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“They’re gone,” Reese told him simply.

“Why are you still here?”

“Star and me, we’re the Resistance.”

Wright forced himself not to smile as he regarded the boy and the girl.

“You and her are the Resistance?”

Reese nodded assertively. “L.A. branch.”

“Resisting what?”

The teen’s gaze narrowed while he studied the enigmatic stranger, as if wondering if perhaps he had escaped from the moon. Or more likely some half-destroyed mental hospital.

“It’s not funny. The machines. Skynet.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yeah.”

Using his free hand Wright pointed to the red band that encircled his arm.

“Then why don’t you have one of these?”

“I haven’t earned it yet,” the youth shot back pointedly.

Wright nodded. “Your parents? Are they Resistance? Did they feed you that crap?”

“They’re dead.” Reese spoke coolly, as if discussing the obvious. “Death follows you very closely in this world. It sucks. But you get used to it. You get used to whatever you have to get used to in order to survive.” He glanced meaningfully at Star. “Some handle it better than others. Some just handle it differently.”

Wright understood completely.

“Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it. Along with whatever else is necessary. It’s better that way.”

Wright flipped the radio’s “on” switch and was rewarded with—nothing. He was disappointed but not surprised.

“Dammit. Okay....” He handed Star the opened device. Colorful wires trailed from its interior like the intestines of some ancient hard-shelled sea creature. “Hang onto this.”

Childlike curiosity prompted her to study the inside of the radio while he searched through the surrounding debris. Finding a microwave oven, he used the knife Star gave him to unscrew the back and began sorting through the components. Finding the parts he wanted and yanking them free, he strode back to where Star was holding the radio and took it from her. What he really needed was a soldering iron and a crimper. Though the circumstances were radically different, what he was doing was not so very different from similar exercises he had engaged in before.

Sitting down, he resumed working on the radio’s interior.

“Just like hot-wiring a Mustang,” he murmured contemplatively. “Used to be able to do it in under eight seconds. Beemers took longer, ‘vettes kind of in-between.”

Reese didn’t understand. “Is that good?”

This time Wright did reply, though without looking up from or pausing in his work.

“Owners didn’t care much for it.” Concluding the rewiring, he started to bring one color against another, then paused to smile softly at the girl. “You want to see some magic, Star?” She stared back at him. “Don’t look at me like that. Make yourself useful. Press the button.” He held out the radio. “This one here. See if you can make it come alive.”

The radio was cheap and its speaker crummy, but the static that crackled from it as he adjusted the tuner was as welcome as any music any of them had ever heard.

The girl’s mouth and eyes widened as she stared at the device. The look she then turned on Wright was so penetrating and adoring that he was forced to turn away. Caught in her stare of childlike wonder, he had for just an instant forgotten who he was. That was not only dangerous, it was unwarranted.

Wright advanced the dial one tiny increment at a time, not wanting to chance skipping over the faintest, most distant signal.

Static. More static. Nothing but static.

Wright saw the youth’s expression fall, watched his shoulders slump. He was just as disappointed as the lanky teen, but there was nothing he could do about it. In a life that had been filled with disappointment the silence of the radio was just one more. Used to dealing with disillusionment, he would handle this latest bout as stolidly as he had all that had preceded it.

As for the kid, well, he had obviously learned how to cope with worse. He would deal with this, or he wouldn’t. Either way, Wright figured, it wasn’t his problem.

Reaching the end of the dial, his expression set, he starting turning the knob back. As