Weapons at the ready, David and Tunney hung close behind. As they advanced, David was muttering under his breath. Connor knew why but said nothing. David didn’t mind dirt, wasn’t afraid of action, would take on half a dozen enemy all by himself without bothering to call for backup—but he couldn’t swim. Not normally a cause for concern in the southwestern deserts, and yet here he was up to his collywobbles in water.
Tunney flanked David, and Connor suspected it was all he could do to restrain himself from commenting on his partner’s obvious discomfort.
The burrower bomb had done its work well. Ceilings had collapsed throughout the tunnel, unattended flames ate at advanced instrumentation, and the distinctive red lighting typical of Skynet environments flickered unsteadily. Connor would have been perfectly happy to see it all wink out, turn black and lifeless. If that happened, he and his men had come equipped with adequate illumination of their own.
The percussive chorale of distant gunfire echoed faintly through the corridor they were probing. Evidently some of the other squads were encountering more than just dim lighting and broken plumbing.
Something stirred the water behind them, and it wasn’t a consequence of collapsing infrastructure. By the time the T-1 was half out of the water both David and Tunney were whirling on it. It was David who got off the necessary burst. Shards of metal and carbon fiber splinters went flying as the would-be assassin was blown apart.
“Hey bro, I thought it was my turn.” With the muzzle of his own weapon, Tunney nudged a floating scrap of Terminator.
David shrugged. “Gotta be faster than that, Ton. I’m going for a new high score. But I’ll sit back and watch while you take out the next two.”
His partner grinned tightly. “’Preciate it, bro. Anyway, if you’re going for T-1s, you’re not even in the game.”
“Over here.” Connor interrupted, calling to them from just up ahead. Instantly the two soldiers were all business again.
Shouldering his weapon, Connor used both hands to tug on the large handle of a heavy door set in the tunnel wall. It refused to budge. Another man might have put a foot on the door to gain leverage or asked his companions to assist. Having better things to do and insufficient time in which to do them, Connor instead removed a brick of C-4 from his backpack, followed it with ignition cord and a detonator. In his hands the complete explosive package came together like a pizza in Naples. Clustering nearby, his team looked on in admiration.
“Don’t lose any fingers there, Chief.” Nervousness was apparent in the voice of one of the younger soldiers as he watched Connor’s fingers fly. A far more relaxed David glanced back at the concerned speaker.
“Shit, Connor’s been a Class A terrorist his whole life. How many fingers is he missing? Right—none. Only thing getting blasted here is that door.” Turning, he started wading back the way they had come. “Might want to put a little distance between you and the show. Otherwise you might lose face.”
As soon as everyone had cleared, Connor set the timer and sprinted to join them. Time passed with interminable slowness before another soldier could not keep from whispering.
“I know how experienced he is, but it’s sopping down here and mayb....”
The thunder of the C-4 was magnified by the narrowness of the corridor. The effect was not unlike hearing a dozen trumpets sound off all at once—with the listener crammed inside one of the instruments.
Several of the soldiers flinched. Not Connor or his two backups, Tunney and David. The explosion was just one more peroration in an interminable concert scored for instruments that consisted of expressively volatile compounds. Even before the air had cleared, Connor was leading them forward.
The room they entered was large and filled with smoke. While the haze was already dispersing, it was still difficult to see. Difficult enough so that Connor slipped on something and nearly fell. Looking down, he expected to see more water. Instead, the liquid underfoot was dark and sticky. For an instant he held onto the hope that it might be machine oil. But the color was wrong, too red.
The blood was reasonably fresh.
New sounds distracted him. For the first time since he and his squad had entered the complex they heard voices other than their own. The strongest of them was subdued, the weakest barely audible. Moans and pleas. Reaching down to his belt, he pulled and ignited another flare and lobbed it forward. It lit up the still diffusing mix of smoke, debris, evaporating liquid—and cages.
The voices were coming from multiple knots of humanity who had been packed with inhuman lack of concern into numerous holding pens. As Connor and his men drew close, hands extended toward them. His gaze flicked over pleading faces, gaunt bodies.
Some of the internees were in the last stages of exhaustion or starvation.
Tunney surveyed the unfortunate detainees with a jaundiced eye. As he contemplated a situation that, based on experience, made no sense, movement at the far end of the room caused him and his companions to hastily raise their weapons.
Almost as quickly, they relaxed. David even smiled. A larger compliment of their colleagues had broken into the chamber from another corridor.
Pushing his way through the internment area, Connor forced himself to ignore the pleading and extended hands. He was making his way toward a set of illuminated screens that fronted compact consoles. The latter, thankfully, were still functioning—but for how much longer it was impossible to tell. One thing he did know—they’d better work quickly. Hefting his communicator, he spoke into the pickup.
“Olsen, objective located. There’s something else you have to see.” Putting up the hand unit, he moved to the computation complex.
The general arrived soon after. Taking one glance at the glowing, living complex, he turned and barked a name.
“Barbarossa!”
Immediately, the team’s lead technician hurried to join the two men. Soldiers moved around them, sealing the location. The tech halted, stunned by what he was seeing.
“Come on, man,” Olsen prodded him. “We don’t know how much time we’re going to have here. Get to work.” Nodding silently and slightly dazed, the tech drew his battlefield laptop and began fumbling with a handful of cables. Down here they didn’t dare risk broadcasting their presence or any attempt at entry by trying for an over-the-air hookup.
“Spread out,” Olsen told his troops. “Secure the perimeter.” He pointed. “I’ve got a big gap over here. We’re busy and I’m not in the mood for any surprises.” Turning back to the silently watching Connor, he lowered his voice. “Why didn’t we know about this?”
The tech chief interrupted him.
“I’m in. Looks like the central server cluster. I think it’s still intact.” Like a wasp assaulting a termite hive, he tore into the protective programming to expose still active links, circuitry diagrammatics, relays. Some of it was like nothing they had ever seen before, incredibly advanced and distressingly incomprehensible. Some of it was familiar.
Enough of it was familiar.
Overall, the hack was accomplished with admirable speed. Imagery soon filled the brightly lit screen directly opposite the three men. There were no pictures, no accompanying music. No video and no shout-outs. It was all code and schematics, cold and disciplined. Sometimes it read right to left, sometimes top to bottom. Over time, the techs had learned how to interpret Skynet-speak.
So had Connor.
If you’re going to understand an enemy, you have to know how to speak its language.
“Here we go.” Barbarossa muttered as a flood of information began to spill across the screen. “Seems that these people here were to be taken to the northern sector for some kind of R and D project.” His fingers danced across the portable keyboard in front of him.