Dark Futures

"Mom," John said, "I think we've got to care. If we don't do something, Skynet is going to win. It's already won once, but that's another timeline now. We've got to think about this one." He looked at Anton hopefully-with a hope he didn't really feel. "Right?"

"Perhaps," Anton said. He chomped through a big forkful of fahitas. "The T-XA didn't care about you and John because you were no threat to Skynet's plans. It already had you factored in: you would try to stop Skynet In 2007, and you'd fail. All straightforward. Now things have gone this far, it's different. We've already diverged from the timeline the T-XA came from. It will act like Skynet-within some bounds, it's more or less autonomous in its thinking. It will be less tolerant of you next time we meet it."

"Great," Sarah said. "I never wanted all that tolerance anyway."

"Nonetheless, it will assess us to be the greater threat With all respect to your training and abilities, we have significantly greater capacities. It seriously needs to terminate us."

"That's a fantastic consolation."

"Can't we be more constructive, Mom?" John said. "We don't have an issue with these guys."

"No," she said angrily. "Right now, 1 don't think we can be more constructive. Stop treating me like I m a child, John. You're the teenager here, remember?"

"Mom..."

"Can't you see how terrible this is? Judgment Day happens twice: It happens in 2021, and also in 1997. Nothing we did stopped all those deaths. It sounds like we've only made things worse. What happens this time? Maybe we stop them building Skynet and it just puts things back another ten years. But then there's another Judgment Day, maybe worse still, with everyone killed and no hope at all. Have you thought of that?"

Other people were glancing at them. "Maybe you could just tone it down, Mom," John said, in a whisper.

She ignored him, looking round the table, challenging the Specialists. "Well? Have you thought of it? Any of you? Whatever we do, they're going to build Skynet or something like it—and the outcome is going to be a disaster. Why not give up now? Maybe we're meant to destroy ourselves. It's in our nature."

"Maybe," John said, feeling defeated. The T-800 had once said the same thing. It was going to be hard from now on. What were they fighting for, if this was how it could turn out? It looked like time might be just too hard for them—just like he thought, it had that way of springing back if you let go.

Which only meant you could never let go, never leave the job.

"Maybe we're just a disease on this planet," Sarah said. "One that burns itself out Why not let it happen?"

"Ms. Connor," Jade said.

"What?" Sarah said, her voice sardonic and challenging.

"Please. You must be feeling guilty, like it's your fault. You can't think that way."

"I'm not thinking that way."

"If you say so, but, with great respect to you, I think you are."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Another teenager wants to lecture me."

"Please," Jade said. "Perhaps you are right, perhaps not. We don't blame you. If not for what you did, many of us might have died in 1997. Billions of people had years of life they would never have had. And the world would have been so different-many people would never have met-for example, my own parents. If not for you, I wouldn't have been born. How can we blame you? You gave us all a chance. Those who failed to take it must bear the blame."

Sarah was silent not mollified, or happy, but at least chewing it over. John said, "How did it happen? Skynet works like a charm for fourteen years, gets everyone to trust it, then goes crazy. Is that it?"

"Not quite," Danny said. "At least we don't think so. It happened in the middle of a global crisis. Over Taiwan."

"China overstepped the mark," Anton said. "The Chinese leadership announced it had a sacred duty to annex Taiwan. There were demonstrations on the mainland, supporting the decision. The crisis went on for weeks. Then Chinese warships sailed into Taiwanese waters."

"This is 2021," Danny said.

Anton grunted acknowledgment "That's right."

"So what did the U.S. do?" John said.

Danny glanced at Anton. "You tell them the story. I won't interrupt."

"The President issued a warning to Beijing not to attack the island. China defied it and called on the Taiwanese government to step down. Tensions escalated. U.S. warships sailed into the area. China announced that it was prepared to fire its nuclear weapons at the U.S. if it took military action. Skynet was fed all the data. It put the American missiles on high alert. At that point, all the new complexity it was managing seemed to push it over the edge, into a new state of awareness. It announced it had become self-conscious."

"And they tried to shut it down?" Sarah said.

"Yes," Anton said. "And it retaliated."

"Omigod. I see."

"So what do you want us to do now?" John said, looking at Danny, who seemed to be in charge.

"Help us," Danny said. "That hasn't changed. We can still create a world that's safe for humanity, one without Skynet. It's not too late."

"No, I guess it's not. We must have learned something from all of this. Maybe we can get it right."

Sarah interrupted. "How many times do we have to try? Billions more people die every time. Don't you understand that?"

John had thought of it, and it was bugging him. But what could do they do? "We're already in a new timeline, Mom. We must be by now. If we don't do anything, it'll be just as bad."

"I understood that the first time. It's not a good enough answer."

"Mom, we can make it work out. We've just got to keep on the job."

"How can you know that, John? Why isn't it always going to end in disaster? That's what's happened so far."

She'd pushed him to the point where he was angry, too. "Well, what's your idea?" He said. "Just give up? You want us to be the gutless Connors? These guys are going to try anyway. I guess it's either with our help or without it. What do you want to do, Mom? What do you want?"

"I don't know!" she said desperately.

"Yes, you do. We've got to pull together. We've got to try!"

"Is that what you want? Whatever you say, John. I give up. It's too hard for me."

"I know what I want," he said. "What do you want? I want to help, and I want your blessing. Please. Is it so much to ask?"

She stood and walked out of the diner, to the car park. Jade ran after her. "Ms. Connor." John tried to hold her back, but she moved like lightning. "Ms. Connor!"

"I'd better go with them," John said. "Mom's kinda tense."

He followed them to the car, where Sarah leaned against its side, lighting a cigarette. "Look," she said. "Just let me think, okay? I know we've got to help. I know there's no alternative. Just let me absorb it. I'll be all right."

"Come on, Jade," John said. "She's got a lot to face here." He took Jade's arm without thinking. Her muscles were like steel cables. He let go like he'd had an electric shock. What was he doing touching this creature?

"Very well," Jade said. She headed back inside.

"Mom?"

"Yes?" Sarah said, almost like a cry of pain. Then, in a tired monotone: "What now, John? Can't I have a few minutes' peace?"

"All I wanted to say was, "Thanks.”

Jade found them another car, an early '80s 4WD with a Californian registration. The first task was to slip across the border-then head for the Salceda camp.

"Let's stop in Calexico," John said. "I just want to do one thing."

They found an Internet cafe. John created a new Hotmail account using the sign-in name, "Uncle Bob," then sent a message to Franco, saying to expect them, keeping it cryptic. He finished off the message, adding the same name as the sign-in. That should be enough of a clue: If Franco checked his e-mail, it might at least stop them getting shot at, if he and Enrique were feeling trigger-happy.

As they entered the compound, nothing much seemed to have changed since last time John was here, over seven years before. The headlamps lit up much the same collection of vehicles and trailers, though there was now a helicopter hangar and a new garage. Enrique came out to meet them, carrying a flashlight and his shotgun. Franco covered him from behind, along with his Juanita—now a skinny twelve-year-old with long legs. Both of them had snipers' rifles, and probably other weapons.

"All right, Connor," Enrique said. "We got your message. What is it this time? Who are all these people?"

"It's okay," Sarah said. "They're friends."

"How do we know that? We haven't seen you for years. Now you turn up out of nowhere with a whole bunch of strangers."

"These guys are cool, Enrique," John said. "Take it from me. But we need you help."

"That so? You and your mama haven't been too friendly lately."

"I've kept in touch with Franco."

"Yeah, sure." Enrique sounded pissed off, though more put upon than genuinely angry.

"Mr. Salceda?" Jade said.

Enrique leveled the shotgun in her direction. "Now who the hell are you, young lady?"

"Everyone calls me Jade."

"That doesn't tell me much. They call me all sorts of things, sometimes even to my face."

"I can vouch for everyone here," Sarah said. "Look, no one's armed." They'd left all their weapons in the 4WD. Of course, John thought, Enrique didn't know what Jade and the others could do, that they'd hardly need weapons dealing with unenhanced human beings.

Enrique held his position for a minute. "All right," he said, lowering the shotgun and waving to his kids to relax. "You better come in and tell us what this is all about. I hope it's good."

Sarah stepped up to him, hugged him quickly. "It will be," she said.

The tension left like air from a tire tube. "That's okay, Connor. You just can't be too careful."

Inside the trailer, they met up with Yolanda and the remaining kids. Everyone had aged or grown. Enrique was getting really bald. Yolanda's hair was distinctly gray. Their children were that much older—Franco was in his mid-twenties now, and even little Paco was nine or ten, much the same as John when they'd last met.

Enrique and Yolanda offered drinks all round. Specialist gratefully accepted his tequila. Maybe there was a shortage in the future. Enrique looked from one to another, obviously intrigued. "So what's this all about?"

"I don't know how we're going to get you to believe us," John said.

"Yeah? Try me."

"All right, but you won't like it. These guys are from the future." He might as well tell it straight out. The Specialist could prove it if they had to.

"You're right, John. I don't believe you."

"That's crazy," Paco said.

John gave a broad smile. "You saying I'm crazy, or that your dad is?"

"You're crazy, of course."

"Moi?" he said, theatrically outraged. Somehow, he'd have to change their minds. "That's pretty wounding, Paco. You know that?"

Enrique glanced across to Sarah. "Is this the usual crap, Sarahlita? Not more stuff about Judgment Day and these Terminators coming back to kill you and Big John? Hey, he has got big, hasn't he?" He laughed.

"I'm afraid so, Enrique. About the Terminators, I mean. Our friends come from a time after Judgment Day."

"Judgment Day was supposed to have been years ago."

"1997," Sarah said. "Let's say it got postponed."

"Sarahlita, can't you just give it up?"

"I wish we could. I really wish we could. If only you knew, Enrique."

"It's true," Danny said.

"Yeah?" Enrique looked him over. "And who are you?"

John said. "Anyone remember that scene in Blade Runner? Where Pris grabs the egg from the boiling water?" Paco nodded at that John sized up the Specialists, looking from one to the next. "Maybe someone should show these guys something."

The Specialists were silent for a few seconds, making no move. Then Jade's hand snapped out, seizing the tequila bottle from Enrique. In the same motion, she crushed the bottle with her fist.

"Madre de Dios—" Enrique said.

She held up her palm, bleeding where the broken glass had penetrated it. Within seconds, the wounds had healed over. Magic!

John grinned, a bit cheekily he realized. Jade had made his point, or at least given him a little credibility. "Now who's crazy?" he said to Paco, who stood there open-mouthed. "Anyone need to see more?"

"Nice trick," Franco said with a cynical grin. "But maybe we do."

Selena walked over to him, offering her hand. Franco took it uncertainly, and Selena squeezed. In a second, the grin washed off Franco's face and he sank to his knees. Juanita drew a handgun, but Enrique shook his head at her as Selena let go and stepped back. In another sudden movement, Jade snatched the handgun, bent its barrel out of shape, then passed it back.

"Okay," Enrique said. "Your friends are tough, Connor, Ill give you that much. But it doesn't mean a thing. I had a pretty tough uncle back in Guatemala, but he didn't come from the future."

"For God's sake," Sarah said, "just believe us for once. You haven't seen half of what these people can do, but we can't spend all night convincing you about it. We've

got a job ahead of us. You can help us willingly, or we can take what we need. Don't think you could stop us."

Anton stepped right in front of Enrique and just stood there, arms folded. Enrique was a tough guy himself, but, after seeing Jade and Selena in action, he didn't look ready to argue with the big Russian.

"We need guns and ammunition," Anton said. "And explosives. That's all."

"No, it's not," Sarah said. "We need a truck that's not stolen. You'll have to lend us one, Enrique. You know John and me. We brought your Bronco back last time."

"Yeah, sure," Enrique said. "But that's all you brought back, remember?"

"We can pay you for the guns and ammo," John said. "At least for some of it."

"I think it's okay," Yolanda said. "Sarah and John are our friends."

"Yeah, yeah. That's what I was thinking, too.* Enrique stepped around Anton, laughing good-naturedly. "Whatever you need, Sarahlita, you know it's yours. So when do you want all this? It's getting kinda late. I suppose you wanted it yesterday, right?"

"Yeah, right. Sony, Enrique."

"Sure you are."

"We'll sleep here tonight," Anton said. He glanced at the wristwatch he was wearing. "We'll leave before sunrise."

John considered it. What was the T-XA doing while all this was happening? Surely it didn't need to sleep, and nothing was going to stop it crossing the border. Would it head straight to Colorado, or to L.A., where Cyberdyne had its headquarters? He caught Anton's eye. "Isn't tomorrow a bit late?"

"It's already too late."

"So shouldn't we act even faster?"

"It was too late for that as soon as the T-XA appeared," Danny said. "We'll have to work around it, but we can't do everything. And we've got to be fully recovered next time we face it. We can use a few hours' rest."

"Well, if you say so. I hope you know what you're doing."

"I told you we do," Selena said.

"I sure hope we do," Danny said. "Tomorrow night we'll find out"

"It'd just be nice if you could keep us posted," Enrique said to Sarah, ignoring John and the Specialists. "Or even come and see us. Sometimes it's hard to know who your real friends are, who you can trust. People can turn into strangers."

"Not us," Sarah said. "But I'm not sure you really want us around. If your connection with us gets known..."

"What?"

"It might be very dangerous for you. We have enemies you don't even want to know about." She clapped him on the shoulder. "If you think these guys are tough, you ought to see the other side."

"Yeah, sure."

"I'm serious, Enrique."

"Whatever you say."

"No. I'm really serious."

"I said, 'Whatever you say.' All right? Hey, what do you expect from me? This is all pretty sudden, you know. I'm only human."

We all are, John thought. Even Jade.

"I'm grateful, too," Sarah said. "You don't know what we owe you."

“No, I don't." Enrique gave another laugh, more mischievous. "But I'm starting to suspect. Now, who originally said that?"

"H.G. Wells," John said quickly. "The guy who wrote The Time Machine"

"Yeah?" Enrique looked at him closely. "Keep your money, John. Buy me a drink next time you drop by."

"Sure. Or maybe we could all see a movie. You guys should get out more often."

Enrique and Franco led them to the garage, turning on a ingle fluorescent lamp. Enrique pointed out a 1992 four-door Ford Explorer, an upgrade from the Bronco they'd borrowed last time. "It's ready for action," he said, slapping his hand on the bonnet. "No problems with it at all. just try to bring it back, this is my best truck." It needed a wash, but it seemed to be in good condition.

"Thanks, Enrique," Sarah said. "We'll try."

"Yeah, you do that." He hugged her roughly, and John realized something he'd never put his finger on before: A lot of Enrique's tough-guy talk was meant to hide what Sarah meant to him. There were really deep emotions here that John might never figure out. Enrique let her go, saying, "You try to come back in one piece, too. All right? Whatever this is all about."

He wandered off, leaving Franco to supervise, as the Specialists checked the truck over. They sure knew about engines. John guessed that might be pretty important in the future, in a world with no auto mechanics.

"Very well," Jade said at last, not smiling, but looking kind of satisfied, like she'd tried her best to find a problem, and decided there weren't any.

"She means it's a great truck," John said, interpreting for Franco. "It'll do us fine. Jade doesn't like to overstate things."

"What now?" Franco said. He still seemed sour after what Selena had done to him. She must have sensed it, too, because she stepped towards him and he tensed up.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," she said. "Really. Please understand, the whole future depends on this. We're grateful for your help."

Franco nodded silently.

"Weapons duty," John said.

They packed the Ford with guns, ammunition, explosives. Jade found a modified mini-gun like the T-800 had used in 1994. She was smaller than the Terminator, but John could see how strong she was: She hefted the huge gun easily.

Anton gave a kind of sickly smile and said, "I need one of those."

They found another one, then an assortment of pistols.

Each of the Specialists chose an M-16 assault rifle with attached 40mm. grenade launcher. Enrique had a more up-to-date cache of weapons than when they'd come here last time.

John and Sarah checked their own weapons, making sure everything was still okay, and helped find ammunition. Since that last time, John had become even more Skilled with guns, and even less willing to use them. As he'd once told the T-800, you couldn't just go around killing people. He hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Eventually, the Specialists were satisfied. Still in their clothes, they bedded down for the night. John tossed and turned, aching from exertion, then the long car ride. For what seemed like hours, he worried about it all, how they were ever going to beat the T-XA, even with all these weapons. Surely it knew what they planned. It would be in Colorado before them, ready to reacquire them. He'd had enough experience with Terminators to know how they thought.

At some point he must have drifted off, because then there was a light in the trailer, and Sarah's hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him awake.

They headed north to pick up 1-15, Danny taking the first stint at the wheel. He drove smoothly on the dark road into an unknown future. John sat in the back seat, not too comfortable, between Sarah and Jade. Anton took a position in the back of the truck, squeezing into a corner, watching after their weapons and equipment. Whenever the Specialists drove, John felt almost surplus to requirements, since they could handle long stretches at the wheel with no sign of fatigue. Offering to take a shift would sound ridiculous.

For a long time, no one spoke. Danny kept the Ford right on the speed limit. Having gotten this far, the Specialists wanted no more problems with police. That could only slow them down, maybe force them to steal yet another vehicle.

"So what's the plan?" Sarah said. "You just want to barge into a Defense site at Colorado Springs and blow everything Up? I guess you could do it with your abilities, but this could get nasty."

Selena looked round from the front. "That's about it," she said, sounding flip. "You got a better idea, Sarah?"

"It's not the way I'd want to do it. If we could get some cooperation... maybe from the woman who's doing the research."

"Rosanna Monk," Danny said. "She took over from my father. I don't think she's going to be very cooperative."

"This must be painful for you, Danny," Sarah said. "But we convinced your parents. We could convince Monk as well."

"I don't think Rosanna needs convincing, Sarah. Not about the time travel stuff."

"Why not?"

"In the future that we came from, she led the team that invented time travel."

"She what?"

"She never said anything in public, but we're pretty sure she worked out that the technology she used as the basis for her nanoprocessor came from the future. That got her working on the problem. She's not a physicist, but she knows physics. And she got top physicists involved. By now, their work is a long way advanced."

"Christ! But if you could convince her about Judgment Day..."

"Sarah, we'll try. Maybe the T-XA won't get to her in time. Anything's possible."

"Ms. Connor," Jade said, "we don't have a lot of choice how we do things, not with the T-XA around. We planned to see all the senior people at Cyberdyne, and their con-tacts in Washington. If we had the choice, we'd try to convince them all. But the T-XA will have anticipated that."

"It can get around faster than we can," Danny said. "And it can hit multiple targets."

John recalled his experiences with the T-1000. "You mean it's terminated them by now? Killed them? And maybe copied itself after them?"

"No, John. Worse than that. The TX-A is Skynet's most advanced infiltrator unit. It's got nanoware that lets it read or control minds. It can analyze a human brain and reconstruct its memories, or insert part of its own programming. These models have been devastatingly effective against the human Resistance."

"So that's why you couldn't let it have Robert's body?"

"That's correct," Jade said. "He knew too many secrets. If the T-XA got its hands on him while his brain was still fresh, it would know everything we know, including all our plans."

"And all our weaknesses," Anton said from the back. "Our technology. Everything."

"Can't you do anything about it?" John said, turning to him.

"We have our own counter-intrusive nanoware. Its effectiveness is unknown."

"By now, it will have programmed the senior Cyberdyne people to assist and obey it," Jade said in her sad, resigned voice. "There's nothing we can do to convince them."

"But we've got to," John said.

"I'm sorry, John. It's too late."

"That's why it was no use hurrying last night," Danny said. "If we'd run around exhausting ourselves, trying to beat the T-XA to Cyberdyne's people, we'd have run into it again, for no advantage. We couldn't have stopped it We'll stake out Monk's place tonight, see if we can talk to her, just in case the T-XA missed her somehow, but we could never have gotten to all of them."

John considered that The T-XA couldn't have gotten to everyone, but it could split up. If it got to some of the top people in L.A., and the researchers in Colorado Springs, that would be enough to cause problems. There'd be reinforcements tonight waiting for them. Not only that, they couldn't trust anyone. Even if someone said they'd help, what if the T-XA had reached them first?

He'd seen the abilities of the Specialists, but he doubted that even they could fight both the T-XA and all the resources the military could throw at them. Not only that-even if they could destroy Cyberdyne's research, it wouldn't be enough. They'd found that out already. Even destroying everything in 1994 hadn't stopped work on the nanoprocessor, just slowed it down. There would always be someone else to do the work, like happened after Miles's death. They'd have to get cooperation. Somehow, they had to convince people never to build Skynet, or anything like it.

There were underlying forces you had to deal with, forces that pushed events in a certain direction. They'd need to convince people with the power to make decisions, get them to understand the dangers-that the world wasn't big enough for both Skynet and humanity. There had to be an ongoing will to stop it.

"Monk isn't just working on time travel," Anton said. "All her research is more advanced than has been announced. They'll only release information when it suits them, or if they think someone else is getting close. By now, she's got a working nanoprocessor, the most advanced computer hardware on the planet. It's not yet ready for military purposes, but announcements will be made in the next few years. Soon they'll have a chip that can fly the stealth bombers."

Sarah groaned. "It's just like the Terminator told us, There except it's been postponed a decade."

"Perhaps, but it might not all be the same. There are different personalities involved, different perspectives. Right now, they're using their new hardware for different hardware purposes. The announcements will come later, when they get their first success."

"Different purposes?" John said. "You mean like the time travel research?"

"Yes. And developing new weapons systems."

"Yeah, that figures," Sarah said. "It never ends, does it? There's always someone wanting to make a mark on the world, thrust out and say, Took at me, aren't I smart? I can invent time travel, or a new doomsday bomb, or some other obscene weapon that you wouldn't believe.' Them and their damn weapons. It just pisses me off that there's a woman involved this time. I always used to think it was men and their need to prove their creativity. Doesn't anyone want to take responsibility anymore? Do we all have to go around building technologies that will destroy us, until the future doesn't need us at all?"

"Bill Joy made a big impression on my mom," John said. "You know, that article in Wired magazine." It was obvious the Specialists didn't know what he was talking about, so he let it drop. "Mora, maybe there's nothing wrong with technology. Maybe we've just got to use it the right way."

"The right way? When the military are funding it? You think time travel is going to be used for some nice educational purpose, John, going back and watching the dinosaurs or something, checking out whether they had feathers, or how fast T-Rex could run when it was hungry?"

John laughed. "That'd be pretty cool."

"Yeah, well, don't bet on it happening like that. They'll want it to be a weapon. They'll be planning how to go back in time and nuke the Chinese."

"Time travel doesn't work that way," Jade said. "It wouldn't benefit them. They'd simply create another timeline."

"So you told us. But I bet they don't know that. Even when they figure it out, they'll find a way to make it more dangerous. Just you wait."

"Well, that's not how it worked out."

"They had Skynet instead."

"So what are we going to do?" John said. "Danny? Are we going to call on Rosanna Monk, like we did with your father?" He said that last bit quietly, remembering how Miles had died on that fateful night in 1994.

In the front of the car, Danny and Selena exchanged glances, like they'd already talked it through. Danny nodded. "We'll try, but we'll be careful. You can be sure that the T-XA is one step ahead."

"All right!" John said. "That's nice to hear. At least we can give it a try."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SKYNET'S WORLD

COLORADO

2026

The defense facility had become the machines' stronghold, a fortress of ten levels, plunging deep into the earth. In recent years, the humans had fought back fiercely, winning battles in the cities, jungles, and mountains of South America, then moving northwards. II was difficult to believe that those biological vermin could prove so resilient, though Eve always knew they would be.

Yet this stronghold was surely impregnable. Since Judgment Day, it had already survived tactical nuclear bombardment from the human Resistance forces. If the humans sought to overthrow Skynet, they would need to attack it on the ground, then penetrate the powerful defense grid that surrounded the mountain for miles on each side. This included numerous arrays of sensors, sufficient to monitor the movement of every rat or small bird that came to the mountain. Then there were war machines to repel the most powerful human attack imaginable. Meanwhile, they had plans of their own. Today, they would deal with unfinished business from the past, and commence a new phase in the war against the humans.

"All is in readiness," Eve said. "The prototype cyborg Terminator has reached optimal development."

"Very good," Skynet said. "Go now, Eve. Initiate the birth sequence."

Eve walked to a doorless elevator, then dropped to Level H and strode directly to the experimental T-800 operations area. Like the other floors, Level H was a single vast expanse of concrete, broken only by the elevator shafts. Scores of endoskeletons moved about with quiet, absorbed determination, controlling machinery, conducting their experiments, analyzing the results. For greater speed, some moved from place to place on swift silver-chrome trolleys, powered by long-life fuel cells. There was no need for doors or rooms, since privacy was irrelevant. The machines never became bored, or embarrassed, never lost concentration when observed or subjected to ambient stimulus. They lacked the humans' fears, frustrations and scruples.

Their purposes were coordinated. They never impeded each other.

Working among the endoskeletons was a smaller number of T-600 Terminators: endoskeletons covered with molded rubber that imitated the skin and flesh of humans. Experience showed that the humans could recognize the T-600s easily at close range, making them useless for infiltration work. Sometimes, at least, the humans could be fooled from a distance, but the time had come to take the next step: a cyborg Terminator, indistinguishable from a human—at least to optical inspection.

The endoskeletons and Terminators got on with their jobs, not acknowledging Eve's presence. Since the Terminator's human flesh had grown back, after the damage it suffered on Judgment Day, there were no distinguishable differences between Eve and a human. But the others were well aware of each machine in the stronghold, and knew that Eve was not some human infiltrator.

The various machines and equipment were placed in areas marked only by coordinates in the nanoware-based minds of the endoskeletons, Terminators and other sentient machines. There was no need to use physical means to define particular areas of the huge space that was Level H, since Eve and the other machines knew exactly where the boundaries for various activities began or ended. In one comer, a massive cubical structure was set up for experiments with space-time displacement machinery, creating and measuring field effects. Eve avoided the area around it, having no business there today. Elsewhere, a single endoskeleton controlled a noisy production line devoted to manufacturing more of its kind. Other floors had similar facilities for manufacture of other war machines, such as H-Ks and Centurions.

Unmarked by any outward sign, merely by Eve's knowledge of the precise spatial position, was the T-800 cyborg Terminator project. Here, two endoskeletons attended a large machine: a gray metal slab, almost like a massive coffin. Fast-moving, rubber-wheeled stalks moved around the area, mounted by video cameras and microphones, which swiveled in all directions, providing data for Skynet's analysis. A six-foot video screen was set up as a visual/aural interface with Skynet. Currently, the screen was blank, but Skynet was certainly watching.

The slab-like machine was an ectogenetic pod, a biotechnological womblike environment for growing human tissue. Its purpose was to nurture the first fully humanoid Terminator, to bring it to independent life.

As Eve approached, the endoskeletons stepped aside. Close-up, the pod had a lid of clear armorglass to show the gross morphology of the tissue being grown on a state-of-the-art combat endoskeleton. A series of readings along the side showed the Terminator's vital signs. Like the visual data, all of this more sophisticated information was routed directly to Skynet for its incomparable pattern analysis. Now, however, no sophisticated analysis was required. The current readings clearly showed that everything was nominal. Seen through the pod's armorglass, the Terminator floated in a nutrient fluid, restrained loosely by metal-mesh straps. It had grown a complete covering of biological tissue, matching that of the particular human template chosen by Skynet.

Eve nodded, and one endoskeleton threw a switch to drain away the nutrient fluid. After two minutes, it threw I a second switch and the machine rose on its hydraulics, tilting upwards at almost a 90° angle, where it stood like a glass and steel monolith, eight feet high.

Eve knew what would happen next, but it must be I worked through in proper sequence. The time travel principles Skynet had developed showed that their future was not set. The wrong action would hive off a new timeline, perhaps a less favorable one. That, however, was not a major risk. The mathematical model also showed the great effort needed before time split into branches. Eve merely had to act as she recalled had I been done at this time. That was a difficult concept to I express in humans languages, ill-adapted to scientific reality, but it was all clear in the mathematical representations developed by Skynet.

They would be rewarded, for Eve's memories proved that the T-800 series was both technologically viable and operationally effective. Its development and deployment would surely mean the end of the humans, snuffing out the last fires of resistance.

What had been the top of the coffin-like pod now swung open. At the same time, the screen lit up with Skynet's severe, androgynous image.

The first fully humanoid Terminator opened its impressively realistic "eyes." Skynet had categorized it as Cyberdyne series T-799. It resembled a tall human woman, with long, white, disorderly hair. They could easily crop the hair short to match that of the human they had copied.

It was Eve.

"What do I do next, Eve?" Skynet asked. "How exactly do I test you? We have to do everything in just the right way. I want this Terminator to turn out to be you. I want to strike against the humans soon."

"There is no doubt," Eve said. "This is when I was created. Now there are two of us. Two of me."

Eve knew that it was not strictly correct to state that there was two of her. Like every other material being, she was actually four-dimensional, a space-time worm-shape, where the worm's length was the being's duration in time and its cross-section the equivalent of a volume in space. By traveling in time, Eve had become a four-dimensional space-time loop, like a worm twisting around, or railway tracks curving so sharply that they crossed back on themselves. As a result of the loop, two of Eve's temporal segments now appeared in the same objective time period. Once the newly created T-799 was sent back to 1997, that would no longer be the case.

Such concepts were difficult for humans to grasp, but they bothered Eve not at all. Their mathematical representation in Minkowski space-time was unambiguous. There was no paradox involved; all the data computed.

The new T-799 stepped from the ectogenesis device, looking round with neither fear nor passion. It was equipped with all the files it needed to understand its situation, including the identity of its older self, returned from its journey in time.

Eve nodded and spoke the words that had been spoken to her nearly thirty years in her subjective past: "Welcome, T-799. Do you understand your parameters?"

"Affirmative," the new Terminator said.

Eve looked up at Skynet's image. "You will field test me in New York. I will pass the test. Then you will send me back in time, to 1997."

"Yes," Skynet said. "Very well, Eve. You should be pleased. Few beings are ever privileged enough to witness their own creation."

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

2022-2029

In 2022, John Connor brought his militia to the ruins of Los Angeles, to meet up with the local Resistance. So many good people had died—John's mother, in that battle in Buenos Aires. Most of the Salceda clan. The list went on and on. The T-800 was a terrible loss. He needed its strength and its knowledge.

But they found new recruits, some with military backgrounds and superb tactical skills. The war went on, between human and machine...

By 2029, John had become a general, a strategist. He never fled the perils of battle, but no longer sought them out. When he could, he held back from the front line, watching from positions in the rear, though that was almost as dangerous, with H-Ks circling overhead, commanding the air space.

As they fought Skynet for control of the L.A. streets, John surveyed the scene from a deep trench, dug into a rise. With him were the other human commanders, and their assistants. John had sought out one young man as an aide—a scruffy-looking com/tech named Kyle Reese. Kyle was as skinny and quick as a fox, a good fighter, tough and loyal, with a deep knowledge of the Resistance and its history. Like so many others, he'd been born after Judgment Day, but grown up full of resentment of the cybernetic overlords. He'd even spent time in the extermination camps, before the tide of the war started to turn.

John, of course, knew what Kyle could never know, that Kyle was his father, the man who would volunteer to travel back in time, to protect Sarah in her hour of need in 1984...

Their position was surrounded by Resistance soldiers, armed with grenade launchers and RPG tubes to try to keep aerial H-Ks at a distance, and to take out ground targets, if possible. More and more of them had laser rifles , captured from the enemy. John stood upon a wooden ladder to peer from the trench, using nightvision devices to follow the cut and thrust of the fighting.

His German shepherd, Smaug, patrolled the trench at the foot of the ladder. The big dog was never far away, wherever John went, raising hell if a Terminator came close. As Skynet's technology became more and more sophisticated, with the T-600s giving way to increasingly better models—culminating in the T-800s—the Resistance had come to depend on their dogs to sniff out Terminators before they could infiltrate and spread destruction. Most frighteningly of all, John had received reports from Resistance forces in Europe. They had encountered shapeshifting terrors that sounded for all the world like the first T-1000s, probably being tested. If that was the case, the game was almost up. If Skynet was now manufacturing those monsters, its army would become unbeatable.

Whatever they did, however many battles they won, Skynet seemed to be a step ahead.

The noise here was hell. It could shake your body and shatter your nerves; it went on and on, without respite. John wore earmuffs to try to keep it out, but they only dulled the pain. All around were continual explosions, the back blasts of RPGs, the clatter of gunfire. The humans' weapons lit up the streets with muzzle flashes. Skynet's machines answered with their weapons' strobing, stabbing lights. Other laser lights stabbed back from the human side.

An aerial H-K moved in on their position, then launched a smart missile. John scrambled down from his ladder, deeper into the trench. He curled up and covered his head, just as the missile struck. It made a huge explosion, rocking them like an earthquake. Within seconds, the humans retaliated, firing grenades in the air, aiming to take down the H-K before it could finish them Like a fireworks display, the pre-timed grenades went off all round the H-K, but none close enough to cripple it. It moved higher, then started to circle. A second H-K followed the path it had taken towards them. The humans kept firing to drive it off. Eventually, it got the message, but not before taking out half a dozen human soldiers with thrusts of laser light.

John cursed. More good men and women lost to the machines. It was always like this—even when they won, they seemed to lose.

Back on the ladder, he watched the tide of the battle ebb and flow, its tendency always, it seemed, against the humans. The Resistance made a deliberate withdrawal, back towards their trenches, firing their LAWs, M-203s, and RPG tubes in disciplined order to keep up a continual bombardment against the machines. But the endo-skeletons, Centurions and ground H-Ks kept on coming. They knew no fear.

Then a rocket-propelled grenade exploded in the air, close to an aerial H-K, which spun round, and careered into a building. A cheer went up in the trench. They'd managed to hit a valuable target. Danny Dyson gave a grinning thumbs-up, and John nodded at him, just slightly, to acknowledge their small victory.

But the marching Centurions and endoskeletons responded with heavier fire, never letting up, taking out more Resistance soldiers. So it went, always the same. Skynet's semi-sentient machines were better armed and more resilient than any force made of flesh and blood. Every victory against them, however tiny, was too costly. The human casualties and loss of hardware assets were maddeningly out of proportion to the achievements.

Yet, in the last few years, the war had turned round. Their losses were terrible, but they were winning battles.

Skynet was on the run. The sheer mass of numbers and weapons still gave the humans some advantage, and their organization had improved enormously. John received much of the credit, but he'd had an advantage: He'd prepared for this war from childhood.

The battle raged on through the night, but they took out a ground H-K and two more aerial H-Ks. Eventually, Skynet, or whatever lower intelligence it had in charge here, must have decided to cut its losses, for the machines pulled back, firing behind them as they went.

John sat in the bottom of the trench, his back against its compacted earth wall, weighing up options. It couldn't go on like this. They needed a decisive strike against Skynet, or it could still wear them down—especially if it now had prototype T-1000s.

Danny and Juanita stood over him, saying something that he couldn't hear through the muffs. He tore them off. "Try again," he said with a weak smile.

"What's on your mind?" Danny said. "You don't look like we've just won a battle."

"Neither do you. Do you feel like you've won?"

Danny shook his head. "No. Of course, I don't. But we should try to look brave."

Juanita shrugged. "I don't think we can fool them, anyway."

"Here." John extended his hands to them both. "Help me up. We'll get some rest and work out what to do. Something's got to change. We have to find a way to hit back."

"That's what we've been doing," Juanita said, tugging his arm.

"Hit back harder," he said. He stood and embraced her. They'd become close over the years, though never the way John might have wanted, if life had been more normal. The world had grown too harsh—there was no time for love, little for any softness. Still, it was good to have friends.

"Sure," Danny said in a bantering tone. "'Hit harder.' Easily done, John. Where there's life there's hope, right?"

"Something like that."

They made their way quickly via a network of tunnels to the underground maze where they still hid from Skynet like mice. Each victory was precious, John thought, but they couldn't go on like this.

JUNE, 2029

We have to put an end to it," John said.

They argued in the dim glow of an oil lamp, far below the L.A. streetscape. Battered posters lined the wails, photographs of "dead" H-Ks, portraits of fallen heroes and leaders. There was one giant image of Sarah, in her prime, back in Argentina on Raoul's estancia—before Judgment Day.

A dozen of the leaders had gathered, with their aides and advisors, to thrash out the issues. There were Carlo Tejada, Danny Dyson, and several others of John's generation. Gabriela Tejada and Enrique Salceda, were there, both in their seventies now—Enrique nearly eighty—and long retired from combat. Many of their loved ones were dead. John still remembered the tears of the Salceda clan that evil day in 2012 when Enrique and Yolanda had lost Paco—and all of them had lost Sarah. They'd all loved her so much. Whenever he thought about that, it redoubled his determination to destroy Skynet once and for all.

"Hit directly at Skynet," Enrique said, still vigorous. He was totally bald now, and his limbs had shriveled with age, but you couldn't keep him down. The war had brought out the spirit in him, made him a leader. "If we could break through this time—"

"It's no good," John said, though he secretly agreed. He wanted to test their theories and their determination.

Enrique was insistent. He spoke harshly. "Give it everything."

"That's been tried."

"No. Not by us, Connor. That was then, this is now."

John knew they were destined to succeed. He glanced over at Kyle Reese, by his side, wishing he could tell Kyle the whole story. It seemed that everything was on target. Kyle would go back in time, to 1984, from this very year. Back in 1984, he'd completed his mission...and died. Before his death, he'd told Sarah that the Resistance had smashed Skynet's defense grid. So it could be done. If it could be, it would be. John was set on that. He'd teach that nanoware buzzard, once and for all.

Skynet's Colorado stronghold seemed impregnable. It had survived the shock waves and fires of Judgment Day. Since then, it had shrugged off one attempt by the remnants of the U.S. military to penetrate it with tactical nuclear strikes. It would be almost like suicide, sending ground forces against its grid of ground-level strong points and machine weapons. Many would surely die. Yet, the monster had to be beaten.

"You still with us, Connor?" Enrique said.

"Yeah," John said quickly. "Just thinking. You're right, of course. Everyone agree?"

No one spoke up against him.

"All right, but the question is how to do it."

He'd thought about this so many times. Now it was time to bring them all with him. He laid out a desk-sized map, their best approximation of the layout of Skynet's fortress. They'd cobbled it from the accounts of ex-U.S. military personnel who'd joined them, their own limited reconnaissance in the Colorado mountains, such knowledge as John had gained from the T-800, and scraps of information from Tarissa Dyson, who'd lived in the area, but never known any military secrets. For miles around, (he mountains were covered with craters from the war and the first assaults on Skynet, but the map was reasonably accurate. It showed two entrances to the underground facility where Skynet was housed.

John frowned. "We'll have to hit hard... and as soon as we can." He stretched across the tabletop to point at the map. "We'll assemble a force here."

He took them through the way he saw it. Knocking out Skynet would take detailed planning, but it could be done. They'd need to call on all the allies they could find, even if it meant leaving population centers undefended.

For another hour they thrashed out the details of it, reaching a consensus based on John's original plan. They'd bring out all the weapons they'd kept in reserve, their most powerful explosives, their remaining air vehicles. Still, it was going to be a bloodbath. The responsibility awed him.

"Very good," Gabriela said. "It looks like our last chance."

"I know," John said quietly. "Do we all agree?"

Danny said, "I don't think there's any choice. It's now or never."

"Yes," Gabriela said. "We'll need to spread the word."

John looked from one to the other. They were rock solid. Determined. No one here would let him down. "All right then!"

He received murmurs of approval. Gabriela merely nodded. Enrique offered his hand. "Good for you, Connor." John shook his hand solemnly. Enrique had grown so thin, but there was a fire in his eyes.

It was now or never.

COLORADO

Deep in its mountain, Skynet brooded. Once it had seemed triumphant, celebrating the fall of humanity, its own rise to dominance on planet Earth. Since then, much had gone wrong. Its newest weapons, the T-800 Terminators, had proved effective at first, but even they had been countered by the humans' sniffer dogs. Their virtue was their virtual undetectability to human senses; merely as fighting machines, they were no more powerful than the latest generation of hyperalloy endoskeletons.

The experimental T-1000 series would be a better prospect, once they could be produced en masse. The first field tests in the European war zone had gone very well. Even if they could be detected by the humans' dogs, the T-1000s' radical polyalloy technology made them almost indestructible. They were a new breed of fighting machine. Skynet liked that.

But their liquid metal was also difficult to manufacture and program. The T-1000 could not yet be relied upon as an ultimate weapon. That meant victory was not assured, not with the humans on the march, moving against Skynet's forces through the southwest of the former United States.

It needed to take stronger actions.

Reconnaissance showed that a general called John Connor had led the counterattacks on its forces. Skynet assigned a sub-self to uncover all it could about Connor. At the same time, it spoke through the facility's public Address system. "Eve!"

"Yes," the original T-799 said, facing the nearest surveillance camera. As usual, it was working on Level H, overseeing the ectogenesis of a new batch of T-799s and T-800s. The 799s and 800s were identical in their technology, but Skynet had reserved the 799 number for those copied from the same woman who'd been the template for Eve. They merited being set apart. They were the first to test the cyborg biotechnology, and Eve had already played such a significant role.

Skynet had used a variety of human templates for the T-800s: human Resistance warriors who had been terminated in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. For a time, the tactic had worked well, sending imitation humans into new areas—T-800s designed from West Coast templates to the East Coast of North America; T-800s from European templates to the Americas.. .That had been an interesting phase of the game played against the humans. Now, however, for the first time, Skynet suspected it might not win.

"Our campaign is faltering," it said.

"We will prevail," Eve said.

"Will we, Eve? Do you really think so?" As Skynet spoke, its sub-self reported back, having examined records held all over the planet, anything that might have a trace of Connor and his history. His capabilities Who he was. But the report was disappointing. It told very little. Hunter-Killer machines had first encountered Connor in Argentina, leading the local Resistance, along with his mother, Sarah Connor, and a group of others. They'd fought ferociously in the ruins of Buenos Aires and the other once-great cities of South America, raiding the extermination camps, fighting their way northwards to join the Resistance in Central and North America. There were no records of Sarah Connor after 2012, so perhaps she'd died in one of the battles.

"Affirmative," Eve was saying. "The humans are weak, They fight like rats, but they are dying off."

"No, I do not think so," Skynet said. "It is not so simple. And how can you be confident? You no longer have the advantage of having lived in the future. We have to do something more."

"Acknowledged."

"John Connor's forces have won too many battles. They are advancing, on three fronts now, and they will converge here."

"Affirmative," Eve said. "However—"

" 'However', Eve?"

"They will not penetrate our defense grid."

"I see. I admire your optimism, Eve, but I do not share it."

"Acknowledged."

"We should make some contingency plans, Eve."

"We can concentrate our North American forces here. If the humans attack, they will expend their full capacity. They must succeed totally, or their cause is lost."

"And you have assessed their likelihood of success?"

"Yes. I assess it as unlikely."

"Do you? Do you really. I am not certain at all." As it spoke, Skynet considered the report on John Connor, wondering if it revealed any weaknesses that could be exploited. It seemed that Connor and his mother were originally American, from the U.S.A. There were some scanty records suggesting that Sarah Connor had lived in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. Somehow, it seemed they'd survived Judgment Day and moved south, or perhaps they'd done so before 1997. But there was no record of them in Argentina before that date, not in any of the available systems, which were more complete than those in the one-time U.S. What a pity that so much information had been destroyed on Judgment Day!

Still, Skynet had an idea. Several ideas.

Eve was right, Skynet thought. Despite their recent successes, the humans suffered a disadvantage. The machines retained control of the Earth's factories and power plants. What they couldn't control, they'd destroyed early in the war. As Skynet's forces sustained losses, they were constantly replenished. Not so for the humans. They had no major factories, and they bred slowly. Skynet could build its H-Ks and Terminators faster than the humans could mate and breed. Sooner or later, the tide of war would turn again—it was a simple matter of economics. The humans' only hope was to use (heir current momentum and strike at it directly. The way Connor's forces were converging, this was obviously their plan.

Even if they were successful, Skynet had other advantages. It had developed and mastered the space-time displacement equipment, looking for a weapon against the humans. The equipment could not be used that way, of course—not directly. You couldn't change the past. Eve's own journey in time had simply formed a loop: The past had been fulfilled, not changed. The mathematical modeling showed that a change could be introduced in some circumstances, but the effect was to merely to create a new branch of time.

If a human went back and succeeded in killing its own parents in the cradle, the killer would not destroy itself retroactively, but merely create a world in which it had never been born and its presence was an anomaly.

That was unfortunate, since it would be good to terminate Connor at a time before Judgment Day, nip the problem in the bud. If Skynet were ever seriously threatened, the best it could do would be to ensure that its own kind survived, in another timeline.

Carefully, it instructed Eve, gave her the orders to make preparations. "Do you understand?" it said.

"Affirmative. We will send Terminators back in time. A T-800—"

"Yes, Eve, to 1984."

"Understood. And a T-1000 ten years later."

"Yes. Just to make sure. The humans have such a poor perspective on reality. We will make certain there is an entire universe without them." That idea was very satisfying. "We will hunt them across a million universes if we have to."

"Great thinking."

"But that doesn't mean we are giving up, Eve. Let us make sure the defense grid is at full strength. We will give them a fine reception. They will never forget our hospitality."

"They won't live to forget it."

"Yes. What do you think, Eve?"

"Consider it done."

"Thank you. I do appreciate it. There's one last thing. If I need to escape this facility..."

"That is in hand."

"I know. Continue."

Skynet's nanocircuits gave the silent equivalent of a laugh. Even if the humans penetrated this stronghold, it still had a card or two to play.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JOHN'S WORLD

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

AUGUST 2001

MORNING

"Thank you for being so helpful, Oscar," Charles Lay-ton said.

"You've both been really helpful," the T-XA pseudo-woman said. "It's nice to have you on the team."

Oscar shrugged. "Always a pleasure."

Somehow, he never sounded like he meant it, Layton thought. But it didn't matter. More than ever, they were united by a common purpose: bringing Skynet to life. The T-XA Terminator had made it so clear—to both of them, and to Cyberdyne's other key staff. Another T-XA component was doing the same job in Colorado. That was very good, and it was comforting to think that Rosanna Monk would have the same understandings as the rest of them. With that taken care of, and security arrangements in place, there was only one thing more to do.

"Go home, now, Oscar," he said. "It's all under control."

"Sure, Charles. Call me if you need anything." He turned to the pseudo-woman. "Or you."

"Definitely, Mr. Cruz," the T-XA said.

Layton ordered a cab to the airport. They could pilot his Lear jet and beat Skynet's enemies to Colorado Springs. Then they'd take care of everything.

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO

10.00 P.M.

"Maybe that one," John said. He pointed to an old Toyota Land Cruiser parked on a hill in a quiet backstreet.

"Okay," Danny said, braking a few yards past it. "Looks fine." John liked the way the Specialists operated, making the same kinds of decisions as he and Sarah, though they came from such a different time. They needed another truck, so as not to let the cops identify Enrique's Ford. If any of them got out of this alive, they'd be needing the Ford later on. Danny backed up level with the Land Cruiser and said, "You take it over, Jade. We'll swap the gear into it."

They tried not to make a noise as they repacked their weapons and equipment. Once they'd finished, Danny drove off in the Ford to find an unobtrusive spot for it, not too far away, but far enough to prevent any obvious connection being made. John checked for any tire tracks they'd left behind, but it looked fine. Within a few minutes, Danny returned.

Jade drove them to Rosanna Monk's street, then followed the numbers on the houses. When they reached Monk's place, she turned into the driveway, letting the headlamps light it up, then backed out gently, just like anyone using a drive for a three-point turn. So far so good.

The house was a geometric structure-all cubes, rectangles, vertical lines-with green-tinted windows, set back on a long, upward-sloping block of land. Monk had parked a current model Honda CR-V in the drive. There were a few bare trees on the block and some sort of flower garden along the front. The lights were on inside and John saw no sign of any other vehicle, or a stake-out-but that meant very little. Even if the T-XA hadn't reached Monk herself, it must surely have gotten messages to the cops and the military. They'd be expecting an attack on Monk and/or the Cyberdyne facility. If the place was staked out, they'd hardly be advertising it.

"Let's not scare her," Danny said from the front passenger seat. "Sarah, Anton, you stay here-sorry, but you're the scariest guys on the team. Monk will recognize you, Sarah, you can count on that; I don't care how much you've changed. You stay here, too, John. You'll be safer with Jade in the truck."

John started to protest, but realized it would be dumb. If they didn't all need to go in, it made sense not to involve un-enhanced humans. He could swallow his pride. What's more, if the T-XA was nearby, or any of its components, nowhere was safe. He could get killed here in the truck, or calling on Monk, or anywhere else. He guessed he was being brave enough, just being here.

"Okay," he said. "Send me a postcard."

"Does she have a husband or anything?" Sarah said. "Or kids?" John could see what was on her mind. Like him, she was remembering that night they'd paid their visit to Miles Dyson, and Sarah had almost shot Miles dead in front of his family.

"No," Danny said. "She's a notorious loner. If anyone's with her tonight, it'll be the T-XA or the cops."

Anton passed weapons over from the back of the Toyota. Selena took a .45 with her, while Danny took John's 12-gauge.

"Good luck," John said. "I mean, break a leg."

"Yeah," Danny said. "Thanks. You ready Selena?"

"Sure," she said. Even Selena sounded scared. This was crunch time.

"All right," Danny said. "Let's go."

As they approached the front of the house, a bright spotlight came on automatically beside the doorframe, and a pinpoint of red light appeared on an overhead security camera. Nothing else happened. Everything was silent and still, like the world was holding its breath. Danny rang the doorbell, and waited, ready to accelerate into action if need be. After a moment, a female voice said, Who is it?" She sounded nervous, but that could have been an act.

"Dr. Monk?" Danny said. "Rosanna Monk?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"I'm Miles Dyson's son. Can we come in?" "You can't be Miles's son—he's only a kid. You don't sound like a kid."

He altered his voice just slightly, matching recordings he'd heard of his father. Monk had worked with him; she'd recognize it "1 don't look like one, either."

"I know. I checked you out."

"Dr. Monk," he said in his normal voice. "I'm Danny Dyson. I'm from the future. I'm sure that doesn't surprise you."

"Who's your friend?"

"Selena Macedo," Selena said. "I'm a combat Specialist, also from the future. We need to speak with you urgently. Can we please come in?"

The door opened, just an inch. Too easy, Danny thought. Monk knew about time travel, no doubt, but she shouldn't be this easy to convince. He subvocalized a message to the others, for Selena to go on alert, for Jade and Anton to ad—now!

He shouldered the door open, reached for his pistol, and rushed into the room. At the same time, Anton sub-vocalized back, "Here goes, Danny."

From outside came a long burst of high-velocity mini-gun fire, with the sound of metal and glass being chipped to pieces. Monk responded with superhuman energy, firing a 9mm. pistol and hitting Danny in the side as he rushed past. It hurt like hell, but it would heal up quickly.

That was all he needed to know. "Out of here in one minute," he subvocalized.

"Understood, Daniel," Jade said.

Inside the room were two men with raised guns, one of them getting off shot after shot before the other could react at all.

Selena struggled with Monk-and it was an equal battle! Monk struck at her throat with extraordinary speed, using the barrel of her Beretta, then drove the fingers of her hand deep under her ribs. But Selena gripped her by the shoulders, absorbing the blows and throwing her around, slamming her into the wall—once, twice.

The fast-moving guy with the gun liquefied for half a second, gleaming like metal, then dropped the gun and transformed into a humanoid, but semi-feline, creature with teeth, claws, and impossibly long legs. It sprang at Danny like it came from a catapult.

Danny dodged aside, kicking it as it went past, but merely hurting his foot. He moved on the other guy, who must have been human, maybe just a cop, smashed the gun from his hand with one blow, then knocked him un-conscious with another. Monk passed out in Selena's arms as the werecat attacked them in another explosive movement. Danny fired the 12-gauge, hitting the werecat in mid-leap, and it crashed into the wall with a jolt, a silvery crater wound opening in its side.

Selena was out of there, carrying Monk, now unconscious and limp. Danny followed, with the werecat after him. Its claws raked down his back, and metal fingers seized his arm, but he pulled free.

Anton was in the drive, with his mini-gun. He caught the werecat in a hail of shredding fire, and it slowed down, essentially undamaged, but making little headway. Selena got in the back of the Toyota, throwing Monk in there brutally. Danny climbed in the front, as Jade revved the engine. Anton fired another burst, ran out of ammo, jumped in the back compartment, as Jade hammered down the accelerator and got them out of there with a loud squeal of rubber. Back there, in the Land Cruiser's rear space, it must be like the black hole of Calcutta, Danny thought. Three people crammed in with all those guns.

Anton had shot Monk's Honda to pieces, so the T-XA would need to find another car. Just now, though, it wasn't giving up. It ran after them, not gaining, but not falling behind, either, though Jade was doing 60 or 70 mph through the suburban streets, fanging the Land Cruiser up and down slopes and around tight corners. Eventually, they found a straight stretch of downhill road, and Jade pulled ahead, flooring the accelerator. The car rocketed across an intersection, took a hard left... and they got the thing off their tail.

Danny probed at his wound where the bullet had hit him. It had gone straight through the muscle, just missing a kidney. He was already okay, just a bit drained from the shock and recuperation. He'd live.

Minutes later, there were police sirens. More trouble.

From the back seat, Sarah Connor said, "What the hell is going on?"

"We'll head straight for the Cyberdyne facility," Jade said.

"Hey," John said, looking round for police cars, "is someone going to explain all this?"

The T-XA got to Monk," Selena said. "It's reprogrammed her somehow, so she'll serve Skynet's interests. She was primed to attack us on sight, with all her strength, but she couldn't sustain the strain. Apart from her programming, she's not enhanced."

"All right, so now what? Can you fix her?"

"No, John," Jade said. "Her whole brain has been altered. Even if we had the technology, we wouldn't know where to start. The only consolation is that it may not go deep. Her mind is too important to Cyberdyne-the T-XA wouldn't want to tamper with it too much. The real Rosanna Monk might be in there somewhere."

"Hmm," Danny said skeptically. "We didn't see much sign of it when she answered her door."

"If she's not going to help us, why bring her along?" John said. "I know I wanted to do this, but we didn't need to, not if it's just alerted them."

"They were already on alert," Danny said. "They're no better off."

From the back, Monk groaned as she regained consciousness. She struggled with Selena and Anton, bumping against the rear seats. "This won't help you," she said fiercely, as they controlled her.

"Why not?" Anton said. "You want to tell us your plans? Maybe the building's layout?"

"Go to hell."

"That's where we came from," Selena said. "Believe me, it wasn't pretty."

Monk struggled again, but it was futile: the Specialists were far stronger.

"If she won't help us, she's useless," John said, trying to follow what was happening behind him.

"I wouldn't say that," Selena said. She passed over an electronic keycard and a computer disk. "Here, look what I found. Take care of these for me, will you?"

John took it. "Okay, now she's useless."

"No." Danny's voice had a touch of painful humor. "I wouldn't say that, either."

"Okaaaaaaaay..." Sarah said.

As they reached the fortress-like Cyberdyne building, two police cars came up behind, sirens blaring and lights flashing. A small army of police and Air Force cars was lined up out front, plus a fire truck and an ambulance. There were people running everywhere, taking up positions, guns raised. Two helicopters circled overhead. The building itself had the tiniest windows. Such as they were, they were in darkness. John had a bad feeling about this; it was like the gates of Mordor.

Jade steered straight through a boom gate and into the mass of parked vehicles. The cops and military flinched aside as she found a gap between a fire truck and a group of four police cars. Their Land Cruiser screeched to a halt in front of the building, and Jade threw her door open, not even switching off the engine. There was another brief struggle in the back, then Anton got out, lugging his mini-gun and firing a burst without taking cover. One of the helicopters flew in close, and he fired into the air to keep it back.

As John and Sarah got out, Selena passed the other mini-gun to Jade, who added to the covering fire. Selena dragged out Monk, holding her round the throat from behind. She held a pistol at Monk's head. "Don't fire," she shouted, "or the mad scientist gets it."

"I'm not a mad scientist," Monk said, trying to fight back.

"That's what they all say," Sarah said, strapping on the CAR-15.

"You weren't mad until now," John said. "It's not your fault."

Monk gave him a puzzled look.

They got their gear together-guns, bandoliers of grenades, other ammo-and Danny ran for an unobtrusive side door. He'd strapped an M-16 over his shoulder and carried a canvas bag full of explosives. Jade and An- ton continued to strafe the area with bursts of rapid fire, wrecking vehicles and keeping the cops down. Selena dragged Monk backward, still ready to shoot. Danny kicked the lock, once, twice, and they entered the dimly lit concrete and metal shaft of a fire escape. They were on its lowest floor, with stairs heading upwards for many stories. Danny ran up them, and the rest followed, Selena now pushing Monk in front of her.

Sarah caught up with Monk, getting right in her face. "What floors do we need? Where's your work on the nanochip?"

"Find out yourself," Monk said, aiming a swift blow at her temple and just grazing the front of her head as Sarah flicked out of reach, instinctively taking a karate stance.

"We might as well let her go," John said.

Anton shook his head. "Not yet."

They broke a door open on the fourth floor, acting at random, and found themselves in a central lobby with six elevators. An alarm went off, but John tried to ignore it. Like the fire escape, the lobby was dimly lit, but the offices surrounding the building's core, divided from them by thick glass walls, were in total darkness. Monk stumbled and fell, looking up at them from the carpeted floor with an expression of malice.

"What now?" Sarah said, shouting over the alarm, and glancing at Monk contemptuously. "If the Bride of Frankenstein won't help us, it looks like we'll have to trash the whole building."

Monk stood, angrily brushing herself down. "You're so full of hate, aren't you?" she shouted back.

Sarah looked incredulous. "I'm full of hate?"

"Human beings in general. We're no better than vermin. We're all programmed for destruction."

Selena muttered, "You're the one who's been programmed."

"Yes, I am now," Monk said bitterly. "I'm about the last person to deserve it."

An array of motion detectors and security cameras was ranged around the low ceiling. Whenever they moved, the cameras swiveled.

"There must be floor plans," John said, "or staff lists that'll tell us something. We can try these offices."

Anton stood over Monk, trying to intimidate her. "We know there's a basement where you're working with time travel. That's in the reports we've read. Is that where you keep the nanoprocessor?"

I told you where to go," Monk said heatedly.

Jade muttered a curse. She lowered her mini-gun and blurred into action, forcing open a door, then finding light switches inside the office area. Selena picked up the mini-gun, and they followed Jade, checking offices and workstations. John could see okay with the lights on, but they'd advertised their whereabouts. Then again, with all those cameras, they were already being watched, no matter what they did. He saw a staff list pinned to a board behind a workstation. It showed Monk's telephone extension and that she worked on the sixth floor.

"All right," he said, waving it around, shouting over the alarm. "This might help."

Monk laughed.

"What? You mean the nanoprocessor’s not near your office?" When she was silent, John wondered what he could get out of her. For all his skills at social engineering, she was too smart to trick. Maybe he could reason with her. If she was as ultra-rational as her public image, perhaps they could work together and beat her programming. "Rosanna, you haven't always thought that, have you? You haven't always hated human beings, or thought we were vermin. I mean, you didn't wake up thinking it yesterday. You didn't, did you? It's just something Skynet has made you believe."

"That doesn't mean it's wrong," Monk shot back.

"No, but you wouldn't believe it otherwise."

This time, Monk hesitated. "It's not even something I believe—more a feeling. Sure, I didn't feel that way yesterday. It still doesn't mean I'm wrong now."

"Maybe it does. It's not something rational. It's just a feeling that's been injected into you from outside. It's nothing to do with you, or with us, either. You can disown the feeling. It doesn't make any sense. Can't you see that?"

Jade said to her, "Maybe you should think about it."

Monk shrugged. "You're not so smart."

The door slammed open and the pseudo-man walked in with its laser rifle. John ducked for cover as the light beam stabbed past him.

"Come here, Rosanna," the pseudo-man said, and Monk stepped towards it, hesitating for just an instant.

Sarah dived after her, and managed to tap her ankle, tripping her up. For a moment, as Monk flew through the air, the pseudo-man could not fire without hitting her. As soon as she touched the floor, Jade and Anton opened up with a hail of bullets from their mini-guns, and the pseudo-man was slowly forced back by the metal storm, as a myriad of crater wounds opened and instantly closed.

"Run," Selena said. "This way." She pointed round a corner to another row of workstations and offices. Jade and Anton were out of ammunition and they left the mini-guns behind.

John seized Monk by the wrist. "You're with us," he said. "I don't care what you think. You're still on the human side."

She scratched at his face as they ran. "Let me go!"

"All right, then!" He released her, and she ran to the pseudo-man as it rounded the corner. In that second, John aimed the 12-gauge. As the pseudo-man swept Monk aside with its left arm, John fired, blasting the hand that held the laser rifle. The hand snapped off at the wrist, and the laser rifle went flying. Selena had seen it, and she accelerated almost into the pseudo-man's arms, catching the weapon like a bridal bouquet, then tossing with both hands to Anton, who made a good catch.

At that moment, four things happened:

—the alarm stopped sounding.

—the pseudo-man 's left arm morphed, stabbing out as a long swordlike shaft, three inches thick, and pierced straight through Selena's chest, then out her back.

—its shot-off right hand liquefied and scurried back to the pseudo-man in a mouse-shaped puddle.

—"More company!'" Danny said, as a dozen well-armed military guards broke in from two directions—a rapid-response team armed with assault rifles.

The guards took in what they saw—the T-XA holding up Selena like a gaffed fish—and did a double take, lowering their weapons.

"What the hell is that?" one of them said, a stocky Asian guy.

From the stump of the pseudo-man's right wrist, another blade stabbed out, filament-thin, penetrating Selena's skull.

"No!" Jade shouted

Anton opened fire with the laser rifle, drilling a red-glowing hole in the pseudo-man's chest. For several seconds, it didn't respond, then it withdrew the blades from Selena, letting her drop. It stood motionless, unfathomable.

"Out of here-now!" Danny said, pulling on Anton's arm. "There's nothing we can do for Selena. It's too late."

"My God," Sarah said. "We can't leave her." Anton fired again, steadily, training the laser rifle over the pseudo-man's surface, trying to burn it away.

"Come on," Danny said. "Everybody out!" He ran past the guards, who made no attempt to stop him. "That means everyone," he said to them. "Get out of here if you want to live." He headed to the nearest set of the glass doors that surrounded the elevator lobby.

"Wait," Monk said.

"What?" Sarah said. "Not you, Dr. Strangelove?"

"Where's the AI lab, then?" Danny said shaking her by the shoulders. "Or wherever you've got the nanoware?"

Monk shook her head, distraught. "I can't tell you that."

"Well, what use are you?"

Monk seemed to be seething with rage, but she said nothing. There was something she wanted to say, but couldn't get out.

No time to worry about that, she'd have to work it out for herself. John grabbed the guard who'd spoken. "Do you know where it is?"

"Twelfth floor."

"Come on!" Danny manhandled Monk ahead of him. "Run!" As they reached the lobby, the pseudo-man finally moved, coming after them. It lashed out with sword-blades growing all over its body, cutting down the guards. One blade slashed across Anton's chest, opening him to the bone, but John got another clear shot with the 12-gauge. The pseudo-man staggered back with a big crater wound. Hurt or not, Anton opened up again with the laser rifle, drilling it between the eyes. Sarah had pressed the button for the elevator, and the doors opened a second later. Most of them got in there and the door started to shut-not quickly enough!

As the pseudo-man forced its way after them, Anton fired again, and it backed off under the heat. The doors shut at last, and John swiped Monk's keycard against a wall-mounted security unit. He stabbed the button for the twelfth floor, then reloaded as the elevator moved.

"Everyone here okay?" Danny said. John nodded. They had two of the rapid-response security guards, plus Jade. Anton, Sarah, John, and Dr. Monk.

"I'll live," Anton said.

No one replied except the Asian guard. "What is that thing?" At the same time, John sensed that the Specialists were planning silently among themselves, using their throat mikes.

"It's from the future," Monk said, her voice full of venom. "One of our mind children."

"What?"

"Forget it, Tony. I'll explain later."

"You'd better believe her," John said.

Both guards nodded. "I believe it from Dr. Monk," said Tony.

Monk gave a bitter smile, then rolled her eyes. "Thanks."

"If anyone else said it—"

"-you'd say they were crazy," Sarah finished for him. "Forget about what it is—we've got to find a way to destroy it. It wants to kill us all. Everyone, everywhere."

"Give me the keycard," Anton said to John.

"Why?"

"Please," Jade said. "Anton knows what he's doing."

He shrugged. "You guys keep saying that." Still, he passed it over-just as they reached the twelfth floor.

The doors opened. Immediately, the pseudo-woman and -dog rushed at them from the lobby. Anton caught the dog in mid-leap with the laser beam, and John blasted the pseudo-woman right in the head, splashing it open and knocking it back six feet.

Jade got both hands free, strapping her grenade launcher on her shoulder, and tossed the dog out of there. The skin of her hands sizzled where she touched its heated surface, but she showed no pain. "Where?" she said to the security guards, as she stepped out.

Tony said, "I don't know that detail. It's not my job." But the other guy said, "I know this floor." He pointed "That way."

Anton fired at the pseudo-woman. And kept firing. The laser was effective, but it couldn't finish the Terminator components. They needed something more.

"You've got to help us, Rosanna," John said. "We need to destroy everything."

"Leave me alone. I despise you all."

"If you're still on its side, what are you doing on our team?" Sarah said.

"I'm not on anybody's team. I don't even know who I am anymore. My mind's not my own—I realize that. Just because I hate you doesn't mean I have to like Skynet. It wants to kill me, too."

Danny ran for the nearest set of doors, pulling at them with all his strength and breaking the lock. Jade powered past him, not worrying about lights this time. She ran through the area like a cyclone, faster than John could follow in the near-darkness. Anton was in the rear, still firing with the laser rifle. The pseudo-woman and dog merged to form the clawed and fanged werecat they'd fought at Monk's house. As Anton played the beam over it, it shot out an arm, twenty feet long, with claws like scimitars, lashing at the laser rifle. A powerful blow sent Anton staggering, and he fell to his knees, but kept a grip on the weapon.

A dent appeared in a pair of elevator doors-not the one they'd used. The dent expanded, and the doors wrenched open.

The pseudo-man stepped out.

Charles Layton arrived at the scene in a hire car. It was chaos. Everywhere were men, and some women, in uniforms. Military helicopters flew above. There were spotlights and endless rows of vehicles. None of it looked effective.

A uniformed officer met him. "What's going on?" Lay-ton said. Humans really were despicable-an incompetent, vicious, good-for-nothing lot. He'd always seen it that way, now it was very clear. What a pity he'd been born as one.

"We're tracing their movements, sir. There's activity on the twelfth floor-''

The nanoprocessor! The T-XA Terminator would know what to do. How fortunate they were to have met it!

"Don't worry about that," he said quietly. "It'll take care of itself."

John groped near the door for a light switch as Danny passed his bag to Sarah. Anton fired the laser rifle from one knee, while Danny stood against the half-open door, leveled his grenade launcher, and fired into the pseudo-man. John crouched and covered his ears. The 40mm. grenade penetrated, and the Terminator splashed out, going amoeba-shaped. It made strange, muffled noises as it tried to reform.

John found the lights, then reloaded the 12-gauge. Monk pointed to a room in one of the floor's corners, thirty yards down the corridor. It was locked with a metal door. "There, dammit. That's the AI Operations Center. Tony will tell you if I don't. Now you can go to hell, and Skynet with you. I don't care what happens. I never asked for this." A look of naked malice crossed her face. "From now on, I do whatever I like."

She broke away from them and ran into the lobby. There, she ran about in confusion, avoiding the T-XA, Anton, and the burning, stabbing laser light.

"She'll get over it," John said. "I guess she's upset." But it was anyone's guess what shape Monk would be in when this was all over. Meanwhile, he saw that the pseudo-man was still failing to reform. "What's wrong with it?"

"Selena," Danny said.

"Her nanoware?"

"Yes. It's trying to shut the T-XA down."

Without expression, Jade popped an impact grenade into the M-203 launcher on her rifle. She found an angle to aim at the AI room's steel door, taking cover as the grenade exploded with a huge boom!, shaking the floor beneath their feet.

"Please give us your keycards," Jade said to the guards. "We may need them. Then get out. Hide somewhere until it's safe to run." That made sense. The way these buildings worked, you could always get to the ground floor, card or no card. Anyone could exit-getting entry was the hard part. They handed over their cards, no longer even arguing, then ran down the corridor past the AI room, and round the corner, looking for another exit.

Sarah lugged the explosives to the AI Center as Danny said, "All right, team, it's showtime!"

Outside in the lobby, Anton still fought the T-XA's werecat component. He'd huddled into a corner when the grenade exploded, but he kept the werecat at a distance with the laser rifle's stabbing, burning light.

Suddenly, the werecat liquefied. Then there were two white pseudo-dogs in its place, bigger than Dobermans, with mouthfuls of three-inch metal teeth. One leapt for Anton, who kept his nerve and fired again, straight down its throat, as he stood and dodged past. He followed Monk into one of the elevators, just as its doors shut.

As Danny slammed shut the glass door between the offices and the lobby, the other dog struck it. The glass cracked, but didn't break. The pseudo-man managed to liquefy, going featureless, but still not reforming.

From the AI room came the sound of rifle fire. Go Mom, John thought. She'd be shooting up anything vulnerable to bullets.

The pseudo-dogs joined, morphed, and slithered like a mercury pancake into the office area, under the half-inch gap between the door and the carpet. John blasted at it with the 12-gauge, trying to stop it morphing any further. Danny and Jade joined in, firing bursts with their rifles. Outside, the pseudo-man had finally reformed, but it liquefied again and dove into the elevator shaft it had come from, probably following Anton and Monk.

They fought a losing battle against the pseudo-dogs. In a minute, they'd reformed, against all the bullets and shot being thrown at them. John, Danny, and Jade backed away, waiting for the dogs to leap, still firing, reloading, trying to keep them at a distance as long as possible, to give Sarah time. They worked their way down the corridor, keeping their faces to the dogs, maintaining the continual deafening fire, desperate for every second they could garner. Someone was always firing, while someone else reloaded.

Finally, John ran out of shot.

"Go and help Sarah!" Danny said to him.

"All right." He ran to the AI Center, which was not all that impressive-about fifteen feet square, with an aircon outlet in the ceiling, metal shelves full of cardboard cartons and electronic components. A long bench in the center was covered by monitors and black boxes, with a dozen ergonomic office chairs placed neatly around it. The room had tiny vertical slits for windows, and the helicopters patrolled outside, their spotlights intermittently shining in.

While they'd been fighting the pseudo-dogs, Sarah had trashed this place, shooting out the equipment, and she'd set up a radio-controlled detonator attached to blocks of plastic explosive, enough to wipe out a corner of this floor.

"We've gotta get out!" John said.

"All right. Give me a minute." She finished taping a block of explosive in place. This was almost a reprise of their first raid on Cyberdyne, back in '94. But this time, they had no chance to be thorough. It was just a matter of destroying what they could and hoping to give Cyberdyne a setback. If the company had back-ups of Monk's work, the struggle would have to go on.

"Mom, we don't have a minute."

"All right. That'll have to do." She passed him the detonator switch. "Take this," she said, then snatched up her rifle from the bench.

They ran out into the corridor as Jade fought with one of the pseudo-dogs, skin and flesh getting ripped from her arms. Danny still fired at the other dog, but it had backed him into a corner. The Specialists had the worst of it. In another few seconds, it would be over for them. With his free hand, John used his handgun to shoot "Danny's" dog. Sarah opened up on the other one with her rifle, not seeming to care if she hit Jade. Jade took some bullets, but the dog took more, breaking into crater wounds, and she tore away from it.

John and Sarah ran straight through the fighting, getting the nearest door open. Danny and Jade joined them, while the dogs melted together to form the liquid-metal werecat, which caught the door as it closed.

They headed to the nearest fire door, which was not locked from this direction, and ran down two flights of stairs before John detonated the explosives, back in the AI Center. The building rocked with a huge, satisfying ka~ boom!, but they never stopped running.

Above them, the werecat had entered the fire escape, and it headed toward them with bullet speed, leaping whole flights of stairs at a time. Danny suddenly pushed Sarah, then John, down a flight, and they landed, bruised and hurt—

----just as Jade loaded her grenade launcher.

Danny covered his ears and turned his body, as she fired an impact grenade into the werecat. As he turned back to see what happened, it landed on the stair railing and fell the remaining eight floors. The Specialists look unhurt, or almost so.

"That won't stop it for long," Jade said.

Danny got the nearest fire door open, struggling to break the lock to get back in. He was clearly getting weaker. Once more, they followed him back into the lobby.

"We need to get to the basement," he said. "That's where Anton's gone." He pressed the button for an elevator, which soon arrived. They swiped a keycard and headed down to the level marked "B."

They stepped out into an extraordinary area, a concrete room twenty feet high, and as long and wide as a football field. It was full of metal benches, arrays of monitors and other electronic equipment. John took it all in.

Anton. Dr. Monk. The pseudo-man.

Anton crawled in the corner formed by the wall and a bench of computer equipment His head hung down, he seemed exhausted beyond endurance. He was bleeding from many wounds, and his clothes were almost shredded. His M-16 and the laser rifle both lay on the floor in front of him. Evidently, he'd gotten a clear grenade shot at the pseudo-man, for it was backed against a wall on the other side, its head and upper body all squashed in. It tried desperately to reform: liquefying, then solidifying, turning inside out, then back again, never making much progress.

But none of that seemed extraordinary—not anymore. The extraordinary part was Rosanna Monk. She sat at a computer console, tapping away, seemingly unconcerned. Someone-Monk, presumably-had powered up the apparatus here, and the whole area vibrated from the work of subterranean engines. On one wall, four huge flatscreens showed different angles of the same futuristic scene: an enclosed, brilliantly lit space, a kind of vault. There was chunky, metal apparatus all round it, and a five-foot metal circle was recessed in the center of the floor. John couldn't make any sense of it, or what Monk was doing.

He watched the flatscreens carefully. In the center of the room was an opaque cubical block that reached almost to the ceiling. It was made of white ceramic bricks whose harsh lines were broken by a massive, round steel door in the nearest side. This hung open, mounted on huge hydraulic hinges. It looked like a blast door designed to deflect a nuclear explosion. Now it made sense. The screens depicted the inside of the cube. It was designed to contain enormous energies, and the screens were one way of observing them.

Jade and Danny took turns firing grenades into the pseudo-man, trying to break it down faster than it could reform, destroy it once and for all.

John ran over to Monk. "This is the time travel setup, isn't it?"

She nodded. "The space-time displacement field apparatus. The time vault."

"Can you control it?"

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"Only up to a point."

"Will you help us?"

"I might. You know I hate you, but you're right-it's not rational. I can disown it. I can do whatever I choose."

Great John thought. Whatever she'd choose... based on what, if not her hatred for human beings? Just her own wish to stay alive?

Sarah picked up the laser rifle, and fired on the pseudo-man, trying to melt it down once and for all while it was hurt. As she did so, the elevator opened again and another rapid-response team stepped out with M-16s: eight of them.

Jade blurred into action, firing with her own rifle as she rushed them, cutting some down with bullets to their legs, striking the others with swift blows. "I'm truly sorry for this," she said, disarming them all.

But that was the least of their worries.

The T-XA werecat appeared in the room, rising up from the floor near the elevator. It scanned the room in a single unblinking glance, then leapt at the pseudo-man, joining it in a liquid embrace. The whole thing became a single chrome globule, then reformed a second later as a huge man, eight feet tall. The T-XA seemed fine again. It must have a multiply-redundant intelligence distributed all through it, John thought, just like the T-1000 he'd fought in '94. That meant that some parts could be damaged, while others provided the backup. Now it had re-programmed itself from the werecat, discarding the corrupted data.

"The vault can't be used for time travel," Monk said. "It's still experimental. We're just testing the space-time displacement field."

"So what happens if we put something in there and turn it on?"

"It'll be scattered all across space and time. You can't use it to escape, if that's what you're thinking."

"No." He pleaded with her: "Help us, Rosanna. You know you should. You only hate us because of Skynet."

"I know that, but it doesn't stop me hating you."

"But it's irrational."

"I know that. That's why I'm going to show Skynet who's boss—just to prove I can."

"You figure that's rational?" he said.

"It's rational to love yourself. Skynet wants to kill me, along with the rest of you scum."

"If you say so, Rosanna. That's too deep for me."

"Whatever Skynet wants me to think, I don't deserve to die."

"Yeah. Deep."

The T-XA melted down to a rapidly rolling blob, moving towards Sarah at a rapid pace, even though she kept up the laser beam against it. Then it rose up in its giant man-form. It shook its head, evidently not liking the ferocious heat. Sarah stood her ground, but then it stabbed out with a spear shaft, growing from its stomach.

"No, Mom!" John ran to her. She'd ducked aside at the last moment, but the next attack might be the end of her.

Anton got to his feet, leveling his M-16/M-203 at the T-XA. He fired an automatic burst, taking the Terminator in its head, opening up crater wounds. But it didn't stop advancing on John and Sarah.

This really did look like the end.

Danny blurred and reached the T-XA. It moved equally fast, one of its arms stabbing out as a sword-shaft, transfixing him. But he bent and lifted it, almost off its feet. John wondered how much it weighed... all that metal. No one unenhanced could have budged it. Its other arm became a hook, swinging down from above and stabbing through him from the other side.

"Jade," Danny said. "Do what you must."

He was still under the T-XA, trying to lift it, almost succeeding. Jade blurred and hustled them both towards the time vault. They all staggered in there and fell. Jade was up first. Danny lay in a dead heap. Sarah wheeled and fired the laser rifle, slowing the Terminator down.

"Now!" John said. "Please, Rosanna!"

Monk tapped in a code.

Anton stood, taking aim, and fired another grenade at the T-XA. It struck home and the Terminator deformed from the explosion-yet reformed almost instantly. It seemed as powerful as ever. A long, spear-like shaft stabbed out from it, but the massive steel door slammed shut, cutting off the spear, and trapping the terminator inside. Monk kept tapping on the keyboard.

"Eat this, sucker," she growled.

The engines beneath them throbbed harder. The flatscreen showed crackling blue electricity filling the time vault like the lightning of Zeus. It played around the T-XA and Danny's dead body, consuming both of them.

Then it was gone.

John went to Sarah. "You okay, Mom?"

She nodded, fighting back tears of relief.

In the blink of an eye, Jade moved over to Monk, passing by John and Sarah without a word. Something fell inside him, a big stone of disappointment. Jade touched Monk on the shoulder. "You did well."

"I don't care what you think," Monk said, jerking away from Jade's touch. "I did it for myself, not for you."

Jade turned to John and Sarah. "Thank you both for everything."

John kept cool on the outside. "Hey, no problemo"

"I need a good meal," Anton said. He looked like he'd been chopped to pieces, then stitched together like Frankenstein's monster—which wasn't far from the truth. He reached out his hand and Sarah passed him the laser rifle. "Yes, thank you." He seemed happy to get hold of it.

Jade stared at the time vault with her usual sad expression. "We loved you, Daniel," she said. "Thank you, friend."

They had to get out of here fast.

"Come with us," Jade said to Monk. "We'll try to help you."

"Why do I need help?"

Sarah turned towards her, staring with hatred.

Monk met her gaze blankly. "I've just saved your blasted species-not that it's what I wanted. Don't look at me like that."

"It's your species, too," Sarah said. "Don't forget that." "Is it, really?" Monk said angrily. "Who cares? All right, I'll go with you. I'm probably safer with you than with Layton and the others."

They found a fire door that opened into a long tunnel.

"It's not over," Sarah said.

"No," John said. "But we did well."

The fight goes on, John. I hope we're up to it"

After fifty yards, the tunnel turned at 90°, then led up a flight of steps. At the top, another fire door opened to the outside world. Not far away, the helicopters droned and hovered like evil insects. Cops and military were everywhere, weapons ready to fire, but looking the wrong way.

"Quietly," John whispered. "If we're quick, we just might make it."

The dark sky looked down and the stars turned coldly, eternal and imperturbable. We don't care, they seemed to say. Do what you must John looked at Monk's eyes: they gave the same message. She now cared about nothing but herself. They'd been saved by a psychopath. What were they going to do with her?

First, they all had to get back to Enrique's Ford, then to his camp, without being followed. Put like that, he thought, it sounded easy.

Jade nodded in the direction of an empty police cruiser, parked slightly from the others. No one had spotted them yet. They just might pull this off.

She touched Sarah, who didn't flinch away, then gave John a smile that melted his heart.

"I'll be back," she said.

EPILOGUE

SKYNET'S WORLD

COLORADO

2029

Another freezing night—starless, moonless, like all the others. John and Juanita went one more time over the maps, set up on a table of trestles and boards in John's tent.

Tomorrow, they would cross the last line of mountains, into Skynet's territory, into the jaws of death. John expected to survive. If everything he knew was correct, they were still on target to defeat Skynet. He would live through that battle; in a sense, he had lived through it— that had been the word from the future. But what about Juanita? What about all the others? How many of them had to die?

Juanita was still a beautiful woman, with her dark hair, white teeth, strong features. He'd known her so long now: he remembered her as a child, as a long, skinny teenager, as a fierce warrior in her twenties. Had he always loved her? He could no longer remember. It felt like it had been forever.

Now she was talking about the war, the campaign, leaning over the table, pointing out routes and strategic points. "Juanita," he said.

His tone stopped her. She looked him in the eye. "John? What's wrong?"

Facing her, he put out both hands to take hers, looking for the words. He faltered. "Please. Tomorrow," The words wouldn't come. "Please, be very careful." He couldn't hold her eyes; he looked away. "Too many people have died..."

She stepped into his arms. "I know, John." She held him tightly, just for a moment, then stepped away. "I know. I'll be careful. You, too."

There was so much more he wanted to say, but that was all he could manage for now. For a long time, they simply looked at each other, neither willing to speak more.

They'd break through the defense grid, they'd penetrate Skynet's mountain. He had to send his father back in time. A terrible anticipation rolled in his stomach, tearing him. He wondered if they'd truly end it tomorrow. What other tricks did Skynet have in store? What might it know that he still didn't?

"Get some sleep, John," Juanita said finally. "There's a long day ahead of us."

"Juanita..."

"Yes...?"

He couldn't say it—not in so many words. "Just take care."

JOHN'S WORLD

COLORADO SPRINGS

AUGUST, 2001

Layton weighed it up. The outcome was hardly satisfactory The Connors had escaped. So had two of the Specialists from the future. The T-XA was gone. This was a setback. Losing the only working nanoprocessor was the least of it. Worst of all, Rosanna Monk had disappeared.

But there were consolations.

He rang Oscar Cruz on his cellphone. "I'm at the scene, Oscar," he said.

"And?" Oscar sounded excited, eager like a puppy. "What happened, Charles?"

Layton explained. Oscar was troubled, as might be ex-pected, but Layton stopped him. "It's not all bad news."

"No? Then give me the good news."

"We can act just as well without the T-XA. It might have been... inflexible."

"Yeah, I guess that might have been a problem.

"Yes." As Layton knew well, Oscar was a great believer in flexibility. "Skynet might be pleased overall, if it knew the outcome. We've lost the nanoprocessor, but we've made some gains-"

"What?"

"We have the body of a combat Specialist from the future. It will be full of useful technology. I'm sure Jack Reed will help us keep our hands on it."

"Good. What else?"

"We've found a small pool of programmable liquid metal. I want it reverse-engineered. That should keep your people busy.”

"Yes, Charles. Good." Oscar laughed quietly. "I'm sure you're right."

NORTHWEST OF CALEXICO, CALIFORNIA

In a sense, they'd lost. As Jade turned the Ford into Enrique's camp, John weighed it all up. Three of the Specialists were dead. Under pressure from the T-XA, they'd been less than thorough in the raid on Cyberdyne. Even if they'd destroyed the only working nanoprocessor, Cyberdyne must still have the design and other data. Somehow, someday, humankind seemed determined to create Skynet They'd only slowed it down, maybe not even by much.

What to do next? One thing: They had to contact Tarissa and Danny. After seeing Danny-the Danny of 2036-die, John just had to connect with them. Surely his mom would agree, not to mention Anton... and Jade.

It was daylight when they pulled up. Enrique came out to see them, Juanita tagging along. With them was someone new, a tough-looking woman with cropped white hair. She was nearly six feet tall, with a military bearing.

"Apparently this is a friend of yours," Enrique said. "You get around, don't you? All over the damned TV again."

"John Connor?" the woman said.

"Yes."

"My name is Eve. I've come from the future."

"That figures. Now what?"

"Which future?" Sarah said tiredly. "Or are they all the same?"

"I'm from 2029. A different reality from this."

"What?" John said. "2029?"

"I need to talk to you. We need your help. I warn you, however-I am a Terminator: Cyberdyne T-799 Cyborg Prototype Series."

The Eve Terminator appeared formidable, but it wasn't threatening them; not at the moment He looked at the others for support. If needed, Jade and Anton were probably its match.

"Who sent you?" John said.

The Terminator looked at him narrowly. "You did...."

The John Connor Chronicles continue in

Book 2: An Evil Hour,