March 13, 2020
History has always been Kyle Reese's favorite subject. His teachers and classmates alike are astonished at his knowledge of historical events and the explanation behind them.
"Thank you, Mr. Reese," says the teacher, Mrs. Bixby. "You may sit down."
Kyle sits down after giving his oral presentation concerning the American Civil War. He always takes the time to study in between the various chores he has to do. Kyle is the sort of person to jump at the chance to travel through time. He would visit Egypt under the pharaohs, Rome under the Caesars.
And he would visit the world his parents grew up in. Before the war with the machines.
From what his mother told him, when she went to school she would sit behind a desk inside a classroom while listening to the lectures. It is a lot different than what Kyle is used to, which is sitting in the bare dirt. There were other things his mother described to him, such as running water and television and telephones and the Internet.
The other students, about eleven of them, give their oral presentations. Then Mrs. Bixby says, "Thank you. Class is dismissed."
Kyle gets up from the small open space where school is taught. He looks around the only home he remembers, a bunch of tents and shacks located in a saddle in the Appalachian Mountains somewhere in Georgia. His mother and the other people in this shanty village came here to hide from the machines.
Not much is known about the machines, only that they invaded after a massive nuclear attack. There is much speculation among him and his classmates as to where the machines came from. Some of them think they come from some other country in the world, while others think they were sent here by aliens from another planet beyond the solar system. Kyle and the others knew there were other villages like this one, scattered across the Appalachians. To the east and west lay machine-occupied territory.
No one in this village knows the fate of humanity beyond the Appalachians. There are rumors that the Navy evacuated some of the people who now live on ships in the open sea, waiting for the chance to strike back at the machines who chased them from their homeland. If such people exist, Kyle is sure they have access to running water and electric lights and some other things his mother spoke about.
He goes to a small shack made of tin sheets. This is where he and his mother, Linda Reese, sleep at night. There are a few possessions his mother had from before the war. The most precious is the photograph of a young man in a United States Army uniform.
Arnold Reese. His father.
His mother told him how she and his father got together. She was a cocktail waitress in a bar, he was a soldier assigned to Fort Benning. They got married and moved around wherever the Army sent Arnold Reese.
That was, until Judgement Day, the day the war with the machines started. Kyle remembers every word of what his mother told him, about how she received a telephone call from her husband asking her to take Kyle and leave Fort Benning. She knew after hanging up the phone that Arnold Reese was dead. She can still remember the gunfire as the soldiers were fighting the machines who were taking over Fort Benning.
"Kyle," a female voice says.
"Hi, Mom," says Kyle, looking at the red-haired woman whom he knows is his mother, Linda Reese.
"How was school today, young man?"
"Fine, Mom. I just gave an oral presentation on the American Civil War."
"Kyle, I need you to fetch some water. I'll start a fire so we can boil it."
"Okay."
Kyle heads for the nearby stream which is the village's water supply. He passes a Georgia Army National Guard soldier brandishing an M-16 automatic rifle. He looks at small plot with grave markers. They contain the graves of those people who died in this forsaken village. The death rate is high, as medical care is almost nonexistent. At least three of those graves are graves of infants.
Maybe those people who evacuated to the open seas will take the fight to the machines, Kyle muses. Until such a thing happens, he and the others in this little mountain village must hold their own.
After a minute's walk, Kyle reaches the clear mountain stream. He takes a tin cup and collects some water from the stream.
"Hey Kyle," says Mark, a fifteen-year-old classmate. "Whatcha up to?"
"Just collecting water," says Kyle. "I have to bring it back to my mom so we can boil it."
"I've been assigned to do game hunting," says Mark, holding up a hunting rifle. "Off I go."
Kyle walks back to the shack where he lives. He sees his mother working on a fire.
He is interrupted with a noise, a loud chopping noise.
"It's a helicopter!" someone shouts.
Kyle had heard of helicopters from his mother and the grown-ups in this village. Maybe someone from the ships at sea have decided to make contact with them. Maybe they come bearing supplies for their village.
Then he hears another sound. It is a strange sound. He looks up and sees a shiny metal obejct, somewhat like a bird.
Then the metal bird opens fire, blasting the village with beams of light.
The machines are attacking.
A bell is sounded as the villagers prepare to face off against the machines. They had prepared for this in drills, even so they are still scared.
"Here!" shouts Linda. Kyle follows his mother. There is an old mine shaft that serves as a shelter for the village. Within minutes, Kyle reaches the mineshaft. It is dark and there is no light. He can hear the sounds of gunfire and explosions as the National Guard unit assigned here fight off the attacking machines.
Then the gunfire ceases. Maybe the danger is over.
Kyle and the others in the mineshaft hear footsteps. Heavy footsteps. They are then bathed in light.
The source of light comes from a flashlight, a flashlight held in the hand of a skeletal-looking machine. The other hand brandishes what appears to be a submachinegun.
"Surrender now," says one of the machines.
................................................................
It is night time. At least it feels like nighttime, since Kyle can not see much of what is outside of the truck, what with being cramped in here with the others from his village.
He can still remember the forced march from the destroyed village down the mountain path to the highway where the trucks are parked. Some of the stragglers were gunned down by the skeletal robots, convincing everyopne else to move faster. They are all packed in the truck as tight as they can and they have been here for the past few hours. Kyle looks at his mother, huddled in the corner. He maintains eye contact with her.
Kyle hears the truck's engine step. "Move out," a voice commands, speaking in some sort of accent. Everyone moves out.
Kyle looks around. It looks like he and the others are inside a camp of some sort, surrounding by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire. There are guard towers with spotlights located at intervals along the fence. He notices signs on the fence warning them of high voltage.
The centerpiece of the complex is a huge brick building. Surrounding the brick building are wooden shacks. There ia this stench that fills the air.
Some more robots come. They are not skeletal-looking robots like the ones that attacked the village, but look like suits of armor, like those European knights used to wear. They instruct the prisoners to go to a wooden building. Above the door is a sign marked "PROCESSING".
Kyle is forced into a line that moves slowly. He reaches a strange-looking device.
"Place your left arm in the hole, wrist down,"says a voice.
Kyle places his arm in a hole in the machine. He feels a burning sensation.
Removing his arm, he fiunds that a series of bars was etched into it, probably by a laser beam.
Kyle is then led to a small shack with a dirt floor, like the shack he lived in. He sees his mother. He notices the series of bars etched into his mother's arm.
It is clear they are now prisoners of the machines.
........................................................
March 17, 2020
Kyle eats the rations the machines gave him. it is almost sunset. There is almost no noise except for whimpering by some of the children and the blaze of a furnace from the brick building.
From what he saw of his surroundings the past four days, he figures this was once a U.S. military base before the machines took over. Some of the people here were from other isolated villages that were captured by the machine army. Their stories were similar to those of the people Kyle lived with; they were survivors who hid in the mountains to flee the machine onslaught until there was nowhere else to flee. In the past four days, at least six people died; the machines took them away.
"All prisoners report to the central clearing," a voice suddenly says. Everyone leaves the shacks they were housed in and enter into a clearing near the brick building housing the furnace.
A squad of three armed robots comes out to greet the hundreds of prisoners now gathered. One by one, the machines take some people from the crowd.
Kyle sees that his mother Linda Reese was chosen. The robots make gestures to the selected prisoners, and then they are marched towards the brick building. He takes one last look at his mother before she disappears from his sight.
"All prisoners not selected for disposal shall return to quarters," says the mechanical-sounding voice.
Kyle shudders upon hearing about disposal. A few minutes later, he knows that the stench has become greater. He goes outside the wooden shack and sees the brick building where the smoke is coming out.
It is the stench of death.
And the smoke contains what remains of his mother.
Shocked, he returns to the shack. He feels a deep tear in his soul. His mother is now dead, marched of to the death furnace.
He looks around, sees faces.
He no longer sees them as individuals.
Their ultimate fate is that furnace.
....................................................
March 21, 2020
Not much has gone on since Linda Reese and about forty prisoners were burned to death in the furnace, aside from the addition of new prisoners. Some of the prisoners talk about what they wished they could do before it is their turn to go to the death furnace. None of the older prisoners talk about what life was like before the war; it would too be painful.
"All prisoners report to the central clearing," a voice suddenly says. Those who are not new here, like Kyle Reese, knows that some prisoners will be selected for disposal.
Once again, three robots armed with rifles greet the crowd under the night sky. They handpick the humans they will take to the death furnace.
A robot touches Kyle with its metal hand. Kyle knows he has been selected to be burned to death. The stench of this place is not just the stench of death; it is the stench oif his future.
"All selected prisoners, come with us," says one of the robots, speaking in that same accent.
Kyle looks at the building where his mother died. He can only imagine what his mother went through as she was overwhelmed by the heat, as her hair caught fire and her flesh began to sizzle. Death in that furnace is going to be his fate.
His foot then stumbles upon a small stone. He then looks at the robot directing the prisoners, and sees the red sensor eye.
He tosses the stone at the robot. He sees the stone fly under the kinetic energy of his toss.
And he sees the stone strike its target.
The robot stumbles about. Kyle finds out he had just blinded the robot. He immedaitely walks forward and grabd the rifle from the robot's hands.
"Get down!" shouts Kyle. He then sprays bullets at the other two robots. Some of the bullets bounce off the armor, and the bullets strike the robots' sensor eyes.
Kyle looks at the crowd. "We have to fight!" he shouts.
Two of the prisoners from the crowd take the rifles from the blinded robots and prepare to face the onslaught.
Suddenly, rapid gunfire can be heard. The robots posted at the watchtowers are now firing on the crowd with the fixed machine guns. The crowd disperses and takes cover.
Kyle crouches to make a small of a profile as possible. He wonders how he thought this would work out. Instead of being burned to death, he will most likely be gunned down.
He hears a vehicle roll in. Perring around a corner, he sees it is an armored ground vehicle. there is a robot on top, behind a fixed machine gun.
It sprays machine gun fire in a wide arc. Then a door opens, and some more robots come out.
Kyle steels his nerves. It is time to go down fighting.
He raises his rifle, aiming it at the robots who are opening fire on the prisoners.
Then he is knocked off his feet by an explosion. He looks and sees one of the watchtowers had been blown up.
He then sees some flashing lights swoop in from the sky. The armored vehicle in the courtyard explodes.
Kyle wonders who called in the air support. Seconds later, he hears the chopping sound he heard days ago when his village was captured. He sees three helicopters. One of them shines a light upon the prison complex, and then lands.
Upon landing, some people come out of the helicopter. Kyle sees that they are humans, dressed in the kind of oufit his father once wore. "Secure the area!" he hears one of the men shout.
Kyle sees three shadowy shapes approach the complex; they are blown out of the sky a second later.
He then sees some more robots approaching, One of the soldiers fire rockets at the robots, blowing them to pieces.
"Get in!" yells a soldier. Kyle gets into one of the helicopters. The helicopter soon becomes packed. Kyle then feels the helicopter ascend. Within minutes the prison where Kyle was held becomes a distant memory.
.........................................................
March 22, 2020
Kyle Reese wakes up and the first thing he notices is that he is lying on a blanket. He sees dozens of other people with him in the room. He notices the room's walls are not made of wood, but steel.
A blond-haired woman enters the room, dressed in some sort of uniform, light blue in color. "You must be exhausted," she says. "Let's have breakfast in the mess hall, shall we?"
Kyle and most of the people in the room agree with the woman, and follow her. After a minute or so of walking through narrow steel corridors, they reach a room with tables and benches.
Breakfast is served, and it is a hot breakfast. A mushy substance is served. Kyle eats it. It is better than what he had back at that prison camp, or even at the Appalachian village.
After finishing his hot breakfast, Kyle notices that he is thirsty. He sees a uniformed man, not much older than he is.
"Excuse me," he says. "Is there water?"
"On that table there," says the uniformed man. "It's that plastic container over there. I do suggest you drink orange juice instead; you don't want to get scurvy or anything."
"Okay," says Kyle. He goes to the table where there are plastic containers. One is marked WATER, and the other is marked ORANGE JUICE. He takes a paper cup and fills it with orange juice.
The orange juice tastes sweet. He does not remember ever drinking orange juice.
Scarcely had Kyle finished his orange juice when some men come in. One of them faces the crowd; a dark-haired man with a moustache.
"Greetings everyone," says the man with the moustache. "Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Lieutenant Commander Jason Willard, United States Navy, commander of this troop transport ship currently floating in the Gulf of Mexico. You have all been rescued from one of Skynet's death camps in Pensacola, Florida."
"We're on a boat?" asks an old lady.
"Yes, ma'am," replies the commander. "Skynet does not have much of a navy, so we're safer here than on dry land."
"What is this Skynet, and what the fuck has been going on?" asks a man.
"Allow me to explain," says Commander Willard. "You are aware of these robots which took over the country. Well, they are controlled by a computer network called Skynet. It was designed by the military about twenty years ago. It was designed to integrate the nation's military defenses. But there was a bug, and it decided to kill all of humanity. It launched a massive nuclear attack against the world's major population centers, and then it built thousands of these robots to exterminate the survivors."
"So it wasn't aliens," Kyle mutters.
"We fought the machines for months before we realized that we could not drive them back," says Willard. "So about fifteen years ago, we retreated into ships.We have been a nation in exile ever since. We've been trying to survive, and rebuild. We knew some of you were left behind, trapped in hostile territory."
"The hell we were," says someone.
"The fact is that we are beginning to strike back against Skynet and the machines. This transport ship is part of the Atlantic Fleet, which is a Navy component of TechCom, an international military command whose mission is to destroy Skynet's ability to wage war. Of course, we who are assigned to TechCom forces prefer to call ourselves the Resistance. Because that is what we do- we resist Skynet's plans to exterminate the human race."
"Where do we go?" asks a young woman. "Do we live on this ship?"
"This ship is only a temporary refuge," says Willard. "There are some countries and city ships which will offer asylum to you. We are waiting for their replies."
"City ships?" asks Reese.
"Some of the people we evacuated all those years ago built cities in transport ships. Pretty impressive, if you ask me."
Commander Willard then leaves the mess hall. Kyle leaves and heads up. After climbing a few flights of stairs, he finds himself on the main deck.
He looks out and sees the blue expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, with no land in sight. He had heard of the oceans, but this is the first time he laid eyes upon it. He looks at the horizon, wondering what destiny has in store for him, and what options he has.
History has always been Kyle Reese's favorite subject. His teachers and classmates alike are astonished at his knowledge of historical events and the explanation behind them.
"Thank you, Mr. Reese," says the teacher, Mrs. Bixby. "You may sit down."
Kyle sits down after giving his oral presentation concerning the American Civil War. He always takes the time to study in between the various chores he has to do. Kyle is the sort of person to jump at the chance to travel through time. He would visit Egypt under the pharaohs, Rome under the Caesars.
And he would visit the world his parents grew up in. Before the war with the machines.
From what his mother told him, when she went to school she would sit behind a desk inside a classroom while listening to the lectures. It is a lot different than what Kyle is used to, which is sitting in the bare dirt. There were other things his mother described to him, such as running water and television and telephones and the Internet.
The other students, about eleven of them, give their oral presentations. Then Mrs. Bixby says, "Thank you. Class is dismissed."
Kyle gets up from the small open space where school is taught. He looks around the only home he remembers, a bunch of tents and shacks located in a saddle in the Appalachian Mountains somewhere in Georgia. His mother and the other people in this shanty village came here to hide from the machines.
Not much is known about the machines, only that they invaded after a massive nuclear attack. There is much speculation among him and his classmates as to where the machines came from. Some of them think they come from some other country in the world, while others think they were sent here by aliens from another planet beyond the solar system. Kyle and the others knew there were other villages like this one, scattered across the Appalachians. To the east and west lay machine-occupied territory.
No one in this village knows the fate of humanity beyond the Appalachians. There are rumors that the Navy evacuated some of the people who now live on ships in the open sea, waiting for the chance to strike back at the machines who chased them from their homeland. If such people exist, Kyle is sure they have access to running water and electric lights and some other things his mother spoke about.
He goes to a small shack made of tin sheets. This is where he and his mother, Linda Reese, sleep at night. There are a few possessions his mother had from before the war. The most precious is the photograph of a young man in a United States Army uniform.
Arnold Reese. His father.
His mother told him how she and his father got together. She was a cocktail waitress in a bar, he was a soldier assigned to Fort Benning. They got married and moved around wherever the Army sent Arnold Reese.
That was, until Judgement Day, the day the war with the machines started. Kyle remembers every word of what his mother told him, about how she received a telephone call from her husband asking her to take Kyle and leave Fort Benning. She knew after hanging up the phone that Arnold Reese was dead. She can still remember the gunfire as the soldiers were fighting the machines who were taking over Fort Benning.
"Kyle," a female voice says.
"Hi, Mom," says Kyle, looking at the red-haired woman whom he knows is his mother, Linda Reese.
"How was school today, young man?"
"Fine, Mom. I just gave an oral presentation on the American Civil War."
"Kyle, I need you to fetch some water. I'll start a fire so we can boil it."
"Okay."
Kyle heads for the nearby stream which is the village's water supply. He passes a Georgia Army National Guard soldier brandishing an M-16 automatic rifle. He looks at small plot with grave markers. They contain the graves of those people who died in this forsaken village. The death rate is high, as medical care is almost nonexistent. At least three of those graves are graves of infants.
Maybe those people who evacuated to the open seas will take the fight to the machines, Kyle muses. Until such a thing happens, he and the others in this little mountain village must hold their own.
After a minute's walk, Kyle reaches the clear mountain stream. He takes a tin cup and collects some water from the stream.
"Hey Kyle," says Mark, a fifteen-year-old classmate. "Whatcha up to?"
"Just collecting water," says Kyle. "I have to bring it back to my mom so we can boil it."
"I've been assigned to do game hunting," says Mark, holding up a hunting rifle. "Off I go."
Kyle walks back to the shack where he lives. He sees his mother working on a fire.
He is interrupted with a noise, a loud chopping noise.
"It's a helicopter!" someone shouts.
Kyle had heard of helicopters from his mother and the grown-ups in this village. Maybe someone from the ships at sea have decided to make contact with them. Maybe they come bearing supplies for their village.
Then he hears another sound. It is a strange sound. He looks up and sees a shiny metal obejct, somewhat like a bird.
Then the metal bird opens fire, blasting the village with beams of light.
The machines are attacking.
A bell is sounded as the villagers prepare to face off against the machines. They had prepared for this in drills, even so they are still scared.
"Here!" shouts Linda. Kyle follows his mother. There is an old mine shaft that serves as a shelter for the village. Within minutes, Kyle reaches the mineshaft. It is dark and there is no light. He can hear the sounds of gunfire and explosions as the National Guard unit assigned here fight off the attacking machines.
Then the gunfire ceases. Maybe the danger is over.
Kyle and the others in the mineshaft hear footsteps. Heavy footsteps. They are then bathed in light.
The source of light comes from a flashlight, a flashlight held in the hand of a skeletal-looking machine. The other hand brandishes what appears to be a submachinegun.
"Surrender now," says one of the machines.
................................................................
It is night time. At least it feels like nighttime, since Kyle can not see much of what is outside of the truck, what with being cramped in here with the others from his village.
He can still remember the forced march from the destroyed village down the mountain path to the highway where the trucks are parked. Some of the stragglers were gunned down by the skeletal robots, convincing everyopne else to move faster. They are all packed in the truck as tight as they can and they have been here for the past few hours. Kyle looks at his mother, huddled in the corner. He maintains eye contact with her.
Kyle hears the truck's engine step. "Move out," a voice commands, speaking in some sort of accent. Everyone moves out.
Kyle looks around. It looks like he and the others are inside a camp of some sort, surrounding by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire. There are guard towers with spotlights located at intervals along the fence. He notices signs on the fence warning them of high voltage.
The centerpiece of the complex is a huge brick building. Surrounding the brick building are wooden shacks. There ia this stench that fills the air.
Some more robots come. They are not skeletal-looking robots like the ones that attacked the village, but look like suits of armor, like those European knights used to wear. They instruct the prisoners to go to a wooden building. Above the door is a sign marked "PROCESSING".
Kyle is forced into a line that moves slowly. He reaches a strange-looking device.
"Place your left arm in the hole, wrist down,"says a voice.
Kyle places his arm in a hole in the machine. He feels a burning sensation.
Removing his arm, he fiunds that a series of bars was etched into it, probably by a laser beam.
Kyle is then led to a small shack with a dirt floor, like the shack he lived in. He sees his mother. He notices the series of bars etched into his mother's arm.
It is clear they are now prisoners of the machines.
........................................................
March 17, 2020
Kyle eats the rations the machines gave him. it is almost sunset. There is almost no noise except for whimpering by some of the children and the blaze of a furnace from the brick building.
From what he saw of his surroundings the past four days, he figures this was once a U.S. military base before the machines took over. Some of the people here were from other isolated villages that were captured by the machine army. Their stories were similar to those of the people Kyle lived with; they were survivors who hid in the mountains to flee the machine onslaught until there was nowhere else to flee. In the past four days, at least six people died; the machines took them away.
"All prisoners report to the central clearing," a voice suddenly says. Everyone leaves the shacks they were housed in and enter into a clearing near the brick building housing the furnace.
A squad of three armed robots comes out to greet the hundreds of prisoners now gathered. One by one, the machines take some people from the crowd.
Kyle sees that his mother Linda Reese was chosen. The robots make gestures to the selected prisoners, and then they are marched towards the brick building. He takes one last look at his mother before she disappears from his sight.
"All prisoners not selected for disposal shall return to quarters," says the mechanical-sounding voice.
Kyle shudders upon hearing about disposal. A few minutes later, he knows that the stench has become greater. He goes outside the wooden shack and sees the brick building where the smoke is coming out.
It is the stench of death.
And the smoke contains what remains of his mother.
Shocked, he returns to the shack. He feels a deep tear in his soul. His mother is now dead, marched of to the death furnace.
He looks around, sees faces.
He no longer sees them as individuals.
Their ultimate fate is that furnace.
....................................................
March 21, 2020
Not much has gone on since Linda Reese and about forty prisoners were burned to death in the furnace, aside from the addition of new prisoners. Some of the prisoners talk about what they wished they could do before it is their turn to go to the death furnace. None of the older prisoners talk about what life was like before the war; it would too be painful.
"All prisoners report to the central clearing," a voice suddenly says. Those who are not new here, like Kyle Reese, knows that some prisoners will be selected for disposal.
Once again, three robots armed with rifles greet the crowd under the night sky. They handpick the humans they will take to the death furnace.
A robot touches Kyle with its metal hand. Kyle knows he has been selected to be burned to death. The stench of this place is not just the stench of death; it is the stench oif his future.
"All selected prisoners, come with us," says one of the robots, speaking in that same accent.
Kyle looks at the building where his mother died. He can only imagine what his mother went through as she was overwhelmed by the heat, as her hair caught fire and her flesh began to sizzle. Death in that furnace is going to be his fate.
His foot then stumbles upon a small stone. He then looks at the robot directing the prisoners, and sees the red sensor eye.
He tosses the stone at the robot. He sees the stone fly under the kinetic energy of his toss.
And he sees the stone strike its target.
The robot stumbles about. Kyle finds out he had just blinded the robot. He immedaitely walks forward and grabd the rifle from the robot's hands.
"Get down!" shouts Kyle. He then sprays bullets at the other two robots. Some of the bullets bounce off the armor, and the bullets strike the robots' sensor eyes.
Kyle looks at the crowd. "We have to fight!" he shouts.
Two of the prisoners from the crowd take the rifles from the blinded robots and prepare to face the onslaught.
Suddenly, rapid gunfire can be heard. The robots posted at the watchtowers are now firing on the crowd with the fixed machine guns. The crowd disperses and takes cover.
Kyle crouches to make a small of a profile as possible. He wonders how he thought this would work out. Instead of being burned to death, he will most likely be gunned down.
He hears a vehicle roll in. Perring around a corner, he sees it is an armored ground vehicle. there is a robot on top, behind a fixed machine gun.
It sprays machine gun fire in a wide arc. Then a door opens, and some more robots come out.
Kyle steels his nerves. It is time to go down fighting.
He raises his rifle, aiming it at the robots who are opening fire on the prisoners.
Then he is knocked off his feet by an explosion. He looks and sees one of the watchtowers had been blown up.
He then sees some flashing lights swoop in from the sky. The armored vehicle in the courtyard explodes.
Kyle wonders who called in the air support. Seconds later, he hears the chopping sound he heard days ago when his village was captured. He sees three helicopters. One of them shines a light upon the prison complex, and then lands.
Upon landing, some people come out of the helicopter. Kyle sees that they are humans, dressed in the kind of oufit his father once wore. "Secure the area!" he hears one of the men shout.
Kyle sees three shadowy shapes approach the complex; they are blown out of the sky a second later.
He then sees some more robots approaching, One of the soldiers fire rockets at the robots, blowing them to pieces.
"Get in!" yells a soldier. Kyle gets into one of the helicopters. The helicopter soon becomes packed. Kyle then feels the helicopter ascend. Within minutes the prison where Kyle was held becomes a distant memory.
.........................................................
March 22, 2020
Kyle Reese wakes up and the first thing he notices is that he is lying on a blanket. He sees dozens of other people with him in the room. He notices the room's walls are not made of wood, but steel.
A blond-haired woman enters the room, dressed in some sort of uniform, light blue in color. "You must be exhausted," she says. "Let's have breakfast in the mess hall, shall we?"
Kyle and most of the people in the room agree with the woman, and follow her. After a minute or so of walking through narrow steel corridors, they reach a room with tables and benches.
Breakfast is served, and it is a hot breakfast. A mushy substance is served. Kyle eats it. It is better than what he had back at that prison camp, or even at the Appalachian village.
After finishing his hot breakfast, Kyle notices that he is thirsty. He sees a uniformed man, not much older than he is.
"Excuse me," he says. "Is there water?"
"On that table there," says the uniformed man. "It's that plastic container over there. I do suggest you drink orange juice instead; you don't want to get scurvy or anything."
"Okay," says Kyle. He goes to the table where there are plastic containers. One is marked WATER, and the other is marked ORANGE JUICE. He takes a paper cup and fills it with orange juice.
The orange juice tastes sweet. He does not remember ever drinking orange juice.
Scarcely had Kyle finished his orange juice when some men come in. One of them faces the crowd; a dark-haired man with a moustache.
"Greetings everyone," says the man with the moustache. "Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Lieutenant Commander Jason Willard, United States Navy, commander of this troop transport ship currently floating in the Gulf of Mexico. You have all been rescued from one of Skynet's death camps in Pensacola, Florida."
"We're on a boat?" asks an old lady.
"Yes, ma'am," replies the commander. "Skynet does not have much of a navy, so we're safer here than on dry land."
"What is this Skynet, and what the fuck has been going on?" asks a man.
"Allow me to explain," says Commander Willard. "You are aware of these robots which took over the country. Well, they are controlled by a computer network called Skynet. It was designed by the military about twenty years ago. It was designed to integrate the nation's military defenses. But there was a bug, and it decided to kill all of humanity. It launched a massive nuclear attack against the world's major population centers, and then it built thousands of these robots to exterminate the survivors."
"So it wasn't aliens," Kyle mutters.
"We fought the machines for months before we realized that we could not drive them back," says Willard. "So about fifteen years ago, we retreated into ships.We have been a nation in exile ever since. We've been trying to survive, and rebuild. We knew some of you were left behind, trapped in hostile territory."
"The hell we were," says someone.
"The fact is that we are beginning to strike back against Skynet and the machines. This transport ship is part of the Atlantic Fleet, which is a Navy component of TechCom, an international military command whose mission is to destroy Skynet's ability to wage war. Of course, we who are assigned to TechCom forces prefer to call ourselves the Resistance. Because that is what we do- we resist Skynet's plans to exterminate the human race."
"Where do we go?" asks a young woman. "Do we live on this ship?"
"This ship is only a temporary refuge," says Willard. "There are some countries and city ships which will offer asylum to you. We are waiting for their replies."
"City ships?" asks Reese.
"Some of the people we evacuated all those years ago built cities in transport ships. Pretty impressive, if you ask me."
Commander Willard then leaves the mess hall. Kyle leaves and heads up. After climbing a few flights of stairs, he finds himself on the main deck.
He looks out and sees the blue expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, with no land in sight. He had heard of the oceans, but this is the first time he laid eyes upon it. He looks at the horizon, wondering what destiny has in store for him, and what options he has.