Chapter Sixteen: Tecate
"So, Rosa. What's your story? Where were you on Judgement Day?" John was driving down the highway north towards Tecate, a city where they hoped to trade with the rumoured survivors for more fuel. They had been on the road for a while as John was driving slowly, trying to conserve what fuel they had left.
"There isn't much to say," replied Rosa, sitting in the passenger seat beside him. "I was with my family, we lived in a smaller town away from the capitals, so we were spared the bigger bombs. The town went on alert, the government tried to keep everyone in check, but pretty soon they were overpowered as everyone turned on them. We survived by staying out of the way."
Silence between them. The others had had no problem telling their stories, John thought, but Rosa had been a much harder nut to crack. He decided not to press any further and instead enjoyed the sound of the quiet drive. He didn't realise it at first, but the dull hum from the rolling tyres reminded him of his childhood, of the long drives he took with his mother as they went from town to town, always keeping on the move. Eventually the highway became more built up and began to turn, rising as they neared their destination. Over the crest, a black mass of buildings spread out before them, almost impossible to see under the dark night sky.
Tecate was a city in Mexico that sat at the border to the United States, the long, rusted, iron wall running endlessly across the horizon, cutting sharply through the mountainous landscape. The city itself was broad, flat, and wide, seeming to press up against the wall, stretching out along it until it could spread out no further. The checkpoint through to the other side was tucked away securely in the centre amongst the paved intersections and city blocks. Mountains rose up all around it, enclosing it in a valley dotted with trees and shrubs.
Rosa was somewhat familiar with the area and said that there were survivors there who had remained in the city since Judgement Day, ones who had developed a network of underground passages that linked with the maintenance tunnels in the basements of prominent buildings—a network that became necessary since the arrival of the first HK-Aerials. The people who remained kept to themselves and had learned to adapt to Skynet's search routines. They could just about set their watches to the arrival of the regularly patrolling Terminators.
As they drove on in the darkness, they encountered rows and rows of rusted cars, many with their doors opened, ransacked, lining the streets, hindering their progress. John drove slowly, winding carefully through the gaps, and wondered if the vehicles had been set up this way deliberately. In the glow of the headlights, he could see that many of the buildings had been destroyed by bomb blasts, the scooped-out ruins lying dormant and silent in the night. The highway curved and gradually became the main road through the city, each intersection revealing long, dark streets stretching away on either side of them. John checked the fuel gauge; they would have to park somewhere soon.
There was nowhere convenient to leave the van and the road was becoming too cluttered with vehicles and rubble with the toppled concrete walls and piles of bricks strewn across the street blocking their path. Eventually John was forced to park in the middle of the road amongst the halted traffic. He just hoped that it wouldn't stand out to any locals.
Engine and lights off, they climbed out of the van one by one, stretching and taking in the scenery. Everything was silent and John was very aware of how enclosed and potentially trapped in they were. They armed themselves, locked up the van and tried to decide if one of them should stay back to keep an eye on the supplies. In the end, Ray decided to stay with the van. The rest of the group was apprehensive at first, but John saw it as Ray's shot at redemption and allowed him his chance. At the least, John would be keeping the keys with him.
Once they were ready, they began to head west in silence with Rosa leading the way, not quite sure which way to go, but following the least-blocked path. Up close, the streets looked derelict and completely uninhabited, and the blast craters they skirted around told of numerous attacks by Skynet. It was hard to believe that anyone could still be living there. They reached the end of the street only to find it completely blocked off by an overturned semi-truck trailer. Not wanting to turn back, they instead searched through the buildings on the north side to see if there was a path through.
One building was completely collapsed, its crumbled walls forming a low mound of rubble that they were able to climb. Once over it, they wandered down a narrow alley between two more buildings and came out into another empty street. As they continued to search, John found himself walking beside Linda, whom he hadn't spoken much to yet.
"Hey," he began. "So how are you? Everything okay?"
She knew exactly what he was referring to and didn't like him skirting around it.
"Yes, I'm fine, thank you! Just like I've told everyone else. I've been through much worse than Ray."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't worry about it," she spat. "Can all of you please just stop worrying about me?"
"Okay, okay. Chill out." She was beginning to raise her voice and the others were starting to look back at them. She was breathing hard, her nostrils flaring. He changed the subject. "So how did you end up with these guys? What's your story?"
She sighed, looking down at the cracked road in front of them. "I was in the Bahamas on my honeymoon the day all of this happened. High rise hotel. Long white beach. Snorkelling. Cocktails for lunch. And then it all changed in a flash of light when Miami was hit."
There was sadness in her voice—one of her happiest memories was also the last one of her normal life.
"It was all panic and chaos over the next few days, but my husband was with me the whole time. He really was my rock. Then all of a sudden it wasn't safe there anymore and we managed to stow away on a boat back to the mainland. We survived for years moving from place to place, trying to find anywhere that hadn't been affected by the radiation. He was an outdoorsman, my husband, and we lived off the land as much as we could, staying away from the towns." She wiped her face. "He died when we ran into a group of bad men, not all that long ago. They all seem to be bad men, now.
"I got away, only to be caught by a group of Terminators that were rounding people up and I was put on board a HK with the rest of them. Next thing I knew, I was in that camp and I was put in a room with these people." She gestured to the others.
They rounded a corner and weaved through a tight-knit cluster of old cars. Rosa was leading the way, but even she seemed unsure of where exactly they were now, or who they were looking for. The scenery around them seemed as dead and as empty as before, but now there was a creeping feeling of being watched. Then a voice spoke from nearby.
"Nice night for a walk, hey assholes?"
They all stopped and looked towards a dark alley to their left where the voice had come from, clutching their weapons. In the dark, they could just make out the outline of a man. Rosa cleared her throat. "Nice night for a walk."
"Just passing through, I bet," the man said.
"Just passing through. We were hoping to trade for some fuel, then we'll be on our way."
The man didn't step out from the shadows, but it was clear that he was looking at each one of them carefully, studying each face one by one.
"You're way too loud. If the machines were around, waiting in these buildings, you'd all be dead. You're lucky that they think this city is empty and don't come by often. You wanna know how we managed that?" He paused and John suddenly had the feeling that there were a lot more men hidden in the dark, watching them all carefully. "We stay quiet. And we listen."
"We want to trade for some fuel," Rosa repeated. "Can you help us out?"
"What do you have for us?"
"We've got some moonshine," John said, pulling out a bottle from his bag. "Certainly does the job."
The man stepped forwards, revealing a thick, scruffy black beard, and took it from him. He inspected it, sniffed it and swirled it around before taking a swig. He turned back to John. "You got more of this?"
"Sure do."
"I think we like it." He looked the group over again, eying their weapons hanging at their sides or gripped in their hands. "I think we like those guns of yours, too."
John looked at Rosa. They hadn't considered trading their weapons, though, he supposed that they did have quite a few in the van. She raised her eyebrows at him slightly—this decision was his to make.
"Deal."
The man smiled. "Come with me."
He stepped out from the alleyway and turned, heading further up the street. Several men stepped out from within the dark buildings around them and surrounded them silently as they walked. All of them were heavily armed and John immediately felt that they were being held hostage. He tried to push that fear down and told himself that they were just protecting themselves against Skynet, same as he was.
They were silent as they walked, the men around them staring straight ahead or looking towards the sky. All of their faces were concealed behind thick scarves pulled up over their noses, their eyes hidden underneath their hats. After rounding two more corners, the man in front led them into an underground carpark at the foot of a large shopping centre. The darkness was absolute and oppressive, but the men surrounding them knew where to go, following the ground's downward slope. Further down they walked, then turned left when the ground levelled out, then left again, continuing on down another downward slope.
John counted three levels as they descended to the bottom, finally turning off the series of ramps to walk towards a glowing flame from a small barrel fire, their footsteps echoing as though they were in a vast cavern. The flame was at the opposite end of the lot, blotted out here and there as they walked past by the black silhouettes of cars that were never removed from their parking spots, only a single flame, but compared to the darkness, it seemed to light the entire room in great detail.
Sitting around the barrel on fold-up chairs, large guns beside them, were four men, each one staring back at the group as they drew nearer from the darkness. Behind them were several vans parked with their rear doors facing outwards, and the closer they got, the more deliberate their placement felt to John. They reached the men, and the man leading the group held up the bottle of moonshine to them.
"These people want to trade with us—their juice for some fuel. They've got some nice guns, too."
The man he was talking to smirked as he took the bottle and opened it. He took a swig and coughed, then laughed. "Why do they want to trade? They could use this as fuel."
The men laughed and talked amongst themselves as they passed the bottle around, alternating between English and Spanish, though it was too quick and murmured for John to pick up on. It was almost empty before any of them acknowledged the group's presence.
"How much more of this have you got?" one asked, finally glancing at them.
"Enough," said Rosa.
"Plus those guns of yours."
John interjected, "And some fuel for that bottle you just drank."
The man turned to him and grinned, revealing missing teeth. "First one's always free, gringo." He then turned back to Rosa and said, "Go and get the rest of it, then we'll come to an arrangement. One of you will be staying with us. Insurance." He pointed at Martin. "Him."
Martin was reluctant to stay with these armed strangers, but he made no complaint. The rest of the group were led back up to the surface and then made their way back to the van. The walk back took longer than they would have liked, and twice they missed their path and ended up in unfamiliar territory. Eventually they found the van and hurried to reach it. Ray was at first nowhere to be seen, but then stepped out from behind a nearby car when he heard them approach.
"No problems?" asked John as he unlocked the van.
"Nothing. Did you find anybody?"
"Yeah. They'll trade for our moonshine and some of our weapons. We'd better be quick; they've got Martin."
John pulled out a large crate that was filled with an assortment of guns and ammunition, then began to take several of them out, putting them back into the van.
"They don't know how much we've really got, and they don't need to know," said John as he checked over the guns, deciding which to keep and which to trade. "Hell, we haven't even seen their fuel supply, yet."
"They'll have fuel," said Rosa, knowingly. "These guys are well organised."
Once John was finished with the weapons crate, they collected the remaining bottles of moonshine and stashed them inside a large duffel bag.
"You know," said Linda. "We probably could just pour this into the tank and run the van on it."
"Or it could destroy the engine. We didn't make this stuff and we don't know how good it is," said John. "I don't want to risk it dying when we're in the middle of nowhere."
Once they were packed, John locked up the van and got ready to go back to the carpark. The brothers, Jimmy and Lennie, carried the crate between them while John wore the duffel bag, the bottles clinking against each other with each step, forcing him to walk slowly to not make too much noise. With Ray now accompanying them, the group retraced their steps back to the entrance of the underground carpark where one of the men was waiting for them.
"Who's this guy?" he asked, staring at Ray.
"He's with us," said Rosa. "He was keeping an eye on our truck." John looked at her, then understood—it was best not to let them know what kind of vehicle they actually arrived in, in case they decided that they wanted more of their supplies.
"So it's unguarded?" asked the man, stroking his chin. "Not smart, around here. Other groups of people come through here, too. And they're not as kind as us. I've heard they're skinning people, now. Bodies just hanging upside down, completely skinned. Madness."
He led them back down the sloping entrance and across the parking lot at the bottom. The rest of the men were standing ready around the barrel fire. As they approached, one of them opened the back of the van behind him, revealing six jerry cans lined up inside. The smell that wafted out was proof enough of their contents. Two of the men stepped aside and let Martin through to re-join the group. He looked relieved.
"Okay," said one of the men. "Show us."
Jimmy and Lennie placed the crate on the ground and John lowered the duffel bag next to it, the bottles clinking together as he did. The men inspected the goods, counting the bottles quickly and opening each one, sampling them. They were much more interested in the weapons, taking their time to inspect each one, holding them up to the light and counting out the ammunition. One of the men turned to them.
"You must really need that fuel to want to part with all this!"
"We just want to get to where we're going," said Rosa. "And quickly."
John watched with mixed emotions as the men sifted through the crate. For years those guns had been stored in the bunker, ready to be used at a moment's notice. The collection had been the result of Sarah's careful planning, and she had trained John in their use with each one of them. He hadn't given it much thought, but watching these strangers handling them made him feel almost nostalgic. He saw the handgun that Sarah had used to bring peace to Enrique once he was ready, the shotgun he had used in his training with the T-200's, the assault rifle Jolanda had tried to use on him on the night she had her breakdown. He had not thought much about Juanita and how she had died along with Paco at their mother's hands in some time, but the sight of the gun brought it all rushing back. These were his weapons, but if parting with them would bring him closer to the Resistance, then so be it. It's what Sarah would have done. And, he remembered, there were always the caches that she had left.
One of the men looked up. "Shh!"
The other men paused, their faces serious. They stood still, many with their goods still in their hands, their heads slightly tilting as if listening carefully for something. Someone whispered, "It can't be. Not yet."
John and the others stood still, trying to hear what the others could hear, but there was only silence. Then, very quietly, he could make out the sound of mechanical footsteps gradually getting louder as the source of the sound drew nearer to the carpark's entrance.
"Clankers!" one of the men hissed through gritted teeth.
The man in charge looked at John and the group as if deciding whether to help them or not, but the marching, metal footfalls above were quickly growing nearer, as though they were approaching with purpose rather than patrolling a set route. Fear swept through the underground carpark as the men scrambled to pack everything, throwing the guns hastily back into the crate and snapping it shut, closing and tying the duffel bag and heaving it over one shoulder.
"Shit," said the man looking at them, his decision already made for him. "Come on. Don't let them see you!"
The men moved quickly and as quietly as they could. They closed the van doors, hiding the fuel from sight, and led the group towards two elevator doors across the room. The door on the right was closed, but the one on the left was slightly open, crooked, the darkness behind it a thin line between the stainless steel doors. Someone doused the fire behind them as they approached the doors, and the room was bathed in darkness.
People all around them, pushing, steering. Adrenaline surging. Metal footsteps overhead, impossible to count their numbers. Getting closer. Louder. The men stopped suddenly as they reached the elevator door and John could hear it being wrenched open. In the dark, he could feel the group getting smaller as the men slipped through the door, one by one. "Grab the rope," one of them whispered as John found himself next in line. He reached in blindly, feeling himself teetering on the edge of the doorway with a drop of unknown distance beneath him. The man who whispered leaned in past him and John felt the rope brush against his outstretched arm. He grabbed it and began to climb down, his feet momentarily dangling in the air. Down he slid, the rope swaying as already someone else was grabbing hold above him. Movement below. Almost there.
His feet hit solid ground and he could see a faint square of light below him. He was standing on top of the elevator car, looking down into it from above through the hatch. The men were climbing down into it and disappearing through the open door into the basement level of the building.
Marching overhead, clearer now. Moving into the carpark from the upper levels.
Into the elevator, through the doors, and into a dark, concrete room beyond. The crate of weapons jostling somewhere ahead of him. Bottles of moonshine clinking behind him. People were still dropping through the hatch and the last person through pulled it closed. They then closed the elevator door behind them and the marching above once again muffled.
"Keep moving!" a voice whispered.
They all moved, pushing and shoving, some of the men a fair distance ahead of them in the dark. Behind them, the marching was already louder, the Terminators reaching the bottom level of the carpark, and to John's horror, the sounds began to stop as they reached the elevator door. How did they know where to go? A loud banging rang out as something struck the metal elevator door, and John knew that they would easily pry it open. But what then? Would the broken elevator at the bottom fool them?
After a few twists and turns through empty rooms and down long corridors, the group were led down a set of unseen metal stairs, their footsteps clomping loudly in the dark, into what seemed to be a service tunnel. A heavy door slammed shut behind them and someone ahead switched on their flashlight. Through the crowd of people in front of him, John could make out old pipes and thick electrical wires hanging on the walls alongside them. The flat, metal grating beneath their feet shuddered in their slots as they ran down the narrow passageway until suddenly they were pulled to the side through a hanging tarpaulin into a crudely excavated tunnel carved through the crumbled concrete wall. The ground was uneven and sloped downwards, the ceiling propped up with makeshift beams and supports. After a few more turns, they could see a flickering light up ahead.
They entered another room which was lit with a single barrel fire—a basement to another building, the entrance above caved in and blocked—and the men with the weapons crate turned to the left and began setting up their defence behind defensively placed piles of bricks and rubble. Several others joined them, while the rest of the group continued on to the right down another carved-out tunnel. Darkness again, and soon the sound of clanking footsteps had reached the room behind them. Gunshots filled the air, ringing out in overlapping bursts, reverberating up and down the narrow spaces, filling their ears with ringing static. Onwards they ran down the tunnel as the gunshots quickly ceased, but the marching continued.
Another room, larger this time, also with stairs leading to a collapsed entrance. Open doorways to other rooms lined the walls on their left and men and women were standing ready with their guns aimed at the passageway that they had just come from. Two more carved tunnels stretched out, one ahead and one to the right. Crates were littered everywhere, concealing their contents, and John suspected that these were goods intended for trading, but before he had time to speculate, the clanking footsteps were behind them again, already getting closer. They all hid where they could and trained their weapons towards the black, carved tunnel behind them. At the first glint of glowing, red eyes, they all fired. Bullets flew back from the dark as the metal men drew nearer to the light.
Clank!
Clank!
Clank!
Endless marching. The gunshots were deafening, the strobing muzzle flash was blinding, and all they could do was hold down their triggers as they fired into the stream of metal men as it marched on. Bullets flew back at them and several of the men around them dropped instantly, their hard faces suddenly slack and relaxed. John looked at his group. They were scared, not quite cut out for it, cowering against the wall. Only Lennie looked calm, taking aim and firing back at the onslaught of Terminators. He did not fear them.
John reloaded and continued firing down into the passage until eventually there was silence. Tentatively, they all stood and surveyed their dead. Five of the men did not stand up with them. Ten Terminators were spread out on the ground, bullet torn, some of them having almost reached the middle of the room. A moment to think. How did they follow them down here? How did they know where to go? A sound from above. A rumble.
"HK's," someone whispered.
The room shook as the machine above drew nearer, its familiar whine becoming clearer as it circled the ruined building above them.
"Run!" one of the men yelled. "They know where we are!"
They all scattered down the two tunnels, John's group sticking together down one of them, lost in a maze of rooms and passages. Rooms filled with tables, rooms filled with crates. Rooms filled with beds, blankets, and littered with cloth. Terrified people, running or hiding wherever they could. The boom finally came and they heard the room they had fled collapse as the building above it was destroyed. A shockwave of dusty air washed down through the curving tunnels as it was compressed under the collapsing ceiling. John and the others threw themselves flat on the ground, feeling the walls shake and crack, hearing the HK floating just above the surface.
Nobody made a sound as they listened to it move. The room they were in looked like another basement, and they feared that it would be lining up the building above them next. Another boom came, but from the same location behind them, and soon they again heard the sound of metal footsteps. Skynet had made its own way in.
The Terminators stormed the tunnels. They searched every basement, cleared out every room, one by one. Methodical. John and the others stood and fought wherever they could, but ultimately, there were just too many of them. Everywhere they went, the Terminators seemed to know exactly where they were. Many of the locals fought alongside them while others helped usher them into safer areas. Always the sound of gunfire and screams followed closely behind as they kept just out of their sight.
Eventually they found their way into a large storage room filled with barrels of chemicals and other industrial materials. Men and women were crouched behind the barrels and upright beams, aiming ready at the two carved tunnels, one on either side of the long room. One of the men was leading a group of hunched children into a low passage behind one of the barrels, a hole in the cinderblock wall. John did a double-take when he saw them. They were deformed, heads misshapen, and he could only imagine what the ones that didn't live long after birth looked like. The effects of the nuclear blasts would be felt for a long time yet, and it was the future generations that would suffer the most.
Their weapons depleted, the group had no choice but to hide with them. Some women and the elderly followed the kids into the hiding spot, crouching low behind the barrels to keep out of sight. They crawled through the low hole, the sound of gunfire and metal clanking coming closer from behind them in the dark, carved tunnels, until finally they were all in a small room. The men outside rolled some barrels in front of the hole, concealing it, while someone inside replaced the cinderblock bricks, filling the hole in as carefully as they could.
Darkness.
Fear filled the small room, seeping from each person and infecting the stale air. John wondered what was happening up above, pictured hundreds of T-400's marching across the dark, ruined city, HK-Aerials patrolling back and forth for any movement, for any new targets to fire at. It had been so sudden. Their arrival had taken them all by surprise, even the locals who had learned and adapted to Skynet's patrol routines. Something had tipped them off and he didn't know what. Had they been followed from afar? Were there new drones that were much harder to see or hear?
"Here they come!" said a voice outside.
A few seconds later, the men opened fire as the mass of metal men stormed their way into the basement, marching over each other as the ones in front fell to the ground. Just outside the carefully stacked cinderblocks, the battle waged on. Constant gunfire, heavy thuds as bodies—human or otherwise—hit the round. In less than a minute, the room went quiet, and no-one knew who it was that remained standing outside. Soon after, however, the metal clanking resumed from within the room, only feet away from them, and the stream of Terminators continued their march through the room towards the next tunnel.
In the pitch-black darkness of their hiding spot within the wall, nobody moved. The dull, increasingly distant sound of gunfire, increasingly sparse, was muffled through the bricks and every so often they could hear, feel, the rumble of the HK as it swept over the surface. Loud booms occasionally shook the ground and John could only wonder at how many more buildings had been knocked down to expose the basement entrances. Time stood still and time dragged on, but none of them felt quite safe enough to pull the bricks away from the hole and to climb out.
Instead, they slept.
Exhaustion overcame them as the adrenaline from the sudden pursuit wore off, now that they felt somewhat safe. They were out of ammo, they were lost in a maze of tunnels beneath the town, and they had no idea how to get back out without being seen. Their best hope was to stay where they were for as long as it took for Skynet to clear out. John just hoped that it wouldn't leave behind any machines to keep watch of the ruins.
Time passed and he awoke, feeling the people around him shifting around, stirring. The children. The elderly. The remaining survivors. Who else was there out there? He felt around for the loose bricks and slowly began to pry one inwards, careful not to let it drop. One by one, he removed the bricks, placing them down gently on the dirt ground. He squeezed himself through the hole into the main room, surrounded by the large barrels which concealed their hiding spot.
He stood up slowly, his eyes adjusting to the dim glow of the barrel fire in the corner, and saw only the remaining dead.
