Terminator 3--Terminator Dreams by Aaron Allston

Author:Aaron Allston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

C.13

August 2029

Sierra Nevada Mountains, California/Nevada

Mark Herrera moved up the mountain slope along a game trail. It had to be a game trail; it had started a thousand feet down the mountain in a little runoff pond and was still worn, still being used. There were no Human Resistance compounds near here, so the only alternatives were that it was being used by humans unknown to the Resistance or by animals.

The trees here were green but wilted, desperate for water. Even winters on these slopes were comparatively arid; summer was a waterless nightmare. Much higher, and there’d be little to no vegetation at all.

He took a look around. He was ascending this slope along its southwest face. The sun was setting but still well above the peaks behind him. It gave everything here—stone, tree, his own flesh—a golden glow. There was no sign of human or machine activity, no sign there ever had been.

He keyed his lapel mike. “This is Hell-Hounds Two,” he said, speaking slowly and distinctly. “Assemble on my position. We’ll camp here for the night.”

He received three verbal acknowledgments. It sent a shiver up his spine, taking two or three times as long as was absolutely necessary to send a radio message, but that was his mission.

Ten, Earl, Kyla and her dogs reached him within twenty minutes. They looked around a little longer, found a clearing that was admirably suited to camping, and set their packs down there. Then, as the sun dropped to and finally behind the western peaks, they went scavenging, spending a long hour dragging firewood back to the clearing. Ten didn’t participate; his ribs were freshly healed, and all the walking they were doing had already taken a toll on his energy reserves.

It didn’t take that long to find one fire’s worth of wood. In these dry summer conditions, they had enough fuel for one fire within minutes. But by the end of the hour, they had assembled wood for six fires around the clearing.

They set up tents—of ratty canvas and the poorest tarps that they’d been able to acquire from Hornet Compound’s survivors. When they were done, as twilight began to set and they lit off the fires, the encampment looked as though it had been set up for twenty or thirty people.

Their encampment last night had looked much the same.

Now, before it grew too dark to move, they headed out again, moving at a brisk pace despite Ten’s bruised ribs and Kyla’s minor gunshot wound, to a site two miles away—farther up the mountain, where the trees were far more sparse but the rock crests and overhangs were far more numerous, and made their own smaller, colder camp.

They looked down on the glows of the untended fires from the comparative safety and seclusion of a cleft beneath one overhang. Heat-insulating modern blankets were draped before them, leaving only narrow gaps through which they could see.

Earl, chewing unenthusiastically on a hunk of venison jerky, said, “Children, what we need is some marshmallows. And graham crackers and chocolate bars.

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