Trial By Fire

“What about the base you said you wanted to set up?” Preston asked.

“That’s something I still want to explore,” Connor told him. “But later. When I return, it’ll be with a full Resistance force.”

“Why not just stay here and send for them?” Preston persisted. “Skynet’s probably expecting you to move on. In that case, staying here might be safer”

“We know you’ve got a radio you can call them with,” Hope added, coming up beside Preston. “You’ve been making broadcasts.”

“A small one, yes,” Connor said thoughtfully. “An interesting suggestion, and one I’ll have to think about.” He looked down at the scattered Terminator pieces. “But first we have a lot of junk we need to dispose of. I don’t suppose you have any thermite back in town?”

“We have a pretty decent forge,” Halverson offered.

Connor shook his head.

“I doubt it’ll melt T-700 alloy. Our best bet is probably to dump the pieces into that ravine west of the river.”

“You and Williams already did that,” Preston reminded him. “The machine got out just fine.”

“Only because it was more or less intact,” Connor said. “As long as we make sure to scatter the pieces far enough apart, we shouldn’t have a problem.”

“Well, whatever we’re going to do, let’s do it,” Halverson rumbled, looking up at the sky. “I want to be back in town before it gets dark.”

“Good point.” Connor raised his eyebrows. “Mayor?”

“I guess the ravine’s as good a spot as any,” Preston agreed reluctantly. “Fine. Everyone? We’re heading across the river. Grab something, and let’s go.”

“We don’t need everybody,” Halverson said as the men and women began picking up the dented and scarred pieces of metal. “Connor and I can handle this. You can take whoever we don’t need and head back.”

Preston was used to Halverson throwing his weight around, and he’d more or less become accustomed to it. But doing it in front of John Connor himself was proving far more embarrassing than it usually was.

But until and unless Connor actually brought in his Resistance group—his group, and the food supplies he’d mentioned—Halverson would continue to have all the weight that his expert hunter status gave him.

And in this case he also happened to be right. There was no point in everyone tromping off into the woods if they weren’t needed. There was plenty of other work to be done in town.

“All right,” he said. “But take a few guards along, too. In case you run into something you can’t handle with your arms full.”

“Fine,” Halverson said. He walked away, tagging a few of the armed men and women who weren’t currently hefting a piece of broken Terminator.

“Speaking of which, Mayor,” Connor said, “I wonder if I might borrow that sidearm of yours. The .45 you loaned me is empty.”

Preston looked down at his waist, where Williams’s Desert Eagle was riding snugly in its holster.

“I don’t see why not—”

“We should keep that one with us,” Hope interrupted suddenly. “You’ve still got their shotgun, right. Won’t that do?”

“Hope—” Preston began warningly.

“That’s all right,” Connor soothed. “Actually, she’s right—we have more than enough firepower already.” He smiled at Preston. “We’ll see you back in town. And once again, Mayor, you and the others did a superb job today. You should be very proud.”

“We are,” Preston said, his annoyance at Halverson fading. Whatever points Halverson thought he was scoring with Connor by ordering Preston around, it was clear that Connor was seeing right through it. “Watch yourselves out there.”

“We will,” Connor assured him.

Walking past the line of waiting townspeople, Connor waded into the rushing water.

“Any particular reason you didn’t want me to give him Blair’s gun?” Preston muttered to his daughter.

For a moment she was silent. Preston watched as Connor made it across, followed by Halverson and Half- pint.

“I don’t trust him,” Hope said at last. “Something about him doesn’t seem right.”

Preston looked sideways at her, his reflexive objection dying in his throat. The only person in town, he reminded himself, whose opinion he genuinely trusted.

“In what way?” he asked instead.

“John Connor’s supposed to be some kind of legend, right?” Hope said. “What in the world would someone like that be doing way out here? Especially alone and on foot?”

Preston pursed his lips as an unsettling thought suddenly occurred to him.

“Unless this is all there actually is to the man.”

Hope frowned. “You mean like maybe the Resistance doesn’t exist?”

“No, I’m pretty sure the Resistance exists,” Preston said. “But maybe Connor himself is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Just some high-sounding broadcasts and a bizarre itinerant preacher game.”

The team’s rear guard was crossing the river, and the people who’d been left behind were heading down the trail toward town before Hope spoke again.

“In that case, why would Barnes and Blair say they work with Connor?” she asked. “Unless they’re lying. There has to be a real John Connor out there, a John Connor who really is the big Resistance leader he claims to be.”

“So someone’s lying,” Preston concluded. “Of course, we knew that two hours ago. The question is who?”

“I think it’s Jik,” Hope said firmly. “I don’t think he’s John Connor at all.”

Across the river, the last of the townspeople disappeared into the woods.

“Could be,” Preston said. “Fortunately, thanks to Halverson, you and I now have a bit of time to explore that very theory.”

He picked up the backpack they’d taken from Barnes and slung one of its straps onto his shoulder. With most of its ammo magazines now with Jik and Halverson, it was considerably lighter than it had been.

“Let’s head home. I feel like a long, serious conversation.”

* * *

“Well?” Barnes asked from his end of the couch.

Blair consulted her watch. Since the last sounds of distant gunfire had died away... “About half an hour,” she told him.

Barnes grunted. “Means they got ‘em.”

“What do you mean?” Smith asked anxiously from his guard post by the window. “Who got who?”

“I mean they nailed the machines,” Barnes told him. “If they hadn’t, you’d still hear shots every once in awhile from survivors trying to get away.”

Smith exhaled heavily. “Thank God,” he muttered.

Blair looked sideways at the two men, both of them visibly relaxing with Barnes’s news. The other possibility, unfortunately, was that there was no survivors’ gunfire because there were no survivors.

But there was no point in bringing that up. If it was bad news, they’d find out soon enough.

“So who do you think he is?” Barnes asked.

Blair made a face. She’d been poking at the whole Jik question ever since Preston had stuck them in here, under armed guard.

“My guess is he’s a con man,” she said.

“Looking for what?”

“Here and now?” Blair shrugged. “Food and shelter would be a decent enough reward for any scammer these days.”

“Mm,” Barnes said.

Blair eyed him. “You’re not convinced.”

“You might be right,” he said. “Probably are. You like their story about Marcus?”