“The Theta Project,” he breathed.
“What’s a Theta Project?” Jik asked.
“Something a bunch of damn traitors are going to have to do some explaining about,” Barnes told him darkly. “Come on. And keep an eye out for that other T-700.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
For Kyle, the first hour was the hardest.
It wasn’t just the darkness. Darkness was a familiar part of the post-Judgment Day world, and like everyone else he’d learned how to adapt and adjust. Not knowing where they were going, or even if the passageway beneath the Terminators’ tunnel would lead anywhere at all, was also not a big deal. Uncertainty was as much a part of life as darkness.
What set Kyle’s skin crawling was the periodic rhythmic thumping overhead as the lines of T-700s first marched to the face of the excavation to collect rubble, then headed back again with their fresh burdens to wherever they had found to dump them.
Those were the hard moments. Because those were the moments when a careless move on Kyle’s or Callahan’s or Zac’s part—a slip of a foot, an accidental dislodging of one of the jagged pieces of concrete or metal they were crawling over—would alert the Terminators to the human intruders.
And once the machines knew where they were, they would be dead. All of them.
Just like Yarrow.
Kyle thought a lot about Yarrow as they traveled. He thought some about the man’s last big mistake, the mistake that had trapped Kyle and the others down here.
But everyone made mistakes. Mostly, what Kyle thought about was the way Yarrow had done what he could to atone for his error by sending the others to safety.
He also found himself wondering how exactly Yarrow had died.
Kyle hadn’t heard any sounds as the T-700s had reached him. Maybe Yarrow hadn’t had time, or maybe the rolling echo of his last gunshots had covered up whatever screams or moans of agony he’d made before the end. Kyle hoped it had been quick, that the Terminators had simply broken his neck or hammer-crushed his chest or done something that would let their victim die quickly.
But all he actually knew was that the death had involved blood. A lot of blood.
He also knew that if the Terminators found him, he would probably die in very much the same way.
It wasn’t Kyle’s own death that worried him. He’d learned long ago not to focus on that, because it did nothing but freeze his will and paralyze any chance of thinking his way out of a bad situation.
But all the mental discipline in the world couldn’t stop him from worrying about Star.
What would happen to her if he died down here?
It was a question that had forced itself on him many, many times. At the moment, settled as she was into John Connor’s Resistance force, her chances of survival were better than at most of the times in their past together. Certainly better than any place she’d been since they left the Moldering Lost Ashes building.
But things changed. People changed. Connor might be taking a personal interest in the two of them now, though why he would even care about a couple of inexperienced kids Kyle couldn’t guess.
But the Resistance leader had a million other things clamoring for his attention. Sooner or later, he would forget about them.
And even if he didn’t, could anyone else ever understand Star, or give her the attention and care she needed? Kyle was the only one who shared their private history. The only one who understood her brand of sign language, appreciated the way she thought and felt, and knew where she hurt.
If he died down here, she would die too. Maybe not tomorrow or the next day, but sooner or later she would give up and die.
But Kyle didn’t make that last, fatal mistake as the T-700s passed back and forth overhead. Neither did Callahan or Zac. And as the pathway they were following angled off from directly beneath the Terminators’ tunnel the footsteps became more and more distant until they finally faded away completely.
Which didn’t mean the going became any easier. Far from it. The explosion that had leveled Skynet Central had sent underground shock waves across the entire San Francisco peninsula. Everything that had been part of that grand complex had been reduced to a tangled mess of shattered concrete and bent or broken support girders. Callahan, who had taken point, was picking his way through the rubble by touch alone, sometimes finding passages barely wide enough to squeeze through, sometimes finding routes that led in the wrong direction. Occasionally he hit a dead end that required them to back up and try again.
Once, they came upon an actual almost untouched room, with slightly buckled walls, a ceiling they could stand upright beneath, and a floor that they could really and truly walk on. It was such a relief to be able to move around like humans instead of moles that they nearly missed the fact that the floor was only half there.
Zac nearly died with that discovery—fortunately Kyle was close enough to grab his arm before he went over the edge. After that, they went back to crawling, no matter how safe the landscape seemed to be.
They’d been going for a couple of hours, and the rumbling in Kyle’s empty stomach had become an almost continuous growl, when Callahan called a halt.
“How are you doing?” he murmured as they hunched together in the darkness.
Kyle shivered. How was he doing? He was cold, hungry, thirsty, and scared. His hands were raw and blistered, with a hundred tiny cuts from the rough concrete and shards of metal that lay along their path. His knees were agony, and he could feel the wetness of blood oozing into his pant legs as he crawled along. He had fresh bruises on his elbows and head where he’d missed some protruding obstacle with his groping hands as he crawled. The image of Yarrow’s dead body continued to hover in front of his face in the darkness. So did Star’s face. How was he doing?
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Me, too,” Zac seconded.
“Okay.” Callahan’s groping hand found Kyle’s and pressed a small piece of something into it. “I always carry a snack bar with me, just in case something goes wrong. Steiner? Here’s yours.”
“Thanks,” Kyle said, resisting the impulse to wolf down his third of the bar. Better to nibble slowly and make it last as long as possible. “Any idea where we are?”
“Hard to tell,” Callahan said. “We took a lot of twists and turns along the way. I’m guessing we’ve covered around two hundred meters, maybe two-fifty, with the Terminators’ tunnel about ten meters to our left. Assuming it went more or less straight, that is.”
“Two hundred meters would put us inside the nighttime sentry ring,” Zac murmured. “If they’re that far in, they could be planning to attack tonight.”
“Maybe,” Callahan said. “But just getting inside the perimeter isn’t going to do much for them. Besides, they’re going to way too much trouble for just a raid.”
“What trouble?” Zac scoffed. “It’s not like they’ve got anything else to do right now.”
“I was thinking about that H-K they threw against the camp last night,” Callahan said. “Why bother? Especially since Skynet must have known we had enough firepower to take it down.”
“Okay,” Zac said. “So why do it?”
“Maybe it was a diversion,” Kyle suggested. “No, not a diversion,” he corrected himself as the image of those heavily loaded T-700s in the tunnel came back to him. “It was cover. The Terminators needed to do some blasting or heavy work at the tunnel face. Skynet crashed the H-K so we wouldn’t hear or feel the other explosion.”
“That’s my guess, too,” Callahan said. “Same idea with the T-600 and the T-700s who came marching into camp. Again, why bother?”
Kyle shook his head. “No idea.”
“Think about it,” Callahan said. “How did we get down here in the first place?”