Chapter ten

Emerging from the edge of the forest, Williams led Wright toward a barbed wire fence that ran off in both directions as far as he could see. Directly ahead of them lay a section of fence that had been knocked or had fallen down. No one had bothered to replace the posts that had once kept the segment erect. An annoyed Williams paused to inspect the gap.

“How are we supposed to win this war if we can’t even maintain a fence?” She nodded at the other side. “Come on. This is us. Outlying sector. Main base is further on.” She stepped over the downed section of fence.

Wright stared at the twisted, crumpled wire.

“I don’t understand. From what I’ve seen, this enclosure couldn’t stop the smallest of the machines.”

She glanced back at him.

“It’s not designed to stop Terminators. It’s to keep unauthorized humans out of this area.”

“But why would your people want to....” Stopping before finishing, he hurried forward to grab her by the shoulder. With his other hand he pointed to a small metal tripod that pushed its head just above the ground. Its presence did not unsettle her. On the contrary, she seemed pleased that it was there.

“Landmine. Pretty advanced design. One of the simpler but more effective projects the Resistance’s tech people have come up with. Not much use against something airborne like a Hunter‑Killer or an Aerostat, but it works pretty good against anything on the ground.” She made a sweeping gesture. “The terrain around the base is filled with ’em.”

Wright peered down at the simple tripodal projection.

“I figured it was something like that. Thought you might want to keep all your limbs.” He frowned at her. “Doesn’t seem to bother you that you almost stepped on the damn thing.”

“Their triggers are electronic sensors, not mechanical contacts. They’re programmed only to respond to the control signatures emitted by Terminators. Pretty slick piece of tech work. Humans can practically kick one around without worrying about it going off.”

A dubious Wright studied the innocent‑looking exposed tip.

“This a theory or has someone actually tested it out?”

“You think I’d be on this side of the fence if it hadn’t been?” Smiling, she turned and started straight across the minefield, making no effort to avoid anything in her path. In fact, she deliberately made contact with a couple of mines along the way, just to demonstrate. Executing an impatient pirouette, she peered back at him.

“You coming? We’re gonna miss breakfast.”

Responding with a diffident shrug, he stepped through the gap in the fence. Though her exhibition had been more than convincing, he still found himself edging carefully around the first mine. He was barely a foot past the site when something went click. Williams heard it too. Whirling, she had barely a second to meet his startled gaze before the earth erupted beneath him.

He did not hear her shout.

It took four of them to carry him into the infirmary. A limping Williams was among them, moving at approximately two obscene adjectives per linear yard. All the while she was talking to him, trying to get a response, any kind of response. It didn’t matter whether she pleaded, cried, cursed, or cajoled: there was no reaction from the battered body.

“The damn mines...those damn techs,” she was muttering as she strained to hold up her portion of his weight. “They’re supposed to react only to the presence of Terminators!”

In front of her, Barnes growled a response.

“That was the plan. Doesn’t mean every one of the shithead engineers followed it. Maybe they got lazy with the programming on every tenth mine they turned out. Maybe someone forgot to insert the discrimination programming altogether and just built the thing to go off if a bird landed on it.”

On the other side of the body, a soldier named Lisa saw their burden’s lips move.

“Hey, he’s conscious! He’s trying to say something.”

Williams strained to hear. She would have switched positions with the other woman, but it was more important to get the injured man to where a doctor could work on him than to listen to what he had to say.

From the depths of Wright’s throat two words emerged, barely intelligible.

“What...happened?”

Nobody answered as they approached the nearest operating table. Turning toward her burden, Lisa struggled with the body. Wright was dead weight, but not dead.

“On three! One, two, three–lift!”

All four of them had to work in unison to get the body onto the table. Stepping back, the fourth soldier regarded the limp figure as he wiped at his brow.

“Son of a bitch is heavy! No fat on this guy.”

Williams was about to comment when the door burst open and Kate Connor strode purposefully into the operating theater, tying the string of her surgical mask behind her head as she came toward them. Studying the injured man, she moved purposefully around to Williams’ end of the table. Her eyes were roaming over the body; examining, appraising.

“Okay, what’ve we got here?”

A distraught Williams explained.

“He stepped on a mine. My fault. I told him it wouldn’t go off.”

“Not your fault.” Barnes hastened to correct her. “Fault of the bastard who improperly programmed the device.”

Kate spoke to her assistant. “Start a large bore intravenous. Keep it open. Push twenty ccs morphine.” Her gaze flicked back to the anxiously watching Williams. “What’s his name?”

“Marcus,” Williams managed to mumble.

Kate had returned her attention to the patient.

“He’s lucky to still have a leg. Both of them, no less.” Turning to a waiting tray of instruments, she selected one and began cutting away the shreds of Wright’s left pants leg. “Marcus–Marcus. I need you to keep talking to me.”

Still stunned, Wright tried to follow what was happening around him.

Kate spoke calmly as she worked.

“Just keep listening to my voice. Do you hear me? Concentrate on what I’m saying. You don’t have to reply; just try to understand. Keep your mind working.”

It was impossible to tell if he had heard and understood because he did not reply. Already working fast, she picked up her pace even more. Peeling away the last strips of shredded fabric revealed blackened flesh beneath. She scrutinized the damage coolly.

“He’s got a prosthetic leg?” Without waiting for a response from Williams, she raced on. “Okay; we’ve got burns–multiple lacerations. Can’t tell how bad until I get in deeper. I need gauze, disinfectant, antibiotic–methicillin for a start, keep some vancomycin handy.” She didn’t need the scissors to rip open Wright’s shirt. A large chunk of metal was embedded in his chest.

“Pulse is good. Okay–let’s see what we’ve got....”

Wright opened his eyes. At almost that exact moment she dropped the surgical instruments she had been wielding and stumbled backward. Compassion and professionalism gave way to a look of uncontrolled horror.

Lying on the table, Wright turned his head just enough to meet her dismayed gaze.

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong? How bad is it?”

She continued to gape at him–lips parted, mouth wide, pupils expanded, focused on something he could not see. He tried to understand, just as he had tried to understand everything that had happened to him since–since....

Since he had been executed by the State of California.

“What’s happeni–?”

Relieving him of confusion and its accompanying angst, the butt of Barnes’s rifle slammed into his face.

When he regained consciousness for the second time since activating the landmine, he was too overcome to speak. But not too dazed to realize that he was unable to move. Though held suspended in a vertical position with his arms outstretched at the apex of an old and long since abandoned missile silo, the bindings and heavy chains that tightly restrained his arms, legs, and other parts of his body prevented him from doing more than thrashing futilely.

This he did for several minutes before an intensely bright light struck him full in the face, causing him to squint sharply and look away.

When the prisoner’s eyes could finally focus once more, a watchful John Connor allowed himself to approach more closely. Given the circumstances, he knew the sensible thing would have been to keep his distance. But he had to have a better look. The fascination of the thing was undeniable. As a bewildered, exhausted, and yes, frightened Wright gasped for air, Connor slowly let his gaze travel over every inch of the singular captive.

“The devil’s hands have been busy,” Connor finally murmured.

The prisoner had been allowed to retain his pants. He had been allowed to retain his boots and his hair. What he was presently missing was his shirt and much of the skin that had formerly covered the upper portion of his body. It had been cleanly peeled back like the plastic wrapping on an old toy. Beneath lay–beneath was....

In places it was impossible to tell where man ended and machine began. Or machine ended and man began; confusion as to precedent only serving to further emphasize the beauty and dreadfulness of what unknown talents had wrought. Titanium and other metal parts gleamed in the bright light. Veins and arteries became tubing with nary a break or weld visible. In places where primate verisimilitude had been sacrificed to save weight, light shone completely through the exposed body.

Connor stared.

You have to stare, he told himself. Because you’ve never seen anything like it before. To the best of his knowledge, no one had.

“What is it?” he murmured. “What the hell?”

Kate moved forward to stand beside him.

“More accurate to say, what hell?” She joined her husband in gazing at the disorientated prisoner. “The outer three epidermal layers reproduce their natural equivalent almost perfectly. I can’t tell if it has been engineered and grown, or if it’s real human skin that’s been modified. One characteristic that has already been noted is the remarkable healing properties it possesses.” She stepped forward and pointed with the large scalpel she was holding. “Look at that. I made the original incision there less than twelve hours ago. It’s already completely scarred over. Underneath is–well, see for yourself.”

Eyes widening, Wright gaped at the moving hand and the potentially lethal instrument it was holding.

“What are you doing to me?” Suspended in the heavy restraints, Wright stared at the people arrayed in front of him. “What have you done?”

Kate didn’t hesitate. A few quick, deft, practiced slashes with the blade opened the chest cavity wide. Stepping back, she studied the result as emotionlessly as if she had performed the opening on a cadaver. Except that a cadaver would have been far less unsettling.

“The heart is human, and very powerful. Given its powers of recuperation, that was to be expected. The brain is human too, and I think also original. But with some kind of chip interface. No one could have anticipated that. Even looking at it under the scanner, it’s hard to believe. But there’s no denying it.”

As she spoke she used the tip of the scalpel to indicate relevant parts of the prisoner, as if she was gesturing at an illustrative chart.

“There’s still quite a lot we haven’t analyzed. The pulmonary system is completely hydraulic and the heart muscle has been stabilized and enhanced accordingly to handle the increased flow and higher pressure. I can’t wait to get into the details of the nervous system and see how the hard wiring is integrated with the brain and the spinal cord. If it is a spinal cord and not just a braided cable.”

What were they talking about?

Wright had finally managed to come to grips with having awakened in a world gone mad. Now it seemed that he had been taken from that new world and dropped into a second one even more baffling and insane than its predecessor. The words of those who were coldly studying him, the detachment of their discussion, were as hurtful as they were incomprehensible. They couldn’t possibly be talking about him. He had inadvertently set off a landmine, sure, but it hardly meant that....

Dropping his head and lowering his gaze, he for the first time caught sight of himself, dangling above the high, deep drop. Despite a sudden desperate desire to do so, he found that he couldn’t scream. The shock of what he was seeing utterly overwhelmed the horror. And it had nothing to do with the height at which he found himself suspended.

He was looking at the inside of himself, and what he was seeing made no sense.

The woman they had called Kate was still talking. “...hybrid neural system for certain, but how it was accomplished is beyond me. Whoever did the work would have to have been part surgeon, part mechanical engineer, and all visionary. It’s as remarkable as it is disturbing. There appears to be a dual central cortex–one human, one machine.”

They were ignoring him, discussing him the way he had once discussed with his brother the best way to get more horsepower out of an old Ford big block. Did you remove this or that part, replace it, or have it remachined?

“What did you do to me? This isn’t me. What’s going on here?”

They paid no attention to his frantic questions. It was almost as if he wasn’t there.

Almost as if he wasn’t one of them.

“ What the hell are you doing? ”

“You were right, John.” Kate’s attention shifted back and forth between her husband and the–creature. “Something has changed. This–thing–is unlike anything we’ve encountered previously. Aside from the technology that’s been incorporated into it, the surgical skill required to fabricate such a hybrid is beyond anything I could even begin to imagine.” She turned thoughtful. “Even back in the late twentieth century they were successfully implanting all kinds of artificial parts into people. First hip joints, then tendons and ligaments. Hearts, too. But it’s one thing to transplant a heart from one human into another. Linking it up with an entirely synthetic circulatory system–that’s new.

“As for linking it all to a half‑machine brain and still having the original retain its full bank of memories without any apparent permanent loss or damage....” She shook her head. “It’s a miracle or a horror–take your pick.”

Connor studied the agonized figure that was hanging in suspension.

“We don’t know that the brain in question is retaining actual memories from the original cortex. The ‘memories’ the creature is experiencing could be implants designed to enhance its feeling of humanity and thereby augment its ability to deceive.” His tone was icy. “It’s all clever programming. To make the thing believe it actually is human.”

She blinked. “That’s possible. Or there could be a cerebral divide; part original memories from the time when the brain was in a human body, and the rest adjectival programming by whoever fashioned the final amalgam.” She returned her attention to the despondent, dangling body. “Given time and access to sufficiently sophisticated instrumentation, there might be a way to separate them out.”

“There might be a quicker way. And an easier one.” He also turned back toward the hanging shape. “It might also reveal nothing. On the other hand, the cost in time and equipment will be negligible. We’ll just ask it.” Taking a step toward the figure, he waited until the eyes–human eyes, Kate had determined, but with ingeniously disguised electronic enhancements–rose to meet his own.

“Who built you? What is your ‘T‑class’ designation? How are you supposed to carry out your prime function when depth scans have revealed no internal armament, no concealed explosives, and only internalized communications facilities?”

As the figure being questioned stared back at Connor, exhaustion and despair gave way to defiance.

“My name is Marcus...Wright.”

Fascinating, Connor mused. Enticing and yet repellant. With this device Skynet had really advanced its human‑simulation programming. Probably one of the reasons they continued to seek and keep live captives. Study your enemy in order to duplicate him. This thing hanging before him was so convinced of its humanity that it was incapable of admitting the truth about itself even when exposed to irrefutable reality. Here was a case study for the machine psychologists as well as a demolition team.

Despite its apparent helplessness, did they dare allow it to continue functioning?

“So you’re Marcus Wright,” Connor reiterated. “And you think you’re human?”

Wright looked down at himself again. Looked into his wide‑open chest, which ought to have been causing him excruciating pain, but was not. Eyed the gaping breach from which blood should have been pouring in streams, but was not. His visible heart beat steadily, even powerfully, giving no indication that it might cease to function. It was the same with the lights and instrumentation and gadgets and inexplicable mechanical contrivances that hummed softly in its vicinity.

“I am human!” was his response to Connor’s scathing query.

Connor turned back to Kate. There was not a shred of sympathy in his voice.

“It doesn’t even know what it is. The programming is flawless. Earnest self‑denial in the service of survival and subterfuge.”

“Please.” Wright continued to plead. Maybe his gaping chest was not causing him to fail physically, but the unavoidable reminder it provided of his apparent and unfathomable alienness was starting to unsettle his mind. “Please let me down.”

Connor looked back at him, spoke calmly and with complete assurance.

“If I were to let you down it’s extremely likely your first act would be to kill everyone in this room, or at least try to do so. Where were you manufactured? Where were your consciousness and independent cognitive processes activated?”

Wright swallowed, fighting to remember. Struggling to stay sane.

“I was born. In Abilene, Texas. August 22^nd, 1975.”

Connor nodded sagely.

“You look pretty good for someone who’s forty‑three, Marcus, and just got blown ass over entrails by a landmine powerful enough to cut a T‑1 in half.”

Wright’s panic left him with a suddenness that would have been frightening to another. It didn’t surprise Connor. Very little did.

“I know you,” the prisoner murmured. “Your voice. From the radio broadcasts. You’re John Connor.”

“Of course you know who I am.” Connor shook his head knowingly. The machines were capable of devilishly brilliant things, but on occasion they could also be painfully obvious, even naïve. “You were sent here to kill me. To kill the leadership.”

“No...no....” Wright mumbled ineffectually. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Connor was perfectly willing to discuss matters with the creature. It would be interesting to catch a conversant machine mind in a philosophical quandary and see how its logic circuits responded.

“Why else would you come here? To this particular base? Kill John Connor and you’ve proven your value. But you had to go and set off that mine. Skynet won’t be pleased.”

Wright seemed to struggle to understand what Connor was telling him.

“Blair–Blair Williams said you might be able to help me. I was trying to help a couple of kids. Skynet took them–in a big Transporter. They helped me when I–when I came to in this place, in this world. I’m trying to save them, and you’re stopping me.”

Connor was impressed. This thing’s programming was complex indeed. It could even replicate empathy. Relating to human children–that was pure genius on the part of the enemy.

“You’re a pretty convincing liar, Marcus. If I wasn’t trying to obliterate every last self‑aware machine on Earth, I could almost admire you.”

Kate leaned toward him.

“Looks like he really believes it.”

“Of course he believes it,” Connor snapped. “Otherwise the whole charade loses its verisimilitude. Let me talk to this thing alone.”

“Are you sure? If its mission is to kill you....”

“...It would already have done so if it could, whether anyone else was present or not. I’ll be okay.” He gestured at Barnes, who nodded and accompanied Kate from the silo. Once they had departed and the door had shut behind them, Connor turned back to the creature that claimed the name of Wright.

Was that name coincidental, he wondered, or had Skynet developed a sense of macabre humor?

“Is this it? Is it you? You’re Skynet’s big plan?”

Struggling to hold himself together mentally as well as physically, Wright met the other man’s gaze without flinching. Summoning his remaining reserves, he finally once again sounded like the man who had been known as Marcus Wright.

“Listen, Connor. I don’t give a shit about you. I don’t know why this Skynet thing might want you dead and I don’t care. I’ve never even heard of you before two days ago. All I want....”

As he moved nearer and cut the prisoner off, Connor’s voice dropped threateningly.

“No. You listen. You and me, we’ve been at war since before either of us existed.”

That was enough to give Wright pause.

“That–doesn’t make any sense.”

“A lot of what’s happened doesn’t seem to make any sense. That doesn’t make it any less real. And reality, sensible or not, is what I have to deal with. The reality is that you’ve tried to kill me and my family so many times I’ve lost count. And you failed. Every time. You tried to kill my mother, Sarah Connor. And you killed my father. So I want you to listen closely, because I’m going to tell you something you need to understand. If Skynet wants me dead it’s going to need a better plan than you.” He stepped back, satisfied. “Hell, you couldn’t even get ten feet inside the base perimeter. Skynet must think we’ve gone stupid.”

Like so much else he had been forced to deal with since regaining consciousness in this insane world, Connor’s words left the overwhelmed Wright searching for answers. And as with so much else, he had none.

“No...I know who I am. I’m Marcus Wright. I’m not part of some wacko plot to kill you or anybody else. I don’t know a goddamn thing about your crazy war or your crazy world or....” His words trailed away. There was no point in continuing his protestations because it was evident that Connor wasn’t listening to them. His head drooping, Wright resumed mumbling as much to himself as to his interrogator.

“You’re all out of your minds. Kyle Reese is on a Transport on his way to Skynet. If I’d wanted to kill him, I would have done him in L.A. I just came here hoping to get some help–your help–for Star, and for him.”

Connor was halfway to the door when he stopped and whirled on the prisoner. He blinked, as if he had been grazed on the back of the head with a two‑by‑four.

“What–what did you say?”

Almost beyond caring, Wright didn’t look up.

“I told you. I’m trying to help a couple of kids who helped me survive this lunacy long enough to get out of L.A. Said they were the Resistance. If it wasn’t for them I’d probably be dead.” Now he did raise his gaze again. “Wouldn’t be here for you and your friends to sneer at.”

He shook his head slowly, trying to make sense of it all, of what had happened to him, and failing miserably.

“I don’t know what happened to the world. Or me. I don’t much care what happens to either. I’ve done some things in my life I wish I could take back, Connor. I can’t do that. But those two kids–I’m not letting them die. Or whatever it is these machines have in store for them.”

Connor listened, but his thoughts were focused on a single utterance of the prisoner.

“You said–Kyle. That the name of one of these children you keep babbling about?”

Wright frowned. “Why? You know him? Kyle’s not Bob or Bill, but it’s not that common a name, either.”

Connor said nothing. Neither did his expression. For a change it was Wright’s turn to scoff.

“Didn’t think so. ’Cause anyone who knew him wouldn’t have left him alone out there in this shit.” Connor’s expression contorted slightly. He was clearly struggling to restrain himself, and Wright was pleased to have finally gotten some kind of rise out of his captor.

“Let me go, Connor. You fight your endless war–win or lose, I don’t give a rat’s ass–or whether that ass is meat or metal. All that matters to me anymore are those two kids. I’m going to help them.”

Pivoting smartly, Connor headed for the exit. His mind was racing. As he closed the door behind him, Wright shouted after him, the sound echoing off the walls.

“You let me out of here, Connor.

“ Connor...!”

The sound of the heavy metal barrier clanking shut behind his captor left Wright feeling more alone than he had at any time since the return of his memories. One of those recollections reminded him of–some‑thing. Of another door closing, long, long ago.

No, he corrected himself. Not so very long ago. The door had shut on him just before he had awakened into this nightmare. He remembered things being done to him, though he could not recall what. Had they even been explained before they had begun?

None of that mattered except peripherally. It didn’t matter what Connor or anyone else said. He knew who he was. Marcus Wright, bad boy extraordinaire and anti‑social foe of genteel society. A lot of good that had done him, he mused bitterly. A life of running and fighting, drinking and drugging and whoring. A life consisting of a series of mistakes and bad decisions, culminating in one that had seen him sentenced to death.

He frowned slightly. What was wrong with that picture? Well, for one thing, he ought to be dead. One way he knew that he was not deceased was because he hurt too much, too bad, and too persistently. Furthermore, he didn’t feel dead. Physically, he felt perfectly normal.

What was wrong with that picture?

He looked down at himself. At his torso, with its skin peeled back and the chest cavity gaping like a display case in the gadget department of a custom auto parts store. Surrounding his heart were enough blinking telltales and miniaturized parts and elegant wiring to fill a hundred tech magazines. Someone–or several some‑ones–had done terrible wonderful things to his insides. The intricate modifications were as sophisticated as they were alien.

This isn’t me, his bewildered brain told him.

This is you, his indefatigable eyes told him.

He looked away; to the far wall, at the ceiling, down toward the bottom of the pit far beneath his feet–anywhere but at himself. He could not stand the sight of what he had become.

Could not stand it because he could not understand it.