by Greg Cox
Molly thought about Tammi and her baby.
“Hey! Don’t turn your back on me!” she hollered at the machine, hoping to lure it away from the others. She jumped up and down, waving her hands, firing her pistol into the air. “Remember me? I brought that goddamn mountain down on top of you and your buddies! You want payback, Popeye? Well, here I am!”
She was wasting her breath. Terminators didn’t care about revenge. Taunting it wasn’t going to get her anywhere. All it cared about was scoring the maximum number of victims.
She racked her brain to come up with something that would do the trick, that would instantly move her to the top of the machine’s to-do list—but what? Inspiration failed her.
What would John Connor do?
All at once, it hit her.
“I know where John Connor is!” she lied. The legendary freedom fighter was supposed to be Public Enemy Number One as far as Skynet was concerned. His propaganda broadcasts had been inspiring the Resistance for fifteen years now. People even said that he was some kind of prophesied hero, destined to lead humanity to ultimate victory over the machines.
Rumor had it the machines had been trying to kill Connor since before Judgment Day. Molly wasn’t entirely sure she bought all that, but maybe Skynet did?
“You want John Connor?” she said, her voice raw from shouting. “Come and get me. Make me talk!”
That got the thing’s attention. It forgot all about the evacuation efforts further down the road, and refocused its sensor on Molly instead. Chainsaw in hand, it stomped up the hill after her, away from the children and other fleeing humans. Molly knew it would gladly take her apart piece by piece, to find out what she knew.
So now she just had to keep away from that chainsaw. Spinning, she took off again in the direction of the mill.
Running uphill was no fun, as her lungs burned in her chest, but she had adrenaline to spare. There was nothing like a Terminator on your heels to add a little extra spring to your step. She reached the base of the breaker in record time. To her relief, the flames hadn’t yet reached the mill itself. The multistory wooden structure rose in tiers against the side of the mountain. The tramway—a large wooden chute that climbed at a fifty-degree angle all the way to the top—resembled an amputated segment of an old roller-coaster. The bottom of the chute didn’t reach the ground; it hung suspended like a ski ramp about seven feet above the snow, held aloft by thick wooden beams and posts.
A rope ladder hung from the end of the ramp. Molly stuck her sidearm back into her belt and scrambled up onto the tramway, then hauled the ladder up after her. Smooth wooden planks, coated in ice and snow, challenged her balance. Her eyes searched the top of the tramway, which was shrouded in darkness. Decades ago, when the mine was still operating, a conveyer belt had carried the raw ore up the tramway to the top of the mill. These days, the ramp had been converted into Alaska’s biggest booby-trap.
Assuming there was still someone left to trigger it.
“Skid row!” she shouted ahead, warning the lookout to get ready. Who was stationed there tonight? Vic Folger? The thirty-five year-old African-American, who had once coached high school soccer in Wasilla, was a dedicated foot soldier. Hopefully, he’d still be manning his post.
“Skid row!”
A flashlight blinked once at the top of the tramway.
Good, she thought. We’re set then. She crossed her fingers. If they were lucky, the Terminator wouldn’t know what had hit it. The timing was going to be tricky, though. They only had one shot at this. We need to make it count.
“Here I am!” she called, goading the T-600 as it climbed the hill after her. “Don’t keep me waiting! John Connor!”
The sight and sound of the whirring chainsaw gave her second thoughts about acting as bait. Ernie Wisetongue’s grisly injury flashed through her mind. It took all her nerve not to scramble to the top; instead, she stood a couple of yards above the bottom of the ramp, while her blood-splattered pursuer drew near.
She waited until it was lined up with the chute before throwing herself over the side. Her fingers grabbed onto the raised wooden edge.
“Now!” she yelled to Folger. “Let it rip!”
An axe chopped through a rope several yards above her head. A greased log the size of a full-grown pine came skidding down the tramway. Hauling the 1400-pound piece of timber to the top of the ramp then hitching it in place had been a back-breaking chore that had taken the better part of a day several months ago. More than one guerilla had nearly lost a limb before they got the trap set up. Would all that labor pay off?
They were about to find out.
The battering ram gained speed as it slid down the chute. Clinging to the side, her legs dangling high above the ground, Molly hoped to God that the log wouldn’t sideswipe her fingers on its way down. It raced past her, zooming straight at the Terminator.
Molly grinned in anticipation of the collision to come.
That avalanche didn’t stop you? she thought grimly. Let’s try again!
But the T-600 wasn’t going to be taken unawares—not twice. At the last second it threw itself forward, falling face-first into the snow in front of the ramp. The log whooshed over the prone Terminator, passing several feet above the murderous machine. It flew like a missile through the air before smashing into a repair shop downhill from the breaker. Wood and glass splintered loudly as the log tore through the smaller building before coming to rest somewhere inside.
Molly prayed nobody was still inside, even as she cursed herself for underestimating the Terminator’s reflexes and ability to recognize a trap. When was she going to learn? The hulking machines were smarter than they looked.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
The Terminator got back on its feet, still gripping the chainsaw. There would be no second shot from above.
Grunting, Molly hauled herself back up onto the tramway. The chainsaw restarted below her, dangerously close to her dangling legs.
Move it, she told herself, while you’ve still got legs to lose. She pulled first one foot, then the other over the side of the chute. The close call had left her heart pounding. She took a second to catch her breath.
The Terminator stomped loudly beneath the tramway, several feet below.
“Hurry!” Folger called out to her from atop the tramway. “Up here!”
A second voice urged her on as well.
“You heard him! Shake a leg!”
Who? Molly thought. Was someone up there with Vic?
Before she could place the voice, the whirring blade of the chainsaw tore through the floor of the tramway like the fin of a great white shark. The tooth-edged chain was only inches away from her and getting closer. She realized that the T-600 could sense the heat of her body through the bottom of the ramp. The chainsaw cut through the wooden floor like it was made out of plywood.
Uh-oh, Molly thought. As a child, before Judgment Day, she had seen a magician cut a woman in half. The magician had put the woman back together again afterward. Somehow she doubted the Terminator knew that trick.
Finding her footing, she scrambled up the tramway, trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the chainsaw. T-600s weren’t climbers; it was doubtful it could scale the ramp to come after her. She just had to get out of reach of the saw, then figure out what to do next. But what was Plan B?
The icy slope was steep and slippery. Molly needed both her hands and legs to clamber toward the top. The Terminator yanked back the chainsaw once it realized she was too high up to reach from the ground. Molly thought she had it made, until she heard the chainsaw chewing into the wooden support posts. The entire structure lurched beneath her, throwing her to the side.
She lost her footing and started to slide back down the chute. Her fingers dug into a crack between two loose planks, arresting her fall before she lost too much ground. A wooden post gave way loudly. Broken beams crashed to the earth below. The tramway swayed back and forth like a drunken snake.
&n
bsp; Molly gritted her teeth and hung on for dear life. Something smacked against the ramp a few inches above her head. She looked up to see the knotted end of a rope bouncing back and forth across the upper planks.
“Grab the rope!” a female voice hollered. “Whole thing’s coming apart!”
Tell me about it! The tramway was disintegrating beneath her. Loose planks plummeted to the ground even as the Terminator hacked away at the chute’s supports, like a robotic lumberjack. The huge wooden structure teetered on the brink of collapse. With no time to lose, Molly grabbed onto the rope with her right hand. A hard tug confirmed that the lifeline was secured to something higher up, so she took hold of the rope with both hands.
Bracing the soles of her boots against the quaking wood beneath her, she sprinted up the slope even as the floor fell apart behind her.
Where’s that old-time conveyor belt, she thought, now that I need it?
Unfortunately, the tramway’s moving parts hadn’t worked since the Great Depression. She raced against time—and the tramway’s imminent collapse—with the Terminator waiting to intercept her when she fell. Unsure if she was going to make it, Molly was only a few yards away from the top of the slope when, one by one, the planks gave way beneath her feet.
Gravity seized her and her legs plunged through the gap. Her stomach swung into the jagged edge of the upper slope, with only the rope holding her aloft as she dangled several hundred feet above a rocky fate below. The exhaust from the chainsaw rose to choke her. Looking down, she saw the Terminator’s single red “eye” peering up at her.
The rope began to slip through her gloved hands. She snapped at the coils, trying to snag it with her teeth, but it was just out of reach.
She was losing her grip.
“Got you!” Slender hands grabbed her by the wrist. Molly felt herself yanked upward, back onto what was left of the tramway. Looking up, she saw a hooded figure lying face-down on the ramp. Further up, leaning out from the roof of the breaker building, Vic Folger held onto her rescuer’s ankles. Veins bulged on his neck as he labored to pull the chain of bodies to safety.
“Hang on! Not letting you fall!”
Molly wasn’t sure how he did it, but within moments Folger had them all atop a small platform, looking out over the disintegrating chute. Cast-iron storm doors covered the top of the open shaft that had once received the raw ore. A wooden catwalk circled the pit. The big soccer coach was panting from exertion, sweat dripping down his face. An Uzi was slung over his shoulder.
The other figure, her face hidden by the hood of an ill-fitting parka, gave Molly a bear hug.
“See! Told you! Made it all the way up!”
No longer on the verge of sliding to her death, Molly finally placed the voice. She shoved back the hood to reveal a face full of freckles and an impish expression. Unkempt red bangs spilled over wide green eyes.
“Sitka!” Molly broke free from the girl’s embrace. “What the fuck are you doing here? You were supposed to hit the road with Doc!”
The teenager shrugged.
“Wanted to see the machine get squashed.”
“Guess we’re both out of luck then.” Molly was annoyed that the girl had skipped out on the evacuation, but now was no time for a lecture. The tramway trembled a few feet away, as if the rest of it was about to collapse at any second. A tremor threw Folger against a decrepit guardrail that cracked beneath his weight. Molly grabbed onto his arm to keep him from going overboard.
“Everybody back!” she shouted. “Pronto!”
The humans sprinted away from the crumbling tramway, just as the entire structure gave way entirely. With a tremendous roar, hundreds of feet of timber posts and planks exploded, raining down on the camp below like the fossilized skeleton of some enormous wooden dinosaur. An eruption of splinters and white powder was thrown into the air, reminding Molly of the avalanche she had set off less than a day ago.
Safe up on the catwalk—at least for the moment—she backed away from the thunderous crash. Probably too much to hope, she thought, that the Terminator got buried beneath all that.
“Skookum!” Sitka exclaimed, impressed by the sheer awesomeness of the destruction. The top of the mill offered a bird’s-eye view of the burning camp below. Billowing black smoke and sky-high flames made it hard to tell how the evacuation was going. The alarms had gone silent as the conflagration engulfed the abandoned buildings. Molly could feel the heat upon her face even from so far away.
She noted with alarm that the fire was moving steadily closer to them, almost as relentless in its own way as the T-600. The heaped remains of the tramway were like a bonfire waiting to be lit.
We don’t want to be here when that happens.
Then a powerful engine roared overhead, the sound piercing the smoke. Folger snatched his rifle from his shoulder and aimed for the sky, but Molly grabbed onto the barrel and pushed it down.
“Wait. That’s no HK.” The Hunter-Killers’ VTOL turbofans had a distinct reverberation that was impossible to mistake. Besides, Alaska was a big place; the nearest Skynet airbase was hundreds of miles away. “I think I know who that is.”
Sure enough, Thunderbird swooped out of the smoke, circling once above the camp before banking toward the north. Molly felt a lump in her throat as she watched her lover’s vintage fighter disappear into the distance. She doubted that he had seen her atop the mill, but at least she knew now that he had made it down to the glacier okay, and taken to the air in time to get away. He’d be waiting for her at the rendezvous point... if she ever got there.
“Geir!” Sitka waved goodbye to the plane. “Think he saw us?”
“Sure he did,” she lied. “You can ask him yourself later.” Then she shoved the girl toward Folger. “Get out of here,” she told the soccer coach, “and take this mangy stray with you.” A severe expression said that she brooked no disagreement. “She gives you any trouble at all, you have my full permission to knock her out cold!”
Sitka stuck out her tongue.
“Saved your life,” she reminded Molly. “You’re welcome.”
“What about you, chief?” Folger asked.
Molly leaned out over the railing. Fourteen stories below, a hulking steel figure stepped away from the ruins of the tramway. It crooked its neck, gazing up from the alley below. A single red dot locked eyes with Molly.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” she said grimly. “I’m not done here yet.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
2003
“Still no word from Moscow, sir?”
Losenko met with his senior officers in the wardroom. Weeks had passed since the massacre on the mainland and the Gorshkov was safely back beneath the sea. The sub had surfaced long enough to scan the airwaves on all frequencies, and Losenko had summoned Ivanov and the others to brief them on the results.
The captain shook his head at Trotsky. A bottle of red wine rested in the middle of the conference table; the ship’s doctor had prescribed a daily glass for all personnel. The strontium in the wine was supposed to provide some degree of protection against radiation poisoning. The wine had been found in an underground cellar back on the mainland. The doctor had judged it safe to consume.
“Moscow is gone. We need to accept that. Only static greets our requests for further instructions.” Losenko was starting to get used to being autonomous. He had been sorely tempted to lob one of their remaining ballistic missiles at that cursed factory south of Murmansk. Only the memory of the heroic civilians in the vicinity had deterred him. “But Pushkin intercepted something I want you all to hear,” he continued.
“What is it, Captain?” Ivanov asked.
“A pirate transmission,” Losenko explained. “From the Americas. It’s on a repeating loop, airing twenty-four hours a day from shifting locations. Its range and frequency are constantly shifting as well; Pushkin stumbled onto it by accident while searching for communications from the rest of the fleet. He was unable to get a lock on its exact point of origin, s
o he suspects that it’s being routed through various mobile transmitters to mask the location of the sender.”
“America?” Predictably, Ivanov reacted with suspicion and simmering hostility. His face flushed darkly. “More lies from that general, Ashdown?”
“No,” Losenko said brusquely. The XO’s vengeful attitude, however understandable, was becoming tiresome. “This is something different.” He rose from his seat at the head of the table and lifted a sound-powered phone from its cradle on the wall, then spoke into it. “Mr. Pushkin, you may commence the playback.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The senior radio operator channeled the recording to the wardroom’s overhead speaker system. Static crackled in the background, but he had applied his expertise to cleaning up the audio as much as possible.
A gruff, male voice, speaking English with an American accent, spoke from the loudspeakers.
“This is John Connor. Some of you may know me. Most of you don’t. But that’s not important. What matters is that you understand what’s happened to our world. And what happens next.”
“Connor?” Ivanov interrupted. “Do we know this Connor?”
The name meant nothing to Losenko. He raised a finger to his lips.
“Just listen, Alexei.”
“Earlier this year,” the voice continued, “an artificial intelligence system known as Skynet, designed by the Pentagon to oversee United States defense operations, became self-aware. It developed a mind of its own. And Skynet decided to eliminate the only major threat to its existence: the human race.
“Skynet launched the missiles on Judgment Day. Skynet started the war. Not the United States. Not humanity. Skynet.”
Ivanov bristled.
“More disinformation! The Americans refuse to take responsibility for their crimes!”
“Quiet!” Losenko shot the intemperate XO a warning look.
“But Judgment Day was just the beginning. Skynet will not stop until it has fulfilled its primary objective: the complete elimination of every man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth. To that end it has already begun creating an army of machines to carry out its campaign of eradication. Robot soldiers called Terminators. Unmanned Hunter-Killer aircraft. The designs for these devices are based on top-secret military prototypes. Early models are already out there. And they will be coming for you. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but it will be soon.”