Terminator 3--Terminator Hunt

by Aaron Allston

  “A blimp,” Jenna said.

  Dr. Bowen finally spoke, in a high, clear voice that made it sound as though he’d be a fine tenor for a barbershop quartet. “That’s right. This is my baby, the Blowfish. Technically a prototype belonging to the Air Force of the Resistance, it actually constitutes a fair percentage of the active duty aircraft serving the Resistance. It was assembled under my direction in Akron.” He waved for the others to follow and led them on a sweep along the port side of the airship, traveling from bow to stern. “And this isn’t your parents’ blimp, either, not that they had one. It uses quite a lot of modern technology. The main engines, amidships, are very quiet ducted rotors. So are the maneuvering engines fore and aft; they make precise positioning of the craft somewhat easier and make it possible to hover, assuming prevailing winds are not too great. All the engines can be individually maneuvered and aimed via our cockpit computer controls for very precise positioning.”

  He gestured at the great envelope that made up most of the vehicle’s volume. “Internally, we have air-conditioning equipment that helps keep the gas bag at the same approximate temperature as the surrounding air, making it far less likely that Skynet sensors will pick it up as an infrared image. It can make thirty knots in full stealth mode, twice that at full speed, and can ascend to an altitude of about a mile and a half.”

  “Helium or hydrogen?” Paul asked.

  Bowen flashed a sardonic smile at him. “That’s usually the first question I get. Hydrogen, of course. Skynet controls all known helium-producing facilities in North America. So Blowfish is, in effect, a giant floating bomb. On the other hand, since hydrogen’s lighter than helium, we get some extra lift, and that means more personnel and more fuel. Plus, Blowfish features some safety equipment that makes a Hindenburg-like fate less likely.”

  “What kind of equipment?” John asked.

  “Better sensors to detect pressure fluctuations that might result from a leak, better shielding of mechanical components that might create a spark. And then there’s the bail-out option. With activation of a set of mechanical controls in the gondola, the pilot can blow the connectors between the gondola and the envelope. The gondola drops … and if it’s high enough, will deploy an oversized parachute that will allow it to hit the ground at a survivable rate of speed.”

  John’s voice was dry: “You fill us with confidence.”

  “I’m sure.”

  They reached the gondola and Bowen led them nearer, pointing to the car’s underside—first, to an orb that hung, like a giant distended eye, from just beneath the bow. “The chief sensor ball, usually trained at ground targets. Infrared, light-amplification, high-gain acoustics, high-gain radio monitoring.” He pointed farther aft, where seams marked where sliding panels had to come together. “We have a belly hatch from which we could drop munitions, but it’s currently set up in its usual configuration, with four high-speed winches. From any altitude where we want to interact with the ground, we can drop off or retrieve personnel pretty quickly.”

  “How many times has it flown?” asked Sato.

  “Six. Five practice runs and an actual mission I can’t talk about.”

  “You’re damned right you can’t,” said John, his voice a mock growl.

  They kept walking, though Mark Herrera dropped behind and began setting up a double handful of equipment he’d been lugging. Paul watched him hang a white pull-down screen from one of the engine pods.

  Bowen continued, “I’m not going to brag on Blowfish too much until I have a track record I can actually talk about in public, but I think it represents an important part of the resources of the Resistance’s armed forces in the future. It’s ideal for covert missions. Somewhat less suitable to combat, of course.”

  Jenna the Greek protested, “But it’s a big, gigantic radar image. One assault robot with a Stinger, and it’s a goner.”

  Bowen smiled at her. “Good thing nobody’s using radar, isn’t it?”

  Jenna shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re used to military thinking that assumes that our skies are filled with radar, that the skies over the U.S. are being constantly scanned for incoming missiles, that sort of thing. But the deal is that the Resistance, from its earliest days, began annihilating very expensive Skynet-controlled radar installations with very cheap radar-seeking missiles. The result, a long time ago, is that Skynet only uses radar when it absolutely needs to look in a specific direction at a specific time. When we go up”—he pointed skyward—“our greatest danger is that something will see us with the naked eye, not with radar.”

  “And those odds vary with the time of day, I take it,” Ten said.

  “Not at all.” From a pocket, Bowen pulled what looked like a very elaborate remote control for a VCR or DVD player and fiddled with it as he spoke. “The outermost sheath of the main envelope is a Mylar surface, beneath which is a very, very thin layer of ferroelectric liquid crystals. Anyone here familiar with those?”

  Paul said, “It’s a chameleon.”

  “Got it in one.” Bowen offered Paul an approving nod. “A very small electrical current piped through the polymer level supporting the crystals causes them to alter the way they’re arranged, and so we get change.” He made a final adjustment. “And the inventor spake, saying, ‘Let there be sky-blue.’” He pressed a button on his remote.

  It took a few seconds for anything to happen. Then the portions of the envelope closest to the gondola—and the gondola itself—visibly lightened in color. The change spread throughout the craft, reaching its upper surfaces last of all, but within half a minute the entire vehicle was the color of the sky on a cloudless spring day.

  Dr. Bowen continued speaking as the change took place. “Tiny cameras all over the envelope’s surface sample the color hues of the ground below, the sky above, and feed that information into the color-control computer. That way we can make it as close a match as possible. Understand, it’s not invisibility. A normal eye can still detect us. It’s just a lot less likely.”

  Mark called after them, “I’m all set up here, boss.”

  John waved everyone back toward the gondola. “Okay, mission briefing.”

  They stood before the screen Mark had set up, and at a wave from Dr. Bowen the overhead lights dimmed to twilight level. A miniature projector Mark had set up on the floor gleamed into life, and John held the remote for it, clicking through images, while Kate spoke.

  The first image was of a smallish city, shot from a distance, mountains clear to see behind it. “This is Pueblo, Colorado, right at the edge of the Navajo Mountain Strategic Region,” she said. “It was famous for many years as a center of distribution of U.S. government printed matter. It’s here that we believe the T-X is completing her training. More specifically…”

  The image changed to a vertical one, of a ten-story building with cheery architecture somewhat and sunlight bouncing from sea-blue windows. The picture changed again, to a distant telephoto shot of the same building, from a higher altitude, and different also in picture graininess and the fact that many windows were missing. They looked like teeth missing from a pretty face. “Here, the Bryce Hotel. In her last transmission to Paul, she transmitted information that allowed him to determine that this was where the time-mission training would continue.”

  “Could she have deliberately planted the information?” asked Earl Duncan. “To cause him to come to her?”

  “Possible, but not likely,” Kate said. “Remember, at the time that information was transferred, she was in command of the situation and had no reason to believe that she would fail to kill John.”

  “Furthermore,” Paul interrupted, “the information I got was very fragmentary. I think it was the result of the conversational impulses she’s been developing over the last several months. She couldn’t have been sure that we’d be able to pinpoint the location from the little bit of information I did receive. So I think it’s legit.”

  “What you’re going to do,�
�� Kate continued, “is take the Blowfish to this site. If you can make an unseen arrival, you’ll enter the hotel complex from the roof, locate the T-X, then incapacitate it with some of the equipment we used in Santa Fe—and more we’ve fabricated for this mission. After the initial incapacitation, you’ll use an apparatus like the one from Santa Fe, an insulator that prevents the T-X’s systems from receiving commands from her CPU; Mark Herrera and Paul Keeley are checked out on its functioning, so at least one of them has to be there when the T-X goes down. If they’re both lost, bug out.

  “Whether you’re successful or not, you’ll extract in two groups. The Blowfish will have moved on to an extraction point downwind, and the first group, with the T-X, will go there. The second group will go in the opposite direction, acting as a diversion until that’s no longer a reasonable course of action. Then it will break and get to safety.”

  “Question.” That was Ten. “Long-term concern. This operation, if it succeeds, will prevent this T-X from going back in time and hunting John Connor. Now, Skynet has shown a certain persistence when it comes to viable plans. What keeps the next T-X off the assembly line from being sent back on the same mission?”

  “Nothing,” Kate said. “But consider this. Skynet has also shown that, with the learning capability of the various Terminator series, it doesn’t just pull whatever’s on their memories at each stage of their development and distribute that data. It waits until the behavior caused by that learning has demonstrated that it results in a higher success rate … and, obviously, survival rate. In short, we believe that since this T-X has not yet performed any missions that prove the data she’s harvested is useful, that data probably hasn’t been distributed. The next T-X off the assembly line will have to go through a similar learning process before Skynet pronounces it ready to send back. That gives us months, maybe a year. Perhaps, in that time, we can pull the plug on Skynet. Or…” She shrugged. “If we get the indication that the Navajo Mountain Continuum Transport is being powered up to send a machine back to the nineteen sixties, we can also send back our own T-X. We’ll fight fire with fire.”

  Ten nodded. “What about specifics on the sweep of the hotel and the breakdown of our forces into the two groups?”

  “We can’t have much in the way of specifics,” Kate said. “Because we don’t know anything about the hotel’s layout—either its original layout or what Skynet might have done to it since converting it into a training facility. We don’t know what resources you’ll have left when the capture of the T-X is complete and the team is ready to leave. So that’s up to the team leaders. All we know is that Ten is assigned to the group bringing the T-X out, and Sato’s in charge of the group leading the diversionary action. You can set up a preliminary division of labor during the flight tomorrow and then chuck that out the window when you’re on the ground and know exactly what you need to do.”

  Ten grinned. “We make it up as we go along.”

  “That’s the size of it.” Kate surveyed the crowd. “Anything else? No?”

  “You’ll bunk down here tonight,” John said. “Eat from your own rations, but Dr. Bowen’s crew will bring in a little electrical stove so we’ll have hot food. I expect to be in my bunk in…” He consulted his wristwatch. “Half an hour. And once I close my eyes, I don’t expect to hear any noise.” He gave the group a look that suggested he was a stern father in no mood for objection, then grinned. “Dismissed.” He took a few steps away from the projection gear, began speaking in low tones with Kate when she joined him.

  Mark began breaking down the projection gear. Paul walked over to him, saw Kyla and the other Hell-Hounds doing the same. “You’re hauling way too much gear,” Paul said.

  Mark looked unconvinced. “What do you recommend?”

  “Build all that stuff into Glitch. He can stand in front of the screen, his mouth open, bright light coming out of his mouth.”

  “Question,” said Glitch.

  “Shoot,” said Paul.

  Kyla snorted. “He means that figuratively.”

  Glitch said, “Would such a reconfiguration cause me to look ridiculous to human personnel? Would it consequently cause the respect and or fear in which I am regarded to be diminished?”

  Paul nodded. “Yes—and yes.”

  “Then I should have to recommend against this modification.”

  Kyla lost it. Laughing silently, her cheeks reddening, she bent over.

  Ten sighed and turned to Paul. “I want you to stop messing with our robot.”

  “‘Messing’?”

  “He spent the entire drive up trying to get me to talk about myself. I’m not going to be psychoanalyzed by a Terminator. He said it was because of something you told him.”

  Paul nodded. “Next, I’m going to teach him to play ‘I Spy With My Little Eye.’”

  “Great.” Ten turned away.

  * * *

  It was the first time Paul had flown, the first time most of those present under the age of thirty had flown, but even so, he didn’t have the opportunity to look out a window and watch the land passing serenely beneath.

  He, the Hell-Hounds, and the Scalpers were packed into the main passenger area, a compartment full of cushioned seats. At one end was a lightweight LCD screen showing whatever visual image was being brought in by the gondola’s sensor ball; right now, it was a light-amplified view—a shadowy and color-muted image—of the ground. This wasn’t a particularly comforting view. Their route for the last several nighttime hours had taken them through the mountains northeast of Las Vegas, a course that started more northward and gradually became more easterly, and all along its path the ranges of the Rockies had been poised beneath them. Though they were more than a mile up, many jagged peaks stretched toward them. Even now, a toothlike landmass came within a thousand feet of the gondola.

  Paul sighed. “I’d really rather shut these lights out and open a window.”

  Kyla, in the seat next to his, gave him a sympathetic smile. “You’ll get that when we prepare for the drop.”

  “Not the same. Plus, I’d really prefer to be wearing real shoes.” Paul had one leg crossed over the other, and he waggled his toes at her. He was wearing special socks that made it less likely any of them would create static electricity while walking. All the others wore them, too, even Glitch, seated stoically in the rearmost seat of the compartment.

  Mark turned around to give Paul a mock glare. “God, you complain.”

  “Hey, don’t mess with me. I’ll teach Glitch to whine.”

  Mark winced. “You really are the enemy.”

  Paul imitated, as best he could, Glitch’s Germanic accent. “Mark, my batteries are at eight-two percent and dropping pre-cip-i-tous-ly. Mark, I need a charge. Mark, Kyla called me im-plac-a-ble. Mark…”

  Mark faced forward again, shaking his head.

  Kyla lowered her voice. “You’re really not scared anymore, are you?”

  “Of getting killed on this mission? I sure as hell am.”

  “Of people.”

  “Oh.” He thought about it. “Was I scared?”

  “You were something. Now, at least, you make eye contact. And sometimes when people come at you verbally, you beat them back into their corners.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah, I kind of do.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to keep doing it.”

  Dr. Bowen’s voice crackled over the compartment’s internal speaker: “We’re getting signs of sunup in the east, so I’m putting us down for the end of Phase One. Ground crew, please stand by to man the ropes.”

  Mark, Glitch, Sato, and Ten rose and moved into the companionway, headed back to the aft chamber with the belly hatch.

  The Blowfish descended across the ruins of Boulder toward a landing zone north of Denver. The land here was less mountainous than what they’d been flying over for the last dozen hours, still hilly and broken enough to provide ample cover for the blimp.

  Once Dr. Bowen selected a landing
zone, in a little valley between steep hill slopes, he spent considerable time maneuvering the blimp’s two primary and four secondary engines, bringing the vehicle to a smooth descent until it floated mere feet over the earth of the valley floor. The press of a switch caused the belly hatch to slide open, and the four line handlers dropped through to the ground. Two moved forward and two aft, each positioning himself beneath the slight bump on the envelope’s nose or tail surface that heralded the presence of anchor lines and electrical winches controlling them. In minutes, well before the sun could illuminate them, they had the lines fixed to trees. Dr. Bowen spent additional minutes pumping hydrogen back into the gas’s pressurized containers but using the main engines to blow ordinary air into ballonets within the main envelope, keeping the entire structure pressurized and comparatively still.

  Finally Dr. Bowen pronounced the landing complete. “Break out your bedrolls,” he said.

  The Blowfish’s route had led it well around the Navajo Mountain Strategic Region and the danger it posed. Now they were, depending on whether the winds remained out of the north, four to five hours’ travel from Pueblo. They’d launch again at nightfall.

  Paul set up his pup tent and bedroll in chilly air in the shadow of the blimp’s envelope. Around him were the tents and rolls of the others. Sato couldn’t keep his eyes off the valley walls around them. “I know this place,” he said, his breath emerging as steamy plumes. “I’m so close to home I could walk there with my eyes shut. I used to hunt here.”

  “Maybe we can swing by it on our way out of here.” Paul shoved his bedroll into his pup tent, unrolled it.

  Sato shook his head. “It’s just an abandoned cabin on a mountain slope now. Probably a wreck. Maybe, if I live long enough to see Skynet fall, if I survive to have a family, I’ll take my kids there. Show them where I grew up. Maybe even stake a claim to that property.”

  Paul frowned over that. He knew a lot of people who weren’t—and never would be—comfortable with the idea of living aboveground. He used to be one of them. But now, the thought of occupying some grand prewar house or an apartment in the open air didn’t bother him at all.