The Future War t2-3

by S. M. Stirling

  "We've got to do something about that bastard," James said.

  He yanked a padded blanket off a Stinger light antiaircraft missile. "You're going to have to stop, Mick."

  "For God's sake, James, you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with one of those," Dieter complained.

  "What're you talkin' about?" the Sector agent asked. "All you do is aim and click."

  "It's your aim I'm worried about," the Austrian said.

  "You wanna do it?" James asked shortly.

  "Yeah," Dieter said. "Let me out beside that wall," he said to Mulcahey.

  "You sure you can do this?" James said, looking at the big man's leg.

  Dieter stretched a hand out for the weapon. "Of course I am,"

  he said. "I'd bet my life on it."

  "Mine, too," the agent said, and handed it over.

  The Rover came to a halt in a spray of dirt and gravel and Dieter rolled out, sheltering behind the wall as the car took off.

  The flying platform hesitated for a moment, no doubt looking for a reason the car had stopped, then it continued on its way. As soon as it began moving again, Dieter came up from behind the wall and fired.

  It tipped to evade the missile, but not quite quickly enough.

  An orange sphere of fire sent one of its thrusters spinning in fragments that glittered in the watery sunshine sending it whirling out of control to crash into the hillside.

  Dieter ducked down behind the wall again as a huge fireball painted the hillside and sent shrapnel whickering through the air; whatever the fuel was, it was volatile. Then he rose and watched it burn, leaning against the wall to take the weight off his wounded leg. It would have been good if the thing had left something intact for them to study. A final explosion put paid to that thought.

  The Land Rover stopped beside him and he handed the missile launcher to James before he got in. The Sector agent stowed it away.

  "When I think of the trouble we used to go to rounding up these things," he said.

  "They were always the terrorist weapon of choice," Dieter said, rubbing his thigh.

  James noticed and handed his friend a silver flask. "Best Irish whiskey," he said.

  Dieter saluted him in thanks and took a pull. "Hhheeeauggh!"

  he said a second later, tears in his eyes. He turned to look askance at his friend.

  "Well," James said, taking the flask back, "the best I could find any road. Times are tough, old boy."

  "I guess," the Austrian said in a high-pitched and rusty voice.

  They traveled more peacefully for the next few miles, Dieter admiring the countryside. Ireland hadn't suffered quite as much as England and Europe had. The result, no doubt, of old information. He was taking home two highly advanced computer cores that would go to Snog and his outfit. Such things would be impossible to find elsewhere. Skynet had made a thorough job of bombing humanity back to at least the forties.

  "At least Skynet has made your country's religious divisions irrelevant," Dieter said.

  "Ah now," Mick said from the front seat. "But is it a Catholic mad computer bent on destroying humanity, or is it a Protestant mad computer bent on destroying humanity? That's the great question nowadays."

  "I'm convinced it's an atheist," Dieter said.

  * * *

  They arrived at the beach only a little late for their rendezvous with the Roosevelt. John was on the beach waiting for them, sitting on a boulder and skipping smooth stones from the rocky beach out into the gray water.

  "Whoa," he said when Dieter maneuvered himself out of the car. "That looks bad." John propped a shoulder under his friend's arm. "How did this happen?"

  "Sheer bad luck," Dieter said.

  In the deep loch, a narrow fiber-optic pickup disappeared beneath the waves. Seconds later the water slid aside, and the massive orca shape of the submarine broached; even at a thousand yards' distance they could hear the rushing cascade of water from its tenth-of-a-mile length.

  "Is there a doctor on that tin can?"

  "Don't let the captain hear you call it that," John said. "And yes, there's a doctor and a clinic. They can help you."

  "Good. As you Americans say, I'm getting too old for this shit.

  Old bones don't heal like young ones." Leaning on his young friend, Dieter turned toward the Land Rover, where James stood with two cases. "We got them," he said.

  John's lips thinned, but his expression was one of satisfaction.

  "Sergeant," he called over his shoulder.

  One of the SEALs trotted up, his eyes taking in everything in the area—Dieter's wound, John's involvement in aiding the wounded man, the Sector agent and his packages, the narrow-eyed man behind the wheel of the car. "Sir," he said.

  "If you'd take charge of those," John said, indicating the satchels in James's hands. "Thank you," he said to the Sector agent.

  "Ah, glad to help, lad," James said. "Good luck to you," he said to Dieter.

  "And to you," Dieter said, "both."

  Mick gave him a salute from inside the Rover. James got in and they drove off before Dieter was fully turned toward the zodiac. Dieter noticed, despite his pain, that there was something off about his young friend. He came to a stop. John looked up at him, concerned.

  "Do you need to be carried?"

  Dieter snorted at the suggestion. "Of course not. But I sense something's wrong and I know that privacy is mostly pretend on a sub. What is it?"

  "Ahhh. My father's been born."

  Dieter's arm tightened in a rough, one-armed hug, but he said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SARAH'S JOURNAL

  We'd sensed something coming. Even in the short time it had been operating, we'd come to know that Skynet's distilled malice would demand more death. Our early string of successes gave us pause, leaving us feeling vulnerable rather than flushed with victory. It turned out we didn't have long to wait.

  There was a second Judgment Day. Skynet had held back at least a third of its missiles waiting to see how things developed.

  It watched us from space—determining where the greatest concentration of humans were. Then it attacked. This time, in addition to murdering millions, it succeeded in bringing on a nuclear winter, or at least in extending it. Blizzards raged across the higher latitudes, and even at the equator temperatures were unusually cool.

  Crops in Mexico and South America were poor, and not all that we'd paid for were delivered. Our own crops were gone in the first month. We went hungry, but we didn't starve. Despite Skynet's best efforts, the resistance survived.

  OZARK BASE CAMP, MISSOURI

  SEVEN YEARS LATER

  "Paula, where's my stethoscope?" Mary Reese called.

  She was ready to move out; everything else was packed and tied onto the mule's panniers, but they couldn't leave without such a basic item. The things didn't grow on trees these days.

  Knowing nothing about missions and Skynet, the mule just didn't want to go out on such a cold raw day, and it was probably hungry, too—certainly so, from the gauntness of its ribs. It looked over its shoulder at her, and she thought she could catch calculation in its beady black eye; it had already tried to step on her foot once, accidentally on purpose, and she knew it would try something else if she had to empty the panniers and repack.

  Mary thought unkind thoughts about mule stew. Not practical. Mules were valuable, too.

  Her assistant pursed her lips and pointed downward. Sensing adult eyes on him, Kyle Reese looked up and grinned. Around his neck was the stethoscope, the earpieces in his ears, the diaphragm against his little friend Melinda's chest. She lay on the floor looking as dead as she could manage, which, for a five-year-old, wasn't very. He pulled out the earpieces.

  "Hi, Mom." He gave her his most angelic smile.

  Seven years old, she thought, and he already knows he's got a killer smile. She waggled her fingers in a give-me-that gesture, which earned her a protesting wail.

  "Stop," she s
aid. "If you're coming with me, we have to leave right now. And that, young man, is not a toy. It's a very valuable and completely irreplaceable medical instrument. So hand it over."

  Looking sheepish, Kyle rose and went reluctantly to his mother. Melinda sat up, miraculously restored.

  "You going now?" she bellowed.

  "Shhh," Paula, her mother, said. There were two wounded soldiers behind the curtain that divided the clinic from the ward.

  Doubtless they didn't appreciate sudden screams.

  "Yes, we're going," Mary said. "Are you going to help your mother by being good?"

  "I'm always good," Melinda said, offended.

  She was always a handful and it was a toss-up as to whether she or Kyle was the most mischievous.

  "Hug," Mary said, opening her arms.

  The little girl rushed to her and threw her arms around Mary's hips. "Hug, hug, hug, hug, hug!" she said. Then she turned and rushed to Kyle, wrapping her skinny arms around him and giving him a kiss on the cheek, to his great disgust. He wiped the kiss off with his wrist and even Mary could see that his face was wet.

  She and Paula exchanged amused glances. Then they moved to embrace.

  "You be careful," Mary said.

  "Me! You be careful out there," Paula said. "When you get back, your sweetie should be here."

  "Something to look forward to," Mary said with a grin.

  "C'mon, sport, let's roll."

  * * *

  Mary's task was to oversee the health and well-being of those resistance workers who lived outside the cave system that housed the majority of the women and children. Many of these outworkers had jobs like foraging for wood, something that often took them far afield. Others collected nuts, herbs, and other wild foods to expand everyone's diet. All of them also worked reconnaissance.

  Originally they had been required to report to the base for medical treatment, but it had been found that most people simply lived with a condition or wound until things became so serious that a field visit became necessary. Mary had argued that since she was going to have to visit the camps anyway, why not make it a regular thing? Now, twice a month, she loaded up a mule and traveled from camp to camp.

  At least I don't have to fill out forms for HMOs, she thought as the mules clopped along the rocky trail—they took different routes every time, to make things difficult for any HKs working ambush. HKs hated unpredictability, and didn't deal well with it.

  Dennis hated it. And though Mary appreciated his protective-Hess, she knew herself to be a capable person, well able to take care of herself. Not that she took chances; she didn't.

  But she knew the woods and she knew the people she'd be seeing.

  Knew as well that no Skynet/Luddite activity had been reported for months in this area. Otherwise she'd never have taken Kyle with her.

  Mary would have left him behind now but for a staff sadly overburdened because of the number of teams out in the field.

  And at seven he'd been driving her up the wall with his begging to come. Besides, she didn't like leaving him when Dennis was away. Yet the scavengers relied on her visits, so there was no postponing it.

  "Can we sing?" Kyle asked, clearly bored.

  "If we sing, how will we hear the Terminators sneaking up on us?"

  No answer. Mary glanced back, smiling, and stopped her mule to wait for him to catch up. "There are other things we can do that are quiet," she said. "Count how many oak trees you see, and at the end of the ride, if our counts agree, we'll have a treat."

  He looked at her dubiously. To be fair, it didn't sound like much fun to her, either. But it would keep him both quiet and alert.

  "C'mon, we'll start now."

  "What if we don't count the same?" he asked.

  She shrugged, "No treat?"

  He shrugged, too. "O-kay." And they rode on.

  * * *

  It was a several hours' ride to their first destination, a rendezvous with their guide. The place had been arranged during her last visit to their camp. If no one there needed medical attention, Mary would dispense whatever supplies they required and move on to the next meeting place. If no one was there, she'd linger for two hours, then leave.

  Carl Vega was waiting for them, hunkered down on his hams beneath an earth-and-rock overhang, where part of a hillside had fallen away in heavy rain a year before.

  "Hey!" he said, delighted to see Kyle. "How you doin', chico?"

  He nodded and grinned at Mary.

  "Hi," Kyle said. He looked at the scavenger suspiciously.

  "You don't recognize me, do you?" Carl said. Kyle shook his head. "Well, you got a lot bigger since I last seen you." He held his hand about a foot off the ground. "You were only this tall then, but you were sitting down."

  Kyle laughed and Carl grinned, pleased. He turned to Mary. "I miss kids," he said. "Thought I'd have, like, five of my own by now."

  "Hostages to fortune," Mary reminded him. "Kyle might be your age before this thing is finished."

  The scavenger threw up his hands. "God forbid. Whatcha got for us?"

  "Whatcha need?" she countered. "Nobody needs a look-see?"

  "Thank God, no. We've done pretty well this month. Just minor scrapes and bruises. We need some aspirin, some antibiotic cream, some of that anti-itch stuff, the diarrhea stuff, and stomach powder."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah, Cook took a chance on some bacon. Oh boy, was she sorry."

  "Everyone's fine now?"

  "Yeah, that was two weeks ago."

  "Glad I wasn't there for that meal," Mary said fervently. She'd had a couple of interesting reactions to camp food. She efficiently dispensed what he needed, got his signature, and went on her way.

  "Mummy," Kyle said, moving his mule up toward her. "What was Carl talking about? What did he mean about the bacon?"

  "Sometimes food goes bad, hon, but people don't know it, so they eat it anyway and then they get sick."

  "Do they die?"

  Mary turned to smile reassuringly at him. Kids both relished and feared hearing about such things. Of course, they never really thought that they could die; it was their parents they worried about, or their friends. She decided to be honest. You're never too young to start learning, she thought.

  "Sometimes," she said. "Which is why people should cook their food thoroughly."

  "What happens?"

  "They get sick to their stomachs and they get diarrhea and then they lose too many fluids and they die."

  His face knotted in confusion. "What's dia, dia… ?"

  "Diarrhea?" She pursed her lips, then decided to be honest.

  "The squirts."

  Kyle gave an evil little chuckle. "The squirts," he said, knowing very well what she meant.

  Mary rolled her eyes. My God, she thought, what have I done

  ?

  For the next several miles he entertained himself by periodically emitting an amazing range of rude noises. At first she ignored him, which might have worked if he hadn't been so bored. She put up with it for a while, then pulled up the mule and turned to glare at him. Kyle subsided with a cherubic smile, only to start up again before they'd gone fifty feet. Mary stopped, and so did her son.

  "If you don't cut it out, Kyle, you not only won't get a treat tonight, you'll get hardtack and nothing but."

  Under that threat, Kyle's lower lip came out, but his mouth stayed shut and Mary had to endure, an offended silence every bit as aggravating as the noises that occasioned it.

  An hour later they were at the next meeting spot, but their guide hadn't yet appeared. Mary dismounted and helped her son down from the tall animal; they were on the edge of a rocky clearing, but there was a good boulder with a big pignut hickory leaning over it, excellent overhead cover.

  "Well," she said, looking around. "I guess we might as well have lunch now while we wait."

  Kyle began dashing around; Mary pointed a silent finger upward, and he veered in to make sure that he couldn't be seen.

  No
t very likely—it was partly overcast—but Skynet might be doing a scan with IR sensors.

  * * *

  Kyle wasn't speaking to her, but he was a good little kid and he led his mule over to a tiny brook that flowed down the slight hill they were on. Mary took out the box with their lunch in it and led her riding mule and the pack mule over to drink beside their fellow. When she thought they'd had enough, she led them to a row of bushes whose tender green leaves would, no doubt, appeal to them and tied them there.

  Then she sat down, offered Kyle a choice of sandwiches, and ate, sipping from her canteen from time to time. "It's nice here,"

  she said at last. "Peaceful."

  Kyle looked around, his face scrunched up. Birds sang, squirrels leaped from branch to branch, chirruping, sunlight dappled through the leaves. "It's okay. I guess."

  Mary grinned. At least she'd gotten an answer. "Someday we'll be able to live anywhere we want," she said. "This would be a nice place. Don't you think?"

  He looked around again and shrugged, then took a bite of his sandwich. Okay, Mary thought. Have it your way. Sometimes when Kyle was in a mood there was nothing you could do but wait it out.

  "I wanna live in the Big Apple," he suddenly said.

  She turned to stare at him. "Where did you hear about that?"

  "One of the soldiers said he was born there." He took another bite of his sandwich and spoke unattractively around it. "Is it like James and the Giant Peach?"

  "Don't talk with your mouth full. And no, it's not. James and the Giant Peach is a story; the Big Apple is a nickname for New York City. That was a big city full of tall buildings."

  "Why did they call it an apple, then?" His face wore the perfect expression of "boy meets wacky adult nonsense."

  Mary thought about it. She knew, she'd just never had to explain it. "Well, a lot of people used to go to New York to seek their fortunes. And there were so many of them that New York kind of became identified with the sort of self-confidence that sends someone out seeking success in a new and challenging place. Aaaaand, I guess their attitude might be summed up by saying that they saw the city as a great big apple that they were gonna take a bite out of and make it their own."