it’s telling me Kyle Reese is on his way to Skynet. If that’s true, then Command is about to bomb my family and all the other prisoners into oblivion. And I can’t stop them.”
Even Kate Connor’s normally rock-solid composure could be shaken, as her reaction to her husband’s words showed.
“If your mother was in your position, right here, right now, what do you think she’d do? She’d fight. She’d find a way, John. You’re a Connor. That’s what you do.”
His head dropped and he stared at the floor, clasping his hands together in front of him. He did not sound like the indomitable Resistance fighter John Connor now.
He didn’t have to—not with Kate.
“We’ve made so many decisions that have determined who lived and who didn’t. Watched so many people die.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “For the first time, I don’t know what to do.
“It’s not just Kyle. I mean that. When this attack goes forward, all the other prisoners are going to die. It’s one thing to die on the battlefield, fighting the machines. But to be trapped in a holding pen or some kind of oversized cage or whatever Skynet is using, without a chance to fight back or escape, just waiting for death....” He stopped, unable to go on.
Silence held sway between them for a while, until she reminded him gently, “None of us gets to choose the manner of our passing, John. Whether by machine or by nature, we exit this plane of existence when a certain confluence of circumstances arrives. Kyle would understand that. I know that you do.”
“I’m not sure what I understand anymore, Kate.” His expression reflected the torment he was feeling. “I spent some time looking at that poor bastard creature we’ve got strung up down there. Despite the incontrovertible evidence, he truly seems convinced he’s human. In reality, he has no idea what he is. Looking at him, listening to him, I realized—I don’t either. I’ve been doing this for so long I’m not sure what
She stared down at him. Sometimes she could find the right words to lift him out of the depression into which he seemed to be lapsing more and more often. This was not one of those times. Only a sharp knock on the door saved both of them from the awkward continuing silence. When her husband failed to respond, she turned to the entryway.
“Yes,” she called out tiredly, “come in.”
Barnes stepped through the door.
“What do you need, Lieutenant?” she said.
Barnes’s gaze flicked to the silent figure of the man sitting on the edge of the bed, then back to the doctor.
“Williams relieved me. She said you needed to talk to....”
Connor did not so much rise as explode off the bed. Any vestiges of melancholy vanished. He was instantly all business again. By the time he reached the door and pushed past the frowning, confused Barnes he had already checked to ensure that his oversized pistol was fully loaded.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The clothes Williams had brought were snug, but they fit the struggling Wright without splitting. He ought to have been acutely cramped from having hung suspended for so long. Neither he nor Williams remarked on the fact that he was not.
For that matter, his arms and shoulders ought to have been dislocated. They didn’t discuss that absence, either. Nor the fact that the holes in his wrists where the steel bolts had been punched through were closing with unnatural rapidity and with little loss of blood.
As he pulled on the jacket she had brought for him there was no ache in his muscles, no tightness in his arms. Had he chosen to dwell on the lack of bodily damage it would likely have upset him even more than he already was.
Then emergency lights flared to life within the silo, a klaxon began to bray insistently, and there was no time to think about anything except the one possible way out that remained available to them.
A large vent dominated one side of the silo. Its purpose was to allow the exhaust from now-vanished missiles to escape safely during launch. Integrated into the wall, a single service ladder led up to the opening. Wright headed up, moving easily hand over hand—so rapidly that he had to wait for Williams to catch up. Thereafter he took the rungs more slowly, glancing back occasionally to make sure she was still with him.
The next time he looked up it was to see figures gathering at the rim. Connor he recognized immediately, Barnes a moment later. The others were new to him, but their identities were not nearly as important as the weapons they were unlimbering.
Frantic and furious, Barnes was first to spot the would-be escapees. Leaning over the edge, he pointed and yelled.
“Get ’em!”
Though it was a long way to the bottom, there was no place for anyone to hide within the silo. Spreading out, the heavily armed soldiers gathered around the rim. Inclining their weapons down into the cylindrical depths, they took aim—and wavered. Looking to Connor for instructions, one corporal hesitantly voiced the same concern each of them was feeling.
“What about Blair, Lieutenant?”
Barnes wasn’t waiting for the conflicted Connor to make up his mind. Grabbing the weapon from the guard, he yelled, “She made her choice,” and began firing. He was not lying when he’d told Williams that he was a fine marksman. And just as before, when he had been toying with the bound Wright, the shots he fired bounced harmlessly off the prisoner’s metal components. Williams had no such inherent protection. She didn’t need it. Judging the angle of fire perfectly, Wright leaned back from the ladder and aligned his own body to protect her.
