cable had been secured to a twisted, seared hunk of aircraft debris.
Unable to decide whether to curse or cheer at Connor’s unhesitating initiative, Olsen settled for waving at the clusters of men who stood gawking at the younger man’s rapid descent into darkness.
“All right, single file! Everyone after Connor! Let’s go, go
Swinging slightly at the end of the cable, Connor could not hear the general. Pulling a flare from his service belt and igniting it, he tossed it outward. It sank into blackness, revealing only fleetingly the extent of the underground labyrinth that marched off in all directions. The subterranean facility was enormous. Like the others, he had expected it to be sizable, but this was far beyond anything they had been led to expect.
He hung quietly at the end of his tether, not making a sound, waiting for his fellow spider-soldiers to join him.
Jet swings gave them access to the side corridors. One by one, individual teams fanned out into the depths of the vast complex.
Weapons at the ready, David and Tunney hung close behind. As they advanced, David was muttering under his breath. Connor knew why but said nothing. David didn’t mind dirt, wasn’t afraid of action, would take on half a dozen enemy all by himself without bothering to call for backup—but he couldn’t swim. Not normally a cause for concern in the southwestern deserts, and yet here he was up to his collywobbles in water.
Tunney flanked David, and Connor suspected it was all he could do to restrain himself from commenting on his partner’s obvious discomfort.
The burrower bomb had done its work well. Ceilings had collapsed throughout the tunnel, unattended flames ate at advanced instrumentation, and the distinctive red lighting typical of Skynet environments flickered unsteadily. Connor would have been perfectly happy to see it all wink out, turn black and lifeless. If that happened, he and his men had come equipped with adequate illumination of their own.
The percussive chorale of distant gunfire echoed faintly through the corridor they were probing. Evidently some of the other squads were encountering more than just dim lighting and broken plumbing.
Something stirred the water behind them, and it wasn’t a consequence of collapsing infrastructure. By the time the T-1 was half out of the water both David and Tunney were whirling on it. It was David who got off the necessary burst. Shards of metal and carbon fiber splinters went flying as the would-be assassin was blown apart.
“Hey bro, I thought it was my turn.” With the muzzle of his own weapon, Tunney nudged a floating scrap of Terminator.
David shrugged. “Gotta be faster than that, Ton. I’m going for a new high score. But I’ll sit back and watch while you take out the next two.”
His partner grinned tightly. “’Preciate it, bro. Anyway, if you’re going for T-1s, you’re not even in the game.”
“Over here.” Connor interrupted, calling to them from just up ahead. Instantly the two soldiers were all business again.
Shouldering his weapon, Connor used both hands to tug on the large handle of a heavy door set in the tunnel wall. It refused to budge. Another man might have put a foot on the door to gain leverage or asked his companions to assist. Having better things to do and insufficient time in which to do them, Connor instead removed a brick of C-4 from his backpack, followed it with ignition cord and a detonator. In his hands the complete explosive package came together like a pizza in Naples. Clustering nearby, his team looked on in admiration.
“Don’t lose any fingers there, Chief.” Nervousness was apparent in the voice of one of the younger soldiers as he watched Connor’s fingers fly. A far more relaxed David glanced back at the concerned speaker.
“Shit, Connor’s been a Class A terrorist his whole life. How many fingers is he missing? Right—none. Only thing getting blasted here is that door.” Turning, he started wading back the way they had come. “Might want to put a little distance between you and the show. Otherwise you might lose face.”
As soon as everyone had cleared, Connor set the timer and sprinted to join them. Time passed with interminable slowness before another soldier could not keep from whispering.
“I know how experienced he is, but it’s sopping down here and mayb....”
The thunder of the C-4 was magnified by the narrowness of the corridor. The effect was not unlike hearing a dozen trumpets sound off all at once—with the listener crammed inside one of the instruments.
Several of the soldiers flinched. Not Connor or his two backups, Tunney and David. The explosion was just one more peroration in an interminable concert scored for instruments that consisted of expressively volatile compounds. Even before the air had cleared, Connor was leading them forward.
The room they entered was large and filled with smoke. While the haze was already dispersing, it was still difficult to see. Difficult enough so that Connor slipped on something and nearly fell. Looking down, he expected to see more water. Instead, the liquid underfoot was dark and sticky. For an instant he held onto the hope that it might be machine oil. But the color was wrong, too red.
The blood was reasonably fresh.
New sounds distracted him. For the first time since he and his squad had entered the complex they heard voices other than their own. The strongest of them was subdued, the weakest barely audible. Moans and pleas. Reaching down to his belt, he pulled and ignited another flare and lobbed it forward. It lit up the still diffusing mix of smoke, debris, evaporating liquid—and cages.
The voices were coming from multiple knots of humanity who had been packed with inhuman lack of concern into numerous holding pens. As Connor and his men drew close, hands extended toward them. His gaze flicked over pleading faces, gaunt bodies.
Some of the internees were in the last stages of exhaustion or starvation.
