Another pointed silently to the bodies at the foot of the hill, and the first man shook his head and swore.
Dennis held the phone to his ear. The name Sarah Connor teased his memory, but nothing came to him.
'It has complete control of every military system at the disposal of the United States military. That means every nuclear weapon in the American armory. It is going to use them. Soon.
It's using the cars and trucks worldwide to trap people in the cities to achieve maximum kill.
'Anyone outside the fire zone, those of you in rural areas, for example, should stay in your basements. Take as much food and water down as you have. Those of you in cities and towns that will be targeted should do your best to flee. I have to be honest; your chances aren't good. Especially with all those murderous vehicles running loose. But it is your only chance.
'I must also tell you that this will not be over once the bombs have fallen. Nuclear war is only Skynet's first step. It has already turned its automated factories to manufacturing robots whose sole purpose is to kill humans.
'But for now, arm yourselves, and hunker down if you're in a safe area; try to get to a safe area if you're not presently in one.
Survive as best you can. Find us; we're out there. We'll train you to fight this thing. Good luck.'
They all waited for more, but all they got was the unnerved voice of a newscaster.
'Dad?' Dennis said. His father lived close to Dayton.
'I heard. She was on the TV.'
'Can you get out of town, or something?'
'I'm seventy years old, son. I don't think I can outrun a car, let alone an atom bomb.'
'Does your building have a fallout shelter?'
His father sighed. 'Closest thing we've got is the parking garage, and believe me, that's not friendly territory right now.'
'What about the stairwell?'
The older Reese seemed to be thinking that over. 'Not an attractive prospect,' he said. 'But better than dying of stupidity.
I'll look into it.'
Dennis looked at the men around him. He should share the phone with them while there was still time to call their families.
'You'd better get to work, then, Dad.'
'Yeah.'
Dennis lowered his voice. 'I love you, Dad.'
'Love you, too, son.'
'Bye.'
'Good-bye, son. God bless.'
Then he was gone. The lieutenant looked around at the men, forcing certainty and assurance into his voice. 'This is a fairly rural area; if we can find shelter we could make it. What about your families?'
'Well, hell,' one man said, 'I ain't got no basement. I got a slab house.'
'Me neither,' said another. 'Ain't no basement in a double-wide.'
'The kids're at school,' said a third. 'They'll have a shelter there, won't they?'
'Yes,' Dennis agreed. 'They probably will.' He was thinking rapidly. They needed to find shelter from the fallout, and they needed supplies, and they needed to avoid the roads. 'How close is the nearest public building?'
'There's the regional high school about eight miles south of here,' said one of the locals.
'Can we get there cross-country?' the lieutenant asked.
'Yeah. Take longer, though.'
Dennis nodded. 'Can you show us the way?'
The man hesitated. 'I want to go home,' he said. 'My wife's home with the baby.'
The others indicated that they, too, wanted to get back to their families.
'Some of us might be close enough to do that,' Dennis said.
'The rest of us can't. It takes hours to walk fifteen miles.' That was the distance to the nearest town. 'We probably don't have hours.'
He held up the phone. 'Call them. Tell them to get into the basement, those of you who have them, or to find one if you haven't. I know it's hard, but we have to be practical. We can try to find them after the fallout stops, but we won't be any good to anyone if we're dying of radiation sickness.' He held the phone up. 'Use it alphabetically. Sergeant?'
Juarez stepped up and took the phone. 'Albertson,' he barked out.
'Let's move,' Dennis said. 'We can talk while we walk.'
The man who knew the path to the regional high school led the way, through fields that would be swamp grass later in the year, and along old streamside dikes. No one looked at the bodies of their fellow workers as they left.
Dennis felt the world turning as he walked.
She was a terrorist who liked to blow up computer companies.
She'd been diagnosed insane because she claimed that an evil computer was going to try to kill the human race.
.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SARAH'S JOURNAL
It was a long two weeks in the shelter as freakishly heavy winds carried the fallout from Russia, Asia, and probably our own West Coast up to Alaska. We listened to the radio stations going off, one by one; then the bombs came, and for a while there was nothing, and we might have been the last alive in a world as empty of humanity as Skynet's soul. We wondered if anyone had heard our broadcast, and if so, had they believed us?
Knowing what was happening around the world was very hard to take. John blames himself, I blame myself, Dieter blames himself; although at least we don't blame one another. The weight of depression on all of us was almost physical. We failed.
Now it's up to us to make it up to humanity for that failure.
ALASKA
Bemused, Sarah watched John teaching the children about self-defense; they were grouped around the base of a big Sitka spruce, a circle of dirty faces and slightly ragged clothes on the resilient pine-needle surface of the ground. The strong spicy scent of the tree's sap came to her on the wind—which was fortunate, because soap and hot water were already scarce.
John had turned out to have an unexpected talent for dealing with children. He was patient, he gave them slack, but he wouldn't let them run roughshod over him. They were learning self-discipline in these classes, and self-reliance. After accepting an exuberant greeting from the munchkins, he sat them down to listen to his lecture.
'Okay,' John said. 'Now sometimes you're going to find yourself facing a larger or better-armed opponent. What do you do?'
