Trial By Fire

people. It has to stop here.”

Hope didn’t answer. Her face was lowered toward the ground, her eyes squeezed shut.

“That isn’t Susan Valentine,” Blair said. “Not anymore. It’s a Terminator. But if you can nail its control chip, about an inch above the spot where you shot the T-700, there’s a chance that Susan may be able to come back out.”

“And then die?”

Blair sighed. Unfortunately, she was probably right. Shooting the T-700 had disabled the cortex but done little additional damage to the metal skull and processor banks behind it. In Valentine, though, the space inside the metal skull was occupied by a human brain.

Marcus had managed to disable his chip without doing any further damage. But Hope’s arrow probably wouldn’t be that selective. If it hit a seam in the armor and slipped through, Valentine would almost certainly die.

But it had to be done.

Hope knew it, too. The girl took a deep breath and raised her head again.

“All right,” she said, opening her eyes. “But you should stay here. I’ll go around to the other side.”

“It’ll be dangerous to move around this close to the helo,” Blair warned.

“I know this forest,” Hope reminded her. “You don’t. I’ll go.”

Blair hesitated, then nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “But once you’re there, stay under cover until I get their attention to me. How long will it take you?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Hope said. “Maybe twenty. I’ll have to go straight out into the forest, out of sight, then do a big circle around the clearing.”

Blair looked up at the sky. Twenty minutes, with sundown less than an hour away. It was going to be tight.

“Take whatever time you need to keep from being seen,” she said. “And be careful.”

Hope nodded. Holding her bow vertically in front of her where it wouldn’t snag on anything, she slipped silently away into the forest.

The minutes ticked slowly by. Gazing at the helo, listening to Lajard’s cursing, Blair found herself staring at the motionless Valentine.

Wondering what was going on behind the Theta’s stolid expression.

Marcus hadn’t known he was a Theta until the magnetic mine at the Resistance base had blown his body open. Even then, he hadn’t realized he was operating under a secret directive until he reached Skynet Central and Skynet itself revealed the truth to him.

Did Valentine understand what had happened to her? Had the memory of her transformation been erased from her mind, the way Jik’s entire false John Connor memory had been put into him? Or had she always known who and what she was?

Marcus had hated the thought of what he’d become. Oxley, in contrast, had seemed to revel in his new power, strength, and supposed invulnerability.

What was Valentine thinking? The last five minutes, Blair knew, would be the most dangerous, as Hope made her approach back toward the Blackhawk’s starboard side. Blair gave the girl ten minutes, then lifted her Desert Eagle with both hands to point at the cockpit and took a deep breath.

“Lajard?” she called.

There was a moment of silence. Then, beside Valentine, Lajard cautiously raised his head above the control panel, just far enough to see through the broken windshield.

“Williams?” he called back.

“Having trouble starting my helo?”

“Just amusing myself while we wait for sundown,” Lajard said. “I prefer flying at night. You know, it’s really too bad Smith had to open his big fat mouth. It would have been so much better for you and Barnes to leave peacefully. That way, Susan could have intercepted you along the way and killed you more quietly. Or better, I suppose, after you’d gotten the helicopter started.”

“Well, she and I are both here now,” Blair pointed out. “You want to see how we do one-on-one, go ahead and send her out.”

Lajard chuckled. “What, so that Barnes or whoever’s lurking in the bushes can shoot me? Thanks, but I think I’ll keep her right here where she is. Speaking of killing, Susan tells me you killed Nathan.”

“Baker’s Hollow killed Nathan,” Blair corrected. “It takes a village, and all that.”

“That’s cute,” Lajard said with a snort. “You think that one up all by yourself?”

“We all have our moments,” Blair responded, searching the woods on the other side of the helo for signs of movement. So far, nothing.

“You know, your Thetas aren’t nearly as tough as you think. A T-600 or T-700 can take a lot more damage.”

“But Thetas are far better at infiltration,” Lajard pointed out. “I don’t think you’ve grasped the full implications of our time here in the backwater. My Thetas lived among these people for three months— three months—without anyone even suspecting they were anything other than what they seemed.”

“Sounds impressive, all right,” Blair agreed. “Until you realize that once they knew what to look for they picked them out in two hours.”

“Don’t flatter them,” Lajard said scornfully. “You picked them out in two hours. You and Barnes. On their own, Baker’s Hollow would have gone another three months without getting a clue.”

“While Jik played Connor for everyone within reach of his voice?” Blair suggested.

Lajard snorted. “You really don’t understand, do you?” he said contemptuously. “Jik was a late model, a full test of the false-memory system, but programming him to be Connor was pure improvisation.”

“And pretty much useless,” Blair said, putting some contempt in her own voice. Lajard might be stuck here until sundown, but he really didn’t need to be telling her all this. Obviously, the man liked to brag and gloat, and the more detail Blair could goad out of him, the better. “He doesn’t look a thing like the real Connor.”

“So what?” Lajard countered. “I mean, really, how many people have ever seen the real Connor? All we need is the voice, and you have to admit we got that one down cold.”

“Maybe,” Blair said. “It’s still a pretty weak plan.”

“You still don’t get it,” Lajard insisted. “I already said Jik was a last-minute throw-together. The plan—the real plan—was to get hold of Connor himself for that job. The real John Connor.”

“What are you talking about?” Blair asked.

“Oh, come now,” Lajard said his voice loaded with scorn. “Did you really think Skynet had Marcus Wright lure him to Skynet Central just to kill him?”

Blair felt her breath catch in her throat. That part of the operation had been bothering her for a week now, ever since Barnes and Marcus came charging out to her helo with a bloodied and battered John Connor stumbling along between them. There had been hundreds of Terminators in that facility, T-1s, T-600s, and T-700s. And yet Skynet had held them all back while it sent a single Terminator against Connor?

Now, suddenly, horribly, it all made sense.

“Skynet was going to turn him into a Theta,” she breathed.

“Bingo,” Lajard said sarcastically. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”

Blair shook her head. “That’s insane.”

“On the contrary, it’s brilliant,” Lajard said. “Think about it. You take Connor alive—maybe just barely, but alive—and remake him in Skynet’s image. Then we delete all memories of what happened to him, from the moment he walked into Central until the moment he walked out.”

“And you send him back to the Resistance.”

“Exactly,” Lajard said. “With probably a few little enhancements to take with him. Enhancements like wonderful oratory skills, limited tactical abilities, and jealousy of subordinates.”

“Especially the more competent subordinates,” Blair murmured.

“Of course,” Lajard said. “After all, they’re the ones we’d want him to destroy. All we do then is let him