Trial By Fire

“With you,” she said. “First thing you taught me was that the forest can be dangerous, and that you don’t go out there alone.”

“I meant that you don’t go out there alone,” he countered.

“We should make up a survival pack before we go,” Hope said, ignoring him. “Whoever’s out there may need food or medical care.” She cocked her head. “And if it turns out he needs carrying, we’ll need two of us there anyway.”

“No,” Preston said firmly. “There are Terminators out there.”

“And they can’t get down your path, remember?” Hope said. “Besides, if Lajard is right, they’re not after us, which means we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“And if Barnes is right?”

“Then we’re all doomed anyway,” Hope said calmly, “and it doesn’t matter whether I’m out there with you or back here in town.”

Her father made a face.

“Did I ever tell you that you inherited your mother’s sense of logic?”

“No, but I’ll take that as a compliment,” Hope said.

“You would.” Preston sighed. “Fine. Go pack a food bag. Nothing too heavy—we’ll be going up and down some tricky slopes. Let me go double-check that I have all the ammo we’ve got for this thing.”

He nodded toward her quiver.

“And you’d better bring all the rest of your arrows, too. Just in case.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ginny Halverson was a small, thin woman with a quiet manner that was in stark contrast to the bluster of her loud and borderline-bullying husband. She accepted Halverson’s sudden imposition of guests without complaint, showed Blair and Barnes to a bedroom, and assured them that a meal would be ready soon.

“We must really look tired,” Blair commented as she looked over the room. Like the couple of rooms she’d seen in Preston’s home, this one was only sparsely furnished, with a large bed piled high with bear skins, a dilapidated chest with two of the drawers missing, and a chunk of log serving as a side table with a large partially burned candle stuck to its top. On the walls beside the room’s single window were more bear skins, probably there as insulation. Clearly, Halverson liked to hunt.

“What was that?” Barnes asked as he lowered his minigun to the floor with a muffled thud.

“I said we must look tired,” Blair repeated. “Everyone here seems to think we need to go rest somewhere.”

“Or else they just don’t want us going anywhere,” Barnes growled as he slid his rifles off his shoulders and propped them against the wall beside the minigun. “Not until they’ve figured out what to do with us.”

Blair felt her stomach tighten. She’d been thinking pretty much the same thing.

“So you think they’re up to something, too?”

“Someone’s sure as hell up to something,” Barnes said darkly. “I don’t care what that idiot Lajard says. Mission or no mission, if Terminators have ammo to spend, they spend it. On people”

“Mmm,” Blair said noncommittally. In general, he was probably right.

On the other hand, she’d seen plenty of H-Ks veer off for strategic or tactical reasons even when they still had something to shoot with. “Maybe Lajard’s right about Skynet being concerned about its ammo supply,” she suggested. “There can’t be a lot of places out here where they can reload.”

“Yeah, and that’s another thing,” Barnes said. He paused by the bed long enough to test its softness with his hands, then continued on to the window. “Where the hell did those machines come from, anyway?”

“Good question,” Blair agreed. “You think it’s possible they’re a search party?”

“Three whole months after they got lost?”

“Point,” Blair admitted. “Maybe they’re remnants from the lab explosion, then. Some perimeter guards or scouts that survived Connor’s attack.”

“Then where were they going?” Barnes countered. “You saw them—they weren’t just wandering around waiting for instructions. They were heading somewhere.”

“Which brings us back to some kind of special mission,” Blair said. “Maybe they didn’t shoot at Preston and the others because there wasn’t any point in doing so. It’s not like their guns were doing a lot of damage.”

“At least, not until we showed up,” Barnes said thought-fully. “And they did shoot at us. They shot at me, anyway.”

Blair thought back to the brief battle.

“The southern one shot at me, too,” she said slowly. “Nothing really came close, but that was mostly because you were keeping it off balance.”

“That’s the same one that blew off a piece of sky over my head when I was putting down the minigun,” Barnes said, peering back and forth out the window.

“Because we were the ones who were a threat.”

“Or because we were the only strangers in the group,” Barnes said.

Blair frowned. That was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to her before.

“You think Skynet’s leaving the locals alone for some reason?”

“Why not?” Barnes asked. “Lajard made a deal with Skynet. Maybe the whole damn town did, too.”

“But why?” Blair persisted. “I can see Skynet wanting human scientists to work for it—there are still things even the smartest computer can’t do. But what can these other people possibly have that that Skynet would want or need?”

“Don’t know,” Barnes said. “But I can tell you right now that Lajard’s story doesn’t hold water. If they were worth hauling in to work in that lab, they were worth sending out an H-K to look for them.”

Blair nodded. “So either the three of them aren’t worth anything, or else Skynet deliberately left them out here for some other reason. Some experiment out in the woods, maybe?”

“You’re the one who found the fancy cable,” Barnes reminded her. “What could they be doing that they’d need a data transfer back to the lab?”

“It could be almost anything,” Blair admitted. “You ever hear about this Theta Project Lajard mentioned?”

Barnes shook his head. “No. But if Skynet had a hundred scientists on it, it must have been pretty damn serious about it.”

“Yeah.” Blair chewed at her lip. “I’m starting to think it might be time for a strategic withdrawal. Whatever’s going on here, it may be more than we can handle on our own.”

“Too late,” Barnes said. “Whatever Skynet’s got going, it’s bound to have a guard on the chopper by now.” He gestured out the window. “But we could follow Preston and see what he’s up to.”

“Preston?” Blair echoed, frowning as she circled the end of the bed and joined Barnes at the window.

Sure enough, Preston and his daughter were walking quickly through the middle of town, heading toward the path to the river. Preston had his rifle slung over his shoulder, while Hope had her bow and a very full quiver of arrows at her side.

And both of them were wearing small ragged backpacks.

“Maybe they’re just relieving the watch at the river,” Blair suggested.

“Or maybe they’re not,” Barnes said, stepping back from the window and studying its frame. “Let’s find out.” Turning the lock, he carefully pushed the window open. “Go get the guns.”

Blair looked back at the door, wondering what Halverson would say if he caught his guests sneaking out the bedroom window.

“The minigun, too?”

“Yes,” Barnes said, heading back toward their stack of weapons. “Never mind—I’ll get them. You go on through.”

The open part of the window was narrow, and the glass looked extremely fragile, and Blair had a couple of bad moments as she worked her way through. But she made it without breaking anything. By the time she was on the ground Barnes had returned to the window with everything except the minigun.