C.24
July, Present Day—Saturday Morning
Judgment Day
Scott’s Shooting Range
Linda went flat on the cold tarpaulin. The shout had come from the direction of the shooting range’s office. She crawled to that side of the tower and peered through the hole they’d drilled there.
There was nothing, no movement. Then she detected something just at the verge of her vision, one or two figures moving through a stand of trees that ran from near the office to near Silhouette City. She got the impression of military uniforms and M16s.
She swore to herself. Danny, in his hideout, might not have heard the shout; he’d be unaware. Worse yet, Scowl doubtless had heard it, which meant the robot would have to decide between investigating it and dealing with the swing-out targets in the convenience store.
She scrambled back to her original position and picked up her walkie-talkie, then hesitated. If these military folk were monitoring radio frequencies, her transmission might be overheard. Worse yet, Scowl might detect her as a transmission source.
One problem at a time. She’d warn Danny in Spanish. The odds that whoever might be listening in was a Spanish speaker were too high to be comfortable, but it was certainly better than transmitting in English. She pressed the mike button.
* * *
In Scowl’s camera view, as viewed on Danny’s laptop, a brightly glowing two-dimensional robber swung in just ahead, partially filling the end of an aisle of the wooden store, and then disintegrated under fire from Scowl’s chain gun.
Then the view retreated as Scowl backed out of the One-Stop Robbery Shop. Its camera view swung around toward the south. The flattened, burning Jungle Out There setup occupied the right third of the camera view; the false bank was straight ahead, the false prison to the left.
What the hell was the Terminator doing? Had Linda activated a second timing sequence prematurely? Danny reached for his walkie-talkie, but it blared in his hand. “Danny, military police are here, they’re shouting for you to come out.” She spoke in Spanish.
Danny’s heart sank. “Dammit.” He could hear Daniel swearing in the background of his mind. Daniel must be able to see through his eyes this time, as he had the last couple of sessions.
He keyed his walkie-talkie. “Hold your position,” he said. “We improvise.”
August 2029
The Grottoes
“That’s not the way it happened,” Mike protested.
John, already clutching the edge of the table beside Daniel’s bed, didn’t much care for the additional uncertainty her statement brought. “What do you mean?”
“There were no Air Force men! We handled Scowl ourselves. Why is it different?”
Lake asked, “Could you have forgotten them?”
Mike fixed her with a stare that might convince a university department head that he was a blithering idiot, but Lake stayed steady, unrelenting under her gaze. “No,” Mike hissed. “Not a chance.”
“Microparadoxes,” Mark said. He stood well back from the bed, ready to step forward and offer technical help whenever asked.
Kate, seated beside John, turned to him. “What?”
Mark said, “What we’ve been doing, fiddling in time through Daniel, it may have been causing all the same sorts of paradoxes we’ve been theorizing about ever since we discovered the Continuum Transporter. Perhaps we’ve made changes that aren’t sufficient to unbuckle history as we know it, nothing like killing Commander Connor in the past would do. But maybe it’s making little changes, little ripples. Too small to change the world as we know it now … so we aren’t affected. Our memories aren’t changed.”
“We aren’t edited,” Daniel said.
“So…” Kate thought it through. “So the presence of the Air Force men doesn’t change anything.”
“For us, maybe,” Daniel said. “Ask them if anything’s changed when they’ve run up against Scowl.”
* * *
The Air Force Security Police personnel moved up, five pairs and one commander. Their leader, 2nd Lieutenant Charles Holden of Iowa City, a newly minted officer, tall and blond and every inch the Hollywood image of a young military leader, refrained from griping about the fact that the enlisted men with him had M16s while he had only an officer’s handgun. Griping seemed a sure way to lose their respect, particularly as they didn’t know him—his orders had been to leave CRS, assemble a unit of men from the Air Force Security Police stationed elsewhere at Edwards, and endlessly patrol portions of 58 between Bakersfield and Mojave. It had been a boring assignment; he’d even suspected that it might be punishment detail until he’d been instructed to come to this site and arrest Daniel Ávila.
He concentrated on moving forward through the trees as quietly as his dress shoes and lack of woodsmanship skills would allow. The men with him, Senior Airman Sam Hardy, a moon-faced black man from Georgia, and Airman Randall Walberg, a rail-skinny white man from Illinois, moved silently and gracefully, and Holden hated them for it.
They got in position at the leading edge of the trees. From here, they could see through the burning stand of wood that had once been painted to resemble a child’s vision of a forest. Past it, they could see the open center section of this portion of the shooting range.
Holden waited another minute, long enough for his other two men to be getting into position. Then he leaned around the tree he had his back to and shouted, “Daniel Ávila, we have you surrounded! Come out with your hands in the air!”
He glanced back at Hardy and Walberg. He couldn’t tell if the men’s eyes reflected amusement or just readiness. He leaned back around to watch the shooting range.
There was a crashing noise, the sound of thin wood breaking away, and something rolled into his view. It was a squat thing on tracks, with a moving head and arms that suggested a rough human configuration. Its paint had originally been white, but was now scarred in several places by black and brown patches.
And it held a weapon in each hand—a chain gun in the right, a submachine gun in the left.
“What the hell is that?” Hardy said, his voice a bare whisper.
Holden froze. That was a T-1 mobile weapons system, a Terminator—no, not quite a T-1, as it was smaller and had articulated arms and hands. But it was something that should not be in the field alone, something the men with him should never have been allowed to see.
Finally, though, things made sense. The Air Force had to be looking for Ávila not because he was off performing a shooting spree—that was a consideration for civilian law enforcement—but because he had made off with a Terminator. Holden changed his mental label for Ávila from “madman” to “traitor,” a far more derogatory term. Maybe Ávila was both.
Well, there was nothing to do about this but cover things up as much as possible. “That’s a missing Air Force weapons platform,” Holden said. “Which no one on this exercise will remember after we deliver it back to Edwards. Ávila’s probably operating it by remote control.”
“Yes, sir.”
Holden took a deep breath and shouted again, “Ávila, have that damned apparatus drop its weapons and put its hands in the sky, or—”
The damned apparatus aimed the chain gun and fired. Holden felt the tree he leaned against shuddering. He ducked fully behind it, but the blows to his back felt like the tree was coming apart.
He scooted down and went flat, dirtying his uniform. Hardy and Walberg were already on the ground. All around the two of them, the forest edge blurred as tree trunks, leafy branches, and undergrowth were ripped to confetti. Holden thrashed around, making himself as small a target as humanly possible, and didn’t realize that he was howling in outrage until the incoming fire stopped.
He choked off his shout and looked at Hardy. The other men’s eyes were round, their pupils tiny.
“What are you waiting for?” Holden said. “Destroy that tin-can piece of shit!”
“Yes, sir.” Walberg sounded dubious. He and Hardy squirmed around, bringing their M16s to bear on the distant target.
Holden raised his voice so that his other men could hear. “Open fire!”
* * *
Even in his hiding place, Danny could hear the gunfire. He sat, frozen by indecision, as the muffled reports banged at the plywood across the top of his hideout. He’d seen the officer’s face clearly in Scowl’s camera view before the shooting started.
He didn’t know these men.
They were going to be killed.
They’d be dead anyway in a day. If he exposed himself to help them, he’d probably die and accomplish nothing.
Your head’s a mess, kid.
“I bet yours is worse.” Danny shoved up on the plywood over his head. He hurled it away. Sunlight spilled across him and he stood up in the waist-deep pit he and Linda had dug last night.
The pit was to one side of the gap between the two decrepit cars in the Silhouette City area called License Land. When Danny stood, he could see through the gap between them, see across Gopherville, look straight at Scowl’s backside. Beyond Scowl, the remains of Jungle Out There were being riddled by gunfire, as was the stand of trees in the distance.
He could call Scowl to him. That might still successfully set up what they had in mind for the Terminator. But it didn’t give them enough time for the other part of their mission. He glanced down at his laptop screen. His initial packet had been uploaded to Scowl, and the indicator bar showed that the connection to Edwards was still open, but his program was still trying to negotiate its way into one of Skynet’s back doors. He needed more time.
But there were men under fire out there now. Danny waved his hands, shouted, “Terminator! I’m here! Danny Ávila! Come and get me!”
Scowl turned to look at him.
* * *
Linda peeked through the hole overlooking Silhouette City. She could see Scowl firing … and Danny standing far behind it, waving.
She couldn’t hear his words. The roar from Scowl’s chain gun was too loud. But other than turning, Scowl didn’t react to Danny’s presence, not yet. When it did, it would kill him.
* * *
Scowl churned through its available options.
It was no longer operating under a mandate that it eliminate any human that witnessed it. Therefore it did not have to divert from its prime goal long enough to kill all the humans who had just arrived in its vicinity.
But they were armed, and sustained fire with the assault rifles stood a good chance of damaging Scowl. Therefore it must reduce their ability to harm it. Only then could it return to kill Ávila.
It turned away from Ávila and rolled forward, angling around the burning mound of wood through which it had entered Skeet Range, and began firing at heat traces as it detected them. From here, it could detect nine distinct blobs of heat that corresponded to organisms of human size or larger; several of them could have represented multiple humans.
No—cycling through its visual capabilities, it realized that the two largest heat sources were vehicles parked near Scowl’s own van near the building closest to the road. It calculated a high probability that the Humvee and the military truck there had acted as transport for the humans now shooting at it, and an equally high likelihood that one or both of them contained communications gear superior to any the humans might be individually carrying.
Scowl ignored the humans for another moment, rolled farther away from Skeet Range, and laid down a burst of fire against the truck and then the Humvee.
The truck’s front end was quickly shredded and the vehicle ignited. The Humvee was more durable. Scowl continued to pour rounds into it.
* * *
Senior Airman Tom Begay, USAF, his M16 across his back, quickly climbed the ladder permanently affixed to the observation tower. The robot, facing the other way and destroying the two transports, hadn’t detected his dash to the tower’s base and still hadn’t turned around. He was certain that he could make the top before it finished with the vehicles, certain that he’d be able to act as a spotter for his unit from the altitude of the tower platform.
As he climbed the last five feet, he willed the robot not to spin and look at him. It would not. It would not.
He heaved himself up over the lip of the tower platform’s waist-high wall, tilting forward into what would be a controlled roll onto the platform floor.
But there was someone there, a blond woman in dark clothes. He got only a glimpse of her. She was right in front of him. She grabbed his hair and yanked him prematurely into his roll. With a shout, Begay crashed back-first onto a cold, irregular surface.
He threw up an arm—too late. The woman’s hand, holding a handgun, banged down onto his skull.
He felt the first blow. He got his other hand up but she struck him again anyway. This time he saw the pistol butt descend—saw the world jar as it hit him, but did not feel the blow. The third time he only saw it begin its descent.
* * *
Linda, sickened by what she’d just had to do, wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand and stared down at the man she’d just battered into unconsciousness.
He was nice-looking, about her age. His coloration and features suggested that he was Native American. His forehead was a bloody mess and his eyes were closed.
She didn’t have time for emotions now. Being sick could cost her. She set the Glock aside, rolled the Air Force man over on his chest, and handcuffed him.
This was wrong, wrong, wrong. Now, in addition to aiding and abetting a known fugitive, stealing munitions, and driving recklessly, she had assaulted a military man who was doing his job.
On the other hand, now she had an M16.
She retrieved both it and the Glock, then scooted back to the hole that looked down on Silhouette City.
She saw what was going on there and cursed. “Damn you, Danny.”
* * *
Danny climbed up out of the pit and continued his shout, but Scowl rolled through the burning Jungle Out There area and disappeared from his sight.
What the hell? It took a moment for Danny to run through the calculations Scowl was probably making.
Danny had to have been reprioritized, placed below the elimination of soldiers with assault rifles on Scowl’s list of priorities. That meant Scowl’s departure was temporary. The Terminator would be back in a minute, probably better equipped to handle its attackers.
Danny growled to himself. He couldn’t save those Air Force men, but he couldn’t stand by and watch them die. It was just like the situation with his future friends.
He dashed forward, following Scowl, and drew his Colt.
* * *
Both Air Force transports were now riddled and fully engaged with fire. Scowl did a slow 360-degree spin, recalculating the locations of its enemies, some of whom were sniping on it again. Scowl calculated from its internal kinetic sensors and audio analyzers that the enemies were firing on him with assault rifles.
One of its enemies was advancing from the direction of Skeet Range. It had a handgun in hand and settled into a posture suggesting that it was about to open fire. It was fully exposed and Scowl could see its features. It did a routine check on its very limited database of photographs and once again confirmed the identity of the enemy as Daniel Ávila.
But the robot’s short-term goal registered him as being less of an immediate threat than the armed enemies. His weapon was less formidable than theirs. It turned its back on Ávila once more and began firing at the others.
* * *
Danny stood at the edge of Jungle Out There, still close enough that he could feel the nearby fire as a wall of heat, and fired at Scowl. Methodically, he put four rounds into Scowl’s back—then five, six—but the robot continued rolling away from him.
The robot had ignored him. He was just too low on its priority list at the moment. But if it remained uninterested in following him, he might not be able to lead it where he needed it to go.
Something whined beside his head. It was a round from one of the embattled Air Force men, forty or fifty yards away; the shooter was in the woods nearly opposite Danny with Scowl between them.
Right. Now he was going to be killed by stray fire from the Air Force. Danny dropped and scuttled on hands and knees behind the minimal cover offered by First National Hostage Supply.
Well, things weren’t as bad as all that. He might not be able to destroy Scowl … but the diversion was giving his program time to complete itself.
* * *
The barrel of the chain gun in Scowl’s hand continued to spin, but the robot observed that no new rounds were emerging from it.
It was out of ammunition. Scowl considered reloading, but decided that the chain gun was only of limited utility against the humans, who were cannily concealing themselves behind hardy trees. Scowl calculated that moving into the stands of trees would limit its own mobility and functionality while doing little to limit the humans. Therefore its best tactic involved neither continued employment of the chain gun nor direct confrontation of the humans.
It turned and headed at maximum speed back to its van.
* * *
“We’ve got it on the run!” Holden said.
Hardy and Walberg looked at him, no longer concealing the fact that they obviously thought he was crazy.
He didn’t care. He was correct. He’d directed sustained, effective fire against the robot unit, and now it was fleeing. But they didn’t say anything. They were obviously bright enough, just barely, to consider what effect insolence might have on their military careers.
He spoke into the chin mike of his headset. “Has anyone spotted Ávila?”
“Lieutenant, Abrams. I think I saw him a moment ago near that burn pile. He went back into the buildings.”
“You and Miller go after him. Everyone else, we’re going after the robot.” He got a chorus of acknowledgments from his men.
But not from the men with him. Hardy said, “Sir, if I can ask—”
“Go ahead.” Holden looked back through the trees toward the shooting range’s office. The stand of trees he and the other two had used as cover was small, isolated from the main tree-line where the other men were emplaced. As soon as they left they’d be exposed. But only a few seconds’ dash away was the nearest edge of the berm of earth used as a backstop by one of the shooting areas.
“I thought our objective was this Ávila guy, and nothing but. And if we get him, we just grab the controls and shut the robot down.”
“Fair enough.” It was true, the capture—dead or alive—of Daniel Ávila was the only objective mentioned on Holden’s orders.
But Holden knew, in spite of what he’d told the others, that Ávila probably wasn’t operating it by remote control; that’s not the way those robots were supposed to work. The man had probably programmed it with a specific set of instructions … meaning that when Ávila was captured, it didn’t automatically mean the Terminator was out of commission.
But he couldn’t tell these men that. He could only tell them a few details and falsehoods, and once they got back to Edwards they were in store for hours’ or days’ worth of debriefing that would convince them they were never, ever to mention the robot again, even to one another.
Holden made his voice harsh. “But that’s not your concern right now. Your concern is obeying orders. We’re going to keep the robot from escaping. We’re going to make a run over to that berm, then use it for cover as we follow the robot. Ready … go.” He stood and ran. A moment later, he heard the two men following him.
They were probably exchanging glances and rolling their eyes. He knew how these enlisted men were, particularly those, like Hardy, who’d been in the service longer than the officers they served. Well, he’d use this mission to teach them a little something about lines of command.
* * *
Scowl reached the van. It didn’t bother entering the vehicle; it grabbed the passenger door and tore it free, revealing the box of weapons and ammunition CRS referred to as its standard urban combat package. Automatically, it replaced the chain gun in its rack and sought out other weapons.
It abandoned the MP5-N submachine gun it had been carrying, gathered up several clips of .223 ammunition and inserted them in a carrying compartment on its back, and then took up an M16A2 assault rifle equipped with an M203 40mm grenade launcher. The weapon looked like the classic M16, but with an additional, very broad barrel beneath its usual barrel.
It was two weapons in one, the first suited to direct fire, the second to indirect fire. The weapon was nearly ideal for the intermediary goal Scowl faced.
Scowl took all the 40mm grenades carried in the ammunition box, loading the first and placing the remainder in another carrying compartment. Then it turned and headed back toward Skeet Range.