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

by Russell Blackford

  Just focus, John, he thought. If the situation was really hopeless, Eve wouldn't even be here. "Okay," he said.

  "So what happened then?"

  "The future looked bleak," the Terminator said. "But you had control of one of Skynet's space-time displacement machines. You knew that there were worlds where Judgment Day never happened."

  "I did? How did I know that?"

  "You had scientific advice."

  "Okay, okay, I don't need that kind of detail right now. So I wanted to make contact with one of those worlds, right?"

  "Yes. If one of those worlds could provide assistance, It might be decisive."

  "So what did I do then?"

  "You sent me back in time to 1984."

  Rosanna was nodding to herself.

  "Okay," John said. "I got that part already."

  "I am programmed to find you and use you as my contact."

  John shook his head. "This is really deep, but what if you hadn't found yourself in one of those favorable worlds? No, it's okay, I understood that bit. I can see how that wouldn't be a problem." Eve had explained it enough. In that other world, Skynet's World, there had been another Eve. But once it knew that Judgment Day was coming, there was nothing for it to do but wait for the missiles to fall.

  Jade seemed perfectly comfortable with everything Eve had said, and Anton just nodded slightly. For John, it was getting frustrating that so many of these people-if you could count the Terminator as a person-knew stuff that was way out of his league. They got the point of things before he did. How was he supposed to make any decisions? He reminded himself that he didn't have to call the shots, not in this world. There was no way he could lead this group of extraordinary people, and it wasn't his responsibility. Just calm down, he thought. All he had to do was make a contribution. "All right, so why didn't you try to find me right after Judgment Day?"

  "I did. I came here."

  He remembered now that he'd received an e-mail from

  Franco just after Judgment Day. Franco had said that a military-looking woman with white hair had come look-ing for him. So this was the same "woman."

  "She said she was a friend," Enrique added. "She seemed to know a lot about you—not the sort of stuff the government would know. Personal stuff." Eve must have teen very convincing; Enrique and the others were suspicious people.

  "I came now because you were in the news again," the Terminator said. "I determined that you'd come here as a retreat. In your position, I would have."

  "Yeah, I suppose you would have. Well, how are we supposed to help you? Even you didn't travel across time, so what makes you think we can? We don't have that technology. And we don't have some army that we can get for you." Then again, he thought, that was being negative. Up there in the future-in that other future-his older self had thought it worth trying. He had to think positively about it-not make excuses why they couldn't help, but try to find if they could.

  But Sarah shook her head. "What more can we do? I've been fighting for nearly twenty years to stop Judgment Day from happening. Nothing ever works. It gets worse and worse every time I meet someone new, who knows more about the future. Now you want us to go to another world and try to help? I just don't know. I don't know that I'm strong enough to keep fighting Skynet. Maybe it's just destined to win..." She looked pleadingly at John, tears now streaking her face.

  John knew just how she felt. Wave after wave of bad news had come crashing on them. . . that what they did back in 1994 had not stopped Judgment Day, only postponed it. That Skynet was winning in the future where Judgment Day had been postponed. That the world where Judgment Day had already happened back in 1997—the original world, the baseline reality that they had diverted from-was still real. And now this. In that world, the human Resistance was destined to win, so they'd always believed, so Kyle had told Sarah in 1984. To be told now that it hadn't turned out that way. For Sarah, it must be almost too much. How much more was life going to demand of her?

  But if there was anything they could do to ensure a human victory in that world. . . they just had to do it That was what Sarah's whole life had been about. That was what she'd dedicated herself to for all those years after John had been born. They just couldn't give up now. "Mom, we've got to help if we can," he said. "This is what you've lived for. The Resistance has got to win in that world. If it doesn't everything you did, all that training you gave me, everything we've both been through-it's all for nothing. Please, Mom!"

  She held her face in both hands, then wiped away some of the tears. "I know that, John. I know. But what can we do? How much more blood and suffering do we have to give?" "Please!"

  "I know," she said. "We've got to do it. But when can we rest? When will it end?"

  "Remember this," the T-799 said. "It doesn't matter how long I take in this world, as long as I return to the time when I left. Even if you have to invent the technology, it doesn't matter."

  Rosanna nodded at that instantly. "But that's if it can be done at all. You want us to invent a new kind of time machine and find some kind of army to fight Skynet Isn't that it?"

  "No, an army may not be necessary. Some kind of help, something that gives a military advantage."

  Rosanna laughed to herself.

  "What's so funny, Dr. Strangelove?" Sarah said.

  "Yeah," John said. "What's your point, Rosanna?"

  "You said you don't know how to help her."

  "Well, I don't"

  "The thing is, maybe I do. Listen, the space-time displacement field is a long way from being perfected. So far, we can't even displace objects in ordinary space and time. The field seems to scatter them all across the space-time continuum. But there's scope for improvement" She smiled complacently, looking at Anton, Jade. "Tell me if I'm wrong."

  John realized that she must be right, as far as that went, or else there could have been no time travel. Kyle Reese could not have traveled back from the future; neither could the Terminators or the Specialists. But travel from the future to the past was one thing. No one, so far as he knew, had traveled across the gap between time-lines-whatever that gap really was. It wasn't space, and it wasn't time. It somehow represented the difference between realities. Could that be done at all?

  "Dr. Monk is right" Jade said. "In theory, it is possible. in the future that I came from, it was done, experimentally, prior to Judgment Day. But Eve doesn't understand the problems of this world." She gazed at the Terminator with her calm, intelligent eyes. "Judgment Day did not happen in 1997, but it was not canceled, only postponed.

  We have to make sure it never happens. Perhaps we can help you, but our mission has to come first."

  "Jade's right," John said to Eve. "We have to stop Skynet, here and now, in the world we're already in. That can't wait; we've got to do it now."

  The T-799 looked back at him silently. As always, its face was without expression, but it was clearly not convinced. |

  "You'll have to help us," John said. "Then we can help you carry out your mission-Rosanna can work on this displacement thing. But we've got to save this world first." He looked at Enrique, then at Yolanda, and Enrique again. "You guys have to help us, too."

  "Negative," Eve said. "That is not a mission priority."

  "Well, it's a priority to us," John said. Suddenly, he had an idea. Once before, he'd had this kind of conversation with a Terminator. It was the night he'd gone with the T-800 to rescue Sarah from the Pescadero hospital. The T-800 had not merely been designed to help and protect him; he'd reprogrammed it, in the future, to obey direct orders from his younger self. "What are your mission parameters? Don't you have to do what I tell you?"

  "Affirmative, if it's consistent with my mission."

  "All right, I order you to help us. Do you understand? You have a new mission now. It doesn't override your old one, but you have to perform it first. We've got to stop them building Skynet. I order you to help us out."

  Eve seemed to consider it. "Yes," the Terminator said. "I will hel
p."

  Rosanna could only wonder what Layton and Cruz now planned, with the nanoprocessor destroyed and the whole project now exposed to public scrutiny. They could get the project back on the rails if Washington went along with it and helped them cover up, but what must Defense now be thinking?

  She knew the key bureaucrats and the brass as well as most people: They were committed to the nanoprocessor project, but not at all costs. Last night's events might well faze them.

  Layton and Cruz would try to get at them, but how?

  "We have to get to Washington," she said.

  Everyone looked at her. Sarah said, "I think that goes without saying, by now. Will you help us talk to the right people?"

  "Of course I will. But we have to get there now. I don't like the idea of Charles and Oscar running loose without me taking part. I don't know what they're up to, but the T-XA reprogrammed them. They'll have some sort of plan. They're both as cunning as hell."

  Sarah nodded at that. "Who do we need to see?"

  "Jack Reed and Samantha Jones." Rosanna quickly explained their positions in the Pentagon hierarchy. Those two could stop the project tomorrow. The Secretary would back them up—I'd be certain of it. He respects their work, and he listens to advice. If we can just talk to them, make sure they have the right information. They're hardnosed people, but they're not unreasonable." She looked Sarah in the eye. "And they know about the Terminators . . . they know you were telling the truth. I've been through all that with them."

  Just what did Oscar and Charles think they could say? Rosanna wondered. Jack and Samantha had seen the surveillance tapes from 1984 and 1994, but now there'd be new tapes, from last night's raid. Once those were scrutinized, they'd frighten the life out of people in Washington. They'd show the T-XA in action, and that could haw no innocent explanation. Surely DoD would drop the project now. It would be a hot potato. What influence could Cyberdyne have at this point?

  As she thought it through, she noticed the abstracted expressions on the faces of the two Specialists. They'd had little to say all through this discussion, but they were probably talking to each other, making their own plans. Their equipment included throat mikes and other equipment to communicate privately by narrow-band radio transmissions. To have their own private conference, they simply had to sub-vocalize to each other.

  "Whatever they're going to do, they'll be headed for Washington now," she said. "I want to see Jack and Samantha straightaway." The Cyberdyne people were basically a day ahead, and they could easily travel around showing themselves in public. The worst they had to fear was a few eager newshounds who might recognize them. She cursed that she was stuck with a group of wanted criminals, out here in the desert. But what choice did she have? She couldn't fly to Washington alone. If she didn't have protection, Oscar and Charles would find a way to kill her-especially Charles Layton, he was such a cold bastard. Then again, Oscar had never been much better, he just had a way of keeping people happy. None of it meant anything.

  Those two would see her as having betrayed them. They'd terminate her at the first opportunity, and they'd probably get away with it

  "All right," Sarah said. "I suppose you know what you're talking about."

  Of course I do," Rosanna said. "I know all the people in charge of the project-from the government end, not just Cyberdyne. The T-XA had no time to get to Washington, so they haven't been reprogrammed. But Oscar and Charles will be knocking on their doors right now. They'll have some story about why the research should go on.

  Sarah rolled her eyes at that "From what we've seen so far, the government won't take much persuasion. They've done everything they could to bring us Skynet, just like all their other toys. Aren't we just kidding our-selves if we think they'll listen to us?"

  "No," Rosanna said. "You don't know them." "Will they listen to Layton and Cruz?" John said.

  "Well, you've seen Oscar on the TV, I suppose-you know how persuasive he is, and he's totally amoral. He'll be even worse now. As for Charles Layton, he's genuinely scary. People take notice of him; no one likes to disagree with him to his face. Still, they'll have a lot of explaining to do. Jack and Samantha are hard as nails, they didn't get to where they are any other way."

  Jade spoke up at last. "We have to go Washingtonnow."

  "Right now," Anton said.

  As Rosanna watched the dynamics, John looked at Jade as though he worshipped her. Once again, Rosanna realized that she could still calculate other people's emotions. She wondered whether the Japanese woman realized that young Connor was so besotted by her beauty.

  "Why do you guys think that?" John said.

  But Jade spoke to Rosanna. "Those people you know in Washington?"

  "Yes? What about them?" They are in danger."

  Rosanna grunted. "We're all in danger. . . or hadn't you noticed?"

  "Danger?" John said. "What kind of danger are they in?" He realized that the top Cyberdyne managers like Oscar Cruz had been reprogrammed by the T-XA, just like Rosanna. But surely they couldn't threaten the politicians, military brass, and Defense bureaucrats in Washington. Those people would all be heavily guarded.

  "We have been discussing the capabilities of the T-XA," Jade said, not even explaining that she and Anton could use some kind of technology to confer privately. "It would almost certainly have enhanced some of the people it reprogrammed."

  "Well, it enhanced me," Rosanna said.

  "Yes, it did," Jade said. "What we need to know is what other enhancements have been made to the T-XA's victims. Can you tell us anything?"

  John recalled how Rosanna had fought against the Specialists, when they'd more or less kidnapped her She'd struggled like a wildcat in the back of the Toyota Land Cruiser that they'd used in Colorado Springs. Though she'd been no match for the Specialists, someone enhanced like that could be very dangerous, on the loose in the Pentagon. But he still couldn't quite see how-

  "I don't know," Rosanna said. "What are you thinking? It's not like the T-XA told me all its secrets."

  John had seen the Specialists' own most obvious enhancements: their extraordinary strength, speed, and healing capacity, but that was all based on genetic engineering. The T-XA wouldn't have been able to raise anyone's abilities to that level. Jade had been genetically enhanced from birth, and Anton later in life. Surely the T-XA couldn't have done that in the time available to it. "Do you have something specific in mind?" he said, looking at Jade.

  "Perhaps," she said. "We are only guessing. We don't know the T-XA’s full abilities." She and Anton ignored the others for several seconds, obviously conferring with each other, maybe faster than ordinary people. Then Jade turned to Rosanna and said aloud, "You have to stop Lay-ton and Cruz from meeting with your contacts in Wash-ington. Call your contacts and warn them."

  "I'm not sure I can stop them. They don't take orders.”

  "You don't think they will listen?"

  "Maybe... I don't know." Rosanna shook her head. "I can only try, I suppose, but no one has ever said that Lay-ton and Cruz are dangerous. Jack and Samantha know them well, they'll have been talking to them, if only by telephone-I hope. Why would they believe me?"

  "Perhaps we should have gone to straight to Washington," Jade said.

  "It would have taken too long," John said. "That's a long drive from Colorado."

  "What should I say when I call?" Rosanna said.

  Anton interrupted, showing an air of command. "All right, two things have to be done. First, we need to get to Washington—almost immediately. Second, we have to call these people, Reed and Jones, persuade them not to meet with anyone from Cyberdyne."

  "Use a public phone," Sarah said. “We don't want them tracing us on a cellphone... or tracing us here.

  John nodded vigorously at that. "Mom's right"

  "Yes? What about them?" They are in danger."

  Rosanna grunted. "We're all in danger. . . or you noticed?"

  Sarah turned to Enrique. "You've got transport duty. I don't care how
you do it, what favors you have to call in. But, one way or another, you're getting us to Washington. Tonight."

  "Yeah, Sarahlita, that's just great. I'm supposed to perform miracles for you, am I? Even if I buy into all of this, what do you think I am? You think I'm God, all of a sudden? Maybe I can just turn you all into birds and you can fly there yourselves. This is just great."

  "Enrique," Yolanda said, "this is important."

  "Yeah, honey, I know it's important. But what am I supposed to do? This is hopeless."

  "No," Anton said. "Nothing is hopeless."

  "I've got an idea," John said. The others looked at him, and he gave a broad smile. "I think we can make them take notice." He looked at the Terminator. "You've been in LA. all these years. Have you seen Cruz on TV, or heard him on the radio?"

  "Affirmative," Eve said.

  "You know a bit about how he thinks?"

  "Yes. I have analyzed his methods. He is a key player in this timestream."

  "What about Layton?"

  "I have heard him on the radio-but less than Oscar Cruz."

  John winked at Rosanna, who showed repugnance for a moment, but only fleetingly. He could see that she tried to control her expressions. "Don't worry," he said to her. "We can pull this off."

  Anton gave a quiet laugh. "I'm sure we can."

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  THE PENTAGON AUGUST 2001

  It had been another long day. Jack had found time to nap in his chair for extra hour late in the afternoon, but he was still exhausted. Now the sun had set and the city was in twilight. The huge building's corridors were almost deserted. Some staff always worked here until all hours, but most of the military types worked the other way round, starting very early and escaping to their homes at a civilized time.

  Just now, he was alone, still considering how to handle Layton and Cruz, to get to the bottom of it all. He would lay it on the line: If Cyberdyne wanted any chance of further government funding, it had to come totally dean; otherwise, DoD would drop the whole project. It was better to lose one technological breakthrough than have continuing violence and uncertainty. One way or another, it needed to be resolved.