Jik snorted again. Let him run, because there really wasn’t anywhere for him to run to. Now that Jik had finished his own defense, he could hear the sounds of fresh gunfire coming from the town itself.
That would be Oxley, also refusing to simply roll over before the Resistance-hating assassins. Jik had no doubt that he would carry the day there, just as Jik had done here in the forest.
In the meantime, some of the townspeople had probably escaped into the trees. They would have to be tracked down and eliminated.
He shook his head. It would be a long and wearisome task, but it had to be done. All of Baker’s Hollow had heard the false accusations Barnes and Williams had brought against him, and those treasonous thoughts could not be permitted to survive. The reputation of John Connor had to stay clear and clean if he was to lead the people of the Resistance to victory over Skynet.
And toward that end Jik would need to leave soon. The Eugene group had been one of those who had defied Command’s order to activate their transmitters during the climax of Skynet’s grand scheme to destroy its enemies. As a result, they’d been one of the few Resistance groups to have survived. They deserved recognition for that.
They deserved a visit from John Connor himself.
Unfortunately, that meant Jik couldn’t be here to help Oxley and Valentine with their task of cleansing the area around Baker’s Hollow.
But as he’d reminded his colleagues so many times, there were always options. If Jik couldn’t help personally with the hunt, he could at least arrange for a substitute.
The wreckage from the T-700s was scattered around the forest where the traitors had dropped or thrown them. Slinging the shotgun over his shoulder again, Jik began gathering those pieces back together.
“Come on, Oxley,” Preston shouted, slapping the barrel of his rifle against the top of the hedge for emphasis. “Oxley?”
Blair peeked out around her end of the hedge, gripping her Desert Eagle tightly. Oxley had to know that Preston’s invitation was a trap. The question was, would he—or rather, the massive Skynet computer that had programmed him—be arrogant enough to take them up on it?
And then, from somewhere in the near distance came the muffled sound of a woman’s scream.
“Damn,” Preston snarled. Jumping to his feet, he dodged around Blair and took off toward the gap between the buildings that they’d come through less than three minutes ago.
“Wait!” Blair snapped. She’d seen Marcus Wright in action, and running around randomly out there was an invitation to get killed. “Preston!”
“I have to warn them,” Preston called back over his shoulder. “They don’t even know what they’re facing.”
“He’ll kill you!” Blair bit out.
“Then you kill him back.” Preston ducked between the buildings and disappeared.
Straightening out of her crouch, Blair headed after him.
She made it around the hedge and about four steps toward the gap Preston had used when Barnes caught up with her.
“No—there,” he grunted, pointing instead toward a different opening off to the left. Without waiting for a reply, he angled away, heading for a space to their right.
Blair swore under her breath. But he was right. She veered to her left. That scream might have been Oxley’s idea of bait, a way of drawing them back into town. If the Theta was waiting for them to return along that same route, Preston was about to die.
But it could also be that Oxley had simply decided to get on with the task of slaughtering Baker’s Hollow’s civilians, figuring that he could deal with Preston whenever and wherever he chose to surface. In that case, Barnes’s plan for the three of them to hit the town from different directions was the right move. If one of them could spot Oxley and open fire, the others would know where he was.
Blair felt her throat tighten. No, not him. It. Oxley wasn’t Marcus Wright, who’d protected Blair and gone on to sacrifice himself for Connor. Oxley had given up what was left of his humanity when he murdered Trounce and Smith.
He—it—was a Terminator.
There were two more screams before Blair finished weaving her way through the outlying houses to the main part of town. A dozen people had spilled out of the buildings, a couple of them with guns, a few with bows, most neither. All of them were looking around nervously.
“Go!” Blair snapped at them. “Oxley’s a Theta—a Terminator that looks human. He’s already killed at least two people. If you don’t have a gun, get out of town right now and find a place to hide.”
“Look out!” someone shouted, jabbing a finger past Blair’s shoulder.
Blair spun around. Oxley had slipped out of the house directly behind her and was headed in her direction, his arms pumping as he ran, his hands flinging off droplets of bright red blood. His eyes were shining with maniacal energy, his lips curled back in a death’s-head smile in anticipation of his next kill.
Desperately, Blair tried to bring her Desert Eagle up and around. But Oxley was too close, and the heavy gun had too much inertia, and she knew she would never get it lined up in time.
She tried to get out of his way, to dodge clear of those bloodied hands. But she’d been caught flatfooted, and there was no time for that, either. She threw herself sideways toward the ground, still trying to get her gun lined up.
He was nearly on her when a stutter of rifle shots rang out, blowing off bits of cloth and skin from Oxley’s chest and face and bringing him to a sudden and surprised-looking halt.
And as a second volley staggered him a step backward, Blair finally got her Desert Eagle in line and fired point-blank up under his chin.
The force of the blow snapped Oxley’s head back and sent him tumbling onto his back. He hit the ground hard, throwing a spray of red mist from the gaping wound. The shot had disintegrated a fist-sized patch of skin, some of it coming off the chin, the rest coming off the throat, revealing the blood-dulled metal beneath it.
But it took more than that to stop a Theta. Oxley had barely slammed to the ground when he was starting to sit up again. His maniacal smile was gone now, replaced by an expression of cold fury.
But getting to his feet was suddenly proving difficult. The air filled with the sound of gunfire as more and more of the townspeople joined the battle. The rounds hammered relentlessly into Oxley’s body, the heavier slugs knocking him over, the lighter ones digging fresh wounds into his skin.
Blair pressed herself closer to the ground, not daring to try to get up through the fury of the attack. She squeezed off round after round, mostly targeting Oxley’s face, wondering distantly whether she would have time to get clear when all the guns thundering away out there ran dry.
It wasn’t an idle concern. What was left of Oxley’s skin was bleeding profusely, the multiple trickles soaking his clothing and the grass and leaves around him. But he had a Terminator’s single-minded doggedness, and even as the trappings of humanity were stripped away he was still struggling to get up and continue his mission. The volley slowed for a moment, and he managed to lurch to his knees. Behind the last scraps of forehead skin his glowing red eyes locked on to Blair.
Then, to her surprise, he fell onto his side and lay still.
And as the gunfire resumed its hammering at the bloodied metal body, she finally understood.
Lajard had told them that Theta organs were specially bioengineered to avoid rejection problems. She also knew from Kate Connor’s work on Marcus that Theta skin regenerated quickly. The Skynet scientists had undoubtedly also fiddled with the hybrids’ blood chemistry, giving it extra oxygen-carrying capacity and super-quick coagulation.
But there were limits to how fast even bioengineered blood could clot. No matter how fast Oxley’s broken veins and capillaries sealed themselves off, the sheer number of bleeders had finally taken their toll.