Behind Barnes, Jik’s machinegun opened fire again with a new magazine.
“No!” Barnes shouted to him, jabbing a finger back toward Blair’s target. “I’ve got this one.”
He glanced back long enough to confirm that Jik had understood. Then, breaking into a full-bore sprint, he charged straight toward the staggering Terminator.
Painfully aware of the terrible risk he was taking.
With that arrow buried in its motor cortex, the T-700’s tracking and balance systems were temporarily shot to hell. But the control chip was already rerouting its systems around the damage, and if the machine recovered before Barnes reached it, he would be in the worst and possibly the very last fight of his life.
The T-700 was groping for the arrow now. The skeletal hand found it, snapped off half of the shaft.
And leaping into the air, Barnes rotated his body ninety degrees forward and slammed feet-first into the Terminator’s torso.
The machine fell backward, slamming onto its back with enough impact to drive what was left of the arrow even farther into its skull. Barnes jumped back to his feet, lined up his 542 on the metal forehead, and fired.
The Terminator jerked as the bullet slammed into the thick alloy. Barnes fired again and again, each round bending or breaking another section of metal.
On his fourth shot, the glowing eyes finally faded into the darkness of death.
For another couple of seconds Barnes stared down at the dead Terminator, his throbbing ears vaguely aware of the gunfire still going on behind him. He’d already seen Terminators play possum once on this trip, and he had no interest in being suckered a second time.
But the eyes stayed dark. Breathing heavily, he lifted his gaze to the far side of the gorge.
Preston and his daughter were standing there, Preston with his rifle ready, Hope with another arrow in her bowstring. Preston gestured toward the Terminator lying in the grass, and Barnes gave him a thumbs up.
And then, the gunfire behind him stopped.
He turned. Williams and Jik were standing more or less where he’d left them, only with Williams now peering over what seemed to be a ridge or bump in the ground.
“You get it?” he called.
“No,” Williams replied. “It fell into the ravine.”
Barnes frowned. There was a ravine back there? He hadn’t even noticed it through all the trees and brush.
“Can you see it?”
Williams looked back and forth, then shook her head.
“No.”
“What’s the terrain like?”
“Very steep,” Jik responded, “with bushes, trees, and dead logs. We’d need a belaying rope to get down there.”
Barnes pursed his lips. In general, it was a bad idea to leave a Terminator alive and loose if there was any chance at all of killing it.
But heading into unfamiliar territory after one while tied to the end of a rope was even more dangerous.
“Skip it,” he called. “Time to head back.”
He turned to Preston and Hope.
“Thanks for the assist,” he shouted over the gorge.
“No problem,” Preston called back. “What do you want us to do?”
“Go back to town, I guess.” Barnes jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward Jik. “This the guy you were expecting?”
“Not really sure who I was expecting,” Preston admitted. “But he’ll probably do.”
“What about the T-700?” Hope asked, pointing toward the dead Terminator at Barnes’s feet.
“I need to make sure it can’t be used for spare parts,” Barnes told her. “We’ll meet you back in town.”
Preston nodded. “Watch yourselves.” Touching his daughter’s arm, he headed away from the gorge along a narrow path. A few seconds later, they were out of sight.
“We’re worried about spare parts?” Williams asked, coming up behind him. With the adrenaline rush of the battle over, he noticed, she was limping badly on her injured leg.
“The T-700 you dumped into the ravine was the one whose hand you wrecked when you blew up its gun, right?” Barnes asked.
Williams’s lips puckered.
“Right,” she said. “Good point.”
Barnes grunted and took aim at one of the Terminator’s shoulder joints.
“Stand back.”
A minute later Barnes had blown all four limbs off the dead Terminator. The right arm required a second try when it fell close enough to the torso after being disconnected that the T-700’s automatic electromagnetic recoupling lock was able to draw it back into place. Another shot to the stubborn joint, followed by a quick kick to move the arm out of range, did the trick.
He and Williams were collecting the severed limbs when Jik arrived, coiling a length of fragile-looking rope over his shoulder as he walked.
“Was that Danny Preston?” he asked, peering across the river.
“You know him?” Barnes asked.
“I spent a few summers here with an uncle.” Jik nodded toward the bridge. “In fact, Danny and I were the ones who built that thing.”
“Really?” Barnes said. “He didn’t seem to recognize you.”
“I doubt he does,” Jik said. “It’s been forty years, and they’ve been kinder to him than they have to me.” He nudged the T-700’s torso with his toe. “They don’t look so tough when you chop off all their limbs, do they? Except those teeth. I always wondered why Skynet bothered putting teeth on its Terminators.”
“It’s psychology,” Williams told him. “It makes their heads look more like human skulls. Awakens those deep, dark fears we all have locked inside us.”
“Like Terminators really need more of that than they already have,” Barnes said. He lifted one of the severed Terminator arms and wiggled it in front of Jik. “See this? Watch.”
He lowered the shoulder part of the limb and touched it to his leg.
“See there?” he asked, pulling the metal limb away and then swinging it past Williams’s leg. “See? The electromagnet doesn’t stick.”
“Were you expecting it to?” Jik asked, frowning.
“You were,” Barnes countered. “Remember? You were talking about cutting us open to see if we were Terminator hybrids.” Turning, he tossed the arm over the edge of the gorge into the river below and reached for the next one. “Just wanted to show you that we aren’t.”
“Ah,” Jik said. “Thank you. Though, I was already pretty well convinced. Someone with a Skynet chip in his head should have been able to quote the last Connor broadcast verbatim.” He nodded down at the partially disassembled Terminator. “Besides, you’d hardly have helped me destroy my attackers if you were on their side. A house divided against itself, and all that.”
“Yeah.” Barnes picked up the final leg and tossed it over the edge. “Let’s get out of here.” He glanced at Williams.
And paused for a longer look. She was staring down at the limbless Terminator, a sudden tightness to her throat.
“What’s the matter?” Barnes asked. “Leg bothering you?”
“Terminator hybrids,” she said, her voice as rigid as her throat. “You just called them Terminator hybrids.”
“So?” Barnes asked. “That’s what they are, aren’t they?
“T-600 is short for Terminator six hundred,” Williams said, her eyes still on the machine. “T-700 means Terminator seven hundred. Right?”
“Yeah,” Barnes said, frowning. Why was she lecturing him on the obvious? “So?”
She looked up at him.
“In that same format, a Terminator hybrid would be T-Hybrid, or just T-H.”
Barnes looked at Jik, who looked as lost as Barnes felt.
“Meaning what?” Barnes asked.
“Meaning that in Greek,” Williams said, “T-H is the letter theta.”
And like a sudden kick in the gut, Barnes got it.