“Where is your base? You said we might be able to walk there.”
She relaxed, relieved to have gotten through to him.
“Should be one or two days hike. If nobody picks us up in the interim, I’m pretty sure I can get us back. I’ve flown over this part of the country plenty of times.” Digging into a pocket of her flight suit, she pulled out a compass. Like so much of the equipment humans had been reduced to using since the rise of Skynet, the compass was functional but low-tech.
Still he hesitated. “Are you sure you know which way to go?”
She smiled reassuringly. “The base is there. You coming?” Her smile twisted. “It’s got a great view.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The interior of the Skynet Transport was an accurate reflection not only of machine design but of their disdain for humankind. It was dark, cramped, and uncomfortable, providing just enough room and air to keep its captives alive. Not unlike the cages humans had once used to smuggle endangered animals from one country to another in the service of the lucrative and illegal exotic pet trade.
Trying to hang onto the little bit of space he had managed to carve out by dint of mild pushing and shoving, Kyle Reese did not feel like he was going to be made into a Skynet pet. While he had no idea why the machines had taken them alive, he doubted it was to fete him and Star and their fellow prisoners with candy and ice cream. The brief thought of ice cream, which he remembered clearly but had not tasted in years, did nothing to soothe either his mood or the hunger that was once again rising in his gut.
They were not alone in the belly of the Transport, though nearly all the other captives were adults. Conversation was muted and conducted in a variety of languages. Around them the steady whirr and hum of the machine was interrupted only by an occasional clank. He had already decided that the Transport was not equipped with the most advanced machine mind. There was no reason why it should be, since it was essentially a semi-sentient truck.
Where there was a way in, there had to be a way out. Looking around, searching every corner and ignoring the other captives, he began hunting for one.
A tiny sniffle broke his concentration and caused him to look down at the little girl who was curled up against him.
“Don’t cry, Star. We’ll get out of this. We’ve gotten out of worse.” Then he noticed the reason for the uncharacteristic sob. “You’ve lost your hat.” She nodded, staring up at him.
He had to smile to himself. That was Star. Imprisoned by the machines, being hauled off to who-knew-what ruthless, inhuman fate, and she was worried about her hat.
“Don’t worry. I’ll find it.” It was an unfounded but necessary boast. He had no idea where it might be. Most likely it was lying at the bottom of the river beneath the shattered bridge where they had been captured. The machines wouldn’t have kept it. The only human artifacts that interested them were devices that could be studied with an eye toward improving themselves or weapons that could be used against them. But his pointless promise served its purpose. She stopped crying.
Most of their fellow captives were strangers, but not all. He noticed one white-haired woman who was actually smiling across at him. It was Virginia, the woman from the now eradicated convenience store who had taken them in and generously given them food. How she could smile under such mournful circumstances was something of a wonder in itself. She was the type of person, he decided, who if being roasted in hell would find it in her heart to comment favorably on the clement temperature.
Hell being, he reminded himself gloomily, a distinct possibility, since while no one knew what the machines had in store for them it was unlikely to be nice.
One stocky, swarthy man had draped an arm protectively around the shoulders of a woman who was likely his wife. He was holding her hand with the other.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be okay,” he was murmuring in soft Spanish.
While still alert, the woman was plainly in danger of withdrawing from reality. Her eyes were vacant, indifferent.
“What’s going to happen? What are these things going to do to us? I’m afraid we’re going to die. I don’t want to die.”
“Don’t worry.” His hand squeezed hers tightly. “No matter what, I’m not going to let you out of my sight.”
Seated nearby, a man clad in a tattered Resistance uniform was studying the unadorned ceiling and muttering to himself in French.
“Il ne devrait pas être beaucoup plus long.”
Still clinging tightly to his wife, the Hispanic blinked at him. “What did you say?”
Meeting the other man’s gaze, the solemn-faced fighter switched to English.
“I was saying that it should not be much longer. Until we reach—wherever it is we are going.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because the machines know we need food and water, and it makes no sense to take us alive if they do not intend to keep us that way.” He hesitated. “Until we have fulfilled whatever purpose they have in mind for us, at least.”
Seated across from the Frenchman, a wide-eyed Angeleno in his thirties had his arms wrapped around his knees and was rocking slowly back and forth.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re all going to die. They’re going to kill us all.”
“No they’re not.” Though misplaced and entirely unjustifiable, Virginia’s quiet confidence was something to admire. Much to his surprise, Reese was sufficiently motivated to agree with her. He hugged Star a little closer.
“That’s right, Virginia. They’re not going to kill us.” He looked down at Star. “I won’t let them.”
The despondent speaker who had given voice to his gloom sneered at Reese. “Smart-ass kid like you will be first.”
“It is like this gentleman said.” Virginia indicated the French fighter. “If they simply wanted to kill us they would have done so already. There would be no reason to take us prisoner.”
Someone else in the chamber muttered, “Maybe they want to study us. Open us up and look for vulnerabilities.”
While potentially accurate, that was quite possibly the worst thing anyone could have said. It turned quiet inside the Transport for a long time. Eventually taking it upon herself to break the oppressive silence, Virginia leaned toward the silent Star.
“You feel like a story? I know some good stories.”
Refusing to be mollified, even indirectly, a heretofore silent young Chinese woman spoke up. Her voice rose just above a whisper, as if she was imparting an accepted fact instead of just speculating.
“They’re just keeping us in here until the war is over. It’s not true about the machines killing us. They’re just keeping us in here until the war is over.”
Another man spoke up. “I’ve heard what they do. It’s worse than just killing you.”
The depressed man who had challenged Reese turned toward him.
“Why’s that? What’s worse than being killed?”
He raised his voice slightly. His eyes were haunted.
“I’ve heard what they do with prisoners. I heard the machines tear your skin off your body while you’re still alive, slide it over a metal skeleton so you can’t tell who’s human and who’s a machine.”
Ever positive, Virginia refused to accept the nightmare scenario.
“If that was true, there’d be no survivors to escape and tell that story.”
The Frenchman was shaking his head. “What I would not give for a tomato. And a sip of a decent shiraz.”
The woman who held a different theory crawled back to her space.
“I don’t know if one is true or the other. It’s just what I heard.”
This time the man who had voiced the terrible possibility voided his frustration on her instead of Reese.
“What difference does it make? So they intend to kill us, or dissect us, or make us slaves. What does the method matter if the end is the same?” He let his gaze roam around the interior of their traveling prison. “What we should be doing instead of thinking about how we’re going to die is trying to come up with a way to save ourselves. Look at us. We’re in a cattle car. We’re on the way to the slaughterhouse!”