Chapter Six: Ensenada

Ensenada was a port city in Mexico on the Baja California peninsula, less than 70 miles south of the U.S. border. It had been a tourist city with a never-ending supply of gleaming white cruise ships docking near the long promenade, as it had been the day that the bombs fell. A single cruise ship now lay on its side half-submerged in the dark, polluted water, a giant amongst the clustered colourful buildings that spread from the coast over the hills that rose out away from it. The city was near enough to the targets of the primary attacks that it was not considered for the secondary attacks conducted by the stealth bombers, so it was mostly still intact. The loss of human life here would be slower, but more efficient in the long run for Skynet.

It was a city that had seen the fall of society in the weeks that followed the blasts. As the sky flashed with burning light, the people fled indoors and waited. The buildings were plunged into darkness as the power failed and communication with the outside world had ceased. After the dust settled, the city's police force took to the streets donning gas masks and weapons, ready to secure the food supplies and maintain order, but order was quickly ignored in the face of starvation. The people quickly realised that they have always outnumbered the police.

Groups formed and soon became gangs of raiders, taking to the ashen streets to seize whatever they could to survive at the cost of others. Riots became all out shootouts and the streets became piled with bodies. The higher the casualties, the better off the survivors were as there was more food to go around. When the shooting subsided and silence fell, the sickness took over. Nobody was properly prepared for a major atomic event, and the black rain and pollution had taken many of the remaining survivors. Most of the city's population had died by the year's end, and Skynet hadn't even gotten started yet.

The dark clouds above were fading and the skies were becoming brighter, but the outside world was still grey and largely inhospitable. Sarah Connor drove slowly up the long, straight highway through the wide agricultural landscape to the south, keeping a keen eye on her surroundings for any signs of life. Eventually, when she was past the farmland and into the more built-up streets of the upcoming city, she made a right-hand turn through the residential suburbs towards the encroaching mountain range that bore many hiking trails and offered a clear view of the landscape. Rendered houses painted in pascal shades lined both sides of the road behind iron fences and the palm trees that ran between the lanes were long since dead.

Sarah had taken to exploring the northern region of Baja with the pickup truck that she and John had repaired—the one that Sarah had found Jolanda and her children in—and headed north to see if she could survey Skynet's progress and to salvage anything useful. She would perch on a hill to the east of Ensenada, avoiding the built-up areas and staying out of sight, and look out over the city through her rifle scope. The city looked deserted and ruined, the rows of dark windows on the buildings seeming to stare back at her from the distance. Everything was still. It had been five years since the blasts, but Sarah was still unsure of Skynet's physical reach or their number, especially outside of California.

The city looked deserted, but the dark windows and entranceways always instilled a certain fear in her, one she could not shake. She had been watching the city for a while, no longer sure what she was looking for, when eventually she heard the sound of gunshots. She focused her scope on the area where she thought it came from and watched. She could just make out the sound of people yelling through the soft breeze. Watching, she saw movement on an intersection and focused her scope on it, her rifle steady in her hands as she lay prone on the hill.

Four men, their faces covered with rags and cloths, were running towards a waiting van, joyfully firing their weapons behind them. One of them was carrying a young woman who had a bag tightly on her head, struggling against them as they forced her into the back of the van. The men jumped in after her and the van sped off, wheels screeching, out of view behind the buildings. Sarah knew who they were. Raiders—armed gangs that used violence to take advantage of the desolate land. The oldest form of slavery was rampant in this new world, and Sarah knew better than to wander alone too far through a crumbling city that could be hiding any number of unknown people. She could still hear the sound of the van's engine roaring as it sped through the ruined city, fading away into the distance.

More people now entered her scope's view of the intersection, presumedly the group that the woman was taken from. They were most likely her family. They were distraught, an older couple of the group collapsing in hysterics. It was a hopeless scene to watch as one by one, the family members slowly walked away back out of view, unable to do anything.

Silence again.

Sarah lowered her rifle and stood up from the ground. She had seen enough. There was no sign of Skynet here yet, but it would still be a dangerous area for her and John to try to pass through. She returned to the pickup truck and started the engine, ready to head back south to the bunker, wondering if she could have done anything to change the outcome of the scene that she had watched. She could have fired at them, but it was all so fast she doubted whether he bullet would have changed anything. It filled her mind as she made the long drive back.

Back in the radio room, John Connor stood up from the concrete floor. He had just finished his round of push ups and was ready to cool off after his daily workout. He looked at the dusty clock on the wall; his mother would be back soon. He had wanted to go with her on her scouting trips, to get out of this living tomb once in a while, but every time he tried, Sarah would tell him the same thing:

"No, John. You're too important!"

The truth was that she didn't yet know if John was the number one target marked for Termination in this world. The Skynet that she knew that was after him existed in the future in a different reality. The Skynet of her time, now, hopefully didn't know who he was yet, but that didn't stop her from worrying.

John felt as though she was saving him a later date. For years, he had been trained for the future—the very future that was happening outside now—getting him ready to take on Skynet's army of machines and lead the entire human race to victory. But despite his own mounting frustrations, he was being stored away here in this bunker when he knew that he could be out there, helping people now.

He sat at the desk and drank from his water bottle and adjusted the radio, listening out for any sound, any voice of authority that was ready to pull them back into daylight and give their lives direction. He held still for a second, hand still on the tuning knob, listening closely. He thought he heard something, though it didn't sound quite like a voice. He lost the signal and adjusted the tuner back a bit, moving it incrementally as the static faded into clarity. There it was again. It was a clicking sound, much like from some insect, but more complex, as though it was communicating an articulate thought. It sent a chill down his spine and he felt himself suddenly get cold. He listened to the rapid clicking, trying to imagine what could be making the sound. The clicks ceased for a moment and were replaced by a deep, demonic warbling sound as whatever was clicking was now vocalising.

A second set of clicks responded to the first, though the sound was fainter, as though not from the same location. John had never heard anything like this before and tried to determine if he were listening in on Skynet or not, but he couldn't fully believe that these sounds were coming from the machines. This was something else.

The transmission stopped suddenly and the momentary silence it left behind was then filled by the usual static as the signal was lost. John let out a breath and realised that he had been holding his whole body tense, as though he was scared to make a sound in case whoever was communicating would hear him through the radio speakers. Though he was in an underground bunker of steel and concrete, he felt incredibly vulnerable, like he had somehow been found and was now being watched.

The entrance hatch opened with a creak, and John jumped up in a panic as he grabbed a nearby handgun. He heard the familiar sounds of his mother climbing down the ladder, but it was only when she called out to him that he relaxed. He put the gun down before she walked in, not wanting her to know that he had been so panicked, though as soon as she saw him, she knew something was wrong.

"What's happened?" she asked, eyeing him knowingly.

"The… the radio did something."

"Did you hear the Resistance? Do you know where they are?"

"No, it was… I don't know. Something else."

Sarah stared at him for a moment, wondering what he could have heard that could get him so spooked. John looked at the radio as if expecting to hear the sound again, but he knew deep down that whatever it was that allowed itself to be overheard would not do so again. He spoke without taking his eyes off the radio.

"It must have been some interference…"

The sound never occurred again, and the incident was never brought up.

-xxx-

Over the next few weeks, Sarah returned to her perch on the top of the hill overlooking the former tourist city of Ensenada. Her rifle steady in her hands, she looked over every detail of the grey, ruined buildings, this time ready for any raiders if they showed up again. She waited, the still city seeming to watch her back, staring directly at her through her scope. Every time she visited, the streets were empty of life, only the bodies of the desperate and hopeful littering the ground. On this visit, however, something was moving on the horizon.

At first it looked like a silver helicopter, but instead of rotors, it was powered by two turbine engines, one on either side, that pivoted and rotated to steer and balance it. Sarah knew from Kyle Reese's stories that this was a HK-Aerial, a Hunter-Killer. Most likely Skynet's latest machine, or a prototype built at Cyberdyne. It flew towards the city from the north and hovered low just above the buildings, slowly moving along the main roads, its spotlights searching the streets. It emitted a low whine from its turbines, with dust and rubble kicking up from the ground.

Sarah felt a surreal excitement at the sight of it. It was like finally seeing something amazing that she'd only ever heard about, and this was a marvel of Skynet's capabilities that lived up to its reputation. She watched it from her hill, noticing its calculated movements and wondering why one of them was even in this city. Sarah had assumed that the bigger, deadlier units would be nearer to Los Angeles, patrolling near the underground bunkers of the Cyberdyne Systems building.

Suddenly, the HK-Aerial stopped moving and hovered in the air, seeming to focus on a particular residential block of houses to the north of the hill that Sarah was on. It fired its rockets at them, one after the other, destroying each of the houses in an explosion of fire. They collapsed with a loud rumble, a wave of dust rising up out of the empty ruins as they flattened. The HK fired repeatedly until all of the houses within the block were destroyed, the area now a flattened field of rubble.

Sarah shuffled backwards from her position on the hill. It was time to go. She stayed low as she ran down the old hiking train towards the pickup truck, the hill blocking the HK's view of her. She started the engine and sped towards the highway, putting as much distance between herself and the HK-Aerial as she could, always checking her mirrors for any sign of the bright spotlights behind her. None came, but she kept a close eye on the view behind her as she drove south in tense expectation.

When Sarah turned off the highway onto the dirt road that led to the base, something caught her eye. In the mirror, up above, she saw a red light glowing in the air. She stopped the car and turned to look at it properly. Up in the sky, blending in with the grey clouds, was a large metal drone, a few feet in diameter. Lightly armoured, the red eye sat behind two metal shields as it hummed, floating. It was watching her, and Sarah figured that it must have been following her since Ensenada. It was most likely streaming its feed back to the HK, which would be waiting to see if she led it to a human settlement before exposing itself. Furious at her own lack of awareness, Sarah climbed out of the pickup truck and pulled out her rifle. The drone was hard to bring down with it moving and zig-zagging as she lined it up in her sights, but after three loud shots, she took out its eye, wedging a bullet between the metal shields into its vulnerable hardware. Sparks burst from it and it dropped to the ground with a thud onto the sand.

Walking up to it, Sarah considered loading it onto the back of her truck and taking it back to the bunker to study it, but the wide open landscape that she was currently standing in provided no cover, and with the HK now possibly on its way, she would have nowhere to hide. She jumped back into the truck and sped off down the dirt road towards the junkyard, aware of the trail of dust rising behind her. When she arrived, she covered the pickup truck under a tarp and hurried towards the bunker's camouflaged hatch, straining her ears for any sound of approaching jet engines. She slammed the hatch shut and climbed down the ladder, then rushed past a bewildered John in the doorway as she ran into the generator room. Without explaining, she turned off the power, plunging the bunker into pitch-black darkness and silence.

Feeling her way through the room, she made her way out to the corridor. John didn't know what was happening, but he knew to whisper when he spoke.

"Mom? What's going on?"

"Followed. Get the guns and flashlights."

They felt their way in the thick silence of the bunker, only able to imagine what might be coming towards them. Sarah felt the metal cage of the gun storage and pulled out her key, unlocking it. She found one of the flashlights and turned it on, blinding herself momentarily as she did. She armed herself with grenades and an assault rifle, handed one to John, and then positioned herself across the corridor behind the doorway of the opposite room. John stood behind his doorway and looked at his mother, seeing the worry on her face.

"What was it?" he asked her, trying not to sound scared.

"Shh!"

They waited in the dark, silent bunker, their flashlights aimed at the entrance ladder causing shadows to move and dance against the wall behind it. Paco's chalk drawings were especially well lit along both sides of the corridor, the bright colours juxtaposed against the absolute darkness. Minutes passed, then they felt it. A low rumble gradually shook through the walls as the machine stalked the air above, sweeping the junkyard. Sarah could feel the vibrations changing as it moved back and forth, hoping that she didn't leave a trail to the hatch. She had already seen the damage it could do with its rockets—the bunker didn't stand a chance against a direct hit. The HK seemed to rumble and roar above them for an eternity, but eventually the sound faded to silence. Their ears were ringing as they sat deathly still, expecting to hear movement from the hatch.

Little by little, the tension in the air lessened as they became more certain that Skynet hadn't found them, and hadn't left any Terminators out there to search for them. Eventually, Sarah dared to turn the power back on again, the lights and vents flickering back on one after the other and the radio seeming at first to blare its endless static into the still rooms.

It was another week before they ventured back outside.

Begrudgingly, Sarah had taken John with her on her next trip. Once it was dark, they took the pickup truck back to the spot where she had shot down the drone. It was still there, a crumpled heap of brand-new steel left to rust in the desert. Individual units didn't hold much value to Skynet; it could make hundreds more of them. They heaved it onto the back tray and slammed the tailgate shut before climbing into the cab and driving back, both of them watching the dark sky for any movement or searchlights.

Once they reached the base, they parked the truck in front of the old shack and dragged the drone inside. It was too big to fit down the shaft into the bunker, and neither of them liked the idea of sleeping with one of those things down there with them. Once it was set up in the main room, the pair got to work pulling it apart to study it.

Over time, the shack became a workshop of sorts. The furniture was dragged out of the room and a workspace was created. With Sarah and John's limited technical resources, learning about their programming presented a challenge, but they were able to work out its physical weak points and by observing the internal antenna, Sarah attempted to determine how far it could transmit to any HK's. From their understanding, these scout drones were primarily used to survey areas of interest and to follow any people that they may find, alerting other Skynet units of their presence. Not being able to attack, they stay out of reach and sight, seeking to expose any hidden groups of people. It was a small unit, but it was just as deadly as anything else Skynet had made.

John sat in the cosy mobile home section of the shack and stared out at the graves across the lot, thinking about the family that lay there, the family whose home they had converted into a workshop that was now full of mechanical parts spread out across the floor. They were the lucky ones. They had scarcely believed in the robotic hell that awaited the survivors, but they would never have to know its horror. Humanity had been bad enough.