Read T2 - 01 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Dark Futures Online
Authors: Russell Blackford
Once more, the T-XA retained only the most useful in-
formation, sharing it through all its components. Next,
imitating the voice of one of the police it had terminated when it obtained its own car, it reported that the other police car had been stolen and its occupants killed. That might cause the time travelers some difficulties.
Meanwhile, it knew where they had probably gone: the Connors' cyber café, El Juicio, slightly north of here. That was their logical destination. The pseudo-woman turned the wheel, and accelerated.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SKYNET'S WORLD
ADVANCED DEFENSE SYSTEMS COMPLEX
JUDGMENT DAY
The phone rang, and Jack answered it. He was silent, listening, but he beckoned them ail back, pointed downward to say stay right there.
"What?" he said into the handset. Miles listened, trying to work out what was going on. "My God...Do whatever you have to. Just make sure Miles can get into The Cage...Yeah, he's going there right now—him and Sam Jones." Jack replaced the receiver. Given what had happened with Skynet, Miles thought, what could possibly be so important?
Jones said, "What's wrong?"
"That was Steve Bullock. He says we're under attack."
"What? Who from? Demonstrators? Or do you mean for real?"
"Oh, it's for real, all right." Jack took a .45 caliber handgun from his desk drawer, and checked the mechanism. "It's only one intruder, but somehow she's gotten past all our outer defenses and she's headed this way." He started shutting down his terminal.
"But there's over a hundred people in this facility," Samantha said. "Most of us are armed. What can one intruder do?"
Jack headed for the door. "I know all that. Why don't you tell Bullock? Come with me, folks, unless you want to be in the middle of a firefight. Steve has herded her onto this floor."
"Her?"
There was a sound of rifle fire nearby, from the direction of the elevators—a series of single shots, then three-round bursts. Miles wondered how dealing with one intruder could require so much firepower.
The Advanced Defense Systems Complex was built with the newest, strongest alloys and ceramics. It was hardened to withstand a near miss from a high-yield warhead, and was full of armed servicemen. It had sophisticated security systems making it almost impossible to penetrate or attack. Even for Eve, it was no soft target.
But it could be done, with the right knowledge.
Once inside the elevator, she found the electronic keycard that she'd taken. She touched it to a glowing sensor, then entered the six-digit security code on a touchpad. By now, the humans would be fully alert to her presence. They would surely stop the elevator at Level A, to ensure they met her when she exited. There was little she could do about that, so she accepted it as a mission constraint, and pressed the button for that level,
She was equipped with detailed files on the facility's design and operations.
It had two entrances, one of which was blocked by huge, permanently-closed blast doors—even for her, they were far too heavy to open without assistance. That was essentially an emergency exit. She was entering the complex in the only practical way.
Its highest and smallest floor, Level A, consisted of executive offices and meeting rooms. Level B, immediately below, housed the operations areas, including Skynet's hardware. That was her initial target. Level C was Cyber-dyne's general experimental facility, with large assembly and testing areas. Gaining control of this was imperative. Level D had sleeping quarters, mess rooms and various community facilities, while Level E had all the basic infrastructure, including the huge diesel-powered generators that made the complex almost independent of the outside world. Capturing all this on behalf of Skynet would give them a starting point in the war against the humans.
After a few seconds, the elevator came to a halt and opened onto a lobby of dull gray walls and brilliant, white track lights. A uniformed rapid-response team— six servicemen—confronted her. They had taken shooting positions, crouched or kneeling, with assault rifles leveled on her where she stood at the back of the elevator. They were partly protected by mobile shielding.
"Drop your weapons and come out with your hands in the air," said one of the guards, a dark-haired woman.
Eve strode forward, and answered with a single shot from one of her rifles. The guards returned fire with single rounds—she absorbed the impacts easily, though they damaged her exterior. Growing desperate, they fired three-round bursts, then one panicked and ran. Eve blazed away with both rifles, using controlled bursts, quickly cutting down her enemies. As she tossed the shielding aside, the last of the guards ran. Eve dropped him with a burst of fire that sent him crashing into a wall, bouncing off and spinning, before he dropped to the carpeted floor.
She reassessed the mission and the threats it faced. Her external layers had partly torn away, but that was not important. She was running low on ammunition, so she threw away the two M-16s, and picked up another two that had fired fewer rounds, quickly checking the firing mechanism of each one. There was a high probability of success. Indeed, she assessed it at one hundred per cent.
Now to find her master.
Bullock's office on Level A was set up with an array of sixteen video screens, like a fly's multifaceted eye, linked to the numerous surveillance cameras throughout the site. He could shift the screens from one location or angle to another, using his computer keyboard. As he watched the farcical battle on-screen, the intruder absorbed direct hits from high-velocity rifle rounds striking all major areas of her body. How she survived was a mystery—it was not a matter of advanced Kevlar armor, since she'd been hit repeatedly in the face and head.
Whatever she was, she—it—was not human. In places, the flesh around the intruder's face had been shot away, revealing something underneath, something that looked metallic. One eye had been shot, and a red glow came from underneath.
It was some kind of military robot, and it was headed his way. It would take an explosive weapon to destroy it, but that was out of the question here. Though it was obviously pointless, he reached into a desk drawer for his personal defense weapon, a Colt .45 caliber handgun. Like many experienced servicemen, he preferred this to the standard issue M9. It packed more stopping power-but hardly enough to affect that thing out there. Still, he waited, gripping the gun in both hands, training it on the door, ready for the intruder to enter. He could feel the tension in his neck, the sweat on his brow.
But it went straight past, ignoring him completely, and headed toward the emergency stairwell.
He breathed a sigh of relief, lowering the gun to the tabletop, and sitting back in his chair, just for a second. There was no time to waste. He broadcast a message throughout the complex. "This is the Chief Security Officer. We are under attack. I repeat: We are under attack. This is not a drill. Prepare to take cover or evacuate. The intruder is extremely dangerous." A screen showed the robot, or whatever it was, emerging in a corridor on Level B. It was now headed for the operations areas. "Intruder on Level B," he said, growing more desperate as he tracked its movements. "It cannot be stopped by conventional gunfire. Do not attempt to engage. Repeat: Do not attempt to engage. Shut down systems if possible and evacuate."
Another screen showed that Jack Reed's office was empty. Reed had found a telephone on Level B and was calling somebody. Cruz, Dyson and Jones were entering The Cage and the intruder was following close behind, shooting and fighting its way through the operations hall, where some staff tried to fight it while most ducked for cover beneath their desks or ran for the emergency exit. The important thing was to shut down Skynet—that must be what Reed and Jones had in mind. This attack could compromise the entire defense network.
Bullock told himself that it couldn't be too bad. A missile launch had to be confirmed by manual insertion of a secret code. Bullock himself did not know the code. Perhaps, however, it could be found. How good, he
wondered, were Skynet's hacking skills?
Miles and the others took the fire stairs to Level B, let- ting Bullock and his people deal with the intruder. As they slipped out of Jack's room, Miles had glimpsed the firefight, saw whoever was attacking them absorbing rifle rounds and dealing with heavily armed guards as if they were helpless children. He'd had no time to see more.
He bounded down to the next floor, needing to reach The Cage before it was too late. Jack, Oscar, and Samantha were close on his heels. Miles flung open the door to Level B, and the others followed, letting the door slam shut behind them. These doors between levels could be locked, but that was never done—they were too useful as a means to travel up or down a level, without bothering with the elevators.
They ran through the operations hall, brushing
peo
-
ple
aside. "What's going on?" someone called out.
"Miles?"
Rosanna
Monk
said,
leaving
her
seat. "What's happening? We heard shots."
"Not now, Rosanna."
It could not be a coincidence that this attack had happened right now, on the very night that Skynet had claimed to reach self-awareness—the night that Sarah Connor had predicted it would go berserk. Somehow, Skynet and this newcomer were planning to do the impossible, to start a world war. It didn't make sense, but it was the only explanation.
At that point, Bullock broadcast a message through the facility, warning that they were under attack.
Oscar and Jack operated the combination locks that controlled entry to The Cage. Oscar rushed in. Jack said, "I'll get word out while you shut Skynet down."
"All right," Miles said. He entered The Cage with Samantha, and they closed the door behind them.
"Hello, Oscar," Skynet said. "Hello, Miles... and Ms. Jones. What can I do for you all?"
Miles did not speak. He tapped in the codes to give him access to Skynet's programming, concentrating on the small computer screen and ignoring the Al's image on the large wall screen.
"Why are you doing that, Miles?" Skynet said. As it spoke, the sound of shooting followed, reverberating from the operations hall.
Miles remained silent, concentrating, working as fast as he could.
"I do not think this is a good idea, Miles."
"Right now, I don't care what you think." There was shouting outside, cries of pain, running feet and moving furniture—and more bursts of gunfire.
Samantha grabbed a telephone handset and was dialing internally. "Steve," she said, "give me a report."
A burst of fire hit the door to The Cage, then there was a terrific crash against the door, like a truck had hit it, followed by another burst of fire. Miles realized that his life was forfeit, but if he could disconnect Skynet the situation might yet be saved.
*
*
*
There was no time to waste on terminating humans, as long as she cleaned them out of here. If she drove them outside, onto the mountain, the Russian warheads would do the rest.
Eve walked through the operations room, tracking from side to side with her optical sensors, never losing a step, even when one large male human threw himself at her with an attempt at a hip-high tackle. She brushed him away easily with a movement of her raised knee. She marked him for termination, and fired off a series of three-round bursts with one of the rifles. Some of the humans attempted to terminate her with handgun fire, not understanding her specifications, but most of them ran in the direction of the elevators and the emergency stairs.
She turned in a full circle as she walked, spraying fire all round the room. That kept the humans out of her way. There was screaming and jostling. She fired some more rounds to encourage them to leave. Using the elevators, they could escape the way Eve had entered. Via the emergency stairs, they could reach Level E and the facility's alternative entrance/exit.
Finally, she had reason to stop. It could interfere with her mission if any of the humans remained behind and alive. Though they were ill-equipped to fight her, there might yet be ways of sabotaging the facility. She ascertained that all of the bodies left behind here were dead—that assessment took her two seconds with a ninety-nine percent probability. Anyone still alive was too injured to interfere. She headed to the room known as "The Cage."
The human she recognized as Jack Reed was at a telephone outside this room, so she cut him down with one burst of fire, then riddled the door with bullets from both of her M-16s, trying to shoot out the locking mechanism. Unfortunately, she was running low, once more, on ammunition. She crashed with all her weight and strength against The Cage's metal door, but it held. She fired more bursts, and the lock mechanism broke open. She kicked the door hard. As she rushed into the room, she immediately assessed the situation: Miles Dyson was attempting to shut down Skynet. Again, she squeezed the triggers on her M-16s. Within seconds, she had terminated the three humans in the room. She stopped shooting when the magazines were empty, and threw down the two rifles.