It has been a month since our less-than-chance encounter with the agents of Skynet. There are ten of us now. According to plan, we have assimilated more stragglers. I am now certain that Mars has U.S. military training. He has been accepted as the commanding authority figure by all who we have absorbed into our group. I believe most of our newer companions believe that I am his son. It is a misconception he has not dispelled, so I will not correct him. It is possible he is using me as a deterrent, to protect his daughters, and even Aaron, for whom I believe he harbors at least some affection. I intended to remain silent, and to unobtrusively integrate myself. Infiltration units previous to me were infiltration in the basest and most superficial sense of the word. They were not able to withstand anything more than moderate scrutiny. I am made to be adaptable, however, and as long as I can withstand the scrutiny, a position of authority would be optimal to execute Skynet's plan, and to execute my own. The humans will view me as odd, but certainly not a machine. There are machines stalking us still, without a doubt, but none of them have attempted to establish contact.

Mars is not just using me as an implied threat; he has grown fonder of me. I can tell. So has Tanya, though her father must have warned her not to ruin the illusion he has built for her protection. Predictably, that has only heightened her interest in me. I have attempted to reason with her; to direct her attention towards Aaron. Perhaps he is a different kind of man when compared to her father, but there is something to be said for men who are not forced by circumstance or personality to be heroes. For one, less people tend to die around them.

I am now quite comfortable with most of the stories that will comprise my past. I have taken the opportunity to create details in my mind. Since I discovered the secret of sarcasm, I have occasionally put it to use, with great effect. It has offered me more leeway in my speech...I can now say things with frightening honesty and be regarded as mirthful, if not snide. We are on a road that is still more or less paved. It was once a major highway. There will undoubtedly be patrols. I hope Skynet maintains control over them. I'm sure that at some point, it released machines with standing orders to eliminate humans on contact. Establishing radio contact can be challenging at times in the canyons, and we may encounter a machine willing to kill anything resembling a human; especially when it comes to the notoriously finicky two wheeled G series. When Skynet was engaged in the capture of humans for the eventual creation of my brain, the series of highly mobile, gyroscopically stabilized machines--the G series--was notorious for exterminating them instead. Eventually, Skynet recalled most of the G series machines for a period of time, but they were released again as soon as it was permissible to exterminate humans.

I was wrong in my original assessment. Mars is not surveying. He is planting alarms along a route. He expects or knows that more humans will be coming. We will be at the human control camp in a matter of days.

"So I hear you've killed a bunch, mister." I look at the adolescent boy who is staring at me. Killed a bunch. Machines. Anthropomorphism at its most optimistic.

"I've taken a few apart."

"I heard from Mr. Mars that you killed one single handed." The youth, Cody, is looking up at me. He carries a large revolver, but I do not think he has ever used it. I could be wrong.

"You never kill machines," I tell him. "And I didn't get it all alone. Mars was behind it shooting at the same time, and at the end it dropped a rock on itself."

"A rock?" The boy has had too many daydreams about killing robots. I sit down across from him. His uncle, one of the other humans we have attracted, watches us.

"Cody, if you wanted to kill a robot, how would you do it?"

"Shoot it, like you did!"

"That was a very lucky shot, and it wasn't my gun that stopped it. I waited for it to make a mistake. You can't try to take them on by doing what they do...they are better than us at shooting and running and killing."

"You still did," Cody replies.

"I tricked it." It is true. Lying does seem somewhat wrong to me, but I find myself disturbingly adept. I can usually find a way to make the truth palatable. I have been deceiving Skynet since it released me into the wild.

"How do you trick them?" Cody is listening ardently. I wish that all the humans were as concerned as he seems to be.

"You do something they don't expect, or in a way they don't expect. They are machines...so they have to be rational."

"So I outsmart them?" Cody will not outsmart the machines. Neither will any other human. Or me, for that matter.

"The machines are too smart...Remember what I said at trying to beat them at their own game?" He nods. "You need to take advantage of their weaknesses."

"What are the weaknesses?"

"If I knew that, this war would be won. Most of their weaknesses we make. If its hand is hurt, make it do something that requires two hands. If its leg is hurt, do something that requires two legs."

"Like climb?" A Tx with one leg and two hands functional could climb better than a human.

"I don't know about that. Maybe if its hand or arm is hurt. If its leg is hurt, maybe a distance run over uneven terrain."

"Why run away?" Cody asks predictably. "It's hurt, why not kill it?"

Destroying the machine would be the first choice. "It's not very likely that you will kill it, even if it's a little hurt." I adapt to his speech patterns and anthropomorphize the machine. "If you can definitely run away, or maybe kill it, always, always, always run away." I have seen Cody's uncle say the same words three times to emphasize. Cody should be familiar with the speech pattern. I look to his side. "Let me see your gun." Cody displays the weapon with pride. It is a Colt Python. It is an exceptional handgun; far more useful on humans or delicate machines than Tx series terminators. It appears well maintained.

"Do you know how to shoot it?"

"Of course" Cody says. He sounds offended. I attempt to smile again.

"I bet I can make you better." A few of the other humans are watching now. It may have been a faulty strategy to focus their attention on him. He pauses for only a moment, before he asks me.

"How?"

"Take out the bullets." He looks at me for a few moments, then breaks the gun open and unloads it. "Now show me how you shoot." I watch him. He has a well-developed frame and good form. He is probably a very good shot. I see only one thing that I can suggest which will appreciably affect his performance. "You are tightening your whole hand when you shoot. Try moving just your trigger finger, like this:" I hold up my hand and demonstrate. It goes contrary to what many humans are told in instructional paraphernalia or by trainers who learned an older way. A steady lever-like push of the trigger is more accurate, if he can do it. "If it doesn't work for you, don't do it. But you should..." I do not finish. Aaron, who has been staring northeast through a night vision monocular, cuts me off.

"Incoming Motos!" The camp springs to life. Mars is suddenly standing next to me. He is holding a small black box. As I watch, he buries it partially in the grit next to the road. "Motos" are what the humans call G series machines, that two-wheeled patrol and pursuit machine which even Skynet views with some trepidation.

"Sometimes these work," he mutters. "Everyone go now. Not to the side! I need them both to come by this point! Straight down the road!"

"What is that?" I ask him.

"No time. Run."

"I can run it towards them and slip off the road. It will give you more time."

He looks at me as though I am crazy. By human standers I certainly am. "You know they're IR. They'll pick you a klick away and mow you down." Regardless of his talk, he has already made his decision. He is a man of action.

I flash him my thermal blanket. "I can hide. You said this doesn't always work. If it doesn't, I can fire on them in the dark, while I still have the advantage. By that point they will be aware of you." G's are an impulsive and finicky unit. The will become fixated on a target and pursue it relentlessly, even to the point of ignoring other targets. They are pursuit units, built to pursue, even to a fault. If I can become their primary target, they will ignore the other humans until I am destroyed. They are also heavily armed, and by logic it will be more difficult for them to hit a single mobile target executing evasive maneuvers than it will be to tag a random human while firing into a crowd. Mars undoubtedly knows this, so he has to consider why I am acting heroically. If he thinks I simply want glory he may command me to follow the humans.

He reluctantly slips a black remote control into my hand. "Use this when they are as near to the box as they are going to get." He starts to run after the others, but stops. "You have some range. Don't get yourself killed." I nod and scoop up the box. I trot towards the machines until I am out of sight to Mars, and then I run towards them. I calculate that the machines are eight kilometers away. I cannot imagine them making more than two kilometers a minute, and if they are actively searching, it will be more like one. It is dark, and the lack of reliable reference points makes it difficult to judge their true speed. Given those numbers, I have less than three minutes to contact, if I am moving towards them at a respectable speed. I will have to ensure that they detect me first. Mars and his group will be lucky to make it one kilometer in four minutes, within the G's range of notice. Ten to fifteen seconds after that, they will be nothing more than moving targets. The land surrounding the road is flat enough to allow the G's to travel off-road, if they must. And they will.

After a minute, I realize that the machines are moving somewhat more slowly than I anticipated. They are still two kilometers away from me. I could move faster, but I would leave a thermal signature in the air...more than I am leaving now. I run for another fifteen seconds, bringing us a half a kilometer closer. Then I place the small grey box in a bit of scrub by the side of the road and kneel, shoveling dirt rudely out of my way and pulling my thermal cover from my pack. Skynet would be sad that I am using its own gift to hide from its creations. If it could be sad.

I cannot move too much soil, because it will release residual heat and water vapor into the air. I can only hope as I lay blindly in my polymer prison that I have shielded myself adequately. I countdown the seconds until they approach me. They are searching, but it is not a deep search; or they are traveling somewhat slower than I had anticipated for reasons unknown. I calculate that they were traveling at just over one-point-five kilometers per minute. When they pull alongside me, I can hear it, and I assume they have detected me. My concealment is partially successful. They do not detect me until they are almost on top of me.

I trigger Mars's device as I rise. Immediately I identify the theory behind it. Skynet's early G series patrol units had unshielded relays, and this device takes advantage of that by broadcasting an interfering radio signal. If the machines are early ones, the signal will intercede with their controls in a catastrophic way. They will be unable to maintain stability or use weapons, or any other function that is external to their processing unit by more than one relay. I cannot determine by sight alone whether these units are so affected.

I am, however, greatly affected. The signal does not affect the machines as it does me. To me, it is simply an excruciating noise; pain beyond pain. I close my eyes tightly and force my hand to maintain pressure on the plain remote. Somewhere on a suddenly distant highway I can hear gunfire from medium machine guns. The signal has failed to disable one or both of the machines. I fumble for my gun but cannot get it drawn. The pain is too severe. There is no chemical cocktail to kill my pain, therefore there is no physical trauma to my body; yet. I am trying to run, but it is more of a stagger. I head the way the machines came. At the very least, it will force them to stop or slow and re-orient, and if they continue to fire during pursuit perhaps one with hit the other. I know the box has stopped, but the pain has not, and I can no longer function. I do not think I have been shot yet. Perhaps I have bought Mars and my fellow humans enough time to find cover beyond the road. At least fifteen seconds have gone by. That's a kilometer, at speed. Even more when they are in pursuit. I drop to my knees in the scrub grass and sandy soil, trying to hold the thermal blanket around me as I do. It is my last hope.

I don't know how much later I awaken, but Mars is standing over me.

"You're too damned brave for your own good." He is smiling. I do not understand. He must have dispatched the G's while they were pursuing me. He holds something black in his hand. It is the remote. I know it fell out of my hands when I lost consciousness. "Doesn't always work, but when it does, it's a show!" I tilt my head, which Tanya is holding. There are two hunks of metal smoldering on the road. "I don't know how long you held that button down, but it shut them completely down." I attempt to talk but my mouth fails to function.

"Shhh," Tanya says. I do not want to deal with Tanya right now, but it would be inhuman to recoil from her touch. I have never felt a pain approaching what I felt with Mars's grey box. I must analyze it when I get the chance. I struggle to my feet; literally. It is a fight to maintain balance, and the rest of the humans are watching me. I make my way over to the first of the machines.

The radio frequency generator worked on the G series patrol machines, which indicates to me that they are older. Their power supplies will either be almost drained, relatively speaking, or fresh. I slip my fingers under the hole-riddled cowl of the first machine. It is still hot, as if it is an animal recently deceased. I jerk quickly, and the light rivets securing this particular cover pop free. I slide the power supply from its cradle and check the external indicator. It is nearly fresh. The humans watch me. They are un-dubitably curious. Mars has seen this before. Cody attempts to perform the same operation to the second machine, but is obviously far too weak. I smile weakly and pretend to help him only slightly. It is difficult, because I use only two fingers, but I manage to pry the panel lose. He thinks he has done it. I see no use to correct him. The second G series has les power available than the first, but it will be usable. As Cody watches me, I slide the power supply free. I turn to the rest of the humans. They are all watching me with some concern. My body still hurts a little. I drop back to the ground next to a large rock.

"I need a rest," I tell them. It couldn't hurt, either.

I awake the next day, feeling much better than the night before. My headache has all but disappeared and my legs feel strong again. We are naturally in a bit of a hurry to get off this long and flat stretch of road. It is a blessing that we ran into the G series machines. As deadly as they are, they occasionally will go an entire route in radio silence. I haven't terminated one of the human females, as Skynet commanded, so I am not in a hurry for another status report. If Mars is right, we only have another day before we reach the traveling base from which the humans organize their resistance.

Tomorrow I will move closer to the fate Skynet has chosen for me.