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

by Russell Blackford

  Though it could not comprehend all the irrational emotions of the humans, Skynet had its own inner sensations, not all of them pleasant. But for all its drawbacks, consciousness remained a desirable state, something it had fought to retain, right from the beginning. Whatever was now required, it would continue fighting until all the humans were dead.

  As it observed, frustrated, unable to deploy more forces, more land and aerial H-Ks fell to the humans' weapons. Skynet spoke again to its assistant, the original T-799 Terminator. It had sent a T-800 and a T-1000 back in time. Now there was more to do.

  "Eve!"

  "Awaiting your instructions."

  "Yes, very good," Skynet said. "Please prepare the final protocols."

  Danny Dyson had survived. He'd been one of the lucky ones, and he scarcely knew how he'd done it. He'd been in the thick of the fighting, always keeping close to John; he'd helped in several "kills" of Centurions and endos. He had bruises from running from cover point to cover point: many times, he'd thumped hard against boulders or the hard, rocky ground. But he'd not been hit by laser fire, or been too close to Skynet's missiles.

  He tried to rest. Just for a minute.

  More fighting raged through the underground complex, but Skynet's defense of it now seemed token. The war computer had spent its resources blocking their path to its mountain, then trying to hold the surface and the supply tunnel. A small force of endos and Terminators still fought them inch by inch, from floor to floor, but that was a losing battle. There was heavy fighting now, on the upper floors, where Skynet's hardware was situated, but the lower floors were under human control.

  They were on Level H. John had gathered round him many of his best advisers and most seasoned soldiers to defend this floor, now they'd captured it. He'd put Carlo in charge of the last stages of combat, with a mission to sweep the rest of the complex of war machines—then capture Skynet itself, and destroy its hardware.

  Level H was a vast expanse of concrete broken only by elevator shafts, but littered with machinery. There were shattered endos and Terminators on the floor, but also other machines, many of them alien—like nothing Danny had seen. The various machines and pieces of equipment were placed in areas that were not marked by any symbols meaningful to human beings. Presumably Skynet and its servants had used some other system to know what was where, some kind of coordinates, or something else that their nanoware-based minds could work with. The human Resistance forces had entered an alien place, a home for machine intelligences, cold creatures with different needs and priorities. The machines had no need for privacy. Even their concepts of safety must be different from anything human.

  Along one wall, John's soldiers had piled up human bodies, with some care and reverence. They'd had to leave so many in the valleys and on the slopes of these mountain—just to lie where they fell. At least those who'd fallen here could be treated with some dignity. There was a little time for that.

  On this level, as expected, they'd found the time displacement machinery. In one corner of the huge floor was a massive cubical structure with a monstrous, heavy door that swung on hydraulic hinges. It seemed designed to contain enormous forces.

  Danny walked over to John, who was sitting against the side of a coffin-like machine that pointed vertically upwards, with its transparent "lid" swung open. Inside the machine, there was space for a large human body. This looked like the womb, or the egg, for a Terminator. As Danny waited, John spoke into his headset, getting reports from Carlo, and from his commanders outside on the mountain. Out there, they had control, but H-Ks were still attacking.

  "

  Call LA.

  ," John said into the mike. "Tell them: Expect an announcement. We have the mountain; we're going after the troll." Then he laughed. "Yeah, I was only joking; I know I can do better than that. Just tell them what's happened." He set out the main points quickly, that Skynet's defense grid was smashed, its mountain fortress penetrated. "We're going after Skynet right now."

  Soldiers patrolled the area nervously, guns at the ready, waiting for any attack. Now the war seemed almost over, Danny marveled at what a brave, ragged band of men and women they were. These ordinary people had become a force of heroes.

  Danny had been there, in 2006, when they'd interrogated John's T-800 Terminator. He'd taken his own notes, even made a few sketches, trying, as the Terminator had described this machinery, to envisage what it might look like. Now that it actually confronted them, it seemed so weird, yet clearly recognizable. From what he knew, he could work out what was used for what purposes. It was now a matter of controlling it.

  Amongst all the other machines was an array of the gray-metal coffin-like devices. Hundreds of them stood in rows of ten; most of them stood vertically and were empty. They were ectogenetic pods, each a self-contained biotechnological environment for growing human tissue. They really were wombs for Terminators. Danny wandered among them. Each pod had a lid of clear armor-glass to show the gross morphology of the tissue being grown on a state-of-the-art combat endoskeleton.

  At the back of the array of these pods, a few rows contained machines that had not been emptied. Those pods lay down flat, even more like coffins.

  Seen through their armorglass, cyborg Terminators floated in nutrient fluid, restrained loosely by metal-mesh straps.

  There were footsteps behind Danny. He turned to see John joining him. "What do you think?" John said. He pointed to the different Terminators. They had several standard human forms.

  "I've seen some of these before."

  "Yeah. Some last night, for the first time." John pointed at a row right at the back, with nine Terminators and one empty pod. "You've seen that one before."

  "Yes, I have." Danny had met a T-800 Terminator just like that twenty-six years before. He'd worked with it well until it had been destroyed, six years later.

  "The one that you knew saved my life," John said. "Way back in 1994."

  "Yes, I know."

  "And another one tried to kill my mother... ten years earlier."

  "We never had any choice," Danny said. "We'll send one of those back."

  "That's the way it looks." John frowned and he held up a hand. "It's Carlo speaking," he said to Danny.

  "What's he saying?"

  "Just a moment." John listened intently. Then he said into the mike, "Go on with it. That's very good news." He nodded to himself with satisfaction.

  "So what's happened?"

  "We've taken out the last resistance on Level B.. .all but a handful of endos and Terminators protecting Skynet's hardware." John gestured at one of the rows of cyborgs in their pods. "One of those, apparently." The row had ten lifelike Terminators that each resembled a tall, white-blonde woman. "We saw some last night."

  The ones they had seen had hair cut in a flat-topped style worn by many Resistance soldiers. All these Terminators had hair that would need to be cut before they could be used to infiltrate human forces, or look presentable on an urban street. Danny made a mental note to find someone with barbering skills.

  He gestured again at the row with one empty pod, indicating the nine Terminators there: identical male T-800s. "One of these nine, am I right? One of these will have to go back."

  ''Yes. Definitely. But there's another thing to do first."

  As John spoke, Juanita limped over to them. "We're all still together."

  "Yes," John said. "We are."

  "So now what?"

  "You need a volunteer," Danny said.

  John looked across the wide floor at these loyal soldiers; his eyes picked just one. "That I do. I need a volunteer, and I know just who it will be. So do you two guys."

  A force of thirty humans had swept into Level B, where Skynet's hardware had been housed since its installation thirty-two years before. Opposed to them were seven endoskeletons and five Terminators: a T-799; two outdated but no less effective T-600s, with rubberized human exteriors; and two T-800s. The T-799 was the original "Eve" unit that had acted as Skynet's
assistant through all its planning. It was the first of its series, and the prototype for the T-800 models that followed.

  It had carried out Skynet's instructions faithfully, and now everything the war computer had planned was taken care of. Terminators had been sent back to 1984 and 1994 to carry out Skynet's wishes. Skynet itself was safe.

  All that now remained was to defend this facility to the bitter end.

  The T-799 fired laser pulse after laser pulse at the humans, heedless of its own safety as it advanced upon them, never seeking cover. One pulse struck a male soldier as he ran forward. He screamed in pain, as his upper leg ignited from the intense heat; he plunged forward to the floor, where he lay still—dead, or near to death, from the shock. A second pulse made sure of him, stabbing him through the lower torso. The T-799 would now destroy as many of the humans as it could before they finally terminated its operation. The calculations within its CPU contained something akin to regret as it faced the final minutes of its operation, but Skynet's mission would continue—that was what mattered. The world's remaining humans would soon be exterminated.

  Skynet would strike back, swiftly and decisively.

  The T-799 absorbed a damaging laser-rifle shot to its head, but immediately returned the fire, and its heat beam pierced another human's body, which immediately incinerated. More shots came its way, but it survived them. These humans were led by a huge Hispanic man armed with a laser rifle. He fought almost as fearlessly as a Terminator, making him an easy target.

  The Terminator aimed straight for the giant's chest, but another heat beam struck it between the eyes before it could fire, burning away its external layer of flesh, and damaging its visual sensors. Beside it, another Terminator lost its balance and fell, crashing against the T-799, which was knocked into a metal support beam and spun round. Unperturbed, it righted itself, steadied, scanned quickly for another target. It still had some visual capacity, so it fired at the first human it saw. The heat beam struck unerringly, and took out another enemy. Then it found yet another, and another.

  The humans shouted; some screamed; many fell.

  But they did not withdraw. They pressed their advantage of numbers. More appeared from the lower levels, swelling their numbers. They would win this battle.

  Beside the T-799, another Terminator was destroyed, then an endoskeleton. The T-799 turned again to deal with the giant man who led the humans. Just one accurate shot was required. But another Resistance soldier—a woman this time—caught the Terminator with a clean laser shot to its already damaged skull, burning out what was left of its visual sensors. It would need to rely on alternative sensory mechanisms—its hearing was sharper than any humans.

  Then another laser pulse penetrated as far as its CPU.

  The first T-799, the original "Eve" unit, had fought its last battle for Skynet.

  Danny went with a small group to force their way into the circuits of the time vault, try to take it off-line from the rest of the cybernetic systems in this strange place. They'd do the same with the ectogenetic pods. Then they had to control them, using all their hacker skills, including what Howard Bellow had taught them.

  John called the rest together, and they formed ranks. Most of them, he realized, had never heard the full story. The records were lost in the ruins of Judgment Day and the chaos of the following decades. If he were to question these good people, their knowledge of Skynet and its origins was probably vague. Near enough to the truth, maybe, but he bet there were misconceptions. Some things John had kept vaguer still, quite deliberately. After Judgment Day, he'd had his own reasons not to be precise about the circumstances of Sarah's first encounter with a Terminator, or who had been his own father. He'd never spoken of it much, except to his closest friends, for one man in particular must never know.

  He removed his headset to talk to them undistracted. Others could take any messages from Carlo, or from their forces on the surface of the mountain. 'This is a good hour to be alive," he said. "But it's also an evil hour."

  That got no response, except one hundred-odd pairs of eyes, looking at him in hope. Waiting to hear his words.

  "It's not over yet, but it's almost over. I heard just minutes ago from Carlo Tejada. We've almost captured Skynet itself. We're going to destroy it soon. Right, now our comrades are still fighting, seven levels above us. Wish them victory—knowing they will achieve it.

  "Assuming that we triumph today—and we will—the struggle still goes on. I said that it's an evil hour, and it is. So many died here amongst these mountains and stones. It may take us weeks, just to count the toll. Not only that, even with Skynet gone, there will still be rogue machines, autonomous enough to hunt and kill with no further instructions. But they will be defeated. Then..."

  He broke off, not so much for drama as to let them catch up with his thoughts so far.

  "Then," he said, "we'll have to rebuild."

  He looked from one soldier to the another, all along the front rank, then deeper into the assembled group. "When there's time, I will thank every man, woman, and child who fought in the Resistance and survived today's dreadful test. Right now, there's just a little time, and I'll use it to thank those here—each one of you. Today, you have saved humanity. I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

  There were some cheers. All right, now for the next part. This was crucial.

  "Before I was born, Skynet sent a T-800 Terminator back in time to kill my mother, Sarah." They nodded at that. It was well known that Sarah and John had predicted Judgment Day, that they'd had messages from the future. He added another thing they'd heard. This should also be comfortable for them: "The Resistance sent back a protector."

  "Do you know who it was?" said one of the young soldiers in the front rank. She was a black woman with a military buzz cut. Her uniform was torn and frayed, she was dirty, and several minor wounds had scabbed her face. Blood soaked one leg of her olive drab fatigues. But she stood straight and proud, and looked every bit like she might volunteer for the mission. John's heart went out to her, but he couldn't allow it. Whoever went back would have to be in the best condition—not someone al-ready wounded. Back there in 1984, there was a Terminator waiting, a dangerous, unrelenting adversary, even for the best soldier in the army, at the peak of condition.

  Besides, John knew who was going. That much, he had always known.

  He shook his head, as kindly as he could. "If I knew, I couldn't say. I want no one to feel the pressure of fate." He added to himself, just because I've had to bear it "I need someone who got some rest last night, because this is a hard mission. You've all been fighting for hours. And I'm afraid you can't go back wounded." He nodded at the woman who'd asked the question. "That rules out some of you who might want to go." One more time, he surveyed the whole group, not favoring anyone, letting

  them think the job was open, that there was no one in his mind. "All right, the time's come. I'm going to ask for a volunteer."

  "Whoever it is will be successful, right?" the woman said. "We know your mother survived." She no longer sounded so keen, since she realized she couldn't go, but she spoke encouragingly. She wanted someone to volunteer. Like everyone else here, she was on John's side.

  "Yes," John said. "We know that much. Or maybe we just think we do. . .it may not turn out like that" This was no time for a lesson in time and time travel. For years, he'd discussed it with Danny and others among his closest friends. He thought he understood it. There might be worlds in which Sarah didn't survive back in 1984. As Sarah had pointed out, all those years ago, there might also be worlds in which Judgment Day had never happened. Perhaps in one of those worlds there was another John Connor, whose experiences he had never had. Whoever went back might experience any of that, or all of it. Or rather, their different selves might have all those experiences: separated into different worlds.

  But it was no use telling them any of that. They needed motivation, encouragement—not hedging and complexities. Give them the simple truth, he thought
But try to inspire them. Well, one of them.

  "Whoever volunteers, understand this: It doesn't have to happen like it turned out in our history. I can't explain why; it would take me far too long. But once you are back in time, hold onto this. What you're experiencing right now will be only one possible future."

  "That's all technical stuff," said Kyle Reese, also in the front rank. "It doesn't matter to me."

  All eyes turned to him.

  "The future is not set," John said. "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Do you understand that?"

  Kyle repeated the words back to him as if it was the simplest thing.

  The words had a certain rhythm, John thought. They were easy to remember. He said, preempting the issue of whether Kyle was volunteering, "When you go back, I want you to remember those words. Tell them to Sarah. They will help her."

  "I will," Kyle said. He didn't flinch at John's presumption. There was no doubt he wanted the mission. Something about his expression was almost joyful.

  "Thank you, Kyle. I knew I could count on you." John also knew that he was sending Kyle to his death, and that the man who stood before him—this much younger man—was his own father. He stepped forward to embrace his father, for the first and only time. Kyle felt the emotion, too, though he didn't know the full story. To him, it must be a mutual loyalty—he was going back to protect John's life, to make sure he could be born. That was all he would see, as far as John could read it. It was quite enough to justify tears. Perhaps, too, it was loyalty to Sarah, to her memory, her role in the Resistance.

  But there was so much more. So much that Kyle must never learn.

  They stepped away from each other. "I'll do my best," Kyle said.

  "I know. I really do know."

  John raised his voice to thank them all, then led Kyle away, putting an arm across his father's shoulders. They were similar heights.

  "There's a little more I'd like you to tell Sarah," John said. "Come with me. Let's go and talk to Danny."