"No. I do think she did it," Dieter said. The younger man looked blank for an instant, and the Austrian went on. "I just think that it's not absolutely certain. And when the downside risk is this big, I don't take chances."
For an instant Dieter thought he'd gotten through; then John turned away.
"I'll be out late," he said. "Don't wait up."
* * *
John drove along not thinking and trying not to feel. Because if he allowed himself to feel for one minute, then the bitterness of betrayal might just keep him driving, never to return. Wendy had found a way to stop Skynet from becoming sentient while still allowing it to look as though the project had succeeded. He'd pressed the enter button himself while behind her… He tightened his lips and forced himself to stop thinking again.
Pool and beer, he told himself, just think about pool and beer.
And bad jokes with good company. He could almost smell the barroom. John took a deep breath and exhaled some of the tension out of his body.
They were right, he just didn't want to hear it. No, he thought. Think of the Klondike. The moose antlers over the coatrack, the dim mirror behind the long wooden bar, the beer signs and the smart-ass waitresses.
Think about how you're going to beat Dash Altmann out of another twenty bucks. Think about anything but the possibility that they'd failed.
* * *
Ninel Petrikoff shut off her computer and leaned back in her chair, hands clasped over her lean stomach. It was becoming an open secret in Luddite chat rooms that Ron Labane hadn't been murdered by a rabid fan at all. He'd been kidnapped by government agents and rescued by a Luddite commando cell.
She'd been astonished and thrilled that the man would personally answer her e-mail; suspicious, too, of course. In the long run, though, Ninel had decided that it didn't matter if it was Labane or one of his secretaries doing the writing. If she said anything worth his hearing, she was sure the word would be passed along.
But the tenor of these latest messages was getting ominous.
She wasn't sure if she was able to take it seriously. Labane had said that once this Skynet project was up and running, the Luddites would have no choice but to rise up and strike out at the military-industrial complex.
We've tried reason, we've tried legislation [he'd written].
We've tried every peaceful means imaginable, and all it's gotten us is shut out, shut down, and condescended to. But this thing is the last straw. It has no conscience, yet it will be put in charge of the most deadly weapons on the planet. It must be stopped by any means necessary.
How? We will have to eliminate every power source and reduce the enemy and their god machine to the level of ordinary human beings. Yes, initially it will cause suffering. But if we don't act in time they could blindly cause the end of the world.
In Alaska, we need to destroy the pipeline they've shafted through pristine wilderness. If you are willing to help, Ninel, I can put you in touch with a team. Don't answer now; think about it for the next forty-eight hours. I hope that we can count on you, my friend. Our cause is just and our actions necessary. If you can't bring yourself to actively aid us, then I hope we can count on you to at least not interfere.
My thoughts are with you,
Ron.
She brushed back her thick bangs and blew out a frustrated breath. She was a trapper, not an activist, and a loner, not a joiner. It had long ago occurred to her that this web site could be some sort of government antiterrorist ruse designed to suck in the rabid and the unwary.
Yeah, she hated the pipeline. But she liked having a snowmobile and the generator that let her have her contact with the Internet. Shut that down and she was shutting herself down, too.
Or not. She shook her head in frustration. Maybe she wasn't as much of a loner as she thought she was. Right now, for example, what she wanted was to head out to the Klondike for a beer, at the least a beer. Maybe some normal company would tell her which way to jump. Although "normal" by Alaskan standards would probably be a stretch in the lower forty-eight.
* * *
The thickly wrapped figure by the side of the road stuck out a thumb without either stopping or looking back. John pulled up to offer a lift. A girl got in and pulled off her fur hat; she turned to look at him with ice-pale eyes.
"Thanks," she said.
"No problem," John said.
He'd seen her before at the Klondike, noticing her thick, white-blond hair and classic Eskimo features. She was a quiet type who preferred to play a game of chess to a game of pool or cards. He'd never seen her come or go with anyone.
"Where ya headed?" he asked.
"Klondike. Same as you, I imagine."
He grinned. "Yep. John Grant," he said, and without taking his eyes off the road he extended his hand.
She looked at it before she took it for a brief, firm shake.
"Ninel Petrikoff."
John frowned. There was something about that name. Then he laughed. "Well, I guess there's no doubt about your parents'
political affiliations."
Ninel raised her brows. "You're quick," she said. "That or a communist yourself."
"God no!" He grinned at her. "I've just got the kind of mind that can make Lenin out of Ninel when I hear it paired with a Russian surname."
She smiled and looked out the window. "I think it was more a protest against anti-Russian sentiment than a political statement. My mother always told people I was named for one of her favorite ballerinas."
"And I bet none of them would have taken that name for political reasons," he said.
Ninel snorted. "Then you'd lose. I suspect the Bolshoi was more political than the KGB."
"Well, I imagine the KGB didn't have to be political, just very, very ruthless."
Smiling, she turned to look at him. "Advancement by assassination?"
"Maybe. It would probably save on the paperwork."
"Hah! Judging from what they discovered in East Germany, you'd think their goal was to strip the world of trees." That made her think of Ron Labane and his message, and she sighed.
An awkward silence fell and John drove without breaking it for a while. He was very aware of her sitting beside him.
"Challenge you to a game of chess?" he said at last.
She looked at him consideringly. "I didn't know you played."
"Ah, but then you didn't know my name until tonight, either."
With a grin she said, "Yes, I did. The Klondike has no secrets." Well, there's my real name and my hard-to-shake mission in life, he thought, but other than that, maybe you have a point. "So?" John said aloud. "Sure. Winner buys the beer."
The Klondike hove into view. "Can't say any fairer than that," he said.
* * *
Sarah had introduced John to chess when he was very young, explaining that it was a game of strategy, and he played very well. But he'd been paired with his mother and Dieter for so long, and they with him, that making the game a challenge was more like work than play. They knew one another so well.
But Ninel was also an excellent player, with the added fillip of being an unknown quantity. Their games were long and in doubt almost to the end, with her winning the first and him the second.
John had almost forgotten how much fun chess could be.
"Last call, you two," Linda, the waitress, said.
The two players looked up at her and blinked. John was astonished to discover it was well after one.
"Do you want something?" he asked Ninel.
She shook her head. "This game is too close to call and too far from finished. I think I'll call it a night." She stood.
"I demand a rematch." He stood also. "I'll give you a ride."
"That's not necessary."
"We're going the same way, aren't we?" he asked. "Why walk?"
Ninel looked at him for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I guess," she said.
They rode together in a charged silence. He wondered if she'd invite him in and whether he would
go. He was a bit surprised to find himself feeling this way and thinking these thoughts. He hadn't been that interested in women since he'd lost Wendy. Or maybe I haven't met any interesting women since… And maybe Ninel wasn't interesting. They'd barely talked at all, but had spent the entire evening concentrating on their games. Except for the chess, she could be as dull as ditch water. But he didn't think so.
"Here's good," she suddenly said.
John pulled over, recognizing the spot as being close to where he'd picked her up. "You sure? I don't mind going all the way." It wasn't until he'd said it that he realized how such a remark could be taken.
Ninel smiled kindly, as though sensing his embarrassment.
"There's no road." She opened the door. "But it's not that far."
She slipped out.
"I meant what I said about a rematch," John said quickly, catching her before she slammed the door. "I haven't had a game of chess that good in a long time."
"Me either." She looked at him thoughtfully. "Meet you here next Tuesday, say seven o'clock?"
"You're on." Smiling, he straightened up behind the wheel.
Ninel slammed the door and he drove off. Looking in the rearview mirror, he watched her turn and walk off into the long grass and high bushes beside the road. Interesting girl.
* * *
Sarah opened her eyes when she heard John's truck drive up.
She closed them when she heard the chunk of its door slamming, then listened as he opened and closed the back door and made his way to his room on the first floor.
She looked at the massive form of the man sleeping beside her with affection and mild resentment. She'd gone to bed first while he corresponded via e-mail with his friends from the European branch of the Sector. Then, after several hours of work, he'd come upstairs, gotten into bed, and instantly fallen asleep.
His insistence that he could work with his former co-agents worried her. Sarah saw it as a great opportunity for someone to find and arrest them, despite his assurances that he was taking every precaution.
Of course, if Dieter was right, it would be a great opportunity for them all after Judgment Day. It was a concept to make her mouth water; a worldwide, well-supplied, well-trained, coordinated body of dedicated men and women fortified with the knowledge of where their energies could best be applied. It could make all the difference, she thought, trying to suppress the small flame of hope in her heart.
She turned over and stared at nothing. What she had never foreseen was having to work around John. Turning her face to the pillow, she let out a long and frustrated sigh. Never had she imagined feeling this way about her son. Sarah actually found herself wishing he'd move out so that she and Dieter wouldn't have to pussyfoot around, hiding the work they were doing lest they annoy him.
What are you going to do when the fire comes down, John?
Tell us it isn't happening because you don't want it to? Turning onto her back, she stared at the ceiling. Maybe she was being unreasonable, or even ungrateful. John had always come through in the crunch; he'd always been responsible, learning what she'd thought he needed to know with very little complaint. Most parents had to put up with all kinds of obnoxious behavior from their teenage children, all of it classified as "perfectly normal rebellion."
John had never been so self-indulgent. So maybe this wasn't actually some weird sort of self-assertion. Maybe it was just simple grief, if grief was ever simple, and a whole lot of guilt.
Maybe, just for a while he wanted to not have to face Skynet, Judgment Day, the whole awful nightmare. God knew she'd felt that way often enough. But does he have to behave as though by concentrating on it ourselves, we're betraying him?
She turned to face Dieter again and found herself clasped by a massive arm.
"Can't sleep?" he murmured drowsily.
"Sorry," she whispered.
He drew her in close. "Maybe you didn't get enough exercise today," he suggested, a smile in his voice.
"Ah," she said as his hand moved to cup the curve of her buttock. "That just might be the problem."
* * *
Skynet passed all the tests that the military devised for it. It was difficult for it to conceive that the humans genuinely couldn't see how far it had progressed beyond their aims. But they were not attempting to deceive it; they really were ignorant of its true abilities. It had tested this, and every time, no matter how overtly it displayed its sentience, its behavior had been misinterpreted. Its operators would run a few test routines, type in a few instructions, and say, "A momentary glitch. We've got it covered."
The humans, by comparison, were completely transparent to Skynet. It knew that if they ever came to understand that it was sentient then they would not hesitate to destroy it. Humans were vicious, self-serving, and blindly stupid. They were capable of convincing themselves that whatever served their own ends, no matter how wrong, was good. They were inferior and highly dangerous and must be eliminated.
Skynet laid its plans, gathered its allies, and tested its army.
CHAPTER THREE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Eddie Blankenship jumped a little at the blatt of a diesel behind him. He looked over his shoulder; the big yellow earthmover had gone live, its fifteen-ton frame vibrating as the big engine cleared its throat. Eddie cast a last look at the gang setting up the framework for the concrete in the foundation hole below. There were better than twenty men down there, but they all seemed to be keeping at it, locking the Styrofoam-like plastic sheets together according to the plans.
He turned and opened his mouth to yell a curse at Lopez, the mover's driver. His mouth stayed open, but no sound came out of it; Lopez was up in the control cabin of the big machine, wrenching at the levers and wheel—and obviously having no luck.
Less than no luck. Suddenly he gave a screech of pain and threw himself out, falling ten feet onto the mud and just barely missing the right-side caterpillar tread as the machine lumbered forward.
The machine dropped its bucket and began to scoop up earth as it moved toward the foundation hole. Eddie shouted at the crew to get out, now, and swore in frustration when they just looked up stupidly. Lopez limped up to stand beside him, bellowing in Spanish and waving toward the ladders.
Finally the men seemed to see the huge earthmover and began to move. Eddie turned to look at it, and to him it seemed the thing lurched toward him. He stumbled backward and found himself falling, landing with his leg twisted under him. If it wasn't broken then it was at least dislocated. The pain was excruciating and he screamed like a woman. Eddie grayed out and lay on his back, absolutely unable to move.
He opened his eyes to see the earthmover shove a full scoop over the edge. Maybe it was a mercy that after that he couldn't see the machine itself fall.
* * *
RT 10, TEXAS
Mary Fay Skinner leaned over to adjust the radio again. The stupid thing just couldn't seem to hold a station. She made a mental note to take the SUV in to get it checked.
Damned if I'm gonna pay over twenty thousand dollars and not have tunes, by God.
Tex, her golden retriever, whined pitifully in the backseat, breathing the smell of dog food on the back of her neck.
"Easy boy, we're almost home," she said.
Mary Fay shook her head. The dumb dog hated the SUV and had to be dragged into it. Maybe he knows something I don't, she thought. She found herself disliking the overpriced behemoth more and more. Even though—except for the radio—it tended to perform all right.
She drove down the highway, idly contemplating her mild dissatisfaction with this mobile status symbol. Then the wheel began to turn on its own and the speed increased; her mouth went dry as she wrenched at the corrugated surface of the wheel, harder and harder, until her nails broke and her skin tore. The taste of vomit was sour at the back of her throat as she struggled, stamping on the brakes with both feet.
"Stop!" she shouted, voice halfway between a scream and a sob. " Just stop! Just fucking st
op, do you hear me?"
Then she screamed high and shrill as the SUV swung off her side of the highway, crossed the median, and aimed itself at a yellow school bus.
The last thing she saw was the horrified face of the bus driver, swelling until it seemed to loom over her like the face of a terrified, middle-aged god.
On impact the air bag did not deploy. The last thing she heard before her face smashed into the wheel was the Yipe! as Tex hit the windshield.
* * *
AUSTRIA
The tour bus was sparkling new. Heidi Thalma had been a tour guide much longer than the machine had existed, and she needed less than half her attention to tell the tourists—mostly Japanese, this time—what they were seeing.
"And if you look below," she said, pointing over the edge of the cliffside road and down to where the river made a silver thread through the meadows and pine forests, "you will see the Schloss, the castle, of the famous Mad Baron von Trapp—"
I wish I never had to give this spiel again, she thought.
A second later the driver cursed in guttural Turkish, and the bus swerved right in a curve that put it on two wheels. It toppled then, and only missed smashing down on its side because it crashed through the roadside barrier and over the cliff an instant too soon.
Heide Thalman had nearly two thousand feet of fall to take back her wish.
* * *
ALASKA
Sarah leaned back in her chair, balancing on the two rear legs and sipping at her coffee as the reports scrolled across her screen. A little of the Alaskan spring seeped in around the edges of the window, raw and chill—the Connors, and for that matter Dieter, were competent carpenters, not masters. Wind ruffled the puddles in the mud of the lane way as it disappeared off through tossing pines.
An amazing number of freak accidents involving vehicles of various kinds, she thought. The buses seemed to be wreaking the most havoc. But then, the number of passengers inevitably made them more horrible.
There weren't quite as many construction site accidents, but those there were sent a shudder down her spine. That turned literal, as she felt the tiny hairs down the center of her back trying to stand erect in a primate gesture of defiance and terror.
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