c.22
Above and behind, the helicopter followed them. Glitch could see its pilot, an assault robot, through its forward windshield. The robot stared at him with the pitiless angular features the humans so hated.
The instant Glitch stood up from the lower cab roof to peer over the back of the truck, the two assault robots moving forward on that dented surface opened fire on him.
He ducked, his tactile sensors indicating that high-temperature projectiles, doubtless plasma, had just missed his back by inches. The odds that his clothing and the artificially grown skin beneath it were charred, even on fire, were very high.
He calculated his tactics. His two opponents were inferior to him in combat abilities and processing power but had the advantage of numbers and possessed superior weapons.
The truck veered left, a sharp enough turn to cause the truck to angle and tilt again. Its left side crashed down with an audible bang. Glitch glanced in their original direction of travel, noted that further progress along that path would have put them over the curb, across a set of railroad tracks, and into a river channel. Perhaps the sudden maneuver was indeed the best course of action.
He peered over the top again. There was now only one assault robot atop the truck, and it was struggling into a sitting position.
Glitch leaped at it. He saw the assault robot bring its plasma rifle to bear, begin to squeeze the trigger … then he crashed down upon it.
Together, they ripped through the frail metal membrane that served as the truck’s roof and crashed down into the empty area within. The impact drove the assault robot halfway through the floor, wedging it into that surface.
Glitch got one hand on its plasma rifle, turning its barrel away from him. The robot managed to lash out, kicking Glitch away. Glitch landed with half the rifle in his hand.
The assault robot aimed what was left of the weapon, glanced at it, dropped it. The robot heaved itself free of the hole in the floor and advanced on Glitch.
Glitch rose and hurled himself at his enemy once more. They came together in the middle of the cargo bed, grabbing, hammering at one another.
Glitch got a grip on his enemy, braced himself to swing the robot into or through the side wall. But the act of bracing himself against that much weight, that much power, drove his foot through the floor. He sank with a sudden thump up to his crotch, felt his foot hit the pavement below.
The assault robot backed away, its head cocked, considering the best way to terminate its enemy. Then it bounced up as the truck bed suddenly vibrated.
This was no routine change in road conditions. Glitch’s tactile sensors detected major alterations in the grade of the road below. He yanked his foot up and away from the surface to prevent damage to his limb. He gripped the sides of the hole that held him, both to keep from being rattled around and to widen the gap, freeing his leg.
The assault robot’s gyroscopic compensators did their best to maintain its balance. Then the front end of the truck slewed to the left and the world turned upside down.
Working with very limited visual data from light streaming in through the holes in the sides and floor, Glitch decided that the truck was falling onto its side. His analysis subroutines popped up the various likelihoods that it would roll or merely skid along its right side.
Against the odds, it rolled.
* * *
The instant Glitch disappeared onto the roof, Paul returned to thinking about what was going on.
The helicopter was pursuing him or Glitch.
Had he failed to give both tracking devices to Sato? No, he remembered them both being in his hand when he passed them over.
Could they have sensors that locked onto Glitch’s electromagnetic emissions, discerning how his were different from those of other machines? If so, such technology was new. Otherwise, they’d have used it to track Glitch as he left the ruins of the San Diego Naval Medical Center.
Which meant that the odds were they were tracking him, Paul. Tracking the radio emissions from the implant in his head.
The road did not continue ahead. There were train tracks in that direction, gleaming dully in the moonlight. At the next street, Paul took his only available option: a hard left turn.
After Santa Fe, they’d figured out the trick with the T-X’s tracer. They weren’t going to follow these tracers. They must be assuming the tracers were attached to another coyote. No, their assumption was that wherever Paul was, there the T-X would be as well.
That wasn’t so bad. The longer he could remain at liberty, the longer his friends had to get away.
There were bangs and crashes from the bed of the truck. Glitch was putting up a fight.
The last turn had reduced the truck’s speed. Paul started to mash the accelerator again, then thought better of it.
He let the truck slow, moving forward solely on momentum, as he unbuckled himself, then pulled his backpack straps around him and grabbed up his rifle case.
When the speedometer read that they were down to a good running speed, he threw the door open and jumped out.
His feet hit the pavement and he fell, stumbling forward, to crash onto the street. But the impact didn’t hurt too much; he felt warmth on his palm, sure sign that it had been skinned, but there was no significant pain.
The helicopter followed the truck for a few dozen yards. It slowed, letting that vehicle bounce on ahead. Paul saw the truck’s wheels bounce over the curb. Then he rose and ran.
He took the next street to the right. The helicopter pursued him, but its weapons, if any, did not fire. No assault robot troops came tumbling out of it.
The street became a bridge, first crossing over railroad sidings, then over a broad stream. On the other side were older buildings. The long-dead signs on them, many still readable in the moonlight, advertised restaurants, nicknack shops, candy stores.
He stopped at the first cross-street. The helicopter hovered over him, blasting its searchlight down upon him.
He drew his handgun and shot the spotlight. It blinked out, leaving him in darkness.
The helicopter gained a little altitude. As it did, Paul unzipped his rifle case and pulled out the sniper rifle. As the helicopter banked away, he aimed at the point where the forward rotor mechanism rose from the fuselage.
His first shot did not hit it. His third did. The front end of the helicopter, heading away from him, began an abrupt plummet. The rear rotor continued driving up and forward.
The helicopter came down atop a two-story building that had once been home to restaurants and souvenir shops. It deformed as it hit.
Paul turned his back on the crash. It had bought him some time, perhaps only a few seconds, in which he wasn’t under observation. He couldn’t waste what he had.
He trained the rifle on the nearest manhole cover and pulled the trigger. There was an almighty flash of light and he watched the superheated circle of metal pop up into the air, spinning like a flipped coin, and land yards away.
He dashed over to the manhole and clambered down.
* * *
As the truck finished its roll and came to a stop, Glitch let go of the edges of the hole his leg had made. He dropped straight onto the assault robot, driving its head into what had been the roof, then slammed the robot forward, shoving its head and shoulders through the sheet metal wall of the truck.
The robot’s hand closed over his face. Fingers dug into his optical sockets. He shook his head, dislodging them, and grabbed the robot beneath the armored ridge that would have been the ribcage of a human. Then he got his feet braced on its pelvis … and heaved.
The robot jerked and flexed to throw him off. Doubtless its diagnostic registers were lighting up. Glitch simply increased the pressure he was exerting.
He was rewarded moments later with a pang! as armor welds gave way. The entire front piece of the robot’s torso armor came off in Glitch’s hands.
The robot sat up, yanking its head free of the truck wall.
With a sudden, savage motion, Glitch folded the armor plate in half. Then he put it back approximately where it belonged, burying it to a depth of ten inches in the robot’s unprotected chest.
The robot lay down again. Sparks sizzled up from its ruined torso.
Opportunistic, Glitch quickly disengaged the hydrogen cell that powered the robot. An assault robot carried only one of these, instead of the two an advanced machine like Glitch carried, but the designs were compatible. Glitch pocketed the device and walked out through the truck’s side, splitting the metal there as though it were foil.
He moved to the upside-down cab. It was empty.
He scanned the skies. There was IR evidence of a growing fire a few blocks away, and heat traces appropriate for smaller airborne vehicles, probably H-Ks, in distance to the north. But there were no enemies in close range. Nor could he see Paul.
He was alone.
* * *
Infrared goggles in place, Paul moved as quickly as he dared through the storm drains of the city. He had no idea what direction he was taking; a few bends and turns, and he’d lost his bearings entirely.
But that was all right. His goal was to confuse and mislead the enemy, not find his way home.
He reached a point where moonlight shone in through a drain opening up to a street gutter. He waited there, listening, for long minutes.
Finally he heard it: the roar of an engine. Brakes squealed nearby and he could hear metal feet striking the pavement.
He ran again, looking for a side shaft that would carry him away from this streetside channel, and found one.
When he went deep enough, earth and concrete made it impossible for his pursuers to detect his weak radio transmissions. When he found a surface access, they began receiving him again and would race to that spot.
He found himself in a channel that seemed to go on forever. It was another streetside stretch of storm drain. Every few dozen steps, he passed a gutter opening up to the street. Even more occasionally he spotted a shaft and metal ladder that led up to a manhole. He encountered no side shafts large enough to accommodate him.
In the distance far behind him he heard dull clanking. It was like the fast rattle of a big, badly maintained engine … or the passage of many metal feet. And as consistent as the sound was, it had to be originating back in this drain.
But it wasn’t growing louder. He thought he was maintaining his lead on those presumed pursuers—or even increasing it.
Ahead was an area of brightness. He headed toward it, cautious. It seemed to stretch from floor to ceiling.
Then he saw boots descending from the ceiling. Boots, stout legs, a stout body.
A Terminator. As it came to rest and turned in his direction, he could see its features. It was not Glitch; it had another face, one he didn’t recognize.
Which meant it was probably an 800 and belonged to a subseries he wasn’t familiar with.
He froze, breathing hard, thinking harder.
That Terminator had probably seen him, at least as a distant heat source. The attack robots coming up from behind, as far away as they were, would still be able to see his glowing footprints. The presence of the Terminator explained why they weren’t hurrying.
They had him trapped between them.
He was dead.
* * *
The Jeep Cherokee roared eastward until the road reached the I-25 on ramp. At Sato’s gesture, Jenna pulled over to the side of the road and let the engine idle.
Sato stuck his head out the passenger-side window and scanned the skies. “Still no pursuit,” he said.
Jenna sighed. “We’ve screwed up. But in a few minutes, they’ll have a lot more resources in the sky, and they’re sure to dedicate some of them to us.”
“You’re right.” Sato shook his head. “The others are on their own.” He fished the two T-X tracer transmitters from his pocket and gave them one last look. Then he flicked them off into the darkness for Skynet’s forces to find. “North.”
“You got it, boss.”
* * *
Kyla trotted through the trees of the neglected, overgrown parkland until she reached water’s edge. She breathed a sigh of relief. This was not yet another runoff canal of the Arkansas River, but a reservoir or smallish lake, perhaps half a mile across. To her left its banks wandered to the east; to her right, they curved around to a more southerly orientation. She followed the banks around to the right, knowing that the others would find her.
The only question was: Would she find what was supposed to be waiting for them?
Then, up ahead, she saw it above the trees, the most minute of variations in the greenish darkness of the sky. This patch of heat was just enough brighter for her to detect the difference. It was also nearly perfectly circular, meaning she had to be looking straight on at the blimp’s nose or tail. She hurried on.
Then she was beneath the blimp’s leading edge and could no longer see stars through the trees. She raised a hand to wave at the unseen sensor ball and paced off another forty steps. Then she waved up at the gondola again, a “Come on down” sort of gesture.
In response, a set of tiny red lights, blinking at the same rate but not at the same time, appeared in the sky. They descended toward her. She waited until they touched down, five or six steps from her, and then dashed over to stand by them. She grinned. Dr. Bowen had kindly attached small, battery-powered LEDs to the carry rigs to make them easier to find. She switched the LEDs off; it wouldn’t do for pursuit to see the red blinks from across the water.
She heard rapid breathing and looked up to see Mark and Ten approaching. They were huffing with exertion, carrying the stretcher between them. On the stretcher rode the T-X. Kyla couldn’t see her eyes moving.
When the two men reached her, Mark said, “Next time you carry the stretcher.” He and Ten set it down.
“Yeah, right. Any word from the others?”
“None.” With Ten’s help, Mark forced the T-X to a sitting position and held her upright with his braced leg, straining with the effort. He took one cable from Kyla and wrapped its carry rig around Eliza, making doubly sure it was secure and would put no undue pressure on the CPU insulator keeping her helpless, before snapping all its closures in place.
When Mark was done, Ten said, “Everybody, get set to go up.” He suited action to words, shrugging into a second carry rig.
“I’ll wait here,” Kyla said.
“No. We want Bowen to have as much time as possible to compensate for everybody’s weight. We go up now.”
Kyla shook her head, not a refusal but an expression of disapproval, and did as she was told.
Ten held up a hand, first showing one finger, then two, then three, then four—a code that had been worked out beforehand with Dr. Bowen. The sign language meant “Lift cables one through four.”
All four cables tightened. The three humans were raised off their feet by a foot or two, then slowly sank to earth again.
They waited. From briefings on the Blowfish’s capabilities, Kyla knew that Dr. Bowen was releasing more hydrogen into the ballonets, venting ordinary air from the main envelope, increasing the blimp’s lifting power. He could have simply dumped a few hundred kilograms of ballast water, but that would make more noise and deprive them of the ballast in case they needed it later.
Eventually they began bobbing on tiptoe, and then the winches engaged, hauling all of them into the sky. As she rose, Kyla looked for distant IR traces, any sign of the arrival of Earl or Paul, but there was none.
* * *
Paul lay down where he was, reducing his infrared profile, and set up for a shot.
In the distance, the T-800 turned and began moving in his direction. Its walk was unhurried.
In Paul’s goggle vision, the machine was a distinct humanlike outline, enough warmer, owing to its mechanical processes, than the surrounding air that he got a clear image of it.
Of its head.
Sighting in along the rifle’s iron sights, Paul forced his breathing to slow. He estimated the distance as sixty yards. Even with his plasma rifle, there should be no ballistic drop-off at this range.
He breathed out, let air and tension flow from his body, and squeezed the trigger.
Everything disappeared in a blinding flash, and the sound of his rifle’s report deafened him. For a few moments, it was almost like being back in the sen-dep tank.
Then his vision began to recover. The Terminator was gone.
No, it was merely down. There was still a brighter glow up ahead; it took him a few moments to interpret it as the Terminator lying on its back.
He’d done it. He started to rise.
Kyla whispered to him. He could feel her breath on his ear, as he had many times the day she began to teach him about shooting. It can be reliably counted on to put damage onto a Terminator or assault robot, but it usually takes several shots to put one down.
He lay back down and set up for another shot.
As his hearing returned, he could make out the sounds of the oncoming assault robots. They sounded louder, closer, but their rate of approach did not seem to have increased.
They felt no urgency. They were still under the impression that Paul was trapped. Either they were unaware that the Terminator was destroyed …
Or it wasn’t. It might simply have broadcast to them that the situation was under control.
He waited, concentrated on his breathing.
The Terminator sat up again. Its head was a bright yellow, superheated from the shot it had taken.
Paul pulled the trigger. Again the universe went to brilliant blindness, to deafening noise.
In the moments while he was still blind, he reached down to his waist, pulled up the flap on his handgun, and drew the weapon. By touch, he switched it over from safe to ready to fire, then replaced it.
Now it would take him just a second to draw and fire. If he became aware that the assault robots were upon him, he could make sure that he would never fall into Skynet’s hands again.
And he waited.
The soul of the sniper is patience, Kyla whispered to him.
As his vision returned, he could see the Terminator even better than before. Heat radiated up, a brilliant and diffuse conical display, from its head. He imagined that the two shots had to have burned away every square inch of its artificially grown skin.
Two good head shots. It had to have been destroyed.
His hearing began to return once more. Now the assault robots behind him were more distinct.
Now they were hurrying.
They had to know that the Terminator was destroyed.
They would be on him in less than a minute. Maybe half that. As battered as his eardrums were, he couldn’t begin to estimate distance reliably.
He waited.
Dammit, the Terminator had to be dead. It would not play possum this long. He shifted, prepared to rise.
Kyla whispered, To become something, you have to define it, then understand it, then simulate it until it becomes second nature.
No, she’d been talking about her father, about what he went through. Still, her words could apply here. He was already part machine. For just a few moments, he could stand to become the Terminator.
The soul of the Terminator was patience.
The Terminator was waiting for him.
Paul waited for it.
The steps behind him grew louder.
The Terminator sat up. The right side of its face was gone, blasted and melted away.
Paul fired.
Blind and deaf for a third time, he leaped up and trotted forward, running his left hand along the tunnel wall to be sure that he remained upright and pointed in the correct direction.
His vision cleared as he reached the Terminator. Its body had no head. A few steps on, he found what was left of its head, a seared metal mess the size of a twentieth-century bicyclist’s helmet, still rocking where it lay.
He ran.
* * *
Muttering and cursing, Mark and Ten hauled the T-X’s body out of the aft compartment. Kyla waited, standing beside the winch controls, her heart pounding.
Earl moved into her line of sight. She activated a winch and sent a cable down to him. A minute later, he was up in the compartment with her. “Assault robots,” he said. “Not moving this way, not yet, but they’re close. They’re in vehicles on the street in front of that school.”
Kyla swore. “Any sign of Glitch and Paul?”
Earl shook his head. “Gotta report.” He moved forward into the companionway.
An eternity later, Ten rejoined her. “The package is secure.” He pulled his sleeve back from his wristwatch, pushed a button to cause its LED display to glow. “And we’re five minutes from departure.”
She knew better than to argue. When policy was bad, it was some idiot’s attempt to substitute an inferior product for common sense. When policy was good, it served to keep people alive despite their emotional reactions. And on-time departure on special operations was always good policy.
Policy sometimes meant consigning a friend to death.
“There’s Glitch,” Ten said.
Kyla put her hand on the winch controls, then froze. The heat source below was the correct intensity for Glitch, but the angles of the body, the way it walked, were not.
It was an assault robot. It walked slowly, directly below them, its head swiveling back and forth.
It had to be seeing the heat traces they’d left on the grass, recognizing that they did not continue past this point.
If the mission operatives were lucky, the robot would conclude that whoever had moved out to this point had turned around and gone back the way they’d come. It would follow.
Kyla believed in luck but didn’t count on it. She braced herself in a corner of the compartment and drew careful aim on the assault robot.
Careful aim might not be enough. Even at this close range, it was a devilish shot. As with the robots in the hotel lobby, it was looking down, its eye sockets protected by the supraorbital ridges of its humanlike skull. Even if it looked up, the blimp’s drift, the slow way the gondola rocked in the wind, were causing her to adjust and could make her miss the shot.
And if she didn’t destroy it with her first shot, a single bit of return fire from the machine’s plasma rifle would turn the Blowfish into a burning ruin.
The assault robot looked up.
Kyla brought her rifle into line.
Another figure, moving at a high rate from Kyla’s right, slammed into the robot, knocking it to the earth. The impact sounded like an automobile collision.
Before the assault robot could recover, Glitch leaped, coming down with his leading foot on its neck, driving it into the soil once again. Kyla saw the neck deform. Glitch knelt beside his enemy, hammering at the damaged spot. The neck bent at a ninety-degree angle and the light faded from the assault robot’s eyes.
Glitch looked up. Breathing a little easier, Kyla relaxed. Ten sent a cable down for the Terminator.
As Glitch was hauled into the compartment, Kyla asked, “Paul?”
The T-850 shook his head. “We were separated,” he said. “I believe that Paul determined that he was the focus of the machines’ search and left to draw off pursuit. I was neither able to rejoin him nor terminate him.”
Ten checked his watch again. Then he hit the intercom button. “Bowen, close down and cast off. We’re out of here.”
Someone said, “No!”—a wail—and Kyla realized that it was her voice. Ten gave her a sympathetic look but shook his head.
Below them, the hatch slid closed, shutting off their view of the destroyed robot.
* * *
In the cramped one-man cockpit, Dr. Bowen hit a second switch. At the blimp’s bow, a winch silently unrolled cable until it reached its end. Then the cable dropped down into the darkness. Bowen disliked surrendering any components of his baby, but the alternative was having someone go down and free the other end of the cable, free the anchor there from the tree trunk it had bitten into.
Blowfish began a slow, silent rise.
In a few minutes, when they were a thousand feet or more above Pueblo’s south side, Bowen would engage the engines. For now, he was content to drift away, noiseless and unseen.