Trial By Fire

“You must be the live-and-let-live one I’ve heard so much about,” Jik said, eyeing Lajard closely.

“What, because I believe humans and Skynet can coexist?” Lajard countered. “Absolutely. And I’ve yet to be proved wrong.”

“We may change your mind,” Jik said. “Tell us about Theta.”

Lajard shrugged. “Conceptually, it was simple enough. The idea was to enhance basic human abilities to give people a better chance against the harshness of the post-Judgment Day world.”

“Enhancing them?” Barnes bit out. “You gut a human and stuff him inside a metal body, and you call that enhancing him?”

A murmur rippled through the room.

“Absolutely,” Lajard said, ignoring the reaction. “A Theta is stronger than a normal human, with more stamina and less need for food and sleep. He’s a survivor, in the very best sense of the word.”

“And all it costs is his humanity,” Preston said.

“Or it gives him his humanity back,” Lajard countered. “Take our prototype, for example. When Marcus Wright was brought to us, he—”

“So you’re the ones who turned him into a machine,” Williams said.

Barnes looked over at her, a shiver running up his spine. Williams hadn’t moved, hadn’t even raised her voice... and yet, as he looked into her eyes, he suddenly had the sense that he would rather face down an armed T-700 right now than tangle with her.

Lajard, who didn’t know her, missed it completely.

“No, we’re the ones who took a dead man and gave him a second chance at life,” he said irritably. “We rebuilt his brain, created a technique for stripping donated organs of biochemical identity tags so that they could be put together without running into rejection problems—”

“How did you know Marcus?” Valentine interrupted.

“I met him,” Williams said, that same graveyard chill in her voice.

“He paid us a visit,” Barnes added, watching the scientists’ faces closely.

“That’s impossible,” Valentine said, frowning. “He was our prototype. He never left the lab.”

“Well, he did,” Barnes told her. “Maybe the explosion opened up his cage.”

“No one was kept in a cage,” Lajard insisted.

“The hell they weren’t,” Barnes said hotly. “And Skynet was doing experiments on them.”

“Yes, well, until you can actually prove that, I’m sticking with what I saw,” Lajard insisted.

“But Barnes raises a good point,” Jik said. “You say this Marcus Wright was your prototype. How many more Thetas did you make?”

“None,” Oxley said. “We were still working on Marcus when our transport crashed and we got stuck out here.”

“Of course, that was three months ago,” Valentine pointed out. “It’s possible the others finished Marcus’s tests during that time and started work on another one.”

“Oh, they built another one, all right,” Jik said grimly. “I know because I killed it.”

Some of the color drained from Valentine’s face.

“You what?” she breathed. “Another Theta?” She shot quick, startled looks at Oxley and Lajard, then turned back to Jik. “When was this?”

“And where?” Preston added.

“A couple of days ago, on my way here,” Jik said.

“What did it look like?” Lajard asked.

“Like a skin-covered Terminator,” Barnes told him. “That’s what they all look like. That’s the point.”

“I meant what were its facial characteristics,” Lajard said with exaggerated patience. “There were other conversion candidates waiting in storage. If we knew which one you ran into, we might be able to figure out how far along the others got before the lab went up in smoke.”

“You couldn’t have mistaken this one for anyone else,” Jik said. “Or anything else, for that matter. It had a scar on its right cheek, and the whole left side of its face looked like it had been burned by acid.”

“I don’t remember anything like that in the queue,” Lajard said, frowning at the others.

“Maybe there was an accident during the procedure,” Oxley suggested. “There was a fair amount of hydrochloric and other acids involved in the tag-stripping process.”

“You were the one who handled the bio-medical aspects?” Jik asked.

“One of them, yes,” Oxley said. “Susan was with the metallurgical group, while Remy worked on programming.”

“What programming?” Preston asked. “You said these hybrids were nothing but enhanced people.”

“You try hooking up a human brain to a set of metal limbs and internal servos and see what happens,” Lajard growled. “You need an interface chip to handle data transfer between neurons and electronics, and that chip has to be programmed for the job.”

“With a few other enhancements thrown in,” Williams said.

“What enhancements?” Preston asked.

“Location and ID data,” Williams said. “Secret mission parameters and profiles. Complete Skynet control.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Lajard insisted. “I worked on the damn chip, remember? There was nothing like any of that in the programming.”

“Then why did that Theta try to kill me?” Jik asked. “Or are you suggesting it’s pure coincidence that the Theta was running the same agenda as the T-700s out there? T-700s that we know are under direct Skynet control?”

“I don’t know,” Lajard said stiffly. “But as long as we’re pointing suspicious fingers, I might mention that we’ve only got your word that there even was a hybrid out there, let alone that it attacked you.”

“Which brings us back to you,” Oxley put in. “We’ve told you about Theta. Let’s hear a little of your story.”

“Oh, come now,” Jik said reprovingly, a slight smile touching the corners of his lips. “I’m not surprised you don’t recognize me. But surely you at least recognize my voice.”

“Your voice?” Preston asked, frowning.

Barnes’s throat tightened. Ever since Jik had gotten the drop on them out in the forest he’d had the nagging feeling that he’d heard that voice somewhere before. Now, abruptly, his brain made the connection.

Only—

“Of course,” Jik said. “Jik is just a nickname from my childhood, a name I use when I’m keeping a low profile. It’s a blending of my initials, J.C.”

He drew himself up, his eyes sweeping the group of people around him.

“I’m John Connor.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A stunned silence descended on the room. Their expressions, Blair saw as she looked around, ranged from stunned to hopeful to flat-out disbelievingly worshipful.

She looked at Barnes. His eyes were focused like twin Gatling guns on Jik, his lips starting to twist into the kind of snarl that usually preceded one of his borderline-suicidal leaps into danger. His eyes flicked to Blair—

Quickly, urgently, Blair gave her head a tiny shake. Not now, she pleaded silently. Later. Not now. Not here.

His eyes narrowed in silent, impatient question. Blair flicked her eyes to the ring of armed townspeople surrounding them.

Barnes scowled. But to Blair’s relief he gave her a small nod and settled back a little into his seat.

Preston was the first to find his voice.