Wright did not look away, showed not the slightest sign of fear. That was hardly surprising, Connor told himself. Fear was something the creature’s adaptive programming could doubtless cope with easily.
“Kyle Reese is alive.”
Connor tried not to react to the claim, but exhausted and exposed as he was, this time he could not keep his expression from giving his feelings away. His finger eased off the trigger.
“How can you be sure?” Connor spoke guardedly. Though his finger had eased off the trigger, he did not lower the pistol.
“I told you before, but you wouldn’t listen. He and a little girl who befriended me were part of a group taken captive by the machines. Along with the others, they’re probably both inside Skynet Central by now. I want to get them out. That’s the reason I came with Blair Williams to your base, even though you refuse to believe me. I still want to get them out.” Eyes that were at least part human burned into Connor’s. “I think you’d like to get them out, too.”
Here was something upon which they could agree.
“Of course I want to get them out,” Connor said.
Wright nodded. “In order to get them out, you first have to get in. And I’m the only one who can get you in.”
Connor shook his head doubtfully.
“Get into Skynet Central? How?”
Wright approached with deliberation. Connor raised his gun. He could see the beating, modified, augmented heart clearly now. The new, improved model, he thought wildly to himself. If he shot Wright and the—man—went down, and they tried to fix him up, would he more properly be a candidate for surgery—or a tune-up? And what, really, was the difference between the two, anyway? Flesh and blood, machine and hydraulics, weren’t they all machines by any other name? Was what really mattered attitude and outlook, not construction and fabric?
Confused, tired, worried about Kyle—if not himself, he slowly lowered the muzzle of the heavy pistol until it was pointed at the ground.
“Even assuming that you’re telling the truth, why should I trust you?”
“Two reasons,” Wright shot back. “One, I need to find out who did this to me. And two—so do you.”
With the river full of murderous Hydrobots behind, the sound of gunfire and barking of search dogs rising steadily in front, Connor found himself marooned in a quandary. He had a decision to make, perhaps the most crucial of his life, and no time in which to analyze it closely. But then, he had not become such a successful Resistance fighter because he was indecisive. His response was a mix of defiance and pleading.
“You get me in. I’ll be on the bridge—it’s an unobstructed shot from there to Skynet Central and we should be able to communicate freely. You find Kyle Reese for me.” Digging through his pockets, he located a communicator. After a quick check revealed that its batteries were good, he tossed it to the singular figure looming opposite him.
Wright snatched it out of the air without even looking in its direction.
“No problem. They think I’m one of them.”
Though the night was warm, Connor felt a chill. Was he in the process of making the greatest mistake of his life? Maybe this thing’s mind was as clever as its engineering.
But if it was all deception, to what end? When first introduced to the creature that called itself Marcus Wright, Connor and his advisors had been convinced that it represented a wickedly clever attempt to breach base security in order to kill him. Now that it stood free, functioning, and unimpeded barely a yard away and could kill him easily with a single blow, it spoke instead of trying to rescue Kyle. Marcus Wright was as full of surprises as he was contradictions.
Had he not said as much himself?
Connor gestured toward the river and the now quiescent Hydrobots.
“You said they think you’re one of them. Are you?”
It was a question Wright had been asking himself ever since his intermingled insides had been revealed. It was the question above all questions that he needed answered. And naturally, it was the one question to which he could not assign an explanation. Spreading his arms wide, exposing as much of himself as possible to the man standing warily before him, he admitted the only truth he knew.
“I don’t know.”
Moving past Connor, keeping his hands at his sides, he started backing into the river. Raised again, the muzzle of Connor’s pistol never left him, not even when Wright’s head disappeared beneath the rippling surface. He continued to stare at the spot where Wright had vanished until movement on the far side of the river drew his attention. Emerging after a span of time spent underwater far longer than any human could hold his breath, Wright turned, waved once, and vanished into the brush on the far side. He had crossed the river not by swimming—perhaps he was too heavy—but by walking across the bottom.
Holstering his weapon, a contemplative Connor let his gaze linger a long time on the spot where Wright had disappeared, half certain he had just made the biggest mistake of his existence. Then he turned and started walking in the direction of the base. He had barely made it back into the woods when shapes rose sharply from the bush to confront him and he found himself staring down the barrels of three rifles.
“Halt and identify yourself!” the noncom in charge barked.
“John Connor.” What a pity, he mused halfheartedly, that he could not be someone else.
But he knew he was John Connor. In that respect if no other, at least, he had the advantage over the poor creature called Marcus Wright.
Lowering their weapons the soldiers hastened to gather around him, flanking him as they resumed walking toward the nearest base entrance. Their relief was palpable when they were able to identify him visually.
“Sir? Are you all right, sir?” one of them asked.
Connor nodded. “A little bruised, nothing serious. Chopper went down.” He gestured back the way he had come. “We were too low, searching. Hydrobots got us. I was the only one to make it to shore.”
The noncom’s lips tightened, comprehending. He glanced in the direction of the riverbank that was falling farther behind them with every step.
“Sir, any sign of him?”
Connor halted, turned, and looked back. Some sections of the river were still visible in the dim light. Of Wright there was no sign. No sign, in fact, that anything had ever been amiss along this winding stretch of dark water. Increasing his pace, he shook his head.
“No sign, soldier. Nothing to be done about it now. I guess he got away.”
The base brig was neither fancy nor extensive. It did not need to be either, since the great majority of its residents were transient. By far the most common reasons for temporary internment were the need to get some secured sleep as a result of an excess of drinking, to cool down from fighting with fellow soldiers, or to allow disputed gambling debts to be settled from adjoining cells.
Blair Williams’s case was very different.
For one thing, unlike the usual tenant she had not been left alone to stew in her own perfidy. A round-the-clock armed sentry had been posted outside her cell. She did not try to engage the rotating guards in conversation and they showed no inclination to want to talk to her. They had no idea what she was in for. It was none of their business. Within the constricted confines of the base it was an unspoken rule that you did not pry into the affairs of those around you lest one day the tables be turned.
Of the two men who were now standing outside the holding area, one had every intention of disregarding that rule. Vociferously.
As soon as the officer who had escorted him to the rearmost cell turned and departed, Williams sat up on the edge of her cot and regarded her visitor.
“Connor....” Solemnity quickly gave way to casual curiosity. “What brings you down to this humble abode?” She gestured at the enclosing walls. “It seems I’ve been reassigned.”