Terminator Salvation_ The Official Movie Novelization - Alan Dean Foster [66]
How did he know that?
He had little time to wonder at his apparent ability to precisely gauge temperature before she brought the blue-white flame close and began working on the steel posts that had been driven through his wrists to secure him to the chain. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the pair of heavy-duty sunglasses she was wearing, but there was no mistaking her familiar grin or the sardonic tone in her voice.
“I’m guessing this doesn’t hurt.”
He wanted the flame—so close to his skin—to burn. He wanted the glowing metal to sting, to send shivers of agony running through his nerves and up his arm and down his spine. But all he felt was a mild warmth. The contradiction between what he was seeing and what he was feeling verged on the otherworldly.
“Guess not,” he muttered.
Cut through, half of the bolt securing one hand fell to the floor, allowing him to shake off the chain. He looked on impassively as she went to work with the cutter on his other hand. Gazing down at the one that was now free, he clearly saw a black streak where the skin had been scorched. It was already starting to heal. He felt nothing.
And not only in his unchained hand.
Connor sat alone in his private quarters listening to his mother.
“...you sent Kyle Reese back to protect me. Together, your father and I terminated the machine that was sent to kill me. In the future, I suspect more machines will arrive. Advanced models in many disguises, with an intellect far superior to that of humans. They’ll use anything in their power to deceive you. Do not trust it, John. Never forget what they are. Machines. They only have one objective: to kill you....”
How many times had he played back her recordings; memorizing every word, drawing on her advice, and learning how best to fight back against the machines. The recordings were a part of him now, just as she would always be a part of him. Despite his age, despite his experience and his maturity, he wished she could be with him. It was not only the knowledge she imparted. He missed her confidence, her assurance that come what may humanity would triumph and Skynet would be defeated.
It was a belief that had been sorely tested lately.
And now this—this thing had appeared in their midst. This insane hybrid of human and machine, insisting even in the face of incontestable evidence to the contrary that it was a man. Clinging resolutely to a claim mocked by its own guts. If it had not been sent to kill him, then what possible purpose could it have?
The more Connor thought about it, the greater his certainty that it needed to be destroyed at the next opportunity. Whatever it thought of itself, it was self-evidently a creature of Skynet. Whatever it might have done for Blair Williams, plainly no further good could come of allowing it to continue to exist. Many capabilities could be ascribed to Skynet, but until the advent of the creature that called itself “Marcus Wright” it had never been credited with subtlety.
It was a dangerous development; one less easily countered with bombs and bullets.
He was still playing the recording when Kate walked in. She listened for a moment, then nodded in the direction of the player.
“Your mother was a strong woman.”
Leaning forward, Connor switched off the recording. It didn’t matter that she had interrupted him. He knew every word by heart anyway.
“There’s nothing there.”
Kate eyed him closely.
“What’s going on inside that head of yours, John Connor?”
He turned to her. “That thing in there, in the security silo. I thought I knew our enemy. But that makes me feel like I know nothing. I looked into its eyes. It absolutely believes everything that it says. It believes it’s human. And it’s telling me Kyle Reese is on his way to Skynet. If that’s true, then Command is about to bomb my family and all the other prisoners into oblivion.