The Future War

'Take my hand and let's get out of here, okay?'

The rope ladder came down from above and Jason dove toward it, eluding Tom's clutching hand. Tom couldn't help laughing as he pursued the kid up the ladder. As soon as he reached the top, he grabbed it and dragged it over to the window, tossing it out with a clatter. Jason all but pushed him aside in his eagerness to be out of the flaming cabin and Tom let him go, laughing at his eagerness. His sister will never let him live this down.

Jason was halfway down when a blaze of blue light shot through him, emerging in a yellow blossom of sparks. The boy fell backward, a startled expression on his young face. Tom was leaning out the window, frozen with shock, when Peggy yanked his shoulder. If not for the sudden move, the next flash of blue light would have taken off his head.

'What's happening?' Peggy shouted over Lisa's terrified screaming.

'The cellar!' Tom answered.

His wife stared at the rising flames, then at her husband. It didn't look possible. She moved toward the window, but Tom grabbed her and dragged her toward the stairs.

'Tom!' she shouted, objecting, but too frightened to be more coherent.

'Jason's gone,' he said tersely, feeling sick to his stomach.

'Someone's firing at us. Cellar,' he repeated.

Peggy had gone limp. She still held their daughter, still stood, but for now at least, she might as well have been gone. The loft was full of smoke and the heat was becoming more dangerous.

Tom grabbed a blanket off the bed and soaked it as well as he could with the contents of their washbowl. Then he wrapped it around them all, and with one arm around his wife's waist barreled down the stairs.

The hatch to the cellar was under the stairs and so, for the moment, was partially sheltered from the scorching heat. Tom yanked it up, then forced his wife down the stairs before him, Pulling the hatch closed behind.

Long ago he'd connected the cellar to a narrow rock cave that came out by the creek. Peggy knew about it and she'd hated it, seeing it as an example of his growing paranoia. The sight of the passage now snapped her out of her shock and she took a deep breath, turning to him with fear in her eyes.

'Mom and Dad,' she said. Then she faltered for a moment and Tom knew she was thinking of Jason.

'We need to get out of here first,' he said, and gave her a gentle push.

He pulled the camouflaged, dirt-coated door closed behind them, hoping it wouldn't burn. Just inside, he pawed at the doorframe and found the flashlight he'd placed there. He shook it to charge the battery, then hastened Peggy down the passageway in the dim light.

The passage wasn't that long, really, about a hundred feet, but it had seemed the length of Route 66 before he'd been finished.

At the end, where he'd placed another hidden door, he'd also stowed some clothes and weapons, carefully wrapped in plastic to protect them. There was food here, too. He sat Peggy on one of the chests.

'Get dressed,' Tom ordered, 'and stand ready. I'm going to find out what's going on. I might end up sending some of the other women and children down here. Take care of them.' He grabbed a shotgun and thumbed in rounds—solid shot, cylindrical rifled slugs.

Then he turned off the flashlight and placed it in his wife's hand. Feeling his way carefully, he opened the door into the natural cave.

When he reached the creek he squatted down and smeared some mud from the bank over his face and hands, then crept forward. Peering over the bank, he saw that the whole village was in flames. He could see forms moving about; by their postures he could tell they were armed. Then one stood before the flames of a burning house and he caught his breath, his eyes widening in horror.

Like something from a horror movie, it was skeletal. It turned its head slowly, like a gun turret searching for a target. Light gleamed from the metal dome of its skull and through the cage of its ribs; red light blazed from its eye sockets. Tom sank slowly, until he'd dropped onto his butt.

Shit! he thought.

Slowly he became aware that he was hearing screams. Tom squeezed his eyes tight shut, wishing he could do the same with his ears. Of course he heard screaming. They were trapped in burning buildings, and the only way out was certain death. If he hadn't provided a way out for himself and his family, he'd be screaming, too.

There was a sound off to his right. Not footsteps but the result of stealthy footsteps, crackling leaves and breaking twigs, unavoidable in the deep woods. Tom pressed himself deeper into the dirt of the bank and prayed, making all sorts of promises to God if He would only let him live. He pulled the rifle against his chest, up under his chin, waiting.

He had no idea how many of those things were up there trolling the village for survivors, but he knew one shot would have them all down here looking for him. That would draw them toward Peggy and Lisa, and he wouldn't let these things have them. They wouldn't take them like they'd taken his son. My boy

! he thought in anguish, and pushed the feeling away, forcing anger into its place, overriding the grief with fury. The machines would not succeed. He wouldn't let them.

The soft, methodical sound of footsteps came closer.

* * *

The Terminator scout came to the end of its designated watch zone and turned away. No humans appeared to have escaped the assault. The enemy had been caught completely unprepared. It appeared that there had been 100 percent enemy casualties.

It stopped every five feet to scan the woods all around, then proceeded on its way. No humans seemed to have escaped the assault.

Terminated, it transmitted to Skynet.

ALASKA

John Connor was worried.

I suspect that's going to be my natural state from here on out, he thought.

The PDA in his hand showed the terrain, his location, and the jump-off points of the other attack parties. The factory was located in a low wooded valley surrounded by spruce-clad hills…

And this is the first big operation I've personally commanded

, he thought nervously, looking around at the confident faces.

Maybe I am the Great Military Dickhead of Mom's dreams, but right now I feel more like a confidence man. Not that that's my only worry.

By the time they'd moved out, he hadn't heard from Tom Preston in Iowa. Unusual. Tom was one person who could be relied on to report regularly. He'd remarked once that having young children kept you awake and alert and therefore on time.

But not today.

Hope it's not an omen. Maybe that was an ill-omened thought. So far everything had gone extremely well. Almost suspiciously well. Could it really be that the computer was arrogant enough to not protect its most important assets?

Because there was, as yet, no sign that the resistance fighters had been seen. He couldn't help it; continuous good fortune raised his hackles.

Ninel was back with the various transports; also there was Ike, who'd arrived in Alaska yesterday. He appeared to like Ninel, but had looked askance at John when he found out she was going with them. It hadn't been necessary for him to comment; John knew the older man well enough to have gotten paragraphs of meaning out of that one look.

The two of them would come up to the factory once John was sure the place was secured. Although with Skynet, secured tended to be a relative term.

There was a fence around the installation and about twenty yards of cleared ground all around the inside. The building was a metal frame affair with steps leading up to a second level. From the blueprints there was a small office there. But most of the interior was pure machinery up to forty feet high. There were spotlights at each corner of the building and on each corner of the fence at the top of tall poles.

John crouched beside the crew with the TOW antitank missile. 'Can you take out the antennae?' He gestured