Hoisting the filled baskets onto her shoulders, she tried to close her mind to the knowledge that Skynet’s minions had come out the losers every time they’d tangled with the Connors.
Serena climbed the ladder out of her lab-to-be and forced herself to think of the next step in the process. If she pushed, she could be ready to start the delicate work of creating T-101’s by late next week.
She’d acquired artificial teeth and some precision tools from a series of dental-supply companies and a matrix material used to grow new flesh for skin grafts from a surgical-supply store. It was amazing what you could acquire if you had a healthy amount of cash.
She would use her own blood as a starter. The chemicals necessary to promote cell growth were resting in her refrigerator.
Except for the brute effort required to prepare her small laboratory, everything was set to go or on its way. She should have the first Terminator ready to mingle with humans in under two months.
Unless Cyberdyne called on her to begin work she should be able to work undisturbed on her new accomplice. Once she’d made one T-101, it could easily construct others. But she was also eager to begin protecting Skynet.
I know they’re going to hire me, they know they’re going to hire me, what then is the hold up?
Tricker? Probably. But the government liaison didn’t seem to be anywhere around just now. He was probably doing some last-minute foot-dragging just to assert his authority, or perhaps a bit more investigation. Although she was pretty sure her background sources would check out, Tricker was a deep one.
I can trust my own groundwork, she assured herself. If worse came to worst, she could always simply eliminate Tricker.
She would regret it: he was the most interesting person she’d met here. But she could live with regret. What she couldn’t live with was failure.
OHIO, ON THE ROAD TO EARTH-FAIR: PRESENT DAY
“People keep imagining,” Ron Labane said to the two filmmakers, “that someday everyone in the world will enjoy the lifestyle North Americans take for granted.”
He looked off into the distance. “I can’t remember who said it, but it’s been estimated that it would take eight more planets to achieve that goal.”
“That seems excessive,” Peter Ziedman said.
“Our lifestyle is excessive,” Ron countered. “We could all live much more simply and probably be happier for it. Only an economy like this one could support our constant fads, constant upgrading of cars and stereos and computers.
We don’t even wear things out anymore; there’s no time for that. They’re outmoded as soon as you buy them. So we bury them.”
Ron shook his head gently. “It can’t go on indefinitely. Common sense says it can’t go on forever.”
“So what do we do?” Ziedman asked. He was pleased. He’d expected a wild man from what the cochairman had said, but he’d gotten a well-spoken, well-informed man with a message. This could work out. With the right handling and maybe a little cash infusion from his father.
“Well, that’s going to involve some hard choices,” Labane answered. “Industry isn’t just going to start gearing down voluntarily. They’ll use the same excuse they’ve used for over a hundred years.” He waved his hands and raised his eyes to heaven. “We have to answer to our stockholders! We must show a profit, it’s our duty! Ha! Their duty is to get as fat as they can before they dole out the crumbs to their sacred stockholders.”
“So… laws?” Ziedman said.
Labane shook his head. “I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that the Constitution has a few things to say about restraint of trade. Unfortunately that doesn’t take into consideration the world around us. Actually, the change has to come from us. Buy less, streamline your life. Learn to live by that old Yankee saying: buy it new, wear it out, make it do, do without. The alternative is to imagine your great-great-grandchildren wading through discarded motherboards and acid rain up to their ankles.”
Ziedman glanced at Tony, who adjusted the camera and nodded. “This is great stuff,” he said to Labane. “Where did you get this?”
“I wrote a book,” Ron said. “I’ve got to rework it, though; there’s far too much
material to get it published as is. I must have read hundreds of books on the subject.” He nodded. “Hundreds, at least. None of my work is really original; it’s a synthesis.” He slapped his knees. “But ya need those. Every now and again someone has to get it all together and present the salient points. And that’s what I want to do. So that people can decide just what it is that they ought to do to save the world.”
“Cut!” Ziedman said. “I’d like to get some shots of you doing things like walking along a river or the seashore or through a meadow someplace. If that’s all right with you? We’d do a voice-over of you, maybe reading from your book. How would that be?”
“I hate to sound mercenary,” Labane said, “but am I getting paid to be in this opus of yours? ‘Cause I’m living in my van right now.”
Peter held up a hand. “Okay,” he said, “here’s the deal. We’re doing this on a shoestring ourselves. So until and unless the film is sold for distribution, all we can offer is room and board.”
“And parking?”
Ziedman screwed up his face. “Okay!” He held out his hand. “You drive a hard bargain.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Ron said.
He went along with the two young men to their hotel room—free shower at last!
—so that they could discuss the film and terms. They talked like kids from money. They had that insouciant near arrogance of youngsters who’d never had
to go without. The hotel was one of those where everything that wasn’t cream-colored was pastel, and where the room service came with chased-silver napkin rings.
It was pretty certain that these two wouldn’t go out of their way to save the world. So what? Ron thought. There’s nothing wrong with a mutually agreeable arrangement.
If he got lucky it could be like being the lead singer in a rock group. If this movie hit, he’d be the one the public remembered. Not the two kids singing backup. Ron smiled. Oh yes, he’d milk these kids for all they were worth, and if he did it right, by the time he was finished they’d still believe he was a starry-eyed idealist.
The thing was to get the message out to those with the ears to hear it. A simple message, really: stop the madness of overproduction, whatever it takes.
Mentally he sneered at the spoiled boys beside him. He was certain they saw themselves as rebels because they wanted to make documentaries instead of getting real jobs in their daddies’ companies.
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE: THE PRESENT
Jordan Dyson chewed on his lower lip. The advertisement for a head of security for Cyberdyne was no longer listed. He’d seriously considered applying for the job; he knew that some agents had gone on to lucrative civilian careers in security or related fields. But he liked working for the Bureau. Besides, he probably didn’t have the street cred. His job here was primarily research and he was very, very good at it. But they would probably be looking either for
someone who had climbed the corporate ladder, or someone who’d been outrunning bullets and clipping on handcuffs.
Jordan tapped his fingers against his chin. Of course, he could join the firm in a lesser position. Being in the FBI would definitely be an entree to Cyberdyne then. The difficulty would be in getting the time; he really did not want to quit.
The difficulty would also lie in surviving up to a six-month break in his career.
But I have to get inside there! It was the only way he could get to know the workings of the place, get to know the people, maybe get into the files that most people didn’t get to see.
But most important, he needed to be present at Cyberdyne because he was certain, as certain as anyone relying on pure gut instinct could be, that within three months the Connors would find out about Miles’s project starting up again.
And then they’d come knocki
ng on Cyberdyne’s doors. Probably with high explosives.
Jordan sighed. I wonder if I can work out some kind of part-time arrangement?
LOS ANGELES: THE PRESENT
Danny pushed his home fries around his plate while he stared into space, apparently unaware that his mother had stopped eating to watch him, as if she knew he had something to say that he didn’t think she’d want to hear.
Tarissa pursed her lips, then smiled. “You have something on your mind son?”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, with an alacrity that made her blink. It was rare that
he was so forthcoming these days. “I think we ought to tell him.”
Tarissa felt like she’d been punched in the gut. She looked down, fiddled with her napkin for a moment, then folded and dropped it onto the table. She looked at her son’s determined face. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, Dan,” she said quietly. “I have—a lot. Especially right after it happened.”
It suddenly occurred to her that she’d known instantly who and what Dan meant.
She tipped her head, considering him. “But I couldn’t think how to make him believe me, honey. Look what happened to Sarah Connor. All that time in Pescadero.” Tarissa shook her head sadly. “Didn’t matter that she was telling the truth. Nobody believed her.”
Tarissa sat back and let out her breath in a long sigh. She looked across the table at Danny and knew she might as well be looking across the country. She wasn’t reaching him.
“I don’t want to go to that place,” she said between her teeth. “I freely admit it scares me to death. I saw what it did to that woman.” Tarissa put her hand to her forehead. “If I had told your uncle what happened just after… your father died, I am absolutely certain that I’d have ended up in a straitjacket.”
Dan nodded. “And I was just a little kid,” he said. “No way could I back up your story.” He leaned forward, his hands reaching out. “But I’m older now! I’m sure he’d believe me now.”
Tarissa tilted her head, a pained expression on her face.
“Mom! We have to tell him,” Dan said in measured tones. “This is destroying his
life! And if he ever does find the Connors, he’ll destroy them! C’mon, Mom, we’ve got to tell him!”
God, she thought fondly, he’s so dramatic. But maybe he’s right. Maybe it is time. She sighed. “All right. But I want him here with us when we tell him. I want him to be able to look us in the eye.”
It might just be the one thing that destroyed their relationship. But Danny was right, this was torturing her brother-in-law and they couldn’t just stand back, knowing the truth, and not try to help. Maybe knowing everything would help.
Dan nodded solemnly.
“Good,” he said. “But don’t leave it too long. I’ve got a feeling he might do something drastic, like talkthe FBI.”
CHAPTER NINE
SERENA’S LABORATORY: THE
PRESENT
A soft, long inhalation of breath, a pause of thirty seconds, then the long, slow exhale. Serena sat cross-legged on the steel table, her eyes half-closed as she breathed. Attending to her breathing helped to center her, allowing her to ignore the pain.
Her lap filled with blood as her hands worked, slicing into the skin of her abdomen, sliding out the small parcels that contained the neural-net processors and power cells that would activate her small army of T-l0ls.
The diminutive plastic-wrapped processors were a new generation, more advanced than the chips that had activated her teachers. These were smaller, slimmer, and even more efficient. As were the power cells, three to each Terminator, one of Skynet’s innovations, introduced just before she’d left.
For all their light weight and smaller design Serena would be glad to be rid of them. She had been constantly aware of them just beneath the surface of her skin and concerned that she might damage them in some way. But with no safe place to store them she’d kept them close.
Now she possessed the equivalent of a vault. Serena paused in her work and looked around the long, narrow room. It was approximately thirty feet long and fourteen feet wide, with the ceiling six feet six inches from the floor: neither she nor the machines she’d be creating needed the psychological comfort of a ceiling high above their heads. Brightened by banks of fluorescent lights, gleaming steel tables, and glassed-doored cabinets, it made a pleasant place to work. True, it still stank of the antimagnetic white paint she’d used, but the air-scrubber was doing an excellent job of thinning the fumes.
Across the room the heads of two T-l0ls propped on a steel table grinned at her with demented glee. The backs of their gleaming skulls were open and waiting for the gifts of life and intelligence. Her fingers twitched with eagerness to get back to work. She picked up the scalpel and made another cut. It’s a little like giving birth, actually, she thought, and smiled with grim humor.
Beside her, the culture-growing vats she’d adapted hummed contentedly as they grew flesh for her new subordinates. In the far corner of the room, well out of the way, two hulking, headless metal skeletons stood, their large, intricate hands
hanging by their sides. Already in place was the delicate system of nutrient pumps and the fine net of permeable plastic “capillaries” that would feed the Terminators’ coating of skin and flesh.
Beside them were the large tanks in which they would lie, washed in a nutrient broth, while their new skin surface grew around them. The muscles needed to animate the T-l0ls faces with their self-contained nervous system were also progressing nicely. These would interact directly with the T-101’s neural-net processor for the maximum effect.
She’d had some trouble with the eyes, though. For now they would be given glass eyes, which should pass muster behind sunglasses. She’d have to correct that flaw as soon as possible. Details were important.
Of course the Terminators could be useful even without a coating of skin, so she’d given herself a head start on them. Now that the lab was constructed she was eager to move into high gear, and the extra hands would be most welcome.
Tomorrow, finally, she was to start her job at Cyberdyne. It would be necessary to leave the biotech work to the T-l0ls. Not that they’d have much to do for several days beyond minding the cultivators. And learning how to function unobtrusively here. Blending in was part of their programming, but the more they were exposed to people the better they functioned.
But in order for them to do anything they had to have brains. That meant that tonight she would have to test out each chip to ten-tenths capacity. Otherwise she dared not let the Terminators work alone.
She slipped out the last package. It was almost a sensual feeling, moist, slippery,
the hot feel of the plastic in her hand, the sense of slackness where she’d been filled.
Serena laid the package down on the table beside the others. Then she swabbed her abdomen with alcohol, feeling wicked for lavishing it on as she was. It spilled over her legs and puddled red on the table beneath her. At home the stuff was hoarded like gold was here. She thought of the humans there who suffered infection and pain because they lacked this simple, abundant stuff, and she was pleased. She found that she liked the twenty-first century.
The cuts, while superficial, were deep enough to sting and burn where the alcohol touched them. Serena looked down at herself. She was designed to be a quick healer, and already the loose flesh where the packages had been stored was returning to smoothness. The flow of blood slowed. Simple bandages, she decided, would do.
When she’d seen to her cuts Serena hopped off the table; the alcohol running down her legs dried cool. She swabbed down the table and disposed of the paper towels she’d used. Then, drawing out a chair at her workstation, she began testing the chips.
After the first one she let out a relieved breath. It had survived the trip through time unscathed. That had been the one thing that had truly worried her—that these irreplaceable elements might have been fried by the transfer’s wild electronic convu
lsions. One, at least, had made it. She wouldn’t have to do this completely by herself.
Three hours later she sat back, well satisfied with her work. One of the processors hadn’t made it. But the accompanying power cells were still perfect.
Skynet itself had predicted a pessimistic seventy-five-percent success rate, so this was a victory of sorts.
Choosing one of the Terminator heads, Serena set to work. She would allow her internal computer to program it while the meat part of her rested on one of the tables nearby. Then tomorrow, while she was at Cyberdyne, it could complete its partner and watch the cultures. She was pleased.
She had won the job at Cyberdyne; her background had held up under extremely close scrutiny. And soon Cyberdyne would begin work on those completely automated munitions factories that Skynet had designed. That was step one in the larger plan that would eliminate the humans. The factories hadn’t existed in fully exploitable form when Skynet was first activated in the original time line.
Theoretically the automated factories should also swell the ranks of those who objected to the unbridled expansion of technology. Who, oddly enough, were often Skynet’s most willing allies.
Humans were very strange creatures.
She would have the T-l0ls complete two more of themselves for their next task.
The lab was regrettably small, after all. Once they could be trusted to interact with humans she could safely move them upstairs. Dyson’s house was large enough to accommodate several Terminators easily.
But from now on, if their programming went as it should, they could be left in complete control of this aspect of the operation. Then, as soon as possible, she would send one off to acquire a remote site that could be used as a safe house in the event that she needed to bolt. That likelihood was remote in her opinion, but
Skynet’s insistence on a backup plan was deeply ingrained.
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