Tarissa smiled at him and motioned to the table.
“Sit down. It’ll be ready in a minute.”
She and Danny bustled around, continuing to set the table while he stood and watched them as though they were performing some bizarre ritual.
Eventually Jordan shrugged and with an exasperated expression made a point of pulling out a chair and seating himself at the table. Then he clasped his hands in front of him, head titled to the side, an expression of deliberate patience on his face.
Inside he was still a bit scared.- He didn’t know where they were going with this, but he didn’t like the sound of it. I wish we could get on with this.
When everything was ready—the plate of cookies, the cups and saucers, sugar and milk—Tarissa placed the teapot on the table; it had been his mother’s.
Jordan looked up at her. Whatever it is they have to tell me, he thought, they are my family and I will protect them. He nodded at Tarissa and she poured.
“We’ve told you before how it started,” she said, her eyes on his cup. “But then we sort of segued past a lot of very important stuff.”
“Stuff?” Jordan said flatly, watching her pour for Danny.
“Sarah Connor shot Miles,” she continued, pouring her own cup. She put the pot down and reached for the milk. “Danny ran into the room and threw himself over his father, demanding that she not hurt him. He was so brave. I was all but paralyzed myself,” she admitted.
Then she tightened her lips, looking into her cup as though she could see it all happening again in there. Tarissa turned the cup carefully, then picked it up and took a sip.
“At this point,” she said slowly, “what we have to tell you, now, is different from what we’ve told you before.”
Jordan leaned back, his eyes half-closed, assessing. But he was listening.
Tarissa licked her lips and closed her eyes. It helped her remember the order of events. There was nothing about that night that she could ever forget, except for the order in which things happened.
“After she shot Miles, he pushed Dan away, and I grabbed him and held him.
Sarah was crying; she said, ‘It’s all your fault. I’m not gonna let you do it.’ Miles asked, ‘What, what?’ And she shushed us, and then she collapsed in a heap,
crying. I let go of Danny and grabbed Miles, holding him in my arms. And then the door crashed open and this huge man in black leather came in, followed by this boy of maybe ten.” She looked up at Jordan, then back down at her cup.
“The boy was John Connor. He went to his mother and calmed her down. Then, when Miles asked, ‘Who are you people?,’ John said, ‘Show em,’ and handed the big man a knife. Then he got Dan out of the room.
“I will always be grateful to him for that, and that Blythe was asleep.” She took another sip of tea.
“Then,” she continued, “while we watched, the big man took a knife”—she held up her arm—“and sliced into his arm.” Tarissa drew her other hand around and down her arm, miming the action. “Then he dropped the knife and grabbed the skin, and pulled it off in one piece.”
Jordan’s jaw dropped and he looked at her with his eyes wide. He shook his head. “What happened then?” he asked, glancing at Danny.
“I wasn’t there to see that,” Dan said. “But later I snuck down the hallway and listened while everybody talked. I heard what he said.”
“You did, baby?” She hadn’t known that—no wonder he had nightmares. Tarissa reached out and rubbed her son’s arm, then took a sip of tea and continued.
“What happened after he pulled his skin off? Well, under his skin wasn’t muscle and fat and bone and veins.” She shook her head and shuddered. “Oh, no, nothing human at all.”
” What?” Jordan leaned forward, squinting. “What do you mean, nothing human?”
“It was a very intricate machine,” she said. “There was blood, but that was there to feed the skin. It wasn’t really blood, either; it was red like blood, but it was a nutrient fluid.” Her eyes got a faraway look. “I can still see it displaying its hand to us. So many little steel parts and cables and, like… these pumps, they made a kind of whirrr when he moved and…” She let out a little huff of breath. “I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it. And believe me, Jordan, I wish to God I hadn’t seen it! Eui-l-did!”
Jordan closed his eyes and ran a hand over his head.
“Maybe this was some kind of special effect,” he suggested. “Like a prop or something in a movie. He might have held his real arm against his side and…”
Tarissa was shaking her head. “He was wearing a tight T-shirt. And he was using the arm and the hand, manipulating things with it. It was real, Jordan.” She held up her hand. “And that’s not all. He told us what Sarah meant by ‘it’s all your fault.’ She meant that Miles was going to design a revolutionary chip that would go into the creation of a computer called Skynet. Skynet would be put in charge of all military hardware, all the computers, the missiles, the planes that carry the missiles, the subs, everything. Humans would be removed from the equation in the United States in order to eliminate”—she held up her hands and made air quotes—“human error.”
“That kinda sounds like a good thing,” Jordan said hesitantly.
Tarissa looked at him over her teacup and shrugged.
“Maybe it would have been, if Skynet hadn’t become sentient.”
“Okay, time out,” Jordan said. “How could you believe this? This is Sarah Connor’s psychosis, this is what the doctors said she babbled about constantly.
It’s what made her go around destroying factories and killing people.”
“Look, if there’s one thing I’m sure of, Jordan,” Tarissa said firmly, “it’s that Sarah Connor is not a killer.”
“Oh, come on!” Jordan slapped the table. “Miles is dead, Tarissa! My brother, your husband, is dead because of that woman!”
Tarissa leaned forward, her hand to her breast. “Miles is dead because he was trying to save us!” she said. “And because the police shot him. No one was supposed to get hurt.” She waved her handito stop his next comment.
“I know she’s not a killer; when she had him at her mercy, with nothing to stop her from killing the man she honestly held responsible for… basically causing the end of the world, she—did—not—shoot. She could have, she wanted to, but she couldn’t do it.” Tarissa sat back and looked at her brother-in-law. “I was there, Jordan. And I know.”
Jordan just looked at her. Oh, my, God, he thought. She’s crazy. Tarissa is completely out of her mind. He looked at his nephew.
“It’s true,” Dan said. “I didn’t see him tear the skin off, but I saw his hand before he put the glove on it. He was a machine, and he told us about Judgment Day.”
“Oh, no!” Jordan said, raising a hand to stop them.
He rose from his chair and walked over to the kitchen counter and stood looking
out the window into the backyard. There was a bird splashing and fluttering in the birdbath and he looked at it in relief. It was something normal, something sane. After a moment he turned around to look at his sister-in-law and nephew, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It’s bad enough that you’re telling me that you bought into this woman’s delusions,” he said. “But you’re also trying to tell me that my brother got killed trying to destroy his own work.” He took a few steps toward his sister-in-law.
“His own work, Tarissa.” Jordan hunched forward and sat down again. “I knew Miles, Tarissa. He would not destroy his work. It meant”—he waved his hands in an encompassing gesture— “ever”.
“Everything to him,” Tarissa said, her eyes infinitely sad. “I know that.” She shook her head. “But we couldn’t deny what they’d shown us, what they’d told us. Their belief in what they were saying was absolute. And, frankly, there was no other way to explain the Terminator.”
“Terminator,” he said flatly.
She looked up at Jordan. “They
convinced us. If you’d been there you would have believed them, too.” Her eyes pleaded with him to believe her now.
Jordan’s mouth twisted and he lowered his eyes, refusing to meet hers, more thoughtful than angry, Tarissa judged.
“It wasn’t a fake arm,” she insisted. “There isn’t a prosthesis in existence that intricate. He walked in and started handling Miles—with both hands—like he was Danny’s size. He said, ‘Simple penetration, no shattered bone. Hold here, compression should stop de bleeding.’ ” Tarissa sighed. “It did, too. Then he
bandaged him.”
“Why are you talking in a German accent?” Jordan asked. His voice was cool.
“That’s how it talked,” Dan said. “It sounded German.”
“It?” Jordan said precisely.
“It wasn’t human,” Tarissa said, giving him a look. “What else would you call it?”
Jordan got up slowly and once again walked over to the counter, he turned and faced them, his arms crossed.
“You know, nobody knew that this guy was a German. You know why nobody knew that? Because no one, except the Connors… and you of course,” he said, nodding at them, “had ever heard him speak.”
He looked at them, they looked at him. Suddenly Jordan laughed, it ended in a hiss. Jordan looked at his feet and his jaw worked.
“You know what I’m thinking of?” he asked. He rubbed one finger over his upper lip. “I’m thinking of that conversation we had that night in the living room, Tarissa.” He rubbed his eyes as though crying and spoke in a falsetto voice. ” ‘It’s just too painful, I can’t take it anymore. It’s my way or the highway, Jack!’ ” He spun and slapped his hands down on the counter, his jaw clenched.
The sound made Tarissa and Dan jump. She lowered her eyes, while Dan looked at her covertly. Tarissa felt the blood rise into her cheeks.
What am I feeling so ashamed for? she wondered. I was only doing what I
thought I had to do.
Jordan turned, but didn’t make eye contact with them. He held up his hands and said, “You know what? I’ve gotta go.”
“No!” Tarissa said. “You don’t have to leave, Jordan.”
“Yes. I do.” He started out of the kitchen and turned at the door to look at them.
He held up his hand. “And you know why? It’s because my family”—he looked into Tarissa’s worried eyes—“the only people in the world I trusted, have withheld vital information about the murder of my brother for six years!”
“Jordan,” Tarissa said, rising.
“Oh, no, don’t get up,” he said, waving a hand at her. “I’ll show myself out.”
“Uncle Jordie!” Dan said, springing up. “Please… don’t go.”
Jordan looked at him and his nephew stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide, his mouth open. For a moment anger flashed in Jordan’s eyes and Tarissa straightened in alarm. His eyes flashed to meet hers and he swallowed, hard.
“I have to go,” he repeated, his voice choked.
Tarissa and Dan watched him go down the hallway, snatch up his suitcase, and leave without another word. After a moment, Dan looked up at his mother.
“What do you think will happen now?” he asked.
Tarissa put her arm around her son and gave his shoulders a squeeze. “I don’t
know, honey. I honestly don’t.”
ON THE ROAD TO STARBURST: THE PRESENT
“We’re leaving the eco-fair in Baltimore to attend a New Age event in Virginia,”
Peter Ziedman said into the camera his buddy Tony had trained on him. “We’re traveling in Labane’s specially equipped van. Labane describes it as more of a heartland kind of vehicle because it’s partially solar-powered. Which, of course, works better in the sunny center of the nation.”
“The United States,” Ronald said from the driver’s seat. “Say the center of the U.
S. or the Canadians will be offended.” His remark was greeted by puzzled silence. “In case you want to submit this to the Toronto Film Festival.”
“Yeah! “Tony said.
“Good thinkin’,” Peter agreed.
Ron rolled his eyes, which at least briefly blocked the endless tackiness of the strip mall and Wal-Mart outside. These guys were hopeless. But they were paying all the expenses and he was beginning to get some forward momentum.
People were actually coming to hear him speak at an event. And Peter’s message machine was getting more and more invitations for speaking engagements.
Ron had begun charging a speaking fee and the fees were increasing. But there was no point telling the boys that. He had them convinced that he was a genius at bargaining or exchanging labor for the posters and flyers they were helping him put up and pass out.
Eventually he would dump the kids by telling them: “I have a message to spread and you two have careers to jump-start. You stay here and work on the film.” It was what they wanted to do anyway, so there would hardly be howls of protest when he suggested it.
Actually he’d seen some of their finished footage and he was both pleased and impressed. Peter and Tony might be dumb and easily manipulated, but they definitely had talent. It was a shame that their persistent naiveté’ would cost them any chance they had of making it.
“Funny, isn’t it,” Ron said, “that most of these eco-fairs we’re going to are held in cities?”
“There’s a lot of pollution in cities,” Peter said.
“There’s a lot in rural areas, too,” Labane told him. “For instance, there are farmers who use so much pesticide and weed killer that they won’t eat what they grow. They’ve got separate gardens for their own families, but your kids are chowing down on stuff they wouldn’t touch. And then there’s those factory farms for pork and chicken.”
Tony shifted so that he could film Ron as he talked. It had been a little difficult to talk them into traveling in the van with him. But he’d convinced them that it would lend a certain cachet to their documentary. Which was true: there was nothing the Hollywood types liked more than tales of hardship endured for art’s sake.
“Do you know there are actual lakes of pig feces?” Labane asked. “It must be a nightmare living within a few miles of someplace like that. But worse than the
smell is the fact that the runoff gets into streams and the bacteria get into the water supply. And as you know,” he tossed over his shoulder, “diseases pass quite easily between pigs and humans.”
He’d leave it at that. Let people make of that what they would. Half the battle was getting people to just listen. So sometimes you just gave them these really vivid suggestions and let them process it through the back of their minds.
Eventually there would be enough frightening little tidbits back there to get ‘em really pissed off.
Ron had some ideas for some really nasty tricks that could be played on the politicians who had allowed those places to be built and who refused to make the owners clean up their mess. Inside he smiled. Oh, yes, the day will come.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IVSUNCION. PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT
Marco Cassetti turned up the collar of his trench coat, then flicked his cigarette into the gutter in a world-weary gesture of disgust. There was really no need for him to turn up the collar of his coat, or even for the trench coat at all—the weather was sunny and dry, if a little cool by tropical standards. Neither was there any particular reason for him to be disgusted. He’d found out quite a lot in just an hour, all of it positive.
Still, a PI has a certain air to maintain. World-weary cynicism was part of the image, and Cassetti cultivated the image with the devotion of a religious fanatic.
He was a private eye, and he would be a perfect one if it killed him. So when he walked these mean streets he projected attitude.
These streets weren’t as mean as those of Chicago or L.A., he knew, but there were parts of Asuncion that were extremely nasty; a little farther north, down in the viviendas temporaries on the floodplain of the river, for instance.
Not here by the government buildings, of course. But in places.
Constant practice, that was the ticket. Improving and upgrading the image and building on the advantages that he already had. He liked his name, for example.
Marco Cassetti. It was a really good name for a private dick; it sounded tough and manly. Having an Italian name was a bit of a problem since so many villains were Italian. But there were a lot of Italian names that would be worse.
Buttafucco, for instance.
And finding the right kind of trench coat had been almost impossible. A Burberry would have been perfect, but who the hell could afford one? Haunting the thrift shops had eventually paid off, though, when a motherly Argentinean-Italian lady had held on to a vintage raincoat for him. He’d been ecstatic and had brought her a bouquet the next day to show his appreciation. Now he didn’t dare go back. It seemed she had a single niece.
So now he looked just right. He had a Panama hat with the brim trained down over his eyes, his wonderful rumpled trench coat, and very thin shoe leather—
which was uncomfortable, but authentic. And he smoked—despite what his mother thought.
His mother was furious with him about it, but it was expected; part of the image.
Still, to please her, he tried not to inhale too often. He’d even learned to strike a match with his thumbnail, practicing in front of a mirror until he could do it without checking his hands. It looked fantastic.
He totally loved his job! If only I got to do it more often. But he’d had some successes, which he attributed to following his mail-order lessons assiduously.
Now the jobs trickled in. Okay, maybe trickled was an overstatement. Still, he was just starting out, as his mother was constantly telling him. And he was employed now.
The call had been unexpected, and his boss had been surly about calling him to the phone. Surely the man realized that Marco wasn’t going to be a dishwasher all of his life.
It had been a woman. Cassetti was certain that she was a cool, leggy blonde—the type you knew were trouble the moment you set eyes on them. She’d hired him to check up on an Austrian immigrant named Dieter von Rossbach.
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