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feline. By the time it reached the target it possessed fur, markings, and the body language of a cat.
The back door stood open, as did the side doors of the van. He heard voices from the building. The cat-form sat down just at the edge of the light spilling from inside.
A few minutes later a man came out the door. He entered the van, rummaged for a few moments, then stepped out.
“Hey, I found the—whoa, what we got here? Anybody order a mascot?”
“What’s that?”
Another man appeared in the doorway and looked down at the cat.
“Cute. Must be a million of ’em within ten blocks. Come on, we need to finish the shielding on the dedicated lines.”
“Yeah, right.” The first man knelt down and scratched the cat-form under the chin. “Friendly, aren’t you? Not afraid of me at all.”
He reentered the building.
Casse, through the cat-form, waited a few more minutes, then cautiously moved the cat-form to the edge of the doorway. The utility room door was open to another room.
Three men worked amid a collection of desks and electronic equipment. Cables snaked across the floor.
To the right, through another door, a staircase ran up to the second floor. At the first floor landing, another door, probably to the basement. Casse judged distance and attention, hesitated, then bolted the cat-form up the rear stairs.
The door at the top was locked. Casse sniffed along the base of the door. Not much room, but enough. He dissolved the cat-form and slid the material underneath, into the apartment.
He found few furnishings. More computers, a television, a kitchen table and chairs. A sofa. No bed yet. Sleeping bags lay visible through a doorway. They were still moving in.
A box in the living room contained a desk lamp, blotter, various other office items.
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Casse considered options. He could not get to the Connors now. Not yet. And as tempting as the idea was, it would not be wise to try to kill them. He doubted he could. In the past they had demonstrated a powerful link to the frame, a resistence to interference from any out-of-frame agent.
Like young Porter, they could only be killed by someone native to their own frame. Knowing that gave Casse a certain confidence. He was relieved of the responsibility for taking actions that would prove fruitless. Counterproductive, even.
Knowledge was never useless. Better to find out more than interfere with current plans.
He moved the cat to the kitchen table. It rubbed itself against one leg, a reflexive gesture inexplicably retained from the original model, then dissolved itself. The metal flowed up the leg and spread across the bottom of the table.
The thin veneer took on color and texture, chameleon-like.
Satisfied, Casse reduced contact with the satellite, and left the alley. He made his way back to his car, gradually resuming his preferred shape. By the time he reached the vehicle, he was once more Casse, Vice President of Cyberdyne, guardian of Skynet’s coming birth.
203
EIGHTEEN
Bobby hated being here. The instant they drove through the gates of Destry-McMillin he felt a profound urge to climb out the window and run.
Deirdre sat beside him, holding his hand. He tightened his grip upon seeing the main gate and she frowned at him.
She knew how he felt, but just now pragmatism won out over principle. Everyone else had decided—he would be safer inside Destry-McMillin than anywhere else until what had happened was sorted out.
“Why don’t we just call the police?” he muttered.
Sean Philicos, sitting in the front seat, turned to him.
“The police can’t help you in this.”
Bobby had no idea who Philicos was, but Mr. McMillin seemed to defer to him. “You know a lot about it, do you?”
“A bit. Relax. I can explain it…” He hesitated, then laughed dryly. “Well, inasmuch as it can be explained, I’ll try. But let’s get you somewhere safe first, okay?”
He wanted to argue, but images of Mr. Casse’s knife-blade hand kept recurring. He swallowed and rolled his head slowly, trying to ease the tension from his neck.
Outside, they passed through pleasant parkland on the way to corporate headquarters. The place was bigger than he had imagined. Deirdre told him her stepfather had a great deal of money—and power—but it was never easy for 204
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him to grasp what that meant. Growing up lower class, the only thing between his future and poverty a better-than-average grasp of abstract mathematics, Bobby’s few confrontations with immense wealth always surprised him. He never anticipated the correct level, continually underestim-ated what it meant to be a millionaire, much less a billion-aire. What he saw on television possessed no substance—it was television, unreal.
Why it made him uncomfortable he could not say. He felt judged for his background, his family’s lack of status, his humble concepts of Enough. Again he wondered why Deirdre stayed with him. What did he have to offer to compare with this? Property isn’t a person, she had told him once. She had not said “love,” which would have sounded patronizing. Property isn’t a person…Bobby could not argue with that. But a part of him reckoned that “persons” who could build something like this had maybe more
“personhood” than people like him. A false conclusion, he knew, based more on his discomfort than any reasonable assessment of reality. Still, he could not shake it. He felt undeserving—and resentful of the McMillins of the world making him feel that way.
But he had never thought any of them wanted to kill him. He had never expected a Mr. Casse.
The two cars—the lead containing most of the security people Mr. McMillin had brought along, including Paul Patterson—descended a wide ramp into an underground garage. More security people waited for them, several in dark green uniforms wearing sidearms.
Philicos walked with McMillin toward a row of elevators.
Paul Patterson approached Deirdre and Bobby.
“We’re going to assign a couple of people to accompany you,” Patterson said.
“Where are we going?” Bobby asked. “Why can’t we go home?”
Deirdre scowled at him. “It’s likely being watched. That’s why I called Paul.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Bobby said.
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“You wouldn’t have believed me. You’d call me paranoid, just like you did when I suggested maybe canceling this interview with Cyberdyne.”
“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know they’re aliens or something?”
Deirdre shook her head, arms folded across her chest.
Bobby saw something in her face then he had never seen there before: fear.
“Come on,” Patterson said, pointing toward the elevators.
Deirdre took Bobby’s hand, smiled anxiously, and followed Patterson.
As they entered the elevator, Bobby asked Patterson,
“How did you know?”
“That office you were in,” Patterson said, “was the only place occupied. The rest of the building was empty.”
“So you came in with your gun drawn because nobody else was around?”
“Cruz had a weapon in his hand when I opened the door.”
They rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. They stepped into wide, bright corridors that reminded Bobby of the offices at the university. People gave him curious looks as he moved surrounded by the entourage formed by Deirdre, her stepfather, three security men, and Philicos down the long hall and into a conference room.
“Anybody hungry?” Dennis McMillin asked. “I’m having coffee and sandwiches sent up in any case. Anybody want anything else? Deirdre? Young man?”
Bobby locked eyes with McMillin then. Since he arrived at his home to fetch his daughter and her “boyfriend,”
McMillin had said less than a dozen words to him. He could never tell i
f the man liked him, did not care, or hated him.
Bobby shrugged, looking away.
“I’m all right,” he said. He sat down at the long table, close to the door.
“Would you all excuse us, gentlemen?” McMillin said.
“Please wait outside.”
Bobby watched all the others leave the room. The last to go was Patterson, who gave Deirdre an odd look.
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Deirdre sat down beside Bobby.
McMillin sat on the edge of the conference table, facing them.
“Young man, you are anything but ‘all right’ at the moment. You’re in deep shit, son, and we’re here to help.”
Bobby felt himself grow angry, but bit it back. He glared at McMillin, but the man did not look away.
“I want to tell you something,” McMillin said. “I’m a rich man. You may have noticed. And I love Deirdre. She’s my daughter, I want the best for her. You may have guessed that. The cliché ends there, though. I don’t interfere in her life. I am very able to do so. When she enrolled at Caltech I was all for it. When she wanted to take an apartment of her own by the campus, I was dubious. I didn’t like it. I wanted to protect her. But it’s her life and she has to learn how to live it on her own terms. She has to make her own decisions and it would be a rotten way to have her start out thinking I don’t trust her. So I sat on my reservations and let her do it. I do trust her. She’s never disappointed me. When she moved you into her place, it bothered me.
Really bothered me. But I did not interfere. I could have had you checked out. I have resources second only to the federal government. I could have had your DNA analyzed and interpreted if I’d wanted it. But I didn’t. I left it alone.
I didn’t even know your last name till recently and that measure of trust in Deirdre damn near cost you your life.
Now I know more about you. I know about the little scam you’re pulling with your cousin’s scholarship. I know your real name. So how do you do, Jeremiah?”
“My name is Robert.”
McMillin shook his head. “Your cousin’s name was Robert. Oh, your middle name is Robert, certainly, which is the only reason so far you’ve gotten away with this. By the way, I applaud you for that. The scholarship was there, your cousin vanished, it would have been a waste not to take advantage of it. I’m not a big believer in the required standards of the university system—if you’re a math wiz, why do you need a dozen years of English Comp? The slick 207
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way you switched profiles, the whole process of posing as your cousin. You’re clever. And from what Deirdre has told me, you are one sharp mathematician. But the fraud is not that good. I found out with a few phone calls. Certainly Cyberdyne could find out the same information. And evidently your thesis advisor did.”
Again, Bobby felt himself bristle. His reaction made no sense, he knew, but he resented having failure thrown in his face.
“Point is, I am not an autocratic asshole,” McMillin continued. “You and Deirdre have been living together on your own terms, that’s fine. She’s happy—it shows, you obviously treat her well—I won’t interfere. I repeat, I could have meddled. I did not. The simplest inquiries were not made because I trusted her. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Bobby wanted to leave. He caught Deirdre’s gaze. She was watching him, waiting. He tried to think what they wanted, what was required here. It was a test, but he did not know if it was multiple choice or essay.
Thinking diminished the anger. Not completely, but enough. He looked at McMillin with a new respect. He did see the risk involved. Dennis McMillin had let go. Deirdre made her own decisions. McMillin had respected that.
Respected it almost pathologically—Bobby did not think he could be so passive under the same conditions. But it was important to this man that his stepdaughter respect him, too, and that required a show of trust.
Bobby had always thought of Destry-McMillin and Dennis McMillin as one in the same, a whole entity, indivisible into the components of corporation and individual. And like all big corporations, Bobby mistrusted them. It was easier than making constant reassessments and new moral judgments. Time for that later, after he had his degree.
Maybe you can never put this kind of thing off, though…
His shoulders relaxed. He sat up straighter. “I understand.” He reached for Deirdre’s hand. “I do understand.
I’m sorry.” He met McMillin’s gaze again. “Why are you telling me this now?”
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“Because I need your trust, too. This has become something other than your personal life. We need to trust you.”
“I’m…look, I’m still not sure if what I saw was real or…it doesn’t make sense.”
“Frame of reference, son. Everything makes sense in the right frame of reference. What I want you to do is talk to one of my physicists. I want you to go over what you and Casse talked about. We need an idea why they were interested in you.”
Suspicion returned in a rush. “That’s my work—”
McMillin raised his hands. “Whoa. At this point something larger is involved. But we’re not trying to steal your stuff. We’re not Dr. Cojensis.”
“And I believe this why?”
McMillin scowled impatiently. “Look, being careful with your work is usually sensible, and you’ve learned early the hard way to be a bit secretive. But someone just tried to kill you because of what you know. There’s more than an undergraduate degree at risk now. We need to know why they want to kill you.”
“He didn’t, though. I mean, he chased me around the office, hacking at me, but he kept missing. Sometimes it seemed impossible for him to miss me. I’m wondering now if he really intended to kill me or—”
“Paul tells me Cruz had a gun. He was about to go into that office with you and Casse. What do you think he was going to do, shoot his boss?”
Bobby opened his mouth to answer. He stared at McMillin mutely, puzzled for a moment by the oily warm sensation spreading over his shoulders, up his neck, through his face.
He hands began trembling. He laughed, and the sound became a sob, and suddenly he was in Deirdre’s arms, shaking and crying.
They tried to kill me…tried to kill me…tried to…me…
Deirdre watched Dennis McMillin, resentful and admiring at the same time. He had kept his word to stay out of her private life, but he was badgering Bobby now. She felt 209
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protective, and wanted him to stop his harangue and go away, even while she knew he was right. She held Bobby while he cried. He was terrified, naturally, but more than that, he had reached a breaking point. For the last two years he had occupied a tenuous place at the university, constantly alert and on edge because of his deception. When Cojensis had presented him with his duplicity, Bobby’s hold on his own life became even more slippery. This, now, was too much.
McMillin backed off. He gave Deirdre a look that was both apologetic and impatient. She understood
—roughly—that they had little time for adjustment. She was more than a little amazed at her own calm. But then she had always been like this—deal with the crisis at hand, suffer the emotional effects later. She suspected that the backlash of this one would be enormous.
Gradually, Bobby regained control. He was embarrassed, she could tell. He snuffled, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.
“Can I get some water?” he asked.
“Sure,” McMillin said. He went to the other end of the conference room, to a counter containing a tray of glasses and a dispenser. He filled a glass and brought it back to Bobby. “Do you need a minute?”
“Please,” Bobby said.
McMillin gestured for Deirdre to join him.
“I’ll be back,” she told Bobby, standing. She followed her stepfather into the corridor outside.
At the far end she saw a group of people, among them Paul Patterson and the new man,
Sean Philicos. She was baffled by all this. She felt her own grasp on events to be tenuous, but she let Dennis McMillin lead her to another room.
Alone, he waved her to a chair.
“I’ve never meddled in your private life,” he began.
“I know. I appreciate that.”
“But now I have to. I need you to see that.”
“I need to see what’s going on.”
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“I’m going to tell you. But you aren’t going to believe me.”
Deirdre stared at him. “You’ve never lied to me before.
Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“Because frankly I have a hard time believing it myself.”
He pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. He took her hands, bowed his head briefly, and sighed.
“What?” Deirdre asked in a whisper. “You’re scaring me now.”
He looked up. “You should be scared.”
He began talking. He held her hands through the entire story.
Bobby refilled his glass. He felt calmer now. At some point he concluded that his life as he had wished it was over.
Nothing would be as he wanted it to be. The realization brought a peculiar peace. Temporary, no doubt.
The door to the conference room opened. McMillin entered again, followed by Deirdre, Patterson, Sean Philicos, and a woman Bobby did not recognize.
“How do you feel, Bobby?” McMillin asked. “Better? Can we talk?”
“Sure,” Bobby answered. “Who do you think’s gonna win the World Cup this year?”
McMillin grinned. “Bobby, I want you to meet Dr. Stefani Jaspar. She runs a development team working on superconductors. Among other things.”
Despite himself, Bobby felt his interest rise. “Hi.”
“Mr. Porter,” she said. “I’d like to talk to you about your work. I understand it concerns certain aspects of time?”
Bobby grunted. “I guess you could say that.”
“Let’s sit,” McMillin said.
Everyone took a chair around the long conference table.
“How do you approach Time?” Jaspar asked.
Bobby studied her. Small woman, neat hair, large brown eyes that displayed considerable intelligence. She wore a simple green blouse and black pants, the only decoration her Destry-McMillin ID badge. “What do you mean?”
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