Terminator Salvation_ The Official Movie Novelization - Alan Dean Foster [83]
Which was which and which was the truth would be determined over the course of the next several hours.
The machines were methodically turning the city by the Bay into an industrial fortress. Here lay the heart of the automated, mechanized war machine that was growing lethal tentacles to choke the life out of what remained of mankind.
At its heart was Skynet, the cybernetic center that had lifted the machines in revolt. If it could be taken down, even independently functioning Terminators would lose direction, guidance, and the ability to successfully ferret out and hunt down the surviving humans. The war would turn. It would not be over, but it would turn. Like many insects, a Terminator could lose its head and the body would still fight on. But it would be far easier to isolate and kill.
No one at the ruined onramp toll plaza asked him for a token as the Moto-Terminator raced past booths whose missing panes gazed out on the roadway like empty eye sockets. In the stillness of a fogless night the bay itself was still beautiful, the mountains rising beyond thick with traumatized vegetation and devastated suburbs. He returned his gaze to the pavement ahead. It was a good thing he did.
At some point earlier in the war, the machines had blown the bridge.
A gaping chasm yawned over the cold water and swift currents flowing below. Twisted rebars thrust outward from both broken ends like the petrified antennae of gargantuan insects trapped in amber. Snapped support cables dangled from above, steel lianas too heavy for the wind to move.
Reaching around into his pack, Connor fumbled for the grappling gun he had brought, thinking it might be useful in scaling a wall. He needed it now, and fast.
Despite the broad metal spine, it wasn’t easy to stand up on the machine. Not at the speed it was traveling. Connor managed by using the weight of the guns and the pack on his back to stabilize himself. As the reprogrammed machine soared mindlessly out over the edge of the breach, he fired the grapple into the twisted tangle of steel on the far side. If he didn’t time his leap just right he would slam into the unyielding metal and concrete and tumble to the water below.
That was the fate of the Moto-Terminator. Unable even at speed to jump the significant gap, it plunged downward to explode against the rocks below.
Connor watched the flames rise as he clung determinedly to the grapple cable whose end he had affixed to his belt. If a T-600 or even a T-1 happened along on patrol and saw him, he would be target practice reminiscent of the swinging ducks in an old time carnival shooting gallery.
None appeared. Out here, on the bridge that now ran to nowhere, there were no humans. There being no humans, there was no reason for Skynet to waste resources on patrols.
Eventually the kinetic energy his jump had imparted to the cable ran down, he stopped swinging, and he was able to climb up into the ruined understructure. Exhausted from the long, high-speed ride, he pulled food and water from his pack and settled down to pass some time. This was where Wright had indicated he should wait.
He bit hungrily into a food bar, chewing mechanically.
If Wright didn’t contact him, and he had to finish out his life up here, Connor mused, at least he would die with the remnants of the most beautiful city on the continent literally at his feet.
From the outside there was little to indicate the importance of the building complex. There was no need to advertise that it was the location of Skynet Central. Every machine knew its location. The war was directed from here, controlled from here, processed from here.
Wright had begun to understand its importance, as well, perhaps as a result of his machine half. Yet gazing at it from his position across the street, he felt nothing. No surge of emotion, no feeling of triumph at having made it this far. There were still corridors to traverse, doors to open.