“Which brings us back to some kind of special mission,” Blair said. “Maybe they didn’t shoot at Preston and the others because there wasn’t any point in doing so. It’s not like their guns were doing a lot of damage.”
“At least, not until we showed up,” Barnes said thought-fully. “And they did shoot at us. They shot at me, anyway.”
Blair thought back to the brief battle.
“The southern one shot at me, too,” she said slowly. “Nothing really came close, but that was mostly because you were keeping it off balance.”
“That’s the same one that blew off a piece of sky over my head when I was putting down the minigun,” Barnes said, peering back and forth out the window.
“Because we were the ones who were a threat.”
“Or because we were the only strangers in the group,” Barnes said.
Blair frowned. That was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to her before.
“You think Skynet’s leaving the locals alone for some reason?”
“Why not?” Barnes asked. “Lajard made a deal with Skynet. Maybe the whole damn town did, too.”
“But why?” Blair persisted. “I can see Skynet wanting human scientists to work for it—there are still things even the smartest computer can’t do. But what can these other people possibly have that that Skynet would want or need?”
“Don’t know,” Barnes said. “But I can tell you right now that Lajard’s story doesn’t hold water. If they were worth hauling in to work in that lab, they were worth sending out an H-K to look for them.”
Blair nodded. “So either the three of them aren’t worth anything, or else Skynet deliberately left them out here for some other reason. Some experiment out in the woods, maybe?”
“You’re the one who found the fancy cable,” Barnes reminded her. “What could they be doing that they’d need a data transfer back to the lab?”
“It could be almost anything,” Blair admitted. “You ever hear about this Theta Project Lajard mentioned?”
Barnes shook his head. “No. But if Skynet had a hundred scientists on it, it must have been pretty damn serious about it.”
“Yeah.” Blair chewed at her lip. “I’m starting to think it might be time for a strategic withdrawal. Whatever’s going on here, it may be more than we can handle on our own.”
“Too late,” Barnes said. “Whatever Skynet’s got going, it’s bound to have a guard on the chopper by now.” He gestured out the window. “But we could follow Preston and see what he’s up to.”
“Preston?” Blair echoed, frowning as she circled the end of the bed and joined Barnes at the window.
Sure enough, Preston and his daughter were walking quickly through the middle of town, heading toward the path to the river. Preston had his rifle slung over his shoulder, while Hope had her bow and a very full quiver of arrows at her side.
And both of them were wearing small ragged backpacks.
“Maybe they’re just relieving the watch at the river,” Blair suggested.
“Or maybe they’re not,” Barnes said, stepping back from the window and studying its frame. “Let’s find out.” Turning the lock, he carefully pushed the window open. “Go get the guns.”
Blair looked back at the door, wondering what Halverson would say if he caught his guests sneaking out the bedroom window.
“The minigun, too?”
“Yes,” Barnes said, heading back toward their stack of weapons. “Never mind—I’ll get them. You go on through.”
The open part of the window was narrow, and the glass looked extremely fragile, and Blair had a couple of bad moments as she worked her way through. But she made it without breaking anything. By the time she was on the ground Barnes had returned to the window with everything except the minigun.
“Here,” he said, poking the butt of her Mossberg through the opening.
“No minigun?” Blair asked as she took the shotgun.
“Too big to fit through,” he grunted, poking the SIG 542 toward her. “But I took the rest of the ammo belt.”
Thirty seconds later the weapons, backpacks, and Barnes were all outside with Blair.
“Head around that side of the house,” he ordered, pointing, as he pushed the window closed again. “Long as Halverson and his wife stay in the kitchen they won’t see us.”
They made their way through the town, managing to avoid the handful of people also moving around outside. Preston and Hope were out of sight by the time they reached the edge of the forest, and Blair took special care to keep an eye on the woods around them as they made their way down the path. It was only an assumption, after all, that the Prestons were going all the way to the river.
Five minutes later, they reached the rushing water.
“What now?” Blair asked as she and Barnes peered from behind a screen of branches at the woman and two men standing apprehensive sentry duty at the ford.
“We could ask them where Preston went,” Barnes said doubtfully. “But if the whole town’s in on it, they’ll probably lie.”
“Then let’s not ask them,” Blair said, thinking hard. “In fact, let’s just forget about Preston.”
Barnes eyed her suspiciously. “If you didn’t want to follow them, this is a hell of a time to bring it up.”
“I was thinking we might try a different approach,” Blair said. “Whatever’s going on in Baker’s Hollow, it has to be connected somehow to the cable. We know the cable was running along the far side of the river, or at least the last vector we had on it suggested it was running along that side. If Skynet’s playing games, maybe part of that game is to keep us on this side of the river.”
For a moment Barnes didn’t reply. Blair braced herself, waiting for the inevitable scornful blast...
“Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,” he said, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “You’re saying Skynet heard us talking about the cable through all those pieces of broken machine lying around outside the lab. It wanted to stop us there—tried to stop us there—only it couldn’t. So it grabbed all the T-700s it had in the area and put them over there. Not to keep someone from getting across from that side, but to keep us from going across from here.”
“Exactly,” Blair said, wondering if he was seriously considering her suggestion or just setting her up for a harder fall.
“What if we’d put down on that side instead of this side?”
“We couldn’t,” Blair said. “There weren’t any clearings big enough to land the Blackhawk, not for miles. Skynet would know that if we wanted to look around over there we’d have to come from here.”
“So why pull the machines out, then?” he persisted. “Why send them upriver?”
“I’m not sure,” Blair admitted. “Maybe it wanted to get them under cover before we could blast them.”
“Or maybe it figured that the town could handle us,” Barnes suggested. “Maybe it thought that once they spun us that story about someone on the run we’d be so busy trying to find him that we’d forget about the cable.”
“Could be,” Blair said cautiously. She was still having trouble buying Barnes’s notion that everyone in Baker’s Hollow was in on some grand conspiracy. But as one of her old wingmen had often said, just because someone was paranoid didn’t necessarily mean he was wrong.
“And by sending one Terminator up each side of the river, it makes us think there’s another way across upstream,” she added slowly. “Which forces us to search both sides for our refugee.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Barnes concluded. “Worth checking out, anyway. You got a plan?”