John picked the body out of the cart and dropped to his knees on the ground, the impact of the corpse and his own body created a dull wet thud on the soaked earth beneath him. The morning after he'd unveiled his plot to the slave population of Century Work Camp, the heavens opened up and descended upon ruined apocalypse of the hell-on-earth beneath, soaking him and everyone else in the camp from head to toe in rain that was as constant and unyielding as the machines' campaign to exterminate the human race.
To the untrained observer, John merely slipped on the wet earth and dropped his load; a combination of increasingly slippery terrain and the all encompassing fatigue felt in common by every worker in the camp. The untrained observer would have missed John's hands darting into the corpse's jeans pockets as he hoisted the body back up.
"Gotcha," John grinned as he closed his fingers around the likely looking thin, long bulge in the pocket and pulled out a pistol magazine. From another pocket he extracted a lighter, a small pack of cigarettes – probably half full, if that – and a packet of chewing gum. John had absolutely no clue what the hell people were thinking with some of the stuff he'd seen on the bodies; why some thought they could get by on cigarettes, gum, alcohol, and other crap was beyond him.
One of the first lessons he'd learnt in the jungles of South America, before he'd ever even been taught to hold – much less fire – a gun, was survival; how to live off the land and survive on the bare essentials. John wasn't surprised that so many ended up being caught and slaughtered like cattle when they didn't even know how to survive. Many of them had already made a harsh adversary for themselves in the form of their own ignorance; no less dangerous than and just as merciless as the machines themselves.
John pocketed the items, sliding them into his right thigh-pocket on his combat trousers. He barely even registered how wet and miserably cold it was. His body wasn't too bad, at least; the DPM jacket was largely water-resistant, and the scavenged woollen sweater underneath retained his body heat even when soaked through.
He hoisted the body up into the furnace and nodded at Slater as he passed by with his empty cart. Slater tilted his head to the side and backwards, drawing John's attention to Byrne behind him, also pushing his own empty cart back to the gas chambers.
John looked at Byrne but he wasn't holding anything – just the cart. It took him a moment to realise Slater wasn't indicating what Byrne was doing, but what he was wearing. The Irish SAS demolitions expert had donned a combat vest over his jacket. How the hell he'd found it – and not been seen taking it – John had no clue. To top it all off Byrne strolled merrily past a T-70, only a few feet away, and offered the machine a wry grin as he passed it.
Byrne had just proven his earlier point, John realised; the machines truly didn't care as long as they were unarmed, maintained their workload, and didn't try to escape or fight them. John looked past Byrne and saw the security camera higher up on the hospital wall behind. He'd seen the cameras before, had known they were there, but now, as he stared into the glassy black maw of the surveillance device, John wondered exactly why the T-70s – so primitive, so stupid – were given the task of guarding them. Was something else watching them? He wondered. Were the cameras even operational, and if so, what was watching on the other end?
Dinnertime, once again, John rolled his eyes in disgust at the thought of the greasy meat broth. As before, the two-handed T-70 hauled a large barrel as it plodded towards them; the servos in its legs whining with each step it took. John watched its slow, methodical movements and wondered how so many people were caught by these things; they were built to withstand limited attacks from small arms but they vulnerable to sustained fire, were slow, cumbersome, and about as smart as an ant.
When he really thought about it, these walking tin cans only had two redeeming features: their mini-guns, which could cut people down in swathes; and the fact their vaguely humanoid designs allowed them to follow people into places that Skynet's other machines couldn't. The machine was the very definition of 'robot'; lacking any of Cameron's grace, complexity, or intelligence that John knew far outmatched his own or any other human's. Unlike his lover, these tin cans could never hope to achieve sentience; they were drones, little more than walking machine guns, without a single thought in their heads.
The prisoners entered the living area as they finished another gruelling, miserable day of toil. Though many of the faces were tired and weary, John could already see a distinct difference; the dead-man-walking, resigned, hopeless facade worn by many of the workers was gone. They hardly had a spring in their step, and none of them gave anything even close to a smile, but there was something – a spark of renewed life that hadn't been there before.
Several of the prisoners, on entry, reached into their pockets and dumped items into the box John had used to ferry the rations and liquor from the generator room two days before, then ambled along into the growing queue to await their 'food'. John didn't even bother to look inside the box; he could do that after he'd eaten.
The machine dumped the barrel onto the ground, resulting in some of the liquid inside sloshing around and spilling down the side and onto the ground. Even less for someone, now, John thought.
Typically of mealtimes, Simon and Guy pushed their way to the front of the crowd, using everyone's busying themselves with placing their scavenged items into the box, as well as their nervousness and immediate instinct to back away from the machines – even the one feeding them – to push their way forward. They had to make sure they got there first to fill their bowls, and also to secure bedding for themselves whilst everyone else ate. It was the same day after day, but it still didn't sit any easier with John. John, Byrne, and Slater got in line somewhere around the middle, when he heard commotion coming from the front of the queue as the machine turned around and marched away, indifferent to the humans' mealtime etiquette.
John peeked out of the queue to see what was going on. Several prisoners had overtaken Guy and Simon and were refusing to let the two larger men eat.
"Move it," Simon said.
"The longer it takes to eat, the less sleep we all get. Get it?"
"Doesn't matter," the prisoner who'd introduced himself as Jim the night before replied, backed up by three others who'd all volunteered to take part in John's scheme. "Get to the back," he nodded at the back of the line.
"We were here first," Guy insisted.
"Yeah, like every other night," someone else rolled their eyes and chipped in.
"John?" Jim called out.
John walked forward to the front of the line, unsure what they expected him to do about it; Guy and Simon were selfish assholes, but they had been there first, and they'd not gone back for second helpings since he'd intervened.
"What's going on?" John asked, looking at Simon and Guy, and then at Jim and his companions.
"You eat first," Jim replied, sweeping his hand out at the broth.
"No," John said. He didn't want any special treatment; he'd had a lifetime of that already. People died for him, people killed for him; in the future, from what he'd heard, people seemed to hero-worship him. He was just a regular guy; he still didn't see why he was supposed to be so special. He knew a bit more about the machines than most people, but only because he'd had the advantage of people coming back and passing on that knowledge. Anyone else with that same knowledge could have done the same, he thought.
"We got here first," Simon said, trying to shove Jim aside.
"You're eating last," Jim said, shoving Simon back. John wondered for a moment if another fight would break out, but more of the prisoners stepped in and outnumbered Simon and Guy further. Taking their cue, Simon sighed resignedly and walked to the back, knowing that aggravating them further would simply result in getting the shit beaten out of them. Neither Simon nor Guy wanted to risk being too injured to work the next day; it was what they were all afraid of.
"John, please. We insist," Jim once again motioned for John to take the first bowlful. Sighing, hating being made out to be special but knowing they weren't going to take no for an answer, he grabbed a bowl and dipped it into the lukewarm liquid, pulling it out and taking the bowl away as he turned from the barrel. He looked out for Byrne and Slater but couldn't see them. Must be in the generator room, he decided. He quickly slurped down the broth – not even bothering to use a spoon anymore - and placed the bowl on the ground. He picked up the box and marched out of the living area whilst the others queued up and each took their own share of what vaguely passed as food.
Even though the camp was dark, John peered out towards the hospital building that dominated one corner of the camp, making sure no machines were nearby, and quickly walked out, holding the box at his side, keeping his body between it and the hospital – namely the cameras mounted on the walls, in case they could see in the dark.
He made it undisturbed and unseen to the generator room and quietly let himself through the door, taking care to close it as silently as possible. He'd quickly learned that speed and silence were two of the most important factors in their slowly growing insurrection. He'd shown the others that what they were doing was possible as long as they were quick, quiet, and above all, discreet and patient.
Byrne and Slater were already inside and working on their growing stockpile. Byrne had taken the combat vest off and emptied its contents onto the floor in a neat pile.
"How'd you get that?" John asked.
"Same way as everything else," Byrne replied. "Always did have fast hands."
"Come again?" John asked.
"I was a right little bastard when I was a kid," Byrne explained. "Shoplifting, nicking cars... all the petty stuff, ye know. Well, ye probably wouldn't know; ye don't look much like a troublemaker to me."
"You'd be surprised." He'd been a little shit, himself; when his mom had been locked away and been told everything he'd grown up to believe was a lie, he'd rebelled. He'd had a criminal record since he was ten. Not that it ever mattered; he'd been legally dead since 1999.
"Sure," Slater rolled his eyes. "You've got 'junior officer' stamped all over you, lad."
"Anyway," Byrne continued as he pulled a rifle magazine out of one of the pouches on the vest. "When I was 17 I nicked a car, crashed it, and wound up in front of a judge. Almost went to prison but they went easy on me since I'd just been accepted into the Army – said it'd straighten me out and I'd have a bright future ahead of me if I fell in line. And here I am. "
"What about you?" John asked Slater. They'd never spoken to him about their pasts before; it was something people in the camp often wanted to forget; to forget that their past was gone and replaced by a hopeless future.
"Not a lot to tell, really. Graduated high school, Army recruiter gave me a leaflet one day... signed up the next."
John envied them both in a way. They'd had choices; they'd both chosen – of their own free will – to become soldiers. He'd already told Byrne before he was born to it, though the Irishman would never know just how literally he'd meant it.
"Changing the subject," Byrne slapped another rifle magazine onto the ground from the pouch and pushed out the rounds out one by one and sorted them into neat six neat rows of ten. "Why the hell did the guy who owned this surrender to the tin cans? He had sixty bloody rounds on him."
"Might have been surrounded," John suggested. "Or his gun jammed, or got damaged." He'd lost his rifle and ran out of all his ammunition fighting Cromartie before he'd been captured, but even if he'd been armed to the teeth he'd have still surrendered; he'd let himself get caught to keep the machines away from Cameron. He still cringed at the thought of Skynet getting hold of her; the AI would have torn her apart to find out what she was and how she worked. On top of the fact that Skynet's machine development would be fast forwarded by a decade or more; John simply couldn't stomach the idea of Cameron being taken apart to be used in some Skynet experiment. He could never have let that happen to Cameron.
John struggled under the oppressive weight above him. Sweat poured down his ever-reddening face and the veins stuck out from his temples with the impossible strain bearing down on his body. His wrists, his arms, his chest and shoulders threatened to collapse; he really didn't know if he could take any more. His body begged him to stop, to just lie down and admit defeat, but he'd have none of it. Cameron stood above him passively, watching him like a hawk, but made no move whatsoever to help him. He knew she wouldn't, not unless she really had to step in, but he didn't want her to. Not yet. He had to prove it; to her, to himself, to Future Him, to everyone.
Now or never, John, he thought to himself as he braced his body for what he knew would hurt like hell.
"Twenty!" He gasped sharply, pushing the barbell up with everything he had, heaving it upright until his arms were straight. He held the bar above him for several seconds, his arms trembling as he kept the heavy weight above and threatened to buckle and bring it all crashing back down upon him.
Cameron stepped closer and grabbed the bar with one hand and started to lift it up to the cradle.
"No!" John protested, gripping the bar firmly. "I'm not done."
"You reached your target," Cameron said flatly, still keeping her hand on the bar and holding it up. If he continued he risked hurting himself. He'd achieved his target – three sets of twenty reps, bench-pressing a hundred and twenty lbs – he needed to rest.
"I want to break it," John replied, a cast iron look of determination set on his face and he pushed against Cameron, pushing the bar into position above his chest. Cameron recognised that look from both John and his future self and knew she'd not be able to dissuade him. All she could do was stand back and try to make sure he didn't injure himself.
John groaned, heaved, and grunted in exertion as he managed to push the bar up twice more. The twenty-third rep proved too much for him; he started to lower the bar to his chest when he felt the last of his strength sapped and his elbows buckled. He instantly pushed the bar upwards as hard as he could, struggling to get it back up to the cradle as he realised Cameron was right. He forced the bar back up and slid it towards the cradle as fast as he could; in his rush to get the bar away he dropped it, catching his hand under the bar as it fell into place.
John cried out in pain as the heavy bar crushed his hand into the cradle, trying to pull his hand away from under it, but it was trapped, wedged in place. Cameron was there in an instant and pulled the barbell away with ease, allowing John to slip his hand out from under it and sit back up, clutching it protectively to his chest.
Cameron led John out of the garage and into the kitchen. She sat him down on a chair at the kitchen table and took a seat next to him.
"Give me your hand," she said softly. John slowly held it out for her and she took his hand in both of hers, running her soft, smooth fingers delicately across the bones in the back of his hand and his fingers, inspecting it thoroughly. It had already started to swell up and despite her attempts to be as gentle as possible he still hissed and winced in pain. He didn't recoil or try to pull back from her touch, though.
"You have a high pain threshold," she commented.
Even through the pain, John was surprised how soft and delicate her touch was, and the irony that Cameron's gentleness with him was entirely antithetical to her design. He gasped sharply as she traced a finger over the back of his hand, where his thumb connected with the other bones.
"It's not broken," she finally said after several moments of silent inspection.
"Feels like it," John replied.
"It's bruised."
Cameron stood up and went to the freezer, pulling out a bag of ice cubes. She then grabbed their well-used first aid kit from the top of a cupboard and sat back down next to John, opening it up and unrolling a white bandage. She took John's hand in hers and slowly wrapped the bandage around his hand. She was slow, careful, and methodical, as she tightly wrapped it around his hand, over and over, finally securing the bandage in place with a few strips of medical tape. Even without her detailed files on human anatomy and physiology, the Connors' household first-aid kit had been used enough times over the past few years that she'd have still known how to use it.
When she was done she took the bag of ice and placed it firmly but gently over the back of his hand, then held it there and took placed her free palm against his, keeping a slight but constant pressure against his hand.
"The ice will help," she said. "It will reduce the swelling."
"Thanks," John smiled at her.
"Humans aren't very good at self repair," she said, returning his smile with a warm, genuine one of her own. This was the second time he'd thanked her, and she liked hearing it. She liked that he valued her. She'd have continued even if he'd spat and cursed at her, but it was nice that he didn't.
"We're not very good at taking no for an answer, either, are we?" John quipped. "Future-me would have known when to quit, right?"
"No, Future-you is stubborn, as well. John Connor tends to learn things the hard way."
John wasn't sure entirely which John Connor she meant, but he thought she was talking about both of them. Was she saying he was becoming more like his future self? He wondered if and when she'd see him as the same man that he was in the future. He stopped thinking about it when he felt her gently squeeze his hand. He closed his hand around her one under his palm, and placed his free hand on top of her other one.
"Is that your way of saying 'I told you so'?"
"No," she answered simply, the small smile on her face growing almost imperceptibly wider, her eyes meeting his as she spoke. "Future-you makes mistakes too. But you're learning quickly." Weeks ago, John would have recoiled from her touch. He'd have refused to let her help him in any way. He'd have avoided her, just as he did when he was with Riley. Sarah's death had set his development back, but now he was ahead of schedule.
"I'm not the only one," John grinned back. He was amazed at how quickly she was learning; she'd grown a lot since 2007.
Cameron took the ice off the back of his hand and inspected it. It was swelling slightly and she could already detect the faint purple bruising starting to appear under the skin. John hissed in pain as she touched the base of his thumb and he flinched on reflex, but didn't pull away from her. Cameron brought his hand up to her face and softly kissed the spot where his thumb met the rest of his hand, her lips just barely brushing against his skin.
John stared at her, feeling himself turn red in the face, but he didn't pull away. "What was that?" he asked.
"Kissing it better," Cameron replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I saw it on TV." She had no doubt that kissing an injury provided no medical benefit, but she'd learned that many of the strange human practices helped on a psychological level. She'd not been programmed with knowledge of human psychology, but she'd been interested in the subject and had researched it online at night. Anything she could do to help John.
"Is there anything you wouldn't do for me?" John asked as Cameron put the ice back on his hand. This was definitely going far beyond just keeping him alive. Does that mean she actually cares for me?
"No," Cameron answered simply, curling her fingers around his.
John couldn't help but smile; that single word had answered his question for him.
"Doesn't matter what happened, just means we get his stuff." John knew Slater had a point; sixty rounds meant – relatively – a lot of gunpowder; several times more than they'd ever managed to find in one day before. Another rare miracle granted to them and another sign that they needed the help of everyone in the camp; that without them they could miss a rare gem of a find such as the combat vest.
Byrne pulled out several other items from the combat vest; a few remaining items from a ration pack – the previous owner had either eaten most of it before he was captured or whilst he was awaiting execution – a few bits odds and ends, including mess tins, a plastic water canteen, half a dozen sugar sachets, an unopened can of Diet Coke, and, strangely, a small wash bag with a bar of soap and a cloth, as well as a razor and miniature can of shaving gel.
John put the wash kit to one side, deeming it as useless, but Byrne grabbed the bar of soap and put it next to the empty Jack Daniels bottle the other prisoners had finished off the other day.
"What're you gonna use that for?" John asked him.
"Just don't drop it in front of him," Slater said.
"Very funny," Byrne rolled his eyes and stuck his middle finger out at Slater. "Watch and learn." He grabbed the bar of soap and started crushing it into small pieces, then slowly popped the broken bits into the Jack Daniels bottle. He then took the sachets of sugar from the remaining rations in the pack and tore them open, pouring their contents into the bottle along with the remains of the soap bar.
Byrne then stood up and approached the generator's large, grey fuel tank. He'd been able to tell before that there was still some fuel left in it. Not a lot, by his reckoning, but some; and more than enough for their needs.
He'd inspected the generator thoroughly over the past weeks, checking the fuel tank for strength and durability, for anything they could scavenge off the machine itself that might look useful, and he'd also quickly located the valve to release the fuel from, although he'd not yet opened it for fear of wasting however much was in there. He wasn't sure but decided to err on the side of caution and assume there wasn't much. Anything more was a bonus.
He picked up the Jack Daniels bottle, opened the cap, and turned the valve ever so slowly to release a trickle of fuel. The clear brownish substance poured faster out of the tank as Byrne opened up the valve further, holding the bottle in place until the highly inflammable gasoline reached near the top, then screwing the cap on the end and vigorously shaking the gas/soap/sugar mixture.
"And the point of that was?" Slater asked as Byrne pulled out the washcloth and held up the bottle underneath the gap in the fuel tank, letting the gasoline fill the bottle to the top before he closed the tank off again. Byrne then screwed the cap on and vigorously shook the mixture inside.
"Molotov cocktail," Byrne replied.
"Why the soap and the sugar?" John asked. He'd learned how to make homemade explosives since he was a kid, but he'd never seen any with sugar or soap added to the mix.
"Homemade napalm," Byrne answered. "Light it like a normal Molotov, throw this baby at a tin can, and the sugar and soap makes it stick to whatever it touches."
"It blinds them," John said, starting to see Byrne's point. The machines used infrared to target threats; if they themselves were literally on fire – regardless of what damage it may or may not inflict – their targeting systems would be blinded.
"Where the hell did you learn that?" Slater asked. Byrne had served with him and his unit for two years on exchange from the SAS, and although the man had claimed to be able to be God's gift to demolitions, Slater hadn't fully believed it until now.
John, too, was very impressed. He'd been taught since the cradle how to make weapons; he'd made his first pipe bomb before he'd even learned to ride a bike. Any idiot could make a Molotov cocktail, but he'd never seen one made with homemade napalm before. Once again he was reminded that he'd chosen his allies well.
Byrne put the Molotov away in the corner of the room – where it couldn't get knocked over – and the three of them started work on taking bullets apart and pouring their contents into the two mess tins retrieved from one of the pouches on the combat vest. They worked constantly, Byrne and Slater chattering and bickering, and John mostly just listening in for the most part, until they'd taken apart all of the rounds they'd acquired, with the exception of the .50 AE rounds for the Desert Eagle, and the shotgun shells, which Byrne said he had other ideas for. The black powder from over a hundred rounds of varying calibre sat in one of the two mess tins; the second one held a pile of all the empty casings and the bullets themselves.
John took the two empty rifle magazines and started pouring the powder into one of them, pushing the follower down and to the side to let the powder drop to the bottom. He poured it in as carefully, as slowly as he could, to avoid spilling any on the ground. His hands shook slightly with concentration and fatigue; it would have been easier to pour faster but he didn't want to waste any, and didn't much fancy scooping it up off the floor.
When the first magazine was almost full of black power, John propped it against his knee and scooped a handful of shell casings and bullets into his hand and onto the floor. He fit four dead rounds back together and loaded them into the top of the magazine, condensing the powder inside. He fit a fifth round in before the whole thing was packed too tightly to load any more inside.
"There's another one," John said, placing the black powder-filled magazine on the floor. There wasn't enough yet to fill the second one up more than a third full, so they'd have to keep scavenging for more. Even with the extra rounds brought in by the other prisoners, it would take a while. It took a lot of rounds to produce enough black powder for even a small bomb. "Needs a fuse."
"Okay, so I know where I learned to make bombs," Byrne commented, picking up the magazine bomb and inspecting it. "But where the hell did ye learn this?"
"My mom," John said.
"Yer mum taught ye to make bombs?"
"The hot chick in the photo, she taught you that?" Slater added in disbelief.
"That's my mom," John reminded him through gritted teeth. "And yeah; she taught me everything I know."
"Must have had a fun childhood," Slater said.
'Fun' wasn't exactly how he would have described it. Apart from those three years with his foster parents, when he'd become the rebellious tearaway who'd stolen cash, vandalised, shoplifted, gotten into fights at school, and disappeared from home without a word's notice to Todd and Janelle; he'd never really had a childhood. Always on the move, on the run; never spending too long in one place to make any real friends or get attached to anyone. He'd not been a kid since he was twelve, since 'Uncle Bob' had saved him from the T-1000 and turned his world upside down. Not much of a childhood.
"We don't need fuses," Byrne changed the subject back to practicalities, which John was grateful for. Dwelling the past was pointless, he knew. He couldn't change any of it and there was no point wondering how things might have been. He couldn't change the cards he'd been dealt and just had to play his hand as best as he could.
"For the Molotov, yes," he explained. "But for these," he picked up the magazine-bomb and held it up in front of John and Slater. "If ye light this then ye've exposed yer position and ye gotta throw it bloody quick. Might take out a tin can with it, might not."
"What are you suggesting?" John asked, leaning forward with intrigue.
"We've got a couple cell phones here," Byrne answered. I checked their batteries and they've all got a decent charge on them. Why the hell anyone brought a cell phone with them, I don't know. Bloody things don't work after J-Day. Anyway; they've all got alarms on them. We set them all to go off at once and then put them in place, then just wait for the fireworks."
"Sounds like a plan," Slater said. "How many phones have we got?"
"Four."
"That's four bombs, plus the Molotov," John said. "We've got to work out where to put them."
"One under the fence, somewhere," Slater said. "Not much point blowing the crap out of everything if the fence is still intact."
"Another under the furnaces," John added. "They've got to run on gas or something. Find the gas line, put the bomb there, and it'll blow the furnaces."
"Good thinking. And another in here," Byrne said, tapping on the generator's fuel tank. "Blow this and it'll go sky high."
"Is it gonna be enough?" John asked. A handful of homemade bombs didn't seem like much.
"We could probably take some of the fuel out of the generator and start some fires with it when we set the bombs off; spread the fire around and keep the tin cans blind to us. My biggest worry is keeping fire between us and the machines; if they get a bead on us, we're dead."
"There's something else," John replied. "Have you noticed the security cameras all over the hospital walls?"
"Can't say I did," Slater said. "I just assumed they're not in use."
John shook his head. "I'm not so sure. They look new and there's a lot of them; I think there's something in the hospital, watching us."
"Like what?" Byrne asked.
"Skynet, machines... I don't know." He wrestled with himself for a moment, wondering whether to tell them everything he knew. Did they really need to know what had happened to him before? He wished he didn't know it. He breathed out a resigned sigh and committed himself to the truth. "Do you remember when the machines pulled me away from the furnaces a while back?"
"Same day found ye in here with the gun," Byrne said.
"Yeah," Not John's proudest moment, he had to admit. Easily the lowest point in his life since his mom had died, and he still felt ashamed of how close he'd come to ending it all. "I thought the machine was gonna kill me. It took me round to the back of the hospital and made me stand under a laundry chute. It opened up and bodies came out. Not like we're used to. Bones and skulls, blood smeared all over; like they'd been skinned or something."
"What the hell was it?" Slater asked.
"I don't know. But that's what happens to anyone who gets taken in there, and whatever's doing it could be watching us on the cameras. There's more to this place than we think; something worse." What that could be, John had no idea. Again he wondered where the meat from their daily helping of broth came from, and his stomach churned at the thought. But that wasn't it. He had no idea what could really be going on, and that made him very, very afraid.
"If the machines are watching us then why haven't they just stood outside and blown us away?" Asked Byrne.
"I don't know. Maybe they've not seen what we're doing. We don't know how good those cameras are, what they can see."
"What do we do about them?"
"Nothing," John said. "For now. We carry on." They couldn't afford to be discovered, he knew. He started to have doubts about involving everyone else and upping the scale of the operation. He knew it was the right move; not just to give hope to the people in the camp but to expedite their escape. If it was just the three of them then they'd probably die long before their plans could come to fruition. He'd die never seeing Cameron again, not knowing her fate or that of millions of others. But at the same time, all it would take was for one of the prisoners to be caught; if Skynet – if it was indeed Skynet in control in of the hospital and monitoring the CCTV cameras – realised what they were up to, it would show them all no mercy. They'd all be wiped out and the machines would just pick the strongest from the condemned camp to take their places. Their plans were slowly starting to come together, but it was all so very fragile, he realised. They had to remain constantly vigilant, eternally alert; one wrong move, one tiny mistake, and everything they'd worked for could be fall apart in an instant.
"Ugh... what... what happened?" Chris McGinty opened his eyes and tried to block out the mind-numbing, skull splitting pain that drilled into his head. His throat felt like it was on fire, and it burned to take even the smallest ragged breath; the air rushed down his throat and over the swollen, raw surface of his windpipe.
It took a few moments for his eyes to clear and for his brain to register what he was seeing. Three of the civilian women, all armed with M4 carbines, stood over him, their weapons pointed down at his prone form on the ground. He recognised one of them; the one with the three kids... what was her name?
"Chris, you okay?"
"Yeah... I think so," he murmured. He hurt like hell but he was all in once piece as far as he could tell.
"Get up!" she ordered, kicking him lightly. The kick was light, not intended to hurt; merely to get him up; but her voice was harsh and commanding. When he didn't comply she kicked him in the balls, hard. Pain wracked his entire body but he didn't have time to think about it as she launched another vicious kick to his face. Blood sprayed out of his mouth as the toecap of her boot broke one of his front teeth and tore it from the gum, spraying the hard rock beneath him with crimson. The other women beside her joined in a frenzy of punches and kicks.
McGinty cried out in pain and curled up instinctively under the rain of abuse coming from his tormentors. One of them cracked the butt of her rifle on the small of his exposed back, causing him to scream as the weapon smashed into his left kidney.
"Get him up," the leader ordered. He couldn't remember their names; they were just civvies. They'd had their uses in his grand design, but he'd never been one to make friends with civilians; they were weak, but apparently no one had told these women that. The two other women grabbed him by the arms and lifted him up off the ground, then dragged him out of his quarters, through the tunnel and into the main chamber, where all the other civilians stood; several of them were armed. They forced him onto his knees on the ground and stood in a loose semicircle around him.
What the hell, where's all my men? He looked around desperately for support and saw five of his men all knelt on the ground and staring submissively at the floor, not looking at the weapons pointed at them. They were all bloodied, bruised, and looked like they'd taken a hell of a beating. He saw Corey, the youngest of his men, but barely recognised him. His face was a mask of bruises and lacerations, and his right eye had swollen closed, purple bruising already covering the eyelids and forming a dark circle underneath. His cracked lips bled down his chin but he made no move to wipe it away.
"What the hell's going on?" McGinty asked, desperately trying to work out what was happening. The last thing he remembered was... that bitch. The machine that'd infiltrated his camp; her and the other one.
"What's going on," the mother of the three kids, who also seemed to be the ringleader, said, poking the barrel of her rifle into his chest. "Is that you used us! You're not John Connor, are you?"
"Who said that? They're lying! It was those two girls, wasn't it; Cameron, right, and her little blonde friend... Courtney? Don't believe a word they say; they're goddamn machines. Skynet sent them to kill us all."
"Bullshit," The woman snapped. Kerry! He remembered now. He'd had her a few times; she had three kids, and chances were she probably had a fourth inside her now from either him or his men. That was the plan, though. Children: they'd grow up into soldiers and he'd have a whole generation to command against Skynet.
"That's the most pathetic excuse I've ever heard," another of the women chipped in. "Machines that look like people; what a joke."
Kerry kicked him once more in the chest. "If Skynet sent them, then they did a crappy job; the only one they killed was your man Bates."
"Bates?" McGinty shook his head in denial. They'd been friends since they'd been locked up in the same cell together. He swore those tin cans would be punished.
"One of them broke his neck; nearly ripped his head off," Kerry filled him in. "I like their style."
"You've gotta listen to me," McGinty insisted. "They're machines and they're liars."
Kerry knelt down on the ground, level with him, and kept her rifle pointed at him. "I called you 'Chris' back in your room and you answered. You've been using us this whole time."
McGinty said nothing. He'd been exposed. There was nothing he could say and he knew it; he and his men were dead, there was no way they'd let him live. They'd never see that it was the only way; to hide out into the mines until Skynet was complacent, to raise an army and beat the machines years down the road, when they least expected it. Their minds couldn't comprehend what it would take to win the war, the hardships and sacrifices it would take to survive.
"Please..." He looked at Kerry, stared into her eyes, and saw the anger there, the betrayal, the barely contained rage flaring up inside her. She'd do it, he could tell. She'd kill him and none of them would lose a moment's sleep over it. He wasn't going to be able to talk his way out of this one. He looked her in the eyes with an expression of abject fear, of sorrow. Kerry lowered her rifle slightly and stared back at him in disgust. He looked pathetic, pitiful; barely worth wasting a bullet on. And that was exactly what he'd wanted her to think.
"BITCH!" McGinty exploded towards her with a roar and grabbed Kerry's gun in a blur of movement, too fast for her to react as he simultaneously grabbed her rifle and elbowed her in the face. He tore the weapon from her grasp and sprang to his feet, the rifle switched to automatic and a spray of fire erupted from the barrel before he was even fully upright. His rounds hosed down several of the civilians standing up, their chests erupting with fountains of blood as the bullets tore through them, felling them in and instant.
Corey followed his initiative and dived at the nearest armed woman, dropping her to the floor and grabbing her gun, turning it on the civvies and loosing off bursts of fire at them, driving them back. McGinty grabbed Kerry by the neck and gripped her in a tight headlock, pointing his M4 at her temple.
"Drop your guns!" He roared above the commotion. In the background, two small children looked towards him and whimpered, crying loudly as he held a gun to their mother's neck.
"Mommy?"
"It's okay, sweetie," Kerry said reassuringly to one of her children. "They just want to go, that's all." One of the women held Kerry's two children close to her, wrapping her arms around them and trying to reassure them.
"Put your fucking guns down," McGinty repeated. Corey aimed his rifle at another cluster of women, and McGinty's other men slowly got up off the floor joined McGinty and Corey. The remaining armed civilians kept their weapons pointed at the group but held fire and kept their distance.
Together, he and his men backed through the cavern and through the tunnel, towards the elevator shaft; the civvies all following them and keeping their rifles trained on the soldiers.
They backed into the elevator and switched it on, riding it slowly up to the surface. McGinty's arm remained wrapped tightly around Kerry's neck and nobody said a word. The only sound was the mechanical whirring of the elevator as it slowly climbed up to the surface.
Eventually they reached the top and the elevator cage opened, releasing them into the tunnel, dimly lit by work lights. McGinty pushed Kerry roughly to one side.
"Just... go," she said. "Please, I've got three kids down there, and-"
A bullet between the eyes silenced Kerry forever. Her body fell limply to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, and McGinty smiled behind the smoking barrel of his rifle.
"Fucking bitch points a gun at me," he muttered, shaking his head. They backed away from the elevator and McGinty triggered a grenade from his under barrel launcher, shattering the elevator in a bright blossom of flame and shrapnel, and rendering it a useless mesh of twisted scrap metal. Nobody would chase them out, now. There were other exits to the mines; the tunnels perforated the whole area and ran for miles; but nobody would follow them up for some time.
The group jogged out of the tunnel and into the dull greyness of what passed for daylight in the Post-Judgement Day world. McGinty breathed a sigh of relief, shared by his men; he'd honestly feared for his life back there, convinced he'd die down in the mine. They found the two dead guards, took their weapons and radios, and checked the vehicles.
"The Topkick's gone," one of his men reported. Only the Hummer was left.
"I can see that."
"Tyre tracks head west, out into the desert."
"California," McGinty grinned. "Good, get in." McGinty's remaining men piled into the Hummer. One of his men, named Harvey, drove, whilst he took shotgun. They headed due west, following the tracks until they disappeared, but McGinty still had them keep on the same heading. The California State border wasn't far from them; just over twenty miles as the crow flies. McGinty knew they were headed for California; the Skynet capital of the US. Those tin cans were headed back to their own kind. Not if he could help it. They'd need help, though. He'd seen how deadly Skynet's larger machines were, and Cameron and Courtney were clearly far more advanced. He wasn't taking any chances.
"Call Delta squad and have them RV with us on the Twenty-Eight at the California border," he ordered. "And tell them to bring heavy weapons." Delta Squad had been out on recon patrols when those tin can freaks had shown up. Now they and the men in his Hummer were all that remained of his force. Still; Delta plus them meant twelve men in total, plus the heavier weapons from one of several caches he'd set up in the area. He'd follow those robot whores to the ends of the earth if he had to. Forget the war, forget Skynet; he wanted those two machines hunted down and torn apart into scrap metal.