Star nodded violently.
“I thought so.” Moving to a part of the store nearer the back, the woman called Virginia pushed aside an empty metal rack. Bending, she curled her fingers around a handle that had been painted to resemble the rest of the floor and pulled. A wooden hatch cover rose on sturdy hinges.
While Wright remained aloof, waiting, Reese could not help himself. Straining to see down into the opening, he was able to make out piles of packaged and canned food, vacuum-sealed loaves of bread, a startling variety of canned beverages that ran the liquid gamut from beer to soda to water, even some bundles of semi-fresh vegetables.
Len noted these actions with ill-concealed displeasure.
“We haven’t finished evaluating this bunch. We still don’t know who they are, where they come from, what they’re doing here, or how they managed to get hold of a functioning jeep.” He indicated the open hatch. “What are you doing?”
Virginia did not bother to look in his direction. Kneeling and bending down, she began pulling an assortment of provisions from the subterranean storeroom. Reese eyed the apparently unending stream eagerly. He hadn’t seen so much food in one place since—well, he couldn’t remember when he had seen so much food. Plainly, living outside a major city and beyond Skynet’s immediate ken had its advantages.
“I’m using a mother’s intuition.” The older woman looked back at the disapproving Len. “Now put your paranoia away and come welcome our guests.”
Though she neither looked nor sounded like Reese’s conception of a survivalist leader, it was obvious who was in charge here. Around the interior perimeter of the ruined mini-mart weapons were lowered, including Len’s. Hands came off stocks and triggers. Several of those present helped themselves to bottles and settled down to drink.
Gesturing at the assortment of food she had laid out on the floor, Virginia smiled at the newcomers.
“Help yourselves.”
While a famished Reese and Star dove unhesitatingly into a pile of goodies the likes of which had vanished from their memories, Wright held back and continued to regard the older woman. In welcoming him and the children unconditionally she was revealing a pair of character traits that had been more or less entirely absent from his life. Trust, and kindness. Being as unfamiliar with such ordinary human touchstones as he was with the cultural norms of central Africa, he hung back, uncertain how to react to an offer for which nothing was expected in return.
Marking his hesitation, she put some food into a weathered basket and brought it to him. He eyed the packages. Some were familiar to him, some utterly strange. He shook his head “no.” Lowering the basket, she tried another tack.
“Are you all right, son?”
Len’s gaze narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“Life is lived moment by moment, Len. Choice by choice. It signifies what it means to be human.”
Lifting up his gun, he pointed it again. Not at Wright this time, or at Reese. At her.
“I can’t let you do this, Virginia. This is our food. Our fuel. It’s not your choice to make.”
Ignoring him, she turned back to the stolid Wright.
“You look so cold. We have a stock of spare clothing. I think some of it will fit you. Do you want a sweater?” Again he shook his head. This time not because he intended to further refuse the offering of food, but because he found himself distracted. His attention had been drawn to Star.
She had paused her feverish eating. Holding a sandwich halfway to her mouth, she had tensed visibly. Her eyes were wide. It was a posture and response Wright had seen before. Out of the corner of an eye he saw that Reese had noticed it too and was already racing for a far corner of the floor. He beat Wright to the spot by half a second.
A loud crack sounded. The bottle Len had been drinking from exploded in his hand. Startled, he gawked at the glass shards and the precious drink that was now dripping from his open palm. Blood oozed from his neck where some of the glass had struck.
The roof exploded.
The digits that plunged through the resultant opening were large, powerful, and metallic. Clamping around a stunned Virginia, they pulled her out through the newly made hole in the roof. Racing for the front door, one of the other survivors screamed at Wright in passing.
“Damn you! You brought them here!”
Bashing its way through the rapidly disintegrating ceiling, a second mechanical claw missed the accuser but snatched up another survivor.
Wright didn’t have to tell Reese and Star to run. They were already sprinting madly for the store front. Around them was chaos and confusion as the remaining survivors scattered in search of an exit, any exit, while the pair of probing claws sought additional prey.
As they burst free of the mini-mart’s confines, Reese and Wright looked back to see the attacker. Star did not—she just kept running.
“Harvester!” Reese exclaimed without breaking stride.
A mechanical marvel, the machine was many times the size of a human being. Powerful arms and legs sprouted from its body together with an assortment of sensors. Only some of these observed their surroundings by seeing via the normal visual spectrum. Others looked to be attuned to seeing in the infrared, still others in the ultraviolet. Gleaming limbs of dark metal held Virginia and the other snared survivor in an unyielding jointed grasp.
People were screaming and scattering in all directions. Many rushed toward a parking area packed with vehicles, some of which had been laboriously cleaned up and restored. Flanked by the children, Wright headed straight for the painstakingly repaired jeep. They did not reach it—which was fortunate. Looming over the crumpled roof of the store on girder-like legs, the towering Harvester let loose a massive discharge that turned the jeep into an eye-blinding fireball. Wright and his young companions were forced back toward the mini-mart.
While he easily shook off the effects of the blast, the concussion had been too much for Star. Dismissing an odd and unfamiliar surge of emotion, he bent and picked her up. With a curt nod in the direction of a slowly accelerating camper, he led Reese toward it in hopes of intercepting the departing vehicle.
Len cut them off, though not intentionally. A fleeing Saab sideswiped him. He must have hit the fender and hood just right, because he rolled clear with no apparent injury. Reaching the camper, he yanked open the passenger-side door and jumped inside.
The fleeing vehicle did not escape the attention of the Harvester. One shot reduced both the camper shell and the pickup on which it had been riding to flaming scrap. Having gained a head start, it looked to Wright as if the Saab and its occupants might make their escape. The Harvester’s range, however, was the equal of its precision. Blown high into the air, the Saab tumbled end over end to slam into the remnants of the metal canopy that partly shaded the single line of gas pumps.
Still carrying Star, he and Reese took cover behind an intact corner of the mini-mart’s auto service bay. Glancing inside, he spotted a pair of unoccupied and possibly functional vehicles: a tanker and a battered heavy-lift tow truck that had been kitted out to fight the machines. Loading the unmoving Star into the truck’s front seat, Wright pretzeled himself under the dash and began the process of hot-wiring the vehicle. A hand on his shoulder made him pause and look back.
Meeting the older man’s gaze, Reese shook his head and used both hands to diagram a mushroom shape in the air while blowing out his cheeks. While Wright knew he might not be the brightest man on the planet, neither was he stupid. The teen’s meaning was as clear as it was correct: based on the action they had just observed and had barely managed to avoid, climbing into a car and attempting to speed away might not be the best strategy for avoiding the Harvester’s attention.