The Future War

John was on the beach waiting for them, sitting on a boulder and skipping smooth stones from the rocky beach out into the gray water.

'Whoa,' he said when Dieter maneuvered himself out of the car. 'That looks bad.' John propped a shoulder under his friend's arm. 'How did this happen?'

'Sheer bad luck,' Dieter said.

In the deep loch, a narrow fiber-optic pickup disappeared beneath the waves. Seconds later the water slid aside, and the massive orca shape of the submarine broached; even at a thousand yards' distance they could hear the rushing cascade of water from its tenth-of-a-mile length.

'Is there a doctor on that tin can?'

'Don't let the captain hear you call it that,' John said. 'And yes, there's a doctor and a clinic. They can help you.'

'Good. As you Americans say, I'm getting too old for this shit.

Old bones don't heal like young ones.' Leaning on his young friend, Dieter turned toward the Land Rover, where James stood with two cases. 'We got them,' he said.

John's lips thinned, but his expression was one of satisfaction.

'Sergeant,' he called over his shoulder.

One of the SEALs trotted up, his eyes taking in everything in the area—Dieter's wound, John's involvement in aiding the wounded man, the Sector agent and his packages, the narrow-eyed man behind the wheel of the car. 'Sir,' he said.

'If you'd take charge of those,' John said, indicating the satchels in James's hands. 'Thank you,' he said to the Sector agent.

'Ah, glad to help, lad,' James said. 'Good luck to you,' he said to Dieter.

'And to you,' Dieter said, 'both.'

Mick gave him a salute from inside the Rover. James got in and they drove off before Dieter was fully turned toward the zodiac. Dieter noticed, despite his pain, that there was something off about his young friend. He came to a stop. John looked up at him, concerned.

'Do you need to be carried?'

Dieter snorted at the suggestion. 'Of course not. But I sense something's wrong and I know that privacy is mostly pretend on a sub. What is it?'

'Ahhh. My father's been born.'

Dieter's arm tightened in a rough, one-armed hug, but he said nothing. There was nothing to say.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SARAH'S JOURNAL

We'd sensed something coming. Even in the short time it had been operating, we'd come to know that Skynet's distilled malice would demand more death. Our early string of successes gave us pause, leaving us feeling vulnerable rather than flushed with victory. It turned out we didn't have long to wait.

There was a second Judgment Day. Skynet had held back at least a third of its missiles waiting to see how things developed.

It watched us from space—determining where the greatest concentration of humans were. Then it attacked. This time, in addition to murdering millions, it succeeded in bringing on a nuclear winter, or at least in extending it. Blizzards raged across the higher latitudes, and even at the equator temperatures were unusually cool.

Crops in Mexico and South America were poor, and not all that we'd paid for were delivered. Our own crops were gone in the first month. We went hungry, but we didn't starve. Despite Skynet's best efforts, the resistance survived.

OZARK BASE CAMP, MISSOURI

SEVEN YEARS LATER

'Paula, where's my stethoscope?' Mary Reese called.

She was ready to move out; everything else was packed and tied onto the mule's panniers, but they couldn't leave without such a basic item. The things didn't grow on trees these days.

Knowing nothing about missions and Skynet, the mule just didn't want to go out on such a cold raw day, and it was probably hungry, too—certainly so, from the gauntness of its ribs. It looked over its shoulder at her, and she thought she could catch calculation in its beady black eye; it had already tried to step on her foot once, accidentally on purpose, and she knew it would try something else if she had to empty the panniers and repack.

Mary thought unkind thoughts about mule stew. Not practical. Mules were valuable, too.

Her assistant pursed her lips and pointed downward. Sensing adult eyes on him, Kyle Reese looked up and grinned. Around his neck was the stethoscope, the earpieces in his ears, the diaphragm against his little friend Melinda's chest. She lay on the floor looking as dead as she could manage, which, for a five-year-old, wasn't very. He pulled out the earpieces.

'Hi, Mom.' He gave her his most angelic smile.

Seven years old, she thought, and he already knows he's got a killer smile. She waggled her fingers in a give-me-that gesture, which earned her a protesting wail.

'Stop,' she said. 'If you're coming with me, we have to leave right now. And that, young man, is not a toy. It's a very valuable and completely irreplaceable medical instrument. So hand it over.'

Looking sheepish, Kyle rose and went reluctantly to his mother. Melinda sat up, miraculously restored.

'You going now?' she bellowed.

'Shhh,' Paula, her mother, said. There were two wounded soldiers behind the curtain that divided the clinic from the ward.

Doubtless they didn't appreciate sudden screams.

'Yes, we're going,' Mary said. 'Are you going to help your mother by being good?'

'I'm always good,' Melinda said, offended.

She was always a handful and it was a toss-up as to whether she or Kyle was the most mischievous.

'Hug,' Mary said, opening her arms.

The little girl rushed to her and threw her arms around Mary's hips. 'Hug, hug, hug, hug, hug!' she said. Then she turned and rushed to Kyle, wrapping her skinny arms around him and giving him a kiss on the cheek, to his great disgust. He wiped the kiss off with his wrist and even Mary could see that his face was wet.

She and Paula exchanged amused glances. Then they moved to embrace.

'You be careful,' Mary said.

'Me! You be careful out there,' Paula said. 'When you get back, your sweetie should be here.'

'Something to look forward to,' Mary said with a grin.

'C'mon, sport, let's roll.'

* * *

Mary's task was to oversee the health and well-being of those resistance workers who lived outside the cave system that housed the majority of the women and children. Many of these outworkers had jobs like foraging for wood, something that often took them far afield. Others collected nuts, herbs, and other wild foods to expand everyone's diet. All of them also worked reconnaissance.

Originally they had been required to report to the base for medical treatment, but it had been found that most people simply lived with a condition or wound until things became so serious that a field visit became necessary. Mary had argued that since she was going to have to visit the camps anyway, why not make it a regular thing? Now, twice a month, she loaded up a mule and traveled from camp to camp.