Dark Futures

TERMINATOR 2^@

THE NEW JOHN CONNOR

CHRONICLES

Book 1:

DARK FUTURES

RUSSELL BLACKFORD

BASED ON THE WORLD CREATED

IN THE MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN BY

JAMES CAMERON AND WILLIAM WISHER

PROLOGUE

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO AUGUST, 2001

A fat, smug-looking dog foraged in the dim light, checking through the back alleys near the Zocaló: the Plaza de la Constitución. Out the back of a restaurant that fronted the huge public square, it found a trashcan full of scraps and bones. It nuzzled the lid off, and started to feast. Then it sensed something, something dangerous, in the alley, as papers, discarded cans, and dust began to move of their own accord. The dog backed away, with a low warning snarl, its tail low and nervously flicking from side to side. The fur along its back prickled up, like the devil's nightmare of a bad hair day.

Flashes of blue electricity disrupted the darkness, raising dust and rubbish in a sudden upward spiral, like a miniature tornado. Trashcans shook and rattled, as if someone had stuck big electric motors inside them, then suddenly flicked the switch. The dog cowered and whined, as the lid it had nuzzled off flew away in the dark, and a geyser of trash spurted from the can, then rained back to earth. Bones, broken crockery and glassware, empty cans and bottles, vegetable peelings, discarded fruit, and leftover pieces of meat danced about the alley. Something hit a window two stories up, breaking it, and a light came on. There was shouting in Spanish. A metal Dumpster rocked from side to side on the paving stones.

The dog ran from the alley, as blue lightning snapped and crackled all round it.

Then, as abruptly as they began, the atmospheric effects ceased, and five human forms appeared in the air, falling quickly to the hard stone pavement, bodies twisting in pain. Some of them gave little strangled cries. They were naked In the faint glow of a distant streetlight, and the lit-up window overhead, their skin varied in color from ivory white to black.

Close by came the sound of a police siren just for a few seconds.

Miho Tagatoshi-always known as Jade—found her feet while the rest of the Specialists were still doubled up in pain, or leaning for support against the brick buildings. She shook her head quickly, then stretched her neck in every direction, groaning with the agony she felt, but letting it wash out of her like water. Having dealt with the pain, she looked round dispassionately. They needed clothes and weapons.

Jade looked about twenty. Her black hair fell raggedly around her shoulders. Her oval face was almost perfect, but something about her lips and eyes was always solemn. Jade was something beyond human, something fast and strong, hard to kill or even hurt. She gave a sad smile. "Time displacement successful."

The black man, Daniel Dyson, took command. He was clean-shaven, with short, curly hair that fitted his scalp like a helmet. "Give the rest of us a minute, Jade."

"Very well."

She waited for the others to recover. They were less deeply morphed than Jade, closer to the human norm, yet engineered by experts. They were well placed to complete their mission.

Elsewhere in the huge, densely populated city, more blue lightning played, like a crown of writhing hair, above a four-story building in the Zona Rosa. What emerged on the building's roof looked human, but quite extraordinary. It was a naked, shaven-headed man, over eight feet tall, with hands the size of shovels.

The giant T-XA Terminator looked round quickly, alert as a bird, getting its bearings. It was alone on the building's roof, looking northeast at the city's lights. Mexico City was a teeming nest of humans such as the experimental, autonomous Terminator had never seen in its own time. It had geometric skyscrapers as stark as razor slashes, and endless high-density sprawl: row after row, mile after mile, of medium-rise glass, steel, brick, stone, and concrete. All of it built for humans, many millions of them. Whichever direction it looked, the city lights showed more of the same.

It was repulsive.

Time to act quickly. The T-XA changed, losing the characteristics of any specific human. It became smooth, sexless, abstract. Clawing the fingers of one powerful hand, it reached inside its massive chest, which parted viscously. Its arm sank in nearly to the elbow.

The T-XA felt no pain from its time displacement. Its carefully tuned, multiply redundant nanoware had ridden the space-time displacement field better than living flesh.

It withdrew the arm, a phased-plasma laser rifle now gripped in its big boulder of a fist: a black metal weapon almost three feet long, with no stock attached. The rifle looked like an oversized, elongated handgun, and that's how the Terminator gripped it. If other small arms were honeybees, this device would have been an angry, deadly

Now the T-XA’s mass adjusted inwards, filling the cavity left by its weapon, and the Terminator scaled town just slightly-yet was still fully eight feet tall. It resumed it's original appearance of a giant, naked man.

Termination of humans was its purpose. Pointing the laser rifle ahead, it commenced a course of action.

CHAPTER ONE

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA MAY 1994

Their running battle with the shapeshifting T-1000 Terminator had brought them to a steel mill, its crew working the night shift.

The workers ran for their lives when a tanker truck jackknifed and turned on its side—sliding, in a screeching agony of rent metal, right into the mill, where it cracked open like a huge, elongated egg, and spilled its dangerous freight: thousands of gallons of liquid nitrogen. The nitrogen sizzled into vapor when it touched the air, surrounding the T-1000 as it tried to struggle clear of the wreck. The shapeshifting, liquid-metal Terminator literally froze up. Stubbornly, it tried to walk, but soon, it was totally immobile, like a sculpture of painted glass.

The T-800 raised its .45 caliber pistol. "Hasta la vista, baby," it said-then fired once. The T-1000 exploded.

But even that was not the end. When its fragments warmed through on the floor of the steel mill, the T-1000 still managed to reform, even as they ran to escape it. Or tried to run, with their injuries and bruises. John Connor wondered how it worked. There had to be a limit to the redundancy of its artificial intelligence, a size too small for a fragment to retain its programming. But they hadn't found it so far. The T-1000 came after them.

In the end, the T-800 fired a grenade right into its body. It exploded, and the T-1000 splashed out into a bizarre free-form shape, its programming still straining reform

it, even as it fell backwards into a huge vat of molten steel. And that, finally was too much. In the pool of steel, the killing machine struggled to free itself, morphing into numerous shapes, but ultimately melting down. Then it was gone altogether, its high-tech liquid-metal alloy dispersing through the steel in the vat.

"I need a vacation," the T-800 said. It was now a terrible sight. Its left arm had been torn off, fighting the T-1000 after they arrived at the mill. Much of its outer organic structure had been shot away.

John looked down into the molten metal. There was no sign left of the T-1000. "Is it dead?"

"Terminated."

They threw in the arm and hand of the first T-800 from 1984-the one that had tried to kill his mother, Sarah, before he'd even been conceived. John had taken it from the Cyberdyne building. Then he tossed in the chip from its head.

"It's finally over," Sarah said.

"No." The T-800 touched a finger to the side of its head. "There is another chip. It must be destroyed also."

John immediately realized what it meant. But the T-800 had become his friend. In interacting with humans, it had begun to seem human itself. John had already taught it so much. After all that, it couldn't be simply melted down like scrap, like a worn-out machine, just in case the wrong people got hold of it. "No!" he said.

"I'm sorry, John," the T-800 said.

"No, no, no! It'll be okay. Stay with us!"

"I have to go away, John."

Sarah was agreeing silently. As had happened so often in his life, John felt the adults ganging up on him. Surely this couldn't be necessary. He tried ordering the Terminator not to destroy itself, but Sarah overrode him. She lowered the Terminator into the molten steel, using a motorized chain. Soon it was gone.

All over.

Yet the nightmare was never over.

John heard police and ambulance sirens, then shouts. Sarah froze at the sounds, looking about warily, like a hunted animal. They had to get out of here. Though the T-1000 Terminator was destroyed, they were still wanted by the police. If the cops caught them, Sarah would be sent back to the Pescadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. John himself might be placed in some kind of detention. His foster parents were dead, killed by the T-1000, and no one else would want to take him in. Not now.

Despite their bruises and injuries, they had to escape fast, steal a car, get to Tarissa Dyson's hotel in Anaheim— and away.

The mill was now deserted. John helped Sarah hobble down a metal plate staircase to the concrete floor. One of her thighs was covered in blood where a bullet had penetrated. The strength was going out of her.

"You go ahead, John," she said. Her long, honey-colored hair fanned wildly round her head and shoulders in the dim light. Her face was marked by grime, and by tears of relief, pain, and hope. "Get back to Enrique's compound. You can trust the Salcedas." Sarah had accomplished her mission. Now, with John safe, she scarcely cared about herself.

"No!" John said. “Come on. We've got to make it."

He half-dragged her through the mill, with its glowing fires. They penetrated deeper into its recesses, searching desperately for a way out in the labyrinth of pipes, ladders, conveyor belts, heavy machinery and metal support beams. Glancing over his shoulder, John saw the glow of flashlights sweeping from side to side at the entrance. There were more raised voices and shouts.

"Come on, Mom," he said in an urgent whisper. "Please."

"All right," she said. "Just stop for a minute, John. Just one minute."

"Okay," he said doubtfully. "One minute," she said again, holding up her hand. "Let me get my breath." She was panting with the effort. She'd fought like a hero, as she'd trained herself to do for so many years, since the first Terminator attacked her. "Come here." She gave a pained smile, then drew him close to her body, holding him tight, as if she'd never let go. "Whatever happens, John, we won. Even if no one ever believes us, even if they hate us and lock us away, and never understand what they owe us, we've stopped Judgment Day."

He hugged her round the waist as the emotion welled up through him. "I know," he said, tears in his eyes. "But now we've got to think about our own future."

"Come on, then. We can make it."

He flashed a crooked smile. "Hey, soldier, now you're talking my language."

As they staggered, half crouched in shadow, over the hard concrete, the noises and lights came closer. Sarah tripped on a piece of sinter, keeping her footing, but grunting with the pain. Though she tried to muffle the sound, their pursuers must have heard, for someone called out, "You there!" Then running steps, people conferring urgently, and the torch beam playing close by.

As the light swept past, they huddled into a dark corner, behind a staircase, then moved quickly, spotting an illuminated sign that pointed to a fire door. John scurried for it, trying to be quiet He turned the handle carefully, not wanting to make a sound-and pushed. He made it outside to an alleyway, with a dark carpark to the left, lit by a pair of streetlights. One of them flickered erratically. There was a scatter of vehicles, left behind when the mill was evacuated.

He held the fire door open, and Sarah followed him. Still trying to move like mice, they eased the door shut and pushed a trash Dumpster against it. Leaning against the Dumpster, John picked out a 1970s Honda sedan, slightly worn looking but not too battered.

"Stay here," he said in a whisper. "I'll be back."

He found a broken half-brick in the car park, quickly used it to break the driver's side window, and reached in to unlock the door. He threw his backpack into the rear compartment, then fumbled to hotwire the ignition. His heart was pounding as seconds went by. At last he got the car going, shifted it into drive and crawled it back to the alley, leaving its headlights off.

"I'd better drive," Sarah said. "You're going to look suspicious. They might not notice me."

"Okay. Cool. Let's get going, then." Someone was pounding from inside the building. Too late, amigo, John thought as he wriggled across to the passenger seat.

Sarah maneuvered her injured leg into the vehicle, groaning slightly, but then she was fine. She drove out of there slowly and quietly, turning on the lights only when she reached a narrow service road. "You may need to drive later," she said. "Once we're out of the city."

“No problemo."

She turned right into the service road, then took another turn at a set of traffic lights.

"You know where we are?" John said.

"Yeah, I think so." Two turns later, they were on the freeway to Anaheim.

At Miles Dyson's home earlier that evening, when they'd planned their "raid" on Cyberdyne, Sarah had raised an issue about logistics. "We'll need the Bronco afterwards," she'd said. "We shouldn't risk it at the Cyberdyne site."

John had grasped the point immediately. If they kept using stolen cars, they'd leave a trail-sooner or later, the police would track them down. Where the police were, the T-1000 was never far away. With its shapeshifting abilities it could easily infiltrate them.

The T-800 had turned to Miles. "We need your car."

They'd packed their weapons and explosives into the Dysons' Range Rover, then given Tarissa the keys to Enrique Salceda's Bronco. Tarissa had named a hotel in Anaheim for them to contact her when it was over.

Now they cruised past the hotel, checking out its location. They parked one mile away in a dark back street. If someone reported the Honda missing, John and Sarah wanted it found as far from the hotel as they dared leave it. At the same time, they could not risk walking more than a mile. They were both hurting. John felt bruised all over, like someone had stuffed him in a sack and bashed him against a wall for the fun of it. Sarah was trying to be brave, trying not to limp, but the flesh wound in her leg was obvious.

Besides that, her face had been all over the TV from the breakout at the Pescadero Hospital. That was even before the firefight and explosion at the Cyberdyne building. Right now, they were L.A.'s most wanted. Anyone might notice and recognize them. Even without their bruises and wounds, they were far from inconspicuous. It was past 1:00 A.M., so what was a young mother doing out on the streets with her kid? What's more, this young mother wore a striking all-black lighting outfit that left her shoulders bare, displaying her lean, rippling muscles in the streetlights. Sarah had dressed for the battle of her life, and she'd won, but now she stood out like a beacon.

John counted his steps: 1498, 1499, 1500... almost there. Almost He was feeling like the world's oldest nine-year-old. All his life, he'd been force fed with technical know-how and grown-up ideas: everything from information warfare to rifle training, car mechanics, jungle survival and basic urban street skills. He'd lived in so many places, done so many things. Sarah had educated him to grow up and lead the fight against the machines, as the messages from the future said he'd do—to save the world for humankind. Well, now they'd done exactly that, or so he hoped, yet he felt more than ever like a juvenile criminal. Though they'd saved the world from Judgment Day, there was no one they could tell, no one who'd believe them. Only Tarissa—and they had bad news for her.

Still counting: 1599, 1600...The hotel, with its bright neon sign, was within sprinting distance, but they kept walking slowly, trying to look normal. Only about fifty yards to go now, so long as nobody recognized them, or tried to pick on them. The streets were almost deserted, but it just took one cop on the beat to blow their cover. Just one busybody who'd seen them on TV. Or one aggressive street punk.

Footsteps and bantering voices behind them. Sarah squeezed against a shop window, tensing and taking in breath, ready to react. She held John close to her. Two ] tall, beefy motorbikers strode past, dressed in black jeans and shiny leather jackets, almost like a pair of longhaired Terminators. The bikers kept right on walking, while a dating couple approached from the direction of the hotel: teenage kids in jeans and T-shirts, too busy hugging, laughing, and playfully shoving each other around to no-tice John and Sarah.

A cop walked by on the other side of the road, then turned a corner. He hadn't noticed them. Quickly now, hand in-hand, they half-ran to the hotel, Sarah still limping but bearing up. Beside the hotel lobby was the entrance to an underground car park, so they wouldn't have to show their faces. They walked briskly down the concrete ramp, looking out for the Bronco-they had no idea where Tarissa had parked it, but it must be here somewhere. John had memorized the number plate, IE49973, but Sarah spotted it first. She tugged his hand and nodded in the Bronco's direction. It was parked in a good drive-out bay, so they wouldn't need to maneuver it.

Tarissa had left the doors unlocked. John flipped down the passenger side sun visor. Sure enough, there were the keys. "Easy money," he said weakly. He passed them over to Sarah, and she started up the engine, switched on the lights. John checked the glove compartment for their maps and papers, including fake passports, several driver's licenses for Sarah, and convincing-looking birth certificates. Everything was there, where they'd left it. It seemed heartless not to visit Tarissa in the hotel, speak with her face to face, explain how her husband, Miles, had died, shot by the SWAT team when it invaded the Cyberdyne AI lab. She'd be upstairs in her room, with Danny, not far away, waiting for word. Waiting and praying. But they dare not enter the lobby or speak to a check-in clerk.

There were so many tough decisions.

Soon, they were on the road.

Sarah drove the Bronco carefully through the suburban streets, but not so hesitantly as to attract attention. "We'll get back to Enrique's place," she said, wincing as she glanced across at John. "You can drive some when we get out in the country."

"Sure, Mom," he said. "Of course." He'd been driving cars and trucks for as long as he could remember, starting when other kids were in kindergarten, learning the basics from Sarah's friends and boyfriends in the various Latin American hideouts she'd taken them to, while they planned and trained.

"We'll have to call Tarissa," she said, obviously dreading it.

Sooner or later, Tarissa would see the news, including the death of her husband at the Cyberdyne building, or she'd call the cops and find out what happened. Somehow, John didn't think she'd act hastily. Surely she'd give them every chance to get out of the city. But she must be biting her nails. It was only fair and decent that they be the ones to tell her how her husband died, not leave it to the cops-who'd have their own spin on the Cyberdyne shootout, anyway.

They picked up the I-10 and headed southeast towards the Mojave Desert. After about eighty miles, Sarah pulled I off at a service stop and they found a public phone. She rang Tarissa's hotel and asked for Corinne Sanders, the name Tarissa had said she'd use.

John heard only Sarah's end of the conversation—his mother trying to be strong, just one more time, before they got back into the life of hiding he'd grown up with, which required other kinds of strength. They'd sort out a new life later on. What would it be like? "Tarissa,"

Sarah said. "It's me."

There was a pause.

Sarah looked shaky. "I have bad news for you," she said. "Miles got shot. Someone sounded an alarm and they called in a SWAT team. Miles is dead." She brushed her hair away from her face in frustration, and her voice broke as she talked into the phone. "I'm so sorry."

John reached for her hand and squeezed it.

This time there was a long silence. Though John could not hear what Tarissa was saying, Sarah was letting her talk, letting her express her pain and anger at the intrusion that had shattered her life, broken up her family, taken away her life partner. Of course, Tarissa would blame them for her husband's death. Then again, she'd seen the T-800 Terminator. She knew it was a machine, not a man: a machine advanced far beyond anything currently available. Surely she'd understand that they'd had no choice. Cyberdyne's research had to be stopped. They'd saved humanity from a future too dark to contemplate.

"I know how you feel," Sarah said. "1 wish I could be there with you and Danny. But we have to get away. You know it had to be done."

There was another pause, not so long.

"Yeah, we have the Bronco. We had to leave your car near Cyberdyne... Yeah, I know you can deal with it. I'll be in touch when it's safe. I'm sorry to finish up like this, but we can't stay here. Someone might see us. The cops are still after us. There's no way they'll believe our story, not without proof." Sarah laughed bitterly. "Maybe not even then."

Another pause.

"We destroyed the T-1000. It's a long story. We'll be okay. Try to get some sleep if you can. I guess that's not likely. Ring the cops in a few hours. Tarissa, once again, I'm so sorry. I understand what this is like for you."

John knew that it was true. Sarah really did under-stand the loss. His father, Kyle Reese, had been killed back in 1984, when he and Sarah faced the first T-800.

"Yes," Sarah said, "I know. Take care. Please take care, and don't let Danny grow up hating us." She hung up.

John wondered how Danny, who was still just a little kid, would react to it all. How would he remember this night? It might all depend on how his mother handled it, how honest she was with him. John hoped that one day Danny might grow up to be someone who could be a friend. With the Skynet research finished and the T-1000 destroyed, that seemed possible.

Sarah wiped the sweat from her brow, pulled her hair behind her ears. "Thank God that's done," she said with a heavy sigh. "I know."

"Oh, what am I saying? Poor Tarissa..."

He leant into her. "It'll be okay, Mom," he said. "You'll see. We'll both be okay."

"Oh, John," she said. "If anything happened to you, it would kill me."

In the darkness, John took over the wheel of the Bronco. Even with the seat all the way forward, he could hardly reach the controls, but that wouldn't matter too much, once they were cruising.

As they moved back on the Interstate, John switched on the lights. A sign pointed to Palm Springs. Sarah dropped off to sleep beside him as the Bronco rolled along, eating up the miles. She seemed peaceful. But something was at the back of John's mind, bothering him, something he'd had no chance to think about.

It came to him an hour later. They'd destroyed the T-800 back at the steel mill, once its mission was accomplished. But its left arm had been torn off at the elbow, fighting the T-1000. They'd never recovered the hand and forearm.

Whatever they did, there always seemed to be something left that could help develop the Skynet technology. Perhaps they were doomed to failure. Maybe you couldn't change the future.

John clenched his jaw as Sarah stirred in the seat beside him.

He'd tell her about it later. Not now.

North of Calexico, he handed the wheel back to her and got a few minutes' sleep himself while she drove the last miles to the Salceda compound. He'd never been so tired. Whatever the future brought, they would have to face it, be prepared.

No fate, he thought to himself as sleep came over him. No fate but what we make for ourselves.

NORTHWEST OF CALEXICO, CALIFORNIA

As the sun rose in a pale, cloudless sky, they reached Enrique Salceda's compound in the Low Desert.

A year seemed to have passed—it was difficult to believe that they'd come here less than twenty-four hours ago, before that fateful trip back to L.A.

The compound was tucked amongst yucca trees, cactus, and dry scrub. By day it was hot and thirsty, cooler now in the early morning. It was dusty, and almost silent except for a gusting wind. It looked like a place where no one would want to live, and that no one would bother disturbing: a jumble of broken trailers and abandoned-looking vehicles, including the shell of an ancient Huey helicopter that might have seen service in Vietnam. There was a dirt airstrip that looked disused, but John knew it was perfectly effective.

The Salcedas were survivalists and gunrunners from Guatemala-not the sort of people most folks would relate to easily, but they were loyal. For John, the compound was a circle of friendship and relative safety.

Yesterday, after they'd packed the Bronco, Sarah had dozed here in the desert sun, slumping over a picnic table.

What John had never expected was her sudden action when she woke. She'd stabbed her knife into the surface of the table and walked purposefully to the station wagon they'd stolen in L.A. and used to get here. She'd driven off alone, the car's wheels spinning and raising dust, armed with a Colt CAR-15 assault rifle and a .45 caliber handgun. John had run after the car, shouting for her to stop—"Mom! Wait!"-but she'd never looked back.

She'd carved the words "N0 FATE" in the wood of the picnic table. Kyle Reese had brought those words back in time as a message from the John Connor of 2029. In 1984, before he'd died, Kyle had passed them to Sarah, who'd passed them to John: "The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

Sarah had made a plan to change the future-by killing Miles Dyson, the man who was going to invent Skynet.

That had led to last night's wild sequence of events: John following Sarah to the Dysons' place, with the T-800; the raid on Cyberdyne; the final confrontation with the T-1000 at the steel mill...

Sarah parked the Bronco just inside the compound's wire fence, well back from the trailers, then stepped out into the early morning light, hardly able to walk, dragging her injured leg. John ran on ahead of her.

"Enrique!" Sarah called. "Yolanda!"

Silence... and the wind.

She spoke again, this time in Spanish. "Enrique, come out of there. We need your help." Her Spanish was almost perfect. John had grown up in Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina-he spoke the language even better than his mother, with no trace of a gringo accent.

Franco Salceda, Enrique's teenage son, stepped out from behind a trailer, his AK-47 rifle leveled at them. John froze in his tracks. Seeing who it was, Franco nodded slowly. "All right," he said in English. "You Connors have a way of arriving unannounced." Then he broke into a smile and pointed his weapon at the ground, setting the selector to the safety position. "Hey," he called out over his shoulder, "our guests are back!"

"Mom's hurt," John said. "She's hurt really bad." By now, Sarah had caught up with him.

Yolanda and Enrique Salceda came out of a trailer, Enrique putting on his cowboy hat. He was a rough-looking man with a thick, dark beard that was graying in patches, and trimmed back almost to stubble. His eyes were piercing, set deep in a lined, hawk-nosed face. Yolanda was a pleasant-looking Hispanic woman in her forties, with dark hair that fell over plump, brown shoulders.

"What kinda trouble you in now, Connor?" Enrique said in his gruff manner. "You're starting to look like roadkill."

"That's a long story," Sarah said, reverting to English. "Yeah? And where's your big friend, 'Uncle Bob'?" He meant the T-800 Terminator.

"Not now, Enrique." She pointed at the blood on her black military fatigues.

"How did this happen?" Yolanda said in Spanish, looking Sarah up and down. She waved them to the trailer with quick, urgent movements. "Let me look at that leg. I can help."

"Thanks," Sarah said, wincing. "I'm not going near a regular doctor. We're lying low." The Salcedas were well-equipped with stores and medicines, not to mention guns and other military equipment. Though their place looked humble and broken down, they were equipped to survive here in the desert almost indefinitely.

"Don't worry, Connor," Enrique said, "you've come to the right place. You know it's a charity round here." He grinned and stepped forward in the dust to embrace them. "It's always good to see you, Sarahlita, whatever crazy stuff you've been up to." Laughing, he shook her from side to side in his strong arms, then put one arm across John's shoulders. "Come on, Big John, let's see what we can do."

After Yolanda treated Sarah's leg and gave her a couple of heavy duty painkillers, they gathered round an old TV in one of the trailers, sitting on lounge chairs with torn upholstery. Yolanda nursed her baby boy, Paco, on her lap, while the other kids played outside, Franco watching over them.

The morning news reported the raid on Cyberdyne, including Miles's death and the wounds or injuries received by many of the police. There was an alert throughout tin state for Sarah, John, and the mysterious male accomplice who had helped them.

A female announcer with big hair and a perfect, toothpaste-ad smile read the story, accompanied by footage of the ruined Cyberdyne building. She cut to an interview with Cyberdyne's President, a guy called Oscar Cruz. This dude looked stressed out, like you'd expect, but he was kind of good-looking and cool, in an old way. What adults called "elegant." He had a short, neatly-trimmed beard, and wore a tweed sports jacket.

"We're all devastated by this," Cruz said. "It's so terrible, and so pointless. But it won't stop us. This company has a lot of heart. We're all committed. We're already looking at our options-"

Cruz got cut off at that point, and the camera returned to the big-haired announcer. "In a statement today, the | Los Angeles Police Department said that Sarah Connor is fluent in Spanish and may try to cross the border into Mexico. Authorities in all border states are on high alert for Connor and her accomplice. They are described as armed and very dangerous."

"Connor," Enrique said, "I'd think you were crazy, except I already know you're crazy."

"Like a fox," Sarah said quickly, then laughed. "Yeah, crazy like a fox." Enrique took a swig from a bottle of Cuervo tequila, then looked at Sarah narrowly. "I know you're as smart as anyone. You've got your reasons."

The good thing about Sarah's friends, John realized, was that most of them were so paranoid that they accepted her as almost normal. She'd frightened away some of her boyfriends with all the stuff about Terminators and Judgement Day, but people like Enrique here, and the Tejadas down in Argentina, turned a blind eye to it, figuring was no crazier than a lot of other conspiracy theories they heard-or concocted themselves—about the government and the military. They might as well give her the benefit of the doubt.

"John and I can't stay here," Sarah said. "We'll be safer across the border."

Yolanda put a hand on her shoulder, almost maternally "You stay as long you need," she said in Spanish. "At least until you're better."

"You only just got here, Connor," Enrique said. "This is home sweet home. You're not going to get a better deal in this lifetime."

"I know. I'm grateful."

"Mom," John said, "I like it here. We're safe. Let's not move on till you're really better. Right?" "Listen to the kid." Enrique tapped the side of his head. "He's got a lot upstairs. I'm sure you can make yourselves useful round here."

She sighed, outvoted. "Okay-" she looked at John meaningfully "-for a few days. But we need to head south where the cops don't know us."

"All in good time, Connor—but I can arrange it."

She looked at Enrique questioningly. "All right."

"There's a chopper coming here next Monday," he said. That was nearly a week away. "We'll get you over the border on Monday night."

"That's good, Enrique. I'm grateful. That'll have to do."

The words seemed to get forced out of her, one little burst at a time. "Thank you."

Enrique swallowed some more tequila. "Damn right. Now cheer up and live a little."

John thought about the future. What if you couldn't change it, no matter what you did? There was the crushed Terminator arm they'd left at the mill. He'd have to talk about it with Mom. Even if you could change the future, what if it still included Skynet? On the TV, Cruz had said that Cyberdyne wasn't washed up. Could the new future turn out just as bad as the old one? If all bets were off, could it be even worse?

Really, though, he knew what had to be done. They'd keep doing whatever it took. Anytime, anywhere.

No fate.

They'd figure it out. Whatever lay ahead, it would be okay.

It would have to be.

CHAPTER TWO

In another reality, however, the events surrounding the siege at the Cyberdyne complex-and the fateful confrontation with the T-1000 Terminator-took an entirely different course...

SKYNET'S WORLD

NORTHWEST OF CALEXICO, CALIFORNIA

MAY, 1994

As he fooled around with the T-800 at the Salceda compound, John was aware of Sarah watching him, though he couldn't tell what was on her mind. When she'd finished checking and cleaning the weapons, they let her rest for a minute. In her boots and military clothes, she looked almost like a Terminator herself, but also tired, drained by years of struggle and the stress of escape from the Pescadero Hospital, with the T-1000 close on their tail.

John helped the T-800 pack the guns in the back of the Bronco, together with their maps, documents, jerry cans of gasoline, fuel siphons, radios, and explosives. If the T-1000 tracked them down. it would not find them helpless.

The Salceda kids were playing by the trailers and vehicles that made up Enrique's compound. Their scrappy dog yapped round them happily. Everyone had told John J his mother was some kind of psycho-crazy, tried to stop him believing in her. But now that he'd seen Terminators in action, he realized that everything she'd ever said was true. The deadly T-1000 was still out there, planning how to track him down and kill him.

John stopped work for a moment, thinking about Judgment Day. Out here in the desert, the Salcedas might escape the initial explosions and the chaos caused by the electromagnetic pulses, but how long could they last against fallout, nuclear winter, then the machines? There must be safer places—he and his mom would need to persuade as many of their friends as possible to move south, well away from the U.S.

Sarah had drooped over the picnic table, with her cheek on the back of her hand. While the T-800 went on working, John walked over to her, quietly, thinking she was asleep. She looked up—she must have sensed his presence, perhaps his shadow falling over her. "I was thinking about Judgment Day," she said.

"It's okay, Mom," John said. "We'll get through all this. We've just got to tough it out."

She sat up, giving him a tired smile. "We have to be strong." Her jaw clenched and she picked up her knife, toying with it. Then she drove it point-first into the surface of the picnic table. She'd carved there the words: NO FATE. "We can stop them," she said.

"Mom? What are you talking about? If it's what I think you're thinking, don't even go there. Not now. This isn't the right time."

"Cyberdyne," she said. "This guy Miles Dyson, the guy who invents Skynet—we can stop it happening. We can blow up Cyberdyne, or take out Dyson, make sure no one can follow his research."

"You tried that before," John said, "with that government lab last year. They put you away, remember? The cops will be expecting you to try something like that."

Her jaw was set firm. "We have to keep trying."

"You only just got out of Pescadero. You don't want to go back."

"We can't just wait for Judgment Day."

"Okay, okay. But we can try later, or try something else. But we can't just kill people, and we can't attack Cyberdyne just when the T-1000 could be expecting it."

That struck home. Obviously, Sarah was weighing it all in her mind.

"There's got to be another way," John said.

Sarah lit a cigarette and drew back on it. She chewed her lips, then took another drag on the cancer stick. "All right," she said grimly. "We'll wait." She sounded resentful, like she knew better, but then she went quiet and her face softened. She stood and stepped close to him, opening her arms. She hugged John to her tightly, not saying anything, just sobbing. "I love you," she said. "I always have."

And he realized: he'd always known. "I know. It's okay, Mom... I love you, too."

Three hours later, they were in Mexico. The two of them, and "Uncle Bob."

LOS ANGELES

The T-1000's shapeshifting abilities were almost unlimited, constrained only by its constant body mass. Its default appearance was that of a young, serious-looking male human. Since arriving in 1994, it had found the value of mimicking a police uniform and using police vehicles.

At the Pescadero Hospital, the Connors had evaded it, stealing a car and accelerating out into the city streets That was a setback, but the T-1000 still had resources. Down the road, within the Hospital's grounds, police and paramedics milled about like ants around a honey jar. A motorcycle policeman rode up to the T-1000, mistaking it for a human colleague. "You okay?"

"Fine," the T-1000 said. "Say... that's a nice bike." Its finger became a metal spear, quickly stabbing the man] through the throat. If he lived, he might interfere. Quickly, the T-1000 hid the body in a nearby garden, then slipped away into the night, following the direction the Connors had taken. It had little chance of reacquiring them without assistance, but the authorities would pursue them, and it could easily obtain police information.

Hours passed as it cruised round the city and its mile of sprawling suburbs. The Connors would need to hide somewhere overnight and deal with their wounds from the breakout. As the night passed, the T-1000 listened to the police radio. Numerous messages came through, including several sightings of the Connors, but they were alarms. This was a waste of time, and the trail was getting cold. By now, they would have disposed of their vehicle. In this situation, the T-1000's programming offered no clear solution. It knew very little about the resources and associates of the Connors during this period of their lives, except that they were known to have come from Los Angeles. Unfortunately, many records had been lost in the Judgment Day war and the chaos that followed.

As morning approached, the T-1000 returned to the home of John Connor's foster parents: Todd and Janelle Voights. It had terminated the Voights and their dog before

taking action to acquire Sarah Connor at the Pescadero Hospital. Everything here was quiet.

It rifled through the pages of letters, diaries, and address books, seeking anything that might suggest the Connors' next move or any hiding place they might use. Among the papers were letters from Sarah Connor to her son, sent from Pescadero, but they were not useful. If there was information here, it was too privately coded. The house also contained computer disks, a hard drive, and many video and audio tapes. The tapes were mostly in commercial packaging, but that could be a deception--any of them might contain hidden messages. As the sun rose, the T-1000 played the audio tapes on the Voights' sound system. They were all as advertised: various commercial recordings.

It lacked the resources to analyze the other material. Dealing with the disks and hard drive was the most difficult There was too much information on them for the Terminator to waste time reviewing them itself. Nor could it stay here watching the videotapes—sooner or later, someone would interrupt it and cause complications. It dismantled the computer and stuffed everything it needed into a shopping bag. At 10:35 a.m., it left the police bike in a downtown alley. Unobserved, morphed its appearance back to that of an orderly whom it had terminated at the Pescadero Hospital. Taking the computer materials, it walked to the police station, where a desk sergeant was seated behind a screen of bulletproof glass, talking to a wildly gesticulating middle-aged couple.

The T-1000 pushed through and handed over the disks and the hard drive. "This came from the Voight residence," it said in the orderly's voice.

"Hey, you can't barge in like this," said the middle-aged man. "Wait your turn."

"This is evidence from the Voight residence," the T-1000 said, ignoring this. "The foster parents of John Connor, whose mother broke out of Pescadero last night. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"What? How did you get this?" the sergeant said.

"Check it. It may contain information about the Connors' whereabouts." It strode out past the couple, who glared at it with impotent rage.

Minutes later, it found its bike, still parked in the alley. Fine. It left the bike there and changed its appearance once more, this time to that of Janelle Voight, John Connor's foster mother. In that guise, it entered an appliance store two city blocks from the police station. As it checked the racks of gleaming video equipment, a clerk approached. "Can I help you, ma'am?" He was a gangly teenager with prominent teeth. He wore a striped shirt and a bright yellow tie.

The T-1000 pointed to the shelves, to an Aiwa integrated tele-video unit. "I'd like that, dear," it said, using Voight's voice pattern.

"How would you like it delivered, ma'am?"

"I can carry it away, dear, don't worry."

The clerk looked at the T-1000 as if he was dealing with a crazy customer. "That's a large item," he said.

"Are you sure—"

"Trust me on this, dear. I'm stronger than I look."

The clerk still looked dubious. "Well, if you say so. I really think you should feel the weight of it first. We have a very good delivery service."

"Well, perhaps. But is there one all boxed up ready for me if I want to take it away now?"

"Sure. In the pile over there." He pointed, and the T-1000 took note. "Now, how would you like to pay?"

"Like this, dear." The T-1000's right hand suddenly changed, stretching into a two-foot thorn of silvery metal. In one movement, it drove the newly-formed weapon upward through the clerk's chest, then withdrew it, letting him collapse behind the counter. It scooped up a boxed unit, and left the store.

Next, it found a low-rent hotel on West 7th Street. In its Janelle Voight form, it walked in, balancing the boxed tele-video on its shoulder, with the shopping bag of videocassettes in its other hand. Behind the scratched, badly-painted counter, a fat Anglo woman looked it up and down, chewing gum and eyeing the large cardboard box.

The T-1000 placed the bag and the tele-video unit on the threadbare carpet at its feet. "Hello, dear," it said. "I need a room."

The woman shrugged her shoulders, as if she saw eccentric guests all the time and how they acted was none of her business. "Sure. How long do you want to stay, honey?"

"Unknown, dear."

The woman looked at the T-1000 quizzically. "'Unknown', huh? All right, I'll put you down as a long-term guest." She made a note in a foolscap exercise book, its used pages held in place by a thick rubber band, then found a room key on a red plastic ring marked with the number "8." "Let me take you through the rules here..."

Once in the room, the T-1000 set up the tele-video and started watching cassettes on fast forward. During the afternoon, it worked its way through several of the videos, learning more about the behavior of human beings, but finding no clues to the Connors' whereabouts. As evening stretched on, it used its improved understanding of humans to conclude that the Connors might attempt to strike back against Skynet through its inventor, Miles Dyson, or Dyson's employer, Cyberdyne systems.

It interrupted its search for evidence and made an action plan.

Though many of its records were scanty, the T-1000 held detailed files about Cyberdyne and its key employees all material that had been available to Skynet in 2029. At 10:00 p.m. it rode in its policeman form to Miles Dyson's plush, modern house in Long Beach. From the street, nothing appeared suspicious; there was no sign of the Connors. So far, they hadn't struck.

The T-1000 stepped quickly to the front porch and rang the doorbell. Someone called out, "Honey, can you get it?" A human male with a gentle, educated voice, but he sounded very busy.

After a minute, the door opened slightly. The young black woman looked surprised. "Yes, Officer?" she said.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late. Is everything here okay?"

"Yes," she said slowly, sounding puzzled.

"No one else has disturbed you tonight?"

"No. Not at all. Are you sure you have the right house?"

"I believe so. Are you Mrs. Dyson?" "Yes."

"Is Mr. Miles Dyson home?"

"He's working, but I can get him."

The T-1000 carried out an assessment. This was the right house, and the Dysons were safe—that was important in itself. "No," it said. "There's no need for that."

"What's this all about?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Dyson. It's probably just a hoax, but we have to take it seriously. An inmate called Sarah Connor escaped last night from the Pescadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. You may have seen it on the news?"

She shook her head slowly. "I might have seen something in the newspaper this morning. We didn't watch the news tonight. Miles was busy working and—"

"I understand, ma'am. Sarah Connor was imprisoned for attempting to blow up an experimental computer installation over a year ago. We had a tip-off tonight that she might try to harm your husband or his employer, Cyberdyne Systems. Try not to worry, but please call the Police Department if you see anything unusual."

"Thank you," Tarissa Dyson said uncertainly.

"We'll keep in touch with you. Thanks for your cooperation."

After she shut the door, the T-1000 considered the situation further. It rode off, searching for a public phone, and found one on a corner, outside a 7-Eleven convenience store. Its index finger lengthened and flattened to go down the coin slot and trick the mechanism, and it dialed the 911 police emergency line. When it finally got through, it imitated the voice of the clerk in the appliance store. "It's about yesterday's breakout from Pescadero."

"Please, sir, where are you calling from?" A woman's voice, young and harassed-sounding.

"I want to remain anonymous. I might be in danger."

There was a sigh at the other end of the phone.

"That woman who escaped custody," the T-1000 said. "Sarah Connor. Her and the kid—and the big guy from the shopping mall. They're going to target either Cyber-dyne Systems or its chief inventor, Miles Dyson. Maybe tonight. That's what I hear. I think you'd better check it out."

"How do you know all this?"

"This is important. Please check it out." It hung up. That should produce some more police activity and give additional protection to Dyson and Cyberdyne.

It was nearly midnight when the Dysons' phone rang. They'd put Danny to bed, but they were too worried to sleep after that motorcycle officer called by.

Tarissa took the handset. "Hello?" she said in a tentative voice.

"Mrs. Dyson?"

"Yes."

"This is Detective Weatherby from the Los Angeles Police Department. We've had a tip-off that you and your husband may be in serious danger. We're going to call on you. I'd like you and your family to pack some clothes. I'm really sorry to disturb you like this."

"Thank God you rang," Tarissa said. "Is this about Sarah Connor?"

The detective sounded surprised. "It is, but how did you know?"

"One of your officers came round a little earlier. A policeman on a motorbike."

"That's very strange." There was a pause. "On a motor-bike, you say?" He sounded skeptical.

"Yes, about half an hour ago."

Weatherby sounded puzzled. "We've only just received the tip-off."

"I can only tell you what happened," she said, feeling a bit irritated. The police needed to get their act together. That wasn't her problem.

"I really can't explain that," Weatherby said. "Anyway, we have information that Sarah Connor could attack your husband or his employer. She is armed, and the man with her is extremely dangerous. He's already wanted for questioning over the murder of seventeen police officers in 1984."

“Oh, my goodness." She remembered the news at the time, back before she married Miles, when they were both at Stanford.

"We're taking this very seriously."

"Okay. That's fine."

"We'll put you in a hotel tonight and stake out your house. Try not to worry, but please call me immediately if anything suspicious happens before we get there."

"Certainly, Mr. Weatherby," Tarissa said.

"Be careful if anyone comes to the door. We'll be there soon."

“Thanks," she said. It was stranger and stranger, more and more frightening. "We'll be careful. Thanks for all your help."

"That's our job, ma'am."

The T-1000 rode past the Dyson house one more time. After a few minutes, there was a call on the radio for a squad car to park here and wait, and another one to check out Cyberdyne. The T-1000 turned a corner and dumped the bike in the parking lot half a mile up the road. It was becoming a liability. The policeman's body had been found. Anybody using this bike would be questioned.

Retaining its default facial anatomy, the T-1000 changed its copied clothing from police uniform to casual wear—sneakers, jeans and a two-tone sweatshirt— as it walked back to the Dyson house. Then it blended into the trunk of a tree across the road, and waited.

Soon a marked car pulled up out the front. Not long after, another car arrived, unmarked this time. Two men in plain clothes and two uniformed officers got out of the second car, and went to the front door. Within another ten minutes, Miles and Tarissa Dyson had left, with their son, in the back of the marked squad car. One of the police moved the unmarked car moved round the corner, then returned. There were now four officers waiting inside the house in case the Connors appeared at the scene. That was a good trap.

Miles Dyson rang Oscar Cruz, Cyberdyne's president from the hotel and briefed him quickly about the police stakeout. Oscar was in bed when the phone rang, and he sounded tired and grouchy at the other end, but he soon gained his normal composure. He was always smooth with employees, or anyone else he had to deal with. He got his way subtly—always a good manipulator, a social engineer.

"Okay, Miles," he said. "I'll talk to Charles Layton and some of the others."

"Ring the cops as well," Miles said. "The tip-off specifically mentioned me, but you'd better be careful."

"All right. Look, come to my office in the morning, there's something else we need to talk about. I need to get your views."

"On this?"

"Not just this. But it's all connected."

"Sure, whatever you want. Just be careful tonight, Oscar." To Miles, the main thing was that his family was safe. Danny was playing with his radio-controlled truck,

guiding it all round the hotel room, zooming past the bed, then around Miles's feet. He really shouldn't be up this late. Tarissa sat up on the bed, leaning against two pillows and watching Danny play. She looked drawn, but at least she was all right. No one would find them here.

"How close do you think you are with the new processor?" Oscar said.

The question seemed to come out of nowhere—it was a funny time to be discussing business. "You sure you want to talk about that stuff, right now?" Miles said.

Oscar sighed into the phone, but then gave a laugh. "I'm sorry, Miles. I have my reasons for asking, I'm not just being a heartless boss. I'm worried about your safety—nearly as much as you are."

Miles laughed along tensely, glancing across at Tarissa and raising his eyebrows at her. "I kind of doubt that, right at the moment."

"Yeah, yeah, point taken, but your call has got me thinking. Look, we'll talk about it in the morning. Take your time getting in, but come straight to my office."

Next day, Miles arrived at 10:00 a.m., feeling tired as hell, but wanting to know what was on the president's mind. They met in Oscar's office, on the seventh floor of Cyberdyne's black-glass building. Oscar wore a light sports jacket over a plain black shirt. His office walls were hung with Brazilian expressionist paintings—wild splashes of freeform color suggesting selvas, broad rivers, and exotic animals.

"It looks like we're both in one piece," Oscar said. "How's Tarissa feeling?"

"Shaken up, but she'll be okay."

"Good. Take a seat, and I'll get to the point--it was time to bring you in on this anyway "

"Yeah? What's the big mystery this time?"

Oscar sat on the edge of his desk. "We've been worried about security at Cyberdyne--I mean me, Charles, the board. There's nothing wrong with our staff or our processes, but we're developing a profile that could attract psychos like Sarah Connor. That's not going to change, either. If II only get worse."

"Yeah, that's probably right."

"You can count on it. I was worried when Connor broke out of prison--or whatever you call it where they had her locked up---but I hadn't heard of any threats until you called me Thanks for doing that, by the way."

"Hey, no problemo."

"Yeah, well, it was appreciated. I'll get us some coffee and take you through the issues." Oscar called out to his secretary to bring café lattes for both of them He stepped over to Miles, sitting down and bending forward as if speaking more confidentially, though there was no one else to hear. "I asked you last night for your opinion on the new processor." He waved away any attempt at an answer. "I know, I get your reports, and I probably understand them as well as anyone."

"Right."

"Don't sound so skeptical," Oscar said. "Okay, there's Rosanna." That was Dr. Rosanna Monk, maybe Miles's best subordinate. "Anyway, I need a frank overall assessment right now. Are we as close as the reports say we are?"

"I was working on it last night," Miles said. "It's frustrating. We're so close to solving the problems."

"All right, but let's be realistic. You say we're so close, but what does that really mean? When will the problems be solved? Look, I'm not pressuring you, Miles, just trying to get some data."

"Uh-huh?"

"We've got some management decisions to make and this is vital if we're going to get it right. It's May now—do think you'll crack it by, say, August?"

"I'd say we're either nearly there now, or else we're totally beaten. If it can be done at all, we'll have a prototype nanoprocessor ready for testing in two weeks. Yeah, I'd bet we could make an announcement by August."

Their coffee arrived, and Oscar said, "That could make a big difference."

"It's been bugging me, though. The damn thing's been a bitch to wrestle with, but we've almost got it licked."

"Okay, I appreciate it." Oscar sipped his coffee thoughtfully, then put the cup down, half empty. "There's someone I want you to meet. His name is Jack Reed and he's high up in Washington, working in the Defense Department."

"Uh-huh. That figures."

"It's about time I introduced you to Jack. The North American Aerospace Defense Command is looking at building a new facility in Colorado, something smaller and even more hardened than its HQ in Cheyenne Mountain. NORAD is very interested in the idea of radical new computer hardware, if we can deliver it. You've been saying for a long time that the new nanochip will make ordinary computers look like desk calculators. Well, Jack and his people like the sound of that."

"Right. So why does something tell me there's a catch?"

"It's not necessarily a catch, but it may help us deal with fanatics like Sarah Connor. Jack's people are talking about including a top-secret facility for advanced defense research. Cyberdyne and some of the other contractors would be given space within the new facility. In a place like that, our most sensitive projects would be invulnerable. Naturally, I'd want you involved." Having said that, Oscar sat back in his chair, relaxed, and quickly finished his coffee.

"You mean that's the catch? You want me to move to Colorado? I'd have to talk that over with Tarissa. That could be a problem for us, Oscar. I'm not sure we want to move Danny to another school, just now, if that's what you're suggesting."

"That's okay, it's not a problem." Oscar held up both hands in a temporizing gesture. "We could base you here, but you'd still be overall supervisor of Special Projects. You'd probably have to live in Colorado for a few weeks a year. I'm sure we could work something out, arrange for Tarissa to go with you for some of it, or whatever." He laughed. "I'm not trying to break up your marriage. Okay?"

Miles considered the possibilities. Oscar was so smooth. He always let other people get their way—on things that didn't matter to him. Sometimes he seemed just a bit too oily for Miles's taste, but he was good to work with. The small stuff always went along like it was supposed to. Maybe they could come to a good arrangement.

"But there is a real catch... maybe," Oscar said.

"All right, here it comes," Miles said. He gave a broad, knowing grin. What else did Oscar want? "Well?"

"You're not claustrophobic, are you?"

Miles worked it out in a flash.

"We're talking about a hardened defense facility here," Cruz said, "like the NORAD Command Center, only more so."

"Gotcha."

"Yeah, you'd have to work half a mile or so under the ground."

Miles laughed. "You know, boss, that's probably the least of my worries."

"Good. I hoped it would be."

"I'll talk to Tarissa tonight."

CHAPTER THREE

JOHN'S WORLD

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA MAY, 1994

In John's reality, the Cyberdyne site was in ruins. Sarah Connor and the others had blown up the second floor with a massive array of Claymore mines and plastic explosives. Now the site was ominously quiet. Though the morning was bright, with just a scatter of streaky clouds, it seemed to Oscar Cruz like the end of the world had come to pass.

His world.

A tired-looking police detective escorted him from the roped-off area, and wished him well. Oscar shook the man's hand. "Thanks for your trouble," he said.

"No," the detective said. "Thank you. You've been very helpful. Please don't hesitate to call us if you think of anything more, or if there's anything we can do."

"Of course. That's appreciated."

"And certainly if anything suspicious happens. You can't be too careful."

There was little more Oscar could do here. He felt numb, shocked, as if he'd survived a personal assault from the maniacs who'd done this. It was hard to fathom their motivation, or believe the outcome. Miles was dead. So much of their work was gone. A dozen police and emergency vehicles had arrived at the scene, crowding round the building's wrecked shell, like African wildlife round a waterhole. Then there were last night's vehicles, waiting to be towed away: the shattered husks of squad cars, destroyed by heavy-duty military weapons. Riddled with bullet holes, wrenched and stretched out of shape by grenade explosions, they lay derelict among the blasted rubble and shards of glass.

Overhead, the long arm of a mobile crane swept silently through the air. A shiny purple tow truck was parked to one side, its driver waiting for permission to help clear the wreckage. A tractor growled and inched forward in low gear, then stopped, as the police negotiated with emergency workers about what evidence could, or could not, be disturbed. Occasionally, someone yelled out a request or an instruction. Nothing seemed very hurried, but Oscar knew how stressful it all was: the dangerous condition of the building; the detail of the inspections; the inevitable conflicts between solving the crime and following safety procedures.

Oscar decided to take some photographs—for business purposes, certainly not for souvenirs—then talk things through with Rosanna Monk. He took the digital camera from his black leather briefcase, and checked the scene through the viewfinder.

He took some close-ups of the damage and some distance shots, getting the scene from directly in front of the building, then from both ends of the street. He got a good side-on view from the right, but no rear angle on the building, because the way was blocked off. These shots would have to be enough—they'd be useful for his own records, and for briefing the Board.

It was only 9:30 a.m., but he'd already put in a long morning, dealing with police, press, politicians, lawyers, insurers, employees, company consultants, customers, city, state and federal officials, and, worst of all, Cyber-dyne's Board members. He'd made one statement for the TV news networks, and expected to make many more before the day was over. Right now, he had to pick up the pieces. The company's headquarters were in ruins, its future uncertain. There were endless legal questions to sort out with insurers and customers. Even if Cyberdyne survived all this, there was also his own future to think about, for a process of mutual blame was beginning within the company.

Amongst it all, only one thing had turned out right: no one seemed to have been killed except Dyson. The Cyberdyne guards who'd been on duty were okay, and no one else had been working back late. Some of the police had suffered serious injuries, but they'd live. One officer had fallen from a helicopter, and was badly hurt. He claimed to have no memories of what happened to him. Someone had hijacked the helicopter and crashed it miles from the scene. No body had been found.

Mystery after mystery.

He carefully packed away his camera, and found his cellphone, then walked to a small diner a couple of blocks away. He sat in a quiet corner, and ordered a chicken and lettuce sandwich for breakfast, plus a coffee. While he waited, he phoned Rosanna Monk.

"Oscar!" she said. "How is everything?" Like everyone else she sounded under stress, an edge of desperation and anxiety in her voice. Before he could answer, she said, "That's a dumb question, I suppose."

"No." He shook his head, though she wasn't there to see. "There's no such thing at the moment."

"What do you think will happen?"

"That's a tough one, Rosanna. Not dumb, just tough."

She laughed nervously at that.

"I've just been to the site," Oscar said. "I'm in the Yellow Parrot Diner, just round the corner from Cyberdyne."

"Yeah. Okay."

"How about I get a cab over to your place and we can have a proper talk about this? There's a lot to go through. If we can get the whole mess sorted out, you could have a very important role in the company's future."

"Oscar, you don't have to sound all positive and cheerful. I know how you must feel."

"Yeah... Thanks. All the same, we'd better talk through the implications. Besides, I need your advice."

"You need my advice?"

"That's what I said."

Rosanna paused, and the waitress brought Oscar's order. He nodded as she placed it on the table, with the folded check.

"All right," Rosanna said. "Come on over. Just give me a few minutes to tidy up."

"Fine. While you're waiting for me, just think about one question." The waitress had gone. He looked round to make sure no one could overhear.

"Fire away." Rosanna still sounded nervous.

"It's this: Miles's nanochip project..."

"The nanoprocessor? Yes, what about it?"

"It looks like all his work is gone. You know more about the project than anybody."

"I suppose I do."

"The question is just this: Without Miles, or any of his records, is the project still viable? You don't have to answer now, but think about it. We can talk when I get there."

"All right, Oscar. But I've already been thinking about it I can give you an answer now."

"You can?"

"Sure. It might take a few years to catch up. I don't know if you have that sort of time."

"Assume we do. What are you saying, that we can do it?"

There was another pause on the line, then she said in a definite way, "Yes. Yes, I'm pretty sure we can."

WEST OF ROSARIO, ARGENTINA

JUNE 1994

Willard Parnell was waiting for them at the Retiro bus station in Buenos Aires. He helped them with their luggage, and they got in his orange Jeep Cherokee. Soon they were cruising out of the city, heading for the Tejada estancia. It was all quick, neat and efficient. No one had looked at them suspiciously on the bus or at the station. It still seemed like no one had recognized them since they crossed the Mexican border and started working their way south.

John sat in the back of the Cherokee, while his mother talked to Willard in the front. Through the Cherokee's tinted windows, John watched the Pampas roll by, mile after mile of pasturelands, seemingly endless. They headed towards Cordoba on Ruta Nacional 9, then turned south after 100 miles or so, passing through more grain and cattle country, stretched out under a cold, clear winter sky.

Sarah was lost in her thoughts, and Willard kept quiet for a long time. Then he said, "You must have had lots of problems getting this far."

Willard was a tall, redheaded man in his twenties, one of Raoul Tejada's most trusted operators: a cattleman, cook, courier-a streetfighter when needed. He loved vehicles and aircraft. Clearly he enjoyed driving the gutsy Cherokee, keeping the accelerator down and overtaking the occasional vehicles that they met.

"A few," Sarah said grudgingly.

"Your ID work out fine?"

"Sure," she said. John and Sarah were traveling under false names. According to their passports and other papers, they were internationalistas, originally from the U.S., who'd lived in various parts of Central and South America for the past eight years. That much was almost true, for they'd seldom stayed in the U.S. for long if they could help it. Sarah was supposedly a nurse named Deborah Lawes. John was used to being David Lawes, though his identity was no secret from the Tejadas and their people.

"So, what, other problems, then?" Willard gave a knowing chuckle, as though he could guess what troubles they'd been through. But he didn't know anything.

Physically, it had been tough, especially with Sarah's bad leg. They'd used an assortment of trains, buses, choppers and cars—some hired, some borrowed, some stolen. Whenever possible, they'd relied on their contacts, particularly the Salcedas' network.

"Only what you'd expect," Sarah said. "We holed up with Enrique and Yolanda for a few days about three weeks ago. They got us on a chopper ride to Mexico after that. Since then, we've hardly stopped moving. It took a full week just getting from Panama to Colombia." She glanced behind her. "John was great. He hasn't complained, all the way through."

"Hey, thanks, Mom," John said, embarrassed by the praise, but grinning all the same. "You've been pretty cool, too."

"It's not easy doing this when you don't want to be recognized," she said. When necessary, they'd hiked their way south, covering some long distances on foot before they got to Bogota. Mostly, they'd traveled overnight, trying to nurse themselves in the daylight hours.

"Anyway," Willard said, "it's good to see you guys back. Raoul can do with another pair of hands, just now. Or two pairs, if it comes that, right, John?"

"Yeah, sure," John said.

"Business is good, Sarah—you know what I mean?" Willard made a pistol shape with his right hand, taking it off the steering wheel. He squeezed back an imaginary trigger a couple of times, laughing. "Kapow!"

"I'm glad Raoul's doing well," Sarah said non-commitally. "I'm looking forward to seeing him. Gabriela, too."

"Don't worry, you'll get a hero's welcome. That was pretty cool what you did back in L.A. What happened to the big guy that was with you, the one on CNN?"

"He had to go away," Sarah said.

"Yeah?" Willard gave her a sideways look, just to let her know he'd asked a fair question and she was jerking him around. But then he shrugged. "All right, keep your secrets. I'm just asking."

"I'll tell you about it later," Sarah said. "But you won't believe me—that's the trouble."

"No? You might be surprised what I'd believe."

"In that case, you've been hanging around with Raoul too much."

"Could be. Raoul's ideas are kind of infectious. Anyway, forget it. I did some good business before picking you guys up-I dropped off a consignment to a big customer back in Buenos Aires. Better still, Raoul's made some contacts in Croatia. Things are looking up round here."

Raoul and Gabriela Tejada ran a huge cattle estate, but their sideline was selling firearms, imported from the U.S. Most of the business was legitimate, but they also provided guns to customers who didn't like legal formalities, mainly private security firms. John wasn't sure he liked that, but he'd grown up with guns and other weapons. For as long as he could remember, he'd been hanging out in helicopters over the hills and jungles of Central America, or in compounds with underground weapons caches—or actually getting down and dirty with the guerrilla fighters in Nicaragua and El Salvador. It was something they'd had to do, part of their training for Judgment Day.

"Anyway," Willard said, "we'll look after you. You're in safe hands now."

"Thanks. Just a long, hot shower would really help."

"Yeah, I expect we can manage that."

The good thing was that the Tejadas' estancia was pretty neat—luxurious compared to most places John had lived. They were going back to civilization.

Sarah tried to avoid any more conversation, looking out the window, away from Willard. After a few more attempts to get her to talk, he left her alone. "Sorry, Willard," she said. "I'm tired." But John could tell that it wasn't just that. She was thinking. Something was bothering her, maybe lots of things.

She hadn't sounded too happy about Raoul's gunrunning to Croatia. The trouble was, they'd had to join up with whatever groups would accept them, and give them the kind of experience they'd need to face the nuclear winter and Skynet's machines. They couldn't be too choosy. From time to time, they'd found themselves hanging out with different groups who had totally different aims. As he'd gotten older, John had figured out that the American mercenaries who'd befriended Sarah in Nicaragua had nothing in common with the El Salvadoran compas they'd stayed with for months when he was five or six, learning how to melt away from a military attack.

He still didn't understand the politics behind it all, and didn't care about socialism and capitalism and all that stuff; he'd work it out when he grew up. Maybe his mom didn't understand it either, or not all of it. But all those people did actually have one thing in common. They had skills to pass on, skills that might come in handy when Skynet was in control, and humans were forced to fight back or be exterminated.

But hadn't they stopped that from happening, back in L.A., when they took out Cyberdyne? So what good were all those cool skills now?

That was assuming they'd succeeded when they blew up Cyberdyne, actually stopped its research. That Oscar Cruz guy had sounded pretty confident that Cyberdyne

wasn't finished yet. And there was still that other Terminator arm, left behind at the steel mill. John and Sarah had talked about it for the last few weeks, wondering how much it would help the Cyberdyne researchers follow Miles Dyson's work, if they ever got hold of it.

After a while, Parnell tried once more to talk to Sarah about the raid on Cyberdyne, but she gave the shortest answers she could, mostly just "Yes" or "No." She'd entered a new zone, John guessed, trying to work it all out. Then she said, "Willard?"

"Yeah?"

"You must think I'm crazy, like everyone else does."

"Maybe." He changed lanes to the left, to pass an empty cattle truck. "But maybe you know something the rest of us don't. Jesus, Sarah, who knows what that government of yours is up to? If you say that this company-"

"Cyberdyne."

"If you say it had a defense contract to make killer robots, or whatever, how can I argue with you?" He pulled back into the right lane. "We all know they're hiding things from us. What about those aliens they've got in Nevada?"

"They're certainly hiding things," Sarah said in a flat voice.

"So maybe you know more than you're telling us? Fair enough, too. You don't have to tell all your secrets to me. Raoul feels the same way, don't worry. We can keep our mouths shut about what you do tell us. And we won't pester you. It'll be cool. You'll see."

Sarah didn't say another word for the rest of the journey.

When the Terminators appeared from the future, John had worked out that his mom was not crazy, after all.

What was scary about some of their friends was that they didn't need too much convincing, they kind of reserved judgment anyway. That meant that they really were crazy.

Willard took another turn-off, and they soon arrived at Tejada's estancia, where they drove through a gate marked with the sign no trespassing in flaming red letters. They passed cattle, men on horseback, an orange tractor, then reached the homestead, 200 yards on. It was fenced off from Raoul and Gabriela's wide cattle acres, and fortified by a high chain-link fence with surveillance cameras every fifty yards or so. From here, it looked like a military base, more forbidding, in its way, than the Salcedas' camp, back in California. But the set-up inside the perimeter was a lot more up-market than Enrique's cluster of vehicles and trailers.

They drove slowly past a guardhouse and a couple of workshops, then parked in a big round space, surfaced with pink gravel and surrounded by buildings.

Three vehicles were already here: another two Cherokees and a beautifully-cleaned 1960s Jaguar. The house itself-the casco-was an impressive two-story mansion of gray stone, maybe a couple of hundred years old, with beautiful gardens, a well-mown lawn, and groves of trees. Many of these were eucalyptus, so there was plenty of greenery, despite the winter. On the right of the casco were a dozen white-painted bungalows, set back in a row. Across the graveled area from these were workshops, a garage for Raoul's car collection, and a big sheet-metal hangar for his Jetranger helicopter. There were also stables, tool sheds, and a school area for the kids who lived on the estancia.

The Tejadas' workers were all sorts of nationalities.

The men and women they'd passed on the way in, and those trimming the lawn and gardens, looked like a mixture from all across Europe, yet John knew most of them—and knew they'd been born right here in Argentina. That was a cool thing about this country. Its people came from so many backgrounds that no one automatically looked or sounded like an outsider. In John's years of traveling round Latin America, he'd adapted almost perfectly, wherever he went, never having known anything different. But here it was especially easy to fit in, to camouflage yourself like a chameleon. Whatever color you were, however you talked or dressed, no one looked at you twice.

"Thanks for the lift,'' Sarah said as she slammed the door of the Jeep behind her. She sounded really tense now, maybe not sure of what reception they'd get. Still, Raoul Tejada had been friendly enough when they'd phoned him from Mexico City. As she walked to the house, on a tiled path through the garden, she still limped from the bullet wound she'd taken in LA. The last few weeks hadn't helped her get it better. John felt sorry for her—maybe she'd always feel it.

A woman waved from the garden. It was Rosa Suarez, calling out to them in Spanish. "Hello, Sarah. Hello, John. It's good to see you." Rosa had a couple of her kids with her: her daughter, Maria, and son, Angelo, both two or three years younger than John.

John waved back. "And you, too," he said, also in Spanish.

"Stay this time," Rosa said, switching to English.

"Yeah, Rosa, that'd be cool."

Raoul Tejada came out of the front door onto the broad verandah. His German shepherd dog, Hercules, got out the door ahead of him, bounding down the steps to greet John and Sarah.

"Good boy," John said. He laughed as the dog licked him, ran excitedly from him to Sarah, then back, putting up his front paws on John's T-shirt. "Aw, c'mon, let's not get too mushy about this."

Raoul was a very tall man in his sixties, maybe six-foot-five, with a lean, snake-hipped figure, a deep, even tan like a ski instructor, and a mop of unruly white hair that was getting thin, but not actually balding anywhere. He wore corduroy jeans and a black turtleneck. "So, we have a pair of Connors," he said in faintly accented English. "You're not here to blow up my ranch, I hope?"

"It's good to see you, too, Raoul," Sarah said with a trace of sarcasm. She patted Hercules firmly. "Calm down, boy. We know you're glad to see us."

"Come here, Hercules," Raoul said. The dog hesitated, not knowing what it wanted-to keep up its welcome to John and Sarah, or return to its master. "Come on."

Sarah winced a bit, climbing the steps to the verandah. It was cold outdoors. John found himself shivering. Maybe that made his mom's leg hurt more.

As he crouched to pet his dog, Raoul glanced Willard's way. "No problems?"

"No, everything went smoothly. The drop-off was fine. I got the money okay."

"Right. Now what about this pair?" Raoul smiled to show he was kidding.

"It all went like a song, Raoul. And here they are, at your service." Willard gave a little bow. They were probably safe here. No one at the estancia was likely to betray them. Better still, the local cops had no reason to expect them to be in Argentina, let alone out here on the Pampas.

"Okay," Raoul said "Forget about the bags, Willard-you can worry about them later. Come on in, all of you." He looked at Sarah thoughtfully. "You and John are more than welcome. I hope you know that." He left Hercules to lie on the porch—panting happily, with his tongue out— and approached Sarah. Raoul towered over her. He reached down to give her a quick hug, draping one long arm over her shoulder. Then he slapped John on the back "You look like you're doing fine, compañero"

"Hey, Raoul, I'm okay," John said.

The front room of the casco was a huge entertaining area, lined with books. It had a wooden dining table that could seat about twenty people. To the left was a study crammed with computer equipment and more books. There was a kitchen on the right, through a stone archway.

Gabriela Tejada, Raoul's wife, came down the hallway from the back of the house. She was much younger than her husband, maybe in her forties-John still found it difficult being sure of adults' ages, but the Tejadas' kids were teenagers, so it all kind of figured. She was nearly six feet tall, with a square jaw, and an impressive smile that showed very white teeth. She wore a bright, multicolored dress, with a shawl around her shoulders. "It's so good to see you both," she said. There were more hugs all round. "Come, come." She led them down the hallway to a small dining room decorated with abstract sculptures.

They sat at the formal dining table and the adults drank maté. John settled for a tall glass of Coke. "You know, Sarah," Raoul said, "I'm not sure you did the right thing blowing up that building. We've been watching the story on CNN. Then you rang me from Mexico with this story about military robots and all the rest of it. I don't know..."

Raoul probably had some really weird impression. Sarah had left a lot out in that quick call from Mexico. "You mean you don't believe me?" she said, then grunted. "Why should you? No one else does."

Raoul shrugged. "I didn't say that. It's not that I don't believe you. It just seems to me that your country might need those robots when the Russians attack."

Sarah caught John's eye for just a second, warning him not to take Raoul's theories too seriously. He was a smart guy, but with a truly paranoid view of the world. "I don't think I could begin to explain the ins and outs of it," she said. "I don't think you really want to know."

"This is all to do with that stuff about time travel or whatever it was?"

"Raoul, we're not the police," Gabriela said. "We don't have to interrogate our guests." She put her hand on her husband's. "All right?"

"Okay. Maybe I'm forgetting my manners. Still, this time travel thing. That might come in handy, too."

"Raoul!" Gabriela said warningly-but with a smile. She poured more mate for the adults. It was a couple of years since John last been here, and he'd grown up a lot since, enough to know about humoring people. It seemed that some people humored Raoul, while others went along with him. And some weren't sure. They thought he might be right, because he was so smart, but still thought he sounded kind of whacko. John could sense the different reactions, and he suddenly realized that Gabriela fitted in the third category. She seemed both proud of her husband and worried about him.

"There's still a chance that they could build Skynet and that it could start a nuclear war," Sarah said.

"She could be right you know," Willard said. "We don't know what they're hiding."

Raoul looked at him shrewdly. "That may not be such a bad thing, you know. The Big One's coming, one way or another." That was his way of referring to World War Three: The Big One. "Anyhow, people, we'll be okay here, whatever happens."

Sarah said, "Be careful what you wish for, Raoul."

"I'm not wishing for anything, Sarah, just facing facts. The Russians have been trying to convince America to disarm by pretending to be your friends-all that stuff about dismantling the U.S.S.R. The end of the evil empire ... What a joke! It's a confidence trick-you mark my words. I just hope your leaders see through it. If the U.S. disarms, it's goodbye. If they can maneuver that situation, do you think the Russians will hesitate to use their warheads? That's a joke, too. Ha ha, tell me another one."

"Let's not get into all that."

"No? Well, I realize the U.S. government is hiding all sorts of things." He nodded to Willard. "But I don't think people should interfere. Your government's only doing it because they know there's a war coming. Whatever you've found out just be careful how you react. You might not have the whole story-it might not be the way it looks to you."

"We'll be ready," Willard said. "When the war comes.

We'll be ready."

In fact, the place was stocked with weapons and enough food to last for years, even leaving aside the cattle herd. Raoul had an underground bunker, his own electricity supply, ponds and small lake on his property, and a huge cistern out back of the casco. It really wasn't too bad a place to hole up for "The Big One." John only prayed they'd never need to test it out.

Sarah laughed. "If that's the way you feel, maybe you should turn us over to the cops."

"Now, I didn't say that, either. But you just be careful, Sarah. That's all."

"Whatever you think, Raoul, this particular technology must not be used. It's too dangerous. If there's any chance it might still be built, I've got to stop it, however I can."

"Only you and God can judge that. I'm not standing in your way. Just think about what you're doing, that's all. I'll say no more on the subject. Consider it closed."

After that, the conversation got more sensible. Once you got Raoul off his favorite conspiracy theories, he was okay about stuff.

While Raoul talked with Sarah and Willard, one of the Tejada kids, Carlo, came in. He was about the same age as John, though a couple of inches taller. Perhaps he'd end up as tall as his dad.

"How you doin', Carlo?" John said.

"Hi, John," Carlo said, a bit shyly.

"You must all be starved," Gabriela said. "I'll make some sandwiches."

Sarah didn't mention Skynet again, or Judgment Day. As she spoke with Raoul, John could see her making other plans. She wanted to sort out home learning for John, she knew that the Internet could become really big in the next few years—at least that was what John kept telling her—so she tried to talk Raoul into getting a connection. For the moment, he showed no interest at all, but John figured he'd come round. His mom was good at getting her way. She had ideas about work she could do on the estancia, her and John. She was back to plotting and planning. Of course, she hadn't forgotten about Skynet. John knew that They still had to do whatever was needed.

All the same, this was a pretty good place to be, for the moment, somewhere to hide out incognito. There were a few kids John's age. They were among friends. He figured he could stand it here.

ARGENTINA

1994-97

The messages from the future had said that Cyberdyne would announce its radical new hardware in August 1994. John and Sarah tracked down every scrap of business and IT news they could find. Nothing. Cyberdyne was still in business, but it made no big announcements. There was no news about any new hardware.

When they persuaded Raoul to get Internet access, it became that much easier to keep on the case. Sarah bought John his own computer and paid Raoul for a line, so John could work alone in his room, not in Raoul's study.

The days went by in school lessons, training, work on the estancia. Raoul found plenty of use for John's computer skills and his knowledge of engines. Late into the night, John sat at the keyboard, keeping his skills sharp, and finding out everything he could about Cyberdyne and its activities. He made sure he left no digital foot-prints-he'd gotten good at that quickly. Early on, he made contact with Tarissa Dyson. She was polite, but didn't want to get involved. The events of May 1994 had left her wounded. She wished John well, and sent her regards to Sarah, but that was all.

Occasionally, John e-mailed Franco Salceda. Once or twice, Franco wrote back. Basically, he was on his own.

John soon knew more about Cyberdyne than most of its employees. He understood its accounts, its business structure, its products, everything public about its research. When it moved its research arm to Colorado, he started to worry and ran from his room to tell Sarah about it. The new site was close to NORAD and a whole lot of other military stuff. Something was going on. She cursed quietly and her jaw got that determined look. Maybe Judgment Day was coming after all. All right, they'd have to deal with that.

It was late at night, but they went to Raoul's aerobics room at the back of the bungalows. There were gym mats on the floor, and a basic set of free weights in one corner. They trained hard, doing their bodybuilding and martial arts routines until the sweat poured off them and they stood, gasping, with their hands on their knees. Sarah's leg had never gotten completely better, but she still moved well.

But nothing else happened-no breakthroughs, no Cyberdyne chips getting put into aircraft, no government funding to build Skynet, or anything like it.

Late one night, in 1997, Sarah walked in while John was typing, searching, still trying to make sense of things. What was the government up to? What was Cyberdyne doing there in Colorado?

"John," Sarah said, "you've been getting bags under your eyes. Why don't you wind down for the night?"

He'd been checking the sites for military research tenders. Some of them sounded even weirder than the theories spouted by Willard and the Tejadas. The military wanted to test out all kinds of stuff. But nothing there looked quite like Skynet. He wondered whether it would ever show up like this. Willard and the others had theories about how the military worked, but John knew better than to take them too seriously. It was like a lot of other stuff around here. You took it for what it was worth, and no more. To a large extent, he had to teach himself.

"Okay, Mom," he said. "Just a minute." He didn't want to lose his train of thought so he kept typing and clicking the mouse while he talked. "I just want to finish this."

"If you stay up any later, you won't sleep. You know you need time to calm down before bed."

"Okay, okay. I said I won't be long." An interesting description of research for high-powered lasers caught his attention. He tried to make sense of the tender specifications, frowning as he peered at the screen.

"John!" Sarah said.

That startled him. "Hey?" He spun round on his swivel chair. "What?"

"Pay attention when I'm speaking to you." She wore a nightgown and her hair was combed out straight over her shoulders. She looked really intense-angry and worried at the same time. He didn't know what to say.

His mom had always been so cool, even when something was bothering her. Lately, though, she seemed upset all the time. She was often angry with him, especially when he was working at night. Didn't she understand how important it was? This was his real work. Sometimes he just needed to focus.

"John, you're a twelve-year-old boy," she said. "Don't you think it's strange that you spend your nights like this? You're acting like a work-obsessed yuppie. I'm starting to feel like a mother with an absent son." She took out a cigarette and lit it up, something she did only when she was stressed. Funny, she was so incredibly fit. Her martial arts skills were at least as good as his, and she was as strong as steel springs. But she still smoked, even though it was bad for her. It was like she needed it to express herself.

"But we have to keep checking," he said. "Someone's got to do it."

"Yeah." She looked at him carefully, finally giving the tiniest smile of appreciation, as she held the cigarette out to the side, letting it burn down. Some ash dropped on the wooden floor. "Poor John. It's a tough job, right?"

"What do you want me to do, Mom? You taught me how important it is."

"I know, I know. But I wouldn't want you to be my boyfriend. You'd never keep a date."

"Mom!"

She laughed. "Maybe you could take things a little bit easier."

"But if they ever build Skynet, Judgment Day could still come."

"I know. God, don't you think I know that? Skynet nearly killed us both. I won't forget it in a hurry. That's why we keep training. That's why we're holed up here at the end of the Earth."

"I like Argentina, Mom."

"Sure, sure." She shook her head like it wasn't important "We can't ever let up, John. I know that. But we need a better life than this. Both of us do. This isn't normal. Everyone out there in the real world thinks we're crazy." She waved the cigarette around, then ashed it in a saucer on one of John's shelves. "If we're not careful, it'll make us crazy. Then there are the people we're shacked up with here. They really are crazy, and dangerous-type crazy at that. Same with Enrique."

"Don't worry, I know. I can tell the difference."

"If not for Judgment Day, we'd run a mile from someone like Raoul. Just don't grow up thinking Raoul's normal. He's cunning as hell, and he's cultured and charming, and all the rest of it. But he's living in a world of his own."

"Don't worry, Mom. You always worry. I know about Raoul. He's cool, but he's nuts. Right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"He's not like my father figure or something," John said dismissively. As they talked, he was starting to understand how she felt. "Mom, aren't you happy here? Maybe we could go somewhere else?"

"And do what? We can't show our faces back home. They'd catch us sooner or later."

"Where's home?" he said, making a joke of it. An angry look crossed her face again, and he said, "I mean really. We should be safe now. We could go somewhere else. Anywhere you want."

He knew that she still thought of California as home, but it didn't seem like that to him. After she'd met Kyle Reese, and Kyle had died fighting the first Terminator, Sarah had lived for a while in Mexico. John had been born there. He had no family in the U.S., hardly any friends. That first Terminator had also taken out Sarah's mother and her best friend. They had no one left. He'd grown up in so many countries that being in one of them in particular wasn't all that important. If it mattered to his mom, maybe they could move back closer to California.

"Why not?" he said. "Where do you want to live? We can move on, Mom. If Judgment Day's not going to happen now, we could go somewhere by ourselves. You know we could do it. We'd be okay. We can do all sorts of stuff."

"You're serious, aren't you?" she said. She looked at him wonderingly, as if she'd never thought of upping and leaving the estancia.

"It's only three months to Judgment Day. If nothing happens then, we could set up some kind of shop—I don't know-maybe back in Mexico. Maybe we could meet some normal people, for a change."

"I'll think about it," she said, sounding surprised at what she was saying.

John felt proud that he could talk sensibly like this to grown-ups, not like the kids his age back in LA. If there was no Judgment Day, why not head north? There was so much to see and do in Mexico. They could even visit the U.S. occasionally, if they were very careful. "I want you to be happy," he said. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you, too, John. But how about you finish up and get some sleep? Just this once, okay? Humor me."

"Okay," he said.

He hadn't expected the conversation to go like this. He felt a weight lift off his chest and fly away somewhere. They could probably live in different places as John grew up. They could move around, and see the sights. But they'd need to start somewhere.

They could lose themselves in the biggest, boldest city of them all: Mexico City.

CHAPTER FOUR

SKYNET'S WORLD

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

1994

The T-1000 morphed into its Janelle Voight form, and waved down a taxi.

"Say,"' it said. "That's a nice cab..."

It abandoned the cab in a downtown back street, then returned to its hotel room, taking a route through a narrow alleyway. Once there, it fast-forwarded through the remaining videos from the Voight house. None were of any help. Time to make a long-term plan. The police had the other evidence and would, no doubt, review it carefully. For the next seven days, the T-1000 would check developments within the L.A.P.D. That was something it had mastered.

There was no other immediate lead, and it assessed a probability that the Connors would avoid leaving any truly useful information on computer disk. That suggested another approach. In the future that the T-1000 came from, Skynet's records showed that John Connor's guerrilla forces first appeared in rural Argentina. The records were patchy until 2022, when Connor was encountered back in California, but it stood to reason that he would be in Argentina, or a neighboring country, on Judgment Day. That also explained how he would survive the nuclear devastation in the Northern Hemisphere.

For the T-1000, it was easy to morph into whatever form was required to outwit security systems and board airplanes. It could infiltrate the Argentinean information systems just as easily as it had those of the Los Angeles police. Even if it had to wait until after Judgment Day, sooner or later Connor would show his face in public.

The T-1000 could be very patient. It would complete its mission, using police information from as many countries as it had to.

Seven days later, it left the hotel for the last time.

"I won't be back, dear," it said to the woman at the front desk.

"Hold on," she said. She raised the hinged counter and ran after the T-1000, touching its arm. "How do you want to pay?"

Its right hand morphed into a sword-like weapon as it turned to her.

The liquid-metal Terminator smiled sweetly. "Like this..."

ARGENTINA

1997

It all unfolded as they knew it would, as the messages from the future had said. First, the announcements from Cyberdyne about its radical new computer hardware, then the major defense contracts. The U.S. upgraded its stealth bombers to operate unmanned, controlled by Cyberdyne nanochips. The government announced funding for more and more ambitious projects, culminating in the Skynet system.

Now he was growing up, John realized the burden that his mother had taken on. For him, it had been slightly unreal, back in 1994. He'd been just a kid, able to treat almost anything as cool—getting shot at, having his own Terminator to order around. Some things went deeper, like finding out his mom was an okay human being. But, like the adults around him always said, kids were so adaptable.

Well, he didn't feel so adaptable anymore, just determined, and scared, and angry.

He was not yet thirteen.

It seemed like he'd been given the worst of both worlds. Nothing they'd done had changed the march of events. Maybe they should have tried harder, as Sarah had wanted, before they left the States. At the same time, even his predicted victory over Skynet was uncertain. He'd need to fight every single inch, as if he'd never had the message from 2029. As his father had told Sarah, that was only one possible future.

Now he watched as the people around him came to understand what was happening, where their world was heading. It was just like he'd experienced in L.A., the realization that Sarah was sane, and the rest of the world was crazy. For the Tejadas, it came as a shock, the way events fell into place exactly as John and Sarah had said they would. For years, as long as they'd known him, Raoul had talked about nuclear war. He'd been even worse since they'd moved to his ranch. He'd always expected war, but now it was rushing at him like an express train.

Raoul spent his money, converting it to resources they'd need to survive. Once Judgment Day came, money in bank accounts would be worthless. The es-tancia was a nest of activity. It started to morph, as the Tejadas developed new priorities, stockpiling food, clothing, medicines, fuel, weapons, and ammunition, extending the underground bunkers, strengthening fences and guard towers, setting up control booths, putting in more alarms. With each day that passed, the property looked more and more like a military base. Raoul's people went armed. Only the herd of grazing cattle was unchanged, and even that would not last forever, not when the bombs fell and the nuclear winter came. The "Uncle Bob" T-800 worked round the clock, never needing to sleep, keeping close to John, like a hired bodyguard.

Raoul could never warm to the Terminator. His dog, Hercules, kept a safe distance from it, barking frantically if it came too close. Still, the big cybernetic organism was worth a dozen men, hefting huge weights, advising on tactics and fortifications. It was a walking library of military knowledge.

John and Sarah never stopped: laboring by day, planning at night, fitting in exercise, weapons practice, and combat training whenever they could. Without giving away their location, they became active on the Internet, and not just contacting friends. John grew adept at sending encrypted data through untraceable paths, laying out the message about Skynet fully and accurately for anyone who was prepared to consider it with an open mind. Soon it was all over the Net. If any record survived after Judgment Day, it would show that they knew things they could not possibly have known without information from the future.

Some people started to notice, and not everyone thought it was a good idea to hand military decisions over to machines. There were even demonstrations against Skynet, but the project went ahead.

Deep into the nights, John and Sarah worked through the issues with Raoul and Gabriela Tejada, drawing up contingency plans. John already thought of their group as the human Resistance. The T-800 kept close to his side, offering its own insights. John just wished that, upstream in time, in 2029, he'd given it more files on what lay ahead. It was vague about their future.

E-mails went back and forth between John and Franco Salceda, debating, predicting the future, arguing about the meanings of events. As the months went on, Franco became less scornful, more willing to concede points. It looked like the Salcedas were getting worried big-time about the Skynet project. They could see that John really knew stuff.

"Move down here," John wrote to Franco one night. "Just do it—all of you. Please, don't argue. Don't let Enrique argue. If she has to, your mom will talk him round."

Nothing came back for a week. John tried to put it out of his mind, but then there was a message in his in-box when he checked it after dinner. "Expect us soon, amigo," Franco wrote. "We'll be there. Everyone sends love."

John read it twice, checking there was nothing else it could mean. "Yes!" he said—then wondered how he should feel about it. Small triumphs like this were tainted. Every such feeling assumed the worst—that Judgment Day was coming.

He printed off the message and ran to show Sarah and the Tejadas. The T-800 met him in a hallway outside his room. "Where are you going?" it said.

"I've gotta show Mom this," John said. He waved it in front of the Terminator. It took the printout, read it quickly, and passed it back.

"Very good."

"Cool, you mean," John said, still trying to teach the Terminator how to lighten up. "That's cool. Got it?"

"That's cool."

He'd grown used to the T-800, but the novelty had worn off. In fact, it could be a drag always having it around, cutting down his privacy. But he needed it to guard him. Sooner or later, the T-1000 would track him down again. When it found him, he knew he'd need all the help he could get.

Sarah, Raoul, and Gabriela were out on the back porch of Raoul's house, sharing a drink with Willard and a few others.

"Read this," John said, passing the printout to Sarah.

The Tejadas watched her expectantly. "Good work," she said to him. To the others, she added, "We've got the Salcedas on board."

"Ah, excellent!" Raoul said. He sounded a bit drunk. Hard though they were working by day, the Tejadas were not denying themselves any of life's good things in the evenings. Those things would not be around much longer. "Here's to Enrique and Yolanda!"

Sarah allowed herself a satisfied smile. "That's a very good start, John."

Another week passed, and the Salcedas arrived in a 4WD truck they'd picked up second-hand in Buenos Aires. "Nice to see you again, Connor," Enrique said, embracing Sarah. "It looks like we're in for a fight."

"Oh, Sarah!" Yolanda said tearfully. "John!"

The adults all knew each other well, for they'd often worked together, but the kids had to be introduced. The younger Salceda kids were confused and homesick, but Franco looked determined. He walked over to John and shook his hand. "Well done, man," he said. "You're cool."

Hercules checked out the Salcedas' dog, while Enrique approached the T-800, clapping it on the shoulder. "So, 'Uncle Bob,' huh? It's good to see you here, friend."

"It's good to see you, friend," the T-800 said. "Cool."

John felt like covering his face. The T-800 was learning, but it could still sound dorky.

Enrique shrugged glancing over at Sarah. "Bob doesn't waste words, does he, Sarahlita?"

"He's the strong, silent type," she said.

"Yeah. Fair enough, too."

From then on, the population at the estancia kept expanding. Some of Sarah's old friends from Nicaragua showed up, even her one-time boyfriends, who looked at her with new respect. A force was gathering.

COLORADO

AUGUST 28, 1997

A dark road wound gently up the mountain's lower slope, through ponderosa pine and mountain scrub, then climbed more steeply towards the rugged granite peak. Near the road, a series of electrical flashes lit up the night sky, just before midnight. They were visible for miles—a twisting, morphing spider-web of blue lightning.

For several seconds, the light show went on, crawling over treetops, amongst branches, then ceased as abruptly as it began. The "Eve" prototype T-799 Terminator materialized in mid-air, falling to the forest's grassy . floor, then quickly sat up, assessing its situation. The time transfer placed stresses on its body that a human would have registered as extreme pain—but that was unimportant. The Terminator quickly confirmed that its systems were fully functioning. That settled, it discarded the "pain" readings—they would soon cease.

Eve stood and surveyed her surroundings: darkness and vegetation all round, no useful infrared readings, no relevant animal life. She would need to orient herself quickly to meet her programmed objectives.

In 2026, Skynet had not yet solved the problems of preparing non-living matter for travel through a space-time displacement field, so Eve traveled naked on the voyage back in time. All her external layers were well-maintained living flesh, which interacted most favorably with the displacement field. Her white-blonde hair was razored into a bristling flattop, imitating the style of the human Resistance warrior whom Skynet had chosen as a template. It had copied Eve's appearance and voice carefully from that of Sergeant Helen Wolfe, a formidable combatant who had been terminated by Hunter-Killer machines on the Canadian West Coast.

Eve could easily pass for a human soldier with a strong body and exaggerated military bearing. Her T-799 design was the test for a new T-800 series, incorporating human tissue, fashioned on actual human models, deployable for infiltration work. She'd already field-tested the new concept by infiltrating the human Resistance in the shattered urban labyrinth of New York City. That first mission had blooded her and opened the way for more Terminators like her, but such missions no longer mattered to Eve. She'd now been sent back for something far more important: to protect Skynet in its infancy. Skynet would soon reach self-awareness. Without her intervention, it would be at the humans' mercy.

She headed directly uphill, brushing leaves and branches to one side, knowing that she would soon pick up the winding road, which would make the climb easier and guide her efficiently to her target. It was a warm, still night, and nothing disturbed her. There were lights far away in the valley and on other slopes. An isolated cluster of brighter lights appeared higher up the mountain.

A vehicle's high-beam headlights spilled across her momentarily, through the trees and scrub, then disappeared down the mountainside. She detected an infrared reading as the car passed on her left. Eve forced her way quickly through the walls of scrub, finding the road, then ran towards Cyberdyne's research base, the Advanced Defense Systems Complex. She knew she would find one entrance built into the rock above her—1500 feet below the mountain's summit. That cluster of lights, higher up the slope, must be her target. She ran now, passing a turnoff on her right that led to the other entrance. She maintained her top speed of twenty miles per hour, for which her fuel cell could sustain her almost indefinitely.

Minutes later, there were more lights behind her in the distance. She pivoted on her heel, turning as she ran, jogging backwards. Bright lights in the humans' visible spectrum flashed into her eyes. There was the swishing of tires, the low-pitched snarl and infrared glow of an automobile engine. She stopped directly in the vehicle's path as it squealed to a halt. Perhaps it was the same car as before, investigating the lightning-like effect of the displacement field. She assessed it as a late model, unmarked sedan.

It pulled over to the shoulder of the road, gravel crunching under its tires. Its headlights dimmed but stayed trained on her. Two Air Force personnel stepped out, leaving the car running. They wore pale uniforms and sidearms; one carried a long-handled flashlight. Eve waited dispassionately, analyzing their body dimensions as they approached. Their clothes might be useful, though neither of them closely matched her body shape. The weapons and car she could certainly use.

Both of them were male. The driver was a black man, tall and very bulky—well over 200 pounds. His passenger, the one with the flashlight, was a wiry, fair-skinned Caucasian, somewhat under six-foot, perhaps 160 pounds. She would almost fill out his uniform. "I need your clothing, your guns and your car," she said.

"What the hell is this?" said the Caucasian. He glanced to his partner.

"Quickly!" Eve said.

The black man spoke in what she recognized as a "soothing" tone—the exaggeratedly tolerant way that humans spoke when they wanted to avoid violence. "Lady," he said in a slow drawl, "is this some kind of joke?" He looked her up and down, then glanced all round the edges of the road, as if to satisfy himself that she was naked—the humans had a nudity taboo—and that she had no vehicle nearby. "If you're trying to make a protest, you can't do it like this. This is a restricted area. Just being here is a serious federal offense. How did you get this far?"

"Irrelevant," she said.

"I don't think you're listening to what I'm saying. You can't come here. We're going to have to take you into custody."

"Wrong."

As they drew their handguns, she confirmed a course of action. If they lived, they might interfere.

She marked them for termination.

COLORADO

THE ADVANCED DEFENSE SYSTEMS COMPLEX

The Colorado complex was staffed by a mix of military personnel, civilian officers from the Defense Department, and Cyberdyne's own staff. They were rostered on round-the-clock, seven-day shifts. The military staff slept here, and there was adequate accommodation for the entire complement of 120 servicemen and other regular workers. For the past month, everyone had put in crazy hours, getting the Skynet project up and running. It was craziest of all for the Cyberdyne and Defense staff in charge of the project. As Cyberdyne's chief AI researcher and head of its Special Projects Division, Miles Dyson had been stuck here full-time, working eighty-hour weeks, and getting his sleep at odd hours when he could. He'd been worrying over every detail of the project—that, and other things.

Miles had his own ten-by-ten square office tucked away In a corner of Level A, the complex's top floor. He'd left its walls and its metal shelving almost bare, since his real office and his real life were back in LA. His desk was topped with computer equipment: two screens running, performing calculations; keyboards; processing units; and a high-quality printer. To the left was a framed photo of his wife, Tarissa, and son, Danny. In front of that, Miles had placed a pile of computer printouts, half an inch thick, marked with highlighter pen and indexed crudely with yellow sticky notes.

He held his head in both hands, thankful that he'd sent Tarissa and Danny on a holiday to Mexico, "just in case," wishing he could have joined them.

As the digital readout on his computer screen turned over to 23:30 hours, his worries reached a crisis point. He called Oscar Cruz, who was who was still on deck tonight, like everyone else who counted. "You free, Oscar?"

"Hello, Miles," Oscar said. He sounded pretty tense himself, which was understandable. "Is anything wrong?"

"No, nothing definite. Nothing's happened—just getting nervous."

Oscar laughed nervously. "Me, too, of course. I have to ring Charles Layton in a minute—I'm updating him every hour. You know how he feels about all this. I'll talk with you a little later."

Layton was never an easy man to deal with. Mentally, Miles wished Oscar luck. "Do you mind if I have a word with Jack?" he said.

"Go ahead. We'll all catch up after I've spoken to Charles."

Miles would be meeting through the night with Oscar, Jack Reed and Samantha Jones, but he needed to talk now. He called Jack, who answered his phone immediately: "Reed speaking."

"Miles Dyson here, Jack."

"Yeah, Miles, what's up? Anything wrong at your end?"

"No, nothing actually wrong. I just had a word with Oscar. At my end, everything is nominal."

"Good. You sound like you want to talk it over."

"If you've got a minute."

"Yeah, okay. Come around. I'm damn sure not going anywhere tonight."

"I know. See you soon."

"Let's get a cup of coffee first. Then we can talk in my room."

Miles grabbed the printouts from his desk, and walked next door to a small kitchen with a microwave. He made two cups of plunger coffee and found a wedge of pizza in the refrigerator.

As he warmed the pizza through, Jack came in, looking tired but vaguely amused. His sun-leathered, wrinkled face was capped by a full head of brown hair, graying only at the temples, combed back in waves over his ears. He raised his eyebrows questioningly. "So what's the story?" he said.

Miles replied with a rueful shrug.

As the civilian Defense officer in charge of the Skynet project, Jack Reed was Cyberdyne's immediate client, the man that Miles and Oscar had to keep happy. He was also the only person here with the authority to shut down Skynet. Though Miles had developed some rapport with him, it was currently being stretched.

"Maybe I'm just too nervous tonight," Miles said.

"Sure, we all are, but you guys have been doing a great job. Everything's been working perfectly."

"Yeah, Jack, technically it's fine. Better than fine. But this stuff still bothers me." Miles gestured with the printouts. "And Skynet has been acting pretty strangely."

"Strangely, you think? How?"

"It's too good. It's better than we designed it."

The microwave pinged to say Miles's pizza was ready. He found a plate for it, then poured the coffee into a pair of chipped mugs. "Let's go back to my office," Jack said. "It's a helluva lot more comfortable than here."

Jack had a plush twenty-foot by ten-foot office, the best in the complex, harshly lit by fluorescent tubes shining through plastic deflectors. There was a shiny, black-topped desk near the entrance. Built into the opposite wall was a floor-to-ceiling video unit, nearly ten feet across. Like Miles, he'd left his office here largely undecorated. On one wall he'd Blu-tacked a large poster of the boxer Muhammed Ali, taken from a 1960s photograph—one of the fights with Sonny Liston.

They sat at a plain wooden coffee table in the farthest corner from the doorway. As Miles chewed his pizza, Jack said, "That stuff really bothering you?" He gestured at the printouts, on the floor at Miles's feet.

Miles bent and picked up the top page. "Well, yeah." Like the others in charge here, he'd been given 150-odd pages of postings on Internet sites and public mailing groups, all predicting that Skynet would malfunction tonight and cause a nuclear holocaust. "Yeah, Jack, it is bothering me."

"It's just another conspiracy theory," Jack said. "The Internet thrives on them. You know that, Miles. If there was a conspiracy in this case, we'd be the first to know about it, wouldn't we?"

"That's true, as far as it goes."

"Yeah... but?"

The material was uncannily pertinent and well-informed. The initial claims were traceable to a criminal psychotic called Sarah Connor, who'd been imprisoned when she tried to blow up a government computer research project in 1993. In May 1994, she'd made a violent escape from the Pescadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. She'd been on the run ever since. Her claims had taken on a life of their own. More and more people were supporting them, or at least finding their own reasons to object to Skynet—there'd been demonstrations in California, where the movement seemed to have a power base, and even in Colorado Springs. Meanwhile, no one had ever spotted Connor.

Miles felt like a fool, but it hadn't stopped him persuading Tarissa to take that holiday with Danny while he was holed up at the complex. "What bothers me is how they've got so many things right," he said.

"There's been a leak somewhere," Jack said, as if by reflex. "We've gone over that before."

"But some of the decisions weren't even made when this stuff started to come out. You know that—the August 4 launch date only got firmed up in April, but there are predictions here going back to late 1994." He picked up the whole sheaf of papers and found one he'd marked, covered in Miles's orange highlighter pen, and dated nearly three years ago. At that stage, Cyberdyne had only just worked out the basics of its new computer hardware. "How do you explain that?"

"So someone got lucky."

"Not a good answer, Jack." He smiled wearily, knowing there was no good answer—they both knew it.

Jack sounded exasperated. "I don't know." Then he became more aggressive: "But what else did they pick? Just tell me that, Miles. What else have they got that's so impressive?"

"Well, the whole thing—"

"No. Not good enough. Number one, we always planned to call the system 'Skynet' and build it here in Colorado. Getting that right cuts no ice with me. And the rest is all vague. Sure, I take your point about the launch date—I can't explain that. But what's your explanation? Are you starting to think Sarah Connor got it from some robot that came back from the future—like it says there?" He pointed contemptuously at the material.

"Well, given the circumstances, it's not much wackier than anything else." For a moment there was a silence between them. "You know what I mean," Miles said gently. "For all we can tell, that's how we got the technology in the first place."

It seemed crazy expressing these doubts to his client. Not good marketing, Miles, he thought. Charles Layton and Oscar Cruz wouldn't approve. Still, the government already understood the circumstances in which the 1984 chip had been found in a Cyberdyne plant. Everyone knew how strange it was. They all had to face the facts.

"Yeah," Reed said, "I know. I can't explain the 1984 chip, either."

"No, none of us can, and I'm getting ready to believe almost anything."

Whatever the device discovered back in 1984 had been, the nanochip had been eerily advanced. It had given Miles and his people the start they'd needed to develop AI chips that now controlled many of America's defense assets, culminating in the massively parallel system of nanoprocessors that made up the Skynet AI

"So what are you advising me to do?" Jack said. "You want me to shut the sucker down?"

"Well, I don't know about that. Any formal Cyberdyne advice would have to come from Oscar or Charles."

Jack gave a cynical smile. "How about off the record?"

"Off the record?"

"Yeah. What would you do? Off the record, Miles. Don't jerk me around."

"I think we should suspend the system's operations for the rest of the night."

"Yeah? You're really serious, aren't you? Look, I hear what you're saying, but—"

"Let's put the issue completely beyond doubt. It's not like we don't have back-up at Cheyenne Mountain."

"Look at it from my point of view. You're advising me to shut down a functioning strategic tool because some nutcase says it's going to go berserk and cause a nuclear war, right? But that can't happen, Miles—you know that as well as I do. The whole system's not set up that way."

"But it's what's these printouts predict, and the people who post this stuff have a track record for being right."

"Not about anything like that."

Miles thought that over. "Sure. And it's probably all crazy, or a hoax." He smiled. "Don't worry, I'm not going nuts myself. But the point remains: Whoever started this is amazingly well-informed, whether it's Connor or—I don't know—whoever. I realize that the system can't just go berserk, but something's behind all this. I wish I knew what."

"You're thinking in terms of sabotage?"

"Yeah, maybe, though I can't see how—"

"No, and it'd be pretty damn funny for these people to try to sabotage the system to bring about the very result they most fear."

"Yeah, I know."

"Anyway, what good would it do them?" Jack paused for emphasis. "Look, everyone's briefed from the President down. Okay? You know the system can't go firing off missiles without human confirmation. If there is some sort of glitch, we'll deal with it. Right now, I just can't see the problem."

"I can't see it either," Miles admitted, feeling defeated, but wanting to persist, just a little further, if only to see whether Jack could put his fears at rest. "Not the exact problem. But, on top of all this, the system is an order of magnitude better than we designed it to be. We've implemented something that we don't fully understand. It's so advanced, and it's starting to act almost like it's alive."

"Yeah, okay, but that doesn't mean it's unsafe. Miles, I can't go back to the President and explain that I took the system down for hours just because of this stuff on the Net...and a bad feeling you've been getting lately... because the system is too good Give me a break, I need something better than that."

Miles sighed. "Yeah, I know." He rose. "Look, thanks for your time, Jack. It's clarified things. I'll see you later on."

"Sure. What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to have a talk to Skynet."

Jack looked at him quizzically for moment, then laughed good-naturedly. "Sure, you might as well. If it'll make you feel better."

After Miles left his office, Jack Reed started making phone calls, just to keep everyone in the loop.

First, he called Charles Layton, the Chairman of Cyberdyne's Board of Directors, in L.A. Jack had found Layton to be a hard-nosed character with a soft, menacing way of speaking. He would not take kindly to any criticism of Cyberdyne, real or imagined, but that was too bad. If there was even a remote possibility of sabotage or malfunction, decisions about Skynet ultimately sat with the government, not with Cyberdyne. Still, they needed to keep the guy in the loop.

He answered the phone. "Layton here."

"Jack Reed here, Charles."

"Yes, Jack," Layton said quietly. He always went out of his way not to sound involved or excited.

"I've been talking to Miles."

"Very good. I just got off the phone with Oscar Cruz. He tells me everything is working well."

"Sure, the system's working fine so far. But Miles seems pretty damn jittery about all this opposition to Skynet—I think he half-expects sabotage, though I can't see what motivation anyone would have to interfere with it."

"I understand," Layton said in a definite way, as if understating some remarkable achievement. "Are you proposing any action?"