Rising Storm t2-2

by S. M. Stirling

  He paused and ran a hand through his dark hair. "I wanted to take your intelligence and talent and direct it into a useful channel. I'd like you to be safe, lady. You're at MIT, for God's sake! To the Luddite movement that's like ground zero, and you think they couldn't find you. You're kidding yourself."

  Hunh, Wendy thought, the kid's really passionate about this. She knew she was suppressing the unease his words had awakened in her. Perhaps she had been foolish. Careless? Well, unwise, maybe.

  "So what do you want from me?" she asked quietly.

  "I want you to keep your eyes and ears open and to report to us anything you find out that might be useful. Useful being defined as something that will prevent harm from being done. I really don't care which camp is generating the damage. Are you interested?"

  Wendy thought about it. Was she interested? I dunno, this all sounds kinda weird. A kid gathering information for some undisclosed reason and passing out

  dire warnings:" I don't think I want to get involved. It wasn't like she didn't have enough to do with her time, after all.

  "Sure," she heard herself say. Then laughed at how she'd surprised herself.

  "What?" John asked.

  "Sure, whatever," Wendy said. "I guess I'm game. Tell me what you want and I'll try to get it for you." It wasn't like she was joining the army or something.

  So John told her what he was looking for, gave her a few Internet addresses he wanted her to check into and a few general guidelines. When he was finished he hesitated.

  "What?" she said.

  "You might like to recruit some friends to help you out," he suggested. "People you can trust."

  Wendy sighed. "Well, I'd like to think I'm unlikely to recruit people I don't trust."

  John winced. "Well, you know what I mean."

  "Yeah, I guess. See you on-line, kid."

  He could hear the smile in her voice and pressed his lips together impatiently.

  This wasn't a terribly auspicious beginning to their relationship. He'd prefer that his recruits not find him amusing.

  Hey, he reminded himself, if she knew the real story she'd run a mile. Screaming.

  "Thank you," he said. "I'll keep in touch." He hung up and sighed heavily. I really need to be grown up, he thought. Too bad it wasn't something you could arrange. I guess I could work on my voice, or maybe get some sort of synthesizer.

  I feel grown up, I just don't sound it. Oh, well. For real emergencies there was always Dieter.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PESCADERO STATE HOSPITAL,

  JANUARY

  "Your girlfriend's back," Frances said, and laughed, her eyes filled with malicious glee.

  Sarah didn't even have to look up to know that Loretta was indeed in the room; she'd developed a radar about her. Besides, she never stopped sniffling; it was hard to miss. Quite a number of patients had vanished over the holidays, to return one by one. Loretta was among the last to be let out.

  One positive note was that Sarah knew she wasn't simply being paranoid; the other patients had noticed Loretta's attention and frequently commented on it.

  Some positive note, Sarah thought. I know I'm sane and I'm constantly looking for ways to back up my opinion. How healthy is that?

  Frances licked her lips. "I think she wants to—"

  "You're going to work so hard at distracting me that you're going to distract yourself," Sarah warned. "That's how I won all your blue chips last time."

  Frances pouted, but she shut up. They were playing gin rummy for battered poker chips. The two other players were usually silent, playing the game grimly, as if it were a matter of life and death. But suddenly Allison froze as she picked up a card, becoming so agitated that she actually gurgled instead of speaking.

  Donna turned with a frown to see what she was staring at and turned back with a little gasp. She began fiddling with her cards nervously, her dark eyes darting left and right. Frances deigned to look and also froze. Then she put down her cards, got up, and walked away. Allison and Donna looked at each other over the table and started to rise.

  "Wait a minute," Sarah said, taking Donna's wrist. "What's going on?" She had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was staring at her, someone who meant her no good, but she was damned if she was going to turn around and give Loretta the satisfaction of seeing her unnerved.

  "I can't," Donna whispered. "I've got to… she's not… she…" The woman wrenched her hand free and fled, muttering, Allison nervously crowding her wake.

  Looking around, Sarah saw that almost everyone was leaving the common room, giving Loretta and the large woman beside her a wide berth. Sarah rose and moved over to Elisa, a small Puerto Rican woman with, she'd been told, a serious death wish.

  "What's going on?" she asked in a whisper.

  Elisa tore her eyes away from the woman at the door to look at Sarah. "That's Tanya," she said, nodding at the woman. "She's pretty much crazy." She grinned

  when she realized what she'd said. "I mean, out-of-control, watch-your-back insane. She's so out of it she even uses her teeth—a lot. One of the nurses is still having plastic surgery."

  "Then maybe we should go," Sarah suggested. If Loretta was escorting such a person into her vicinity, it couldn't be good.

  "No, I hope she notices me," Elisa said, her eyes eager. "I haven't had a good fight in a loooong time."

  "Good luck," Sarah said. "I'm outta here."

  Loretta was a small woman, nervous in her manner, with constantly shifting eyes and an inclination to take advantage of people. Sarah had realized this within ten minutes of making her acquaintance and had taken to avoiding her as much as possible. It had probably been Sarah's notoriety that had attracted Loretta's attention, and a desire to bask in Sarah's reflected glory. She'd taken Sarah's unspoken rejection with very ill grace.

  As Sarah walked toward the doorway Loretta spoke to her for the first time.

  "Where ya goin', Connor?" she asked, her voice friendly, her eyes not.

  "I'm tired, I'm going to my room."

  "Naw, you're not tired." Loretta moved over and took her arm.

  Sarah felt every muscle in her body tighten at the touch, resenting the sure knowledge that there was going to be trouble. She forced herself to allow the woman her way, to tug her over to Tanya. Any demonstration of anger, however

  justified, at this stage could count against her, even if the witnesses were as insane as Loretta and Tanya. That was the trouble with being notorious; you could be telling the truth with complete accuracy and still no one would believe you.

  "This is my friend Tanya. I've told her all about you, Sarah. She'd like to play gin with you. Wouldn't you, Tanya?"

  Tanya nodded, looking at Sarah as if she were a big juicy steak and she was a hungry dog.

  "Hey, Elisa!" Loretta snapped. "Take a hike."

  Elisa's jaw dropped at the effrontery; she gave Loretta a disdainful look and settled deeper into her chair. "No," she said, making eye contact with Tanya for good measure.

  Sarah could almost see Tanya begin to quiver like a Doberman waiting for the attack command.

  "I don't like her," Tanya growled.

  "C'mon, ladies," Loretta said, placing a hand in the center of both of their backs.

  "Sit down and play." She gave them each a little shove, and Sarah, glancing over her shoulder, saw her face change.

  This is not good, she thought as she took her chair and looked up at Tanya. Not good at all. She signaled to Elisa to come join them, but the younger woman shook her head, smiling.

  Tanya turned at Loretta's shove to glare at her, and Sarah saw Loretta' wink.

  Then Tanya looked at Sarah and smiled. Not a nice smile, not one intended to soothe or make friends. It was a smile directed at something nasty going on inside her own head.

  Sarah took a deep breath and picked up the cards, shuffling them neatly and then dealing. Tanya watched the pile of cards before her grow without picking them up. When Sarah was finished she placed the deck b
etween them and picked up her own cards. Tanya continued to stare at the pile in front of her.

  "Why didn't you ask me to deal?" she demanded. Her eyes rose to meet Sarah's challengingly.

  "Did you want to? You can if you like," Sarah said agreeably, putting her hand back onto the deck.

  Tanya looked at the deck, then looked at Sarah. "You were awful eager to get rid of that hand," she observed. "Anybody'd think there was something wrong with it."

  O-kay, Sarah thought. Looks like I'm going to have a fight whether I start one or not. Still, she'd do her best to avoid it.

  "Not at all," she said aloud. "I just honestly don't care who deals. If you don't want to play cards we can play something else, like checkers."

  "I don't like checkers," Tanya said as though the mere suggestion were an insult.

  Sarah braced herself, certain from the way Tanya was stoking herself up that at

  any moment she was going to be attacked. She'd seen this kind of behavior often, years ago, when she'd been here before. If memory served, on occasion she'd done this sort of thing herself.

  Tanya grinned. "It's okay, take your cards, I'll deal the next hand."

  Sarah reached for the deck, and even though she was expecting it Tanya almost got her. As Sarah's hand touched the cards Tanya's flashed forward to impale the deck with a Bic pen. Connor thrust her chair back and started to rise when Loretta struck her viciously on the side of the head with a sock filled with change or metal washers or some such.

  Sarah went down, striking her head on the table—hard, then hit the floor, aware but absolutely helpless.

  Tanya looked at Loretta and smiled when the smaller woman gestured at Sarah as though presenting a gift. Tanya climbed up onto the table and crawled across to look down at Sarah, then looked at Loretta, almost coquettishly.

  "Do you have a pen?" she asked. "Mine's broken."

  Loretta grinned at her fondly. "Honey, I've got two!" She handed them over.

  Tanya took one in each hand and began to laugh. Sarah stared up at her, still unable to move; the last thing she clearly remembered seeing was Tanya flowing off the table onto her, the pens poised like daggers. Then the points came down.

  Elisa screamed at the sight and jumped up from her chair. The scream came from pure rage prompted by jealousy, but it had the same effect as a cry of horror;

  staff came running from all directions. Loretta turned on her with a snarl, then moved as far from Tanya as she could.

  At first the orderlies came sprinting toward Elisa, but she quickly pointed toward Tanya. Tanya's hands, bloody almost to the elbows, rose again and plunged down, and a spreading pool of blood beckoned. The orderlies changed direction, one of them yelling into his radio for a doctor. Soon there was a cluster of orderlies hauling Tanya off the unconscious Sarah as Tanya screamed furiously and tried to bite.

  "She started it!" Elisa said to the orderly who led her away, pointing at Loretta.

  "She put Tanya up to it, then she hit Sarah, and then, and then—"

  The orderly shushed her and led her to her room, followed by a nurse carrying a syringe full of neomorph.

  "She set it up!" Elisa insisted.

  "C'mon, honey," the nurse said, urging Elisa into her room. "We'll make you feel better."

  "You're not listening!"

  And they wouldn't, she knew. No one believed crazy people.

  Dr. Simon Ray ran his fingers through his short blond hair, then rested his elbows on his desk and dropped his face into his hands. This was unbelievable.

  You'd think Pescadero was some snake pit! How had this happened? Didn't anyone notice how dysfunctional Loretta was? How dangerous Tanya was? How

  could they have allowed her to go to the common room?

  This was a disaster! He had one patient, a very famous patient at that, laid out with multiple stab wounds and complications to her liver. One patient was accusing another of setting it up and the board was demanding to know why someone as dangerous as Tanya Firkin was mingling with the other patients.

  This was worse than a disaster. This was actionable. He sat back with a heavy sigh, resting his head on the back of his chair.

  There was a sharp rap on his door, making him start, then the door opened and a tall, thin, middle-aged man walked in.

  "Where's my secretary?" Ray asked.

  "I've no idea," the intruder said. "Off photocopying something, I suppose." Or she should be: he'd given her a hundred dollars to find a chore that would take her away from her desk for ten minutes.

  Ray stood up, not certain what to do. The man radiated confidence, so he wasn't someone's troubled parent and he wasn't dressed like a patient. Then his heart sank. The stranger looked like a lawyer.

  "How can I help you?" the doctor asked.

  "First by listening to my suggestions, and then by taking them." The man helped himself to a seat. "My name is Pool."

  Ray stood for a moment longer, then sat himself. "Suggestions?" he asked in confusion.

  "You've got a disaster on your hands, Doctor," Pool said.

  The doctor studied his visitor, weighing his observation and finding it only a statement of fact. "Go on," he invited.

  Pool's thin lips quirked in a slight smile. "My suggestion is that you move Sarah Connor to minimum security while she recovers," he said. "And then you should petition to have her moved to a halfway house."

  "I've already asked to have her moved to minimum," Ray said. "I don't think it would be good for a patient to be left to recover in the same place where she'd been so badly hurt. Besides, it will be weeks, possibly even months, before she'd be capable of hurting anybody."

  "Which is why the board approved the transfer," Pool said.

  Ray shook his head. "I haven't heard back yet."

  "They've approved it," Pool said.

  Surprised, Ray studied him for a moment. "Mr. Pool—

  "Just Pool."

  "All right, then. Pool. Just what is your interest in the Connor case?"

  "My interest is none of your business," Pool said, rising. "And in your own interests I suggest you leave it that way. I do have an interest in seeing to it that a talented physician, such as yourself, achieves the kind of success and recognition

  that he deserves. I understand there's going to be an opening at the Glen Ellen Psychiatric Group. I believe you once applied to be an associate there, didn't you?"

  The doctor blinked, wondering how this man could know that. "Uh, yes," he said. "It's a very desirable—"

  Pool interrupted. "When Ms. Connor is sufficiently recovered, petition to have her transferred to a halfway house."

  "I think you have an unrealistic idea of how quickly these things happen," Ray said dismissively.

  "Oh, I think you'll find the board most cooperative." Pool gave him that little smile. "You do it. And do submit your application to Glen Ellen. Think of how much it will boost your reputation to bring the mad bomber Sarah Connor from madness to sanity in under two years."

  "Do you think she's sane?" Ray asked, genuinely curious.

  Pool turned with his hand on the doorknob. "Really, Doctor, how would I know?

  I'm not a psychiatrist." Then he left.

  "Hunh," Ray said.

  Joining the Glen Ellen Group was just one of the goals he needed to achieve according to his personal game plan. Pool had implied… Ray was certain he'd implied that pending his actions regarding Sarah Connor his next application would be accepted. The psychiatrist refused to acknowledge the word bribe

  when it floated into his consciousness. Pool had merely pointed out certain obvious facts.

  It would do his reputation good to have Connor recover her mental health so quickly. That is, if he was convinced in his own mind that she wasn't a danger to society. But he had been thinking that things were looking good for her. Very good indeed.

  Perhaps he should do as Pool suggested.

  MONTANA

  Clea sat absolutely still; one small part of her consci
ousness monitored the activity of the Terminator on the roof as it upgraded their solar power system.

  The (highly capable) remainder of her mind was learning from the future experiences of Serena Burns.

  When she'd been younger Clea had very much enjoyed these lessons, particularly those which allowed her to view Burns's exchanges with Skynet.

  Especially those moments when Skynet actually took possession of Serena's implanted computer, essentially becoming Serena.

  Now she found that they depressed her, reminding her forcefully of what she would never have, never know. Once she actually took up her assignment, Clea was certain that her emotions would settle down. This tendency to brood might well be a side effect ofher chemically induced rush to maturity.

  Certainly she found Serena's lightheartedness inappropriate and her cheerfulness obnoxious. Clea was glad she'd never met her progenitor face-to-face; the I-950

  was sure she'd have been unable to avoid terminating Serena.

  The memory she was reviewing today was of Serem's time with the soldiers of the future, when she was infiltrating the enemy in the human-Skynet war. She closed her eyes and saw Lieutenant Zeller coming toward her. This was how she saw all of these memories, from behind Serena's eyes, as though they were happening to her.

  THE YEAR 2029

  "Burns," Zeller said, looking grim. She made a gesture that indicated the Infiltrator should follow and stalked off.

  Serena tilted her head, then followed. As she walked she reviewed all of her actions from the past week and found nothing to worry about. Yes, she'd managed to get poor Corpsman Gonzales killed, but there was no way the lieutenant could connect her with it. She'd risked directing a small herd of T-90s to the Corpsman's station behind the lines. Such lines as they had.