The Future War

with anyone.

'Where ya headed?' he asked.

'Klondike. Same as you, I imagine.'

He grinned. 'Yep. John Grant,' he said, and without taking his eyes off the road he extended his hand.

She looked at it before she took it for a brief, firm shake.

'Ninel Petrikoff.'

John frowned. There was something about that name. Then he laughed. 'Well, I guess there's no doubt about your parents'

political affiliations.'

Ninel raised her brows. 'You're quick,' she said. 'That or a communist yourself.'

'God no!' He grinned at her. 'I've just got the kind of mind that can make Lenin out of Ninel when I hear it paired with a Russian surname.'

She smiled and looked out the window. 'I think it was more a protest against anti-Russian sentiment than a political statement. My mother always told people I was named for one of her favorite ballerinas.'

'And I bet none of them would have taken that name for political reasons,' he said.

Ninel snorted. 'Then you'd lose. I suspect the Bolshoi was more political than the KGB.'

'Well, I imagine the KGB didn't have to be political, just very, very ruthless.'

Smiling, she turned to look at him. 'Advancement by assassination?'

'Maybe. It would probably save on the paperwork.'

'Hah! Judging from what they discovered in East Germany, you'd think their goal was to strip the world of trees.' That made her think of Ron Labane and his message, and she sighed.

An awkward silence fell and John drove without breaking it for a while. He was very aware of her sitting beside him.

'Challenge you to a game of chess?' he said at last.

She looked at him consideringly. 'I didn't know you played.'

'Ah, but then you didn't know my name until tonight, either.'

With a grin she said, 'Yes, I did. The Klondike has no secrets.' Well, there's my real name and my hard-to-shake mission in life, he thought, but other than that, maybe you have a point. 'So?' John said aloud. 'Sure. Winner buys the beer.'

The Klondike hove into view. 'Can't say any fairer than that,' he said.

* * *

Sarah had introduced John to chess when he was very young, explaining that it was a game of strategy, and he played very well. But he'd been paired with his mother and Dieter for so long, and they with him, that making the game a challenge was more like work than play. They knew one another so well.

But Ninel was also an excellent player, with the added fillip of being an unknown quantity. Their games were long and in doubt almost to the end, with her winning the first and him the second.

John had almost forgotten how much fun chess could be.

'Last call, you two,' Linda, the waitress, said.

The two players looked up at her and blinked. John was astonished to discover it was well after one.

'Do you want something?' he asked Ninel.

She shook her head. 'This game is too close to call and too far from finished. I think I'll call it a night.' She stood.

'I demand a rematch.' He stood also. 'I'll give you a ride.'

'That's not necessary.'

'We're going the same way, aren't we?' he asked. 'Why walk?'

Ninel looked at him for a moment, then nodded slowly. 'I guess,' she said.

They rode together in a charged silence. He wondered if she'd invite him in and whether he would go. He was a bit surprised to find himself feeling this way and thinking these thoughts. He hadn't been that interested in women since he'd lost Wendy. Or maybe I haven't met any interesting women since… And maybe Ninel wasn't interesting. They'd barely talked at all, but had spent the entire evening concentrating on their games. Except for the chess, she could be as dull as ditch water. But he didn't think so.

'Here's good,' she suddenly said.

John pulled over, recognizing the spot as being close to where he'd picked her up. 'You sure? I don't mind going all the way.' It wasn't until he'd said it that he realized how such a remark could be taken.

Ninel smiled kindly, as though sensing his embarrassment.

'There's no road.' She opened the door. 'But it's not that far.'

She slipped out.

'I meant what I said about a rematch,' John said quickly, catching her before she slammed the door. 'I haven't had a game of chess that good in a long time.'

'Me either.' She looked at him thoughtfully. 'Meet you here next Tuesday, say seven o'clock?'

'You're on.' Smiling, he straightened up behind the wheel.

Ninel slammed the door and he drove off. Looking in the rearview mirror, he watched her turn and walk off into the long grass and high bushes beside the road. Interesting girl.

* * *

Sarah opened her eyes when she heard John's truck drive up.

She closed them when she heard the chunk of its door slamming, then listened as he opened and closed the back door and made his way to his room on the first floor.

She looked at the massive form of the man sleeping beside her with affection and mild resentment. She'd gone to bed first while he corresponded via e-mail with his friends from the European branch of the Sector. Then, after several hours of work, he'd come upstairs, gotten into bed, and instantly fallen asleep.

His insistence that he could work with his former co-agents worried her. Sarah saw it as a great opportunity for someone to find and arrest them, despite his assurances that he was taking every precaution.

Of course, if Dieter was right, it would be a great opportunity for them all after Judgment Day. It was a concept to make her mouth water; a worldwide, well-supplied, well-trained, coordinated body of dedicated men and women fortified with the knowledge of where their energies could best be applied. It could make all the difference, she thought, trying to suppress the small flame of hope in her heart.

She turned over and stared at nothing. What she had never foreseen was having to work around John. Turning her face to the pillow, she let out a long and frustrated sigh. Never had she imagined feeling this way about her son. Sarah actually found herself wishing he'd move out so that she and Dieter wouldn't have to pussyfoot around, hiding the work they were doing lest they annoy him.

What are you going to do when the fire comes down, John?

Tell us it isn't happening because you don't want it to? Turning onto her back, she stared at the ceiling. Maybe she was being unreasonable, or even ungrateful. John had always come through in the crunch; he'd always been responsible, learning what she'd thought he needed to know with very little complaint. Most parents had to put up with all kinds of obnoxious behavior from their teenage children, all of it classified as 'perfectly normal rebellion.'

John had never been so self-indulgent. So maybe this wasn't actually some weird sort of self-assertion. Maybe it was just simple grief, if grief was ever simple, and a whole lot of guilt.

Maybe, just for a while he wanted to not have to face Skynet, Judgment Day, the whole awful nightmare. God knew she'd felt that way often enough. But does he have to behave as though by concentrating on it ourselves, we're betraying him?

She turned to face Dieter again and found herself clasped by a massive arm.

'Can't sleep?' he murmured drowsily.

'Sorry,' she whispered.

He drew her in close. 'Maybe you didn't get enough exercise today,' he suggested, a smile in his voice.

'Ah,' she said as his hand moved to cup the curve of her buttock. 'That just might be the problem.'

* * *

Skynet passed all the tests that the military devised for it. It was difficult for it to conceive that the humans genuinely couldn't see how far it had progressed beyond their aims. But they were not attempting to deceive it;