no gray areas in this war. You know that as well as any of us. There is no in‑between, no partly‑human or nearly‑machine. It’s us or them. And you saw for yourself–it’s not one of us.”

Kate left Williams standing by herself in the hall, dejected and confused. The pilot would have to sort out her feelings by herself. In advance of the major assault, everyone was needed. There was no time to coddle the indecisive.

As far as Kate Connor was concerned, or her husband, or anyone else who had come in contact with or had heard about the intruder, there was no need for further discussion because there was nothing to discuss. The advanced hybrid was a machine. A new class of Terminator, but definitely inhuman. All that remained for Williams was to accept the obvious.

Yet how could she reconcile that with the fact that, whatever his personal agenda, Marcus Wright had risked himself to save her from the three murderous vagrants when he could just as easily have walked away and continued with his....

Programming?

Tormented and bewildered, she turned and headed back down the hallway.

Apples were a rarity at the base. Though the surviving humans whose task it was to keep the Resistance supplied with food, clothing, medical supplies, and other necessities did their best, mechanized transportation could not be risked to provide something as luxurious as fresh fruit. The apple in Barnes’s hand had come from a nearby orchard. Though half wild and overgrown, its trees still supplied fruit in season, which was carefully picked by small groups of civilians.

So Barnes savored the red fruit in his hand. The prisoner hanging in suspension before him had glanced once or twice in its direction, evincing a passable imitation of hunger as it had done so. You had to hand it to Skynet, Barnes thought as he took another bite. When it decided to manufacture this particular example of faux human, it had gone all out to render the motivational programming in as much depth as possible.

Rising from the chair where he had been sitting and studying the prisoner, Barnes continued to munch on the apple as he paced a slow circle around the dangling figure. It was a powerful body, but as Terminators went nothing especially remarkable. Easier to blend in that way, rather than giving its surrogate the appearance of, say, a bodybuilder. Skynet was not rigid in its programming. Had that been the case, the Resistance would have finished it long ago. It was adaptable, it was flexible. It could learn.

Hanging here before him was a frighteningly superb example of its ability to learn.

“How did we get here?” Barnes murmured thoughtfully. The thing in the sling did not answer. The lieutenant hadn’t expected a response. Nor did he care especially if he got one. He took another bite of the apple as he continued his casual, introspective stroll.

“I guess it’s divine order. We all have our paths to walk in. And you’re part of mine.” He continued reminiscing aloud. “I was caught up in a world of chasing things that didn’t mean anything. I was conscious, but not aware. Able to feel, but I had no feelings. But now, I’m awake. Our spirits are awake.” He halted and stared directly at Wright, who returned the gaze unblinkingly. The captive might not have been aware that he was failing to blink, but Barnes noticed immediately.

“You machines,” he began, “would have us believe you can survive without us. That we don’t need each other. That we don’t need the sun. That we don’t need trees. That we don’t need love. But God’s greatest gift to humans is each other. And I have to thank you for that, because I no longer look at people by race or religion or gender. I know what it is to be a human, and not a machine. And now I see God’s path. He chooses a different one for each of us. Maybe even for machines. But I can’t worry about what path he’s chosen for you. Only for me.”

There was nothing left of the apple when he tossed the gnawed core into the silo. It took a long time to hit bottom. There was, however, plenty left of the gun he picked up. A check showed that its chamber was loaded. When he resumed speaking it was as if nothing had changed. He might as well still have been munching on the apple.

“You’ve united the Children of Abraham. And I know that all we are going through right now will deliver us. Deliver our salvation. This is the great war of which the Bible speaks, and Skynet is the Antichrist. It’s so obvious I’m surprised so few saw it coming.” He smiled, content and happy within himself. “But then, it had to happen, didn’t it? Without the war there would be no Second Coming, no return, no Rapture.”

He raised the weapon. Wright just stared at him. It was all he could do.

The single shot struck his shoulder and he looked away as the slug ricocheted harmlessly off exposed alloy. Recovering, Wright stared expressionlessly back at his tormentor.

Barnes smiled. “Saw you flinch. I thought you were tough.” Once again, the muzzle of the weapon rose and its wielder took aim. A second shot pinged off the revealed metal, spinning the captive around but otherwise doing no visible damage. Wright’s continued silence surprised but did not infuriate Barnes. The prisoner’s failure to respond represented a malfunction of its programming, the lieutenant decided. It was reassuring to see that Skynet wasn’t perfect. If it had done its research thoroughly, this hybrid thing would have reacted to each shot like a human, with moaning and pleading and pain.

Williams entered the silo just as Barnes’s second shot finished echoing around the chamber.

“Christ, man, watch what you’re doing!”

He looked over at her.

“Sorry, Blair. Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little ricochet?”

“I just don’t like walking in to what’s supposed to be a quiet holding area to find myself greeted with flying slugs. What are you doing?”

He shrugged. “Target practice. I was bored.”

She nodded knowingly. “Yeah, and we all know what you do when you get bored. Were you preaching again, Barnes?”

He looked at her, then back at the silent prisoner. “Nothing to get exercised about. I’m just seeing what he’s about.”

As soon as Williams had entered the room, Wright’s attitude had perked up. Previously silent and indifferent, now he growled at his tormentor.

“Let me down and I’ll show you what I’m about.”

Barnes chuckled. “Yeah, I bet you would, split chest and all. That’s more like it, thing. Much more typical, responsive human reaction. Come on, machine. I bet if we work on this together we can have you bawling and sobbing in no time. Almost like a real person.”

“You get a good shot?” Williams asked him.

He raised his gun, sighted.

“You know I don’t miss.”

“You know I don’t miss either.” She jerked a thumb back the way she had come. “Connor wants to see you.”

Barnes lowered his weapon halfway, looked at her uncertainly.

“What for? You’re the one knee‑deep in shit for dragging this little puppy back home.” As he finished the question, he raised the gun quickly and let off another shot. Like its predecessors, it bounced melodiously off the invulnerable metal body hanging in the center of the room.

Williams sniffed.

“Must be why I got sent to relieve you.” She held out a hand.

Barnes glanced down at it, then back up at the pilot. Shouldn’t he be formally relieved from guard duty before reporting to Connor–or anyone else? Of course, what with everything suddenly in frenzied motion due to the impending all‑out attack it was understandable that normal procedure might be a bit hurried, or even overlooked.

Williams was gesturing for him to hand over the gun.

“Come on, let me have it. I could use a little practice myself.” When Barnes continued to hesitate she rolled her eyes in exasperation. “What, you don’t trust me with your gun now? You think just because I’m a pilot I’m gonna shoot myself in the foot? I’m as good a shot as you ever were.” She grabbed the weapon away from him and he didn’t–not quite–resist. “Here, I’ll prove it to you–since you seem to need proof.”

Turning, she raised the weapon and aimed it directly at the prisoner. Their eyes met, briefly.

“Upper right clavicle area. Bet I can spin him.” With no further hesitation, she fired.

Another loud ping resounded through the enclosed space. Wright swung slowly in suspension until his back was toward them. Barnes hadn’t moved. Lowering the muzzle, she widened her eyes at him and made as if to return the gun.

“Kind of fun.” She paused, then added, “You want me to go and tell Connor you’re not coming?”

The lieutenant considered. “No. No, of course not.” He started to reach for the gun, but Williams was already aiming again.

“Other shoulder. Spin him the other way.” Her second shot reversed the direction of Wright’s rotation.

Barnes finally smiled. “Okay, pilot, you’ve convinced me you can shoot a target that’s close in. Now why don’t we make it a little harder?” Moving to the relevant instruments and before Williams could object, he activated the release on the suspension mechanism.

Still bound in heavy metal links, Wright plummeted to the bottom of the silo and in a rattle of chains crashed to the concrete floor far below. It was a fall that would have killed any man. It should have killed Wright. Instead, he climbed slowly to his feet, shook his head, and tilted it back to stare up at Barnes and Williams.

The lieutenant saw how the hybrid had survived, sniffed disdainfully, and turned to leave.

“Keep an eye on it, all right? I don’t know what Connor wants, but I doubt it’ll take long.” He nodded downward. “Let’s see how many dents you can put in it at this distance before I get back.”

Once Barnes had departed, Williams became pensive, as if she was waiting for something. Then she hurriedly put aside the gun.

Looking up again, Wright saw something plunging toward him and managed to stumble aside. The object landed with a soft thud close to where he had been standing. A quick glance revealed it to be Williams’ travel pack. As he stared at it, the sound of lightly clinking chain caused him to raise his gaze a second time.

Utilizing a basic loop ascender, she was heading down the chain toward him at a speed that would have had most people screaming or covering their eyes. Braking with the ascender, she touched down lightly.

Without offering a word in greeting she moved quickly to the lumpy pack. From its depths she hauled out several articles of clothing that were unceremoniously tossed aside. As he was trying to make sense of this, she found and fired up a compact cutting torch. It wasn’t very big nor was its flame particularly long, but it was plenty hot enough to cut through the chains that bound him.

How did he know that?

He had little time to wonder at his apparent ability to precisely gauge temperature before she brought the blue‑white flame close and began working on the steel posts that had been driven through his wrists to secure him to the chain. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the pair of heavy‑duty sunglasses she was wearing, but there was no mistaking her familiar grin or the sardonic tone in her voice.

“I’m guessing this doesn’t hurt.”

He wanted the flame–so close to his skin–to burn. He wanted the glowing metal to sting, to send shivers of agony running through his nerves and up his arm and down his spine. But all he felt was a mild warmth. The contradiction between what he was seeing and what he was feeling verged on the otherworldly.

“Guess not,” he muttered.

Cut through, half of the bolt securing one hand fell to the floor, allowing him to shake off the chain. He looked on impassively as she went to work with the cutter on his other hand. Gazing down at the one that was now free, he clearly saw a black streak where the skin had been scorched. It was already starting to heal. He felt nothing.

And not only in his unchained hand.

Connor sat alone in his private quarters listening to his mother.

“...you sent Kyle Reese back to protect me. Together, your father and I terminated the machine that was sent to kill me. In the future, I suspect more machines will arrive. Advanced models in many disguises, with an intellect far superior to that of humans. They’ll use anything in their power to deceive you. Do not trust it, John. Never forget what they are. Machines. They only have one objective: to kill you....”

How many times had he played back her recordings; memorizing every word, drawing on her advice, and learning how best to fight back against the machines. The recordings were a part of him now, just as she would always be a part of him. Despite his age, despite his experience and his maturity, he wished she could be with him. It was not only the knowledge she imparted. He missed her confidence, her assurance that come what may humanity would triumph and Skynet would be defeated.

It was a belief that had been sorely tested lately.

And now this–this thing had appeared in their midst. This insane hybrid of human and machine, insisting even in the face of incontestable evidence to the contrary that it was a man. Clinging resolutely to a claim mocked by its own guts. If it had not been sent to kill him, then what possible purpose could it have?

The more Connor thought about it, the greater his certainty that it needed to be destroyed at the next opportunity. Whatever it thought of itself, it was self‑evidently a creature of Skynet. Whatever it might have done for Blair Williams, plainly no further good could come of allowing it to continue to exist. Many capabilities could be ascribed to Skynet, but until the advent of the creature that called itself “Marcus Wright” it had never been credited with subtlety.

It was a dangerous development; one less easily countered with bombs and bullets.

He was still playing the recording when Kate walked in. She listened for a moment, then nodded in the direction of the player.

“Your mother was a strong woman.”

Leaning forward, Connor switched off the recording. It didn’t matter that she had interrupted him. He knew every word by heart anyway.

“There’s nothing there.”

Kate eyed him closely.

“What’s going on inside that head of yours, John Connor?”

He turned to her. “That thing in there, in the security silo. I thought I knew our enemy. But that makes me feel like I know nothing. I looked into its eyes. It absolutely believes everything that it says. It believes it’s human. And it’s telling me Kyle Reese is on his way to Skynet. If that’s true, then Command is about to bomb my family and all the other prisoners into oblivion. And I can’t stop them.”

Even Kate Connor’s normally rock‑solid composure could be shaken, as her reaction to her husband’s words showed.

“If your mother was in your position, right here, right now, what do you think she’d do? She’d fight. She’d find a way, John. You’re a Connor. That’s what you do.”

His head dropped and he stared at the floor, clasping his hands together in front of him. He did not sound like the indomitable Resistance fighter John Connor now.

He didn’t have to–not with Kate.

“We’ve made so many decisions that have determined who lived and who didn’t. Watched so many people die.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “For the first time, I don’t know what to do.

“It’s not just Kyle. I mean that. When this attack goes forward, all the other prisoners are going to die. It’s one thing to die on the battlefield, fighting the machines. But to be trapped in a holding pen or some kind of oversized cage or whatever Skynet is using, without a chance to fight back or escape, just waiting for death....” He stopped, unable to go on.

Silence held sway between them for a while, until she reminded him gently, “None of us gets to choose the manner of our passing, John. Whether by machine or by nature, we exit this plane of existence when a certain confluence of circumstances arrives. Kyle would understand that. I know that you do.”

“I’m not sure what I understand anymore, Kate.” His expression reflected the torment he was feeling. “I spent some time looking at that poor bastard creature we’ve got strung up down there. Despite the incontrovertible evidence, he truly seems convinced he’s human. In reality, he has no idea what he is. Looking at him, listening to him, I realized–I don’t either. I’ve been doing this for so long I’m not sure what I am anymore. I’ve been fighting them for so long that I’ve been reduced to fighting like one of them. Like I’m some kind of machine myself.”

She stared down at him. Sometimes she could find the right words to lift him out of the depression into which he seemed to be lapsing more and more often. This was not one of those times. Only a sharp knock on the door saved both of them from the awkward continuing silence. When her husband failed to respond, she turned to the entryway.

“Yes,” she called out tiredly, “come in.”

Barnes stepped through the door.

“What do you need, Lieutenant?” she said.

Barnes’s gaze flicked to the silent figure of the man sitting on the edge of the bed, then back to the doctor.

“Williams relieved me. She said you needed to talk to....”

Connor did not so much rise as explode off the bed. Any vestiges of melancholy vanished. He was instantly all business again. By the time he reached the door and pushed past the frowning, confused Barnes he had already checked to ensure that his oversized pistol was fully loaded.