Infiltrator t2-1

by S. M. Stirling

  George shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe we’re older and we’ve got a better sense of perspective,” he offered. “We know what a giant job it is

  and that maybe it’s too much for just us to do.”

  “You know what, George? The only people who ever accomplish anything in this world are the ones who are prepared to risk everything. People who try to hold on to what they’ve got and play by the rules just get old and die and a generation later nobody even knows they ever lived at all. They don’t get rich, they don’t change anything, they just spawn and die.”

  He moved a little closer, standing in George’s space.

  “But I haven’t lost my focus. I am willing to risk everything and there isn’t one of you that doesn’t scare easy. You resent it, too. And that’s what that ‘scene’ the other night was really about. It was about fear and knowing that you’ll never accomplish your goals because you’ve lost the will. And envy that I haven’t given up.”

  George stepped back a couple of paces and frowned. “You keep using these violent words, man. ‘Assassination’ and ‘revolution’ and ‘fear.’ Just what do you mean when you say stuff like that?”

  Ron looked at him in mild exasperation. Sometimes he thought George was a bit dim. He was a wonderful agriculturist, the most valuable member of the commune in that respect. But sometime he came on so dumb!

  “When I said ‘assassination’ I was speaking metaphorically. When I talk about fear I’m talking about financial risk and losing the good opinion of the neighbors.

  When I say ‘revolution’ I’m talking about a grass-roots movement, maybe something like a religious conversion, where we finally get people to realize the danger this whole planet is in! You used to say ‘revolution’ all the time, and you

  knew what it meant then.” He looked at his onetime friend and shook his head.

  “It wasn’t all that long ago, George.” He leaned down and picked up the sprayer.

  “I feel sorry for you.”

  Labane turned and walked away, a little smile playing on his lips. That had felt good.

  The next morning he slapped his manuscript down on the table and announced,

  “I’m going in to town. Does anyone need anything?”

  Every eye was on the pile of paper.

  “What’s that?” Branwyn asked, coming over from the sink to look at it.

  “That,” Ron said, putting on his jacket, “is my book. Which I am shipping off to New York today.”

  ” The New Luddite Manifesto,” Lisa read. “Congratulations, honey.” She put her hand on his neck and reached up to kiss his cheek.

  Ron simply stared at her blankly. Since the big meeting he’d been sleeping on the cot in his office. As far as he was concerned there was no longer anything between them. The sooner she got used to that, the better for both of them.

  “So no one needs anything?” he said to the group at large.

  They shook their heads, silenced by his coldness to Lisa.

  “Okay, bye.”

  It wasn’t until he was actually in the van that he realized he wasn’t coming back.

  He was going to drive his manuscript to New York. He was going to hand-deliver it to the editor and make that man or woman listen to him. Because giving up on your dreams meant you were ready to lie down and die and he was a long, long way from that.

  As far as Ron was concerned he was leaving behind a house full of the walking dead. It was time to cut his losses and look to the future. As he drove past the house the baby began to cry.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  VILLA HAYES, PARAGUAY: THE

  PRESENT

  Suzanne Krieger… nee Sarah Connor, she thought. In my previous, pre-Terminators, pre-change-the-future existence… finished signing the contract with a flourish and tipped her chair back, taking a quick look out into the garage through the grimy, streaked glass of the office window.

  One of her company’s trucks had its hood up and its guts laid out, but nobody seemed to be around. She slid open the second drawer of her desk, and slipped out a flask of cana. Sarah/Suzanne unscrewed the cap and added a healthy dollop of the cane alcohol to her terere, an iced mate drink she’d grown fond of. It went down even smoother with a little help. It also made her sweat a little, but everyone did that in the Chaco—summers here ran over a hundred every day, and it wasn’t a dry heat, either.

  “Senora,” a weary voice said. There was a hint of censure in it.

  Sarah’s mouth twisted in exasperation and she looked over at Ernesto Jaramillo, her chief mechanic. His broad, mustachioed face was set, his dark eyes sad.

  “Where the heck did you come from?” she asked defensively. “A second ago there wasn’t anybody around.” She stubbed out her cigarette impatiently.

  “It’s not even eleven o’clock in the morning, senora,” Ernesto pointed out.

  “What’s an hour or so among friends?” she asked, turning to her work. “Did you want something?”

  “That stuff will rot your liver,” he said.

  “Mmmm. Rotten liver, that sounds like a happy condition.” Sarah adjusted her ashtray, then turned over a paper and signed the one beneath it. “Did you want something, Ernesto?” She gave him a sidelong glance.

  He shrugged, frowning.

  “I just want you to be healthy, senora,” he grumbled.

  She turned and looked squarely at him. “Thank you, Ernesto. I know you mean well, but I’m not doing anything wrong, here. The business isn’t going to fail because I like flavoring my tea with cana.” She smiled at him.

  He smiled back, shaking his head. Then he shrugged. “I just came to tell you that Meylinda is going to take her break in about five minutes.”

  “Thanks,” Sarah said. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  He lifted his hand in a sort of salute and wandered off. Sarah/Suzanne watched him go, then took another sip. I can’t believe the way I pussyfoot around people these days, she thought. Not so very long ago she’d have told Ernesto what he could do with his fatherly concern. But there was no help for it if she was to blend in. Paraguayan culture required women to be mild and somewhat subservient. She was cutting-edge here just for being the boss. Milquetoast that I am.

  Sarah stood and smoothed down her narrow dark skirt then checked her hair in the mirror. Even now her appearance sometimes surprised her. The short, dark brown hair cut close around her face and the big, heavy frames of her fake glasses made her look more fragile somehow. But the darkness of her hair brought out the blue of her eyes with surprising intensity. She was feminine enough still to like that. It made up a little for the ugly glasses. A necessary disguise that kept people at a distance.

  Outside of work she wore sunglasses, always. Except at night, of course. But since she never went anywhere at night it didn’t matter.

  Sometimes her lack of a social life bothered her. With John away in school, it was lonely out on her little estancia. But as a single mother, a businesswoman, and a foreigner… people around here genuinely didn’t know what to make of her. They avoided any discomfort by avoiding her. Not that that stopped them talking, of course. This place had the small-town vices in spades.

  Sometimes she thought it was just as well, sometimes she worried that she should be more involved. With something feminine like a bake sale for charity or

  something. After all, her trucking company sponsored a local baseball team, which was a very popular move, but somehow the locals had persuaded themselves that it was her workers who sponsored the team rather than herself. It came down to gender again. If she had been born male she would have been absorbed into this town years ago.

  She also handled more than a little of the local smuggling market. Sarah had expected people to suck up to her a bit because of that. But it turned out that was also a strike against her. Smuggling was man’s work. As were trucks. Her story of inheriting the business from her husband was the only thing that had made it possible for her to get along at all here.


  The local women were very nice to her but kept their distance. Even Meylinda was no more than politely friendly. Sarah had once been checked out by a local widower who was essentially looking for an unpaid housekeeper/nanny that he could boink without censure. But she’d run him off as quickly as she could. She knew she’d have killed the man in a week, leaving seven little big-eyed orphans behind. Then I’d have felt obligated to raise the little monsters.

  Once in a while she considered selling up and moving to Asuncidn to become a secretary or even a waitress. But then she’d remember the peace and quiet of her estancia and Linda, her mare, and she’d put it out of her mind. Changing locations wouldn’t change who she was anyway. It wasn’t just that she was a foreigner and a woman that kept people away. Sometimes, when she was tired or not thinking and sometimes deliberately… she radiated danger and distrust.

  With a half smile Sarah put down her brush and fluffed her bangs. Funny, that’s just what makes the smugglers trust me. She added a touch of lipstick. Her

  mouth was the same, still the full lower lip, but now it was bracketed with what she chose to refer to as smile lines. Not that anyone would want to see the smile that could produce such marks.

  Sarah walked into the front office with her drink and her cigarettes to find Meylinda browsing a magazine instead of filing the massive stack of invoices at her elbow. Sarah suppressed a sigh. She’d fire the girl in a New York minute except that Meylinda was a vast improvement over the previous two. Being a known smuggler kept many families from allowing their daughters to work for her. Including the families of smugglers. She was lucky to have anyone.

  Tapping out a cigarette, she smiled at her employee.

  “Oh! Thank you for coming, senora. See you in fifteen minutes,” Meylinda said cheerfully. She picked up her pocketbook and magazine and flitted out the front door.

  Fifteen minutes. Right. Sarah lit up and took a drag of her cigarette. Picking up the stack of invoices, she took them over to the filing cabinet. I’ll be lucky if she makes it back in time to go to lunch.

  Ernesto had told her that there was an apparently serious flirtation going on between Meylinda and a boy who worked at the confiten’a down the street. And serious flirting took time. I wonder if she’ll be getting married soon. If so Sarah would soon be in the market for another receptionist. She dreaded the prospect.

  There was someone behind her. Sarah continued to place invoices in their files as she tried to sense something about the mysterious presence. It didn’t smell like one of the mechanics or drivers, no sharp scent of gas or oil. She heard the

  whisper of fabric, of slacks or jeans, making it probable the intruder was a male.

  He moved young. And then she knew.

  “Hi, John,” she said, smiling.

  “How do you do that?” he demanded. “I could have sworn I didn’t make a sound.”

  She turned, still smiling, and opened her arms to him. When he stepped into her hug she blinked to find her chin resting on his shoulder. “Whoa!” she said, holding him off. “You’ve grown!”

  “I’m sixteen, Mom. It happens.” He looked smug as he said it.

  Sarah looked him over, shaking her head. There was a lighter mark on the cuffs of his school uniform jacket where the sleeves had been taken down, but even so his wrist-bones were visible. The trousers showed the same problem.

  “Did they send you home early for being a disgrace to your uniform?” she asked.

  “They sent me home because.” He held up an envelope containing his report card.

  Sarah took it with a raised eyebrow and opened it. There was a note inside from the principal/commandant of the very expensive military academy she was sending him to.

  It told her that her son was an extraordinary student who had saved the life of one of his fellows while they were out on field maneuvers. The boy had been bitten by a snake. John had applied a tourniquet, and had organized his squad to

  make a stretcher from their rifles and blankets, and then he had led them back to the academy. For this presence of mind, for his exceptional leadership qualities, and for getting straight A’s, he was being rewarded by being sent on summer break early.

  “Congratulations,” she said. Quiet pride shone from her eyes.

  He waggled his eyebrows and grinned.

  “Hey, I had a good teacher. I’m supposed to be, like, this great military leader, remember?”

  She hugged him again, knowing he didn’t mean the teachers at the academy.

  “Exceptional leadership qualities, the commandant says,” Sarah reminded him.

  “Nobody can teach you that.”

  “Yeah, but you knew that before I was hatched,” he said. “No problemo. It’s just my nature.”

  Sarah snorted. “Don’t get cocky, kid. It’s when you’re taking bows that the world most likes to kick your butt. Listen, I’m kinda stuck here.” She looked over her shoulder at the messy desk. “Meylinda’s on break and in love.”

  John laughed. “You want me to hunt her down?”

  “Mmmm. No, I’ve still got a couple of things to finish up. But if you can entertain yourself until one, I’ll call it quits for the day and let Ernesto lock up.”

  “Great,” he said. “God, I’m dying of thirst.” John went to the desk and picked up

  the glass of terere”. “This yours, Mom?” He took a gulp before she could stop him. “Hooo-waah!” he said, tears in his eyes. “What did you put in this,” he rasped, “battery acid?” He waved a hand in front of his face. “Whoo!”

  “That’s what you get for not asking permission,” she said, coming over to the desk. Sarah took another drag of her cigarette and rolled her eyes at his disapproving glare. “What?” she snapped.

  “I thought you’d given up smoking,” he said. He looked disappointed.

  This is not my day, she thought. Every man I see is disappointed or disapproving. Then she felt a little brighter inside. She’d actually thought of her son as a man.

  “I mean after what you went through quitting last summer, I can’t believe you took it up again.” He shifted his stance awkwardly, then put down the terere.

  “C’mon, Mom, you’re tougher than that.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay.” She tamped out the cigarette. “But can we talk about this later, hmm?”

  “Sure. Um, I’ll go get a soda, or something. Maybe keep an eye on Meylinda.”

  Sarah laughed. “She’ll probably use you to make this new guy jealous. Do you need money?”

  “Nah, I’ve got some.” He looked at her for a moment, and then he reached over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “See ya in a couple of hours.”

  “Bye.” She watched him go, noting the new maturity in his walk, and sighed.

  Funny he mentioned the cigarettes but not the cana in her tea. He would, though.

  She could rely on that.

  John walked down the dusty street with his hands in his pockets, listening to conversations in Guarni and Spanish and several dialects of German—all of which he spoke—and acknowledging waves. A punishable offense on campus, so he did it every chance he got.

  Quite a difference from the days when I was rippin’ off ATM cards, he thought with a twisted little smile.

  The extent of his crimes these days was making his jacket look baggy and maybe smuggling beer or cookies into the dorm. The air smelled powerfully of dry dust and the odors that went with being a cow-town; the owners of the estancias around drove their stock here for the big semis to pick up. From here he could see the green of paddocks, the gray-green thorny Chaco scrub, and the long sandy bareness of the road. Palms lined the road, rustling dryly in the heat.

  He passed the confiten’a and looking through the window caught sight of a smiling Meylinda in close conference with a guy whose vast black mustache dominated his thin brown face.

  He wondered if his mother might once have been such a girl. A girl with nothing more on her mind than clothes and guys.
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  Meylinda was a fairly pretty girl. Surely she had other options. John shook his head in puzzlement and moved on. His mother had often said that if women didn’t have bad taste in men there wouldn’t be a human race.

  His mother.

  He could still feel the heat of the cana in his stomach. For a few seconds he’d actually been light-headed from the stuff. John felt the slow burn from an ember of resentment deep in his heart. They were not, by any means, so safe and comfortable that it was all right for his mother to sweeten her tea with one-hundred-proof cane juice.

  He’d never forgotten the shock that had buzzed through him when he discovered that he was wanted for the murder of his foster parents. I was ten fucking years old, for Christ’s sake! They’d been stabbed to death, both of them in the head.

  Even if he’d had the upper-body strength he couldn’t have reached that high.

  Still, even he had to concede that it was a not completely unreasonable deduction given his activities later the same day. And, of course, a T-1000 made of liquid metal would be completely off their radar. So it had to be me, or me and Mom that killed them.

  So what the hell was his mother doing slurping cana in the morning? It made him feel vulnerable and confused and he hated that. Besides, the knowledge that his mother could have a weakness so human was disturbing at a deep level. All his life she’d been a rock.

  He pictured himself putting her to bed, limp and soggy with drink, and he shuddered. I can’t face that, he told himself.

  He’d come to rest in the shade of a tree, the park that was the center of the plaza before him. Several boys around his own age were kicking around a soccer ball

  and screaming curses and encouragement.

  John watched them play. He knew them all, street kids most of them and very tough, who’d made him prove himself over and over until he’d convinced them that he was even tougher than they were. They’d gang up on him and win the day. But he’d seek them out when they were alone and they’d have a little one-on-one. He’d told them as they lay on the ground bleeding and panting, “Don’t make me do this again.” No one ever had. Instead one day they’d kicked him the ball, and that was it, he was in.