The Future War t2-3

by S. M. Stirling

  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 fal
se 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.