Terminator Salvation - The Official Movie Novelization E-Book

Alan Dean Foster

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The official novelization of the much-anticipated movie Terminator Salvation, starring Christian Bale. In a fresh chapter in the Terminator saga, Judgement Day has come to pass and Skynet has destroyed much of the world's population. In this post-apocalyptic world, Resistance fighter John Connor and teenager Kyle Reese continue their brutal fight for survival.

Leseprobe

TERMINATORSALVATION

THE OFFICIALMOVIE NOVELIZATION

ALAN DEAN FOSTER

Based on the motion picture written by

JOHN BRANCATO & MICHAEL FERRIS

TITAN BOOKS

Terminator Salvation: The Official Movie Novelization

ISBN: 9781848569300

Published by

Titan Books

A division of

Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark St

London

SE1 0UP

First edition April 2009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Terminator Salvation: The Official Movie Novelization is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Terminator Salvation™ & © 2009 T Asset Acquisition Company, LLC.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group UK Ltd.

For Brian Thomsen, who would have approved. But who left much too soon. In appreciation and friendship.

The future is not set.I’ve been told I said that once. Many years from now. It was a warning. That I was going to hell. But if I fought hard enough, I could escape. I believed it for a lifetime.

—John Connor

Also available fromTitan Books:

TERMINATORSALVATION

From The AshesThe Official Movie Prequel

By Timothy Zahn

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

Longview State Correctional Facility was no better or worse, no more architecturally attractive or depressing, than any other maximum security prison in the state of Texas, which meant that on the inmates’ gauge of such wretched establishments it fell somewhere between dismal and butt-ugly.

Its residents, both short- and long-term, tended to be as hard and unforgiving as the land atop which their current place of residence had been raised. Few blue-collar criminals dared raise hand or head among the growling populace, whose professional pursuits tended to involve cracking heads as opposed to persuading them.

Or to put it another way, Longview was home to far more head-crackers than crackheads.

Among the former could be accounted a certain highly antisocial specimen named Marcus Wright. Regrettably, for much of his life Wright had been in the wrong. At the moment, he was sitting on a cot in a small piece of concrete hell staring at the wall opposite. The vision of flecking stone and cement had nothing particular to recommend it, but it beat gazing at any of the three men standing nearby. Two wore uniforms, the third did not.

No, he corrected himself. That wasn’t quite true. All three wore uniforms. It was depressing for Wright to look at them because two stood on the other side of the welded iron bars that confined him in his current cage and the third could exit at any time. Society preferred to call his present, and increasingly transitory, home a “cell.” Wright knew better. Both were four-letter words.

Two of the free individuals were guards. Armed and holding metal shackles, they kept a wary eye on the proceedings taking place on the other side of the bars. Their posture and expressions reflected the preoccupations of hard men who are fully conscious of the fact that any relaxation in the carrying-out of their daily routine could result in pain, injury, or death. They hadn’t acquired their current positions within Longview because those of neurosurgeon and rocket scientist were unavailable.

It wasn’t that they were ignorant: just that in their chosen line of work muscle and physical agility were more critical to continued survival than the mental kind. Not that this usually mattered. With few exceptions, their cranial capacity normally exceeded that of those they were expected to dominate.

Normally.

The third member of the triumvirate standing just inside the cell door defined himself through his words, though having attended to many present and former residents of the prison he too had inevitably been toughened by the experience. Over the years his recitation of the traditional biblical standards had devolved into a monotone tinged more by a lingering, bastard hope than actual expectation.

While the priest’s optimism in the face of the brutality human beings could render unto one another had never been entirely quashed, it had been repeatedly squeezed and pummeled by a demoralizing range of harsh realism until it bore little resemblance to what one could expect to hear asserted on The Outside.

His faith was punch-drunk.

“Yea,” he intoned mechanically, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

Stupid, Marcus Wright thought. Stupid and redundant. Why would I be afraid of myself? Wasn’t he evil incarnate? Hadn’t that asshole of a judge told him so, and hadn’t he had it confirmed by a smarmy, quivering public? If that was their verdict on him, then it had to be true, didn’t it? He’d long ago lost any desire to dispute society’s judgment. That much he had in common with the concrete wall at which he was presently staring. Both of them were solid, impenetrable, blank-faced, and mute. If the wall could accept its fate in silence, so could he.

“...for thou art beside me.”

The priest droned on. Why couldn’t the man just shut up? Wright wondered silently to himself. Why would he, why would anyone, spend one minute longer in the bowels of this gray cesspool of decomposing humanity than they had to?

“Thy rod and thy staff comfort me.”

Now that was a homily Wright felt he could get behind. Give me a rod and a staff, he thought with grim humor, and then you better get out of my way. Give me a chance...

One thing about hard polished floors and solid enclosed corridors: they make for excellent acoustics. This can be unpleasant when someone is screaming incessantly, an activity not uncommon at Longview. The construction can also magnify ordinary footsteps, and this was the sound that caused Wright to give a cursory glance in the direction of the outside.

An instant later his full attention had shifted from the immovable wall to an approaching waist. His suddenly alert eyes proceeded to rove silently over everything both above and below that gently bobbing dividing line.

The guards looked, too. Visitants like Dr. Serena Kogan were rare in Longview. Her title was not what interested them, though Wright’s reaction was more conflicted than they would have suspected. Long used to such blatant testosterone-fueled stares, Kogan ignored them.

Still in her thirties, she was unconventionally beautiful. Part of this was due to the nature of her work, which gave her an aspect of perfection that was partly the result of intense concentration. Uncharacteristically, desperation announced itself in the slight gauntness of her face and the tightness of her lips. It detracted from her beauty only slightly.

Halting outside his cell, she looked in and met Wright’s gaze without flinching. The ensuing silence between them spoke, if not volumes, at least a word or two. He looked up at the priest.

“Leave.” Emerging from the prisoner’s mouth, it was plainly a command and not a request.

His State-supported visitor gestured hesitantly with the Bible he held.

“I’m not finished, son.”

Wright’s gaze shifted from wall to uninvited confessor. His stare was, arguably, more unyielding than the concrete. It was not necessary for him to respond—verbally.

As pragmatic as he was well-meaning, the priest got the message. As the heavy metal door was pulled back he did not even glance in the direction of the new arrival. He was lost in his own thoughts, which were not as comforting as he would have liked.

One of the guards managed to raise his gaze from the rest of Serena Kogan to her face long enough to give her a warning nod.

If you need us, me and my buddy are right here, his expression said, while the look on his colleague’s face added, Don’t do anything to need us.

As the cell door slid shut behind her, awkwardness substituted for a casual greeting. Disinterested at the best of times in casual chatter, Wright regarded her wordlessly. The silence between them threatened to grow as wide as the gap between their respective social positions.

“How are you?” she finally murmured.

In the troglodytic confines of the cell the query was at least as funny as the paramount punchline of a highly paid stand-up comedian.

“Ask me again in an hour,” Wright replied coldly.

With the silence but not the unease broken, her attention wandered to the cell’s small desk. It boasted little in the way of accoutrements save for a single tome: Beyond Good and Evil. Not exactly light reading, but she was pleased to see it.

“You got the book I sent.”

Wright wasn’t one to comment on the obvious. For all he mouthed in response he might have read the volume through, or he might have used the pages for toilet paper. His expression gave no clue. And they were both running out of options.

“I thought I’d try one last time.” In the dim light of the cell her pale skin gleamed like the sun he could no longer see. “Beg, really.”

No smile, no frown. Same monotone, same unreadable expression.

“You should’ve stayed in San Francisco,” he muttered. “Situations reversed, I would have.”

She stared at him a moment longer, then moved deliberately over to the desk. From the slim case she carried she removed a sheaf of neatly bound papers, set them on the battered, scored surface, and added a pen. Per entrance regulations, the pen had a soft tip. Her voice strengthened.

“By signing this consent form you’d be donating your body to a noble cause. You’d have a second chance, with your last act, to do something for humanity. It’s an opportunity that’s not offered to everyone in your position.”

He looked up at her.

“You know what I did. I’m not looking for a second chance.”

She hesitated, then picked up the pen and papers. Her slender hands were shaking, and not because of his nearness. Having corresponded with her, he knew at least part of the reason why.

“’Course, I’m not the only one with a death sentence, am I? Life’s funny that way. You think by signing those papers I’m going to help cure your cancer, Dr. Kogan?”

She stiffened slightly.

“We’re all going to die, Marcus. Sooner or later, everyone dies, every thing dies. People, plants, planets, stars—everything. In the scheme of things my life, your life, none of them matter. We’re here for a minute or two; we eat, laugh, and screw around, and then we’re gone.”

She snapped her fingers.

“Like that. I’m not worried about myself. I’m worried about the future of the human race.”

He appeared to ponder her response, then nodded slowly.

“Like I should care about the future of the human race. Like anyone should. It produced me, didn’t it?” He went silent for another moment, then declared, “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll sell it to you. My body.” He looked down at himself and the disgust in his voice was unmistakable. “This...”

It wasn’t the final reply she had expected.

“’Sell’ it? For what?”

He looked up at her again, meeting her gaze evenly. A glint of life had appeared amid the emptiness in his eyes. Or maybe it was just the angle of the overhead lights.

“A kiss.”

Her lower jaw dropped slightly and she gaped at him.

“Are you trying to be funny?”

He shrugged diffidently.

“I’m not funny even when I try.” Extending one arm, he indicated his surroundings. “Not much to joke about here. Well?” His other hand tapped his chest. “You want the merchandise or not?”

“You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

“Last guy thought I was kidding didn’t have a chance to revise his opinion.”

She swallowed. Her gut was riven with inoperable tumors. She had something to gain and absolutely nothing to lose. When you’re dying, it’s amazing how swiftly abstract notions like self-respect and dignity are reduced to useless platitudes. She set the pen and papers back on the desk, then turned back to him and nodded. Her arms dropped to her sides. She looked like a woman facing a firing squad.

For the first time since the priest had come and gone, Wright rose from the cot. Standing, he looked a lot taller, a lot bigger. The emotional as well as physical threat he represented extended out in all directions from his powerful frame. Just being in his vicinity was disturbing.

Outside the cell, the two veteran guards saw what was happening and immediately moved closer to the door. One gripped the handle in anticipation. But they had been told not to interfere unless it became absolutely necessary.

Wright moved closer to her. She held her ground. Slowly, taking his time, he leaned toward her. Over her. Before the guards could get inside he could reach up and snap her neck like a desiccated broomstick, and they both knew it.

Bending down, he kissed her.

His hands rose to hold the sides of her face as he held the contact. There was not a shred of sexual attraction, of romance, of tenderness, in the kiss. It was ugly and violating and psychologically—if not physically—brutal. While it continued her eyes were shut tight, and not with pleasure.

He held it for a long time.

Alternately repulsed and bemused, the guards looked on but made no move to intervene. Already they were imagining how they were going to tell the story to their cohorts. Later, over hot coffee and sweet pastries.

***

The unwieldy clinch continued until Wright had had enough. Maybe he simply grew bored. Or maybe he had sufficiently demonstrated what he could do if he wanted to. Letting go of her he stepped back, studying her face. Looking through her. When he finally spoke, his tone was atypically thoughtful.

“So that’s what death tastes like.”

Though she tried, her expression did not kill him. In any case, that was the State’s responsibility.

Stepping past her, he picked the pen up off the desk. Without so much as a glance at the pages of extensive legalese, he signed where indicated. He could have misspelled his name, could have signed “George Washington,” could have done any number of things to render the process legally invalid. Instead, he wrote “Marcus Wright” in clear, legible letters. A deal was a deal, and he felt he had gotten his money’s worth.

Putting down the pen he turned to the corridor and turned his hands palm upwards, showing them to the guards. The one whose grip had never left the door handle now pulled the metal barrier wide while his partner hefted the leg shackles he was carrying. No explanation was necessary.

It was time.

Stepping out of the cell Wright stood stolidly, staring at the far wall of the corridor. It was a relief to be out of the cage. Even if it was just to be in the corridor. Even if it was for the last time. He did not move, nor offer any resistance as the guard methodically snapped the shackles shut around his ankles. Their weapons and training notwithstanding, he knew he could have taken both of them. They probably knew it too, just as all three of them knew that if he made any kind of hostile move he would never get out of the corridor alive, and that his demise would assuredly be less swift and probably more painful than the one that had been adjudicated by the State.

While his legs were being secured, Kogan was studying the papers. At once satisfied and relieved she tucked them carefully, almost reverentially, into her carry case. Only then did she exit the cell and stand to one side, gazing at the stone-faced Wright.

“You’re doing something very noble.”

He looked back at her. “I’m dying for my sins and letting you slice up my body until there’s nothing left of me. Not that there’d be anybody to visit a grave if I was going to one. Yeah, I’m a regular hero.”

“You don’t understand. This is the beginning of something wonderful.”

“No. It’s the end of something miserable.”

The guard who had put on the leg shackles made a final check of each before straightening. He and his colleague exchanged a glance. Then the other man nodded at the prisoner.

“Let’s go. It’s time.”

Since there was no way to disguise the death chamber, and no reason to do so, no State had ever made the attempt. Pastel colors would have seemed out of place, any kind of décor beyond what was necessary and required would only be condescending. The room was spare, empty, as functional as a coal bin or a crankshaft.

There was a bulletproof glass partition. One side featured seats reserved for the invited: witnesses, the media, family members of the condemned’s victims. The other side was reserved for death.

Many executions were attended only by those necessary to carry out the will of the people. Not Marcus Wright’s. While not drawing the fervor of a seventeenth-century public beheading, it was the capital punishment equivalent of a full house.

Serena Kogan was among the spectators. Not because her presence was required, but because for reasons known only to herself she felt incumbent to be present.

Flanked by the ever-attentive guards, the prisoner shambled in on his own power. Too many had to be dragged, or sedated beforehand.

Not Wright.

Aided by the guards, the execution team took over. Guiding him firmly, they positioned him on his back on the gurney. As wrist and ankle shackles were removed, thick leather straps were buckled across his body and carefully tightened. At the moment of truth, powerful men who had been calm and even boastful beforehand had been known to fly into violent, uncontrollable convulsions. It was why the straps had been made strong enough to hold down a bucking steer.

As the team continued its silent, methodical work, Longview’s warden spoke from where he was standing nearby. He did not say much. This was neither the time nor the place for idle chatter.

“Final words?”

Lying on the gurney as others labored silently and efficiently around him, Wright considered. He never had been very good with words. Maybe if he had been better with them than with his fists.... Too late for that now. Too late for any sort of recriminations. He would have shrugged, had the straps allowed it.

“I killed a man who didn’t deserve it. Fair’s fair. So let it rip.”

In his years at Longview the warden had heard it all. It was not an eloquent farewell, but neither had the prisoner given in to hysteria. For that the warden was grateful. The process was no less distasteful for having become rare. It was always better when it was not messy.

A technician swabbed Wright’s arm with alcohol. Turning his head to watch, he wondered about that. What, were they afraid he might get an infection? There was barely a twinge when the IV was inserted. The tech was very good at his job and the needle going in didn’t hurt at all. Wright was unaccountably grateful.

His eyes began to move rapidly, taking in his surroundings and the rest of the chamber. Everything appeared suddenly new and heightened. The color of the technicians’ coats. The blue of a guard’s eyes. The intensity of the overhead lights. There was something else new, too. For the first time in the prisoner’s eyes, fear.

Off to one side a technician adjusted a valve. Fluid began to flow through the tube that now ran into Wright’s arm. The tube was plastic, the liquid transparent. It looked like water.

His eyes moved faster. Monitors showed that his heart rate had increased sharply, along with his breathing. There was no pain save the pain of realization. Along with the chemicals, he suddenly realized how badly he wanted to live. He wanted to fight back, needed to struggle. But he could not. The lethal cocktail was already taking hold, doing its work, shutting down system after system. Nervous, respiratory, circulatory, end of story.

He would have screamed but could not.

Overhead, the light was bright and white. Clean, cleansing. Faintly, as thoughts and mind and the remnants of consciousness slowly slipped away, he fought to compose a final, last thought. It was not about the things he had done that had led him to this place and this point in time. It was not of happier days, or of how his life had gone astray and might have been changed for the better. It was not of food or of sex or laughter or sorrow.

It was of that last kiss, and how he might have done it better.

CHAPTER TWO

Animals appear and thrive and then go extinct. Plants cover ground like a green blanket, retreat, and return with greater fecundity. Life expands, contracts, shatters and recovers, sometimes falling to the margins of survival.

But the Earth endures. No matter the number of species that swarm its surface or fall victim to flood, earthquake, plague, tectonic drift, or cosmic catastrophe, the planet continues its methodical swing around its unprepossessing yellow star. The waves of the ocean roll on, the molten iron at its core seethes and bubbles, winds fitful or steady continue to scour its surface. Ice forms and retreats at the poles, rains drench the equator, and heat shimmers above its deserts.

One such desert in the south-central part of the continent called North America was about to receive a momentary upsurge in heat that was not normal.

The missile came in low and fast on a trajectory designed to evade even the most advanced detection systems. The warhead it carried contained considerably more bang than would have been suspected at first glance. Guided by both its programming and its internal sacrificial intelligence elements, it skimmed along the surface so low that it was forced to dodge the occasional tree and still-standing power transmission tower.

Its target was a flat, burnt-out plain from which dozens of huge satellite dishes rose like shelf coral on a reef. The only sign of life in this technological forest of parabolic growths was a single bipedal figure. Marching at a steady, untiring pace among the dishes, it occasionally reached up to reposition the oversized rifle that was slung over one shoulder.

A sound drew its attention. Turning, searching the sky, it quickly focused on the incoming ordinance. Slipping the heavy weapon free, it aimed and fired with exceptional speed and precision. A shell struck one of the missile’s fins, knocking it off-heading—but only for an instant. The weapon’s internal self-governing guidance system instantly corrected course.

Even as the projectile inclined downward toward a patch of bare ground in the center of the expansive array, the guard was lining up his weapon to fire again. It was not at all concerned with what was about to happen to it.

The bunker-buster slammed into the earth with a thunderous whoom! The guard staggered, gathered himself, and prepared to aim his weapon again. Except that now there was only a hole in the ground to show where the missile had burrowed deep.

Then the world erupted in fire and sound as the warhead, having reached a preset depth, detonated.

Dirt and pulverized rock vomited skyward. Along with everything else in the immediate vicinity of the blast, the single guard was thrown helplessly skyward. He landed hard, rolled over, tried to rise, and sank back to the ground. Heat and flame had melted away skin to reveal the skull beneath. It should have shown white.

Instead, it gleamed.

Red eyes flickered.

Battling against the terrible damage it had sustained in the blast, the T-600 struggled to rise. Directives screamed for response. Servos whined and hydraulics pumped. But internal mechanics had been mortally impacted. That did not keep the Terminator from trying to stand.

Oblivious to the dogged determination of the severely impaired bipedal machine below, a flight of A-10 Warthogs roared past overhead, coming in low and slow. Unlovely and deadly, disdaining the sleek aerodynamics of much faster but less lethal aircraft, they began chewing up the ground in front of them with heavy cannon fire and rockets.

Instead of governmental insignia that had long since ceased to have meaning or validity, they were clad in a riot of colors and flurry of graffiti that reflected the tastes and attitudes of those who flew and serviced them: all of it wild, much of it obscene.

Popping up out of the ground, a single anti-aircraft weapon tracked, took aim, and fired. Striking one of the Warthogs behind its armor and hitting the vulnerable rear-mounted engines, it blew the Resistance fighter out of the sky. Before it could zero in on a second attacker, another aircraft hit it with a guided bomb that left only a smoking crater where the defensive weapon had once stood.

As the Warthogs whirled and danced overhead to provide cover, a flurry of helicopters appeared. Touching down, they began to disgorge squads of Resistance fighters clad in a mismatched array of uniforms, hunting gear, and civilian clothes. The attackers were armed with a hodgepodge of unusually hefty weapons that were as varied as the mix of military and civilian choppers that had transported them. Not one of the assault group would have passed muster in a proper military parade. On the other hand, all of them were alive.

One of the helicopter’s landing skids set down directly on the skull of the T-600 that had been patrolling the dish array, crushing the metal and pressing it deep into the ground. Reacting automatically to the proximate presence of human feet, the crippled killing machine still struggled to strike back. Its critically damaged servos whined loudly.

A narrow metal tube made contact with the red-eyed skull: the barrel of a rifle. A single large-caliber shot blew half the glistening cerebellum off, sending it flying and bouncing to one side. Exposed to the light, internal circuitry flared, fizzled, and went dark.

John Connor regarded the lifeless T-600, waiting to make certain it was good and dead. The damn things had a dangerous habit of simulating death and then leaping up to bite you in the ass. This one, though, was good and demised. He lifted his gaze as another Warthog sputtered past overhead, trailing smoke. He did not look around as the weary but determined figure of Captain Jericho approached.

“Are you Connor?”

Grunting something unintelligible, Connor looked up.

“The John Connor?” Even as he addressed the other man, Jericho was keeping a wary eye on their immediate surroundings. “The guy who, according to the plan, was supposed to land his unit on the ridgeline and hump it in?”

Connor’s gaze met the captain’s.

“The plan was no good.”

Jericho looked as though he was about to say something else, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Connor’s unit. Spilling out of a nearby chopper, they assembled behind their leader and focused their attention on him.

“Trouble?” The grizzled trooper who spoke shifted his gaze from Connor to the captain.

Connor let his eyes linger a moment longer on Jericho. Over the last several years of fighting, the term “chain of command” had been transformed into an expletive that had more in common with the traditional SNAFU than with actual military procedure.

“No, no trouble. Let’s go.”

Jericho watched as Connor’s team joined the others in racing to the rim of the gaping breach the first missile had opened in the ground. There was plenty he still wanted to say. Wisely, he said nothing.

Leaning over to peer cautiously into the cavernous maw, one of Connor’s men declared with assurance if not eloquence, “That is one big-ass hole in the ground.”

“Wonder what’s down there?” His neighbor nudged him, just enough to unsettle but not unbalance his companion.

The other man snorted. “Want to bet we’re gonna find out?”

General Olsen was young for his rank and older than his years. Unrelenting combat had aged him. To save one soldier’s life he would throw procedure out the window. Now, in concert with his troops, he too found himself peering down into a darkness than was as metaphorical as it was literal.

“Make no mistake, men. We don’t have a goddamn clue what’s waiting for us down there. Hell, for sure. But what kind of hell we don’t know and we need to find out.” He glanced back. “So I need a volunteer—”

He broke off as a shape went shooting past him, seemed to hang in the air above the pit for a long second, and then went arcing downward. Like a spider’s silken support strand, a single braid of climbing cable trailed from Connor’s harness, glistening in the desert sunlight.

Away from the edge of the abyss, one of his men kept a watchful eye on the link where the other end of the cable had been secured to a twisted, seared hunk of aircraft debris.

Unable to decide whether to curse or cheer at Connor’s unhesitating initiative, Olsen settled for waving at the clusters of men who stood gawking at the younger man’s rapid descent into darkness.

“All right, single file! Everyone after Connor! Let’s go, go go!”

Swinging slightly at the end of the cable, Connor could not hear the general. Pulling a flare from his service belt and igniting it, he tossed it outward. It sank into blackness, revealing only fleetingly the extent of the underground labyrinth that marched off in all directions. The subterranean facility was enormous. Like the others, he had expected it to be sizable, but this was far beyond anything they had been led to expect.

He hung quietly at the end of his tether, not making a sound, waiting for his fellow spider-soldiers to join him.

Jet swings gave them access to the side corridors. One by one, individual teams fanned out into the depths of the vast complex.

The human infection is coming, Connor thought with satisfaction as he led his men into one flooded tunnel. Waist-deep in water, he took his usual position at point. Other team leaders preferred to stay in the rear or move forward only when surrounded by their troops. Not Connor. He looked forward to leading the way physic-ally as well as tactically. It was a decision that had taught him something early on: Soldiers are far more likely to follow a leader who actually leads.

Weapons at the ready, David and Tunney hung close behind. As they advanced, David was muttering under his breath. Connor knew why but said nothing. David didn’t mind dirt, wasn’t afraid of action, would take on half a dozen enemy all by himself without bothering to call for backup—but he couldn’t swim. Not normally a cause for concern in the southwestern deserts, and yet here he was up to his collywobbles in water.

Tunney flanked David, and Connor suspected it was all he could do to restrain himself from commenting on his partner’s obvious discomfort.

The burrower bomb had done its work well. Ceilings had collapsed throughout the tunnel, unattended flames ate at advanced instrumentation, and the distinctive red lighting typical of Skynet environments flickered unsteadily. Connor would have been perfectly happy to see it all wink out, turn black and lifeless. If that happened, he and his men had come equipped with adequate illumination of their own.

The percussive chorale of distant gunfire echoed faintly through the corridor they were probing. Evidently some of the other squads were encountering more than just dim lighting and broken plumbing.

Something stirred the water behind them, and it wasn’t a consequence of collapsing infrastructure. By the time the T-1 was half out of the water both David and Tunney were whirling on it. It was David who got off the necessary burst. Shards of metal and carbon fiber splinters went flying as the would-be assassin was blown apart.

“Hey bro, I thought it was my turn.” With the muzzle of his own weapon, Tunney nudged a floating scrap of Terminator.

David shrugged. “Gotta be faster than that, Ton. I’m going for a new high score. But I’ll sit back and watch while you take out the next two.”

His partner grinned tightly. “’Preciate it, bro. Anyway, if you’re going for T-1s, you’re not even in the game.”

“Over here.” Connor interrupted, calling to them from just up ahead. Instantly the two soldiers were all business again.

Shouldering his weapon, Connor used both hands to tug on the large handle of a heavy door set in the tunnel wall. It refused to budge. Another man might have put a foot on the door to gain leverage or asked his companions to assist. Having better things to do and insufficient time in which to do them, Connor instead removed a brick of C-4 from his backpack, followed it with ignition cord and a detonator. In his hands the complete explosive package came together like a pizza in Naples. Clustering nearby, his team looked on in admiration.

“Don’t lose any fingers there, Chief.” Nervousness was apparent in the voice of one of the younger soldiers as he watched Connor’s fingers fly. A far more relaxed David glanced back at the concerned speaker.

“Shit, Connor’s been a Class A terrorist his whole life. How many fingers is he missing? Right—none. Only thing getting blasted here is that door.” Turning, he started wading back the way they had come. “Might want to put a little distance between you and the show. Otherwise you might lose face.”

As soon as everyone had cleared, Connor set the timer and sprinted to join them. Time passed with interminable slowness before another soldier could not keep from whispering.

“I know how experienced he is, but it’s sopping down here and mayb....”

The thunder of the C-4 was magnified by the narrowness of the corridor. The effect was not unlike hearing a dozen trumpets sound off all at once—with the listener crammed inside one of the instruments.

Several of the soldiers flinched. Not Connor or his two backups, Tunney and David. The explosion was just one more peroration in an interminable concert scored for instruments that consisted of expressively volatile compounds. Even before the air had cleared, Connor was leading them forward.

The room they entered was large and filled with smoke. While the haze was already dispersing, it was still difficult to see. Difficult enough so that Connor slipped on something and nearly fell. Looking down, he expected to see more water. Instead, the liquid underfoot was dark and sticky. For an instant he held onto the hope that it might be machine oil. But the color was wrong, too red.

The blood was reasonably fresh.

New sounds distracted him. For the first time since he and his squad had entered the complex they heard voices other than their own. The strongest of them was subdued, the weakest barely audible. Moans and pleas. Reaching down to his belt, he pulled and ignited another flare and lobbed it forward. It lit up the still diffusing mix of smoke, debris, evaporating liquid—and cages.

The voices were coming from multiple knots of humanity who had been packed with inhuman lack of concern into numerous holding pens. As Connor and his men drew close, hands extended toward them. His gaze flicked over pleading faces, gaunt bodies.

Some of the internees were in the last stages of exhaustion or starvation.

Tunney surveyed the unfortunate detainees with a jaundiced eye. As he contemplated a situation that, based on experience, made no sense, movement at the far end of the room caused him and his companions to hastily raise their weapons.

Almost as quickly, they relaxed. David even smiled. A larger compliment of their colleagues had broken into the chamber from another corridor.

Pushing his way through the internment area, Connor forced himself to ignore the pleading and extended hands. He was making his way toward a set of illuminated screens that fronted compact consoles. The latter, thankfully, were still functioning—but for how much longer it was impossible to tell. One thing he did know—they’d better work quickly. Hefting his communicator, he spoke into the pickup.

“Olsen, objective located. There’s something else you have to see.” Putting up the hand unit, he moved to the computation complex.

The general arrived soon after. Taking one glance at the glowing, living complex, he turned and barked a name.

“Barbarossa!”

Immediately, the team’s lead technician hurried to join the two men. Soldiers moved around them, sealing the location. The tech halted, stunned by what he was seeing.

“Come on, man,” Olsen prodded him. “We don’t know how much time we’re going to have here. Get to work.” Nodding silently and slightly dazed, the tech drew his battlefield laptop and began fumbling with a handful of cables. Down here they didn’t dare risk broadcasting their presence or any attempt at entry by trying for an over-the-air hookup.

“Spread out,” Olsen told his troops. “Secure the perimeter.” He pointed. “I’ve got a big gap over here. We’re busy and I’m not in the mood for any surprises.” Turning back to the silently watching Connor, he lowered his voice. “Why didn’t we know about this?”

The tech chief interrupted him.

“I’m in. Looks like the central server cluster. I think it’s still intact.” Like a wasp assaulting a termite hive, he tore into the protective programming to expose still active links, circuitry diagrammatics, relays. Some of it was like nothing they had ever seen before, incredibly advanced and distressingly incomprehensible. Some of it was familiar.

Enough of it was familiar.

Overall, the hack was accomplished with admirable speed. Imagery soon filled the brightly lit screen directly opposite the three men. There were no pictures, no accompanying music. No video and no shout-outs. It was all code and schematics, cold and disciplined. Sometimes it read right to left, sometimes top to bottom. Over time, the techs had learned how to interpret Skynet-speak.

So had Connor.

If you’re going to understand an enemy, you have to know how to speak its language.

“Here we go.” Barbarossa muttered as a flood of information began to spill across the screen. “Seems that these people here were to be taken to the northern sector for some kind of R and D project.” His fingers danced across the portable keyboard in front of him.

“There’s more.”

Something on the screen caught Connor’s attention.

Olsen turned. “Hardy! Front and center!”

Connor ignored the general, his attention focused on the screen and the tech chief.

“Wait. Go back.”

Barbarossa hesitated, realized who had made the appeal, and immediately complied. Connor’s eyes widened as the section he had requested reappeared and was played back more slowly. David crowded close to his commander for a better look.

“Jesus, Connor,” he muttered, “it’s just like you said it would be.”

“No.” Connor exhaled sharply. “It’s not. It’s worse.” He nodded at the tech. “Okay, I’ve seen what I needed to see. Resume.”

Noticing that Connor was paying attention to the readouts rather than the prisoners, the impatient Olsen turned back to him.