Terminator Salvation

doubted them. Then she gathered herself and headed out in his wake. By the time she exited the armory he was gone.

Realizing there was nothing to be gained from trying to follow him, she strode purposefully toward the infirmary. Unable to do more than internalize her own suffering, she could at least help to alleviate that of others.

For the pain and the ache she was feeling, there was no medicine.

Like all scavengers, the crow and its brethren had done well out of the war. Not every person could be accorded a fit burial, far less the thousands of domesticated animals who had been left to live and die on their own when their human masters had been murdered by the rampaging machines. In addition, there were the wild creatures who perished of natural causes whose corpses could no longer be neatly swept up and disposed of by park authorities, ranchers, and others now occupied with simply trying to survive.

The crow had no reason to avoid the huge wall it was approaching. Though abnormally stark and utilitarian, it did not differ (at least from a crow’s perspective) all that much from the urban ruins it and its cawing relatives had inherited. When the twin turrets began to whirr softly and alter their attitude, the crow simply dipped a wing and angled to its left.

Detecting the presence of an organic creature in the forbidden zone, the automated gun emplacements made no distinction between a small feathered avian and a trained member of the human Resistance. Programmed to destroy anything carbon-based that entered the zone designated as Skynet Central, they responded to the intrusion with typical machine overkill.

The relative still of the evening air was shattered as the weapons of both turrets let loose with a barrage of intersecting rounds that utterly obliterated the intruder. When seconds later they quieted, there was nothing left of the passing passerine. Not even a single black feather survived to reach the hardscrabble ground outside the wall.

The solitary figure that emerged from the stream advanced in silence through the surviving trees that lined its banks. Wright knew he did not have far to go to reach the outer limits of Skynet’s death zone. Assuming he succeeded in crossing that boundary in one piece, then things would really start to get interesting.

It was just as the information from the Resistance people had indicated: there was the enormous wall, the integrated gun emplacements, the sensors spotted along the length and breadth of the structure—and not a moving shape in sight.

Well, that was a lack easily rectified.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped out from the trees and deliberately exposed himself.

As speedily as they had trained their muzzles on the unlucky bird, both massive turrets now swiveled around to bring their weapons to bear on this new profile. If they fired once, it would all be over. All the confusion and hurt he had suffered since being revived would vanish in a single explosive inferno of fire and destruction.

A part of him wished for it, hoped for it, desired it. No more wondering about what he had become. No more speculating on how it had come to pass. There would be peace, at last.

But not for a while yet, it seemed. The guns remained trained on him for several seconds. Then they shifted back to their original watchful positions, once more awaiting the appearance of the unauthorized. Wright slumped. Plainly, that did not include him. Within the exposed portions of his upper body a vast variety of mechanical components hummed softly, helping to keep him alive.

Alive, he thought solemnly, but not human. Not necessarily machine, either. Having crossed Skynet’s boundary, passed the test, surmounted the critical obstacle, he found (somewhat to his surprise) that he was after all glad to still be living. The corollary to that quiet elation was that he was disappointed in the reason he still was.

The automated turrets continued to ignore him as he hurried across the intervening landscape between forest and wall. Reaching the base of the massive barrier, he tilted his head back and regarded it thoughtfully. It was a long way to the top and there was little in the way of visible handholds.

He went up it like a spider, periodically using his fists to punch holes in the sheer wall where none otherwise existed.

Though he hesitated before topping the obstacle, he needn’t have worried. There were no sentries pacing the crest, no ambulatory patrols, no razor or barbed wire. There was no need for such traditional defensive fripperies. Not with the high-powered instantly reactive automated cannons mounted in gimbaled turrets that protected Skynet Central. They would detect and annihilate anything organic that attempted to violate the perimeter. Only machines could pass, and then only those that continuously broadcast their assigned identification according to recognized Skynet protocols.

That realization had already told him far more about himself than he wanted to know.

Dropping down the far side of the wall, he rapidly made his way deeper into the complex that had been raised atop and in some cases made use of the ruins of greater San Francisco. An approaching rumble caused him to swerve to his right. Had he continued on his course he would have found himself in the path of an automated, self- aware bulldozer. The giant demolition machine was methodically razing what had once been a lovingly decorated church. Watching the process, Wright found he was unable to identify the congregation from what remained of the ruins. The sculpted statues that were being ground to powder beneath the ’dozer’s treaded weight spoke to nothing but the machine’s cold indifference.

What if I had stopped in the ’dozer’s path? he found himself wondering. Would it have stopped also, until he moved out of its way? Would it have tried to go around him? Or would it have called for additional instructions? Better not to challenge something that massed a thousand times more than himself, he mused. Even if it might be a distant relative.

All was not destruction within the perimeter. Arc lights flared and building materials were being busily shuttled to and fro. Strange superstructures rose into the night, illuminated by lights that were part of the buildings themselves. The machines were remaking the city in their own image, according to their own plan. Would the buildings themselves be self-aware?

As he continued to advance, striding along smoothly and effortlessly, Wright wondered at their possible function. What use did machines have for buildings? It was impossible to divine their purpose merely by looking at them. Perversely, this incomprehension made him feel a little better.

At least there were some things about the machines he did not understand intuitively. That meant that his programming was incomplete or—that his imperfect human brain was still in control of his heavily hybridized body.