Everything was disintegrating with time. This place was dead. Unused.
According to his watch, they had eight minutes before Judgment Day began.
They boarded the elevator and started down.
Connor opened the knapsack and inserted a detonator into a brick of soft plastic explosive. He was out of breath and operating on his last reserves. The wound in his leg throbbed, and the pain in his half-crushed ankle was excruciating. He couldn't remember when he'd had a decent meal and a good night's sleep. In a bed. Between clean sheets.
He looked at Kate, who watched him with a dubious expression on her smudged face.
'I'll set this for five minutes,' he told her. 'That should give us enough time to make it back up here.'
She nodded. Left unsaid was what would become of them afterward. It was possible that the blast door would never open and they would be trapped down here.
Connor crimped the fuse to start the acid timer and looked at his watch. The countdown started now.
Moments later, the elevator reached the bottom,
which Connor estimated had to be at least one hundred meters beneath the tunnel.
It was dark down here. The only sounds were the noise of the elevator machinery and a distant hum somewhere.
Connor pulled the door open, and he and Kate stepped out, not knowing what to expect.
Lights began to flicker on as old, automatic circuitry activated with their arrival. Classical music, low and soothing, began to play. And they could feel the gentle rush of clean air from ventilators.
Connor stopped short as he began to see where they had come out. They were in a very large, lavishly appointed space, perhaps the lobby of a luxury hotel of twenty or thirty years ago. But brand new. Never been used.
Comfortable looking, overstuffed chairs, long plush couches, and massive coffee tables and end tables were grouped here and there. A fully stocked bar ran along one wall, shelves of books on others.
The ceiling was very high. Parts of the room had been partitioned by frosted glass dividers and doors. Sections of raw rock were exposed as if the designer had used the natural look of a cave hollowed out of a mountain rather than completely disguise it
But there were no supercomputers here. No command and control center. No sign of Skynet.
'What is this?' Connor muttered, half under his breath.
He limped across the lobby to a large door, which he threw open. Inside was an enormous pantry filled with row upon row of metal shelving stacked with bottled water, freeze-dried foods, canned goods, cooking oils and spices, paper towels and napkins.
At one end of the storage area, racks of grow lights were mounted over rows of hydroponic trays meant to cultivate vegetables and herbs and other plants.
Kate opened another door, which led into a dormitory. Rows of bunk beds and lockers, enough to accommodate at least fifty people, were ready for use.
They were running out of time. The detonator fuse continued its countdown.
Connor hurried past Kate to a third door that revealed a different kind of facility entirely.
This was Crystal Peak's Control and Command Center, and yet it was all wrong. What looked like a waiting area furnished with chairs and couches faced a glass-enclosed computer center raised a couple of steps above the main floor.
The great seal of the United States of America was mounted high on one wall, and across from it, what appeared to be a small television studio had been set up in a corner. Lights hung from a massive, circular concrete slab suspended from the ceiling brightly illuminated a podium that was flanked by the U.S. flag and a blue flag that Connor didn't recognize. Television cameras were trained on the podium behind which was a blue curtain for a backdrop.
Connor and Kate took a couple of steps closer. At the
center of the backdrop, directly behind the podium, was the seal of the President of the United States.
The president was meant to be here. To broadcast his message to a nation that was at war.
Global thermonuclear war.
It was becoming clear to Connor, finally. He sprinted across to the computer center, which consisted of several rows of monitor stations above which were clocks showing the local times at various capitals around the world. But the equipment was old. Twenty years or more out of date.
'These are just ordinary computers,' Connor said with growing understanding.
He looked around, frantically searching for something, anything to prove him wrong.
'This isn't Skynet,' he said. 'There's nothing here. It's just a fallout shelter for VIPs. Only they never got the warning.'
He swept a computer monitor off the desk and it smashed onto the floor, its old fashioned CRT tube imploding.
'Goddammit, there's nothing here!' He looked at Kate and nodded beyond her to the lobby and the elevator that had brought them down from the tunnel. 'Why did he send us down here to??'
'To live,' Kate said softly. 'It was his mission.'
Connor shook his head and lowered his eyes. He was spent. It was all over. 'There was never any stopping it,' he said. The detonator fuse was counting down. Less than one minute to go.
Kate was looking at him, her eyes filling with tears. She had lost everything that she ever valued in her life. 'John,' she started. 'We could just?' But she couldn't say it. Couldn't suggest that they do nothing, remain right here until the C-4 exploded.
One of the communications consoles suddenly came to life, red lights flashing, the overhead speakers crackling with static. Voices, dozens maybe even hundreds of them, jammed the one channel. It was hard to make out at first; there were so many of them. Some of them spoke foreign languages, some heavily accented English. But all of them were frantic; that much was clear.
'Hello, hello. This is Montana Civil Defense. Somebody please come in?'
'Can you read me? This is U.S. STRATCOM. We're at a hardened facility, under attack. Repeat, we are under attack.'
'?rumors about launch sequences, command and control have broken down out here?'
It was over. Judgment Day had arrived. Connor looked at Kate, and he could see that she understood that they were too late. That they'd never had a chance.
'Is there anybody there?' a distant voice pleaded. 'Is there anybody there?'
Connor pulled the detonator from the brick of C-4 and tossed it aside. Two seconds later, the fuse sizzled momentarily and then popped.
Connor went over to the communications console, studied the controls for a few seconds, and then flipped
a switch and picked up the microphone. 'This is John Connor at Crystal Peak.'
'Connor, what the hell is happening? Who's in charge there?'
He hesitated. 'I guess I am,' Connor said after a beat.
Kate came to his side and took his hand in hers. He turned to look into her pretty face, into her eyes, into her soul.
Maybe some things have to happen, he thought.
He knew what was happening now on the surface. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of missile contrails would be crisscrossing the evening sky.
By the time Skynet became self-aware, it had spread into millions of computer servers across the planet. It could not be shut down.
Thermonuclear explosions would be erupting all over the world. City busters, the multi-megaton weapons were called. Designed to kill millions of people with one searing blast.
The attack began at six-eighteen p.m. Just as he said it would. Judgment Day.
From the viewpoint of satellites in orbit, this was the time when the earth had no night darkness.
The day the human race was nearly destroyed by the weapons they'd built to protect themselves.
To the west toward Los Angeles and the California coast, bomb after bomb detonated, sending massive nuclear shock waves across the mountains, toppling trees and setting them alight as if they were matchsticks.
