Alan Foster - Terminator Salvation

“I’m guessing this doesn’t hurt.”

He wanted the flame—so close to his skin—to burn. He wanted the glowing metal to sting, to send shivers of agony running through his nerves and up his arm and down his spine. But all he felt was a mild warmth. The contradiction between what he was seeing and what he was feeling verged on the otherworldly.

“Guess not,” he muttered.

Cut through, half of the bolt securing one hand fell to the floor, allowing him to shake off the chain. He looked on impassively as she went to work with the cutter on his other hand. Gazing down at the one that was now free, he clearly saw a black streak where the skin had been scorched. It was already starting to heal. He felt nothing.

And not only in his unchained hand.

Connor sat alone in his private quarters listening to his mother.

“...you sent Kyle Reese back to protect me. Together, your father and I terminated the machine that was sent to kill me. In the future, I suspect more machines will arrive. Advanced models in many disguises, with an intellect far superior to that of humans. They’ll use anything in their power to deceive you. Do not trust it, John. Never forget what they are. Machines. They only have one objective: to kill you....”

How many times had he played back her recordings; memorizing every word, drawing on her advice, and learning how best to fight back against the machines. The recordings were a part of him now, just as she would always be a part of him. Despite his age, despite his experience and his maturity, he wished she could be with him. It was not only the knowledge she imparted. He missed her confidence, her assurance that come what may humanity would triumph and Skynet would be defeated.

It was a belief that had been sorely tested lately.

And now this—this thing had appeared in their midst. This insane hybrid of human and machine, insisting even in the face of incontestable evidence to the contrary that it was a man. Clinging resolutely to a claim mocked by its own guts. If it had not been sent to kill him, then what possible purpose could it have?

The more Connor thought about it, the greater his certainty that it needed to be destroyed at the next opportunity. Whatever it thought of itself, it was self-evidently a creature of Skynet. Whatever it might have done for Blair Williams, plainly no further good could come of allowing it to continue to exist. Many capabilities could be ascribed to Skynet, but until the advent of the creature that called itself “Marcus Wright” it had never been credited with subtlety.

It was a dangerous development; one less easily countered with bombs and bullets.

He was still playing the recording when Kate walked in. She listened for a moment, then nodded in the direction of the player.

“Your mother was a strong woman.”

Leaning forward, Connor switched off the recording. It didn’t matter that she had interrupted him. He knew every word by heart anyway.

“There’s nothing there.”

Kate eyed him closely.

“What’s going on inside that head of yours, John Connor?”

He turned to her. “That thing in there, in the security silo. I thought I knew our enemy. But that makes me feel like I know nothing. I looked into its eyes. It absolutely believes everything that it says. It believes it’s human. And it’s telling me Kyle Reese is on his way to Skynet. If that’s true, then Command is about to bomb my family and all the other prisoners into oblivion. And I can’t stop them.”

Even Kate Connor’s normally rock-solid composure could be shaken, as her reaction to her husband’s words showed.

“If your mother was in your position, right here, right now, what do you think she’d do? She’d fight. She’d find a way, John. You’re a Connor. That’s what you do.”

His head dropped and he stared at the floor, clasping his hands together in front of him. He did not sound like the indomitable Resistance fighter John Connor now.

He didn’t have to—not with Kate.

“We’ve made so many decisions that have determined who lived and who didn’t. Watched so many people die.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “For the first time, I don’t know what to do.

“It’s not just Kyle. I mean that. When this attack goes forward, all the other prisoners are going to die. It’s one thing to die on the battlefield, fighting the machines. But to be trapped in a holding pen or some kind of oversized cage or whatever Skynet is using, without a chance to fight back or escape, just waiting for death....” He stopped, unable to go on.

Silence held sway between them for a while, until she reminded him gently, “None of us gets to choose the manner of our passing, John. Whether by machine or by nature, we exit this plane of existence when a certain confluence of circumstances arrives. Kyle would understand that. I know that you do.”

“I’m not sure what I understand anymore, Kate.” His expression reflected the torment he was feeling. “I spent some time looking at that poor bastard creature we’ve got strung up down there. Despite the incontrovertible evidence, he truly seems convinced he’s human. In reality, he has no idea what he is. Looking at him, listening to him, I realized—I don’t either. I’ve been doing this for so long I’m not sure what I am anymore. I’ve been fighting them for so long that I’ve been reduced to fighting like one of them. Like I’m some kind of machine myself.”

She stared down at him. Sometimes she could find the right words to lift him out of the depression into which he seemed to be lapsing more and more often. This was not one of those times. Only a sharp knock on the door saved both of them from the awkward continuing silence. When her husband failed to respond, she turned to the entryway.

“Yes,” she called out tiredly, “come in.”

Barnes stepped through the door.

“What do you need, Lieutenant?” she said.

Barnes’s gaze flicked to the silent figure of the man sitting on the edge of the bed, then back to the doctor.

“Williams relieved me. She said you needed to talk to....”

Connor did not so much rise as explode off the bed. Any vestiges of melancholy vanished. He was instantly all business again. By the time he reached the door and pushed past the frowning, confused Barnes he had already checked to ensure that his oversized pistol was fully loaded.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The clothes Williams had brought were snug, but they fit the struggling Wright without splitting. He ought to have been acutely cramped from having hung suspended for so long. Neither he nor Williams remarked on the fact that he was not.

For that matter, his arms and shoulders ought to have been dislocated. They didn’t discuss that absence, either. Nor the fact that the holes in his wrists where the steel bolts had been punched through were closing with unnatural rapidity and with little loss of blood.

As he pulled on the jacket she had brought for him there was no ache in his muscles, no tightness in his arms. Had he chosen to dwell on the lack of bodily damage it would likely have upset him even more than he already was.

Then emergency lights flared to life within the silo, a klaxon began to bray insistently, and there was no time to think about anything except the one possible way out that remained available to them.

A large vent dominated one side of the silo. Its purpose was to allow the exhaust from now-vanished missiles to escape safely during launch. Integrated into the wall, a single service ladder led up to the opening. Wright headed up, moving easily hand over hand—so rapidly that he had to wait for Williams to catch up. Thereafter he took the rungs more slowly, glancing back occasionally to make sure she was still with him.