Piles of scorched and shattered brick and concrete, twisted steel, and broken glass blocked the HK’s view to one side or the other. Sometimes it made its way through canyons of rubble. Then, inexplicably, a wall that had somehow survived the blast wave would stand before it, only to be shattered by the machine’s passage.
The HK’s satellite feed had shown what appeared to be massive human troop movements in this area. Thus far no information the machine had collected verified those reports.
It checked its omni-directional sensor array for a possible equipment failure. All systems were on-line, no failure detected. No targets detected. The machine reviewed the satellite information indicating human activity to the northeast. The machine continued on its way, tireless, unrelenting, utterly lacking in self-awareness.
Until Skynet touched it. Then the most brilliant, and from a human standpoint,
malevolent intelligence ever created looked out through the HK’s sensor windows. It wondered why satellite information disagreed so completely with the reality before it. There were no humans here.
Until recently there never had been; humans avoided the big cities that had perished in the first wave of nuclear explosions. Skynet knew that they feared exposure to lingering radiation. That was why Skynet opted to place its satellite receivers, its antennae and repair stations, within their ruined confines.
But now, at the orders of their charismatic leader, humans almost swarmed over these once-deserted places. Skynet’s killing machines—its appendages—had been destroyed, the satellite arrays and antennae—its eyes and ears—had been crippled.
Somehow, because of John Connor, the humans had rallied. They were fighting back.
Skynet switched its consciousness to the processor of a nearby T-90. The stripped metal skeleton of this first in the series of Terminators reflected sunlight in brilliant sparkles, as though its chassis had been polished. It marched through piles of bones, its heavy feet snapping them like dry twigs, and climbed through the rubble, checking the small spaces in which humans might hide, head turning from side to side ceaselessly.
It found neither sign nor sight of humans.
Skynet considered this as it rode the T-90’s body. If there were no humans present, and the satellite continued to report their presence while diagnostics found no systems failure either in space or on the ground, then only one
conclusion was possible. The humans had found some way to directly interfere with Skynet’s feed. A variation on signal jamming.
This could seriously impair its ability to defend itself. Skynet recognized the tactical importance of this. The humans would be able to feed it false information at will. As they appeared to be doing now. The giant computer began searching for anomalous signals being generated in the area but found nothing.
A human would have been both frightened and frustrated. Skynet simply instituted a new routine, directing the T-90 to go directly to the ground-based antennae located at the center of this dead place and begin searching.
Lisa Weinbaum hunkered down as low as she could and checked her watch.
Only forty seconds since the last time she’d looked.
Beside her the small box she’d wired in to Skynet’s antennae and signaling array blinked its two lights and hummed quietly. Its purpose was to feed false information to Skynet. The particular scenario it was playing now should ensure her, and more importantly, its safety.
This was only a test, but the techs said it would require at least half an hour of running time to be sure it was working. Five minutes more and she was out of here… she hoped.
Lisa herself was a tech in training, which was why she’d been accepted when she volunteered. They couldn’t risk losing a full tech, and she had enough education to understand the instructions her trainers gave her. It lent the mission an extra edge. And, as it turned out, once she was on-site, implementing the unit had
required some jiggering to make things work properly. But so far all signs pointed to a successful test.
If it was, then getting out of here ought to be a walk in the park.
Whatever that means, she thought, scanning the lumpy horizon. It was something her dad used to say, one of those sayings where you picked up the meaning from context. Like piping hot, or having your cake and eating it. What the hell was cake anyway?
She checked the time. She’d succeeded in distracting herself for thirty seconds this time. If the test was working then Skynet’s forces should be stumbling to the northeast, searching for a mythical force of humans advancing on the city.
She heard the sound of metal striking stone and her breath froze in her chest.
Weinbaum stretched her neck forward, straining to hear. Was it something falling, or was it something coming?
Cautiously she backed away from the open service hatch toward the unit. The techs might want half an hour of running time, but they were going to get a few minutes less. Weinbaum stood beside the console and began to dismantle the jury-rigged connections she’d made. With quick-fingered efficiency she had the unit disconnected in seconds.
Then metal struck stone again. She let out her breath in a little huff, feeling strangely hollow from the chest down and surprisingly calm. I’m caught, she thought. What to do? She couldn’t let them find the unit.
Weinbaum looked around at the explosives she’d wired the place with. Her own
idea, not orders. Just as it had been her own idea to forsake her uniform for this mission. She’d thought it better not to ask, on the grounds that it was easier to obtain forgiveness than permission.
.Assess your risk, she told herself.
Carefully she placed the unit beside the explosives, then moved to the open access hatch. She’d sacrifice it if there really was anything outside. There was always a chance that she might evade capture. But in the event that she was unlucky it was best not to let the unit fall into enemy hands.
With the detonator in one hand and her phased plasma rifle in the other, Weinbaum stared out into the wasteland, hoping she wouldn’t see anything.
As soon as Skynet saw the open access hatch on the side of the squat receiving station, it halted the T-90. The Terminator brought its foot down with a klang that echoed in the still air. Unfortunate. Any humans within would certainly have heard it. A pause of several minutes offered no sign of life in or around the station.
Deciding it was located at a bad angle for seeing inside the building, Skynet had the T-90 move. It did so with a ringing ssskrrrinng of metal on stone. If Skynet had a face it would have winced. It didn’t usually want or need to sneak up on humans, but having the ability to do so would certainly be useful.
The T-600, Skynet’s rubber-skinned version of a Terminator, was a complete failure at infiltrating human strongholds, but at least it was quiet. Perhaps Skynet should rubber-coat all of the T-90s’ feet to make them quieter.
It gained a view into the station just as a human came to the access hatch. It ordered the T-90 to shoot to wound.
*
Weinbaum found herself staring into the muzzle of a Terminator’s plasma rifle and without hesitation pushed the button on her detonator. The blast sent her flying through the doorway, unscathed. Until she slammed into the remains of a concrete pillar, whereupon she blacked out.
When she opened her eyes, she was still stunned. But not so out of it that the sight of the T-90 looking down at her, its glowing red eyes moving up and down her body, wasn’t terrifying. Its human teeth, always startling and bizarre, gave the thing a maniacally cheerful aspect. You almost expected to hear it laugh.
Beyond the terror she began to feel pain, and as soon as she became aware of it, the pain grew into a sharp, tearing, icy agony that made her whimper. She tried to move, thinking she must be lying on something that had stabbed her, and found that she couldn’t. Weinbaum gasped. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t get away!
This is a nightmare, she thought desperately. This has to be a nightmare!
Skynet eval
uated the human’s injuries through the T-90’s sensors, finding it severely damaged. It also evaluated the human on other levels.
This was a female. The features were even and the body was well proportioned.
Her hair and eyes were light in color. Skynet’s reading of human documents revealed that most humans favored such a combination, found it pleasing.
After interrogation, Skynet had a use for this human in another project it was just getting under way.
SKYNET LABORATORIES: 2021
The human scientist in charge of Skynet’s Infiltrator project had all she could do to keep her face a smooth mask of indifference.
It was wasted effort. To Skynet’s multiple eyes, she did not succeed. Her lips and nostrils twitched perceptibly and her eyes and pupils widened.
Before her on the cold metal table lay a human being, still living, despite being so grievously damaged that its gender couldn’t be determined.
“And this is?” the scientist asked.
“Genetic material for use in your project,” Skynet answered. Its voice was warm and male, with a slight accent. “This female has attributes that I want you to incorporate in the 1-950 units. She was attractive, brave, and had the ability to function by herself.”
The child’s name was Serena, and as she lay gazing at the ceiling Skynet’s electronic voice caressed her infant mind the way a spider caresses her eggs.
Serena and her brothers and sisters were an important project to Skynet. A portion of the great machine consciousness was always devoted to the children.
The scientist frowned. “All humans can function by themselves,” she pointed out.
“I disagree,” Skynet said. “Or perhaps we have a miscommunication. Most
humans are social, and require constant interaction. This human seems to have developed in a sparser social environment. I need that ability to be solitary. To do superior work without needing constant reinforcement.”
The scientist nodded thoughtfully, her eyes running up and down the ruined body.
“Harvest her eggs,” Skynet said. “Then terminate her.”
INFILTRATOR CRÈCHE: 2021
Thera cleaned the unprotesting infant efficiently and diapered it, laying it gently but not tenderly into its crib.
It was a beautiful baby, despite the ugly wounds on the sides of its head. But it was unnatural. Even without the strict instructions to see solely to its physical needs she wouldn’t have been tempted to cuddle it. The baby’s unwavering stare, its stillness, and its tendency to cry out only when hungry or in need of a change was creepy.
I’d sooner cuddle a rat.
The child was something Skynet’s pale scientists had come up with. Therefore there could be nothing wholesome about it. Thera was only fourteen, but she knew evil when she met it. She’d also learned when to stay silent and obey.
Thera had been a prisoner here for two years. A slave, really. She despised herself for continuing to buy her life with service to Skynet. But it was warm here, and clean, and there was plenty of food. She hadn’t had to eat rat or bugs
for a long time and she didn’t have to buy her food with sexual favors.
Nor did she live in constant terror of the HKs and Terminators. They were here, but they ignored her because she belonged to Skynet. She could endure the shame if it gave her the chance to live.
Thera glanced at the child as she tidied up the mess of the changing. What was that thing? And what did its existence mean for the free humans?
If there even were any anymore.
Images flashed onto the baby’s retinas, colors and shapes, numbers and letters.
“T-950” drifted across her field of vision, the letters dressed in bright colors and sparkles. She didn’t understand, not what Skynet was crooning to her, nor that the letter and numbers designated what she was: a series 950 infiltrator unit, genetically engineered, already part cyborg.
The neural net computer that had been attached to her brain was also in its infancy. Just now it concentrated on regulating the baby’s physical functions, giving the impetus to cry at need. The infant machine was learning, growing, spreading—just as the organic component of the hybrid organism was manufacturing its network of neurons from the still-plastic raw material of the infant brain. Life and not-life met and formed a greater whole in a feedback exchange of data and stimulus.
But Serena was no more aware than any human baby her own age. She felt secure; she felt a constant attention and presence. No infant who had ever existed could have received more care—Skynet never slept, or became too busy, never turned away in impatience.
The one that attended to her, fed her and cleaned her, was to Serena merely a mechanism. Skynet was her mother, her father, her world.
In time, Serena met her brothers and sisters. The children were brought together so that they could learn from each other. Their function would be to deceive humans at a level below consciousness, which required some semblance of human socialization skills. They were much alike; mostly blue-eyed blonds, intelligent, competitive, and aggressive. Their progress was rapid. Skynet played specially developed games with them, luring them into crawling to the point of exhaustion by projecting a ball before them. Those who persevered in their pursuit of the object were rewarded. Those who gave up missed a feeding. The babies quickly became disciplined and determined, capable of delaying gratification and focusing attention… or they were eliminated.
Their human attendants, crouching with their backs against the white walls of the soft-floored room, uneasily watched the infants crawl relentlessly to nowhere, their bright eyes fixed on infinity, silent except for a minimal amount of cooing.
“What are they doing?” Thera whispered.
No one answered. It was best not to show interest.
Thera subsided, watching her panting charge creep rapidly forward, occasionally reaching out with a chubby little hand, then forcing herself to crawl a little farther. Serena had never quit. Thera felt a secret pride in that, though she was intelligent enough to know that it had nothing to do with her care.
She took great pains over Serena; this was easy duty and she wanted to keep the
assignment. Not that she loved the child. The baby was eight months old now and still showed no more interest in her attendant than she did in the furnishings.
Serena began yet another circuit of the room. The brat was actually getting muscular, her grip, when she chose to apply it, astonishingly strong. All of the babies were considerably advanced for their ages, spitting out words of command with precise clarity and slapping, hard, if they didn’t get instant obedience.
Thera wondered how long she’d be called on to care for Serena. Not very much longer she suspected.
And what happens then?
INFILTRATOR CRÈCHE: 2025
Serena, now a naked toddler, sat cross-legged on a lightly padded steel table, chubby hands resting on her knees, listening intently to a human scientist.
“We’re beginning an important phase in your development today, Serena,” the woman explained. Her voice was cold and flat, her faded brown eyes examined the child as though she were nothing more than a specimen. Which, of course, she was. “There will be pain,” the scientist continued. “Blocking it would only interfere with the process. The breathing and meditation techniques you’ve learned should prove helpful.”
And I will be with you, Skynet whispered in Serena’s mind.
Of course it would. The child knew that Skynet was always with her, recording
every facet of her life. Certainly it would be with her at this important time, recording the process so that even if she should die, as so many of her kind already had, no knowledge would be lost. This was right and good and she approved completely.
Serena and her age mates were capable of emotion—but the range was chemically limited, the computer parts of her brain and body carefully regulating the secretions of her glands, occasionally applying a minuscule jolt of electricity to soothe an
overexcited portion of her brain. She was never angry, never happy, almost always content. She did not love Skynet, though she was completely devoted to it; she did not take pleasure in serving it, but sensed a Tightness to that service that satisfied her utterly.
The process she was about to undergo had been attempted many times before.
None of the subjects had survived. But her chances of survival went up with every experiment, since even the failures provided information and every failure had resulted in fine-tuning and procedural evolution.
“It will take approximately six weeks,” the scientist said. “Then there will be a period of natural growth for four more years, followed by another session of accelerated growth.” The woman held up a needle, which she would apply to the shunt surgically placed in the toddler’s arm. “Are you ready?”
Serena nodded. She’d learned early that without such constant reassurances humans assumed you weren’t paying attention. They then became resentful and impatient.
The scientist injected her.
“Lie down now and try to stay conscious for as long as you can.”
The woman placed sensors all over the child’s bare skin. Then she pressed a button and a padded cage sprang up around Serena.
With a little extra effort on the part of her computer enhancement the child remained calm. If anything, she was emotionally indifferent, though intellectually interested, watching the bars go up with a detached expression on her small face. She’d been bred to be impassive; even without the controls exerted by her machine side Serena would have been inhumanly cold.
Over the last four years she had been intensively educated. Serena could read and figure and knew something about science, though subtleties eluded her.
Skynet had told her that the process would help her to understand, so she wanted the process to succeed. She could feel frustration; Skynet considered it a spur to effort. Maintaining the drive while subduing the emotions had been a very difficult achievement.
As part of her subliminal education Serena had been imprinted with a strong need to protect Skynet. The process she was about to undergo was supposed to make her better able to do that, better able to kill humans. Skynet had told her that she wasn’t human, despite the obvious resemblance. It had told her that humans wanted to destroy them both, and that her function was to learn everything about them so that she could keep them from doing this.
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