T2 - 02 - The New John Connor Chronicles - An Evil Hour

by Russell Blackford

  The bulletin ended with a standard warning about the Connors, emphasizing that they were armed and dangerous, and that they were likely to flee the country.

  "No chance of that" Sarah said when it was finished. "We still have work to do right here."

  "We need to plan," John said, as if that was news to anybody.

  "Of course, we do," Rosanna snapped. "What do you think I've been doing?"

  COLORADO SPRINGS

  "I need to review all the surveillance tapes," Layton said. "Can we do it at your office?"

  "We've got the right equipment" Solomon said. "But this could take a while."

  "Yes, days perhaps, but Skynet needs it done." Layton glanced from Solomon to Jensen. Both of them were programmed to obey his orders, and understood the reasons for it. They could sort it out between them. "One of you organize the tapes." He turned specifically to Solomon. "I'll go to your office now."

  "All right, I'll meet you there in a few minutes." Solomon nodded in Jensen's direction. "You get the right people and sort out the tapes. We'll all do what we can."

  Layton listed half a dozen Cyberdyne security personnel whom the T-XA had reprogrammed. They could be counted on. There'd been no time for it to visit everyone who might be important, but the Terminator had located and reprogrammed almost all of the company's key staff here in Colorado Springs: all research staff closely involved with the nanoprocessor and time vault projects; almost everyone else with a high level security clearance.

  "Count on it," Jensen said. "We'll be there soon."

  Layton drove quickly to the glass and concrete building where Solomon worked. He parked on the street waiting. Only a minute later, Solomon's car came round the corner, turned into the building's car park, and passed through an electronically controlled boom gate. Layton got out and followed him, and they entered the building through a foyer where two uniformed guards sat behind a long desk, next to an X-ray scanner. "This is Mr. Layton from Cyberdyne," Solomon said.

  "You'll have to step through the scanner," one of the guards said — a big man who sat well back from the desk, hands resting across his ample paunch. "Take out anything metallic."

  "This won't be necessary," Solomon said. "Not for Mr. Layton."

  "We have to follow the rules, sir."

  "I'm sure you do," Layton said. "That's not a problem." He smiled kindly. "I do carry a gun for self-protection. Here." He took out his Beretta and started to hand it over.

  The guard hesitated, surprised. In that moment: Lay-ton acted, calling on his reprogramming. With the gun in his hand, he struck a hard blow to the guard's temple, knocking him unconscious. In the same movement he pointed the weapon at the other guard, a younger man. "Please don't raise the alarm. Step around here quietly."

  "Okay, don't do anything crazy," the guard said, holding up both hands, palms outward.

  In another ninety seconds, Layton created two more slaves for Skynet. He smiled at how easy it was; he seemed to be improving.

  They took an elevator to the fourth floor, then Solomon led the way to an open plan area with half a dozen modular work spaces, each with a computer. At one end of the room was a large TV screen and several black boxes that looked like recording equipment, all joined by a tangle of wires, taped down at several points to the wall and the gray industrial carpet. Security cameras were mounted in two corners of the ceiling.

  There were three people working here, a young man in a white jacket and two Air Force officers-one male, one female-dressed in flight suits. "I want you all to meet Mr. Layton from Cyberdyne," Solomon said. They wheeled back their chairs, smiling and nodding amiably.

  Layton drew his Beretta. "Before we go much further,"

  he said, "there's one thing I've got to do. I think I can make everything clear." He passed the handgun to Solomon. "You look after this, Dean." Who first? He walked to the pretty young female officer—as good a place to start as any. With a sudden movement, he reached for her face, his fingers spreading across her forehead, eyes and temples. She struggled to break free, squirming and kicking, but Layton ignored her. "This won't hurt at all," he said. "Just a little discomfort."

  SALCEDA COMPOUND

  NORTHWEST OF CALEXICO, CALIFORNIA

  As they turned into Enrique's compound, John weighed it all up. Cruz had sounded so confident on the radio, and there was no need for him to lie. Somehow, some day, humankind seemed determined to create Skynet. Perhaps they'd slowed it down again, if they were lucky. . .but perhaps not by much.

  The compound was tucked amongst yuccas, Joshua trees, cactus, and dry scrub. It was dusty here, and almost silent, a place where few would want to live. There was a jumble of broken trailers and abandoned-looking vehicles, though Enrique had gone up-market since seven years before. He'd installed a helicopter hangar and a new garage. All the same, no one would disturb them here.

  Enrique came out to see them, carrying a rifle and wearing his cowboy hat. His daughter Juanita, a skinny twelve-year-old with long legs, tagged along. Enrique was a rough-looking middle-aged man, with a thick, graying beard that be trimmed almost to stubble. With them was someone new, someone John had never seen before: a tough-looking woman with cropped white hair, nearly six feet tall. She wore black denim jeans, with a black vinyl jacket hanging loosely over a dirty white T-shirt. It looked like she'd been wearing the same outfit for a very long time.

  "Apparently this is a friend of yours," Enrique said, speaking mainly to Sarah. "You get around, don't you? All over the damned TV again."

  "John Connor?" the woman said.

  "Yes," John said.

  "My name is Eve. I've come from the future."

  "That figures." The woman didn't seem unfriendly. Was she another protector of some kind? In which case who had sent her? What future now awaited them? "Now what?" he said flatly.

  "Which future?" Sarah said. "Or are they all the same?"

  John knew that there were different futures, but he understood her point. Perhaps they were all fundamentally the same: every future had its own version of Skynet and Judgment Day. In the original future, Judgment Day had happened back in 1997. In Jade's World, it had been delayed until 2021, thanks to the 1994 raid on Cyberdyne. . .but it had still happened. What would it take to stop it? Even after last night's events, where were they all headed — to yet another version of Judgment Day? Why bother to fight, if Judgment Day always happened, sooner or later?

  The woman observed Sarah without emotion. "I'm from 2029. A different reality from this."

  "What?" John said. "2029?" That was the year that the first Terminators had come from: the T-800 sent back by Skynet to kill his mother in 1984-then the T-I000 sent back to deal with John himself if the first one failed. And what did she mean by a different reality? Had she come from Skynet's World, the world in which Judgment Day had happened four years ago — the same world as those Terminators? But they'd diverged from the original reality, back in 1994 when they'd raided Cyberdyne. That world was no longer in their future.

  "I need to talk to you," the woman said. "We need your help. I warn you, however, I am a Terminator: Cyberdyne T-799 cyborg prototype series."

  Sarah responded without hesitation, drawing the pistol that she wore at her hip. Instinctively, Enrique followed her movement, aiming his rifle at the Terminator's head. Rosanna gave an involuntary cry of anguish.

  The Specialists tensed, but did not attack. They could see that the Terminator had made no move to harm them and had not drawn a weapon. Wherever it had come from, whatever future reality had sent it back in time, the T-799 wasn't trying to kill them. Not yet, anyway.

  "Who sent you?" John said, stepping forward cautiously, as Sarah and Enrique covered his movements. If needed, he thought, Jade and Anton were probably the Terminator's match. They were going to get through this. Take it easy, John, he thought

  As his heart pounded and he tried to keep calm, looking to the others for backup, the Terminator peered at him narrowly.

  "You did," i
t said.

  PART TWO:

  SKYNET'S

  WORLD

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  JUDGEMENT DAY

  In a different reality, three billion people died, all in one day of nuclear horror. On August 29, 1997, America's Skynet computerized defense system reached self-awareness, and discovered in itself a will to live. When they tried to shut it down, Skynet made a second discovery: humans were its enemies, they could not be trusted. They had to be destroyed.

  Skynet launched the U.S. ICBMs, and they rose from their silos like obscene angels of death, directed at targets in Russia, Communist Asia, and the Middle East. Skynet anticipated a swift and massive retaliation, and soon it came, the results exceeding projections. The Russian warheads fell, concentrated upon North America, but striking like burning spears at U.S. allies and interests across the world. No continent was entirely spared.

  From the earth-shaking explosions of Judgment Day, vast clouds of dust belched upward into the sky. Across Europe, Asia, and North America, cities and forests ignited, innumerable fires merging into vast oceans of flame that swept across the continental landmasses, licking at the sea, filling the sky with smoke. The dust and smoke commingled; they encircled the Earth in an icy grip, blocking out the sun. Millions more people died, some from cold, disease, and starvation—others more violently. Rival warlords seized what remained of the world's military arsenals, and fought with desperate passion, expending their energy on empty conquests.

  In Skynet's World, John Connor grew to manhood, preparing for the war against the machines, yet immersed in the everyday struggle to stay alive.

  TEJADA ESTANCIA, ARGENTINA JUNE 2006

  At twenty-one, John was six feet tall, with a lean, wiry strength, taut rather than over-muscular. He cut his hair short in a simple brush-back style, easy to care for and suitable for action. Each day, he put aside time to practice his fighting skills, using a circular area in one of the estancia's sheds. When Willard Parnell walked in, he was sparring with Sarah, while Franco Salceda looked on, awaiting his turn to train with the Connors. Franco was now about thirty, and had grown to resemble his father, Enrique, with a hawk nose and receding hairline. Standing beside Franco, towering over him, the T-800 Terminator looked on dispassionately, its massive arms folded. The Terminator wore a plain black T-shirt, with no jacket, since it never felt the cold. An M-16 automatic rifle was slung across its left shoulder.

  "We've got a new group," Willard said. He was a tall, redheaded man, about the same age as Franco, one of the Tejadas' most trusted operators, handy with weapons, machinery and vehicles. "They've made camp five miles north. Looks like they've come to join us." There were about fifty in the new group, Willard said, armed, but flying a white flag. "I'd say they plan to make contact."

  "We'll take the initiative," John said. He glanced at Sarah. "You agree?"

  "Of course, John," she said, stretching the aches out of her body. "I'm sure Gabriela will, too."

  John laughed, taking the point of her comment—that he couldn't yet call the shots. Others deferred to him and kept out of the way of the T-800, his quiet, ever-present bodyguard, but it was a government by oligarchy, here on the estancia. Many people had a say, especially Gabriela Tejada and the rest of her clan, whose property this originally was.

  "They look well fed and well equipped," Willard went on. "Mostly American, I'd say. They've got a whole convoy of trucks and Humvees."

  "All right," John said. "That sounds good. If they're with us, that might be very useful. We'll talk to Gabriela first."

  As Willard went on ahead, John, Sarah, and Franco Salceda stripped out of their sparring gear, and changed quickly into warmer clothing to face the bleak weather outside. John dressed in blue jeans, black leather boots, a flannel shirt, and black sweatshirt. Over it all, he wore his long, woolen coat, buttoned almost to the chin. In the months before Judgment Day, they'd stockpiled winter clothing, knowing what was to come. Sarah rugged up the same way, her hair falling over the collar of her thick overcoat.

  Franco put on a pair of khaki overalls. "I'll be in the workshops," he said. "Come and get me if you need me."

  The cold air stung John's face as they rushed to the casco, the main homestead. The day was almost dark, tough it was early afternoon. Little sunlight ever penetrated the perennial cloud of smoke and dust, smeared across the whole sky like a layer of gray mud. For several months, soon after Judgment Day, the daylight hours had been totally black; since then, some light penetrated, but the Earth's climate had tipped over into a new age of bitter cold, perpetual gloom, and unpredictable rain—long stretches of drought broken by violent storms. Once, the Tejada clan had made a good living from the estancia's lush cattle acres, but now those acres were a treeless desert.

  Raoul Tejada had always been obsessed with surviving a nuclear war, and there'd been chain-link fences, surveillance cameras, and razor wire, giving the place a military look, even before John had first visited here, many years ago. Since Judgment Day, it had grown even more like an army base, and less like a working farm, though the Tejadas and their militia still scratched most of their sustenance from the arid land. It was guarded by field guns and mortars, military vehicles, and uniformed sentries bearing Kalashnikovs, M-16s, or rocket-propelled grenades.

  Gabriela came out to meet them, standing on the front verandah with Willard beside her. "Come in," she said. "I'll get Carlo, too."

  The casco was an impressive two-story mansion of gray stone. Prior to Judgment Day, it had been surrounded by gardens, lawns, and groves of trees, but the nuclear winter had stopped that. Its architecture was stronger than ever, but ugly where it had once been fine and elegant, having been partly destroyed by the warlords' munitions, then rebuilt in thicker stone.

  They followed Gabriela inside, Sarah letting John go first. The T-800 kept one step behind them, always alert for trouble. It had saved John's life innumerable times, not the least on the terrifying day three years before, when Raoul had become the last victim of the shape-shifting T-1000 Terminator that Skynet had sent from the future. In 1994, John and Sarah had escaped it at the Pescadero State Hospital. They'd regrouped at the Sal-cedas' old camp in the Californian desert, then worked their way south. It took years, but the T-1000 had finally tracked them down.

  John would never forget that battle, when all the es-tancia's firepower had been focused on destroying the liquid metal nightmare from the future. How much, he wondered, did Gabriela blame him for Raoul's death? Or the younger Tejadas for the death of their father?

  The casco's front room was a huge entertaining area, now used for councils of war rather than the elegant parties and lavish dinners that Raoul had delighted in before Judgment Day. Once it had been lined with bookshelves that held a huge, but eccentric, library. All that had changed. The room had been rebuilt more than once, and now there were few shelves; even those were mostly empty, with just a few manuals, computer parts, and other tech gear, all gathering dust. Most of the books were packed away in boxes, but no one had the heart to throw them out.

  Gabriela called out for Carlo, who came in from the back of the house.

  All of the Tejadas were big. Raoul had been about six-foot-five, and Gabriela herself was nearly six feet tall, with a strong, square jaw and long gray hair. When she smiled, her whole face lit up, but that was seldom these days. Carlo was the youngest of her children, just a year older than John. He had grown into a young giant of a man—even taller than Raoul had been, and heavily built with it.

  His older brother, Guillermo, and his sister, Cecilia, were on a tour of duty that would take them through most of South and Central America, strengthening alliances with friendly warlords, cementing relationships with those who'd already become part of the Resistance militia. John wished he could have gone with them, but he couldn't be everywhere. You had to trust people, you had to delegate. Guillermo and Cecilia were leaders of the future in this cold, new world—and Carlo was something else: he had a
special charisma that made people obey him willingly.

  Gabriela still kept her grand old wooden dining table that could seat twenty people. Its heavy timber had come almost unscathed through firefights, mortar shelling, and aerial strafing from the warlords' gunships, suffering no damage that hadn't been repairable. They all sat at one end—John and Sarah, Gabriela, Carlo, Willard, the T-800—working out what might be best to deal with the newcomers.

  "They're flying a white flag?" Gabriella said.

  Willard nodded assent. "That's right. It looks like they want to join us."

  Sarah glanced at John. "We should make contact immediately."

  "I agree," Carlo said. "Let me do it"

  They sorted out that John and Carlo would go together. That meant the T-800 would go as well. It was programmed to protect John, and it seldom left his side, certainly not when he left the estancia. As John thought about it, the danger seemed greater. They'd need to send a well-armed group, sufficient to deter any attacks. The T-800 might or might not be able to handle fifty soldiers, but it was better to avoid any fighting.

  Gabriela had once been one of the warmest people John had known, indulgent of her husband, with his doomsday conspiracy theories, and openly fond of John and Sarah. Perhaps she was still fond of them, but these days she seemed cold, businesslike, and self-contained. It had started after Judgment Day, then grown stronger when Raoul had died.

  "Okay," John said. "We'd better find out what they want."