Terminator Salvation

He looked at her sharply. “Virginia, we’re running out of food.”

Spreading his hands, Reese pleaded their case.

“We’re not asking for much. Maybe one meal and some gas for our jeep, then we’ll leave. We don’t want to stay. We’re trying to reach the Resistance.”

For the second time since they had entered the store, Len let out a burst of sharp, acrid laughter.

“The Resistance? What a joke! There is no ‘Resistance’. There’s only talk and wishful thinking. You can’t fight the machines. All anyone with any sense can do is try to stay out of their way.” He gestured at their teetering surroundings. “Why do you think this place is still standing?”

“Because the machines haven’t gotten around to it yet,” Wright opined quietly.

Len glared at him. “No! It’s because we don’t make trouble. We don’t shout our presence. We keep our heads down and they ignore us.”

“You keep your head down,” Reese told him. “They’ll come for you eventually. I’ve seen this before. They don’t ignore you. They don’t ignore anybody. What they do is set priorities. Pick their targets according to the possible threat they might pose, starting with any they consider potentially dangerous to them. Once those’ve been wiped out they start working their way down their list. No one escapes notice. No one gets left alive. They want us all dead.” In spite of Reese’s youth, it was easy to see which of the two men was the more mature.

“They want you dead. Whether you ‘make trouble’ for them or not. Maybe you can hang on here for a while longer yet, but they’ll get around to you eventually.”

Len was not about to have the agenda that had led to his continuing survival misrepresented by a garrulous teenager.

“We help you, maybe they will.”

Wright spoke up. “So give us some gas and we’ll get out of your hair.”

While the men had argued, the older woman had walked over to peer down at the silent Star.

“No one’s going anywhere,” she declared with resolve, “until this one has had something to eat.” Kneeling, she reached out to touch the girl’s cheek. Star did not flinch.

“Look how young you are.” The woman shook her head sorrowfully. “I had a granddaughter about your age. Before—everything. The world we’ve left to you, poor thing—I’m so very sorry for that. People acted without thinking. Not for the first time, but until now things always turned out all right. This time—I just don’t know.” She rose and smiled encouragingly. “Come on, let’s feed you. Unless, of course, you’re not hungry.”

Star nodded violently.

“I thought so.” Moving to a part of the store nearer the back, the woman called Virginia pushed aside an empty metal rack. Bending, she curled her fingers around a handle that had been painted to resemble the rest of the floor and pulled. A wooden hatch cover rose on sturdy hinges.

While Wright remained aloof, waiting, Reese could not help himself. Straining to see down into the opening, he was able to make out piles of packaged and canned food, vacuum-sealed loaves of bread, a startling variety of canned beverages that ran the liquid gamut from beer to soda to water, even some bundles of semi-fresh vegetables.

Len noted these actions with ill-concealed displeasure.

“We haven’t finished evaluating this bunch. We still don’t know who they are, where they come from, what they’re doing here, or how they managed to get hold of a functioning jeep.” He indicated the open hatch. “What are you doing?”

Virginia did not bother to look in his direction. Kneeling and bending down, she began pulling an assortment of provisions from the subterranean storeroom. Reese eyed the apparently unending stream eagerly. He hadn’t seen so much food in one place since—well, he couldn’t remember when he had seen so much food. Plainly, living outside a major city and beyond Skynet’s immediate ken had its advantages.

“I’m using a mother’s intuition.” The older woman looked back at the disapproving Len. “Now put your paranoia away and come welcome our guests.”

Though she neither looked nor sounded like Reese’s conception of a survivalist leader, it was obvious who was in charge here. Around the interior perimeter of the ruined mini-mart weapons were lowered, including Len’s. Hands came off stocks and triggers. Several of those present helped themselves to bottles and settled down to drink.

Gesturing at the assortment of food she had laid out on the floor, Virginia smiled at the newcomers.

“Help yourselves.”

While a famished Reese and Star dove unhesitatingly into a pile of goodies the likes of which had vanished from their memories, Wright held back and continued to regard the older woman. In welcoming him and the children unconditionally she was revealing a pair of character traits that had been more or less entirely absent from his life. Trust, and kindness. Being as unfamiliar with such ordinary human touchstones as he was with the cultural norms of central Africa, he hung back, uncertain how to react to an offer for which nothing was expected in return.

Marking his hesitation, she put some food into a weathered basket and brought it to him. He eyed the packages. Some were familiar to him, some utterly strange. He shook his head “no.” Lowering the basket, she tried another tack.

“Are you all right, son?”

Len’s gaze narrowed. “What are you doing?”

“Life is lived moment by moment, Len. Choice by choice. It signifies what it means to be human.”

Lifting up his gun, he pointed it again. Not at Wright this time, or at Reese. At her.

“I can’t let you do this, Virginia. This is our food. Our fuel. It’s not your choice to make.”