T2 - 02 - The New John Connor Chronicles - An Evil Hour

by Russell Blackford

  Shortly after they crossed into Utah, Jade turned off the highway and pulled up at a rest stop. Out here in the desert, it was a cool, clear evening, the stars glittering brightly.

  A state police cruiser was parked outside the diner. By the flickering light of a bare fluorescent tube mounted over the verandah, John could see two cops eating their burgers in their cruiser's front seat. This far from Colorado Springs, the cops had no reason to be suspicious of the vehicle Jade was driving, and they were facing away, looking into the diner, through its glass wall, not back at the traffic pulling off the road. Nothing should have alerted them yet, but John hoped it would stay that way. The last thing they needed was a fight with the cops here in a public place. Jade and Anton could handle it-no doubt of that-but there might be complications, and people would end up hurt.

  Rosanna let John out to fill up the tank. When he was finished, he headed into the complex and paid for the gas with money that he kept in his backpack, then scoped out the diner. The cops had finished their burgers, but were still talking and watching. He hoped they were not thinking about what had happened in Colorado-they must have received reports. What, he wondered, were the chances of him, or any of the others, being recognized?

  Back in 1994, his image had been all over the TV, but he'd changed since then. Not only was he older and taller, he wore his hair short, in a totally different style. For the past seven years, he and Sarah had kept out of trouble, and the U.S. authorities had no recent photos of them, but the police could use sketches, identikits, computer enhancements of old pics. A good reconstruction of his face had probably been broadcast by now.

  He could almost feel eyes staring at him-except, when he looked more closely, no one was paying that much attention. Near the head of the line in the diner was a very tall, attractive woman with blonde hair, maybe in her late twenties. She wore blue denim jeans, low around her hips, and a hot pink jacket. Most of the people here were either glancing at her surreptitiously or carefully looking away. She gave her order in a foreign accent; it sounded Scottish.

  John laughed-he'd been upstaged, which was just what he wanted. There must be some story behind what this woman was doing here. Maybe she was some British actress working on location in Utah. When you thought about it, every human being on the planet had a long, rich story to tell, full of interest and emotion. Each new person was like an entire universe; everyone saw a slightly different world. And they'd all be sacrificed to Skynet if Cyberdyne's work continued. All those stories cut short, all those universes destroyed by the nuclear fires or Skynet's Hunter-Killer machines.

  The blonde woman walked from the counter with a neat brown bag in her hand. As she passed, she looked at John quizzically for a moment, as if she recognized him from somewhere, but couldn't work it out She went out the door, folded herself into a tiny boxlike Suzuki, and drove off. A minute later, the police cruiser started up and backed out as well, then drove into the night.

  John went through the same routine as they'd adopted after their first encounter with the T-XA, back in Mexico. He bought a dozen hamburgers to take away, plus a bag full of sports drinks and proprietary line vitamin pills. Back in Enrique's truck, he passed the food, drinks and vitamins around.

  "Good," Jade said, starting the motor. "This will help, but we can't stop."

  Everyone ate with relish, but Anton worked his way through most of the burgers as they drove across Utah. Sitting up there in the front seat he also downed a giant bottle of Gatorade and fistfuls of assorted pills. He needed major repair to his bodily tissues, and the nanobots in his bloodstream needed raw material to carry out the job.

  "What a disgusting species we are," Rosanna said when she'd finished eating. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.

  "That's Skynet talking," John said. "It's not what you really think."

  "I'm not sure I know anymore."

  There was a silence, then Sarah said, "You still expect us to trust you?"

  "You don't have a lot of choice if you want my help. And 1 do have one thing against Skynet: it wants to kill me."

  "It wants to kill us all," Jade said.

  Rosanna shrugged, her arm brushing John's shoulder in the dark. She winced away at the touch. "I don't care. The point is, it wants to kill me."

  John thought about that. "That's a funny way of looking at it"

  "What do you mean?"

  "The way you put it, it's like Skynet already exists."

  "In a sense it does. If you look at it properly, the future is real, just as real as the past and the present."

  "All the futures are real," Jade said, staring straight ahead through the windscreen. "That is the tragedy."

  Rosanna sighed heavily. "Maybe so, but I don't want a future where I get killed in another twenty years."

  Just six years for me and Mom, John thought glumly. In the future world that the Specialists had come from, John and Sarah had scarcely been a factor in the unfolding of history. They'd been killed in a shootout in 2007, still trying to stop the creation of Skynet. That was the future that awaited him, or had until tonight. Perhaps they'd changed it all again. They were no longer headed for that future. For better or worse, they'd probably changed the future again, or deviated from the timeline that led to Jade's World. He'd bet things would change now, that there'd be no Judgment Day in 2021. But had they stopped it, or only pushed it back again-or even brought it forward? Right now, he just couldn't say.

  He found himself thinking of future events in the past tense, because that was how they must appear to Jade and Anton. In Jade's World, Judgment Day 2021 had already happened. In John's own reality, he had to make sure it would never happen.

  "Have you worked out the math?" he said to Rosanna. "Do you understand it all? I mean time travel, these different worlds."

  "I was beginning to understand it" she said. "There are different ways that time could work. They're all obvious enough if you read a lot of science fiction-but we were nailing down how it must be really."

  He laughed. "All right, but I guess you've learned a few things — I mean, meeting Jade and Anton."

  "Yes, and the T-XA," she said coldly.

  "Sure. That too."

  Despite the confusions about past tense, or future tense, John was getting the hang of it Up there in one version of the future, in Jade's World, Skynet sat like an evil spider at the center of a vast web. It attempted to spin their destinies, reaching back into the past trying to ensure that its own world came into being. No, he realized, that was not quite right As Jade had said, all the futures were real. In a sense, the Skynet of Jade's World existed, no matter what happened next no matter what they did. That was something he still had to come to grips with. Its aim was not to preserve itself, but to prevent any world coming into being without its own version of Skynet and Judgment Day. The Specialists had come back in time to create such a world — and Skynet had pursued them vengefully. Skynet would pursue human beings across any reality, so it seemed, to make sure they were extinct.

  It had taken control in two worlds. In the world the first Terminators had come from, it had happened in 1997. John thought of that as Skynet's World. In Jade's World, it had merely been postponed to 2021.

  Jade squeezed down on the accelerator, and the truck reached eighty mph. "Better keep to sixty-five," Sarah aid.

  "No," Jade said, "I don't think so. We must make up time-there is so much to do. If your police stop us now, we can deal with them easily. No one here is expecting us."

  "It could cause us trouble," John said. "They could trace the truck to Enrique."

  "We can handle it" Anton said.

  John decided there was no point in arguing further. The Specialists had their own way of looking at things, and who was to say that they were wrong? Jade pushed the truck even faster, and stuck to one hundred mph as they rushed across the state, bypassing Green River. She overtook the thin traffic on the highway as if leaving it standing.

  Soon Anton leaned back in
his seat and slept like a baby, snoring quietly from time to time. John tried to work out their next move, but gave up. There were too many variables, and his brain kept stalling each time he reached more than two steps ahead. So long as they got back to California okay, he'd have plenty of time to think; by then his head might be clearer. He'd need to talk to the others, to Sarah, Jade, Anton — and especially Rosanna. They all had knowledge to share.

  Somehow, out of all of this, they had to form a plan. They'd all have to thrash it out, come to some clear decisions. They had to get to Washington; that much seemed to be clear. But how? And what would they do when they got there?

  Soon, his thoughts became blurred and confused. Time to sleep, to recover.

  To get ready for the next battle.

  LOS ANGELES

  Oscar Cruz stretched out in a heavily cushioned armchair to watch the TV. In front of him was a low coffee table with a pile of magazines-back issues of Wired, GQ, and New Criterion-arid a three-quarter-full bottle of aged single malt whiskey. He poured himself a full inch of the whiskey, enjoying the good things of life while he could. If his work went well, mankind was doomed, and that was the way it had to be — the T-XA Terminator had made all that clear. Still, until it happened, there was nothing to stop him having some small pleasures.

  On the TV, CNN displayed several photos of Sarah Connor and her son, but these were over seven years old. The son was merely a child; by now he must be a teenager, about sixteen. Another pic showed Rosanna Monk, who was said to be a hostage. From the vagueness of CNN's report, no one had obtained a clear idea of how many were involved in the Colorado Springs raid, merely that it was Connor and son, plus Monk and unspecified others. Good, Oscar thought — they could still decide what to tell the press. The main thing was to eliminate the Connors and the Specialists, then get on with creating Skynet

  He sipped the whiskey slowly, enjoying its peaty taste, wondering how many more years he had remaining to savor these kinds of pleasures. Well, he thought, there had to be boundaries to life: a beginning and an end. He would serve Skynet well within those boundaries, but also enjoy himself. This was a good time to catch some rest, as events played themselves out in Colorado. For a short time, there'd be nothing he could do. Tomorrow would be another busy day; events must now come to a head at the political level. That would require decisive actions.

  He turned off the TV, and switched his phone to the answering machine. Slumping back in the lounge chair, he closed his eyes, and willed himself to sleep. He'd always had good self-control, but now it was even better. He had so much purpose; the future needed him. His sleep was totally dreamless. After an hour, he woke feeling motivated, focused, and alert. He turned the TV back on, and checked the answering machine. There were no calls he need bother with, only two journalists whom he didn't know. They'd done well to track down his home number, but that didn't mean he had to talk to them.

  Oscar poured another glass of whiskey, wondering what move to make next. It all depended on the outcome of events in Colorado, but that still seemed unclear, at least to the media. He channel surfed, but found no better coverage than CNN's. Vague as this was, it made clear that there'd been an explosion at the Cyberdyne site. Now that was troubling. Hopefully, the T-XA had terminated the Connors and the Specialists. Even if they'd managed to destroy the prototype Dyson-Monk nanoprocessor, it would not be fatal to Cyberdyne's efforts.

  The phone rang, and it was Charles Layton, on the scene in Colorado.

  "What happened, Charles?"

  Layton took him through the night's events. "Have you been watching the news broadcasts?"

  "Yes, I have, but they don't tell me much. What was the explosion they kept showing on CNN?"

  "It's what you probably expected. The AI Operations Center has been destroyed. The T-XA failed to stop it. Worse than that, it appears that the T-XA itself has been destroyed in the space-time displacement vault."

  That came as a body blow. "But how could they have operated the vault — or forced the T-XA in there?"

  "That's not clear at the moment. The Specialists would understand the technology. Perhaps they tricked it somehow. We'll find out. Everything will have been recorded."

  "Yes, that's true."

  "The Connors have escaped, and two of the Specialists."

  "Only two?"

  "Yes, only two. I'll come back to that. The worst news is that Rosanna Monk is missing. It seems that she's gone with the Connors, presumably against her will."

  "Do you think she's betrayed us?" Oscar realized that some irony could be found in that question, since they were all working to achieve the creation of Skynet and the destruction of the human species. Most might consider that a betrayal.

  "I don't know at this point"

  "All right, Charles. You're giving me a lot to absorb." This was not what Oscar had expected. Rosanna was valuable, almost as much as the T-XA.

  "It's not all bad news," Layton said.

  "No? Then give me the good news."

  "We can act just as well without the T-XA. It might have been... inflexible."

  That was an unusual statement, coming from Layton. What did he have in mind? Did he have plans that the T-XA might not have agreed with, which he was now freer to implement? Oscar himself liked to have room to maneuver, to switch plans as needed. "Yeah," he said hesitantly, wanting to hear what Layton would say, "I guess that might have been a problem."

  "Yes, Skynet might be pleased overall if it knew the outcome. We've lost the nanoprocessor, but we've made some gains-"

  "What?"

  "We have the body of a combat Specialist from the future. It will be full of useful technology. I'm sure Jack Reed will help us keep our hands on it"

  "Good. What else?"

  "We've found a small pool of programmable liquid metal. I want it reverse-engineered. That should keep your people busy."

  "Yes, Charles. Good." Oscar laughed quietly. "I'm sure you're right." All the same, the loss of the T-XA was a major setback. They would need to have people like Jack Reed firmly on their side, or, better, under their control. "What are your plans now, Charles?"

  "I have a long night ahead. I need to review the surveillance recordings. That will give us a better idea what happened. We'll reinforce the defenses here in case of further attack."

  "Of course."

  "Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Washington. I want you to get there, and meet me, as soon as you can."

  "Good morning, Rosanna," John said. He was kinder than his mother, less a fanatic. "What time is it?" "Almost noon."

  It took her a moment to gather her thoughts, to sort out what had been a dream and what was reality. All right, then, so this was still the world prior to Judgment Day. "Where are we?" She bent forward instinctively to ask the driver, though Jade was still at the wheel—and what would she know about present-day geography? She'd grown up in a world where America's cities and infrastructure had been destroyed in the nuclear explosions, and the firestorms that followed.

  But Jade said, "We are south of Las Vegas. We have entered California."

  "So you're all awake now?" Anton Panov said, glancing over his shoulder from the front of the truck.

  He and Jade must be hurting inside, from the loss of their colleagues. That led Rosanna to a new thought: she could deduce the emotions of others, but she didn't really care. Once she might have offered comfort, but that impulse had gone.

  Panov switched on the radio, flicking between stations. He settled on a country and western station, which drew groans from both of the Connors, while Jade appeared utterly indifferent.

  At midday there was a news program, and the first story was about the raid on Cyberdyne. A male announcer read out a bulletin that gave away almost nothing, only that "several" security guards had been injured, trying to stop the attack. There was no mention of fatalities, though Rosanna had seen the deaths of Specialists Selena Macedo and Danny Dyson, not to mention the

  T-XA's destruction. That would
all be covered up — the company and the government would want to simplify as much as possible, not cause any panic.

  In fact it was worse than that. The company had new motives for a cover-up: it was now controlled by Skynet. Both its Chairman and its President-Charles Layton and Oscar Cruz-had been reprogrammed by the T-XA. So had many others in Los Angeles and Colorado Springs. How much further had the infection spread, she wondered. There'd been no time for the T-XA to get to Washington, so the people there would not be Skynet's mindslaves. If she could get to Jack Reed, that might save the situation. Jack was committed to the project, but he would listen.

  On the radio, Layton made a brief comment, saying that the raid was a costly one, but the company would recover: "We'll bounce back from this," he said. "It was a terrible, cowardly attack." This was followed by a longer interview with Oscar. The interviewer was a female journalist with a pompous-sounding mid-Atlantic accent.

  "First," the interviewer said, "how could this happen?"

  Oscar, of course, gave nothing away. "There are fanatics who want to destroy our work. We're not the first." That was so vague, Rosanna thought, that it must be true. There had been other attacks on high-tech research labs, but nothing like this, not since the last attack on Cyber-dyne, back in 1994. "We still have a lot of heart in this organization."

  Rosanna smiled to herself. Where, she wondered, did they get that line about the company having heart? They'd used it in 1994, too.

  The interviewer asked how the Connors could have penetrated the security of such a heavily guarded site.

  "I can't answer that. It was a commando-style raid with military weapons. We don't know where they received their arms and training, but this was no ordinary attack. As for what it would take to stop it that's not for me to say. There are national security aspects."

  That was a good answer to almost anything, a great way to shut up questioning. The interviewer took it no further, asking instead how much was lost in the raid.

  Oscar sounded smooth and compassionate. "First" he said, "there was no loss of human life. I feel for the men who were injured, but no one was killed, so that's a blessing. As for the damage that was done, there's nothing that can't be replaced. We have back-ups of all the information we need. Our projects will soon recover." He then dodged what those projects were. "Once again, there are national security aspects. I can't reveal the work we were doing, but it's obviously for the benefit of this country."