The Future War

And when the number of bodies didn't match their manifest, they'd go looking for survivors.

It was too close to danger, but it had still been a long haul for the kids and the wounded. Two miles is a long way to carry the deadweight of a wounded man or woman, especially on cobbled together stretchers. But Alaskans were a hardy bunch and they'd managed it with a minimum of fuss.

Though it had left him feeling naked, John had given his shotgun to a man who claimed to be a champion shot and a

'damn good hunter.' He handed out a brace of hand grenades to the military types. It probably wouldn't do them much actual good, but it was better than nothing and therefore good for moral.

Then he'd left them, promising to send help. Which he'd done as soon as he could get to one of their encrypted satellite relays.

It might be a full day before that help arrived, but trucks and medical help were on the way.

John hoped someone would be there for his friends to find.

They were good people. Wearily he brought his feet down from the desk. Time to go to work, he thought. He glanced at the phased plasma rifle he'd taken from a Terminator. Time to get the resistance and himself rolling. These rifles, so handily provided by Skynet, would kill Terminators. Although he was certain that these easily destroyed first attempts would quickly be replaced by vastly more formidable models, thousands of them.

He picked up the plasma rifle. Ike's gonna love this, he thought. Until I tell him he has to relocate to manufacture 'em.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ALASKA

I love this thing!' Ike Chamberlain said with the enthusiasm of a six-year-old on Christmas morning. 'This plasma rifle is so cool!'

The sound came clearly through the speaker in the communications bunker, albeit it had a slightly flat tone— the machine was taking the compressed digital packets and reconstructing them, which inevitably meant a slight loss of tone. It was more easily understandable than ordinary speech, though, if anything.

Love this gear, John thought, giving it an affectionate pat; the operator matched his grin. Thank you, Dieter.

Round-log walls and the smell of damp earth did make a bit of a contrast with the smooth surfaces and digital readouts. So did the kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling, adding its scents of burning fuel and hot metal. Efficient though, he thought; besides saving power, it helped keep the temperature comfortable, and it could burn wood alcohol at a pinch.

Now, this is going to require careful manipulation, John Connor thought, and went on aloud: 'That's great, Ike. But can you make it?'

'Oh, I can make it all right. I can even improve on it, elegant as it is. The design's optimized for Terminators—I can cut the weight by a kilo, kilo and a half, without losing significant function. What I can't do is manufacture it.'

Dismayed, John sat up straight. 'What?'

'I lack the machinery and the raw materials, not to mention the personnel to mass-produce 'em. Donna and I will bang out as many of these as we can. But until you can get me those three things, well, we've got a bottleneck.'

No kidding, John thought.

He'd sent the captured plasma rifles down to the gunsmith's home in California with a trusted courier three days ago and had been anxious to see what Ike would make of them. Chamberlain's enthusiasm was no surprise. He'd been working on this project, off and on, for about three years now, using information John had culled from a Terminator's scavenged head. But the machine had somehow compromised the information, leaving them hopelessly stymied. Now, at last, here was real progress.

'I don't suppose I could finagle you and Donna into coming up here to set it up?' John said.

There was a long silence, where he'd expected an instant refusal. John frowned and waited. If his suggestion was being seriously considered, he didn't want to derail Ike's train of thought.

'I might just do that, John,' the gunsmith said at last. 'It's bad down here,' he admitted. 'Much worse than we imagined it would be. And you know we didn't paint ourselves any rosy pictures.' He was silent for a little while.

'Carol made it home last week,' he said.

'That's great!' John said. Ike and Donna's son, Joe, had almost certainly been at ground zero when the bombs dropped.

It had been a safe assumption that their daughter, Carol, was as well. Connor had never asked about either of them because their deaths were almost a sure thing. That one of them had made it home was a miracle.

'Said she saw your mother on the TV, grabbed what she could, and ran for it. Had her stepson and Sam, her husband, with her. What took them so long to make it this far was, the army rounded 'em up and put 'em in a relocation camp. They separated the families,' Ike said. 'Men in one place, women and children in another. But Carol busted 'em out.'

You could hear the proud smile in his voice, and John smiled, too. Every life saved was important. You couldn't focus on the ones not saved, or you'd go nuts.

'Actually she busted out several families.' While still approving, his voice revealed some strain. 'Place is pretty crowded, actually.'

John grinned. Ike and Donna liked people and enjoyed having guests, but they also liked it when the guests packed up and left them alone.

'You'd love Alaska,' John said. 'The population has always been small, and everyone is very respectful of individual privacy.'

'Tempting,' Ike said. 'But it's also going to be colder than the Viking hell come winter. Dark, too.'

'True. But it isn't even summer yet. And we could use your advice. Think of it as a business trip,' John suggested.

Silence. Then: 'I'll talk to Donna,' Ike promised.

'Talk to Greg, too. He can fill you in even better than I can; he was born here.'

'Will do. Out.'

'See ya soon,' John said. 'Out.'

It would be something of a coup if Ike and Donna did come up. He'd very much like having them on his command staff. He had far fewer military people than he needed. They were gathering in deserters but not as quickly as he'd been hoping for.

Desertion was a big step and soldiers as a group tended to cut a great deal of slack before acting. After all, officers were often guilty of making bad decisions or passing along bad orders, yet things worked out. It took a lot for the average soldier to desert his friends, particularly in an emergency, when people were dying and corners being cut all over the place.

But there would be more soon. Skynet was getting ready to move, as evidenced by the Terminators John had met in that B.C. forest.

What he needed to do now was find out where the mechanical bastards and their weapons were coming from.

SKYNET

The results of its first deployment of the Terminators had been unexpectedly unsatisfactory. It had known