Title: Every Darkness Shall Have Light
Author: gega_cai
Pairings: Kyle Reese
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some disturbing imagery (dead bodies).
Summary: Young Kyle waits for the chance to be free.
Disclaimer: Characters and other likely inventive scenarios based on the world created by James Cameron and William Wisher Jr.
Author's Note: Fic takes place when humans were nearly on the brink of total genocide and Kyle was a Sonderkommando.
Every Darkness Shall Have Light
by gega cai
A distant horn bellows out across a scorched landscape. It is an endless stretch of gated fields and buildings that exhaust grey and black puffs into the sky. It's always dark here. There is no sun to be seen; only the blinding lights of aerial Hunter-Killers and watch towers cut through the thick blanket of ash.
It's another day of the same task. The rumbling sound of the horn is a farce. But, the crowds do as they're instructed. They obey the signal to leave their position and rest so that they can wake to do it all over again.
Kyle Reese is one of so many here. He's young but clever, which is why he has survived longer than the rest of the group he was captured with. He can not remember the last time he saw a face he had seen more than once. It seemed so important to remember faces when he first got here.
Kyle had just lifted the body of a young woman when the sound came to stop. She must have been in the middle of a raid. Her body had been here for awhile, though. Bones at her joints poked out from the charred skin. The burned flesh flaked and broke off in little chunks from the pressure of him lifting her against himself. Kyle was fortunate with this one, though. Her face was gone and it spared him the expression that so many of the bodies had; their last moments were silenced but the horrified protest on their faces were almost always left behind.
With as much respect as he could offer, he gently laid her back where he had scooped her. Somehow, her arm had tangled around his. Her skin had attached to the back of his sleeve and he worked to carefully get free from her. Kyle stood above her and the bodies all around him. He turned his palms over to see that they were stained black with the dead. There was a time when he would try, in vain, to wipe it away on his clothes. But, it didn't matter anymore.
Kyle joined the line of others that were leaving the fields of dumped bodies. Every ten yards was an infiltrator on watch. They weren't as sophisticated as the ones at the gates. Instead, they were older and subject to all weather and terrain conditions that people endured while they disposed of the bodies. They were easy to hear and spot in the distance with their bulky, weather damaged metal bodies groaning and grinding as they patrolled. The sound of bones crushing under their weight also warned of their approach.
Kyle was clever, though. Like a predator that spots the weakest, he was familiar with each machine and their flaws. After 200 yards, Kyle snuck past an infiltrator that had seen better days.
Kyle made his way to a salvage yard that he found shortly after arriving at the camp. Not much was here, which is why it was ideal to hide here. Most of what was salvaged was not of any use or importance to Skynet. The machines simply threw random items and relics of the 20th century based on their calculations of what might be useful.
Kyle ducked into a shelter he constructed under a heap. An old man that Kyle met before he was taken to the camps had taught him how to recognize and use lead. The old man said that it blinded them. They couldn't see through it if they didn't think to.
Lying back on a thin bit of fabric, Kyle thought to himself: This is what it is to exist. I carry the dead away so that they will be forgotten. But I'll never forget their faces...
Kyle woke up to the sound of the bellowing horn. He had less than two minutes to fall in line with the others or his entrance would be too late and seen by the infiltrators watching and waiting for any anomalies. Carelessness was not an option even if seemed like there was nothing different or changed from the day before except the faces of the dead and living. Kyle was noticing that there weren't many people working today. There must have been a problem the night before. They must have killed many...
"Hey!" a whispered cry came from behind Kyle. Kyle ignored it; experienced taught Kyle to ignore what could not be controlled. The cry of another person and the want to answer or help was a wish for death.
"Hey, listen..."
Kyle continued his task of lifting one body after another in a large wheel barrel. The voice continued.
"I've seen you around before. You're the only one I've seen more than once. Yeah, don't look at me. They'll see," the voice paused. Kyle looked over his shoulder to see a thin man carrying the rotted corpse of a younger man. He had looked away at an infiltrator that was over looking their progress. He looked back at Kyle and nodded.
"They say there's a man fighting the machines. He escaped a camp in Mexico. He's got people --an army! Do you think it is possible? You think a man could get out of this place?"
Kyle stared blankly over the bodies and began to imagine himself running hard. He managed to pass infiltrators and the streaking pulse rounds of their rifles. He was almost there; the edge of the camp was in sight. He could see light in the distance. God forsaken light! The blanket of ash was lifting away and the light shown through. Kyle's lungs and limbs burned with each foot he dug into the the earth to get away. There was a distant hum of an aerial Hunter-Killer coming in fast, but it didn't matter. Kyle's hand was outstretched in front of him. If he could only grab at it. Freedom was just out of his reach...
The crunching of human bones alerted Kyle to the approach of an infiltrator. The machine was a few yards away from the thin old man. Kyle had managed some distance between himself and the man. His instincts were right, the old man was careless and the infiltrator managed to see it. In an instant the thin man was gone along with the helpless young woman he was trying to talk to about some lie of escaping. Kyle gritted his teeth and looked away from the shameful sight. Who could be so foolish to try and escape? Who would sacrifice everything just to be a man again? Kyle would, but, he knew it wasn't his time yet. He wasn't ready. None of these people were ready.
Could there be such a person out there? Was there a man alive to lead others to fight and show that sacrificing everything was worth it? If there was such a man, Kyle wanted to meet him.