“Could be,” Yarrow called back. “The G11s were still in the prototype stage when Judgment Day happened, so there were damn few guns around that could take their ammo. Skynet must have either severely modified an existing assembly line to build the things, or else created its own from scratch.”
“Lucky for us, Chief Armorer Dockery can build anything,” Callahan added as he dropped another handful of ammo into his bag.
“You’re right there,” Yarrow agreed. “I hear he’s already got three machine guns up and running that can use this stuff, with six more on the way. Probably why Vincennes wants us to sweep the whole Skynet Central area as fast as we can, so that we can build up a decent stockpile before Skynet catches on to what we’re doing and switches weapons and ammo again.”
“Ah,” Kyle said, a funny feeling in his stomach as he looked down at one of the broken guns. Back when he, Callahan, and Zac had been living at Moldering Lost Ashes, as they had nicknamed The Moldavia Building in L.A., Kyle had known everything that was going on.
Now, suddenly, he was the new kid in town again. Not the person other people came to with questions, but the person everyone else had to explain things to.
It was embarrassing. More than that, it was dangerous. How could he protect himself when he didn’t know how things worked?
How could he protect Star?
“Which could be any time now,” Yarrow continued. “Skynet’s already fitting the latest H-Ks with those new plasma guns. Dockery says it’s only a matter of time before it comes up with a smaller version for the T-700s.”
“Or whatever Terminators it’s got going by then,” Callahan said. “But for now, we can still collect their brass and their caseless rounds and send some fresh lead back at them.”
“In the old days we called that recycling,” Yarrow said with a touch of humor. “Callahan, you and Reese finished with that side yet?”
“I think so,” Callahan said. “Should we start on the brass now?”
“Go ahead,” Yarrow said. “Same sweep pattern as you did on the ammo.”
The unspent ammunition had been well consolidated, either strapped to the Terminators or else in magazines lying in plain sight. The spent brass, in contrast, was anything but. The casings were all over the place, some of it scattered as far as ten meters away from where the Terminators had fallen, much of it half buried in tangles of wire or under exposed rebar or mixed into the piles of concrete dust that the restless breezes had funneled into nooks and crannies around the exposed concrete blocks.
It was long, boring, backbreaking work. Small wonder, Kyle thought more than once, that the team that had confirmed the Terminator kills had passed off the duty to someone else.
The sun had crossed over into the western sky when Kyle heard a shout over the distant sounds of sporadic gunfire coming from the hunting teams.
“Hey! Everyone!” Zac called. “Come here a minute.”
Kyle turned, wiping sweat and dust off his forehead. Zac was crouched beside what was left of the rubber-skinned T-600 that had led the midnight charge. Hefting his half-full backpack onto one shoulder, Kyle slung his shotgun over the other and headed across.
Yarrow was squatting beside Zac when Kyle and Callahan reached them.
“Down here,” Zac said, gesturing.
Frowning, Kyle lowered himself down beside the others. As far as he could tell, the shot-up T-600 looked pretty much like any other shot-up T-600.
“What are we looking at?” Yarrow asked.
“Underneath it, all the way down,” Zac said, pointing at the spot where the Terminator’s back was resting against the cracked masonry. “I was going for a casing that was pressed against its back, and it slipped down here and fell.”
Trying not to flinch, Kyle pressed his palm against the T-600’s side and pushed back the ragged clothing and rubbery skin as far as he could, about a quarter-inch worth. There was a gap down there, all right.
“Must have hit pretty hard when it fell,” he commented.
“There’s more,” Zac said, and this time Kyle could hear the cautious excitement in the younger teen’s voice. “When that casing fell, I’m pretty sure it took almost a second to hit anything.”
“Really,” Yarrow said thoughtfully as he stood up and walked around to the other side of the Terminator. “That would mean a drop of four or five meters.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Zac agreed. “It was a little hard to tell with all the shooting going on over there, but I’m sure it was at least half a second.”
“Which would mean there’s another whole level down there,” Yarrow said, crouching down. “Yes, you can see the hole on this side, too. Reese is right—it must have hit really hard to break through that much concrete.”
“Has to be more of the complex down there,” Callahan said, standing up and getting a grip on one of the Terminator’s outstretched arms. “Let’s see if we can move it.”
Yarrow took the machine’s other arm.
“On three.”
But T-600s were heavy, and not even the four of them straining together could lift or roll it from its resting place.
“That’s not going to work,” Yarrow said breathlessly, straightening up. “We’ll need to find another way down.”
“Wait a second,” Kyle said. “You want to go down there?”
“Why not?” Yarrow said, looking around. “If there’s an actual room down there, there might still be some useful stuff in it.”
“Like what?” Callahan asked.
“Guns and ammo, maybe,” Yarrow said. “Or food. Wouldn’t that get us some smiley points if we brought back a few cartons of food.” He pointed at an angled, meter-wide section of broken concrete pipe sticking half a meter out of the ground. “That looks promising. Let’s take a look.”
The top of the conduit had been crushed inward, possibly from an impact with a piece of girder lying nearby. The broken section was connected to the rest of the cylinder by twisted pieces of the pipe’s metal reinforcement mesh, and was hanging in a loose flap that covered most of the opening.
“Might be clear,” Yarrow said, shading his eyes as he looked in past the concrete flap. “Can’t tell until we get this stuff out of the way. Either of you bring any tools?”
“I’ve got a knife,” Kyle offered.
“Me, too,” Callahan added.
“I was hoping for something more along the lines of a pry bar,” Yarrow said.
“How about my shotgun?” Kyle suggested.
“Better than nothing,” Yarrow said. “Let’s have it.”
It took a few tries, but he finally found the right combination of positioning and angle to pry the dangling concrete away from the opening.
“Wish we had a light,” he muttered as he stuck his head and torso as far into the cylinder as he could. “Looks like it goes all the way down. Bend this flap a little higher, will you, Callahan?”
“What are you going to do?” Kyle asked as Yarrow handed the shotgun back and got a grip on the sides of the conduit.
“I’m going in for a quick look,” Yarrow said. “You three wait here.” Jumping up, he slid his feet inside the opening.
Kyle looked at Callahan. His expression was troubled, but he didn’t look anxious to challenge a superior’s decision. Zac, in contrast, merely looked intrigued.
“Shouldn’t we check with someone first?” Kyle asked, feeling his heart starting to beat faster. This didn’t sound like a smart idea.
“Like who?” Yarrow countered, grunting as he eased his hips into the duct. “You want to go all the way back to camp and find someone to ask if we can do something other than the job we were assigned? One of the things you need to learn, Reese, is that Connor really likes initiative and bold thinking.”