that in his understandable terror he'd bought into his own patient's delusions.
And he agreed.
In time the nightmares had begun to fade and his belief in his therapist's diagnoses became firm. What he'd seen was impossible; therefore it hadn't happened. When it was time to go back to work he found that his attitude toward his profession had changed. Once it had been about his career; now he wanted to help people. So he'd sent in his formal resignation to Pescadero and begun looking into clinics.
But after they found out about his reason for leaving his previous position, he got a lot of rejections. Which was ironic. How did they expect their patients to reintegrate with society when they wouldn't reintegrate one of their own colleagues?
Then a friend had told him about the halfway house. He'd felt comfortable here and he'd done good work with his patients, work he was proud of.
But now here was Sarah Connor, and he had some decisions to make all over again. Because now he knew he hadn't had a psychotic break; what he'd had was a taste of Sarah Connor's reality.
Sarah explained, "Dr. Ray says that now that I've stopped this project from going forward and Cyberdyne has dropped it from their roster, I'll probably never want to destroy their factory again. Obsession works that way sometimes, he says. So the board of review agreed to let me come here prior to my release."
"Will you have to go to jail after here?" a woman asked.
Sarah shook her head. "Apparently not. Since I was insane at the time."
"Well, Sarah," Dr. Silberman said with a weary smile, "we hope we can help you to overcome this obsession of yours."
"Thank you, Doctor." Sarah smiled tentatively at him. "I know I was very hard on you when I knew you before and I'd like to apologize. I really can't even imagine ever being that person again."
"I think, Sarah, that you will always rise to the occasion," Silberman said enigmatically. He checked his watch. "Well, group, that's it for today. We'll meet again on Thursday." He smiled, nodded, and rose from his seat.
"I didn't get to say anything," a heavy young man protested.
"I'm sorry about that, Dan." Silberman patted his shoulder. "We'll be certain to let you talk on Thursday."
As Sarah went by him at the door he leaned in close and said, "Sarah, I need to talk to you."
Well, I don't want to talk to you, Connor thought. "Now?" She looked around nervously.
"Now would be good." Silberman gestured down the hallway toward his office.
Her full lips jerked into a smile. "Sure," she said, and preceded him down the hall.
"Sit down," he said as he closed his office door. Then the doctor went to his desk
and sat. He looked at her for a long time, until she felt it was necessary to fidget.
"After you left"—he spread his hands— "escaped, rather, I was in therapy for a long time."
"I'm sorry about that, Doctor," Sarah said. And sincerely meant it. She didn't like knowing what she knew either and she'd certainly never enjoyed therapy.
"After about five years I was able to convince myself that what I saw was a delusion brought on by stress. Of course"—he rubbed a finger across his nose
—"dealing with the fallout caused by having a complete breakdown under stress has been keeping me pretty involved ever since. Running a halfway house is a considerable step down the career ladder from my former position, you realize."
Sarah shifted uncomfortably.
"And now you're here," he continued. "And… it's all come back to me. As clear as the day it happened. And that's the thing, Sarah. It did happen. So what I want to know is… how can I help?"
Sarah's jaw dropped. "Doctor?" she said.
"I know." He raised a hand to stop her. "How can you possibly trust me? You broke my arm, you threatened to kill me, and so on." He leaned forward, his eyes eager. "But now I know for certain. What I saw was real!"
She narrowed her eyes and looked at him sidelong. "Doctor, I've been over this with Dr. Ray. My obsession with Cyberdyne relates to my deeply buried resentment of their lawsuit when I was in the hospital years ago. He explained that I somehow displaced my legitimate anger and grief at the man who hurt me
and murdered my mother onto the more accessible Cyberdyne. I bought into those other people's psychotic fantasies because I'd been so hurt and traumatized.
None of it was real. None of it could be real."
Silberman let out his breath with a huff. "I just want you to know, if you ever need my help, you have it."
"Thank you, Doctor." Either he's crazier than I ever was, or he's telling the truth. But how was she supposed to tell?
"I mean that sincerely, Sarah."
"I know you do," she said gently. "Thank you."
NEAR PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO
Vera glanced at Dieter as she jogged by again. Every morning she took a hundred turns around the deck, usually wearing pink shorts and a black tank top, her champagne hair wrapped in a chiffon scarf. The bright tropical sunlight blinking off the water turned the colors to the glowing pastels of an old Pop Art poster from the sixties, the sort he'd had up on his wall when he was a grammar-school student.
She's flaky. Dieter thought, but I like her. And who was he to call anybody flaky? He'd recently dedicated his life and fortune to fighting a mad, genocidal computer that hadn't even been built yet. And while she was flaky she was also tough; he'd known many a man who'd have collapsed completely at the sights she'd witnessed.
"I'm in," she said the next time she came by.
"What?" he asked, looking up from where he was polishing brass.
Vera ran in place beside him. "I said, I'm in. I know you're not telling me the whole story, von Rossbach. But whatever is going on here has to be stopped."
Her eyes flickered away and then returned. "Besides, whether I like it or not, I'm involved now. So I'll help you sneak into the U.S. and I'll help you finance whatever." She held up a finger. "I'm not prepared to go bankrupt. But you should be able to get a fair chunk of change out of me. I'm getting older," she said with a weak smile, "so I can't hammer one of those things flat with a crowbar. But you can, so I want to help." Without another word she ran off.
And I didn't even have to sleep with her, he thought, just maybe a little disappointed.
Contrary to what the novelists said, even counter-terrorist operatives didn't often get the chance to seduce beautiful women into financing their schemes. Usually it was more a matter of putting in invoices and arguing with the finance department.
For once, he'd thought life might imitate art. It certainly would have been a lot more pleasant than being beaten up by a Terminator.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MIT CAMPUS
Who the hell is Sarah Connor?" Snog asked.
Wendy smacked his leg. "I told you about her, remember? She's kind of a Luddite heroine."
"Oooh, her," Carl said.
" You're Sarah Connor's son?" Yam asked.
"Yup."
"Your daddy was from the future?" Snog said.
"That's right," John agreed. He wondered if Snog was worth the trouble.
"Cool," Carl said. He leaned forward eagerly. "So how does that work anyhow?"
"Wait a minute!" Snog snapped. "You can't just come in here and claim you're John Connor! Give us some proof, for cryin" out loud."
John laughed at him. "Do you seriously think I carry around some kind of irrefutable ID?" He shook his head, grinning. "Call up the FBI or Interpol Web site and scroll to my name. Look at the age-enhanced photo, then look at me."
He shrugged. "Best I can do for ya, buddy. Or you could just take me at my word."
They all stared at him, then turned toward Snog's computer as he began to type in an address. In a few minutes they were looking at a photo of a smooth-shaven, rather young-looking John Connor. It had been blown up from a class picture taken when John was nine.
John took off his glasses and turned his head to resemble the photo.
"I
t's kind of hard to tell with the fake beard," Yam objected.
John blushed. "Yeah, I'm finding it a little hard to take it off."
They all crowded close to the screen to study the image, then looked at John, then back at the screen.
"Damn!" Brad said, impressed. "It really is you!"
"Waaait a minute!" Snog protested. "I thought that we all agreed with the site about Sarah Connor being a victim of government mind-control experiments and that there are no Terminators except in her mind." He turned to John. "You want me to believe you're John Connor, show me a Terminator."
John chuckled; he couldn't help it. "Well, they're a little unwieldy to carry around since they run about six feet tall and weight in at about five hundred pounds. But there is this."
He drew what looked like a candy bar from his pocket and peeled off the wrapper to reveal a tiny series of interconnected black blocks. "This is a Terminator's CPU."
They gathered around, their eyes alight with pure greed, just one step away from their tongues hanging out.
"It's weird," Snog conceded.
"How does it work?" Wendy asked.
"Well, people, that's why I brought it with me." John looked at each of them in turn, making eye contact. "I won't leave it with you, however, unless you're prepared to meet certain conditions."
"Hey, man," Snog jeered, "we could promise you the world on a string and then when you leave do whatever the hell we want. I mean, what are ya gonna do about it?"
John addressed himself to Snog. "First of all, we're not certain that all the Terminators were taken out of play. So if you light this up without putting it in a Faraday cage, you might find yourself being visited by a whole Terminator.
Second, if you exploit this with the wrong people you might be responsible for bringing on Judgment Day. Third, if the government finds out about this you just might disappear. Fourth, if you turn me in to the cops, one day I swear I will take you down."
"Oooo," Wendy said. "Tough guy."
He looked at her. He genuinely liked Wendy, but she was expendable if necessary. He'd hate himself, but he'd do it.
She saw something in his eyes that caused her to back down. "So what do you want from us?"
"When we disconnected this the Terminator was probably changing or erasing information. If it's possible I'd like you to stop it from doing anything else and perhaps recover whatever information it tried to eliminate. This could be a gold mine."
"Or a crap mine," Yam interjected. He reached out one long finger but didn't touch the chip. "Fascinating design."
John's lips tightened. He didn't want to let go of the chip, but he couldn't learn anything from it himself and he didn't know any scientists. These kids were the best chance he had of utilizing this resource. It wasn't a sure bet, but then neither was any other option.
"If I entrust this to you to work on," John said, "you could give us the edge that will allow us to beat Skynet. But you have to know that Skynet is capable of putting agents in the field anytime, anywhere. And it's desperate. So you can't afford to take any chances. Which means you can't show or tell anybody about this without my clearance."
"Why would you trust us?" Snog asked, sounding for the first time as though he was willing to cut John some slack.
"I've checked you guys out," he said. "You're all brilliant, this work is definitely within your capabilities. You have access to facilities that I don't. And, you're close enough to my age that I felt I could trust you." Actually, that wasn't true, but he thought they'd like hearing it.
The guys looked smug, but Wendy said, "Hey, wait a minute! You just met my friends tonight. How could you possibly have checked them out?"
John could feel the color rising in his face. "Uh. There was a slight—
"Invasion of privacy," she snapped. Her eyes glittered with fury. "How dare you?"
"I'm sorry, Wendy, I really am. But if I hadn't been able to check you and your friends out, I wouldn't have been able to come here."
She crossed her arms. "Yeah, well, I did a little checking on you, too, when I got interested in Sarah Connor's story. You're wanted for murder."
With a sigh John rewrapped the CPU. "I've never killed anybody in my life," he said. Well, nobody human. Do sentient killing machines from the future count?
"What about that ‘I’ll take you down' stuff?" Snog mocked.
"Nice to know somebody here knows bullshit when they smell it," John said.
Snog laughed. "He's all right." He held out his hand. "I'm in."
The relief in the room was palpable and Brad, Carl, and Yam all offered their hands as well. Only Wendy sat scowling at him. "I want you to promise me you'll never invade my privacy again," she said.
John shook his head. "I can't promise that. All I can promise is to respect your privacy as much as I can." He could see that she didn't like that. "Some things are greater than our personal likes and dislikes," he explained. "I genuinely don't like making you unhappy with me. But I'm not going to lie to you if I can help it.
What I'm trying to accomplish, what you'll be helping me to accomplish, is more important than any one person or their privacy. I won't abuse it. That's all I can promise." He met her eyes, willing her to believe him.
"I don't like it," Wendy said frankly. She turned her head away, then gave a half shrug; looking back, she frowned at him. "I'll have to get back to you on it.
Meanwhile"—she looked around and let out her breath in a little huff—"I'm starved. Who's up for pizza?"
"Thought you'd never ask," Carl muttered.
***
CRAIG KIPFER'S OFFICE, SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA
"So, Sarah Connor is getting better and she's enjoying the facilities at the Encinas Halfway House," Kipfer said.
Pool nodded. "Yes, sir."
Kipfer tilted his chair back and smiled. "That's nice," he said. Then his eyes went cold. "Tell me again why we're being so nice."
Pool blinked. That he was being asked to explain himself again meant that Kipfer didn't trust his plan. Unfortunate, but he did believe in his idea. "We anticipate that she will attempt escape, in which case we'll track her to her base and finally get our hands on her son and, we hope, their unknown ally.
Alternatively, her son is very likely to attempt a rescue. Again, we hope with the aid of the man."
Kipfer looked thoughtful. "It has the virtue of simplicity," he said. "How do you plan to track her if she escapes?"
"The halfway house is under constant surveillance."
Kipfer leaned forward, pulling his chair closer to his desk. He folded his hands before him. "Describe 'surveillance.'"
"Cameras have been set up throughout the house and on every door, and microphones, of course," Pool said. "They're monitored by agents at a nearby location twenty-four/seven."
Kipfer shook his head and spread his hands. "You didn't put an implant on her?"
he asked. "It isn't like you didn't have an opportunity, for God's sake, she's been in surgery like twelve times."
Pool looked nervous. "Actually, sir, we did insert an implant. Since her move we've lost the signal."
His boss looked disgusted. Pool sat straighten it was a bad sign when Kipfer let you know what he was thinking.
"Well, there's not much can be done about that," Kipfer said. "But those agents you have watching her had better be good," he warned.
"They are, sir. The best."
"I have another little problem I'd like you to look into." Kipfer handed him a slip of paper. "This MIT student thinks it's fun to read my mail. Deal with it."
Pool took the paper. Wendy Dorset… "I'll take care of it right away, sir."
Kipfer flicked his fingers in dismissal and turned to his computer.
Pool rose and left silently. At the front of his mind was the worry that his agents might let Connor slip away. In the background was a seething resentment that he'd been saddled with such an unimportant chore as scaring off a too-curious student. To an agent a
t his level it was humiliating; of course it was meant to be.
Still, he would see to it that little Miss Dorset lost all interest in other people's private affairs.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MONTANA
Clea was leaving for the airport in less than three hours and she was nervous.
She paced through the carefully camouflaged upper part of the big log-cabin house, past magazines that were never read but were still ruffled realistically at set intervals, past furniture carefully worn at a regular pace and replaced occasionally.
This would be the first time she'd ever flown, ever left the state where she was born, ever been completely alone with millions of humans. She decided she wasn't nervous. She was terrified, in an abstract intellectual way that her computer side's control of hormones could do nothing about.
Clea tried to hide it from her little sister as she followed her down the hallway to her sister's lab. It was a futile effort, of course. Even if Alissa was fooled, and she probably wasn't, her computer part would identify the signs of stress and relay the information to its flesh half. Still, a human would be fooled, making the practice worthwhile.
Alissa and the Terminators would handle the rest of the move from this point.
The hard work was already done; what remained was just mechanical. The funeral had been held. To her utter surprise her "uncle" had received a number of floral arrangements from the companies he'd worked for. She had even received a fruit basket from one of them.
The humans at the funeral parlor had been very, even cloyingly, sympathetic. As had the doctor who'd declared the T-101 dead.
When she'd insisted there be no autopsy, indicating by her manner that she was prepared to become emotional about it, the doctor had assured her that because of economic considerations they didn't automatically perform autopsies anymore.
She'd thought it wonderful that a government agency would actually do something so convenient.
Before she left for New York, however, Alissa had insisted that she view the Watcher she'd constructed to spy on Sarah Connor. It was clear that her little sister was pleased with the results of her work.
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