The Future War

him and train him well. Jack had certainly done a fine job with Susie. John wondered if Kyle and his mother had laughed— Don't go there! No, no, no! Think about a pink giraffe.

Hippopotamus, jelly beans, anything!

Then he forced his mind back to the last intelligence report he'd read. Finally he managed to distract himself enough that he thought he could sleep. Though when he closed his eyes, just before he drifted off into exhausted slumber, his mind flashed him a picture of Kyle's tear-stained face, and he sighed.

* * *

'John, I don't know what you expect me to do,' Sarah said.

'We can't impose something like this from on high. For one thing, not everyone has the leisure, let alone the resources, to set up schools.'

John Connor stretched out and sighed, looking up at the fleecy skies—the Pacific Northwest was putting on one of its rare beautiful summer days. He wriggled his shoulders into the fragrant pine duff and went on: 'Mom, we've got to do something. I don't expect a regular school with strict hours of operation or anything like that. But if we don't require some effort, then these orphans are going to be at a terrific disadvantage.'

John hated to use time on one of his rare visits with his mother and Dieter to argue, but this was something they had to do. The longer they waited the further behind they got.

She threw up her hands. 'So what do you think I can do?'

'I think we could work out some kind of guidelines,' Dieter suggested. 'I agree with you that everyone's circumstances are different and so anything formal is out of the question. However, as John points out, this is something that has to be done.

Perhaps no one is working on this because they don't know how to begin.'

Sarah smiled briefly and touched the Austrian's arm. John hid his own smile by taking a sip of coffee. He liked the way Dieter acted as peacemaker between him and his mom. It made him feel a part of something. Something human scale and quite precious. In the rest of his life he was pretty isolated by virtue of his function. He had a lot of fans but few friends. It occurred to him that before Dieter came along he and his mother rarely indulged in the kind of flare-ups that demanded a peacemaker.

One of life's little luxuries, John thought. Aloud he said, 'So I guess that's what I'm asking you to do, Mom. Find a way for them to start.'

Sarah nodded, her eyes already taking on the faraway look of planning. Dieter gave John a conspiratorial smile.

God! but I love these people.

QUEBEC WILDERNESS

'John! My man! Welcome, welcome.' Snog was all smiles as he came forward, arms open wide for a French-style embrace. He grabbed John and kissed him resoundingly on both cheeks, greatly displeasing Connor's security people, a fact that visibly amused John. 'My house is your house. Let me introduce you to my wives.'

John allowed himself to be led into the aboveground entrance to the resistance's technological arm, which gave a convincing imitation of a hunting lodge half-ruined and wholly abandoned amid the endless rolling hills, blue green with fir and starred with sapphire lakes. Certainly a change from the rat warrens we spend most of our time in, he thought.

Most of it had been built with Dieter's money back before Judgment Day, which indeed did make it John's house.

Since the war had begun, the place had been expanded, as had the staff, and without them the resistance would long since have fallen apart. If Skynet so much as suspected their existence, it would stop at nothing to destroy them.

At the moment, though, the greatest threat to this colony of technologists and scientists was their leader's increasingly wacky lifestyle. Snog had insisted on labeling himself a

'techno-shaman' and he was putting the moves on everyone.

Except, so far, the children.

There had been numerous complaints from many different sources that those who refused his advances ended up working in the production facility indefinitely. Although the rules stated that personnel would rotate that necessary duty so that no one was deprived of the opportunity for research.

Snog himself was odd looking; for one thing, he was overweight in a world where literally everyone else was slim to skinny. For another, there were diodes and transistors and other bits of technical paraphernalia braided into his waist-length hair and he was wearing a scarlet muumuu with huge bell sleeves.

And he didn't smell too good, either.

John had begged his mother to make this visit for him. But she'd refused. 'Whatever influence I ever had over that bloated geek is gone,' she'd insisted.

John had been taken aback. Sarah didn't tend to toss around epithets like bloated geek.

'The last time I visited him he put his hand on my thigh,'

Sarah said. 'What does that tell you?'

That he has a death wish? John thought. That he has a version of the Oedipus complex? That he has a death wish and an Oedipus complex?

But he'd conceded that if Snog was treating Sarah Connor like this, then extreme methods might be necessary, and he'd have to actually go to Quebec to determine what those might be. I might have to whack him around a little. Which he really didn't want to have to do. Now, though, actually looking at the man…

I wonder if Snog's ass is even connected to his brain anymore.

'My wives,' Snog said with a grand wave of his arm toward a collection of women who were as equally weird in their appearance as he himself.

In addition to the long hair twined with little bits of stuff, their faces were half-painted, either horizontally or vertically in black and vermilion. And each of them looked bug-eyed from drugs or some form of shock. Thirty sullen-looking children were mixed among them, every one of them Snog's.

'Maybe later,' John said crisply. 'Right now I need to discuss some business with you, and I'm afraid it won't wait.'

Snog stiffened and his face took on a stoically offended look, but he waved a gracious arm, and with an actual bow the women retreated. Without another word or backward look, Snog led him to a very large and comfortable office suite. The techno-shaman went around a massive desk and sat down. He flicked a hand toward a small chair in front of the desk.

John remained standing. He looked his old friend over and came to a decision. 'Okay, here's the deal,' Connor said. 'I need a technical adviser with me in the field. That'll be you.'

Snog's jaw dropped.

'Don't even bother to protest,' John said. 'The decision is made.'

'My… my wives,' Snog said. 'My children!'

'Your wives will continue their work in your absence. I assume they do actually work.' Rumor had it that they only worked when and on what they wanted to. And some of their projects had no conceivable use to the resistance.

'Uh, sure they do,' Snog said.

'And, of course, they'll take good care of the children.' He placed his knuckles on the gleaming desktop and leaned forward.

'Believe me, buddy, I wouldn't ask for a sacrifice like this if it wasn't necessary.'

And it is necessary because if I leave you here, I'm going to have to have you shot! There must be at least one psychiatrist in the resistance who would like to get his or her hands on a raging case of megalomania like this one. Who would have thought that one of my oldest friends would turn out to have more in common with Skynet than with the rest of the human race?

'You'll have to change into something less eye-catching,' John said, indicating Snog's scarlet draperies.

'I—I honestly don't know if we've got anything that will fit,'

Snog stammered.

'Find something,' John advised. 'We'll be leaving in thirty-six hours at the latest.'