Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes

out there. You need a field medic, pure and simple. So you’ve got Campollo and me, and Campollo is seventy-one with arthritic knees. This is one of those decisions that really kind of makes itself, don’t you think?”

Connor closed his eyes.

“I don’t want to lose you, Kate.”

“I don’t want to lose you, either,” she said quietly. “That’s why we need to be together. So that neither of us loses the other.”

With her hand still on his cheek, she leaned forward and gave him a lingering kiss. Connor kissed her back, hungrily, craving the love and closeness and peace that had all but died so many years ago, when the missiles began falling to the earth.

They held the kiss for a long minute, and then Kate gently disengaged.

“Meanwhile,” she said, giving him an impish smile, “you still have a Christmas present to open.”

Connor smiled back.

“What in the world would I do without you?”

“Well, for one thing, you could have been asleep fifteen minutes ago,” Kate said dryly. “Come on—open it.”

Connor focused on the bag in his hand. It was one of the drawstring bags Kate packed emergency first-aid supplies in, turned inside out so that the smoother, silkier side was outward.

“I see you’ve been shopping at Macy’s again,” he commented as he carefully pulled it open.

“Actually, I just keep reusing their bags,” Kate said. “Adds class to all my gift-giving. For heaven’s sake— were you this slow on Christmas when you were a boy?”

Connor shrugged.

“Given that my mother’s typical Christmas presents were new Browning semi-autos or C4

detonators, it didn’t pay to open packages too quickly.”

Kate’s eyes widened.

“You are joking, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Connor said with a straight face. “Christmas was survival gear; Fourth of July was munitions. Okay, here goes.” He reached into the bag.

And to his surprise, pulled out a badly cracked jewel case with a slightly battered compact disc inside.

“What’s this?” he asked, peering at it in the dim light.

“A little memory from your childhood,” Kate said. “Or at least from simpler days. An album called Use Your Illusion II.”

Connor felt his eyes open. A memory from his childhood, indeed. “Thank you,” he said. “Where on earth did you find it?”

“One of Olsen’s men had it with him last month when they came by to swap munitions,” Kate said. “I remembered you talking about listening to it when you were younger, so I traded him a couple of extra bandage packs for it. You know, those packs we dug out of the treatment room at the Orange County Zoo.”

“I just hope Tunney was able to get that CD player working,” Connor commented, cradling the disk carefully in his hands. “I miss music. That and Italian food, I think, are what I miss most.”

“For me, it’s definitely music,” Kate mused. “Vocals, especially—I used to love listening to a live choir in full four-part harmony.” She smiled faintly. “Just a bit different from your taste in music.”

“Differences are the spice of life,” Connor reminded her.

“And G’n’R is probably better music to kill machines by.”

“Probably.” Kate’s smile faded. “Besides, nowadays what reason does anyone have to sing?”

“There’s still life,” Connor said,, eyeing his wife closely. Kate didn’t get depressed very often, but when she did it could be a deep and terrible pit. “And love, and friends.”

“But mostly just life,” Kate agreed. “I know. Sometimes we forget what’s really important, don’t we?”

“A constant problem throughout history,” Connor said, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. So she wasn’t going there, after all. Good. “Thanks again, Kate. This really makes my day. Probably even my year.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Oh, and rock on. The man who gave me the disk told me to say that.” She took a deep breath, and Connor could see her chasing the memories back to where they belonged. “Meanwhile, it’s been a late night, and the world starts up again in about five hours.

Come on, let’s go to bed.”

“Right.” Standing up, Connor reached for his gunbelt.

And paused. “Did you hear something?” he asked in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” Kate said, her head tilted in concentration.

Connor frowned, straining his ears. A whispery wind was blowing gently across the bunker roof, setting cat- purr vibrations through the piles of loose debris up there. Everything seemed all right.

But something had caught his attention. And something was still screaming wordlessly across his combat senses.

“Stay here,” Connor told his wife, crossing back to the door. He listened at the panel for a moment, then cautiously opened it.

The earlier overcast sky had cleared somewhat, allowing a little starlight to filter in through the cracked shutters. Connor checked both directions down the empty corridor, then headed left toward the rear of the bunker and the sentry post situated between the living quarters and storage room.

Piccerno was on duty, seated on a tall stepladder with everything from his shoulders up snugged up inside the observation dome. Like everything else these days, the dome was a product of simplicity and ingenuity: an old plastic office wastebasket that had been fastened to the top of the bunker, equipped with a set of eye slits that permitted 360-degree surveillance, then covered from above with strategically placed rubble to disguise its true purpose.

“Report,” Connor murmured as he stepped to the foot of the ladder.

There was no answer.

“Piccerno?” Connor murmured, the hair on the back of his neck tingling. “Piccerno?”

Still no answer. Getting a one-handed grip on the ladder, Connor headed up. He reached the top and pushed aside Piccerno’s bunched-up parka collar.

One touch of the warm, sticky liquid that had soaked the upper surface of the collar was all he needed to know what had happened. He spent another precious second anyway, peering up into the narrow space between Piccerno’s face and the rim of the dome, just to make sure there was nothing he could do.

There wasn’t. Piccerno’s eyes were open but unseeing, his forehead leaning against the dome, the blood from the hole in his left temple still trickling down his face.

Skynet had found them.

Quickly, Connor climbed back down the ladder, a kaleidoscope of Piccerno’s life with the team flashing through his mind. Ruthlessly, he forced back the memories.

This was not the time.

Grabbing the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun that was propped against the wall, he hurried back to the living quarters.

Kate was already dressed, her gun belt in hand. “What is it?” she asked tensely.

“Piccerno’s dead,” Connor told her grimly. “Long-range sniper, or else one hell of a silencer.”

“Terminators?”

“I didn’t check,” Connor said. “Skynet’s obviously trying the sneaky approach, and I didn’t want to do anything that might alert it that we were onto the game. Get back to supply—I’ll go roust everyone and send them back there. Make a quick sort of the equipment and load them with as much as you think they can handle.”

“Right,” Kate said as she finished strapping on her gun belt.

“And keep everyone as quiet as you can,” Connor added. “The longer Skynet thinks we’re all still asleep, the longer we’ll have before the fireworks start.”

Kate nodded.

“Be careful.”

“You, too.”