Who...?
The armored vehicle spun around, turning its back toward the captain and his men. Brakes squealed as it skidded to a halt a few meters away. A pair of double doors slammed open, revealing human figures in the cargo hold. An outstretched arm beckoned to the surviving sailors.
“Get in!” a raspy female voice called out. Losenko got a quick impression of a short, stocky woman in soiled work clothes.
“Hurry!”
CHAPTER TEN
2018
The dogs barked loudly enough to raise the dead.
Molly’s eyes snapped open. Instantly alert, she sprang from the bed even as Geir stirred beneath the covers. The frantic baying, coming from outside, sent a jolt of adrenaline though Molly’s veins.
She raced across the shadowy bedroom and threw open the shutters. It was still night outside; the sun was nowhere near rising. Darkness shrouded the forgotten mill town. The barks sounded as if they were coming from the south, maybe from over by the playground. She squinted into the blackness, but even as her eyes adjusted the other buildings blocked her view.
A high-pitched yap was cut off abruptly.
Geir sat up in bed. Darkness hid his face, but not the tension in his voice.
“What is it?”
“Trouble,” she guessed. It was possible the dogs were reacting to a stray animal—perhaps a bear or wolf— wandering too near the camp, but she doubted it.
We should be so lucky.
The jarring staccato of gunfire instantly confirmed her worst fears. No way would the lookouts be opening fire on wildlife like that, especially not in the wee hours of the morning. There could be only one explanation.
Skynet had found them.
Molly had to know what was happening... and now. Fumbling in the dark, she snatched a walkie-talkie off the top of a chest of drawers and thumbed the speaker button.
“Security, this is Kookesh. What the fuck is going on out there?”
Static crackled in her ear, then an agitated voice could be heard over a din of angry shouting and gunfire. The shots echoed through the window as well, lending them an unnatural stereo effect.
“We’ve got a breach!” She recognized the raspy twang of Tom Jensen, a logger-turned-guerilla. He was supposed to be patrolling the southwest perimeter. “A machine! T-600, I think!”
Molly’s heart sank. Just what I was afraid of.
“Keep it busy!” she barked into the receiver. “I’ll be right there!”
She flung the walkie-talkie onto the bed, then started scooping her clothes up from the floor. The inky blackness frustrated her.
Where the hell are my pants?
A match struck loudly just a few feet away, igniting the kerosene lamp by the bed. A flickering golden radiance lit up the bedroom, much to Molly’s relief. She glanced over to see Geir standing naked by the lantern. He blew out the match.
“Thanks!” she grunted, pulling on her slacks. “I’ve gotta get down there.”
“Hang on.” He retrieved his own garments, which were draped over the back of a ratty easy chair. “I’ll be right with you.’
Molly shook her head vehemently.
“Forget it. You’ve got to get that plane out of here.” Geir’s vintage plane, Thunderbird, was kept in a camouflaged hangar down by the glacier. “We can’t afford to lose it.”
“Crap!” he swore. “I hate it when you’re right.” He grabbed the pistol that sat by the bed and tossed it in her direction. “Do me a favor. Be careful, okay?”
She thrust the sidearm into its holster, and shot him a wry grin.
“It’s the machines that need to worry,” she said, flaunting a bravado she didn’t feel. Moments later her M4 carbine was locked and loaded. “Just keep T-bird away from the metal.”
Sleigh bells jangled as she yanked open the door. She ran downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. Excited yelps greeted her; she had forgotten about the huskies sleeping by the stove.
Crossing the murky office, she pulled open the front door. An arctic blast of wind invaded the cabin. The cold hitting her face jolted her awake faster than the strongest coffee.
“Scoot!” she ordered, motioning to the dogs, anxious to give them a chance to escape. “Go on, scram!”
The huskies obeyed, and she followed them out into the freezing night air. The isolated camp was spread out around her. A single gravel road connected most of the mill’s sheds, plants, storehouses, and bunkhouses, which the Resistance had converted to its own purposes. The old ammonia leeching plant was now an armory and communications center. The powerhouse was a garage.
A fourteen-story breaker mill dominated the hillside further up, with a rickety wooden tramway that had once carried raw ore to the top of the building, where it had been dumped into the chutes and crushers below. To the east, rusty metal tracks led to a dilapidated railway depot that hadn’t seen a locomotive for more then eighty years. A crumbling wooden bridge spanned a wide, ice-covered stream that fed the glacier below.
Opaque black clouds kept the moon from relieving the nocturnal gloom, and Molly kicked herself for not remembering to grab a flashlight.
Lights flared inside the buildings, barely visible through the shutters, as the sleeping camp was shocked awake by the hair-raising tumult. Startled cries and curses escaped the ramshackle bunkhouses that were home to most of the Resistance fighters and their families. Frightened faces appeared in the windows. Babies wailed behind flimsy wooden walls. Molly’s heart went out to her people whose well-earned rest had just gone to hell. She wanted to assure them that they were going to be all right, that she had things under control.
But that would be a lie.
Despite the stygian blackness, she had no trouble figuring out which way to go. Gunfire, screams, and shouting drew her onward. A blind woman could have followed the trail to where the fighting was. Rifle in hand, she sprinted across the camp. Her loose hair blew in the wind.
Taking a shortcut between the mess hall and the machine shop, she emerged from an alley into an open junkyard that had been converted into a makeshift playground for the camp’s children. A swing set, slide, merry-go-round, and jungle gym had been cobbled together from scraps of discarded mining equipment. Like the upside-down extraction vat that had been converted into a children’s playhouse. Snow-covered sawdust cushioned the ground. An authentic Tlingit totem pole—carved by Ernie Wisetongue himself—watched over the area. The brightly colored visages of Raven, Beaver, Killer Whale, and Wolf perched atop each other on the pole.
Some distance away, on the other side of a sundered barbed-wire fence, towering pines marked the southwest border of the camp. The dense forest had always been a buffer zone sitting between the rebel outpost and the outside world.
Tonight that barrier had failed.
Muzzles flared in the night as a handful of sentries sought to repel the invader. The strobe-like flashes revealed a battle-scarred T-600 on a rampage. The Terminator looked as if it had been through the wars. Deep scratches and scorch marks defaced its carbonized endoskeleton. Congealed blood caked the cold metal. A single blood-red “eye” glowed malignantly above its leering death’s-head grimace, and only patches of melted rubber skin and polyester were still fused to the metal. And was that a large yellow tooth stuck in its skull?
Molly experienced a sudden flash of deja vu. Had one of the T-600s aboard the snow plow survived the avalanche?