The bursts of minigun fire echoing through the hallways had become more and more sporadic over the past few minutes. Either the Terminators moving through the building were running low on ammo or, more likely, were running low on people to kill.
And as Orozco reached the lobby he discovered why. Everyone who had managed to evade the killing spree up to now had apparently gathered here, those with guns crouching on the far side of the barricade the fire teams had put together, those without huddling together behind them. Some of the people were whimpering or crying, and Orozco could hear at least one quiet stream of curses being repeated over and over.
They were facing death, and they were terrified. But they were still holding.
Grimaldi rose from the center of the barricade as Orozco approached.
“Thank God—I thought they’d gotten you,” the chief said. His eyes dropped to Orozco’s blood-soaked sleeve—
“I’m fine,” Orozco said, forestalling the obvious question. “What have we got?”
“A dead end,” Grimaldi replied, his voice glacially calm. “Terminators have moved into position on the street about half a block north. Some of our people made a run for it, but were cut down before they got even halfway across. I was wondering if we might be able to set up enough cover fire to let at least some of them get out.”
It was a pretty futile hope, Orozco knew. But it would be better to try something than just sit here and wait to be cut down.
He was opening his mouth to say so when the roar of miniguns erupted from behind him, and Grimaldi’s chest exploded in a spray of blood and bone and flesh.
Orozco threw himself to the side, the bullets that were tracking along the top of the barricade stitching a line across his left shoulder and sleeve as he fell. He hit the ground and rolled over, trying to pull his M16 out from beneath him, where it had landed. Another burst slammed into the barricade just above his head, and with a gurgling scream the man standing behind it toppled forward, dropping his rifle across Orozco’s ribs and clutching at his own shattered legs.
For a second he teetered, and then pitched forward to sprawl across Orozco’s head and shoulders.
Orozco gasped in pain as the man’s weight slammed against his injured left arm. His right arm was pinned beneath the man’s torso, and he fought furiously to work free enough to at least shove him off.
Another burst of fire jerked the man’s body sideways, cutting off his screams forever.
And with that, the end had finally come. The Terminators would shoot everyone, Orozco knew, and then would systematically go around the room and put another couple of slugs into each of the bodies, just to make sure. After that they would probably go through the entire building on the off-chance that they’d somehow missed someone.
There was nothing Orozco could do to stop them. He couldn’t even get to his gun.
The tumult of screams and scattered return fire was fading away now, leaving only the bursts of minigun fire to intrude on the silence. Closing his eyes, wishing he could also close his ears, Orozco waited for death.
There were three entrances to the Ashes’ secret underground gasoline stash. Kyle took the closest, pushing Star in ahead of him and ducking in quickly behind her. He didn’t know whether the pursuing Terminator had been in position to see where they’d gone, but he had to assume it had.
They would have to work fast.
Star got the hidden door open in record time. Kyle slipped past her to the tank and twisted the tap all the way over, starting the gasoline spilling onto the ground.
Spilling way too slowly. Pulling out his knife, Kyle jabbed at the side of the tank, poking hole after hole in the tough fiberglass until the gasoline was flowing freely.
“Go out the second way, but stay out of sight,” he told Star, his eyes watering a little. The smell of the gasoline was overwhelming. “Wait for me just inside the exit.”
She nodded and disappeared out the door and up one of the sloping decoy tunnels. Sliding the bag Orozco had given him off his shoulder, Kyle held it under one of his knife slashes, letting it fill about a third of the way up with gasoline. Then he backed out of the room, carefully pouring a trail of gasoline as he went. He walked about halfway up the tunnel he’d sent Star to, then returned to the main chamber.
Dropping the bag in the steadily deepening pool, he headed up the third tunnel, the one facing the Ashes. He reached the entrance and carefully looked out.
And quickly ducked back in again as the two Terminators who’d been trying to flank them from the east spotted him.
At least, Kyle hoped they’d spotted him. Hurrying down the tunnel, making just enough noise to let them confirm where he’d gone, he splashed through the pool of gasoline and ran up the tunnel he and Star had entered by.
Again moving carefully, he looked out.
The single Terminator was actually farther back than the other two Terminators had been. But unlike them, it wasn’t just standing there trying to reacquire its target. It had already heard from the other two, and was striding toward Kyle at full Terminator speed. He held his position just long enough to make sure the machine had spotted the hidden entrance, then again ducked back inside.
Again he ran to the chamber and splashed through the pool of gasoline. But this time, he turned to the side and headed up the third tunnel, the one with the trail of gasoline soaking into the dirt and Star waiting for him at the far end. He reached the end of the trail, crouched down, and pulled out his lighter.
The wait wasn’t very long. Short enough, in fact, for him to realize just how close he’d cut this one. Less than fifteen seconds after he’d gotten the lighter into his hand, he felt the thud of heavy footsteps as the Terminators entered the hidden tunnels. Counting off the seconds, trying to visualize their progress, Kyle waited for just the right moment.
And as the first Terminator reached the chamber Kyle ignited the lighter, threw it onto the gasoline trail, and turned around for a mad dash to the end of the tunnel. He’d gotten maybe two steps when there was a deceptively soft whoosh from behind him—
And suddenly he was blown nearly off his feet as a shockwave of wind and fire slammed into his back.
Desperately, he tried to get his feet under him again. But the burning air was swirling like a dust storm all around him, twisting him around, keeping him off balance as he staggered his way onward.
He gasped in a breath of air that seemed to itself be on fire—
Behind him came a thunderous explosion, and the swirling air became a huge flaming hand that picked him up and threw him straight down the tunnel.
An instant later, the world went black.
Blair was still a kilometer out from the Moldavia when she began to see the individual muzzle flashes from the T-600s’ miniguns on the street half a block north of the besieged building.
There were a lot of flashes, too. Skynet was definitely turning up the heat down there. Either the civilians were trying to escape, or else Barnes had launched a sortie against the machines.
Either way, it was the sort of situation that begged for air support.
Only Blair was out of ammo, and everyone down there knew it. Including the man who’d given her the order to come back here in the first place.
Was Connor hoping the Terminators would raise their fire toward her A-10 as she overflew them, temporarily easing some of the pressure on the ground troops? If so, he was going to be disappointed. The T-600s didn’t need to shoot at her. Skynet’s last HK was still on her tail, and apparently had gotten a reload for its Gatlings while it was hiding out at Skynet’s Capistrano tower.
So far its fire hadn’t connected with her in any serious way, but even Blair’s luck couldn’t hold out forever against this much firepower.