“Come with us. The general wants to see you two.”

Kayden looked around in confusion, but only he and Serena were in the nearby area.

“Who? Do you mean me… and her?” Kayden said, pointing at himself, and then he pointed at Serena.

“Yes, you two. The general ordered us to bring the both of you to his command tent.” The soldier said.

Kayden was surprised. He could not think of any reason why their general, whoever he was, would want to see them.

‘Maybe it’s because of Serena. He might have discovered that she’s one of his soldiers or something. She’s part of the Resistance after all.’ Kayden thought.

He glanced towards Serena with an eyebrow raised, an obviously inquiring look. Serena noticed his glance, and she seemed to have realized what he was wondering about, but she only shrugged in answer.

‘Looks like even Serena doesn’t know why either.’ Kayden thought, sighing in resignation.

“Alright, we’ll come with you.” Kayden said.

He had decided to go and see why this general wanted to see them. There was no need to create any new complications by arguing further with these soldiers. He would soon leave this place anyways.

The three soldiers led them to a large army camouflage tent located further inside the camp, at around the central area of the camp. They stopped in front of the tent.

The lead soldier announced himself loudly, “Sergeant Jacob Rivers reporting, sir? I have brought the two people you wanted to see.”

“Bring them inside.” An imposing deep and a little rough-sounding voice reached from inside the tent.

“Come with me.” Rivers said, motioning for Kayden and Serena to follow after him.

He gave his plasma rifle and handgun to his two colleagues to keep for him before he pushed aside the tent flaps and entered into the tent.

The other two soldiers who had come here with them waited outside, while Kayden and Serena quickly followed after Rivers and walked into the tent.

The tent’s interior was spacious with most of it occupied by the large conference table around which many high-backed chairs were arranged. A small futuristic-looking device had been placed on top of the table. The device was shaped like a small-sized pyramid. A three-dimensional hologram hovered above the device. The hologram showed Skynet’s core facility and the battlefield in front of the facility.

Kayden could see many tiny people, military vehicles and aircrafts moving about in the hologram. He immediately realized that this hologram was a true representation of what was happening in the area around Skynet’s core facility, and it was even in real time.

Kayden also noticed that there was no currently no fighting going on in the hologram.

‘Ah, the battle has really ended. That announcer had actually not lied. It looks like the Resistance truly defeated Skynet.’ he thought.

Kayden almost immediately felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Although he had not been consciously aware of the constant pressure he had been feeling in his subconscious, it was right now that Kayden realized that he had always been carrying around the weight of uncertainty about whether he would really be able to escape Skynet’s control even though he had blustered and proclaimed his free will seemingly with utmost confidence earlier on when he had stood before Skynet.

But what had caught Kayden's attention the most and as soon as he stepped inside the tent were the several plasma machine guns he saw inside the tent. The plasma machine guns were mounted on 1.5 meters tall shiny steel gun stands which had been arranged around the sides of the tent in such a way that the gunfire from the guns could reach every spot inside the tent.

The guns had swiveled around on their gun stands when the trio of Rivers, Kayden and Serena stepped into the tent and red-light glows appeared at spots on the guns where laser sights would normally be located.

Kayden’s HUD immediately alerted him that he was being scanned for weapons, but he made sure that he looked appropriately scared like would be expected from anyone who had several guns pointed at him and that there were no other changes in his facial expression that might reveal that he had noticed anything else.

Anyways, he did not have any reason to worry about the guns. He had left his two now out-of-ammunition phased plasma rifles back in his truck.

“Don’t worry about them. The guns are only here to serve as a precautionary measure.” A voice said.

It was the same deep and slightly harsh-sounding voice that Kayden had heard when he was still outside the tent.

‘Ah! I forgot! The general!’ Kayden thought.

Kayden turned around towards the direction where he had heard the voice from. A man seated at the desk positioned about 2 meters behind the conference and close to the back of the tent. Kayden had already noticed the man immediately he entered the tent, but the hologram and the machine guns had soon stolen most of his attention to such an extent that he had completely ignored the man. That was until the man’s previous words had made Kayden return his full attention back to him.

Besides, the placement of the general’s desk in a shadowy poorly-lit area which was also behind the large, hovering and also very conspicuous hologram which obstructed Kayden’s view of him made it easy for anyone to ignore his presence in the tent.

As soon as Kayden took a proper look at the man sitting at his desk and coolly staring at him from across the tent room, he began to regret that he had ignored the man and that he had not placed his entire attention on the man from the start.

The general, an early middle-aged black man, looked very imposing. This was both due to his tall height and his muscular physique. Even while remaining seated, the obviously tall height — which Kayden judged to be about 2 meters — and visibly bulging biceps of the general created a strong visual and mental impression in anyone meeting the general for the first time. It screamed that this man was not someone to mess with.

‘I can still beat him up though.’ Kayden thought.

On the right side of the general's face was a large tattoo which also added an air of ferocity to the general.

But what had created the most mental pressure on Kayden was the general’s stare.

His cool — almost cold — scrutinizing stare.

Even after standing before that cold stare for only a short period of time, Kayden had begun to feel a little inadequate and less confident. It was almost like the general had the power to stare into his soul. Kayden began to have the weird feeling that if he stayed close to the general for too long, the general would be able to look into his soul and uncover all his secrets.

Kayden realized that he might have made a big mistake. He should have focused his full attention on this man from the beginning instead of allowing himself to be easily distracted by the other things inside the tent.

Even though Kayden’s HUD showed him that the general was carrying a single plasma pistol in his hip holster, Kayden still felt like the man was the most dangerous person or thing in the tent right now.

Besides, the worst thing was that Kayden had now realized that the general had been silently watching, scrutinizing and judging his every single action since the time he had first stepped inside the tent.

The general motioned towards the two chairs placed before his desk, “Come. Sit down. I’m Major General Justin Perry, Field-Commander of the 132^nd Special Forces Unit of the Resistance. You can just call me General Perry.”

He then turned to the soldier that had brought Kayden and Serena to him and said, “Private, you can return to your duties. Thank you.”

As Kayden and Serena sat down on their offered seats, the soldier gave a salute to the general before he left.

“You are called Kayden, correct?” General Perry asked, leaning forward and looking Kayden straight in the eye.

Kayden nodded.

“My men informed me that you came to my camp accompanied by some survivors… ‘former prisoners’ is more accurate, I presume. You rescued them from Skynet’s core facility and protected them all the way from there until all of you were able to reach here safely, correct?”

“Yes.” Kayden answered, barely suppressing a frown from appearing on his face.

Kayden had begun to feel a little uncomfortable about the general’s line of questioning. He knew nothing about the general, so he had no way of knowing whether the general had noticed something suspicious about him, any of his actions or something his soldiers had told him about Kayden or whether these questions were just the usual routine questions that he asked any interesting strangers who entered wherever he managed and controlled.

Perry continued, “You saved and protected so many people including several children.  Your journey here must have been very interesting. You must have witnessed part of the battle, and you must have also run into some dangerous situations on your way here. Many of my men would not have been able to do the same thing you did as well as you did. Good job, kid!”

Kayden really did not like the direction the conversation was heading.

*****

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