Once more the image on the multiple screens changed. At the sight of John Connor moving cautiously before a row of cells, Wright started. He wanted to scream, to shout out a warning—but there was nothing he could do. Nothing except watch.
“You can’t save John Connor anymore than he can save Kyle Reese. With Connor dead, with Command destroyed, the Resistance will perish. There will be nothing left—and you were the key to it all, Marcus.”
For the second time, he howled at the dispassionate screens. “You used me!”
Intended to be soothing, her voice was only infuriating.
“Our best machines failed time and again to complete their mission. We had to think—radically. And so we made—you. The moment a neural processing chip was fused to your brain, we created the perfect infiltration device. You gave us the access we needed to destroy the last remnants of humanity. You, Marcus, did what Skynet failed to do for forty-four years: you killed John Connor.
“Don’t underestimate yourself, Marcus. Don’t fight it. Take a good, hard look at what you are now and compare it to what you were formerly. In the world before you were considered to be a cancer on society. Something to be shunned, punished, locked away. In this world you’re a hero. Your name will live for ten thousand years. The heart that beats within you will last for hundreds of years. You will join a new evolutionary order. One deserving of domination over this mistreated world. Machines that will colonize the stars. Exist forever. And you, there, leading the future....”
It was impossible to tell whether the glint in her eyes was caused by the light in the room or a source internal.
“We gave your existence meaning, Marcus. And it is your new life as a machine, not as a man, that will continue. Remember what you are.”
He considered. He pondered his options. Only then did he reply.
“I know...”
Digits driven by more than muscle reached up and back. Probing, then digging. Tearing into living flesh, heedless of the neural shouts of alarm the action triggered in his brain.
“...what...”
Blood and flesh gave way to gleaming metal, an object that was far too large and should not even have been where it was. He grimaced.
“...I am....”
Eyes bulging, nerves trembling, and muscles straining, he closed the fingers of his reluctant hand around the chip and pulled. His enhanced body was already fighting to repair the damage to the back of his head as he ripped the chip from its mounting—and from his skull.
Resting in his palm it did not look like much. Millions of connections lay within. They made a most satisfactory crunching sound when he clenched his fingers into a fist. Opening his hand, he let the glistening, bloodstained shards fall like bits of silver to the floor.
The voice that filled the room was cold and disappointed.
“You will not get a second chance. You have foresworn immortality. And you cannot save John Connor.”
Still bleeding from the back of his head, Marcus Wright let his eyes rest on each monitor, one at a time, until he reached the last one.
“Watch me.”
Picking up a chair, he hurled it at the nearest screen, shattering it. Throughout the control room, the image of Dr. Serena Kogan winked out.
The controls on the door leading off the hallway were straightforward and familiar: standard Skynet design. Slapping the compact disruptor over the cover plate, Connor pressed a pair of buttons in sequence and stepped back. A brief flash was followed by a puff of smoke as the door shorted out and popped open. Advancing, he gave it a push and followed its slow swing into darkness.
***
The prisoners huddled in their cells, awaiting what would come next. When it did, however, it was like nothing they could have anticipated.
Without warning, the cell doors opened. They pulled away, waiting for death to enter.
Nothing. There was no movement whatsoever.
After a few moments, they began to stir. First one, then another approached the portal.
Then they began to move faster, piling out of the cells, the adrenaline of escape pushing new energy into their wasted limbs.
A man shouted as they streamed past.
“Let’s go! Everyone out! Now! Kyle! Kyle Reese! Is Kyle Reese in there? Head to the Transports!”
No one paused. They all just kept running.
Continuing to call Kyle’s name as he desperately pushed through the sea of fleeing human bodies, Connor noticed one cell door that was still closed. He approached, nudged it open and peered inside. In the dim light, the outlines of the room were indistinct. Except for a single hunched figure the holding cell was empty. Connor took a hesitant step inward.
“Kyle?”
Unfolding its limbs as it did so, the figure rose. Red eyes opened, flickered briefly, steadied as they locked on the intruder. It was the same relentless, invincible, unfeeling killing machine responsible for so many deaths and near-deaths in past, present, and future.
It took a step toward Connor.
He didn’t hesitate. In the heartless, brutal world of the present there was no time for indecision. Not for those who wanted to live. There was no time for Connor to wonder why he was in a room with the machine that had tried to kill his mother or to speculate on Kyle’s current whereabouts. There was only time to react.
He turned and fled, with the Terminator accelerating in pursuit. As it had been designed to do.
Out in the hallway, Connor whirled and lit up the machine with the compact flame thrower he was carrying. It melted away the Terminator’s face but barely slowed it down. Snatching the weapon out of the human’s grasp, it snapped it in half. Trying to duck, Connor caught a weighty metallic punch that sent him flying backward to slam into the far wall.
Bruised, he scrambled to his feet, whirled, and stumbled down the hall. The machine followed, in no particular hurry to dispatch this particular prey.
As he tried to run faster, a ferocity of thoughts churned in Connor’s mind. What had gone wrong? It made no sense, no sense at all. Employing force and skill, knowledge and stealth, Wright had fought his way into the heart of Skynet Central. To what purpose? To lure Connor to his doom? If Wright’s aim all along had been Connor’s death, he’d had ample opportunity to kill him on the outside. The hybrid could have slain him easily when they faced one another beside the river. Why this elaborate subterfuge to draw him to Skynet itself?
Unless....
With all that had happened, with all the changes to past and future, it might be that Skynet would not trust reports of Connor’s death without assurance. Without incontrovertible proof. And what more convincing proof than to have Connor die on site, where his body could be incontestably identified down to the last strand of intractable DNA?
Or was there another reason? One that was unknown to the fleeing Connor—and perhaps even to Wright himself?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“What the hell is happening?”
Losenko was moving as well as speaking with purpose.
“Skynet’s using the signal as a trace. We’ve been deceived, badly.” Pushing past the general, he loomed over the chief technician. “Stop broadcasting, god-damit!” When the harried tech failed to respond fast enough, the general didn’t hesitate. Drawing his pistol, he unloaded a barrage into the nearby broadcast unit. He would have ripped away the central antenna as well had it not been fastened to the exterior of the hull.
In the confusion and the noise no one noticed the chief radar operator. Hunched over his screens, he stared as a large disturbance appeared on the radar display. Not waiting for confirmation from another operator, he raised his voice over the uproar behind him.
“Incoming! HK missile closing fast. I can’t resolve the signature but....”
Before he could finish, Losenko was behind him and peering over his shoulder at the screen. Heavy brows wrinkled in puzzlement.