Terminator Salvation_ The Official Movie Novelization - Alan Dean Foster [50]
“Maybe you’d be scared if you knew more about me.” Lying flat on his back now, he regarded the stars that were starting to peep through the shifting cloud cover.
“Like what?” The heat from the fire was making her sleepy.
“I was in prison. Before.”
She set her stir stick aside and turned her attention from prodding the fire to her suddenly pensive companion.
“Didn’t know they had any left.” When he looked sharply at her, she added, “What did you do? Usually when someone talks about having spent time in prison, they’re not referring to their long career as a guard.”
He took some time before replying.
“I shot a cop.”
She took more time before responding.
“You have a good reason?”
It clearly wasn’t the comeback he had been expecting.
“Not the first question people usually ask.”
“Normally it wouldn’t be the first one I’d ask, either, Marcus. But you came back to help me, back at the racetrack. Something about you doesn’t add up, doesn’t make sense. I can’t figure it, and so I can’t figure you. One thing I do know: you saw those three nomads and they didn’t see you. There was nothing to stop you from slipping away into the night and leaving me to have to deal with them. You could simply have left.”
“Thought about it,” he told her with brutal honesty.
“But you didn’t,” she hastened to point out. “You came back to help me, a stranger, at considerable risk to yourself.”
“Not so much risk.” The way he said it made it sound like the most normal assessment in the world, devoid of even a hint of bluster.
“You came back,” she reiterated, “when most people in your position would not have done so. People are different now, Marcus. In case you hadn’t noticed, the world is a little different now, too. Just to give you one example, I sure as hell never thought I’d be a fighter pilot.” She contemplated what had become of her life.
“Before, if you killed somebody, that usually made you a criminal. But in this world, all it means is that you’re probably a good shot.”
***
This world, he thought. What had happened to the world while he had lain unconscious? He still had no idea how much time had passed or what had turned machine against maker. It hurt his head to think about it.
“You know, Marcus,” she murmured, “we can focus on what is lost. On what is past. Or we can fight for what is left.”
He turned to face her. “You think people get a second chance?”
“I do.” She clutched at herself. “I’m a little cold.” Without waiting for an invitation, she crawled over next to him. Drawing back, he eyed her uncertainly.
“Relax.” She smiled gently. “I just need some body heat. I’ve got low blood pressure, for one thing.”
That was certainly a possibility, he told himself. He mustered a half-hearted grin as she lay down against him, resting her head on his ribs.
“I can hear your heart beating all the way through your chest. Man, you’ve got a steady heartbeat!” Remembrance muted her words. “My dad had a Harley. An old softail he restored all by himself. Whenever things got tough at work or whenever he had a fight with my mom, he’d go to the garage, work on that bike, and everything would be good again. He’d let me ride on the back sometimes, even when I was little. We would pull up to a stoplight and I could hear his heart thumping along, keeping rhythm with the engine. Funny, isn’t it? We’re in a war to the death with machines, and here I am thinking affectionately of a machine. I miss that.” Raising her head from his chest, she looked up at him. “What do you miss, Marcus?”
He thought back, hunting through his past for a good memory. It took some time.
“Me and my brother, we’d steal a car. Didn’t matter what kind: old, new, domestic, foreign. Van or sports car. We’d just go, fast as we