Losenko looked back and shrugged, more indifferent than bemused.
“Some unknown. A civilian named Kyle Reese.”
The infirmary was crowded—the infirmary was always crowded. Doctors and nurses, general services technicians, soldiers and supply personnel surged back and forth like the tide, according to whether wounded were incoming or those that had been adequately treated were being moved out. It was a routine that, while far from comfortable, had at least become familiar.
Then John Connor walked in.
Initial feelings of relief and even joy turned rapidly to sorrow as one by one those present realized that he was alone. Hopes that there might be surviving wounded elsewhere vanished with his continuing silence. Had there been other survivors of the mass assault on the Skynet VLA, he would by now have said so.
Approaching the new arrival, a lieutenant with “BARNES” stitched across his shirt spoke for everyone in the room when he inquired softly, “My brother didn’t make it, did he?”
Connor put a hand on the man’s shoulder. He knew Barnes, just as he knew everyone who was permanently assigned to the base.
“I’m sorry.”
Pain flushed the noncom’s face. In lieu of tears he replied, fighting to keep a rising quiver out of his voice.
“If he died fighting with you, he died well.”
Connor nodded, dropped his hand, and pushed on. There was nothing more to be said and nothing else he could do.
In her work among the wounded and the dying, Kate Connor had become entirely too conversant with the persistence of bloodstains. She had long ago given up trying to keep her scrubs spotless. No one expected it of her and, at several months pregnant, she had neither the energy nor the inclination to try. She had rather more important issues to focus on.
Like the man washing his face at the sink.
Raising his head, Connor stared at his face in the mirror. Both of them were used, beaten up, slightly cracked. Lifting his hands, he wiped at the beads of liquid on his skin. Kate came up behind him.
“Do you want to talk about him, John? You haven’t said anything about him.” He looked over at her. “About Kyle.”
Turning, he nodded toward the doorway.
“He’s out there, somewhere. Alone, I would imagine. And Skynet is hunting him.” He toweled off his face. She was with him, but he was still alone. His gaze met hers.
“This isn’t the future my mother told me about.”
Moving to a nearby desk, he sat down and activated the laptop in front of him. The portable drive that had been given to him by the Russian general protruded from one side. Pulling up a chair, Kate sat down beside him. She didn’t have to look at the screen to know what he was studying so intently. They had discussed it earlier.
“What about the signal? Have the tech people come to any conclusions?”
He shook his head, irritated not at her but at the uncertainty that surrounded what he was viewing.
“No one knows if it’ll work. I don’t know about this, Kate. It doesn’t seem like the sort of backdoor vulnerability Skynet would overlook. Still, if it goes back to the original programming....” His voice trailed away momentarily. “I’ll know more when I get the chance to test it out. In the field. For real.”
She put a comforting arm across his shoulders.
“Why don’t we start out with something small. Something we know. I’ll have our people capture a Hydrobot.” She nodded to her left. “They’re always patrolling the river outside the base perimeter. We’ll bring one in for testing.”
He considered, then nodded his approval.
“Yes, but we have to be careful. We can’t risk Skynet learning that we’ve found this code. If it does, it’ll take immediate steps to close off the vulnerability. Whatever we test this on, we have to destroy.” He went silent, looking past the laptop. An old picture rested there, carefully positioned upright. Reaching out, he picked up the photo of his mother.
“What is it, John?”
“Something’s changed. Something I can’t put my finger on. And in this future, I don’t know that we can win this war.”
“If you saved us once, in another future, then you can save us in this one.”
Doubt colored his response. “This signal has to work. It may be the only way to save Kyle—my father. We’re outnumbered by machines working around the clock. They never have to pause, they never have to pull back and regroup, they never rest. We don’t have a lot of time, Kate. Either we win this and win it soon, or it’s over. For all of us. Kyle won’t be alive for me to send him back to my mother.”
She drew him closer. “Then we fight to the end. We fight for what’s to come.” Leaning over, she kissed him on the cheek. “We fight for the future.” Smiling, she reached out, took his hand, and placed it on her stomach. “We fight for
CHAPTER FOUR
Not only was there nothing in San Francisco like the country he was presently traversing, there was nothing like it in any of Marcus Wright’s memories.
