“I’m sorry, Kate, but I’ve got to disagree with you, and with John. I know he’s not the enemy. I know that the individual called Marcus Wright is not the enemy. I’ve been shot at by the enemy. That’s not him. He saved me out there.”
Kate eyed the pilot compassionately. Plainly, Blair Williams was caught between an empathetic rock and an irrefutable hard place. Connor’s wife was sympathetic—but only to a point.
“Okay, I accept that it saved you—but only to gain access to the base. Which it did, because you brought it here.” She raised a hand to forestall the other woman’s budding objection. “Relax. No one’s blaming you. Until I got into it I thought it was human myself. It fooled everyone else who came in contact with it, too. We just got lucky that the landmine it triggered did more damage to it than was probably anticipated.
“It saved one human—you—so it could kill other, more important humans, John being the most prominent among us. That’s what they do. A gun is a dangerous thing. A gun with a mind of its own is a thousand times more dangerous. That’s what Skynet is—a very big gun with a dangerously big brain. And this ‘Marcus Wright’ is just one more bullet aimed at the heart of humanity.
“It acted like a friend, but it isn’t. It saved your life because that fit in with its programming. It gives itself a name, but it’s a machine. Its pleading, the language it uses, its false implanted memories—they’re all part of cold, logical, inhuman programming. A bomb with emotions is still a bomb, whether it’s put together by a human being or Skynet. It gained your trust, and used it. But it doesn’t deserve it.”
Under Kate Connor’s withering logic Williams was reduced to mumbling a protest.
“I’m just saying, just asking, do a little more research first. Try to find out more about him before you rip him apart like some kind of sick science project.”
“There’s nothing ‘sick’ about doing what you must to ensure your survival, Blair. You want us to wait, to study him as a—personality. We don’t have the luxury of time in this fight. There are no gray areas in this war. You know that as well as any of us. There is no in-between, no partly-human or nearly-machine. It’s us or them. And you saw for yourself—it’s not one of us.”
Kate left Williams standing by herself in the hall, dejected and confused. The pilot would have to sort out her feelings by herself. In advance of the major assault, everyone was needed. There was no time to coddle the indecisive.
As far as Kate Connor was concerned, or her husband, or anyone else who had come in contact with or had heard about the intruder, there was no need for further discussion because there was nothing to discuss. The advanced hybrid was a machine. A new class of Terminator, but definitely inhuman. All that remained for Williams was to accept the obvious.
Yet how could she reconcile that with the fact that, whatever his personal agenda, Marcus Wright had risked himself to save her from the three murderous vagrants when he could just as easily have walked away and continued with his....
Programming?
Tormented and bewildered, she turned and headed back down the hallway.
Apples were a rarity at the base. Though the surviving humans whose task it was to keep the Resistance supplied with food, clothing, medical supplies, and other necessities did their best, mechanized transportation could not be risked to provide something as luxurious as fresh fruit. The apple in Barnes’s hand had come from a nearby orchard. Though half wild and overgrown, its trees still supplied fruit in season, which was carefully picked by small groups of civilians.
So Barnes savored the red fruit in his hand. The prisoner hanging in suspension before him had glanced once or twice in its direction, evincing a passable imitation of hunger as it had done so. You had to hand it to Skynet, Barnes thought as he took another bite. When it decided to manufacture this particular example of faux human, it had gone all out to render the motivational programming in as much depth as possible.
Rising from the chair where he had been sitting and studying the prisoner, Barnes continued to munch on the apple as he paced a slow circle around the dangling figure. It was a powerful body, but as Terminators went nothing especially remarkable. Easier to blend in that way, rather than giving its surrogate the appearance of, say, a bodybuilder. Skynet was not rigid in its programming. Had that been the case, the Resistance would have finished it long ago. It was adaptable, it was flexible. It could learn.
Hanging here before him was a frighteningly superb example of its ability to learn.
“How did we get here?” Barnes murmured thoughtfully. The thing in the sling did not answer. The lieutenant hadn’t expected a response. Nor did he care especially if he got one. He took another bite of the apple as he continued his casual, introspective stroll.
“I guess it’s divine order. We all have our paths to walk in. And you’re part of mine.” He continued reminiscing aloud. “I was caught up in a world of chasing things that didn’t mean anything. I was conscious, but not aware. Able to feel, but I had no feelings. But now, I’m awake. Our spirits are awake.” He halted and stared directly at Wright, who returned the gaze unblinkingly. The captive might not have been aware that he was failing to blink, but Barnes noticed immediately.
“You machines,” he began, “would have us believe you can survive without us. That we don’t need each other. That we don’t need the sun. That we don’t need trees. That we don’t need love. But God’s greatest gift to humans is each other. And I have to thank you for that, because I no longer look at people by race or religion or gender. I know what it is to be a human, and not a machine. And now I see God’s path. He chooses a different one for each of us. Maybe even for machines. But I can’t worry about what path he’s chosen for you. Only for me.”
There was nothing left of the apple when he tossed the gnawed core into the silo. It took a long time to hit bottom. There was, however, plenty left of the gun he picked up. A check showed that its chamber was loaded. When he resumed speaking it was as if nothing had changed. He might as well still have been munching on the apple.
“You’ve united the Children of Abraham. And I know that all we are going through right now will deliver us. Deliver our salvation. This is the great war of which the Bible speaks, and Skynet is the Antichrist. It’s so obvious I’m surprised so few saw it coming.” He smiled, content and happy within himself. “But then, it had to happen, didn’t it? Without the war there would be no Second Coming, no return, no Rapture.”
He raised the weapon. Wright just stared at him. It was all he could do.
The single shot struck his shoulder and he looked away as the slug ricocheted harmlessly off exposed alloy. Recovering, Wright stared expressionlessly back at his tormentor.
Barnes smiled. “Saw you flinch. I thought you were tough.” Once again, the muzzle of the weapon rose and its wielder took aim. A second shot pinged off the revealed metal, spinning the captive around but otherwise doing no visible damage. Wright’s continued silence surprised but did not infuriate Barnes. The prisoner’s failure to respond represented a malfunction of its programming, the lieutenant decided. It was reassuring to see that Skynet wasn’t perfect. If it had done its research thoroughly, this hybrid thing would have reacted to each shot like a human, with moaning and pleading and pain.
Williams entered the silo just as Barnes’s second shot finished echoing around the chamber.
“Christ, man, watch what you’re doing!”
He looked over at her.
“Sorry, Blair. Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little ricochet?”
“I just don’t like walking in to what’s supposed to be a quiet holding area to find myself greeted with flying slugs. What are you doing?”