But even if they didn’t know the truth, she and Barnes did. The man was a fraud, and she had to try.
“We came in a helicopter,” she said, speaking now to Preston and the other townspeople. “If we’re not Resistance, where did we get that?”
“Could be any number of places,” Jik said. “There are still plenty of gangs out there, some with surprising access to resources. There are also some paramilitary groups in the Rockies that aren’t affiliated with the Resistance. You could be from one of them.”
“Or they could be from Skynet,” Halverson rumbled, his rifle pointed openly now at Barnes.
Blair felt her body tense even more. If Jik wanted to get rid of them, tying them to Skynet would be the simplest and surest way to do it.
But to her surprise, Jik shook his head.
“I don’t think so,” he said, gazing thoughtfully at her. “It’s hard to imagine what Skynet would gain by letting them wreck a couple of its Terminators.”
He turned to Preston.
“Still, whoever they are, we can’t afford to let them wander around without supervision. Can you assign two or three of your men to watch them while we go deal with those last two T-700s?”
“I can do that,” Halverson spoke up. “Chris, Trounce—”
“I’d prefer that Mayor Preston assign the guards,” Jik interrupted. “No offense, but I’d feel better if this was official.”
Halverson grimaced, but nodded.
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
Preston gestured to a couple of the men near the door.
“Trounce, you and Smith,” he said. “Simple guard duty. You don’t need to tie them up—just keep them in the house. Barnes, Williams, over on the couch, please. Unfasten your gun belts first, if you would.”
Blair looked around the room. If she and Barnes were fast enough...
But it was already too late. Three others besides Halverson had their guns up and aimed now. She unfastened her gunbelt and lowered it and her beloved Desert Eagle to the floor.
“What if they make trouble?” one of the guards asked as Barnes reluctantly set down his own weapons.
Preston looked at Barnes.
“You’re not going to make trouble, are you?”
“Not yet,” Barnes said, his voice dark as he eyed Halverson. “Maybe later.”
“Just take it easy,” Preston advised. “Don’t worry, we’ll get this all sorted out later.”
“If there is a later,” Blair warned.
“Is that a threat?” Halverson demanded.
“There are two T-700s out there,” Blair reminded him coldly. “You don’t need any threats from me.”
She crossed to the couch and sat down at one end. Barnes took the cue and moved to the couch’s other end. Preston and Halverson gathered up their guns and packs while the two guards pulled chairs over to the big window and sat down, their rifles cradled in their arms.
“We’ll be back soon,” Jik promised as Preston and the remaining townspeople filed out the door. “I suggest you take the opportunity to get some rest.”
He paused in the doorway.
“And if you think you can come up with a better story,” he added, “you might want to do that, too.”
A moment later he was gone.
“What now?” Blair asked quietly.
Barnes gave a long, measuring look at the two guards.
“We wait,” he told her. “For now.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kyle had taken over point from Callahan, and had led them slogging through the underground ruins for another hour, when he rounded a particularly large slab of concrete and saw a light in the distance.
It wasn’t much of a light, no more than a sliver of hazy yellowish glow, more oozing than actually shining, coming from the ceiling fifty meters ahead.
But in that first minute Kyle didn’t care what kind of light it was. It was light, and after hours of straining his eyes in utter blackness it was like a breath of clean air or a long swallow of cold water.
They’d found the Terminators’ tunnel again.
Which meant that they’d found the Terminators.
There was a rattle of gravel as Callahan and Zac came up alongside him.
“That the tunnel?” Zac whispered.
“Probably,” Callahan said. “Okay. Extra quiet from here on.”
Keeping extra quiet turned out to be easier than Kyle had expected. The light, dim though it was, gave enough illumination to show them a little of the uneven ground they were crawling across. They covered the fifty meters more quickly, and more quietly, than most of the previous several hours’ worth of travel.
From the positioning of the light when Kyle first spotted it, he had guessed the opening was only a meter or two above the level of their floor. What he hadn’t known was that the passageway made a sharp dip halfway along their path before leveling off at a new, lower level. When they reached the light, it turned out to be over three meters above the floor, nearly a meter out of reach.
The good news was that the opening was similar to the one they’d used to escape the tunnel all those hours ago: a gap between the tunnel floor and the wall of debris beside it. Like the other opening, this one also had an angled field of broken masonry below it, tricky but not impossible to climb.
The bad news was that the opening was far too narrow for even Zac to get through.
For a minute they stood together looking up at it, listening to the rhythmic footsteps as the Terminators continued their endless march back and forth to the tunnel face. The marching seemed to go on for longer than it had before, and Kyle wondered uneasily if Skynet had thrown more T-700s into the project. Implying that the breakout was indeed imminent.
Finally, the muffled thudding faded away. Callahan waited another few seconds, then drew the other two in for a close-huddle conference.
“Thoughts?”
“I think we’re near the front of the tunnel,” Zac whispered.
“How do you know?” Kyle asked.
“Because those Terminators were going both directions,” Zac said. “One group coming up empty-handed, the other passing them with their loads.”
“Ah.” Kyle hadn’t detected the difference in direction himself. But Zac had shown several times already that he had the best hearing of the group.
“Sounds like they’re gone,” Zac went on. “Let me climb up and see if I can see anything.”
He started to step away. Callahan, still holding onto his sleeve, pulled him back.
“I’ll go,” he said firmly. “I’m a better climber, and that slope looks tricky.”
The slope was every bit as difficult as Callahan had anticipated, and even with Kyle and Zac standing on either side to brace his arms and legs there were times where he nearly slid back. But finally he was there. Carefully taking hold of the edge of the tunnel floor, he pulled himself up and peered through the opening.
He held the pose for about half a minute. Then, easing himself back onto the debris, he climbed back down.
“We’re at the front, all right,” he told them when they were huddled together again. “There’s a stack of eight bags along the wall that look like satchel charges.”
“They’re not right at the tunnel face?” Kyle asked.
“No, about three meters back,” Callahan said. “There’s still a bunch of debris right at the face, so I’m guessing they’ll still be lugging and hand digging for a while longer.”
“Where’s the light coming from?” Zac asked.
“There are a bunch of small holes in the ceiling,” Callahan said “The light’s pretty diffuse, so I’m guessing it’s sifting in through another layer of broken concrete.”