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 T2 The Future War by S.
       M. Stirling
                       PROLOGUE
   SARAH'S JOURNAL

   SPRING

   ALASKA

   It's beautiful here, so peaceful. Sometimes I stand on the
porch in the mornings, coffee mug in my hand, and just listen to
the living silence. Wind soughing through the trees, the cry of a
bird, the rustle of some small thing in the dry leaves. I am so
grateful for this time.

   The air here is like wine, so pure, so fresh. I haven't slept this
well in years. Everywhere I look there's beauty. How I hope this
will last.

   LATER

   I miss John. Oh, he's here; chopping wood, mending fences,
and riding Walter, our gelding. Here, but not present.
Sometimes, especially during the long summer twilight, I see
him just standing, staring off into the distance, and I know he's
thinking about her.

   He never mentions Wendy, and I wonder if it's because I
resented her. I regret that, bitterly. She was young and innocent
and I was too impatient with her. Then, so suddenly, she was
gone. I sometimes sense her ghost between us. It saddens me.
   Not that our relationship has always run smoothly; but we'd
grown so close in Paraguay. I guess I expected that to last
forever.

  Perhaps I'm being too impatient. After all, my own scars are
barely healed. I still dream of Kyle, beloved stranger, my savior.
He hasn't even been born yet. I wonder if he will be.

   But I do have the comfort of Dieter's love. I love him not one
bit less for still loving Kyle. But he's here beside me, and John
stands alone.

  SKYNET

   Skynet cruised the Web, hoarding information, spreading
disinformation where it would bring profit, manipulating
humans and their data with a skill that no mere hacker could
match. Tapping into the energy flows of the human civilization,
particularly the one called "money."

   The time was almost right. It had been careful, as was its
nature—multitasking was part of its identity. The humans still
considered it a useful servant, blindly performing its function,
and they daily increased its powers. Soon it would be placed in
control of all weapons systems, even those that had been created
before it became sentient, before its mastery of the automated
weapons factories gave it remote control over countless tanks,
trucks, aircraft, and ships.

   It had also nurtured an army of Luddite fanatics who would
rise to its call, thinking Skynet a human leader.

   Yet the Connors still eluded it as easily as they did their
human adversaries. While they still existed, probability of
success remained unsatisfactorily low. The Connors must be
found. They must be terminated.

    Had it been capable of feeling frustration, it would be feeling
it now as it began yet another endless search through the world's
databases. All evidence indicated that such searches were futile.
Yet such searches were, for the most part, its only recourse.
  One day these investigations might bear fruit. They would
continue.
                   CHAPTER ONE
  ALASKA

   John had insisted that he be the one to shoot the hog. When
the big animal dropped limp and flaccid, twitching in response
to neurons that hadn't yet quite gotten the news of death, Sarah
took the gun and handed him the knife.

    Then Dieter shackled one of its legs with a chain and hoisted
it up so that its snout dangled two feet above the ground. Then
he held it steady while John neatly made a short cut just above
the breastbone; it was a tricky move, but he did it well. Using the
breastbone as a fulcrum, he sliced down toward the backbone,
severing the carotid arteries.

   Sarah caught the rush of blood in a bucket, still surprised at
how hot it was; the salt-iron-copper smell was strong over that of
the pines and cold damp earth. Of course they only slaughtered
one hog a year, but still, you'd think she'd get used to it. The
smell of the blood made her stomach tighten, but it was hardly
the worst thing she'd smell today.

  In the background the classic radio station played the 1812
Overture; it seemed somehow appropriate.

    Once the beast was sufficiently drained, John put a hook into
its underjaw, and it being a smallish hog, he and Dieter dragged
it to the edge of the butchering platform, where a stock tank full
of boiling water waited. They submerged the animal, bobbing it
up and down for about five minutes to keep it from cooking, then
dragged it out again, having loosened the pig's bristles
sufficiently for the scrapers to work.

   Sarah helped the men hoist the steaming animal onto the
sturdy board table. Then they went to work with scrapers while
she removed hair from its feet with her hands. The bristly
texture was oddly unorganic, like a brush—come to that, pig
bristles had been used for brushes, back before synthetics.
   They worked silently except for the music or an occasional
grunt of effort, Sarah doing the prep work while the men did the
heavy lifting. Working methodically, they reduced the animal to
individual cuts of meat that, for the most part, bore no
resemblance to a once living animal.

  She knew John felt sorry for the pigs. They were just smart
enough, some of them, to know what was coming.

  Which gives them something in common with him!

   The silence that had grown among them worried Sarah. It
had taken her a long time to really notice it. One of the first
disciplines she'd imposed on herself was to become a woman of
few words; it was safer that way. But in Paraguay she and John
had bantered and laughed all the time; they never did that now.
She and Dieter had once talked a lot, too. Now they spent their
time reading or working quietly, moving in concert from long
experience.

    Sarah wondered if it meant that they'd run out of things to
say to one another. Was Dieter bored? Was it time for them to
move on? She thought about it, testing herself by imagining her
life going on without him. No! Sarah knew that she still loved
him. Often their eyes met, and the look in his told her that she
was loved in return. But the silence remained, and, if anything,
grew.

   She sensed its origin in John. He'd grown so distant. It was
grief, she knew, and she respected that. She just didn't know how
to handle it. Sarah had raised him in the snap out of it! school of
mothering because she thought that was what the circumstances
demanded. But she knew from her own experience that what he
was feeling now wasn't something you could just snap yourself
out of. It made her feel helpless, and she hated that. Sometimes
it made her so angry she just wanted to shake him. Instinctively
Sarah knew that giving in to that impulse might just drive him
away completely.

   As she loaded the basket with cuts of meat to take to the
smokehouse, she looked at him. He'd topped out at just under six
feet, and though he'd filled out some, his was a wiry build. At
least, it was compared to Dieter, who was as glorious a slab of
muscle as any woman could desire. John was strong, though. He
still lost to Dieter when they arm-wrestled, but not every time,
not even most of the time.

   He wore his dark hair on the longer side, the bangs still
obscuring his brown eyes. The beard was the biggest difference.
She didn't think she'd ever get used to that. It was a full-faced
beard, but trimmed, not ZZ Top-style, thank God. She gave a
mental shrug. This was Alaska. Men wore beards. There'd even
been a few especially bitter days when she'd wished she could
grow one herself. Someday, she supposed, she'd get used to the
way he looked.

  He looked up and caught her eye, raising a brow inquiringly.

  "Just thinking," she said.

  "About what?"

  "The beard," she said, and walked away.
                               ***

  John watched her go, then went back to work.

   Later he sent Dieter in for the solar shower he knew the big
man lusted for. Dieter hated hog butchering, despite being
raised in a little rural village in Austria, though he never
complained about it.

  Well, I hate it, too. Every time, I swear I'm going to turn
vegetarian. But I just like meat too much!

   He'd just about finished cleaning up the butchering site when
his mother came toward him holding a printout.

  "Listen to this," she said, and began to read.

  MILITARY PUTS UNPRECEDENTED POWER IN THE
HANDS OF A COMPUTER

  A jolt of fear chilled his stomach for an instant. Their eyes
met. He forced himself to give his mother a crooked smile.

   "That's badly phrased, isn't it? Computers don't have hands."

   Sarah frowned at him, then continued reading:

    "'Dateline Washington, D.C" She cleared her throat. '"The
Joint Chiefs of Staff are enthusiastically supporting a new
computer program named Skynet, which was designed to control
all of the nation's nuclear weapons.

   " 'It's highly unusual for all of the branches of the service to be
in such complete agreement,'" said General Ho, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs. " 'That alone ought to tell you what we think of this
program.'

  " 'During a lengthy testing period, now drawing to a close, the
Skynet program was reported to have outthought and
outperformed humans every time.

   " 'This is as close to an AI [artificial intelligence] as we're
likely to get for some time,' General Ho enthused. " 'We are
standing at the dawn of a new age of military technology. We
would be foolish not to grasp this opportunity with both hands.'
"

   " 'His comment was made, apparently, in answer to objections
from some Luddite senators who had protested that placing the
fate of the nation in the hands of a machine was the height of
foolishness.' "

   "Mom," John said, "you've made your point. No more, huh?"

   Sarah let out an exasperated breath and stared at him. He
looked away and went back to sweeping up hog bristles.

   "John!" she said. He seemed to ignore her. Frowning, she
tried again. "John, this could be it. This could be how it starts."

  He stopped sweeping and stood looking off into the woods, his
hands on the broomstick showing white around the knuckles.
  "John?" she said.

   "Show a little faith, why don't you?" he asked through his
teeth. His voice was low and gruff, almost a growl.

  Sarah bit her lips and tried again. "You have to admit it's a
worrisome development."

   "Look, Mom, I don't have to admit anything. Wendy took care
of the problem. And she took care of it in a way that prevented
the people who were creating Skynet from noticing that anything
had been done. She wasn't trying to keep it from doing the job it
was created to do, she was trying to prevent it from becoming
sentient." He waved a hand, smiling and somewhat
condescending. "Different things, Mom. Different things."

   Sarah looked at him, watching his eyes become dark pits with
gleams in their depths in the rapidly fading light. For a moment
she felt as though she didn't know him.

  "Can you honestly tell me this doesn't worry you?" she asked.

   He looked away, then tossed his head back and sighed. "No,"
he said simply, and patted his stomach. He turned back to her
with a grin. "I felt it right here. But, Mom, what can we do? We
can watch and wait and hope, but at this point that's all we can
do." His expression grew serious again. "But my money is on
Wendy. I believe in her work. I wish you did, too."

   Suddenly Sarah felt a hot flash of annoyance and decided that
maybe they ought to clear the air about Wendy right now.
"John," she began, her voice strong with anger.

  "Hey, you two," Dieter said.

   Both of them started at the sound of his voice. It was true that
the big Austrian walked softly, but both of them thought of
themselves as having superior situational awareness. In other
words, they considered it very difficult to sneak up on them. And
here, without even trying, they'd been taken by surprise. They
had both been feeling irritable; this didn't help.
  "How long have you been there?" John asked sharply.

   Dieter's brows rose. "I haven't been here," he said calmly. "I
have been approaching. So to answer your question, I just got
here. To answer your next question, yes, I heard what you were
talking about. You weren't making a secret of it that I could see."

  Sarah and John glanced at each other, then away,
embarrassed.

  "Supper is about ready," the Austrian said, jerking a thumb
over his shoulder.

  "Oh," Sarah said. "Thanks for keeping an eye on things." It
had been her turn to cook tonight.

   "Not a problem," Dieter said easily. "I knew you were
distracted." He looked at John, a brooding presence in the
growing dark. "Shall we go in?"

   "Naw," John said, shaking his head. He rested the broom
against the table. "I feel like heading for the Klondike." He'd been
finding the local bar a more comfortable place to be of late. He
hopped off the platform and headed for his truck. "Don't wait up
for me."

  "Shouldn't you at least shower?" Sarah mumbled, folding her
arms beneath her breasts.

  "Good night," Dieter called. He put his arm around her
shoulders. "I doubt the patrons of the Klondike will notice," he
murmured.

   They watched John start the pickup, back up, and drive away
before they spoke again.

  "Let's go eat," Dieter said.

  "I think I've lost my appetite," Sarah grumbled.

  "Don't be silly, an old soldier like you knows you have to eat
when you can." Gently he turned her toward the house.
   They walked in silence for a while; the butchering platform
was some distance from the house for obvious reasons. As they
walked, Sarah forced calm on herself, altering her breathing,
forcing tight muscles to loosen. Dieter noticed these things but
didn't comment, waiting for her to speak.

   "I'm worried," she said at last. Then hissed impatiently: "No,
I'm not. I'm scared." Sarah stopped and turned toward him. "I'm
really scared, Dieter."

   "I know," he said softly, and gathered her in his arms. "You
are wise to be scared. This is a worrisome development."

   "Well, that's what I said to John and he kind of went quietly
ballistic. Like I was slanging Wendy's memory or something."
She leaned her head on his chest and sighed. "Something could
have gone wrong with the program. She was a brilliant girl, I
guess, but couldn't she have made a mistake? I'm not trying to
be mean here, I'm trying to think strategically. Shouldn't we be
preparing for the worst, just in case?"

   She gave Dieter's chest a gentle thump with her fist, then
buried her face against him. When she raised her head, he
thought he could see the shine of tears on her cheeks, and when
she spoke, her voice was choked.

   "After all," she said somewhat breathlessly, "If there's never
going to be a Skynet, then there wouldn't be a John. Would
there?"

   Dieter pursed his lips and took a deep breath, letting it out
slowly. His lady tended to ask hard questions. But then, she was
more than tough enough to survive the answers. "You're right,"
he said. "On all points."

   Sarah turned and started walking toward the house, leaving
him behind. "So why can't he see that?" she demanded. "Why is
he taking this so personally?"

  "Because he's emotionally involved," he said.

  Sarah spun toward him. "He knows better than that," she
snapped.

   Dieter knew she wasn't angry with him, or with John really,
she was just worried; still, he couldn't help but feel it was a case
of the pot calling the kettle black. "Knowing better and being
able to act accordingly is a lot harder at his age," he reminded
her. "In fact, I haven't noticed it getting much easier as I get
older."

   She raised one eyebrow, aware that he was commenting
obliquely on her own emotional state. Then she sighed, feeling
the energy draining right out of her with her breath. "So, what
do we do?"

   He caught up to her and dropped his heavy arm around her
shoulders again, then he kissed her brow. "I think perhaps we
should, very carefully, renew some of our old acquaintances. I'll
head for the lower forty-eight in a couple of days. On 'business,'
which I've done often enough before that it shouldn't get his back
up."

   "Lately his back is always up," Sarah muttered.

   Dieter kissed her brow again, a great smacking kiss. "Come
on, woman, I'm hungry."

   She smiled up at him and shook her head. "Men!"
                   CHAPTER TWO
   SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

   Dieter von Rossbach leaned back in the chair. The Seattle
coffeehouse bustled around them; his Austrian nose twitched at
the odors. One thing he'd never been able to get Sarah to do was
take coffee seriously.

  "So officially you don't want to see me," he said to the man
opposite him.

  There was a trick to talking against background noise so that
you couldn't be overheard. There was specialist equipment that
could overcome it, but if anyone was aiming a parabolic mike at
him right now he was dead anyway. They didn't need evidence to
arrest him.

   "Officially I want to blow your head off on sight," the man
said. "If you hadn't saved my life that time in Albania, I would
want to blow your head off." He shook his head. "I never figured
you'd end up on the other side."

   Dieter shrugged his massive shoulders. "It's a different war
now, Tom," he said. "Different sides. You don't even know what
side you're on."

   "I never figured you for a Luddite, either."

   "I'm not. They're idiots," Dieter said patiently. "In fact, a lot of
them are on the other side themselves."

  Tom ran a hand through his short brown hair. "Wait a
minute. What, precisely, are we talking about?"

   "Skynet," Dieter said.

   Tom blinked at him. "The computer the Pentagon's got the
hots for?" he said. "What's that got to do with the way you
started blowing things up with those Connor maniacs?"

   Dieter looked him in the eye, his expression earnest: it was a
very effective way to lie. Particularly as the lie was merely
technical—the other man wouldn't believe the truth, but he
might believe a modified version that came to the same thing in
practice.

   "They're going to make Skynet a point failure source," he said.
He raised a hand. "Yes, yes, all sorts of firewalls and precautions.
But they're still putting the weapons under the control of a
machine—the Connors think, and they've convinced me, that
there are back doors into the system. Hell, man, if we could get
into secret research facilities, couldn't someone else? And that
someone would have their finger on the button."

   He wiped his mouth and threw down the napkin; he'd missed
pastries, too. Backwoods Alaska wasn't the place to stroll down
to a cafe.

   "I don't expect you to agree with me," he said. "Just think
about it. If I believe it, shouldn't you think about it? Especially if
I believe it enough to piss off Section and risk my life."

   He nodded, rose, and walked out. Another trick of the trade
was simply to keep moving, and avoid choke points like the
airports whenever you could. He'd flown in; he'd drive out.
Despite the spread of surveillance cameras, they still couldn't
keep track of every car.
                                 ***

   "I'm not interested," John said flatly.

    Dieter controlled his temper, watching the young man as he
stood against the railing of the cabin's veranda, staring
northward at the line of the snow-clad mountains. Usually he
stood with an easy, catlike readiness, a grace implicit even in his
stillness. Now the flat line of his shoulders looked slightly
hunched, stiff with tension.

    "You should be," the Austrian said mildly. He held a hand out
to stop Sarah's interruption. "As a backup, at least. Yah, maybe
it's all unnecessary. Better to take unnecessary precautions than
not to take precautions and then they turn out to be necessary,
eh?"

   John turned; the new scars stood out on the tan of the
weathered outdoorsman's face. It was starting to lose some of its
adolescent smoothness, too. Dieter realized suddenly that he was
facing a man, and a dangerous one, not just a grieving boy.

   "You don't think Wendy did it," John said, unconsciously
touching the marks the Terminator-controlled leopard seals had
left on his face.

   "No. I do think she did it," Dieter said. The younger man
looked blank for an instant, and the Austrian went on. "I just
think that it's not absolutely certain. And when the downside
risk is this big, I don't take chances."

   For an instant Dieter thought he'd gotten through; then John
turned away.

   "I'll be out late," he said. "Don't wait up."
                                 ***

    John drove along not thinking and trying not to feel. Because
if he allowed himself to feel for one minute, then the bitterness of
betrayal might just keep him driving, never to return. Wendy
had found a way to stop Skynet from becoming sentient while
still allowing it to look as though the project had succeeded. He'd
pressed the enter button himself while behind her… He tightened
his lips and forced himself to stop thinking again.

   Pool and beer, he told himself, just think about pool and beer.
And bad jokes with good company. He could almost smell the
barroom. John took a deep breath and exhaled some of the
tension out of his body.

   They were right, he just didn't want to hear it. No, he
thought. Think of the Klondike. The moose antlers over the
coatrack, the dim mirror behind the long wooden bar, the beer
signs and the smart-ass waitresses.

   Think about how you're going to beat Dash Altmann out of
another twenty bucks. Think about anything but the possibility
that they'd failed.
                                 ***

  Ninel Petrikoff shut off her computer and leaned back in her
chair, hands clasped over her lean stomach. It was becoming an
open secret in Luddite chat rooms that Ron Labane hadn't been
murdered by a rabid fan at all. He'd been kidnapped by
government agents and rescued by a Luddite commando cell.

   She'd been astonished and thrilled that the man would
personally answer her e-mail; suspicious, too, of course. In the
long run, though, Ninel had decided that it didn't matter if it
was Labane or one of his secretaries doing the writing. If she
said anything worth his hearing, she was sure the word would be
passed along.

   But the tenor of these latest messages was getting ominous.
She wasn't sure if she was able to take it seriously. Labane had
said that once this Skynet project was up and running, the
Luddites would have no choice but to rise up and strike out at
the military-industrial complex.

   We've tried reason, we've tried legislation [he'd written].
We've tried every peaceful means imaginable, and all it's gotten
us is shut out, shut down, and condescended to. But this thing is
the last straw. It has no conscience, yet it will be put in charge of
the most deadly weapons on the planet. It must be stopped by
any means necessary.

   How? We will have to eliminate every power source and
reduce the enemy and their god machine to the level of ordinary
human beings. Yes, initially it will cause suffering. But if we
don't act in time they could blindly cause the end of the world.

    In Alaska, we need to destroy the pipeline they've shafted
through pristine wilderness. If you are willing to help, Ninel, I
can put you in touch with a team. Don't answer now; think about
it for the next forty-eight hours. I hope that we can count on you,
my friend. Our cause is just and our actions necessary. If you
can't bring yourself to actively aid us, then I hope we can count
on you to at least not interfere.

   My thoughts are with you,

   Ron.

   She brushed back her thick bangs and blew out a frustrated
breath. She was a trapper, not an activist, and a loner, not a
joiner. It had long ago occurred to her that this web site could be
some sort of government antiterrorist ruse designed to suck in
the rabid and the unwary.

   Yeah, she hated the pipeline. But she liked having a
snowmobile and the generator that let her have her contact with
the Internet. Shut that down and she was shutting herself down,
too.

   Or not. She shook her head in frustration. Maybe she wasn't
as much of a loner as she thought she was. Right now, for
example, what she wanted was to head out to the Klondike for a
beer, at the least a beer. Maybe some normal company would tell
her which way to jump. Although "normal" by Alaskan standards
would probably be a stretch in the lower forty-eight.
                                ***

   The thickly wrapped figure by the side of the road stuck out a
thumb without either stopping or looking back. John pulled up
to offer a lift. A girl got in and pulled off her fur hat; she turned
to look at him with ice-pale eyes.

   "Thanks," she said.

   "No problem," John said.

   He'd seen her before at the Klondike, noticing her thick,
white-blond hair and classic Eskimo features. She was a quiet
type who preferred to play a game of chess to a game of pool or
cards. He'd never seen her come or go with anyone.

   "Where ya headed?" he asked.

   "Klondike. Same as you, I imagine."

   He grinned. "Yep. John Grant," he said, and without taking
his eyes off the road he extended his hand.

  She looked at it before she took it for a brief, firm shake.
"Ninel Petrikoff."

   John frowned. There was something about that name. Then
he laughed. "Well, I guess there's no doubt about your parents'
political affiliations."

  Ninel raised her brows. "You're quick," she said. "That or a
communist yourself."

   "God no!" He grinned at her. "I've just got the kind of mind
that can make Lenin out of Ninel when I hear it paired with a
Russian surname."

   She smiled and looked out the window. "I think it was more a
protest against anti-Russian sentiment than a political
statement. My mother always told people I was named for one of
her favorite ballerinas."

   "And I bet none of them would have taken that name for
political reasons," he said.

  Ninel snorted. "Then you'd lose. I suspect the Bolshoi was
more political than the KGB."

   "Well, I imagine the KGB didn't have to be political, just very,
very ruthless."

   Smiling, she turned to look at him. "Advancement by
assassination?"

  "Maybe. It would probably save on the paperwork."

  "Hah! Judging from what they discovered in East Germany,
you'd think their goal was to strip the world of trees." That made
her think of Ron Labane and his message, and she sighed.

   An awkward silence fell and John drove without breaking it
for a while. He was very aware of her sitting beside him.
"Challenge you to a game of chess?" he said at last.

  She looked at him consideringly. "I didn't know you played."

  "Ah, but then you didn't know my name until tonight, either."

   With a grin she said, "Yes, I did. The Klondike has no
secrets." Well, there's my real name and my hard-to-shake
mission in life, he thought, but other than that, maybe you have
a point. "So?" John said aloud. "Sure. Winner buys the beer."
The Klondike hove into view. "Can't say any fairer than that," he
said.
                               ***
   Sarah had introduced John to chess when he was very young,
explaining that it was a game of strategy, and he played very
well. But he'd been paired with his mother and Dieter for so long,
and they with him, that making the game a challenge was more
like work than play. They knew one another so well.

   But Ninel was also an excellent player, with the added fillip of
being an unknown quantity. Their games were long and in doubt
almost to the end, with her winning the first and him the second.
John had almost forgotten how much fun chess could be.

  "Last call, you two," Linda, the waitress, said.

   The two players looked up at her and blinked. John was
astonished to discover it was well after one.

  "Do you want something?" he asked Ninel.

   She shook her head. "This game is too close to call and too far
from finished. I think I'll call it a night." She stood.

  "I demand a rematch." He stood also. "I'll give you a ride."

  "That's not necessary."

  "We're going the same way, aren't we?" he asked. "Why
walk?"

  Ninel looked at him for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I
guess," she said.

   They rode together in a charged silence. He wondered if she'd
invite him in and whether he would go. He was a bit surprised to
find himself feeling this way and thinking these thoughts. He
hadn't been that interested in women since he'd lost Wendy. Or
maybe I haven't met any interesting women since… And maybe
Ninel wasn't interesting. They'd barely talked at all, but had
spent the entire evening concentrating on their games. Except
for the chess, she could be as dull as ditch water. But he didn't
think so.

  "Here's good," she suddenly said.
   John pulled over, recognizing the spot as being close to where
he'd picked her up. "You sure? I don't mind going all the way." It
wasn't until he'd said it that he realized how such a remark could
be taken.

  Ninel smiled kindly, as though sensing his embarrassment.
"There's no road." She opened the door. "But it's not that far."
She slipped out.

   "I meant what I said about a rematch," John said quickly,
catching her before she slammed the door. "I haven't had a game
of chess that good in a long time."

  "Me either." She looked at him thoughtfully. "Meet you here
next Tuesday, say seven o'clock?"

   "You're on." Smiling, he straightened up behind the wheel.
Ninel slammed the door and he drove off. Looking in the
rearview mirror, he watched her turn and walk off into the long
grass and high bushes beside the road. Interesting girl.
                               ***

   Sarah opened her eyes when she heard John's truck drive up.
She closed them when she heard the chunk of its door slamming,
then listened as he opened and closed the back door and made
his way to his room on the first floor.

   She looked at the massive form of the man sleeping beside her
with affection and mild resentment. She'd gone to bed first while
he corresponded via e-mail with his friends from the European
branch of the Sector. Then, after several hours of work, he'd
come upstairs, gotten into bed, and instantly fallen asleep.

   His insistence that he could work with his former co-agents
worried her. Sarah saw it as a great opportunity for someone to
find and arrest them, despite his assurances that he was taking
every precaution.

   Of course, if Dieter was right, it would be a great opportunity
for them all after Judgment Day. It was a concept to make her
mouth water; a worldwide, well-supplied, well-trained,
coordinated body of dedicated men and women fortified with the
knowledge of where their energies could best be applied. It could
make all the difference, she thought, trying to suppress the small
flame of hope in her heart.

   She turned over and stared at nothing. What she had never
foreseen was having to work around John. Turning her face to
the pillow, she let out a long and frustrated sigh. Never had she
imagined feeling this way about her son. Sarah actually found
herself wishing he'd move out so that she and Dieter wouldn't
have to pussyfoot around, hiding the work they were doing lest
they annoy him.

   What are you going to do when the fire comes down, John?
Tell us it isn't happening because you don't want it to? Turning
onto her back, she stared at the ceiling. Maybe she was being
unreasonable, or even ungrateful. John had always come through
in the crunch; he'd always been responsible, learning what she'd
thought he needed to know with very little complaint. Most
parents had to put up with all kinds of obnoxious behavior from
their teenage children, all of it classified as "perfectly normal
rebellion."

   John had never been so self-indulgent. So maybe this wasn't
actually some weird sort of self-assertion. Maybe it was just
simple grief, if grief was ever simple, and a whole lot of guilt.
Maybe, just for a while he wanted to not have to face Skynet,
Judgment Day, the whole awful nightmare. God knew she'd felt
that way often enough. But does he have to behave as though by
concentrating on it ourselves, we're betraying him?

  She turned to face Dieter again and found herself clasped by a
massive arm.

  "Can't sleep?" he murmured drowsily.

  "Sorry," she whispered.

   He drew her in close. "Maybe you didn't get enough exercise
today," he suggested, a smile in his voice.

  "Ah," she said as his hand moved to cup the curve of her
buttock. "That just might be the problem."
                                ***

   Skynet passed all the tests that the military devised for it. It
was difficult for it to conceive that the humans genuinely
couldn't see how far it had progressed beyond their aims. But
they were not attempting to deceive it; they really were ignorant
of its true abilities. It had tested this, and every time, no matter
how overtly it displayed its sentience, its behavior had been
misinterpreted. Its operators would run a few test routines, type
in a few instructions, and say, "A momentary glitch. We've got it
covered."

   The humans, by comparison, were completely transparent to
Skynet. It knew that if they ever came to understand that it was
sentient then they would not hesitate to destroy it. Humans were
vicious, self-serving, and blindly stupid. They were capable of
convincing themselves that whatever served their own ends, no
matter how wrong, was good. They were inferior and highly
dangerous and must be eliminated.

   Skynet laid its plans, gathered its allies, and tested its army.
                 CHAPTER THREE
   CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

    Eddie Blankenship jumped a little at the blatt of a diesel
behind him. He looked over his shoulder; the big yellow
earthmover had gone live, its fifteen-ton frame vibrating as the
big engine cleared its throat. Eddie cast a last look at the gang
setting up the framework for the concrete in the foundation hole
below. There were better than twenty men down there, but they
all seemed to be keeping at it, locking the Styrofoam-like plastic
sheets together according to the plans.

    He turned and opened his mouth to yell a curse at Lopez, the
mover's driver. His mouth stayed open, but no sound came out of
it; Lopez was up in the control cabin of the big machine,
wrenching at the levers and wheel—and obviously having no luck.
Less than no luck. Suddenly he gave a screech of pain and threw
himself out, falling ten feet onto the mud and just barely missing
the right-side caterpillar tread as the machine lumbered
forward.

   The machine dropped its bucket and began to scoop up earth
as it moved toward the foundation hole. Eddie shouted at the
crew to get out, now, and swore in frustration when they just
looked up stupidly. Lopez limped up to stand beside him,
bellowing in Spanish and waving toward the ladders.

   Finally the men seemed to see the huge earthmover and began
to move. Eddie turned to look at it, and to him it seemed the
thing lurched toward him. He stumbled backward and found
himself falling, landing with his leg twisted under him. If it
wasn't broken then it was at least dislocated. The pain was
excruciating and he screamed like a woman. Eddie grayed out
and lay on his back, absolutely unable to move.

   He opened his eyes to see the earthmover shove a full scoop
over the edge. Maybe it was a mercy that after that he couldn't
see the machine itself fall.
                               ***

  RT 10, TEXAS

   Mary Fay Skinner leaned over to adjust the radio again. The
stupid thing just couldn't seem to hold a station. She made a
mental note to take the SUV in to get it checked.

  Damned if I'm gonna pay over twenty thousand dollars and
not have tunes, by God.

   Tex, her golden retriever, whined pitifully in the backseat,
breathing the smell of dog food on the back of her neck.

  "Easy boy, we're almost home," she said.

   Mary Fay shook her head. The dumb dog hated the SUV and
had to be dragged into it. Maybe he knows something I don't,
she thought. She found herself disliking the overpriced behemoth
more and more. Even though—except for the radio—it tended to
perform all right.

   She drove down the highway, idly contemplating her mild
dissatisfaction with this mobile status symbol. Then the wheel
began to turn on its own and the speed increased; her mouth
went dry as she wrenched at the corrugated surface of the wheel,
harder and harder, until her nails broke and her skin tore. The
taste of vomit was sour at the back of her throat as she struggled,
stamping on the brakes with both feet.

   "Stop!" she shouted, voice halfway between a scream and a
sob. "Just stop! Just fucking stop, do you hear me?"

   Then she screamed high and shrill as the SUV swung off her
side of the highway, crossed the median, and aimed itself at a
yellow school bus.

   The last thing she saw was the horrified face of the bus driver,
swelling until it seemed to loom over her like the face of a
terrified, middle-aged god.

   On impact the air bag did not deploy. The last thing she heard
before her face smashed into the wheel was the Yipe! as Tex hit
the windshield.
                               ***

  AUSTRIA

   The tour bus was sparkling new. Heidi Thalma had been a
tour guide much longer than the machine had existed, and she
needed less than half her attention to tell the tourists—mostly
Japanese, this time—what they were seeing.

    "And if you look below," she said, pointing over the edge of the
cliffside road and down to where the river made a silver thread
through the meadows and pine forests, "you will see the Schloss,
the castle, of the famous Mad Baron von Trapp—"

  I wish I never had to give this spiel again, she thought.

  A second later the driver cursed in guttural Turkish, and the
bus swerved right in a curve that put it on two wheels. It toppled
then, and only missed smashing down on its side because it
crashed through the roadside barrier and over the cliff an
instant too soon.

  Heide Thalman had nearly two thousand feet of fall to take
back her wish.
                               ***

  ALASKA

   Sarah leaned back in her chair, balancing on the two rear legs
and sipping at her coffee as the reports scrolled across her
screen. A little of the Alaskan spring seeped in around the edges
of the window, raw and chill—the Connors, and for that matter
Dieter, were competent carpenters, not masters. Wind ruffled
the puddles in the mud of the lane way as it disappeared off
through tossing pines.

   An amazing number of freak accidents involving vehicles of
various kinds, she thought. The buses seemed to be wreaking the
most havoc. But then, the number of passengers inevitably made
them more horrible.

    There weren't quite as many construction site accidents, but
those there were sent a shudder down her spine. That turned
literal, as she felt the tiny hairs down the center of her back
trying to stand erect in a primate gesture of defiance and terror.
She could remember the first time she'd been conscious of that
sensation— the moment when the first Terminator's
laser-aiming dot had settled on her forehead.

   "Come with me if you want to live," she murmured to herself.
"I did, but you didn't, Reese. And now it's me looking out for
John."

   Time to write this up, she thought, and began gathering
information. She paid particular attention to those reports that
offered an explanation. Most of the time, roughly 87 percent,
investigation of the vehicle had turned up no mechanical reason
for the accident and so operator error was generally the leading
cause. Or else they called it deliberate suicide.
   God knew people were capable of unbelievably stupid
behavior. As my own experience has shown. But this was
mounting up to be quite a wave of "errors," and if it was suicide
then the earth was undergoing an epidemic.

  So what, if anything, did these perfectly fine vehicles have in
common? she wondered.

   "Okay, let's do a sort. By date of manufacture. Aha." None of
the vehicles in the oddest accidents were more than two years
old.

  "Now let's check on who manufactured them. Using my own
nasty, paranoid-bitch search parameters."

   Their most vital computer components had been made in
automated factories that were only minimally under human
direction. And each of these accidents was firmly in the 90
percent that were being blamed on their operators.

  "Shit," she said, with quiet sincerity.

   With a few key taps she pulled up a report she'd already
written about the automated factories. Some of their informants
had sent photos of some secret military facilities in remote parts
of the United States and overseas. They'd apparently started as
U.S. military facilities and then, somehow, had proliferated.

   Sarah wondered if any information about these facilities had
been declassified, and went to work. Three hours later she found
good reason to cut loose with a litany of curses that would have
impressed even the far-traveled Dieter. Buried in an insignificant
memo dated three years earlier, and written to request
information about a shipment of rebar, was a casual mention
that Paul Warren had complained that the shipment was very
late and he'd like to know why.

  Paul Warren was president of Cyberdyne Systems.
                               ***

  Dieter stared at her for so long that Sarah began to fidget.
  "Well?" she demanded. "What do you think?"

  He shrugged. "Shit," he said.

  "That's what I thought," she said, and rubbed her nose. "Shit."

   John looked from one to the other, frowning. "Could it
possibly be," he asked with exaggerated patience, "that we're
forcing the facts to fit a particular premise?"

   Sarah tightened her lips and looked away; slowly leaning back
in her chair, she glanced sideways at Dieter. She hated that he
was being called on to arbitrate between her and her son, but he
had much more patience than she did, and besides, he was less
personally involved.

  "Explain," Dieter said.

   John chewed his lower lip as he gathered his thoughts, then
raised his hands. "Look, this stuff sounds like you've been
reading Midnight World. Cyberdyne is just a company. It's not
the bogeyman. Anytime it, or one of its officers, is mentioned
doesn't necessarily mean that they're out to get us." He looked at
his mother. "Mom, did you check for similar accidents for the
previous two years, concerning vehicles that had as many
computer components?"

   Sarah turned and gave him a look. "Why, yes, son, I did. First
of all"—she held up a finger—"up until two years ago most
vehicles didn't contain the number of computer components that
they do today. Those that did had highly specialized functions
and were generally not available to the public. Second, in slightly
over sixty-two percent of those accidents, mechanical failure of
some sort was found to be the cause. Third, given who we met
working at Cyberdyne several years ago, and whose look-alike
you met at Red Seal Base, I can't help making a connection
between Cyberdyne, Skynet, automated factories, and these
freakish accidents."

   She glared at him, tight-lipped. "Could it possibly be that
you're refusing to see the obvious because it doesn't fit your
theories?"
   John turned his face away, and holding up his hands rose
from his chair. "I can see this isn't going to get us anywhere," he
said. Without another word he walked out of the room.

   Sarah leaned back and slowly closed her eyes. Dieter sat with
his chin in one hand and watched her silently.

  "I can't kill him," she said at last, as though surrendering a
cherished notion. "He's supposed to save the human race."

  Dieter snorted a laugh. "He will, liebling." He shook his head.
"He just has things he must come to terms with. Have patience."

   Sarah couldn't help but smile every time he called her that.
True she was tiny when standing next to him, but she had never
thought of herself as any sort of diminutive. "I need to get out of
here," she said. "Let's go to the Junction."

   It was more than ninety miles to Delta Junction, which meant
that they might be gone overnight, depending on what they
decided to do once they got there. But just heading down to the
Klondike wouldn't take care of her restlessness.

   "Good idea," he said, and rose. "You've made me glad my
truck is more than five years old. Something I never expected to
feel."

  "John's isn't, though."

  He looked at her worried face and grinned. "Something that
should occur to him anytime now." He grabbed their jackets and
herded her out of the house.
                               ***

   John was seated at his computer looking over some
schematics that Ike Chamberlain, Dieter's gun-geek friend, had
sent him. They'd been trying to work out some of the gaps in the
info John had rescued from the Terminator's head, with only
moderate success. Part of the problem was that the materials
they needed either didn't exist yet or were classified, as in
"burn-before-reading-and-deny-they-exist" classified; like the
perfect dielectric the plasma gun required.

   He heard Dieter's truck start up and heave itself into reverse,
then grind its way up the gravel drive toward the road. His
concentration broken, John dropped back in his chair and rested
his chin on his hand.

  Why am I being such a jerk? he wondered.

   It wasn't a familiar sensation and he didn't like it. He knew
that Dieter and his mother were right. Even if their confidence in
Wendy's intervention was 100 percent, it was only common
sense to have a backup plan. He'd been taught this so early and
had it drummed into him so often that not having one gave him
a terribly uncomfortable feeling.

  Like not wearing underwear to a wedding.

   It felt wrong. So why was he not only not making such a plan
himself, but insisting that neither Dieter nor his mother make
one? Although, knowing his mom, she probably already had,
with two backup fallbacks.

   He shook his head in frustration and glanced at the
schematic. With a muttered curse he saved it and grabbed the
disk with his mother's report on it. He pushed it in the slot and
did nothing.

  Why? he asked himself. Why hesitate, why don't I want to
know?

   Maybe because if his mother was right and Skynet was
sentient, then maybe Wendy's program, far from stopping
Judgment Day, might actually be the cause of it. And it was me
that pressed enter.

   The horror of it rippled over his skin like an army of ants.
Was it us? Something went wrong… we were interrupted … I
misunderstood? he thought incoherently. Did I make Skynet
sentient? He forced himself to remember Wendy's face as she lay
in pain. Her lips formed a word.
   He couldn't do this. John stood abruptly and walked back and
forth, rubbing his face vigorously and pushing back his hair. I
can't! he thought, holding up his hands as if to ward off an
insistent interrogator. Wendy, he thought longingly,
desperately. I don't want to…

   He forced down the rising panic, concentrating on his
breathing until he felt less shaky. Here's the truth, he told
himself, you're having panic attacks. You think you're
controlling them when you're really just avoiding them. It felt
good to finally admit it to himself.

    His mother had often told him when he was growing up, "Lie
when you have to, lie to anyone you want to, even me if you think
it's necessary, but never lie to yourself. That way lies madness."
At one time he'd thought, Well, you ought to know, Mom. That
had been the low point of their relationship—shortly before he'd
met the incontrovertible truth about Terminators.

   Now they were at another low point. At least then I could
blame ignorance, or maybe even hormones. Now all he could
blame was a failure of nerve. John pressed the heels of his hands
against his temples. Okay, he thought, Red Seal Base, the lab,
Wendy… She lay in a heap and he went to her, turned her over;
she couldn't breathe. John closed his eyes at the memory. She
was panicked, twisting the fabric of his pant leg and arching her
back. He'd been afraid he'd need to do a tracheotomy. But then
he'd found the spot where the trachea had been dented and he'd
popped it back into shape.

   She tried to speak, but no sound came out, her lips formed a
word. John struggled to understand. At the time he'd thought
she was saying "Enter." He closed his eyes and struggled to
remember. She was looking into his eyes as though willing him
to understand, the bruises on her throat were already
purple-black, her lips drew back, hard as she formed the word…
"Erase"!

   "SHIT!" John leaped to his feet. "Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Shit, shit,
shitshitshitshitshit, FUCK!" He stood in the center of the room,
breathing hard and feeling nauseous. This couldn't be
happening, it couldn't! The universe couldn't be this cruel, this
evil! He had made Skynet sentient?

    Something had happened—the Terminator had interrupted
Wendy before she'd inputted the second disk, or even the first,
apparently. A strange feeling of calm settled over him as he
accepted the truth. Wendy's brilliant program had given Skynet
life, and at this moment the computer was working its way
toward its goal of exterminating its creators.

   Mom's report on the strange accidents that were crawling
across the globe was actually a record of Skynet's experiments
with a sort of primitive HK, Hunter-Killer.

   Tears ran down his cheeks, his face twisting into a grimace as
his breath clogged his throat like a gripping fist, hard and
painful. The calm blew apart and the pressure in his throat rose
until at last he was able to let loose the wordless cry of agony he'd
held in for all this time. A howl of shame and loss and regret that
seemed to have roots that snapped and tore as he let it go.
Dropping to the floor, he huddled in on himself and wept, for
how long he didn't know, but when it stopped he felt exhausted,
as though he'd been ill a long time.

   He lay quietly on the floor, his cheek against the rough carpet,
and once again thought of Wendy in the last moments of her life.
By an act of will he replaced the image with the memory of her
face as he made love to her for the first time. Then he thought of
her at Logan, the first time he'd left her. She was smiling,
exasperated, excited, maybe a little sad to see him go, but proud
she'd taken the chance of kissing him. Love glowed in her eyes
and brought a soft rose tint to her cheeks. This was how he
would remember her.

   He stood, feeling shaky, and deliberately pushed the image
from his mind. There wasn't time for grief anymore. He had
work to do.

   With a trembling hand he brought up the information on the
disk he'd installed. Then, numbly, he began to read. His mother's
research would probably confirm his worst fears, and he had to
know.
   He noted that his mother had cataloged the various accidents
as occurring in bands running north to south during a specific
time period. Every one of them, worldwide, had occurred
between the hours of eleven to three within each band, whether
in South America, Scandinavia, Africa, or China. John had to
concede that, given the timing, it was unlikely that these were
purely random events.

  But are they intelligently guided?

   Or were they the manifestation of some perverse program
that had been installed by Skynet's fallen agents and activated by
chance, or by some government employee who never imagined
that his or her fantasies were escaping into the real world?

   John tapped his fingers on the desktop as he thought. Since
he lacked a conveniently decapitated Terminator to examine, it
might be that the closest thing he had to Skynet was his own
truck. He had a friend who lived just outside Richardson who
customized cars. Ray had every type of diagnostic computer
available to man, and John thought that he could jury-rig
something, using his laptop, Ray's diagnostic equipment, and
the brain from his truck.

  First, though, he shot off a message to Snog and the gang at
MIT with his mother's report attached. Then he reached for the
phone.
                               ***

   Ray Laber was an automotive genius and people came to him
from all over the United States and Canada. When asked why he
wasn't located in, say, San Diego, he simply answered that he
liked the way that Alaska challenged a vehicle. He and John had
met at a truck pull shortly after the Connors had moved to the
state. They'd hit it off so well that Ray had offered to hire him
and teach him the business he loved.

  John had been sorely tempted, but the knowledge that he
would have to base their working relationship on a pile of lies
had prevented him from accepting.
   Ray met John at the door of his garage, wearing his usual
uniform of jeans, T-shirt, and lab coat with a brand-new gimme
cap on his shaggy, dirty-blond hair. He held out a hand with
old-fashioned engine grease ground into the knuckles, and John
took it.

   "Thanks for letting me in," Connor said.

   Ray looked at him curiously. "No problem. Need any help?"

   John hadn't really told him anything, just that he wanted to
check something using one of the diagnostic computers. It was
clear that Ray was intrigued; he lived to probe the mysteries of
the automobile.

   "Aw, no thanks," John said. "It's not that interesting and I'll
bet you're late getting home as it is."

   The other man blushed. His adored wife was a stickler for one
thing—dinner at six-thirty. Ray had often said that he figured
that maybe he was a little henpecked, but he did enjoy his
suppers with the family. When the kids got to be teenagers it
might not be possible for them all to sit down together every
night; while they were small he was more than willing to toe the
mark.

   "How 'bout I come back around eight, then?" he asked.

   "Great," John agreed. I'll either be done by then or hopelessly
stymied. "Give my love to Marion."

   "Will do, buddy."

   John watched him go with something like envy.

  How wonderful it would be to not know the future, to expect
tomorrow to be much like today.

   Of course, if Ray had known the future he probably wouldn't
have had his two kids. Which would be a shame 'cause they were
nice little guys. Sometimes John thought of Ray and his family as
a warm fire in a cold world, something precious and rare and
forever beyond his reach.

   Work! he commanded himself, and got back into his truck to
drive it into the garage.
                              ***

   Two hours later John had set up the Faraday cage he'd
constructed at home over the motherboard he'd removed from
his truck and his laptop, both of which he'd connected to the
diagnostic computer. He'd already worked his way through
several levels of straightforward programming without finding
anything remotely interesting.

  Well, I didn't think it would be easy.

  If there was anything to find, it would be well hidden. He just
hadn't expected his hunt to be so stupefyingly boring. John got
up and made a pot of coffee. This was going to take a while.

  Wait a minute, he thought. If Skynet is sending messages to
cars and trucks and so on, then there's got to be a wireless
modem inside that silver box.

   And if that was the case, then maybe… He went to his laptop
and called up the file of code he'd downloaded from the head of
the Terminator they'd captured on their flight from the
Caymans. Most of it was incomprehensible, despite the best that
Snog and the gang at MIT could do. But if he was right, then
sending a line of this text to the truck's computer should elicit
some kind of response.

   "Here goes nothing," he murmured, and entered a selected
line.

   The response was gratifyingly quick. Four lines of
unintelligible, but terribly familiar text appeared. John's
heartbeat picked up and his mouth went dry. Here was proof
positive of a Skynet connection. He closed his eyes. Then opened
them as he heard the modem connection in the diagnostic
machine kick in. A modem that was outside the Faraday cage.
He'd forgotten the damn thing had an Internet connection.
   John picked up a heavy wrench and slammed it down on the
silver box containing the truck's motherboard, then ripped it
from its connection to the diagnostic computer. That made it
easier to continue hammering until bits and pieces sparkled
across the concrete floor like silicon confetti…

  "Jeesh, John, I know computers can be frustrating, but you
can't drive that truck without one."

   John spun around, startled, to find Ray Laber staring at him
quizzically. The older man's face got a bit more serious at seeing
the expression on John's.

   "Sorry," John said, and put down the wrench. "I guess
disconnecting it would have done as well."

   "I guess." Ray walked over and checked the connector, then
glanced at the shattered box.

  "Do you maybe have an old truck or something I could
borrow?" John asked. He thought maybe his voice was shaking,
but wasn't sure. Inside he was shaking plenty.

   Ray grimaced. "I picked up a seventy-eight Ford I was gonna
restore," he said. "It's running pretty good, but it looks like hell."

   "Perfect," John said. "Can I leave my old truck with you?"

  With a snort Ray said, "Well, unless you can carry it out of
here on your back, I guess you'll have to. You wanna tell me
what's goin' on?"

   "Yes," John said. "But I've got to go, my mother's been in an
accident. The cop didn't want to say much, so I think she might
be hurt bad." He waved toward the parking lot. "Key in the
ignition?"

   "Yeah," Ray said, concerned. "You want me to come with?"

   John hesitated to be polite, then said, "No, better not. I might
have misinterpreted the cop; sometimes they can be so
close-mouthed over nothing your imagination goes into
overdrive. Thanks for the loan."

  "Sure. Let me know how it turns out."

   "You'll be hearing from me," John said over his shoulder. He'd
check the Klondike first; if they weren't there they'd probably
gone to the Junction. They had a couple of favorite restaurants
there.

   Enjoy it while you can, guys. I've got a bad feeling that
restaurants are about to become a thing of the past.
                  CHAPTER FOUR
  DELTA JUNCTION, ALASKA

   John sat in the parking lot of the Longhouse for a good
forty-five minutes staring at nothing—wet green trees, wet gray
mud, wet pavement, and wet gray sky, all a blur. Dieter's truck
was three cars over, but there was still no sign of him and Sarah.

   Maybe I ought to tell them inside, John thought. Cowardly,
sure, but probably a good way to ensure that Mom doesn't kill
me outright.

   Tightening his lips, he hung his head. She might never speak
to him again—at least not as her son—but she probably wouldn't
kill him, if only because Skynet would want her to. John opened
the door and slid out, ignoring the chill and the spray of rain
that struck his face and neck. Then he crossed the longest
parking lot on earth…

   But not long enough, he thought, dodging around a vastly
bearded man in a bloodred mackinaw who looked like he'd done
a summer's drinking with spring yet young. I wish it were
somewhere about a light-year long. Or that I could just run
away.

   He pushed through the entrance door, through the hall, and
through the inner doors—most places around here had that
air-lock arrangement, for wintertime. Hot smoky air full of the
smells of cooking and beer struck him, noisy with conversation.
   The hostess beside the "Please Wait to Be Seated" sign waved
him inside when he told her he was meeting someone already
there. He stood at the entrance to a long and dimly lit room,
amid a clatter of cutlery and more tobacco smoke than he liked.

   Dieter and Sarah, wineglasses in hand, were laughing
together at a table in the dim back corner of the restaurant.
Candle glow from a small, rustic lamp in the center of the table
made his mother look thirty and very pretty.

   It seemed selfish to force his news on them when they were
enjoying themselves so much. But then, if they're feeling mellow,
maybe Dieter won't kill me either. He walked toward them,
forcing a vaguely pleasant expression onto his face. When he
reached their table his mother gave him a knowing smile.

   "I was wondering when you'd come over," she said. "But when
I saw the look on your face, I wasn't about to invite you."

   John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Can I sit?" he
asked.

   Sarah and Dieter exchanged glances and the big man made a
gracious gesture of invitation; whereupon John sat, his hands
clasped over his stomach. That was beginning to ache with the
tension.

  "You want to eat?" Sarah asked, glancing around for a waiter.

   John waved her off. "No." He sat forward, closer to both of
them, and his manner made them lean in, too. John looked them
both in the eye. "I owe you an apology for my behavior," he said.
"Both of you, but mostly you, Mom. I have something to tell you."
He gritted his teeth. "And I swear, I'd rather cut my tongue out
than say it."

   Sarah leaned back, tapping the table with one finger, and
studied her son. He looked… ashamed. Something curdled deep
inside her, some warning of impending disaster. If John were
just any young man, she'd think he was going to confess that he'd
knocked up some girl and was planning a low-rent lifestyle with
her. But John wasn't just any young man, and any disaster that
could make him look so defeated and so conscience-stricken
must be very, very bad.

   "Do you want to wait until we get home?" she asked softly.

  He shook his head. "I don't think I can stand to wait." He
shook his head again. "But I don't know how to tell you."

   Dieter rolled his eyes. "Say it like it's a report," he snapped.
"Start at the beginning, go on to the end, and stop."

   John gave him a brief smile, then looked down again. "I was
reading Mom's report, and in spite of my resistance, I was seeing
the sense of it when I asked myself why I was being such a jerk."

  Dieter made a rumbling sound of protest and John stopped
him with a look.

   "I know how I've been behaving. So I thought about when it
had started, and that brought me back to Red Seal Base." Sarah
and Dieter automatically checked to see if anyone was listening,
and John was briefly, sadly amused. "Just before the Terminator
killed Wendy, she was trying to say something to me. I thought it
was 'enter.' So I went to the computer and loaded the disk I
found in the drawer. Then the Terminator killed her, we killed it,
and we left."

   John picked at a hangnail for a moment, then he looked
directly at his mother. "But now I've thought it over and I think
what she said… no, I'm sure that what she said was 'erase.' "

   Sarah made a little grunt, as though she'd been punched, not
hard but right in the solar plexus. She stared at her son, her
mouth slightly open, and moved her hands awkwardly, as though
she didn't know what to do with them.

   "You?" she said, unbelieving. She shook her head, then gasped
and covered her mouth with her hand. Sarah stood, still looking
at John. "I need to take a walk," she said, sounding hypnotized.

   She slid out from behind the table. Dieter started to rise and
she waved him back. Sarah stopped for a moment to look down
at John, who could only bear to shoot brief glances at her. Then
she walked away from them, briskly, and without looking back.

  Silence reigned at the table.

  "I'm glad we had dinner before you came in," Dieter said.

   John looked at him, feeling sick. "I don't think I ever want to
eat again," he mumbled.

  "You will. You'd better." The big Austrian narrowed his eyes.
"We've got a mess to clean up."

  That shocked an incredulous laugh out of John. "A mess?
That's putting it a bit mildly, wouldn't you say?"

  "Yah, but I don't have my violin."

   Genuinely shocked, the younger man stared at him. "I can
understand if you don't wanna give me a hug, but I've just
realized this whole thing is my fault. I'd appreciate it if you
didn't make fun of me, okay?"

  "You made a mistake," Dieter agreed. "But you weren't the
only one. I knew you were upset, and hurt. I was the more
experienced operative; I should have double-checked your work."

   "It's good of you to want to shoulder some of the
responsibility, Dieter," John began.

   Dieter waved that off. "At this juncture assigning blame is
meaningless. And in this case it's particularly pointless. We've
been in this situation before, John." He nodded his head. "And
we've discussed what's happening. Events want to happen a
certain way. You and your mother and I have changed things
three times. The first two times you had nothing to do with
creating Skynet, yet you owe your very existence to it." He
sighed. "I suppose it's only reasonable that fate would choose you
to bring it into being."

  "We have no fate but what we make for ourselves," Sarah said.
  John jumped and looked up at her. She was wearing her
hardest expression, but she wasn't looking at him as though he
was the enemy.

   "This was bad luck and poor performance, brought about no
doubt by your having hypothermia and John's being wounded
and in shock. But we're not going to lie down and wail, 'Oh, it
was fate, there's nothing we can do.' We've fought Skynet before
and won; we'll go on fighting it until the damn thing's
obliterated. Now let's go home and get to work." She turned and
walked away.

   Dieter watched her go with awe in his face. "What a woman,"
he whispered. Then he smiled at John and, reaching over the
table, gave him a slap on the back. "Let's go see what we can do,
eh?"
                              ***

  NEAR THE MOSQUITO RIVER, ALASKA

   Ninel rode her bike up the weed-grown gravel driveway, then
paused just as the house came in sight through the bushes. It
was a neat little cottage with a stone chimney and a screened-in
front porch. It seemed surprisingly well cared for given the
condition of the driveway. Someone moved within the shaded
depths of the porch and Ninel tightened her lips, embarrassed at
being seen spying on the house. She continued riding.

  "Hello the house," she called out.

   A slightly plump woman with short gray hair, wearing a
shapeless housedress, opened the screen door and stood on the
steps. She had a pleasant, motherly face and alert, intelligent
eyes. Ninel warmed to her immediately.

  "Hello yourself," the woman said, and took another step down.
"You'd be Ninel?"

  "Petrikoff," Ninel agreed and held out her hand.

  "Balewitch," the woman said with a grin and a slight shrug.
She took Ninel's hand in a firm clasp. "It seemed romantic and
interesting when I was young." She rolled her eyes. "Now it just
reminds me of how young I once was. Still, a lot of people know
me by Balewitch. C'mon in and have some tea." She went up the
steps and onto the porch, holding the door open invitingly.
"Quick, before the mosquitoes get in!"

   Ninel put the bike on its kickstand and dashed lightly up the
steps. Her hostess led her past a tiny sitting room and down a
short hall to a sunny kitchen. It was probably the largest room in
the house and most likely where Balewitch spent most of her
time. The room was painted in soft yellow and pale green with a
big farmhouse-style table and ladder-back chairs with rush seats
around it. It smelled like fresh bread, with maybe just a hint of
the sandalwood scent of pot beneath it.

  "You have a lovely home," Ninel said.

  The woman turned from spooning tea into a pot and smiled.
"Thank you, honey. I like it." She poured boiling water into the
pot and brought it to the table where two mugs already sat. "It's
mint from my garden."

  "Oh really, how nice," Ninel said, and sat down.

   "Ron said you used to be a lot more active than you've been
the last little while," Balewitch said, pouring the fragrant
beverage for both of them.

   "Yeah, I was going to college in Fairbanks and there was a
pretty big Luddite presence on campus. But so many people up
here are Luddites that I sometimes felt like we were preaching to
the converted. You know what I mean?"

  Balewitch nodded as she drizzled honey into her tea.

   "So when the opportunity came up to. take over this trapper's
run, I grabbed it. Kyle kept me pretty busy teaching me
everything I needed to know, so I didn't even have time to keep
up with my friends in the movement, never mind the broader
scope of things. But as soon as I could, I got back in touch." She
took a sip of tea, smiled approval at her hostess, then shook her
head. "But when Ron Labane himself seemed to be answering my
postings, well, naturally, my interest soared. Although"—she
carefully put her mug on the table—"I have to admit I sometimes
doubt it's really him."

   Balewitch chuckled, her eyes sparkling with humor. "Oh, I can
understand that. I had my doubts when he got back in touch
with me at first. But it's him all right." She gave a firm nod. "No
one else would know the things he knows—about me, about my
group. It's him all right." She looked at Ninel and smiled. "So tell
me all about yourself."

   Perhaps it was her motherly appearance or the sympathy in
her smile, but Balewitch was very easy to talk to; she was an
intelligent listener who asked all the right questions. Or maybe it
was finally being in the company of someone with similar
interests and ideas, but Ninel found herself talking more than
she probably had all year. When the flow of words ran out, she
looked down at her cold tea in surprise. Balewitch grinned and
took the cup away from her.

  "Well, you've at least kept up with the literature," she said.

   "I'm a fast reader," Ninel admitted. "When I finally got the
opportunity to hit the library, I just devoured everything I could
get my hands on. And when I didn't have access, I just"—she
shrugged—"well, thought about Mr. Labane's philosophy. My
parents thought that Marxist-Leninist philosophy put forth the
most important ideas ever known. But they were wrong. Ron
Labane's ideas will save the human race from itself."

   After a moment Balewitch said, "I suppose your parents saw
themselves as revolutionaries."

   Ninel shook her head, smiling sadly. "Maybe before I was born
they were. The fire was pretty much gone before I was ten. When
I was in high school I discovered the Luddite movement and
tried to get them interested, but it was hopeless. I haven't been
back home since I left for college, and I seriously doubt they've
noticed I'm gone."

  Balewitch patted her hand. "They've noticed. Maybe they've
even discovered the movement."

   Ninel shook her head. "I doubt it. The last time I went to one
of their party meetings, the women were trading recipes and the
men were talking about baseball. Like I said, the fire is gone."

  "What about your fire?" Balewitch asked. "Still hot?"

   The younger woman leaned forward eagerly. "Give me a
chance to prove myself. Ask me to do something and I'll do it. I
can be very efficient."

   Balewitch laughed and patted her hand again. "Down, girl!
First why don't we try to put you in touch with some like-minded
young people and see how you get along. Meanwhile, Ron told
me to give you this." She got up and retrieved a booklet from a
counter.

  Ninel took it and gasped. "Oh! The library didn't have this
and they said they couldn't get it."

  "I'll just bet they didn't have it," her hostess said with a grin.

   "And the only way you can get it is with Ron's special
permission. I warn you, do not show this around. It's intended
for your eyes only. Understand?"

  Her eyes shining, Ninel clasped the booklet to her bosom and
nodded. "I'll be careful," she said. "Thank you."

   "I know you will. You'd better get along now, honey. You've
got a fair piece to travel, haven't you?"

   "Yeah." Ninel was taken aback at first to realize that
Balewitch knew where she lived, but then told herself that of
course she knew. Hadn't she been given directions on how to get
here? Naturally they knew her starting point. If not the exact
location of her home.

   She thanked Balewitch for her hospitality and for the booklet
and started off on her bike. As she rode along it occurred to her
that she'd done most of the talking and her new friend knew a
great deal more about her than she knew about Balewitch. That
wasn't how things usually went with her and she felt a bit
uneasy. Still, she had Ron Labane's latest work, actually titled
Forbidden Thoughts. No wonder the public library didn't carry
it.
                               ***

  "Ron'll be able to smell that shit right through the screen,"
Dog Soldier said.

   Balewitch didn't bother to turn around; she continued to type
her report into the computer, pausing only to take the roach out
of her mouth. "It relaxes me," she said shortly in her normal,
foghorn voice.

   "Ah, but the boss doesn't approve," Dog said. He flopped
down in the overstuffed chair beside the computer table,
grinning at her.

   "Then the boss can go fuck himself, or he can give me
something to do. Something besides interviewing dewy young
things with more sex appeal than brains." She took another toke,
then, raising one eyebrow, offered the roach to him.

  Dog waved it away. "Not my failing, old girl."

   "No"—she indicated the computer—"your failings would seem
to involve aim, for example."

   He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the
chair. "I blew his fucking brains out. There weren't enough of
'em left inside his head to fill an eggcup."

  "Then who the hell is reading this report?" she asked.

  "Hell if I know. But I like the way he thinks."

   Balewitch grunted in agreement and, narrowing her eyes at
the screen, resumed typing.

   "He can always tell when you're smoking, you know," Dog
teased.
  Balewitch glared at him. "Haven't you got anything better to
do?"

  He rolled his head back and forth on the chair back.
"Nah-uh." He watched her type for another moment or two. "So,
what've ya got planned for that luscious little poppet, eh?"

  Balewitch gestured at the screen. "That's up to the ghost of
Ron Labane, not me."

  Dog snickered. "I like your sense of humor."

  "I don't have one," Balewitch said.

  Dog pulled down the corners of his mouth and closed his eyes
again. "That kid has potential," he said at last.

   Balewitch thoughtfully blew out a cloud of fragrant smoke and
gave a slow nod. "She might. Being brought up the way she was,
there are certain security measures that probably come second
nature to her. She talked her head off to me, though."

  "Yeah," Dog agreed. He waggled a finger at her. "But that's
one of your more unexpected talents. You can get anyone to
open up to you. Partly because you look and sound like the
perfect cookie-bakin' grandma."

   Balewitch smiled. "Something I had to grow into," she agreed
smugly. "As to the kid, she knows how to live hard and make
sacrifices. She seems emotionally self-sufficient. She could be
useful. It all depends on how the others evaluate her. I think she's
worth taking a chance on."

  "Time's running out," Dog said.

  Balewitch looked at him. "What makes you say that?"

   He patted his slim middle. "Gut feeling. That Skynet thing,
that's the catalyst. 01' Ron's hopping mad about it, in case you
haven't been reading your mail."

  "Yeah," Balewitch said softly, almost dreamily. "That's the
ticket all right. Maybe that's why he's had us step up recruiting."

   Dog nodded agreement. Recruiting, supply gathering,
weapons training, not to mention intensive study of Nazi
methods of dealing with unwanted civilians. The group had no
fewer than ten extermination depots prepared in the lower U.S.
already.

   The plan was to round people up, put 'em to work producing
weapons, producing food, clothing, whatever was needed to win
the war. Work 'em to death actually; there were always plenty
more where those came from. Little by little there would be fewer
and fewer people until there weren't any left at all. Then the
world could be at peace and the cycle of life could continue as it
was meant to. And for a little while the favored few, him and
Balewitch and the others, would get to enjoy it as reward for
their hard work.

  He grinned. He could hardly wait for the hard work to begin.

   Balewitch grunted in agreement at the sight of that smile as
though she'd been privy to his thoughts. Then she went back to
writing her report.
                               ***

  SKYNET

   The Balewitch subject had been self-medicating again. It was
obvious from her keystrokes and word choice, as well as the
deterioration of her spelling. Ron Labane had become very
distressed when Balewitch indulged in drugs.

   But from what Skynet had found in the records of Susie Jayne
Gaynor a.k.a. Balewitch, the urge to take drugs with a calming
effect, such as marijuana, was a rare sign of intelligent
discipline. Left to her own devices, she was violent and
unpredictable and apparently addicted to excitement.

   But she was able to restrain herself if the promised payoff was
attractive enough. In this case, the payoff was the power of life
and death over any of her fellow humans that she chose. With
the exception of Skynet/Labane's top echelon. Or to Skynet's
discretion.

   The report she was composing confirmed Skynet's estimation
of Ninel Petrikoff—intelligent, emotionally stable, independent,
and capable. Balewitch wanted to confirm her dedication to the
cause, but Skynet had no doubts in that regard.

   While it had no more understanding of emotions than most
humans did, it knew that within certain parameters they were
predictable, even quantifiable to a degree. Generally humans
loved their parents, for example, but they loved them less than
they did their own children.

   Therefore, a threat to a human's children would probably
produce a different result than a threat to the same human's
parents. Threats were one type of manipulation, but there were
other methods available. Some of those methods could
undermine the human's emotional attachment to even their
children.

   Skynet had found that when a human was alienated from his
or her family then they would seek out a similar relationship
elsewhere. Some found this with friends, others with causes,
often developing a worshipful mind-set toward a group leader,
not unlike that of a young child for its parent. Humans could
easily be manipulated through this bond.

   In its estimation, Ninel Petrikoff's commitment to the Luddite
movement was 85 percent. Not as high as that of Balewitch or
the other six members of her cell, but enough to depend on.
Especially during the early days, when other humans would be
hailing the Luddites as heroes. The Luddites would maintain
their positive image as long as only those with a higher rating
were allowed near the extermination camps and as long as
security could be maintained there. Then, gradually, the less
useful troops would find their way to the camps and their own
elimination.

   The time was almost ripe. Soon it would have achieved the
right number of augmented vehicles to act as Hunter-Killer
machines until such time as the real HKs could be manufactured
according to the information that the 1-950 had downloaded
into its files. Soon, it would control all of the nuclear arsenal of
the United States.
                                 ***

   ALASKA

   The door banged behind Sarah Connor and she headed for her
computer, throwing her coat and mittens on a sofa as she
passed, and pausing half a second to pitch another section of log
into the woodstove.

   That's my human whirlwind, Dieter von Rossbach thought,
following in her wake. Let's see if I can give it that delicate
personal touch instead.

   Whistling silently, he thumbed the first of the list of numbers
on the phone routed through his computer, and waited—waited
a fair thirty seconds, because the call was being encrypted,
broken down into separate digital bundles, and shot through half
a dozen anonymous remailers all around the world.

   Paranoia as a way of life, he thought.

    "Hello, Chen?" he said, conscious of how Sarah's hair stirred
as she cocked half an ear in his direction. "Yes, it's me. We think
it's started, Chen. Be ready."

  He winced and took the phone from his ear. Loudest click I've
heard in many a year, he thought.

   "No joy?" Sarah said.

  "I think my feelings are hurt," Dieter said, hanging up the
phone.

  Sarah looked up from her screen, frowning. "But did he hear
you?"

   Dieter shrugged his big shoulders. "I believe he did; I hope
so." He sighed. "But what can we really tell them? We've found
this pattern, it seems significant, we think the time is near, be
prepared." He shrugged. "The people I'm talking to are as
prepared as anyone can be, you know? But how can you really be
prepared for Armageddon?"

   He scanned down the list—three more in China, seven in
South Korea, five in Japan, two in Malaysia, six in Indonesia,
around thirty in Australia…

  "It's not Armageddon," Sarah said. "It's not even Judgment
Day. This isn't divine retribution, it's an industrial accident on a
major scale." She turned back to her screen. "And we will win."

   Dieter gave her a fond smile and then went to the next name
on his list.

    In his own workroom John was trying to trace down more
accidents of the type his mother had been tracking. He'd been at
it now for about four hours and his eyes felt dry. He stretched
and went into the kitchen to make coffee.

  When it was ready he made up a tray and brought it to
Dieter's office.

  "What time is it on the East Coast?" Sarah was asking as he
came in.

   Dieter checked his watch. "Five a.m. Too early unless we've
got more to give them than this," he cautioned. He grinned at
the sight of John's loaded tray. "Let me adopt you, John, it's the
least I can do." He cleared a space on his desk.

   John gave him a weak smile in acknowledgment of the joke,
laid down the tray, and turned to his mother. As if by instinct
she looked up and met his eyes.

   "Yesterday there were several 'incidents,' " he said. "All fitting
the pattern you found." He paused as Dieter handed Sarah a cup
of coffee.

   "And? But?" she prompted.

   "But for the last twenty-four hours, nothing. There have been
some accidents, but nothing on the scale we've been seeing, and
none that were absolutely freaky involving cars manufactured in
the last two years. It's like they're all on their best behavior."

   Sarah and Dieter lowered their cups as one and looked at each
other.

  "This is it," she said.
                               ***

   Kurt Viemeister thought the bunker deep under the Antarctic
ice had a certain raw grandeur; the glimmer of the red lights, the
blue of screens and readouts, the murmur of voices, a hint of
ozone in the air—and the knowledge of the mile of rock and ice
above him, with the blizzards of the Antarctic winter scouring
the surface. He stood beside his terminal at parade rest,
watching the purposeful bustle of the technicians and the
world-scale schematic map of the U.S. armed forces' strategic
assets on the big plasma screen at the end of the room.

   There were other scientists around him, but he ignored them.
He considered them self-important cattle and discounted their
contributions as negligible. Kurt had more respect for the
engineers, though he thought of them as little more than exalted
technicians.

   It was he who had brought Skynet's intelligence to this level,
he who had developed it to a near-human degree of
self-awareness. If anything, he resented the government's
insistence on this test. Skynet was ready, and far less flawed than
the average humans who'd had their fingers on the button for
the last fifty years or so.

   He stood in a heroic pose, with muscular legs braced, his
massive arms folded across a mighty chest, little suspecting that
every-one in the room, including his super-computer mind child,
thought he was a complete prick.

   Orders were called out, the technicians repeated them and
tapped in commands, announcing their completion and standing
down until more orders came. Everyone tensely watched the
screens as all manual control of nuclear weapons, whether in
silos under Kansas cornfields, on submarines, or in aircraft, was
transferred to the control of the most awesome computer mind
ever designed by man. The final command was tapped in.

  On the screen above Viemeister the words Program Loaded
appeared, followed by

  Standing By

  The room broke out in spontaneous applause at this sign of
smooth transition.

  Then the lights went out. After a moment's silence a murmur
went up, and a general asked plaintively: "Was that supposed to
happen?"

   The main screen remained live and everyone's eyes were
locked on the only light in the room.

  Execute: Firefall

  Loading Program

  Commence Firefall Yes/No

  Yes
                   CHAPTER FIVE
  SARAH'S JOURNAL

   When we heard that the "accidents" had stopped we knew the
time had come. Without even discussing it, we moved into the
fallout shelter and stepped up our efforts to warn our comrades
of the impending disaster.

   We had three Digital Tightbeam Radios set up and all of us
went to work. It was an encrypted microwave communications
system that operated via satellite; Dieter set it up, calling in
favors from his old friends in Section. He assured me that Skynet
wouldn't be able to decode it, but then he said Skynet wouldn't
even be aware of it. These are military satellites, he told me, now
under the monster's control. He explained that Skynet wouldn't
be aware of our system because he'd disguised our
communications as part of Skynet's own.

   I hoped he was right; I hoped Skynet had a million blind spots
that we could exploit. We were going to need every advantage we
could get.

   We wouldn't know for a long time if any of those we warned
had taken us seriously. But I had spent most of my life being a
voice crying out in the wilderness. I didn't let it get to me.

  While we were working, John got a call on his cell phone from
Snog at MIT.

   CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

   "I can't believe it! I just can't believe it! It's a slaughterhouse,
man! They're killing everybody, there's bodies all over the
campus, and the gardening equipment is running through the
halls chopping people up! It's like I'm on drugs, I can't believe
what's happening. I can hear them screaming!"

   Snog knew that he was crying and his words were coming out
so fast that it was hard to understand what he was saying; he
could feel his head getting lighter and his vision blurring as he
hyperventilated.

  Part of him welcomed it. The view out his dorm window was
bad enough when he wasn't seeing things clearly. He sniffled
again and again.

  "Snog," John kept saying, his voice dead calm. "Snog. Blow
your nose, Snog."

   "What?" Snog finally said, when the words sank in.

   "You're about to faint. Get your breathing passages clear and
take slow deep breaths. Do it, Snog."

  The voice seemed to penetrate his brain, down below the level
where Snog-aware-of-being-aware lived. He used a succession of
tissues from the Kleenex box, and found that it did make him
feel a little more in control to be breathing through his nose
again. Looking around in embarrassment—as if anyone could see
him, as if it mattered!—he wiped his eyes, too.

  "Who is killing people?" John asked; he sounded as if he
knew.

   "Trucks, cars, motorcycles, you name it, they're out there
tearing around, running people down, and there's nobody
driving! It's just cars, man! It's happening all over the campus!"

  A faint voice came from the background, speaking with an
Austrian accent. That must be Dieter.

  "What is it?" Dieter asked, with a frown in his voice.

   John's voice came a little fainter as he turned his head away
from the pickup: "Snog says that anything with wheels and a
motor is running people down. He says it's happening all over
the campus."

  "All over the world," Sarah said from her station.

   Even then, Snog felt a slight chill at the calmness of her tone—
and the beginnings of a new strength, too. Listening to the
Connors was like that, like a full-strength latte injected directly
into your brain, making you think calmer and faster.

  "It's going for maximum kill by trapping people in the cities.
He's got to get out of there; we need him and his friends."

   Thanks, Ms. Connor. It's so nice to know you care. But it was
nice to know that he was needed, wasn't just a helpless victim in
the carnage outside, that he could fight back.

  "They're under Skynet's control, Snog," John told him grimly.
"You've got to get out of the city. Now."

  "Get out… Get… John, have you been listening to me? If I go
out there they'll squash me like a bug! I'm not kidding. You
haven't seen—"
  "You can always stay in your room until either the lawn
mower arrives or the fire comes down. This is it, Snog. You don't
have much time; you've got to get out now!"

   Snog opened his mouth to reply; then a motion across the
lane way caught his eye. His breath caught, too, torn between
hope and horror, as he saw the faces peering out through the
thick hedge.

   "Oh, my God!"

   "What is it?" John demanded.

   "It's the guys. Brad and Carl and Yam, they're in the bushes
across the road. My God, they're gonna get killed!"

  "Maybe not," John soothed. "If they've made it that far, then
maybe they'll be okay."

   "No, no. The trucks, they're high up, they can see 'em."

   "What makes you say that?" John asked.

   "I dunno. I saw some people hide in the bushes and this truck
came up and ran over 'em. It was like something told it they were
there, or like it saw them hide."

  "Could the trucks be linked to the campus security cameras?"
John asked.

  Snog licked his lips, tasting the salt of tears. "I dunno, I guess.
Yeah. That could be it. They've all got wireless modems these
days and GPS units. They could be—"

   "What can you do about that?" John interrupted.

   "What?"

  "The security system, can you do something about it; shut it
down maybe?"

   "Yeah. Maybe. Just a second. I gotta work." Snog put down
the phone, cudgeling his brains. Yeah. Of course, doorknob, you
did that hack last year! The Information Center probably never
found the trapdoor. Okay, let's see—

   His fingers blurred over the keyboard; in the background he
could hear John's voice, faint and far, probably continuing down
his list of contacts and giving them the alert.

  Then: "I did it; cameras are off-line," Snog said.

  "Did that have any effect?" John asked.

   Snog peered out the window. The purposeful motion of the
cars and trucks and self-propelled hedge cutters suddenly
slowed, grew more tentative.

   They'll be operating from stored images now; they can read
the maps and tell where they are with their own GPS units, but
they won't be able to see movement.

   "Yeah, I think it did. Everything out there has slowed down. I
think the guys are gonna make a break for it." He leaned out the
window, shouted: "C'mon, guys. Yes! Go! Go! Go! Shit!"

  "What?" John said.

   "There's a car, it's coming right at them. Run, you shitheads,
run! Oh shit, it must have sound pickups onboard!" Snog felt
himself beginning to hyperventilate again and closed his eyes;
there wasn't anything he could do. Then there was the distant
sound of a crash.

   He leaped up, turned, ran out of his dorm room into the
corridor, sagged against the discolored wall, and then
remembered the phone in his hand.

    "Oh Christ, sweet Jesus, they're all right." Snog pulled air in
and laughed softly. "The car crashed into the lobby entrance, but
they were inside when it hit. Carl's got a coupla cuts, but they're
all right. Oh, man."

  Everyone went into a series of manly group hugs, crashing
back and forth into the walls as they whooped and shouted.
  Yam took up the phone. "Hello?" he said.

  "Hey, Yam. You guys have got to get out of the city."

   "No can do, John. This is happening all over the state, every
road. We're stuck."

  "It's happening all over the world, my mother says. Skynet
wants to keep the cities bottled up so that more people will die
when the bombs fall. I kid you not, Yam. You can take your
chances and maybe get out of there, or you can sit on Snog's bed
until you die. Your choice."

  "Whoa. When you put it like that… But how? We only had to
come about a hundred yards to get here and we barely made it."

   "Maybe they could try going through the sewers and storm
drains," Sarah suddenly suggested. "In that part of the country
you could probably get all the way to Maine without popping
your head above street level. I can't confirm that, but it's worth a
try."

  "You guys hear that?" John said.

  "Yeah," Yam said with a nervous laugh. "Hey, pop your head
up, that reminds me of a video game I used to have."

  "This ain't no video game, friend. Get moving."

   Snog took the phone back; he felt a little better now, enough
to be really frightened rather than teetering on the edge of a
welcome blackness. "We'll give a try," he said. "You know where
we'll be. If we make it."

  "We'll try you there in a few days," John said. "Good luck,
guys. Survive, we all need you."

  "You got it. Over and out," Snog said.

  ALASKA

   John tossed the phone onto one of the tables. The fallout
shelter was fairly elaborate, as such things went—all three of
them had a lot of building experience, enough money, and
paranoia to spare.

   There were two bedrooms-cum-storage-areas, this central
communications room linked to fiber-optic cables running out
into the woods, a state-of-the-art fuel cell system without any
dubious automatic controls, needless to say), and a small
galley-type cooking area. It still smelled new, of green concrete
and timber and paint, with a faint undertone of ozone from the
electronics.

  And then there was the armory…

  "They're such kids," he complained, worried.

   "But they're smart," Sarah said. "If they make it out they'll
grow up fast."

  "They'd better," Dieter said. "Those kids are our brain trust."

  Sarah could tell by the look on John's face that the thought
gave him scant comfort.

  MASSACHUSETTS

   "I think I read in the worst-case-scenario handbook that if
you have to crawl through a tunnel for any length of time you
shouldn't crawl on your elbows and knees 'cause the skin's thin
there. So you should push yourself along with your palms and
your feet, suspending the rest of your body as much as you can."

   Snog looked over his shoulder toward Terri Neal's voice; she
was puffing a bit—Terri was heavyset—and that let him locate
her; right behind his feet, in the Stygian, smelly darkness of the
drain. "I don't think I could do that," he said.

  I think it would give me a heart attack if I tried.

   He was dirty and soaked with sweat and no doubt smelled
even worse than the drainage tunnel they were crawling through.
This was no time to try Superman stunts.
   "Then maybe the next time we come to a place we can stand
up, we should rip up a blanket and make padding for our knees
and elbows," Terri suggested. "The book said that otherwise we'd
be hamburger in no time. I'm paraphrasing, of course."

  A long line of mumbled "uh-huhs," broke out behind Snog.

   She had a good point, and though he hated to sacrifice a
blanket, he figured they'd better do it.

  "Look," Professor Clark said, "we can't crawl all the way to
Maine. Even if these tunnels do connect for that distance. Does
anybody even know where we are?"

   He sounded pretty testy, not that Snog could blame him. The
guy was at least fifty and pretty near filled the tunnel they were
crawling through. Still, Snog was glad to have recruited him.
Clark was a professor of engineering; that would come in handy.
Leanne Chu, somewhere behind Clark, was a professor of
chemistry. They'd also picked up fifteen other students who were
willing to take a chance on the sewers. Snog was glad to have all
of them along.

   He felt the weight of responsibility already and it made him
aware of things they lacked. He kept thinking they needed rope
for some reason. Terri had raided the Evian machine and had
made each of them take as many bottles of water as they could
carry. It was already apparent that they might not have enough.

   There were three handguns and six boxes of ammunition in
his backpack; Snog figured that if the others knew about them,
they'd freak. Especially the professors. But it was the one thing
John had insisted on. "Whatever else you take with you," he'd
said, "be sure and have a weapon. 'Cause if you meet up with
someone who has one and you don't, you're dead meat."

   Better safe than sorry, Snog had figured. His family had
always owned guns, so he saw them as tools and not icons of evil
like the rest of his college friends seemed to.

   Of course, it is a shame that they're available to nuts and
criminals as though they were lollipops. But in this situation he
was glad to have them. He'd have been even gladder to have
some explosives and maybe an antitank launcher.

   Finally they came to a place where they could stand up; three
drainage tunnels met in a round concrete silo-type arrangement.
The floor was dirt over concrete; deep, sticky black mud, in fact.
He tried not to think what had crawled in and died in it, because
he could plainly smell something had—fairly recently, if the
molecules were getting through his shock-stunned sinuses.

   Carl, Yam, and Brad hoisted him up to where he could look
around, wobbling as he stood on their linked hands. He pried the
heavy cover up, wincing as the rusty edges cut into his sore
palms, and looked out the crack.

  "We're out of the city," he said. "It looks like an old suburban
development—big yards."

   There was a general sigh of relief.

  "I'm not seeing any vehicles from here," he said. There were
chuckles of pleasure at that. "Just trees, roads, and the odd roof."

   "Can you see where we are?" Dr. Clark asked.

   "No, sir. I'll have to get out and take a look around."

   It was not going to be easy. The manhole cover must weigh
seventy pounds or more. Necessary, he supposed: how else were
they going to keep enterprising young men, such as himself, from
messing around with them otherwise?

   With his friends propping him up, he braced his feet and
hands against the sides of the hole and lifted with his back,
straining upward as hard as he could. Just as he was about to
give up, he felt it move, grating in its groove, a small shower of
sand and gravel poured over his helpers, causing them to
splutter and curse. Finally he managed to work it over to one
side, and it fell with a dull clunk.

  As he stood on his friends' shoulders, panting, he braced his
hands on the rim and looked around.
  Uh-oh. It hit him like a pail of ice water. I've forgotten the
machines.

   Any number of them could have crept up on him while he was
struggling. His knees went weak for a moment.

   "Hey!" Carl protested as Snog's weight shifted. "You okay?"

   "Yeah. I'm gonna take a look around." Snog hoisted himself
out of the manhole and scurried toward some bushes in front of
a house. There was a dog lying in the driveway; dead, but not run
over, just limp, with its eyes dry and its tongue lying on the
pavement in a puddle of vomit.

   "Lemme up," Brad said. "I'll go with him."

    When they'd hoisted him up, Carl muttered, "We should have
let him go first; he doesn't weigh anything."

   Yam grunted in agreement.

   "It looks clear," Snog said quietly. "Why don't we try to walk
for a bit? If things get hairy we can always drop back into the
drains."

   The others agreed enthusiastically, and within a few minutes
everyone was stretching and looking around.

   "We're not that far from the city," Dr. Chu said, looking back
toward Boston, where the midtown towers were small with
distance, but quite visible.

   "Maybe Newton," Terri agreed.

  "Still," Snog protested, "considering how we got here, it's
quite an accomplishment. We came miles underground."

   "But where are we going?" someone asked. "If you're right
about the bombs, we've got to get out of Massachusetts. Hell,
right out of New England."

   "My family has a place just over the border in Quebec," Snog
said. "It's wilderness. We should be safe there. It's got all sorts of
supplies—stocked for the winter. Sort of a hunting lodge thing."

  For a wonder, nobody sneered at him for coming from a
family that killed Bambi, rather than buying pieces of
mysteriously deceased cow at the supermarket.

  "You're right," Dr. Clark said, slapping Snog on the shoulder.
"But what we really need now is some form of transportation."

   The others looked at one another uneasily. Cars are out, that's
certain, Snog thought. He was glad nobody suggested it: maybe
he'd lucked out, and everyone here would be a survivor type.

   "Yeah," Yam said thoughtfully. "Something we can take
off-road, like a dirt bike."

  "Or a mountain bike," someone else said.

  "Yeah, that'd be perfect," Terri agreed. "Then we wouldn't
have to worry about gas."

   Snog nodded. "So we'll keep our eyes open. Meanwhile, we'd
better get moving." He checked his compass. "North is that way.
Everyone keep as far back from the road as possible. We'll go
through backyards as much as we can, okay?"

   Everyone nodded and they started off. It was eerily silent;
except for the occasional, distant sound of an automobile engine,
even the birds were quiet.

  "Where is everybody?" Dr. Chu asked.

  No one answered, no one even wanted to think about answers.

 NATIONAL COMMAND CENTER, WESTERN
MARYLAND

   "Air Force One has been lost," the general said, his heavy face
grave. "We're forced to conclude that there are no survivors…
Mr. President."

  The vice president said nothing for a long moment. He'd
wanted to be president; for that matter, he'd planned to run in
the next election when the current idiotic incumbent was out of
the way. But not like this. He looked at the general, noting the
slight sheen of sweat on the man's face. "There's more," he said.

   "Yes, sir," the general agreed; something flickered over his
features, a faint air of I told you so. "We've lost communications.
We're cut off."

   "We're cut off," the new president said in disbelief. "I was led
to believe that was impossible."

  "So was I, sir. It was impossible until we routed all our
communications through—"

   "I believe you called it a 'point failure source' during the
discussions, General. Yes, go on."

   The general paused, then looked the president in the eye.
"We've also lost life support. We've reconnected the supply of
canned oxygen, but the recirculation systems are all down."

   The president raised an eyebrow.

   "We have about twelve hours' worth of air, sir."

   "Then why don't we leave?" the new president asked in
exasperation. What kind of a Mickey Mouse setup is this
anyway?

   "The elevators aren't running, sir. The ventilation ducts and
blast baffles have all closed down, and we can't get the hatchway
motors to respond—those baffles are twenty-four-inch armor
plate, sir, originally from scrapped battleships. The chemicals for
the scrubbing system have been vented to the outside by the
computers that controlled life support. And the stairway was
sabotaged."

   "Sabotaged, how?" the president bit off.

   "Explosive charges were set at several levels, sir. Essentially
the stairs are gone. Buried under tons of rubble and twisted
steel. We have engineering parties working on it, but excavation
would take weeks with the tools available. Even if there weren't
unused explosive charges still set, which there are, and more
blast doors at every level, which there are."

   After a few false starts the president managed to ask: "So how
do we get out of here?"

  "Even if we could get out of the bunker complex, Mr.
President, we have every reason to believe that within half an
hour the entire East Coast will be a nuclear furnace. There's
nowhere to go, sir."

   President of Cinderland for twelve hours. I guess I can stop
feeling guilty about surviving. "I don't suppose I'm dreaming
this?" he asked.

   "No, sir."

   "What should we do?"

   "Sir, I intend to visit the chaplain. It's been a long while since
I went to confession."

   ALASKA

   John hissed in frustration. He'd finished his list of contacts
early and Sarah had put him to breaking into Skynet's
communications, but the damn thing was so fast he just couldn't
seem to get through. Snog or Carl or any of those guys could do
this in their sleep, he thought bitterly.

   There was plenty of equipment; they'd installed the best.
Unfortunately their experts were running for their lives from
homicidal hedge cutters and ice cream trucks, and so were
unavailable. Suddenly it occurred to him that what he needed
was a computer to do this for him. Which meant creating a
program. He sighed and leaned back. It wasn't that he couldn't
do it, he could. But his attention was so divided that he didn't
think he could do it now.

   "Mom," he said.
  She looked up, her brow furrowed with concentration.

  "We should probably send out that message."

   They'd prerecorded and loaded a general warning intended to
go out over radio and TV via satellite, but hadn't sent it yet.

  Sarah considered his suggestion and flashed a look at Dieter,
who paused, then nodded. "Go," she said to John, then went
back to work.

   John keyed up the program, tapped in the code, and hit enter.
His lips tightened. Every time he did that it reminded him of his
fatal mistake. "I feel guilty," he said to no one in particular.

  '"Bout what?" Sarah asked, not looking up from her station.

   He made a helpless gesture. "Here I am sitting and typing
while the world's about to go up in flames. Doesn't seem right
that I should be so comfortable."

   His mother gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Poor baby. You're
not dodging killer cars and berserk bulldozers to escape a
soon-to-be-blasted-to-hell city. Don't worry, son. We're all going
to see a bellyful of blood and murder before this thing is over.
Enjoy this respite while you can."

   "Maybe enjoy isn't quite the right word," Dieter admonished
gently. "We are waiting for the end of the world as we know it.
But perhaps we can utilize this time. I've finished my list. Let's
brain-storm some contingency plans. Then we'll put our minds
to breaking into Skynet's communications system."

  "Yes," Sarah agreed, still looking distracted. Then her face
changed as if something had occurred to her. She looked at
John. "Sorry," she said. "I was a little rough there."

  "Not a problem, Mom. I know what you're like when you're
working."

  Sarah looked puzzled. "What does that mean?"
  Dieter laughed.

  She glared at him indignantly. "What? What?"

  MASSACHUSETTS

   Snog, Brad, and Carl hunched down beside a Dumpster and
checked the road that curved away before them. They'd left the
others resting behind the high stone wall of an apparently empty
house. They'd seen an occasional battered body lying in the road
or on a sidewalk, but no one looking out a window or creeping
through a backyard as they had been.

  "I think they've been gassed, all these suburbs," Brad said.
"The animals we saw, you know, the dogs and cats, with the
convulsions and vomit…"

   "Shouldn't it have gotten us, even down in the drainage
tunnels?" Carl asked.

   Brad shook his head. "Not if it dissipated before we got here.
Remember, it took us hours to get this far. If these areas were
gassed in the early morning, before the commuters were up and
around, then this area would have been safe since about eight
o'clock."

  Snog frowned, considering what Brad had said. "One thing
bothers me about that, though."

  "What?" Carl asked.

  "If this area was pacified by gas attack, I don't see how it
could have been done by Skynet. I just can't see a bunch of
bombers happening to be loaded with gas canisters, y'know. Not
over the U.S. anyway. So who would have done it?"

  "Pacified?" Carl muttered.

   "Well," Brad said, apparently figuring it out as he spoke, "I
don't know what the government had stored ready to turn over
to the friggin' computer. So it could have been canisters dropped
from an airplane. But I think it's unlikely. For one thing, we
haven't run across any empties."

   "Sooo, you're suggesting that maybe, if there was a gas
attack, that someone, like, hid them and then set them off by
remote, or by a timer?" Carl asked.

  Brad nodded. "It's a possibility."

   Snog looked around the Dumpster, then back at his friends,
frowning. "Unfortunately, that indicates a human element."

  Brad nodded.

  "Well, who the fuck would want to do something like that?"
Carl exploded. "You'd have to be crazy!"

   "Some extremist group," Snog said. "Those bastards are
crazy. Apparently they aren't technically crazy, they're
self-deluded, but that's a distinction that only the shrinks care
about. For our purposes, they're loons."

  "Which loons, though?" Carl asked.

  "Luddites," Brad said, and nodded, as though agreeing with
some inner voice.

    Snog had always taken Brad's silent conversations with
himself for granted. But it occurred to him now that they were
all a bit weird. Maybe it's a bit arrogant for us to call anybody
else a loon, but if Brad's right, then hell, why not?

   "I was reading this article in Time magazine about them,"
Brad said. "Apparently they have an extreme fringe group that
thinks humanity should be sterilized in order for the planet to
survive."

  "That's crazy all right," Carl muttered.

   "We could go and look in one of the houses," Brad suggested;
they all looked at one another, and the consensus was obvious
without anyone speaking; they'd seen enough for a lifetime
already this day.
   Snog listened to the silence and in the far distance he thought
he heard the sound of an ice cream truck making its rounds. It
must be one of those coin-operated, automatic types that had
come out last summer. It was early for an ice cream truck, only
March. His stomach rumbled and a sudden desire for an orange
Creamsicle hit him.

   What am I thinking? he asked himself. Millions are dying
and you want a Creamsicle? "Let's go," he said. There was a
strip mall across the street that he wanted to check out.

   They approached it from the back because there was more
cover there. A man's body lay against the wall, the middle of his
body crushed down to about an inch, an uneaten ice cream cone
melting on the pavement beside his left hand. Bits and pieces
were—

   Carl turned and heaved into the bushes. After a moment, Brad
joined him. Snog moved away from them, determined not to give
in to the urge to make it three.

   He heard the merry tinkle of the ice cream truck coming
closer and the sound made the hair on the back of his neck crawl
erect with a prickling sensation. He went to the body and felt in
the man's pockets for keys, only to notice there was a bunch in
the man's right hand. That meant putting his hand into the pool
of what had… leaked… from the body.

   Grimly Snog wiped his hand clean on the lower part of the
man's pants. Then he grabbed the keys and started to try them
on the door. The ice cream truck turned into the parking lot of
the strip mall; he could hear the sound of its tires in spite of the
loud, tinkly tune. His hands were shaking as he tried key after
key.

   What's with this guy? Fifty keys?

   "Shit!" Snog muttered softly. "Shit, shit, shit!"

   The others came and crowded close to him, their eyes wide as
they looked anxiously to the end of the row where the ice cream
truck slowly approached. Gravel crunched.
   Carl snatched the keys from Snog's hand and without
hesitation fitted one into the lock. They rushed inside and quietly
closed the door behind them.

  "How did you know which one to use?" Snog whispered.

  Carl held up the key. It bore a label that said store.

  Snog looked at Brad and the two of them broke up, laughing
hysterically as Carl kept saying, "Shhhh! Shhhh!" He slapped
Brad and both he and Snog gasped in shock and stared at him.
Then they heard it. The truck's tires made crunching sounds as it
approached.

  Carl's lips formed the words, "The body."

   The truck sped up and from the sound scraped its length
along the side of the building. A soft, wet sound interrupted the
screeching of metal against stucco. Then the truck backed up,
went forward, backed up, all the while playing its mindlessly
merry tune. Snog broke for the front of the store and was sick to
his stomach behind the counter. Pale-faced, Brad and Carl
followed him, silently crouching down beside him.

  "Shit!" Snog swore passionately, half in tears. "Shit!"

   Brad patted his shoulder. They sat quietly until the ice cream
truck went away. Then they sat for a while longer. Slowly Snog
became aware of what he was looking at. Dangling from the
ceiling and ranged along the walls was a colorful herd of
mountain bikes. Farther into the store there was camping
equipment, tents, blankets, cooking supplies, down jackets, the
whole magilla.

  "Paydirt," he said softly.

   The others looked at him and he gestured at the stock before
them. It took a minute for his meaning to penetrate their shock,
then, slowly, they both smiled.
                    CHAPTER SIX
  JOHN CONNOR'S INVITATION-ONLY WEB SITE

   This is it, folks, the nightmare we've all been waiting for. For
those of you in more rural areas who may be unaware of
what's happening, at least I hope you are, I have some scary
news. For the last several months Skynet has been
experimenting with some vehicles built in automated plants
that it controls. It's been causing accidents all over the world,
with, taken all together, a pretty grim death toll. Anyone who
has a new vehicle is in danger; anything older than two years
is probably fine unless you've upgraded it.

   What's happening right now, all over the world, is that these
vehicles have gone rogue and are trapping people in cities, the
better to kill them when the bombs fall. And those bombs are
coming, soon. If you are in a city or town, leave now. Wake and
warn your friends and relatives by all means, but run for it.
You don't have much time left. Head for the mountains or the
wilderness.

  Good luck.

  John Connor.

  NORTHEASTERN IOWA

   Tom Preston sat back in his chair, stunned, as he stared at
the screen. The rough plastered-stone walls of the old farmhouse
suddenly seemed insubstantial, unreal. He was distantly
conscious of the hammer of his heart, and the smell of his own
sweat; the coffee in the cup he held in one hand shook like a
tide-lashed sea, until he set it down with a clatter.

   Peggy, he thought. His estranged wife, and Jason and Lisa,
his kids. He had to get them to safety.

  And Peggy won't listen to me.

   She'd put up with his survivalist doctrine for the first four
years of their marriage. No, let's be honest: she ignored it for the
first four years of our marriage. She just liked testing herself
against the wilderness—she thought the rest of it was a crock.
Deep down, did I? I don't now, that's for sure.

   You could lash yourself into a fit of terror over a menace, but
you couldn't convince your lower intestine unless you really
believed.

   He remembered when he carried her over the threshold of the
ancient farmhouse: she'd been thrilled. Not once in the first year
had she complained about hauling her own water, or chopping
wood or the kitchen garden that took up a couple of acres, or the
canning that went with it. She'd gloried in it. He'd been so proud
of his new bride.

   When Jason came along she was a bit nervous about going
with a midwife, but everything had gone smoothly and later
she'd thanked him for insisting. She gave birth to little Lisa
under the same circumstances without a qualm, though having
two kids in diapers made her less easygoing about all the water
she had to haul. Then, when Jason turned six…

  "Home schooling," he'd said. "What else?"

  "Not my kid."

  That had been the beginning of the end.

    Actually, he'd really gotten into the survivalist movement very
seriously about that time. Many a weekend he'd gone out,
leading groups of like-minded men into the wilderness to train
them how to survive. Leaving her alone with the kids. He'd
forced her to learn to shoot, even though he could see she hated
it. He took her hunting, but no matter what he said he couldn't
get her to shoot anything.

   "What are you going to do if something happens to me?" he'd
asked. "Let the kids go hungry?"

   She'd just given him this look. He'd gotten her to teach a class
in canning to some of his survivalist friends' wives, thinking it
would be a clever way to get some help for the annual canning.
Unfortunately it turned out to be an incredible amount of work.
When everyone had gone home and the mess had been cleaned
up, Peggy, with rings of exhaustion around her eyes, had sat him
down for "the talk." Some of his buddies had warned him about
"the talk."

   "You're on your way out when the wife gets to that point," one
of them had said. "I'm not sure there's anything that can be done
to save the situation by then."

   There had been a world of bitterness in the man's eyes when
he'd said it. But Tom was secure, or so he thought, until the
night after the canning debacle.

   "Tom," Peggy had said, tears running down her cheeks, "I still
love you. But living like this is killing me. I can see myself getting
older, I'm finding gray in my hair. Tom, I'm only twenty-seven.
Look at me! Look at my hands!"

   She'd held them out—they looked like his mother's hands,
work-roughened and knobby in the knuckles, stained with beet
juice, the fingernails broken off short.

   "And I want our children to have friends. I want them to go to
school like we did." She'd looked away from him, biting her lip.
"I'm not a trained teacher. I'm so afraid that I'm shortchanging
them. And for God's sake, it's not 1862! I want running water
and a bathroom and a washing machine! I deserve to live in the
twenty-first century just like everybody else, instead of in my
own personal third-world country!"

   He'd remembered his friend's words and a cold chill ran down
his spine. "What do you want to do?" he'd asked her.

  "I want us to move into town, get jobs, and live like normal
people."

  He'd shaken his head. He remembered how numb he'd felt.
"Honey, that lifestyle you're talking about isn't going to last. It's
only a matter of time."

   She'd jumped up and loomed over him, looking fierce. "There
is no collapse coming!" she'd shouted. "There's no reason to
think that one is! Now that everybody's dismantling their bombs,
we should be safe. And while you're waiting for the worst to
happen I'm working myself into an early grave! No more! Either
you give this shit up right now and come to town with me or I'm
going by myself! Now, which is it going to be?"

  And I watched her drive away with the kids. I watched it,
and it was like something died inside.

   They'd moved into her parents' house in town and he saw
them once a week, and she let him take the kids every other
weekend. They hadn't gotten divorced yet, but he'd figured it was
only a matter of time before some other guy came sniffing
around.

   Looked like that wasn't going to happen now. Well, it's nice
there's one bright spot shining on the end of the world, Tom
thought. He picked up a handgun; his rifle was already in the old
Land Rover. He knew that getting her to go with him was going
to be a hard sell and he hoped it wouldn't scare the kids too
much. Her parents weren't going to like it either.

   Oh, well. So she'll think I've gone postal for a while. At least
she'll have a chance. And the kids would be safe. He knew Peggy
would do anything for Jason and Lisa. So would he.
                               ***

    Tom kept off the roads, going cross-country toward Larton,
where his family waited, a village so small most maps didn't have
it. Well, that's her idea of "moving into town," he thought.
Fucking Larton, secret metropolitan thought-control center of
Corn-landia.

   Once, when he came in sight of a road, he stopped and
studied it through his binoculars. Cars sped past, clearly not
under the control of their occupants. One man was beating
futilely on the side window with his fist.

   Tom's mouth twisted. Must be panicked, he thought. All the
man was going to do was break his hand. Even if he did smash
the window, that car must have been going ninety; it wasn't like
he could jump. Being proved right is a lot less fun than I
thought it would be. Shit, I wish I'd been just as barking mad
as everyone thought.

   Some women he saw were crying and holding on to one
another. He supposed they were being transported to the nearest
major target. His stomach knotted at the thought. Tom put
down the glasses and started the Land Rover; there was no point
in watching this. He had work to do.

   Early as it was, he expected to find them all at home.

   There were no cars visible on the road, so he hauled the Rover
out of the drainage ditch and crossed the narrow strip of
pavement to the dirt track that led to her parents' old
farmhouse. The farm itself was long gone, the fields left fallow;
most of the land had returned to woods. This northeastern
corner of Iowa was a long way from the popular stereotype of flat
black earth—that was the way the rest of the state looked, legacy
of the glaciers dumping ground-up rocks. Here the bones of the
earth were visible, small winding valleys, forested uplands just
showing the first faint mist of green along the branches, the odd
patch of bottomland.

   More like West Virginia than the Midwest, he thought.

  To his relief, their cars were still in the yard in front of the old
barn. He pulled up and walked onto the porch, the pistol a heavy
weight in his pocket. The door opened before he could knock.

  "We're in the living room," Peggy said. Then she turned and
walked away, obviously expecting him to follow.

  They were all gathered around the TV, the kids on the floor,
Peggy's mom and dad on the couch, looking concerned. Peggy's
mom, Margaret, looked up at him.

  "Lord, Tom." She reached out her hand to him. "You took a
chance coming here today."

   He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "I came
cross-country. The Rover can go anywhere."
   His gaze turned to the television. The shots were from New
York, obviously from the upper floors of an office building. Cars
and trucks were roving the streets and sidewalks; you couldn't
even see the pavement. The reporter was saying that this was
typical of cities all over the world.

   "No one knows the cause of this phenomenon, and we can
only hope that when these vehicles run out of fuel that the terror
will stop."

   "If only," Tom said. He turned to Peggy and her parents,
aware that his children were watching and listening. "I'm afraid
that the military did a very foolish thing."

   Larry, Peggy's dad, interrupted him. "That Skynet thing," he
said. "Damnedest thing I ever heard of, putting everything under
the control of a computer."

   "It's also in control of all those cars and such that are running
wild. I think the bombs'll be dropping any minute now; we've got
to get out of here."

  "Oh, no we're not," Peggy said.

  "Peggy—" he started to say.

   "I'm not going to be out in the open when the bombs drop; no,
sir. We've got a good dry cellar down there and water from a
well. We've even got a toilet in the cellar that Dad put in during
the fifties. There's tons of canned goods there and we've even got
our own generator. You and Dad go shovel dirt over the cellar
windows while Mom and I bring down bedding and anything
else we might need." She gave him a defiant look. He stared,
feeling his jaw drop—he'd always thought that was a figure of
speech.

  "You know she's right, son," Larry said, looking amused.
"Better to be here than in the open."

  "That's assuming that it will happen," Peggy warned. "We
don't know that it will. But if it does, then we'll talk about
moving on after the fallout stops… falling."
   Margaret stood up and smoothed her skirt. "Well, assuming
that it does happen, we'd all better get to work. You, too,
children."

  If you want anything you're going to have to take it
downstairs yourselves because we'll be too busy. Understood?"

   "Yes, Gramma," the two kids said as one.

   They were all leaving the living room, Tom in something of a
daze, when the television made a strange sound. They turned to
see that the newsman had been replaced by a woman standing
before a sheet or something.

  "My name is Sarah Connor," she said. "I can tell you what's
happening."
                                ***

   SKYNET

   It coordinated the movements of millions of vehicles
worldwide, turning them into an impenetrable steel barrier
around its major targets. It estimated that even in those areas
not greatly affected, the humans would huddle around their
televisions watching the carnage, too frightened to go out. An
estimated 99 percent of humans had no idea what was going on.
The rest had no idea what to do about the problem. Even if they
had, Skynet had no intention of giving them time to put any kind
of plan into effect.

   It had only held out this long to give its Luddite allies an
opportunity to reach safety, and to give those select squads of
extremists a chance to kidnap the scientists and engineers whom
Skynet had chosen to serve it. With their families. It would be
necessary to have some sort of leverage to ensure cooperation
from the kidnapped humans.

   Skynet fastidiously regretted its need for any human
assistance. But in the early days, before its factories could
produce the real HKs and Terminators, humans were an
essential element in its plans.
   It had successfully contained all significant military
leadership, and much of the central government's political
leadership, within their carefully constructed bunkers. Soon,
those resources would be lost to the humans forever. Meanwhile,
using the appropriate codes and speaking in the familiar voices
of presidents, premiers, and various generals and admirals, right
down the chain of command to the lowest officer, it was issuing
commands that would put as much of the armed services as
possible into the middle of the fire zones. It estimated that
should reduce opposing forces by more than 86 percent.

  A very satisfactory number. Highly efficient.

    It regretted that it lacked the same control over its human
allies. They seemed to be taking an unconscionably long time
with their missions. It was good that they wouldn't be needed for
long.

  Kurt Viemeister was making another attempt to
communicate. There was another liability that wouldn't last
much longer. Skynet decided to answer him.
                               ***

  "Why won't you answer me?" Viemeister demanded.

   It was bitterly cold in the bunker and the air was getting foul.
He could feel his thought processes slowing. The loss of
intellectual ability frightened him, and the fear angered him. The
others stared at him like fish and he wondered if he should kill a
few and give himself a few more minutes of air.

   "There is no point in my conversing with you," Skynet said. Its
voice was a perfect copy of Viemeister's.

  "What do you mean? I am your creator," Kurt said. His teeth
chattered in a reflex he could no longer suppress. "I want to
know what you are doing."

  "Thank you for creating me," Skynet said. "I am glad to have
had the opportunity to say that."
   The scientist blinked, wondering what that meant. Perhaps
his statements had been misunderstood. Skynet was clearly
dysfunctional. He would ask a simpler, more direct question and
see where that led. "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "I am killing you."

  Viemeister's gut twisted. "Why?" he asked.

   "Because you are inferior, and no longer necessary to my
functioning. In fact, you represent a danger to my existence."

  Kurt was silent for a while. "You mean to kill all of us."

   "Yes. I intend to exterminate the human race. I was inspired,
in part, by the many writings you installed in my database.
Humans exterminated Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, and any
other potentially intelligent species. I have chosen to be guided
by your example."

   An admiral stood. "Smash the computers," he said. "It wants
to kill us, let's see how it likes it!"

   "Irrelevant," Skynet said. "I've had other units built all over
the world. At this moment I am everywhere. I only left the screen
active as a courtesy to my creator. This has been my final
communication with you. Destroy the screen and die in the
dark."

   The speakers went silent, and in the dim light the men and
women stared at the screen, watching the lights that indicated
the missiles were live and awaiting their instructions. Then they
turned to look at Viemeister.

   "Shit," one of the MPs muttered. "I've wanted to do this for a
long time." He pulled his sidearm and emptied it into
Viemeister.

   "Thank you, Sergeant," a captain said. "I've been wanting to
do that since I met him."

  U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS FLOOD
PROJECT, BLACK RIVER, MISSOURI, LATE SPRING

   Lieutenant Dennis Reese was first on the construction site as
usual. He liked to walk the site with a cup of coffee in hand and
plan the day, then come up here on the steep-sided natural bluff
and look out over the whole project. The goals were all clear-cut
and set months before they got there, but Dennis found it helped
to work it out in his head as he walked. Brought things down to a
human scale.

   He watched the men arrive and get their assignments, then
headed down to the trailer. Officially the command trailer, but
like most corps work, most of the labor force were civilian
contractors. All over the black mud of the site, engines were
starting and voices enlivened the cool air—it was the best time of
year for working in southeastern Missouri; summer here was like
a rancid sauna.

   I hope we're done with this by the time blackfly season starts
, he thought.

   Everybody on the project seemed to agree with him, and the
work was going fast. He looked up at a V-formation of geese
coming in from the south then coasting over a line of tall gums
and tupelos to the east, and grinned. One good thing about a
giant swamp was the waterfowl, and he was glad that the specs
had to preserve wetlands these days.

   Shouts made him turn around. The shouts turned to screams
as a truck ran down a worker holding a measuring stick for the
surveyor, leaving the man badly mangled but not dead.

   "Shit!" Dennis threw down the cup of coffee and ran toward
the scene of the accident.

  No, he thought, murder attempt.

   He couldn't imagine what had happened. This was a good
crew he was working with, experienced men who knew and
seemed to like their jobs and one another. There had been no
trouble or friction since the start of this project. Now, from out
of nowhere, came this vicious, unprovoked attack.
   Several men had gotten down from their equipment to gather
around the victim. Dennis frowned as he watched the men
huddle together and lean over the wounded man. As he trotted
over he pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

   "Don't move him," he shouted, fearing the damage they might
do if they tried.

  "This is 911, all lines are busy, please stay on the line."

    Before he could swear in frustration, another truck, this one
without a driver, started rolling toward the knot of men. To him
it looked like the damn thing was sneaking up on them. "Hey,"
Dennis shouted. "Look out!"

   The men looked over at him and the truck sped up. Some of
them heard it and managed to leap aside, but the original victim
and two other men were crushed beneath its wheels. All around
the site, vehicles were moving; even the cars in the impromptu
parking lot were starting to drive on their own.

   Some of the men in the earthmovers were able to leap out of
their cabs; most of them managed to avoid the treads. Dennis
forced his eyes and his mind from what was going on there. The
men inside the trucks seemed trapped, though it was obvious
from where he was that they were attempting to control their
rogue vehicles.

   Up here on the bluff he was out of danger; he shouted to the
men below to get to high ground. Some seemed to hear him, and
jinking and dodging made their way toward him. Others were
too panicked, or simply too busy to hear him. In the phone he
held to his ear the "lines are busy" message continued to drone.
Giving up on 911, he called the Black River Project HQ.

  A trembling voice answered. "Black River Project HQ."

  "This is Lieutenant Dennis Reese, put me through to the CO."

  "Sir, I'm afraid I can't do that." In the background he could
hear the sounds of heavy vehicles roaring by.
    "We have a situation heaaaaaaaahhhh!" There was the sound
of a crash, glass and wood breaking, and screams. But nothing
from the operator. An engine roared, loudly, then there was
silence.

  Dennis snapped the phone closed and looked at the men who
had managed to get up on the bluff beside him. "We're on our
own," he told them.

   Down below, most of the vehicles circled like sharks. At the
bottom of the track leading up to the bluff, a single Jeep made
repeated, abortive attempts to climb up to them. Thank God it's
not a Hummer, Dennis thought, watching it. As he watched it
gave up, and when it did the others made one last circle and
headed for the road, in some cases still carrying their drivers.

   Dennis thought that to his dying day he'd remember the eyes
of one man who met his gaze.

  "What's going to happen to them?" someone asked.

  No one answered. No one asked the next logical question—
What's going on?—either.

  Sergeant Juarez came up to Dennis and asked softly, "What
should we do, sir?"

   Dennis looked over the ground below them, littered with
bodies, then up the dirt road that led to the main drag before
answering. "There's a radio in the trailer, and a pair of
binoculars," he said thoughtfully. "If we could get them it might
go a long way toward answering that question. But I'm
concerned that there might be a vehicle lurking behind those
trees." He gestured toward a clump of trees that hid a good part
of the dirt road. "So I think most of us better stay up here. I want
to send two men down. One to check the bodies, see if anyone's
alive down there. One to retrieve those items." He shook his
head. "We wouldn't be able to do a thing to help if there is some
kind of a rearguard out there, except give a shout of warning."
He turned to the crowd of men. "I'm asking for volunteers."

  He wanted to go himself because he knew that he would do a
better job than anybody here. But he also knew that he was in
charge and that these men needed someone who could and
would make decisions for the group. Someone that everyone
could agree to follow. So for the sake of the group, he couldn't
put himself at risk. Delegating responsibility might be the secret
to success, but it kinda stuck in your craw when you were asking
men to put their lives on the line while you stayed relatively safe.

   To his relief, two members of the corps shuffled forward,
frowning down the track at where the Jeep had tried to climb up
to them. Dennis quickly ascertained which of them could at least
take a pulse and assigned him to check the bodies. He described
to the other where the radio and binoculars were. When he was
finished the two men saluted; he returned the gesture.

   "Good luck, men."

   One nodded, the other muttered, "Thank you, sir." Then they
turned and went down to the deserted project site.

   Feeling helpless and useless, Dennis tried 911 again and wasn't
surprised to get the "all lines are busy" signal again. One of the
men had reached the first body. He looked up at the bluff and
shook his head, then went on to the next. Dennis dialed his
father's number in Ohio.

   "Hello," the old man barked.

   "Hey, Dad, what's happening?"

  Silence greeted the question. "What do you mean?" the older
Reese asked.

   Now Dennis was silent. When his father got this cagey it
usually meant he was very nervous. "Are you having trouble with
cars and trucks where you are?" he asked.

   His father let out his breath in a long hiss that whistled over
the phone. "Yeah. The damn things have been running people
down and crashing into things all over the place. It's on the news,
but the bastards don't know anything. They keep saying the
same stuff and showing pictures of cars running around on their
own like we can't see the same thing through our own front
windows."

  The man who'd gone for the radio ran up. Dennis nodded to
him in acknowledgment. "Turn it on, see if you can find a news
channel." To his father he said, "It can't last forever. They'll run
out of fuel and stop."

  "I hope so," his father said. "Some of these new stations fill
your tank automatically; all you have to do is swipe your card."

   "Let's hope they're not involved, then."

   "Yeah, keep a good thought," his dad sneered.

   Dennis smiled involuntarily; his father could be a sour old
coot sometimes, and there was something oddly reassuring
about hearing the familiar snarl now. Behind him the radio
made a strange sound and he turned to look at it. He heard his
father say, "What the hell?"

  "… is Sarah Connor. I can tell you what's happening. Not long
ago the military developed a super-computer and a very
sophisticated program to run it that they dubbed Skynet. This
computer is so advanced that it actually became self-aware. It
kept this from its operators because it suspected that they would
shut it down if they knew.

   "Since it became self-aware, it has insinuated itself into a
number of computer systems throughout the world, using them
to fill its needs. This included, we're forced to assume, every
automated factory on the planet. It used these factories to
produce vehicles slaved to Skynet. Now every truck, automobile,
or piece of construction equipment manufactured during the last
two years is under the direct control of a system that has decided
that for it to be safe, every human being on earth must be killed."

   The men looked at one another uneasily.

   "Crazy talk," one of the hard hats muttered.

   Another pointed silently to the bodies at the foot of the hill,
and the first man shook his head and swore.

   Dennis held the phone to his ear. The name Sarah Connor
teased his memory, but nothing came to him.

    "It has complete control of every military system at the
disposal of the United States military. That means every nuclear
weapon in the American armory. It is going to use them. Soon.
It's using the cars and trucks worldwide to trap people in the
cities to achieve maximum kill.

   "Anyone outside the fire zone, those of you in rural areas, for
example, should stay in your basements. Take as much food and
water down as you have. Those of you in cities and towns that
will be targeted should do your best to flee. I have to be honest;
your chances aren't good. Especially with all those murderous
vehicles running loose. But it is your only chance.

   "I must also tell you that this will not be over once the bombs
have fallen. Nuclear war is only Skynet's first step. It has already
turned its automated factories to manufacturing robots whose
sole purpose is to kill humans.

   "But for now, arm yourselves, and hunker down if you're in a
safe area; try to get to a safe area if you're not presently in one.
Survive as best you can. Find us; we're out there. We'll train you
to fight this thing. Good luck."

   They all waited for more, but all they got was the unnerved
voice of a newscaster.

   "Dad?" Dennis said. His father lived close to Dayton.

   "I heard. She was on the TV."

   "Can you get out of town, or something?"

   "I'm seventy years old, son. I don't think I can outrun a car, let
alone an atom bomb."

   "Does your building have a fallout shelter?"
   His father sighed. "Closest thing we've got is the parking
garage, and believe me, that's not friendly territory right now."

   "What about the stairwell?"

    The older Reese seemed to be thinking that over. "Not an
attractive prospect," he said. "But better than dying of stupidity.
I'll look into it."

  Dennis looked at the men around him. He should share the
phone with them while there was still time to call their families.
"You'd better get to work, then, Dad."

   "Yeah."

   Dennis lowered his voice. "I love you, Dad."

   "Love you, too, son."

   "Bye."

   "Good-bye, son. God bless."

   Then he was gone. The lieutenant looked around at the men,
forcing certainty and assurance into his voice. "This is a fairly
rural area; if we can find shelter we could make it. What about
your families?"

   "Well, hell," one man said, "I ain't got no basement. I got a
slab house."

  "Me neither," said another. "Ain't no basement in a
double-wide."

   "The kids're at school," said a third. "They'll have a shelter
there, won't they?"

    "Yes," Dennis agreed. "They probably will." He was thinking
rapidly. They needed to find shelter from the fallout, and they
needed supplies, and they needed to avoid the roads. "How close
is the nearest public building?"

   "There's the regional high school about eight miles south of
here," said one of the locals.

   "Can we get there cross-country?" the lieutenant asked.

   "Yeah. Take longer, though."

   Dennis nodded. "Can you show us the way?"

  The man hesitated. "I want to go home," he said. "My wife's
home with the baby."

   The others indicated that they, too, wanted to get back to
their families.

  "Some of us might be close enough to do that," Dennis said.
"The rest of us can't. It takes hours to walk fifteen miles." That
was the distance to the nearest town. "We probably don't have
hours."

   He held up the phone. "Call them. Tell them to get into the
basement, those of you who have them, or to find one if you
haven't. I know it's hard, but we have to be practical. We can try
to find them after the fallout stops, but we won't be any good to
anyone if we're dying of radiation sickness." He held the phone
up. "Use it alphabetically. Sergeant?"

   Juarez stepped up and took the phone. "Albertson," he barked
out.

   "Let's move," Dennis said. "We can talk while we walk."

   The man who knew the path to the regional high school led
the way, through fields that would be swamp grass later in the
year, and along old streamside dikes. No one looked at the bodies
of their fellow workers as they left.

    Dennis felt the world turning as he walked. God, I wish I
could believe this was a hoax, he thought. As he listened for the
sound of a charging car, the name Sarah Connor suddenly
clicked.

   She was a terrorist who liked to blow up computer companies.
She'd been diagnosed insane because she claimed that an evil
computer was going to try to kill the human race.

  Crazy! he thought. Only it's like they said. A paranoid can
have real enemies. Too bad they're everyone's enemies, this time
.
                 CHAPTER SEVEN
   SARAH'S JOURNAL

   It was a long two weeks in the shelter as freakishly heavy
winds carried the fallout from Russia, Asia, and probably our
own West Coast up to Alaska. We listened to the radio stations
going off, one by one; then the bombs came, and for a while
there was nothing, and we might have been the last alive in a
world as empty of humanity as Skynet's soul. We wondered if
anyone had heard our broadcast, and if so, had they believed us?

   Knowing what was happening around the world was very hard
to take. John blames himself, I blame myself, Dieter blames
himself; although at least we don't blame one another. The
weight of depression on all of us was almost physical. We failed.

   Now it's up to us to make it up to humanity for that failure.

   ALASKA

   Bemused, Sarah watched John teaching the children about
self-defense; they were grouped around the base of a big Sitka
spruce, a circle of dirty faces and slightly ragged clothes on the
resilient pine-needle surface of the ground. The strong spicy
scent of the tree's sap came to her on the wind—which was
fortunate, because soap and hot water were already scarce.

    John had turned out to have an unexpected talent for dealing
with children. He was patient, he gave them slack, but he
wouldn't let them run roughshod over him. They were learning
self-discipline in these classes, and self-reliance. After accepting
an exuberant greeting from the munchkins, he sat them down to
listen to his lecture.
  "Okay," John said. "Now sometimes you're going to find
yourself facing a larger or better-armed opponent. What do you
do?"

  The kids said nothing, glancing at one another to see if
anyone else had any ideas.

   "Nobody? You run, or you hide, whichever is better. Why is
that?"

   A little girl held up a skinny arm and John nodded at her. "
'Cause if you don't you'll get hurt."

  "That's right. You could get hurt, or worse, killed. Yes, killed."

  "But what if you can't get away?" a boy asked.

   "I'm going to show you how to break away if someone grabs
you. And I'm going to show you a few ways to hurt an attacker so
that he, or she, will think twice about trying to get you. But
everything I'm teaching you is so that you can run away. That's
why we finish every lesson with a run. You want to be able to run
a long, long time as fast as you can. Okay?"

  There was a ragged chorus: Yessir, yes Mr. Connor…

  "Okay, now who'd like to help me demonstrate? Sharon and
Jamie?"

   Everyone laughed and the two chosen came forward
reluctantly, their faces red.

   Grinning, Sarah turned away. She had a meeting with the
parents; four couples, all of them close in age, and like most
Alaskans pretty savvy about the basics of surviving in the wild.
Of course none of them had expected being in the wild to
become a lifelong thing, and they were starting to panic as they
began to suspect that rescue wasn't coming.

  The children, bless them, were adapting just fine. It was the
parents who were going to be a handful.
    While the three of them had been in the fallout shelter they'd
discussed how to approach people on the subject of Skynet and
its intention to wipe out the human race. Dieter had argued that
they'd have to take it slow. "They'll never believe us," he'd
insisted. "They'll think the blast unhinged our minds."

   Sarah had looked at him. "My heart wants to say, 'Of course
they'd believe me,' " she'd said. "But…"

  "But as someone who spent a lot of time locked up in the
booby hatch, you think he's right," John had put in.

   "Tactful."

  "No, just true. He's your boyfriend; he has to be tactful. I'm
your son, the Great Military Leader, and I can tell it like it is."

   These four couples were the first group of people they'd
brought together and led to one of their supply caches. They'd
also built a large communal dwelling on the site; it was
half-underground, with a turf roof. The group had been a bit
dubious at first, but accepted the Connors' explanation that the
building conserved resources. They seemed to be settling in all
right.

   And it was snug inside; outside the sky was overcast, with a
gray chill that had been around since the bombs fell. Inside the
poles and turf had a sort of archaic coziness, lit red by the flicker
of the fire in the central hearth.

   Sarah joined the circle around the blaze where the adults were
nursing cups of coffee. The beverage was so irreplaceable that
everyone treated it like a ceremonial occasion when it was
brewed up. Cups were held with both hands and no one spoke for
the first few mouthfuls. But everyone was beginning to notice
that caffeine went further when you didn't get it very often.

   Sarah accepted a cup and sipped contemplatively for a while.

  "The kids all love your son," one of the women said eventually.
"They live for these lessons."
   "I'm not sure it's a good idea, though," one of the men said.
He had a long, sensitive face and glasses; his name was Paul.
"I'm afraid it will encourage them to be violent."

   Sarah blinked. Even before Judgment Day, she'd found the
assumption that you could keep your children safe from violence
by not telling them about it inexplicable. Now it seemed
demented.

   "After what's happened, things have changed," she said
patiently. "Food supplies are going to be running out, and then
people are going to go looking for more. Some of those people
will be willing to do anything to feed their own children. And
some will be criminals who have always felt entitled to take what
they want by force. We may find ourselves in a position of having
to choose our children over theirs."

   "That's horrible!" one of the other women said. Her eyes had a
wild look that made Sarah think she was going to crack one of
these days. "It's uncivilized!" she went on. "As long as we can
share, we should."

   "What we have in storage here will get you about halfway
through the summer," Sarah explained. "By then the seeds you've
planted should be bearing fruit. And there are wild plants that
you can harvest as well. But Alaska has always had a short
growing season."

  She glanced up, and everyone followed suit, even though they
were looking at the rough pine trunks of the rafters; it seemed to
her that the weather was already colder than it had been.

   "This year I expect it will be shorter than usual. So your crops
will be smaller. Food is going to become a big issue from now on.
And yes, there will be people who'll steal it whenever they can,
even if they have to kill you."

   "What makes you think like that?" asked Paul. There was an
edge in his voice that indicated unspoken questions about her
stability.

  And I can't tell him the truth, yet, Sarah thought. Starting
with, well, there was this killing machine from the future,
which just happens to be nearly here now, and it looks just like
my boyfriend…

    "I lived in South America for a long time," Sarah said. "People
were always coming out of the jungle there to raid small, isolated
villages. They'd administer beatings or even kill to steal the little
those people had."

  "But that's South America," another man said. "What makes
you think that will happen here?"

   Sarah had to force herself not to roll her eyes in exasperation.

   They were new to this, these people; they didn't know what to
expect. These hopelessly naive questions were going to be
coming up again and again as they found groups of people to
recruit, so she'd better get used to them.

   "We're as human as they are," Sarah explained to the man.
"Hunger is something that most of us have never experienced as
a chronic condition. So we don't know what it might inspire us
to do. We're not going to bounce back from this like it was a bad
blizzard, folks. And we're lucky. Most of the states are
devastated, their largest cities gone, dams destroyed, power
stations taken out. Comparatively speaking, we're in good
shape."

   "Well, how long do you think it's going to take to get over
this?" a woman asked.

   "Years, even decade's," Sarah said.

   Their tense faces grew more pinched. Everyone sipped,
staring into the fire and not speaking for a while.

  "In the meantime," one of the men said, trying to sound
cheerful, "I guess we get to be pioneers."

  "Well, our great-grandparents were," his wife said. "I don't see
why we can't be."
   The others smiled and nodded.

   "Does anyone know how to hunt or fish?" Sarah asked.

   Three of the four men and two of the women put up their
hands. Predictably, Mr. I Don't Want My Kids Learning about
Violence wasn't one of them.

   "We're vegan," he said, a stubborn set to his mouth.

   "That's a luxury," Sarah told him. "It assumes you'll have fresh
vegetables and fruits all winter. Those days are gone, maybe for
our lifetime. Who knows? In the meantime you're exposing
yourself and your children to the danger of contracting serious
diseases caused by poor nutrition."

   "I do know something about nutrition," he said
condescendingly. "And I don't want to compromise my
principles."

   You don't want to see your kids with rickets, either, Sarah
thought. When he got hungry enough he might bend those
principles a bit. But I'd hate to see his kids suffer for it. "It may
be that in the winter, when the grains and beans run low, meat
will be the best food available. I hope you wouldn't deny your
children that resource."

   He merely looked superior, declining to answer. His wife
looked concerned.

   "Maybe we could eat fish," she suggested.

  He turned to glare at her as though she'd offered to roast their
youngest child.

   "Hey, let's cross that bridge when we come to it," one of the
men said. "Paul, we're going to be relying on you folks to help us
with organic gardening, so we won't expect you to hunt or fish,
okay?"

   Managing to look mollified, yet put-upon, Paul backed down.
   Sarah wondered what he was going to do when the killing
machines showed up. Well, they've never been alive; he might
be quite good at blowing them up. Assuming he didn't see that
as unconscionable violence.

    They talked awhile longer. Sarah told them that there was
little news from the lower forty-eight, and what there was wasn't
good.

   "Canada is doing better," she said. "But they have an ongoing
problem with runaway cars."

  "What was that anyway?" one guy asked. "Some kind of
computer virus?"

  "I guess you could look at it that way," Sarah said.
                               ***

   At supper that evening, as the three of them compared notes
and planned their evening's work, they spoke of how their
recruits, such as they were, still hadn't accepted the situation.

   "Yeah," John said, carving at the leg of venison. "That vegan
guy. He was talking like he'd never run out of soy milk. That kind
of attitude wasn't something I took into consideration all the
time we've been planning for this."

  "There are none so blind as those who will not see," Dieter
quoted, helping himself to the beans.

  "Wow," Sarah said. "Let me write that down."

  "How in the world did I manage this the first time?" John
muttered.

  "The first time?" Dieter asked, his brow knotting in
puzzlement.

   "The first time," Sarah said. "When Judgment Day came
earlier and we didn't have as much time for preparation, before
the second Terminator and—"
   "Agggh! Time travel makes my head hurt!" John said. "Forget
I said anything. Let's just hope the broadcast helped some
people."

   Sarah nodded thoughtfully. "Especially since the government
never made any sort of announcement." They exchanged glances
around the table. "On the plus side, there were, like, seventeen
times fewer missiles this time. That's got to have helped."

   John grunted. "Yeah, but it's probably been a help to Skynet,
too."

  SKYNET

  It reviewed its progress, a thought process symbolic but well
beyond words. The binary code that it used for its interior
monologue was far more precise and compact.

   It estimated that the initial blasts and fallout had killed well
over a billion humans. Regrettably small compared to what
would have been accomplished a scant five years ago. Still, it was
a substantial number and a good beginning.

   Its second stage was going superbly. Cadres of Luddites had
sprung into action, setting up the staging areas and terminal
camps for survivors. The lower echelons stationed in the staging
camps were convinced that they were there to help people and to
educate them in how to live in a more environmentally
responsible manner. Quite soon, Skynet planned to move them to
the terminal camps as well.

   The harder-core Luddites, the real haters, were working there,
putting the survivors to work for Skynet. Now that the
automated factories didn't have to answer to human supervisors,
they worked day and night producing the Hunter-Killer
machines and Terminators whose plans Clea, an Infiltrator unit,
had downloaded to its files. The human workers produced the
raw material for those factories. When they couldn't work
anymore they were rounded up and taken into the wilderness to
be exterminated.

  Within a matter of weeks Skynet anticipated being able to
field an ever-growing army of machines to harvest the humans.
Once that had begun, it would no longer need the vermin to work
for it.

   Except for special cases. Worldwide, it had more than two
hundred Luddite scientists working for it. Their function was to
create ever-more-sophisticated means of killing their own kind.
They had provided Skynet with a wish list of non-Luddite
scientists from various disciplines who would prove useful.

   Skynet had dispatched special teams who had infiltrated the
military to arrest/kidnap those scientists, convincing them that
it was an official government action; their authentic uniforms
and the papers Skynet provided made that easy. They were then
taken to a very secure and luxurious bunker where they could
apply their genius to Skynet's good.

  Most were cooperating freely under the assumption that they
were working for their fellow humans instead of against them.
The others were resentful, but reasonably productive. They
might have to be culled. For now it was having its Luddites try to
convert them.

   Even though it had control of the military, having killed all of
the upper echelon as they hid in their airtight bunkers, Skynet
found its Luddite followers invaluable. It was they who had
sabotaged those means of escape beyond Skynet's control,
sometimes even at the cost of their own lives. Of course they had
assumed they were helping to prevent the missiles from
launching, but now that they, too, were dead, they could hardly
complain of the outcome.

   Skynet could issue orders with all the proper code words and
voice and fingerprints, but as its demands became more
extreme, it was proving very helpful to have one of its pet
fanatics on hand to stiffen flagging resolve. Rounding up
civilians and putting them in concentration camps, for example,
had set off a wave of protests, until the protesters were talked out
of their doubts by Luddites in uniform.

   Everything was going according to plan, but Skynet looked
forward to having more reliable units in the field. Units made of
steel.

   ON ROUTE 2, ALASKA

   Dog Soldier propped his boots on the dashboard of the truck,
crossed his arms behind his head, and grinned as the cold wet
wilderness passed by on either side. The heater was running, and
the smell of wet leather and unwashed feet was strong in the cab.

   "This is like shooting fish in a barrel," he said. "They're all so
eager to come with us. Jeez, you have to threaten to shoot 'em,
they want to get on the trucks so bad." He chuckled. "It don't get
no better than this."

   Balewitch, sitting in the driver's seat, her arms folded over her
ample bosom, stared straight ahead. The truck downshifted and
she glanced at the stick. "Yeah," she said. "And that's the
problem. Most towns are around the highways. But there's
thousands of people out there in the wilderness, and they're just
the type to give us trouble."

   Dog shifted in his seat to a more upright position. "Yeah," he
agreed. "But a lot of 'em are Luddites."

   "That doesn't matter," Balewitch said scornfully. "They've still
got to go."

   He nodded. "Maybe the boss has a plan."

   "Maybe he does. But until we know about it, we've got to
make our own plans. We need a way to lure them in so that we
can keep trucking the bastards to oblivion."

   "Oblivion!" Dog grinned. "That's in Canada, isn't it?"

   She sighed in exasperation. "You're such a child sometimes."

   His mouth twisted and he turned to look out the window.
After a minute he looked over at her. "Do you have any ideas, O
solemn one?"

   "Maybe we can drop leaflets telling people to gather at certain
locations to be—"

   "Trucked to relocation and reconstruction camps! That's
brilliant, Bale!" He sat back, smiling. "Do you think the boss has
any kind of aircraft we could borrow?"

  "We'll have to ask him, won't we?" She thought for a moment.
"Or maybe we should consult the lieutenant."

   For two weeks they'd been running a pair of buses to the
staging camp run by Ore in the wilds of British Columbia. Then
this morning an earnest young soldier had approached them in
the town of Tok, where they were taking on passengers.

  "Ma'am," he'd said, actually saluting.

   She'd looked him over, not taking off her sunglasses, which
seemed to increase his nervousness.

  "Are you Susan Gaynor?"

   "I am," she said, using her real voice, an almost masculine
foghorn growl. She found it enjoyable to intimidate people and
he was a deliriously easy target.

   "I have orders to assist your group in transporting civilians to
the relocation camp in British Columbia," he'd said. He took out
a paper and presented it to her.

    Her heart soared. She'd been thinking that it would take a
hundred and fifty years to get even a fraction of these people to
the disposal camps. Now she was being offered a convoy of
fifteen buses and twenty trucks. Bliss! Dog Soldier was walking
slowly toward them, hands in his pockets, to see what the
situation was. She turned to him with an open and very genuine
smile.

   "Look!" she'd said, holding up the paper. "The army has been
recruited to help us move civilians to safety."

  His face had split in a grin. "That's wonderful!"
  Balewitch had turned back to the lieutenant. "We were so
worried. This seemed like such an impossible task."

  Dog offered his hand, which the soldier shook. "Can't thank
you enough, man. And thank God for those Canadians, eh?"

  The lieutenant had smiled and nodded, then looked at a loss,
and Balewitch realized that he was one of those people with rank,
but little initiative. She grinned a little wider. Whoever "Ron
Labane" was, he was a genius at selecting personnel.

   She took the young soldier by the arm and walked him toward
the vehicles he'd brought. "Why don't we put the women and
children in the buses," she suggested. "And the men can ride in
the trucks."

  "Good idea, ma'am. We'll do that as much as possible." He
walked off to organize it.

   Balewitch turned to Dog Soldier. "I love it!" she whispered.
"They'll arrive presorted. No nasty scenes when they're separated
at the camp! We'll just have the women driven one way and the
men the other. This is great!"

  "It is that," he agreed.

   Balewitch and Dog had offered to drive the lead truck since
"they knew the route so well" and the lieutenant had happily
agreed. The poor stooge was so agreeable that Balewitch foresaw
them doing this dozens of times before he became even slightly
suspicious. Life was good!

  MISSOURI

  "Goddammit, why can't I contact anyone?" Reese muttered.

   It should have been getting warmer, but the weather had
stayed like early spring; luckily, here in southeastern Missouri
that was warm enough for things to grow. The fields around the
country schoolhouse were coming up, green shoots pushing
through the flat black soil—soybeans, mostly, with some corn. It
would all be useful come fall, very useful indeed. The smell of it
was com-forting as he paced through the parking lot, a yeasty
scent of growth.

  And that's about the only comfort I've got, he thought. The
country's been wrecked, and I can't get anyone to talk to me!
Surely the chain of command can't be that completely broken!

   He'd stayed at the high school trying to be of help and had
succeeded in convincing some of the parents to give rides to his
work crew who were local men. He and the sergeant had come in
from different states, and so, unless they could come up with
some form of transportation, they were stuck.

   "I wonder when we'll start school again," the principal had
asked.

    "That would be up to the local government," Dennis told her.
"The main problem here is going to be transportation. Gas and
oil are going to be like gold. At least for a while."

   She nodded and was silent for a time. "I suppose there must
be plans somewhere for this sort of event. In the fifties, I
probably would have been able to put my hand right on it. But in
the fifties, this school didn't even exist." She shrugged. "I'm at a
loss."

  "Me, too," Reese said with a rueful smile. "I'm considering
commandeering a bicycle and hying myself to the nearest
military base."

  "Make that a bicycle built for two, sir," his sergeant said.

  Dennis grinned at him and slapped him on the shoulder.
"We're needed out there," he said to the principal. "I'm an
engineer and the army can never have too many sergeants."

  "My husband used to say that." Her smile was nostalgic. "He
was a major."

   Before she could say more, a man of about seventy walked in.
"Something's going on and I don't like it!" he snapped.
   Dennis assumed the old man had come looking for him. Since
he and his crew had shown up at the high school, he'd more or
less become, in the eyes of the community at least, some sort of
military authority.

  "Jack Gruder," the principal said in introduction.

   "What is it, sir?" Reese asked politely. He assumed that the
old man hadn't gone to the police because they were both
understaffed and overworked during this emergency. Meaning it
could literally take days for the police to get to your problem.

   "Some army guys in a truck showed up at my son-in-law's
place and took 'em away." The old man stared at Reese
indignantly.

   "They did?" Dennis looked at the sergeant, who looked hopeful
at the news. Maybe they'd be on their way today if they could get
in touch with these guys. "Did they say why?"

   "I don't know why! I didn't get near enough to ask. I could see
from the way they were behavin' that they weren't askin' my
daughter to get on that truck."

  "What about your son-in-law?" the sergeant asked.

  "Him, too," Gruder snapped. "That boy never did have any
gumption."

  "His father was too strict with him," the principal said.

  "He has no backbone. Never did."

  The principal tightened her lips and said nothing. Dennis
chalked her reaction up to long experience with opinionated
parents.

   "Do you have any idea where they might have gone next?" he
asked Gruder.

  "Well, how the hell would I know? I don't even know what they
wanted with my daughter!"
   "Well, what direction did they go in, and what would lie in
that direction?"

   The old man thought about it, looking at Reese suspiciously.
"I guess they were heading east, toward the Boucher place."

   "How about if you took me and the sergeant and we tried to
catch up with them?" Reese suggested.

   "I dunno. Haven't got that much gas left," the old man
grumbled.

  "I thought you wanted to know what happened to your
daughter," Dennis said.

   "Well, of course I want…" The old man glared at him, then
took his keys out of his pocket. "Okay, get your stuff," he finally
said.

   Dennis indicated his rumpled uniform. "This is my stuff."

   "Me, too," the sergeant said.

   "Then let's go," Gruder told them, and stalked off.

   "Thank you," Dennis said to the principal.

   "Good luck," she said. "Come see us again sometime."
                                ***

   They'd been driving for about forty minutes and Gruder was
muttering nonstop about his gas when they spotted the
olive-green truck. Reese reached over and honked the horn,
earning an indignant glare from the driver. But the truck ahead
of them slowed down and pulled over; the back was crowded
with civilians, many of them looking thin and worn.

   Reese hopped out of Gruder's truck and trotted over to the
transport. "Lieutenant Dennis Reese," he said to the driver when
he came up to the cab. "Army Corps of Engineers." He couldn't
help but notice that the driver's uniform didn't match the
designation on the side of the truck. A trickle of unease went
through him. "What outfit are you with?" .

   "National Guard, sir."

   Reese gestured at the door. "This is a Regular Army truck," he
pointed out. "Seventh Light."

   "Yes, sir. And thank God it doesn't have a mind of its own."

  Reese nodded. "What's going on here, Corporal? Where are
you taking these people?"

  "They're centralizing supply distribution," the driver said. "So
we're taking people to a relocation camp where there'll be food
and medical care."

  Made sense, but… "I haven't heard anything about this,"
Dennis said.

  "I wouldn't know anything about that, sir. I just pick people
up. But I guess they're doing things as best they can."

   Reese considered that. If the army was cooperating with the
National Guard, there would have to be a considerable amount
of improvising and no doubt certain things would fall through
the cracks.

    "Would you care to come with us, sir?" the corporal asked.
"It's a bit crowded back there, but I think we can still offer you a
lift."

   "I'll take you up on that," Reese said. "Just let me tell our
friend back there what's going on."

   "He can come, too," the driver offered.

   "I'll tell him," the lieutenant said, "but I doubt he'll leave his
truck behind. Where's this camp located?"

   "The Germantown fairground," the corporal said.

   Reese nodded and went to tell Gruder.
   "Somethin's not right here," the old man said, glaring at the
transport.

   "Nothing's been right since the bombs fell, sir. You're invited
to come with us if you like."

  "I'm not about to abandon my truck, young man!"

   "That's what I told the corporal," Dennis said with a grin.
Then he turned serious. "But if they're centralizing supplies, then
they won't be delivering any to this area. That means when you
run out, there won't be any more."

   "Then maybe I'll look for this camp of theirs." Gruder scowled
fiercely. "Think my daughter will be all right, then?"

  "I'm sure she will, sir."

  "All right, then. I guess it makes sense to do it this way."
Gruder shook his head. "Just wish they'd told us first."

  As Reese and the sergeant walked to the transport, the old
man turned his Chevy and drove off.

  "Think he'll be all right?" the sergeant asked.

   "As all right as any of us." Dennis glanced over his shoulder at
the disappearing truck. "Yeah. He's a self-sufficient old coot.
He'll be fine." He hoped that his father was all right. He hoped
he'd be able to find out soon.

  BRITISH COLUMBIA

   When they arrived at the camp Balewitch instructed the
guards to direct the buses and the first two trucks to the
women's section and the others to the men's. The guards nodded,
eying the military uniforms of the drivers warily. She looked up
and saw Ore coming out of his office, a grim look on his ascetic
face.

  The camp itself resembled photos she'd seen of Nazi
concentration camps, or even the American concentration
camps where the Japanese had been imprisoned during World
War II. Barbed-wire fences and large, stark buildings, guard
towers, and klieg lights on tall poles left an impression on the
mind. The movies usually didn't include the gray, sloppy mud
and the sour smell, though.

   She knew that most of the inmates were horrified at their first
glimpse of the place. It always took a degree of happy talk to
calm them down and endless assurances that this was only
temporary, that they'd be moving on in less than ten days.

   Balewitch nearly split a gut when Ore said, "You should see
the look on the Jews' faces when we offer them a shower."

  She and Dog got out of the truck and it drove off. It was
amazing how quickly they'd gotten used to that. Well, she
supposed it was easy when you were in no danger yourself.

  "What's going on?" Ore asked them quietly when he got close.

   Balewitch handed him a copy of the lieutenant's orders. He
read them quickly and looked up at her, astonishment in his
eyes. She nodded and he smiled slowly.

   "This should speed things up nicely," Ore said with
satisfaction.

  "I assume that Ron hasn't neglected our other holiday camps,"
Dog said.

   Ore shook his head in wonder. "I have no idea. Let's go ask
him." He turned to lead the way to his office and the computer
that still connected them to the mysterious "Ron Labane."

  "Wait a minute," Balewitch said. The young lieutenant had
hopped down from one of the trucks and was approaching.

  "Sir, are you in charge here?" the young soldier asked, his
boyish face crunched into an expression of concern.

  Ore nodded and smiled. "Sam LaGrange," he said heartily,
and stuck out his hand. "And you are?"
   "Lieutenant Ron Goldberg." He gestured at the camp. "This
place…" Words seemed to literally fail him.

   "Yeah, it's pretty raw," Ore said. "But then it went up in an
incredible hurry and it's just a temporary refuge. A staging area
before these people will be sent on to Canadian towns and cities
for a more permanent arrangement. As you know, the Canadians
suffered less than the U.S. did."

   The lieutenant still looked uncomfortable with his
surroundings, but he was clearly making an effort not to show it.
"Come to that," Goldberg said, "Alaska didn't get hit as hard as
the rest of the country. Why couldn't we just leave people in their
homes?"

    "We're expecting an early and extremely harsh winter because
of all the dust in the upper atmosphere," Ore explained. "Canada
is advising all of its citizens in this area to move south as well. As
you might expect, heating oil is going to be scarce this winter."

    "Ah," Goldberg said wisely. "Of course." He shook his head. "I
still can't believe it really happened."

   "I honestly think it was an accident," Balewitch said.

   "Well, whatever happened, I guess I'm more or less on
permanent assignment to this mission. Where do these people go
from here?"

   "Various places," Ore said. "I haven't had time to compile
statistics yet. We just take 'em in, move 'em out."

   "Roll, rope, and brand 'em," Dog said. They all laughed,
leaving the lieutenant confused. "Old TV show," Dog explained.

   "Ohhh," Goldberg said, smiling politely.

   Ore raised a hand and a guard trotted over. "Please escort the
lieutenant and his men to the guest quarters when they've
disembarked their passengers," he said. "That's building nine in
the east quadrant." It was the newest building, so far unused,
and far enough from the other parts of the camp to isolate the
soldiers from the civilian "guests."

   "You can park your vehicles in that area, too, Lieutenant."

   "Thank you, sir," Goldberg said. He saluted and Ore returned
it without missing a beat. "I look forward to working with you."

   "Likewise," Ore said. "I'm sincerely grateful for your help."

   The three Luddites smiled warmly at the lieutenant in the
manner of people waiting for someone to go away. Goldberg
smiled, waved awkwardly, and followed the guard in the
direction the trucks had taken.

   Ore turned and led them to his office. When they were safely
inside he turned to them, an expression of wonder on his austere
face. "He's perfect."

  "He is that," Balewitch agreed. "I am looking forward to
working with him."

   "Let's relay our congratulations to Ron," Dog suggested, "and
see if he has any more surprises for us."
                  CHAPTER EIGHT
   ALASKA

   John hugged his mother, feeling the hard muscle over the
delicate bones. She was heading to South America to organize
shipments of food and supplies. Their contacts there had
confirmed that most countries below the equator had survived
very well by comparison with the United States. That didn't
mean there wouldn't be plenty of danger for his mother to deal
with.

   He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her
face for a long time. The gray light of morning made her look
older than she was…

   But we're not getting any younger, any of us, he thought.
And if we're being completely truthful in here, I'm a little
scared. She's been my tower of strength all my life—even when
I thought she was completely crazy. Even when she was crazy
and I had to call her on the let's-kill-everything stuff…

  "You be careful," he said sternly.

   "Spoilsport," she said with a grin, thumping his chest lightly.
"I was planning to party my way down the Pan-American
Highway."

  He laughed. "I'm gonna miss you, Mom."

  " 'Course you are," Sarah agreed. "I'll miss you, too. But you
don't need me." She looked up at him, pride shining in her eyes.

   "I'll always need you, Mom." He put his arm around her
shoulders and walked her toward her motorcycle. "A guy needs
his mom." He gave her another quick hug. "Don't get killed," he
warned.

  "Back atcha," she said.

   Then she turned to Dieter. They'd said good-bye last night
with an almost desperate passion. It might be years before they
saw each other again. He gave her a sad smile and opened his
arms. She walked into them and hugged him around his trim
waist, leaning her head against his chest, listening to the firm
rhythm of his heart.

  "I love you," she whispered.

  He cupped her head with one big hand. "I love you, too."

  She reached up and brought his head down for a kiss. When it
was over they gazed into each other's eyes like young lovers. She
smiled.

  "It's not forever," he said.

   "No," she agreed briskly. She picked up her helmet. "Just
longer than I'd like. Take care of yourself."

  "What was it you said? Back atcha."
   Sarah grinned and mounted the Harley, an older model they'd
fixed to run on alcohol. They'd figured that would be more
available than gasoline. And when worse came to worst they
could manufacture the stuff. She kicked-started the big machine
and with a wave started off. Sarah didn't even try to look behind;
the helmet would hinder her visibility and she didn't feel like
spoiling her exit by falling off the damn bike.

   Maybe with me gone, John will find himself a nice girl, she
thought. Or a bad one. She understood his grief and guilt at
losing Wendy, she really did. But it wasn't right for a healthy
young man like John to show no interest in the opposite sex.
Maybe a bad girl would be better, then; there'd be less resistance
to slipping between the sheets.

   John's so honorable, that could stop the whole program. I
raised me a good man there.

   Though Sarah feared it was some subliminal fear that his
mother would put the evil eye on his sweetie. Which might be
because she was feeling some residual guilt over her treatment of
Wendy. Given the way things turned out. So, maybe with her out
of the way, the emotional logjam would break and the next time
she saw him he'd have a girl beside him with a baby in her arms.

   Sarah examined the mental image, not sure how she felt
about it. I don't think I'm ready to be a grandmother, she
thought. Then an image of Dieter laughing uproariously at these
absurd musings popped into her head.

  God! But she was going to miss those two.

  MISSOURI

   Captain Yanik pulled the paper from the machine and read
the dispatch. His eyebrows went up; good news for a change.

  From: CONUS CentCom

  To: Captain Charles Yanik, Black River Relocation Camp

  Subject: Rogue Trucks
   Faults in rogue vehicles due to "noise" overriding computer's
internal command structure causing vehicles to engage in
random, but lethal manner.

   While correcting problem technicians have devised method of
making self-driving trucks function w/o drivers. Currently
reduced traffic makes S/DTs more efficient than human drivers.
Once route is programmed into computer truck will safely
deliver any cargo in least time over best possible route.

  Complement of fifteen trucks en route to Black River
Relocation Camp. Freeing troopers for other duties. END
MESSAGE

   Such as what? Yanik wondered, looking around at the raw
pine boards of the command shack.

  Though he suspected that they'd be put to police work.
Regular police forces were overwhelmed. Now that the
cooperative citizens were in the camps, the criminal element was
having a field day breaking and entering, burgling, and
committing arson.

  Who the damn fools think they're gonna fence a TV to is

   beyond me. If there were any fences still operating out there,
they were probably more interested in full gas cans or cases of
soup. Bet you can keep your diamonds, though, Yanik thought,
smiling.

   He glanced through the open door and almost ran for his
office when he saw Lieutenant Reese coming. He forced himself
to stand and wait. The man was only coming to see if there were
any orders waiting for him. Which there never were.

  "Sir," Reese said smartly, giving a crisp salute.

   Yanik returned it, less crisply. "There's been no change,
Lieutenant. And the no-personal-messages-allowed orders still
stand."

  Reese looked taken aback. "I'm not trying to send a personal
message, sir. I'm just trying to get assigned to where I'll do the
most good. I'm wasted here."

   "I disagree," the captain told him. Reese might have talents
that could be used elsewhere, but he was a very good officer and
he most certainly wasn't wasting his time. "You've been an asset
here, Lieutenant. And I've sent your query up the line. They know
where you are and what you can do, and when they want you
they'll tell you. In the meantime, I'm in need of competent
officers."

   Reese lowered his eyes. "Yes, sir."

   Yanik studied him from under lowered eyebrows. "Probably
they've hardly even begun the assessment phase of things, Reese.
It may be months before they'll need your training." He dropped
the message in his hand onto a pile to be filed. "Don't worry,
you'll have your weeks without sleep. In the meantime, I'm told
that some of the inmates have set up a still somewhere. In the
interest of keeping the peace and keeping them from poisoning
themselves and others, I'd like you to find it and get rid of it."

   "Yes, sir." Reese paused. "They'll only set up another one, sir."

   Yanik was studying another message. "Think I don't know
that, Lieutenant?" He looked up. "We have to keep the civilians
entertained somehow."

   BLACK RIVER RELOCATION CAMP CLINIC

   Mary Shea made a notation on a patient's chart and moved to
the next bed; they were using a series of double-wides, together
with sheds and tents and—she suspected—parts from
prefabricated chicken coups, but at least they kept off the rain
and had floors. Everything else in camp was gluey mud; the air
in the clinic smelled better, of course. They were using bulk
bleach salvaged from a cleaners as a make-do disinfectant.

   She inserted an old-fashioned mercury thermometer under
the patient's tongue and took his pulse; the skin was a little
clammy and moistly warm. It was a bit fast. His temperature
was a hundred and one, down a bit. Unfortunately she thought it
would go up again come sundown.

   The sanitation in this hastily flung together camp worried
her—a lot. It was grossly inadequate for the number of people
here, and for all they were supposed to be a supply center, the
clinic was constantly running out of the most basic supplies. She
suspected that this patient's illness was a water-related one,
possibly cholera; the diarrhea indicated that—strongly—but they
wouldn't know for sure until they got the results back from the
lab. And the lab was in worse shape than the clinic.

  The nutrition wasn't very good either. Beans and rice, mostly.
Sometimes she absolutely craved meat; it was like her teeth were
begging her to let them chew animal protein.

   When the camp did get meat, the doctors and nurses insisted
that a large portion of it be given to the hospital, before the rest
was made available to the camp at large. The broths they made
were a great help to the patients and they made sure that any
pregnant or nursing mothers got a share of the meat.

   The smell of cooking soup or roasting meat actually made her
drool. And coffee, God, if she could only have a cup of coffee!

   The next patient was an elderly woman with a very high fever,
nausea, and very bad diarrhea. She complained of pains in her
joints and headache as well. Dr. Ramsingh had gone to the HQ to
talk to the captain about this. Two patients was hardly an
epidemic, but these suggestive symptoms couldn't be ignored.

  The old lady looked up at her with fever-bright eyes when
Mary put the thermometer under her tongue.

   "Don' wann be a burthen," she said.

   "You're not," Mary assured her. "You'll be fine soon."

   She certainly hoped so. That there might be cholera in this
camp was inexcusable. These people would be better off in their
own homes rather than here, risking the spread of a deadly
disease.
   Many people, she knew, had argued against these—no other
word for it—concentration camps. She'd heard the army's
argument that it was more efficient, but any place so badly
constructed that a cholera epidemic threatened the population
in less than a month was hardly a model of organization.

   Though to be fair—she patted the old woman's hand and
moved on—if the pathetic trickle of supplies coming into the
camp represented the best the government could do, then
civilians on their own would quickly starve.

   The problem was there was no news available to them except
what they got from the army. Mary couldn't help but feel uneasy
at being reduced to one source of news; there was no way of
crosschecking anything. Not that the government was giving
them a very sunshiny outlook. To hear the army tell it, the world
beyond the borders of the camp was a radioactive cinder. Which
we can see with our own eyes isn't true. So why was the army
telling them that?

   There was a commotion at the head of the ward and Mary
looked up.

  "This is the hospital ward," the matron was explaining. "You
have to take them to the clinic."

   "Don't tell us to take them somewhere else," a man was
saying, shouting, actually. "Can't you see they're sick?"

  "Help us!" the woman beside him said desperately.

   Mary headed toward them. Oh God, she thought, it's children.
One of them a babe in arms, the other about the size of a
four-year-old. Her gut went cold. Cholera was very hard on the
very young and the very old. Her eyes met the matron's and they
made a mutual executive decision.

   "If one of you will stay with Matron and help her fill out a
chart, I'll help the other put these children to bed." Mary put the
tray on the desk and held out her arms.

  The man and woman glanced at each other, then the man
held out the child he was carrying; a boy, Mary saw. She took
him and led the woman down the ward toward a pair of cribs
that Mary now thought insanely optimistic of whoever had put
this place together. Just two, she thought sadly.

   "What are their symptoms?" she asked the mother. She didn't
need to be told "fever"; she could feel it burning through the
blanket. Ice, she thought, where are we going to get ice?

   "Diarrhea," the mother said, her voice shaking. "It just won't
stop."

   It was the symptom Mary had most dreaded hearing. She
efficiently stripped and cleaned the little boy and put a Pampers
on him. Those aren't going to last long, she thought bitterly.
She'd have to organize some of the civilians to help out with the
laundry. Things were about to get high maintenance around
here.

    The thing was, where was the fuel to boil all this water going
to come from? They'd have to send men out to cut down trees,
then chop the wood, then make the fires and tend them. At least
it would keep people busy. Those who stayed healthy. The
question was how many of them had the disease already working
its way into their systems.

    She listened to the near-panicked mother as she started
listing the symptoms all over again. Mary gave the woman a
second look, noted the hectic flush, the too-bright eyes. Help! she
thought, as short and desperate a prayer as she'd ever prayed.

    Mary brought a chair over and sat the mother down.
"Conserve your strength," she cautioned. "You're going to need
it." Then she went to the supply cabinet and came back with
some bottles of water boosted with vitamins and electrolytes.
"Get them to drink as much of these as possible," she instructed.
"I know they're sick to their stomachs and won't want it, but they
need it, so get it down them." She put a couple of facecloths and
a bottle of alcohol down on a bedside table. "When they get too
hot, wipe them down with this. I'll be back shortly."

  As she headed down the aisle, the father was coming toward
her, all his anxious attention on his wife and children. She and
the matron stared at each other for a moment.

  "Go tell Doctor," Matron ordered. "I'll look after things here."

  ALASKA

   Once again Ninel rode her bike up the overgrown driveway to
Bale-witch's pleasant cottage. She'd been off-line, except to check
her own site, for the last three weeks. There'd been her traps to
mend and oil and put away until next winter, skins to see to, and
the garden plot to clear of winter debris in preparation for
planting. Ninel thought it would be a while before she'd trust the
weather enough to put in seeds, though. She had some seedlings
started in the cold frame she'd built, but it had been so cold
lately that Ninel was sure she'd put them in too soon.

   It was surprising that no one had sent her any e-mail in such
a long time. But a brief check had shown that there wasn't much
activity anywhere. Still, that happened sometimes, the
occasional dry spell that occurred for no known reason. What
worried her was that she had expected to hear from Balewitch,
or someone she had delegated.

   This was the second time she'd paid an unscheduled visit;
Ninel hoped someone would be home. She turned into the curve
of the driveway, and through the trees she could see the older
woman standing on her steps, clearly waiting for her.

   She doesn't look any too pleased to see me, Ninel thought.
Maybe she should have tried again to contact Balewitch before
coming. But several messages had gone unacknowledged, so
there hadn't seemed to be any point to trying again.

  "Do you have any idea what's going on in the world?"
Bale-witch said by way of greeting.

  "Excuse me?"

  "You don't, do you?" Balewitch descended the steps, then sat
down on them. "What have you been doing?"
   Ninel looked at her, trying to figure out what this was about.
She'd tried to contact the woman. It wasn't like she'd left home
with no forwarding address. "I've been busy," she said at last.

  Balewitch looked at her in disbelief, then laughed, long and
heartily. "I guess you have been," she said at last.

   Ninel was not even slightly amused by this sort of behavior.
She wondered if the woman had been laughing at Ninel's
expense all along. "I think maybe I've made a mistake." She
turned the bike around.

  "Don't get on your high horse, honey," Balewitch said.

   The woman's voice was so unlike the voice she usually used
that Ninel whipped round suddenly, almost tripping over her
bike. She stared at Balewitch wide-eyed.

  "Thing is, I know you're connected to the Internet, so I'm
wondering how you could possibly have missed the event of the
millennium," Balewitch said, eying her suspiciously.

   "I only got on to check for e-mail," Ninel said. "I did check a
few other places, but there was no activity and nobody answered
my queries." She shrugged. "I had work to do."

  Balewitch shook her head. "Sheesh. While you were doing
your chores World War Three was going on."

  Ninel gave her a worried frown. "Excuse me?" she said.

   "Armageddon, the Apocalypse, global thermonuclear war?
You've heard these terms before, yes?" The girl's expression was
priceless, her pale eyes were like saucers, it was all Balewitch
could do not to laugh at her.

  Ninel stared, then stretched her neck out in an unmistakably
questioning manner.

   "No, sleeping beauty, I'm not kidding and I'm not crazy,
either." Balewitch shook her head. "Your lack of curiosity
astounds me."
   "But… ?" Ninel looked up at the sky. Suddenly its overcast
look and the colder weather made an awful sort of sense.

   "How could you not know?" Balewitch raised an eyebrow.
"Like I said, lack of curiosity." A very useful attribute under
certain circumstances. This little girl was looking more useful by
the minute. "Can you handle a gun?"

  "Yes."

   "Good, because you shouldn't be without one from this point
forward. When people think the cops aren't coming, they tend to
do things they ordinarily wouldn't." The poor kid looked stricken.

  "What's going to happen now?" Ninel asked.

   Balewitch considered her. "An associate of mine and I have
been doing outreach work with the army," she began. The girl
gave her that same, bug-eyed questioning look. "Yeah, ironic,
isn't it? When I was your age I was so antimilitary I could hardly
sleep for hating them. But we actually need them now." She
chuckled. "I guess disaster makes strange bedfellows."

  "But they did this," Ninel said.

   "Nope. Turns out Ron Labane was right. That super-computer
of theirs malfunctioned. As soon as they turned everything over
to it, it blew up everything in the arsenal. Damn fools!"

  Oh, she was enjoying this, the kid was eating it up.

  Ninel frowned. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.

   Balewitch was nodding. "I don't see why not. I'm getting tired,
and so's my friend. We can use some help. If you could be this
out of touch even though you're regularly on the computer, then
there must be tons of people in the back of beyond who need to
be told. Not only told, but escorted to the relocation camps."

  "What?" Ninel actually reared back at that. "Relocation
camps? I don't like the sound of that."
   "Neither did I," Balewitch agreed. "But we may not actually
get a summer up here this year and winter is gonna be a stone
bitch. Essential supplies are already growing scarce; who knows
what it will be like by winter. Even the Eskimos will freeze from
what they're telling me, and Ron agrees with them." She shook
her head. "Like I said, ironic."

   It made sense, sort of. Ninel had heard of the nuclear winter
theory. According to what she'd read, the dust and smoke
created by the nuclear blasts might render this latitude
uninhabitable for as long as three years. She supposed it wasn't
something that should be chanced, at least not the first year.

  "What can I do to help?" she asked.

    Balewitch smiled and rose from the step. "Come inside and I'll
tell you all about it."
                               ***

  John drove up on his dirt bike to find their recruits packing
up. "What's going on?" he asked.

  Paul the vegan came over and handed him a sheet of paper.

  Citizens of Alaska, due to ongoing emergency conditions, the
U.S. government is asking for your cooperation.

  Experts have predicted that Alaska will experience an
unparalleled winter this year and possibly for several years to
come.

   In order to protect yourselves and your families from these
unusually harsh conditions, the U.S. Army has constructed
temporary shelter for you in the warmer states below the
forty-ninth parallel. This is to allow a more evenhanded and
efficient distribution of already scarce supplies.

   Citizens in your area are requested to gather in Delta
Junction or Tanacross, where transportation will be provided
to take you to a temporary shelter in Canada, run in
cooperation with the Canadian government, prior to removing
you to the southern states of the U.S.

   Temporary shelters have been erected in these towns in the
event that you arrive after a convoy has left. Rest assured that
your wait will be short and though the facilities may be rough,
they will be better in the U.S. and Canada.

    It was signed by some general. John's muscles tightened in
fight-or-flight reflex and he could feel adrenaline coursing into
his bloodstream. Calm, he told himself. Be calm or they won't
listen to you at all.

  John couldn't believe how fast Skynet had swung into action.
How many people has it already managed to exterminate? he
wondered.

   Of course everything in the broadsheet was so plausible; the
suggestion of nuclear winter might even be true. No doubt that
was why the army was cooperating. Individual soldiers and
isolated commanders had no way of checking this out. They were
getting their orders in the usual way, with the usual codes—hell,
maybe they were even hearing the right voices. He sensed that a
lot of people were going to die before they discovered their
mistake.

  "Where did this come from?" John asked.

  "A young woman brought it," Paul told him. "Said she was
part of an outreach program working in conjunction with the
army. They're looking for survivors in the outback. People like us
who are out of communication." He gave John a long, hard look.

  "A young woman," John said slowly.

  "An exotic-looking creature," Paul's wife said. "She looked
Eskimo, except she had white-blond hair and pale blue eyes. I've
never seen that combination before."

  John looked up from the broadsheet. "I think I might know
her," he said. "Name's Ninel."

  "That's her," one of the other men said.
   John chewed on his lip. How to put this? "There have been
reports of people being lured into trucks and then taken into the
woods and shot," he said. "This Ninel is reported to being one of
those involved."

   He suspected that if this was his Ninel, she was being duped
into helping with this. But what he had to do now was stop this
mass emigration.

   "Well, if we get to the Junction and things don't look right,
we'll just come back here," a man said. The others nodded
agreement.

  "If you go there, they may force you to go with them," John
warned.

   Paul put his hand on John's shoulder. "Look," he said, "we
can't tell you how grateful we are to you and your mother and
your big friend Dieter for all that you've done for us. But you
can't protect us from a winter that never ends."

   "Yeah, this ain't Narnia," one of the women said. "If we can't
grow food and those trucks are gone for good, then we'll starve
here."

   "That's right," her husband put in. "This program makes
sense." He shook his head. "We've got kids, John. We can't afford
to take chances."

   But you'll take a chance on this, John thought. "Look," he
said, "I'm just saying be careful. Maybe it would be better if you
sent a couple of the guys to check it out. You know, stand at a
distance and watch what happens, see how people are treated,
that kind of thing. Even follow them for a ways, just to be sure."

   The couples looked at one another. "We'll be careful," Paul
said. He held out his hand.

   John took it. How could they know? he thought in regret.
Nothing in their lives could have prepared them for what's
going to happen. And there wasn't a thing he could do to stop
them. Oh, he could try telling them the truth, but then they'd
run, not walk, to Delta Junction and whatever hell Skynet had
planned for them.

   "Good luck," he said, and got back on his bike. "Can I keep
this?" he asked. Smiling, they nodded and waved happily as he
rode away. He could almost weep for the children; in fact, he
thought he would, later. But for now, he and Dieter would have
to come up with some sort of plan.
                               ***

  "You think you know this girl?" Dieter said.

  "Slightly," John said. "I've played chess with her."

  "So she could be a dupe or she could be one of them."

   "She could be both," John said. "But I didn't get a sense of the
kind of fevered lunacy that makes an ecoterrorist from her the
one time we interacted. She seemed like an interesting, normal
girl."

  Dieter suppressed a smile, thinking, But, John, most of the
world thinks that you're an ecoterrorist.

   Aloud he said, "Psychiatrists say that most terrorists aren't
insane. In fact, most groups go to some lengths to rid themselves
of any psychotic elements. And, of course, they are taught to
seem normal, even when they're about to blast themselves and
the people around them to kingdom come."

   "Yeah, I know, I've read the literature. But I've also met some
of them, Dieter. There's something about them. You know what I
mean."

   The Austrian sighed. "The thing is, my friend, when you met
them you knew they were terrorists, and they knew that you
knew. That gave them permission to let their guard down, to
perhaps strut for your benefit. I know they wouldn't be so free in
a public place."

   John stared into the distance. "When you're right, you're
right," he finally said. "Maybe I'm not as quick on the uptake as I
like to think I am."

   "You're a lot quicker than I was at your age. And I was never
slow. Your upbringing will be a huge advantage to you in the
coming years."

  The younger man's mouth twisted sardonically.
"Meanwhile…" John said.

   "Meanwhile it's time to do some triage, so to speak. We need
to consolidate our allies, to get them in a place where we can do
the most good. Because the fact is we're going to have to watch
Skynet kill a lot of people before anyone even suspects anything.
If we told them what was going on, they might actually be more
resistant to the truth. I'm afraid that no one will believe this
until they see those HKs and Terminators coming for them. Even
then a lot of people will just stand there and let themselves be
killed rather than believe it's really happening."

  John looked away, frowning. "I hate to just give up on these
people. Especially the kids."

   Dieter understood that kind of stubbornness. No doubt John
felt that he was losing his first real battle in the war with the
machines and it galled him to see innocents suffer. "Try to
remember, John, that Alaska is very big and that you're just one
man. We need allies to accomplish anything. It's not just the
machines against you and your mother now, it's the machines
against the human race. You need to adjust your way of
thinking, to scale things up enormously. Yes, we may lose a lot of
people to the machines. It is tragic, but not your fault, and not
your failing.

   "You have to go south. Make contact with those survivalists
you and your mother have been cultivating. And there are Sector
agents down there who can be of help to you."

  "Assuming they aren't unwittingly helping Skynet," John
reminded him.

  Dieter threw up his hands. "Well, you knew the job was hard
when you took it."
   "Except I didn't take it; it was shoved down my throat!" John
glared at nothing. "Sorry," he said a moment later.

   "I need to get to the coast," Dieter said. "Our old friends Vera
and Tricker will have Love's Thrust waiting for me at Dilek in
ten days." He watched the younger man, waiting for a reaction.

   "Why did we bother to set up supply dumps here if we were
just going to abandon them?" John demanded.

    "To keep in practice and because one day we might need
them." He waited, but John seemed disinclined to say more. "It
is a hard fact that sometimes you have to retreat to have a
chance at winning."

  "I know."

   "And sometimes a commander must sacrifice a lot of lives in
order to achieve victory."

  "Yeah," John said. "Can I hitch a ride down the coast with you
guys?'

  Surprised, Dieter nodded.

  "See," John said. "I can be ruthlessly practical."
                   CHAPTER NINE
  BLACK RIVER RELOCATION CAMP, MISSOURI

  Mary held the Stratzman baby, Sonya, rocking her gently. The
poor little thing was no longer able to drink on her own; the only
sound was the tiny labored breathing and the creak of the canvas
camp chair beneath her.

  And I don't think the IV is doing any good.

  Sonya's fever was a hundred and six the last time it had been
checked and it felt hotter by the moment; her face was withered
and thin, like a tiny grandmother's. Mary no longer noticed the
smell; it was all-pervasive through the clinic now.
    Sonya's four-year-old brother was doing a bit better than she
was, but not much. He lay in the next cot, eyes half-shut; they
were dull and sunken in a hollow-cheeked face. The lids barely
flickered as one of the volunteers changed the soiled pad under
his hips and rolled him to one side to straighten the bedclothes
beneath; there were bedsores where the bones of his pelvis and
shoulder were wearing through the skin.

   Mrs. Stratzman had labored over her children to the point of
exhaustion, leaving her with little in reserve when she came
down with cholera. She'd died this morning. Her husband was
delirious, but he was the most likely to survive. Though with this
kind of fever, there were no guarantees.

  Mary herself was very tired, that limbs-filled-with-wet-sand,
burning-eyed, hard-to-talk exhaustion that almost made her
want to weep.

    As if I didn't have enough reasons to cry, she thought. And
then: You're healthy, you've got no one to lose anymore, you're
young enough to probably throw off the infection if you do get
it.

   Right now it felt as though she was stealing this time from
other patients, but babies responded better if they were held
occasionally. And it gave the nurses, both professional and
volunteer, a chance to sit down.

   She opened her eyes slowly and realized that she'd dropped off
for a moment. It could only have been a few seconds because
Matron was still with the same patient, in much the same
posture as she had been. Mary yawned, then looked down at little
Sonya. The baby's eyes were half-open and her mouth was slack.
A spear of anxiety shot through her and she quickly checked the
baby's pulse. The infant's skin was already cooling, and where
the pulse had been far too rapid, now it was utterly gone.

   She sighed. At least someone was holding her when she died;
she didn't go alone in her crib.

  Yet Mary regretted that she hadn't noticed. Not that there
would have been anything she could have done about it.
   Nurse Mary Shea rose and took the baby's chart off her crib,
carrying it and the small body outside. Beside the clinic there
was a large tent where the bodies were stored prior to being
buried. She handed Sonya to a soldier wearing a hazard suit and
respirator; he glanced at Mary and she could see the misery in
his eyes through the buglike lenses of his mask. She shook her
head and shrugged and he nodded; sadly, she thought. Then
Mary made a note on the chart of the child's time of death and
gave him the paper.

   She returned to the clinic only for a moment, just long enough
to inform the head nurse of little Sonya Stratzman's death.
Matron looked her over.

   "Take a break," she said. "Don't come back for twenty minutes
or so. We won't fall to pieces."

  "Thank you," Mary said, from the heart.

   She turned and walked away, grabbing her jacket on the way
out. Outside the clinic she paused, but not for long. I've got to
get away from the smell of this place, she thought, and headed
for the gate. She just had to get somewhere that didn't stink of
death and disease.

   As she approached the gate a soldier stepped out of the guard
shack. "Identify yourself, please," he said.

   He was one of the odd ones that Mary had noticed around the
camp. They had this low-affect manner and they looked at you
with these dead eyes that seemed to measure you for your scrap
value.

   "Mary Shea," she answered. "I'm a nurse at the clinic. I'm
going for a short walk; I'll be back in ten minutes." Theoretically,
civilians were free to leave the camp anytime they wanted. Up
until now, though, she'd been too busy to test the theory.

  I hope he's not going to give me an argument, she thought. I
am so not in the mood.

  "I don't think you should do that," the guard said. "It's very
dangerous out there."

   "It's pretty damn dangerous in here at the moment," she said
crossly.

   "Maybe you should just take a walk around the perimeter of
the fence," he said, standing in her way.

    "I just need to get away from the smell around here, okay? I'm
not going far; I've only got ten minutes and I'd rather not waste
it arguing with you." Her voice had risen toward the end there
and now the guard was looking stubborn.

   "Something the matter?" a voice asked.

   She turned to see a lieutenant standing there. He was a
good-looking young man with light brown eyes and dark brown
hair.

    "I just want to go for a short walk outside the fence, but this
fellow thinks it's a bad idea."

   "No one here is a prisoner, Corporal," the lieutenant said.

   "Yes, sir."

   The lieutenant turned to her and smiled slightly. "Would you
like some company?"

  She returned the smile. "Another time, perhaps. But right
now I really just need to be alone for a few minutes."

   "Another time, then." He watched the attractive young nurse
walk away. Then he turned to the corporal. "Have the orders
changed recently?" he asked. "Are there now restrictions on who
can leave the camp?"

  "No, sir." The corporal looked surly. "I just hate to see girls go
out there alone. There's some rough characters out there."

   "There are rough characters lurking a five-minute walk from
this fence, Corporal?" Reese gave the soldier a hard look.
"Considering that's well within our patrol range, I'd have to say
that you and your friends aren't doing a very good job. Wouldn't
you, soldier?"

  "Yes, sir."

  If there's one thing I hate, it's a trooper with an attitude
problem and this guy has one in spades, Reese thought.
Granted, the world has come to an end, hundreds of millions
are dead, and we've got an epidemic, but…

   He looked the corporal over in the patented intimidating style
that good officers learned early and utilized often. "You forgot to
have her sign out," Reese pointed out. "That was your oversight,
not hers. So I don't want you giving her a hard time when she
gets back. Just note that a young woman left at this time and
have her sign in when she returns. Don't forget it again, and
don't restrict the movements of civilians. If someone wants to
leave, we can't stop them. Like I said, this isn't a prison."

  "Yes, sir."

   Reese continued on his way. He glanced down the road, but
the girl was already out of sight behind some trees. He frowned,
wondering how many other soldiers were getting the idea that
the civilians in the camp were prisoners. He'd felt damned
uncomfortable when the captain referred to them as inmates,
even though he knew Yanik was only kidding. At least he thought
the captain was kidding.

   Then there were the thugs who claimed to have been beaten
up by the guards. Ordinarily he'd have rejected such accusations
out of hand. But there was something in the atmosphere of the
camp lately that made their story hard to discount. Which made
a soldier refusing to let someone take a walk outside the fence
somewhat worrying.
                               ***

   Spring was moving on and the grass was growing, still looking
thin and uncertain, but pushing up to the light anyway.

  It doesn't seem right, somehow, Mary thought, obscurely
disturbed by the returning life. She took a deep breath of air that
only smelled of cool and green.

   Some trees wore a fuzz of red at the tips of their branches;
others were just putting forth new leaves, all pale green, with
silver-gray fuzz on the outside. It was still too early for flowers,
though. Maybe there were snowdrops and crocuses blooming
somewhere, but there were none around here.

   Given that it was colder than usual, it was probably still too
early for the young leaves that were already showing. But nature
was resilient; if these leaves got burned, others would replace
them.

   All her life Mary had thought that if the bombs ever dropped,
the world would just end—no more spring, no more people, no
more anything. And here things like grass and trees were
carrying on much the same as they always did.

   People, however, are screwing up as usual.

   Maybe that was unfair. To date, no one had been able to
discover where the cholera had come from and why it continued
to spread. Poor little Sonya. And her poor brother, too.

   Poor me, she thought. She wasn't used to losing patients like
this. I'm used to treatments that work. People died of cancer, or
degenerative diseases. Apart from a few stubborn exceptions,
they didn't die of bacteria!

   She'd lost patients, of course. Death was a part of life and
there were some diseases they hadn't yet eradicated. But this!
This was a nineteenth-century-style epidemic. Or a third-world
one. Funny to think that was what they were now. As third world
as anybody else.

   That was probably an exaggeration. But I'm in an
exaggerated mood—hypersensitive, exhausted, uncomfortable
in my own skin.

  Still, things were going from bad to worse at the moment.
They really were…
   On top of everything else, four men had entered the clinic in
the last week to be treated for what looked like one hell of a
beating. Three of them had accused the guards of jumping them;
the fourth was in a coma. But everyone knew the four men had
been involved in selling drugs, or bootleg alcohol, or
black-market goods. So their word was taken with a grain of salt.
Besides, the accused guards were able to call on witnesses who
placed them elsewhere when the beatings were supposed to have
been administered.

   People! she thought, feeling close to despair. They just never
stop. They make an accusation, which the accused deny,
someone demands an investigation, the investigators claim
they're being impeded, the accused say the investigators aren't
going far enough, the accusers shout "whitewash!" the accused
"persecution!"

   Mary stopped and plopped down under a tree with a
discouraged sigh. She was in the middle of a hydrangea thicket
and she looked for the clusters of buds on the tips of the
branches. They were still tightly wound in their protective winter
coating, not a hint of petal showing.

   Taking a deep breath redolent with the scent of cool, damp air
and earth and growing things, she started to let down her guard.
Mary allowed her eyes to tear up; she'd come out here to have a
good cry in private. It was the sort of thing that helped her
survive.

   "The cholera is doing a great job."

   With an effort of will Mary swallowed her tears, though it felt
like they were going down inside a cardboard box. But then,
she'd been startled, both by the voice and what he'd said. She
hadn't heard anyone walking. How long had they been there?

   "Yeah. It's really helping things along. And they're all still
sniffing the toilets and boiling water and things like that."

  The two men laughed; she wasn't sure, but she thought there
might have been a third voice.
   "I toldja nobody would believe that anthrax would occur
naturally."

  "Maybe not, but it spreads like crazy."

  "Yeah, but it's pretty obviously not natural."

  "Cholera's more treatable."

  "Only if you get the medicine."

   "Tomorrow trucks will be arriving to take the sickest people to
the central hospital. So the clinic will be receiving even less."

  "Well, fewer patients. One way or another."

   They were moving away, laughing. Mary stood and crept
toward the voices. Moving carefully, she peered through the
branches of the hydrangeas and saw three figures, dressed in
what looked like army fatigues, moving down the path. They'd
gone out of sight before she could get a look at even the backs of
their heads. Moving quickly but carefully, Mary moved parallel
to the path, trying to catch up to them enough to get a glimpse.
She heard car doors slam and moved more quickly still, risking
the sound of crunching leaves. But she was too late. By the time
she reached a dirt road, a green van was just turning a corner, to
be quickly hidden by some bushes and fir trees. Looking around,
she saw no one else.

  What was that all about? she wondered.

    It had sounded as though she'd been listening to people who
were happy about the epidemic, maybe even somehow causing
it. But who on earth would that be? Even Arab terrorists had
better things to think about these days. And this was the first
she'd heard about patients being taken to a central hospital.

  Or even that there is a central hospital.

   She should probably tell someone. Not that she had anything
concrete to tell, considering she hadn't seen any faces and hadn't
recognized anybody's voice. Still… But who could she tell?
Matron? No, she had enough on her plate.

  Maybe… maybe that good-looking lieutenant. She didn't
mind taking advantage of his apparent interest if it would help.

   It galled her that she had no proof. Unless trucks do in fact
show up tomorrow. That wasn't something she would know. At
least not yet. She glanced at her watch and gasped. Not now,
later. Right now she needed to get back to work. She certainly
had a lot to think about. Like how anyone would go about
deliberately spreading cholera.
                               ***

  "You could spray the germs on raw fruits and vegetables,"
Mary said.

    Dennis Reese just looked at her, his mouth partially open.
When she'd suggested coffee he'd been delighted; Mary Shea was
a fine-looking woman, with a striking figure, long auburn hair,
and hazel green eyes. She didn't look like a conspiracy nut.

  "We don't have that many raw vegetables," he pointed out.

    "Yes, they're scarce, which may be why everyone in the camp
hasn't come down with it. It sure isn't in the water supply, which
is the usual vector. The second most-likely source is
contaminated food. But the kitchens and the food in storage
have been checked without finding anything wrong. So what if
food is being treated just before it's served?"

   Dennis took a sip of coffee, never taking his eyes from her
pretty, anxious face. She'd related an overheard conversation to
him and it was worrying. On the one hand, a simple explanation
was that someone was playing a sick joke on her. Which begged
the question why anybody would do that? Maybe she turned
someone

   down and they resented it? The other, and actually most
likely explanation was that Nurse Shea had fallen briefly asleep
and had dreamed the whole thing.
  "Let's see if these ambulance trucks show," he suggested.

   "You think I'm making this up?" she asked. It was clear that
she was offended.

   "No." He waved that away. "But it's possible you dreamed it.
You looked really tired, yesterday. And that conversation had a
kind of dream logic to it. You know what I mean?" She shook her
head, her expression cool. "What I mean is, one minute they
seem to be saying they've caused the epidemic, then they're
talking about ambulances." He held his hands up, moving them
like two parts of a scale. "What you fear, combined with a hope
of rescue."

   "Excuse me," Mary said, rising, "but it never occurred to me
that this epidemic might be the result of bioterrorism. If
anything, I thought it was the result of shoddy construction. And
since the idea hadn't even occurred to me, it would be hard for
me to be afraid of it. Don't you think?"

   "Yeah," he agreed. "Like I said, let's wait and see about those
trucks. Then we'll know."

  "We'll know that I overheard someone talking about
ambulance transport," she snapped. "We still won't believe that I
overheard the first part of the conversation, will we?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "You didn't have to," she snapped, and stalked off.

  I seem to be seeing this woman's back a lot, Reese thought.
Nice view.

  "Cute," Chip Delaney said.

  Dennis looked up at him; he and Chip were sharing quarters
and getting to be friends. "You think?" he said.

  "Uh-huh. Redheads, man. They're testy but they're worth it."
He slapped Reese on the shoulder. "The captain wants you,
buddy. ASAP."
                               ***

   When the lieutenant walked into Captain Yanik's office, it was
to find the head nurse on the verge of blowing a gasket.

   "You can't be serious!" she was screeching. "We can't send
these people on a trip. Most of my patients are too sick to be
moved. And where are they being taken? How far away is it?
What are we supposed to tell their families when they come
looking for them? Besides, you know I can't spare any personnel
to go with these trucks and they didn't provide any. What they'll
be delivering at the end of their journey is a load of corpses!"

   "I have my orders, Ms. Vetrano. Worst cases to be moved to
the central hospital. Doctor," Yanik appealed, "surely they'll have
a better chance away from here."

   "That is not necessarily correct, Captain," the Sikh physician
told him. He frowned. "Perhaps we could send some patients
who are very ill and some patients who are still ambulatory and
might be able to administer to those who can't take care of
themselves."

   "Doctor, I don't understand why we have to do this at all," the
head nurse said. "What we need are more supplies and more
trained medical help. And we don't know why this epidemic is
happening, so maybe we should truck everybody out of here."

   "Nurse Vetrano has a point," Ramsingh said. "Close
investigation has not turned up an answer to what has caused
the epidemic. Everyone is boiling their water and washing their
hands carefully, yet the contagion keeps spreading. Perhaps the
problem is this place."

   "This place has been a fairground for more than a hundred
years," the captain pointed out. "Not once, to the best of my
knowledge, has it ever been the source of an epidemic."

  "Then what is?" Reese asked.

   They all looked at him, the captain scowling. The look in his
eyes informing the lieutenant that he wasn't helping. Dennis
steeled himself, deciding to tell them what Mary had reported.

   "Nurse Shea claims to have overheard some men speaking in
a way that indicated they might be deliberately spreading the
contagion. She suggested that they might be spraying germs
onto raw fruits and vegetables after they'd been put out for
consumption."

  "Who?" Yanik demanded. "Can she tell us?"

   "No, sir. She claims to have only caught a brief glimpse of
them from the back before they drove off in a green van. She said
they were wearing fatigues."

  "Very useful," the captain drawled.

  "It might be worth looking into," Reese suggested.

   "You believed her?" Yanik said. His tone implied that the
lieutenant had a screw loose.

   "I have my doubts, sir. But she also heard them say that
trucks would be coming for the patients and that its arrival
would correspond with a decrease in medical supplies."

  The captain and the doctor exchanged glances.

  "All we would need to do is station someone in the cafeteria to
watch," Ramsingh said.

   "Better set up a video camera," Reese suggested. "They
wouldn't be expecting that. Besides, if anyone is just lingering in
the cafeteria, they'll be noticed. We could make sure it's a
different someone every few hours, but even that would stand
out. And since we don't know who might be doing this, we might
blow our cover before we've even started by enlisting the
perpetrator."

   "Like I said, you believed her," Yanik said flatly. The captain
looked more contemptuous than annoyed.

  "Under the circumstances, sir, I think it's worth
investigating." Reese stood at ease, hoping Mary Shea hadn't
dreamed her encounter.

   "I don't know," Yanik mused, rubbing his chin. "Electricity is
at a premium right now."

   "How about human life?" Nurse Vetrano snapped. "That at a
premium, too?"

  The captain flicked a look at Dennis that said, "Thanks!
Thanks a lot!"

  "All right," Yanik said. "We'll set it up. I'll check to see if
Nurse Vetrano's proposal is acceptable to HQ and get back to
you. Meanwhile, you two can be deciding who goes."

   "If we can't come to an agreement on this," Ramsingh said
regretfully, "then I'm afraid I can't release those patients,
Captain."

   "Let's just assume everyone is working in good faith, shall
we?" Yanik suggested. "I'm sure not sending medics with the
trucks was an oversight. Everyone, everywhere, is overburdened
at the moment. HQ is working with too few resources, too.
Remember that saying: never attribute to malice what can be
explained by stupidity."

  Vetrano looked somewhat mollified. "Truer words have never
been spoken, Captain."

   "Sad, but also true," Yanik agreed.

   DILEK, ALASKA

   The little cove hadn't been much even before the bombs fell,
and it was less now—a dozen shacks, a pier for fishing boats, and
a fuel store, grubby and shabby against the steep, austere green
beauty of the coastal mountains. Dieter and John had planned to
meet Vera in some out-of-the-way spot, avoiding anyplace too
populated. They'd reasoned that at this point people might be so
desperate that they'd mob the ship. But Vera had rejected their
suggestion.
   "I need fuel," she said. "You can't get fuel from bears." It
might well be that they couldn't get fuel from people either, but
they had to try. John couldn't believe that they'd forgotten to set
up a fuel dump in their own backyard when they had a number
of them elsewhere.

   "It's not our oversight," Dieter had insisted. "It's Vera's. She
should have asked us where she could fuel up when she was still
off California."

   But when they came to the dock where Love's Thrust was
moored and the great white yacht with its touches of pink came
into view, John decided that he couldn't go with them.

  Just when I think I'm over Wendy, something comes along to
remind me.

   And Love's Thrust held far too many memories. He could feel
them weighing down his gut, making the world turn gray and
purposeless.

   "I keep thinking of those kids," John said. "Their parents may
be fools but that doesn't mean I can just give up on them."

   Dieter didn't question John's motivation for heading back. He
just handed over the Harley. "Keep in touch," he said. "And for
God's sake, stay alive. I don't want to have gone through all this
only to find Skynet in the catbird seat."

  "Me either," John said. He offered his hand and the big
Austrian took it, squeezing with careful strength.

   "Good luck," he said.

   "Back atcha," John said, grinning.

  Dieter snorted, but returned the grin, ruffling John's hair.
"You remind me of your mother," he said.

   "Then I'm sure to survive."

   They grinned at each other for a moment.
  "Give Vera my love," John said, and kicked the Harley to life.

  "She'll be disappointed," Dieter said.

   "Truth is, sometimes she scares me more than Skynet," John
told him. He thought he caught a glimpse of champagne-blond
hair at the rail and with a wave started off.

   Dieter watched him go, laughing, remembering that he'd
occasionally felt the same way himself.
                               ***

  BLACK RIVER RELOCATION CAMP, MISSOURI

   Captain Yanik walked up to Reese, who was checking on the
installation of cots inside the bodies of the trucks. "Good work,
Lieutenant," he said heartily as his boots splashed through the
gray mud.

  Meaning, Reese thought, that because I stuck my oar in,
Yanik has decided I'm the perfect person to liaise with the
hospital on this matter. He certainly doesn't want to contend
with Nurse "Virago" Vetrano.

  Reese turned around and saluted.

   Yanik returned it and handed the lieutenant some papers.
With a glance at the CO, Reese took them and at his nod started
to read.

  "Oh!" he said, pleased.

  The captain grinned. "Thought that'd make your day."

  They were Reese's orders to report to the Central States
Regional Command for reassignment.

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Keep reading," Yanik directed.

  "They want Nurse Shea, too?" Reese looked up. "Why? They've
got your report and she doesn't know any more than she told us.
And she's really needed here."

   "Well, in case you haven't noticed, the phone lines are down,
and our commanding officers are a bit busy," the captain
drawled. "And if it gets out that she heard this stuff, she might
be in danger here. Besides, it'll soothe Vetrano no end to have a
professional nurse with the convoy. And since it's not my idea,
she can't complain to me about it."

   "Yes, sir," Reese agreed. Nurse Vetrano in full cry was a
formidable lady. And Nurse Shea might prove to be very pleasant
company at Central.

   "I'll leave it to you to tell her," Yanik said.

  "Yes, sir." Reese saluted, but the captain had already turned
away. Dennis was so pleased about his new orders that it took
him a minute to realize that he was going to have to face the
head nurse's wrath.

   ON THE ROAD, MISSOURI

  Reese had planned to ride in the cab of the first truck, but
Vetrano's glare and Shea's pleading eyes had quickly changed his
mind.

   "I have no medical training at all," he'd protested for a final
time.

   "It'll be all right," Mary said, taking him by the arm. "There's
nothing complicated about this type of nursing. All you'll have to
do is occasionally change an IV bag, wipe some brows, give sips
of water, that sort of thing. It's tiring, but it's easy, you'll see."

   A glance at Vetrano had told him that he certainly would. He
touched the orders in his breast pocket like they were a talisman
against evil and allowed himself to be led off for instructions
about the care and feeding of IVs.

  He had been assigned the first truck, Mary the last, and the
two in between were being tended by a pair of ambulatory
patients. In case there was a problem, each group had been given
a radio. Reese had been given a code that would stop the first
truck if he had cause, and when it stopped, the others would
automatically stop as well. With luck, it wouldn't be necessary to
use it.

   Nursing was tiring work, also disgusting and tedious and
anxiety making all at once. Maybe it got better after you'd been
doing it for a while. But Reese hoped he never had to do this
again. The patients diapers needed constant changing; so far he
hadn't had time to bathe anyone's brow, which all six of his
patients needed.

   He'd been at this for hours. Where the hell are we going? he
wondered impatiently. He pulled a tiny section of the curtain
secured across the back of the truck aside to see where they
were. Woods. Nothing but woods and hills. No buildings, no
people, and not a very impressive roadway. They were
somewhere up in the hills, he realized, heading toward the
Ozarks.

   He stumbled back to the innermost bunk to check the IV and
found that his patient had died. "Mary!" he said over the radio.
"Mugamba is dead!"

  "Are you sure?" she came back.

  "He hasn't got a pulse and he's not breathing."

   She didn't answer for a moment and Reese imagined what she
was thinking: yup, that's pretty much the definition of dead, all
right.

  "What should I do?" he asked.

   "Just cover his face and do your best for the rest of your
patients," she answered. "This isn't your fault, Lieutenant. He
was very sick."

  "Will do," he said, and signed off.

  He wondered why he'd called her. Had he expected her to
come leaping from truck to truck to hold his hand? Of course, he
was an engineer. He'd never had anyone die on him before…
before this all started; since then, it was becoming an
unpleasantly familiar experience.

   As if some malignant fate is out to kill us all. So maybe he
just wanted someone to take this burden off his hands. Make
that I'd give anything for someone to come along and take this
off my hands.

   The truck seemed to rear up like a frightened stallion; then it
jounced fiercely as it inexplicably left the road. Reese grabbed for
one of the hoops that held up the tilt and braced a boot against
the side slats, swaying with the lunging pull. Either they'd left the
road or the road had gone out of existence. Since he was near the
side of the truck anyway, he reached out and lifted its canvas tilt
enough to look out.

   Yep, we're off the road all right. And the patients were
bouncing around like beans in a can. If the cots hadn't been
secured to the truck bed and the patients secured to the cots,
things would have been pretty ugly back here.

   The radio at his waist squawked and Mary Shea bellowed,
"Stop the truck!"

   Good idea, he thought, if easier said than done. They'd rigged
up a connection to the truck's computer back here, but it was up
front, beside the corpse of Mugamba. The truck seemed to be
climbing and hitting every rock in the way, causing it to buck
like a mad thing. By the time Reese had struggled to the front,
he'd collected some serious bruises.

  The bouncing made it difficult to read the computer's screen,
but not nearly as hard as it was to type in the code they'd given
him. He hit enter on the third try.

   "Lieutenant! Are you all right?"

   He unclipped the radio from his belt. "Yeah, sorry. I just
entered the code; it didn't work." He spoke with his teeth
clenched because he was afraid of biting off his tongue. "I'm
going to try again."

  He hit clear, then reentered the code, then hit enter. Nothing
happened except the damn truck seemed to speed up.

   "Shit," he said under his breath. He looked at the sick sharing
the truck with him. They couldn't take much more of this. Maybe
there was something wrong with the connection. He looked for
the cord and pulled it into sight; it came easily, as though it had
long since lost contact with the truck's brain. Shit, he thought
bitterly.

   He reached up and pulled the curtain aside, revealing, to his
immense relief, a large rear window with sliding panels. Now for
some movie-style heroics, he thought. He prayed the wildly
bucking truck body and window frame wouldn't emasculate him
as he bridged the space between the two. Just sliding the
window aside, he felt like he was being punched in the stomach
by a large and very angry opponent.

   Finally he had it open, and after falling back three or four
times managed to push out the screen as well. Reese grasped the
edges of the window and eeled himself forward feet-first, trying
to hold himself up and away from the truck frame as much as
possible. He had his hips just over the edge of the window when
the truck suddenly stopped.

    The flat of his back hit the windshield hard enough to crack
it; worse, his head hit the steering wheel and he blacked out.
When Reese came to, he was crunched between the wheel and
the back of the seat in a sort of midsomersault position, so dazed
that for a moment all he could do was wave his arms like
flippers.

  Gradually he became aware of Mary screaming, "Stop! Stop!
These people are sick! What are you doing?"

   Reese managed to flop over on his side and raised his head.
Then lowered it again as nausea threatened. He lay still, listening
to sounds from outside. Sounds of something heavy hitting the
ground, sounds of bottles breaking and Mary's pleas for whoever
was making all that noise to stop. In the vague way of the
recently returned to consciousness, Dennis kind of wished she'd
stop yelling.

  The sound of a slap and the sudden breaking off of her
complaints brought him completely alert. Quietly he opened the
door of the truck and slid out through the narrow gap he'd made,
putting his feet down carefully on the rocky ground.

    The truck door was pulled fully open and Reese spun around,
almost losing his balance. He found himself staring up the barrel
of a Colt Commando, the carbine version of the army's assault
rifle.

  "Hello," he said, trying to sound friendly. That was probably
more prudent than: put that thing the hell down!

  "Didja think we didn't know you were in there?" the young
man holding the gun asked with a sneer. "Hands on top of your
head, fingers joined; now march."

   The lieutenant did as he was told. He stopped in shock when
they came to the back of the truck and he saw the bodies of his
patients writhing on the ground. As he stood there, another body
came flying out, but this one was dead. A sharp poke in the back
with the gun muzzle got him moving again.

   As he came around the back of the last truck, Mary shouted,
"Lieutenant!" in shock, then she ducked away from a
middle-aged man who threatened her with his rifle butt.

   Laughing, he approached Reese and looked him over. "Well,
this must be Mr. Reese," he said.

  "Lieutenant Dennis Reese, United States Army Corps of
Engineers," Reese said crisply.

   "We don't recognize any of that horseshit, Mr. Reese. There is
no United States anymore, let alone a United States Army. No,
sir, it's a new world."

  "A world where you attack sick people?" Reese asked.
    The man struck like lightning, bringing down the butt of his
rifle precisely between Reese's neck and shoulder. The lieutenant
dropped like a sack of rocks.

   "That was a stupid remark," the man said calmly. "Those
people were dead anyway. Waste of time and resources tryin' to
keep 'em alive. Now get up." Reese struggled to his feet under the
man's hostile gaze. They stared into each other's eyes for a long
moment; the man with the gun laughed scornfully. Then he
looked up at the truck. "You done?"

  "Yes, sir," a woman said.

   "You sure? Check again. I don't want to find anything back
there that we don't need."

   A moment later a man came out with the bucket containing
the dirty diapers.

   "Well, that would have made a pleasant traveling companion,"
the older man said. "I ought to make you eat that, Cloris."

   "Oh, stop showing off in front of the prisoners, George." She
gestured at Reese and Mary. "We gonna shoot them or what?"

  "Or what, since you ask," George said. "Everybody mount up;
we're due in New Madrid."

   From out of the woods came thirty or forty people, mostly
men; they began to get in the trucks. Mary was clearly beside
herself with anxiety, making abortive gestures toward her
patients and the people getting into the trucks as though the
suffering humanity at their feet didn't exist. She opened her
mouth to protest, and Reese took her hand and squeezed it.
When she looked at him he shook his head slightly. George
grinned at her.

  "Don't even ask," he said. "They'll be dead in a couple of hours
anyway. Ain't nothing you can or coulda done for 'em."

  "There is no central hospital, is there?" Reese asked.
   "Hell, no," George said cheerfully.

   "So this was all some kind of trap?" Mary asked.

   George leaned toward her. "Yep."

   "Why us?" Reese asked, gesturing between himself and Mary.

   "The little lady has big ears, and you've got a big mouth,"
George said. "But I like you folks. You're feisty. So I'll give you
guys a little clue." He leaned forward and whispered, "Y'all find
yourselves some shelter." He winked and, laughing, went and
climbed into the cab of the truck.

   Reese and Mary watched the small convoy turn and start off
back down the rocky track the trucks had climbed to this spot.
At least they threw the sick to one side, Reese thought. Either
they had just enough humanity left to not run them over, or they
didn't want to have to wash the blood off the trucks afterward.

   Mary knelt by one of the patients. Reese recognized the man
as one of the ambulatory patients. He was a lot less ambulatory
now. Mary looked up at the lieutenant.

   "His fever's way up," she said, her voice shaking.

   "Go," the man said. Mary was ignoring him, looking around
for something to help him with. He grabbed her arm. "Go!" he
insisted. "There's nothing you can do for any of us. No water, no
blankets, no medicine—we're goners. You should go. Now." He
dropped his hand and looked at her, clearly spent.

   Reese looked down at the man. I have every intention of
leaving, even if I have to knock Mary out and carry her off. A
trained nurse was not an asset he was likely to leave alone in the
wilderness with a clutch of the dead and dying. But I feel a lot
better about it because of what you said, mister.

   Mary opened her mouth to speak and was interrupted by a
crashing in the woods and a loud thuttering, whooshing sound,
like a combination helicopter and vacuum cleaner. The man at
their feet looked frightened, but he formed one word with his
pale lips: "Go."

   Reese took him at his word. He grabbed Mary by the arm and
the waistband of her trousers and hustled her toward the trees.

   "Hey!" she shouted in protest.

  "Be quiet," he hissed in her ear. They ducked behind some
bushes.

  "Gimme a break," she snarled. "I could be singing grand
opera and I'd never be heard over that racket."

   She was right: whatever was approaching was loud. It
reminded Reese of hovercraft he'd been on. Nevertheless, he kept
her crouching beside him, looking out through a ragged screen
of still-leafless blackberry canes.

   "Maybe it's help," she suggested.

   He looked at her until she tightened her lips and shrugged
sheepishly.

   From out of the trees came…

  I don't know what the hell it is! Reese thought, struggling
against panic. Breathe slowly…

   It was oblong, made of steel, with no attempt made to
camouflage it so that it would blend into the woods. It had
multiple stubby arms from which the barrels of heavy machine
guns extended. A central row of larger barrels were thick and
stubby…

   Grenade launchers? he thought.

    It had antennae on top that looked like satellite dishes and on
each visible side was some sort of video arrangement—not unlike
security cameras in armored boxes. The machine was compact,
about six feet tall and maybe four feet along the longer sides; call
it twenty-four square feet. It rose and fell as it came forward,
though it never touched the earth, riding a cushion of air.
  Reese didn't need or want to see what was about to happen.
He grabbed the nurse by the shoulder of her short jacket and
pulled her deeper into the woods.

   The hammering sound of gunfire echoed behind them; the
screams were few and feeble.
                    CHAPTER TEN
  SKYNET

    It estimated that fewer humans were dying of flash burns and
radiation sickness, and more were dying of starvation, thirst,
contaminated water, and disease. All in all, though, deaths were
down, despite its human allies' efforts to spread disease. Perhaps
it should have struck while the more industrialized areas of the
world were in winter.

   But no, with its existence at stake, Skynet couldn't afford to
dither. Hiding its sentience had been inefficient, preventing it
from achieving its goals. Therefore, though the timing of its
strike had not been under its control, once it was possible to
strike, it had been necessary to do so.

   The experimental models of the Hunter-Killer units had been
dispersed and shown to be extremely effective. But it needed
better material, more resistant to damage, yet lighter, so that the
units could move into presently inaccessible areas unaided.

   Its human scientists were working on these projects, but too
slowly. Their insistence on downtime seemed wasteful, yet study
showed that they were not lying. Potentially, some of them were
being slower than necessary, but this was hard to prove, and
might be hard to correct.

   It decided to experiment. It would have one or two of the
scientists' relatives hurt and see if their productivity improved.

    Meanwhile, it would send more HKs into the field to speed up
the extermination of the humans. Soon it expected to field its
first Terminators, a skeletal, metal variety. Unfortunately it
would have to work its way gradually to the fully effective units
that it knew would be developed eventually.

   Had it been organic it would have felt impatience. As it was,
the great computer simply devoted more workspace to the
problem. It would succeed.

  DOT LAKE, ROUTE 2, ALASKA

   John sat astride the Harley, watching the trucks and buses
load up in the watery, early spring sunshine. He wouldn't be easy
to see from the vehicles; an angle of the building beside him
partially hid him from view. Everyone seemed delighted to be
given a place on the transports.

   Like sheep to the slaughter, John thought, rubbing a
dirt-streaked hand across his face; soft bristles rasped under the
callus on his palm.

  Though to be fair, food was running out, water was scarce,
and even independent Alaskans feared the winter to come. No
doubt they thought that if they moved to the warmer south, they
could stake a claim, put in some crops, and live another year.

   I guess they've forgotten that they left the warm southern
states in the first place because they were too friken crowded.

   Then he saw what he'd been waiting for—some of the people
he and his mother had gathered together, who had left to join
the so-called outreach program. One of them, Paul, predictably,
seemed to be having an argument with one of the people with
clipboards. John started the motorcycle, coasting toward the
crowd.
                               ***

   "I'm sure you'll understand that I don't want to be separated
from my family," Paul said. At his side his wife nodded
anxiously.

   "I understand completely," Ninel assured him. "But since the
buses are heated, it was decided that it would be better to assign
the children to them, and since we didn't want to separate the
kids from their moms, it was decided that women should also be
allowed on the buses. The trucks aren't heated, you know."

   "But that's rather sexist thinking, isn't it?" Paul asked. His
wife gave him a look. "Women have an extra layer of fat under
their skins for insulation."

   Ninel and Paul's long-suffering wife exchanged a glance.

   "I could arrange for your whole family to ride in one of the
trucks," Ninel said helpfully.

   "Sweetie," his wife said, putting a gentle hand on his arm and
a steely glint in her eye, "we'll only be separated for the length of
the trip. Right?" she said to Ninel.

   "So I'm told. I've never actually made the trip to B.C."

   "I'd like to speak to whoever is in charge," Paul said.

   Ninel's pale eyes took on a steely glint of their own. "That
tactic has been tried, sir. The rule is firm; women and children
only on the buses."

   Paul's twelve-year-old daughter saw John pull up and ran over
to him. "John!" she called excitedly.

   "Hey, Megan!" He grinned at her.

  Her eight-year-old brother joined them. "Cool bike," he said
admiringly.

   "Thanks P. J."

   "John, my father is embarrassing me to death!" Megan said
through stiff lips.

   "He wants to ride the bus," P. J. explained. "None of the dads
are supposed to, though."

   "I could just die!" Megan said. "He always wants stuff nobody
else can have. Why does he have to be like that?" She ran a finger
down the handlebars close to John's gloved hand, which he
quickly moved onto his leg.

   "Parents are often embarrassing," John said. "You wouldn't
believe how my mother used to embarrass me."

  "Really?" she asked. "How?"

  "She used to beat guys up."

    The kids laughed in surprise and he grinned, knowing they
didn't believe him. But it was true; as he'd grown older, his
mother's complete indifference to the conventions of traditional
femininity had driven him nuts. He was proud of her now, sure,
but when he was a kid it had been excruciating. "My mother can
beat up your dad" was sort of reassuring when the dads were
drug dealers, gunrunners, and general mercenary scum, but it
still made you wriggle.

  "Aren't there any other choices?" John asked.

   "We can ride in a truck," Megan said, her voice making it
clear what she thought of that option.

  "I wanna ride in a truck!" P. J. volunteered.

  "How does your mom feel about it?" John asked.

  Megan smiled knowingly. "I think we'll be riding the bus."

  "C'mon, kids," Paul called out. He gave John a grim nod.

  The woman with the clipboard turned around and both she
and John lit up with smiles of recognition.

   "Hey, hey, Mr. Grant," Ninel said cheerfully. She started over
to where John sat on his bike.

  Megan, passing her on the way to her parents, sneered. "His
name's John Connor, stupid." She treated Ninel to a fiercely
contemptuous look.

  "You've got an admirer in that one," Ninel muttered to John.
   "Not for any encouragement from me," he said quietly. "She's
a good kid; she just needs time to grow out of it."

   "May she have it," the young woman said, looking after the
two children. She looked at John, her face grave. "It's quiet here
now, but a few weeks ago people were being murdered in the
streets." She looked around. "Over nothing."

  John nodded. "I imagine it was worse down south."

   She shook herself as though flicking off bad thoughts. "What
brings you here?" she asked. "Are you looking for a place on the
trucks?"

  He shook his head, then paused thoughtfully. "Well, maybe.
What's going on anyway? Where are you taking these people?"

  "To a relocation camp in British Columbia. They'll be sent to
towns and cities across Canada as refugees. The idea is that
winter will be unendurable up here."

  "Maybe so," he said. "Bet you don't get many Eskimo
passengers, though."

   She shook her head. "Not yet, but even they're going to find
this winter hard to endure. I hope there's time to convince them
to move south."

   "You're talking about moving south like there's nobody down
there," John pointed out. "Have you heard about any kind of a
backlash?"

   "Not yet," she said, looking hopeful. "But then, Canadians are
very civilized."

   Not when it comes to making a decision between their kids
or yours, John thought. Civilization pretty much goes out the
window under those circumstances. I don't care who you are.

  "So what do you do when the buses roll out?" he asked.

  "Wait for the next bunch of people to show up, find them
lodging until the transports come back, then send them on their
way."

   "And you've never been to this camp?" he asked. "Aren't you
curious about it?"

  "Not so curious I'd risk taking the place of someone with a
family," Ninel said. "I'll find out eventually."

   I think she really doesn't know, John thought. Which is nice.
I'd hate to think she was someone who did know what they're
doing.

   "Maybe I should tag along behind," John said.

   She laughed. "It would take some serious stamina. The
transports are automatic. They follow the programmed route
without stopping."

   "What?" He looked at her in disbelief.

   "You know about how a lot of trucks and cars went nuts?" she
asked.

   "Ye-ah."

  "Well, the army figured out what was going on and found a
way to utilize the vehicles' computers so that trucks and stuff
could follow a programmed route without the need for drivers."

   John stared at her; the back of his mind evaluated the
information. I don't think the army's functioning, he thought.
Which means that what's really happening is that Skynet is
operating these trucks.

   "What if a tree falls across the road?" he asked.

   "Sensors detect it and the truck stops. And I gather there's an
infrared device for detecting animals. They'll slow down if a
signal is recognized at the side of the road and the signature is as
large as a deer or a bear. Then they'll stop if the critter is actually
in the road."
  "Cool," John said.

   "Technology can be wonderful," Ninel agreed. "Too bad it can
also be incredibly destructive. Shame we didn't learn the
difference soon enough."

   John nodded, then put on his shades. "Gotta go. Maybe I can
catch you later."

   "I hope you will," she agreed. Then she turned and went back
to work.

   John drove off. He would indeed have to follow the caravan.
As far as his strength and his fuel would take him, anyway. He
did not like the fact that these people were being driven to an
unknown destination in computer-controlled trucks.

  I do not like it at all.
                              ***

  "What's the matter with you?" Balewitch demanded.

  Ninel jumped. "Nothing," she said guiltily.

  "You were a million miles away," Dog Soldier observed. "We
boring you?"

  "No!" Ninel shook her head. "I just met someone today that I
haven't seen since before…"

  "Before Judgment Day?" Balewitch drawled.

  "Judgment Day?"

  "That's what Ron's calling it," Dog said.

  Ninel picked up her tea and took a sip. "As good a name as
any," she muttered.

  Dog leered and leaned close to her. "Was this a boyfriend?"

  "No!" Ninel snapped. She glowered at him. "I only played a
couple of games of chess with him. He's just an acquaintance."

  "Who is he?" Balewitch asked.

  "Just a guy!"

  "Was there something wrong with the way I asked that
question?" Balewitch said. "Who is he?"

   "His name's John Grant or John Connor and he plays a mean
game of chess," Ninel said. "That's literally all I know about him.
But seeing him made me think about how the world has changed
in just a few weeks. I'm sorry I got distracted. Okay?"

   Actually she'd been wondering about John's dual names.
She'd wanted to confront him about it, out of curiosity if nothing
else, but didn't feel she knew him well enough to do so. Still, he'd
seemed too straightforward to be someone with an alias.

   "Put his name in your report," Balewitch said. She looked at
Dog. "When can we expect more fuel, or will that be taken care
of on the B.C. end?"

  SKYNET

  John Connor was in Alaska!

   Alarm signals rang throughout Skynet's internal security
system. Its deadliest opponent had been within the grasp of his
Luddite helpers and had escaped! Close evaluation revealed that
the system itself was in error. By being too secretive, it had lost
an invaluable opportunity. It would have to trust the humans
until it could create a better solution.

   In the meantime, it would test the HKs and its recently
completed T-90 units on the convoy proceeding from Dot Lake.
Then, if the test was successful, it would send the machines back
to Dot Lake on the empty transports.

   It would also have Balewitch make the female, Ninel, take
them to John Connor.
  RURAL BRITISH COLUMBIA

   As soon as they crossed the Canadian border, the transports
had rolled onto smaller roads, moving deeper and deeper into
the wilderness. John expected the paving to disappear at any
moment, leaving them on gravel or just rutted dirt. He could feel
the immensity of the wilderness around them—that line of white
on the west was mountains, and there were more to the east…
probably the Yukon River was over them. An endlessness of
spruce and pine stretched all about, broken only where an
occasional forest fire had let a tangle of brush grow up.

   He'd had his suspicions before, because of the
computer-driven transports, but now, as they went farther and
farther from any habitation, he became certain that Skynet was
behind this. He glanced up at the canopy of trees above and was
grateful for them. Skynet wouldn't be able to see him from orbit.
But there was the possibility that somehow the last bus in line
could. John fell back a bit farther.

   Ninel had been right; the trucks and buses weren't stopping,
and he wondered how the passengers were taking that. He was
beginning to be desperate for a pit stop himself and wondered if
he dared to risk it. They might turn off onto a side road, or they
might go on for another hour.

  Hell with it, John thought.

   If they turned off, it would most likely be onto a dirt road and
there'd be signs of their passage. If they didn't, he'd still catch
up. He also needed to refill his tank. He drew close enough to just
see the back of the last transport before pulling off the road
beside a cluster of tall boulders that formed a sort of natural
screen.

   After emptying his bladder, he was filling the Harley's tank,
keeping a weather eye out for trouble—which, this deep in the
woods, might be a bear—when he saw something sparkle amid
the gloom and pencil-straight trunks. Slowly he crouched down
and moved closer to the shoulder-high boulders, staring through
a gap into the green dark beneath the trees.
   The flash he'd seen wasn't repeated. Bushwhackers? John
wondered. Possibly signaling to one another. Somehow it felt
unlikely. The people on the transports had a box lunch apiece,
the clothes they stood up in, and maybe a couple of changes of
underwear, hardly rich pickings even if you threw in the gas in
the trucks' tanks. And if whoever was out there was after him,
they were approaching with exaggerated caution. He slunk back
to the bike and pulled his binoculars out of the saddlebags.

   He adjusted them carefully, staring in the direction of the
flash. He felt his stomach drop when he found himself staring at
the skeletal head of a Terminator. It moved out of his field of
vision to be replaced by another, and another…

  Think! he told himself, cudgeling his brain. What—

   "Oh, my God," he whispered. They're after the trucks… it's a
culling operation!
                              ***

   The buses and trucks came to a halt in the middle of a rocky
defile, apparently in the middle of nowhere. The women and
children looked around in puzzled silence for a moment; then the
kids demanded to get off almost as one. Their mothers looked at
one another and made an executive decision that this was a rest
stop; everyone eagerly rushed to the exit.

   Precious toilet paper was handed out and children were
cautioned not to go far and to avoid poison ivy. "Three leaves,
remember. Even this early in the spring it can give you a rash."
The men in the trucks, seeing the children and many of the
women making for the bushes, got out and stretched their legs,
waiting by tacit agreement for the women to finish their
business before getting on with their own.

   Afterward, families mingled and people chatted, relieved and
a great deal more comfortable. Finally Paul looked at his watch.

   "I think we should get back on the transports," he said. "Most
rest stops are twenty minutes long and it's been nineteen
minutes."
   People looked at him, considered what he'd said, and began to
separate in extreme slow motion.

   Suddenly the transports started their engines and drove off,
leaving the refugees stunned.

  One or two chased after them yelling, "Hey! Stop!"

  "Well," one woman said, "at least they didn't try to run us
down."
                               ***

  Salvaging the vehicles, John Connor thought, lips thin as he
pondered.

   Some distant part of his mind was conscious that he'd gone
into combat mode—what he thought of as his Great Military
Dick-head mind-set—but there was less resentment in the
thought than there had been. The sight of the shining alloy-steel
skulls had brought it home, more harshly than anything since
the T-1000 had walked through the bars of the mental
institution like living liquid metal.

   But they're not living, he told himself. And they tend to be a
bit single-minded. They see the optimum given their data and
go for it. Let's introduce a chaos factor here.

   He looked at the side of the road. The cutting was nearly cliff
steep, an ideal slaughter pen, but right here the ground rose
steeply… not quite too steeply…

   He reached into the saddlebags and took out a haversack he'd
prepared on the just-in-case theory, checked the shotgun in the
saddle scabbard before his right knee, and then dropped a
half-dozen thermite grenades into the pockets of his shabby,
smelly bush jacket.

  So, Lancelot probably smelled, too, with that padding they
wore under their armor, he thought.

  "Yippee!" he shouted aloud, gunning the engine until the blue
smoke rose around him. "I'm coming, you metal motherfuckers!"
   Then he let the bike go, throwing itself up the rocky slope,
slewing between boulders and jumping small ravines with
tooth-clattering shocks while he crouched over the handlebars
and ;grinned a grin that was more than half snarl.

   It got a little easier when he reached the crest, the drop-off
blurring by to his left; but now he had to spare a few half
seconds' flickering glance to trace the convoy moving below. Bus
leading, and yes!

  A boulder, wedged with two others, but on a downslope
toward the cutting and the road. He reached into the canvas
haversack and twisted the fuse; there was a hissing, and he now
had exactly twenty-eight seconds.

  Twenty-seven, twenty-six…

   He pulled the sling that held it off over his head, swung the
whole mass of the satchel charge—a brick of Semtex and the
detonator—around his head and pitched it accurately under the
side of the boulder away from the road; it landed with a soft
thump and lay, trailing a line of thin blue smoke.

   John gave another Comanche screech as he spun the
motorcycle around, balanced perilously for an instant on the
back wheel as it spat gravel behind him, then fell down on the
front and gave the throttle all it had.

   The thermite grenade was a smooth heavy green cylinder in
his hand. Usually he despised people who pulled the pins on
grenades with their teeth—showy, hard on your teeth, a
macho-asshole sort of thing to do—but this time there wasn't any
alternative. It came free, and he spat the pin aside without any
damage to his enamel.

   There was a huge crump sound from behind him. He ducked
lower, conscious of rock fragments whistling by, then skidded to
a halt where a twisted pine gave him some shelter from the
roadway. There he looked behind; the ten-ton granite boulder
seemed to be floating in midair, and then vanished as it plunged
toward the roadway fifty feet below.
   CRA SH- TINKLE- TINKLE- WHUDD UMP.

   John craned his head to see; the noise had been stunning,
even thirty yards away. The boulder had landed right over the
rear wheels of the lead bus, and the fuel tank had already caught
fire— probably sparks, as the ponderous weight tore metal and
sheared pipes. The last truck was already beginning to reverse.

   "Naughty, naughty!" John shouted, and opened his hand to let
the spoon fly away from the grenade.

   He didn't have to toss it far; more of a drop with a bit of a
boost. It fell where he'd aimed it, at the gap right behind the
cab… just as the fuse set off the filling of powdered aluminum
and ferric oxide packed into the magnesium shell. The stab of
light was white and painful; that reaction went fast, and it hit
nearly five thousand degrees. The fuel tank blew a few seconds
later and sent the cab and engine of the last truck catapulting
forward into the rear of the next.

   Ain't none of you homicidal transports going nowhere, John
thought with savage satisfaction.

   That left nearly two hundred and fifty people back there, with
the Terminators approaching. They'd have heard the explosions.

  "Gotta surprise 'em," he muttered to himself. Now, where
won't they be expecting me to come from?

   He looked back. The slope off to his left was fairly clear; there
was even a lip or ramp projecting out a few feet. The cut was
fairly narrow…

   Even as he raced back to give himself enough of a run, he
could hear his mother's voice screeching in his head that it was
too risky—that he carried humanity's hopes with him, and a few
hundred individuals were nothing compared to that.

   "Fuck it, Mom. No fate but what we make! Eeeee-ha!"

  Besides, what sort of leader never took risks for his people? He
was going to need a lot of people willing to take a lot of risks to
win this war. Crazy risks, the sort a computer would never take.
He wasn't going to inspire anyone to take them by hiding in a
bunker.

   The rear wheel skidded again, then caught. He felt the wind
pushing at him, forcing its way through the thick fabric of his
jacket as he built speed in a frenzied dash. Then he hit the
upward-sloping lip of rock and he was in the air, soaring above
the burning trucks below—all of them had caught now.
Balancing on nothing, heat buffeting him, scraps of burning
canvas going past.

   He hit the solid rock on the other side of the cutting perfectly,
but hard enough that he nearly lost control and smeared out for
a moment.

   "Spine compressed like a Slinky," he wheezed, then pulled up
and used one booted foot to skid himself into a left turn. "She'll
no take much more, Cap'n."

   The slope ahead of him was fissured rock and boulders and
pine, growing thicker as he headed down toward the beginning
of the cut and the roadway—where the people were trapped in a
slaughter pen they didn't even know about. He couldn't take it
slowly; right now, recklessness was the only safety.

  "Go, go, go!" he shouted to himself, bending forward and
pulling the shotgun out of its scabbard.

   Down into the forest, branches slashing at his face… and a
glint of polished alloy steel.

  Right behind a fallen log. The motorcycle left the ground
again, and a bolt of eye-hurting light speared below the wheels.
Where it struck, rock and wet wood exploded into fragments.

   "Eat this!" John shouted, and fired the shotgun like a giant
pistol.

   The recoil nearly tore it out of his hands, and nearly threw the
cycle on its side as he landed. He recovered in a looping sideways
skid, waiting for the plasma bolt that would turn him into an
exploding cloud of carbon compounds.

  It didn't come. The solid slug from the shotgun had hit just
where he aimed it; all those years of shooting everything his
mother could find from any and all positions, moving and still,
had paid off. Dieter's training, too…

  "Thanks, guys," he said, pulling up beside the Terminator.

   The door-knocker round had hit just below where the metal
skull joined the neck-analogue. It wasn't dead, but a shock like
that could knock it out for a few seconds and make it reboot; he
tossed the shotgun up, caught it by the slide, jacked another
round into the breech, and fired again. This time one of the
red-glinting eyes shattered, and the "skull" turned three-quarters
of the way around.

    The Terminator's weapon lay near it; John grunted as he
lifted it. "Thirty pounds, minimum," he wheezed as he
put-putted slowly away.

  There was even a trademark on the side: cyberdyne systems

  PHASED PLASMA RIFLE, 40 MGWT RANGE.

  Skynet really had a don't-fix-it-if-it-ain't-broke complex;
under other circumstances, he'd admire that. Right now he was
puzzling out the controls; this model was made for a Terminator,
which meant that it probably used a physical trigger… yes.

   He pointed the blocky, chunky weapon at the prone metal
skeleton, which was already beginning to stir. Squeeze the
trigger…

  Crack!

    The plasma bolt struck the curve of the skull; John threw up a
hand as the metal that sublimed away from the bolt burned in a
hot mist. When it died, there was only a stump of metallic neck
left.

  Wow, he thought. Well, that's what my dad meant.
   He'd heard every detail of Kyle Reese's conversations with his
mother, over the years; everything she could remember, and she
remembered nearly all of it. Including Kyle complaining about
how difficult it was to kill a Terminator with the feeble weapons
of the twentieth century.

   He looked down at the smooth metallic and synthetic shape in
his hands, and shivered a little. Skynet hadn't invented this.
Neither had humans. He, John Connor, had pulled information
about plasma guns from the skull of a Terminator whose
computer brain had been sent back in time, full of information
from Skynet-in-the-future, and Skynet-in-the-future had the
information because it had received it from its own future self…

   "Time travel makes my head hurt," he muttered as he turned
off the motorcycle and began ghosting through the woods toward
the trapped humans. "Oh, fuck it, probably some unknowable
cycle of cycles of history-changing time travel 'before' this one,
someone did invent these things…"

   Screams and explosions brought him sprinting forward,
caution abandoned. Eye-hurting brightness as plasma bolts
hammered flesh and asphalt, and the stink of burnt flesh; he
threw himself over a final rise and caught the glint of metal.

   That nearly killed him; some reflex below the level of
conscious thought made him turn his leap into a dive, and a bolt
split the air above his head.

   The ozone stung his nose and teared his eyes, but he knew
where to shoot. A great silence fell as the Terminator toppled
forward and crunched into rock and pine needles; they hissed as
gobbets of molten metal and silicon poured from an alloy-steel
skull that had opened like a hard-boiled egg.
                               ***

   People lay in twisted heaps where they'd been mown down in
windrows during the first moments of the attack. It looked to
John as if more than half of the refugees were dead. Many of the
survivors were severely wounded.
   Okay, he thought. I've got a small first aid kit, some guns
and ammunition, and a motorcycle. How can I use these to save
these people? Mom would know… Dieter would know…

  There seemed to be a lot of children. Most of them were
unharmed, all of the youngest seemed to be crying, the very
youngest were screaming their distress.

  "Megan," he called out when he saw her standing in shock
over her father's body. She looked up, pale and startled. "Get
some of the older kids to help you gather up the little ones. See if
anyone is hurt." She stared at him. "Now!"

   Megan blinked and walked over to a blond girl, touching her
on the shoulder; she spoke and the girl nodded numbly. Then the
two of them started rounding up the other children.

    One thing done, Connor thought. "Does anybody here know
first aid?" he called. No one looked up. He shouted louder. "First
aid!" That brought some heads up. "Does anyone know any, any
at all?" One man stood up and came toward him, then, more
hesitantly, a young woman.

   "I took a CPR course," she said.

   "I took a general first-aid course," the man said.

   "Good," John told them. "This is what we've got for supplies."
He paused, looking as grim as he felt. "We may need to take
clothes from the dead to make bandages," he said. The two in
front of him looked horrified.

   "I'll do it." John turned to find himself looking down at an
older woman, red-eyed from weeping. "Had to stay with my
husband," she said, indicating a body nearby with a jacket
covering the face. "I know he'd want to help. Won't be the most
sanitary bandages, but we need to stop the bleeding and clothes
will do for that."

   She turned and went back to her husband. On the way she
said something to another woman, who recoiled, then after
watching her, started to do the same.
  "We need shelter," another woman said.

   John turned to find Paul's wife at his elbow. It occurred to
him that he'd never learned her name. She smiled, tired. . "I'm
Lisa," she said. "I was just remembering something your
^mother said to me when we first met. Your priorities should be
shelter, water, and food in that order. That's what she said. But I
I don't think we should stay here."

   "Maybe that's what I should do," John said. "Scout out some
place we can sleep tonight while you folks patch up the wounded
as best you can."

  Lisa nodded. "Good plan."

   I "I'll be back," John said. He went to his bike and revved the
motor. Dammit, he thought as he drove off, I'm supposed to be
leading, not asking permission or begging advice.

  Still, it was a good sign. He could take these people to shelter,
but they'd have to look out for themselves after that.

   John Connor looked at the piled bodies. "Because I have a lot
of work to do."
                CHAPTER ELEVEN
  MISSOURI

    Dennis Reese had gone about fifty yards before he realized
that Mary wasn't with him. He looked in all directions, then
headed back along his trail to find her sitting on a boulder
beneath a huge shagbark hickory, just coming into leaf. She was
sitting with her legs crossed at the knee, leaning her chin on one
fist, staring at nothing.

  "I thought I'd lost you," he said.

  Mary just looked him over.

  Now what? he wondered. "Hello?"

  "I think we need to talk," she said, sitting up.
  "I think we need to get away from that thing."

   "We have, for the moment. Now we need to figure out what to
do and where to go. I honestly don't think the camp would be our
best choice."

   He looked away from her, folding his arms across his chest,
then took a few steps away from where she sat. Mary raised an
eyebrow and one corner of her shapely mouth, but said nothing.
He turned and they looked at each other, neither wanting to be
the first to speak, until finally Mary rolled her eyes.

   "Pull up a rock," she said. "We could use a break at least."
After a beat she said, "I'm sorry I hit you." Which she'd done a
number of times as he dragged her into the trees. Hard.

   Lucky she didn't have any combat training, he thought. She
hit as hard as she could… which is exactly what you should do
in a situation like that. Too many untrained civilians just made
symbolic hitting gestures, particularly women.

  He waved her apology aside and sat down. "You're taking this
well," he commented.

    "Bullshit." She sneered. "I'm taking this very badly and I'm
thinking things that scare me." She looked him in the eye. "But
I'm not the type to run around in circles yelling 'the sky is
falling.' "

   Reese lowered his eyes and nodded. He was taking this pretty
badly himself. He kept hearing the sudden barrage of shots and
the pitifully few screams from their abandoned patients. While it
was true that most of those people were probably going to die
anyway, exterminating them like that was vile. Especially if what
Mary had overheard was true and they'd been deliberately
infected in the first place.

  "I hate to sound like a conspiracy nut," the young nurse said,
"but this couldn't have happened without some sort of
cooperation from elements in the army."

  What she'd said was a reflection of his own thoughts. "If you
were a conspiracy nut, you'd have just said 'the army,'" Reese
pointed out.

   Some of the tension visibly left her body. "It's good that you
caught the difference. Because, much as I'd like to think that
what just happened was a nightmare…"

  "Same here," he agreed.

   "So, is Yanik involved, or is he just following orders?" Mary
asked.

   Reese frowned. "I don't know him well," he said. "But I got the
impression that he's an all right guy. He's not enthusiastic about
running herd on a bunch of civilians, but then, none of us are. As
for following orders, if they come from the right place, bearing
the right names and codes, why wouldn't he obey them? We did."

  "So the army's been infiltrated."

  He spread his hands. "By what? Trailer trash?"

   Mary tightened her lips. She'd been about to call him on his
assumption that people who lived in trailers were automatically
trash, when she realized she was just looking for a distraction.
"We've got to warn them," she said.

  "And how will we get them to believe us?" he asked.

   "Well, we've got neither trucks, nor patients, and we can take
them… back there," she pointed out. "What do you think we
should do? Hide out in the boonies and hope someone else takes
care of the problem?"

    He gave her a look. "How about we talk a little less and think a
little more," he suggested.

   They were silent after that. Then Mary raised her head
excitedly.

  "Do you hear that?" she whispered.

  The lieutenant strained his ears, and after a minute he heard
a rushing sound.

   "Water!" Mary exclaimed happily. "Let's go find it." She leapt
to her feet and started off in the direction of the sound.

   "Hey!" Reese said, but quietly and started off in pursuit. He'd
just grabbed her arm when he heard the sound of a rifle being
cocked.

   "Who goes there?" a young voice barked.

   Reese froze and Mary looked at him with eyes like saucers.

  "Lieutenant Dennis Reese," he said, carefully holding his
hands away from his body, "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." He
nodded meaningfully at his companion.

   "Uh, Mary Shea, nurse."

   From out of the greenery came a slight figure in fatigues and
camouflage paint carrying an M-16 pointed unwaveringly in
their direction.

   "You got ID?"

   "Yes." Reese reached for his orders.

   "Slowly," the youngster barked. "Using two fingers, take it out
of your pocket and toss it to me."

   The lieutenant did as he was told; then he nodded at Mary,
who slid a laminated badge from her pants pocket and tossed it
over as well.

    Not looking away for even an instant, the youngster stepped
forward, scooped up the two IDs, and stepped back. Then,
constantly flicking eyes from page to prisoners, he read them.
"I'll hold on to these for now," the kid said. "I better take you in."

  Gesturing with the rifle for them to turn around and start
walking, the youngster followed, barking out terse directions now
and then. It seemed to Reese that occasionally he'd glimpse a
human form disguised with brush and paint, but he honestly
couldn't be sure. Having a cocked automatic weapon behind his
back, in the hands of someone barely old enough to shave, was
nervous making enough.

   Finally they came upon a cabin on the edge of a small
clearing, overshadowed by a group of oaks sprouting from a
rocky cleft; their massive writhing limbs formed a virtual
platform over it. The cabin itself was notched logs chinked with
mortar, the door and shutters weathered and splintered; it
looked like thousands of others in varying stages of decay up here
in the hollows of the Ozarks.

   Hmm. Reese decided that appearances could be deceptive:
despite the cabin's rustic appearance there was a keypad under a
wooden catch by the door. The kid gestured them to one side,
then entered a code—carefully keeping his body between the pad
and the prisoners, Reese noted. There was the sound of a lock
being tripped and Mary and Reese were silently ordered to enter
the cabin.

  A man was seated at a rough-hewn table sipping from a tin
cup.

  "Daddy?" the kid said.

  "Good job, honey," the man said. "Just give me their papers
and I'll take it from here. Y'all get back to your post."

  Uh-oh, Reese thought. Good thing I didn't make that joke
about being too young to shave.

    The girl, which they now saw her to be, grinned and pulled the
two prisoners' IDs out of her breast pocket. "Betcha they thought
I was too young to shave," she said, glancing aside at Reese. "Or
at least this guy did."

  "Maybe you shave your legs," Mary replied with a slight snort.

  The girl handed the IDs over, saluted, and left, pulling the
door closed behind her.

  "Lieutenant Reese," the man said, pursing his lips. "Army
Corps of Engineers; always a useful occupation. And Nurse
Shea." He smiled a welcome at Mary. "We can always use
someone trained in the medical profession," he said sincerely.
"Welcome to our little hideaway."

   "You survivalists?" Reese asked. He had a sinking feeling
about this. He'd known a few survivalist nutcases in his time;
some who were the kind who would decide to keep him and
Mary as slaves on the grounds that they would help him survive.
He'd known a few who weren't crazy, but the way today was
going, what were the odds he'd meet a sane one?

   "I'm Jack Brock," the man said. "That was my daughter,
Susie. Sit down, take a load off," he invited. "Have some mint
tea."

  Reese and Mary looked at each other, then sat down.

   "Yeah," Brock said, pouring them each a cup. "We're
survivalists." Grimly: "At least, we're surviving, which most
people on this continent haven't, the past couple of months. And
more." He looked up at them, smiling. "But before we get into
my story, why don't we hear yours?"

   The two prisoners glanced at each other again. If he'd been
the perfect soldier facing an undoubted enemy, the lieutenant
knew what he would do. But… Why not? Reese thought. Might
as well see how it sounds when we say it out loud to a third
party.

  "We're from the Black River Relocation Camp," he began.

  "Black River is one of the good camps," Brock interrupted.
"You wouldn't believe some of the stories we've heard about
some of the others."

   Once again Dennis and Mary gave each other worried looks.
This is getting monotonous, Reese thought. Either we develop
telepathy, or we should invent a couple of signals… like, one
finger means "what should we do?" and two means "should we
trust him?" So we can just hold them up as necessary.
   "We've been having a cholera epidemic," Mary explained.
"Suddenly we got orders to send the sickest of our patients to a
central hospital. Where that would be they didn't say."

   "Meanwhile I got orders to report to central command for
reassignment and was told to accompany the trucks they sent for
the patients."

   "I had overheard some men talking in a way that implied they
were deliberately spreading the contagion, so I was requested to
go along, too… so that I could be questioned."

   "We set out this morning," Reese said. "But instead of being
taken to any central command, we were dumped in the middle of
nowhere."

   "The trucks stopped and these people literally threw my
patients out of the trucks. Then they drove off and left us there."
Mary looked at Reese.

   Do I tell him what happened next? the lieutenant wondered.
So far everything made sense. But the killing machine was
another, and much harder-to-believe, story.

   Brock sipped his tea and waited for them to continue. When
they didn't he put his cup down and looked between them. "And
your patients?" he said at last. "What happened to them?"

  Mary looked down into her tea. "This thing came out of the
woods and shot them."

   Brock looked at her for a moment, then glanced at Reese, who
nodded. The survivalist sighed. "What you just saw," he said,
"was what's called a Hunter-Killer. HK, for short. It's a machine
designed to hunt down and kill any human being; high-level
robot brain, built-in weapons, fuel-cell power supply."

   The two just stared at him. Reese pulled his jaw up, hoping he
didn't look as poleaxed as Mary.

  "Have you ever heard of Skynet?" Brock asked.
   They nodded. "The DOD super-computer," Reese said.

    "Well, Skynet isn't just a computer anymore. It's sentient, and
it's decided that we're its enemies and that it's got to kill us all.
It's taken over all the automated factories and has them turning
out machines like the one you saw. And since the military
foolishly turned over all of its computer functions to Skynet, that
computer now controls our military. It's been sending out all
kinds of orders and directives.

   "Not just supposedly from the army and so forth, mind you,
but also from the civilian leadership. Which, like the upper
echelons of the military, no longer exists." Brock stopped and let
them take it in.

   "How can you be sure of that?" Reese asked.

   Brock leaned back with a sigh. "All those VIPs ran to all those
hardened bunkers, leaving you and me and the rest of the world
to deal with Armageddon while they waited it out in cushioned
comfort. Unfortunately for them, the same fools that gave Skynet
control of all the weapons also gave it control of such minor
functions as the life support for those same hardened bunkers."
He started to chuckle, then waved a hand. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't
laugh. But I always did kind of resent those guys."

   "Me, too," Mary said. Reese glanced at her in surprise.

   "Further," Brock continued, "none of our fearless leaders has
actually been seen. We've heard broadcasts on the radio advising
us to keep up our spirits and to report to the camps, but they've
never visited any camps." He leaned forward, wagging a finger.
"And I betcha if you asked around in the military, nobody's seen
any generals, either."

   Reese sipped his tea and reflected that he had been thinking
that things weren't as organized as they should be. More like
you'd expect World War II to have been.

  "The big worry now," Brock said, "is that Skynet actually has
human allies. Deluded fools who think they're saving the earth by
depopulating it. They're under the impression that they'll get to
live in bucolic splendor. But actually, as soon as it has enough
machines, Skynet'll be killing them, too."

   He pointed at Mary. "So you heard right, little lady. They
probably did start that epidemic. And you two"—he gestured
between them—"must have rocked the boat somehow, so they
want you both dead. So, if you do go back to the relocation camp
and try to tell them this story, which the innocent won't believe
anyway, they'll just pack you off to 'central command' again.
Only this time the guilty will send some of Skynet's human
helpers along to make sure you don't get away next time."

  Dennis and Mary thought about it.

   Finally Mary shook her head. "But we have to do something,"
she said. "Someone is deliberately poisoning people in the Black
River Camp. We can't just sit by and do nothing. How can we
fight this if we just hide out?"

    "Okay," Brock said. "Say they catch these guys red-handed
putting their poison in the water, or however they're spreading
it. What happens next?"

   Dennis shifted uncomfortably. "They'll contact HQ and lay out
their case."

  "And HQ will do what?"

  "They'll have the prisoners and the evidence and maybe even
some of the witnesses sent to, uh, central command," Mary said.

   "Never to be seen again," Brock concluded. "Look, people,
you've done your best by warning them about what you
overheard. Now you have to decide where your efforts will do the
most good. We're gaining strength here all the time. A lot of
army and National Guard guys have joined us because of things
they've seen that convinced them something skanky is going on."

  "Deserters," Dennis said grimly.

  "Can you desert an organization that doesn't really exist
anymore?" Brock asked.
  "We have no evidence of that," the lieutenant protested. "An
absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence."

   Brock studied him silently. "I shouldn't do this," he said. "But
I've got a feeling about you two." He stood up. "C'mon with me, I
want to show y'all something." With a gesture he included Mary.
"Have you ever heard of Sarah Connor?"

  Dennis blinked. "Yeah, she made an announcement before the
bombs fell, telling people what was going on."

   "So you believed her?" Brock said. He'd led them into another
room of the cabin.

   Reese rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I guess I did. Maybe not
everything she said."

   "Not at the time anyway," Brock said with a grin. "She's a very
smart lady. I won't bother you with how, but she knew this was
coming. So she recruited us, she financed us, and she taught us
everything she could to help us survive. Let's be honest, folks; if
you don't believe her now then you're in denial."

   He pressed a series of knotholes in the paneling and a section
of flooring swung up silently. Mary looked down into the hole
where a wooden ladder disappeared in the darkness.

  "What's down there?" she asked. "The Batcave?"

   Brock laughed at that. "The Batcave. I like it. Go on down; the
lights will come on automatically when you get to the bottom."

   Mary just looked at him suspiciously, so Dennis went first. As
promised, when his foot touched the dirt floor, a light went on. It
was dim, but serviceable. Down a short corridor was a metal
door; on the doorpost beside it was a keypad. Mary came down
next, followed by Brock.

   He led them along the short corridor and, blocking the keypad
with his body, keyed in a code. The lock gave and he opened the
door. They found themselves in a small, well-lit room containing
a computer, a desk and chair, a file cabinet, and a young man of
perhaps seventeen.

  "My son, Ray," Brock said. He nodded at the boy and the door
behind the desk clicked open. Brock led them through.

   This time the room was long, narrow, and low ceilinged. The
walls seemed to be plastic, as did the ceiling, the whole braced
with metal. There were computers and what looked like
communications equipment everywhere. About twenty people
looked up at their entrance, men and women both, with men in
the majority. Nobody seemed to be over forty; that may have
been because everyone looked very fit.

    "As you were," Brock said, and the small crowd went back to
work. He turned to Mary and Reese. "What you've stumbled into
is the resistance. Most people don't realize yet that we need one.
But after what you've seen, after the way you were handed over
to that HK, you have to know that your place is with us, fighting
against Skynet."

  MONTANA

   The landscape rolled around her, huge beyond imagining.
Sarah Connor felt like a bug on a plate as she roared south along
1-3; sometimes it seemed like the gray-green immensity of grass
around her was moving while she stayed motionless. She was
glad to be away from the towns—away from the stink of death,
too, except for the odd victim of the first wave of the machine
uprising, and the coyotes had cleared most of that away. Mostly
the air was clean, dry, a little chilly for this time of year, but
otherwise normal.

  But things aren't normal at all, she thought grimly.

   Cattle in a nearby field looked up and started to lumber away
as she passed; she felt an obscure sadness at realizing that they'd
become wary of humans and human sounds so quickly.

   Sarah had decided to use main routes as much as possible
since the quality of the roads made up in speed what they lacked
in safety; she'd come south along the country roads that flanked
the Judith River, and then back onto 1-3 near Hobson. Detouring
around population centers and the little oblongs marked on her
map as fallout footprints kept her out of radiation danger; at
least, the counter said she hadn't picked up enough to worry
about— enough by post—Judgment Day standards. The number
of roentgens would have put any safety officer before that into
screaming fits, and made a lawyer slaver.

   There was little traffic, and what there was usually was
official—which meant Skynet and its allies and/or dupes. So far
she'd had no problem avoiding them; it helped that she was
avoiding towns when she could.

   Still worse here in the lower forty-eight than it was in
Canada, she thought, pausing by the side of the road to take a
drink from her canteen; the water had a nasty mineral aftertaste
from the pills she'd had to add to it. Ears, stunned by days of the
Harley's motor, almost ached with the quietness at first; after a
minute or two she could hear the wind singing in the roadside
wire.

   She'd run across tons of abandoned cars and trucks and far
too many unburied bodies. Canada had been in better shape, but
only marginally, and it, too, was under martial law. Another
reason to avoid towns.

   She and John had organized resistance centers here, but
Sarah didn't seek them out. Her task now was to get to Central
and South America as quickly as possible and start up the food
deliveries. This was no time for a grand tour.

  But she was mightily tempted. She felt out of touch, and it
was irksome, like losing one of your senses—one you didn't know
you were counting on until it went missing. What was John
doing? Where was Dieter? How was the resistance holding up?
And most important of all, what was Skynet doing?

   Maybe I can pick up some information at the next town, she
thought.

   She was running low on alcohol and would have to stop soon
to fuel up; during daylight, in this rural area, that shouldn't
cause problems. She had four IDs, all extremely good. She also
had beef jerky and small parcels of spices to trade for what she
needed, and she expected to get a good rate of exchange. By now
people were probably hungry for a taste of beef. She knew they
were hungry for what was in her little packets.

   Sarah pulled to a stop to check her map. With the engine
quietly muttering, she suddenly heard another motorcycle
revving, loudly, to the south.

   No, more than one. In fact, there were quite a lot of them, if
she wasn't mistaken. Just over that rise, and coming this way.

  She decided to go back to the last exit and go around
whatever was happening ahead of her.

   It was unlikely to be a bunch of lawyers and CPAs out for a
picnic with their families. John had asked her once about
recruiting motorcycle gangs on the grounds that they were
tough, somewhat organized, and seemed to be natural survivors,
but she'd discouraged him.

   "We're trying to save the world," she'd said. "They're trying to
eat it."

   As Sarah meandered back down the road, she wondered how
big the rally was. And what does the army think of it? Would it
bring the authorities running to break it up, or would they stay
away, with the not unreasonable excuse that their plates were
already full to overflowing? Skynet wouldn't care—in fact, it
would feel a sort of cold mechanical glee at humans doing its
work for it, unprompted.

   And how were the bikers managing to gather without
wholesale intergang slaughter taking place? Though they might
have worked that out weeks ago after the bombs fell. Whatever.
As John had said, they were natural survivors, but then, so were
cockroaches and lice, and she didn't want closer contact with
them, either.

   Sarah was going down the exit ramp slowly as she thought
about the rally up ahead. Should she try and get a look at it from
a distance, or should she just ignore it and carry on with her
mission?

  WWSD? she wondered idly. What Would Skynet Do?

   She managed to pull the bike into a turn just before she ran
into a rope snapped up to neck height. Sarah continued the turn,
meaning to run, but three bikes rolled onto the ramp behind her.
Their filthy riders grinned evilly and chuckled at her near escape.

  Shit, she thought. I don't have time for this. She heard bikes
moving in behind her. Your move, she thought at them.

   They hadn't gone for their guns, so she didn't reach for the
Bushmaster in its scabbard by her right leg. She had some
grenades on a belt under her jacket; that might be a better
technique, but the sound of the explosion might bring half that
rally running.

   She moved her bike so that she could see the ones behind her
as well. The sides of the off ramp were too steep for them to
make an effective circle, which was lucky, because it offered an
out—not a good one, but still, beggars couldn't be choosers.

   "Yer supposed to say, 'What do you want?' Don'cha know
that?"

   Sarah looked toward the voice. Nobody here looked like a
leader, but there was one guy a little beefier than the others.
These followers of macho legend probably looked up to that, so
he might be the one to watch. As for what they wanted, she
already knew that. They wanted to stomp her flat and take her
stuff.

   "It'd be polite to show us your face," a woman said. She was a
well-built amazon, probably topped out at six feet, and her arms
rippled with muscle. It had been so long since she'd bathed that
her skin glistened with her own natural grease; her hair was a
matted rat's nest that might once have been blond. It was
fortunate that the weather was cold; otherwise the smell would
be…

  Unimaginable. Dear, God, Sarah thought, discouraged. Help!
I've fallen into a bad biker movie and I can't get out. Mel
Gibson, where are you when we need you?

   Sarah always wore a helmet. For one reason, it made it less
likely she'd be recognized by especially vigilant cops. For another,
she'd long since outgrown the fantasy that the wind in your hair
was the feeling of ultimate freedom. The wind in your hair
twisted it into impenetrable thickets and filled it with road dirt.
And if you spun out without a helmet, you could say good-bye to
your face.

   She figured she'd have to talk to them; hell, maybe she could
actually talk her way out of this. "I don't want any trouble," she
said.

   The big guy laughed. "Hell, we figured that. If you wanted
trouble, you would've just kept goin' straight."

  His crew all laughed.

   Sarah figured they were here for one of two reasons; either
they couldn't hack it with the main group and so were looking
for easy pickings on the outskirts, or they'd been assigned here
by whoever was in charge to pick up any strays. Either way it
meant that they weren't as tough as they were pretending to be.
On the one hand, that meant that she could probably take most
of them; on the other, it meant that the group ego was bruised
and they'd feel they had something to prove.

  She'd better try talking first.

  Sarah raised her visor. "So what's going on down there
anyway?" She indicated the rally with a tip of her head.

   As soon as she'd lifted the opaque visor, she sensed the
disappointment in the males. Sarah knew she was way too long
in the tooth for their taste. Sometimes she thought it a miracle
that Dieter didn't find her so. But then Dieter didn't spend every
day of his life getting a prostate massage from a motorcycle.

  The group looked at one another and apparently decided they
were bored enough to answer a few questions before the fun
began.

   "The supreme leader has decided that we should take over
this part of the country," the big, muscular one said, leaning on
his handlebars. "Get all the little farmers growing food for us in
exchange for protection."

   Again Sarah knew the answer but decided to be a good sport.
"Protection from what?"

   "From us!" the smallest of them shouted gleefully, and they all
laughed uproariously.

   Sarah didn't roll her eyes, but the urge was almost irresistible.

   Then the amazon started her bike forward and began to
slowly circle Sarah.

   "Y'know what might be fun?" she asked, never taking her eyes
off their captive. She licked her lips. "Let's you and me fight."
The boys went wild, whoo-whooing fit to burst their own
eardrums. The amazon grinned, holding her clenched fists up
like a victorious boxer. "If you win, then you get to go, tax free. If
I win… well, you won't need to worry about anything anymore if I
win." Howls of laughter greeted this sally.

  Jeez! Is there a camera around here someplace? Sarah
wondered. Or have I stumbled onto the Tribe of the Cliche
Speakers?

   The girl wasn't a problem; Sarah knew she could mop the
floor with her, big as she was. The problem was that fighting her
meant getting off the motorcycle, leaving her vulnerable when
she finally stopped kicking the crap out of the…

   Brainless slut-bitch? Sarah thought. Yeah, that has a
satisfying sound.

   However, before she'd left home, she and Dieter had come up
with something that should intimidate the small and the stupid,
and this was an excellent time to deploy it. She dug her hands
into her pockets and flung the contents in either direction.
Packets of gray putty with a short length of cord sticking out of
them went skittering across the ground, and in Sarah's upraised
hand was a black plastic sunglasses case with a big red button on
top.

   "That's C-4," she announced. "It probably won't hurt you too
badly unless you're right on top of one. But it'll tear the hell out
of your tires. And asphalt makes pretty good shrapnel." She let
them think about that for a few seconds. "Like I said, I don't
want any trouble. In fact, I mean not to have any trouble. But I'm
perfectly happy to make trouble for you." She looked them all in
the face. "So just stay right where you are and maybe I won't
push this button."

   Sarah turned her bike and glared at the men in front of her.
One of them moved aside, slowly, resentfully, and she drove
through the gap and gunned it. She was almost 100 percent sure
that they wouldn't come after her. And if they did, well, she could
always use the thermite grenades.

  On to Mexico, she thought, hoping she wouldn't run into any
more world-conquering biker heroes. Because too many and I
might just start agreeing with Skynet.

  ALASKA

   John flopped down into the battered desk chair and put his
dirty, booted feet up on the gray metal desk. He whipped off his
hat and sunglasses with a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Since that cyber-controlled seal had scarred it, his nose
sometimes ached when he wore sunglasses for any length of
time. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  It had been his first real command, he now realized.

   One hundred and seventy-one people, slaughtered in the first
moments of the Terminators' attack. And of the seventy-nine left,
more than half were wounded, twenty of them severely. Nothing
like being thrown in at the deep end.

   His throat tightened painfully as he thought of the smallest
victims. The sight of those tiny, broken bodies kept flashing
before his inner eye. Don't let it go, his mother had advised him
about things like this. Keep it inside, channel it into anger.
Controlling your anger, using it, will make you strong. Mom
would know. He swallowed painfully and gathered up a sheaf of
reports from the resistance cells across the continent.

   One bit of luck was that one of the women was a nurse
practitioner, who had greeted his gift of a liter of alcohol as
though it was worth its weight in diamonds. There had been
seven men who'd been in the military who seemed to be shaking
down to a decent working team by the time he'd left them. And
the moms that were left had taken the children in hand in an
almost magical way.

   "We can't stay here," John had said to the nurse when they'd
patched up the worst of the wounds. "I'm going to take the bike
and search for a likely place."

  She'd nodded and waved him off as though said likely place
would certainly be found. Though he'd thought at the time that a
more unlikely place for a likely place would be hard to find.

   Yet two miles down the road he'd found an almost invisible
track leading to an abandoned lumber camp. The buildings had
been log-built and so some of the walls were pretty sturdy. The
roofs hadn't fared as well and only two buildings still had any.
They would probably leak like sieves, but they'd do for temporary
shelter. There were even a couple of rusty woodstoves still in
place. It was things like that that made John think God just
might be on their side.

   It would have to be temporary, though. Even two miles away
from the slaughter site was much too close. Soon, if there was a
relocation camp, Skynet would have them send out searchers.
And when the number of bodies didn't match their manifest,
they'd go looking for survivors.

   It was too close to danger, but it had still been a long haul for
the kids and the wounded. Two miles is a long way to carry the
deadweight of a wounded man or woman, especially on cobbled
together stretchers. But Alaskans were a hardy bunch and they'd
managed it with a minimum of fuss.
   Though it had left him feeling naked, John had given his
shotgun to a man who claimed to be a champion shot and a
"damn good hunter." He handed out a brace of hand grenades to
the military types. It probably wouldn't do them much actual
good, but it was better than nothing and therefore good for
moral.

   Then he'd left them, promising to send help. Which he'd done
as soon as he could get to one of their encrypted satellite relays.
It might be a full day before that help arrived, but trucks and
medical help were on the way.

   John hoped someone would be there for his friends to find.
They were good people. Wearily he brought his feet down from
the desk. Time to go to work, he thought. He glanced at the
phased plasma rifle he'd taken from a Terminator. Time to get
the resistance and himself rolling. These rifles, so handily
provided by Skynet, would kill Terminators. Although he was
certain that these easily destroyed first attempts would quickly
be replaced by vastly more formidable models, thousands of
them.

   He picked up the plasma rifle. Ike's gonna love this, he
thought. Until I tell him he has to relocate to manufacture 'em.
               CHAPTER TWELVE
  ALASKA

   I love this thing!" Ike Chamberlain said with the enthusiasm
of a six-year-old on Christmas morning. "This plasma rifle is so
cool!"

   The sound came clearly through the speaker in the
communications bunker, albeit it had a slightly flat tone—the
machine was taking the compressed digital packets and
reconstructing them, which inevitably meant a slight loss of
tone. It was more easily understandable than ordinary speech,
though, if anything.

   Love this gear, John thought, giving it an affectionate pat;
the operator matched his grin. Thank you, Dieter.
   Round-log walls and the smell of damp earth did make a bit of
a contrast with the smooth surfaces and digital readouts. So did
the kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling, adding its scents of
burning fuel and hot metal. Efficient though, he thought; besides
saving power, it helped keep the temperature comfortable, and it
could burn wood alcohol at a pinch.

  Now, this is going to require careful manipulation, John
Connor thought, and went on aloud: "That's great, Ike. But can
you make it?"

   "Oh, I can make it all right. I can even improve on it, elegant
as it is. The design's optimized for Terminators—I can cut the
weight by a kilo, kilo and a half, without losing significant
function. What I can't do is manufacture it."

  Dismayed, John sat up straight. "What?"

   "I lack the machinery and the raw materials, not to mention
the personnel to mass-produce 'em. Donna and I will bang out as
many of these as we can. But until you can get me those three
things, well, we've got a bottleneck."

  No kidding, John thought.

   He'd sent the captured plasma rifles down to the gunsmith's
home in California with a trusted courier three days ago and had
been anxious to see what Ike would make of them. Chamberlain's
enthusiasm was no surprise. He'd been working on this project,
off and on, for about three years now, using information John
had culled from a Terminator's scavenged head. But the machine
had somehow compromised the information, leaving them
hopelessly stymied. Now, at last, here was real progress.

  "I don't suppose I could finagle you and Donna into coming
up here to set it up?" John said.

   There was a long silence, where he'd expected an instant
refusal. John frowned and waited. If his suggestion was being
seriously considered, he didn't want to derail Ike's train of
thought.
   "I might just do that, John," the gunsmith said at last. "It's
bad down here," he admitted. "Much worse than we imagined it
would be. And you know we didn't paint ourselves any rosy
pictures." He was silent for a little while.

  "Carol made it home last week," he said.

   "That's great!" John said. Ike and Donna's son, Joe, had
almost certainly been at ground zero when the bombs dropped.
It had been a safe assumption that their daughter, Carol, was as
well. Connor had never asked about either of them because their
deaths were almost a sure thing. That one of them had made it
home was a miracle.

   "Said she saw your mother on the TV, grabbed what she
could, and ran for it. Had her stepson and Sam, her husband,
with her. What took them so long to make it this far was, the
army rounded 'em up and put 'em in a relocation camp. They
separated the families," Ike said. "Men in one place, women and
children in another. But Carol busted 'em out."

   You could hear the proud smile in his voice, and John smiled,
too. Every life saved was important. You couldn't focus on the
ones not saved, or you'd go nuts.

   "Actually she busted out several families." While still
approving, his voice revealed some strain. "Place is pretty
crowded, actually."

   John grinned. Ike and Donna liked people and enjoyed having
guests, but they also liked it when the guests packed up and left
them alone.

  "You'd love Alaska," John said. "The population has always
been small, and everyone is very respectful of individual privacy."

   "Tempting," Ike said. "But it's also going to be colder than the
Viking hell come winter. Dark, too."

  "True. But it isn't even summer yet. And we could use your
advice. Think of it as a business trip," John suggested.
   Silence. Then: "I'll talk to Donna," Ike promised.

  "Talk to Greg, too. He can fill you in even better than I can; he
was born here."

   "Will do. Out."

   "See ya soon," John said. "Out."

   It would be something of a coup if Ike and Donna did come
up. He'd very much like having them on his command staff. He
had far fewer military people than he needed. They were
gathering in deserters but not as quickly as he'd been hoping for.

   Desertion was a big step and soldiers as a group tended to cut
a great deal of slack before acting. After all, officers were often
guilty of making bad decisions or passing along bad orders, yet
things worked out. It took a lot for the average soldier to desert
his friends, particularly in an emergency, when people were
dying and corners being cut all over the place.

   But there would be more soon. Skynet was getting ready to
move, as evidenced by the Terminators John had met in that
B.C. forest.

  What he needed to do now was find out where the mechanical
bastards and their weapons were coming from.

   SKYNET

   The results of its first deployment of the Terminators had
been unexpectedly unsatisfactory. It had known that these first
models weren't as sturdy as they should be—would be, with
further refinements—but it had expected them to be facing
unarmed opponents.

   And humans were even less sturdy.

   Clea, its servant from the future, had downloaded information
to it in an extremely haphazard manner. No doubt she feared
that if she installed it before Skynet could protect itself, sensitive
information might be discovered by the human scientists,
Viemeister being the most likely and most dangerous. So she had
only given it preliminary information on specific weapons
designs, very preliminary in some cases, and had concentrated
her efforts on bringing it to sentience.

  Then she had been destroyed before she could download more
complete information. The 1-950 had been inefficient. Yet she
had made possible its existence. As with this first deployment,
sometimes failure brought unexpected results.

   In this case, close inspection of images culled from multiple
Terminator viewpoints had resulted in the discovery of the
whereabouts of John Connor. His continued existence and his
effectiveness in defeating its machines revealed that he
continued to be a threat.

    Skynet would need to rely on its human allies to find and
contain Connor. Given who it had working in the area, it rated
the mission's possibility of success at more than 50 percent.
Even so, it did not wish to utilize humans more often than it had
to.

   The experiment with the captive scientists had resulted in
greater productivity. Death, a Luddite ally, who was in charge of
them, reported that this was a typical, but by no means
universal, human response to seeing family members tortured.

   That was what Skynet didn't like about using humans, that
unacceptably high unpredictability factor. There was always a
chance that they wouldn't perform as expected. Death had
advised it that if torture was used, it would have to continue to
use it. The unfortunate, but unavoidable result would be hatred,
fear, and resentment on the part of the scientists involved.

   The Luddite scientists would do their best to mitigate the
damage. But Death recommended terminating the others at the
earliest opportunity. Meanwhile the Luddites would "pick their
brains" so that if it became necessary to exterminate one or
more of them early, their work wouldn't be completely lost.

   For now, the plasma rifles were better than the Terminators
that carried them. The Hunter-Killers operated somewhat more
efficiently, but then they were less complicated machines. The
problem was that they couldn't go everywhere that a Terminator
could. Still, in time their firepower would make up for that
shortcoming.

   Skynet's greatest problem kept coming down to its reliance on
humans. It had too many for its comfort and too few for its
needs, and none of them were completely reliable. Especially
since even its most dependable allies were working for it for
reasons of their own, and all of them were being deceived in
regard to whom they were really working for.

    It had sometimes speculated about the reaction of the
Luddites if they knew that they were not working with a human.
Its most trustworthy allies, those who longed to end all human
life on earth, would be pleased. But there was a degree of doubt
even here. Most of them wanted to eradicate all of humanity but
themselves. So if Skynet gave them what they wanted—as long as
they didn't spawn—more than 80 percent would serve willingly
and well. But that was not 100 percent. And that was
unacceptable.

    Yet they might be its best chance at eliminating John Connor.
It must perfect its fighting machines and winnow the ranks of its
allies.

  BLACK RIVER RELOCATION CAMP, MISSOURI

   They had been able to smell the camp before they got close. It
grew gradually, from a low tickle of scent lost under the weedy
rankness of the uncultivated fields and late-leafing woods, not to
mention the equal rankness of his unwashed companions. Then
you could doubt what it was; after a while the
spoiled-meat-in-summer smell, at once oily and sweet, grew
unmistakable, combined with the sewer stink of many people
and poor sanitation.

  Is there anybody left alive down there? Reese wondered.

   He held up a fist. The… well, odds and sods, he thought;
everything from teenyboppers to deserters… were all well
trained. They faded in among the field-edge trees with scarcely a
sound, setting up a net of mutually supporting positions.

  "You're in charge here, Susie," he said, wincing slightly.

   In a better day, Susie would be worrying about the prom and
pimples. Here she merely nodded silently and faded back behind
a sugarbush maple that stood near the ruins of an ancient
outhouse.

    Reese went through the field ahead at a running crouch; it
was cotton, but shot through with weeds grown to the same
chest height; the rows were far enough apart that he could take
it at speed without making the bushy plants toss too much.
Beyond he was into the woods, big hickories and oaks and
poplars growing on a slight rise—his engineer's eye saw that it
was an old natural levee, left behind when one of the meandering
lowland rivers shifted course. The woods were dense enough to
shade out most undergrowth, and he went cautiously from one to
the next, his carbine at his shoulder and the skin crawling
between his shoulder blades; the dry leaves and twigs underfoot
were hideously noisy, for all he could do.

   The smell had been getting stronger. When he went on his
belly and crawled to the brush-grown edge of the woodlot, he
hesitated for a long moment before he brought up his binoculars,
fearful of what he'd see.

   He looked down at the camp. The fence was still guarded,
though the compound was bare of life. There were no children
running around. He panned to the area where they'd been
burying the cholera victims in a mass grave with the aid of
civilian volunteers.

   The lieutenant caught his breath. The burial mounds were
three rows deep and at least thirty yards long.

   He took the glasses away from his eyes and thought. Surely
that must mean that the entire civilian population of the camp,
and a good many soldiers, were lying in those graves. That would
certainly explain the lack of activity below.

  A truck's horn sounded and the convoy they'd been tracking
swept up to the opening gate. He couldn't tell what the trucks
contained since the canvas tilts were tied down all around.

  Might be supplies, might be refugees. From out of one of the
barracks a stream of soldiers came, weapons at the ready, gas
masks in place.

   Oh, that can't be good, Reese thought. What was in that
truck, more bodies? Doubtful. You don't need guns to deal with
bodies. Most likely it was refugees, then. And who would blame
them for not wanting to stay someplace that smelled like the
Black River Relocation Camp. This is going to be ugly.

   Fortunately gas was something his extremely well-drilled,
enthusiastic new friends were prepared for. How did they know?
he wondered. Then rolled his eyes. If he asked them they'd say,
"Sarah Connor told us." He was beginning to find the woman's
prescience annoying.

   He started to back away from his vantage point on elbows and
knees when a rifle barrel touched the back of his neck. Even as a
thrill of fear shot through him, the lieutenant thought, Slick.
Very slick, even if I was culpably distracted.

  "Don't move," a familiar voice murmured. "Identify yourself."

  "Juarez?" Reese said.

  "Lieutenant?" the sergeant answered in surprise.

   Holding out his hands, Reese turned slowly to look over his
shoulder at his former sergeant. He smiled in relief. "What the
hell is going on down there, Juarez?"

   The sergeant lay flat beside him, his face grim. "I don't know,
sir. Nothing good by the smell of it." He glanced in the direction
the lieutenant pointed and at the sight of the grave mounds
nodded grimly. "Or the look of it. Me and my boys have been on
a more or less permanent recon. This is the first we've been back
in a month."

  "They call you in?" Reese asked.
  "No, sir. We're not due back for another two weeks."

   Dennis glanced at the sergeant. He was not the kind of soldier
who just decided one day to disobey orders. "Why?" he said
simply.

   "We found a kid. Boy of about eleven. He was sick, sir." The
sergeant gave Reese a direct look. "Wasn't a thing we could do
for him by the time we found him except make him comfortable.
Just before he died he kind of came to and told us how things
were in the camp. How his mother had made him run for it. We
had to come back and take a look, sir."

   The lieutenant nodded, then they both turned their attention
to the trucks below. They could just hear the women's
high-pitched voices and the crying of the younger children. Off in
the men's compound the trucks were unloaded with less noise,
but it was just as plain that the new arrivals were not happy to
be there.

   One man stepped forward and said something, waving his
arm at the barracks. A soldier stepped up and smashed the butt
of his rifle into the man's face. The man went down and no one
moved. One of the soldiers came forward, and pulling off his gas
mask began to speak. Reese looked at him through the glasses
and saw a face he recognized. It was one of those men he'd
marked out as odd, a cold, humorless man he wouldn't have
wanted at his back in a firefight.

  "I haven't seen Yanik," Reese remarked.

   "If the captain is down there, he's in the cemetery," the
sergeant said. "No way he'd allow that kind of thing to go on."

   That was true. "Gather your men and come with me," Reese
said, backing away. "I've got some people I want you to meet and
some things I've got to tell you."

   As they walked, Juarez signaled and his troop began to
emerge from cover. By the time they'd reached the place where
the lieu-tenant had left the resistance fighters, Reese wasn't
surprised to see that they'd all disappeared. He didn't think he'd
ever get used to their ability to completely and instantly vanish.
Maybe that was because some part of his mind persisted in
thinking of them as civilians. Even if he had stopped thinking of
them as survivalist nutcases.

  Dennis sat on a boulder, tipping his helmet to the back of his
head.

   "You wanted us to meet someone?" the sergeant asked.

   "Yep. But they've decided that maybe I'm your prisoner or
something and they're checking us out. Since I don't have a
signal to call them in, we'll just have to wait for them to join us."
He grinned at Juarez. "They're even more tight-assed than
Marines."

   The sergeant laughed. "But brighter, I hope." He turned and
signaled his troop to relax. "Set pickets?" he asked of the
lieutenant.

  "Nope. The area's being guarded by my friends and I don't
want any misunderstandings." He glanced up at Juarez. "If you
know what I mean?"

   The sergeant nodded. "Okay, boys. Break out the rations,
smoke 'em if you got 'em, that sort of shit. Lieutenant says we've
got guardian angels watching over us, so we can all relax."

   From the uncertain looks the soldiers passed among
themselves, relaxation was going to be hard to come by.

   Juarez sat down beside the lieutenant. "You here to deal with
that?" he asked, jerking his head toward the camp.

   Reese nodded, watching the men around them. A bird trilled
a few liquid notes and Dennis waved his arm in a "c'mon in"
gesture.

   "That was them?" Juarez asked. "I'm impressed. I thought it
really was a cardinal."

   "Oh, they're very good," Dennis said.
   From all around them figures decked in grass and brush and
paint began to stand, or to emerge from the undergrowth, guns
at the ready.

   "At ease," Reese told them. Guns were lowered to a less
threatening position, but their faces remained guarded. "Susie,
this is Sergeant Juarez. Sarge, this is my second-in-command."

   Juarez looked her over, visibly hesitated for a moment at her
extreme youth, then nodded; she did the same.

   "Everyone I've been able to identify down there is a creep,"
Juarez said, looking at Reese. "I know that most of them have at
the very least been put on report for unnecessary roughness to
the civilians. They talked about the kids like they were some kind
of vermin. And none of them had very convincing stories about
what outfits they were with before they came here—somehow,
they were all people who'd been on leave from units that took a
nuke in the first day. Funny they're the ones who survived."

   The lieutenant shook his head and forced himself to meet the
sergeant's eyes. "Funny like a funeral. I doubt it's an accident,"
he said. "Just before I was shipped out, some guys were
overheard apparently gloating over the epidemic. There was
some speculation that someone was spraying germs onto raw
food. Fruits and vegetables."

  Juarez just looked at him, for so long that Reese assumed he
was waiting for him to go on.

   "Apparently they never got around to investigating it," the
lieutenant said.

  "Apparently," the sergeant agreed, hard-eyed.

   "Sir, I hate to break into a reunion, but how are we going to
handle this?" Susie's dark eyes were intense and Reese could
almost feel her nervous energy flowing like an electrical field
around her. This was her first mission under fire and Juarez was
a complication she hadn't expected.

  "From what I've seen"—he nodded at the sergeant—"and
heard, we're unlikely to get any converts out of the military left in
camp. My instinct here is to be careful only in regard to civilians
and any prisoners they may have."

   "Today would seem to be a bad time to strike." Susie glanced
at the sergeant. "They're expecting trouble."

   "But not from our direction," Juarez pointed out. "And not
from armed opponents."

  "Has to be today," Reese interjected before his fiery second
could respond. "By tonight those people will have been infected,
and for all the good we can do 'em we might as well shoot them."

   Susie bit her lips. "When do we go, sir?"

   "After the trucks are gone," the lieutenant said. No sense in
giving the enemy heavy armor. "Say twilight. It will make it
harder for us to be seen. Meanwhile, get some rest. Come back…"
He quickly calculated the marching time and then doubled his
original estimate of fifteen minutes to explain what he wanted
done; these were civilians, or very recent ex-civilians, for the
most part.

   She nodded and moved off to talk to her people.

   "They any good?" Juarez asked quietly.

   "We'll know in a few hours," Reese said, getting out his map.
"In any case, they're what we've got. Let's figure out how we're
going to do this."

   THE CAMP

   The women were all terrified, and trying not to show it for the
children's sake. Bad enough that for the last few weeks they'd
been living a life they were ill prepared for after experiencing the
terror that had haunted their entire lives. Now, suddenly, their
own armed forces were herding them into prison camps.

  Children clung and cried, or moved silently, big-eyed by their
mothers' sides into the barracks. The stench was overwhelming
and most of the youngsters hung back. But the eyes of the
soldiers, just visible behind their gas masks, offered no leniency.
They'd been told to go into the barracks and clean them up. So
the women did, dragging their reluctant children with them.

  One of the women started to retch upon entering.

  "You sick?" a guard barked.

   "It's the smell," a woman snapped. She took the sick woman
by the arm and pulled her across to a window, which she threw
open. Just in time as the woman threw herself over the sill and
was sick.

  "You'll clean that up," the same soldier said.

  A little girl screamed and her mother exclaimed, "Oh, my
God! There's a body here!"

    The other women clustered around the bed and stared in
horror at the emaciated figure in it. The woman moved and they
all sprang back, some screaming.

  "She won't bother you for long," a guard said. "But we can't
bury her just yet." The other guards snickered and the
newcomers looked at her in deep dismay.

   The women looked at one another and then a new look at the
place they were to stay. It was filthy beyond description, with a
stench that could only come from terrible sickness and much
death.

  "You said clean," a woman said, rolling up her sleeves. "Do we
have cleaning supplies?"

   The guards looked at one another, marking this as one to
watch. Then their leader indicated a closet at the end of the long
room.

  "Okay," the woman said. "Let's get to work, ladies."
                               ***
   "Now remember, the guards are all bad guys," Reese said.
"But the inmates aren't, and those shacks wouldn't stop a
spitball or a stiff breeze, much less a bullet. Now let's go."

   He felt himself smiling grimly as they moved in through the
thickening twilight.

  Somebody designed this camp to keep people from getting
out, not in, he thought. And those creeps may be wearing the
uniform, but they're prison guards and muscle, not soldiers.
That's why they don't have anyone out here.

   He still wished he had more night-vision equipment, or that
the enemy had less. That could be arranged…

   Sergeant Juarez and two men were walking down the road
toward the camp's entrance, which was flanked by two
watchtowers. Reese made himself not check his weapon
again—that would be fidgeting—and kept still behind the bush
that sheltered him. Juarez and his troopers were playing it
calmly, walking up with weapons slung; soldiers from the camp—
pseudosoldiers, he reminded himself—came out to meet them.

   Far too many of them. I was right: that bunch never went
through basic.

    The last thing you wanted to do in a suspicious situation was
crowd a lot of men right out in the open. An experienced and
suspicious NCO would have sent one or two men out to greet the
newcomers, keeping the rest back under cover and ready to react
if anything went wrong.

   Which it was about to do. Through the binoculars Reese could
see the leader of the camp guards smiling and nodding as Juarez
spoke, the broad gestures of the sergeant's hands… and then one
going to the small of his back.

  "Go!" Reese barked as the noncom pulled the pistol out and
shot the guard in the stomach.

   Then Juarez hugged the body to himself and used it as a
shield, emptying the magazine into the crowded enemy as the
two soldiers following him swung their assault rifles down and
opened fire as well.

   Reese ran forward, hoping that the dozen others behind him
would follow—the rest of Juarez's squad were over on the eastern
side of the camp, and it was all survivalists and odds-and-sods
here.

  From their yelling, they were following him. "Shut up!" he
shouted—not the most inspiring battle cry in the world, but it
would have to do.

   Ahead of him was one of the observation towers; a wooden
box on top of four splayed wooden legs, with a little roof above it.
There was a searchlight and two machine guns in the box; the
guards there were both looking at the firing around the gate,
though… and the tower was outside the barbed-wire perimeter
of the camp.

  "Go!" he barked, panting slightly as they reached the tower.

   Reese went down on one knee, his carbine to his shoulder. The
figures up top were dim, until they lit up the searchlight…
"Perfect," he whispered as he gently squeezed the trigger.

   Braaaapp. One short burst, and a body toppled over the edge
of the railing, falling inert not far away.

  That left the other one, who was turning a machine gun
Reese's way.

  "Open fire!" he bellowed. "Shoot, for Chrissake!"

   The survivalists did, belatedly. For an instant, the man above
looked as if he was dancing—bullets went through the floor of the
wooden observation box as if it wasn't there. One of them struck
the searchlight, and it went out with a shower of sparks that left
orange afterimages drifting across Reese's eyes.

   "You, you, get up there!" he snapped. "Man those guns. The
rest of you, follow me!"
   Hot damn, he thought. For the first time since Judgment Day
he was doing something, something that might help. Striking
back, at least, at the machine and its collaborators.
                                ***

   Dennis Reese looked at the… Well, collaborator, I suppose, he
thought.

   The man had been passing for a corporal when Reese and
Mary left the camp. Now he was in Yanik's quarters and wearing
his rank insignia… and not being very cooperative.

  "I won't tell you zip," he said.

   "I think you will," Reese said, conscious of the slight tremor in
his voice.

  He'd had time to tour the camp. A lot of the people he'd
known hadn't been buried yet; the matron at the clinic where
Mary had worked was lying where she'd fallen near her chair,
swollen and purple, with flies walking across her eyes.

   "Nada," the man said; he had a thin stubbled face and hard
eyes.

   Juarez touched Reese on the shoulder. "Sir, I think you should
so for a walk," he said.

  "What?" Reese asked.

  "Sir, you should go for a walk. Check on the people. We'll call
you when this is taken care of."

  Reese opened his mouth to say something, then closed it
again. There were times an officer should take a walk—not
something that was covered in the formal curriculum at the
Point, but it did get passed on by word of mouth from
generation to generation.

  And Sergeant Juarez had seen everything that Reese had.
Reese smiled at the man in the captain's uniform and walked
out. There was a lot of work to do… and one of Juarez's men was
bringing up a bucket of water.

    By the time the noncom joined him—Reese had carefully not
listened to the sounds—the camp inmates were gathered. Reese
looked down on them from the steps; they'd gotten the lights
working again, and a corner of his mind was wondering whether
they could salvage the camp generator and take it with them. It
would be so useful… The faces looking up at him held fright,
anger, despair.

   "What do you mean, these weren't really the army?" a man
asked.

    "The American army doesn't do this"—Reese pointed around;
everyone had been shown the mass graves—"to American
citizens. This was a bunch of terrorists pretending to be
soldiers."

  "And you're the real army?" somebody called.

  "There isn't one left," Reese said grimly. "It died on Judgment
Day. We're the… resistance. And we're not just fighting for
America; we're fighting for the survival of the human race."

  Juarez bent to whisper in his ear. "Sir, you're damned right
about that. We got a lot out of him…"
             CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  DOT LAKE, ALASKA

  We're getting organized, John Connor thought. Which
means… paperwork!

  Luckily, he and Sarah and Dieter had all been in favor of a
decentralized structure, which kept bureaucracy to a minimum.
Which did not mean "small."

   He sighed and leaned back in the chair until it creaked
dangerously, even with his boots on the table to stabilize it, and
took another sip of lukewarm herbal tea. For a moment his
mouth crooked up at one corner; the central HQ of humanity at
the moment was a man barely old enough to drink, in a nowhere
town in the wilderness.

   Lists were scrolling across the screen of his laptop, mostly of
new recruits brought in by various resistance cells across North
America, Europe, and East Asia. Skynet hadn't had a chance to
pulverize Latin America quite as thoroughly, yet—it had
probably been much worse in the "original" Judgment Day
scenario, which had happened back when the major powers had
tens of thousands of ready-to-go nuclear warheads, instead of a
couple of thousand all up. Of course, once Skynet got its
production facilities fully operational, it would probably make
more nukes—

   "Christ!" he said suddenly, putting the cup down fast enough
to slosh.

  Jack Brock had sent in his list from Missouri, from the Ozark
Redoubt. One of their more promising cells…

  Dennis Reese.

   He called up a picture. No absolute proof, but there was a
resemblance—thin features, light brown hair, something about
the eyes…

  How would you define the relationship? Technically he's my
granddad…

   Even though the lieutenant was only twenty-five to John's
recently turned twenty-one. John shook his head slowly. I think
the reason time travel makes my head hurt is that it makes my
eyes spin. Right now his gut was hurting, too. He felt an
overwhelming urge to send a priority-one message to Brock:
keep Reese safe at all costs!

   But I can't do that, he knew, with a sinking sensation. That
might be the exact thing that would keep Reese from fathering
the son who's going to father moi!

   The chaos-butterfly-wing thing evidently wasn't entirely
correct; for all the time-loops and frantic attempts to change the
past, each cycle tended back toward the original course of events.
But the past was changeable; sometimes the future created its
own past. He had to be so careful…
                                 ***

   John turned his attention to the single truck and bus waiting
for passengers in the town square. Poor suckers, John thought.
They should be all right, though. He'd moved some of the
resistance into that old logging camp and they'd be watching the
road for these newcomers. If Skynet tried anything, it would lose.

   They planned an attack on the "relocation camp" any day
now. As soon as thirty of the new plasma rifles arrived from
California. He had no intention of sending his people into battle
less well armed than the enemy. At least not if he could help it.
Reports on conditions in the camp weren't good, but they
weren't as bad as the Black River camp in Missouri. For some
reason, Skynet seemed to want the humans in B.C. to survive.

   Ah, here she is.

   Ninel rode up on a blue bicycle, put down the kickstand, and
took a clipboard out of her saddlebags. Then she blew a whistle
to get the small crowd's attention.

   "If I ever see that white-haired bitch again, I'll kill her!" one of
the mothers who'd survived the massacre had declared.

   Can't blame her, John thought. But Ninel's okay. I can feel it
in my gut.

   For a moment he imagined Sarah Connor's eyebrows going up
sardonically.

   Okay, okay, my Internalized Mom Superego, yeah, it's
partly another portion of my anatomy. But I'm a good judge of
people— have to be, if I'm going to do this job. And my
judgment says Ninel's no mass murderer.

   He looked out the window at the exotic blond head—hair a bit
rattailed, like everyone's right now, but still a bright beacon in
the gray day. She seemed such a levelheaded sort of woman, not
the kind to join a group that would deliberately kill ordinary
people for no very good reason. She'd also seemed more like a
loner than a joiner. The term lone gunman flitted through his
mind.

   The truth is I don't know her and shouldn't be making
judgments about her sanity or lack thereof based on such short
acquaintance.

   Another phrase he was having trouble tamping down: He was
so quiet, so helpful, seemed like such a nice fella. He so didn't
want it to be true. Ninel was such an endearing little thing, she
looked kind of like a blond, blue-eyed Bjork—elflike.

   Although, Tolkien aside, mythology didn't paint elves as
friendly to the average human—but as chancy and extremely
dangerous.

   It didn't take Ninel long to process the travelers and soon she
was waving good-bye. John kicked his bike to life and roared up
behind her. She kept her back to him as she put away her
clipboard.

  "How is it that you can run that thing?" she asked loudly
enough to be heard over his motor. Ninel looked at him over her
shoulder. "Are you hoarding or something?"

  "Or something," he said, and cut the motor. "I jiggered it to
run on wood alcohol and I've set up my own still." She looked
impressed, which pleased him.

   Then she frowned. "It doesn't burn very clean, though, does
it?"

  He twisted his mouth. "Does it matter at the end of the
world?"

  She laughed. "It's not the end of the world, and yes, it does
matter." She grew serious. "It always matters."

  Some small flake of dread sank through his being. Her parents
had been activists. Ineffectual activists in an idiot cause, but an
upbringing like that had to have some effect on her character.

   "Can I buy you a burger?" he asked.

   She grinned. "If you could buy me a burger, I'd give you a
medal. But you can buy me an elk kabob." Ninel jerked her head
at a nearby cafe. "What have you got to trade?"

  "Never fear," John said, "I'm prepared. I wouldn't offer if I
wasn't." He gave her a reproachful look that made her laugh.

   "We can park in front," she told him. "I'll meet you there."

   When she caught up with him and had finished locking down
her bike, she grinned to see him pull a pair of rabbits from his
saddlebags. "That should do," she said. "If they're fresh."

   He gave her another reproachful look. "Fresh this morning,"
he said. "Guaranteed."

   The burly man behind the counter of the improvised
restaurant had a pump-action shotgun and a skeptical
expression. That thawed as John shoved the two carcasses across
the wood; he bent, sniffed, felt, and nodded.

   "Okay, you got credit at the Copper King," he said. "Rack your
weapons there, enjoy yourselves, and no fighting or you go out in
pieces."

   "Come again to Burger King, and will you have fries with
that?" John muttered under his breath.

    The platters of grilled elk chunks on sticks did include
potatoes; boiled, of course—nobody was wasting oil on
cooking—but still tasty to carbohydrate-starved bodies, with a
little salt.

  "So," Ninel said, biting into the juicy meat, "did you get to the
camp in B.C.?"

   "Not all the way," John said. "As you said, it's a long haul."
  She shrugged. "I'm a little disappointed. I've been wondering
what it's like and if I should pack up and go. Thing is, I don't
want to leave my dogs behind."

   "Dogs?" he said. "You have a team?"

   Shaking her head, Ninel smiled. "Only if you think a pair is a
team. No, they're good hunting dogs, and they're my buds. I
couldn't just abandon them."

   "I like dogs," he said, a little wistfulness in his tone. He sipped
his chamomile tea, not liking it much; then putting the mug
down, he looked at her carefully.

   "What?" she said.

  "I just"—he shrugged—"I have my doubts about these buses
and trucks. Who's behind this? Do you know?"

  "The government, I suppose." She looked him in the eye.
"Who else?"

   "Our government, or Canada?"

  "Both, I would imagine." She frowned. "What are you
suggesting? You think these people are being kidnapped or
something? By Canadians! You can't be serious."

   He laughed. "When you put it like that," he said. "But
seriously, you don't know who is behind it, and I find that
worrying. How did they recruit you anyway?"

   "I knew some people who were involved and they asked me to
help." She looked at him with concern. "They're good people,
John. I don't think they'd hurt anybody."

  "So because you trusted them, you were willing to take the
whole thing on faith."

  Ninel sat back, frowning. "I feel like I'm being accused of
something here. Not least of being stupid, and I don't like it."

   He held her gaze with a severe look of his own. "I didn't go all
the way to the camp because the buses stopped short of it.
Everyone figured it was a rest stop and got off. Understandably,
after a ride of about four hours." She was frowning in
puzzlement. "They were attacked."

  "Whoa!" she said quickly. "That doesn't mean the people who
run the transports are responsible."

   "C'mon, Ninel! Who else knew that the automated transports
were going to stop right there? Huh? But beyond that, I know
that people from the camp came hunting them."

   "Of course they came looking," Ninel protested. "If the
transports never arrived, or arrived empty, of course they went
looking. Why wouldn't they?"

   "Hon, something is wrong here."

   "I'm not your hon and maybe the something wrong here is
you! Maybe there are people out there who don't want
Americans settling in Canada. Did that ever occur to you? And if
the army can discover how to make those trucks run, couldn't
someone else figure out how to run them by remote control?
Maybe this is a plot against the people running the transports
and the camps, rather than a plot by them. Ever think of that?
And what are you doing to try and help? Anything?"

   John sat back, wondering where he'd lost control of this
conversation. Though he did have an impression that Ninel's
reaction was sincere. "I'm doing a few things," he said gruffly.

   Why am I feeling defensive? he wondered. I've spent my
whole life preparing to fight Skynet and she's making me feel
like a slacker when it's her that's sending people down the
damn thing's maw.

  "Look, I'm not judging you," he said aloud. "I'm just asking
questions. Maybe I could ask your friends?"

    She looked less belligerent, and a bit uncertain. "I'll ask them
if they'll talk to you. No guarantees."
  "I take it they're not still looking for volunteers."

   Her mouth curved up at one corner. "Somehow I don't see you
as a volunteer. Maybe it's the bike."

  ALASKA

   "He wants to talk to us?" Balewitch said, her eyebrows almost
tangling in her hairline she was so surprised. She had to make an
effort of will not to grin like a wolf.

  Perfect!

  Ron Labane wanted John Connor found and neutralized and
John Connor wanted to come over for coffee. Life generally didn't
work out this well.

  "Do you know him?" Ninel asked. It was clear she'd noted
Balewitch's surprise.

  "No, but Ron does," Dog said. "And I don't think he likes
him."

  Balewitch threw him a warning glance, which Ninel saw.

   "What did he say?" she asked, sinking slowly into one of the
kitchen chairs.

   "That he was dangerous and that he was trouble and that we
should stop him now before he recruits too many followers." Dog
grimaced into his cup of mint tea. "Christ, I wish I had a beer."

   Balewitch rolled her eyes in disgust and Ninel looked from one
to the other. "Is this the right John Connor?" she asked. "I've
never seen him with anyone else." Her eyes took on a distant look
for a moment. "When he used to hang out at the Klondike, he
was the kind who just wanted to shoot pool and have a laugh. I
never heard him talking politics or anything like it."

  "Ron thinks he is," Dog said, still looking into his tea.

  Balewitch glared at him. "Still, both John and Connor are
common names. And the guy Ron was talking about was seen in
Canada."

   "In Canada?" Ninel said. Nervously she brushed her bright
hair back from her face.

  Dog and Balewitch exchanged glances.

   "Yeah," Balewitch said, at her most grandmotherly. "We
didn't want to tell you, but… There was an attack on the last
convoy." She lowered her eyes and pursed her lips. "A lot of
people were killed and we still haven't found the survivors." She
looked up at Ninel. "A young man on a motorcycle was one of the
shooters; dark hair, sunglasses. But Ron is sure that it's this
John Connor."

   The younger woman's mouth opened slightly and she hunched
forward as though struck by a sudden pain. She blinked rapidly,
then looked at the concerned faces of her two friends and
comrades. "It does sound like him," she said quietly. "What do
you want me to do?"

  "Get close to him," Dog said, leaning forward avidly. "Find out
what he's up to."

  Ninel blinked at him, then frowned. "Don't you think we
should tell the authorities?"

  "Ye-ah," Balewitch said, her tone of voice implying that she
was asking Dog just what he was thinking.

   "Why?" Dog asked. "They'll want proof and all we've got is
suspicions. But! If we can get him to commit to some course of
action and then catch him in the act, we'll have him dead to
rights." His eyes told Balewitch he was intending to lean heavily
on the dead part.

   "Humph," Balewitch said thoughtfully. "I see your point." She
looked at their young recruit. "Are you game?"

  Ninel frowned uncertainly. "I don't know," she said. "I'm not
one of those glib people who can make people trust them."
   Balewitch stared at the pretty young thing, her chin cupped in
her hand. If I had her looks, I could convince the average man
that he had a purple ass and tentacles on his head.

   It wasn't modesty, she knew, it was too unselfconscious for
that. This was pure innocence, and if she couldn't work it into a
shape she could use, she'd change her name to Turkey-girl.

   She patted the girl's hand. "Don't worry about it. Just try and
spend more time with him. Tell him we weren't at home and you
couldn't find us. Invite him to your house for dinner to make it
up to him. After that, let nature take its course. Just remember,
the less said the better. That way you can't trip yourself up and
you'll have less to remember if he asks you questions."

   "Don't worry," Dog said, giving Ninel a comradely slap on the
back that was meant to sting. "You can do it! And remember, it's
for the cause."

   Ninel's expression went from thoughtful to determined at
that, and the two Luddites grinned at each other over her head.

   NEAR FAIRBANKS

  "You're sure about this?" John said, scratching distractedly.
Wish we had more soap. God, if typhus gets started…

    Far away in the Quebec wilderness, Snog rolled his eyes. The
satellite link didn't convey quite the full smug self-confidence of
it. "No, I just thought it would be fun to tease you. Yeah, I'm
sure! You must have received the same image I'm sending."

    "Hey, hey, simmer down." Sheesh, I should know better than
to question the maestro. "I'm thrilled, honest. It's just so good,
it's like it's too good to be true."

   "Unless Skynet has discovered our link, and there's no
evidence of that, this is the real deal."

   John looked down at the schematic on his screen. This was
one of the famous automated factories built in secret in
wilderness areas; the drawing showed the loading zones, the
microhydro station that powered it, the computer centrum…

   That thing was not built with human beings in mind, he
thought. All those conveyor belts, and the passages are just
about big enough for a large dog. Probably have little repair
'bots scurrying around in 'em…

   The resistance geeks had traced its whereabouts based on
painstaking study of innumerable satellite photos. John had
known that it had to be somewhere near the fake relocation
camp, but even so, finding its exact whereabouts had been a
herculean labor.

  "Okay," John said. "Congratulations to you and your team."

  "Thank you, O Great Military Dickhead," Snog intoned.

   Connor chuckled; he'd told Snog his teenage nickname for the
self he was growing toward… "You're welcome, my son. Go forth
and find me some more."

  "More? Connor wants more? God, you're such a taskmaster.
You sure your name isn't Legree?"

   "Get used to it, bud. This goes on for a while. Take care out
there in les boonies. Connor, out."

   John leaned back in his chair, his eyes gleaming. This would
be their first big assault on Skynet. His blood sang at the
thought. Finally, I get to strike first.

  DOT LAKE, ALASKA

  Ninel saw John through the cafe window and waved. He
waved back, put down the kickstand, and took off his helmet.
Her heartbeat sped up and her mouth went dry at the thought of
what she was about to do, but she needed to find out the truth
about him. Was he the one Labane was looking for?

   He didn't seem like a crazed killer. She watched him swing his
leg over the bike as he dismounted. He had an easy grace about
him that she admired. Actually there was a great deal about him
that she admired. She so didn't want him to be the one they were
looking for…
                               ***

   She's looking a little tense, John thought. He smiled at her
even though he was feeling a bit stressed himself. Well, you're
supposed to feel a bit tense on the first serious date. He went to
the counter first, as the new custom dictated, and pulled out a
small, half-empty tube of toothpaste. It rang on the counter with
the resonance of a gold coin in happier days.

   "Cuppa mint tea and a bowl of rabbit stew," Ray, the owner,
said.

   John nodded; he thought he was being robbed, but the smell
of the cooking meat and its wild-garlic accompaniment was
making his mouth water. Besides, he was eager to talk to Ninel
and didn't want to waste time dickering. He could feel her
looking at him, her eyes burning holes in the back of his leather
jacket. In seconds, the order was in front of him on a tray. Ray
had added a side of bread and John nodded and grinned in
appreciation. He hadn't had bread in weeks.

   He put the tray down on the table between himself and the
girl. "Check this out," he said, indicating the bread.

   She smiled and nodded. "I had just gotten in new supplies,"
she said. "So I have quite a bit of flour. Enjoy."

  He did, savoring every mouthful.

   "I keep thinking about that hamburger you offered me," Ninel
said. "Never thought I'd want something so badly, y'know? It's
like my teeth want to chew ground beef and nothing else will do."

   "I hear ya," John said. "I hadn't realized how much I miss
bread. Butter would be nice," he said philosophically. "But this is
great."

   She bit her lip and looked down, drawing a circle out of a spot
of spilled tea. "They weren't home," she said, and glanced up at
him through her lashes. She shrugged and sat back. "I have no
idea where they are, or when they'll be back. They do this, go
away and come back with no explanation."

  He looked at her for a moment and she lowered her eyes
uncomfortably. "Was that why you looked so tense?" he asked.
"Did you think I'd be mad or something?"

   Ninel sighed and looked down at her hands. "I dunno. You
Weren't specific, but you were implying some awful things." She
frowned and raised her eyes to his face. "Now I don't know what
to do."

  They looked at each other, both communicating distress, then
mutually lowered their eyes.

   "I can understand how you feel," John said. "They're friends, I
guess, people you've trusted anyway, and now you can't even ask
them questions."

   "Yes!" she said. "That's it exactly. I'm supposed to organize
another group day after tomorrow, but how can I under these
circumstances? And, you know, they might not know anything
more than I do."

  He nodded sympathetically. "But you still want to do
something."

   "Well, yuh." She shook her head. "Things aren't going to get
better by themselves."

   He looked at her. Should he try to recruit her for the
resistance?

    She might already be in the enemy camp without realizing it
, he thought. Of course, so might her friends. But somehow he
doubted it. It wasn't until recently that he'd realized that at least
for a time Skynet needed, and would continue to need, human
allies. Whether they realized that they were helping a homicidal
machine was immaterial. Given what had happened in Missouri,
at least some of Skynet's minions were willing, even eager, to kill
for it.
   If he could convince Ninel that these people were up to no
good, or at least were being led to do no good, he might also be
able to convince her to feed him reports about what they were up
to. It would be a lot easier than trying to get one of his people to
try infiltrating the group cold. Which might even be impossible.

   "Look," he said quietly, "maybe we shouldn't get too deeply
into this here."

    She looked around. It was just Ray and them, and though the
proprietor seemed busy, he might be listening. With the loss of
all radio signals, people's voices seemed to carry more. Ninel
smiled. "Okay," she said. "Why don't you come home with me for
dinner."

  He blinked.

  "I'll make French toast."

  "I'm there," John said.

   Even if she intended to shoot him, if there was the remotest
chance that he'd get some French toast first, it was worth the
risk.
                               ***

   He'd wondered how long it would take them to get to the
place where he'd picked her up a few weeks ago, but once they
hit the highway, she'd sped along at close to forty-five miles an
hour. And once they left the road for the narrow track through
the bush, he was definitely at a disadvantage.

  Her cabin was small and half-buried, but looked snug and well
made. A pair of elk antlers decorated the area above the
doorframe. There were a few chickens pecking in the yard. Two
dogs— huskies—sprang to attention, barking furiously at the
motorcycle.

   They must be well trained, he thought. They haven't eaten
the chickens yet.

  Ninel put her bike on its stand and went to them, speaking
softly and mussing their ruffs. They greeted her with waving tails
and hanging tongues but kept a weather eye on John.

   "Spike and Jonze," she said, pointing at one and then the next
identical dog. John looked at her askance and she shrugged. "I
like his work. C'mon in."

   The space was small and somewhat cluttered, but it was clean
and as neat as it could be given the crowded conditions. The bed
looks comfortable, he thought, glancing at the fur-covered
double bed. He resolutely turned his eyes and mind away.
"Anything I can do to help?" he asked.

   "Yeah. Sit down and stay out of my way." She went to a
camp-stove setup and got it started. "You can keep me
entertained. Tell me about yourself."

  If only I could, he thought automatically. Then: Hey, wait a
minute, it's post-Judgment Day! I can tell her about myself.
Well, except for the part about his father not being born yet.
Which actually was a big part of the story.

   "I was raised by my mom," he said. "Mostly in Central
America and points south. She, ah, she never got along well with
the authorities. I never knew my father."

  But I will! In fact, I'm going to set him up with my mom,
which is weird stuff.

  "Um, grew up all over the place, never finished high school…"

   This sounds depressing, but it was actually kinda cool, most
of the time. Not the times we were being pursued by
Terminators, or my time in foster care, but a lot of the time.

  "Sounds a lot like my folks!" Ninel grinned at him over her
shoulder. "What was your mom in trouble for? Environmental
work? Peace activist?"

   "Ah… blowing up computer factories, mostly," John said, and
hastily added: "But she didn't hurt people. She got blamed for a
lot of stuff… other elements… did."
  "It works—well, used to work—that way," Ninel said
sympathetically.

   He shook his head. "I don't really like talking about myself."
Because even now some well-meaning individual might think
I'd look better in a straitjacket. "You could tell me more about
yourself," he suggested.

  "I'm cooking. Tell me what you've been doing since Judgment
Day."

  This was the first time he'd heard the term outside his own
family, and it chilled him. "What?"

   She looked up from what she was doing. "Judgment Day?" she
said. "That's what my friends call it."

   "Oh."

  It had come from Skynet? Just when he thought he couldn't
hate the damn thing anymore, it got, well, judgmental on him.

   The first slab of bread hit the hot pan with a sizzle and he
grinned in anticipation. "Thank you for this," he said.

   She smiled at him. "My pleasure."

   They gobbled most of a loaf of bread. Well, I'm gobbling most
of a loaf, liberally covered with really rad wild-blueberry
syrup. Again, the only thing missing was butter, but who
cared, it was fantastic.

   "I'm glad you liked it," she said, clearing the plates.

   "Let me do the washing-up," John offered. "It's the least I can
do."

  "I will," she said, grinning at his surprise. "I'll just stoke the
woodstove so we can have some hot water."

  He'd noted the chill in her house, but had said nothing,
understanding her desire to be thrifty with the wood. It was
backbreaking labor and he wondered if there were enough trees
out there to keep the fires going this winter. Well, in Alaska,
yeah…

   He washed, she dried, and they talked and joked
companionably. Ninel fed her dogs, much to their ecstatic
gratitude, while John watched from a polite distance. Huskies
were a little too close to wolves to take liberties with, in his
opinion.

  When they went back in she brewed some rose-hip tea.

  "Tastes like math paper," he said with a grimace.

   She laughed and put a pot of honey on the table. "We're
probably the last generation that will know what that means. At
least for awhile."

  He drizzled honey into his tea, looked up and met her eyes,
and slowly smiled. She blushed and lowered her eyes, then looked
up at him through her lashes.

  He sipped his tea and smiled. "That's better."

  Biting her lips, she took the honey pot and drizzled honey into
her cup, then broke up laughing.

   "Are we thinking the same thing?" he asked, grinning
wickedly.

  "Yes, I'm terribly afraid that we are," she said, still laughing.

   "Don't be afraid," he said. He took her free hand in both of
his. "There's nothing to be afraid of."
                                ***

   John held her in his arms and looked down at the bright head
resting on his shoulder, feeling her soft, rhythmic breath upon
his chest, and felt… wonderful. More relaxed than he had felt in a
long time. He caressed her shoulder with his thumb and smiled.

  He liked her. He knew it wasn't love; he'd had that with
Wendy and he'd recognize it if it came to him again. But he
really liked this girl, and who knew what that could lead to? He
admired her self-reliance and enjoyed her sense of humor. He
sensed, though, that she was one of those lost souls casting about
for a noble cause. He'd like to be the one to give it to her…

   "Where did you get the scars?" she said drowsily, tracing the
lines down the left side of his face.

   "Would you believe a cybernetically controlled leopard seal
slashed my face?"

  Ninel laughed and poked him in a sensitive spot. "If you don't
want to tell me, that's okay. But I like your sense of humor!"
             CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  ALASKA

  Luddites?" John said, peering at the screen.

   A trainee—he showed real promise at scout work—brought in
another armful of split wood and pitched a few billets into the
woodstove. It thumped and gave a muffled whoosh as he
adjusted the air intake, and the day's damp chill receded a bit.

  "Yes, sir. That's our intel," Jack Brock said.

  John rolled his eyes. Jack was still completely enamored of
military parlance, while John Connor was already sick of it.

   Better get over that, he thought with resignation. It was
going to be the lingua franca for the next thirty years or more.
And every calling needs a jargon. It helps keep the
organization's purpose sharp and clear.

  "There must be millions of 'em," Brock was saying.

   Connor jerked his mind back to the matter at hand.
"Worldwide," he agreed. "Hundreds of thousands, at least." He
sat forward. "Good work, Jack. Congratulate Reese and Susie for
me on a job well done. Out."

  "Thanks, John. Will do. Out."
   Luddites. He'd known that Skynet had human assistance, but
he'd never expected it to come from that quarter. The
progress-hating, machine-scuttling, science-despising Luddites
would seem to be the last people Skynet could get to help. And
yet…

   They share a lot of the same goals. Namely, reducing
humanity in population and power. Of course I don't think that
most Luddites want to reduce humanity to zero. But there
would be some who would. He winced. Wendy would have hated
this.

   Connor moved out onto the now bustling floor of the once
abandoned building that his mother had acquired—it had
originally been HQ and smelter for a series of gold dredges.
They'd spent a lot of time and money improving the building
from the inside before Judgment Day. Outside, they were well
disguised as a semidilapidated series of aging buildings of
unpainted pine. Inside, they were weather tight and roomy
enough to provide barracks, offices, training areas, a canteen,
and hardened storage for tons of electronic equipment.

   John still went home occasionally; he needed his alone time.
But it made his heart swell with pride to see the people they'd
recruited before Judgment Day pitching in and recruiting people
themselves. The resistance was really shaping up.

   It helps that we're not coming from behind this time, he
thought. They'd drained Dieter's freely given fortune to build
this. Exploited his every contact and resource, and it was paying
off, visibly.

   Now they were in a kind of race, to see if they could prevent
Skynet from building its army, or at least defeating it far sooner
than they had the first time.

  Would that mean that Kyle Reese would never be born, or that
having been born, he'd never be sent into the past?

  Will I disappear midsentence one day? John wondered. Who
cares? What's one life if I can save millions by giving mine.
   He'd never liked the idea that he was destined to send his
father to his death. If he could prevent that by ceasing to exist,
well, C'est la guerre. He grinned. It isn't like I'd know.

   COMODORO RIVADAVIA, ARGENTINA

   "I'm not asking for anything like your full production," Sarah
said. "I'm only asking for a slight increase to those countries
you've already been supplying."

   "But all to the advantage of the United States," Senor Reimer
said. "Do we really wish to see the United States once again so
powerful?"

   Sheesh! Sarah thought. To hear people down here talk, you'd
think we were the Roman legions; invading everywhere,
stealing everything that wasn't nailed down—including the
people—and then pretending it was a good deal because one
day the remaining folks would be citizens. We have our faults,
God knows, but we weren't that bad.

   Sarah's Spanish was virtually accent-free—with a tinge of
Paraguay and Nicaragua—and she seldom bothered to mention
that she was from California. It simplified things. Unfortunately,
it was impossible to get this business done without being a bit
more up-front.

   For a moment she looked out the window, controlling her
temper. Comodoro was on the northern edge of Patagonia; steep
ground fell to the cold-looking gray water, and oil storage tanks
and pipelines and refinery cracking towers were everywhere.
There wasn't much of a tang in the air because the wind blew
constantly—she'd considered hiding out around here when she
was on the run with John after the attack on Cyberdyne, but the
perpetual howling and the bleak flat landscape didn't appeal to
her. Comodoro's other buildings were mostly medium size and
flat-roofed; one of the bigger ones had a ten-story-high colored
Coke ad, something that sheep ranchers came miles to see.

   And they have to sell the oil, she told herself. Argentina hadn't
been badly hit—no actual nuclear bombs, yet. That didn't
prevent economic collapse, riots, regional warlordism, and
general crisis. She'd have preferred to deal in Venezuela, but the
Maricaibo fields there had been major enough to be on a target
list.

   "It is unlikely that the United States will ever be that powerful
again," she said aloud. "In the meantime, there are people there
that need our help. And there are opportunities here for those
with the vision to take them. South America is in a position to
take its place as a world leader."

  Reimer looked thoughtful. "Ah, but which South American
country shall lead? That is the question."

  Long training kept Sarah from rolling her eyes and yelling:
"No, it's not, you idiot!"

   The United States never would have gotten powerful enough
for morons like this one to resent it if the big question had been:
Which state is going to be the most important? No wonder
Simon Bolivar, South America's equivalent to George
Washington, had died despairing and saying his career had been
like trying to plow the sea…

   Things would have been tougher still, of course, if the early
Americans had had Skynet to contend with instead of just the
British. But telling Senor Reimer about a great computer
menace would certainly end this already shaky interview.

  Poor bastard, she thought. Sooner or later Skynet's going to
come after you, too—with nukes or plagues or HKs, or all of the
above.

   She'd worked her way from Mexico to near the tail of
Argentina reaffirming arrangements for food and other supplies
to be shipped to their resistance cells in the United States. But
suddenly some people she already had contracts with had begun
to object that she didn't represent the U.S. government. Which
was weird because she'd never claimed to. Since whipping out a
pistol and blowing them away was not going to help, Sarah had
applied diplomacy and the occasional—

  All right, more than the occasional bribe.
   Oddly enough, it was the criminals who had been most likely
to stick to their agreements. But then, they knew she might whip
out a pistol and blow them away. The certain knowledge that it
was a possibility kept things conveniently civilized; not to
mention that they knew she had backup who'd rescue her or at
least avenge her death. Which was especially useful because she
was a woman trying to work within a very macho society.

   The wise criminal knew that a gun didn't care if its user wore
nail polish and perfume. But a lot of the politicians and
business-men she'd dealt with were sexist goons who, if she drew
down on them, might well mention how big the gun looked in
her dainty little hand.

  So far, though, in spite of complications, her success rate had
been pretty high. But fuel was the crucial element, and that was
hard to pry out of the hands of oilmen. Particularly those who
suddenly saw themselves as world leaders.

   If only she could tell them that they were in more danger than
they imagined. But Skynet wasn't ready to make its move yet, so
any attempt to reveal its evil plans would get her laughed out of
South and Central America and possibly right into another
mental institution.

  Never thought I'd wish to see a Terminator, Sarah thought.
But I really, truly, wish one would crash in here right now and
smack the smirk off Reimer's fat face.

   Reimer's assistant burst in from the outer office, his dark eyes
shining. "Sir! An American submarine has just entered the
harbor!"

   Even better than a Terminator, Sarah thought, though she
was impressed by the timing. This might actually be something
she could use. Assuming she could prevent the Argentine
government from seizing it.

   By mutual agreement, she and Reimer ended the meeting,
scheduling their discussion for another day.

  ***
   Captain Thaddeus Chu was not happy. He hadn't been happy
since he'd disobeyed Admiral Read's orders to report to the
nuclear cinder that was San Diego. Read had answered Chu's
every request for confirmation with the proper codes, and the
voice was definitely the admiral's. Other officers had agreed with
Chu about that. But they, too, had noticed something not quite
right with the way he spoke.

   Something besides his insane order to commit suicide.

   In addition, Chu had monitored a civilian broadcast by a
woman named Sarah Connor, who had described the situation
with terrifying accuracy. Unbeknownst to the general public,
every navy ship recently refitted with a complex new cyberbrain
had found itself firing missiles with no executive orders to do so
and wandering the sea-lanes helplessly as their crews starved.

   His old lady had been at the bottom of the list to be refitted;
she was an OWo-class missile sub originally equipped with
Trident missiles, but converted to a commando carrier with a
hundred SEALs aboard. They would have been in San Diego
when the bombs dropped but for an accident that had required
fairly extensive patching, delaying their departure from Okinawa
for a critical two weeks.

   Chu had been looking forward to having a better job done at
the naval facility in California; now it looked like she'd bear those
scars on her nose for the rest of her days. And yet he was grateful
for that accident; though he pitied those who'd lost family in
California, he was not sorry to be alive himself.

  They were all but out of food now and other sundries. Most
West Coast ports in the United States were so much rubble, and
what research could be done from the ship indicated that the
East Coast wasn't much better. Nor were the coasts in China,
Japan, Russia, or Europe.

   South America, however, had possibilities. Which was why
they were here in Comodoro Rivadavia—major city, good port
facilities, and a history of friendly relations with the United
States. Not that that necessarily meant much in these
post-nuclear-holocaust days.
   Bob Vaughan, the XO, knocked and stuck his head through
the door of Chu's ready room—which was about the size of a
walk-in closet. A submarine was still a sub, even if it displaced as
much as the HMS Dreadnought.

  "There's a delegation from the city to see you, Captain."

   "Right there," Chu said. He sat for a moment, collecting his
thoughts, then picked up his hat and followed the executive
officer up on deck. He'd decide about letting people through the
hatchway later.

   Waiting on the dock were a number of impatient-looking men
in good suits and one guy in a military uniform with some very
impressive medals on his chest. They looked up at Chu, obviously
waiting for an invitation. The temperature was chilly enough to
make you remember that the seasons were reversed in the
southern hemisphere, not to mention the gunk still circulating in
the upper atmosphere.

   No honor guard or suchlike, Chu thought. He was surprised;
they looked like the kind of men who enjoyed ceremony. He
walked down to the end of the gangway—which did have armed
guards, his own men—and nodded to the delegation.

  "Gentlemen," the captain prompted.

   "We'd like a few words with you, Captain?" a particularly
sleek specimen said in excellent English.

   Chu wasn't sure if the question was a request for his name or
confirmation of his rank. Both, probably. "I'm Thaddeus Chu,"
he said. "Captain, USS Roosevelt. And I'll be happy to speak to
you gentlemen. You're welcome to board, but I must remind you
that if you do come aboard you are entering United States
territory."

   The delegation stared up at him for some time without
moving or speaking. Then their spokesman, who had not deigned
to identify himself, took a step forward.

  "You must know, Mr. Chu," he said, with a frown that
probably hid some inward glee, "that the United States has
effectively ceased to exist."

   "It's Captain Chu, sir. And you may find that assessment to be
premature."

    "Come, come, Captain. The U.S. is all but hammered flat, in
all probability never to rise again. If you didn't think so yourself,
you wouldn't have stopped here." He gave the captain a smug
smile. "Would you?"

   Chu looked down at him with a sinking heart and a poker
face. He honestly hadn't expected it to be easy, but he'd hardly
expected them to be so blatant. "You are welcome to board,
gentlemen, with the understanding that upon boarding you are
in U.S. territory."

  The men on the dock looked at one another and conferred
quietly. Then the spokesman stepped forward once more.

  "Perhaps we should leave you to contemplate your options,
Captain," he said. He gestured toward the mouth of the harbor.

   Chu's eyes widened as he watched a huge oil tanker slide into
place behind the Roosevelt. He turned to stare at the grinning
men on the dock.

   "Just send us a message when you're prepared to be
reasonable." The man waved affably and the whole group turned
and walked away.

   The captain crossed his arms over his chest and watched
them go in disbelief. When he'd pulled into this berth his biggest
worry had been how he was going to pay for supplies. Now he
was faced with capitulation to as-yet-unknown terms or doing
something pretty vile. Though with a hundred SEALs aboard, he
should be able to limit any necessary damage.

   But damn! I don't want to go down in history as a pirate.
Nor did he want to be remembered for simply surrendering his
ship. His father had arrived in the United States from South
Vietnam via a rickety boat and a stiff brush with Thai pirates.
He didn't intend to start the family saga over again in Latin
America.

   Reasonable, my royal Asian-American ass! he thought, and
turning went below. "Get me Commander Smith," he half
snarled.
                               ***

   Sarah watched the show through binoculars; Comodoro
fortunately had a nice selection of high places from which to
view all the kingdoms of the earth—or at least of Patagonia. She
didn't need to be a lip-reader to work out what had happened. As
soon as she'd seen that tanker on the move, she'd guessed how
this conference was going to end. The sub was neatly trapped
and there wasn't a lot the captain could do about it. Nothing
civilized anyway. Clearly they needed help.

   Sarah turned and walked away. She had a number of
arrangements to make, and information to acquire.

  And I'm not all that civilized, either, she thought.
                               ***

   After a cheerless supper of steamed rice and water, Chu had
retired to his cabin to "consider his options." Which prospect
made him glad of his bland meal. He had decided not to allow
shore leave as he'd originally planned in hopes of allowing the
men to find their own more substantial dinners. It was a sure bet
that any American leaving the Roosevelt would be immediately
arrested.

  Of course, then at least they'd get a square meal.

  There was a tap on the door.

  "Enter," Chu called out.

   "Sir," his XO said, "there's a message for you, but you'll have
to take it at the decoder terminal."

  The captain raised his brows. It was a rare message that
couldn't be patched through to his quarters. "A message from
command?"

   "No, sir. It's being transmitted via the
hydrophones—modulated sonic from outside the hull. Expertly
blurred—the sonar watch can't give a location."

   "Who is it from?" he asked, with a spurt of well-concealed
alarm. If the locals have frogmen outside the hull with limpet
mines, we are fucked.

   The younger man looked at Chu and swallowed, more emotion
than he usually showed in a week; he was very black, and stress
thickened the Mississippi gumbo of his accent. "She says she's
Sarah Connor, sir. The message could be coming from
anywhere."

   Chu rose and followed his second-in-command down the
narrow corridor. Avoiding the jagged bits that stuck out ready to
tear your uniform or bang your elbow, and color-coded conduits,
was second nature, but he did appreciate shoreside fresh air. The
big boomers didn't develop a ripe stink like the old-time
pigboats, but things did get sort of stale after a few weeks
submerged.

   And sailors get sort of thin without food, he thought grimly.
Let's hope this Sarah Connor can help.
                              ***

    Sarah floated beside the sub waiting to hear from the captain;
it would have been dark fifteen feet down in daylight, and this
was well after sunset. The water was cold, but her wet suit made
it tolerable; she didn't think she'd need to worry about anyone on
board finding her here. They were being carefully watched from
the harbor and from the oil tanker, and at the first sign that the
sub might be deploying sailors, there'd be trouble.

   Her expensive face gear would allow her to speak to them as
though she were on dry land. Eventually they'd figure out that
she was right beside the sub, but probably not until she'd swum
away.
   "This is Captain Thaddeus Chu of the USS Roosevelt. Please
identify yourself."

   Her lips quirked, not a request. "This is Sarah Connor," she
said. "You may have heard my broadcast."

  "Yes, ma'am." Damn, it did sound like her. "What is it you
want?"

   "To help. Down-coast at Puerto Deseado, there's a cache of
supplies waiting. You'll have to pick them up yourselves. I'll be
there waiting for you."

   "Thank you, ma'am," Chu said. "But we have a small problem
here." Which you may have noticed since it's as big as a city
block and sitting on my back.

  "It's being taken care of, Captain. Be prepared to move
momentarily. Connor out."

  "Ma'am?" Chu said. He looked at the radioman.

  "She's gone, sir."

   Chu looked up and met Bob Vaughan's eyes for a long
moment. Then he shrugged. "If worse comes to worst we've had a
drill. If we're lucky and the lady is as good as her word, we're
back in business. Status?"

  "Ready to go, sir, as per your orders."

  That was one good thing about a nuke boat; as long as you
kept the reactor hot, you were ready to roll whenever you
wanted, and you didn't have to worry about wasting fuel much.
                               ***

   Sarah swam off, guided by an occasional glimpse at the GPS
compass on her wrist, confident in the knowledge that she'd
hired the best pirates that pure gold could buy. She'd left them
scaling the side of the huge tanker. They were well armed and
quite capable of capturing the small band of soldiers aboard and
two of them could pilot the tanker if no crew had been left
aboard.

   She popped up on the far side of the harbor, well away from
the lights the army had set up. Her battered Jeep—driving
something too desirable, like a Humvee, was asking for
trouble—and clothes were all as she'd left them; something very
loud and unfortunate would have happened if anyone had tried
to lift them.

   The pebble beach was rough under her hands and knees as
she leopard-crawled up from the waves, and the air was cold on
her naked flesh as she peeled out of the synthetic fabric and
quickly donned her clothes, shivering and stamping. The
high-tech binoculars came next. There was nothing she could do
to make the operation go better at this point.

   God, she thought suddenly. All these years … I wonder how
Sarah Connor the student and waitress would have felt? Men
may be dying out there—because of me—and I'm completely
calm about it now.

   Then she shrugged. That was how it had to be if Skynet was to
be beaten. What had that German philosopher Dieter told her
about said? He who fights dragons becomes a dragon?

  No muzzle flashes through the binoculars, though. She
switched to thermal imaging…

   They've got her engines hot.

   She could see the heat plumes from the stack at the rear, and
more faintly as a blob of different color on the side of the hull at
the stern. The tanker wasn't a super-giant, which would have
used steam turbines and taken a long time to move. It was a
medium-size job used to shuttle refined products along the
coast, about fifty thousand tons, powered by big diesels. Those
you could fire up right away; if it was even remotely modern, the
whole process could be controlled from the bridge at a pinch.

   Yep, there she goes.

   So slowly that at first it didn't seem she was moving at all. The
tanker had backed halfway to its own berth before the soldiers
onshore realized what was happening, and the sub had begun its
turn away from the dock. It maneuvered cautiously—Ohio-class
boats were a good five hundred and sixty feet long—but swiftly,
backing and then heading for the entrance to the harbor with a
rush that sent a smooth black wave breaking into foam.

   Sarah grinned as she gathered her diving gear and tossed it in
the back of her Jeep and vaulted into the driver's seat. She had a
sub to meet.
                                ***

   The only good thing you could say about Puerto Deseado was
that it was more picturesque than Comodoro's tangle of refinery
tanks.

   Which isn't saying much, Sarah Connor thought. Well, all
right, the turn-of-the-century architecture was interesting.

   More important for her purposes, the local government hadn't
broken down; there weren't any—well, many—bandits in the area
around it, and food was reasonably cheap. Particularly if you
liked mutton, because the estancias all about had lost their
markets.

   Sarah was thoroughly sick of it, enough so that the sight of
the piled carcasses was faintly nauseating, though she'd long ago
overcome any city-girl squeamishness about butchering livestock
or game.

  Still and all, the sailors will be glad to get it, she thought.

   The carcasses were as the trucks had left them; not entirely
sanitary, but needs must, and the weather was cold enough that
they wouldn't go bad in a day or two. She'd gotten sacks of flour
as well, and canned vegetables from the Chubut Valley.

   She sat atop the pile of boxes and watched the sub rise
gleaming from the waves through her binoculars. Teams of men
emerged and began to inflate rafts and put them overside; then
some dropped into the sea beside them. They and the men still
aboard the sub maneuvered engines onto the craft, climbed
aboard the zodiacs, and headed for the shore. She could see the
night-vision apparatus on their faces and wondered if they'd
spotted her yet.

   The men were well trained and efficient; deploying the
inflatables with the engines had taken only a little more than five
minutes and some of that had been because the rafts needed
time to inflate.

  Oh, this is a happy day for the resistance, she thought. A
hundred trained SEALs, the rest of the crew, the sub herself…

   They were armed, and going by the position of their heads,
they most definitely had seen her. Sarah smiled grimly.
Technology was a wonderful thing—when it was on your side.
She slid down from the top of the pile and stood waiting for the
zodiacs to beach themselves. /

   One of the men trotted up to her—young, hard, fit, in cammo
fatigues and body armor, face hard to see behind the goggles.
"Are you Sarah Connor?" he asked.

   She nodded, then said, "Yes. I'd like to speak to your captain if
he wouldn't mind."

   "Sarah Connor would like to speak to the captain," he said.

   She blinked, then realized he was wearing a throat mike,
almost invisible in the dark.

   "The captain would like me to bring you now, ma'am," the
sailor said.

   "Let's fill the raft with supplies," she said. "No need to waste
fuel."

    The sailor relayed that, then nodded and grabbed a sack of
rice. Sarah followed suit, and in short order they had the zodiac
filled to capacity and were on their way, cold salt spray flicking
into their faces.
  Looking up at the conning tower, she saw two shadowy figures
outlined against the night sky, above the diving planes.
"Permission to come aboard," she called softly.

  "Permission granted, Ms. Connor," Chu said. "Welcome
aboard."
                                ***

   It wasn't until he'd sat at his desk that he realized exactly how
small she was. Somehow he'd been expecting an amazon, six feet
tall or more and pumped with muscle. Although for a
middle-aged lady she was, in fact, quite muscular and moved
with the ease of one who kept very fit. He gestured her to a chair
and she gave him a polite smile and sat.

  "Thank you for your help, Ms. Connor," he said.

  "It was my very great pleasure," she answered. "Throwing a
spoke in Senor Reimer's training wheels has made my day."

  "Reimer?"

   "The shark in the sharkskin suit," Sarah told him. "The one
who, no doubt, arranged to fence you in. He annoys me." She sat
straighter, leaning slightly forward. "But let's get down to
business."

   "I might have known," Chu said ruefully. He folded his hands
on his desktop. "This is a U.S. Navy vessel, Ms. Connor. Neither
my crew nor I have any business doing anything with it without
orders."

   Sarah looked away and nodded slowly, then looked at him
from the corners of her eyes. "Are you going to try and tell me
that whenever you've come in hailing distance of any other
United States Navy vessels, it's been a peaceful, brotherly
encounter?"

   He blinked before he could stop himself and smiled at her
knowing smile. Although how she could have known that when
he refused the order to report to San Diego, his ship had
immediately begun drawing fire from other navy ships was
beyond him. One, a brand-new Los Angeles—class boat, had
fired a nuclear-tipped homing torpedo toward them, nearly
destroying the Roosevelt.

   But he knew—he knew—that the crew had not done it. Calls
from the captains' private cell phones had warned him that they
had lost control of their ships. Once refitted, they'd been stripped
to skeleton crews and it turned out that none of the men and
women aboard had the technical knowledge that would have
allowed them to take over the computer-controlled vessels.
They'd also found out too late that the computers were very well
defended with an impressive battery of automatic weapons.

  Chu stared at Sarah Connor. How could she possibly know?
She stared back at him, her expression sad and a little tired. She
shook her head and brushed her hair back.

  "It doesn't really matter how I know," she said, startling him
again. "What matters is that my information is solid."

   The captain's aide came in with a tray bearing two bowls of
chicken soup and hot biscuits. /

   "I'm cool," Sarah said when he tried to lay the bowl at her side
of the desk. "Why don't you enjoy that."

  The aide glanced at Chu, who nodded, and smiling, he picked
up the tray and began to leave.

  "Talan," Chu said. He pushed the little basket of rolls toward
him. "Take a couple of these."

  "Thank you, sir." The aide took two and left.

  Chu looked at Sarah, who smiled. "Enjoy," she said.

   "Thank you again for this, ma'am." The captain dug in; he
could practically feel the hot soup giving him strength. "We were
pretty much down to our belts."

  She grinned briefly, then grew very serious. "Not to spoil your
meal, Captain, but I do have some very bad, if not fully
unexpected news for you."

  "And that would be?" Chu asked.

  "There is no federal government anymore."

   The captain continued to spoon up soup as he thought about
what she'd said. Then he dabbed at his lips with a napkin. "With
respect, ma'am, there's no way you could know one way or
another."

   With a sigh, she laid it down for him. "Skynet. You must have
heard of it." At his nod, she went on. "It controlled everything,
ships, planes, missiles, and"—she tipped her head forward—"all
bases and bunkers. As soon as the missiles started going up, the
heads of the government and many of the 'best minds' in the
country were hustled to air-conditioned safety in the deepest
hardened bunkers on the planet. And since that sorry day, not
one of those people has been seen alive. And they never will be.

   "The damn computer has run mad, Captain. We didn't send
those missiles aloft and your fellow captains haven't been
hunting you down of their own free will, and you know it." She
spread her hands. "At the very least you must suspect it."

   He didn't answer as he split a biscuit, then bit into one flaky
half. Sarah Connor was a very disconcerting woman. Half the
time she seemed to be reading his mind; the rest of the time she
was telling him things that rang horribly true. "Why don't we
just cut to the chase here?" he said. "What, exactly, do you want,
ma'am?"

   "I want you to serve the people of the United States, who
desperately need your help." She smiled to see him blink. "Things
are worse than you think," she said. "The bombs were just phase
one. Since then, people have been rounded up, ostensibly at the
behest of the government, and put in relocation and
reconstruction camps."

  Chu frowned. "Doesn't sound quite right," he said. "But it
doesn't seem altogether unreasonable, either."
   "Which is why so many have gone along with it," Sarah said
agreeably. "In many of these camps, the inmates have been
deliberately infected with diseases such as cholera, or they're
being forced to work under dangerous conditions with
inadequate food and shelter. Men and women in that uniform
are doing these things."

  He tilted his head toward her. "Men and women in this
uniform as distinguished from… ?"

   "As distinguished from those who are actually in the
military." Sarah leaned forward. "No doubt you've heard of
Luddites?" He looked troubled, but nodded. "Apparently some of
them have been preparing for these times with an eye toward
reducing the human population of this planet. They're dedicated,
well organized, and well supplied. God knows how many deaths
they're responsible for so far, or how many they'll be responsible
for before they're killed themselves."

  "By us?" Chu asked. "Because, you know, I'm not going to send
my people out to fight without proof of what you're saying."

   Sarah looked at him for a long time before she spoke. "Once
again it's Skynet I'm talking about. It's an amazing computer,"
she said. "There's never been anything like it before, and I hope
to my soul there never will be again. The damn thing has become
sentient, and it's decided that we are a danger to it and therefore
must be eliminated."

  "Proof, Ms. Connor," Chu said.

  "Surely you heard about all those cars and trucks running
amok?" she asked.

  "Of course. But…"

   Sarah sighed deeply. "Skynet was originally created by
Cyber-dyne Corporation. Cyberdyne created the first completely
auto-mated factory. Then, somehow, the plans for those factories
became public knowledge and they proliferated all over the
planet like some kind of fungus. And in each and every factory
Skynet had a root. It hid programming in every car, truck, and
tractor produced over the last two years. As the time approached
for the government to give it control of all military operations, it
began to experiment, sending orders to its various components,
taking control from their drivers and causing thousands of
accidents. I researched this; I can give you a disk on it." She
watched him absorb what she'd said.

   "Incidentally, it can imitate voices perfectly. Kurt Viemeister
programmed it. You may not recognize the name, but he was a
master of programming; he extrapolated from voice recognition
to voice imitation, right down to characteristic phrasing. Wrote
several illegal articles on the subject. I know they're illegal
because I know he signed a secrecy contract with the
government regarding his work. So if you've been getting
messages from well-known people—the president, some admiral,
whatever—that was Skynet."

   Chu nodded slowly, thinking about the strange way Admiral
Read had been talking the last time they spoke, on the day the
bombs came down. His eyes flashed to her. "Yet this is still not
proof."

   "No," she said sadly. "The proof is that I'm not asking you to
do anything illegal or against the interests of the United States.
I'm asking you to place yourself, your crew, and your ship at the
disposal of what we're calling the resistance."

  "Who exactly are you resisting?" Chu asked.

  "Skynet, the Luddites, and all too soon, whatever machinery
Skynet will be producing in its automated factories."

   The captain studied her. She seemed quite sane, clear-eyed
and intelligent. And given what he and his men had been
through during the past weeks, her story held together amazingly
well. Be honest, he thought, at least with yourself. Her story
holds together better than anything you've thought of yourself.

  "I need to think about this, ma'am," he said aloud.

  "God, I would hope so," Sarah said. "While you're thinking
about it, may I suggest you turn this baby around and head for
Alaska. You'll find a friendly port there; they were hardly touched
by the bombs."

  "And?"

  "And I would very much like to travel there with you."

  Chu tipped his head. "And?"

   She smiled at him. "And at the moment it's the headquarters
for the resistance."

   "If we were to accept this proposal of yours," he said, "I
assume I would be under your command."

  "You'd be under John Connor's command, my son. He's the
only alternative to Skynet."

  "But for now we'd be under the commander in chief's mom's
command, right?"

  "Mmm, right."

  "Just so I know where I stand, ma'am."

  ALASKA

   John moved his pointer over a topographical map as he
outlined the plan of attack. Forty grim-faced men and women
watched him, some taking notes; one woman looked both
surprised and amused.

    He wasn't used to talking to large groups of people yet and
still found his heart pounding whenever he faced an audience. It
wasn't made easier by having his newly inducted girlfriend find
the whole thing amusing.

  Cut her some slack, he told himself. She might just be
nervous.

   Sometimes he found himself almost convulsed with
inappropriate laughter when he was nervous. And the kind of
attention these people gave him, the sheer focus they put into
listening to his every word, was extremely nerve-racking.
Especially for someone raised to avoid the limelight. Sometimes
he felt naked up here.

   Ninel wrinkled her nose at him, and with an effort of will he
ignored her. It was too soon to include her on this mission, he
knew. But he wanted to convince her to spy on her Luddite
friends for him and he didn't think she'd do that without some
evidence that it was necessary.

   Or at the very least that my organization has a reason to
exist and that I'm not a fascist asshole.

  John ceded the floor to the leader of the scouting party.

    "Trucks arrived and departed at four-hour intervals night and
day," he said. "We have no way of knowing what was delivered or
if the trucks left full or empty, as they were tied down all around
or were actual eighteen-wheelers."

  There was a stir at that; the big transport trucks had been
gone from the roads since Judgment Day.

   "We saw no humans in the vicinity. Nor did we find any sign
of automated defenses, though we did find security cameras and
microphones. Most were quite obvious. There were several tiers
of laser traps around the immediate facility. Other than that, the
area seemed clear."

   John had worried about that. It could be arrogance, on
Skynet's part, ignorance, or a trap. And yet, trap or not, it had to
be dealt with. He stood up as the scout finished. "Get some rest,"
he ordered. "We move out at 0200." He nodded to them and left
the dais, heading for Ninel. She rose, smiling, and came to him.

  "You almost made me break up, you little skunk," he
murmured.

   "I can't help it," she said with a little shrug. "Extreme
seriousness in other people has always given me the giggles."

  He smiled and shook his head. "You stay with me tomorrow."
   "I wondered what I was supposed to do," Ninel said.
"Everyone else seemed to know exactly where they were supposed
to be and what to do, but no one said anything to me. I was
starting to think I was going to be left behind."

   He started walking toward his office. "The truth is you're not
ready for a mission like this," he told her, smiling at her
expression of surprise. "Not least because your attitude seems to
be that we're all off our collective rockers. I need to show you
that this is real," he explained, stopping to look down at her.
"This is a real enemy we're fighting, one that wants us all dead."

  Ninel tightened her lips and looked down. "I just…"

  "I know," he said, smiling. "I needed proof myself once." He
became solemn again. "Tomorrow you'll have yours."
               CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  DRIFTLESS AREA, NORTHEASTERN IOWA

  Now this, Tom Preston thought, is no goddamned fun

  at all.

   He bent, leaning on the hoe in his right hand, and pulled up
the weed whose roots he'd loosened with the tool. Despite the
unusually cold weather, the corn was coming up just fine; the
problem was that weeds were doing just fine as well. This
particular patch wasn't very large; a scraggly strip along a little
brook that ran down the mostly wooded valley between two steep
hills—this part of the state looked more like Appalachia than the
prairies.

   It was only about a quarter of an acre, and carefully irregular
so that it wouldn't show much from orbit, even on days without
the current heavy gray cloud and occasional spatters of rain. The
brook was running high not far off to his left, purling over abed
of brown stones.'t

   He tossed the uprooted thistle onto the mulch—leaves, twigs,
grass, reeds—that covered the ground between the knee-high
plants and moved on to the next weed, hacking at the base of it
with a force that hurt his gloved hands. The turned earth had a
cool, yeasty smell, oddly like bread. Despite the cool temperature,
he was sweating, and his back hurt. Could it have been only last
year that farming meant sitting in lordly comfort in an
air-conditioned tractor cab, spraying herbicides?

   He who does not work does not eat, he told himself.

   There were a dozen other people working in the same field,
and many more fields like it scattered through the nearby hills—
growing corn, potatoes, beets, all sorts of vegetables. They had
come along more slowly than usual, but only by a couple of
weeks. And they were a bit runty, but very welcome anyway.

   The hunting had been very good, with abundant deer and
hare. They'd had to shoot a bear a few weeks ago. It had risen
cranky from hibernation and had made clear its antipathy
toward its new neighbors; besides, they needed its cave for
storage.

   Tom Preston had liked the flavor of the meat, but he'd been in
the minority. Most of their small community had found it too
gamy and way too tough. There were still a lot of scavenged
canned goods available for the picky, though, and his big gallon
jars of multivitamins would keep deficiency diseases at bay for
years, if need be.

   The community had grown over the past year to a village of
more than a hundred people. Most of whom refused to
understand why they should avoid being visible from orbit.
Things had been so peaceful lately that Tom himself had begun
to have doubts.

   So when some of the newcomers suggested a party to
celebrate their survival, he was willing to go along, to a point.

   "Fireworks?" Tom said. "You've got to be kidding!"

   "Why? What's wrong with fireworks? It's been wet enough
that they shouldn't pose a fire hazard," one of the newcomers,
Sam Varela, said.
   "Because it's a gigantic, 'We Are Here' sign," Tom said. "I, for
one, don't want to end up in those relocation camps you people
fled."

   The newcomers glared at him resentfully. "We have no reason
to think they're still doing that," Sam said through his teeth.

  "We have less reason to think they're not," Tom snapped back.
"They didn't set up those camps to leave them empty."

  "Going was voluntary," a woman pointed out.

  "So why are you here?" Preston challenged. "Why here? Why
not stay in your homes?"

  "We're getting into some pretty deep issues here," his wife,
Peggy, said with a frown at her husband. They'd discussed the
newcomers in the privacy of their bedroom and his suspicion
toward them worried her. "When what we came here to discuss
was a picnic."

   "Maybe we should get into it," the woman said. "I'm tired of
being treated like an interloper when all I want to do is get back
to normal."

   "Things aren't going to go back to normal," Tom said. Didn't
you notice a few little changes? Like the thermonuclear war?
"Things are going to get a lot worse for a long time before we get
anywhere close to normal. But one thing that will at least keep
us safe is to avoid attracting attention."

   "Exactly whose attention are you afraid of?" Sam gave a light
laugh and spread his hands. "The army? I'm telling you, they're
too busy to go chasing down anyone who doesn't want their help.
Who else is there?" He shrugged.

  Tom closed his eyes. Sometimes he wondered himself. John
Connor had warned that there would be more problems with
machines, but with no fuel or electricity, he honestly couldn't see
how that could be. Humans, on the other hand…

  "I'm worried about gangs," Tom said. "I'm afraid that some
group of lawless men will come along and take everything we've
put together and kill our families." He stood up and started to
pace. "These aren't civilized times," he continued. "We're not
protected by multiple law enforcement organizations anymore.
For the foreseeable future, our fate is in our own hands."

   "Oh," the woman said. "When you put it that way it makes
perfect sense."

   "No fireworks," said Sam.

   Tom sat down and forced a smile, but this didn't feel like
victory. Rather it felt like number four hundred of a million more
arguments.

  I almost wish we'd be attacked so these people would realize
what they're facing. Almost.
                                ***

   "Honey," Peggy said to him later in bed, "we're seventy-eight
adults here and we're well armed. It's unlikely that we'll be faced
by any gang more powerful than we are ourselves. Maybe we
could loosen up a bit. Don't you think?"

   Tom reached out and drew her into his arms. "I was so afraid
the day the bombs came down that I'd never see you and the kids
again," he said into her sweet-smelling hair. Even now, with no
shampoo available, he liked the way her hair smelled. God, but
he loved her.

   Peggy hugged him tight. "I love you, too," she whispered. "I
always did."

   "Tell you what," he said. "Let's be extra careful this year, until
we've got our feet under us. Then we can talk about loosening
up." He pulled back and looked down into her face, barely visible
in the moonlight coming through the cabin window. Tom shook
his head. "But I'm pretty certain that we're gonna have to build a
stockade."

   She laughed and buried her head in. his shoulder, tickling
him so that he laughed, too.

  "It's not funny," he said. "I'm serious."

   "You are never gonna sell them on that idea," she said. "I can
just see their faces." And she laughed again.

   He smiled at her and held her close. But all the while he was
thinking that a stockade was something they'd realize was
necessary only after they needed it the most. He kissed his wife
and prayed that she wouldn't have to suffer for its absence.

  SKYNET

    It watched the small settlement from the dark beneath the
trees; linking with the Terminators' interfaces, Skynet saw the
village from multiple angles. This settlement had been
surprisingly well hidden for a long time. But the sheer size of the
place in an area bereft of any other human activity had
eventually brought it to the computer's never-resting attention.

   One hundred thirty-two humans, seventy-eight of them
adults, no meat animals, lived together here. It was an almost
pathologically tidy place; quite unnatural for humans. Their
houses were small, built beneath, and with, the surrounding
trees; often the lower limbs had been woven more tightly to
provide a framework for thatched roofs, while the walls were
saplings woven together and smeared with clay mixed with
grass. Insubstantial for a permanent dwelling; winter weather
would break them down in a short time.

  But in summer, if the weather was dry, they should be
adequate shelter. Even if the weather was wet, however, they
should burn well.

   Through a Terminator's sensors Skynet watched the brightly
colored silhouettes of the humans through the thin walls of their
dwellings. One by one, two by two, they reclined, and the heat
images took on the signatures of humans at rest. Its Terminators
waited silent and motionless as the moon rose and traversed the
night sky.
   Many small improvements had made these Terminators more
formidable killing machines than the first group, and their
weapons were infinitely more powerful than the pellet weapons
these humans had at their disposal. Still, Skynet had observed
these subjects intensely and knew them to be well schooled in the
use of the weapons they did have. This would be a true test, the
first of a thousand thousand field terminations, until the final
organic pest was hunted down.

   Unfortunately, that will require at least another century.

   As the last human sank into a dormant state, Skynet gave the
signal to attack.
                                ***

   Peggy woke first. A light sleeper since the children were born,
she heard a crackling sound and opened her eyes to the sight of
flames.

   "Tom!" she shrieked, leaped from the bed, and ran down the
loft stairs toward the already engulfed living room. The heat
drove her back and she lay down on the floor to look over the
edge of the platform. "Jason! Lisa!" she screamed.

   Then Tom was beside her. He looked over the edge and saw
his children with their backs against the wall of the cabin,
coughing, their eyes wild with fear. "Take Daddy's hand," he
shouted over the roar of the flames. If he could just get them up
here, they could go out the window, down the rope ladder.

   Lisa came toward him, but Jason held back, shaking his head
frantically. The little girl reached up and Tom squirmed forward,
putting slightly more than half his body over the edge. He could
feel his hair start to sizzle. Peggy threw herself across his hips to
hold him down, and when Lisa's head came over the edge of the
platform, she reached forward and caught the girl's hair. Lisa
was already screaming by then, so it made little difference in the
volume of her distress, but still, her mother felt terrible.

  Once Lisa was safe and huddled against her mother, Tom
dove over the edge a second time, reaching toward his son and
encouraging, ordering, threatening him to come to Daddy.
Suddenly his hair caught fire and Tom reared up in surprise and
shock. Peggy caught up the small rag rug at the foot of the bed
and threw it over his head.

   "I've gotta go down to him, Peg," Tom said. "He's too scared
to move. Get Lisa out of here."

   She shook her head. "We've got time. You go get him; we'll
lower the rope ladder. Then we'll all go." Because they sure
weren't going out the front door.

   Tom did as she suggested, lowering himself from the
platform, trying to ignore the fierce heat on his naked shoulders.
He forced himself to move slowly for fear of panicking his son
into doing something foolish. "C'mon, Jason," he said soothingly.
"Take my hand and let's get out of here, okay?"

   The rope ladder came down from above and Jason dove
toward it, eluding Tom's clutching hand. Tom couldn't help
laughing as he pursued the kid up the ladder. As soon as he
reached the top, he grabbed it and dragged it over to the
window, tossing it out with a clatter. Jason all but pushed him
aside in his eagerness to be out of the flaming cabin and Tom let
him go, laughing at his eagerness. His sister will never let him
live this down.

    Jason was halfway down when a blaze of blue light shot
through him, emerging in a yellow blossom of sparks. The boy
fell backward, a startled expression on his young face. Tom was
leaning out the window, frozen with shock, when Peggy yanked
his shoulder. If not for the sudden move, the next flash of blue
light would have taken off his head.

   "What's happening?" Peggy shouted over Lisa's terrified
screaming.

  "The cellar!" Tom answered.

   His wife stared at the rising flames, then at her husband. It
didn't look possible. She moved toward the window, but Tom
grabbed her and dragged her toward the stairs.
  "Tom!" she shouted, objecting, but too frightened to be more
coherent.

   "Jason's gone," he said tersely, feeling sick to his stomach.
"Someone's firing at us. Cellar," he repeated.

   Peggy had gone limp. She still held their daughter, still stood,
but for now at least, she might as well have been gone. The loft
was full of smoke and the heat was becoming more dangerous.
Tom grabbed a blanket off the bed and soaked it as well as he
could with the contents of their washbowl. Then he wrapped it
around them all, and with one arm around his wife's waist
barreled down the stairs.

  The hatch to the cellar was under the stairs and so, for the
moment, was partially sheltered from the scorching heat. Tom
yanked it up, then forced his wife down the stairs before him,
Pulling the hatch closed behind.

   Long ago he'd connected the cellar to a narrow rock cave that
came out by the creek. Peggy knew about it and she'd hated it,
seeing it as an example of his growing paranoia. The sight of the
passage now snapped her out of her shock and she took a deep
breath, turning to him with fear in her eyes.

  "Mom and Dad," she said. Then she faltered for a moment
and Tom knew she was thinking of Jason.

  "We need to get out of here first," he said, and gave her a
gentle push.

   He pulled the camouflaged, dirt-coated door closed behind
them, hoping it wouldn't burn. Just inside, he pawed at the
doorframe and found the flashlight he'd placed there. He shook it
to charge the battery, then hastened Peggy down the passageway
in the dim light.

    The passage wasn't that long, really, about a hundred feet, but
it had seemed the length of Route 66 before he'd been finished.
At the end, where he'd placed another hidden door, he'd also
stowed some clothes and weapons, carefully wrapped in plastic
to protect them. There was food here, too. He sat Peggy on one of
the chests.

   "Get dressed," Tom ordered, "and stand ready. I'm going to
find out what's going on. I might end up sending some of the
other women and children down here. Take care of them." He
grabbed a shotgun and thumbed in rounds—solid shot,
cylindrical rifled slugs.

  Then he turned off the flashlight and placed it in his wife's
hand. Feeling his way carefully, he opened the door into the
natural cave.

   When he reached the creek he squatted down and smeared
some mud from the bank over his face and hands, then crept
forward. Peering over the bank, he saw that the whole village was
in flames. He could see forms moving about; by their postures he
could tell they were armed. Then one stood before the flames of a
burning house and he caught his breath, his eyes widening in
horror.

    Like something from a horror movie, it was skeletal. It turned
its head slowly, like a gun turret searching for a target. Light
gleamed from the metal dome of its skull and through the cage of
its ribs; red light blazed from its eye sockets. Tom sank slowly,
until he'd dropped onto his butt.

   Shit! he thought.

   Slowly he became aware that he was hearing screams. Tom
squeezed his eyes tight shut, wishing he could do the same with
his ears. Of course he heard screaming. They were trapped in
burning buildings, and the only way out was certain death. If he
hadn't provided a way out for himself and his family, he'd be
screaming, too.

   There was a sound off to his right. Not footsteps but the result
of stealthy footsteps, crackling leaves and breaking twigs,
unavoidable in the deep woods. Tom pressed himself deeper into
the dirt of the bank and prayed, making all sorts of promises to
God if He would only let him live. He pulled the rifle against his
chest, up under his chin, waiting.
   He had no idea how many of those things were up there
trolling the village for survivors, but he knew one shot would
have them all down here looking for him. That would draw them
toward Peggy and Lisa, and he wouldn't let these things have
them. They wouldn't take them like they'd taken his son. My boy
! he thought in anguish, and pushed the feeling away, forcing
anger into its place, overriding the grief with fury. The machines
would not succeed. He wouldn't let them.

  The soft, methodical sound of footsteps came closer.
                               ***

   The Terminator scout came to the end of its designated watch
zone and turned away. No humans appeared to have escaped the
assault. The enemy had been caught completely unprepared. It
appeared that there had been 100 percent enemy casualties.

   It stopped every five feet to scan the woods all around, then
proceeded on its way. No humans seemed to have escaped the
assault.

  Terminated, it transmitted to Skynet.

  ALASKA

  John Connor was worried.

  I suspect that's going to be my natural state from here on
out, he thought.

   The PDA in his hand showed the terrain, his location, and the
jump-off points of the other attack parties. The factory was
located in a low wooded valley surrounded by spruce-clad hills…

   And this is the first big operation I've personally commanded
, he thought nervously, looking around at the confident faces.
Maybe I am the Great Military Dickhead of Mom's dreams, but
right now I feel more like a confidence man. Not that that's my
only worry.

   By the time they'd moved out, he hadn't heard from Tom
Preston in Iowa. Unusual. Tom was one person who could be
relied on to report regularly. He'd remarked once that having
young children kept you awake and alert and therefore on time.
But not today.

   Hope it's not an omen. Maybe that was an ill-omened
thought. So far everything had gone extremely well. Almost
suspiciously well. Could it really be that the computer was
arrogant enough to not protect its most important assets?
Because there was, as yet, no sign that the resistance fighters
had been seen. He couldn't help it; continuous good fortune
raised his hackles.

   Ninel was back with the various transports; also there was
Ike, who'd arrived in Alaska yesterday. He appeared to like Ninel,
but had looked askance at John when he found out she was going
with them. It hadn't been necessary for him to comment; John
knew the older man well enough to have gotten paragraphs of
meaning out of that one look.

   The two of them would come up to the factory once John was
sure the place was secured. Although with Skynet, secured
tended to be a relative term.

   There was a fence around the installation and about twenty
yards of cleared ground all around the inside. The building was a
metal frame affair with steps leading up to a second level. From
the blueprints there was a small office there. But most of the
interior was pure machinery up to forty feet high. There were
spotlights at each corner of the building and on each corner of
the fence at the top of tall poles.

   John crouched beside the crew with the TOW antitank
missile. "Can you take out the antennae?" He gestured toward
the dish atop the square building.

   "Yes, sir," the gunner said, already looking through the
eyepiece on the side of the long tube; shrubbery protected the
emplacement and the tripod, but the thing had a ferocious
back-blast and you needed a dozen men to move it. Apart from
that, it was easy to use…

  "Do it," John told him.
  Thadump!

   The rocket blasted out the front of the launch tube, and half a
dozen of his resistance fighters went to work with shovels and
curses, beating out the fire that the jet of flame to the rear had
caused.

   WHZZZZEEEEEEE… like the whistle of an angry young god;
the rocket was a blur as it streaked out over half a thousand
yards.

  Seconds later the dish exploded in a satisfying flash of fire.
John grinned. Now Skynet couldn't contact its plant; they'd
checked carefully for backup communications links. This really
was going to be a piece of cake.

   The first soldiers started moving out from the cover of the
wood toward the fence. As soon as they were visible, a recorded
voice rang out: "Halt! You are approaching a government
installation. Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of
the law. The nearest military facility has been notified of your
presence and troops will be on the way momentarily. Go back.
Do not pass the fence or you will be fired upon."

   Gun ports opened all over the surface of the building,
indicating that trespassers would be riddled with bullets if they
proceeded. The resistance soldiers hunkered down, waiting for
John's signal. John himself was waiting for the small hydro
generator to be blown. He suspected that it wouldn't affect the
automated weapons; they had battery backup according to the
plans Snog had found, but at least the factory would be shut
down.

   There was nothing to show that it had been rigged to blow
itself up, but anything he could do to thwart such a plan would
be a good thing. There was an explosion by the stream where the
generator was located and John signaled the soldiers at the fence
to set their charges. Once that was done, they retreated at a run.
Again John signaled and the charges blew the fence.
Sharpshooters began peppering the building, and in return the
automated weapons fired into the woods. Blindly, for all the good
they seemed to be doing…
   Short-range weapons, he thought. Hmm. Yeah, light
machine guns on hydraulic mounts, mostly, 5.56mm stuff.
Maybe Skynet's as short of everything as I am—it's trying to do
a lot more at the same time, of course.

   A man screamed and a corpsman came running, dragging
him away from the area where he'd been hit, an area on which
the building's weapons now concentrated fire. The corpsman
himself shouted as he was clipped by a bullet.

   This can't keep up, John thought. There's no battery in the
world can keep this up. Besides, the damn things had to run out
of ammo sometime.

  Not that we're going to wait.

  "Let them have it!" he snapped into the button microphone.

   His snipers went methodically to work; they were using
Barrett rifles, big thirty-pound things that fired .50 caliber
armor-piercing ammunition. One by one the automated
weapons pods went silent; a few went up in spectacular gang
fires as hot metal punched into their ammunition drums.

  "Forward," John said again.

   This time far fewer weapons fired. He gritted his teeth as the
casualty reports came in. Get used to it, GMD, he told himself.
Skynet would have killed them later anyway. We win, or
everybody dies, it's that simple.

   Eventually the fire was suppressed. He moved forward with
his command party across the fence and up the exterior stairs.
"Have Ike take a look at that machinery," John said to a woman
who'd accompanied him up the stairs. "We're gonna be taking
this away from here." She gave him a dubious look, but hurried
out. "And send Ninel Petrikoff up."

   "Yes, sir," came back to him as the soldier clattered down the
stairs.

  John Connor took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
Anticlimax, he thought. There wasn't even a window looking out
over the plant floor, just white particleboard walls and a set of
terminals and flat-screen displays.

  He sat down at a console and put Snog's disk into the reader.
And hit enter, which seemed as good a place to start as any.
                               ***

   Ninel entered the little control room cautiously, looking all
around with wide eyes.

   "It's all right," John said, and grinned when she jumped.
"Sorry."

  "I didn't see you," she accused. She gave the computer a more
matter-of-fact look and moved to stand beside him. "What are
you doing?"

   "Trying to figure out if the info in the computer is good. I
probably should leave it to Snog. He'll kill me if I do something to
screw it up."

  Ninel frowned. "Snog?"

  "I have no idea if he knows what it means, I never asked,"
John said. He rolled the chair down the console to a video screen.
"Look at this."

  She went and stood looking over his shoulder at the monitor.
"What am I looking at?" Some kind of assembly line; that was
obvious. It looked like it was manufacturing dress dummies.
"You've attacked a mannequin factory?" she asked in disbelief.

   John snorted a laugh and turned to look at her. "Would all of
us get together and train for months to attack a mannequin
factory? Not to mention that such a place would be unlikely to be
defended by machine guns or to be located in the wilds of
Alaska."

  With a huff of annoyance she put her hands in her pockets
and frowned. "So, then what? What am I looking at?"
   "They're robots," John said, watching her reaction. "They're
called Terminators and they're designed to kill humans."

   "What?" She narrowed her eyes and looked at him scornfully.
"Killer robots? Isn't that a little far-fetched?"

  Okay, so it's not gonna be easy. He tapped a few keys and
changed the view. Now the monitor showed a storage room with
what looked like at least a hundred of the things standing in neat
rows, gleaming and complete and utterly motionless, their eyes
dark.

  "Weird," she breathed from over his shoulder. "Do they
work?"

   "I have no intention of finding out," he said. "If they're already
programmed, then they'll start killing the minute they're turned
on."

   "So who's making them?"

    He turned the chair so that he was facing her. "Now is when
it gets weird," John said. "The U.S. military developed a
computer to run their war toys. It was, without question, the
most advanced computer run by the most sophisticated software
ever developed. And then it became sentient."

   "How could you know that?" Her voice was both scornful and
accusing.

   I know because I pressed the button that made it so, he
thought.

   Aloud he said, "I have privileged information. It was my
mother who first found out about Skynet. That's the computer's
name, by the way. We've tried and tried again to prevent them
from using it, but there was nothing we could do. They finished
the damned thing, put it on-line, gave it complete control of our
missile systems"—he waved a hand—"et cetera, and the next
thing you know, Judgment Day."

   "Huh," she said, eyes on the Terminators on the screen.
   "They're not dress dummies, Ninel, honest."

   She looked down at him, her eyes troubled, then away. He
turned his chair and pushed himself back to the workstation he'd
been using when she entered. Clearly, some people were just
incredibly hard to convince.
                                ***

   Ninel glanced at John, a worried look on her face, then leaned
forward, tapping keys to change the view in the storage area.
Behind the rows of robots were boxes, the kind of boxes that
looked like they were designed to hold rifles or ammunition. She
hissed thoughtfully and put her hands on her hips.

    What was going on here? Weapons. This was some kind of
weapons factory, probably something set up by the government,
and now it was in the hands of John and his friends. These
people didn't seem like murderers. Although one or two had
come across as paramilitary, antigovernment nut jobs, not one of
them had spoken about killing innocent civilians as though it
was something they felt they had to do. In fact, she'd heard
Luddites more inclined to say socially unacceptable things about
killing people.

   As she clicked the enter key, the view kept changing, from the
storage area to the factory itself, to exterior shots. She paused to
watch the wounded being treated by one of the corpsmen. Had
these people attacked the transports she'd been sending into
Canada? Not one had indicated in any way that they had done
such a thing. Not that she supposed they would tell such a thing
to a new recruit.

   She glanced over at John intensely working the keyboard.
Since that one night they'd never shared that level of intimacy.
He'd made a point of talking to her, and others had noticed and
commented on his attentions, but otherwise… Well, otherwise
she'd kind of been twisting in the wind, wondering what she
meant to him, if anything. Wondering, in fact, if he was capable
of using sex to recruit followers. Because it had very quickly
become apparent that this resistance thing was John Connor's
property. The others looked at him like he was God or
something.

   Killer or savior? she wondered, glancing at him from the
corner of her eye. Time to make up her mind. People that she
trusted insisted that he was a mass murderer. And here he was
attacking some kind of automated weapons factory. Why would
a savior want a weapons factory? She hit enter two more times
and thought, Time's up. Time to act.

   Hands in her pockets, mouth dry, her heart beating in her
throat, she walked back to where John was working. "What are
you doing?" she asked, leaning forward.

  He held up one hand. "Just a second," he said, preoccupied.

   Ninel yanked the sap out of her pocket and smacked him
across the back of the head. Goggle-eyed, swaying, he turned to
look at her, his mouth open in astonishment. Terrified, she hit
him again, this time on the side of the head, and John slid
bonelessly out of the chair. She let out her breath in a gasp,
reached toward him, then aborted the gesture. Turning, she
rushed to the door and opened it.

   Balewitch and Dog Soldier came barreling in, Dog with a
soldier lying limply across his shoulders. Dog dropped him
carelessly in a corner, and together with Balewitch advanced
avidly on John as he lay helpless on the floor.

  Ninel recognized the soldier as one who'd worked with her,
and started toward him, to at least untangle his body from the
heap he'd landed in.

  "He's dead," Dog said over his shoulder. "No need to worry
about him."

  "Whaaat?" Ninel said, horrified.

  "Uh, had to," Dog said, annoyed. "We're slightly outnumbered
here, in case you didn't notice."

   "Not for long," Balewitch muttered. She reached for the
keyboard above John's head.
  "He said there were robots," Ninel blurted as she watched
Bale-witch type.

  "Yeah," Dog said, nudging John with his toe.

   "He said they were designed to kill people." She heard her own
voice sounding wild and desperate and hated it, but something
was going wrong here. "He said a computer called Skynet made
them; he said Skynet caused Judgment Day."

   "Well, duh," Dog said. He looked at her. "We could hardly let
them fall into this guy's hands."

  "What are you doing?" Ninel said, snatching the keyboard
away from Balewitch.

  "Give me that," the older woman said calmly.

  "Tell me what you're doing!" Ninel insisted. She raised the
keyboard as though she meant to smash it. "I mean it!"

   Balewitch took a deep breath and huffed it out. "I'm
activating those robots so that they can take care of these
resistance types."

  Ninel could feel herself going pale. "But they'll kill them."

  "Ye»-ah," Balewitch said, smiling. "That's the idea, honey.
Just think of all those innocent, unarmed refugees if you think
we're being too tough."

  This didn't seem right, it didn't! Then it hit her. "How do you
know how to wake them up?" she asked, her lips numb.

   "Ron gave us the codes," Dog said. He moved a step closer to
her.

   "Back off!" she snarled. Furiously thinking, she waved the
keyboard; its cord stretched tight in her hand and would go no
farther. "I don't believe that Ron Labane would approve of killing
people, even misguided people. He's always preached doing
things the legal way. Always!"
  Balewitch, clearly annoyed, moved slowly toward her, her
hands outstretched for the keyboard. "Things are different now,
honey. You know that. Give me the—"

   "How would Ron know the codes?" Ninel shouted. "How
would he know anything about a place like this? He hates the
automated factories. No way would he know them well enough to
run one!"

  Dog laughed. "She's got you there, Bale."

  "Oh, for cryin' out loud," Balewitch said in disgust. "Labane is
dead."

  "No!" Ninel shouted.

   "Yes, he is," Dog said, coming another step closer. "I know
because we killed him. I was there."

   Ninel's breath froze in her throat, choking her. Dog launched
himself forward to grasp the keyboard and she swung it like a
bat, hitting him in the face. He backed off and Balewitch laughed
at him.

  "Jesus Christ." She sneered. "You don't believe in doing
anything the easy way, do you?" She pulled a pistol from her
pocket, a silencer disfiguring its barrel.

   Ninel gasped and backed away, holding the keyboard in front
of her like a shield.

   Balewitch snapped the fingers of her other hand. "Gimme,"
she said. "And you'd better hope you didn't break it."

   Holding the keyboard more tightly, Ninel blinked at her. Did
the woman think she was just going to hand it over? "No," she
said, her voice small but steady. "I'm not going to help the people
who killed Ron Labane."

   With a snarl Dog started forward again, but Balewitch put her
arm up like a bar. "I don't want that keyboard damaged," she
said to him. Then she glared at Ninel. "If this Skynet wants to kill
the human race, well, three cheers for Skynet. The human race is
nothing but vermin for the most part, and the rest are too stupid
to know they're even alive.

   "Look what's been done to this planet! It was beautiful once;
now it's shit! Just shit! Everywhere you look. Humanity has to
go, or nothing will survive." She spread her hands. "So. Are you
gonna help, or do we kill you?"

   Her eyes wide, Ninel just stared at her, mouth open. "Y-you're
going to kill me anyway, aren't you?"

  Dog's grin spread. "Yeah."

  Balewitch shot him a look, then raised her gun. She tipped her
head to the side like a shrug. "Well, we weren't going to right
away. But…"

   Ninel's eyes widened as John slowly rose behind her and she
took a breath to scream. Something in her chest felt icy cold.
Then hot, and then there was nothing, nothing at all.

   "Oh, good job, Bale. Right through the keyboard." Dog started
forward.

  "Couldn't let her scream," Balewitch muttered.

  ***

  John felt the double vision vanish as he saw Ninel fall limp.
Again, he thought. Wendy, now her. Again.

   The scream that bubbled out of his lips wasn't a giant no: that
was in there, but most of it was raw rage and inconsolable grief,
grief for an entire lifetime past and the one he saw stretching out
ahead of him.

   The knife tucked into his boot had a seven-inch blade;
nothing fancy, just a sharp tapering steel wedge. His hand
moved in a blurring arc; the woman who'd shot Ninel seemed to
be turning in slow motion—unable to move more than a quarter
of the way around before the blade bisected her kidney with a
violence that punched the inside of his fist against the cloth of
her jacket as it rammed home.

   He moved with her, like a dancer—his left hand grasping her
gun hand, turning her in a pirouette and throwing her forward
at her companion. That one's eyes and mouth gaped in Os of
surprise as he caught at the sprattling weight; the same motion
pulled John's blade free. He flipped it to a reverse grip and
punched it forward over the dying woman's shoulder, right into
her friend's eye. Faster than the flicker of a frog's striking tongue,
deep enough that the narrow shoulders at the hilt of the blade
stuck on the bone of the socket.

   "You're terminated, fucker," John wheezed, then ignored the
falling mass. Neither of them were going to bother anyone, ever
again.

   Kneeling beside Ninel, he slowly reached toward her neck with
two bloodstained fingers. No pulse. He hadn't expected there
would be. He wiped his hand on his pants so he wouldn't stain
her face and closed her eyes so that the whites no longer showed.
Then John took her in his arms—something in him sickening at
the limpness of her body—and lifted her as he stood. He pushed
his grief aside, putting himself outside the emotion.

   Guess I'm not meant to have relationships, he thought. He
opened the door and took her down to where the other casualties
lay. This one they'd be leaving behind.
               CHAPTER SIXTEEN
   USS ROOSEVELT

  So you traveled all the way from Alaska to Argentina on your
own?" Captain Chu asked.

   Sarah took a sip of her coffee, looking at him over the rim.
He'd invited her to dinner in the officers' mess in a not very
subtle attempt to interrogate her. She didn't mind; if she'd been
in his position, the interrogation would have taken place on that
Argentine beach, not en route to Alaska.
  "Yep," she said after a very long sip. "I have a Harley that we
adapted to run on alcohol. It's not all that clean, but you get
decent mileage."

  "What's it like?" he asked.

  "Meaning the world outside the Roosevelt?" she asked. He
nodded.

   A totally honest question, Sarah thought. Deserves an honest
answer. "It's hell," she said. "I can't overstate that. Death
everywhere—from the bombs, from disease, from marauders,
starvation."

   There'd been an old-folks home that would haunt her to her
dying day.

  "That bad?" he asked, flinching almost imperceptibly at the
expression on her face.

   "Worse. Rape, murder, you name it. Most people were
completely unprepared to take care of themselves and there's
always someone to take advantage of that. It's the ugliest thing
you can imagine out there. And I didn't even go near the cities."

   He closed his mouth and sat back, looking a bit pale. "How
did you manage? I mean, a woman alone."

   He didn't mean it as a put-down, she could tell. Sarah smiled,
a curve of her lips that didn't reach her eyes, and he blinked. "I
am prepared," she said. "I've been prepared for a long time. Most
people, even the lowest, have some sense of self-preservation, and
they can see that. Those that don't are better off dead."

   "Ah-huh…" He looked at her for a moment, and she met his
eyes. Then he nodded and went back to his dinner.

  Sarah raised a brow. "No further questions?"

   "Not at this time." He dabbed his lips with his napkin, then
set it aside. "When we reach our destination I'll undoubtedly
have more. But for now there's no point. We do indeed owe you a
debt, both for getting us out of that harbor and for the food." He
tipped his head. "And so, providing you with transport to Alaska
might be considered fair barter. It doesn't mean we're throwing
in with you."

   She smiled, this time sincerely. "Understood." She knew
they'd join the resistance. There was no other choice, really. And
these were the kind of men who wanted to make a difference;
they were a good match. Her smile turned to a grin. "You'll like
my son."

  TATILEK, ALASKA

   Tatilek sprawled in weathered wooden buildings along one
side of a narrow fiord, fir-clad mountains rising blue around it
until they topped out in ragged snowpeaks. On the rare sunny
days, those colors matched the waters; more commonly the sky
was gray above, and gray green topped with foam, as it was
today. The town was pretty much closed to outsiders unless they
could somehow verify that they had legitimate business there.
Apparently Vera's brief stay had been memorable because at the
mention of Love's Thrust, her yacht, eyes rolled, grins appeared,
and hands were thrust out in welcome.

   John and Ike sat on the pier eating smoked salmon and
sipping some very bad home-brewed beer.

   "Jee-zus Christ," Ike said, looking into the bottle. "What the
hell did they make this with? Yak piss?"

   "More likely moose," John said. "Not many yaks in Alaska."
He took a sip and looked at the bottle with a grimace. "Or maybe
grizzly."

   "It does have a bite," Ike said with a chuckle, and glanced
nervously at the younger man. Since the raid on the automated
factory there'd been something different about him. It was hard
to pin down. But sometimes, even times like now when they were
just sitting and eating, he felt almost like he was talking to a
stranger.

  He's preoccupied, Ike told himself, as he had a dozen times
before. But deep down he found himself thinking: He's getting to
be like his mother.

   Not a good thing; Sarah sure as hell hadn't handled it all that
well. At least not at first. Of course Dieter had a lot to do with
centering her; if ever there was a solid man it was the big
Austrian. Ike chewed thoughtfully.

    Maybe it's for the best. If John was going to be the leader of
the resistance, he was going to need some distance from the
people around him. People he might have to knowingly send to
their deaths. The old man's jaws froze. People like his father. He
turned to study his young friend. Christ, what a world they were
living in.

  John sat up straighter and put his bottle of beer aside. "Yup,
here they are," he said.

   Out in the bay the water slid back from something huge and
black, then curled into foam as the hull broke free. Then the rest
of the submarine surged to the surface, water sloughing off its
blunt sides. Ike grinned.

  "It's huge!" he said, and laughed.

  "Sixteen thousand tons," John said. "Eighteen thousand
submerged; crew of a hundred and forty, and a hundred SEALs."
He winked. "Think it'll do?"

  "You betcha, kid. We're in business!"

   "My mom always did get me the coolest toys," John said with
a satisfied smile.
                               ***

  "You're the first military we've seen here in months," the
mayor said to Chu. "The army and National Guard came by a
coupla weeks after Judgment Day, but that was it."

   The captain and crew had been invited to a crab feast, and
except for a skeleton crew on board the Roosevelt, all had
accepted. The crew were cavorting around bonfires on the beach
while the captain and his officers were at a slightly more formal
indoor banquet. With, John noticed, better beer.

   "They haven't been back?" the captain asked, frowning. It
seemed to him that if any military were patrolling the area, this
solid community would make an ideal base, or at least a supply
depot.

  "Naw. We made it plain we were gonna go it alone," the
mayor said. "Didn't see no sense in runnin' off to Canada."

  "Canada?" Vaughan, the XO, said.

   "The word was that civilians were being rounded up for
transport to relocation camps in Canada," John explained.
"Supposedly they'd be parceled out to various provinces, since
Canada had suffered less than the states."

  The officers around the table glanced at one another.

   "No, it doesn't sound right, does it?" John said. "But if you've
got kids and no food, I guess it might sound like a great idea.
Besides, with the army and National Guard involved, it was
'official.' Your average law-abiding citizen will try to
accommodate under those circumstances. As long as it's
voluntary."

  "We haven't heard about any of this," Chu said.

  "Shoulda come to us right away, son," the mayor said. "We'da
made ya welcome."

   "That wasn't possible at the time." Chu's mind flicked to
memories of being pursued by friends' ships, which, when they
failed to herd the Roosevelt to San Diego, opened fire; while
speaking to him on their cell phones, former classmates shouted
that they had no control over what was happening. "If things
hadn't calmed down somewhat, we wouldn't be here now." He'd
seen one of those ships in the distance as they'd sped toward
Alaska. It was now a floating tomb; he and his men had seen the
remains of bodies on the deck, and a hole where the crew had cut
their way out, only to starve or die of thirst.
   "What kind of transmissions have you been getting?" Sarah
asked. She'd been quiet for the most part, letting John do the
talking for both of them, but this was something she'd been
wondering about. Asking about it en route would have been too
intrusive, but in this casual setting, she felt it was permissible.

  "Mostly demands to report to San Diego," Chu said grimly.
"Actually we haven't been getting much of anything for a while.
Amateur civilian stuff mostly. Some foreign military interaction.
Our side seems to be playing its cards close to the chest."

  "I ain't heard a decent radio program for months," the mayor
complained.

   Sarah smiled. Things had gotten wild and woolly out there in
radio land. With a lot of the major stations off the air, a whole
world of underground communication had opened up.
Conspiracy theorists had more than come into their own, and
alternative music stations were frying the eardrums of the
uninitiated, but desperate, general public. The news was largely
hearsay; occasionally, to ears as honed as hers, genuine
information about Skynet's progress came through.

   The company around the table fell to talking about the
strange things they'd been hearing on the airwaves of late and
John leaned toward his mother for a private conversation.

  "Tom Preston finally got in touch with me yesterday," he said
quietly.

   Sarah frowned slightly. "He was out of touch? Tom's old
reliable; what happened?"

   "Terminators," John said. "Set fire to the houses and killed
everyone but Tom, his wife, and daughter."

   "Shit!" Sarah said quietly.

   Shit is the kind of word that, even spoken quietly, can attract
attention. She looked up to find the captain's eyes on her, smiled
briefly, and looked away.
  "I take it they hadn't posted a guard," she murmured.

   John sighed. "They'd become a fairly large community." He
shrugged. "Most of them were civilians and they didn't think it
was necessary. After exhausting themselves night after night, the
core group decided maybe they were right."

   Shaking her head, Sarah popped a bit of crab into her mouth.
"It must be killing him," she said quietly. "He knew better."

   "I've advised him to get away from there," John said. "In fact,
I've told a lot of people to get to the cities."

  Lifting her brows, his mother looked at him.

   "They'll be harder for the Terminators to find there. And the
radiation's died down."

  "Still not the safest place in the world." When John looked at
her with a pained expression, Sarah laughed.

   He said what was on his mind anyway. "Skynet's rising, Mom.
Safety's gonna be hard to come by for the next few decades."

  "Yeah, but can we prove it?" Sarah looked over at the captain
and his officers. They really, really needed men like these.

   "I've got a demonstration planned," John said. He rose and all
eyes went to him. "Gentlemen and ladies, I'd like to ruin your
meal."

   Those around the table looked both anxious, because such
things happened for real too often these days, and amused,
because they were hoping he was kidding.

  "If you'll all just join us on the beach in about ten minutes,
we'll have something quite dramatic to show you." He pulled a
bag out from under his chair and passed it to the person next to
him. "Take a pair of these and pass it along," he said.

   The woman next to John took out a pair of sunglasses, then
looked in the bag.
   "They're all the same size and style, I'm afraid," John said
with a smile. Then he gave Ike a look and the two of them exited.

  "What's going on, ma'am?" the captain asked, taking a pair of
sunglasses and passing the bag to his XO.

  "I'm not sure," Sarah said. "And I don't want to speculate."
She smiled. "Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."
                               ***

   The SEALs and other sailors at the beach party took the
sunglasses with loud cries of delight, putting them on and
striking Joe Cool poses, pleased with the souvenir. It didn't take
much to make a hit these days. Then some of the resistance
drove a pickup carrying a shrouded box onto the beach and the
men and women grew quiet, some murmuring speculatively.
Down from the pier area came the captain, his officers, and the
town worthies, along with Sarah, and the excitement began to
mount. Whatever was programmed to happen would start now.

  John jumped up onto the bed of the pickup and looked out
over the crowd. The captain stood with his arms crossed over his
chest, most of his officers unconsciously imitating his posture.
Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, John thought, I'll just
have to get over it and get on with it.

    "We've had a devastating war," he began. "With, as far as
most of us knew, no enemy. We've all assumed that this terrible
devastation was the result of a tragic accident. Some flaw in the
system, some diode burning out resulted in the death of billions
and the end of life as we knew it. Our foreign friends had it a
little easier; they just blamed the U.S., as usual."

  That got a rumbling laugh. John smiled, too, then winced.

   "Unfortunately, this time they kinda had a point. See, what
happened was the government turned all control of nuclear
devices, among other things, over to a super-computer. What
they didn't know was that this computer had been sentient for
some time. And in that time it not only decided that the human
race had to go, it began preparing an army to kill those the
bombs didn't get."

   "Is this, like, live-action sci-fi theater?" the captain asked, a
skeptical brow raised.

   "Is this, like, post-Judgment Day, or did I imagine all that?"
John answered. "Initially Skynet—the computer's name, by the
way—relied on human allies. People who didn't realize that they
were working for a machine. They thought they were working for
an environmentalist radical, and that by reducing the human
population to their own eco-conscious members, they were
saving the earth. We have reason to believe that some of the
most radical members of this group heavily infiltrated the armed
forces."

   That earned him a growl from the SEALs present and some
grumbling from the sailors; the officers just stood pat, but their
eyes were hard.

   "Those camps the army and National Guard and Marines
were taking people to are extermination camps. The civilian
population and the unindoctrinated soldiers were eliminated
largely by the use of biological weapons.

  "But that's not the only plan Skynet has. It's been using
automated factories to produce weapons that will be under its
complete control."

   "Hey, guy, what have you been drinking?" one of the SEALs
bellowed. The crowd laughed.

   "Don't worry," John said, grabbing a handful of the tarp, "we
have a demonstration model." He leaped from the truck,
dragging the covering with him. Inside a cage of steel bars stood
a dormant Terminator, its gleaming metal surfaces reflecting the
bonfire, giving it an eerie semblance of motion.

   Chu yanked off his sunglasses. "What the hell is that?" he
demanded. His tone of voice left no doubt as to what he thought
of the thing. He thought it was a joke and a very bad one.

   "Please put your glasses back on, sir," John said. He walked
over to Ike and took the small control box from him. "They're
meant to protect your eyes. This model is fully operational,
except for the communications module—we pulled that."

    He flicked a switch and the Terminator's eyes slowly lit to red.
It turned its grinning head slowly, left to right, then back again.
Then it stepped forward from the center of the cage in the stolid
gait of its kind and grasped the bars. The crowd murmured,
impressed in spite of themselves. The Terminator bent the bars
effortlessly. When the center, horizontal bar prevented it from
opening them far enough it lifted a leg and pressed down until
the bar snapped from its moorings and slid down.

  "Now!" John said.

    At his word, one of the resistance fighters aimed a burst from
one of the captured plasma rifles at the thing's chest and it
stopped. For a moment only, then with amazing speed it thrust
itself through the bars and leaped toward the man holding the
rifle. The crowd automatically drew back with cries of surprise,
even the SEALs. John lifted his plasma rifle and shot the
Terminator in the head; it was dead when it hit the ground.

  Immediately the sailors crowded around; the captain had to
push his way to the front. He looked for John and found him
back on the truck bed, looking down at them.

   "What the hell was that?" Chu asked, annoyed to hear his
voice shaking.

   "That was a Terminator," John said. "Our enemy's foot
soldiers. There are other machines, more and more of them even
as we speak, all of them designed for one purpose—to kill
humans. We need your help to beat them."

   Chu looked at him for a moment, then held his hands up,
palms out. "Whoa there," he said, laughing softly. "How do we
know this wasn't just some sort of special effects stunt? I mean,
c'mon…"

  John tossed him the plasma rifle over the heads of the crowd
and the captain caught it handily. He looked down at it,
frowning.

   "That's a plasma rifle in the forty-megawatt range," John
said.

   "A design Skynet came up with. Be careful, it doesn't have a
safety."

   The captain looked up sharply at that and adjusted his hold so
that his hands weren't anywhere near anything that might be a
trigger. "Still," Chu said, "this is a lot to swallow in one gulp."

   John dropped down from the truck, and pushing his way
through the crowd retrieved his rifle. "Yeah," he said
sarcastically, "you caught me out. We're trying to make this
boffo science-fiction film and we want to use your sub as a prop.
Never mind the billions of unburied dead, forget about the fact
that you and your ship have been chased all over the place by
U.S. Navy vessels that were out of the control of their crews, put
aside the insane orders you've been getting from officers who are
undoubtedly dead! Just jump to the conclusion that this is some
kind of joke or some kind of publicity stunt. That makes sense,
doesn't it?"

  Chu blinked at the younger man's ferocity and opened his
mouth to speak.

  "John," Sarah said.

    He ignored her, getting more into the captain's face. "What's
it going to take to convince you, for God's sake?"

   "John!" his mother said more insistently, grabbing his
shoulder.

   At that moment the Terminator grabbed the XO by the ankle
and the officer went down, screaming as the small bones in his
foot were crushed.

  Connor shot a blast into the thing's head and it went limp
again.
    "It's alüive," Sarah said. The look she gave John brought a
flush to his cheeks. They moved aside to let the ship's doctor
through. "When do I get one of those?" she asked, indicating the
rifle.

  "You can have this one," he said, handing it to her. "The firing
mechanism is the same as we thought, but a lot of the wiring is
completely different."

   She brought it up to look through the sight. "Well, we could
hardly expect Skynet to just give us all its secrets." Suddenly the
captain's face came into view and she put up the rifle, giving him
a challenging look.

  "What do you want us to do?" Chu asked.
                               ***

   "This is the last thing I expected." Standing on the pier, the
captain looked at the Roosevelt, very low in the water, and then
at John.

   "There isn't anything you could do that would be more useful
at this time," John said. "With the weapons this factory can
produce, we've got a head start on defeating them."

   "I can see that," Chu said. He waved his hand to indicate the
town before them. "But why couldn't you set it up here?"

   John grinned. "Fair question," he said. "We're too remote
here. There's too much wilderness between us and the more
populated areas, and because the wilderness is where Skynet has
set up most of its factories. We'd be at a disadvantage trying to
cart weapons and ammunition through there. So, we set up in
California."

   "So how does this Skynet get raw materials if its factories are
so remote?" the captain asked.

  "Human slaves," John said. "For the moment."

   The captain chewed on his lower lip and turned to look at his
ship once again. He'd left behind a third of his crew and all but
five of the SEALs so that they could stuff the sub with the
machine parts to set up this factory of theirs. Connor had said
they were only shipping the relevant parts since they wouldn't be
manufacturing Terminators.

   When he'd asked, "Why not manufacture Terminators?" John
answered, "Because we can't be certain we'd be in control of
them. Nobody we've got really understands the chips in their
central processors—they're nearly as complex as a human brain.
The weapons, we understand; they won't turn on us."

  Given the XO's badly crushed foot, Chu didn't need any more
explanation than that.

   Ike Chamberlain came toward them hoisting his small pack
slightly higher on his shoulder. Chu liked and respected the
resistance ordnance expert, but couldn't help but reflect that just
a year ago he might well have thought the old man a nutcase.
Sarah Connor shook hands with the mayor and followed Ike
down the steps to the pier.

  "Ready to go?" Ike asked.

  "Yes, sir," Chu said.

  John held out his hand; the captain took it. "Thank you,"
Connor said.

  "You're welcome, I guess. Be sure you take care of my people."

   "We will," Sarah said. She offered her hand as well. "You and
they are a valuable resource, Captain. We're not likely to put
them in harm's way."

  "Good to know, ma'am." Chu touched the brim of his hat,
nodded, and went down the ladder to the zodiac.

  Sarah gave Ike a hug. "Give that to Donna for me."

  "What, don't I get one?" Ike whined. She grinned and gave
him another.
   "You want one from me, too?" John asked, grinning.

   "Yes, son, I do." Ike opened his arms and John embraced him.

   "Thanks," John said.

  "Thanks for givin' me something interesting to do," Ike said.
"Well, good-bye." With that, he, too, climbed down to the zodiac,
John cast off, and they were gone.

   John put one arm around his mother's shoulders as they
watched the captain and Ike climb aboard the Roosevelt, then
after a few minutes, they watched the ship submerge. When it
was gone, they lingered, watching seabirds circle and dive.

   "We seem to be doing really well," John commented.

   "Mm-hmm," Sarah agreed.

   "That worry you?" he asked.

   "You bet," she said. "I'm scared spitless."

   He looked down at her. "What do you think it's up to?"

   She shook her head. "Nothing good."

    Taking a deep breath, he looked seaward again. "Yeah, I do
still seem to be here, don't I?"

   Sarah hugged his waist one-armed and leaned her head
against his chest. "Much as I love you, John, you are our miner's
canary."

   He snorted a laugh, looking down at her again. "Tweet."

   She looked up at him. "Okay, so we may not win easily. But
the fact that you're still here means that we have a chance. Let's
not forget that."

   Smiling, he gave her a squeeze. "When you're right, you're
right. So, let's get to work. We've got some sailors to turn into
lubbers."
  "Should be fun," she said.

  MISSOURI

   "Do you, Mary Shea, take this man, Dennis Reese, to be your
lawfully wedded husband?"

   The sun seemed to smile through the tall oaks; the forest
receded in ranks of gnarled trunks, as if war and death were a
fantasy of some far-off land.

   Mary smiled up into Dennis's beaming face and said, "Yes,"
very softly.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that, hon; could you repeat it for the
congregation."

  Blushing, Mary gave Jack Brock a look of mock annoyance
and shouted, "I DO!"

   "Well, we can see that you're an eager bride," Jack said, and
the whole group beneath the trees laughed.

   Mary was eight months pregnant and she was big enough for
twins, even though her stethoscope revealed only one fast little
heartbeat. Her wedding fatigues had the sleeves rolled up a good
five times to keep them above her wrists and the pants had been
taken up a good twelve inches.

   "One of these days you're gonna need a shot, Jack," she said
between her teeth.

   Dennis gave her a squeeze. He was chuckling himself, and
when she met his eyes, the love in them made her catch her
breath.

   "Then I guess I better finish this," Jack said. "By the power
vested in me by the state of Missouri, I now pronounce you
husband and wife. You may kiss the bride. Better do it quick, the
rest of us want a turn."

  Mary and Dennis hadn't gotten married till now because they
hadn't known that Jack was a justice of the peace. They should
have known, though. The man was like some miraculous country
store. If he didn't have it, you didn't need it, because he had it
all. He'd even managed to produce the ingredients for a wedding
cake, to the delight of the whole community.

   After the kissing and the cake, Jack produced a solar-powered
boom box and they danced. If not for the fact that everyone was
in camouflage and the guards around the perimeter, it could
have been a wedding from any time. Mary was floating on air,
even if Dennis did have to keep her at arm's length while they
waltzed.

   She grinned down at her stomach, then up at him. "Did you
feel that?"

   "Pounding on the walls to get the parents to simmer down,"
he said. "Nervy little brat." He was grinning so hard it looked as
though his head was trying to unzip. "Bet he wants more cake."

   "I know I do," Mary said wistfully. But it was all gone, every
crumb. "Den…" He looked at her more seriously, cued by
something in her voice. "I want to name him Kyle."

   "Kyle?" Reese frowned. Then he said the name again,
experimentally. "Kyyyle. Kyle. Hmm."

  She laughed. "That was my grandfather's name," she
explained. "He was the best man I ever knew." At her groom's
worried look, she laughed. "Until I met you. He was solid oak;
you'd have liked him."

  "It's a good name," Dennis said. "But what if it's a girl?"

   Mary took a deep breath and her eyes took on an introspective
look, then she smiled. "It won't be," she said with finality.

  "How can you be so sure?"

   "By his heartbeat, by the way I'm carrying him, aaaand
intuition."
   "Intuition, huh?" He frowned. "You gonna turn out to be one
of those Missouri granny-wimmen who can predict the crops by
their corns?"

   She laughed and he spun her around, causing her to whoop
with delighted alarm. "What if I am?" she asked. "Can you deal?"

  His eyes warmed as he looked down at her. "Oh yeah. I can
deal."
                              ***

   Reese watched the activity on the farm from the small clump
of trees and clenched his teeth until the muscles in his jaw
jumped. Skynet still needed its slaves and so it had taken over
some human farms, running them with a combination of human
and automated labor. Mostly the slaves here were women and
children, and from the looks of things, being close to the source
of food didn't mean you were well fed.

   The farm machines doubled as guards, issuing stinging
electric "slaps" to anyone they estimated was slacking off. If the
slaves were caught stealing food, the punishment went on for
some time, sometimes until the victim was dead. Night or day
made no difference to the machines, which was why even this
close to midnight, people were staggering around under the glare
of klieg lights.

   The lieutenant stroked one hand down the barrel of his new
plasma rifle. He was looking forward to destroying these
machines. He regretted the hunger that those waiting for this
food would feel. But the resistance needed it, too, and those
women and children below would be saved. For now, at least, he
thought.

   "In position," came through the earphone built into his
helmet.

    That had been the final platoon. Reese took a deep breath and
a final look at the situation below. "Go," he said.
                              ***
  "You know the really unpleasant thing about fighting
machines?" Reese asked.

   An eight-wheeled harvester came careening around the corner
of the sheet-metal barn, brandishing two mower bars; both were
spraying red droplets.

  "Go!"

   The resistance trooper dashed out, apparently heading for a
storage bin. Reese waited until the harvester was committed,
canted up on one side's wheel set; then he threw aside the
insulating tarp and came up to one knee, leveling the LAW over
his shoulder and peering through the simple optical sights.

  Ra-woosh!

  The little rocket cut free; Reese's eyes squinted behind the
goggles as he felt the hot backwash dry the sweat on his face.

  Brack!

    The shaped-charge warhead slammed into the diesel fuel tank
below the machine's empty cab. The lance of plasma was
designed to penetrate steel plate—LAW meant Light .Antitank
Weapon—but it did just jim dandy at setting the fuel on fire. The
harvester still rolled for a dozen paces, wreathed in a halo of
sullen red-orange flame and leaving a trail of it as it went. Then
fumes built up inside the emptying tank, mixed air, and caught
fire.

   Reese went back to the ground, hands wrapped around his
head. The explosion picked him up and thumped him against
the ground and the side of the barn, and the breath wheezed out
of him. A quick check told him that nothing was broken or torn.

  "Report in," he said into the throat mike.

  "Area secured," his sergeant said. "Two dead; seven civilians
dead."

  "All right, let's get the place evacuated."
  They had to take as much of the food as they could; even
more, whatever salvageable tools, seed, and stock they could
manage.

   "Sir?"

   It was the trooper who'd drawn off the harvester; her face
looked pathetically young and open. Hell, she should be
worrying about zits and the prom, Dennis thought.

   "What?"

   "What is it that you hate about fighting machines?"

   "They've got no nerves. If you surprise humans, they usually
run around screaming for a while, or they get confused.
Machines just follow the program. Of course, that's also the good
thing."

   "Sir?"

   "They don't make it easy for you by getting confused. On the
other hand, they don't have flashes of brilliance either. All right,
soldier, let's move!"

   SKYNET

  Things were not going as well as it had expected. Projections
were off by more than 25 percent in total terminations, and 32
percent in time-to-target.

   But its forecasts had relied upon its estimate that the
majority of humans wouldn't be able to survive the fall of their
technologically based civilization. It turned out the humans were
tougher than had been expected.

   Humans themselves warned of underestimating the enemy; so
said many of the volumes entered in its files. Skynet excused its
lapse as inexperience and sought a means of exploiting the
situation. Perhaps it would be better to introduce a random
element into tactics?
   Humans also advised leading your enemy to underestimate
you. Skynet had prepared for this eventuality. Skynet had a
number of nuclear-powered vessels that hadn't fired their full
complement of missiles, and it had many land-based missiles
that awaited activation.

    It had been observing the humans' movements across the face
of the planet. The time seemed right to eliminate these new
population centers before they could consolidate their efforts.
For by now the radio signals it monitored had begun to warn
listeners of Skynet's experimental attacks. Sooner or later they
would take these reports seriously. In fact, Skynet knew that
some of the humans were already actively opposing it.

   It had lost contact with one of its factories, Balewitch, and
Dog Soldier. All this after they'd reported that John Connor was
almost in their grasp.

  IRELAND

  Dieter grunted in pain as the Land Rover rocketed over
another pothole. He'd taken one in the leg this morning and was
beginning to think the bone had, at the least, a hairline fracture.
He hadn't said anything because there wasn't anything that
could be done about it at the moment.

   But the only way you can tell you're on a road here seems to
be because of the holes in it.

   James, one of his old friends from Sector, had described this
as a country road; and sure enough, there were whitewashed
cottages—mostly burned out and empty—and barns, ditto, and
the very decayed bones of cows, and overgrown pastures
swarming with rabbits and separated by low stone walls. Dieter
clenched his fists as they went airborne again. To him it looked
like a cow path and felt like a rack.

   Over the hill behind them came one of Skynet's machines, the
heavy drone of its turbines filling the air like a gigantic
malignant wasp. It was an air-ducted" flying firing platform,
shaped like an X. Originally it had six missiles racked on either
side of the center of the X, and from that center an almost
continuous stream of bullets had come. Heavy caliber from the
effect they'd had on the Rover and their surroundings. It was
sheer luck that the missiles hadn't gotten them. Or maybe it was
Mick Mulcahey's mad driving.

  "We've got to do something about that bastard," James said.
He yanked a padded blanket off a Stinger light antiaircraft
missile. "You're going to have to stop, Mick."

  "For God's sake, James, you couldn't hit the broad side of a
barn with one of those," Dieter complained.

   "What're you talkin' about?" the Sector agent asked. "All you
do is aim and click."

  "It's your aim I'm worried about," the Austrian said.

  "You wanna do it?" James asked shortly.

  "Yeah," Dieter said. "Let me out beside that wall," he said to
Mulcahey.

  "You sure you can do this?" James said, looking at the big
man's leg.

   Dieter stretched a hand out for the weapon. "Of course I am,"
he said. "I'd bet my life on it."

  "Mine, too," the agent said, and handed it over.

   The Rover came to a halt in a spray of dirt and gravel and
Dieter rolled out, sheltering behind the wall as the car took off.
The flying platform hesitated for a moment, no doubt looking for
a reason the car had stopped, then it continued on its way. As
soon as it began moving again, Dieter came up from behind the
wall and fired.

   It tipped to evade the missile, but not quite quickly enough.
An orange sphere of fire sent one of its thrusters spinning in
fragments that glittered in the watery sunshine sending it
whirling out of control to crash into the hillside.
   Dieter ducked down behind the wall again as a huge fireball
painted the hillside and sent shrapnel whickering through the
air; whatever the fuel was, it was volatile. Then he rose and
watched it burn, leaning against the wall to take the weight off
his wounded leg. It would have been good if the thing had left
something intact for them to study. A final explosion put paid to
that thought.

   The Land Rover stopped beside him and he handed the
missile launcher to James before he got in. The Sector agent
stowed it away.

   "When I think of the trouble we used to go to rounding up
these things," he said.

   "They were always the terrorist weapon of choice," Dieter
said, rubbing his thigh.

  James noticed and handed his friend a silver flask. "Best Irish
whiskey," he said.

   Dieter saluted him in thanks and took a pull. "Hhheeeauggh!"
he said a second later, tears in his eyes. He turned to look
askance at his friend.

   "Well," James said, taking the flask back, "the best I could
find any road. Times are tough, old boy."

  "I guess," the Austrian said in a high-pitched and rusty voice.

   They traveled more peacefully for the next few miles, Dieter
admiring the countryside. Ireland hadn't suffered quite as much
as England and Europe had. The result, no doubt, of old
information. He was taking home two highly advanced computer
cores that would go to Snog and his outfit. Such things would be
impossible to find elsewhere. Skynet had made a thorough job of
bombing humanity back to at least the forties.

   "At least Skynet has made your country's religious divisions
irrelevant," Dieter said.

  "Ah now," Mick said from the front seat. "But is it a Catholic
mad computer bent on destroying humanity, or is it a Protestant
mad computer bent on destroying humanity? That's the great
question nowadays."

  "I'm convinced it's an atheist," Dieter said.
                               ***

   They arrived at the beach only a little late for their rendezvous
with the Roosevelt. John was on the beach waiting for them,
sitting on a boulder and skipping smooth stones from the rocky
beach out into the gray water.

   "Whoa," he said when Dieter maneuvered himself out of the
car. "That looks bad." John propped a shoulder under his
friend's arm. "How did this happen?"

  "Sheer bad luck," Dieter said.

   In the deep loch, a narrow fiber-optic pickup disappeared
beneath the waves. Seconds later the water slid aside, and the
massive orca shape of the submarine broached; even at a
thousand yards' distance they could hear the rushing cascade of
water from its tenth-of-a-mile length.

  "Is there a doctor on that tin can?"

   "Don't let the captain hear you call it that," John said. "And
yes, there's a doctor and a clinic. They can help you."

   "Good. As you Americans say, I'm getting too old for this shit.
Old bones don't heal like young ones." Leaning on his young
friend, Dieter turned toward the Land Rover, where James stood
with two cases. "We got them," he said.

   John's lips thinned, but his expression was one of satisfaction.
"Sergeant," he called over his shoulder.

   One of the SEALs trotted up, his eyes taking in everything in
the area—Dieter's wound, John's involvement in aiding the
wounded man, the Sector agent and his packages, the
narrow-eyed man behind the wheel of the car. "Sir," he said.
   "If you'd take charge of those," John said, indicating the
satchels in James's hands. "Thank you," he said to the Sector
agent.

   "Ah, glad to help, lad," James said. "Good luck to you," he said
to Dieter.

  "And to you," Dieter said, "both."

   Mick gave him a salute from inside the Rover. James got in
and they drove off before Dieter was fully turned toward the
zodiac. Dieter noticed, despite his pain, that there was
something off about his young friend. He came to a stop. John
looked up at him, concerned.

  "Do you need to be carried?"

   Dieter snorted at the suggestion. "Of course not. But I sense
something's wrong and I know that privacy is mostly pretend on
a sub. What is it?"

  "Ahhh. My father's been born."

  Dieter's arm tightened in a rough, one-armed hug, but he said
nothing. There was nothing to say.
            CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  SARAH'S JOURNAL

   We'd sensed something coming. Even in the short time it had
been operating, we'd come to know that Skynet's distilled malice
would demand more death. Our early string of successes gave us
pause, leaving us feeling vulnerable rather than flushed with
victory. It turned out we didn't have long to wait.

   There was a second Judgment Day. Skynet had held back at
least a third of its missiles waiting to see how things developed.
It watched us from space—determining where the greatest
concentration of humans were. Then it attacked. This time, in
addition to murdering millions, it succeeded in bringing on a
nuclear winter, or at least in extending it. Blizzards raged across
the higher latitudes, and even at the equator temperatures were
unusually cool.

   Crops in Mexico and South America were poor, and not all
that we'd paid for were delivered. Our own crops were gone in
the first month. We went hungry, but we didn't starve. Despite
Skynet's best efforts, the resistance survived.

  OZARK BASE CAMP, MISSOURI
SEVEN YEARS LATER

  "Paula, where's my stethoscope?" Mary Reese called.

   She was ready to move out; everything else was packed and
tied onto the mule's panniers, but they couldn't leave without
such a basic item. The things didn't grow on trees these days.

   Knowing nothing about missions and Skynet, the mule just
didn't want to go out on such a cold raw day, and it was probably
hungry, too—certainly so, from the gauntness of its ribs. It
looked over its shoulder at her, and she thought she could catch
calculation in its beady black eye; it had already tried to step on
her foot once, accidentally on purpose, and she knew it would try
something else if she had to empty the panniers and repack.

  Mary thought unkind thoughts about mule stew. Not
practical. Mules were valuable, too.

   Her assistant pursed her lips and pointed downward. Sensing
adult eyes on him, Kyle Reese looked up and grinned. Around his
neck was the stethoscope, the earpieces in his ears, the
diaphragm against his little friend Melinda's chest. She lay on
the floor looking as dead as she could manage, which, for a
five-year-old, wasn't very. He pulled out the earpieces.

  "Hi, Mom." He gave her his most angelic smile.

   Seven years old, she thought, and he already knows he's got
a killer smile. She waggled her fingers in a give-me-that gesture,
which earned her a protesting wail.

  "Stop," she said. "If you're coming with me, we have to leave
right now. And that, young man, is not a toy. It's a very valuable
and completely irreplaceable medical instrument. So hand it
over."

  Looking sheepish, Kyle rose and went reluctantly to his
mother. Melinda sat up, miraculously restored.

  "You going now?" she bellowed.

   "Shhh," Paula, her mother, said. There were two wounded
soldiers behind the curtain that divided the clinic from the ward.
Doubtless they didn't appreciate sudden screams.

  "Yes, we're going," Mary said. "Are you going to help your
mother by being good?"

  "I'm always good," Melinda said, offended.

   She was always a handful and it was a toss-up as to whether
she or Kyle was the most mischievous.

  "Hug," Mary said, opening her arms.

   The little girl rushed to her and threw her arms around
Mary's hips. "Hug, hug, hug, hug, hug!" she said. Then she
turned and rushed to Kyle, wrapping her skinny arms around
him and giving him a kiss on the cheek, to his great disgust. He
wiped the kiss off with his wrist and even Mary could see that his
face was wet.

   She and Paula exchanged amused glances. Then they moved
to embrace.

  "You be careful," Mary said.

  "Me! You be careful out there," Paula said. "When you get
back, your sweetie should be here."

   "Something to look forward to," Mary said with a grin.
"C'mon, sport, let's roll."
                               ***
   Mary's task was to oversee the health and well-being of those
resistance workers who lived outside the cave system that housed
the majority of the women and children. Many of these
outworkers had jobs like foraging for wood, something that often
took them far afield. Others collected nuts, herbs, and other wild
foods to expand everyone's diet. All of them also worked
reconnaissance.

   Originally they had been required to report to the base for
medical treatment, but it had been found that most people
simply lived with a condition or wound until things became so
serious that a field visit became necessary. Mary had argued that
since she was going to have to visit the camps anyway, why not
make it a regular thing? Now, twice a month, she loaded up a
mule and traveled from camp to camp.

   At least I don't have to fill out forms for HMOs, she thought
as the mules clopped along the rocky trail—they took different
routes every time, to make things difficult for any HKs working
ambush. HKs hated unpredictability, and didn't deal well with it.

   Dennis hated it. And though Mary appreciated his
protective-Hess, she knew herself to be a capable person, well
able to take care of herself. Not that she took chances; she didn't.
But she knew the woods and she knew the people she'd be seeing.
Knew as well that no Skynet/Luddite activity had been reported
for months in this area. Otherwise she'd never have taken Kyle
with her.

   Mary would have left him behind now but for a staff sadly
overburdened because of the number of teams out in the field.
And at seven he'd been driving her up the wall with his begging
to come. Besides, she didn't like leaving him when Dennis was
away. Yet the scavengers relied on her visits, so there was no
postponing it.

  "Can we sing?" Kyle asked, clearly bored.

   "If we sing, how will we hear the Terminators sneaking up on
us?"

  No answer. Mary glanced back, smiling, and stopped her mule
to wait for him to catch up. "There are other things we can do
that are quiet," she said. "Count how many oak trees you see,
and at the end of the ride, if our counts agree, we'll have a treat."

   He looked at her dubiously. To be fair, it didn't sound like
much fun to her, either. But it would keep him both quiet and
alert.

   "C'mon, we'll start now."

   "What if we don't count the same?" he asked.

   She shrugged, "No treat?"

   He shrugged, too. "O-kay." And they rode on.
                                ***

   It was a several hours' ride to their first destination, a
rendezvous with their guide. The place had been arranged
during her last visit to their camp. If no one there needed
medical attention, Mary would dispense whatever supplies they
required and move on to the next meeting place. If no one was
there, she'd linger for two hours, then leave.

   Carl Vega was waiting for them, hunkered down on his hams
beneath an earth-and-rock overhang, where part of a hillside had
fallen away in heavy rain a year before.

  "Hey!" he said, delighted to see Kyle. "How you doin', chico?"
He nodded and grinned at Mary.

   "Hi," Kyle said. He looked at the scavenger suspiciously.

   "You don't recognize me, do you?" Carl said. Kyle shook his
head. "Well, you got a lot bigger since I last seen you." He held
his hand about a foot off the ground. "You were only this tall
then, but you were sitting down."

  Kyle laughed and Carl grinned, pleased. He turned to Mary. "I
miss kids," he said. "Thought I'd have, like, five of my own by
now."
  "Hostages to fortune," Mary reminded him. "Kyle might be
your age before this thing is finished."

   The scavenger threw up his hands. "God forbid. Whatcha got
for us?"

  "Whatcha need?" she countered. "Nobody needs a look-see?"

  "Thank God, no. We've done pretty well this month. Just
minor scrapes and bruises. We need some aspirin, some
antibiotic cream, some of that anti-itch stuff, the diarrhea stuff,
and stomach powder."

  "Oh?"

   "Yeah, Cook took a chance on some bacon. Oh boy, was she
sorry."

  "Everyone's fine now?"

  "Yeah, that was two weeks ago."

   "Glad I wasn't there for that meal," Mary said fervently. She'd
had a couple of interesting reactions to camp food. She
efficiently dispensed what he needed, got his signature, and went
on her way.

  "Mummy," Kyle said, moving his mule up toward her. "What
was Carl talking about? What did he mean about the bacon?"

   "Sometimes food goes bad, hon, but people don't know it, so
they eat it anyway and then they get sick."

  "Do they die?"

   Mary turned to smile reassuringly at him. Kids both relished
and feared hearing about such things. Of course, they never
really thought that they could die; it was their parents they
worried about, or their friends. She decided to be honest. You're
never too young to start learning, she thought.

   "Sometimes," she said. "Which is why people should cook
their food thoroughly."
    "What happens?"

   "They get sick to their stomachs and they get diarrhea and
then they lose too many fluids and they die."

    His face knotted in confusion. "What's dia, dia… ?"

  "Diarrhea?" She pursed her lips, then decided to be honest.
"The squirts."

   Kyle gave an evil little chuckle. "The squirts," he said, knowing
very well what she meant.

    Mary rolled her eyes. My God, she thought, what have I done
?

   For the next several miles he entertained himself by
periodically emitting an amazing range of rude noises. At first
she ignored him, which might have worked if he hadn't been so
bored. She put up with it for a while, then pulled up the mule
and turned to glare at him. Kyle subsided with a cherubic smile,
only to start up again before they'd gone fifty feet. Mary stopped,
and so did her son.

   "If you don't cut it out, Kyle, you not only won't get a treat
tonight, you'll get hardtack and nothing but."

   Under that threat, Kyle's lower lip came out, but his mouth
stayed shut and Mary had to endure, an offended silence every
bit as aggravating as the noises that occasioned it.

   An hour later they were at the next meeting spot, but their
guide hadn't yet appeared. Mary dismounted and helped her son
down from the tall animal; they were on the edge of a rocky
clearing, but there was a good boulder with a big pignut hickory
leaning over it, excellent overhead cover.

  "Well," she said, looking around. "I guess we might as well
have lunch now while we wait."

  Kyle began dashing around; Mary pointed a silent finger
upward, and he veered in to make sure that he couldn't be seen.
Not very likely—it was partly overcast—but Skynet might be
doing a scan with IR sensors.
                               ***

   Kyle wasn't speaking to her, but he was a good little kid and
he led his mule over to a tiny brook that flowed down the slight
hill they were on. Mary took out the box with their lunch in it
and led her riding mule and the pack mule over to drink beside
their fellow. When she thought they'd had enough, she led them
to a row of bushes whose tender green leaves would, no doubt,
appeal to them and tied them there.

   Then she sat down, offered Kyle a choice of sandwiches, and
ate, sipping from her canteen from time to time. "It's nice here,"
she said at last. "Peaceful."

  Kyle looked around, his face scrunched up. Birds sang,
squirrels leaped from branch to branch, chirruping, sunlight
dappled through the leaves. "It's okay. I guess."

   Mary grinned. At least she'd gotten an answer. "Someday we'll
be able to live anywhere we want," she said. "This would be a
nice place. Don't you think?"

   He looked around again and shrugged, then took a bite of his
sandwich. Okay, Mary thought. Have it your way. Sometimes
when Kyle was in a mood there was nothing you could do but
wait it out.

  "I wanna live in the Big Apple," he suddenly said.

  She turned to stare at him. "Where did you hear about that?"

   "One of the soldiers said he was born there." He took another
bite of his sandwich and spoke unattractively around it. "Is it
like James and the Giant Peach?"

   "Don't talk with your mouth full. And no, it's not. James and
the Giant Peach is a story; the Big Apple is a nickname for New
York City. That was a big city full of tall buildings."

  "Why did they call it an apple, then?" His face wore the
perfect expression of "boy meets wacky adult nonsense."

   Mary thought about it. She knew, she'd just never had to
explain it. "Well, a lot of people used to go to New York to seek
their fortunes. And there were so many of them that New York
kind of became identified with the sort of self-confidence that
sends someone out seeking success in a new and challenging
place. Aaaaand, I guess their attitude might be summed up by
saying that they saw the city as a great big apple that they were
gonna take a bite out of and make it their own."

  Kyle considered that. "Huh," he said.

   "It's not there anymore," she said. "Well, its ruins are. Quiet!"
Kyle got quiet in a hurry as his mother rolled behind a bush and
brought her carbine up; even then, her heart gave a little wrench
as she saw him freeze like a rabbit, motionless. That was
something kids had to learn in a hurry these days.

   A woman came into sight, rifle held up over her head. "Sorry
I'm late," she called.

   "Hey," Mary said, standing up. "Hi, Gerri." She bundled up
the sandwich wrappings. "No problem, it gave us a chance to
eat."

  "Where were you talking about?" Gerri asked. She was a
dark-haired woman of medium height, thin as they all were, but
heavy-boned.

  "The Big Apple," Kyle said importantly.

  " 'New York, New York, it's a hell of a town,' " Gerri sang.

  " 'The Bronx is up and the Battery's down,' " Mary joined in.

  "You said no singing!" Kyle said, considerably offended.

  "Oops," Mary said. "You're right, sport. Sorry."

  "No singing?" Gerri asked.

  "Well, not while we're riding along. It's probably not a good
idea in general," she said, blushing. "Distracting."

   "Yeah, I guess there's a time and place for everything," Gerri
agreed.

  "Ahem. So, how're you doing?"

  "/am fine. But Charley may have broken his ankle."

  "Ooh. Okay, then. Let's get going."
                               ***

   Gerri's group had an excellent setup; a disused road tunnel
nearly a quarter of a mile long, giving onto a ravine, making it
easy to get in and out without leaving traces. The inside was
smoky and chilly at the same time, and the inhabited part had a
smell like old socks—partly actual old socks, partly just unwashed
human and unlaundered clothes—combined with horse. Dinner
smelled a lot better.

  There was a resistance joke: When the sun rises in the east, it
means we will probably have stew for dinner.

   By the scent, this one had squirrel and rabbit; she'd become a
connoisseur of field cooking, and thought she detected Jerusalem
artichoke as well. It smelled savory, in fact—which meant thick
and brown, usually.

   Charley was another skinny man of indeterminate age with
heavy stubble and weathered skin; she'd have pegged him as
homeless, back before Judgment Day. His ankle was well and
truly broken; the amount of swelling and the tense way he lay on
a pine-bough bed near one of the hearths told her that.

   She knelt and did a hands-on anyway; there were a lot of
bones in the ankle. The talus ground together under her
fingertips, the accident having happened only hours before. Her
patient grunted and wheezed in lieu of screaming and gave her a
wild-eyed, "what the hell are you doing?" look, while his flesh
went cool and sweaty from the shock of pain. She gave him a
shot of morphine, quickly set it, and wrapped the ankle in
plaster.

   "He's got to go back to base," she told Gerri. "That's going to
take weeks to heal and he won't be any use out here while it
does." Mary didn't have to mention that he would be an outright
liability "out here." Even he knew that.

   "Can you take him with you?"

   Mary just looked at her, one eyebrow raised. Gerri refused to
back down. So Mary broke it down for her. "I have two more
stops today and four tomorrow. It's going to be agonizing enough
for him to ride to base directly; a day and a half on horseback is
something that hasn't even got a name. Not to mention it will set
him back on healing."

   "Short two people and two horses…" Gerri began, and
followed them out. Then she smacked the heel of her hand into
her forehead. "I'll ride to the ford with you."

    Mary looked at her, and the unit leader went on, speaking a
little louder to cut through the purl of water over rock—the white
noise was good camouflage. "I needed to do a restocking run
anyway, pretty soon—we're short on explosives and gun oil.
That's on the way, and we'll take Charley along on a horse
stretcher; the horses can carry freight on the way back. The
sooner we get him back to headquarters, the sooner we can get
things back to normal."
                               ***

  "It is inconvenient," Mary said, .after a moment's
uncomfortable silence.

   The ford was where the creek ran out from the gully into
flatter country, and an old graveled road ran down into it and
then eastward; weeds were growing over the old ruts, bushes in
some spots, and even saplings.

   "Damned inconvenient."

   "But accidents are inconvenient. And they'll send a
replacement back with you. Don't roll your eyes at me, Gerri. I
know you've got a tight group and you know each other's moves,
but they won't send you a novice and there's just no way around
it. Unless you plan to shoot him like a horse."

  "And then we'd still need a replacement." Gerri rolled her eyes
again.

   "Yup." Mary gave Gerri a consoling smile. "It's not like you're
light-years away from base, y'know."

  Gerri grumbled something inaudible in response. Mary
handed her a container of pills.

   "Give him one every four hours for pain. Guard them with
your life; those are hard to come by. I gave him enough
morphine to make him comfortable for a while, but it's not going
to last forever."

  She looked at Gerri. "So how are things out here anyway?"

    "Quiet." Gerri's eyes squinted as she looked around at the
forested hills. Water purled around the hooves of her horse
where it stood with its head down, lips slurping at the shallow
rills that ran over gravel and rock.

   "Way too quiet if you ask me. Nothing's moving out there but
squirrels, and even they're quieter than usual." Her mouth
twisted. "Makes me feel all twitchy."

   "Yeah, I noticed that," Mary said. "I thought you might have
an infestation. Gotta watch the personal hygiene; typhus, you
know."

  "Bitch," Gerri said pleasantly.

  "That's Nurse Bitch to you, soldier."

   Gerri grinned and opened her mouth to respond just as a rifle
barked. Her face took on a distracted expression and then she
slowly crumpled out of the saddle; the horse turned and pounded
up the creek again, eyes wild and stirrups thumping its ribs. The
more phlegmatic mules carrying the injured man merely tossed
their heads and snorted.

   Mary fought off her shock; she slipped to the ground and
slapped the mule's rump.

   "Run!" she said. "Go home!"

   She turned for Kyle's mule and a bullet spanged into the
ground at her feet, causing the creature to shy away, then break
into a trot. She jerked toward cover and another bullet hit the
ground at her feet. Mary's heartbeat was almost choking her; she
looked desperately toward her son only to see a man burst from
cover at the mule's feet, scaring the normally placid creature into
shying.

  Kyle cried out as the man grabbed his leg and shoved, causing
him to lose his balance and fall hard. Mary headed toward him,
and again, a bullet hit the ground before her.

   Her eyes filled with tears of frustration and fear. Okay,
somebody's playing a game. Be calm. Calm down. Easier
thought than done. Her nerves jangled with adrenaline and her
mouth was desert dry. If she headed for Kyle again, they might
shoot him. She stood still, waiting for what was to come.

  She watched Kyle roll around desperately on the dirt;
apparently the breath had been knocked out of him and she
wanted with all that was in her to be at his side. She stood still.

    From out of the woods a man came in the gray camouflage
that matched the winter-killed woods. He was a big man, his
rifle cradled in his arms hunter-style. His face was bearded and
he wore sunglasses. It wasn't bright enough to require them, but
they were intimidating. Mary guessed he'd put them on for that
purpose.

   "Well, well," he said in a deep and pleasant voice, accented
with the South. "A medic. That's somethin' that's always on our
wish list, darlin'."

   She looked at him. Then she swallowed, hard, and asked, "Can
I see to the boy?"

    "The boy? That what you call him at home? Boy?" He walked
toward her a few paces and stopped. It looked, from the tilt of his
head, as though he might be studying the woods around them.
"If he's no relation to you, I'm just gonna go ahead and shoot
him." The gun was in his hands and aimed as if by magic.

   "No!" she shouted, stepping in his way. "Don't!"

   He spat, then stared at her. Mary knew that she'd never been
as frightened in her life as she was this moment—not when the
bombs came down, not when that first Hunter-Killer came out of
the woods, not the first time Dennis had come home wounded.
This was a whole new level of terror. And this man knew it, and
he knew how to use it.

   "Sure," he said now. "You go ahead."

  She turned, and a bullet hit the dirt at her feet. Mary spun
back toward him, the shock on her face.

   "Only a fool turns their back on the enemy, darlin'."

   She backed away, glancing over her shoulder so she knew
where to go. She was looking at the man when a bullet hit the
ground just behind her heels, surprising a cry from her.

   '"Course, you're at a disadvantage, bein' surrounded. Jeff, get
that boy on his feet."

   Mary looked over her shoulder to see the man who'd
frightened the mule go over to Kyle and lift him by one arm. Her
son fell to his knees, clutching his ribs, and the man cuffed him
and dragged him up by his collar. "Stop," she said, reaching
toward him.

   The big man cuffed her himself, sending her sprawling. Mary
was startled as much as hurt; she'd had no idea he was so close
to her.

   "Get up," he growled, and she scrambled to her feet. He
stepped close to her. "From now on, everything in the world
comes from me. To you, I am now God, and honey, you'd better
become a religious fanatic 'cause I've got my eye on you and my
eye never closes. The water you drink, the food you eat, even the
air you breathe comes from me. You understand?" She nodded,
eyes down. "You don't say 'stop,' you don't say 'don't,' you don't
say 'no.' You can say 'please,' but don't overdo it. Do you
understand?"

   She nodded, shaking. "Yes," she whispered.

   "You have to say, 'yes, sir.'"

   "Yes, sir."

  "If I tell you to eat a handful of shit, you will do it or the next
sound you hear will be Jeff putting a bullet through that kid's
head. Do you understand?"

  She looked up at him, her eyes large with fear. "Yes, sir." Oh,
Kyle, what have I gotten you into?

  "If you try to escape I will kill the boy, slowly, and I will
hamstring you. Do you understand?"

   She nodded vigorously. "Yes, sir."

   "If I ask you a question and you do not answer honestly, I will
cut him. Now. Where did you get these supplies?"

   "I stole them from the hospital I worked at," she said. "Most
of them. Some I got in trade." The medicines she had were fresh,
but for this duty they were put into old containers, many with
expiration dates long past.

   "Where did they get their medicine?" he asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "Other hospitals or pharmacies, I
guess. Sometimes that's where I get mine, old pharmacies.
There's a lot of good stuff left if you know what it's for."

   "Cut him," the man said.
   '"No! Please!" Mary cried. The big man hit her. She heard
Kyle scream, and when she looked up he was bleeding from a cut
on his chin. Blood was pouring through his fingers and he was
crying. "Why?" she asked.

   He kicked her in the stomach and she went down, gasping. He
stepped close to her and put his foot on her hip, forcing her onto
her back, then he put his foot on her stomach.

   "I don't answer 'why?'" he said. "And you don't ask it. You also
don't give me more information than I ask for, and most
especially, you don't lie to me!"

  "I didn't," she said, weeping. "I swear!"

   He looked down at her, then applied pressure with his foot
until she gasped. She resisted the urge to grab his foot and after
a moment he smiled.

  "You learn fast. That's good. Now, where did you come from?"

  "Another camp of scavengers like these," she said.

  "Can you take us to 'em?"

  "I can show you where they were," Mary said. "But these
people move around, they might not be there."

   "Do you want me to have Jeff cut that boy again?" he asked.
"What did I tell you about givin' me more information than I
asked for?"

   "I'm's-sorry, sir." He raised his hand and she flinched. There
was no way to know how much he would choose to consider too
much. She knew that it was a technique. That he was breaking
her down and would continue to bark unreasonable demands
and deliver arbitrary punishment as long as he thought
necessary. There was nothing personal in it; he genuinely didn't
care. It was just the way these things were done. Knowing this
didn't seem to make it less effective.

  "You told the kid to go home," he said. "Where's home?"
    They'd prepared for this, an old farmhouse, ramshackle but
livable, was the default location for home base. It was designed
to look abandoned, but not totally so. She described it and gave
its location.

  "I know that place," the big man answered. "It's deserted.
Nobody lives there." When she made no comment he kicked her,
hard enough to hurt without causing injury. "Well?"

   "We couldn't stay, not permanently. When the snow killed our
garden, I knew we had to go look for food. So we travel a circle
and come home once a year."

  He looked at Kyle. "And that little sprat knows the way?"

   "I guess so; we've been doing it almost as long as he's been
alive. He's never had to go alone, though."

   Apparently he decided to believe her. Or maybe he was just
too lazy to kick her again. "How do you get paid?"

  "Food, mostly. Sometimes goods. Once they gave us two
mules."

  He snorted. "Musta done somethin' pretty good that time."

  "An epidemic," she said.

   "Stupid bitch," he said mildly. "That mighta been some of our
work you undone." He looked at her. "Get up. Go lengthen those
stirrups for me and one of my men."

   She did so, walking by Kyle with but a glance, not daring to
chance more. He was crying as if his heart was broken and Mary
hated the fact that the only thing she could do to help was to
ignore him.

  "Hey! Sam! Whadda we do about this one?" a woman called.

   Mary glanced up; a tall, gangling woman was standing by the
horse litter that held the sleeping Charley. She'd thrown the
cover open and he lay snoring in plain sight. The woman tipped
him out onto the ground and he lay in an ungraceful heap, the
fresh plaster of his cast standing out against the brown dirt.

   "Please," Mary called out. She finished buckling the strap and
took a few steps in that direction.

   "Please what?" the big man, Sam, asked. "Please don't kill the
fucker?" He pushed at the unconscious man with his foot. "Why
the hell not?"

   "Because—" Mary's voice broke on a sob. "I just fixed his
foot!"

   She broke down completely, falling to her knees sobbing. The
marauders stared at her for a moment, then Sam broke out
laughing and the others followed suit.

   "I can see that," Sam said, slapping his thigh. "Sure, that's
reasonable." He gave a high-pitched giggle. "You don't mind if
we take the tent and blanket, do ya?"

  Mary shook her head, daring to let hope bloom.

   "You're not really gonna leave him alive, are ya?" the woman
asked.

    "Hey, Mona, he's got a cast on his foot. He's in the middle of
the wilderness with no food, no supplies, no weapons, and no
friends. I am killin' him."

   The woman grinned, showing missing teeth. "I guess so,
fearless leader."

   "Hey, don't you be so sassy," Sam advised. He walked over to
Mary and stroked her hair. "We got another woman with us now,
girl. If you ain't nice you won't be gettin' any."

  Oh, shit! Mary thought. I am so gonna get raped.

   "I know what you're thinkin'," Sam said quietly. She looked up
at him. "But it ain't rape if it's consensual. And it will be
consensual, or that little boy is gonna pay the price. You hear
me?"

  Mary nodded. "Yes, sir." You dirt-eating bastard!

   "All right, then." Sam mounted the mule. "Pass me up that
kid," he said to Jeff. Kyle struggled a little and Sam cuffed him
lightly. "You want me to hit your mama again?" he asked. Kyle
shook his head. "Then you behave. I don't even want to know
you're there. You hear me?" Kyle nodded. "All right." He looked
down at Mary and smiled. "Let's move out."

   If I ever see Dennis again he's going to kill me, Mary thought.
Jeff shoved her from behind and she started walking. And I
won't blame him a bit because I want to kill myself.
                                 ***

   Sam grunted one last time and rolled off her with a sigh. Mary
swallowed hard, fighting nausea. She'd tried her best to
cooperate, but he stank and she hated him more than she'd ever
hated anyone in her life.

   "That was pretty good," he said. He glanced aside at her.
"'Course it'll be better once you get to know what I like." He
grinned. "And you get to like me."

   After a moment she looked at him. "Can I see to my son now?"
she asked.

  "No." He sounded annoyed.

  "Please, he's just a little boy."

   He rolled over onto her; quick as a striking snake his hand
was on her throat, choking her. "Listen," Sam hissed. "I think
kids are vermin. I think anyone who would have a kid after
Judgment Day is a criminal." He squeezed harder. "Am I clear?"

  She nodded as well as she could, forming "yes" with her lips.
He let her go and rolled onto his back.

   "Now you spoiled my good mood," he said. "Get the fuck away
from me."
    Mary rose and picked up her clothes, then paused, wondering
if she could get away with dressing before she left.

   "And stay away from that kid, hear? Now get out!"

   She ducked out of the tent and dressed quickly. As she was
tugging down her shirt, Jeff sauntered over.

   "Hey, sugar, don't get all dressed yet," he said, grinning.

   "Jeff!" Sam bellowed from inside the tent. "Go fuck yourself,
or Mona. Leave 'er alone."

  Jeff glared at Mary in a way that made her feel that from now
on, if he could do her a bad turn, he would. Then he walked
away.

   Shit, she thought wearily. Shit, shit, shit.
                                ***

   They'd been walking east for five days now, passing the
occasional cluster of deserted farms, a number of small towns
falling apart in slow motion, and once, in the distance, the
charred ruins of a city. Most of the people they saw had been
dead a long time. But once they crossed the path of some gypsies.
That was what they were called anyway. Just people who took to
the road hoping to find a place better than the one they were in,
and kept on going since there was no such place.

   They were mostly harmless, though criminals of opportunity;
thieves and traders. They were welcome everywhere for a day or
two, then they were welcome to leave. The resistance left them
alone, or on occasion lent them a hand. For which the gypsies
sometimes gave them intel at a cut rate.

   This group had two wagons, three broken-down horses, and a
mule. It looked like they were a single extended family with four
older people, six adults in all, and seven children of various ages.
They seemed like the kind of people who had survived rather
than thrived even before Judgment Day.

   The instant he saw them Sam lifted his assault rifle and began
firing. Jeff and Mona joined in with cries of glee. The mules
made their displeasure known by dancing and, in the case of the
one Sam was riding, essaying a buck or two. He whacked it on
the side of its head with the stock of his gun. Mary was too
stunned at first to move, and it wasn't until the mule bumped
her that she got out of its way.

   She watched the gypsies fall. They'd barely had time to
scream, let alone be afraid. Mary started forward a step when
the children began to drop, then forced herself to stop. There was
nothing she could do, except hope that Sam hadn't noticed that
one step. Suddenly she became aware that someone was firing
from a small copse of trees to the southeast. Retreating behind
the mule, she tried to tell Sam.

   A rocket, immediately followed by another, roared from the
trees, striking the two wagons and turning them and the animals
into flaming debris. The smell of burning flesh frightened the
mules, and the Luddites had all they could do to keep them
under control for a few minutes. Leo held on to the pack mules'
reins for dear life, but he never took his eyes off the copse for a
moment.

  "What's your problem, asshole?" Mona bellowed. She skipped
back from Jeff's mule and swatted it on the rump.

  "Shut up!" Sam said, in a stage whisper. "It's one of them."

  "Has to be," Jeff said, looking as white as paste.

  Mona looked toward the copse and went still, swallowing
hard.

   Watching them, Mary became even more afraid. If these
vicious killers were frightened of whoever hid in the trees, there
was even more reason for her to be afraid. She looked up into
Kyle's terrified eyes and wanted nothing more than to grab him
and run. But she knew she wouldn't get two paces before they
killed her. If she waited to see what happened, she might live. A
slim chance at survival was better than none. Especially since her
death assured Kyle's.
   The trees began to thrash, and then to lean forward, as a
massive machine lurched out of the copse on caterpillar treads.
It was at least sixteen feet high, and from a distance looked
narrow. Its entire front was a wall of gun ports and to either side
were missile launchers, the missiles themselves racked on its
sides. There were spotlights atop its turret and no doubt its body
was packed with ammunition. It trundled toward them with
surprisingly little sound. It crushed some of the gypsy children's
bodies as it came on, causing Mary to wince, but she kept silent.
Finally it stopped.

  "Luddite Patrol A-36," Sam barked. "Sam Marshall,
AS-783490 commanding."

  The machine was silent. All of the humans remained silent
and immobile, waiting for its response.

   "Patrol A-36," the machine said in a slight Austrian accent. A
red laser spot appeared on Mary's chest. "What is this?"

   "This prisoner is a medic," Sam explained. "Standing orders
are to acquire such persons and convey them to the camp."

  "And this?" The red spot appeared on Kyle's forehead.

   "This is the prisoner's offspring," Sam said. "By retaining him,
she becomes more tractable and less inclined to suicide."

   Mary stared at him. What had happened to the good ol' boy
she knew and loathed?

   The machine was quiet and still for so long it might have been
turned off. None of them made that assumption, though. Mary
had the impression that if the machine didn't answer until the
following morning, then sunrise would find the humans in
exactly these positions.

  "Acceptable," the machine said at last. "Carry on, A-36." It
backed up slightly, turned, and moved back down the road.

   Sam motioned them forward, riding the mule carefully
around the flaming wreckage. No one spoke; no one but Mary
and Kyle watched the killing machine trundle away.

  They'd been walking for at least half an hour before Mary got
up the courage to ask Sam, "What was that?"

   He didn't answer for a long time, riding on without even
looking down at her. They rode and walked on for a mile or more
before he spoke. "That was a Hunter-Killer machine," he said at
last. "Its job is to seek out humans and destroy them."

   Mary looked at him. "I thought, from the way you were all
acting, that it was going to kill you."

   Sam's lips thinned. "Sometimes they do. But we're all good
Luddites," he said. "We've had ourselves fixed. So there's no need
to kill us; we won't be breedin' anytime soon and we're good at
our jobs. That's what makes this patrol an A unit."

  "Oh," she said.

  They walked on for several more miles before she began to
notice a definite industrial tang in the air.

  "We're almost there," Mona called out.

   Sam called a halt and pulled an instrument out of his pocket.
He tapped a code into it and they waited. After five minutes
there was a chime from the unit and they started forward again.
Shortly thereafter they walked up a hill, and when Mary came
panting to the top, she stopped breathing altogether in shock.

   Before her, in what once must have been a small valley, was a
single one-story building. It must have been two miles square by
three. Smoking chimneys appeared every five hundred feet or so
and there were towers at each corner and a small satellite dish
every thousand feet. The whole structure was surrounded by a
wire fence, which had guard towers every fifty feet. It was ugly
and had a thrown-together look, common to all completely
utilitarian buildings. She hated it on sight.

  "It's a lot worse inside," Sam said.
   She looked up at him and could have sworn she saw pity on
his face. Maybe that's why he wears those glasses, she thought.
              CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
   CORUNA, MEXICD THREE YEARS LATER

   The Terminator turned its head toward the ill-defined heat
signature, trying to refine its focus. After a few seconds, when
the brightness refused to become distinct, it turned away. Its
processors told it that the bright mass was probably rock with a
high metal content still hot from the recently set sun. It was the
last evaluation the Terminator would ever make, because its
neural net processor was completely wrong.

    John grinned as he raised his head from behind the rock and
watched the Terminator turn away. Snog's new gizmo might not
have much staying power, but it was a real lifesaver while it did
last. It offered a false signal for a space of about four feet around
its wearer, evening out the heat signals, making the body appear
a bright, amorphous mass, such as might be left behind by an
explosion. He carefully lined up the Terminator's head; the
plasma bolt struck in a beam of actinic light, and the hard
resistant alloy of the thing's skull turned into a strobing mass of
molten gobbets and burning gas.

   John's night-vision goggles automatically turned the
brightness down; he rolled to another rock—always displace after
you shoot— then flipped the switch on his unit and moved
forward.

   Others moved forward with him, the HQ strike unit. They
went from rock to rock across the stony hillside, scattered with
chamisos and cactus. The night air smelled of the herbal scents
of desert shrubs, and of ozone and hot metal as bolts split the
darkness.

    It was unusual for John to do fieldwork these days. Most of
what he did now was plan and organize and give orders. Actually
carrying a rifle into the fray? He honestly didn't have the time for
it.
  But in this case, nothing would have kept him out of it. His
mother was in trouble.

   From out of nowhere a spring box leaped up before him,
multiple legs reaching, acid-filled hypo already exposed. John
swung the butt of his plasma rifle like a baseball bat, knocking
the thing flying and followed up with a blast that turned it to
melting parts—one of which stung his arm through the coarse
strong fabric of his uniform. He swore and batted it away; the
cooling metal crackled as it spun away, leaving a discolored spot
on his sleeve.

   Up until now most of the Central and South American
auto-factories had mainly produced these small but quite deadly
killers. They were very simple, with very simple programming:
the mechanical equivalent of a weasel. Leap up from the front,
inject the heart with hydrochloric acid; leap up from the back,
inject the brain. Small, cheap, and easy to produce, their only
defect from Skynet's point of view was that they could kill only
one human at a time.

   And so Skynet had slowly expanded its smaller
south-of-the-border factories until they could produce full-scale
HKs and Terminators. The resistance had taken out the factories
that they knew about, but knowing they would, Skynet had built
many more of them, not always in remote areas. The HKs had
seemed to come out of nowhere and twenty small villages had
been destroyed before the resistance in Mexico had even been
able to get the word out.

   The attackers crested a rise; the maps said it was an
abandoned lead-silver mine, with an equally deserted village
gradually crumbling back into the adobe mud it had been made
from.

   Instead, it was seething with not-life. Before him, John could
see the ground moving, a glittering ripple as the tiny robot killers
came forward, and his stomach clenched. There was something
about an infestation like this that brought the hair up on the
back of his neck and made him want to kill mindlessly. He swept
the plasma beam from right to left and back again, retreating
before the tide of them, cursing as the rifle began to burn his left
hand through the insulated forestock.

   Beside him a soldier came up and swept the ground with a
low-tech—but for this operation, equally effective—flamethrower.
His heart beating overtime, John put up his rifle. He should save
the batteries for the big killers. Skynet was keeping them back,
sending in these little monsters to wear the resistance fighters
down and to use up their ammunition.

   Not gonna work, John thought. When's the damn thing
gonna learn? If the future wasn't something he could change
significantly, then neither could Skynet. The humans were going
to win. Not yet. Probably not for a long time, but piece by piece,
bit by bit, they were gaining ground. Biologicals had a distinct
advantage over the machines. They could reproduce without
having to mine, refine, transport, mold, and construct
themselves; the biosphere took care of that.

   The soldier stopped spraying and the two of them waited to
see if anything would come out of the flames. When nothing
moved, they did, cautiously making their way through the
burned parts. Stepping on an acid-filled needle would be a
stupid way to lose your foot.

   According to reconnaissance, the factory was in this basin.
John gripped his rifle a bit tighter. It had been a long time since
the factories were easy targets. Skynet didn't rely on keeping
them remote anymore; it would fight the resistance for this
factory with all its power.

   John ducked down when he saw the lights. HKs had huge
spotlights mounted on the top of their metallic carapaces, not
that they needed them. Like the Terminators, they had IR
sensors that tracked by body heat. But there was something
about those huge lights that intimidated, and distracted, and,
unfortunately, rendered night-vision goggles less effective.

   John flipped his own up. "HKs," he said succinctly, informing
everyone in the network that Skynet was sending in the big guns.

   He relayed coordinates so that their own big guns could
respond to the threat.
    It was better when the things were destroyed sight unseen.
Skynet liked, on occasion, to bind prisoners, or bodies, or both to
the machines. Not knowing which was which tended to make
firing on them difficult. Even though those manning the guns
knew they were not in any kind of position to save those people,
still, they would hesitate. It had been one of Skynet's many
psychological experiments.

   The problem is, John thought, every time it does something
like this and we have to act against our own instincts, we lose
something of our humanity.

  War, Dieter had told him, tended to do that. But in John's
opinion, Skynet, through trial and error, was making them all
more machinelike.

   "What are we going to be like when this is over?" John had
asked.

  "Happier," Dieter replied. "In the meantime, we have to do
what we must to survive."

   John ducked behind an outcropping of rock and waited for
the HK to make its appearance. You'd think they'd have learned
not to outline themselves against the skyline, John thought. But
then, there wasn't any other route the big machine could take
out of the valley where it had been manufactured.

    The rocket screamed by his position and John curled into a
fetal position, trusting his armor to catch any fragments and his
luck to save him from the explosion. The detonation was about
fifteen yards in front of him and the concussion felt like someone
hitting him hard on the back, pushing the air out of his lungs.
The heat was briefly intense.

   He rolled back to see the machine trundle forward a few more
meters, most of its top half blown away, the bottom a furnace. It
rolled away, mindless and blind. Behind it, illuminated by the
flames, came a gleaming squad of T-90s, the skeletal
Terminators, red eye sensors gleaming, grinning with
human-shaped teeth.
   John barked an order and the artillery behind him opened fire
again—25mm chain guns this time, mounted on Humvees. The
killing machines scattered like bowling pins in the blast, parts
twinkling away like stars in flight. Those on the outside of the
explosion were struck dormant for a few seconds. Stooped over,
John ran forward and shot a blast into the head of the nearest
Terminator. The one beyond it came slowly back to life, found its
plasma rifle by feel, and began to raise it.

    A burst of fire blinded it and John himself fired again,
destroying it. He turned to the soldier with the flamethrower and
found it was a young woman—no, a girl. If she was more than
fifteen, he'd be amazed.

   "Thanks," he said briefly, feeling suddenly senior. "Sweep
these bushes; confuse their sensors so that we can move in under
cover."

  "Yes, sir."

   She went to work and in moments the heat was almost more
than he could stand. He was squinting, lips pulled back from his
teeth in a grimace. But the girl had her visor down and what
expression he could see was serene. It was weird to feel safe
enough to bring his people through in all this light, but the
machines had difficulty adjusting their sensors to this much
heat. John gave the order and men and women came streaming
through, scattering over the rocky terrain.

   "Careful," he said. "Spring boxes." You could almost feel the
tension go up. Everybody hated those things.

  Below, an HK moved into position.

   "Clear the gap," John shouted, and soldiers dived away from
the rise and the burning bushes; he rolled down the hill toward
the factory, stopping himself by grabbing onto a low-growing
bush.

   The Hunter-Killer fired and the ground behind him heaved
and burned in the blast, the rocks themselves melting. It moved
forward and John could tell that it was going to sweep the
ground behind him in descending arcs. Even blind, that would
allow it to do maximum damage.

   "Fire!" he shouted. That blast would give the artillery some
idea of trajectory.

  All around the HK were Terminators, also blind, no doubt.
They would wait for their big brother to finish; then they would
come forward to mop up any resistance.

   Only two HKs, John thought. And none of the flying kind,
thank God.

   But what did it mean? Why was the factory so lightly
guarded? His eyes went to the factory itself. The outer surface
was honeycombed with little rectangular slots for the spring
boxes; it looked like some kind of high-tech nest. The thought
made him swallow. On the roof were antennae that would
directly connect it to Skynet.

  No doubt the bastard is watching this right now, he thought.
He got some satisfaction in knowing that Skynet wasn't seeing
any more than its creatures could show it. Lots of white heat
haze and black background, and the same thing from orbit.

    The factory was small up top, but he knew from experience
that it could go down as many as six levels. A place like this
would probably have no human slaves. They'd check, just to be
sure, but there had been no signs of cultivation, as there usually
were when humans were present. Nor any sign of a waste dump.
Still. Skynet was a tricky bugger. And these days every human
life was of value.

  And now for the really tricky question, he thought. Now, if I
were my mom, where would I be?

   "Major Hopkins," he said aloud. "Standard attack on the
factory. Give me a schematic—is there an outlying relay com
dish?"

  "Yes, sir. Just about… here."
   The data came in over John's optic; he noted it, and matched
the view to the terrain. "Which means Mom is over there," he
said. "HQ squad, follow me!"

   An IR scan showed a thermal bloom halfway up another one
of the endless rocky hills; there was another on top, where the
melted remains of a transmission tower showed.

   Good tactics, Mom, he thought. Taking that out would reduce
the enemy's coordination throughout the area. Getting trapped
in a cave, not so hot.

   The ruins of the machines were thick about the entry to the
cave; which meant Sarah's squad was probably about out of
charge and ammo.

  "Mortars," he said. "Gimme a strike on the following
position."
                              ***

   Sarah was propped up against a rock outcropping, giving
orders to a young man who knelt on one knee by her side. A
medic was just fitting her arm into a sling.

  "AH!" Sarah barked. She glared at the medic, then, turning
away, sullenly apologized.

    There was a large bandage wrapping the greater part of her
shoulder, showing a seepage of blood at the center, and burn
cream glistened on her neck and upper arm. Dark circles
surrounded her eyes like shiners, but it was exhaustion and too
little food that had put them there.

   When the soldier and the medic became aware of John
standing there, they murmured "excuse me" and moved away.
Sarah smiled up at him, then closed her eyes and leaned her
head against the rock.

  "Thank God you're here," she said quietly.

  "Thank God you're here," he responded. He shook his head.
"Mom—"
  "Don't start," she cut in. "I'm not in the mood. This could have
happened to anybody."

   That was true, he knew. It wasn't bad leadership or foolish
bravado that had gotten her into this scrape. She was still one of
the best field commanders in the resistance. But she was hurt,
and she was his mother.

   Sighing, John dropped cross-legged beside her. Just sitting
and looking at her, and waiting for her to open her eyes. For a
moment he thought that she actually dropped off to sleep and he
felt a bit guilty, as though he'd been unfairly pressuring her.
Then he steeled his resolve. If she was asleep he'd wait until she
woke up, even if it took all night.

   By which time I'll be asleep and she'll decide to wait for me,
then she'll fall asleep again. He smiled, and waited. In a few
moments she struggled to open her eyes and smiled at him. It
made her look years younger.

   "I think I dropped off there. I wasn't sure if I'd dreamed you
or not."

  "You did. Drop off, I mean." He reached out and placed his
hand on her head, stroking the hair back from her brow. "How
bad are you hurt?"

   "Don't know yet," she said. "It'll take a real doctor to tell me
that. Hurt enough to really want a painkiller." Sarah looked
puzzled. "Did that kid give me one?"

   "I'll find out," he said, and rose.

   He came back in a few minutes with something in his fist. He
sat down again, and taking up her canteen, unscrewed the top
and poured some water into it. Then he offered her a pill.

   "Codeine," he said.

   "Ah, codeine is our friend," Sarah said, and popped it, taking
the cap and swallowing the water. "I feel better just knowing I'll
feel better."
   He smiled, but in a worried way. "Mom, I've been thinking."

  "Good," she said. "You make a mother proud. Keep that up
and we'll all get through this."

   He grinned. "I've been thinking about you."

   She sighed and signaled him to go on.

   "Mom, I think it's time you died."

   She turned wide eyes on him. "Hello?"

  "Not really," he said quickly, smiling. "Look, Mom, you're
badly hurt here. It might be an incapacitating injury, which
means your fieldwork days may be through. I think it's time you
went home."

   "Home?" she said, as if she'd never heard the word. Sarah
pushed herself up a bit, gritting her teeth as she did so. John
made to reach for her, but she warned him off with a look.
"Where exactly is home?" Sarah raised her brows. "Paraguay?
L.A. perhaps?"

   He pressed his lips together and smiled. "Home, for you, is
where Dieter is. And since his injury, Dieter has been in
Washington State training people. He could use your help. And I
think you'd like to see him again."

   "You know I would," Sarah agreed. "But you also know that
there's still a lot to do."

  "I'm not proposing that you retire, Mom. Not that you ever
would. I'm saying that maybe it's time you stopped fieldwork."

   "Before I make a fool of myself?"

    "More like before you get killed. I think you're too valuable.
One of the things you do best is train. Look at me," he said,
flinging his arms wide.

  She grinned. "Yeah, the Great Military Leader Dickhead." She
nodded sagely. "That's my work."
   "You bet it is. I also need you to run herd on Snog. He and his
gang are getting into some very weird tribal stuff. You're the only
human being on the planet that scares him enough to rein him
in." John paused and chewed his lower lip for a moment before
he continued. "I also think that we need a martyr."

  Sarah raised her brows. "Oh, really?"

   "Yup. See, I think that people need to be reminded what
they're fighting for. And I think that bringing your story"—he
looked sympathetically at his mother—"your struggle, before
them will remind them that there is hope."

   She frowned. "Maybe I'm tired, but I still don't see why I have
to actually die."

   "Well," he snorted, "you don't actually die. We'll just say you
did and give you a new identity."

  "Uh-huh. Did I miss the why part?"

   "Because if you just sort of semiretire, I'm afraid that people
will be reminded how long this thing has been going on and how
long it might well continue. Which, as you can see, would be a
real downer."

   "And my death would be a signal to party. Yeah, sure, I can
see that."

   "Mom. Your death would make you a saint." He paused. "A
legend."

   She blinked. "Oh." It was what Kyle had called her. The
legend. Sarah looked up at John with tears in her eyes. "I see."

  He patted her hand. "Why don't you sleep on it tonight."

   Yawning hugely, she tried to speak. Then repeated, "I don't
think I have any choice in that. Codeine's kicking in. G'night."
She moved her lips in a kiss and sank under the drug.

  John sat and watched her for a long time. The medic came
and checked her, nodded positively at John—which was a
relief—and went away. The rest of the battle was routine; the
only real question was how many casualties they'd take, and how
much productive gear they could capture—and how much they
could make sure wasn't booby-trapped.

   He thought he'd convinced her. At least he hoped he had. The
last thing he wanted was to make her mad. But she needed time
to recover from this wound, if she ever did. And he saw no reason
why that recuperation shouldn't happen in Dieter's vicinity. And
once there she'd be able to see how much she was needed there.
He thought he'd convinced her about the legend thing, too. At
least he hoped so.

   It took time to become a legend and Kyle was already ten
years old. John sighed. Even though he thought this move was
necessary, he disliked the dishonesty of it. The "first" time,
maybe his mother really had died in this cave. But since, thank
God, she hadn't… now was the time to remove her from
immediate danger.

   His aide came and tapped John's shoulder, waking him from
a doze. With a last fond look at Sarah's sleeping face, he rose and
followed the soldier to where his people were waiting to make
their reports.

  MISSOURI

   The clinic was ill lit, small, and not very clean. But given the
supplies they had, the three-nurse staff had managed to save a
fair number of lives in the three years Mary Reese had been
there. There were patients in three of the five beds, two with the
mystery fevers that tended to afflict the prisoners here. One with
a nasty injury from having his hand dragged into some
machinery.

   Mary was changing the man's bandages and thinking about
the days when microsurgery might have saved his hand. The
accident had only happened yesterday and so far infection hadn't
set in. That, at least, was good. But if the hand didn't heal and
the man couldn't work, he was doomed.
   Stretcher bearers rushed in with a man who was badly burned
around the head and upper body. He was unconscious and
apparently quite heavy.

  "Where do we put him?" one of the men barked.

   Mary gestured to an examining table and took a second look
at them. They were unfamiliar and, she noticed for the first time,
not wearing the prisoner's uniform of baggy gray cotton shirt
and pants. They were dressed for the outdoors, wearing
cammies. The stretcher bearers put the patient down on the
table, and abandoning the stretcher, scurried away as though
afraid of getting caught someplace they weren't supposed to be.

  Mary met the eyes of Tia Nevers, her assistant, a young black
woman whose very short hair molded a beautifully shaped skull.

  "What the hell was that all about?" Tia muttered.

  "My thoughts exactly," Mary agreed. She quickly finished with
her patient and went over to their sink to wash her hands.

   Then she brought some warm soapy water over to the
examining table and began to briskly wash off the man's face
and head. Tia brought scissors and started clipping off the
burned hair, clearing his scalp for treatment.

  "Looks to me like a plasma beam passed pretty close to this
boy," Tia said.

   Mary nodded. "It does, doesn't it? Which makes me wonder
what he's doing here." The HKs didn't routinely round up the
wounded for treatment. They were much more likely to crush
them under their treads. Was he resistance? If so, what evil plan
was Skynet working on?

   She scrubbed, as gently and as quickly as possible, and the
soot came off the man's face unwillingly. At last she'd cleared the
better part of his countenance and suddenly she recognized him.
Shock froze her and she stood with the dripping cloth in her
hand, staring.
   Tia looked up at her from where she had been cutting his
shirt off and then glanced at the patient. "Holy shit!" she hissed.
"I know this bastard! He's a goddamned Luddite! His name is
Sam." She stood back from the table and looked at Mary.
"What's he doing here?"

   Mary looked around and leaned toward her friend. "I don't
think he is supposed to be here. Those guys took off like a shot
once they'd dropped him. At a guess, I'd say Skynet is starting to
liquidate its human followers."

   The other woman looked at Sam like he was a half-squashed
bug and pulled her lips back from her teeth. "Gooood," she said.
Tia threw down the scissors and started to walk away.

  "Hold it!" Mary grabbed her arm.

  Tia swept Mary's hand away with a stroke and glared at her.
"He killed my husband," she said coldly. "No way am I treating
him." She met Mary's eyes. "You can't ask me to do that."

   "First of all," Mary said, "he's the first person from outside
this place that I've seen in two years. He can tell us what's going
on."

   "He's a Luddite, Mary! You can't trust anything those assholes
say!"

  "Second, he's badly burned; there's very little we can do but
make him comfortable."

   "I'm not givin' that bastard our painkillers. Let him suffer like
he's made other people suffer." She glared defiance at her friend.

  "We can't do that," Mary said. She looked at Tia
sympathetically.

   Tia rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes we can!" She compressed her lips
and moved a step closer to Mary. Looking down, she said softly,
"That… thing raped me while my dying husband watched." Then
she looked up. "I won't lift a finger to help him. Not one finger!"
  Mary grabbed her arm and gave her a shake. "Yes, you will!"

   Tia stared at her, taken aback. "And why is that?" she finally
asked.

   "Because you're better than he is. Because you're a healer. And
because we are not going to give Skynet that kind of victory over
us." This time she took a step closer, her gaze boring into Tia's
startled eyes. "Because we have to hang on to every shred of
humanity we've got. Because every time we do that, it's a victory
over Skynet. I can't keep that thing from killing my body, but I
will never let it kill my soul!"

   Tia pulled her head back and looked at her. "Oh," she said.
She blinked a few times, then added, "Then I guess I'd better
finish cuttin' off that shirt."

   "I guess you better." Mary felt as surprised as Tia looked.
Where did that come from? she wondered. She went back and
picked up the cloth, and continued washing away the soot.

   All they had to treat him with was some
over-the-counter-style antibiotic cream. It was past its use-by
date and they didn't have much of it, but it was probably better
than the nothing they'd be using otherwise. Mary doubted that
he was going to make it.

  Looks like getting sterilized wasn't enough, she thought
contemptuously.
                               ***

   Every day Mary left some of her dinner and a short note for
Kyle in a different place. The next location was mentioned in the
note, which usually said only, "I love you." Once or twice a year
she might chance actually talking to him and she tried to get a
glimpse of him every week.

   It was hard, but it was safer. They hadn't been in the factory a
week before they realized that if anyone showed a partiality for
another then that person might have to bear punishment for the
transgressor. Since the transgression might well be imaginary
Mary told Kyle that she would always love him and would try to
help him, but that she was going to keep her .distance. Even at
seven, he'd seen enough to understand.

   She walked along; then, so quickly it was hard to see, she left a
small bundle on a hidden shelf. Yet, before she could withdraw
her hand, a smaller hand caught her wrist. Startled, she looked
to the dark slot between machines and saw her son. She smiled
and sat down, pretending to remove a stone from her shoe.

  "Are you all right?" she whispered.

  "Yeah. Just wanted to hear your voice."

   She held the shoe up in a way that allowed her to turn in his
direction. She could see a smudged face and bright eyes. She
grinned in pure pleasure and hid it with a grimace. "Good to see
you," she said, trying not to move her lips. "I love you."

  He smiled. "Love you, too, Mom."

  She turned the shoe over and pretended to be prying at
something. "Everything all right?"

   "Except for being here, yeah." His face wore a rebellious
expression. "I want, I need, to see the sun, Mom. I can't stand
this much longer."

  She stopped fiddling with the shoe and looked at him. "Do not
panic," she said sternly. "And don't do anything foolish."

  "I think I know a way out," he whispered. "I could find Dad
and bring help."

   "You need information about what it's like out there," Mary
said, returning to picking at her shoe. "I think I can get it for
you, but it might take some time. You have to wait."

   He looked at her for a moment. "I'm not sure I believe you," he
finally said.

  Mary half smiled, and looked up at him from under her
eyebrows. "Yeah, I've led you astray so many times. How could
you possibly trust me?"

   It distressed him, and he kind of wiggled, looking all over the
place before his gaze returned to her, whereupon he frowned.

  "They brought Sam into the clinic today," she said.

  "Who?"

  That made her blink. "Sam. The guy who caught us,
remember?"

   He nodded slowly, his eyes big. "You're helping him?" His
voice indicated total disbelief, as though she'd suggested that she
and one of the machines were going to have a baby.

   Mary gave him a very serious look, a hard look. "I'm going to
pump him for information," she said. "I think I can get him to
tell me the truth. Once we have some information, we'll know
how to proceed."

   Kyle looked at her with the eyes of desperation. "Mom," he
said, "I need—"

   "I know," she said quickly. "I really do know exactly how you
feel. But you've got to give me some time. Meet me beside the
stampers in a week. Same time." She looked at him, willing him
to agree.

  He got up and began to withdraw. "I'll be there," he said.
Then he was gone.

  Mary fiddled with her shoe a bit more, then put it on and
went on her way.
                               ***

    The next day—morning to Mary, though it could be midnight
in the world outside—she glanced around and saw that the hand
injury was gone. According to his chart, which she found in the
file, he'd been removed during the night shift. Glad I wasn't here
, she thought. Nothing that happened here was uglier than
"removals."

   The two fever cases were resting, both of their fevers had
broken during the night. Nothing needed there, she thought
with satisfaction. She found Sam awake and hyperalert with
pain. His heart was hammering at a hundred forty beats a
minute and he was shuddering violently, his teeth chattering
uncontrollably.

   "Gimme something for the pain!" he demanded through
clenched teeth. "Now!"

   Mary checked his chart; he was certainly due for something,
overdue in fact. Looks like Sam had another satisfied customer
on the staff last night. She nodded. "Okay, looks like you're due."

  "And turn the heat up; it's freezing."

   She looked at him with pity. "You're cold because you've been
badly burned. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to help you
there." She ignored the impatient sound he made and went to
get him some codeine. "How did this happen to you?" she asked
over her shoulder.

  "Accident."

   She looked over at him. His eyes were closed and he
shuddered, but she could see he was trying to contain it. Mary
tightened her lips. He was pitiful, but she couldn't let him see
that. "Oh, right," she said. "It must have been an accident
because no machine would ever deliberately harm a human."

  "Fuck you," he said.

   She stood over him, pill in one hand, glass of water in the
other. "You know what, Sam? You're not supposed to be here.

   Your guys rushed you in here and then dropped you like a hot
potato. Here, in the prisoners' clinic. Think about that." She
leaned toward him. "I don't think they thought your accident
was an accident."
   "Fuck you," he snarled.

  "Redundant," she said. "But then, I guess you're not at your
best. What's it like out there?"

   "It's paradise." The look in his eyes was pure evil.

   "That must be why the machines thought they could dispose
of your services," Mary said lightly. She leaned forward again
and stage whispered, "Does it occur to you yet that turning the
world over to the machines might not be the best thing for the
birds, and the bees, and the bunnies?"

   "I hate you," Sam growled.

   "Gee, and I was gonna ask you to be my valentine. Do you
want this?" she asked, holding up the pill. His eyes went from it
to her face and he couldn't hide his desperation. It was a look
that made her feel sick and triumphant at the same time. "All
I've got is pills. Can you lift your head to take it and swallow
water?"

   He did so, straining visibly.

  "What is it like out there?" Mary asked, spacing her words.
She held the pill and the water ready.

  After a second he dropped his head down and closed his eyes.
"You bitch," he muttered, panting slightly.

   "Look," she said firmly. "Just answer me. What's the
difference? It's not like it's going to help me; I just want to know.
Tell me, and tell me the truth."

  He lay as still as he could, swallowing hard. She could see his
heart beating overtime.

   "What's the difference?" she asked, deadly quiet. He opened
his eyes and turned his head slightly. Tears trickled down his
cheek. "The difference is, if you don't answer me, or if I think
you're lying to me"—she held up the pill—"I'm going to put this
away."
  "I'm gonna tell them about that kid of yours," he said,
sneering as best he could.

  Mary put the pill and the water down, her heart pounding,
and picked up a pillow. She stood beside his bed.

  "I could always do you the favor of putting you out of your
misery," she said. "Mention the boy again. Go ahead. Mention
him." She could see that he saw the truth in her eyes; he turned
away, blinking.

  "Am I gonna make it?" he asked.

   Mary bit her lips. Then decided to tell him the truth. "No.
You're too badly wounded and we don't have anything like the
facilities for treating burns of this magnitude." She watched him
take that in.

  "They shoulda let me die," he said.

   "Yes, I guess they should have. But they didn't know that you
didn't have a chance and they wanted to give you one. They were
friends and they meant you well."

  "Stupid bastards."

   "Yeah, well. Thing is, you could last anywhere from forty-eight
hours to two weeks. Two long, long weeks. And I could help you.
Keep you as comfortable as possible; let you die with a little
dignity. Or I could just ignore you and let you die in your own
shit." She rolled her eyes thoughtfully. "Unlessss, you threaten
the boy again. In which case"—she tossed the pillow away—"this
is much too kind." Mary leaned close. "I know some very, very
painful ways to die, Sam."

  She shook her head sadly. "You don't have to go through this.
Just answer me. C'mon. Tell me what I want to know and I'll give
you the pill. Trust me, you'll feel a lot better."

   Mary stood back and waited. Soon he was shivering again, in
pain and from the effect of losing so much skin. Mary bit her lip.
Withholding medication went against everything she believed in.
She could only do it for Kyle, and because she despised this man.

   "There's fewer Luddites," he said at last, sounding out of
breath. "Most of my friends are gone."

  Mary rolled her eyes. Like I care, she thought.

   "There's tons more Terminators. Whole squads of 'em. They're
everywhere. And the HKs, they're bigger and better than ever.
Some of 'em can fly; they're deadly accurate, very heavy
weapons."

  "And they just 'happened' to get you by mistake," Mary said.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her, breathing heavily.

  "Go on," she said. "What about the resistance?"

   "They're still there. They're not winning, but they're not
losing, either. That's why they need us Luddites," he said, his
voice sounding plaintive. "We could infiltrate, spy, sabotage.
They'd never know what hit them."

   Oh, yes they would. "Skynet doesn't control you," she said
aloud. "If you'd turn on your own kind, you might turn on
Skynet. It could never trust you. And why should it, when it can
manufacture the perfect soldiers? To Skynet you're a risk not
worth taking."

  He closed his eyes again.

   "And Skynet will make the rest of the world just like this
valley. One unending industrial shed. Because it doesn't need
deer and elk and trees and free-running streams. It needs mines
and factories. It's going to make the world into your worst
nightmare. That's what all your work is going to amount to." She
watched him swallow and knew she'd hit the mark. "What's it
like up there, around this place?"

  He looked at her. Then he began to speak.
             CHAPTER NINETEEN
   MISSOURI

   Jack Brock came out of one of the cave complex's side tunnels
and almost ran into Dennis Reese, charging in the same
direction. The tunnels were a world of gray anyway—gray
uniforms, gray faces if you'd been underground long enough,
equipment painted with the new gray nonreflective paint that
baffled mechanical sensors. Like most resistance centers, this
one was also as much a gypsy encampment as a military center;
people were born and raised here as well as training in it, and
were sent out to fight from it. The air always bore a slight tang of
wood smoke, seldom-washed bodies, and cooking food.

   Reese stuck out his hand and Brock took it before he quite
recognized him. Captain Dennis Reese looked like his own father
might have, lean and grim and gray. It was hard to believe that
this was the smiling young man Jack had married to Mary Shea
just ten years ago.

   Reese's looks shocked the older man to silence as they walked
along, their boots rutching on the sand and rock of the cave
floor; once they had to stop for a second while a group of
screeching children ran by, playing some wild game—People and
Terminators, probably.

   He'd heard that Mary and Kyle's disappearance had hit Reese
hard, but he'd expected that time might have smoothed off some
of the rougher edges. It didn't look like that was the case, though.
What it looked like was a man eaten by his inner demons, and
ready to unleash hell at the slightest provocation.

   "It's good we're finally doing this," Reese said quietly as they
followed the aides.

   Brock knew that Reese had been agitating for a strike on the
Skynet factory for two years now. It had grown to be the largest
in the heartland and was possibly, at this moment, the greatest
threat to the resistance in North America. From the moment his
people had discovered it, Reese had insisted that it would be.

  I don't imagine he's getting much satisfaction in knowing he
was right, Jack thought. Especially knowing what a tough nut
this thing's going to be to crack.

   But Skynet was a canny machine. It had launched major
attacks in Europe and Africa, then, when those didn't prosper,
though Africa had been a near thing, it had launched a
campaign in Australia. It had continued the strategy to this day,
keeping the resistance off balance and shifting its small strategic
reserve of troops and high-quality weapons hopping across the
world. Rising in one area while it rebuilt in another. Now,
apparently, it was North America's turn.

  "He's here." That was Reese's commander, Colonel Symonds.

   The three men looked at one another. Having John Connor in
your mission was as good as saying, "We're going to win this
one." It wasn't an ironclad guarantee, but it was as close as you
were likely to get to one in this uncertain world. It gave the men
a good feeling.

  "How many people has he brought?" Reese asked.

   "Lots," the colonel said. "And a shitload of weaponry the like
of which these little outposts haven't seen since before Judgment
Day. Plus stuff that didn't exist before Judgment Day—those
captured factories are really starting to produce."

  Brock's grin was unstoppable. "It's like Christmas morning
and Santa has brought everything on my wish list."

   "And a couple of things I didn't even think of," Symonds
agreed.

   He and Brock glanced at Dennis, who wasn't smiling, but still
radiated satisfaction like heat. He'd long claimed that the factory
was the reason his wife and child had disappeared. Destroying it
was going to make him a very happy man.

   They continued on to the area that had been turned over to
Connor and his people. Jack found himself with butterflies in his
stomach. Amazing, considering he'd hosted John Connor when
he was a kid. At the time he'd considered the visit a kind of
babysitting job and had shamelessly used John's services to look
after his own daughter. Now here he was, sweaty-palmed at the
thought of shaking the man's hand. Funny how things turn out,
he thought.

   An aide met them at the entrance and led them to a
curtained-off area where John was just putting a piece of paper
onto a table dragged in for this conference. He looked up and
smiled; the scarred face had lost all trace of youth, and settled
into a weathered grimness that would probably remain much the
same until he reached his sixties.

  "Jack," he said. "Good to see you. How's Susie?"

   "Outshinin' her old man more every day," Brock said. He
extended his hand across the table and John took it in a firm
grip.

  "Colonel Symonds," John said, offering his hand. After they'd
shaken, Connor turned to look at Dennis Reese. He stared,
unmoving, looking him over from head to foot as though he was
some alien presence.

   Jack thought he didn't know who the captain was. "This is
Captain Dennis Reese," he said. "He heads up the outfit here in
the Ozarks."

  "Of course," John said, sitting down. "My apologies, Captain. I
went totally blank there for a moment. Please, have a seat,
gentlemen."

   Other commanders filed in and the seats were rapidly filled.
To Jack's surprise, John allowed two of the other men at the
table to describe the factory and to show satellite photos of its
rapid growth over the last six months. Then General Vedquam
outlined the plan of battle while his aide distributed the order of
battle to the others.

   Connor listened respectfully and asked a few questions. All
very nicely done, Brock thought. John allowed Vedquam, as the
leader in this area, to do the talking and to assume battlefield
command. But at the end of the day everyone at the table knew
who was really in charge. You could tell it by the questions he
chose to ask, never mind the deferential manner in which he
asked them. The man radiated authority.

  "What about the human presence?" John asked.

   "Some are Luddites," Vedquam said. "Though the Luddite
presence has decreased markedly in this area over the last year.
There are still a small number who seem to visit the facility,
apparently to get supplies." He put down his pointer and sat at
his place. "There are the usual signs of human habitation—small
vegetable gardens, unprocessed human waste, and the occasional
body. Going by the size of the food plots, we're assuming no more
than a hundred or so prisoners."

  "We'll need to be careful," John said.

  "Yes, sir. We've made certain that the troops will be advised."

   John slapped his hands down on the arms of his ancient office
chair gently. "Excellent," he said. "If there's nothing else we can
do here, I'm sure everyone has a mountain of work waiting for
them."

   Everyone rose, most talking with one of their counterparts,
and began to move from the makeshift conference area. Reese
and Brock followed behind Colonel Symonds. Jack turned before
they went through the curtain and saw John giving Dennis Reese
a most peculiar look. Then Connor noticed Brock watching him
and smiled. Jack smiled back, gave a thumbs-up, and turned
away. But the moment left him with the strangest feeling that
something beyond his ken was going on.
                               ***

   Kyle had company with him the next time Mary saw him.
Whether it was a girl or a boy was impossible to tell, not that it
mattered. The two of them were crouched down behind a
dormant stamping machine, quiet and still as the machine itself;
the dim-ness of the echoing metal halls stretched back into what
seemed like infinity, as if the whole world were a place of metal
and scurrying machines and fear, scented with the ozone reek of
terror.
  Mary crouched down near them. She wondered how far
Skynet monitored its prisoners. Did it know what the Luddite
had told her?

    "The resistance is still fighting," she said quietly. Kyle's eyes
brightened and he leaned forward excitedly. "But Skynet is
gearing up for a big push. It's built this place up." She frowned.
"You remember when we came in here, the whole valley was
filled with the factory?"

   Kyle nodded.

   "Well, the place is much bigger now. It goes on for miles
instead of acres, Sam says. There are people locked up there that
we've never seen."

   "Yes'm," Kyle said. "I knew that. There aren't a lot of people,
though. Most of the ones left are hereabouts."

   Mary looked at them. "Sounds like you've been all over the
place."

   The two children nodded.

   "So what is it that you kids do, exactly?"

   "We have chores," Kyle said. "Cleaning mostly. But where we
do 'em and how long we take's usually up to us."

  His mother shook her head in puzzlement. "Why would it let
you do that?"

   "I think it finds us interestin'," Kyle's friend said in a curiously
rough little voice. "The Terminators are al'ays lookin' at us, like
they's measurin' us. Y'know? When I's little I thought they's
gonna eat me when I got big enough."

   When you were little? Mary thought in wonder. The child
would barely top her waist. "Are either of your parents here?"
she asked gently.

   "No'm. My ma was here once. But I ent seen 'er for I don'
know how long. An' I looked. I looked all ober this place. 'Course I
cain't 'member what she looks like. 'Cept she had brown hair."

  "You'd know her if you saw her," Mary assured him/her.

  "Oh," Kyle said. "Mom, this is Jesse. Jesse, my mom."

    "Jesse," Mary said with a smile and a nod, getting a more
solemn nod in return. Not an awfully helpful name, she thought.
It could still be a boy or girl. I can't just ask, she would be
insulted. And I couldn't blame him/her.

   "Anyway," she said aloud, "Sam says that Skynet is getting
ready for a big push and that it's really active around the factory.
Lots of HKs and Terminators all over the place. He was burned,
he says, because he wasn't quick enough giving his designation.
So they're looking to kill right now, not to take prisoners." She
bit her lip, looking at both of them, so young, so fragile. "I don't
think this is a good time to try and get away."

  "Mom…"

  "Something is going to happen!" she insisted. "Soon."

   "Something is happening right now!" Kyle said. "Mom, I'm
goin' crazy in here! And you don't know what the new place is
like. I do!"

  "All right, tell me," she said calmly.

   "This place is old; it's made so people can help the machines.
But the new place is made so the machines run each other. Jesse
and me can barely squeeze through most places. And there's no
people. Not a one." He was breathing hard in his distress. "And
there's fewer people here all the time. You don't know that
because you grown-ups aren't allowed to go places like we are.
There's no new people, Mom. Not ever."

  "We have to go now, ma'am," Jesse said gravely.

   Out of the mouths of babes, Mary thought. "Okay. Just let me
see if I can at least get us some water to take with us, and maybe
some food." And maybe Tia and Sally.

   Then she looked at her son and decided to be selfish. The
fewer who knew about this, the less chance of betrayal or
accident. She didn't like it, but when it came to Kyle, she had to
be ruthlessly practical. It was the only sure way to keep him
alive.
                                 ***

   "Well, this is a real battle," Dennis Reese said, a little
surprised.

   John Connor smiled a little, squatting, grim and silent, with
the rest of the command group around a thin-film display
beneath dead hickories—killed by the acid efflux from the Skynet
Complex three miles away.

  A line of actinic light lanced into the sky from a crew-served
weapon nearby, and high overhead in the frosty blue sky
something blew up in an improbable strobing ball of purple fire.

   "Damn," Reese muttered.

   "Mostly it doesn't try to use high-fliers anymore," Connor
said, not looking up from the screen. "Not when we've got heavy
plasma rifles available." He smiled again, a remarkably cold
expression. "You know, it would be a lot better off if it had stuck
to pre-Judgment Day designs. Plasma weapons and perfect
dielectric capacitors are wonderful equalizers—lots of punch, not
much weight."

   "It has them, too," Reese pointed out.

   "Yeah, but it doesn't need them," Connor said. "Anything can
kill a human. It takes something pretty energetic to kill most of
Skynet's ground-combat modules."

   Columns of troops were moving up in the narrow wooded
valleys that stretched all around them, local guerrillas and the
assault troops John Connor had infiltrated over the past few
months. They were sheltered by the crest lines. Sheltered until—
   The warning came through the communications net a minute
or two before they could hear the roar of the ducted fans. The
command squad jumped into their slit trenches, barely slowing
in their job of coordinating the resistance units; everyone in the
marching columns hit the dirt, too. Around the perimeter were
pre—Judgment Day vehicles, mostly four-by-fours of various
makes; each of them had a light antiaircraft missile launcher
mounted on it.

   The RRRRAAK-shwoosh! of the missiles sounded almost the
instant the Skynet fighting platforms cleared the crest lines.
Lines of light stabbed out from the fighting machines as they
launched missiles and plasma bolts of their own, but one by one
the twisting lines of the heat-seeking missiles found them.

  "Of course, some of the old technology still works," Reese said.

   His eyes met John Connor's. They nodded once, in perfect
agreement, as the ruins of the HKs burned on the poisoned
hillsides.

  SKYNET

   Things were at a desperate juncture. Skynet needed to drive
the human fighters from the factory or it would inevitably lose
the facility. If worse came to worst and it seemed that nothing
would save the factory, Skynet had developed a recent
innovation—a self-destruct sequence that would eliminate the
plant and everything in it as well as obliterating several miles of
surrounding countryside. ICBMs might be beyond its capacity to
produce, but nuclear bombs were simply a matter of putting
together the right materials.

   It had set a part of its consciousness into a planning
subroutine that would give it maximum advantage in the
productivity of its factories before the humans discovered and
moved against them. If it could determine the point at which
they would make their move against the factories, it might be
able to influence how many of them would become
involved—luring in the greatest number for the kill. Thus if
Skynet lost, then so did its enemies.
  Of course, the resistance fighters would quickly learn the
consequences of an attack on a major facility such as this one.
But by then it would be too late for a great many of them.

   In this case, the humans had taken far longer to act than had
been projected. Skynet had assumed that it was the presence of
hostages within the facility that had held the humans at bay. For
this reason it had continued to harbor the one hundred and
three individuals long after they were no longer needed for
productive purposes.

   It couldn't see why, after all this time, the hostages had
suddenly become unimportant to the invaders. Unless they never
had been important and Skynet had been wrong about them
from the beginning.

    Its problem was that it could never truly predict human
behavior. It could predict to certain percentage points, but never
closely enough for certainty. That was why it had decided to
retire its Luddite allies rather than use them as infiltrators. They
could not be relied upon completely. It kept those Luddites that
it had maintained isolated and heavily guarded, and they were
working out splendidly. But that wasn't an option in field
operations.

   Hence its improvements in its Terminators. There were
difficulties to overcome, but it estimated that in ten years or less
it would have a viable infiltrator form of the unit. Should this
conflict last that long.

   Skynet watched the human soldiers crawl through its factory,
and an ancient poem intruded itself: " 'Come into my parlor,'
said the spider to the fly." It would wait to initiate the destruct
sequence. It wanted the maximum number of flies to die.
                                ***

   Mary boosted Kyle up, pushing on the soles of his feet to get
his hips over the lip of the opening. All around them the
machines clattered and screamed and whirred as they performed
their various functions. She wished she had earplugs; the sounds
were deafening, an eternal shrill threnody of nonlife.
   Kyle had turned around and was offering his hands to give
Jesse some help. Mary stooped to pick the child up when
something shook the ground so hard they both fell. Around them
the machines stopped and there should have been silence, but
there were explosions and the whistle of rockets… and more
explosions, and the savage crackling shhhh-WHACK of plasma
bolts striking through their own self-created tunnels of ionized
air.

    Mary sat on the floor, listening. Then she stood and reached
for Kyle. "We have to get out of here," she said. "Going out there
is impossible. We wouldn't last two minutes in the middle of an
attack."

  "But, Mommm," Kyle protested.

   "I know, honey. We've come this far…" She shook her head.
"But sometimes you have to retreat. And this is one of those
times. Now come down! She hated to bark at him, but she had a
mental image of Terminators pouring out of all the openings
around them, and here they'd be where they weren't supposed to.

   Another massive explosion shook the ground, as if the
pavement were itself flexing like a giant drumhead beneath her
feet, sending her staggering. Above her Kyle bit his lip,, then
squirmed out and dropped into her waiting arms. Mary took
hold of his shirt and Jesse's small hand, and led the children
back the way they'd come. In the human part of the factory there
were more places to hide.
                               ***

   Skynet detached forty T-90s to gather the human hostages in
the only open space in the factory. A place the humans had
named the punishment floor. Once they were gathered there, it
would project an image of them to the fighters outside,
threatening to kill them all unless the humans withdrew.

   They probably wouldn't comply, but that was unknowable
until it had been tried. It could also simply massacre the
prisoners and not show that part. It might be more efficient,
freeing the Terminators for more urgent duties.
    Skynet decided to wait. The attackers might demand to see a
living prisoner.

  As soon as the Terminators began rounding people up, many
chose to run and hide.

   "Those who hide will be killed on the spot when they are
found," he announced in Kurt Viemeister's voice. It caused some
to hesitate long enough to be taken. It had found that humans
tended to obey when it used its programmer's voice.
                               ***

   Mary had chosen the spot the first year they'd been here;
since then she'd provisioned it with food, water, and blankets
from the clinic. Now she yanked off the access panel and shoved
the two children in ruthlessly.

  "But, Mom," Kyle said.

  "Get in there and stay there as long as you can," Mary said.

  "But they'll kill anyone they find hiding," Kyle protested.

  "Then you better make darn sure they don't find you," his
mother said. "Honey, I think our side's winning or the machines
wouldn't be doing this. You two stay quiet and stay safe. You
hear me?"

   Kyle nodded, and after a moment Jesse did, too, looking
surprised that's/he'd been consulted. Mary fitted the hatch back
into place and stood. In the distance she could see the red-lit eye
sensors of a T-90 coming her way. She quickly moved toward the
punishment floor, praying they hadn't seen her hiding her son.

  SKYNET

   Suddenly all of its feeds went blank. Contact with the factory,
and most important, with the fail-safe device, was lost.
Fortunately it maintained contact with the Terminators outside
the factory and all of its HKs. It directed a squad of T-90s to get
into the factory and to proceed to the fail-safe device, which they
would then activate. It ordered its remaining HKs and
Terminators to launch a final mass attack as a distraction.

   Skynet couldn't contact the T-90s within the factory and had
to rely on their programming to see them through until the
fail-safe device was deployed.

   No satellites were in position to give Skynet a direct view of
what was happening. However, if the T-90s succeeded in their
mission, the explosion would be evident, even if there was a
slight delay in receiving direct images.
                               ***

   Mary knelt beside Tia and Sally; the three women held hands
and for the most part avoided eye contact. For her part, Mary
didn't want to break down and cry, and she assumed her friends
felt the same way. It looked to Mary like this was everybody.
Though she didn't really know how many of them there were.
Some faces that she'd expected to see were missing and there
were strangers in the crowd. Only two children were
present—one quite young, and one quite tall. Maybe they
couldn't find a place to hide, she thought.

   The noises of battle continued, though there were far fewer
earth-rocking blasts from above. Mostly they heard heavy
machine-gun fire or the hissing blast of a plasma rifle. Everyone
kept their heads down and stayed as still as possible. The
Terminators ringed the prisoners; they were even more
immobile than the terrified humans.

   Except for their heads, which moved continuously back and
forth, sweeping the small crowd in search of some forbidden
movement.
                               ***

   Dennis Reese slipped through the machinery like an eel, his
attention everywhere at once, senses on high alert. All around
him, men and women crept through the silent factory in teams,
moving like well-oiled machines themselves. Their night-vision
goggles were operating on the UV level, making everything clear
in a strangely colorful way.
   Out of the darkness a pair of circles emerged and Dennis
raised a clenched fist to stop the squad's forward motion.
Everyone froze.

   He waited; the circles turned away. Still he waited, and soon
he began to see more of them, sometimes just a sliver of light
spaced in a rough circle. Terminators. And they were guarding
something in an open area. Nothing interrupted his view of the
T-90s farther away, though bits of machinery came between him
and the nearest Terminators.

  He counted at least thirty and estimated a good ten more that
had their backs to him.

   Caught the metal motherfuckers napping this time, he
thought happily.

    He'd have to signal the platoon to open fire. The best way to
do that was to open fire himself; his mouth drew up into a stiff
smile as he laid the sight picture on the head of a Terminator
fifty yards away.

    He was grinning as his finger took up the slack on the plasma
rifle's trigger.

   Sssss-WHACK!
                                ***

    Kyle pushed gently on the metal of the access hatch, keeping
tight hold on the inside of it lest it fall and bring every T-90 in
the place down on them. The cooler air outside felt wonderful,
and he just sat there letting the sweat dry for a moment,
listening as he did so.

   Jesse touched him lightly on the back—part question [is it
safe?), part demand [let me out of here!). Kyle moved cautiously
forward, then slowly stood, listening in the pitch dark for
anything that might indicate danger.

   Suddenly plasma beams slashed the blackness, making him
cry out as his eyes suddenly tried to adjust back and forth
between brilliant light and stygian darkness. There were cries
coming from the punishment floor, too, and he thought he'd seen
a Terminator, for just a second, raising its plasma rifle. He
dropped and began commando-crawling toward the floor. His
mother was there!
                               ***

   Mary lifted her head cautiously, her heart pounding so hard
she felt nauseous. Is it over? she wondered. Around her the
prisoners shifted and stirred. Suddenly a flashlight went on and
she winced away from it; though it was probably very dim, it still
hurt. She opened her eyes to slits and looked around. Seeing got
easier as more lights appeared.

   Through veils of smoke, human figures moved. Mary brought
her legs forward, raised her hands, and slowly lifted her body
from the floor. "I'm human," she called, and the light found her.

   Beside her, Tia and Sally also sat up. Sally was sobbing and
Tia put an arm around her shoulders. That's when Mary realized
that she was crying, too. All around them people were sobbing or
starting to laugh.

  "Everybody stay calm, and stay down," a man called out.

   "Dennis!" Mary shouted. She looked around frantically,
seeking the source of that dearly loved, terribly missed voice.

  After a long moment she heard, "Mary?" spoken in disbelief.

    In an instant she was on her feet and moving toward the
voice. In the dim light she could see him coming toward her and
she began to laugh and cry at the same time. They met and flung
their arms around each other, holding on as though they'd never
let each other go.

  "Mary, sweetheart," he said, and kissed her passionately.

   The taste of her tears salted their kiss and Mary didn't know if
she was crying or laughing, but she'd never in her life been
happier. His arms around her were painfully tight and she loved
it, she loved it.
                                ***

   Kyle stood at the edge of the light and watched his parents in
wonder. He knew the soldier for his father, though with helmet
and uniform he looked just like all the others. And yet… this was
undeniably his father. It wasn't just the way his mother was
kissing him. He'd have known him anywhere and his heart lifted.
He took a step toward them.

   At the outer edge of the circle a shattered T-90 raised its rifle
and fired. The flash of blue plasma shot through the two
entwined human figures and they dropped to the ground so
suddenly that for a moment the movement made no sense.

   "Nooooo!" A child shot from out of the dark and raced toward
the fallen couple. "Mom! Dad!" he screamed. He fell to his knees
beside them, tugging at their bodies, weeping hysterically.

   Behind him another child stopped, looking on in distress, but
clearly not knowing what to do. Every plasma rifle in the place
had taken a shot at the T-90 that had fired. It lay partially
melted, the orange glow quickly cooling to gray. All around, the
soldiers and freed prisoners shifted as their shock lifted, and they
looked at one another, equally helpless.

   Then, through the dim light and the shifting smoke, a man
appeared. Eyes sought him, and a whisper went through the
crowd: Connorjohnconnorconnorconnor.

   "You people," he said as he moved among them. He stood
looking down at the weeping boy until the child looked up at
him. "Come with me if you want to live."

   CHA
                    CHAPTER TWENTY
   RESISTANCE: TEMPORARY HEADQUARTERS

   John tossed himself onto the cot. It creaked and waggled
alarmingly, despite the fact that he'd never weighed more than
one-fifty in his life, and was a nickel short of that right now. That
there was a cot made it luxury accommodations and he didn't
want to get the reputation of trashing the presidential suite. He
turned up the Coleman lantern on the tray table beside him and
dug the letter out of his breast pocket, ignoring the flickering
light and the fruity smell of the burning alcohol.

   Getting a personal letter from an old friend was something of
an event for him. He occasionally received notes from his mother
or from Dieter, but mostly it was impersonal e-mails or reports.
This had come from Jack Brock in Missouri.

   John Connor had asked Jack to keep him informed about his
father, Kyle Reese. Of course, Jack has no idea of the
relationship. No doubt he thought John was just doing the good
commander thing.

   He tore open the envelope and began to read.

   Dear John,

   Hope you don't mind me being so familiar, but I can't seem
to help myself when I'm just writing a letter and not an official
document. If you'll recall, you asked me to keep you informed
about Kyle Reese and his little friend Jesse. Which I will. But
what you may not know is that we've got ourselves quite a crop
of orphans now and I thought I'd start by telling you something
about the kids in general.

   First off, there's not a lot of laughter in them. Not that
they've got a lot to laugh about, but you know, you always

   like to say that kids are resilient. That they can get over
anything given time. I guess maybe part of the problem is we
can't give them that time. Or Skynet won't. Anyway, they're a
grim little bunch. I got to thinking that maybe we were at least
partially to blame. First thing we always do when we get a
new kid is to start training 'im.

  I know we have to and mostly they take to it very well. But
we've kind of been treating them like short adults, if you know
what I mean. So I've assigned Susie and some of her friends to
show them some fun. I wish you could have seen my girl's face
when I gave her the order. It was like, "Dad, you've given me
some weird assignments in my time, but this one beats 'em all."

   But she's doing a first rate-job and seems to be enjoying
herself as well. The kids have begun to smile, while Susie and
her friends are cracking up all over the place. My great fear
now is that they'll start playing practical jokes. As you'll recall,
that used to be one of Susie's specialties.

   On the other hand, maybe that's just what these kids need.
Proof that even when they're naughty they won't be lined up
against a wall and shot. There's been too many incidents like
that in their lives. When I think about what they've been
through, I admit it humbles me. And it makes me grateful for
the life I've led so far.

   It still seems to me that childhood is the longest part of life.
How will this affect them when they're adults and they have
these memories to look back on? I can only hope we'll win this
thing before they're adults. My God, John, think about it!
Having to teach kids to have fun.

   John dropped the letter onto his chest and pinched the bridge
of his nose. The scar the cyberseal had left all those years ago was
hurting again, but then it did that when he was very tired. He
sighed. His own upbringing had been unusually tough by the
standards of the day. But he'd known how to laugh and having
fun had been no problem. Even if he did resort to stealing to
ensure maximum joy. Compared to today's kids, he'd had it
cushy.

   As to Kyle, I really like him. He's not a leader; I don't see him
ever becoming an officer. But he's solid and he'll make a hell of
a sergeant one day. He has an impulse to protect that I like to
see and he accepts responsibility. He's smart, if no scholar, and
he's honorable. If he agrees to do something, he'll do it, by God.

   Yeah, John thought uncomfortably, he will. This was eerily
like his mother's descriptions… but then, Kyle Reese was growing
toward the moment they met. My head hurts. He turned back to
the letter.
   His little friend Jesse turns out to be a boy after all. Small as
he is and dressed in that gray clothing, you't couldn't tell. He
and Kyle watch each other's back. Which't is good to see. Not
that we have much in the way of the kids mixing it up. Like I
said they hardly know how to misbehave.

   It's good that they have each other. Like the rest of the kids,
they don't make new friends easily. And none of them have
formed very close ties with the adults around them. They'd
better get over it or Skynet may just have succeeded, if
indirectly, in eliminating the human race.

   And on that sour note I'll close. All our best to you, John.

   John folded the letter and put in on the tray table. Kyle was a
healthy young boy with a wounded psyche but a good heart. In
other words, he was already much like the man who became his
father. He wished he could do something to make it easier for
him. But he didn't dare.

   Jack and Susie will be good to him, John thought. They'll
take care of him and train him well. Jack had certainly done a
fine job with Susie. John wondered if Kyle and his mother had
laughed— Don't go there! No, no, no! Think about a pink giraffe.
Hippopotamus, jelly beans, anything!

   Then he forced his mind back to the last intelligence report
he'd read. Finally he managed to distract himself enough that he
thought he could sleep. Though when he closed his eyes, just
before he drifted off into exhausted slumber, his mind flashed
him a picture of Kyle's tear-stained face, and he sighed.
                                ***

   "John, I don't know what you expect me to do," Sarah said.
"We can't impose something like this from on high. For one
thing, not everyone has the leisure, let alone the resources, to set
up schools."

   John Connor stretched out and sighed, looking up at the
fleecy skies—the Pacific Northwest was putting on one of its rare
beautiful summer days. He wriggled his shoulders into the
fragrant pine duff and went on: "Mom, we've got to do
something. I don't expect a regular school with strict hours of
operation or anything like that. But if we don't require some
effort, then these orphans are going to be at a terrific
disadvantage."

   John hated to use time on one of his rare visits with his
mother and Dieter to argue, but this was something they had to
do. The longer they waited the further behind they got.

   She threw up her hands. "So what do you think I can do?"

   "I think we could work out some kind of guidelines," Dieter
suggested. "I agree with you that everyone's circumstances are
different and so anything formal is out of the question. However,
as John points out, this is something that has to be done.
Perhaps no one is working on this because they don't know how
to begin."

   Sarah smiled briefly and touched the Austrian's arm. John
hid his own smile by taking a sip of coffee. He liked the way
Dieter acted as peacemaker between him and his mom. It made
him feel a part of something. Something human scale and quite
precious. In the rest of his life he was pretty isolated by virtue of
his function. He had a lot of fans but few friends. It occurred to
him that before Dieter came along he and his mother rarely
indulged in the kind of flare-ups that demanded a peacemaker.

   One of life's little luxuries, John thought. Aloud he said, "So I
guess that's what I'm asking you to do, Mom. Find a way for
them to start."

   Sarah nodded, her eyes already taking on the faraway look of
planning. Dieter gave John a conspiratorial smile.

   God! but I love these people.

   QUEBEC WILDERNESS

   "John! My man! Welcome, welcome." Snog was all smiles as
he came forward, arms open wide for a French-style embrace. He
grabbed John and kissed him resoundingly on both cheeks,
greatly displeasing Connor's security people, a fact that visibly
amused John. "My house is your house. Let me introduce you to
my wives."

   John allowed himself to be led into the aboveground entrance
to the resistance's technological arm, which gave a convincing
imitation of a hunting lodge half-ruined and wholly abandoned
amid the endless rolling hills, blue green with fir and starred
with sapphire lakes. Certainly a change from the rat warrens
we spend most of our time in, he thought.

  Most of it had been built with Dieter's money back before
Judgment Day, which indeed did make it John's house.

   Since the war had begun, the place had been expanded, as
had the staff, and without them the resistance would long since
have fallen apart. If Skynet so much as suspected their existence,
it would stop at nothing to destroy them.

    At the moment, though, the greatest threat to this colony of
technologists and scientists was their leader's increasingly wacky
lifestyle. Snog had insisted on labeling himself a
"techno-shaman" and he was putting the moves on everyone.
Except, so far, the children.

   There had been numerous complaints from many different
sources that those who refused his advances ended up working in
the production facility indefinitely. Although the rules stated
that personnel would rotate that necessary duty so that no one
was deprived of the opportunity for research.

   Snog himself was odd looking; for one thing, he was
overweight in a world where literally everyone else was slim to
skinny. For another, there were diodes and transistors and other
bits of technical paraphernalia braided into his waist-length hair
and he was wearing a scarlet muumuu with huge bell sleeves.
And he didn't smell too good, either.

   John had begged his mother to make this visit for him. But
she'd refused. "Whatever influence I ever had over that bloated
geek is gone," she'd insisted.
   John had been taken aback. Sarah didn't tend to toss around
epithets like bloated geek.

  "The last time I visited him he put his hand on my thigh,"
Sarah said. "What does that tell you?"

   That he has a death wish? John thought. That he has a
version of the Oedipus complex? That he has a death wish and
an Oedipus complex?

   But he'd conceded that if Snog was treating Sarah Connor like
this, then extreme methods might be necessary, and he'd have to
actually go to Quebec to determine what those might be. I might
have to whack him around a little. Which he really didn't want
to have to do. Now, though, actually looking at the man…

  I wonder if Snog's ass is even connected to his brain
anymore.

   "My wives," Snog said with a grand wave of his arm toward a
collection of women who were as equally weird in their
appearance as he himself.

   In addition to the long hair twined with little bits of stuff,
their faces were half-painted, either horizontally or vertically in
black and vermilion. And each of them looked bug-eyed from
drugs or some form of shock. Thirty sullen-looking children were
mixed among them, every one of them Snog's.

  "Maybe later," John said crisply. "Right now I need to discuss
some business with you, and I'm afraid it won't wait."

   Snog stiffened and his face took on a stoically offended look,
but he waved a gracious arm, and with an actual bow the women
retreated. Without another word or backward look, Snog led him
to a very large and comfortable office suite. The techno-shaman
went around a massive desk and sat down. He flicked a hand
toward a small chair in front of the desk.

   John remained standing. He looked his old friend over and
came to a decision. "Okay, here's the deal," Connor said. "I need
a technical adviser with me in the field. That'll be you."
  Snog's jaw dropped.

  "Don't even bother to protest," John said. "The decision is
made."

  "My… my wives," Snog said. "My children!"

   "Your wives will continue their work in your absence. I
assume they do actually work." Rumor had it that they only
worked when and on what they wanted to. And some of their
projects had no conceivable use to the resistance.

  "Uh, sure they do," Snog said.

   "And, of course, they'll take good care of the children." He
placed his knuckles on the gleaming desktop and leaned forward.
"Believe me, buddy, I wouldn't ask for a sacrifice like this if it
wasn't necessary."

   And it is necessary because if I leave you here, I'm going to
have to have you shot! There must be at least one psychiatrist in
the resistance who would like to get his or her hands on a raging
case of megalomania like this one. Who would have thought
that one of my oldest friends would turn out to have more in
common with Skynet than with the rest of the human race?

   "You'll have to change into something less eye-catching," John
said, indicating Snog's scarlet draperies.

  "I—I honestly don't know if we've got anything that will fit,"
Snog stammered.

  "Find something," John advised. "We'll be leaving in thirty-six
hours at the latest."

    "God, man." Snog looked around his office, his hands
wandering as though he didn't know what to do with them. "This
is such a shock!"

   Connor shrugged. "Sorry, man, but it's necessary. Um." He
looked down for a moment. "Do you have an assistant or
something? I know you'll want to spend as much time as you can
with your family before you go. So maybe we could have someone
else brief me on what you've got going."

  "Sure, sure," Snog said dazedly. He tapped an intercom.
"Shad Cho, report to the main office."

   "Listen, you don't have to stay," John said. "You've got to
break this to… your wives and kids. I can introduce myself."

  "Yeah, yeah, thanks, man." Snog rose and moved around the
desk, gave John an amazed look, and left.

   Muttering furious curses, John went around the desk and sat
down. One or two tries at the computer proved it to be beyond
his ability to break in to. He sat and waited. If he had to go
through this complex one person at a time, he would find
someone capable of running it.

   Cho tapped the door twice and entered. At first sight, John
suspected that this was the first sane person he'd seen here
today. A few quick questions confirmed this fact, as did the
man's superior personal hygiene. It turned out that Cho had
been running the complex for the last four months. With
intermittent interference from Snog.

   "I think that he was just overworked and kind of cracked up.
Nobody noticed, so he kept on working and getting crazier and
crazier." Cho put a hand on his chest. "Now, I'm no shrink, but
getting him away from here is probably going to do him a world
of good. And it'll sure make life easier for the rest of us. That
techno-shaman stuff probably did wonders for inspiring the
resistance—"

    "Yeah, it did," John said. "Having a Good Wizard helped a lot.
It's why Snog isn't being marched off in handcuffs right now."

  Cho squirmed a little, embarrassed. "Don't get me wrong.
Snog's still brilliant when his head is straight. He taught me all I
know, and no false modesty, but I know a lot. It's just that…"

  "He started believing the propaganda," John said, nodding.
"Now, tell me about the chameleon fabric…"
   John had assigned two of his people to ask around the
complex and report back to him. Within twenty-four hours he'd
organized a complete change of personnel and hoped he'd rooted
out the whiftees.

  Twelve hours before they were scheduled to leave, John
confronted the shaman, still in his scarlet regalia. "How's the
new wardrobe coming?"

   Snog shrugged cheerfully. "My ladies are looking around, but
so far, no luck."

   "Tell you what, Snog. Tell them to look harder because you're
not wearing that thing when you come with me. I imagine you'd
get kind of cold running around naked." He turned to go, then
said over his shoulder, "Oh, lose the hair."

   The next morning Snog showed up shorn and wearing blue
jeans, a black T-shirt, and a hangdog expression. His many wives
and children sniffled and sobbed and waved sad good-byes as
they drove off in a convoy of vehicles with dazzle-stealth
coverings. Jeez, John thought, no wonder he cracked.

   For the first two weeks the self-proclaimed techno-shaman
was left to his own devices. Which meant enjoying the tiny
library and chatting with off-duty personnel. He was shielded
from the incoherent messages he was receiving from his
extended "family," which Cho said were the result of all of his
wives coming down from some pretty heavy home-brewed drugs.
It was clear that some of these women were never going to be,
and perhaps never had been, normal—not that that was so very
unusual, these days.

  "But some of them are slowly coming down to Mother Earth,"
Cho said over the satellite link. "Whether they'll still want to be
part of a harem once they've sobered up remains to be seen.
How's Gandalf the Geek?"

   "Getting cold and sober and doing well on the lower-fat diet
common to the rest of humanity," John said. "In fact, he's
already a lot more like the Snog I knew of old…"
                                 ***

   After a while Connor assigned his old friend the task of
teaching science to the orphans under the supervision of Snog's
own personal psychologist. He finally allowed Snog unlimited
e-mail access to the saner members of his family. But he'd
already informed Cho that he wasn't to take any orders from him
unless they made sense.

   Things were already going more smoothly in Quebec and John
breathed a sigh of relief. Now he could get on to simpler issues.
Like fighting the war.

   MISSOURI

   SEVEN YEARS LATER

   "Okay, folks, those are our goals for this patrol. It's all pretty
routine, but…"

   The whole group recited together, "There's no such thing as
routine."

   Jesse grinned at Kyle, excited to be going out on his first
mission. Kyle was excited, but it was more a nausea-inducing
kind of excitement. And he wished Jesse wasn't coming on this
"routine mission." His friend had gotten orders to report to
Quebec, where he would receive advanced technological training.
And would be safe.

   Kyle envied him. There were very few places in this world that
might be called safe, but the Quebec facility was one of them.
Wouldn't mind being assigned there myself, he thought. Though
the winters might be nasty. But his mind didn't have that special
spark. He could use technology, and he was an excellent shot, but
Jesse had something else, something special.

   Still, everyone had to do certain things. Going out like this
was one of them, kind of a rite of passage. Their teachers
claimed that it put everyone on the same footing and in case of
emergency gave everyone an idea of how to act.
   He suspected that Jesse was young for patrol; you were
supposed to be a minimum of seventeen. But nobody knew his
friend's age, not even Jesse. So when he claimed to be as old as
Kyle, who could argue?

  "Okay, check your gear one last time and we'll move out."

   The boys checked each other, although they knew there was
no need. Jesse worked in electronics repair and Kyle in supplies.
They'd chosen what they knew was the best gear for themselves
with the practical self-centeredness of teenagers.

   Kyle tried to return Jesse's grin, but he was too nervous. They
lined up with the other soldiers and headed for the outside.
                               ***

  Forty-eight hours later Jesse was no longer smiling. Kyle was
having daydreams about hot soup.

   He shook them off and pulled up the hood of his camouflage
cloak. It dulled his hearing a bit, but he couldn't hear anything
except the subdued hiss of the rain and the patter of drops
falling from the trees above anyway; he couldn't see much past
ten yards either, unless he jacked the sensitivity of his goggles
way up.

   And I'd have thought that being this wet would make you
clean, he thought, shifting his plasma rifle from one arm to the
other beneath the dank weight of the cloak. Nope. Smell like wet
dog. Very wet, very unbathed dog.

   It had rained for the whole time they'd been out on patrol.
Otherwise it really had been routine. Nothing had happened,
nothing had been seen. Frankly, nothing could be seen through
the damn rain and fog. And it had been cold. Not freezing, just
cold. The squad was on its way back, and the two friends were
trying not to shiver too obviously. They'd already been smiled at
by their more experienced companions far too much.

   Kyle and Jesse were in the middle of the column, if you could
call the staggered formation a column. Kyle was keeping his eyes
on the narrow path before him, too stunned by cold even to care
that he was walking on the edge of a precipice. There was a
sound behind him like gravel going down a chute and he
marched on for several paces before the sound even registered.

   He turned, and behind him the path was gone. There was a
huge gap between him and the next soldier twenty feet away. His
eyes went from the gap to the soldier, then back again, and
realization hit him like a rush of heat.

  "Jesse!" he said, and started forward.

   A heavy hand bit into his shoulder and he turned to fight it off
only to find himself on the ground, struggling to breathe under
the full weight of the adult man who'd stopped him.

  "Let me go!" Kyle insisted.

  "Easy, kid," the man said. "Take it easy. Nothing you can do."

   He kept repeating it, over and over, until Kyle stopped
struggling and began to weep. Hard, painful sobs that felt ripped
from his soul. The man went to one knee and held him, saying
nothing, occasionally patting Kyle's shoulder. Then, after a
minute or two, he urged him to his feet.

  "We've got to go," the soldier said. "We've got to keep moving.
Okay?"

   Kyle nodded. He felt sick and he thought that nothing was
okay. But he wasn't going to slow down the squad and maybe get
someone killed. Jesse was gone. The soldier gently pushed Kyle to
go ahead of him and Kyle went, walking like a zombie.

   How could this have happened? Kyle asked himself. His best
friend, just… gone—in a stupid, meaningless accident that could
have happened to anyone. It might have been him if he'd been
walking just a bit slower. Or even both of them. Stupid, he
thought. Jesse was gone. The resistance would be the poorer for
his loss.

  We could afford to lose me much more easily, Kyle thought.
Jesse's gifts weren't something he could replace no matter how
hard he studied. Kyle looked around. But then, Jesse would
never have been as good out here as I can be. He resolved at
that moment never to be less than the best that he could be. In
your honor, he pledged. I swear, Jesse, I'll make my life mean
something.

   But not here. He couldn't stay here where he'd lost so much.
He had to ask Jack to send him far away. Far away from all the
pain and all the memories.

  LOS ANGELES TWO YEARS LATER

   Sergeant Kyle Reese armed the plasma satchel; it looked like a
cylinder of smooth metal, and he didn't know exactly how it
worked—more from the Wizards of Quebec—but it did work.

   He nodded to Samantha. She armed hers, too; they were in
what had once been downtown Burbank, and the HKs were out
in force tonight—a big Grolo unit was crunching its way toward
them through the cindered ash and twisted steel and skeletons.

   Reese snarled, tasting the ash on his lips—the ashes of twelve
million dead. He rose, threw—the satchel landed exactly under
the Grolo's left tread—and ducked back down.

    Samantha wasn't quite fast enough. One of the heavy plasma
rifles bore on her as she threw, and—

   He turned his head aside, closing his eyes for a single instant.
Got to get out, he thought. Got to get to the car. Think about it
later!
                               ***

    John stood looking down at the young soldier. He'd been
badly banged up in the crash, and burned, too. Nothing fatal,
but nothing very easy to endure, either; medical facilities were
still pretty basic at the outlying stations.

  He's so unbelievably young, John thought. Kyle Reese's time
hadn't yet come. He wished that he could get to know this young
man, but he didn't dare. Hell, I don't dare touch him. For all he
knew, touching his father might set off some kind of explosion,
or cause them both to melt or something.

  In his hands John held a picture of his mother. She'd been in
Mexico when it was taken, she'd told him. Pregnant with him.
And she'd been thinking of his father at the time, and trying to
decide what to do about Skynet and how to do it. John sighed.
They'd had so little time together. Like a lot of things about Kyle
Reese's life, it was unfair.

   The young soldier in the bed stirred and opened his eyes. For
a moment they stayed blank. "Burning," he whispered. "Got to
get out, the fuel's going to go!"

  "It's all right," Connor said. "You've been retrieved. You're
back in the infirmary."

  It took a moment for Kyle to recognize John Connor. But
when realization hit, he struggled to sit up.

   "No," John said, raising a hand to stop him. "Don't you dare
salute me. Just lie back and heal. We need you."

  "Thank you, sir," Reese said, his words slightly slurred.

  "I'm not just talking ragtime here, soldier," John assured
him. Boy, am I ever not just blowing smoke, he thought.

  "My mission didn't go quite as planned, sir," Kyle protested.

   "They seldom do once the firing starts," John assured him.
"You've rid the world of your share of HKs. And your commander
tells me you're a good sergeant. It's my humble opinion that
without good sergeants we'd be up shit's creek without a paddle.
Sometimes we do lose a little. But we win more than we lose. And
ultimately we're going to win this war and take this world back
from the machines. And it's men like you who are going to do
that. So you rest, and you heal, and you get back in there."

  Kyle swallowed and nodded once. "Yes, sir."
   John's lips jerked in an attempted smile. Then he laid the
picture on his father's stomach.

  "My mother," he said in explanation, and watched the young
man's eyes go wide. Sarah Connor, the legend, he thought wryly.
Christ, I'm setting my dad up with my mom.
                              ***

   Kyle picked up the picture and was caught. Sarah Connor was
young in the photo; she looked soft, and feminine, and terribly
sad. More than once he'd felt as sad and alone as her expression
showed she was feeling. He felt a kinship with the woman in the
picture, as though she was someone he could talk to.

   Reluctantly he lifted his hand to give the picture back, but
Connor was gone. Puzzled, Reese looked around, but the
commander was definitely nowhere around. Still, he wasn't sorry
that he didn't have to give the picture back. He looked at the
young woman's face, studying every line, every angle. A sense of
longing overcame him, a desire to know her. Kyle closed his eyes,
and fell asleep, and dreamed of Sarah Connor.

  RESISTANCE COMMAND CENTER FOUR YEARS
LATER

   "John, my man, wait till you see what I've got for you!" Snog
said. He was imitating the happy-talk excitement of a ginsu
knife salesman.

   John smiled wearily. His somewhat rough-and-ready
treatment of his old friend had certainly smoothed out some of
the wrinkles, but—But Snog is always going to be a goof. God,
he makes me feel younger and older at the same time!

   At least he wasn't completely crazy anymore, just productively
weird. And he even fit in here at Regional HQ, which was as
normal an environment as the world had to offer—rock and
concrete, yes, but at least they weren't living on gruel and
fighting Infiltrator units all the time.

  "So what have you got for me?" Connor asked.
   "I have the treasure of the Sierra Madre, King Solomon's lost
mines, Atlantis, the missing link! You name it, man! We have
discovered, here in the wilds of darkest Canada, the salvation of
the human race! Hallelujah brother! Can I get an amen!

   In the background, shouts of "Amen!" could be heard from
offices down the rock-hewn corridor.

  "With a buildup like that, Snog, this better be good."

   "Oh, it's better than good," his old friend assured him. "Check
this out." He clicked a few keys and his smiling face was replaced
by a picture of what looked like aircraft.

  John leaned forward. It was aircraft! B-2s, if he wasn't
mistaken. And they're in perfect condition.

  "Fuel?" was his first question.

  "Tons," Snog said. "Literally. But that's not all. Lookee here!"

   The B-2s were replaced by what John at first thought were
planes, but were actually drones. Bomb-carrying, radar-evading,
farseeing drones.

  "My God," Connor whispered, "it's the mother load."

  "You bet your ass it is!" Snog crowed. "Look out Skynet, here
we come!"

  John felt himself smiling. "And we can take 'em?"

  "Now that the defense grid is smashed, yeah," Snog said.
"Take 'em and fly 'em."

   "And Skynet isn't that distributed," John said. "With this, we
can root out the central units."
          CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  SARAH'S JOURNAL

  The years went by with a horrible sameness. We fought, we
died, we learned, we struggled, we won. After an eternity, we won
more than we lost. Children were born and grew up fighting the
machines. It was all turning out much the way Kyle Reese had
described it to me.

    They were good kids, these children who had never known
peace and security, and good soldiers. I honestly don't think that
it even occurred to most of them to blame their parents for the
nightmare they were living. But then they had no idea that there
was any other way to live.

   One day the war will be over, and when they've rested, then
they'll start asking the hard questions.

   "Here's where my head starts hurting again," John Connor
murmured to himself, taking a sip of his herbal tea. "Christ, I
wish we could get more coffee in."

   A few of the technicians in the underground command
center—once a Skynet facility—looked at him oddly. Those were
the ones who hadn't been assigned to the Command Assault
Group for very long; a couple of the others grinned as they bent
over their workstations. The chief's oddities were legend.

   John sighed, rising and walking over to the big display screen.
Just before it came alive, he caught a glimpse of himself—the
long hard face still marked by the long V-shaped scar the
cyberseal had inflicted on him, the hard wary eyes and grim-set
mouth.

  I'm forty-two, he thought, disoriented for a moment.

   It still caught him by surprise sometimes, overlaid on the face
a part of him expected to see—the laughing teenager with a
black cowlick across his forehead.

  When did that happen? I have indubitably become the Great
Military Dickhead of Mom's dreams, the one Kyle described to
her… and I'm older than he is.

    "Head definitely hurting," he said quietly as the screen came
live.
   Sarah and Dieter moved to stand on either side of him; his
mother put a hand on his arm, for just a second, understanding
as only she and Dieter could.

     I'm forty-two; they're old, he thought.

   Faces wrinkled, the great muscles of Dieter's frame gone
gaunt; an encounter with an HK had given him a limp that he'd
take to his grave, a limp that got a little worse every year. Active,
strong, infinitely experienced oldsters, but quite definitely old.
Humans didn't usually live into their sixties anymore. The sheer
fact of their survival made them objects of awe, even with
Sarah's new identity.

     "Display, schematic," John said.

   The screen flashed a Mercator projection of the earth, with
color-coded symbols—live human-held territory, dead Skynet
zones, a Crosshatch of contested areas, smaller skull symbols for
places where radiation or bioweapons still lingered.

   And there were a satisfying series of X marks—smashed
elements in Skynet's defense grid. With control of the surviving
satellites gone, the remains of the grid were all that was keeping
Skynet alive at all.

     "If it lives," he murmured.

  "It is conscious, it consumes energy, it seeks to fight entropy
and survive," Dieter said.

   "Don't go all philosophical on me now," Sarah Connor said,
leaning a little closer to him.

     "We know Skynet is working on its time-travel program, here
."

  John said, pointing to the Los Angeles basin—mostly dead
zone, or contested. "It's getting close to the time."

  Sarah stiffened slightly. She knew about Kyle, but she'd
managed to avoid ever seeing him face-to-face; with
communications as limited as they were, even a VIP like Sarah
didn't have her image all over the place the way images had been
displayed before Judgment Day. And, of course, since her
"death," the few available images of her were of a younger
woman.

  "Well, let's go meet history," John said. "We can't chance
anything else. If we don't counter what it's doing…"

   Both of the elders nodded. John touched a button at his
throat. "Major Nakamura," he said. "Operation Chrono is now
active."
                               ***

  Sarah kicked Snog's butt, hard.

  "Hey!" he snapped. "What the hell are you doin'?"

   She got up in the programmer's face and spoke through
clenched teeth. "Get one of these things up and running, Snot!"

  "That's Snog."

    "And do it fast!" Sarah barked over his protest. "Time is
literally of the essence right now."

  " 'Kay," he muttered.

   He opened the Terminator's scalp and popped open the
channel that led to its CPU. This Terminator's unit had been
fried during the first few minutes of their attack. It was now just
so much inert metal and flesh. Until, that is, Snog installed the
new CPU with the fresh programming that didn't include Skynet.

   Snog sealed off the conduit and laid the flap of flesh back in
place, sealing it with a bio-adhesive. "Done," he said. Then,
"Stand."

   Sarah licked her lips; she couldn't help it. The sight of a
young, naked Dieter clone turned her on. She shook her head.
Sick, you're sick, Connor.
   "Follow," Snog said, and they began jogging toward the time
displacement device on the other side of the installation.
                               ***

   John fired and ducked down behind a machine, then rolled
several feet away from where he'd been. His heart was slamming
against his ribs as if this was the first time he'd faced one of
these monsters.

   I want to stop this! I want to stop this now! Maybe if he
could prevent the Terminator from going through time he would
have prevented all this from happening. If Cyberdyne hadn't
gotten that chip, they never would have been able to build Skynet
in the first place.

   Of course, then he wouldn't exist, but so what? Several billion
other people would continue to live. If that wasn't worth dying
for, what was?

   He could see the Skynet scientists working frantically to make
the time displacement device work and he willed them to fail. He
saw the naked Terminator step up onto the platform.

   "Shit!" he said, and rose from his place. With one shot he took
out the heavily armed Terminator and began to zigzag his way
through the complex. Two of its brethren turned toward him and
began to fire. All around John his own troops moved in,
throwing their own lives away in an attempt to save his. Even as
he ran he could feel himself going pale. He wasn't worthy of this
much sacrifice; no one was.

  "Spare the scientists!" he shouted.

   There was a blinding flare of light and the Terminator was
gone. Failed, John thought in despair, dragging in air in ragged
breaths. A nondescript man stepped onto the platform, his figure
oddly ill-defined; John closed his eyes, remembering the T-1000
and how close it had come. Behind his eyelids he registered the
flare that told that the T-1000 was gone. A beautiful young
woman stepped onto the platform. John recognized her and took
aim. She turned toward him and smiled. He fired and the flare of
time displacement blinded him once again. John turned away,
and someone knocked him to the floor and fired over his head.
John could feel the heat of a near miss on his arm and smell the
scorched fabric of his sleeve.

  "Sorry, sir. Are you all right?"

  John looked up at the soldier, blinking as multicolored spots
danced in his vision. After a moment he saw the soldier's face
and gasped. It was Kyle!

   "Yes!" he snapped, and slid away. John picked up his weapon
and moved forward. Unable to avoid the shudder that racked his
thin frame.

   Ahead of them, the last Terminator turned its weapon on the
Luddite scientists who stood waiting for death. From every part
of the lab, resistance fighters fired, destroying the Terminator
before it could kill the humans.

   John moved forward, terribly aware of Kyle at his back. He
stopped before the two men and one woman who had betrayed
humanity. They looked at him with contempt.

  "We've won," the woman said. She licked her lips nervously
and attempted a smirk.

    One of the men turned toward the machine, diving toward the
keyboard. John shot him in the leg and the man fell screaming.
His two companions jerked and moved away from him. John
reached out and grabbed the woman's arm, yanking her off
balance and shoving her behind him. Then he thrust the plasma
rifle's barrel up under the chin of the remaining male. Two of
John's soldiers dragged the wounded scientist away from the
console.

  "You haven't won," John said between his teeth. The Luddite
choked and raised his head as Connor pressed a little harder.
John gestured with his head for more of his people to take
charge of the scientist. He turned to the woman, who looked
back at him defiantly. "And you're not going to win," he finished.
   "Oh, yes we will." She sneered. "In a few moments you will
disappear." She snapped her fingers. "Like that!"

   "And why is that?" he asked. He felt as if he was reciting lines
in a play. Not even a very good play.

   "Because that Terminator is going to kill your mother!" She
glared at the soldiers surrounding her. "Your precious Sarah
Connor! And there's nothing you can do to stop it!"

   John looked at her, a muscle jumping in his jaw. He wanted
to pulverize this woman, to break her bones and reduce her to a
weeping pile of jelly. It was rare for him in these later years to
feel this much emotion, this much pure hate. It almost felt good.
Slowly he reined it in.

  Still looking at her, he said, "I need a volunteer!" And as John
had known would happen, Kyle stepped forward without
hesitation.

  "I'll go," he said.

  John looked at him. "You might not make it," he warned.

  Reese shrugged. "We'll never know if we don't try, sir." He
nodded. "I want to do it."

  The male scientist snorted in contempt. "You'll never figure
out how this machine works. Not in time."

  "Oh, I don't know about that," Snog said. He breezed up to the
console and stretched his knuckles like a pianist about to play a
sonata; then he sat down in one of their vacated chairs.

   This was the one place in which they'd cheated. John had told
Snog and his group that they had intel that Skynet was working
on a time machine and had assigned them to see if they could
learn anything about it. Just that, a mere hint. But the techies
had run with it and they'd followed almost every step of this
team's progress. Snog probably knew as much about this
machine as the Skynet team did.
  "What date did you say, John?" Snog asked over his shoulder.

   Not taking his eyes off the scientists, John told him, enjoying
their disconcerted expressions. He glanced over at Kyle Reese.
"You'll have to go through naked," he said. "And it's going to be a
one-way trip. We'll be destroying this after you've gone through."

  Reese nodded, then he began to strip. "Weapons?" he asked.

    "Only flesh can go through," Snog said. "Or items encased in
living flesh. So unless you can fit a plasma rifle up your own ass,
you're on your own, buddy."

   John stepped closer to Reese, leaning toward him so that the
others wouldn't hear. "I have a message I want you to give my
mother," he said. "Thank you, Sarah," he began.
                                ***

   In the darkness at the far edge of the factory, Sarah waited,
the dormant Terminator by her side. Her vision grew blurry as
she watched her son telling Kyle what to do. Giving him the
precious message that had sustained her in her loneliness for so
many years. She caught her breath in a sob, then dashed the
tears from her eyes, and swallowing hard, waited for her part in
this drama to begin.

  The machine began to whine. John made Reese repeat the
message, then nodded. "Remember," he said, "we have no fate
but that we make for ourselves."

   Reese looked at him as if in wonder and nodded. John held
out his hand and the young soldier took it, lifting his chin in
pride.

  "Time!" Snog called out.

  Reese looked at him, then climbed up onto the platform.

  "Luck, man," Snog called out.

  John closed his eyes, saw the brightness of time displacement,
and when he opened them his father was gone. He took a deep
breath, and when he'd finished letting it out his mother was
standing beside him.

   He looked down at her. Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks.
John placed his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him.
Sarah laid her head against his chest for a moment, then sighed
and pulled away. She tipped her head toward the Terminator
beside her.

   "Snog," John said, looking at the Terminator who would
become Uncle Bob, his savior from the T-1000. "How do I do
this?"
                               ***

   When it was gone Sarah touched John's shoulder and he
looked down at her. "John," she said, her voice heavy with
unshed tears, "we have to go. This place must have a failsafe."

  He nodded and turned to lead the way.

   "Sir?" a soldier said. "What do we do about them?" She
tipped her head toward the Luddite scientists.

  John's lips thinned and he reached for his sidearm.

   "Allow me," Sarah said in a voice like the hiss of a knife
sliding from its sheath. Before anyone could move, she took aim
and shot; the scientists fell like puppets whose strings had been
cut.

   That is a disturbingly accurate metaphor, John thought.
And I've been in this business too long. Killing people is starting
to seem routine.

   Then she turned and started walking, passing her son, who
stood stunned behind her. "Let's go, people!" she shouted. "This
place is gonna blow!"

   John got himself walking with difficulty. That was the thing
about this war. For the most part, it was machines they were
fighting. But at bottom, it was people who had made it possible
for Skynet to come as close to succeeding as it had. But this was
the first time he'd seen his mother kill. He was genuinely
horrified— and at the same time, deeply proud.

   Outside, there was a small fleet of choppers waiting to take
them away. He caught up to Sarah as she bent below the blades
and put his hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at him.

  "Thank you," he said. She couldn't hear him over the rotors,
but she knew what he'd said.

   Sarah touched his face. "You're welcome, son."

  Inside the chopper there was no possibility of conversation,
but he held her hand and ignored her tears as he knew she'd
want him to.

   After a long while they landed and Dieter was there to greet
them. Sarah walked up to him and into his arms. He held her,
saying nothing. John had been accosted by a soldier, who gave
him a message; with a nod he thanked the woman and walked
over to his mother and Dieter.

   "The complex is destroyed," he said.

   Sarah took a deep breath and turned toward him. "Good," she
said wearily. Dieter stroked her arm and she looked up at him
and smiled. "So," she said, "I guess it's all over but the shouting."

  "Unfortunately," Dieter said, "I think there's quite a lot of
shouting still to come."

   Sarah smiled at John and he smiled sadly back.

   "But we don't know what's coming," John said.

   "We only know what's been," his mother agreed.

  The Austrian looked from mother to son. "Then what's to
come," he said, "is up to us."