Infiltrator

she stopped herself. Actually, making supper might help. "Okay," she said.

"Print out that map for one, Dieter." Sarah turned to Donna. "What would you like me to do?"

"Chop up some wood, hon, and I'll fire up the stove," Donna answered matter-of-factly.

Sarah smiled. She'd been right to keep her mouth shut. Hitting something with an ax was just what she needed right now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CYBERDYNE: THE PRESENT

Serena sat absolutely still and concentrated on her breathing, trying to push every other thing in the world to the outer edges of her consciousness. The technique had been taught to her by Skynet itself and she had used it for as long as she could remember to focus her mind. Unfortunately, today it was terribly difficult to concentrate and she kept having to start over.

Today she was as close to murderous rage as she'd ever come in her life. The desire to kill was almost overwhelming. She positively lusted to tear a Terminator apart. Regrettably that was impossible; they were irreplaceable and not to be disposed of lightly, even if they were incompetent, moronic, bungling, inadequate, ineffectual, maladroit…

It didn't help that they were only following her orders. I should have let them kill Dyson, she thought bitterly. She was going to have to kill him anyway and she could easily have blamed the Connors for his death. Never in her life had she felt

stupid. It was horrible. It was human.

Still, sending the Terminators after Connor and her accomplice had seemed more important—the more disciplined decision. John Connor was in her hands whatever happened. Catching his mother and the man with her was more logical than shooting some easily disposed of human who might still have some utility.

But the woman's ability to escape certain death bordered on the supernatural…

unless she was the unknowing tool of a continuum that kept trying, with idiot persistence, to restore the original timestream. Once again she had slipped through their fingers.

Her own fingers squeezed the arms of her chair, making deep indentations in the hard rubbery material. Serena forced them to relax and she started the meditation process over again. A deep initial breath—

"Ms. Burns." Mrs. Duprey said, her apologetic voice interrupted Serena's solitude like a gunshot. "I know you asked not to be disturbed, but… Mr. Warren is here to see you."

I don't have time for this! Serena thought, irritation spiking. But one didn't send the president of the company away with a flea in his ear. "By all means send him in, Mrs. Duprey," she said mellifluously.

Serena stood as Warren entered the room, shutting the door behind him. "I'm sorry to interrupt you," he said, sounding subdued.

Is he still regretting the loss of that bitch? she wondered. "Not at all," she said aloud. "I have a slight headache and was taking a break."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," he said. He looked for a moment as if he'd caught her with her shirt off. "It's just… this memo you sent around. I'd like an explanation, if you don't mind."

He'd surprised her. Serena thought of Warren as a nonentity, regarding Colvin as the real power at Cyberdyne, the one to work around. But the CEO was on a business trip to Dallas and wasn't expected back until Tuesday. She had hoped to have everything settled by then.

Serena smiled at the president and gestured him to a seat on the sofa. He sat and she sat beside him, her arm along the back of the couch. "I imagine the scientists are up in arms," she said, grinning.

"I've had a few calls," Warren said dryly.

"I wouldn't ask for this if I didn't think it was absolutely necessary," Serena said, turning serious. "We received some information—which turned out to be all too accurate—that Sarah Connor was gunning for us again."

The president grew visibly paler. Visibly to someone like Serena, that is.

"She's back?" he almost whispered. He put a hand to his forehead. Then he turned to Serena. "Tell me."

"She's made an attack on our Sacramento storage facility. I sent Mr. Dyson up there to take care of it and he gave me some good news and some bad news. The good news is that they stopped Connor from actually bombing the place. The bad news is that the system probably has a worm and/or a virus in it, and will

have to be cleansed. It will probably be best to simply wipe the system completely and then reinstall everything. They cut a bunch of cables, too."

"That's actually pretty good," Warren said, looking shell-shocked, "considering what happened the last time she tangled with us."

"Further bad news," Serena said, looking regretful, "is that she and one of her associates got away."

Warren's lips tightened and he looked grim.

"I would have expected better from a former FBI agent," he said.

Serena leaned closer, smiling. "The good news," she said confidentially, "is that we have Connor's son."

Warren brightened, then his expression dropped.

"We have him, or the police do?"

The T-950 cocked her head to one side, smiling with satisfaction.

"We have him," she said. "I told Mr. Dyson to bring him here. But I don't expect him for a couple of hours yet." Serena gave Warren a level gaze. "That's why I sent the memo around. I don't want anyone getting hurt. Especially not these people; they're too valuable."

"Yes," Warren said thoughtfully. "I see what you mean." He put his hands on his knees and stared into space for a moment. At last he nodded decisively. "All right," he said. "At five tonight everybody goes home and stays there. Except for

the security guards, of course," he turned, smiling, to Serena.

She nodded encouragingly.

"Um. How long do you think we'll have to stay closed?" he asked nervously.

"Not long," she assured him. "Mr. Dyson told me that the boy was wounded slightly. So I think his mother will come looking for him posthaste. Perhaps tonight, definitely by tomorrow. This nightmare should be over by the end of the week."

Paul Warren let out a deep sigh. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear that,"

he said. "I'm sure Roger will be too when I call him tonight."

"Do you think you should?" the T-950 asked, frowning. "This Dallas meeting is pretty important, isn't it? Mr. Colvin will probably want to come back and there's absolutely nothing he can do to help. And if he decides to stay down there he'll be very, and understandably, distracted." Serena tipped her head prettily. "Your call, of course," she said and smiled.

"I see your point," he agreed uneasily. Dallas was important. But he didn't like keeping his partner out of the loop like this. By the same token the whole thing might well be over, for good or ill, by the time Colvin could get back. And the Dallas meeting had taken months to set up.

"I'll take care of it," he said, rising. "Thank you, Ms. Burns. You have my complete cooperation on this. And"—he looked into her eyes—"good luck."

Serena looked up at him with a subtly moonstruck expression. After a moment

he sort of shuffled his feet and nodded, leaving without a backward glance.

The T-950 rated her performance. I did well, she thought.

Now to more important matters. She would order the company doctor and nurse to stay after everyone else had left. By then the Terminators would be back and she could replace three of the six security guards with them. She would put Seven, the most conservative looking, at the front desk; the other two she would station near the boy. She'd tell the doctor that one of them was a trained nurse.

Then she'd let the doctor and nurse go home.

And then I will sit back and wait for Sarah Connor to come to me.

This time, she wouldn't get away.

THE CHAMBERLAINS' CABIN: THE PRESENT

"Heeeeyyy! Ralph!" Dieter said heartily. "How's it going, buddy?"

Sarah watched him from across the room, her arms and legs crossed. A lot depended on this conversation.

"Dieter? Dieter! Whoa! What happened buddy? Cows getting dull?"

Major Ralph Ferri settled back in his chair, looking forward to an interesting conversation. He'd had the pleasure of working with the Sector agent earlier in his career, when he was a lot more active himself—Delta force, black-ops shit.

They'd stayed friendly over the years, even though they rarely saw each other.

"You have no idea," Dieter answered. "All they do is chew. Even the bulls.

They're all pretty boring compared to Srebrenica."

"So where are ya calling from?" Ferri asked. "Sounds like you're next door."

"Practically," von Rossbach lied. "I'm in L.A. I was wondering; can we get together?"

Sarah's heart gave a single bound, as though the Major were suddenly in the room with them and able to see the lies as they came out of von Rossbach's mouth. And how could he miss them? It sounded so completely false to her, staged, and insincere. So much depended on this conversation. John's life depended on this conversation. Please, God, make him want to have dinner with Dieter!

"Aw, man! I'm kinda tied up here. I don't think I'll be able to get away from the base for a couple of days, man."

"I could come see you there," Dieter suggested. "I'm not above eating in the commissary. I'd hate to be this close and not get to say hello. Unless you're too busy, that is."

"Oh, I think I can squeeze you in." Ferri chuckled. "We can eat in my quarters. I make a great Kung Pao chicken. After the way you carried me out of that place with enough jacketed lead in me to start a factory, I owe you a dinner. At least."

"Anything but beef!" von Rossbach said with feeling. "When should I show up?"

"Tomorrow's Sunday, should be a fairly easy day. How about six?"

"I'll bring the beer," Dieter said.

"Outstanding!" Ferri said. "See ya."

"Tomorrow," von Rossbach agreed.

He hung up and looked at Sarah. She seemed to be all eyes. He gave her a reassuring smile.

"We're on," he said.

ROUTE FIVE, JUST OUTSIDE L.A.: THE PRESENT

"Major Ferri, I'll be at the base in twenty minutes. That's seven-fifteen. Would you please meet me at the main gate?" Jordan asked, steering one-handed through the insane Southern California drivers.

Ferri sighed. "Sure," he said. "See you in twenty."

"Thanks Ralph. I owe you."

"You do," the Major agreed.

Ferri hung up, chuckling. He really did like having people owe him favors.

Especially for things that weren't going to inconvenience him in any way. As for meeting Dyson at the gate, well, he was looking forward to a full rundown on this situation anyway and this would be the quickest way to get one.

Ferri never had taken to the Burns woman. She was a looker all right, too gorgeous to be real; you kept expecting to see some guy with an airbrush pop out

of the bushes and give her a touch-up.

But the base dogs couldn't stand her and showed it, growling and showing their teeth. Ferri had been a dog handler early in his career, and knew that if the well-trained MP dogs couldn't keep discipline around that woman it had to mean something. What that might be he didn't know—yet. Maybe Dyson would be able to give him some insight.

Meanwhile, until he knew what was wrong with her, putting one over on that corporate snob was going to be absolutely delicious. And if it worked out that he could in some way embarrass Burns, or if fortune allowed, get her fired, well, that would just be the icing on the cake.

He glanced at the clock. It would take ten minutes to walk to the gate if he hurried, so he might as well start now and take it easy. This promised to be interesting, maybe even fun.

Jordan glanced in his rearview mirror at the boy. He looked a little more pale than he had when they started out, but not frighteningly so. He appeared to be asleep. Should I wake him up? he wondered. Head wounds were supposed to be kept awake, weren't they?

Whatever! He was an investigator, not a doctor. Hey, he's breathing. And in twenty minutes he'll be in the base hospital getting transfusions. He tried not to think of how he'd react if it was Danny bearing those wounds. Of course, Danny wouldn't get himself into a situation like this, he decided with certainty.

Then he remembered what Dan had told him about the Connors, his ardent young face making it impossible to misjudge his opinion. So maybe Danny

would lend a hand at blasting Cyberdyne sky-high, after all.

Thank God the perimeter fence was finally in sight.

Ferri came out of the guard shack and hopped into Jordan's car. Then he pointed forward and Dyson took off.

"Whaddaya think?" Dyson asked.

The major turned in his seat and looked at Connor.

"What the hell do I know? I'd say he's asleep." He shook his head. "But for all I know, he's in a terminal coma."

"Jesus," Jordan breathed.

"The doc will tell us," Ferri said calmly. "Until then, just drive."

When they pulled up at the base hospital the Major went in and got a gurney and some attendants to take the boy out of the car. Inside he asked for two doctors by name. The second was on duty and was duly paged at the Major's request.

When he arrived, Ralph explained that the boy and his injuries were secret Cyberdyne business and that the hospital staff were bound to aid them as a matter of national security.

"Major, this boy looks to be under eighteen by a good few years and he's been shot! We can't keep something like this secret! At the very least his parents need to be notified," the doctor said reasonably.

"All I'm allowed to tell you, Doctor," Jordan interrupted, "is that this boy is in danger and must be guarded. I assure you, this won't be swept under a rug someplace. But sometimes timing can be more important than strict adherence to the rules."

"We're not talking rules here," the doctor insisted, "we're talking laws."

"If laws are being broken here, Doctor, I will take the responsibility," Jordan said gravely. "My object is to keep this boy alive. If you take it upon yourself to report his presence here, you may cost him his life and that will be your sole responsibility."

The Major and Dyson stared the doctor down. Reluctantly he agreed to abide by their conditions, then he got to work.

Jordan blew out his breath in relief and looked at the Major.

"I didn't think he was going to agree," he said quietly.

"Oh, he would have," Ralph assured him. "He was just trying to make me order him to do it. That way, see, it's totally my responsibility. But he's too good a doctor to let the kid lie there bleeding while he played that game." Ferri grinned.

"Sometimes having a conscience can be really inconvenient, y'know?"

Jordan's mouth tightened. "Unfortunately, yeah."

"And now," the officer said cheerfully, "It's your responsibility."

"Thanks."

CYBERDYNE: THE PRESENT

Serena sat in her darkened office watching the digital readout projected onto her eyes count down the seconds, the minutes, the hours. It was nine-fifteen and twenty-seven seconds. She had sent the doctor and nurse home at nine.

It was obvious that Dyson wasn't going to show up. Serena had been sifting through police reports, looking for arrests or accidents, or even abandoned cars.

Nothing.

Jordan should have been able to handle him as a trained agent.

The other and less palatable possibility was that Connor had subverted Dyson.

No.' she thought. Not possible. Why would he aid and abet the people that he knows killed his beloved brother? Answer, no reason.

Still, he was human. Best to keep an open mind. The adult John Connor had a record of inspiring humans to insane actions.

She blinked and the time readout stopped. No sense in wasting time; she had work to do, her own and Cyberdyne's. If Dyson showed up, he did. If not, not.

She thought that whatever had happened she could still look forward to a visit from Sarah Connor in the near future.

Two hours later, a considerable amount of report reading and writing had been accomplished. The phone rang and Serena patched in.

"Burns," she said crisply.

"Uh, Ms. Burns, this is Joe Cady of Aadvanced Security," a man said.

In the background she could hear shouting voices, trucks, running feet, a siren.

Aadvanced was the subcontractor she'd hired to watch the automated factory site. The military had wanted to keep a low profile. Aadvanced—despite the misspelling that made them first in the phone book—had a pretty good record.

Things did not sound good right now, however.

"What's happened, Mr. Cady?" Serena asked calmly.

"Some people came out of the night; they distracted us with a forest fire a few miles off. At least I think that was them. The fire-department guys said they thought the fire was arson. Then they snuck in and got the drop on us. They tied us up and locked us in the guard shack, took our cell phones, then they set bombs all over the place. Said they were the Luddite Liberation Army.

"When we got loose we sent a guy over to where the fire was to see if he could get us some help. They even blew our cars up, the bastards. So they've been gone a couple of hours at least." Cady's voice was shaking.

Serena gathered from this that he hadn't been sure the Luddites were going to leave them alive.

"How bad is the damage?" she asked. She quickly added, "I assume no one was hurt; you'd have told me if someone was hurt, wouldn't you?" She did, after all, have a role to play here.

"Yeah," Cady said. "I mean, no, nobody's hurt." He paused and she could hear him sucking his teeth. "The destruction is pretty near total," he said. "All the

machinery, all the construction supplies and the company's trailer, the area they'd leveled—everything is busted up, burning, or crapped up somehow. I never saw anything like it."

"Did they leave a message?" she asked.

They must have left a message, this whole thing is a message, of course.

"If they did, ma'am, it's gone now. They didn't leave anything with us or tell us to say anything, like a message. You know? It's just fire and smoke and mess here." Cady's voice faded away. "I'll look around, though."

A messenger has left a parcel for the president and CEO, Seven, stationed at the security desk, said. When I told her they weren't here she said she'd been instructed to give it to the next-most-important executive that was present.

Serena sent Six to retrieve it for her. Probably it was from the LLA. Luddite Liberation Army, of all the stupid names. These jerks wouldn't liberate their grandmother from backbreaking peasant labor by buying the old girl a washing machine. But they all had to have "Liberation" in their name. Serena supposed they would feel liberated if everybody else was forced to embrace their ideals.

"Have you informed anybody else about this?" she asked Cady. Barely a second had gone by in real time.

"Well… Tony brought back some of the firefighter guys, and they radioed the police, of course." He sounded nervous. "I dunno if that was okay or not, but we needed help and they were the only people we could contact."

The general is not going to like this, Serena thought. But I did warn him to let me handle security directly if he didn't want the army to take care of it. She shrugged mentally.

"If the authorities have questions that you can't answer, Mr. Cady, you may refer them to me at this number. I'll be here for several hours yet."

"Oh, thank you, ma'am. Yes, I'll do that," he groveled.

Pathetic, the T-950 thought.

"Good night, then," she said, "Oh, um, since there's nothing left there to guard, I guess you and your crew can go home after the police are through with you."

"Great! Ah, yes, ma'am. I'll tell them. Thank you."

She broke the connection and leaned her head back against her chair. The 1-950

was conflicted. This development was essential if she was to convince Cyberdyne and the military to move the factories far from human habitation. The T-950 had always preferred the idea of having the Army Corps of Engineers construct the facility. It wasn't traditional, but it would be cost-effective and very secret. Maybe now…

Serena sighed, almost contentedly. Each crisis gave her a greater margin of control. The fact that she had warned Cyberdyne that this might happen would count in her favor.

Except possibly with Tricker. He'd probably wonder about her prescience, her uncanny ability to read the future. If he only knew, she thought with a smile. The

problem was that a professional paranoid like Tricker didn't believe in precognition, but did believe in people who made things happen.

The trick would be controlling this Luddite revolution. But if the sites are remote enough it shouldn't be a problem. And once the factories were operational she could direct them to build some advanced weaponry for self-protection. It would be good when the first HKs, those dear, old, reliable hunter/killers, rolled off the assembly line. Very good.

But for now she had this problem of her missing assistant and the equally, and more importantly, missing John Connor. Supernatural, she thought. They're positively supernatural.

Two made contact.

"Now what?" Serena muttered.

The T-950 clone has been harvested, Two announced. It has survived the implant process.

Excellent, she sent. Keep me appraised of its progress. How is the other surrogate doing?

Extremely well, Two sent. Shall I terminate it?

Not yet, Serena ordered. Have you terminated this one's vehicle yet?

Not yet.

Keep her for the first week, she ordered. The 1-950 organism will benefit from

the mother's milk. In seven days it should be weaned and you can dispose of the human then.

Understood.

Is there anything else? she asked.

Nothing.

Out, Serena sent.

Out, Two confirmed.

Serena sat thinking. It had been quite an evening; good, bad, and indifferent.

Still, for the most part her plans were moving along just as they should. If only she knew what had happened to John Connor.

FT. LAUREL BASE HOSPITAL: THE PRESENT

Jordan sat in the too small, too short, and too hard plastic chair in the hospital waiting room and stared at the mayonnaise-colored walls as he thought.

How did this happen? How did I allow myself to be talked into this? He was feeling more than a little stunned. This was him? He was here? Really? Jordan sighed. At least Tarissa and Danny will be happy.

Ferri returned and handed him a cup of coffee from the machine down the hall.

"I got a flush, you got bupkiss," the Major said handing over the card decorated cup.

"Gee, thanks," Jordan said with a grin.

They sat quietly drinking the lukewarm brew.

"You are so gonna get your ass fired," Ferri said after a few minutes.

"Yeah, I am," Dyson agreed with a sage nod. "Yup, you got it in one."

The Major looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

"You don't sound too upset," he observed.

"I think I'm too stunned to be upset right now," Jordan said. He waved a hand.

"This is the craziest thing I have ever done. I just can't believe I'm sitting here."

"So, what I'm wondering," Ferri said, "is where the hell you're going with this thing." He waved vaguely. "I mean, this kid should be turned over to the police.

Ya know?"

Jordan nodded and took another sip. Then he shrugged.

"Eventually, yeah. See, the thing is, I agree with Ms. Burns that Sarah Connor is headed our way. I think that having John boy on hand might"— he tipped his hand from side to side, wincing—"make her a little less violent."

"That sucks," Ferri observed.

"Yeah, it does," Jordan agreed. "I keep thinking of my nephew."

The doctor came toward them and both men stood.

"He's going to be fine," he said. "I've given him something for the pain and he'll sleep through until morning at the least and probably most of tomorrow."

"The concussion?" Jordan asked.

The doctor's eyes moved from the Major to Dyson.

"I wasn't sure you cared," he said.

Jordan gave him a disgusted look. "So?"

"You're right, the boy does have a concussion," the doctor conceded. "A very minor one. I don't anticipate any problems, but I've got the nurses checking in on him every hour."

"Good," Jordan said. "Uh, I'd also like to keep an eye on him, so would it be possible for me to… bunk in with him?"

The doctor held his clipboard in front of him like a shield. "Hospital beds are for hospital patients."

"You can set up some kind of a cot," the Major said pleasantly. "Or maybe a reclining chair or something. We have to cooperate with Mr. Dyson on this. It's for the boy's own good."

The doctor opened his mouth to protest, saw the steel behind Ferri's smile, and relented. "Very well," he said stiffly. "I'll have the nurses set something up for you. Good night, gentlemen."

"I don't think he likes you," Ferri observed quietly, watching the doctor walk away.

Jordan shrugged. "I'm not sure I like me very much right now either." He grimaced, then turned to his friend. "Thanks, Ralph. You've gone way above and beyond on this one. I owe you."

"I know," Ferri said with a grin. "And one dark night I just might collect on it."

He slapped Dyson on the shoulder. "But you've already made a partial payment by giving me a heads-up on this Sarah Connor thing. The doyenne of Cyberdyne security hasn't seen fit to let us grunts in on what's going on. If we're not on our toes for this it's my fault, not yours." He gave Jordan another pat on the back. "

'Night."

Jordan watched him walk away, then turned and headed for the nurses' station. I am so gonna get my ass fired, he thought.

NEW YORK CITY: THE PRESENT

Ron Labane studied the pictures on his computer screen in awe. They did it! he thought gleefully. They actually did it! Put a thumb in the eye of the military-industrial complex, kicked the legs right out from under the bastards. And they had the balls to film it as they did it! He didn't even need to be concerned that this would lead the police to him because they'd flooded the Net with these images.

Ron wasn't as happy about the forest fire they'd started and was prepared to be angry until he got a separate message to the effect that the area was already

scheduled for a controlled burn. Very impressive, very satisfying.

The only difficulty, he thought, will be in controlling them. It wouldn't be the first time that early success also led to early imprisonment. And I have plans for these people.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

LAUREL, CALIFORNIA: THE PRESENT

Dieter pulled up at the gate of Ft. Laurel and waited for the MPs on duty to come out. He felt a moment of nostalgia; going through perimeter security was something he'd done most days of his life for twenty years. Sometimes legitimately, on his way to work; sometimes under assumed identities, very illegitimately… also on his way to work.

He'd borrowed the Chamberlains' army-surplus Humvee on the off chance that Cyberdyne could identify him, and Sarah, by their vehicle. In the back he'd placed a case of the expensive (and very hard-to-find) Danish beer that Ferri liked. The man was a real connoisseur; he sneered at mere Tuborg as fit only for peasants, barely better than Swedish brews.

The MP at the desk looked him over thoroughly before he picked up his clipboard and came out of the shack, narrow-eyed and slow. He was backed up by another soldier with a rifle, who moved to the right fender and stood at the ready.

Dieter had his passport in hand and passed it over to the MP without being asked. "I'm here to see Major Ferri," he said.

Then he went silent, keeping his face turned toward the MP, who read the passport—as well as he could, it being in Spanish. The MP looked from the passport to von Rossbach several times as though comparing individual features.

Dieter was amused by his thoroughness. When it all came down it wasn't going to be because this kid hadn't made sure of his identity.

"Are you boys expecting trouble?" he asked as the MP checked the backseat.

"Always, sir," the MP answered. He went around to the back and lifted the canvas cover. "What's in the box?"

"Beer." Which was obvious, the name was all over the case.

"I meant in the locker behind it, sir."

"A blanket, a tool kit, a flashlight," Dieter answered. "Some flares, stuff like that."

If it had been anyone else but the major's guest the MP would have asked the big man to open the trunk.

"You may proceed, sir," he said. Without waiting to be asked, he provided instructions to the Major's lodgings.

"Thank you," Dieter said amiably.

"You're welcome, sir."

Dieter glanced in the rearview mirror as he drove off and saw the rifleman

watching the Humvee for a moment before going back to the guard shack. It gave him a sense of unease, as though they knew more than they should.

Calm down, he told himself. The last I heard even the best MPs didn't have x-ray vision.

"You okay in there?" he asked Sarah.

There was a sharp tap from inside the trunk in answer. The code was once for yes, twice for no. He'd be glad when she could get out of there. The very thought of her crammed into that tiny space was giving him claustrophobia.

And Sarah only mentally present was even harder to take than the silent accusation that had been pouring out of her when she was there physically. Not the least of the shock was realizing how much he cared about her opinion.

Ferri's place was relatively easy to find, one of a row of base housing looking like a marked-down suburb two decades out of date, with plenty of kids and dogs. The Major was sitting in a lawn chair out front waiting. He checked his watch.

"On time, as ever," the Major said, rising.

Dieter grinned and waved. Then he lifted the canvas and dragged out the case of beer.

Ferri's face lit up and he waved his arms in a mock bow.

"I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy," he said with a grin.

"You know what? You're right," Dieter said. "I'll take it back and get a refund."

Alarm flashed across the Major's face and he rushed forward to gently remove the case from von Rossbach's arms.

"No, no, no!" he said. "You just let me take care of these babies." He cocked his head toward his front door. "C'mon in, set a spell, tell me what you've been doing."

"In a word, cows." Dieter said surrendering the carton. He glanced at a grill by the corner of the house as he opened the door. "You're not going to barbecue anything, are you?"

"I thought you might be homesick," Ferri said innocently. "Kung Pao chicken,"

he said. "My best chicken dish."

The Major led him into a small, sparsely furnished living room. Ferri had never been one to put his imprint on his quarters. Probably because early in his career he'd been on the move so much. A lot of guys acquired souvenirs of the places they'd been, but Ferri found they lost their charm fast when you had to pack and move 'em twenty or thirty times.

In the kitchen, he put his prize down on a gray-and-red Formica table, then ripped open the box and pulled out a sweating bottle.

"Hey! It's cold!" he said in delight.

"Well, I knew you would want one right away," Dieter said.

He reached in and took one out for himself. Ferri produced an opener and they sat down at the table. For a moment all that could be heard was men swallowing good beer.

The kitchen was full of late-afternoon sunlight and smelled fantastic, suffused with the rich aromas of good cooking. The counter bore evidence of much meat and vegetable chopping having taken place.

"When do we eat?" Dieter asked, a greedy look on his face.

" 'Bout twenty minutes," Ferri said with a grin. "You hungry?"

"Now I am," von Rossbach said fervently.

Grinning, Ferri brought out a plate of cheese and a box of crackers.

"Don't eat too much," he cautioned. "But good cheese does go well with good beer."

Sarah waited for what seemed forever; ten minutes as the universe counted time.

Then, when she heard no sounds from outside the Humvee, she pushed against the front of the locker with her hands and knees. It slid out slow and even and for a moment she just lay on her side breathing the sweet clean air that cooled her face and chest.

She rolled out, pulled out her supplies, and after a brief struggle in the semidarkness pushed the false front of the trunk back into place. Cautiously she sat up, lifting the edge of the canvas, she quickly checked the area around the car. People were visible in the distance, but their attention was elsewhere.

Excellent, they hadn't aroused the guards' suspicions. She could neither hear nor see Dieter or his friend. The coast was clear.

Sarah sat still for a while, letting the worst of the sweat dry from her face and hair. She'd been in the trunk only about thirty minutes but it had quickly become stiflingly hot.

Sensibly, she'd not donned her uniform blouse and it waited beside her to be put on. About her hair there wasn't much she could do. At least it was short. Maybe anyone who noticed it was wet would think she'd just taken a shower.

Ten minutes later she was striding away from the Humvee in the direction of the Cyberdyne facility; information John had teased out of the contaminated brain of the Terminator they'd destroyed. She carried a battered brown briefcase and wore the boxy cammo fatigues of the modern army, with an MP armband circling the sleeve, and a peaked cap worn level on her head.

In the briefcase were a set of detonators, timers, and several tools that would hasten her work. They'd made the fairly safe assumption that they would find everything else they'd need at the site.

We did the last time I blew up Cyberdyne, she thought grimly.

In the pocket of her fatigue jacket was a taser. It looked almost exactly like one of the bulkier cell phones on the market. The laser they'd adapted to disrupt a Terminator's electronics was clipped to her belt. She really didn't expect to find a Terminator minding the front desk after all and that one would fry a human—so she didn't want to get them mixed up.

Sarah crossed what felt like a mile of the compound before coming in sight of Cyberdyne. She kept her eyes front and by her manner indicated that she knew exactly where she was going and exactly what she was doing. No one gave her a second look.

She boldly approached Cyberdyne's glass front door and pulled the handle.

Nothing happened. I guess maybe they're waiting for us. Her breath grew shaky and her palms began to sweat.

The glass was tinted; from four feet away it might as well have been opaque.

Sarah leaned forward and made out a man behind a desk watching her. She tapped on the glass and waved the security guard toward her.

He mouthed, "We're closed."

She took the laser out of her pocket and pretended she was a phone; lowering her head, she pulled her ear. She continued to wave the guard toward her, looking up at him from under the rim of her hat.

He kept waving his hands in a negative sign and saying they were closed, and she continued lo alternately lap on the door and wave him forward. Al last, looking intensely exasperated, he pushed himself up from his seal and came lo the door. Unlocking it, he pushed it open a few inches.

"We—are—closed," he enunciated.

"Hold on, please," Sarah said lo The taser. "I have an appointment," she said to the guard.

"There's nobody here," he insisted. "The place is empty."

"Check your appointment book," Sarah said. "I'll be listed."

He glanced al The MP armband and looked uncertain.

Sarah, holding The laser against her shoulder as though she didn't want it to overhear, sighed noisily.

"Will you just check. Please," she said. "I'm sure I would have been contacted if my appointment was canceled."

"We-11," he said. "I guess Ms. Burns is still here…"

"Thai's who I'm supposed lo see," Sarah told him. "Could you please just let me in and tell her I'm here." He stood looking al her uncertainly. "Sometime today would be good," she said sarcastically.

The guard stood back and gestured her in with his head. Then he locked The door behind them and led her lo his desk. He sat down and called up a page on the computer.

"I'm sorry about This," Sarah said quietly.

The guard turned toward her and she triggered the taser; the twin cords shot out with an electronic zzzzrrrnng, hitting him full in the stomach. He went down and bounced and jittered on the floor while fifty thousand volts shot through his body and his muscles convulsed.

Sarah pressed the button that released the cords, snapped a new set into the

taser's base, and stepped over his body before he even became still. Placing her briefcase on the desk, she opened it and took out some duct tape. Bending over the guard, she checked his pulse; fast, but steady. Then she slapped a piece of tape over his mouth and turned him over. With a few quick moves she had him bound, feet to wrists, and more securely gagged. Quickly she patted him over and withdrew his master key-card, then she shoved him under the desk.

Glancing at the computer, she noticed the page he'd brought up had been replaced by a prompt that asked what information the guard was looking for. She typed in "games," hoping that anyone watching over the system, if anyone was, would assume that a bored guard was looking for entertainment. The computer responded with a full-page scolding about playing games on company time.

Sarah raised an eyebrow. They can't seriously imagine that anyone is going to go to the trouble of reading all that, she thought. It's a self administered spanking!

She tapped in the sequence that John had given them and it brought up security; with a few taps she disabled the silent alarm. Something I should have done last time, she thought bitterly. Then she brought up the door locks and changed the entry code to test mode, one that only she, John, and Dieter knew. Then she shut the computer down and rose.

Sarah looked around. The guard's desk stood alone in a very unwelcoming lobby. No chairs for the comfort of waiting visitors, no plants to soften the harsh lines of the place. Just a polished floor and the desk, behind which was a short, wide corridor that ended in a pair of double doors. This led to the storage area, where she hoped to find her bomb-making materials. On either side of the corridor were a pair of elevators.

The desk itself was one of those that had a high shelf in front with the desk space consisting of another shelf below. Even when he wasn't tied up underneath it the guard would be very hard to see from the front.

Which is a plus, Sarah thought. Some passerby glancing through the door wouldn't really expect to see anyone.

She stood still, listening carefully: there was no sound but the sigh of the air-conditioning, and the air it put out had the utter sterility of a high-priced recirculation system. Apparently the guard hadn't been kidding; no one was here.

No one but Ms. Burns, that is, whoever she is.

A group of monitors on the guard's desk showed her from several angles, so there were several cameras mounted around the place. But she saw no point in worrying about them. If she succeeded, they'd soon be so much melted plastic along with their tapes; if she failed, Cyberdyne would know who had invaded them anyway.

Snapping her briefcase closed, she took the key out of her pocket and jogged toward the storage area. The door opened smoothly on the first try. Sarah let out her breath in relief. She'd been half expecting an alarm to go off, or for some secret code to be required.

Sarah entered a warehouse-sized space and made a little sound of despair. This is going to take longer than I'd hoped. She looked around and noticed a bank of elevators along the front wall, flanking the corridor. The elevators had front and back doors. How sensible! she thought in surprise. They've actually made it convenient for people to get supplies. She'd assumed that she would have to drag

everything out front, risking discovery.

This is going to be a snap, she thought.

FT. LAUREL BASE HOSPITAL: THE PRESENT

John looked around the room through slitted eyes; he was in a state of well-controlled terror, not knowing whom he was with or where he was. He couldn't see much, but he saw enough to know he wasn't alone: a man's legs with one foot crossed over his knee were visible off to his side.

He was in a hospital room, from what he could see. There was another bed to his left, but it was empty. The door to the hall was closed. He lay still, which wasn't hard; he was feeling very weak. Better, though. Someone's given me fluids and a trank. I should hurt more. Head's a little fuzzy.

The door opened and a gray-haired man with glasses came in; from his white coat he was a doctor.

"Isn't he awake yet?" the doctor asked, moving quickly to John's side. He took up the boy's wrist and checked his pulse.

"If he is, he hasn't said anything," Dyson said.

He sounded tired, but John was grateful to hear his voice. If Dyson was still here maybe he wasn't going to be turned over to the master Terminator.

The doctor reached over and lifted one of John's eyelids; he turned on a penlight and John blinked involuntarily.

"Aha! Playing possum were you," the doctor said cheerfully. "Well, I need to ask you a few questions, then you can go back to sleep if you like." He asked a few brisk questions to test memory and visual acuteness. "Are you in pain?" he asked finally.

"I'm comfortable," John said.

"Really?" The doctor glanced at his watch. "Some people have a pretty high threshold of pain, but yours is remarkable. You should be very aware of that shoulder right now, since you're due for a shot of Demerol."

"I'm fine," John said again. "I don't like drugs."

"I wish more of your generation felt that way," the doctor said, making a note on the chart. "Are you hungry?"

John nodded, his eyes closed. He wasn't hungry, but his mother would have insisted that he eat to keep up his strength. Besides, he thought he would feel better if he ate.

"I'll have them send up something, then," the doctor said. "Something light, some soup and some Jell-O."

"Thank you," John said.

The doctor gave him a quick, dry smile, then looked at Jordan. "You?" he asked.

"Yeah, please," Dyson said. "I haven't wanted to leave. I could use something to eat."

The doctor nodded, glanced at John one last time, then he left.

John turned his head and looked at Dyson. "Thank you," he said.

Jordan rubbed his stubbled face. "For?" he asked.

"For not turning me over to them." John's face was serious. "They will kill me if you do that," he said. He raised his brows. "And it may be a cliche, but I'm too young to die."

Dyson snorted. "Me, too," he agreed.

"Where am I?" John asked.

"You're in the base hospital at Ft. Laurel," Jordan watched John take a breath that was almost like a sob and then go still. "I haven't reported to my boss, if that's what you're wondering."

John let out his breath slowly and closed his eyes. "I was," he admitted. He looked over at Dyson. "Why not?"

Jordan grimaced. "Tarissa told me the full story a few weeks ago," he said. "I thought she was the victim of some sort of traumatic-stress/Stockholm-syndrome combination kinda thing. I mean she bought into your mother's delusion so…

completely." He looked over at the boy. "I've known that woman since I was a kid, and I always thought of her as one of the most sensible, sanest people I knew. And then she dumps that on me."

"Only it's true," John said.

"Yeah, right," Dyson sneered.

There was a knock on the door and an attendant thrust it open with his foot.

"Dr. Huff ordered this for you," he said, holding out a tray.

Jordan got up and took it from him.

"Thanks," he said.

The tray held a bowl of soup, a dish of green Jell-O, a cup of orange juice, a sandwich, and a carton of milk.

"The sandwich is mine, I guess," Jordan said. "Do you want the OJ or the milk?"

"OJ," Connor said. "I need the sugar."

Jordan's brows went up. "If you say so."

John took a sip of juice and held it in his dry mouth.

"I know how you feel, you know," he said. "When I was ten, I thought my mother was a complete psycho. Then one day two Terminators showed up, one to kill me, one to save me." He shook his head, then closed his eyes and reminded himself not to do that. "It was the craziest forty-eight hours of my life.

So far." John looked Dyson in the eye. "I don't want this to be true; it just happens to be true. If they find me, they will kill me. And I guarantee you they are looking for me. So what I need to know is, did you leave any kind of a trail at all?"

"What do you mean, like credit-card charges?" Jordan asked. "What, you think I was stopping in bars?"

"I was thinking of phone calls," John said.

Jordan bit his lip. "I called to make these arrangements from a pay phone, using a calling card. But that was from the last place I contacted Cyberdyne, so that wouldn't tell them anything. Oh, I called when we were about twenty minutes from here to tell my friend when we'd arrive."

"Were the card and the phone issued by Cyberdyne?" Connor asked.

"Ye-ah." Jordan bit into his sandwich and wondered where the kid was going with this.

"Get rid of them," John said. He could hear the tension in his own voice.

"Anything that they've given you probably has the capacity to listen in or trace you."

"Well, they haven't so far," Jordan said casually. "And we've been here all night and all day. Which, if they were looking for us, they would have done."

"Maybe they're waiting for dark," John said, glancing at the window.

"They had plenty of dark last night," Jordan pointed out, his mouth full of apparently irreducible bread. He took a sip of milk. "So that doesn't work."

"If they suspected I'd convinced you," John said musingly, "they would assume you'd be too vigilant to attack last night. But tonight, your belief would be

fading, you'd be wondering if you'd done the right thing, so you'd be a lot safer to attack." Connor looked at him measuringly. "Maybe it won't even be an attack. Maybe your Ms. Burns will just sashay in here and ask you what's going on." He raised his brows. "What would you say then?"

"I don't know," Jordan said honestly.

"Maybe something like, I got crazy, I don't know what came over me, the kid talked me into it?"

Jordan rolled up his napkin and tossed it into the wastebasket.

"When Serena Burns next sees me, the first words out of her mouth are going to be 'you're fired.' " He looked over at John. "After that she might ask me what the hell I thought I was doing, but since I'm fired it won't really matter what I say, now will it?"

"Would you let them take me away?" John asked. He had no idea how young he looked to Jordan at that moment, lying pale and weak in the bed, dark circles under his eyes, his hair tousled on the pillow.

Jordan thought of what Tarissa had told him. He thought of Danny and the look on his nephew's face before he slammed the door on him. They believed in this kid, and his mother. From what they'd told him, they had good reason to believe him. More important, Miles had believed in them. Could he do less?

"No," he said at last. "I wouldn't."

John almost wept with relief; his eyes filled and his throat tightened. He took a

deep breath and forced himself to relax. Nobody pays attention to a crying kid.

Certainty. If you act certain, people pick it up. After a minute he spoke.

"Then you have got to get me out of here, man."

Jordan looked at the door as though he expected someone to come bursting through it at those words. He leaned close. "Where do you want me to take you,"

he said quietly.

John thought for a moment. "How long have I been here?" he asked.

"All last night and all day today." Jordan frowned; he'd already told him that.

Maybe the head wound was making him forgetful.

John blew out his breath.

"Then this is the day we were going to attack Cyberdyne," he said. He looked over at Jordan. "You have to take me there."

"To Cyberdyne" Jordan asked. "Are you crazy? What about all those Terminators over there who want you dead?"

"My mother's going to be there," John said.

"Oh!" Jordan straightened up and rolled his eyes. "Why didn't you say so? I guess I'd better go find you some clothes. You can hide out in my office. No, wait; that won't work, because as soon as I show up, I'm going to get fired and I won't have an office."

John smiled. "Seriously," he said. "It's the last place the Terminators will be

looking for me. They know I'm wounded; they'll expect me to be lying low.

They might even be counting on my mother nursing me back to health in some remote location. But she'll be there. I swear she will."

Jordan tightened his lips. But he could see that the kid was serious.

"Like I said, I'd better go get you some clothes," he muttered.

* * *

Ralph's Kung Pao chicken was as good as it smelled. Dieter felt like a heel rewarding such a good dinner with what was going to be the mother of all headaches, but there was no help for it. While Ferri's back was turned he put the drops in his friend's beer.

Ralph turned back and put a brimming plate in front of Dieter, then set down his own.

He licked his thumb and said, "I think I made just enough. Which is to say enough for six." Ferri grinned, hoisted his bottle in a toast to von Rossbach and took a long swig. " Where did you find this?" he asked. "I've looked everywhere.

I asked them to order it for me at the PX, but I knew when I did it they'd never be able to score the stuff."

"I have my ways," Dieter said mysteriously. He took a sip from his own bottle.

Ferri snorted and drank from his own.

"Actually, there's this place in L.A. that stocks it. It's called Ron's Imported Beers on East Alameda. They're in the book. Unfortunately they don't deliver."

Ralph grinned, already looking a little bleary.

"Even if they did I'm probably outside their delivery zone," he said.

They talked and ate for a minute more, then, without warning, Ferri's head hit the table. Dieter wince'd, then moved the dish of chicken out from under his friend's face. He leaned over to make sure the Major could still breathe, then headed for Ferri's bedroom.

In a minute he was dressed in the Major's fatigues and was headed out the door in the direction of Cyberdyne. I wonder how far Sarah got, he thought. He shouldn't be worried, he knew. Sarah Connor was very professional. But he was emotionally involved, whether he liked it or not. So he worried.

What if they have John there? he wondered. He knew Sarah thought that if her son wasn't dead he was a prisoner of Cyberdyne. So, did she get right to work, or did she search for him? Most mothers you wouldn't even have to ask that question, but Sarah Connor wasn't most mothers.

He couldn't help but be concerned. She had been absolutely cold since they'd taken John. So withdrawn she might have been living in another time and place—

visible, able to interact, yet untouchable.

Dieter didn't think John was dead, because the man who had ordered the Terminators to chase them hadn't come after them. If the boy had been dead, he would have followed them and tried to help with the capture.

Sarah didn't buy it. She resisted the urge to hope, believing it a fool's game. You

could almost see John falling—the blood, the boneless landing—in her eyes.

She'd told him that if the first shot didn't kill him, then they would do it at their leisure, but that they would kill him. If they have him, he's dead, she'd said to him in a voice and manner that brooked no argument.

And so he approached Cyberdyne looking determined but feeling discouraged.

From what Sarah had told him, if John was dead, then humanity's only hope was the total destruction of Cyberdyne. And that looks damn near hopeless. The place was like a Hydra; cut off one head and two more pop out.

FT. LAUREL BASE HOSPITAL: THE PRESENT

"No. I'll go out first, then you. I can steady you, and catch you if you fall. You don't want to risk that shoulder."

John frowned at Jordan's suggestion. Not because it was a bad idea, but because it was so obviously a good one. He felt strange, distant and distracted, which he supposed was due to drugs and loss of blood. But this was a bad time to be slow as an ox.

"Good thinking," he said aloud. "You go first."

Jordan slipped over the narrow metal windowsill without comment. The drop from the boy's room was about four feet. Not bad, but still enough to be bothersome if one arm was out of action. John followed him immediately, barely giving Jordan a chance to step back. Dyson put his hands on the boy's slim waist and eased him down. Then he looked around. The coast was still clear.

John was wearing his own jeans and sneakers, but Jordan had found a green

surgical shirt to replace the bloodied and torn T-shirt he'd been wearing. Dyson looked down at his own rumpled and bloodstained suit.

We couldn't be more obvious on an army base if we were wearing rubber noses and orange wigs, he thought. Dyson looked around. It was just getting dark, things were getting hard to see, and the camp lights wouldn't be going on for a couple of minutes yet. There was no "good" time to do this, but right now was better than some. They started off.

By the time they reached Cyberdyne, it was full dark. There were pockets of shadow here and there around the building, looking all the darker for the arc lights surrounding them. They headed for a well of shadow at the back of the building.

John stumbled and nearly went down, but Jordan caught him—awkwardly because he was trying to avoid the wounded shoulder. To a passerby it would have looked like they were struggling.

In fact, to Dieter it did. He moved up silently behind Jordan, and clasping his big hands together, brought them down on the back of Dyson's neck. Jordan moved slightly at the last minute, reducing some of the force of the blow, but he went down in a heap, and John dropped with him.

"Ow!" John said, looking up into Dieter's grave face.

Jordan rolled over onto his back, his eyes wandered for a moment, then focused.

"What the hell did you do that for?" he whispered.

"Dieter, NO!" John barked as Dieter brought his arm back for the coup de grace.

"He's on our side!"

Dieter relaxed, looking down at Dyson.

Looking up, Jordan could discern no expression in his attacker's face or eyes and he was ready to believe that this man was even more dangerous than the resume Serena had given him said he was. Assuming this was von Rossbach.

Then Dieter looked at John and smiled.

"Your mother is going to be relieved to see you," he said fervently. He offered his hand to help John up. "Let's roll."

John's eyes widened. "Terminal Mission Override XY74!" he snapped.

Dieter spun around and gasped in surprise. He was face-to-face with a Terminator, a thing with his face. He fumbled at his belt for the taser.

The Terminator was frozen by the dissonance of an imperative command phrase uttered at the wrong time, by the wrong person, for the wrong purpose. Its processor worked furiously to reroute its command tree. For a second or two it stood helpless, so much inanimate metal and plastic.

Triggering the taser, von Rossbach stepped to the side, placing himself in front of the boy. Then they all scrambled back as sparks burst from the Terminator's eyes and mouth, its arms flopping wildly and legs stamping in place. Finally it stopped—frozen—with one foot in the air; then slowly, with the majesty of a sequoia, it fell, face forward, at their feet.

John looked around, then picked up a white-painted rock, and moving over to the Terminator, began calmly slamming it 6n the thing's head.

"Thanks," Dieter gasped.

" De nada," Connor responded, never letting up the rhythm of his pounding. "I got the phrase out of the CPU of that Terminator we decapitated. I wasn't sure it was genuine, but looks like."

Shaken, but not to be outdone in cool, Jordan said, "We'd better get moving.

Those fireworks might have attracted unwelcome attention."

Christ, it's real! He felt himself going into shock, and hauled back from the precipice with a gasping effort of sheer willpower. I'll have the nervous breakdown later.

"Can you really kill one of those things with a rock?" Dieter asked.

"No, but you can expose the access plate… here we go." John peeled back an arc of scalp, opened the plate, poised the pointed end of the rock, and struck twice.

"Sort of ironic—man's earliest tool killing his last." The big man looked at him, and John went on with a grin: "So I'm old beyond my years; so sue me."

John watched the red light of one eye flicker and fade, then dropped the rock.

"Yeah," he agreed. "We'd better get Bolts, here, out of sight before we go, though."

Dieter clipped the taser back onto his belt and leaned down. Grabbing one of the

Terminator's arms, he tugged and grunted.

"He's heavy," he said in surprise, his voice showing the strain of dragging roughly three hundred pounds of inert mass.

Jordan took the other arm and they finally got it moving. They dragged, then pushed it into the shadows.

"Mom's already here?" John asked as they started off.

"She should be," Dieter said. "What do you Americans say? One big happy family."

"Christ," Jordan muttered.

CYBERDYNE: THE PRESENT

Sarah rolled the last barrel into the fourth elevator and took it to the lowest level, four. She'd already filled all the other elevators with the makings she'd flung together and sent them to the other floors.

Cyberdyne's equivalent of a quartermaster seemed to love ordering in bulk and she'd taken full advantage of his/her thriftiness. I could come up with the makings for a bomb in a public rest room, she thought; fruits of a not-so-misspent life, one the waitress-student she'd once been would have found incomprehensible and terrifying in equal measure. This abundance of stuff was pure luxury.

The one thing they didn't seem to have an ample supply of was dollies. She'd

been able to find only one. When the door opened on four she tipped the barrel she'd loaded and raced for the far end of the complex. Only fifteen more to go, she thought.

Dieter tapped in the test code and the door lock disconnected with a harsh buzzing sound. The three of them pushed through the doors and rushed toward the desk. John slapped von Rossbach on the arm and pointed to the elevator indicator lights. One car was stopped on each floor.

"Hey, if a guy can't depend on his mother, who can he rely on? This is her most excellent MO, believe me." He went over to the elevators and pushed the button for the one stopped on four. Nothing happened. "She's got the door propped open," he said. Excitement seemed to be lending him energy. "I'm going down to three to help her spread the bombs," he said and headed for the emergency stairs.

"John, wait!" Dieter called out, but the boy was already through the door. He turned to Jordan. "Is there anybody else here?"

"Usually on a Sunday there are six security people and a few scientists working and maybe one or two eager-beaver executives," he said. He thought a moment.

"If I know Serena Burns she's probably arranged for the place to be empty."

Dyson turned to the security desk and blinked at the sight of the guard, now slowly returning to consciousness, stuffed under the desk. Jordan shook his head and blew out his breath. Get on with it, he ordered himself. Don't ask questions, don't think, just do it. He set the monitors to show what was happening on each floor.

Most of the scenes shown were devoid of human presence. On four, something

flashed by too fast to register.

"Sarah!" von Rossbach said, pointing a thick finger at the monitor.

"And John," Dyson said, indicating a monitor that showed the boy creeping through a door marked with a big "3."

The rest of the security cameras flashed views of the areas covered, showing two security guards and no one else.

"Those are the ones Serena sent with me to Sacramento," Jordan said.

"Terminators," Dieter growled, looking grim.

"We'd better tell John and… his mother," Jordan said.

"I'll take care of John," von Rossbach said. "Sarah has a laser with her that will take down a Terminator. The boy has nothing."

first teenage hubris, Jordan thought.

"Is this Serena person likely to be here?" Dieter asked.

Jordan nodded solemnly. "The kid thought she might be the one in charge of all the Terminators we've been running into."

Dieter froze in thought, looking for all the world like the Terminator he'd disabled outside. "Can you distract her?" he asked.

Jordan rubbed his jaw, then shrugged. "I can try," he said. "I'll come up with

some story about what happened. That might keep her occupied for a little while.

I don't think she'll buy anything I come up with, though. That woman is smart."

"If John is right, that woman isn't a woman," Dieter said. "Go ahead, do what you can. I'll go help John."

Jordan glanced at the elevators, then followed Dieter to the stairs. He wasn't sure what was up with that, but it wasn't an arrangement he wanted to mess with.

"Wait! "he said.

He went back to the guards' desk and shut each camera down individually. Then he fixed it so that they could only be turned on again using a new password:

"fear." Which I expect to experience more of tonight. He stood up and blew out his breath. I guess that means I've crossed the Rubicon for certain, he thought.

"Okay," he said aloud. "Let's go."

Von Rossbach nodded and they headed out.

Serena sat behind her desk, hands primly folded before her, and worked the last conversation she'd collected between John Connor and Dyson through a series of filters. For some reason, once he'd entered the base hospital, reception had been extremely poor. The 1-950 had been working on it for a half an hour now, using a reconstruction algorithm, and still couldn't make out what they were saying through the static.

Once Jordan had begun speaking again, shortly before he returned to the base, she'd been relieved. Knowing that the boy was at hand, if not actually in her

hands, was satisfactory. She knew where he was and from what she'd heard he wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. At least not pumped up with Demerol, he isn't, she thought.

For now, she was content to ignore him. Serena had bigger fish to fry. Sarah Connor to be exact. She'll be here soon. Everything currently known about the woman promised it.

Five was patrolling outside, as were two of the human security guards. One of those she'd put near the gate with orders to report anything strange. The other she'd assigned to the hospital, where he was watching Connor's room. Six and Seven were on independent patrol of the complex. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

The T-950 looked up in surprise at the tapping on her door.

"Come in," she said.

Serena came as close as she ever had in her life to dropping her jaw in astonishment. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her long legs.

"Well," she said slowly. "This is a surprise."

He came in and slumped toward her desk, head down, looking tired, rumpled, and sheepish.

"So, what happened?" she demanded. "Speak to me, Jordan."

He leaned both hands on the back of the chair across the desk from her, pressed

his lips together, and looked off to the side.

"Jordan?" she said, looking at him from under her brows. "Have you lost your voice?"

She upped her hearing level and found that his heart was beating rather rapidly.

Meaning? she wondered. It could simply mean that he expected to be fired, or that he had hard questions for her, or it could mean something much more dangerous.

"No," he said, raising his hand. He looked her in the eye. "Let me tell you what he told me," Jordan suggested.

She raised her brows. "If you think it will help," she said laconically.

He blew out his breath and began to speak, his eyes keeping contact with hers.

He told her about the Terminators and how they had ruthlessly pursued the Connors. Of how Connor was convinced that the three men she'd sent with him were nothing less than contemporary versions of the enemy they'd met before.

She listened quietly, taking note of the micro-tremors in his voice more than of what he was saying. He's scared, she thought. Because he believes them or because he expects to be humiliated for that belief? For a human, one could be as disturbing at the other. She had time; let him grab enough rope to hang himself.

It wasn't as though he was going to survive this no matter what he said.

When he was finished Serena pursed her lips and steepled her fingers before her.

"It's a remarkably self-consistent set of delusions." She looked him in the eye.

"Isn't it?"

He nodded and slapped the edge of the seat in front of him.

"Yes, it is. So, am I fired, or what?"

She laughed outright at that and spread her hands.

"You still haven't told me what happened, Jordan. Give me something to base a judgment on, why don't you?"

He straightened, then looked to the side again as though gathering his thoughts.

Now was the moment of truth: was he on her side or the Connors'? Did he believe Tarissa or Serena? Suddenly he thought of John telling him that Serena must be very, very smart, and it shook him. Yeah, she is smart, he thought. And if Connor is right, then she might have resources that we don't.

"He's a very persuasive boy," Jordan began. "And those guys you sent with me were insanely out of line." He rested his hands on the chair back. "Maybe I bought into it a little." He met her eyes. "So I brought him to the base hospital instead of here. I stayed with him last night and thought about it."

Serena looked at him, swinging her chair slightly from side to side.

"And what did you conclude?" she asked.

He shrugged, looking down. "To be honest, maybe I'm too tired to think straight, but the jury is still out."

She laughed again. "Yes, I'm afraid you are too tired to think straight. I suggest you not try to buy a used car today if you're capable of buying the crap that poor

kid took in with his pablum." Serena uncrossed her legs and scooted her chair under her desk, folding her hands before her. "What did you tell them at the hospital?" she asked, all business now.

"That I didn't think our clinic could handle the kid's wounds. And that his life depended on his presence being kept secret." He shrugged. "I told Ferri that Tricker would want him to cooperate with us on this."

The T-950 looked thoughtful. He was telling the truth, at least for the most part, judging from the micro-tremors in his voice.

"Good!" she said with satisfaction. "You're probably right about the hospital having a better chance of treating him, too. We do have just a small clinic. So I'm not totally dissatisfied with your performance on this. I should have expected it, given your concern over the boy's wounds. And he is at hand if needed."

She looked at him, her head tipped to one side, then she lowered her eyes.

"I guess the jury is still out for both of us. How this all works out will determine your future with Cyberdyne," she said. "Now, why don't you go home and get a few hours' rest. I'd like you to come back in tonight; that's when I think she'll strike, sometime between midnight and dawn."

"Tonight?" he said.

Something in his voice alerted her. She extended her hearing and caught the sound of an elevator. Not her Terminators; they'd been instructed to use the stairs at all times in order to avoid human contact. The only human in the building besides Jordan was the guard on the desk. Who hadn't let her know she had a

visitor. She checked the security cams and found them off-line. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't turn them on again.

She had gone so still that she might as well have been a mannequin. Jordan knew instinctively that something had gone very wrong. He took a giant step toward the door. His hand was on the knob when she flew over her desk toward him.

How he did it he never knew, but he was through the door and slamming it behind him before she could get her hands on him. He ran flat out for the elevators. Serena was through in a split second, her beautiful face completely expressionless, almost serene, as the door flew back hard enough to shatter the knob and tear the lock out of the plywood frame.

At first he flung things in her path, a chair, someone's computer, anything he could get his hands on. But he saw when he looked over his shoulder that she leaped over everything like a gazelle, her hair almost brushing the ceiling. After that he just ran, arms pumping, legs flying. It seemed miles.

There was one last door ahead, the glass barrier between the scientists and executive territory. He swished his card through the reader and a green dot lit, the door clicked, and he was through. The door slid shut behind him. He picked up a potted palm and threw it at the lock mechanism outside the door, which broke with a shower of sparks. Serena was nearly to the door.

He turned, crossed the corridor, and hit the elevator button; the doors opened and he flew inside. Jordan turned and pressed a button, any button, then watched helplessly as the demon approached.

Serena slammed into the door and bounced off, looking faintly surprised. Then,

knowing she had him trapped, a slow, satisfied grin animated her face. She drew back her fist and punched forward, safety glass shattered into a thousand pieces, and she leaped through. As the elevator doors closed he saw her expression change to chagrin and the last he saw of her was her fingertips reaching for the door.

Then she was gone and the elevator was on the move. Jordan plastered himself against the side of car and gasped for breath, then he slid down the wall and sat for a moment, gathering his strength. Opening his eyes, he smiled, then looked to the side and froze. The elevator was full of bomb.

Serena hit the elevator door hard enough to dent it. She let loose a strangled cry of frustration, then quickly stifled it. Where are you? she sent to the Terminators.

Two, one of them answered.

One, the other replied.

The third didn't answer.

Serena watched the elevator indicator: Dyson was going down; he was already past two.

There's at least one human invader in the building, she told them. Jordan Dyson.

Terminate him on sight.

Five came toward her from the far end of the corridor. A pity it hadn't been closer when Dyson ran; they could have cornered him between them.

"Go to the ground floor," she said. "Guard the elevators and the door to the stairs. Terminate any human who comes through them."

She looked up. Dyson had gone all the way down to four. There was a panel on the wall that controlled the elevators; she ripped off the cover and grabbed a handful of wires, then pulled them from their moorings. That ought to keep him where she wanted him for a while. She signaled Six to meet her there.

The T-950 turned and headed for the stairs. She had a small but powerful gun bolstered at the small of her back under her suit jacket—a snub-barreled magnum that a human her size couldn't have controlled. Pulling it out, she clicked off the safety and made sure she had a round in the chamber.

Hunting humans, she thought. How nice. Seems an age since I did this.

EMITTER E8 CYBERDYNE: THE PRESENT

At the sound of the approaching elevator Sarah stopped what she was doing and ducked behind the receptionist's island. Who (he hell is that? she wondered.

Surely Dieter would know better than to use the elevator. She pulled her Clock from its holster and rested her gun hand on the desk, eyes on the elevator door.

The doors opened and Jordan braced his leg against one side to keep them there as he peeked out into the corridor. So should I take the elevator back up, or use the stairs? he wondered. Maybe he ought to check the indicators, see if Serena was following him. He edged out of the elevator slightly.

Sarah fired, aiming for the thigh of the leg inching its way into view.

Jordan went down screaming. He thrashed on the floor cursing and trying vainly to keep quiet. It hurt so damn much!

"Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" he hissed, half cursing, half praying.

Sarah recognized him from Sacramento: the man who had said he would take care of John. She rushed from behind the desk to stand over him, her gun aimed at his head.

"Don't move!" she ordered.

Jordan opened his eyes to find himself staring into a small black hole. His breath stopped; it took five long seconds for him to make his lungs work again and he took his breath with a long, tearing gasp.

"Where's my son?" Connor said. Her voice and face were as cold as the moon and as distant. ,

"He… he's okay," Jordan stammered. He couldn't stop shaking and his leg burned. "He's on three, setting up bombs."

She appeared to think about that; after a moment she took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Then she almost smiled, looking younger in an instant.

"That's my boy!" she said proudly. "He can talk anyone around— even me."

Sarah bolstered her gun and squatted down to offer help to her victim. "The bullet went clean through, doesn't look like I nicked any veins or arteries from the way it's bleeding. Can I have your tie?" she asked.

"No!" Jordan snapped. "I already used it to bandage your son." I will never again question why I have to wear that stupid strip of cloth to work, he thought. He wished now that the unofficial dress code required him to wear two.

"Well, you'd better give me something to use unless you want to bleed to death,"

she said briskly.

Jordan shrugged out of his jacket and took off his shirt, with her help. Sarah used her knife to tear it into strips.

"First you shoot my brother, now you shoot me. What the hell have you got against my family, lady?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked, frowning.

"My brother was Miles Dyson," he said. He sucked in his breath through his teeth as a sharp pain shot through his leg.

"Miles," she said thoughtfully as she sliced away his pants leg. "He was a good man." Sarah smiled, her eyes on her work. "I guess next time I'd better ask questions first and shoot later," she said.

"Duh! Yuh!" he agreed. "OW!"

"Has to be tight," she explained.

"What about circulation?" he asked, glaring.

Sarah stood up and looked down at him.

"I guess that's your responsibility. Look, I've got things to do. Stay cool, I'll be right back."

"Stay cool? Hey!" he said as she walked away. "I'm being chased; that mommy Terminator you've been worried about is after me!"

She looked over her shoulder at him.

"Then I'd better work fast."

Dyson let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes.

"Yeah, I guess you better," he said softly. He swallowed and tried to fight down a sudden nausea. Maybe it's time I tried to make a deal with God, he thought irreverently.

Every agent does, sooner or later, Paulson had once told him. So you should work out your terms in advance.

Jordan lightly placed his hands on either side of the wound, just above the bandage, and wished he could ignore the pain. He felt a falling sensation within, and when he opened his eyes again he thought some time might have passed.

Off to his right, the door to the stairs began to open.

"Connor!" he shouted. He tried frantically to move, to back into the elevator, and couldn't seem to make his body work as a coordinated whole. "SARAH!"

Sarah dropped her screwdriver and ran toward his voice. She arrived in time to see a Terminator raise its gun, aiming at Dyson. Response was automatic: she plucked the laser from her belt, ran toward it, aimed, and fired even as it began to wheel toward her.

The results were dramatic: sparks shot from the Terminator's head and it flailed its arms and legs like a marionette gone mad. Its trigger finger convulsed again and again, firing the gun in uncontrolled bursts. Sarah threw herself to the floor and wished she could get lower. The machine kept firing until all that could be heard was the impotent clicking of an empty magazine.

Then, without warning, it was over. The Terminator crashed to the ground, frozen

—sprawled like a giant doll, broken and abandoned.

After a moment's silence she crawled to the edge of the desk and peered around it. The Terminator lay inert. She moved over to it and tugged at the gun; it wouldn't let go, not without tools. She rifled its pockets for spare magazines and took those.

Dyson was flat on his back, most of his body in the elevator, so she couldn't tell if he was alive or dead. Sarah moved cautiously over to him, her eyes on the Terminator.

As she moved she snapped out the used taser cartridge, its wires still attached to the Terminator's torso, and replaced it. It was more powerful than the standard model, but it would be useless until it recharged. She quickly checked her watch; twenty minutes or so until it could be used again. She hung the unit on her belt and withdrew her pistol from its holster just in case. It wouldn't kill a Terminator, but it might slow one down—and it made her feel better.

She wished there was some way to be sure the Terminator was down for good, but the damn things didn't have a pulse she could check.

She glanced in at Dyson; he was looking back, seeming no worse for wear.

"You okay?" she asked, moving her eyes back to the quiescent Terminator.

"Just ducky!" he said sarcastically. "Incidentally, if you see a blond ho' with a very bad attitude who can walk through walls, kill her. That's Serena Burns, inhuman genius from the future. Sorry, I'm babbling."

"Shock," said the woman he'd hated for six years, and smiled.

He struggled to a sitting position and Sarah was reaching down to help him when the door to the stairs was thrown open, hitting the wall like a gunshot. Sarah straightened, saw a woman with a gun, and without hesitation raised her gun and shot.

Serena's head snapped back from the force of the blow and her vision went white, then black. She felt herself falling and had time to comprehend one word and to feel all the dread that accompanied it.

Failure.

Then she was gone.

Jordan leaned forward and watched with his mouth open in horror as Serena slowly crumpled, then fell to her knees, then forward onto her face. The right

side of her head was a mass of blood, the pink gray pulp of her brain was visible, and the gold-blond hair was matted into spikes with it.

"My God," he said. He looked at Sarah, who was frowning at the fallen woman.

"I thought you were going to ask first."

Sarah looked down at him.

"Everybody's a critic," she growled. She indicated Serena with her chin. "That the one you were talking about?"

"Yeah," Jordan said. "That's her. She dead?"

Sarah shrugged and put away her gun.

"Time will tell."

She glanced at Jordan, then went over and pried the gun from the woman's stiff ringers. Sarah touched her neck, feeling for a pulse. If she has a brain, which she visibly did, then she must be human, she thought. So if there's no pulse she should be out of the game. There was a lot of blood, too. Terminators didn't have this much in their whole massive bodies. Sarah frowned. The idea of a human running Terminators was mind-boggling. No time, she reminded herself. Get going. Returning to Jordan, she offered him the gun butt first.

"So you won't feel so defenseless," she said.

"Thanks," he said, accepting it. He looked up at her.

Sarah felt as though he wanted her to say something, but she had no idea what.

"I have to finish some things," she said. "Hold the fort and don't shoot my kid, okay?"

He raised the gun in salute. "You got it," he said.

He watched her go back into the office she'd come out of, then he looked around.

His hands were shaking, so he dropped the gun to the floor beside him and clasped them, hard. Jordan grimaced at the bodies on the floor and let out his breath in a little huff. They looked so human.

What if they are human? he thought. What if the Connors are delusional and I've somehow become infected? Then an image of Serena making those fantastic leaps came into his mind's eye. He'd actually seen that with his own eyes. This might be the craziest thing that would ever happen to him, but he, at least, was not insane.

Jordan shook his head and slowly dragged his wounded leg into the elevator. He pushed himself back until he was leaning against the wall. Next time something came through that door he was not going to be a sitting target. He reached up; yes, he could touch the elevator's control panel; he could shut the door at need.

He let his head lean against the wall and once again allowed himself to relax.

* * *

reroute, reroute.

Electronic components no human could have designed struggled to throw off their passionless equivalent of shock. They had been integrated with the

biological half of their personality for a very long time. Autonomous reintegration took a long time; several complete seconds.

checksum, response: negative, damage—

neurological: central brain stem: no responsive. function terminated, terminated, terminated.

decision tree: restart autonomous functions from backup.

The corpse's lungs heaved, once, twice. The heart began to beat with an artificial steadiness. The computer analyzed how much function remained in muscle and organ; enough for a few minutes, if it controlled fluid loss from the ruined brain.

But it had never been designed to move the organism in this manner. Complex calculation would be required.

Fingers quivered, clenched. A heel softly tapped the ground. An eye opened, and the pupil cycled from pin-sized to a black disk that swallowed the blue of the iris.

Serena Burns was dead. But her body began to move…

"Last one," John said to Dieter, who shoved the dolly he'd found in the janitor's closet under the barrel.

"Okay," von Rossbach panted.

They'd been working well together, and fast, running back and forth to the lift every minute or so, it seemed. Dieter glanced up as he pulled the barrel out of the elevator.

"Oh, my God," he said softly.

John looked up at the indicator. There were now two elevators on four.

"Mom!" he said, and ran for the stairs.

"NO!" Dieter said, catching him by the back of his shirt. "Don't just run out there. Look first."

"Right," John said. He took a deep breath and gave the big man a rueful look.

"Don't tell Mom, okay?"

"What do you think?" Dieter said.

Cautiously, they opened the door and listened. Von Rossbach nodded and they moved carefully down the stairs.

Jordan had fallen into a state of physical and emotional lethargy. His leg hurt, but he knew he couldn't do anything about it and on some level had accepted the pain. Should I be worried about that? he wondered.

When he saw signs of movement from Serena he thought he might be hallucinating—possibly going into shock. At first all he saw were random twitches, movements so small they might have been imaginary. Then there was a full-body convulsion.

Something postmortem, he told himself wisely. Possibly brought on by all the fast food she's been eating. And boy, could that girl pack away junk food. He'd always wondered how she managed to stay so slim.

Then her head lifted and he had a full-body convulsion of his own.

"Sarah!" he shouted. This can't be happening. I'm going into shock, bethought.

"SARAH!"

Serena's head came up off the floor. Her face, streaked with blood, was utterly white, the eyes lifeless. She stayed in that position, motionless, for what seemed a long time. There was a dark hole just above her right eyebrow and blood dripped slowly from her chin.

"Sarah! She… it's alive, Sarah!" He could feel the blood draining from his face and he begged God not to let him faint. Where the hell is she? he wondered frantically. "CONNOR!"

Serena's head turned in his direction, but her eyes seemed unfocused. Jordan found he couldn't speak; his mouth went dry and his heart beat so fast it almost hurt.

Then Serena's body shifted, in an almost insect-like series of motions that first lifted her onto her hands and knees, then onto her fingertips and toes. Her head dipped and turned, in sharp, abrupt movements, as though adjusting itself to this position. A human couldn't have held her head at that angle without pain; a human couldn't have held her body like that without dropping to the floor almost immediately.

" CON-NORRRR!" Jordan screamed. Utter horror struck as he pushed himself back against the elevator wall with his good leg, until he was almost standing.

"It's alive!"

The thing that had been Serena Burns shifted its head to look in his direction, and Jordan pushed the close doors button frantically. Nothing happened; he pushed a floor button. The elevator is dead, he thought. Oh, God! So am I! He got himself onto his feet and half hopped, half slid his way around to the door and through it.

The Serena-thing scuttled toward him rapidly and he shouted in wordless terror, as he might had a spider the size of a wolf walked out of his dreams.

Instinctively he put his weight onto his wounded leg and went down to one knee.

He thought of the gun, still inside the elevator, and threw himself sideways; grabbing it, he rolled over and fired. It hit her in the shoulder and she folded back onto her knees, her head still up, still apparently watching him.

Jordan once again dragged himself to the side of the elevator, never taking his eyes off of the thing, and pushed himself to his feet. He wondered how he would get past it; it blocked most of the doorway. He and Sarah finished setting the detonator on time fuse. She had no idea exactly what was happening out there, but she did know that there was probably very little she could do about it. The laser still had ten minutes to charge. And this had to be finished. Cyberdyne was going up tonight, Terminators and all, even if she and Dyson had to go with it.

When she was finished she picked up the gun and stood. Okay, minions of Skynet, here I come, ready or not. She moved cautiously out of the office, thinking, Dieter, find my son, keep him safe. Please, my friend. Please.

She arrived just in time to see Serena knock Dyson off his feet. Taken completely by surprise, she froze for a second. Between the two of them, Dyson and the woman, this one was the least likely to be on her feet again. People with

their brains blown out didn't get up again, and she'd seen the pink-and-gray jelly spatter.

The bloodied blond head whipped round and the woman raised her gun and fired in one sharp movement. The bullet clipped the bone at the top of Sarah's right shoulder and her gun went flying.

Sarah dropped down behind the desk as the blond woman fired once more, then stopped. Connor pressed down on her shoulder, her eyes tearing, and sucked air between her teeth. She was dizzy and nauseous and black-and-white spots danced at the edges of her vision. Focus! she ordered herself. Focus!

the thing looked at one another. The thought of it touching him made him want to vomit, and he swallowed bile.

Then she scuttled backward until she reached the desk. Slowly she maneuvered herself from a kneeling into a sitting position, her feet tucked under in a way that should have been agonizing. She pushed herself up until she was standing on her two feet; then she froze.

The wound in her shoulder didn't seem to bother her at all. The bizarre manner in which she climbed to her feet had brought no change to her bland expression.

Somehow, although she was looking right at him, her eyes seemed blind.

Jordan noticed that she wasn't breathing. In shock, he tucked into himself as though someone had poked him in the stomach. I've got to get out of here, he thought, and he hopped forward, sliding along the wall once he was outside the elevator. He had to find Connor.

He risked a glance toward the office where Sarah had disappeared, and that's when the thing made its move. He brought up the gun, but it grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward. Once again his leg failed him and he began to fall. The thing struck him across the face hard enough to send him sprawling, then twisted the gun from his grip as he went down.

Sarah heard footsteps and looked around for the gun. It was under a desk, about twelve feet away from her. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to crawl; her right arm was almost useless, but she pushed herself forward with her feet.

Almost there… she reached forward and a bullet almost took off her fingers.

The T-950 continued to move forward, continued to work on readjusting its faltering visual equipment. It sensed that it had come very close that time, but the biological elements were failing and the implants could only compensate to a certain extent. When failure came, it would be an exponential process.

Sarah pushed herself backward on the smooth floor, back toward the receptionist's desk. The Terminator—it had to be a Terminator—had a gun in its hand, she was sure. She wished the damn laser would hurry up and recharge.

Finding its target gone the T-950 listened and heard slithering noises off toward the fallen Six. II couldn't run, at least not yet, but it moved inexorably toward its fallen companion. The human mustn't be allowed to obtain a weapon. This unit was vulnerable to guns.

Sarah stretched out her arm as far as it would go and grasped the barrel of the gun. She tugged and nothing happened; she couldn't even drag the arm closer to her. Whatever had happened to its internal circuits when she hit it with the laser had caused the machine lo freeze into a single immovable piece.

Goddammit! she though. Easing herself forward, Sarah brought her other hand into play, Trying lo wrestle the weapon out of the big hand as quietly as possible.

She didn't waste much lime on it; it took her a matter of seconds lo realize it was hopeless. Sarah pressed her hands lo The floor lo push herself backward.

The T-950 fired and wounded Connor's left forearm. The human cried out in pain. It had to be content with that. Enough wounds, even minor ones, would kill The human with cumulative damage. Soon she would be incapacitated enough that the Infiltrator could kill her with its hands. Perhaps that was best.

Sarah pushed herself backward frantically, aiming for one of The desks behind its beige partition. Maybe I can lure it into this maze and lose it long enough to get back to stairs or the elevators. She'd like lo gel Dyson out of here if she could. Assuming he was still alive, that is.

She got herself onto her hands and knees and launched herself toward the clerk's den of cubicles before her. The Terminator fired, and hit her, creating a searing line of fire along her ribs. Sarah caught her breath in a sob; grilling her teeth, she moved on. She dived into a cubicle, separated The wall, Then pushed Them back together again, hoping The Terminator wouldn't know how lo follow her.

The T-950 followed Connor into a cubicle but found her gone. Il heard sounds on the far side of the wall and considered shooting, but decided against it. Its supply of ammunition was limited, while the target's ability to escape seemed unlimited. The Infiltrator had no doubt of its eventual success; it merely conserved supplies in order to ensure it.

Sarah moved as quietly as she could, which was difficult. Her wounds were

relatively minor, but they all bled. She could feel herself growing weaker and she felt clumsy and disoriented. I should go back toward the front of the office, she thought. She could see the gun under that desk in her mind's eye. And she needed a weapon desperately.

The next turn brought her out onto a main corridor beside the wall. Left or right?

she wondered. She couldn't see very much difference from here between either end of the corridor. Left, she decided, and began to stumble in that direction. She was almost there when she looked up and saw that she was heading the wrong way.

There was a sound somewhere behind her and she ducked into the nearest cubicle. Hunkering down and pressing herself against the soft wall, she listened, breathing through her mouth to quiet her breathing.

Outside the T-950 stalked by with no attempt to hide itself. Its head swung like a gun turret from side to side. Its eyes didn't seem to be working right. Maybe it was listening. The thought bumped Sarah's heartbeat up a notch and she grimaced. If it can't hear that, it must be deaf.

After the Terminator passed, she slipped out and crept to the other cubicle, ducking in there. She waited a few heartbeats, then risked looking out into the corridor. It was empty; the Terminator must have turned the corner. Sarah slipped out and ran as fast as she could toward the elevators.

The T-950 stepped around the corner and fired. A good solid hit this time in the target's leg. The human went down and thrashed on the floor for a moment. Then she was gone.

Sarah limped as fast as she could down the cross-corridor toward the far wall, blinded by tears. With every step that pulsed out more of her blood, her mind swore and raged. I've got to bind this up, she thought. Her worry was the trail she was leaving rather than her probable collapse. Sarah refused to contemplate such an eventuality.

When she got around the next corner she went down on one knee, and for a moment couldn't get up. Surrendering to necessity, she sat, her back to the cubicle wall, and pulled off her belt. She stuffed the taser in her pocket; still five minutes left until it could be used. Unbelievable, she thought. It feels like I used it yesterday. With shaking hands she bound her belt tightly around her leg. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

The Infiltrator moved slowly down the corridor, expecting to find its target at any moment. Even the most slippery human was vulnerable to blood loss. Once again it tried to force more speed, only to find that slowed it more. The elevators were nonfunctional, it remembered, and with the wound in her leg climbing stairs would be slow going for Connor. Skynet would prevail.

Sarah struggled to her feet and found that it made her dizzy and brought a mouthful of bile; she spat it out on the floor and swallowed, the bitter fluid rasping at her throat. When she tried to take a step she found that her leg wouldn't bear her weight. Giving in, she allowed herself to collapse to the floor, and lying flat, crawled. It was easier.

Halfway along the corridor she spied a boxed fire hose on the wall. Above it was another box; behind its glass was a fire ax. Sarah looked at it stupidly for a moment, then she smiled.

Low-tech, she thought, but serviceable.

Beside the whole arrangement was a smaller box. If the glass on this was broken and the button pushed, the safety sprinklers would be activated. Do I want to be wet? she wondered. Do I want to be alive? she answered herself. Her mind seemed to be moving more slowly; the plan formed immediately, but it took her several moments to work out how to actually do it. The water first; that might help to hide sound and movement.

Sarah dragged herself up and hit the glass with its tiny hammer. She almost broke down and cried when the glass only cracked. She hadn't thought she was so weak. What if I can't do it? She thought of Kyle.

On your feet, soldier! she thought fiercely. She hit the glass again and it shattered. Pressing the button, she flinched when the first drops of water hit. It was cold.

The Infiltrator stopped dead as water exploded from the sprinklers above. There was nothing in its memory to explain this. What did it mean? Irrelevant, it decided. Something the enemy had done, though how or why it didn't know.

Perhaps the intention was to obscure its vision or hearing. Looking out into a world gone gray, the Infiltrator thought its enemy had succeeded better than it could know.

Dieter insisted on going through the door first, which John had no problem with.

He was wounded and therefore less able. John covered him, a gun in his left hand. There was a nasty, squeezing sensation in his head at the sight of the prone Terminator just outside the door.

Dieter shoved it with his foot, barely shaking it. Then his gun hand snapped up at the sound of a groan. Looking around, he saw Dyson sprawled in a heap by the elevator. He moved quickly over to him and John followed. He noticed a pool of blood beside the Terminator and looked around.

Von Rossbach knelt beside Dyson and gently turned him over. Jordan's eyes were open, but were as yet uncomprehending, and he groaned again.

Dieter tapped his cheek gently, whispering, "Dyson. Wake up. Dyson."

John crouched beside them, his back to the wall, eyes roving.

"Where's my mother?" he asked. "What's going on?"

Jordan caught that and tried to answer, the words came out strangled and garbled and he frowned. He licked his lips and tried again.

"Another Terminator," he said. "My boss. Sarah shot her." His eyes rolled toward Dieter and he shook his head slightly. "She came back to life. She… it got the drop on your mother. They're out there somewhere." He gestured weakly toward the semi dark cubicles.

John and Dieter both rose to their feet, looking outward. There was the distant sound of breaking glass and then the water came on.

"This way!" Dieter said, and plunged toward the sound.

Sarah was sitting beside the doorway on the rolling desk chair, her back to the wall, waiting for the Terminator to pass. In her hands was the fire ax; she hefted

it, holding it ready to strike.

The 1-950 moved slowly down the corridor. It wondered how long this rain effect would last. It was diminishing its effectiveness. It paced on, head turning, listening.

Sarah watched it pass, then leapt up and brought the ax down as hard as she could.

John and Dieter rounded the corner in time to see an ax flash up, then down. It was a moment before John realized that his mother had wielded it. He ran toward them. The bright head of what must be Jordan's Terminator boss turned and its hand flashed back. He screamed as he watched it plunge that hand deep into his mother's abdomen in a classic knife hand.

Sarah's eyes turned back into her head and she went down. The Terminator readied itself for a deathblow, moving slowly but powerfully.

Dieter crouched, holding his Browning Hi-Power in both hands, and fired. The blond head bucked and the Terminator dropped to its knees. John fired, less accurately with his left hand, and struck it on the shoulder. Slowly it fell, landing athwart his mother.

John ran toward them and with a strength he hadn't known he possessed grabbed the Terminator and flung it aside. He gathered Sarah up in his arm and weeping called to her.

"Mom!" he sobbed. "MOM! Don't die, okay? Please, please, don't die!"

Dieter looked down on him, then turned to the female Terminator that was still moving weakly. He put his pistol against its head and fired several times.

John jumped and looked at him desperately.

Von Rossbach knelt beside them and checked Sarah over. The wound in her side was bad. Dieter had nothing on him suitable for making bandages, and neither had John. He glanced around and saw a scarf hanging from a coat rack in the cubicle before him. He grabbed it and bound it tightly around Sarah's abdomen.

Then he picked her up and carried her toward the stairs, John trotting anxiously beside him.

Jordan was sitting up, somewhat revived by the cold water pouring from the ceiling. He gasped when he saw Sarah Connor's limp form in von Rossbach's arms.

"Can you get up if John helps you?" Dieter asked.

"I'd better," Jordan said.

He struggled to his feet and John slipped under his arm. They staggered a bit at first, then found a way to center their mutual weight. John pressed the elevator button.

"Not working," Jordan said. "I tried."

Together they struggled toward the stairs and began the long journey upward.

Dieter noticed a change in Sarah's breathing and felt his heart contract. Then he

saw her eyelids lift and his heart did, too.

"It's me—Dieter," he said softly. "I've got you; you're going to be all right."

Her eyes closed slowly and he had no idea if she'd heard him.

Even he was gasping for breath by the time they came to the top of the stairs.

Jordan, so breathless he was unable to speak, touched von Rossbach's arm and signaled him to wait. Frowning, Dieter complied.

"Three," Dyson said, holding up three fingers.

Dieter's face lit as he comprehended the message. There had been three Terminators in Sacramento. Two, and their master, were destroyed. That left one unaccounted for. He gently lowered Sarah to the ground. She moaned and shifted a bit.

"Sarah," he whispered. "There's one more Terminator. I've got to take him out."

"P-ocket," she mumbled, and made a weak gesture.

He glanced down and saw the butt of the taser sticking out of her jeans.

"That ought to do it," he whispered, smiling down at her.

He kissed her on the forehead, then lowered her head. John was there in an instant, sliding his arm under her. Their eyes met and Dieter nodded, then rose.

He was the only unmarked member of the team. This would be up to him.

Dieter cracked the metal door slightly to glance out into the reception area.

Without warning, a barrage of bullets erupted. Holes punched through the metal and von Rossbach lent his strength to get his wounded comrades out of the line of fire.

The firing stopped and they heard footsteps approach the door. Dieter readied the taser. The doorknob turned, slowly, quietly, then it stopped. The tension mounted as nothing happened.

The Terminator held the knob in position; it sent out a call to Serena and to its fellows and received no answer. It was unimaginable that humans could eliminate so many of its kind. Perhaps a fellow Terminator, badly damaged and unable to communicate, waited behind this barrier. Humans couldn't do it serious harm, it decided. It pushed open the door.

Dieter didn't even have to aim; he fired and the cords flashed out. Von Rossbach grabbed the Terminator's hair and yanked it forward into the stairwell, where the inevitable pyrotechnics wouldn't be visible from outside. Then he popped out the cartridge and put the taser in his jacket pocket.

He bent and lifted Sarah carefully. Even so, she made a soft sound of pain. Then he led them to the front doors. They got a good way from the building and took refuge in the deep shadows behind the concrete-and-metal Cyberdyne sign. He and John laid down their burdens, then turned back toward the building.

"Do you think Mom finished?" John asked.

"T-mer," came from behind him, and he knelt beside her.

"I think she said timer," Jordan suggested.

"It doesn't matter," Dieter said, he held out a signaler—"I have this." He pulled out the antenna.

"Wait!" John said. He pointed. "The guard, under the desk."

Dieter sighed, then handed the signaler to John.

"I guess I'd better go and get him," he said. "Maybe we should set off an alarm or something in case anybody else is in there." It was what Sarah would want him to do.

He jogged toward the building, keeping an eye out for any wandering army personnel. Luck, such as it was, was with him. No one appeared. He tapped in the test sequence and the door lock disengaged. Dieter moved to the desk and found the guard fully awake. He pulled his knife and cut the tape around the man's head.

"Is there anybody else in the building?" von Rossbach asked.

"Ms. Burns, the chief of security, and two other guards," the man answered.

"We've got to call the MPs; this is bigger than we can handle!"

"These guards," Dieter said, "one of them has a funny haircut and the other is bald?"

"Yeah! That's them," he said eagerly.

"They're already out," von Rossbach said. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah, I think so," the guard said. He rubbed his wrists where Dieter had cut the tape. "We should set off the alarm," he suggested.

"I tried that. I think they've disabled it. Let's get out of here, then we can call for help."

"Good idea," the guard said. He held out his hand and Dieter pulled him to his feet.

"Go!" Dieter said, giving the man a shove. He grabbed a handful of the guard's shirt and began to run, half carrying the man with him. "Keep moving!" he insisted.

He ran the man to where his friends were hiding. The man stopped, goggling, and hardly reacted when Dieter's hands clamped down on his carotids—risky, but still safer than trying to knock him out. The guard hit the dirt with a muffled thump and Dieter shook his head ruefully.

"He'll have a headache, but he'll live."

"Is there anyone else in there?" John asked.

Von Rossbach shook his head.

"Not according to him," he said, indicating the fallen guard. "At least nobody human."

John licked his lips and glanced at his mother.

"You do it," Dieter said.

John hit the ignition button and felt a shiver beneath his feet. Almost instantly the doors and the roof of Cyberdyne Systems blew out in a giant orange fireball.

They ducked, as fragments began to rain down, John covered his mother's head and shoulders. Then he straightened and looked at her. She was so still, her lips were pale, and she seemed to be barely breathing.

Dieter's hand came down on his shoulder and he jumped, opening his mouth in a soft gasp.

"John," he said, "we have to go." Dieter tightened his lips. "We can't take her with us," he said quietly.

John turned to him, his face streaked with tears.

" What?" he said. "We can't leave her! Do you know what they'll do to her?" John shook his head. "I can't let them put her back in that place. She still has nightmares about it!"

"John. She's too badly hurt. If we take her with us she will certainly die. If we leave her with Jordan they might be able to save her life. I promise you: we will come back for her."

John hesitated, clasping her hand tightly. Then he took a deep breath and let her go. He turned to Jordan.

"Take care of her," he said. "Don't let them drug her like they did before.

Promise me!"

John's eyes were desperate, but the tears were drying.

Jordan nodded solemnly. "I give you my word," he said. "I'll watch over her as best I can."

"Come on," Dieter said. He looked at Sarah's face and clenched his jaw. I will be back for you, he promised her silently. Don't lose hope.

Then he and John ran. They got to Ferri's quarters without being seen, often by the simple expedient of running backward in a crowd, or in Dieter's case by issuing orders before people got a good look at them.

Von Rossbach stuffed John into the false-fronted trunk in the back of the Humvee and entered the Major's house. He changed, dropping the used clothes into Ralph's hamper. Then he went into the kitchen and shook Ferri's shoulder.

Dieter propped him up in his chair and lightly slapped the Major's face.

"Ralph!" he said. "Hey! Ralph!"

Ferri snorted, then tried to push von Rossbach off him with fumbling hands.

"Wha… wassup?" he asked. Finally he opened his eyes, which promptly threatened to roll back in his head.

Dieter slapped him again, lightly.

"Something's happening," he said. "Listen. Something's up."

Slowly the Major came to himself, a look of confusion on his face. Then the sirens registered.

"Something happened," he said.

Dieter offered him some aspirin and a glass of water.

Ferri took them, his eyes meeting von Rossbach's. He popped the pills into his mouth and took a mouthful of water.

"You bastard," he said quietly and without rancor. "You owe me."

"I do," Dieter said.

"Get out of here," the Major said. He went to the phone and dialed a couple of numbers. "Ferri, here," he said. "What and where?" He listened for a moment, then glared at von Rossbach. "Okay," he said, "I'm on my way. I've got a friend visiting me. I'm sending him on his way; see that they don't hassle him at the gate. Dieter von Rossbach. Yeah. Okay." He hung up and turned to his friend. "I expect an explanation," he said.

"You'll get one," Dieter said. He held out his hand. "No hard feelings?"

"Hell yes!" Ferri snapped. He took Dieter's hand. "Right now, we're even for Srebrenica. But I always did hate those cyber-snots. Get lost," he said.

They left together, Ferri heading for Cyberdyne without looking back, Dieter driving for the gate, his heart in his throat.

I'll be back, he thought at Sarah.

They were close to the Chamberlains' cabin when Dieter's cell phone beeped.

"Von Rossbach," he answered.

"Dyson," came the clipped answer.

Dieter took a deep breath, but said nothing. He couldn't bring himself to speak.

John blinked and came fully awake, shifting in his seat to look anxiously at him.

"Sarah's listed as critical," Jordan said. "But she's under the care of a good doctor. They think she'll pull through."

"Wait," Dieter said. He put the phone against his shoulder and turned to John.

"He says it looks like your mother should pull through. She's in the care of a good doctor."

John let out his breath in something close to a sob and Dieter put the phone back to his ear.

"Thank you," he said.

"There's something else," Jordan said, sounding tired.

"Yes?"

"There was another backup storage site."

In the mountains of Montana, in a secret under basement, a screen flickered and read: "Transmission terminated. No further download possible." On a narrow

bed, a young girl with Serena's face lay still, electrodes attached to her temple.

Her eyes opened slowly.