T2 - 03 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Times of Trouble

by Russell Blackford

  "And?"

  He tried to gather his thoughts. "I'm not sure I've ever been able to work it out." He looked to Sarah, then to Jade. Both of them were impassive: Sarah was lost in her own thoughts; Jade was simply hard to read, as she always was. It had to do with the set of her face—always a little sad, always kind, but never excited, never overwhelmed by the moment.

  Anton had been keeping his silence. Maybe he'd

  been talking to Jade, but he was giving nothing away to anyone else. John was on his own with this one.

  "You must have some ideas," the General said to him.

  "I'm not sure. I wouldn't ever build Skynet...or anything like it. It just seems too risky, making something like that, something self-conscious, but not human—something that can see us as, like, its rivals on the Earth. I don't know that we could ever risk sharing the world with something like that." John felt his way as he tried to capture the thought he wanted, nail it down. "It would always be a danger to us, and we'd be a danger to it We shouldn't set things up like that. There's no need to..." He trailed off, wondering whether he was actually wrong on that, whether there might ever be scope for human beings and a true artificial intelligence like Skynet to share the same world. "But..."

  The General raised an eyebrow. "But?"

  "I just thought, maybe that's where to draw the line. No matter how it acts, a Terminator isn't really conscious." He searched for the right words. "It's just a machine, like a car.. .or a machine gun, or something. The T-800 that came back to help me, in 1994.. .I got kind of attached to it. But it couldn't really feel things, not like a human being. It could never cry, or have real emotions. I guess Skynet could, maybe cold emotions, maybe evil..." Was that too strong? Then he thought of what he had been through, the cruel malice of the T-1000 that had tried to kill him in 1994, torturing Sarah when they'd fought it to the death in a metal foundry back in L.A. And he remembered the incredible arrogance that Skynet had shown in this world, on Judgment Day, making a decision to discard the entire human species, just like that. No, it wasn't too strong a word, not too dramatic. They were dealing with evil, something implacably, cruelly hostile.

  "Go on, John," Sarah said. "We need to hear this. You're as expert as anyone."

  "I don't know. But Skynet turned out to see itself as being in competition with humans. It wanted to live, even if it meant killing all of us. That's where I'd draw the line. I'm not so worried about using Terminators, not if they're just Terminators, not unless they become something more. We can't ever allow that to happen."

  That was the most he'd ever said on the subject, even in his longest talks with Sarah, back in Mexico City when they'd tried to build a life in exile, after Judgment Day had failed to happen in their world, and before the Specialists had come on the scene to turn that life upside-down. Just for the moment, he couldn't tell how it had gone down.

  Jade spoke at last. "I am not so sure of one thing. It seems that the Terminators may have a kind of consciousness, something faintly like human emotions...a need to kill, to carry out their missions. Nonetheless, I agree with John." As she spoke up to support him, his heart fluttered slightly, even though that seemed kind of childish and crazy. "There is a line we should never cross. Merely using Terminators falls this side of the line, as long as we destroy them all completely when we are finished. Or find another way to remove them."

  "Another way?" the General said. "You're thinking ahead?"

  "I am. You rid yourselves of the Terminators as Ms. Mohanraj said at the start. Otherwise, someone will use them for a higher level of AI technology. In that case, Sarah is right, and Mr. Grimes, too: It will begin all over again."

  Sarah looked the General in the eye, shaking her head and speaking in that flat voice John had so often heard from her, a slightly dangerous, yet self-protective, manner that came from the days when everyone had thought she was a psycho. "I think you'll get a lot of opposition if you use the Terminators," she said. "I'd oppose it myself, if I thought you had any alternative."

  "I agree with Sarah," Gabriela said. "We have to stop using Skynet's own weapons. But we can't yet. We just have to plan to stop it—a definite plan. It can't go on. I want to see all those machines destroyed as soon as possible."

  General Connor looked from one to another in the room, as if weighing up each of them and their views. "Can you live with that?" he said to Grimes. I'm prepared to give you a commitment to destroy all the war machines, no matter what happens. I can put a time limit on it. One year, if you want. Forget about what happens after I'm gone. I'll see it done myself. If something happens to me, everyone here should be committed. We'll be rid of the machines in a year, even if the situation looks bleak. I'll stake my leadership on it. If I can, I'll do it before that, a matter of months or weeks if that's possible. It's the best that I can do. I'm asking you again: Can you live with it?"

  Grimes hesitated, reading the other expressions around the table. "It looks like I might have to. I'd say I'm outvoted here."

  "In the end, we don't have a choice," General Connor said. "I hope everyone is with me on this, but it's my decision. It's on my head if it goes wrong. There are people depending on us acting—and acting now. I'm going to call Danny, Juanita, and Cecilia"—he exchanged nods with Gabriela—"in Colorado. I'll give them the go-ahead. If anyone here wants to dissent—even if it's just for the record—speak up now."

  Grimes was thin-lipped, but he shook his head. "No," he said. "I can accept what you say. I'll even do my best to sell it to my people."

  "That's a commitment, Ray?"

  "It's a commitment."

  "All right. Anyone else? Here's your chance. Anyone?"

  "I think you have a decision," Anton said. "Time to act."

  "You and Jade can live with it, too? It means you only have a year, then we destroy the machines. Or otherwise get rid of them."

  "I understand you. It won't take a year. Nothing like that."

  Jade nodded at Anton's words. They had plans of their own.

  When no one else spoke, General Connor said, "All right, this gets priority. Now we call Colorado. The other issues can wait. Only for a moment...but they can wait."

  "For a moment," Anton said.

  INTERLUDE 1

  JADE'S WORLD

  VILA NOVA DO SUL, BRAZIL

  JUNE 12, 2036

  Hiro Tagatoshi was a gray-haired man of fifty, though he looked younger, even after having endured the stresses of Judgment Day and sixteen years of war against the machines. Like many people in this technological city, he'd undergone courses of somatic cell genetic engineering that had enhanced some aspects of his body and mind. It was nowhere near as thorough as the best warriors of the Resistance had undergone, and that was exceeded by the few who'd been designed from the moment of conception to be superhuman. They had once been known as "ultrabrights," back in the days of civilization and public controversy. His daughter, Miho, or "Jade," was among them.

  When he'd come to this place, years ago, he'd never thought that he'd still be here as his death approached. It was supposed to be a short-term thing, while his child was conceived, brought to birth, then raised for a period in secret. Skynet had frustrated all of that. He'd never been able to return, with his wife, to Tokyo.

  Hiro sub-vocalized into a throat microphone connected with his computer—and, through it, to the apparatus of the time vault. Now, he activated the vault to send five of their best warriors back in time—including his precious Jade. He had lost so much in the struggle against Skynet and its machine army: his wife, Yuki; almost all of his family; the entire civilization that he had loved; and his most passionate life projects. One of those projects had been the rearing of his daughter, which he'd always thought would happen back in Japan. Now that had come to an end.. .she would have to go her own way, equipped with capabilities beyond those of almost anyone who'd ever lived. As for him, Skynet's forces were fighting in the sky and streets of Vila Nova do Sul, one hundred feet above. They were closing
in, in overwhelming numbers. Soon everything would be gone.

  In Colorado, Skynet had smashed the North American arm of the human Resistance—what was left of it after years of unsuccessful warfare against the machines—just days before. Ramsey Devaux and the remnants of his militia were now scattered across the mountains where Skynet ruled, having lost their final gamble, a major offensive that had failed.. .as all of them did. Skynet was pushing them back; they would soon be massacred. These were the last days for humankind. Literally, the last days.

  Back in 2020, when Jade had been conceived and born, he'd never thought it might come to this, that so much would end up on her strong shoulders. Like some others, he'd seen Judgment Day coming, but its timing had taken him by surprise. He'd not foreseen that Jade would have the responsibility for creating an entirely new universe, one without Skynet or Judgment Day.

  The time displacement laboratory was a square, sterile-looking circular room, fifty feet across, painted in shades of white and gray, and dominated by the massive steel-gray block of the time vault. Some small offices had been partitioned off with glass along the sides of the room, allowing for private conversations, but they were seldom used. Most of the work was done at the twenty clean metal desks that were set up in rows near the time vault. On each one was an advanced computer deck and a thin, high-resolution screen.

  A dozen people sat in here now, watching on their individual screens, or on the twenty-foot-wide flatscreen mounted on the far wall. The flatscreen was split to show several images, each of which Hiro and the others could also call up on their own equipment: views of the inside of the vault; and a larger representation of the data that showed on Hiro's own computer screen.

  Vila Nova do Sul had been an experimental techno-polis, an almost self-contained enclave, devoted to every form of applied science. Much of the work done here had been routine, but a great deal of it was highly controversial in a world that had turned against many technologies. The founders of Vila Nova had not made that work public knowledge. It had been known only to the right people, through highly discreet networks of friendship, influence, and cooperation.

  The backlash against technology and science had not stopped the Americans from going ahead with Skynet, and all their other defense projects based upon the Monk-Dyson nanochip, but it had meant the suppression of much else. The biotech research that had been conducted here had been illegal in many countries of the world, prior to Judgment Day. United

  Nations instruments had called for much of it to be banned, and even the U.S.A. had signed on. It was only the new economic powers—China, Brazil, and a handful of others—that had held out for free research, not necessarily supporting it in any public sense, but not suppressing it either, letting its benefits trickle into their economies.

  Thankfully, those countries had acted as they did. Complexes and mini-cities such as this had sucked in money and talent from the more developed nations of Europe and the West. Without them, enhanced human beings such as Jade could never have been born.

  Hiro told himself that he hadn't lost her, at least not in the worst sense. He was not sending her to her death. Everyone here would die—sooner rather than later—but Jade was getting a chance to survive. She was going back in time to a world twenty years before Judgment Day. There, she had every chance of survival. In that world, she might live almost forever, since she was designed not to age any further. His screen showed the energies playing in the interior of the time vault, like lightning circling about the five naked time travelers. They were superb creatures in every way.

  Then they were gone. Hopefully, to create a better world.

  Now he entered another code, altering the field and lowering the power to a residual level. Elsewhere in Hiro's underground complex, smaller devices still functioned, using the same scientific principles, in order to send him every scrap of all-important data on the Earth's space-time field—and any disruptions to it.

  With mixed feelings, Hiro fingered the stone pendant that his daughter had left behind, which she'd worn since she was a child. It was a circle of jade two inches across, inscribed with Taoist symbols, hung on a thick chain of yellow gold—her favorite item of jewelry, which she'd worn all the time for luck. She had a whole room of jade jewelry and small knick-knacks—the only vice she'd ever shown. Like almost anything inorganic, the pendant could not pass through the space-time displacement field, so she'd left it behind, along with all her other possessions. He would keep them, together with her photographs, videos, and precious recordings of her voice. He'd treasure them for the rest of his life, which would not be very long. The machines would soon break through the last of their defenses.

  "All the luck in the world..." he said. "Make a better Earth."

  Others stood around him, some quiet—probably stunned at what they had accomplished—others noisy and jubilant. For a minute, no one came close, probably unsure how to handle his emotions, now that his daughter had gone. Clearly, he would never see her again. Then Merrillee O'Driscoll, a tall, androgynous-looking woman, approached him. Her skin was very white, since they never saw the sun, even on the surface...and they spent most of their time hiding underground, below the city's streets. Her hair was a drab brown, cut short to frame her face.

  "It must be hard," Merrillee said, placing a strong, bony hand on his wrist. "Jade is better off than any of us, though. You did the right thing, letting her go." Like everyone else here, Merrillee spoke English. Though located in Brazil, Vila Nova do Sul was an international venture. The main languages here were English, Spanish, German, and Russian, rather than Portuguese. A slightly formal English was most common. Hiro and Jade knew Portuguese as well, and several other languages, but seldom had a chance to use them.

  He smiled at Merrillee sadly, the same sad smile that he'd seen so often on his daughter's face, which he knew had come from him—maybe it was learned, maybe genetic. "I couldn't have stopped her. Jade was.. .is...her own boss. She surpassed me years ago."

  As he spoke, he flipped through several screens of data, looking for anomalies in the space-time field, for any distortions that could not be accounted for by what they had just done. He soon saw what he expected, and feared. It must have shown on his face, for Merrillee said, "What's wrong?"

  Others were starting to crowd around his desk, taking their lead from her. Despite the H-Ks, Juggernauts, and combat endoskeletons trying to destroy them even now, this was a day of triumph for him, in more than one way. An expected technological success...and a role for his daughter that could not have been more important, even if they'd never know how she'd fared. "It's just what I would have expected," he said. "Skynet detected what we were doing... the same as we could have detected it, trying out the same trick."

  "What's it done?" Merrillee said urgently, almost in a whisper.

  Others were asking the same question, or simply looking expectant, keenly aware that something was up. It wasn't just a matter of congratulations, commiserations, and then moving on to the final battles with the machines. They all knew how important it was, what Jade and the others were doing.

  "Skynet is responding," Hiro said. "It is using its own time vault, just as we feared."

  Merrillee shook her head. "But why? What we did makes no difference, not to the Skynet of this world."

  "I know. It must know as well."

  "It can't change its own history. The most that any time traveler could accomplish—"

  He cut her short. "That doesn't matter." You could not change the past. If you sent something back in time, its actions were already taken into account. It was futile. The most you could ever do, in theory, was set off a chain of events that was the start of a new timestream, parallel to the old one. There was no possibility of destroying Skynet retroactively. But they hoped to create a universe in which their own kind would survive. "It is acting anyway," he said. "Skynet is sending something back."

  Merrillee and the others were silent as he worked through the data he had on the scre
en, calling up programs to analyze it for him, work out the meaning of the distortions that he'd found. But there was just one possible meaning.

  "All right," he said at last. "It is confirmed. Skynet has sent something back to 2001."

  Merrillee's face turned bright red.

  "Jade and the others will be hunted," he said. "There is nothing we can do about it. We must wish and hope." Then something caught him unawares, data he had never expected. He was finding another distortion. Unmindful of Merrillee and the others around him, he tried to analyze it, to explain it to himself. He projected the data onto the giant flatscreen for all to see, then pointed at it, totally unable to explain.

  "My God," Merrillee said. "What the hell is that?"

  SEVEN

  SKYNET'S WORLD COLORADO SEPTEMBER 5,2029

  Danny had grown to adulthood fascinated by the theory of artificial intelligence and time travel...and by all the claims that John and Sarah Connor had made prior to the war. Knowing that his father had been the mastermind behind Skynet, and that he'd perished like so many others on August 29, 1997, Danny had done everything he could to reach an understanding of what had happened, to try to make some peace with himself, and with his father's memory. After Judgment Day, he and his mother, Tarissa, had met a former officer in the American military, Howard Bellow. Bellow had worked in the Pentagon, and had been involved in the Skynet program. He'd known more about the theory behind the Dyson nanochip than almost anyone else who'd lived through Judgment Day. In 2006, their group had joined forces with the Connors at the Tejada estancia in Argentina, the first base for what was to become the human Resistance Skynet. There, Bellow had passed on everything he knew to Danny, John Connor, and a small group of others, before he'd fallen victim to the war machines. Juanita had been in that select group. Between them all, they'd aimed to understand Skynet's own technology, and to use it to serve the human cause.