“Don’t worry, he’s not armed,” Barnes murmured back. “If he had a gun he’d be shooting, not talking.”
“So why are we talking?”
“Because I can’t shoot what I can’t see,” Barnes growled. “And because there’s a chance we can break Skynet’s programming.”
“Don’t give me that,” Jik admonished him. “It’s a trick. I told you I’ve never been here.”
“Sure you have,” Barnes said. He took a couple of steps farther into the cabin and pointed to the operating table. “Here—right here—is where you were created.”
“You’re insane,” Jik bit out. “My name is John Connor. I was born in—”
“You’re a Terminator hybrid that’s been code-named Jik,” Barnes interrupted him. “Right here is where your memories were loaded into your brain chip and your voice was changed to match Connor’s.”
There was a pause.
“My voice was changed?” Jik asked, his tone suddenly odd.
“Of course,” Barnes said. “Everyone on the continent with a radio knows what Connor sounds like. Skynet had to do some work before it could send you out to play.”
“You’re talking about throat surgery,” Jik said tightly. “And a pain in... I thought a tree branch had hit my throat. I remember a tree branch hitting it.”
“Another false memory,” Barnes told him, feeling a stirring of hope. It was working. It was actually working. “I can see what’s left of a big transmitter in here, too. This is where your little radio was sending to. Probably where all your future messages were going to go out of, as well. Come take a look—”
“Behind you!” Preston snapped.
With a curse, Barnes spun around. The oldest trick in the book, and he’d been so focused on breaking Jik’s programming that he’d nearly fallen for it.
Not that the T-700 crossing the clearing toward them was breaking any speed records. It was limping badly, its left leg dragging through the leaves and undergrowth. The rest of its body wasn’t in much better shape, with large dents at its shoulders and hips, and one arm twisted visibly off.
Still, it was a Terminator, and it was targeting them, and it needed to be dealt with. Lowering the muzzle of his G11, Barnes fired a short burst into the machine’s left knee.
With a screech of shattered metal, the knee disintegrated, sending the T-700 tumbling to the ground.
“Barnes—” Preston snapped.
“I know,” Barnes said, turning around again. Across the clearing, Jik had broken concealment and was sprinting toward them, Williams’s Mossberg gripped in its hands, its face and body torn and bloodied.
Barnes grinned humorlessly. So Jik did have a weapon. Unfortunately for him, it was a big clearing, and shotguns didn’t have nearly the range of rifles or even handguns. Hence the T-700’s distraction, and Jik’s own suicidal dash across open ground to try to get into range.
And it had nearly worked. Another ten paces, and the shotgun might do some actual damage.
Barnes let him get three of those paces, then put a three-round burst squarely into his torso.
The Theta staggered back with the impact, the rounds ripping clothing and flesh and ricocheting off the metal torso beneath. Before Barnes could line up for another burst, Jik reversed direction, turning and sprinting across the edge of the clearing and disappearing again into the darkening woods.
“Watch it—the other one’s still coming,” Preston warned.
Barnes looked back at the T-700. With half of its left leg gone, the machine had been reduced to crawling, its skeletal hands gripping the grass as it pulled itself toward them.
“What do we do?” Preston asked.
Barnes looked back to where Jik had again gone to ground. The forest, especially at night, was no place to play hide-and-seek with a Terminator. Even one armed only with a relatively short-range shotgun.
But hanging around a wide-open area with a semifunctional T-700 crawling around wasn’t any better.
“We find ourselves some cover,” he replied, climbing back over the wall out of the cabin. “You know of any defensible places nearby?”
“I don’t know,” Preston said. “That’s not something we usually think about.”
“Then it’s time you started,” Barnes said grimly. “Let’s go take a look.”
The conversation between the helicopter and the woods went back and forth, back and forth. Blair continued to probe for information from behind a tree across the clearing, while Lajard crouched out of sight beneath the control board and bragged about how clever he and Skynet had been.
Through it all, Hope stood silently behind her own chosen tree, her hands gripping her bow and her nocked arrow, her heart thudding with anticipation and dread.
Her soul aching as it never had before.
She, Hope Preston, was about to shoot another human being.
Not accidentally, the way beginner hunters sometimes did. This wouldn’t be any accident, a careless slip of the finger. It would be deliberate, direct, and premeditated.
It would be like murder.
They’re not human, she tried to remind herself, as she’d been trying ever since Blair first suggested this plan. Not anymore. They’re machines. They’re Terminators.
But no matter how many times she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. Not completely.
Because they were human. Real, living, thinking people. People Hope had lived with for three long months. She’d hunted with them, eaten with them, laughed with them. Once, six weeks ago when whooping cough had taken two of the town’s children, she’d cried with them.
And now, she was going to shoot one of them. Maybe both of them.
Even worse, she was going to shoot them from behind.
And then, without warning, a sudden gunshot shattered the calm.
She jumped, her body twitching so hard that it jerked the arrow off the bowstring. Had Blair given up on her and decided to take matters into her own hands?
Hastily, Hope nocked the arrow into place again. Carefully, tensely, she looked around the side of her tree.
She was still trying to figure it out when a second shot hammered into her ears.
Only this time she spotted the flash from across the clearing and caught a glimpse of sparks as Blair’s shot ricocheted off the helicopter’s roof, beside the shaft that connected the helicopter to the big overhead rotor.
Blair wasn’t even shooting at Lajard and Susan. Was she trying to wreck the helicopter?
And then, she got it. Blair was only pretending to shoot at the rotor, pretending that she’d given up hope of taking the aircraft back.
She was trying to lure the others into a counterattack. An attack that would turn Susan’s attention toward Blair, and her back toward Hope.
With a conscious effort, Hope relaxed her clenched teeth. It had to be done. Drawing back the bowstring, she waited.
A third shot caromed off the roof... and with that, Susan finally rose from the pilot’s seat and stepped past Lajard’s half-concealed form to the far side of the cockpit. Taking hold of the door-mounted machine gun, she swung it toward Blair’s position.
And as Hope’s eyes blurred with sudden tears, she sent her arrow flying into the back of her friend’s head.
She had expected a gasp, or a scream, or at the very least a violent spasm in response. But there was nothing. Susan’s head snapped forward with the impact, but she made no sound. She regained her balance and again took hold of the machinegun.
Blinking back her tears, Hope drew another arrow from her quiver and set it into the bowstring. Maybe she’d missed the spot.
Or maybe Blair had been wrong about there being a vulnerable point there. In that case, Blair was already dead.