Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes (13 page)

Which, of course, made it obvious.

Connor waited until Barnes happened to glance in his direction. Then, crooking his finger to the man, Connor headed toward Kate.

She looked up as the two men approached.

“Everything set?” she asked.

“Still working out a few details,” Connor told her. “How about you?”

“I’ve just started, really.” She waved a hand toward the bandages, antiseptics, and painkillers laid neatly out around her. “Since we’re going for speed and maneuverability, I thought I’d try consolidating most of the supplies into one bag per squad, with only small personal packs for each individual soldier.”

“Freeing up more carrying capacity for ammo and munitions,” Connor said, nodding. “I assume you’ll be giving the big bags to the people with the best medical training?”

Kate nodded. “I was thinking Vincennes, Sung, one of the Tantillo brothers—probably Tony—

and Simmons. And of course, I’ll be here as backup.”

“Sounds good,” Connor said. “Now, you want to tell me what has you and Barnes so bothered?”

Kate threw a slightly furtive look at Barnes.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she hedged.

Which was more or less the answer Connor had expected. Kate never liked questioning his orders or decisions, especially not in front of the others.

“How about you?” Connor asked, turning to Barnes.

Barnes, fortunately or unfortunately, had little of Kate’s reticence and none of her diplomacy.

“I don’t like using all these civilians as bait,” he said flatly. “Especially the people in that last place—Orozco’s group.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” Connor asked.

“We’re going to wait until all the T-600s leave and start shooting up the neighborhood before we move in, right?” Barnes countered.

“Would you rather we attack the warehouse with the T-600s still inside?” Connor asked.

Barnes scowled. “No,” he muttered. “But I still don’t like it.”

“There are a lot of children in there,” Kate added quietly.

Connor raised his eyebrows. “Did you offer everyone the chance to come with us?”

Kate sighed. “Yes,” she said. “You saw how many accepted.”

“So we made an offer, and were mostly refused,” Connor said. “We also found them a potential escape route, the drainage tunnel you went in through, which they can use if they want to.”

“Except that Grimaldi’s probably already welded it shut,” Barnes said with a sniff.

“Again, their choice,” Connor said. “There’s really not much else we can do for them.”

“Yeah, but Grimaldi’s the one making all the decisions,” Barnes protested. “The people aren’t.”

“The people made the decision to accept him as their leader,” Connor reminded him.

“I suppose,” Kate said.

Connor looked at Barnes. He grimaced, but gave a reluctant nod.

“Yeah,” he seconded.

“Then let’s get back to work,” Connor said, looking back and forth between them. “Barnes, Tunney’s starting basic with our new recruits. As soon as you’ve finished stowing your gear, I’d like you to give him a hand.”

“Sure,” Barnes said. Nodding to Kate, he headed back across the room.

72

Connor looked at Kate. “You okay?”

“As okay as I am with anything these days,” she said, her voice a mixture of tension and sadness. “I’m sorry, John—I don’t mean to be questioning your decisions. It was just—all those children—”

“I know,” Connor said quietly. “But you have to try to put them out of your mind, along with all the rest of the misery and injustice that’s out there.” He touched her shoulder. “Focus on the fact that our primary job is to survive long enough to destroy Skynet, so that people won’t ever have to die this way again.”

Kate gave him a faint smile. “I know. Thanks for reminding me.”

Connor smiled back, and turned away.
Well, that’s them convinced,
he thought as he headed over to join the, group at the maps.

Now, the only one he still had to convince was himself.

73

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

“Kyle?”

The teen started awake, chagrined by the sudden realization that he had, in fact, been asleep.

That hadn’t been his plan, certainly not with Orozco handling guard duty all alone. He must have been more tired than he’d realized.

Way
more tired, in fact, he realized as he peered through half-open eyes out into the street.

Nguyen and the other traders were standing outside the archway, and even in the limited sunlight making its way through the overcast sky he could see enough shadow to tell that it was at least a couple of hours past noon. He’d not only slept the morning away, but a good part of the afternoon, too.

He looked over at Star. To his surprise, he saw the same grogginess in her face that he himself was feeling. She must have slept as long and as deeply as he had.

“Come on, Kyle, get it together,” Orozco said.

Kyle looked up at the man kneeling over him. There was a grimness on his face that made Kyle wince even harder. Had he and Star slept straight through the mission Orozco had talked about earlier?

“Sorry,” Kyle apologized as he scrambled to his feet.

“Didn’t mean to sleep so long.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Orozco said, his voice as gruff as his face. “In fact, I’m glad you did.

You’ve got a long day still ahead of you.”

“We’re ready,” Kyle said, checking to make sure the Colt was still riding snugly in his holster.

“What’s the mission?”

“Come over here,” Orozco said. He offered a hand to Star, who ignored it and climbed to her feet without assistance. “You’re going to start by taking Mr. Nguyen and his people to our gasoline supply.”

Kyle felt his eyes widen. The first rule hammered into the skulls of everyone who knew where the gasoline was located was to never,
ever
take strangers there.

“But—”

“And after that,” Orozco said, “you and Star will be going back to their farm with them. And you won’t come back.”

For a handful of seconds Kyle just stared at him, the words spinning through his brain like moths around a candle.

“What do you mean?” he managed at last. “Are you?—We can’t do that.”

“You have to,” Orozco said, his voice low and earnest and with a pain that Kyle had never heard there before.

“There’s no future for you here. Out there, at least you have a chance.”

And then, abruptly, the circling words fell into place in Kyle’s mind. Into a horrible, terrifying place in a horrible, terrifying reality.

“They’re coming, aren’t they?” he breathed.

“I think so, yes,” Orozco said quietly. “That’s why you and Star need to get out of here.”

74

“What about the others?” Kyle asked, throwing a look across the empty lobby. “We have to warn them.”

“We will,” Orozco promised. “And we’ll do our best to get them all out. But you and Star are going first.”

Kyle looked at Star. Her eyes were wide, her lower lip trembling. Moldering Lost Ashes was their home, the best and safest they’d ever had. To just throw all that away…

He looked back at Orozco.

“Are you coming with us?” he asked.

“No, but if I can I’ll catch up with you later,” Orozco said. “But whether I do or not, you have to promise me you won’t ever come back here again. Not to look for me, or for anyone else, or to try to collect anything you might leave behind. Once you pass under that archway, you’re gone forever.

Understand?”

Kyle looked again at Star. She was gazing up at Orozco, her face solemn and troubled. Then, lowering her eyes, she silently took Kyle’s hand.

“Yes,” Kyle said for them both.

“Good,” Orozco said. “Then go get anything you have that you want to take. And not a word to anyone else, okay?” He reached down and took Kyle’s Colt from its holster. “Here, I’ll load this for you.”

It took Kyle and Star only about five minutes to collect their few belongings. They returned to the lobby to find Orozco standing beside Nguyen, talking to him in a low voice. Lying on the ground at his feet was a bulky canvas shoulder bag.

“Ready?” Orozco asked briskly as Kyle and Star came up. “Good. Here’s your gun, Kyle, plus an extra clip.”

“You sure you can spare them?” Kyle asked as he hesitantly took the weapon and clip. If the Terminators were coming, Orozco and the others would need all the guns and ammunition they could get their hands on.

“Don’t argue with your sergeant,” Orozco chided, though his tight smile showed he didn’t really mean it. “Yes, we can spare them. We can spare this, too.” He nudged the bag with his foot.

Kyle stooped over and picked it up. It was heavier than it looked.

“What is it?”

“Six pipe bombs,” Orozco said. “I made them up this morning. And don’t worry—I kept plenty for us, too.”

Kyle swallowed hard. So that was what Orozco had been doing that had given him and Star time to sleep so much.

“Thanks,” he said.

“It’s just a precaution,” Orozco added. “Even if we’re in Skynet’s crosshairs, its attacks nearly always come after nightfall. You should be well out of the area by then. There’s a lighter in there with the bombs, too. But it’s stoked with a gasoline mixture and burns really hot, so be careful with it.”

“I will,” Kyle said, looping the bag’s strap over his shoulder. “I…”

He was still searching for a way to say good-bye when Orozco stepped close and wrapped him and Star in a single, massive bear hug. Kyle gripped the man tightly, his eyes squeezed shut, drinking in the warmth and the deepness of human contact.

For a long moment they held each other that way. Then, gently, Orozco disengaged.

“You’d better get going,” he said, and Kyle could see the tears in his eyes. “Take care of yourselves and each other. May you both live long enough to see a world finally at peace.”

Kyle tried to say something. But his throat and voice weren’t working right, and he had to settle for giving his friend a quick nod instead.

75

A minute later, he and Star were walking down the street beside Nguyen, wrapped in a silence broken only by the crunching of their footsteps and the snuffling of the burros. Kyle had lost many friends and acquaintances over the years, either through death or simple desertion, to the point where he no longer cried over those losses.

But it was a near thing. It was a really near thing.

Nguyen and his men were very impressed by the gasoline stash, commenting several times on both its layered concealment and the booby-traps set up to protect it. Kyle had expected them to take as much of the gasoline as their burros could carry, and was therefore surprised when they quit after siphoning off only thirty gallons.

Still, pulling even that much of the precious liquid took nearly an hour, and by the time the group emerged again into the open air the faint glow in the clouds that marked the sun’s position was already halfway to the horizon.

“What now?” Kyle asked as they headed east.

“We get out of this neighborhood,” Nguyen said grimly, “and then cover as much distance as we can before we have to turn in for the night.”

Star touched Kyle’s arm.
Where will we stay?
she signed.

“You have some place in mind for that?” Kyle asked Nguyen.

“There are a couple of possibilities,” the other said. “We have to see first how far we get.”

“What are they like?” Kyle asked. They were passing the spot where he and Orozco had had the confrontation with the new gang yesterday, and he wondered whether they’d actually left like they’d said they would.

Apparently not.

Even as Kyle eyed their ramshackle headquarters the door opened a crack and a single eye peered out. The eye flicked back and forth, taking in the size and armament of the group, and then the door quietly closed again.

“One’s just an empty building,” Nguyen said. He’d noticed the door and the eye too, Kyle saw, and his gaze lingered there another moment before turning away. “The other’s the home of some of our other customers. Much safer, but they’ll charge a hefty fee for putting us up.”

Kyle nodded, looking up over the broken buildings and piles of wreckage to Moldering Lost Ashes. Up there on the eighth floor, he knew, the sentries were watching, and he wondered if they’d spotted him and Star among the crowd of men and animals.

If they had, what were they thinking? Did they think he and Star had deserted them, the way Ellis had?

The group had made it three blocks east of Moldering Lost Ashes when Kyle spotted two figures standing motionlessly in the shadow of a broken wall, just two blocks farther ahead.

“Nguyen?” he murmured.

“I see them,” Nguyen said grimly. “Vuong?”

“Terminators,” Vuong said, squinting toward the figures. “T-600s, probably—haven’t seen a T-400 in ages.”

“Agreed,” Nguyen said. “I wonder what they’re doing. Terminators usually don’t just stand around like that.”

Vuong shrugged. “Maybe they’re on break.”

Someone in the rear of the group snorted.

“Well, whatever they’re up to, we don’t want to know about it,” Nguyen said. “We’ll turn north at the next street and try to get around them.”

Kyle peered at the distant figures. He didn’t know much about Terminators, only the little that Orozco had been able to tell him. He’d never even seen one close up, which Orozco had assured him was the way he wanted to keep it.

“Maybe we should split up,” he said. “Some of us head north, the rest head south.”

76

“Too risky,” Nguyen said. “If they decide to come after us, we’ll need all our firepower to stop them.”

Kyle stole a look at the gun in Nguyen’s holster.
Did
they in fact have enough firepower to stop a pair of Terminators? Orozco had always been a little vague on what it took to bring the machines down.

“Then let’s all just go south,” he suggested. “There’s an alley about half a block south off the next street, that would get us across that block without being seen. If they stay where they are by that wall, we should come out on their blind side.”

“Unless they take maybe two steps forward,” Nguyen countered. “No, I think the northern route would be safer.”

“But there’s no way of crossing the street without them seeing us up there,” Kyle persisted. “Not unless we go four or five blocks, and there are a couple of gangs up there we really don’t want to get close to.”

“There’s a big gang to the south, too,” Nguyen said. “There are gangs everywhere.”

“Right, but if we go south and the Terminators
don’t
take those two steps forward, we can get past without them ever seeing us,” Kyle said. “Star and I are willing to try it.”

“Forget it,” Nguyen said flatly. “I promised Orozco I’d keep you safe.”

Vuong murmured something in another language. Nguyen answered back, and for a few steps the two men talked quietly back and forth.

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” Nguyen said at last reluctantly. “But Vuong will go with you.”

Kyle nodded. “Where do we meet up again?”

“Vuong knows the rendezvous spot,” Nguyen said. “Just watch yourselves, okay?”

The two Terminators still hadn’t moved by the time the group reached the next street and split up. But Kyle could feel their eyes on him as he, Star, and Vuong headed south, and felt a sense of relief when they passed the nearest building and were out of the machines’ sight.

At least the Terminators hadn’t come charging straight for them. Maybe they really
were
on some kind of break.

Kyle hadn’t been in this part of the neighborhood for several months, but the place hadn’t changed very much.

“There’s the alley,” he told Vuong, pointing out the opening just past the midpoint of the block.

“The footing’s kind of tricky, but we should be able to get through.”

“I don’t know,” Vuong said doubtfully. “We’ll be coming out awfully close. If those Terminators spot us, we’ll be sitting ducks. You sure we can’t go a little farther south?”

Kyle shook his head. “Not unless we go all the way around the Death’s-Head Gang’s territory.

They’re the ones with all the cars up on their sides blocking the street.”

“Yes, we saw those on our way in,” Vuong said grimly. “We can’t go around them—if we do, we won’t be in position to back up Nguyen’s group if they need us. I guess it’s your alley, or nothing.”

“It’ll work,” Kyle assured him. “Besides, if we have to backtrack, the alley’s a good place to do it from. There’s a gap in a brick wall at the far end you need to get through, and I don’t think one of those Terminators could.”

“You don’t, huh?” Vuong said. “Ever seen a Terminator in action?”

“Not really,” Kyle admitted.

Vuong grunted. “Let’s hope we can keep it that way.”

The alley was as treacherous as Kyle remembered it, filled with angled slabs of pavement, a pair of rusting pickup trucks, and a small forest of exposed rebar. The three of them picked their way through, squeezed through the gap in the final brick wall, and reached the far end. Crouching down beside a bush growing tenaciously through a wide crack in the sidewalk, feeling terribly exposed now that they were back on an open street, Kyle looked carefully around it.

77

Half a block north, he could see the partial wall where the two Terminators had been loitering.

The Terminators themselves were nowhere to be seen.

“Anything?” Vuong murmured from behind him.

“I can’t see them,” Kyle murmured back. “They could be there, but they could have moved.”

Carefully, Vuong lifted his head above the bush for a look of his own.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess for the moment we stay put.”

“Stay put here?” Kyle asked, looking around. Except for the bush, they had no cover at all.

“We have to be able to see when the others get to their jump-off point,” Vuong explained patiently. “Once they’re there, we’ll figure out our next move.”

The minutes ticked slowly by. The cloud cover was starting to thicken, bringing a new chill to the air, and Kyle could feel Star shivering at his side. Slipping off his jacket from beneath his bag’s shoulder strap, he wrapped the garment around her. She flashed him a quick smile of thanks, then went back to watching the street.