The Future War

MISSOURI

Jack Brock came out of one of the cave complex's side tunnels and almost ran into Dennis Reese, charging in the same direction. The tunnels were a world of gray anyway—gray uniforms, gray faces if you'd been underground long enough, equipment painted with the new gray nonreflective paint that baffled mechanical sensors. Like most resistance centers, this one was also as much a gypsy encampment as a military center; people were born and raised here as well as training in it, and were sent out to fight from it. The air always bore a slight tang of wood smoke, seldom-washed bodies, and cooking food.

Reese stuck out his hand and Brock took it before he quite recognized him. Captain Dennis Reese looked like his own father might have, lean and grim and gray. It was hard to believe that this was the smiling young man Jack had married to Mary Shea just ten years ago.

Reese's looks shocked the older man to silence as they walked along, their boots rutching on the sand and rock of the cave floor; once they had to stop for a second while a group of screeching children ran by, playing some wild game—People and Terminators, probably.

He'd heard that Mary and Kyle's disappearance had hit Reese hard, but he'd expected that time might have smoothed off some of the rougher edges. It didn't look like that was the case, though.

What it looked like was a man eaten by his inner demons, and ready to unleash hell at the slightest provocation.

"It's good we're finally doing this," Reese said quietly as they followed the aides.

Brock knew that Reese had been agitating for a strike on the Skynet factory for two years now. It had grown to be the largest in the heartland and was possibly, at this moment, the greatest threat to the resistance in North America. From the moment his people had discovered it, Reese had insisted that it would be.

I don't imagine he's getting much satisfaction in knowing he was right, Jack thought. Especially knowing what a tough nut this thing's going to be to crack.

But Skynet was a canny machine. It had launched major attacks in Europe and Africa, then, when those didn't prosper, though Africa had been a near thing, it had launched a campaign in Australia. It had continued the strategy to this day, keeping the resistance off balance and shifting its small strategic reserve of troops and high-quality weapons hopping across the world. Rising in one area while it rebuilt in another. Now, apparently, it was North America's turn.

"He's here." That was Reese's commander, Colonel Symonds.

The three men looked at one another. Having John Connor in your mission was as good as saying, "We're going to win this one." It wasn't an ironclad guarantee, but it was as close as you were likely to get to one in this uncertain world. It gave the men a good feeling.

"How many people has he brought?" Reese asked.

"Lots," the colonel said. "And a shitload of weaponry the like of which these little outposts haven't seen since before Judgment Day. Plus stuff that didn't exist before Judgment Day—those captured factories are really starting to produce."

Brock's grin was unstoppable. "It's like Christmas morning and Santa has brought everything on my wish list."

"And a couple of things I didn't even think of," Symonds agreed.

He and Brock glanced at Dennis, who wasn't smiling, but still radiated satisfaction like heat. He'd long claimed that the factory was the reason his wife and child had disappeared. Destroying it was going to make him a very happy man.

They continued on to the area that had been turned over to Connor and his people. Jack found himself with butterflies in his stomach. Amazing, considering he'd hosted John Connor when he was a kid. At the time he'd considered the visit a kind of babysitting job and had shamelessly used John's services to look after his own daughter. Now here he was, sweaty-palmed at the thought of shaking the man's hand. Funny how things turn out, he thought.

An aide met them at the entrance and led them to a curtained-off area where John was just putting a piece of paper onto a table dragged in for this conference. He looked up and smiled; the scarred face had lost all trace of youth, and settled into a weathered grimness that would probably remain much the same until he reached his sixties.

"Jack," he said. "Good to see you. How's Susie?"

"Outshinin' her old man more every day," Brock said. He extended his hand across the table and John took it in a firm grip.

"Colonel Symonds," John said, offering his hand. After they'd shaken, Connor turned to look at Dennis Reese. He stared, unmoving, looking him over from head to foot as though he was some alien presence.

Jack thought he didn't know who the captain was. "This is Captain Dennis Reese," he said. "He heads up the outfit here in the Ozarks."

"Of course," John said, sitting down. "My apologies, Captain. I went totally blank there for a moment. Please, have a seat, gentlemen."

Other commanders filed in and the seats were rapidly filled.

To Jack's surprise, John allowed two of the other men at the table to describe the factory and to show satellite photos of its rapid growth over the last six months. Then General Vedquam outlined the plan of battle while his aide distributed the order of battle to the others.

Connor listened respectfully and asked a few questions. All very nicely done, Brock thought. John allowed Vedquam, as the leader in this area, to do the talking and to assume battlefield command. But at the end of the day everyone at the table knew who was really in charge. You could tell it by the questions he chose to ask, never mind the deferential manner in which he asked them. The man radiated authority.

"What about the human presence?" John asked.

"Some are Luddites," Vedquam said. "Though the Luddite presence has decreased markedly in this area over the last year.

There are still a small number who seem to visit the facility, apparently to get supplies." He put down his pointer and sat at his place. "There are the usual signs of human habitation—small vegetable gardens, unprocessed human waste, and the occasional body. Going by the size of the food plots, we're assuming no more than a hundred or so prisoners."

"We'll need to be careful," John said.

"Yes, sir. We've made certain that the troops will be advised."

John slapped his hands down on the arms of his ancient office chair gently. "Excellent," he said. "If there's nothing else we can do here, I'm sure everyone has a mountain of work waiting for them."

Everyone rose, most talking with one of their counterparts, and began to move from the makeshift conference area. Reese and Brock followed behind Colonel Symonds. Jack turned before they went through the curtain and saw John giving Dennis Reese a most peculiar look. Then Connor noticed Brock watching him and smiled. Jack smiled back, gave a thumbs-up, and turned away. But the moment left him with the strangest feeling that something beyond his ken was going on.

* * *

Kyle had company with him the next time Mary saw him.

Whether it was a girl or a boy was impossible to tell, not that it mattered. The two of them were crouched down behind a dormant stamping machine, quiet and still as the machine itself; the dim-ness of the echoing metal halls stretched back into what seemed like infinity, as if the whole world were a place of metal and scurrying machines and fear, scented with the ozone reek of terror.

Mary crouched down near them. She wondered how far Skynet monitored its prisoners. Did it know what the Luddite had told her?

"The resistance is still fighting," she said quietly. Kyle's eyes brightened and he leaned forward excitedly. "But Skynet is gearing up for a big push. It's built this place up." She frowned.

"You remember when we came in here, the whole valley was filled with the factory?"

Kyle nodded.

"Well, the place is much bigger now. It goes on for miles instead of acres, Sam says. There are people locked up there that we've never seen."

"Yes'm," Kyle said. "I knew that. There aren't a lot of people, though. Most of the ones left are hereabouts."

Mary looked at them. "Sounds like you've been all over the place."

The two children nodded.

"So what is it that you kids do, exactly?"

"We have chores," Kyle said. "Cleaning mostly. But where we do 'em and how long we take's usually up to us."

His mother shook her head in puzzlement. "Why would it let you do that?"

"I think it finds us interestin'," Kyle's friend said in a curiously rough little voice. "The Terminators are al'ays lookin' at us, like they's measurin' us. Y'know? When I's little I thought they's gonna eat me when I got big enough."

When you were little? Mary thought in wonder. The child would barely top her waist. "Are either of your parents here?"

she asked gently.

"No'm. My ma was here once. But I ent seen 'er for I don'

know how long. An' I looked. I looked all ober this place. 'Course I cain't 'member what she looks like. 'Cept she had brown hair."

"You'd know her if you saw her," Mary assured him/her.

"Oh," Kyle said. "Mom, this is Jesse. Jesse, my mom."

"Jesse," Mary said with a smile and a nod, getting a more solemn nod in return. Not an awfully helpful name, she thought.

It could still be a boy or girl. I can't just ask, she would be insulted. And I couldn't blame him/her.

"Anyway," she said aloud, "Sam says that Skynet is getting ready for a big push and that it's really active around the factory.

Lots of HKs and Terminators all over the place. He was burned, he says, because he wasn't quick enough giving his designation.

So they're looking to kill right now, not to take prisoners." She bit her lip, looking at both of them, so young, so fragile. "I don't think this is a good time to try and get away."

"Mom…"

"Something is going to happen!" she insisted. "Soon."

"Something is happening right now!" Kyle said. "Mom, I'm goin' crazy in here! And you don't know what the new place is like. I do!"

"All right, tell me," she said calmly.

"This place is old; it's made so people can help the machines.

But the new place is made so the machines run each other. Jesse and me can barely squeeze through most places. And there's no people. Not a one." He was breathing hard in his distress. "And there's fewer people here all the time. You don't know that because you grown-ups aren't allowed to go places like we are.

There's no new people, Mom. Not ever."

"We have to go now, ma'am," Jesse said gravely.

Out of the mouths of babes, Mary thought. "Okay. Just let me see if I can at least get us some water to take with us, and maybe some food." And maybe Tia and Sally.

Then she looked at her son and decided to be selfish. The fewer who knew about this, the less chance of betrayal or accident. She didn't like it, but when it came to Kyle, she had to be ruthlessly practical. It was the only sure way to keep him alive.

* * *

"Well, this is a real battle," Dennis Reese said, a little surprised.

John Connor smiled a little, squatting, grim and silent, with the rest of the command group around a thin-film display beneath dead hickories—killed by the acid efflux from the Skynet Complex three miles away.

A line of actinic light lanced into the sky from a crew-served weapon nearby, and high overhead in the frosty blue sky something blew up in an improbable strobing ball of purple fire.

"Damn," Reese muttered.

"Mostly it doesn't try to use high-fliers anymore," Connor said, not looking up from the screen. "Not when we've got heavy plasma rifles available." He smiled again, a remarkably cold expression. "You know, it would be a lot better off if it had stuck to pre-Judgment Day designs. Plasma weapons and perfect dielectric capacitors are wonderful equalizers—lots of punch, not much weight."

"It has them, too," Reese pointed out.

"Yeah, but it doesn't need them," Connor said. "Anything can kill a human. It takes something pretty energetic to kill most of Skynet's ground-combat modules."

Columns of troops were moving up in the narrow wooded valleys that stretched all around them, local guerrillas and the assault troops John Connor had infiltrated over the past few months. They were sheltered by the crest lines. Sheltered until—

The warning came through the communications net a minute or two before they could hear the roar of the ducted fans. The command squad jumped into their slit trenches, barely slowing in their job of coordinating the resistance units; everyone in the marching columns hit the dirt, too. Around the perimeter were pre—Judgment Day vehicles, mostly four-by-fours of various makes; each of them had a light antiaircraft missile launcher mounted on it.

The RRRRAAK-shwoosh! of the missiles sounded almost the instant the Skynet fighting platforms cleared the crest lines.

Lines of light stabbed out from the fighting machines as they launched missiles and plasma bolts of their own, but one by one the twisting lines of the heat-seeking missiles found them.

"Of course, some of the old technology still works," Reese said.

His eyes met John Connor's. They nodded once, in perfect agreement, as the ruins of the HKs burned on the poisoned hillsides.

SKYNET

Things were at a desperate juncture. Skynet needed to drive the human fighters from the factory or it would inevitably lose the facility. If worse came to worst and it seemed that nothing would save the factory, Skynet had developed a recent innovation—a self-destruct sequence that would eliminate the plant and everything in it as well as obliterating several miles of surrounding countryside. ICBMs might be beyond its capacity to produce, but nuclear bombs were simply a matter of putting together the right materials.

It had set a part of its consciousness into a planning subroutine that would give it maximum advantage in the productivity of its factories before the humans discovered and moved against them. If it could determine the point at which they would make their move against the factories, it might be able to influence how many of them would become involved—luring in the greatest number for the kill. Thus if Skynet lost, then so did its enemies.

Of course, the resistance fighters would quickly learn the consequences of an attack on a major facility such as this one.

But by then it would be too late for a great many of them.

In this case, the humans had taken far longer to act than had been projected. Skynet had assumed that it was the presence of hostages within the facility that had held the humans at bay. For this reason it had continued to harbor the one hundred and three individuals long after they were no longer needed for productive purposes.

It couldn't see why, after all this time, the hostages had suddenly become unimportant to the invaders. Unless they never had been important and Skynet had been wrong about them from the beginning.

Its problem was that it could never truly predict human behavior. It could predict to certain percentage points, but never closely enough for certainty. That was why it had decided to retire its Luddite allies rather than use them as infiltrators. They could not be relied upon completely. It kept those Luddites that it had maintained isolated and heavily guarded, and they were working out splendidly. But that wasn't an option in field operations.

Hence its improvements in its Terminators. There were difficulties to overcome, but it estimated that in ten years or less it would have a viable infiltrator form of the unit. Should this conflict last that long.

Skynet watched the human soldiers crawl through its factory, and an ancient poem intruded itself: " 'Come into my parlor,'

said the spider to the fly." It would wait to initiate the destruct sequence. It wanted the maximum number of flies to die.

* * *

Mary boosted Kyle up, pushing on the soles of his feet to get his hips over the lip of the opening. All around them the machines clattered and screamed and whirred as they performed their various functions. She wished she had earplugs; the sounds were deafening, an eternal shrill threnody of nonlife.

Kyle had turned around and was offering his hands to give Jesse some help. Mary stooped to pick the child up when something shook the ground so hard they both fell. Around them the machines stopped and there should have been silence, but there were explosions and the whistle of rockets… and more explosions, and the savage crackling shhhh-WHACK of plasma bolts striking through their own self-created tunnels of ionized air.

Mary sat on the floor, listening. Then she stood and reached for Kyle. "We have to get out of here," she said. "Going out there is impossible. We wouldn't last two minutes in the middle of an attack."

"But, Mommm," Kyle protested.

"I know, honey. We've come this far…" She shook her head.

"But sometimes you have to retreat. And this is one of those times. Now come down! She hated to bark at him, but she had a mental image of Terminators pouring out of all the openings around them, and here they'd be where they weren't supposed to.

Another massive explosion shook the ground, as if the pavement were itself flexing like a giant drumhead beneath her feet, sending her staggering. Above her Kyle bit his lip,, then squirmed out and dropped into her waiting arms. Mary took hold of his shirt and Jesse's small hand, and led the children back the way they'd come. In the human part of the factory there were more places to hide.

* * *

Skynet detached forty T-90s to gather the human hostages in the only open space in the factory. A place the humans had named the punishment floor. Once they were gathered there, it would project an image of them to the fighters outside, threatening to kill them all unless the humans withdrew.

They probably wouldn't comply, but that was unknowable until it had been tried. It could also simply massacre the prisoners and not show that part. It might be more efficient, freeing the Terminators for more urgent duties.

Skynet decided to wait. The attackers might demand to see a living prisoner.

As soon as the Terminators began rounding people up, many chose to run and hide.

"Those who hide will be killed on the spot when they are found," he announced in Kurt Viemeister's voice. It caused some to hesitate long enough to be taken. It had found that humans tended to obey when it used its programmer's voice.

* * *

Mary had chosen the spot the first year they'd been here; since then she'd provisioned it with food, water, and blankets from the clinic. Now she yanked off the access panel and shoved the two children in ruthlessly.

"But, Mom," Kyle said.

"Get in there and stay there as long as you can," Mary said.

"But they'll kill anyone they find hiding," Kyle protested.

"Then you better make darn sure they don't find you," his mother said. "Honey, I think our side's winning or the machines wouldn't be doing this. You two stay quiet and stay safe. You hear me?"

Kyle nodded, and after a moment Jesse did, too, looking surprised that's/he'd been consulted. Mary fitted the hatch back into place and stood. In the distance she could see the red-lit eye sensors of a T-90 coming her way. She quickly moved toward the punishment floor, praying they hadn't seen her hiding her son.

SKYNET

Suddenly all of its feeds went blank. Contact with the factory, and most important, with the fail-safe device, was lost.

Fortunately it maintained contact with the Terminators outside the factory and all of its HKs. It directed a squad of T-90s to get into the factory and to proceed to the fail-safe device, which they would then activate. It ordered its remaining HKs and Terminators to launch a final mass attack as a distraction.

Skynet couldn't contact the T-90s within the factory and had to rely on their programming to see them through until the fail-safe device was deployed.

No satellites were in position to give Skynet a direct view of what was happening. However, if the T-90s succeeded in their mission, the explosion would be evident, even if there was a slight delay in receiving direct images.

* * *

Mary knelt beside Tia and Sally; the three women held hands and for the most part avoided eye contact. For her part, Mary didn't want to break down and cry, and she assumed her friends felt the same way. It looked to Mary like this was everybody.

Though she didn't really know how many of them there were.

Some faces that she'd expected to see were missing and there were strangers in the crowd. Only two children were present—one quite young, and one quite tall. Maybe they couldn't find a place to hide, she thought.

The noises of battle continued, though there were far fewer earth-rocking blasts from above. Mostly they heard heavy machine-gun fire or the hissing blast of a plasma rifle. Everyone kept their heads down and stayed as still as possible. The Terminators ringed the prisoners; they were even more immobile than the terrified humans.

Except for their heads, which moved continuously back and forth, sweeping the small crowd in search of some forbidden movement.

* * *

Dennis Reese slipped through the machinery like an eel, his attention everywhere at once, senses on high alert. All around him, men and women crept through the silent factory in teams, moving like well-oiled machines themselves. Their night-vision goggles were operating on the UV level, making everything clear in a strangely colorful way.

Out of the darkness a pair of circles emerged and Dennis raised a clenched fist to stop the squad's forward motion.

Everyone froze.

He waited; the circles turned away. Still he waited, and soon he began to see more of them, sometimes just a sliver of light spaced in a rough circle. Terminators. And they were guarding something in an open area. Nothing interrupted his view of the T-90s farther away, though bits of machinery came between him and the nearest Terminators.

He counted at least thirty and estimated a good ten more that had their backs to him.

Caught the metal motherfuckers napping this time, he thought happily.

He'd have to signal the platoon to open fire. The best way to do that was to open fire himself; his mouth drew up into a stiff smile as he laid the sight picture on the head of a Terminator fifty yards away.

He was grinning as his finger took up the slack on the plasma rifle's trigger.

Sssss-WHACK!

* * *

Kyle pushed gently on the metal of the access hatch, keeping tight hold on the inside of it lest it fall and bring every T-90 in the place down on them. The cooler air outside felt wonderful, and he just sat there letting the sweat dry for a moment, listening as he did so.

Jesse touched him lightly on the back—part question [is it safe?), part demand [let me out of here!). Kyle moved cautiously forward, then slowly stood, listening in the pitch dark for anything that might indicate danger.

Suddenly plasma beams slashed the blackness, making him cry out as his eyes suddenly tried to adjust back and forth between brilliant light and stygian darkness. There were cries coming from the punishment floor, too, and he thought he'd seen a Terminator, for just a second, raising its plasma rifle. He dropped and began commando-crawling toward the floor. His mother was there!

* * *

Mary lifted her head cautiously, her heart pounding so hard she felt nauseous. Is it over? she wondered. Around her the prisoners shifted and stirred. Suddenly a flashlight went on and she winced away from it; though it was probably very dim, it still hurt. She opened her eyes to slits and looked around. Seeing got easier as more lights appeared.

Through veils of smoke, human figures moved. Mary brought her legs forward, raised her hands, and slowly lifted her body from the floor. "I'm human," she called, and the light found her.

Beside her, Tia and Sally also sat up. Sally was sobbing and Tia put an arm around her shoulders. That's when Mary realized that she was crying, too. All around them people were sobbing or starting to laugh.

"Everybody stay calm, and stay down," a man called out.

"Dennis!" Mary shouted. She looked around frantically, seeking the source of that dearly loved, terribly missed voice.

After a long moment she heard, "Mary?" spoken in disbelief.

In an instant she was on her feet and moving toward the voice. In the dim light she could see him coming toward her and she began to laugh and cry at the same time. They met and flung their arms around each other, holding on as though they'd never let each other go.

"Mary, sweetheart," he said, and kissed her passionately.

The taste of her tears salted their kiss and Mary didn't know if she was crying or laughing, but she'd never in her life been happier. His arms around her were painfully tight and she loved it, she loved it.

* * *

Kyle stood at the edge of the light and watched his parents in wonder. He knew the soldier for his father, though with helmet and uniform he looked just like all the others. And yet… this was undeniably his father. It wasn't just the way his mother was kissing him. He'd have known him anywhere and his heart lifted.

He took a step toward them.

At the outer edge of the circle a shattered T-90 raised its rifle and fired. The flash of blue plasma shot through the two entwined human figures and they dropped to the ground so suddenly that for a moment the movement made no sense.

"Nooooo!" A child shot from out of the dark and raced toward the fallen couple. "Mom! Dad!" he screamed. He fell to his knees beside them, tugging at their bodies, weeping hysterically.

Behind him another child stopped, looking on in distress, but clearly not knowing what to do. Every plasma rifle in the place had taken a shot at the T-90 that had fired. It lay partially melted, the orange glow quickly cooling to gray. All around, the soldiers and freed prisoners shifted as their shock lifted, and they looked at one another, equally helpless.

Then, through the dim light and the shifting smoke, a man appeared. Eyes sought him, and a whisper went through the crowd: Connorjohnconnorconnorconnor.

"You people," he said as he moved among them. He stood looking down at the weeping boy until the child looked up at him. "Come with me if you want to live."

CHA