Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes

again into the open air the faint glow in the clouds that marked the sun’s position was already halfway to the horizon.

“What now?” Kyle asked as they headed east.

“We get out of this neighborhood,” Nguyen said grimly, “and then cover as much distance as we can before we have to turn in for the night.”

Star touched Kyle’s arm. Where will we stay? she signed.

“You have some place in mind for that?” Kyle asked Nguyen.

“There are a couple of possibilities,” the other said. “We have to see first how far we get.”

“What are they like?” Kyle asked. They were passing the spot where he and Orozco had had the confrontation with the new gang yesterday, and he wondered whether they’d actually left like they’d said they would.

Apparently not.

Even as Kyle eyed their ramshackle headquarters the door opened a crack and a single eye peered out. The eye flicked back and forth, taking in the size and armament of the group, and then the door quietly closed again.

“One’s just an empty building,” Nguyen said. He’d noticed the door and the eye too, Kyle saw, and his gaze lingered there another moment before turning away. “The other’s the home of some of our other customers. Much safer, but they’ll charge a hefty fee for putting us up.”

Kyle nodded, looking up over the broken buildings and piles of wreckage to Moldering Lost Ashes. Up there on the eighth floor, he knew, the sentries were watching, and he wondered if they’d spotted him and Star among the crowd of men and animals.

If they had, what were they thinking? Did they think he and Star had deserted them, the way Ellis had?

The group had made it three blocks east of Moldering Lost Ashes when Kyle spotted two figures standing motionlessly in the shadow of a broken wall, just two blocks farther ahead.

“Nguyen?” he murmured.

“I see them,” Nguyen said grimly. “Vuong?”

“Terminators,” Vuong said, squinting toward the figures. “T-600s, probably—haven’t seen a T-400 in ages.”

“Agreed,” Nguyen said. “I wonder what they’re doing. Terminators usually don’t just stand around like that.”

Vuong shrugged. “Maybe they’re on break.”

Someone in the rear of the group snorted.

“Well, whatever they’re up to, we don’t want to know about it,” Nguyen said. “We’ll turn north at the next street and try to get around them.”

Kyle peered at the distant figures. He didn’t know much about Terminators, only the little that Orozco had been able to tell him. He’d never even seen one close up, which Orozco had assured him was the way he wanted to keep it.

“Maybe we should split up,” he said. “Some of us head north, the rest head south.”

“Too risky,” Nguyen said. “If they decide to come after us, we’ll need all our firepower to stop them.”

Kyle stole a look at the gun in Nguyen’s holster. Did they in fact have enough firepower to stop a pair of Terminators? Orozco had always been a little vague on what it took to bring the machines down.

“Then let’s all just go south,” he suggested. “There’s an alley about half a block south off the next street, that would get us across that block without being seen. If they stay where they are by that wall, we should come out on their blind side.”

“Unless they take maybe two steps forward,” Nguyen countered. “No, I think the northern route would be safer.”

“But there’s no way of crossing the street without them seeing us up there,” Kyle persisted. “Not unless we go four or five blocks, and there are a couple of gangs up there we really don’t want to get close to.”

“There’s a big gang to the south, too,” Nguyen said. “There are gangs everywhere.”

“Right, but if we go south and the Terminators don’t take those two steps forward, we can get past without them ever seeing us,” Kyle said. “Star and I are willing to try it.”

“Forget it,” Nguyen said flatly. “I promised Orozco I’d keep you safe.”

Vuong murmured something in another language. Nguyen answered back, and for a few steps the two men talked quietly back and forth.

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” Nguyen said at last reluctantly. “But Vuong will go with you.”

Kyle nodded. “Where do we meet up again?”

“Vuong knows the rendezvous spot,” Nguyen said. “Just watch yourselves, okay?”

The two Terminators still hadn’t moved by the time the group reached the next street and split up. But Kyle could feel their eyes on him as he, Star, and Vuong headed south, and felt a sense of relief when they passed the nearest building and were out of the machines’ sight.

At least the Terminators hadn’t come charging straight for them. Maybe they really were on some kind of break.

Kyle hadn’t been in this part of the neighborhood for several months, but the place hadn’t changed very much.

“There’s the alley,” he told Vuong, pointing out the opening just past the midpoint of the block.

“The footing’s kind of tricky, but we should be able to get through.”

“I don’t know,” Vuong said doubtfully. “We’ll be coming out awfully close. If those Terminators spot us, we’ll be sitting ducks. You sure we can’t go a little farther south?”

Kyle shook his head. “Not unless we go all the way around the Death’s-Head Gang’s territory.

They’re the ones with all the cars up on their sides blocking the street.”

“Yes, we saw those on our way in,” Vuong said grimly. “We can’t go around them—if we do, we won’t be in position to back up Nguyen’s group if they need us. I guess it’s your alley, or nothing.”

“It’ll work,” Kyle assured him. “Besides, if we have to backtrack, the alley’s a good place to do it from. There’s a gap in a brick wall at the far end you need to get through, and I don’t think one of those Terminators could.”

“You don’t, huh?” Vuong said. “Ever seen a Terminator in action?”

“Not really,” Kyle admitted.

Vuong grunted. “Let’s hope we can keep it that way.”

The alley was as treacherous as Kyle remembered it, filled with angled slabs of pavement, a pair of rusting pickup trucks, and a small forest of exposed rebar. The three of them picked their way through, squeezed through the gap in the final brick wall, and reached the far end. Crouching down beside a bush growing tenaciously through a wide crack in the sidewalk, feeling terribly exposed now that they were back on an open street, Kyle looked carefully around it.

Half a block north, he could see the partial wall where the two Terminators had been loitering.

The Terminators themselves were nowhere to be seen.

“Anything?” Vuong murmured from behind him.

“I can’t see them,” Kyle murmured back. “They could be there, but they could have moved.”

Carefully, Vuong lifted his head above the bush for a look of his own.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess for the moment we stay put.”

“Stay put here?” Kyle asked, looking around. Except for the bush, they had no cover at all.

“We have to be able to see when the others get to their jump-off point,” Vuong explained patiently. “Once they’re there, we’ll figure out our next move.”

The minutes ticked slowly by. The cloud cover was starting to thicken, bringing a new chill to the air, and Kyle could feel Star shivering at his side. Slipping off his jacket from beneath his bag’s shoulder strap, he wrapped the garment around her. She flashed him a quick smile of thanks, then went back to watching the street.

More minutes went by. Kyle was starting to wonder just how far north Nguyen had decided to go when Vuong touched his shoulder.

“There they are,” he murmured.