Once committed, the teen kept his foot on the accelerator and both hands on the wheel. At any moment he expected the vehicle to slew sideways and crash, go airborne and crash, or hit something unyielding and crash. He was mentally prepared for almost anything except keeping the battered jeep going straight downhill.
“Aerostat must’ve heard the music!” he yelled back without shifting his attention from the hillside down which they were careening. His hands gripped the wheel so tightly they were beginning to turn white.
“What about your gun?” Wright shouted at him.
“You’ve still got the clip!” With a boulder the size of a bulldozer looming in their path, he swung the wheel to the left. By some miracle of gravity the jeep did not roll and continued banging its way down the mountainside.
Wright dealt with the confusion calmly. Among the innumerable emotions he was not heir to was mad panic. Searching the pile of tools he had dumped in back, he picked up an X-shaped tire lug wrench. While not exactly aerodynamic, it had the virtue of being as throwable as it was solid.
Opening the door on his side, he leaned out, took aim, and threw the tool. The speed and force with which it spun through the air aft of the jeep gave it the heft and appearance of some crazed ninja-throwing star as customized by a local auto repair shop. Amazingly, it smashed socket-on into the trailing Aerostat. Bits and pieces of the machine went flying.
Some of them must have been important, because seconds later the independently guided Skynet tracking device crashed into the ground. This resulted in an eruption of many more bits and pieces as well as a termination of the pursuit.
Leaning over the back seat, Star gawked in wide-eyed delight at the grounding of their pursuer. It had not been destroyed, but it was definitely grounded. Wright swallowed as he contemplated the unexpected efficacy of his throw. He remembered being adept at such destructive labors, but not quite this adept.
Though visibly relieved to be rid of the machine that had been on their tail, Reese was less sanguine about their chances.
“Too late. It would’ve transmitted our location to its friends within the first minute.”
Wright tried to take the teen’s knowledgeable assessment into account.
“We’re still going. Maybe they’ll find their damaged buddy but by that time they won’t know where we are.”
Glancing over, Reese studied the stranger’s face.
“You really don’t know anything about Skynet’s capabilities, do you? They’ll know exactly where we are—we’re in Los Angeles. That’ll be enough to get them started looking for us.”
After a moment’s thought, Wright leaned forward, reached out, and pulled hard on the emergency brake handle. Reese yelped as the jeep skidded into a half turn before finally coming to a stop. Simultaneously delighting and surprising Wright, the engine continued to run, if not exactly purr. Youth and man locked eyes.
“Then if the idea is to stay alive, I’m driving,” Wright informed the teen quietly.
“How’s it feel?”
Connor asked Barnes the question as he examined the heavy but sufficiently portable transmitter that had been strapped to the other man’s back. Another soldier was responsible for transporting the batteries that would power it while yet another carried the collapsing broadcast antenna. Still, when they were in the field and on the move, it was possible that Barnes would have to handle the entire one-piece setup by himself. The man’s answer was pretty much the same as Connor had come to expect from any soldier of the Resistance.
“The awkwardness is worse than the weight, but I’ll manage.”
Connor had received that same response from tired men and women who had at one time or another been confronted with an absence of food, a shortage of ammunition, or an approaching squadron of T-600s. Each time, they had managed. Each time, they had persevered. They would continue to do so, he told himself grimly, until Skynet and the last of its minions had been wiped from the face of the Earth.
They had no choice.
A tech came toward him as he was speaking with Kate.
“Just got word, sir.” She fiddled with the closed-channel communicator that had been fitted over her left ear. In another life, she might have been a model. Dirt, war, and the sight of too much death had aged her prematurely. But there was no sign in her voice of the depression or despair that might have been expected to afflict someone so young and attractive.
“We’ve got significant enemy movement north of L.A. Report’s not sure of type and quantity, but it’s definitely something bigger than isolated Ts or scouting Aerostats.”
Connor considered the possibilities. “Are any of our people operating in that area today? Search and rescue, or maybe a scavenger pickup team?”
The tech conveyed the query and waited for a response before replying.
“No one on the ground. Two A-10s in the air—Williams and Mirhadi. But they’re ninety miles away and on routine patrol. Too far to provoke this kind of reaction.”
Kate’s attention shifted from the communications tech back to her husband.
“Looks like some civilians decided to try and get out. I don’t know what else would rouse this kind of activity in what’s been a dead zone for so long.”
Connor nodded in agreement, looked at the tech.
“Let’s help them out. Since they’re not occupied machine-busting at the moment, send our birds over to the flare-up. If some unidentifieds are making trouble, they would probably welcome a little cover. And our people can guide them to a safe area.” Leaning toward his wife, he gave her a parting kiss as he and Barnes headed out.
“Okay.” She turned back to the tech. “Get on it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Even when it was new, the secondary road through the desert outside Los Angeles had never carried a lot of traffic. Now it constituted the first leg of a journey north for a single weather-beaten jeep.
At least, Wright thought to himself as he scanned both the pavement ahead and the scrub-covered hills off to his left, traffic wasn’t going to be a problem.
A glance at the passenger seat and in back revealed that his two companions were still asleep. He did not think of them as children. That identifier implied an innocence that was no longer present in this world. Competence existed exclusive of chronological age. He would far rather embark on the trip ahead in the company of a knowledgeable and experienced teen and a brave nine-year old than some fat fool of a forty-something.
In his short, brutish life he had known far too many of the latter.
Save for the comforting grumble of the jeep, the silence on the old highway was pervasive. Tough and resilient, the desert scrub appeared to have survived better than the largely transplanted and imported landscaping of Los Angeles.
Occasionally he thought he caught glimpses of movement among the stones, succulents, and cacti. Rats, mice, rabbits, ever-opportunistic coyotes and cats gone feral. He smiled to himself. Small mammals had survived the age of dinosaurs by fleeing to burrows. Perhaps humankind would survive the age of machines the same way. Something dark and winged soaring overhead drew his gaze upward.
He was not at all surprised that among the surviving species of birds, buzzards seemed to be doing particularly well.
If the 7-Eleven that hove into view was a mirage, it was a pleasingly solid one. Though for all that was left of it, it might as well have been vapor. Torn and battered, its windows and front broken out, with its filling island twisted as if by a tornado, it appeared to have been ravaged as much by the weather and human refugees as by Skynet.