Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire (8 page)

Kate had also expressed hope that all the T-800s been destroyed in the explosion. That was one of the reasons, Barnes gathered, why Connor was spending the time and resources to sift through the wreckage. Not just to eliminate any remaining T-600s and T-700s, but also to look for any of the newer models that might have survived.

Maybe one of them had. At least one. And Skynet wanted a genuine Resistance chopper to take it to whatever Resistance group it was planning to infiltrate.

Maybe even Connor’s group.

Barnes bared his teeth. Well, the damn computer wasn’t going to get
this
chopper, anyway. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Williams didn’t even twitch as Barnes climbed carefully back up into the chopper’s cockpit. Either the woman was a lot more tired than he was, or else she simply felt safer with Barnes on watch than he did when she was pulling that duty.

Or else the injury to her leg had driven her into a deeper sleep than usual. He glanced at the limb, feeling a brief flicker of guilt. He’d run her harder that afternoon than he’d probably needed to.

The guilt vanished. She still owed him for that crack about his brother. Lying on his back, he hunched up beneath one of the equipment access covers that Wince had put in and popped it open.

Ten minutes later, he closed it again. He didn’t know anything about chopper electronics, but he knew a jury-rigged circuit when he saw one, and the power wires to the auxiliary fan Wince had installed in the cockpit to help airflow was easy to spot among the mass of other wires.

And as it so often had, Barnes’s pre-Judgment Day expertise in hot-wiring cars had come in handy.

Getting back to his feet, he took one final look at the sleeping Williams. Connor wanted him to forgive her, he knew. Williams probably wanted him to, as well.

But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Not after what she’d done to him.

Not ever.

He climbed back out onto the ground, his boots making little squeaking sounds on the cold sand. He took a moment to give the area around them a careful scan, then headed back out to continue walking his perimeter.

They would follow that cable, just like Williams wanted. Not because she was the pilot and had the final say, but because Skynet was up to something, and there was at least a chance it had to do with the cable.

And when the trail ended, whatever they found at the end of it, he was going to head back to San Francisco to alert Connor about this new T-800 threat. Even if he had to walk.

Even if he had to drag Williams by her sore leg the whole way.

It was a couple of hours before dawn when Jik finally reached the old bridge.

To discover that he was too late. Standing rigidly a meter from the foot of the rickety crossing, its eyes a pair of glowing red embers in the night, was the dark metallic form of a T-700.

For a long minute Jik gazed through the trees at the machine, his mind and heart sinking beneath a bitter wave of defeat. All his hopes and stamina had been focused on this bridge, this frail interweaving of rope and wood. For it to have been so casually snatched away from him was a crushing blow.

Sternly, Jik forced away the emotion. Self-pity was a trap, and he knew better than to let it get hold of him. He’d had more than his share of disappointments and reversals throughout his lifetime, and he’d managed to get over, around, or through every one of them. He’d get around this one, too. All he needed was a little thought, a little planning, and a little ingenuity.

None of which he had at the moment, and none of which he was likely to get until he’d burned some of the fatigue from his mind and body. Taking a final look at the Terminator’s positioning, and the big Heckler & Koch G11 submachinegun gripped in its skeletal hand, he carefully backed away from the river gorge and headed into the deep woods.

A quarter mile away, right where he remembered it, he found the old cabin, looking even more dilapidated than it had forty years ago. The door opened about half a foot and then jammed, and it took some serious sweat and leverage to get it open far enough for him to slip through.

The interior was every bit as dreary as the exterior. To one side was an old cot with deep tears in the canvas, partially covered by a thin mattress that smelled heavily of mold and mildew. Hanging over the cot on a set of hooks was an old rifle of a make and model he didn’t recognize and a thick coil of weathered and fragile-looking rope. To the other side was the cabin’s lone window, broken of course. In the corner between the window and the door was a rusty pot-bellied stove, with a few chunks of firewood lying on the floor nearby.

For a moment Jik looked longingly at the stove and the wood, then turned resolutely away. A roaring fire
would
go a long way toward banishing the cabin’s damp and chill.

But from the looks of the stove and kinked chimney, it would be a tossup as to whether he would asphyxiate himself or simply burn the whole place down. Worse, the smoke might attract the attention of the Terminator by the river. If that happened, smoke inhalation and third-degree burns would be the least of his problems.

Unless, of course, Jik wasn’t actually here at the time...

He felt a tight grin crease his cheeks. The obvious solution to his problem, and he felt like an idiot for not spotting it sooner.

His first impulse was to grab a couple of chunks of wood and get to work. His second, wiser thought was the reminder that racing through an unfamiliar forest after a tiring hike would be a dangerous and stupid thing to do. Particularly given that he might well end up with the Terminator on his tail. The smoke trick would work just as well in the daylight, after he’d gotten a few hours of sleep.

His first task was to get the sodden mattress off the cot and lug it outside. After that came a quick examination of the rifle on the wall. It seemed to be in decent enough shape, though it was impossible to tell what kind of damage might be lurking in its inner workings. It was a moot point, though, since the weapon wasn’t loaded and there was no place in the cabin where a cache of shells might be stored. If push came to shove, he would just have to hope he could make do with the single remaining round in his Smith & Wesson.

Ten minutes later, he was stretched out on the cot, which with all its rips and sags and odors was still the best bed he’d had in a long, long time. He would sleep as long as he could, he decided, then see if a fire in the stove might lure the Terminator away from his post. If it did, he was home free.

If it didn’t... well, he would deal with that when the time came.

Before Judgment Day, Baker’s Hollow had been a tiny flyspeck community whose main function in life was to act as a jumping-off point for hikers, fishermen, and hunters heading further up into the mountains. At its height, it had boasted fifty houses, many of which were bed-and-breakfasts or vacation rentals, a well-stocked general store, an RV parking area, and three guide services. Nearly two hundred people had lived in town during the tourist season, though many of them packed up and left when the first early snows began to fall.

That had been Baker’s Hollow at its height. Now, it was at its depth. Only twenty of the fifty houses remained, the rest having been scavenged for wood and brick to keep the others habitable. The old general store had been turned into a workshop for the metal, cloth, and leather workers. The last remaining guide service office had been converted into a smokehouse for curing deer and elk. The permanent population, including the dribble of people who’d stumbled into town over the years, now sat at eighty-seven.

And better than half of those eighty-seven were waiting outside Preston’s door when he emerged from his house just after sunrise.

Apparently, news of the T-700 at the river had already leaked out.

“Morning, everyone,” he said, nodding as he swept his eyes over the crowd. “Something I can help you with?”

“We hear we’ve got a Terminator,” Duke Halverson said bluntly. As usual, he’d made sure to take up the most prominent position, right in the center of the group and two steps in front of everyone else. “That true?”

“There’s one down by the river, yes,” Preston said. There was no point in denying it—chances were good that Halverson had already checked it out for himself. “It’s on the far side, by the ford.”

“You have a plan for dealing with it?”

“We’re working on one,” Preston told him. “For the moment, it doesn’t seem interested in the town.”

“What happens when it
does
get interested in the town?” Halverson persisted. “What then?”

Preston gave the crowd another, more careful look. Eight of them were hunters, Halverson’s allies, ready to back anything the big man said or proposed. Twelve of the others were Preston’s friends and normally his firm supporters in town disputes. Right now, though, they looked more apprehensive than supportive. The rest were just ordinary citizens of Baker’s Hollow who usually avoided town politics and concentrated on basic survival.

All of them, Halverson included, were frightened. As well they should be.

“If the Terminator decides to head this way,” Preston said, “I’m thinking the prudent thing might be to move out of town for a while.”

“And go where?” Halverson demanded.

“There are a few habitable cabins out there,” Preston reminded him, again looking around. No one seemed any happier than Halverson at the prospect of leaving. “We could split up into small groups, each centered around one of them, and wait until the Terminator leaves.”

“Those cabins won’t hold even a tenth of us,” Halverson pointed out. “What about everyone else? We just going to sleep out on the ground with the coyotes and bears?”

“At least bears don’t usually attack without a reason,” Preston said.

“Yeah.” Halverson gestured, a quick flick of his fingers. “We need to talk.”

“We
are
talking,” Preston said mildly. “But you’re right—it’s a bit brisk out here.” He half turned. “We’d all be more comfortable inside.”

“Just you and me,” Halverson said, striding toward him.

Preston felt his stomach tighten.

“Halverson—”

“Chris, go get my team together and send them over to Ned’s place,” Halverson cut him off, motioning to one of the hunters. “The rest of you, go back to work. We’ll let you know what we decide.”

“Right,” Chris said briskly before anyone else could speak up. “Let’s go, everyone. Clothes and metalwork don’t repair themselves, you know.”

A few troubled looks came Preston’s way as the group broke up. But no one said anything, and a minute later Preston and Halverson were alone.

“Like you said, it’s brisk out here,” Halverson said.

Silently, Preston gestured at the door. Halverson strode past him and went inside. Grimacing, Preston followed.

“This isn’t right, you know,” he warned as Halverson planted himself in the center of the living room and turned to face him. “All decisions are supposed to be run past the council.”

“Do I look like I care?” Halverson retorted, the thin mask of politeness he’d been wearing outside now gone completely. “The council is a bunch of fools. None of them would survive a week on their own.”

“The work they do is important, too.”

Halverson made a face. “Stoves. Clothes. Traps.”

“Hey, Chucker’s bear traps saved your skin at least once,” Preston countered. “And don’t forget medical care, vegetable gardening,
and
replacement arrows for you and the rest of the hunters. You can sneer all you want, but you can’t deny that life in town is easier for you and Ginny than it would be if you were alone out in the wild.”

“I don’t deny it,” Halverson said with a grunt. “But that’s only as long as we’re
in
the town. Once we leave it, the gardeners and stove-fixers aren’t going to be worth much, are they? Not much point in Ginny and me even hanging around if that happens.”

Preston hissed out a sigh. “How many times are you going to do this, Duke?” he asked quietly. “How many times are you going to threaten to take your wife and your friends and walk out if the town doesn’t do what you want?”

“You don’t like me?” Halverson challenged, just as quietly. “Replace me. Until you do, I’ve got a right to speak up the same as anyone else.”

He leveled a finger at Preston.

“But we’re not talking about quotas or crop shares this time. We’re talking about survival. There’s a Terminator sitting on our doorstep, and we damn well have to do something about it.”

“What do you think we’ve just been talking about?”

“What
you’ve
been talking about is giving up,” Halverson said. “Giving up and running away.”

“Only temporarily.”

“Yeah, and isn’t it funny how easy
temporary
turns into
permanent
,” Halverson said with a sniff. “And I’m serious. If we have to give up this town and these buildings, there’s no reason for Ginny and me to stay with the group. I can hunt enough just fine for the two of us.
And
have enough spare time left over to make my own arrows.”

“And if you go, you’ll take Chris and Ned and Trounce with you?”

“Hey, we’re all free citizens,” Halverson said with a shrug. “I don’t speak for anyone except myself.”

But whether he spoke for them or not, Preston knew, most of the town’s best hunters looked up to Halverson. Many of them would follow the same logic he’d just laid out, and desert Baker’s Hollow right alongside him.

Without the hunters, the town was doomed. And when the town died, so would any chance for even a modest degree of civilization here in the mountains.

Preston couldn’t let that happen. No matter what it cost.

“So what’s
your
idea?” he asked, the words stinging in his throat.

“We take the damn thing out,” Halverson said flatly. “Right now.”

Preston winced. He’d been afraid that was where he was going.

“We can’t do that,” he said as calmly as he could. “At the moment it’s not coming after us. We attack it, and that’ll change.”