***
In a cave in New Mexico, the senior male present stretched skyward a hand holding a makeshift antennae, fighting for every iota of improvement in the sound his family’s scavenged equipment was receiving.
“The small of the back and the shoulder joints are vulnerable to light weapons fire. As a last resort, ventilation requirements leave the motor cortex partially exposed at the back of the neck. A knife to this area will slow them down. But not for long.”
Sitting in front of the broadcast unit in the outpost, Connor halted. Many times he had delivered the irregular evening address. Many times he had fought to find the right things to say. He was not a comfortable speaker, not a natural orator. He did not intuitively know how to reassure people, how to comfort them, how to offer hope. Practice alone had made him better at it.
Practice, and necessity. Still, there were times when he just came to a dead end; out of words, out of thoughts, out of encouragement.
It was at such times that a comforting hand on his shoulder was of more help than volumes of instruction on public speaking. Seeing Kate smiling down at him enabled him to resume transmitting.
“Each and every one of you....” he continued.
Huddled around a fire near the ruins of the observatory, two determined children and one very mystified adult found themselves captivated by the broadcast.
“...above all, stay alive,” the voice on the radio emphasized. “You have no idea how important you are—how important you will become, each and every one of you.”
***
Connor paused to look up at his wife. A more personal note had begun to creep into his voice and he deliberately forced it down.
“Humans have a strength that cannot be measured by mechanical means, by the machines that struggle to understand us. Join us. Get to a safe area to avoid detection. Look for our symbol. Make yourself known. We will find you,” he murmured into the pickup. Swallowing and regaining full control of his emotions, he rushed to conclude the broadcast.
“I promise—we will win. But you, me, everyone, we all need to keep fighting. My name is John Connor. If you’re listening to this, you are the Resistance.”
Static returned, but this time the listeners did not mind. The broadcast had proved that there was more out there than devastation. More than silent, inhuman, hunting mechanisms. There were people. People who were fighting back, instead of living like the rodents and roaches they had so long disparaged. There was—hope.
Reese turned to meet Wright’s contemplative gaze.
“John Connor.” His expression and voice overflowing with unrestrained admiration, he peered over at the radio. Star was watching him intently. “I don’t know how—but we gotta find this guy.”
Off to the side the technician was checking to make sure the evening’s transmission was not being traced. Connor slumped back in the chair, rubbing at his eyes.
“Was it good?”
Kate Connor squeezed his shoulder and nodded.
“It was good, John. It’s always good. The words don’t really matter. It’s hearing the conviction in your voice that gives people reason to have faith in something.”
He nodded, reached up and pressed his hand over hers. How many were still out there, hanging on? Of those, how many had access to working receivers? Was Kate right and his irregular sermons were doing some good? It was impossible to know. Was it just possible, just maybe, one of those out there listening and trying to survive was his own father?
That too, was impossible to know.
CHAPTER SIX
Voices in his head, fire in his face. Tubes in his arms. They all liquefied together in a seething, clinging, stinking swamp of confused memories. Pain was present, too, but that did not unsettle him half so much as the melting, merging visions. Pain was something he had lived with most of his life. Pain he could deal with.
Not this.
He was being restrained, held down. Rousing himself, he tried to fight back. He would not be interned now. Or was it interred? The memories...he struggled, kicked, struck out violently.
Sat up.
His heart was pounding and his breath was coming in short, deep gasps, like the breathing of someone who had just finished a long sprint. He had been dreaming—but of what? Reality, nightmare, actual memory—he could not tell, could not sort imagination from truth. Even as he tried to pin down details they were slipping away from his recall.
He wasn’t alone in his dreaming. In the first light of dawn he saw an uneasy, softly moaning Kyle Reese sleeping sitting up, with his back against a collapsing wall. The girl Star had somehow managed to find a position that allowed her to sleep with her legs sprawled across the teen and her head on Wright’s shin. He looked at her for a long moment and as he did so, the worst of the dreaming faded away.
Reaching down, he gently eased her head off his leg, then rose and strode off into the darkness without waking either of them.
He had always preferred sunrise to the rest of the day. Before the sun was fully up the world seemed so clean, so fresh, so decent. So full of the possibilities that always seemed to lie just beyond his reach. It was the one time of the day when he could be alone without fear of the troubles that so often had seemed to follow him. He had frequently felt that was where he was best suited to live: in that narrow sliver of time before night became day. Sadly, it never lasted as long as he wished.
Surrounded by junk, trash, and debris, he set about trying to make something out of it. Of all the ruined vehicles in the observatory parking lot, the jeep was not in the best shape. But it was a jeep, and painted in camouflage. As he worked, he found better and more familiar tools than Star’s scavenged knife. Each new tool saw his work proceed faster.
The pile he was assembling alongside the waiting jeep grew steadily. Batteries, wires still flaunting their insulation, spark plugs that looked as if, given the right encouragement, they might still spark, an air filter that was less dirty than others, a fuel filter so clean it must have come from somewhere other than L.A.... Some of his finds stayed on the parts mountain while others found their way into the heart of the 4x4.
The sun was well up by the time he felt he had put together something under the hood of the jeep that might pass for an engine. Finding a battery that still had juice was hardest of all, given how long the automotive graveyard had been in existence. Satisfied that he had done the best he could with the materials available, he carried the battery over to the jeep and began bolting it onto the waiting support plate.
The necessary connections were almost complete when the bent and rusted prop that had been holding up the hood finally gave way. He yanked his arm back sharply, but the falling metal still scraped his withdrawing arm. Blood appeared against the skin, seeping. He stared at it as if seeing it for the first time, ignoring the return of his old companion.
Pain.
Off to his right, something moved. Reaching into one of her many pockets, the girl fumbled a moment before removing a single band-aid. On it was imprinted the image of a white cartoon dog with a black nose and a contented smile. What was the character’s name? Wright tried to remember as she carefully applied the child’s bandage to the fresh wound. It was far from broad enough to cover the slash and blood continued to ooze from around the adhesive’s edge.
Stepping back, she eyed her handiwork with all the dignity and professional gratification of a surgeon who had just closed up a patient’s exposed spine.
He ought to say something, he realized. “Thank you” would probably be appropriate. They locked eyes for an instant. Then he carefully lifted up the jeep’s hood, fashioned a new temporary prop, and resumed installing the battery.
How much Reese had observed of what had just transpired between himself and the girl Wright didn’t know, and didn’t care. But there was suspicion and uncertainty in the teen’s manner as he approached the jeep. For a while he said nothing; just stood and watched as the older man connected wires and cables. Eventually curiosity overcame any attempt at appearing disinterested.