John stared at her; the back of his mind evaluated the information. I don't think the army's functioning, he thought.
Which means that what's really happening is that Skynet is operating these trucks.
"What if a tree falls across the road?" he asked.
"Sensors detect it and the truck stops. And I gather there's an infrared device for detecting animals. They'll slow down if a signal is recognized at the side of the road and the signature is as large as a deer or a bear. Then they'll stop if the critter is actually in the road."
"Cool," John said.
"Technology can be wonderful," Ninel agreed. "Too bad it can also be incredibly destructive. Shame we didn't learn the difference soon enough."
John nodded, then put on his shades. "Gotta go. Maybe I can catch you later."
"I hope you will," she agreed. Then she turned and went back to work.
John drove off. He would indeed have to follow the caravan.
As far as his strength and his fuel would take him, anyway. He did not like the fact that these people were being driven to an unknown destination in computer-controlled trucks.
I do not like it at all.
* * *
"What's the matter with you?" Balewitch demanded.
Ninel jumped. "Nothing," she said guiltily.
"You were a million miles away," Dog Soldier observed. "We boring you?"
"No!" Ninel shook her head. "I just met someone today that I haven't seen since before…"
"Before Judgment Day?" Balewitch drawled.
"Judgment Day?"
"That's what Ron's calling it," Dog said.
Ninel picked up her tea and took a sip. "As good a name as any," she muttered.
Dog leered and leaned close to her. "Was this a boyfriend?"
"No!" Ninel snapped. She glowered at him. "I only played a couple of games of chess with him. He's just an acquaintance."
"Who is he?" Balewitch asked.
"Just a guy!"
"Was there something wrong with the way I asked that question?" Balewitch said. "Who is he?"
"His name's John Grant or John Connor and he plays a mean game of chess," Ninel said. "That's literally all I know about him.
But seeing him made me think about how the world has changed in just a few weeks. I'm sorry I got distracted. Okay?"
Actually she'd been wondering about John's dual names.
She'd wanted to confront him about it, out of curiosity if nothing else, but didn't feel she knew him well enough to do so. Still, he'd seemed too straightforward to be someone with an alias.
"Put his name in your report," Balewitch said. She looked at Dog. "When can we expect more fuel, or will that be taken care of on the B.C. end?"
SKYNET
John Connor was in Alaska!
Alarm signals rang throughout Skynet's internal security system. Its deadliest opponent had been within the grasp of his Luddite helpers and had escaped! Close evaluation revealed that the system itself was in error. By being too secretive, it had lost an invaluable opportunity. It would have to trust the humans until it could create a better solution.
In the meantime, it would test the HKs and its recently completed T-90 units on the convoy proceeding from Dot Lake.
Then, if the test was successful, it would send the machines back to Dot Lake on the empty transports.
It would also have Balewitch make the female, Ninel, take them to John Connor.
RURAL BRITISH COLUMBIA
As soon as they crossed the Canadian border, the transports had rolled onto smaller roads, moving deeper and deeper into the wilderness. John expected the paving to disappear at any moment, leaving them on gravel or just rutted dirt. He could feel the immensity of the wilderness around them—that line of white on the west was mountains, and there were more to the east…
probably the Yukon River was over them. An endlessness of spruce and pine stretched all about, broken only where an occasional forest fire had let a tangle of brush grow up.
He'd had his suspicions before, because of the computer-driven transports, but now, as they went farther and farther from any habitation, he became certain that Skynet was behind this. He glanced up at the canopy of trees above and was grateful for them. Skynet wouldn't be able to see him from orbit.
But there was the possibility that somehow the last bus in line could. John fell back a bit farther.
Ninel had been right; the trucks and buses weren't stopping, and he wondered how the passengers were taking that. He was beginning to be desperate for a pit stop himself and wondered if he dared to risk it. They might turn off onto a side road, or they might go on for another hour.
Hell with it, John thought.
If they turned off, it would most likely be onto a dirt road and there'd be signs of their passage. If they didn't, he'd still catch up. He also needed to refill his tank. He drew close enough to just see the back of the last transport before pulling off the road beside a cluster of tall boulders that formed a sort of natural screen.
After emptying his bladder, he was filling the Harley's tank, keeping a weather eye out for trouble—which, this deep in the woods, might be a bear—when he saw something sparkle amid the gloom and pencil-straight trunks. Slowly he crouched down and moved closer to the shoulder-high boulders, staring through a gap into the green dark beneath the trees.
The flash he'd seen wasn't repeated. Bushwhackers? John wondered. Possibly signaling to one another. Somehow it felt unlikely. The people on the transports had a box lunch apiece, the clothes they stood up in, and maybe a couple of changes of underwear, hardly rich pickings even if you threw in the gas in the trucks' tanks. And if whoever was out there was after him, they were approaching with exaggerated caution. He slunk back to the bike and pulled his binoculars out of the saddlebags.
He adjusted them carefully, staring in the direction of the flash. He felt his stomach drop when he found himself staring at the skeletal head of a Terminator. It moved out of his field of vision to be replaced by another, and another…
Think! he told himself, cudgeling his brain. What—
"Oh, my God," he whispered. They're after the trucks… it's a culling operation!
* * *
The buses and trucks came to a halt in the middle of a rocky defile, apparently in the middle of nowhere. The women and children looked around in puzzled silence for a moment; then the kids demanded to get off almost as one. Their mothers looked at one another and made an executive decision that this was a rest stop; everyone eagerly rushed to the exit.
Precious toilet paper was handed out and children were cautioned not to go far and to avoid poison ivy. "Three leaves, remember. Even this early in the spring it can give you a rash."
The men in the trucks, seeing the children and many of the women making for the bushes, got out and stretched their legs, waiting by tacit agreement for the women to finish their business before getting on with their own.
Afterward, families mingled and people chatted, relieved and a great deal more comfortable. Finally Paul looked at his watch.
"I think we should get back on the transports," he said. "Most rest stops are twenty minutes long and it's been nineteen minutes."
People looked at him, considered what he'd said, and began to separate in extreme slow motion.
Suddenly the transports started their engines and drove off, leaving the refugees stunned.
One or two chased after them yelling, "Hey! Stop!"
"Well," one woman said, "at least they didn't try to run us down."