“I guess that means the interference isn’t blanketing everything,” Kyle replied.
“Or the interference has been carefully designed so as to leave the right frequencies open,” Callahan said grimly. “That alone shows this plan’s been up and running for a while.”
“So what do we do?” Zac asked.
“Like Yarrow said, we get out of here and alert Connor,” Callahan told him. “Reese, could you see if the backpacks were still there?”
Kyle shook his head.
“The machines were in the way. I’ll try now.” Carefully, he again eased his head up through the hole.
Yarrow was lying on the tunnel floor, pressed up against the side wall as if he’d been shoved or kicked there. In the faint light coming through the conduit Kyle could see the bright red blood spreading out over the concrete.
Standing over the body, its metal skin shimmering in that same diffuse light, was a Terminator.
Instantly, Kyle ducked down again.
“Terminator,” he whispered urgently.
All three froze. Kyle strained his ears, trying to hear past the thudding of his heart. If the Terminator had seen him, it certainly wasn’t in a hurry to come and investigate.
Which, given that it was a Terminator, meant that it hadn’t seen him.
Callahan and Zac were staring at him, their expressions tense. Motioning them closer, Kyle leaned his lips close to their ears.
“It’s standing guard over Yarrow,” he whispered. “Right under the conduit.”
“But it didn’t spot you?” Callahan whispered back.
Kyle shook his head, playing back the memory of that quick glance. Now that he thought about it, he realized he hadn’t seen the glow of the machine’s eyes.
“It was facing the other direction.”
Callahan nodded, his lip twisted.
“Skynet’s not sure he was alone. But they don’t know who else, or how many, or which way. So it’s watching both directions for us to come back.”
“What do we do?” Zac asked.
Callahan huffed out a breath.
“If we can’t go back, the only other direction is forward,” he said.
“You mean go in further?”
“Skynet’s trying to punch this tunnel into the camp, right?” Callahan said. “Then sooner or later, it has to open up the far end. If we can get up there, maybe we can find a way to crack it open ahead of them and get out.”
“We’re sure not using the tunnel with that T-700 back there,” Kyle warned.
“I know,” Callahan said. “That means we’ll have to go that way.” He pointed downward. “There’s empty space down there—you can feel the air flow. Maybe we can travel underneath the tunnel and find a way back up some place where the machine back there can’t see us.”
“And if we can’t?” Zac asked.
“Then we won’t be any worse off than we are now,” Kyle said. “I’m game.”
Zac sighed. “Me too.”
“Okay,” Callahan said. “Any idea how we get down there without bringing the whole metal nest down on top of us?”
“We could wait until the next group is marching by,” Zac suggested. “Their footsteps should cover any noise we make.”
Ten minutes later, as the Terminators again went marching back toward the front of the tunnel, the three of them slipped down the angled piles of debris into the darkness. Distantly, Kyle wondered what they would find down there.
Or whether any of Connor’s people would ever find them.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Barnes and Williams had been trudging through the forest for over an hour, and Barnes was starting to regret he’d ever agreed to go on this little nature hike, when they found the bridge.
“What do you think?” Williams murmured as they crouched in the undergrowth about thirty meters away.
Barnes eyed the structure through the branches, wishing he’d thought to grab a pair of binoculars before leaving San Francisco.
“Looks solid enough,” he murmured back. “I suppose someone could have crossed on it.”
“Mm,” Williams said. “Pretty hard to tell how solid a bridge is without trying it.”
“Go ahead,” Barnes offered. “I’ll wait here.”
Williams grunted. “Funny. What do you want to do?”
Barnes looked around. Aside from the bridge, there was nothing here but more forest, the same as the stuff they’d already tromped through. No people, no buildings—no Terminators.
“I guess we could look around a little,” he said doubtfully. “See if we can find some trace of this visitor Preston’s so hot to bring in. Or just call it a bust and go back.”
“Can’t say I’m overly thrilled by either option,” Williams said. “But you’re right. You want to flip a coin—?”
“Shh!” Barnes hissed, snapping his head around to the left. Something had rustled over there, loudly enough to be audible over the noise of the river churning through the deep gorge beneath the bridge.
Williams froze, her Mossberg already pointing that direction. Barnes kept his eyes moving, sweeping the area where the sound had come from, while also keeping an eye on their flanks. A nice, loud rustling in the bushes was the oldest trick in the book...
The noise came again. This time Barnes spotted its source: a small rippling in the branches of a thorn bush forty meters away.
“If that’s a Terminator, it’s awfully small,” Williams said softly.
“Aerostats and hydrobots aren’t exactly huge,” Barnes reminded her. It would be just like Skynet to have seeded the forests with some new kind of ground-hugging nasty that they hadn’t run into before. “Stay here—I’ll check it out.” Watching the rippling bush and the ones right beside it, searching for the glint of metal, he started to rise from his crouch.
“Freeze,” a quiet voice ordered from behind him. “Don’t turn around.”
Barnes hissed a curse. And he’d been watching for this trick, too, damn it. “Easy, friend,” he soothed.
“What makes you think I’m your friend?” the voice countered. “Who are you?”
“Barnes, she’s Williams. You from the town back there?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Your friendly approach to strangers,” Barnes growled. “They say hello with hunting arrows.”
“So you’re not from Baker’s Hollow, either,” the man said. “What are you doing here?”
“We were heading home when we spotted the smoke from the town,” Williams said. “You may have heard our helo coming in early this morning. What’s your name?”
“Where’s home?” the man asked, ignoring the question.
“At the moment, San Francisco,” Williams said. She twitched her left arm, jiggling her red armband. “We’re with the Resistance.”
“Yes, I already saw the armbands,” the man said. “If you’re Resistance, I assume you listen to John Connor?”
Barnes snorted. “All the time.”
“Good,” the man said. “What was in his last broadcast?”
Barnes frowned. Connor’s last broadcast had been over a week ago, before the attack on Skynet Central. He had no idea what Connor had said in that message, and it was clear from Williams’s silence that she didn’t either.
“I don’t know,” he told their captor. “We don’t have time to listen to every broadcast. Who does?”
There was a short pause.
“Skynet does, for one,” he said. Oddly enough, the tension level in his voice had actually gone down. “That’s a point in your favor, actually.”
“Wait a minute,” Barnes said, frowning. “You think we’re Skynet? What, we don’t look human enough for you?”