hard to know what to do.'
'That's the sort of thing I was thinking about,' John said. 'You want to go back to the States?'
'Maybe. Maybe we should get back in touch with Raoul and Enrique, and the others. We might need them, after all.'
'We could go to Colorado and check out Cyberdyne close-up. I bet there are ways we could suss out what's really going on.'
She looked at him thoughtfully. 'It's dangerous, though. We might be recognized.'
'Hey, speak for yourself. No one would recognize me-I was just a kid when they last saw me. If you could lie low, we'd be okay. Then we could work out what to do.' She must have understood what he meant, that they might have to attack Cyberdyne again. But could they do it by themselves, without the T-800 to back them up?
'I'll think about it, John. We'll have to be very careful, whatever we decide. Let's sit tight for a while and see what happens. Maybe the world will stay in one piece if we leave it alone.' But she didn't sound like she believed any of this; it was more as if she wanted reassurance.
'It's nice that everything's okay now,' John said. 'We could be hanging out in a desert somewhere, in the middle of a nuclear winter, waiting for Skynet's machines.'
'Yeah, but I'd be happier if Cyberdyne wasn't still in business, and making a tidy profit every year.' 'Exactly,' he said.
Cruz and his people had started talking again about Cyberdyne's plans for nanoprocessing technology, but maybe they were just trying to get attention. After all, everyone else was talking nanotech, but no one had much that was concrete. Even if they did, maybe that was okay, as far as it went It might be cool if someone really did build some super-new computer hardware that could do amazing things with cyberspace, or even allow for some kind of artificial intelligence. There was no reason why it had to lead to Skynet and a new Judgment Day.
What worried him was that someone might be following Miles Dyson's work. That was what they'd tried so hard to prevent back in '94. Miles had taken it pretty hard, but he'd agreed to destroy everything when they explained about Judgment Day. The T-800 had convinced him, acting without hesitation to show him what it really was. John recalled how the Terminator had gone about that. It had made a deep cut in its left forearm, below the elbow, carving all round, then made another cut along the length of its forearm, and peeled away flesh in a single swift motion, exposing the metallic skeleton over which living tissue had been grafted. Miles had seen how the Terminator's wounds scarcely bled, and that its system of veins and arteries was not truly human.
They'd gone about their destruction so thoroughly. After all that effort, was there any chance that someone could still reconstruct Miles's research? They must have done a good job that night-if they'd messed up, Cyberdyne would surely have invented a Dyson-style nanoprocessor by now. But maybe someone had kept notes, or had the knowledge in their head. With Cyberdyne still doing well, that could be seriously bad news.
No, John thought, time wasn't like a block of amber. He knew that much-and they'd already changed the future. Judgment Day 1997 hadn't happened. But maybe it was like a rubberband, or some kind of big, powerful spring. Sure, you could change the future, but then it could come back at you, if you gave it half a chance. There was a shape it really wanted to go into.
If that was the nature of time, something bad was still coming. Who knew what the future would bring?
Two police officers entered the alley, walking cautiously, with long-handled flashlights in their left hands. The wind and lightning must have attracted their attention. The cops had drawn their pistols and pointed them directly ahead.
'Who's there?' one of them said in Spanish. 'What's going on?'
The flashlights swept in arcs, back and forward across the alley, and Anton founded himself staring straight into their beams. Unmodified human eyes would have been blinded, but Anton's adjusted easily.
The same voice spoke again. It belonged to a middle-aged cop, a heavily-built six-footer with a huge gut on him. He looked dumbfounded by what he saw: five naked people in superb physical condition, three men and two women.
'My God,' the cop said, still in Spanish. 'Who are you?'
Danny Dyson didn't hesitate. He replied in the same language. 'We need your clothes.'
The other cop was taller, but he was young and athletic, with fast movements for an unmodified human. He shifted into a crouch, aiming his gun at Danny, two-handed, letting the flashlight hang from a wrist strap. 'What did you just say?'
At the same time, the first cop aimed his flashlight straight into Danny's eyes. Danny merely held up his hands, showing that they were empty.
Robert spoke almost languidly, also dropping into Spanish. 'My friend said we need your clothes.'
Selena said, 'Right now!' The flashlight's beam moved back and forth, from one of the Specialists to another: Danny, then Robert, then Selena. When the police didn't reply, she added, 'Don't worry, we're the good guys.'
'What's this about?' the younger cop said. 'What's this good guys/bad guys stuff? You people have been watching too many American movies.'
'Besides,' his partner said, 'you're causing a disturbance.'
'You're the only ones who look disturbed.' Selena sounded amused. Then she added, 'I'm sorry, but we really must hurry. We'll have to take your clothes.'
Anton and Danny exchanged glances. Danny subvocalized, 'Deal with it, Jade.
Jade became a blur, even to Anton's enhanced vision. Me was glad she was on his side. Within a second, she'd covered fifteen feet, dodging easily, as the young cop opened fire at her. She seemed to anticipate his movement before he made it. In that same second, she knocked him unconscious with a sharp blow to the side of his jaw. In another second, she spun on her heel and kicked the gun from the other cop's hand. She turned him round face-first against an alley wall, then twisted his arm up his back. All of her actions unfolded in a single fluid motion.
The cop bucked and kicked to escape her, but Jade easily resisted his efforts. Then, as if to give him another chance, she let him go, that sad smile on her face. She shrugged, showing him her open palms, just as Danny had done. Grunting, the cop threw a punch at her, but she simply slipped away.
“I do not wish to hurt you,' she said in her slow but passable Spanish. “I am sorry about your colleague. Please give us your clothes.'
'You're mad,' he said.
In another effortless motion, Jade removed the flashlight from the thick fingers of his left hand, tossing it to Anton for safekeeping. 'I wish there were time to explain,' she said sadly. 'If you understood, I'm sure you'd help us.'
'Do hurry, Jade,' Robert said. 'We don't have all night.'
'Very well.' In yet another easy motion, she lifted the cop over her head and held him there at arm's length while he struggled like a landed fish. If needed, she could have held him like that for weeks.
'Put me down!' the cop said. 'I don't care who you are, you can't act like this.'
Jade simply dropped him, and he landed hard. 'I am really terribly sorry,' she said as she stood over him. 'I hope for your forgiveness, but it's in a good cause. Now, please, your clothes.'
He looked from one of them to another. 'She's got a point,' Robert said.
The cop unbuckled his belt.
Robert and Anton pulled on the cops' outer clothing while the others tied and gagged the cops with their own underwear. They weren't being too nice, for the good guys, Anton thought, but they needed to slow the cops down a bit; they couldn't be allowed to interfere. That was the problem with fighting Skynet in a pre-Judgment Day metropolis. There were so many innocent, unenhanced humans in the way, all of them so easily hurt.
The younger cop's uniform was tight on Robert. Its | owner was tall, but Robert was even taller, and the uniform rode up on his wrists and ankles, making him look slightly ridiculous. Still it would have to do. Finding better clothes for him would not be easy. The other uniform fit Anton reasonably well. It was just a bit loose round his waist. He had to tighten the belt as far as it would go. They checked the cops' handguns. Both were in working order and fully loaded, save for the wild shot that one cop had fired off when Jade rushed him. It was comforting to have weapons, however primitive and ineffective they might prove if Skynet had sent back any opposition.
They still needed clothes for Danny, Selena, and Jade.
Anton and Robert stepped out of the alley into the street. The police car was parked just a few yards away, and Robert had the keys. For the moment, the street was deserted. They got into the car, started it up, and Robert
