T2, page 11
“No, I know what that is. What about John Connor?” Clea asked.
Alissa pursed her lips and raised her brows in an annoyingly superior manner. “Von Rossbach’s servants have been recorded speaking to their relatives. He and Connor returned alone. Now they’ve disappeared again, no one knows where.”
Clea felt a sharp bolt of fear shoot through her, followed by a healthy anger. “When were you planning to share this information with me?” she demanded. “And what, if anything, have you done about the situation?”
“I was planning to tell you as soon as I confirmed that von Rossbach and Connor were truly absent from the estancia. Which I have done. Naturally I would not initiate any action against them without consulting you. I have suggestions.”
Clea made an encouraging gesture.
“We could send a Terminator after Sarah Connor,” Alissa suggested. “Though given our track record to date, I’m reluctant to commit such a resource unless absolutely necessary.”
A valid point, Clea had to concede.
Alissa continued: “I think it’s safe to assume that von Rossbach and John Connor are on their way to the United States. Probably with the intention of freeing Sarah Connor. They may also be seeking allies. Logic would seem to suggest that they need them rather badly.”
“As do we,” Clea admitted. Which was, of course, what their support of the New Luddites and their more fanatical brethren was about. Athough dupes and catspaws would be more accurate terms than ally.
Alissa ignored the comment. “I have hacked into surveillance cameras at all customs checkpoints in the United States,” she said. “I’ve assigned a Terminator to monitor them full-time.”
Clea nodded. “Excellent,” she said. “I think that I agree with you about sending a Terminator for Sarah Connor as well. Perhaps only to observe and report. If her son and ally show up we can try to get them all at once.”
“It might be better if I was the one sent to observe,” Alissa suggested. “They wouldn’t be expecting a child.”
The idea held exciting possibilities, Clea had to admit, and she wanted to take advantage of her younger sister’s offer, but . . .
Shaking her head, Clea said, “No. You’re too vulnerable and much too valuable. As yet there is no one to replace you.”
Alissa said nothing, but Clea could almost hear her thinking that if they were short of I-950s to share the work, it certainly wasn’t her fault.
With a frown Clea snapped, “I’m working as hard and as fast as I can. Right now is not the time to begin breeding another 950. It is to be hoped that my efforts will give you more leisure in these matters.”
The problem was Clea herself felt that her efforts were inferior. Instinct told her that in a better world she would be culled to prevent expensive errors. But in this time and place she was the best available.
No, that wasn’t strictly true. Alissa was the better Infiltrator. Clea wished that she dared to use her. Clea looked at her sister for a long time. Then took a deep breath and plunged in.
“In the rush to bring me to maturity I fear that errors may have been made. But that maturity is still a valuable asset, and so I must continue as leader for now. I rely on you to point out oversights such as this one. If you continue to do so, then we should be all right. Once you have reached maturity I will become your second.”
Alissa gazed back at her with a pretty frown. “If you were to start another 950 what would happen?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Clea admitted. “None of us has ever been pushed as I have. It may have affected my eggs, making them either infertile or inferior product. The only way to find out is to use them. Which, as I’ve pointed out, we don’t have the time for right now.”
The child’s face was implacable and her eyes betrayed her disgust. She, too, had sensed Clea’s weakness and yearned to correct it by terminating her. But she was also the ultimate pragmatist. Clea was not so inferior as to be useless and her loyalty to Skynet was strong. Skynet itself would encourage them both to use the tools at hand.
“Very well,” Alissa said. “But I think that the Terminator we send to watch Sarah Connor should be a different type than we usually make. It should be smaller, perhaps older looking. Something nonthreatening.”
“Yes,” Clea agreed, nodding thoughtfully. “A Watcher rather than a Terminator. Will you see to it for me?”
Looking annoyed, the small I-950 nodded, her lips tight.
“I would also like to send a Terminator to South America,” Alissa said. “It may be possible to find out more from that end. It may even be possible to eliminate one or both of them with fewer complications.”
The elder I-950 frowned; her sister had a point. “You don’t think that they can be traced by computer?” she asked.
“Yes,” Alissa said. “If they use their own names and passports.” She knew her sister could calculate the odds of that happening for herself and so didn’t bother to offer the figures. “I believe that some investigations are better handled face-to-face.”
Clea considered. Her sister hadn’t asked to go herself, realizing that the T-101 would be the more logical choice. And it would be helpful to know their enemies’ exact locations.
“Very well,” she said.
“And if the opportunity presents itself?” Alissa asked.
“Terminate.”
The little I-950 actually smiled. “I’ll get to work, then.”
“Excellent,” Clea said, smiling. She went back to her own work feeling more content. They were going to win this time. She could feel it.
Alissa walked away, frowning. She knew very well that her own brain was immature and therefore should have been a tool less keen than her older sister’s. Yet she also knew from several different failures on Clea’s part that even with her younger, less developed faculties she saw things more clearly, evaluated outcomes more realistically.
It was troubling, desperately troubling, that Skynet’s future was in the hands of an inferior agent.
Alissa tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that even with diminished capacity Clea was still more intelligent than ninety-eight percent of their human enemies. It was the worry that the Connors were among that elite two percent that made her queasy.
She was too young to be in charge. Yet accelerating her maturity might well damage her brain and cognitive function in the same way that Clea’s had been. Skynet would not be better served by two idiots instead of one.
The machine side of her brain decided that panic was imminent and eased back on the production of certain of her brain chemicals, released certain others. Alissa began to grow calmer, better able to plan.
For now she would have to be the eyes in back of her sister’s head, as a human might say. She would have to make up for Clea’s lacks. It wouldn’t be all that long before she could take over. At which point she would decide if her sister was useful enough to retain or too dangerous to tolerate. For now, as Clea had said, with the two of them working together, they should be all right.
ASUNCÍON, PARAGUAY, OCTOBER
* * *
John and Dieter, wearing identical sunglasses and solemn expressions, stood beside the grave of Victor Griego amid the scruffy grass, wilted flowers, and pictures of solemn dark faces fixed to the tombstones. With their hands clasped before them, they bowed their heads and read:
VICTOR GRIEGO
1938–2001
SHE WAS HIT BY A BUS
“That’d refer to his mother, I suppose,” John said.
Dieter glanced at him. “I was told that she died of a broken heart.”
John shrugged. “That’s probably why she walked in front of the bus.”
“Poor woman.” Dieter sighed. “I may not have been an ideal son, but I didn’t drive my mother to suicide.”
“Bastard,” John agreed.
“I guess this means that you still own that cache of weapons,” Dieter said, and turned away.
“Yeah.” John read the tombstone one more time and shook his head. “What a louse,” he muttered, and picking up his backpack, turned to join Dieter. “My flight is at four; guess I’d better get going.”
With a knowing smile Dieter asked, “Nervous?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Don’t worry, John. It’s a good disguise. Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.”
John snorted.
“Well, maybe your mother would,” von Rossbach conceded. “But that’s about it.”
John gave him a quick glance. “What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got something in play,” Dieter said. He held out his hand and they shook. “I’ll see you in New Mexico.”
“If they’re letting people into the state by then.” John hailed a taxi.
“They will be,” Dieter said confidently. He opened the door of the cab. “It’s a big state.”
John flung his backpack in the backseat and got in behind it.
“Be careful,” he called out the window to Dieter.
Dieter raised one brow. “Funny, I was just about to say the same thing to you.”
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
John wore a weedy-looking black goatee and mustache and a pair of black, horn-rim glasses. He looked nervous and intellectual and nothing like his usual self. His body language was deferential as he went through American customs, as though he were leaving home for the first time, like the young man on his way to college that he was.
Of course, he was on his way to college to plot and plan, and recruit minions not to study . . . but he’d look like he belonged. He was nervous but genuinely happy to be going. He was sooo looking forward to meeting Wendy. She was only eight months older than he was, for all she kept calling him kid. He was hoping it wasn’t going to be an issue. It was important to keep the recruit’s respect.
Yeah, right, he thought, too honest by habit to kid himself for long. She’s gorgeous and brilliant and I like her. Consequently, he wanted her to like him. It bothered him that he was thinking like this because he knew it was frivolous. He had no time for frivolous.
The guy behind the desk finished looking at John’s passport and asked a few questions, obviously pro forma, then waved him on his way. John was pleased, as well as relieved. It was only about a year and a few months since their attack on Cyberdyne after all. There would have been computer-aged photos of himself on every custom officer’s desk for a long while.
They must not have been very good, John thought.
He put his carry-on bag on the belt and went through the metal detector, grabbing his bag on the other side. The alarm went off just after him, and the guards gathered scowling as a middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt, with a gray-and-blond beard, opened his bag.
“It’s just diving equipment,” the man said in exasperation. “I’m a writer on vacation!”
John smiled. It was convenient, having a fuss right after he went through; that would fix itself in people’s memories, and he’d be less than a shadow. In a few hours he’d be a guest at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and he was really looking forward to it.
John didn’t think that even if it had been an option, he would have ended up at MIT. He’d heard about New England winters and wasn’t all that interested in experiencing one for himself.
When he thought of himself as an American, he thought of California; Brie nibbling, skateboarding, sun and surfing, indulging political absurdities at Berkeley, or engineering-department practical jokes at UCLA.
While he was heading for Massachusetts Dieter was on his way by more devious routes to California. They’d both felt it was time to meet some of the people they’d been talking to on the Internet to see if they could be turned into more serious recruits.
It was John’s idea to offer the MIT folk some proof about Skynet. Some of them were asking difficult questions about what they were doing. He understood the risk he was taking, but he also knew that sooner or later they were going to have to know. Now was as good a time as any.
It wasn’t going to be enough to have scattered individuals gathering information. After Judgment Day, he was going to need trained, educated people in key positions or they were never going to be able to defeat Skynet. He’d have to pick and train them now to make sure they lived through the first volleys of nuclear missiles.
His father hadn’t given details as to how the humans had managed to shatter Skynet’s defense grid, but it couldn’t have been plain old brute strength. There had to have been scientists, engineers, planners. Now, if ever, was the time to find them.
John had the Terminator’s CPU in his pocket, disguised as a chocolate bar. He and Dieter had retrieved it before returning to Paraguay. Handling it reminded him of the Terminator’s head trying to bite him. He had a brief flash of that Terminator attacking their plane as they left the Caymans, of how, even with its body blown away, the head had kept trying to fight.
But the brains at MIT would know it for what it was, a technology far beyond anything available today. At least he hoped they would; it was all the proof he had.
Although, as proof goes, it’s pretty damned amazing, he thought.
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
Vera Philmore glanced at the brief résumé in her hand and then looked over the top of the page at the divine creature standing before her desk. Wulf Ingolfson, the résumé said his name was; it suited him. True, he was no spring chicken, but in her experience the young ones were boring. And those shoulders! Ai, caramba! They made a wonderful silhouette against the broad windows and the thronging masts of the yacht basin.
Vera enjoyed traveling the world with a boatload of handsome, charming young men. But these days it was mostly look and don’t touch. This big fella might be a different case. He was certainly old enough to have been around the block a few times. So flirting, at least, could be added to the program.
Dieter looked at her with a blandly pleasant expression on his face. There were no chairs before Ms. Philmore’s desk, indicating that she didn’t like her employees to get too comfortable in her presence. On the other hand, the way she kept running her eyes up and down his body suggested that she might make an exception in select cases.
About fifty, Vera was very trim and well groomed. The color of her hair, the pale gold froth of champagne, was not found in nature, but it suited her, as did the expensive baubles she wore and the bright red silk shirt and black toreador pants. Some women had the personality to carry off almost anything.
“You don’t seem to have had much experience as a deckhand,” she commented.
“Not as an employee,” he agreed. “But I have been on boats of all kinds since I was a boy.”
“Ahhh,” Vera said coyly, “your daddy was rich, was he?”
“No, he was a fisherman. But when I was a teenager I often got day jobs on some of the yachts along the Côte d’Azur. My friends and I would work for free, just to get on board.” He smiled reminiscently. “I love the sea.”
Vera gave him her most charming smile and reflected that no one worked for free. Somehow, she thought he was familiar. Not as though she’d met him, but as though she’d seen him somewhere. Well, if she did decide to hire him she’d have him investigated, as always. Despite his references being in order.
Ah, but she certainly hoped he checked out. The man was intriguing, and she was perennially bored.
“Well, then,” she said, rising. “We’ll be in touch.”
He looked a little uncertain as he gently took her hand. “I’m staying at the Sailor’s Rest,” he said.
She nodded, still smiling. “You’ll be hearing from us.”
He turned and walked out, and she enjoyed the view. The guy had a great butt. Vera sighed appreciatively. I hope he isn’t shy.
Dieter fully expected to be hired. It had been several years since he’d last used this persona, but he’d updated it a bit before leaving home. He’d applied with several skippers, but he was banking on Philmore. So much so that he’d bribed one of her hands to jump ship.
She was perfect for his purposes. Her itinerary would take her through the Panama Canal and up to San Diego within the next ten days. Shielded by her prestige and money, he would be able to slip into the U.S. without the more stringent customs scrutiny he might get at an airport. Like it or not, he was fairly distinctive looking.
Besides, he honestly thought Vera Philmore was just the sort of rich eccentric he might be able to recruit for their project. She had a sense of adventure and independence that was rare, and money to burn. It would be nice not to have to rely completely on his underworld contacts.
The only thing that worried him was the light in her eyes when she looked at him.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
* * *
John had never been to Boston before that he could remember—his mother had dragged him through some amazing places when he was a toddler, but most of them had involved tropical climates and high ammunition expenditures. You couldn’t tell much about Boston from the airport, which was another suburban village in the international city of airports, pretty well interchangeable with any other in the Western world. It wasn’t until he got a cab to Cambridge on his way to MIT that he began to appreciate the difference.
This was an old city. The way the streets were laid out like crazy string, the smaller buildings with their tiny bricks and wavy-glassed windows, each with a character all its own, the occasional surprise of modernist steel, concrete, and glass thrown in . . . it all said “this place is different.” About as different in spirit as you could get from L.A., where he’d lived as a kid.
