Chapter 4: Century City
Century City was a complex of shopping malls and restaurants that catered to the opulent Beverley Hills residents before the war. It was certainly strange to see it as a detainment center, John thought.
As far as John could tell, the complex was surrounded by a fence which was at least six or seven meters high. It was topped off by a nasty snarl of concertina wire. Without a pole vault and an Olympic medal, he estimated the chances of escaping that way were negligible at best.
Guard towers, 20 meters off the ground were erected at regular intervals about the perimeter, each occupied by a terminator or some machine with a menacing automatic weapon at the ready. Where shops, restaurants, kiosks and newsstands once blissfully ruled, there were now only gray, one-story ramshackle longhouses.
In the distance, John could see a somewhat larger building with figures—either man or machine, he couldn't tell at this range—milling all about it. Ominously, a large smokestack emanated from the building's center. From it, bellowed a baleful column of black smoke.
John had only one thing to compare this hell to: the pictures he had seen from the Holocaust. Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Mauthausen or Treblinka all resembled what he was now looking at. Most had hoped this scourge would never return, but what man had abolished, the machines had re-created.
John exchanged a knowing glance with Kyle. The only two routes out of here were escape or death. And the former, while infinitely more preferable, appeared much more difficult to accomplish.
The terminators herded the group toward the camp's entrance, where other prisoners were being "checked-in." Kyle's team would be added to this group, consisting of 15 to 20 more individuals.
"Remove all of your belongings except clothing," the terminator "clerk" ordered. "Place them on that conveyer."
The conveyer led back into the nearest longhouse. Presumably, the supplies would be separated there and eventually rationed out to the prisoners. As they were relinquishing their booty, four large dump trucks approached the camp. Two terminators swung the gates open and the trucks proceeded to the quad in between the four nearest longhouses. That they barely missed running over two of the new internees was of no interest to the drivers.
The trucks' cargo was quickly revealed, as the drivers, yet more terminators, exited the cabs, in unison, of course, and operated the vehicles' payload hydraulics. Hundreds of corpses—mostly human, but some animal mixed in—spilled into the courtyard.
Most turned away from the revolting sight, but for John, this was a moment of truth. He never felt more resolved to win this war.
A second conveyer suddenly emerged from the building with the smokestack. It was at least 100 meters long, supported by wheels on legs every 10 meters or so and had a belt that automatically moved the objects on it to their destination. It stopped within a couple of meters of the corpses.
Terminators began pushing the new arrivals toward the grievous pile. Apparently, this was some sort initiation right.
"Begin loading the bodies onto the conveyer," one of the terminators said.
The prisoners hesitated, uncertain, so the same machine fired its automatic weapon upward.
"Now!" it barked.
With that warning, the crowd surged forward and set about the grim task. There were men and women, young and old, multiple ethnicities and even some infants among the dead. Several dogs and cats in addition to a horse were included in the carnage.
The smell was beyond repugnant and all of the prisoners had to vomit as a result. Some did so immediately, while others held out as long as they could before being overcome. The terminators had anticipated this so they had Pablo and a few other young prisoners handing out water bottles to help them compensate.
While John was rinsing out his mouth, he paused to think of the reasoning behind this harsh task. Surely, this wasn't the most efficient way to dispose of the bodies. Why not drive the truck into the building and dispose of them there?
Then it dawned on him that Skynet was waging a total war against humanity, bringing all weapons to bear against their enemy, including psychological.
"They gotta rub our face in the mud, too!" John whispered, angrily. It made him even more determined.
Suddenly, two figures bolted from the loading area, running toward the nearest fence. John wasn't sure, but they appeared to be brothers and of Middle Eastern descent.
One was cut down immediately by unrelenting machine gun rounds from the closest tower. The other hesitated, seeing his partner cut down, but then continued, either knowing he couldn't help or that the delay could somehow assist him.
He reached the barricade in full stride, leaping about one meter up and clasping the metal enclosure with both hands. By doing so, he closed the circuit and electrocuted himself in a spectacular, but horrific, fireworks display.
All of the lights in the camp flickered as the fence burned the man almost beyond recognition. An approaching terminator severed his hold on the mesh by ruthlessly shooting at his wrists. The man, still on fire, fell off the fence, although what remained of his hands still clutched his objective in futility.
With the fence's circuit no longer closed, the lights stopped their oscillation.
"You're wasting time and effort," a terminator announced. "There is no escape."
It was another demonstration of the machines' superiority, John thought. Cold and calculating, Skynet mercilessly substantiated that point with two brutal executions. Even still, he was determined to prove them wrong.
"Load those bodies too," the terminator ordered.
Two prisoners immediately scrambled over to retrieve the man who had been gunned down. John called Pablo over for some of the water he was distributing.
He took two of the bottles and began walking over to the electrocuted man, who was still burning.
"Kyle," John yelled. "Give me a hand."
Kyle ran over and helped John extinguish the body. The two rolled him on the ground as well, but the flames weren't doused easily. In any event, despite the gruesomeness of the task, John needed the distraction to talk to Kyle.
"We gotta get out of here," John said, sotto voce.
"Obviously," Kyle retorted, mimicking the other's tone. "What do you have in mind?"
"Nothing specific," John answered. "But they have an awful amount of juice pumped into that fence. We need to use that as a weapon."
John lifted the corpse by its arms, while Kyle took the feet, and they carried it back to the conveyer.
"Terriffic," Kyle said, "But we need to stay clear. How do we do that?"
They threw the corpse on the conveyer.
"I dunno," John said. "I'm working on that."