resistance held out, but there's no way we that can see to penetrate Skynet's defenses, not with the resources we have left. That's why we're here. It looks like humanity is doomed in our timeline. We came back to create a better future, one with a chance of avoiding Judgment Day.'
“But why does Skynet care? If all you can do is create a new future alongside the old one, what's it got to fear?'
'Nothing. We weren't sure how it would react when it detected the space-time field fluctuations. But it's sent back the T-XA to stop us. You should assume that Skynet will do what it can to destroy human life anywhere, any time, whatever we do, in any world-any timeline—we ever try to create. We've got to be ready for it. It's paranoid about us. It thinks that every human being is its enemy.'
'And it will always create Judgment Day if we give it Half a chance,' Sarah said.
'Perhaps, Ms. Connor,' Jade said. 'We don't know. But that's what we've experienced. It's what happened in our universe.'
'Yeah.' Sarah sounded disgusted by what she'd heard, John couldn't blame her. She turned to him, shaking her head bitterly. 'Maybe it always happens, whatever we do.
All we've done is postpone it, and make it worse.'
'It does look that way,' John said. 'Doesn't it, Mom?'
Sarah closed her eyes, then lowered her head. 'God help us, why did we bother trying?'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
AUGUST 2001
Oscar Cruz lived in a plush beachside condo, just ten minutes' drive from the new Cyberdyne headquarters. He'd stayed up late tonight to read Rosanna's latest reports. They were fascinating. Relaxed deep into one of his heavily cushioned armchairs, he studied a printout analysis of the Mark 1 nanoprocessor, and what it had achieved so far. Its capacities were already beyond anything Rosanna had promised. It was just as well he'd kept her services. Every penny they'd spent catering to her whims had been repaid with interest.
Jack Reed's people were moving cautiously, wary of creating any truly Frankensteinian technology, much as Charles Layton and others on the Board still scoffed at that. The point that Rosanna had established early on was that the lost nanochip and the other 1984 remnants really were from the future. There was no other explanation. When you looked at the total picture, it all made sense. They had to be the remains of some kind of military cyborg device, the same device that had killed seventeen police in a shootout that year, and identical to the one that had helped the Connors destroy the Cyberdyne HQ ten years later. Sarah Connor must be crazy, of course, and there had been no nuclear Armageddon in 1997, but it didn't hurt to be careful. Connor was obviously caught up in something she didn't understand.
It had taken someone like Rosanna to work this out. The woman was strange and self-absorbed, but she was brilliant. She had that manner that made you dismiss everything she said as too eccentric to be true-then go and check up, just in case she was right. If she said the moon was made of green cheese, you'd laugh at her, then conduct an investigation, just in case.
Eventually, the Dyson-Monk nanochip could be adapted for the military computers Jack and NORAD had originally imagined, but now they were onto something bigger: time travel. Rosanna had convinced them all it was possible, and now she was working with some of the best physicists in the country, using the Mark-1 processor for their mathematical modeling. The practical results didn't yet add amount to time travel, but they were certainly amazing.
Downstairs, outside the condo block's high brick fence, someone pressed the buzzer. Damn it, who could it be at this time of night? Oscar checked the security system. Its four-inch video screen showed a young Hispanic woman with very long hair. He pressed the button to speak with her through the microphone, 'Yes? What do you want?'
'Oscar Cruz?'
'Yes.'
'From Cyberdyne?'
'Yes, what do you want?'
'We need to talk,' she said.
No way was he talking to some total stranger who'd come to talk about Cyberdyne, not after 1994. 'Call me at work. You can sort it out with my secretary.'
'Mr. Cruz, we need to talk now.'
'No we don't.' He terminated the connection, but the buzzer went off again. He activated the mike. 'I said to call me at work.'
'We need to talk now, Mr. Cruz.'
'I don't think so.' When he disconnected this time, he pressed another button, activating a duress alarm connected to the police station. In a moment, a squad car should come round to check.
The woman vanished from the range of the security camera. Oscar waited for the L.A.P.D. If the woman had really gone, he'd thank them and send them on their way, but he wasn't going to cancel the alarm just yet. The phone rang-that would be the security company, who'd also have received the alarm. He answered it, gave them his confidential code, and explained what had happened. At the other end of the line, a young man's voice said, 'Okay, Mr. Cruz. The police will be there soon.'
He put the phone down. As he did so, something peculiar happened. Something came in under the door. It was silvery, like snail slime, but thicker, a sort of liquid, which gathered up into itself to form a kind of pool.
Suddenly, it rose up in a liquid-metal fountain, taking color and form. It was the woman from downstairs. The woman-and a big, fierce-looking dog. Before Oscar could run or scream, the woman's finger stabbed out, a thin needle piercing his skull, lodging in his brain.
For one terrible second, he thought this was death, but then he knew it was something else. Much became clear to him; he saw his destiny. The future needed his help. Whatever it wanted... whatever
'You understand?' the woman said.
'Absolutely.'
'That's so helpful. Please, now, we have to visit Charles Layton. Will you drive me there?'
'Not a problem,' Oscar said. 'Anything at all.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
SKYNET'S WORLD
ARGENTINA
2003
People were rushing from everywhere. Each time 'Raoul' stepped forward, the T-800 fired again. Sarah ran from her bungalow, saw what was happening, and skidded to a stop on the gravel. She ran back, shouting something over her shoulder. Gabriela ran into her house. Meanwhile, Juanita had calmed down and taken action. She got into the rear of the Humvee, feeding ammunition into its 50mm. gun, then swinging it round on the T- 1000.
The T-800 kept firing. It glanced at John, still on the ground. 'Get away,' it said. 'Run!'
It pulled the trigger again. Click! It was out of ammunition. John fired with his handgun. The .45 caliber Colt had plenty of stopping power at this range, but not like the shotgun, not enough to slow the T-1000. But Juanita opened up with the Humvee's machine gun, as everyone else scattered out of the way. The T-1000 became a mass of silver-chrome crater wounds, deforming like a metal zombie.
Sarah returned with the T-800's M-79 grenade launcher. 'John! Get away!' she shouted.
John ran like devils were after him. Juanita followed, and they got to the back of Raoul's garage, then threw themselves, face down, on the concrete floor. Even the T-800 rolled away, as a grenade pierced the T-1000's body and exploded. The T-1000 stayed in one piece, but it splashed into an inkblot shape. Within a second it was struggling to reform. John grabbed Juanita by the wrist—a glance of understanding passing between them—and they got out a back door, then doubled round, just in time to see Sarah reload and fire another shot into the polyalloy Terminator. 'Take this, you metal son of a bitch!'
The grenade hit the T-1000 before it had fully reformed . It splashed out again, some of it breaking away. The
