Off to his right, something moved. Reaching into one of her many pockets, the girl fumbled a moment before removing a single band-aid. On it was imprinted the image of a white cartoon dog with a black nose and a contented smile. What was the character’s name? Wright tried to remember as she carefully applied the child’s bandage to the fresh wound. It was far from broad enough to cover the slash and blood continued to ooze from around the adhesive’s edge.
Stepping back, she eyed her handiwork with all the dignity and professional gratification of a surgeon who had just closed up a patient’s exposed spine.
He ought to say something, he realized. “Thank you” would probably be appropriate. They locked eyes for an instant. Then he carefully lifted up the jeep’s hood, fashioned a new temporary prop, and resumed installing the battery.
How much Reese had observed of what had just transpired between himself and the girl Wright didn’t know, and didn’t care. But there was suspicion and uncertainty in the teen’s manner as he approached the jeep. For a while he said nothing; just stood and watched as the older man connected wires and cables. Eventually curiosity overcame any attempt at appearing disinterested.
“You get it working?”
Wright spoke without taking his head out from under the hood.
“Almost. Won’t know ’til I try. Parts seem to work okay separately. Next we’ll see how well they work together. At least the gas in the tank hasn’t turned to varnish.” He indicated the assembled wrecks. “Managed to siphon enough to fill ’er up.”
Turning, Reese gazed off into the distance.
“We should head east. Into the desert. That’s the best place to get away from the machines. If we’re lucky, we might run into some real Resistance fighters.” Long-suppressed excitement crept unbidden into his voice. “Maybe they’ll give me something to fight the machines with besides spring traps.”
Wright was tightening a bolt deep within the engine compartment. It wouldn’t do to get the jeep up and running only to have some vital part fall out halfway to his destination. He doubted a call to the Automobile Club would bring much in the way of a response. If there still was an Automobile Club. If he had anything to call with.
“I’m heading north.”
That didn’t sound good, Reese decided. Not just the “north” part. The “I’m” part. He immediately protested.
“No—why—you can’t. That was one of the first places the machines took over. Machines control the whole Northern Sector. It’s Skynet Central. You can’t get in there. Why would you even want to try?”
Something went
“I’ve got to find someone,” Wright finally responded.
It was enough to solidify Reese’s suspicions. Not “we”—“I”. He glanced at Star, whose expression was as open as ever, then turned back to the preoccupied stranger whose face still had not emerged from the depths of the jeep’s engine compartment.
“I don’t know where you came from or what you do or much of anything else about you, but I do know that there’s obviously still a lot you don’t know about Skynet. How it works, how the machines work—all kinds of stuff. Stuff that if you don’t know can get you dead. It’s too dangerous for us, for anyone, to go there.”
“What about the ‘L.A. Branch’ of the Resistance? Who’ll fight the machines here if you leave?”
Reese hesitated, uncertain if the older man was being serious, having fun at his expense, or a mix of both, and decided to take him at his word. He turned to Star.
“Come on, man. We need to get out of L.A.” He nodded at Wright, then indicated the jeep. “If you can actually make that thing go, that is.”
The girl wasn’t waiting. Clambering over the side of the vehicle, she settled herself into the passenger seat and waited. Ignoring her, Wright continued to tinker with the engine. Something coughed under the hood and sputtered to life. Half expecting it to die at any moment, he was more than a little surprised when it did not. In fact, the longer the engine ran, the smoother it sounded.
Alone in the idling jeep, Star studied the profusion of knobs on the dash. Since no one told her not to do otherwise, she began playing with them, twisting and turning one at a time. None of them did anything until she pressed a button slightly to the right of the steering column.
That there was a CD in the player was not exactly a revelation. That the unit functioned was considerably more of a surprise. A startled Star gaped at it in amazement. Reese both looked and listened in awe.
“What is this?”
Coming around from the front of the 4x4, Wright gazed at the indicator lights on the in-dash entertainment unit.
“A CD player.”
“No, no,” Reese corrected him impatiently, “the music.”
Wright’s thoughts were ping-ponging back and forth between the inexplicable present and a less-than-inspiring past.
“Doesn’t matter. Something my brother used to listen to. ‘Us and Them’, by Pink Floyd.”
The music was bringing back too many memories. Reaching in, he switched it off. When the girl gave him a cross look, he motioned impatiently for her to exit.
