"It's going for maximum kill by trapping people in the cities.
He's got to get out of there; we need him and his friends."
Thanks, Ms. Connor. It's so nice to know you care. But it was nice to know that he was needed, wasn't just a helpless victim in the carnage outside, that he could fight back.
"They're under Skynet's control, Snog," John told him grimly.
"You've got to get out of the city. Now."
"Get out… Get… John, have you been listening to me? If I go out there they'll squash me like a bug! I'm not kidding. You haven't seen—"
"You can always stay in your room until either the lawn mower arrives or the fire comes down. This is it, Snog. You don't have much time; you've got to get out now!"
Snog opened his mouth to reply; then a motion across the lane way caught his eye. His breath caught, too, torn between hope and horror, as he saw the faces peering out through the thick hedge.
"Oh, my God!"
"What is it?" John demanded.
"It's the guys. Brad and Carl and Yam, they're in the bushes across the road. My God, they're gonna get killed!"
"Maybe not," John soothed. "If they've made it that far, then maybe they'll be okay."
"No, no. The trucks, they're high up, they can see 'em."
"What makes you say that?" John asked.
"I dunno. I saw some people hide in the bushes and this truck came up and ran over 'em. It was like something told it they were there, or like it saw them hide."
"Could the trucks be linked to the campus security cameras?"
John asked.
Snog licked his lips, tasting the salt of tears. "I dunno, I guess.
Yeah. That could be it. They've all got wireless modems these days and GPS units. They could be—"
"What can you do about that?" John interrupted.
"What?"
"The security system, can you do something about it; shut it down maybe?"
"Yeah. Maybe. Just a second. I gotta work." Snog put down the phone, cudgeling his brains. Yeah. Of course, doorknob, you did that hack last year! The Information Center probably never found the trapdoor. Okay, let's see—
His fingers blurred over the keyboard; in the background he could hear John's voice, faint and far, probably continuing down his list of contacts and giving them the alert.
Then: "I did it; cameras are off-line," Snog said.
"Did that have any effect?" John asked.
Snog peered out the window. The purposeful motion of the cars and trucks and self-propelled hedge cutters suddenly slowed, grew more tentative.
They'll be operating from stored images now; they can read the maps and tell where they are with their own GPS units, but they won't be able to see movement.
"Yeah, I think it did. Everything out there has slowed down. I think the guys are gonna make a break for it." He leaned out the window, shouted: "C'mon, guys. Yes! Go! Go! Go! Shit!"
"What?" John said.
"There's a car, it's coming right at them. Run, you shitheads, run! Oh shit, it must have sound pickups onboard!" Snog felt himself beginning to hyperventilate again and closed his eyes; there wasn't anything he could do. Then there was the distant sound of a crash.
He leaped up, turned, ran out of his dorm room into the corridor, sagged against the discolored wall, and then remembered the phone in his hand.
"Oh Christ, sweet Jesus, they're all right." Snog pulled air in and laughed softly. "The car crashed into the lobby entrance, but they were inside when it hit. Carl's got a coupla cuts, but they're all right. Oh, man."
Everyone went into a series of manly group hugs, crashing back and forth into the walls as they whooped and shouted.
Yam took up the phone. "Hello?" he said.
"Hey, Yam. You guys have got to get out of the city."
"No can do, John. This is happening all over the state, every road. We're stuck."
"It's happening all over the world, my mother says. Skynet wants to keep the cities bottled up so that more people will die when the bombs fall. I kid you not, Yam. You can take your chances and maybe get out of there, or you can sit on Snog's bed until you die. Your choice."
"Whoa. When you put it like that… But how? We only had to come about a hundred yards to get here and we barely made it."
"Maybe they could try going through the sewers and storm drains," Sarah suddenly suggested. "In that part of the country you could probably get all the way to Maine without popping your head above street level. I can't confirm that, but it's worth a try."
"You guys hear that?" John said.
"Yeah," Yam said with a nervous laugh. "Hey, pop your head up, that reminds me of a video game I used to have."
"This ain't no video game, friend. Get moving."
Snog took the phone back; he felt a little better now, enough to be really frightened rather than teetering on the edge of a welcome blackness. "We'll give a try," he said. "You know where we'll be. If we make it."
"We'll try you there in a few days," John said. "Good luck, guys. Survive, we all need you."
"You got it. Over and out," Snog said.
ALASKA
John tossed the phone onto one of the tables. The fallout shelter was fairly elaborate, as such things went—all three of them had a lot of building experience, enough money, and paranoia to spare.
There were two bedrooms-cum-storage-areas, this central communications room linked to fiber-optic cables running out into the woods, a state-of-the-art fuel cell system without any dubious automatic controls, needless to say), and a small galley-type cooking area. It still smelled new, of green concrete and timber and paint, with a faint undertone of ozone from the electronics.
And then there was the armory…
"They're such kids," he complained, worried.
"But they're smart," Sarah said. "If they make it out they'll grow up fast."
"They'd better," Dieter said. "Those kids are our brain trust."
Sarah could tell by the look on John's face that the thought gave him scant comfort.
MASSACHUSETTS
"I think I read in the worst-case-scenario handbook that if you have to crawl through a tunnel for any length of time you shouldn't crawl on your elbows and knees 'cause the skin's thin there. So you should push yourself along with your palms and your feet, suspending the rest of your body as much as you can."
Snog looked over his shoulder toward Terri Neal's voice; she was puffing a bit—Terri was heavyset—and that let him locate her; right behind his feet, in the Stygian, smelly darkness of the drain. "I don't think I could do that," he said.
I think it would give me a heart attack if I tried.
He was dirty and soaked with sweat and no doubt smelled even worse than the drainage tunnel they were crawling through.
This was no time to try Superman stunts.
"Then maybe the next time we come to a place we can stand up, we should rip up a blanket and make padding for our knees and elbows," Terri suggested. "The book said that otherwise we'd be hamburger in no time. I'm paraphrasing, of course."
A long line of mumbled "uh-huhs," broke out behind Snog.
She had a good point, and though he hated to sacrifice a blanket, he figured they'd better do it.
"Look," Professor Clark said, "we can't crawl all the way to Maine. Even if these tunnels do connect for that distance. Does anybody even know where we are?"
He sounded pretty testy, not that Snog could blame him. The guy was at least fifty and pretty near filled the tunnel they were crawling through. Still, Snog was glad to have recruited him.
Clark was a professor of engineering; that would come in handy.
Leanne Chu, somewhere behind Clark, was a professor of chemistry. They'd also picked up fifteen other students who were willing to take a chance on the sewers. Snog was glad to have all of them along.