The Future War

MISSOURI

Dennis Reese had gone about fifty yards before he realized that Mary wasn't with him. He looked in all directions, then headed back along his trail to find her sitting on a boulder beneath a huge shagbark hickory, just coming into leaf. She was sitting with her legs crossed at the knee, leaning her chin on one fist, staring at nothing.

"I thought I'd lost you," he said.

Mary just looked him over.

Now what? he wondered. "Hello?"

"I think we need to talk," she said, sitting up.

"I think we need to get away from that thing."

"We have, for the moment. Now we need to figure out what to do and where to go. I honestly don't think the camp would be our best choice."

He looked away from her, folding his arms across his chest, then took a few steps away from where she sat. Mary raised an eyebrow and one corner of her shapely mouth, but said nothing.

He turned and they looked at each other, neither wanting to be the first to speak, until finally Mary rolled her eyes.

"Pull up a rock," she said. "We could use a break at least."

After a beat she said, "I'm sorry I hit you." Which she'd done a number of times as he dragged her into the trees. Hard.

Lucky she didn't have any combat training, he thought. She hit as hard as she could… which is exactly what you should do in a situation like that. Too many untrained civilians just made symbolic hitting gestures, particularly women.

He waved her apology aside and sat down. "You're taking this well," he commented.

"Bullshit." She sneered. "I'm taking this very badly and I'm thinking things that scare me." She looked him in the eye. "But I'm not the type to run around in circles yelling 'the sky is falling.' "

Reese lowered his eyes and nodded. He was taking this pretty badly himself. He kept hearing the sudden barrage of shots and the pitifully few screams from their abandoned patients. While it was true that most of those people were probably going to die anyway, exterminating them like that was vile. Especially if what Mary had overheard was true and they'd been deliberately infected in the first place.

"I hate to sound like a conspiracy nut," the young nurse said,

"but this couldn't have happened without some sort of cooperation from elements in the army."

What she'd said was a reflection of his own thoughts. "If you were a conspiracy nut, you'd have just said 'the army,'" Reese pointed out.

Some of the tension visibly left her body. "It's good that you caught the difference. Because, much as I'd like to think that what just happened was a nightmare…"

"Same here," he agreed.

"So, is Yanik involved, or is he just following orders?" Mary asked.

Reese frowned. "I don't know him well," he said. "But I got the impression that he's an all right guy. He's not enthusiastic about running herd on a bunch of civilians, but then, none of us are. As for following orders, if they come from the right place, bearing the right names and codes, why wouldn't he obey them? We did."

"So the army's been infiltrated."

He spread his hands. "By what? Trailer trash?"

Mary tightened her lips. She'd been about to call him on his assumption that people who lived in trailers were automatically trash, when she realized she was just looking for a distraction.

"We've got to warn them," she said.

"And how will we get them to believe us?" he asked.

"Well, we've got neither trucks, nor patients, and we can take them… back there," she pointed out. "What do you think we should do? Hide out in the boonies and hope someone else takes care of the problem?"

He gave her a look. "How about we talk a little less and think a little more," he suggested.

They were silent after that. Then Mary raised her head excitedly.

"Do you hear that?" she whispered.

The lieutenant strained his ears, and after a minute he heard a rushing sound.

"Water!" Mary exclaimed happily. "Let's go find it." She leapt to her feet and started off in the direction of the sound.

"Hey!" Reese said, but quietly and started off in pursuit. He'd just grabbed her arm when he heard the sound of a rifle being cocked.

"Who goes there?" a young voice barked.

Reese froze and Mary looked at him with eyes like saucers.

"Lieutenant Dennis Reese," he said, carefully holding his hands away from his body, "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." He nodded meaningfully at his companion.

"Uh, Mary Shea, nurse."

From out of the greenery came a slight figure in fatigues and camouflage paint carrying an M-16 pointed unwaveringly in their direction.

"You got ID?"

"Yes." Reese reached for his orders.

" Slowly," the youngster barked. "Using two fingers, take it out of your pocket and toss it to me."

The lieutenant did as he was told; then he nodded at Mary, who slid a laminated badge from her pants pocket and tossed it over as well.

Not looking away for even an instant, the youngster stepped forward, scooped up the two IDs, and stepped back. Then, constantly flicking eyes from page to prisoners, he read them.

"I'll hold on to these for now," the kid said. "I better take you in."

Gesturing with the rifle for them to turn around and start walking, the youngster followed, barking out terse directions now and then. It seemed to Reese that occasionally he'd glimpse a human form disguised with brush and paint, but he honestly couldn't be sure. Having a cocked automatic weapon behind his back, in the hands of someone barely old enough to shave, was nervous making enough.

Finally they came upon a cabin on the edge of a small clearing, overshadowed by a group of oaks sprouting from a rocky cleft; their massive writhing limbs formed a virtual platform over it. The cabin itself was notched logs chinked with mortar, the door and shutters weathered and splintered; it looked like thousands of others in varying stages of decay up here in the hollows of the Ozarks.

Hmm. Reese decided that appearances could be deceptive: despite the cabin's rustic appearance there was a keypad under a wooden catch by the door. The kid gestured them to one side, then entered a code—carefully keeping his body between the pad and the prisoners, Reese noted. There was the sound of a lock being tripped and Mary and Reese were silently ordered to enter the cabin.

A man was seated at a rough-hewn table sipping from a tin cup.

"Daddy?" the kid said.

"Good job, honey," the man said. "Just give me their papers and I'll take it from here. Y'all get back to your post."

Uh-oh, Reese thought. Good thing I didn't make that joke about being too young to shave.

The girl, which they now saw her to be, grinned and pulled the two prisoners' IDs out of her breast pocket. "Betcha they thought I was too young to shave," she said, glancing aside at Reese. "Or at least this guy did."

"Maybe you shave your legs," Mary replied with a slight snort.

The girl handed the IDs over, saluted, and left, pulling the door closed behind her.

"Lieutenant Reese," the man said, pursing his lips. "Army Corps of Engineers; always a useful occupation. And Nurse Shea." He smiled a welcome at Mary. "We can always use someone trained in the medical profession," he said sincerely.

"Welcome to our little hideaway."

"You survivalists?" Reese asked. He had a sinking feeling about this. He'd known a few survivalist nutcases in his time; some who were the kind who would decide to keep him and Mary as slaves on the grounds that they would help him survive.

He'd known a few who weren't crazy, but the way today was going, what were the odds he'd meet a sane one?

"I'm Jack Brock," the man said. "That was my daughter, Susie. Sit down, take a load off," he invited. "Have some mint tea."

Reese and Mary looked at each other, then sat down.

"Yeah," Brock said, pouring them each a cup. "We're survivalists." Grimly: "At least, we're surviving, which most people on this continent haven't, the past couple of months. And more." He looked up at them, smiling. "But before we get into my story, why don't we hear yours?"

The two prisoners glanced at each other again. If he'd been the perfect soldier facing an undoubted enemy, the lieutenant knew what he would do. But… Why not? Reese thought. Might as well see how it sounds when we say it out loud to a third party.

"We're from the Black River Relocation Camp," he began.

"Black River is one of the good camps," Brock interrupted.

"You wouldn't believe some of the stories we've heard about some of the others."

Once again Dennis and Mary gave each other worried looks.

This is getting monotonous, Reese thought. Either we develop telepathy, or we should invent a couple of signals… like, one finger means "what should we do?" and two means "should we trust him?" So we can just hold them up as necessary.

"We've been having a cholera epidemic," Mary explained.

"Suddenly we got orders to send the sickest of our patients to a central hospital. Where that would be they didn't say."

"Meanwhile I got orders to report to central command for reassignment and was told to accompany the trucks they sent for the patients."

"I had overheard some men talking in a way that implied they were deliberately spreading the contagion, so I was requested to go along, too… so that I could be questioned."

"We set out this morning," Reese said. "But instead of being taken to any central command, we were dumped in the middle of nowhere."

"The trucks stopped and these people literally threw my patients out of the trucks. Then they drove off and left us there."

Mary looked at Reese.

Do I tell him what happened next? the lieutenant wondered.

So far everything made sense. But the killing machine was another, and much harder-to-believe, story.

Brock sipped his tea and waited for them to continue. When they didn't he put his cup down and looked between them. "And your patients?" he said at last. "What happened to them?"

Mary looked down into her tea. "This thing came out of the woods and shot them."

Brock looked at her for a moment, then glanced at Reese, who nodded. The survivalist sighed. "What you just saw," he said,

"was what's called a Hunter-Killer. HK, for short. It's a machine designed to hunt down and kill any human being; high-level robot brain, built-in weapons, fuel-cell power supply."

The two just stared at him. Reese pulled his jaw up, hoping he didn't look as poleaxed as Mary.

"Have you ever heard of Skynet?" Brock asked.

They nodded. "The DOD super-computer," Reese said.

"Well, Skynet isn't just a computer anymore. It's sentient, and it's decided that we're its enemies and that it's got to kill us all.

It's taken over all the automated factories and has them turning out machines like the one you saw. And since the military foolishly turned over all of its computer functions to Skynet, that computer now controls our military. It's been sending out all kinds of orders and directives.

"Not just supposedly from the army and so forth, mind you, but also from the civilian leadership. Which, like the upper echelons of the military, no longer exists." Brock stopped and let them take it in.

"How can you be sure of that?" Reese asked.

Brock leaned back with a sigh. "All those VIPs ran to all those hardened bunkers, leaving you and me and the rest of the world to deal with Armageddon while they waited it out in cushioned comfort. Unfortunately for them, the same fools that gave Skynet control of all the weapons also gave it control of such minor functions as the life support for those same hardened bunkers."

He started to chuckle, then waved a hand. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. But I always did kind of resent those guys."

"Me, too," Mary said. Reese glanced at her in surprise.

"Further," Brock continued, "none of our fearless leaders has actually been seen. We've heard broadcasts on the radio advising us to keep up our spirits and to report to the camps, but they've never visited any camps." He leaned forward, wagging a finger.

"And I betcha if you asked around in the military, nobody's seen any generals, either."

Reese sipped his tea and reflected that he had been thinking that things weren't as organized as they should be. More like you'd expect World War II to have been.

"The big worry now," Brock said, "is that Skynet actually has human allies. Deluded fools who think they're saving the earth by depopulating it. They're under the impression that they'll get to live in bucolic splendor. But actually, as soon as it has enough machines, Skynet'll be killing them, too."

He pointed at Mary. "So you heard right, little lady. They probably did start that epidemic. And you two"—he gestured between them—"must have rocked the boat somehow, so they want you both dead. So, if you do go back to the relocation camp and try to tell them this story, which the innocent won't believe anyway, they'll just pack you off to 'central command' again.

Only this time the guilty will send some of Skynet's human helpers along to make sure you don't get away next time."

Dennis and Mary thought about it.

Finally Mary shook her head. "But we have to do something,"

she said. "Someone is deliberately poisoning people in the Black River Camp. We can't just sit by and do nothing. How can we fight this if we just hide out?"

"Okay," Brock said. "Say they catch these guys red-handed putting their poison in the water, or however they're spreading it. What happens next?"

Dennis shifted uncomfortably. "They'll contact HQ and lay out their case."

"And HQ will do what?"

"They'll have the prisoners and the evidence and maybe even some of the witnesses sent to, uh, central command," Mary said.

"Never to be seen again," Brock concluded. "Look, people, you've done your best by warning them about what you overheard. Now you have to decide where your efforts will do the most good. We're gaining strength here all the time. A lot of army and National Guard guys have joined us because of things they've seen that convinced them something skanky is going on."

"Deserters," Dennis said grimly.

"Can you desert an organization that doesn't really exist anymore?" Brock asked.

"We have no evidence of that," the lieutenant protested. "An absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence."

Brock studied him silently. "I shouldn't do this," he said. "But I've got a feeling about you two." He stood up. "C'mon with me, I want to show y'all something." With a gesture he included Mary.

"Have you ever heard of Sarah Connor?"

Dennis blinked. "Yeah, she made an announcement before the bombs fell, telling people what was going on."

"So you believed her?" Brock said. He'd led them into another room of the cabin.

Reese rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I guess I did. Maybe not everything she said."

"Not at the time anyway," Brock said with a grin. "She's a very smart lady. I won't bother you with how, but she knew this was coming. So she recruited us, she financed us, and she taught us everything she could to help us survive. Let's be honest, folks; if you don't believe her now then you're in denial."

He pressed a series of knotholes in the paneling and a section of flooring swung up silently. Mary looked down into the hole where a wooden ladder disappeared in the darkness.

"What's down there?" she asked. "The Batcave?"

Brock laughed at that. "The Batcave. I like it. Go on down; the lights will come on automatically when you get to the bottom."

Mary just looked at him suspiciously, so Dennis went first. As promised, when his foot touched the dirt floor, a light went on. It was dim, but serviceable. Down a short corridor was a metal door; on the doorpost beside it was a keypad. Mary came down next, followed by Brock.

He led them along the short corridor and, blocking the keypad with his body, keyed in a code. The lock gave and he opened the door. They found themselves in a small, well-lit room containing a computer, a desk and chair, a file cabinet, and a young man of perhaps seventeen.

"My son, Ray," Brock said. He nodded at the boy and the door behind the desk clicked open. Brock led them through.

This time the room was long, narrow, and low ceilinged. The walls seemed to be plastic, as did the ceiling, the whole braced with metal. There were computers and what looked like communications equipment everywhere. About twenty people looked up at their entrance, men and women both, with men in the majority. Nobody seemed to be over forty; that may have been because everyone looked very fit.

"As you were," Brock said, and the small crowd went back to work. He turned to Mary and Reese. "What you've stumbled into is the resistance. Most people don't realize yet that we need one.

But after what you've seen, after the way you were handed over to that HK, you have to know that your place is with us, fighting against Skynet."

MONTANA

The landscape rolled around her, huge beyond imagining.

Sarah Connor felt like a bug on a plate as she roared south along 1-3; sometimes it seemed like the gray-green immensity of grass around her was moving while she stayed motionless. She was glad to be away from the towns—away from the stink of death, too, except for the odd victim of the first wave of the machine uprising, and the coyotes had cleared most of that away. Mostly the air was clean, dry, a little chilly for this time of year, but otherwise normal.

But things aren't normal at all, she thought grimly.

Cattle in a nearby field looked up and started to lumber away as she passed; she felt an obscure sadness at realizing that they'd become wary of humans and human sounds so quickly.

Sarah had decided to use main routes as much as possible since the quality of the roads made up in speed what they lacked in safety; she'd come south along the country roads that flanked the Judith River, and then back onto 1-3 near Hobson. Detouring around population centers and the little oblongs marked on her map as fallout footprints kept her out of radiation danger; at least, the counter said she hadn't picked up enough to worry about— enough by post—Judgment Day standards. The number of roentgens would have put any safety officer before that into screaming fits, and made a lawyer slaver.

There was little traffic, and what there was usually was official—which meant Skynet and its allies and/or dupes. So far she'd had no problem avoiding them; it helped that she was avoiding towns when she could.

Still worse here in the lower forty-eight than it was in Canada, she thought, pausing by the side of the road to take a drink from her canteen; the water had a nasty mineral aftertaste from the pills she'd had to add to it. Ears, stunned by days of the Harley's motor, almost ached with the quietness at first; after a minute or two she could hear the wind singing in the roadside wire.

She'd run across tons of abandoned cars and trucks and far too many unburied bodies. Canada had been in better shape, but only marginally, and it, too, was under martial law. Another reason to avoid towns.

She and John had organized resistance centers here, but Sarah didn't seek them out. Her task now was to get to Central and South America as quickly as possible and start up the food deliveries. This was no time for a grand tour.

But she was mightily tempted. She felt out of touch, and it was irksome, like losing one of your senses—one you didn't know you were counting on until it went missing. What was John doing? Where was Dieter? How was the resistance holding up?

And most important of all, what was Skynet doing?

Maybe I can pick up some information at the next town, she thought.

She was running low on alcohol and would have to stop soon to fuel up; during daylight, in this rural area, that shouldn't cause problems. She had four IDs, all extremely good. She also had beef jerky and small parcels of spices to trade for what she needed, and she expected to get a good rate of exchange. By now people were probably hungry for a taste of beef. She knew they were hungry for what was in her little packets.

Sarah pulled to a stop to check her map. With the engine quietly muttering, she suddenly heard another motorcycle revving, loudly, to the south.

No, more than one. In fact, there were quite a lot of them, if she wasn't mistaken. Just over that rise, and coming this way.

She decided to go back to the last exit and go around whatever was happening ahead of her.

It was unlikely to be a bunch of lawyers and CPAs out for a picnic with their families. John had asked her once about recruiting motorcycle gangs on the grounds that they were tough, somewhat organized, and seemed to be natural survivors, but she'd discouraged him.

"We're trying to save the world," she'd said. "They're trying to eat it."

As Sarah meandered back down the road, she wondered how big the rally was. And what does the army think of it? Would it bring the authorities running to break it up, or would they stay away, with the not unreasonable excuse that their plates were already full to overflowing? Skynet wouldn't care—in fact, it would feel a sort of cold mechanical glee at humans doing its work for it, unprompted.

And how were the bikers managing to gather without wholesale intergang slaughter taking place? Though they might have worked that out weeks ago after the bombs fell. Whatever.

As John had said, they were natural survivors, but then, so were cockroaches and lice, and she didn't want closer contact with them, either.

Sarah was going down the exit ramp slowly as she thought about the rally up ahead. Should she try and get a look at it from a distance, or should she just ignore it and carry on with her mission?

WWSD? she wondered idly. What Would Skynet Do?

She managed to pull the bike into a turn just before she ran into a rope snapped up to neck height. Sarah continued the turn, meaning to run, but three bikes rolled onto the ramp behind her.

Their filthy riders grinned evilly and chuckled at her near escape.

Shit, she thought. I don't have time for this. She heard bikes moving in behind her. Your move, she thought at them.

They hadn't gone for their guns, so she didn't reach for the Bushmaster in its scabbard by her right leg. She had some grenades on a belt under her jacket; that might be a better technique, but the sound of the explosion might bring half that rally running.

She moved her bike so that she could see the ones behind her as well. The sides of the off ramp were too steep for them to make an effective circle, which was lucky, because it offered an out—not a good one, but still, beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Yer supposed to say, 'What do you want?' Don'cha know that?"

Sarah looked toward the voice. Nobody here looked like a leader, but there was one guy a little beefier than the others.

These followers of macho legend probably looked up to that, so he might be the one to watch. As for what they wanted, she already knew that. They wanted to stomp her flat and take her stuff.

"It'd be polite to show us your face," a woman said. She was a well-built amazon, probably topped out at six feet, and her arms rippled with muscle. It had been so long since she'd bathed that her skin glistened with her own natural grease; her hair was a matted rat's nest that might once have been blond. It was fortunate that the weather was cold; otherwise the smell would be…

Unimaginable. Dear, God, Sarah thought, discouraged. Help!

I've fallen into a bad biker movie and I can't get out. Mel Gibson, where are you when we need you?

Sarah always wore a helmet. For one reason, it made it less likely she'd be recognized by especially vigilant cops. For another, she'd long since outgrown the fantasy that the wind in your hair was the feeling of ultimate freedom. The wind in your hair twisted it into impenetrable thickets and filled it with road dirt.

And if you spun out without a helmet, you could say good-bye to your face.

She figured she'd have to talk to them; hell, maybe she could actually talk her way out of this. "I don't want any trouble," she said.

The big guy laughed. "Hell, we figured that. If you wanted trouble, you would've just kept goin' straight."

His crew all laughed.

Sarah figured they were here for one of two reasons; either they couldn't hack it with the main group and so were looking for easy pickings on the outskirts, or they'd been assigned here by whoever was in charge to pick up any strays. Either way it meant that they weren't as tough as they were pretending to be.

On the one hand, that meant that she could probably take most of them; on the other, it meant that the group ego was bruised and they'd feel they had something to prove.

She'd better try talking first.

Sarah raised her visor. "So what's going on down there anyway?" She indicated the rally with a tip of her head.

As soon as she'd lifted the opaque visor, she sensed the disappointment in the males. Sarah knew she was way too long in the tooth for their taste. Sometimes she thought it a miracle that Dieter didn't find her so. But then Dieter didn't spend every day of his life getting a prostate massage from a motorcycle.

The group looked at one another and apparently decided they were bored enough to answer a few questions before the fun began.

"The supreme leader has decided that we should take over this part of the country," the big, muscular one said, leaning on his handlebars. "Get all the little farmers growing food for us in exchange for protection."

Again Sarah knew the answer but decided to be a good sport.

"Protection from what?"

"From us!" the smallest of them shouted gleefully, and they all laughed uproariously.

Sarah didn't roll her eyes, but the urge was almost irresistible.

Then the amazon started her bike forward and began to slowly circle Sarah.

"Y'know what might be fun?" she asked, never taking her eyes off their captive. She licked her lips. "Let's you and me fight."

The boys went wild, whoo-whooing fit to burst their own eardrums. The amazon grinned, holding her clenched fists up like a victorious boxer. "If you win, then you get to go, tax free. If I win… well, you won't need to worry about anything anymore if I win." Howls of laughter greeted this sally.

Jeez! Is there a camera around here someplace? Sarah wondered. Or have I stumbled onto the Tribe of the Cliche Speakers?

The girl wasn't a problem; Sarah knew she could mop the floor with her, big as she was. The problem was that fighting her meant getting off the motorcycle, leaving her vulnerable when she finally stopped kicking the crap out of the…

Brainless slut-bitch? Sarah thought. Yeah, that has a satisfying sound.

However, before she'd left home, she and Dieter had come up with something that should intimidate the small and the stupid, and this was an excellent time to deploy it. She dug her hands into her pockets and flung the contents in either direction.

Packets of gray putty with a short length of cord sticking out of them went skittering across the ground, and in Sarah's upraised hand was a black plastic sunglasses case with a big red button on top.

"That's C-4," she announced. "It probably won't hurt you too badly unless you're right on top of one. But it'll tear the hell out of your tires. And asphalt makes pretty good shrapnel." She let them think about that for a few seconds. "Like I said, I don't want any trouble. In fact, I mean not to have any trouble. But I'm perfectly happy to make trouble for you." She looked them all in the face. "So just stay right where you are and maybe I won't push this button."

Sarah turned her bike and glared at the men in front of her.

One of them moved aside, slowly, resentfully, and she drove through the gap and gunned it. She was almost 100 percent sure that they wouldn't come after her. And if they did, well, she could always use the thermite grenades.

On to Mexico, she thought, hoping she wouldn't run into any more world-conquering biker heroes. Because too many and I might just start agreeing with Skynet.

ALASKA

John flopped down into the battered desk chair and put his dirty, booted feet up on the gray metal desk. He whipped off his hat and sunglasses with a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Since that cyber-controlled seal had scarred it, his nose sometimes ached when he wore sunglasses for any length of time. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

It had been his first real command, he now realized.

One hundred and seventy-one people, slaughtered in the first moments of the Terminators' attack. And of the seventy-nine left, more than half were wounded, twenty of them severely. Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end.

His throat tightened painfully as he thought of the smallest victims. The sight of those tiny, broken bodies kept flashing before his inner eye. Don't let it go, his mother had advised him about things like this. Keep it inside, channel it into anger.

Controlling your anger, using it, will make you strong. Mom would know. He swallowed painfully and gathered up a sheaf of reports from the resistance cells across the continent.

One bit of luck was that one of the women was a nurse practitioner, who had greeted his gift of a liter of alcohol as though it was worth its weight in diamonds. There had been seven men who'd been in the military who seemed to be shaking down to a decent working team by the time he'd left them. And the moms that were left had taken the children in hand in an almost magical way.

"We can't stay here," John had said to the nurse when they'd patched up the worst of the wounds. "I'm going to take the bike and search for a likely place."

She'd nodded and waved him off as though said likely place would certainly be found. Though he'd thought at the time that a more unlikely place for a likely place would be hard to find.

Yet two miles down the road he'd found an almost invisible track leading to an abandoned lumber camp. The buildings had been log-built and so some of the walls were pretty sturdy. The roofs hadn't fared as well and only two buildings still had any.

They would probably leak like sieves, but they'd do for temporary shelter. There were even a couple of rusty woodstoves still in place. It was things like that that made John think God just might be on their side.

It would have to be temporary, though. Even two miles away from the slaughter site was much too close. Soon, if there was a relocation camp, Skynet would have them send out searchers.

And when the number of bodies didn't match their manifest, they'd go looking for survivors.

It was too close to danger, but it had still been a long haul for the kids and the wounded. Two miles is a long way to carry the deadweight of a wounded man or woman, especially on cobbled together stretchers. But Alaskans were a hardy bunch and they'd managed it with a minimum of fuss.

Though it had left him feeling naked, John had given his shotgun to a man who claimed to be a champion shot and a

"damn good hunter." He handed out a brace of hand grenades to the military types. It probably wouldn't do them much actual good, but it was better than nothing and therefore good for moral.

Then he'd left them, promising to send help. Which he'd done as soon as he could get to one of their encrypted satellite relays.

It might be a full day before that help arrived, but trucks and medical help were on the way.

John hoped someone would be there for his friends to find.

They were good people. Wearily he brought his feet down from the desk. Time to go to work, he thought. He glanced at the phased plasma rifle he'd taken from a Terminator. Time to get the resistance and himself rolling. These rifles, so handily provided by Skynet, would kill Terminators. Although he was certain that these easily destroyed first attempts would quickly be replaced by vastly more formidable models, thousands of them.

He picked up the plasma rifle. Ike's gonna love this, he thought. Until I tell him he has to relocate to manufacture 'em.