but indomitable Terminator that had just crawled clear of the building. Searching its surroundings, its crimson gaze settled on a nearby helicopter. Dragging itself along the ground, it started determinedly toward the idling aircraft. But the chopper was already lifting off, rising above the devastation beneath it, leaving only destruction, flames, and a single pair of hate-filled red eyes in its wake.
Behind it, a deeper rumble filled the night air as the Transporter, now packed with men, women, and child-ren who had once given themselves up for dead, lifted off, banked sharply to the north, and began to accelerate in the direction of Mount Tamalpais.
Inside the chopper, Kate Connor leaned toward her husband.
“The others—the rest of the survivors—they’re on their way.” Reaching down, she wrapped the fingers of both hands tenderly around his. He nodded slowly to show that he understood.
“But the charges—have to go back—find the....”
He broke off as his gaze fastened on a small shape hovering nearby. Star moved closer. Silently, she unfolded her closed hand, the fingers opening like the petals of a flower. Still intact and full of quiet promise, the detonator lay exposed in the center of her tiny palm. As their eyes met, her lips trembled with the effort of trying to speak.
Fighting through horror, she formed words. Two.
“End this.”
Connor nodded. Gently, he took the detonator. Then he rolled his head to one side so he could see out the open side of the chopper. After everything that had happened, after all that had transpired, he did not want to miss the fireworks.
He squeezed the trigger.
In order for any designated Terminator to operate and carry out its programmed functions, an enormous amount of energy had to be packed into the small, portable container that powered it. Thousands of such containers lay stacked in a secure corner of the main Terminator factory below. When the C-4 cord that had been wrapped around them detonated, so did they.
This in turn set off a great many unstable substances that were also stored within the factory. When the factory went up, in a blast sufficiently wide, deep, and loud enough to satisfy the most vengeful Resistance fighter, this in turn touched off similar explosions in every facility nearby.
By the time the chopper was well on its way across the bay, a good deal of machine-transformed San Francisco was blowing itself skyward in a series of sequential eruptions that were little short of volcanic. The moonlight that glistened on the placid water below was in complete and peaceful contrast to the cataclysm that was ripping apart the land falling steadily farther behind them.
One hand still clamped over the fuel leak, Wright hung half in and half out of the chopper. He did not mind the wind that whipped at what remained of his face and hair. Despite his awkward position he could clearly see those who were safely inside the helicopter.
Lying on its floor near the back, Connor—badly damaged but still alive. His wife tending to him with a mixture of professionalism and affection. Kyle Reese, tougher than he knew. The little girl Star, silent but aware.
Reaching into the chopper, the moonlight softened and seemed to heal all of them, rendering Kate Connor’s face angelic instead of just determined, making Reese look as young as he actually was, glinting redly off one of Star’s eyes....
Wright blinked. The glint was gone. As if it had never been.
It was nothing at all, he told himself with assurance. There had been nothing there, nothing to see. The briefest of flickers of moonlight on cornea. Nothing more than a second of reflection, singular twinkle.
Or a singularity.
The disparate collection of fighting aircraft, from helicopters to converted civilian planes to A-10s, sat in the broiling sun of the desert dawn like so many shiny carapaced insects waiting for the rising heat to bring them back to life. That would eventually be done not by the sun but by the exhausted yet triumphant crews scattered nearby. Tired as they were, they did their best to offer succor and reassurance to the prisoners they had just rescued from Skynet.
Considerably less joy was present in the wind-stirred tent that had been set up nearby. Inside, the leaders of the attack on San Francisco stood in silence. Their attention was focused not on the victory they had just won, but on a single figure lying at the center.
The great spark of life and defiance that was John Connor was slowly but inexorably fading away.
Struggling to sustain the life of the prone human to which it was attached, a portable heart-lung machine muttered softly. It made more noise than any of the somber onlookers. Connor’s wife held his arm—gently, reassuringly, but without hope. Certainly less than her husband evinced. He managed a feeble smile.
“Don’t worry, Kate. See you later....”
She nodded, then rose to confront the others. The words she spoke were her responsibility to them.
The tears in her eyes, however, belonged to her alone.
“He’s dying.”
Hat dangling from one hand, Barnes kept his voice low.
“How long?”
She tried to shrug but was unable to lift her shoulder.
“Any moment. His heart can’t take it.” Her eyes meet the sergeant’s, and she continued. “The Terminators have beat him up and history has worn him down.”
Barnes tried to think of something to say. Of the right thing to say.
“It’s going to be okay.”
