Kyle leaned a little farther around the bush. Three blocks north, he could see Nguyen and the others creeping as furtively across the street as the uneven footing and the presence of a dozen burros allowed.
“I don’t see anything,” Vuong said. “Maybe the machines left while we were climbing over all that rebar.”
“And went where?” Kyle asked, looking around.
“As long as they’re not here, who cares?” Vuong said. “Looks like our alley continues on past the street, through that gap in the vines. That’s where we’re going.”
“Okay.” Taking a deep breath, Kyle gathered his feet beneath him for a quick sprint.
And found himself suddenly off-balance as Star grabbed his arm and yanked backward.
“Hey—-easy,” he protested, glancing at her.
What he saw made him take a second, longer look. The girl’s face had gone rigid, her eyes wide and terrified. Something had spooked her, but good.
“What is it?” Kyle asked. A movement past the bush caught the corner of his eye, and he looked up.
To see the two Terminators emerge from a broken doorway half a block south of Nguyen’s group and head straight toward them.
“Vuong!” he bit out.
“Stay here,” Vuong ordered. Drawing his pistol, he dashed around the bush and headed toward the figures that were closing in on his friends.
Again, Kyle gathered his feet beneath him. If he could get Star across the street and into the relative safety of the alley while the Terminators were focusing on the traders….
But again, Star’s grip brought him up short.
“Star, we have to go,” Kyle insisted, trying to pry her fingers off his arm.
She shook her head violently, wrapping her other hand around his arm for emphasis, and nodded sharply in Vuong’s direction. Wishing the girl could just
Vuong was still running, his arms pumping at his sides. The two Terminators were still marching stolidly toward Nguyen’s group, apparently oblivious to this new threat coming up behind them. Vuong slowed a little, lifting his gun into a two-handed marksman’s grip and leveling the weapon at the Terminators’ backs.
And then, to Kyle’s stunned horror, as Vuong passed the half-broken wall, the two Terminators they’d seen earlier stepped into view.
Vuong spotted them the same time Kyle did. Twisting half around, he opened fire.
The Terminators jerked with the multiple impacts as the rounds slammed into their metal bodies.
But they didn’t fall or even falter, but just kept moving.
Vuong must have known in that moment that he was a dead man. But that didn’t mean he was just going to lay down and give up. He veered away from the approaching death machines, emptying his pistol into them.
Kyle held his breath. But aside from more jerking the Terminators seemed completely unaffected by the attack. Shaking the clip from his gun, Vuong slammed in a fresh one and emptied it as well. Again, the Terminators shrugged off the hail of lead.
Vuong was reloading with a third clip when a second, more distant crackle of gunfire erupted.
Nguyen and his men had formed a line behind their burros and were making their own stand against the Terminators bearing down on them. But their attack was no more effective than Vuong’s.
And then, suddenly, Kyle’s brain unfroze and he remembered his bombs.
He reached into the bag, snatching out the lighter and one of the cold metal cylinders.
“Stay down,” he muttered to Star as he popped the lighter’s top and thumbed the flame to life.
He ignited the bomb’s fuse, gauged the distance, then rose to his feet and hurled the bomb as hard as he could toward the Terminators closing on Vuong.
But not hard enough. The pipe bounced off the pavement and skittered to a halt a good twenty feet back from the two Terminators. Even over the noise of the gunfire filling the air, the machines apparently heard the sound as the bomb hit the ground, and one of them turned to look.
And then the bomb exploded, and Kyle ducked back down as the shockwave blew through the bush’s branches and leaves. The sound of the blast faded away into silence.
Kyle looked at Star, his throat tightening. Then, steeling himself, he lifted his head again for another look.
To find that it was already over.
Kyle stared, unable to believe his eyes. Vuong was down, lying unmoving on the pavement, his shirt bright with blood. The two Terminators stood over him, gazing down at his body like hunters assessing their prey.
Away to the north, the other pair of Terminators were wading through Nguyen’s group, metal arms slamming and punching and throwing the men around like rags. Kyle wondered why the traders hadn’t at least tried to run, only then spotting the two additional Terminators striding toward the doomed men from further north, blocking any chance of escape in that direction.
Nguyen had tried to take his men away from a clear and present threat. Instead, he’d led them into the center of a trap.
And as far as Kyle could tell, none of the Terminators had even bothered to use the massive guns strapped to their right arms.
Then, as Kyle stared at the carnage, sickened yet somehow unable to turn away, one of the two machines standing over Vuong’s body stirred and turned its head. Its glowing eyes seemed to lock onto Kyle.
And with a sudden surge of energy, it turned and headed toward him.
“Come on,” Kyle muttered, grabbing Star’s hand and pulling her back into the alley. He pushed her through the gap in the brick wall, then squeezed through himself, and again got a grip on her hand as he took the lead. If they could get back to the next street over and find some building they could disappear into before the Terminator caught up with them, they might still have a chance.
But the alley’s footing was as treacherous going in this direction as it had been going in the other, and Kyle was forced to slow down as he balanced their need for haste with their equally urgent need for safety. A broken leg or twisted ankle now would mean quick and certain death.
Kyle could feel the sweat gathering around his neck as he picked his way along the alley, not daring to turn around, wondering whether he would even hear the sound of the Terminator’s gun as the killing rounds tore into his back.
But that line of thought led only to panic. Pushing it away, he concentrated on finding the best possible route for him and Star. They would make it, he told himself firmly. Luck favored the prepared, Orozco had always told him, and they were prepared. They would make it.
They were halfway through when their luck ran out.
The crash of breaking brick exploded from behind them. The Terminator had reached the wall and was battering its way through, sending bricks flying with each blow from its free left hand. Kyle spun round to see that the top of the wall was already gone, and even as he tried to get his own feet moving again the rest of the wall collapsed. Kicking its way through the rubble, the Terminator strode toward them.
And with that, it was all over.
Kyle froze, gripping Star’s hand, staring helplessly as the killing machine bore down on them.
Its glowing red eyes burned into them from its expressionless face, its rubbery skin and coverall-type clothing torn and scorched where Vuong’s bullets had shredded them. Beneath the dangling tatters, Kyle could see the Terminator’s gleaming metal skeleton. Gripped in its right hand, the multi-barreled gun looked as big as a cannon.
And then, abruptly, a completely unexpected question popped into Kyle’s mind.
They hadn’t used their weapons against Nguyen and Vuong, either. Instead, they’d simply bludgeoned the traders to death with their bare metal hands.
And in a burst of desperation-induced inspiration, Kyle suddenly got it.
Orozco had said Skynet was planning an attack against the neighborhood. But he’d also said that the big computer probably wouldn’t launch that attack until nightfall.
It didn’t want anyone escaping before then, which was why it had set out all these Terminators as sentries.
