Trial By Fire

“Here,” he said, poking the butt of her Mossberg through the opening.

“No minigun?” Blair asked as she took the shotgun.

“Too big to fit through,” he grunted, poking the SIG 542 toward her. “But I took the rest of the ammo belt.”

Thirty seconds later the weapons, backpacks, and Barnes were all outside with Blair.

“Head around that side of the house,” he ordered, pointing, as he pushed the window closed again. “Long as Halverson and his wife stay in the kitchen they won’t see us.”

They made their way through the town, managing to avoid the handful of people also moving around outside. Preston and Hope were out of sight by the time they reached the edge of the forest, and Blair took special care to keep an eye on the woods around them as they made their way down the path. It was only an assumption, after all, that the Prestons were going all the way to the river.

Five minutes later, they reached the rushing water.

“What now?” Blair asked as she and Barnes peered from behind a screen of branches at the woman and two men standing apprehensive sentry duty at the ford.

“We could ask them where Preston went,” Barnes said doubtfully. “But if the whole town’s in on it, they’ll probably lie.”

“Then let’s not ask them,” Blair said, thinking hard. “In fact, let’s just forget about Preston.”

Barnes eyed her suspiciously. “If you didn’t want to follow them, this is a hell of a time to bring it up.”

“I was thinking we might try a different approach,” Blair said. “Whatever’s going on in Baker’s Hollow, it has to be connected somehow to the cable. We know the cable was running along the far side of the river, or at least the last vector we had on it suggested it was running along that side. If Skynet’s playing games, maybe part of that game is to keep us on this side of the river.”

For a moment Barnes didn’t reply. Blair braced herself, waiting for the inevitable scornful blast...

“Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,” he said, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “You’re saying Skynet heard us talking about the cable through all those pieces of broken machine lying around outside the lab. It wanted to stop us there—tried to stop us there—only it couldn’t. So it grabbed all the T-700s it had in the area and put them over there. Not to keep someone from getting across from that side, but to keep us from going across from here.”

“Exactly,” Blair said, wondering if he was seriously considering her suggestion or just setting her up for a harder fall.

“What if we’d put down on that side instead of this side?”

“We couldn’t,” Blair said. “There weren’t any clearings big enough to land the Blackhawk, not for miles. Skynet would know that if we wanted to look around over there we’d have to come from here.”

“So why pull the machines out, then?” he persisted. “Why send them upriver?”

“I’m not sure,” Blair admitted. “Maybe it wanted to get them under cover before we could blast them.”

“Or maybe it figured that the town could handle us,” Barnes suggested. “Maybe it thought that once they spun us that story about someone on the run we’d be so busy trying to find him that we’d forget about the cable.”

“Could be,” Blair said cautiously. She was still having trouble buying Barnes’s notion that everyone in Baker’s Hollow was in on some grand conspiracy. But as one of her old wingmen had often said, just because someone was paranoid didn’t necessarily mean he was wrong.

“And by sending one Terminator up each side of the river, it makes us think there’s another way across upstream,” she added slowly. “Which forces us to search both sides for our refugee.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Barnes concluded. “Worth checking out, anyway. You got a plan?”

Blair braced herself. Was this where he was going to cut her down?

“If Skynet doesn’t want us crossing the river,” she said, “I say we do precisely that.”

Once again, he surprised her.

“Okay,” he said. “Go ahead—I’ll cover you in case the guards give you any trouble. Once you’re across, you can cover me.”

“Right,” Blair said, eyeing the guards. For their sake, they’d better not give her any trouble. “Keep an eye out for Preston and Hope, too. There’s no guarantee they’re actually ahead of us.”

With the three guards focused on the river, Blair got within five paces before one of them noticed her and snapped a warning that brought the others spinning around, rifles held at the ready.

“It’s all right,” Blair said hastily. “Blair Williams. I came with Barnes on the helicopter.”

“What’s happened?” one of the men asked, looking anxiously over her shoulder. “Did that Terminator find the town?”

“No, not as far as I know,” Blair assured him. “It occurred to me that no one’s tracking the T-700 that’s still on the other side of the river. I thought I’d go over and see if I can figure out where it’s gone.”

“Sounds dangerous,” the woman said.

“Also stupid,” the first man said brusquely. “We sure as hell don’t want you drawing it over to this side.”

“I won’t,” Blair promised, a thought suddenly occurring to her. “I could use a guide, though. One of you want to come along?”

The first man shook his head. “Halverson told us to stay on guard here.”

“You always do everything Halverson tells you?”

“Damn right,” the first man growled. “You listen to experts, you stay alive longer.” He gestured. “And one of the things experts say is not to go into a forest alone.”

“Oh, I’m not alone,” Blair assured him, glancing back over her shoulder. “I guess he’s fallen behind a little.” She looked back at the others. “Last chance for one of you to come along and help out.”

“Just go,” the man growled. “And if you hear a whistle—three shorts, three longs, three shorts—get back here as fast as you can.”

“We will,” Blair promised, wincing at the thought of a T-700 rampaging through Baker’s Hollow. “I’d better go—Barnes can catch up whenever he catches up. By the way, Preston did head up the east side of the river, right?”

“Preston?” the first man repeated, frowning.

“He was ahead of us,” Blair said. “You didn’t see him?”

“Haven’t seen anyone since you all headed back to town.”

“He might have taken another route,” the woman offered. “There are a couple more paths heading upstream off the main one that you can’t see from here.”

“That’s probably where he went,” Blair said. “See you later.”

Blair had seen the river depth at the ford when the T-700 was crossing, and had already calculated that her boots would be high enough to keep out most of the water. What she hadn’t anticipated was the sheer raw strength of the river’s current. Over the twenty-five-foot trek she had to stop four times to consolidate her balance, and even then nearly had her feet knocked out from under her twice. The water was cold, too, and by the time she stumbled up onto the bank her bad leg was throbbing and her feet felt like chunks of ice. She climbed up a short embankment, found a convenient tree where she would be out of sight of the guards, and drew her Desert Eagle.

She’d barely gotten settled when Barnes appeared, striding toward the river as if he owned it. He didn’t stop to chat with the guards, but merely exchanged nods with them and headed across.

Headed across quite effortlessly, in fact, to Blair’s annoyance. He stopped only once, at one of the spots where Blair had nearly been knocked over, but aside from that simply walked straight through.

Of course, he was massive compared to her. And he’d had the chance to watch her cross first and see where all the trouble spots were.

Blair backed up a few steps as he reached the riverbank, waiting until he’d entered the relative safety of the trees before holstering her gun.

“Anything from the guards?” he asked, turning to look behind him.

Blair shook her head. “They weren’t even watching you, let alone targeting you. I invited one of them to come along with us, too, just to see how they’d react.”

“And?”

“No interest,” she said. “If they’re worried about us stumbling across something we shouldn’t, they’re more