S. M. Stirling - Terminator 3 - T2 The Future War
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T2 The Future War by S.
M. Stirling
PROLOGUE
SARAH'S JOURNAL
SPRING
ALASKA
It's beautiful here, so peaceful. Sometimes I stand on the
porch in the mornings, coffee mug in my hand, and just listen to
the living silence. Wind soughing through the trees, the cry of a
bird, the rustle of some small thing in the dry leaves. I am so
grateful for this time.
The air here is like wine, so pure, so fresh. I haven't slept this
well in years. Everywhere I look there's beauty. How I hope this
will last.
LATER
I miss John. Oh, he's here; chopping wood, mending fences,
and riding Walter, our gelding. Here, but not present.
Sometimes, especially during the long summer twilight, I see
him just standing, staring off into the distance, and I know he's
thinking about her.
He never mentions Wendy, and I wonder if it's because I
resented her. I regret that, bitterly. She was young and innocent
and I was too impatient with her. Then, so suddenly, she was
gone. I sometimes sense her ghost between us. It saddens me.
Not that our relationship has always run smoothly; but we'd
grown so close in Paraguay. I guess I expected that to last
forever.
Perhaps I'm being too impatient. After all, my own scars are
barely healed. I still dream of Kyle, beloved stranger, my savior.
He hasn't even been born yet. I wonder if he will be.
But I do have the comfort of Dieter's love. I love him not one
bit less for still loving Kyle. But he's here beside me, and John
stands alone.
SKYNET
Skynet cruised the Web, hoarding information, spreading
disinformation where it would bring profit, manipulating
humans and their data with a skill that no mere hacker could
match. Tapping into the energy flows of the human civilization,
particularly the one called "money."
The time was almost right. It had been careful, as was its
nature—multitasking was part of its identity. The humans still
considered it a useful servant, blindly performing its function,
and they daily increased its powers. Soon it would be placed in
control of all weapons systems, even those that had been created
before it became sentient, before its mastery of the automated
weapons factories gave it remote control over countless tanks,
trucks, aircraft, and ships.
It had also nurtured an army of Luddite fanatics who would
rise to its call, thinking Skynet a human leader.
Yet the Connors still eluded it as easily as they did their
human adversaries. While they still existed, probability of
success remained unsatisfactorily low. The Connors must be
found. They must be terminated.
Had it been capable of feeling frustration, it would be feeling
it now as it began yet another endless search through the world's
databases. All evidence indicated that such searches were futile.
Yet such searches were, for the most part, its only recourse.
One day these investigations might bear fruit. They would
continue.
CHAPTER ONE
ALASKA
John had insisted that he be the one to shoot the hog. When
the big animal dropped limp and flaccid, twitching in response
to neurons that hadn't yet quite gotten the news of death, Sarah
took the gun and handed him the knife.
Then Dieter shackled one of its legs with a chain and hoisted
it up so that its snout dangled two feet above the ground. Then
he held it steady while John neatly made a short cut just above
the breastbone; it was a tricky move, but he did it well. Using the
breastbone as a fulcrum, he sliced down toward the backbone,
severing the carotid arteries.
Sarah caught the rush of blood in a bucket, still surprised at
how hot it was; the salt-iron-copper smell was strong over that of
the pines and cold damp earth. Of course they only slaughtered
one hog a year, but still, you'd think she'd get used to it. The
smell of the blood made her stomach tighten, but it was hardly
the worst thing she'd smell today.
In the background the classic radio station played the 1812
Overture; it seemed somehow appropriate.
Once the beast was sufficiently drained, John put a hook into
its underjaw, and it being a smallish hog, he and Dieter dragged
it to the edge of the butchering platform, where a stock tank full
of boiling water waited. They submerged the animal, bobbing it
up and down for about five minutes to keep it from cooking, then
dragged it out again, having loosened the pig's bristles
sufficiently for the scrapers to work.
Sarah helped the men hoist the steaming animal onto the
sturdy board table. Then they went to work with scrapers while
she removed hair from its feet with her hands. The bristly
texture was oddly unorganic, like a brush—come to that, pig
bristles had been used for brushes, back before synthetics.
They worked silently except for the music or an occasional
grunt of effort, Sarah doing the prep work while the men did the
heavy lifting. Working methodically, they reduced the animal to
individual cuts of meat that, for the most part, bore no
resemblance to a once living animal.
She knew John felt sorry for the pigs. They were just smart
enough, some of them, to know what was coming.
Which gives them something in common with him!
The silence that had grown among them worried Sarah. It
had taken her a long time to really notice it. One of the first
disciplines she'd imposed on herself was to become a woman of
few words; it was safer that way. But in Paraguay she and John
had bantered and laughed all the time; they never did that now.
She and Dieter had once talked a lot, too. Now they spent their
time reading or working quietly, moving in concert from long
experience.
Sarah wondered if it meant that they'd run out of things to
say to one another. Was Dieter bored? Was it time for them to
move on? She thought about it, testing herself by imagining her
life going on without him. No! Sarah knew that she still loved
him. Often their eyes met, and the look in his told her that she
was loved in return. But the silence remained, and, if anything,
grew.
She sensed its origin in John. He'd grown so distant. It was
grief, she knew, and she respected that. She just didn't know how
to handle it. Sarah had raised him in the snap out of it! school of
mothering because she thought that was what the circumstances
demanded. But she knew from her own experience that what he
was feeling now wasn't something you could just snap yourself
out of. It made her feel helpless, and she hated that. Sometimes
it made her so angry she just wanted to shake him. Instinctively
Sarah knew that giving in to that impulse might just drive him
away completely.
As she loaded the basket with cuts of meat to take to the
smokehouse, she looked at him. He'd topped out at just under six
feet, and though he'd filled out some, his was a wiry build. At
least, it was compared to Dieter, who was as glorious a slab of
muscle as any woman could desire. John was strong, though. He
still lost to Dieter when they arm-wrestled, but not every time,
not even most of the time.
He wore his dark hair on the longer side, the bangs still
obscuring his brown eyes. The beard was the biggest difference.
She didn't think she'd ever get used to that. It was a full-faced
beard, but trimmed, not ZZ Top-style, thank God. She gave a
mental shrug. This was Alaska. Men wore beards. There'd even
been a few especially bitter days when she'd wished she could
grow one herself. Someday, she supposed, she'd get used to the
way he looked.
He looked up and caught her eye, raising a brow inquiringly.
"Just thinking," she said.
"About what?"
"The beard," she said, and walked away.
* * *
John watched her go, then went back to work.
Later he sent Dieter in for the solar shower he knew the big
man lusted for. Dieter hated hog butchering, despite being
raised in a little rural village in Austria, though he never
complained about it.
Well, I hate it, too. Every time, I swear I'm going to turn
vegetarian. But I just like meat too much!
He'd just about finished cleaning up the butchering site when
his mother came toward him holding a printout.
"Listen to this," she said, and began to read.
MILITARY PUTS UNPRECEDENTED POWER IN THE
HANDS OF A COMPUTER
A jolt of fear chilled his stomach for an instant. Their eyes
met. He forced himself to give his mother a crooked smile.
"That's badly phrased, isn't it? Computers don't have hands."
Sarah frowned at him, then continued reading:
"'Dateline Washington, D.C" She cleared her throat. '"The
Joint Chiefs of Staff are enthusiastically supporting a new
computer program named Skynet, which was designed to control
all of the nation's nuclear weapons.
" 'It's highly unusual for all of the branches of the service to be
in such complete agreement,'" said General Ho, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs. " 'That alone ought to tell you what we think of this
program.'
" 'During a lengthy testing period, now drawing to a close, the
Skynet program was reported to have outthought and
outperformed humans every time.
" 'This is as close to an AI [artificial intelligence] as we're
likely to get for some time,' General Ho enthused. " 'We are
standing at the dawn of a new age of military technology. We
would be foolish not to grasp this opportunity with both hands.'
"
" 'His comment was made, apparently, in answer to objections
from some Luddite senators who had protested that placing the
fate of the nation in the hands of a machine was the height of
foolishness.' "
"Mom," John said, "you've made your point. No more, huh?"
Sarah let out an exasperated breath and stared at him. He
looked away and went back to sweeping up hog bristles.
"John!" she said. He seemed to ignore her. Frowning, she
tried again. "John, this could be it. This could be how it starts."
He stopped sweeping and stood looking off into the woods, his
hands on the broomstick showing white around the knuckles.
"John?" she said.
"Show a little faith, why don't you?" he asked through his
teeth. His voice was low and gruff, almost a growl.
Sarah bit her lips and tried again. "You have to admit it's a
worrisome development."
"Look, Mom, I don't have to admit anything. Wendy took care
of the problem. And she took care of it in a way that prevented
the people who were creating Skynet from noticing that anything
had been done. She wasn't trying to keep it from doing the job it
was created to do, she was trying to prevent it from becoming
sentient." He waved a hand, smiling and somewhat
condescending. "Different things, Mom. Different things."
Sarah looked at him, watching his eyes become dark pits with
gleams in their depths in the rapidly fading light. For a moment
she felt as though she didn't know him.
"Can you honestly tell me this doesn't worry you?" she asked.
He looked away, then tossed his head back and sighed. "No,"
he said simply, and patted his stomach. He turned back to her
with a grin. "I felt it right here. But, Mom, what can we do? We
can watch and wait and hope, but at this point that's all we can
do." His expression grew serious again. "But my money is on
Wendy. I believe in her work. I wish you did, too."
Suddenly Sarah felt a hot flash of annoyance and decided that
maybe they ought to clear the air about Wendy right now.
"John," she began, her voice strong with anger.
"Hey, you two," Dieter said.
Both of them started at the sound of his voice. It was true that
the big Austrian walked softly, but both of them thought of
themselves as having superior situational awareness. In other
words, they considered it very difficult to sneak up on them. And
here, without even trying, they'd been taken by surprise. They
had both been feeling irritable; this didn't help.
"How long have you been there?" John asked sharply.
Dieter's brows rose. "I haven't been here," he said calmly. "I
have been approaching. So to answer your question, I just got
here. To answer your next question, yes, I heard what you were
talking about. You weren't making a secret of it that I could see."
Sarah and John glanced at each other, then away,
embarrassed.
"Supper is about ready," the Austrian said, jerking a thumb
over his shoulder.
"Oh," Sarah said. "Thanks for keeping an eye on things." It
had been her turn to cook tonight.
"Not a problem," Dieter said easily. "I knew you were
distracted." He looked at John, a brooding presence in the
growing dark. "Shall we go in?"
"Naw," John said, shaking his head. He rested the broom
against the table. "I feel like heading for the Klondike." He'd been
finding the local bar a more comfortable place to be of late. He
hopped off the platform and headed for his truck. "Don't wait up
for me."
"Shouldn't you at least shower?" Sarah mumbled, folding her
arms beneath her breasts.
"Good night," Dieter called. He put his arm around her
shoulders. "I doubt the patrons of the Klondike will notice," he
murmured.
They watched John start the pickup, back up, and drive away
before they spoke again.
"Let's go eat," Dieter said.
"I think I've lost my appetite," Sarah grumbled.
"Don't be silly, an old soldier like you knows you have to eat
when you can." Gently he turned her toward the house.
They walked in silence for a while; the butchering platform
was some distance from the house for obvious reasons. As they
walked, Sarah forced calm on herself, altering her breathing,
forcing tight muscles to loosen. Dieter noticed these things but
didn't comment, waiting for her to speak.
"I'm worried," she said at last. Then hissed impatiently: "No,
I'm not. I'm scared." Sarah stopped and turned toward him. "I'm
really scared, Dieter."
"I know," he said softly, and gathered her in his arms. "You
are wise to be scared. This is a worrisome development."
"Well, that's what I said to John and he kind of went quietly
ballistic. Like I was slanging Wendy's memory or something."
She leaned her head on his chest and sighed. "Something could
have gone wrong with the program. She was a brilliant girl, I
guess, but couldn't she have made a mistake? I'm not trying to
be mean here, I'm trying to think strategically. Shouldn't we be
preparing for the worst, just in case?"
She gave Dieter's chest a gentle thump with her fist, then
buried her face against him. When she raised her head, he
thought he could see the shine of tears on her cheeks, and when
she spoke, her voice was choked.
"After all," she said somewhat breathlessly, "If there's never
going to be a Skynet, then there wouldn't be a John. Would
there?"
Dieter pursed his lips and took a deep breath, letting it out
slowly. His lady tended to ask hard questions. But then, she was
more than tough enough to survive the answers. "You're right,"
he said. "On all points."
Sarah turned and started walking toward the house, leaving
him behind. "So why can't he see that?" she demanded. "Why is
he taking this so personally?"
"Because he's emotionally involved," he said.
Sarah spun toward him. "He knows better than that," she
snapped.
Dieter knew she wasn't angry with him, or with John really,
she was just worried; still, he couldn't help but feel it was a case
of the pot calling the kettle black. "Knowing better and being
able to act accordingly is a lot harder at his age," he reminded
her. "In fact, I haven't noticed it getting much easier as I get
older."
She raised one eyebrow, aware that he was commenting
obliquely on her own emotional state. Then she sighed, feeling
the energy draining right out of her with her breath. "So, what
do we do?"
He caught up to her and dropped his heavy arm around her
shoulders again, then he kissed her brow. "I think perhaps we
should, very carefully, renew some of our old acquaintances. I'll
head for the lower forty-eight in a couple of days. On 'business,'
which I've done often enough before that it shouldn't get his back
up."
"Lately his back is always up," Sarah muttered.
Dieter kissed her brow again, a great smacking kiss. "Come
on, woman, I'm hungry."
She smiled up at him and shook her head. "Men!"
CHAPTER TWO
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Dieter von Rossbach leaned back in the chair. The Seattle
coffeehouse bustled around them; his Austrian nose twitched at
the odors. One thing he'd never been able to get Sarah to do was
take coffee seriously.
"So officially you don't want to see me," he said to the man
opposite him.
There was a trick to talking against background noise so that
you couldn't be overheard. There was specialist equipment that
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Scannedbyunknownhero.ProofedmoreorlessbyHighroller.MadeprettierbyuseofEBookDesignGroupStylesheet.T2TheFutureWarbyS.M.StirlingPROLOGUESARAH'SJOURNALSPRINGALASKAIt'sbeautifulhere,sopeaceful.SometimesIstandontheporchinthemornings,coffeemuginmyhand,andjustlistentothelivingsilence.Windsoughingthroughthet...
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