C.12

August 2029

Hornet Compound

The T-800 shoved the exhaust fan frame out of the way, crushing the rugged metal as though it were aluminum foil. It clambered into the final stretch of tunnel, then out into the open.

It transmitted its position to the coordinating HK, but got no return signal. Either the HK had malfunctioned or it had been terminated. This meant that its signal would not be fitted into the wire-frame schematic the HK was supposed to be maintaining for all participants in the assault.

It did not matter much. The Terminator could estimate its own position on the mountain slope, could detect and terminate its enemies. And there, on the slope below, were fuzzy heat traces suggesting that humans had passed recently. It had a clear picture of the mountain slope. While there were no humans visible, heat was accumulating in a sort of aura behind two rock outcroppings.

The Terminator took a step down the mountain slope.

It heard scrabbling from above and behind but was not fast enough to turn before it was hit. Then it was tumbling. The first quarter of a second of analysis of its visual returns indicated that two large canines were on the Terminator, biting it, rolling with it as it descended the hill in an uncontrolled fashion.

The Terminator, even within the very narrow confines of what could be equated with unease, was not concerned. The fall could not damage it substantially. Neither could the dogs.

But the T-800 continued rolling for yards, dozens of yards, after the dogs apparently detached themselves. When it finally stopped, it sat up and discovered that all the flesh on the lower portion of its right arm had been torn away, and with it the chain gun. It had no ranged weapon. That was inconvenient.

Then the humans emerged from their hiding places and began firing on it with assault rifles and grenades.

*   *   *

A minute later, John and the others stood over the explosively dismantled body of their enemy. “Nice work,” John said. “This might even be reparable. Kyla, extra doggie biscuits for your pals. Kate, two minutes for bandages, then I’d appreciate it if you’d go get that chain gun. Prescott, you and I are going to drag this wreckage to our muster point.”

Kate sighed. “Kyla, when you get married, don’t marry a micromanager.”

August 2029

Hornet Compound Muster-Point Three

John Connor waited in the tunnel neck leading to the surface. The sky out there was brightening—dawn of a new day. He offered up a sour grin at all the long-ago songs that had spoken so highly of dawns and new days. These days, they were often just an opportunity to count one’s losses in the daylight instead of by flashlight beam.

This cave was officially known as Hornet Compound Muster-Point Three. It was large enough to accommodate about one-fourth of the population of Hornet Compound in cold, huddled misery. And that’s what it now held, approximately a fourth of the survivors of the compound. They’d wait until tonight, then many of them would venture forth on a days-long overland walk to the nearest human habitat, Tortilla Compound. Some would be lucky enough to ride in the vehicles, such as John’s, that were hidden well away from Hornet, but most would be on foot for the dangerous crossing.

There were three other muster points, each within two hours’ walk of the old mines, and John imagined that each one was stuffed full of refugees like this one. He hoped they were, anyway.

“John, everyone’s here,” Kate called from behind him.

He turned into the darkness and marched down into the cave, where Kate waited. Together they walked among the dispossessed residents of Hornet Compound who lay on their sleeping bags and blankets, some of them wounded. All had eyes for John and Kate, and the two leaders had a ready smile or word of encouragement for each one.

Past the main cave, they slid down a narrow natural tunnel, a thirty-five-degree slope, down into a secondary, smaller cave. It was lit by an oil lamp placed at the center of the stone floor. John’s advisers and Lucas Kaczmarek sat around it, most of them uncomfortable sitting cross-legged. Kaczmarek was pale, a bandage spotted with dried blood across his forehead.

John and Kate joined them. “Let’s hear it,” John said. “Kate?”

His wife grimaced. “Well, obviously, Hornet is a total loss. Enemy losses are going to be hard to calculate until we’ve heard from all the other muster points. We’re certain of six destroyed robots and one downed helicopter.”

“Lucas?”

Kaczmarek rocked from buttock to buttock, uncomfortable on the stone floor. “We had enough advance warning that just about everyone got out with a full pack—sleeping and camping gear, weapons, food and water. Of the ninety-eight people assigned to this muster point, eighty-seven have shown up.”

“Not a bad ratio,” John said. He knew his tone was grudging. Losing anyone under his command ate at him. But given the scale of the night’s disaster, things could have been far worse. If the ratio of survivors in the other three muster points was similar, the population of Hornet Compound had survived comparatively well … by most standards. “What else?”

“Recommend commendations for Lieutenant Andy Masters, who was in command of the first hardpoint station. He accounted for a couple of assault robots and delayed the intruders by significant minutes. Posthumous, unfortunately. And for Corporal Wanda Dixon. She was the sentry who kept us informed of the Skynet forces’ approach. Also bagged the ’copter. She’s still with us.”

John nodded. Kaczmarek wouldn’t mention his own role in the defense of Hornet Compound and its aftermath, but he, too, deserved recognition. He’d been part of the crew attempting to hold the first hardpoint against the invading Skynet forces, and had managed to hide in a rock crevice when it had been overrun and his fellow defenders had all perished. Emerging when most of the shooting was done, he’d joined up with a survivor hiding in an air shaft. The two of them had found the bodies of Kyla’s kills and had dragged one to where it could be carted to the muster point.

In the world of 2029, recycling was the order of the day. In this case, recycling meant taking the undamaged head from the unit John, Kate, and Prescott had terminated and mating it with the body of one of Kyla’s victims. Then Danny Ávila or one of a small number of programmers with similar skills, Mark Herrera among them, would turn it into a servant of the Resistance.

“Yes to both,” John said. “I assume there will be more recommendations once the blackout is past and we hear from the other muster points.”

“Probably. Anyway, as Ms. Brewster indicated, the compound is a loss. All our resources, our gold production, the new equipment you brought us. And I’m out of a job. Got an opening?”

John grinned. “Sid?”

“Three squadrons of the 1st Security Regiment were temporarily based out of Hornet Compound while you were there,” Walker said. “Hell-Hounds, Scalpers, and Nuts and Bolts. Nuts and Bolts was out on an operation; they’re being rerouted to Tortilla to join us. Hell-Hounds are intact, here at Muster-Point Three. Scalpers…” He sighed. “We lost Crazy Pete, Warthog, Meadows, and Boom-Boom. That leaves Nix and Jenna the Greek, the two most junior members. The Scalpers are basically a loss.”

“Are you recommending recruitment to restore the Scalpers, or decommission?”

“Recruitment … but we’re going to have to swap in a seasoned commander. And Nix and Jenna aren’t going to appreciate having someone moved in over them from outside the unit.”

“Do what you can to preserve their feelings, but we’re not running a kindergarten.” John stared at the open patch of stone around which he and the others were sitting. He’d known Crazy Pete even before Judgment Day—the man had been a friend of his mother’s. Crazy Pete had taught John a thing or two about smuggling, about cycling, about handling high explosives. When he wasn’t in jail on an assault or possession charge, Crazy Pete had been on the run for parole violation. The man had been completely incapable of functioning within modern society, a career criminal … and then society had been scraped away, and he’d been transformed into a leader, a defender. From one instant to the next, though he was the same man, the alteration of human society had turned him from an incorrigible into a hero.

And now he was gone, leaving behind a hole too big to fill.

He could sense the others’ silence, their waiting for him to return to the present. He turned to Lake. “Tamara?”

“Well, the majority of Hornet’s scientific instruments and medical equipment is a loss. We got out with what we could.” Tired and dispirited, Lake looked her age, a rare event for her. “We have medical supplies enough for our current needs and the injured are being tended to. We had two die during the night but I think we can save the rest.”

“And your star patient?”

“Daniel’s had a stroke, John.”

John grimaced. “How bad?”

“Well, no stroke is good. His is sort of in the medium category, I guess. Partial paralysis of his right side, including face, arm, and leg. Hard to tell the degree to which his thinking has been affected; he’s mostly been drifting in and out of consciousness. But he’s not dreaming. Not his special dreaming, anyway.”

“And his prognosis?”

She shrugged. “With treatment and therapy, he could make a near-full recovery in a few years. But we’re going to have to pull the plug on his special operation. His dreaming puts tremendous stress on his system, and that’s got to have been a major contributing factor to his stroke. If he keeps doing it, he could pop another plug, and that’ll be the end of him.”

“Right. Consider that operation at an end.” John turned to his chief scientific adviser. “Mike?”

“Nothing, really. I’ve just been trying to figure out why Skynet hit us with a full extermination team. It had to have acquired enough data to conclude that Hornet Compound was a major habitation, or that you and Kate were there.”

“And your conclusion?”

“Not enough data to support any conclusion. I wonder, though, since Daniel’s dreaming sometimes generates the same sort of EMR signature as the Continuum Transporter apparatus, if Skynet detected that. It would certainly be compelled to go in and level what it thought was a time travel device.”

“That can work in our favor,” Kate said. “If Skynet thinks that Hornet was the home of our Continuum Transporter, it might conclude that we no longer have access to one.”

“Interesting point.” John considered. “That leads me to two conclusions. First, it’s an additional reason to terminate Daniel’s dreaming project. If he’s being detected as Continuum Transporter energy, and he dreams again, then Skynet will conclude that he’s one of those devices and send forces to destroy him until they succeed. Second, we have to consider ways to use that tactically. If we could replicate the sort of energy output associated with time travel—even without the presence of a Continuum Transporter—we could use it, once at least, to draw in Skynet forces for an ambush.” He turned back to Walker. “Okay, Sid, we don’t know the status of our temporary vehicle depot. With the land lines burned out last night, and with our radio blackout in effect until we’re confident that Skynet forces aren’t close enough to detect us, we aren’t going to know. So I want you to send a unit out there. Not to enter—to perform surveillance from a distance. If Skynet found it, there may be Terminators in the area, doing exactly the same thing. Once we’re sure the depot isn’t being watched, we’ll have the unit bring our vehicles out, some back to Home Plate, the rest to catch up with us and haul some of us to Tortilla Compound.”

Walker nodded.

“Anything else? No? Then let’s jump up and do next to nothing until dark. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us tonight.”

His advisers rose one by one and headed up the slope into the larger cave. John remained where he sat, and Kate stayed with him. “You okay?” she asked.

“Within certain very broad definitions of the word okay, yeah.”

Kate leaned against him. She didn’t say any of the obvious things. It could have been worse. It’s not your fault. We’re doing as well as we could possibly expect. The fact that we’re alive at all is your doing. In years past, she had said them all before. In years to come, she would probably say them all again. But even the most routine of soothing statements had to get some rest of their own.

June, Present Day

Ávila Property

“Danny? Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

He wasn’t all right. His head hurt as though he’d stuck it in a chest of drawers and allowed the college football team to slam the drawer shut a few times.

He forced his eyes to open. Once again he was staring at the underside of his bed. He was lying on his back, twisted around as though a chunk of his side had been torn away and he’d bent to try to slow the blood loss.

He looked up. The desk lamp on his nightstand was on, glaring right into his eyes. Linda, dressed in a USC Trojans sweatshirt that came almost down to her knees, was bending over him; her face was above the light and cast into silhouette.

Danny felt a sickening sense of loss, as though the house around him was a flash-paper construction on the verge of having a match applied to it, as though the woman bending over him was nothing more than an illusion. She isn’t in my future. They’d told him so, the voices.

The voices he could no longer feel. There had been a connection with them even when he was awake, a sensation of their distant presence. Now it was gone. He wondered if he had just died in that future era.

He remembered that Linda had asked him a question, was waiting for his answer. “’M okay,” he lied.

“Yeah, well, let’s get your book back into bed.” She took his hands, hauled him to a sitting position, then straightened and helped raise him to his feet. Now, in the light, he could see her face, see the worry on it.

“Strong girl,” he said.

“Danny, what’s wrong?”

“If I told you, you’d think I was crazy.” He sat down on the edge of his bed. His headache was starting to fade. He hoped that as the pain moved away, his sense of connection with his visitors from the future would move back in.

But it didn’t. That corner of his mind remained chillingly empty. What had happened? His future friends had reluctantly answered his question about Linda, Kate had started asking questions about her father, then something had begun to go wrong … and there was a discontinuity between then and him waking up on the floor.

“I already think you’re crazy.” She sat beside him. “So what do you have to lose?”

“Everything. I think I’m going to lose everything.” I may already have, he told himself. “You know, until you’ve touched your future, you can’t imagine how cut off you feel when it’s gone.”

Linda shook her head, not comprehending. “Your future’s all around you, Danny.”

He turned his back on the echoing emptiness where his future perceptions had been, turned his attention fully on her.

Preparation and planning had always been the hallmarks of Danny’s approach to school, life, work, everything. He’d read each semester’s worth of course work before classes began, meticulously outlined his papers before writing them, accumulated maps and timetables for the areas where he was going to vacation even before he bought the tickets. Overplanning was the one consistent characteristic of his life; overplanning was what it meant to be Danny Ávila.

Now, untethered from his future, well into the process of betraying his employer and his country, he threw that characteristic into the trash.

“Prove it,” he said.

“How?”

He leaned forward to kiss her. The softness of her lips, her quick hiss of surprise, were exactly what he’d expected.

Next, he knew, would come the shove, slap, or punch to send him sprawling. Well, that would be all right. At least he was no longer hiding his attraction to her. He put his arms around her waist.

No shove came, no slap or punch. Linda wrapped her own arms around his neck, pressed forward into his kiss. It took only the slightest pressure to spill them both across the bed.

She helped him pull the Trojans shirt from her body, moved with him, her heat and passion a match for his.

*   *   *

Much later, as his window began to gray into dawn, Danny came awake and found Linda still there, facing him, eyes solemn.

He thought about what to say, then shoved that impulse aside. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“That sounded really lame. My hi, that is. Your hi was fine.”

She managed a grin, though it faded almost instantly.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

He considered. “Come to think of it, I’m not sorry in the least. I’m just worried.”

“About you, me, or us? Whatever ‘us’ is?”

“About you. About Mama. I don’t want her to get all weird about this. I mean, you know how devoted she was to Alex. I don’t want her to see us and think you’re, you know, betraying his memory—” He stopped at Linda’s sudden laugh. “What?”

“You think Mama’s going to freak out if we get together?”

“Sure.”

“It’s been six—no, I guess it’s more like eight months since she started dropping little hints to me. ‘You know, you’re not getting any younger.’ ‘You know, Danny’s a very good young man. He’ll be a wonderful provider. All he needs is someone to calm him down.’ Anytime she begins a sentence with ‘You know,’ what I know is that I’m about to get a new recommendation concerning you.”

“Oh.” He tried to force that through his thinking processes in a matter of milliseconds. It didn’t fit. That didn’t sound like his mother at all. “Well, then, why didn’t you jump on me eight months ago?”

Even in the dim light he could make out her expression of outrage. “She was right, you do need a beating, the beating of your life—”

“No, kiss me instead.”

“Well … okay.”