, he thought.
Everybody on the project seemed to agree with him, and the work was going fast. He looked up at a V- formation of geese coming in from the south then coasting over a line of tall gums and tupelos to the east, and grinned. One good thing about a giant swamp was the waterfowl, and he was glad that the specs had to preserve wetlands these days.
Shouts made him turn around. The shouts turned to screams as a truck ran down a worker holding a measuring stick for the surveyor, leaving the man badly mangled but not dead.
'Shit!' Dennis threw down the cup of coffee and ran toward the scene of the accident.
He couldn't imagine what had happened. This was a good crew he was working with, experienced men who knew and seemed to like their jobs and one another. There had been no trouble or friction since the start of this project. Now, from out of nowhere, came this vicious, unprovoked attack.
Several men had gotten down from their equipment to gather around the victim. Dennis frowned as he watched the men huddle together and lean over the wounded man. As he trotted over he pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.
'Don't move him,' he shouted, fearing the damage they might do if they tried.
'This is 911, all lines are busy, please stay on the line.'
Before he could swear in frustration, another truck, this one without a driver, started rolling toward the knot of men. To him it looked like the damn thing was
Dennis shouted. 'Look out!'
The men looked over at him and the truck sped up. Some of them heard it and managed to leap aside, but the original victim and two other men were crushed beneath its wheels. All around the site, vehicles were moving; even the cars in the impromptu parking lot were starting to drive on their own.
Some of the men in the earthmovers were able to leap out of their cabs; most of them managed to avoid the treads. Dennis forced his eyes and his mind from what was going on there. The men inside the trucks seemed trapped, though it was obvious from where he was that they were attempting to control their rogue vehicles.
Up here on the bluff he was out of danger; he shouted to the men below to get to high ground. Some seemed to hear him, and jinking and dodging made their way toward him. Others were too panicked, or simply too busy to hear him. In the phone he held to his ear the 'lines are busy' message continued to drone.
Giving up on 911, he called the Black River Project HQ.
A trembling voice answered. 'Black River Project HQ.'
'This is Lieutenant Dennis Reese, put me through to the CO.'
'Sir, I'm afraid I can't do that.' In the background he could hear the sounds of heavy vehicles roaring by.
'We have a situation heaaaaaaaahhhh!' There was the sound of a crash, glass and wood breaking, and screams. But nothing from the operator. An engine roared, loudly, then there was silence.
Dennis snapped the phone closed and looked at the men who had managed to get up on the bluff beside him. 'We're on our own,' he told them.
Down below, most of the vehicles circled like sharks. At the bottom of the track leading up to the bluff, a single Jeep made repeated, abortive attempts to climb up to them.
Dennis thought that to his dying day he'd remember the eyes of one man who met his gaze.
'What's going to happen to them?' someone asked.
No one answered. No one asked the next logical question—
What's going on?—either.
Sergeant Juarez came up to Dennis and asked softly, 'What should we do, sir?'
Dennis looked over the ground below them, littered with bodies, then up the dirt road that led to the main drag before answering. 'There's a radio in the trailer, and a pair of binoculars,' he said thoughtfully. 'If we could get them it might go a long way toward answering that question. But I'm concerned that there might be a vehicle lurking behind those trees.' He gestured toward a clump of trees that hid a good part of the dirt road. 'So I think most of us better stay up here. I want to send two men down. One to check the bodies, see if anyone's alive down there. One to retrieve those items.' He shook his head. 'We wouldn't be able to do a thing to help if there is some kind of a rearguard out there, except give a shout of warning.'
He turned to the crowd of men. 'I'm asking for volunteers.'
He wanted to go himself because he knew that he would do a better job than anybody here. But he also knew that he was in charge and that these men needed someone who could and would make decisions for the group. Someone that everyone could agree to follow. So for the sake of the group, he couldn't put himself at risk. Delegating responsibility might be the secret to success, but it kinda stuck in your craw when you were asking men to put their lives on the line while you stayed relatively safe.
To his relief, two members of the corps shuffled forward, frowning down the track at where the Jeep had tried to climb up to them. Dennis quickly ascertained which of them could at least take a pulse and assigned him to check the bodies. He described to the other where the radio and binoculars were. When he was finished the two men saluted; he returned the gesture.
'Good luck, men.'
One nodded, the other muttered, 'Thank you, sir.' Then they turned and went down to the deserted project site.
Feeling helpless and useless, Dennis tried 911 again and wasn't surprised to get the 'all lines are busy' signal again. One of the men had reached the first body. He looked up at the bluff and shook his head, then went on to the next. Dennis dialed his father's number in Ohio.
'Hello,' the old man barked.
'Hey, Dad, what's happening?'
Silence greeted the question. 'What do you mean?' the older Reese asked.
Now Dennis was silent. When his father got this cagey it usually meant he was very nervous. 'Are you having trouble with cars and trucks where you are?' he asked.
His father let out his breath in a long hiss that whistled over the phone. 'Yeah. The damn things have been running people down and crashing into things all over the place. It's on the news, but the bastards don't know anything. They keep saying the same stuff and showing pictures of cars running around on their own like we can't see the same thing through our own front windows.'
The man who'd gone for the radio ran up. Dennis nodded to him in acknowledgment. 'Turn it on, see if you can find a news channel.' To his father he said, 'It can't last forever. They'll run out of fuel and stop.'
'I hope so,' his father said. 'Some of these new stations fill your tank automatically; all you have to do is swipe your card.'
'Let's hope they're not involved, then.'
'Yeah, keep a good thought,' his dad sneered.
Dennis smiled involuntarily; his father could be a sour old coot sometimes, and there was something oddly reassuring about hearing the familiar snarl now. Behind him the radio made a strange sound and he turned to look at it. He heard his father say, 'What the hell?'
'… is Sarah Connor. I can tell you what's happening. Not long ago the military developed a super-computer and a very sophisticated program to run it that they dubbed Skynet. This computer is so advanced that it actually became self-aware. It kept this from its operators because it suspected that they would shut it down if they knew.
'Since it became self-aware, it has insinuated itself into a number of computer systems throughout the world, using them to fill its needs. This included, we're forced to assume,
The men looked at one another uneasily.
'Crazy talk,' one of the hard hats muttered.
