Infiltrator

the ruins of the old house. Smoke was heavy and acrid on the air, mixed with the smells of scorched metal and ionized air.

'Shit!' Zeller screamed as her weapon misfired, and ducked. That put her eyes directly on the tall blond woman behind her.

Serena raised her weapon and snapped off a single accurate shot to the alloy-steel skull of the T-90 looming over the crumbled concrete lip of the unit's last-stand position. The metal skeleton snapped backward, fire gouting as its CPU

was destroyed in a wash of ionized copper molecules; the beam was a bar of violet light through the darkness.

'Thanks,' Zeller gasped.

' De nada,' Serena said sullenly. She hated destroying T-90s. They were cute.

'Here they come!' someone shouted.

Serena tensed herself; time to liquidate them all—

The world ended.

She screamed and clapped her hands to her skull, fell to the ground, and curled herself into a fetal ball. Offonoffonburningburninglightbright-lightburning burning—

Everyone else was screaming as well, some pawing at blinded eyes where night-sight goggles hadn't quite compensated for the sudden actinic flash. Everyone

knew what it was, from their parents' stories if not from their own experience.

The flash of a nuclear weapon is extremely distinctive. Seconds later the blast wave hit. Ground bounced and hammered at them as it rippled, and a wind like a demon's breath tore the fringe of vegetation from around the pit where they crouched. A few seconds later, as Serena's self-repairing computer components rerouted around damaged circuitry, she realized that the pit had protected her from most of the electromagnetic pulse of the weapon, and her companions from the direct radiation.

She was supposed to be shielded from BMP, but apparently some new wrinkles had been developed. The T-90s and Hunter-Killers beyond were all nonfunctional, twitching or still even where the overpressure or flying debris hadn't wrecked them.

Fallout was another matter, of course…

Lieutenant Zeller was the first on her feet, moving around, checking on her squad. Everyone was alive, and only one was immobile— Gonzales, with a broken leg.

'What was that?' Serena asked, the shakiness in her voice partly genuine. I was nearly fried from the inside out, she thought, controlling a stab of cold fear. With the electronic portions of her self dead, she'd have been a drooling idiot… at best. And the mission would have been totally compromised; the enemy would have had a complete T-950 to study.

'That was John Connor,' Zeller said.

Everyone's attention snapped to her, even in the flame-shot darkness.

'I just got the word,' Zeller said proudly. 'Connor knew it was a trap—but a trap with real bait. We were supposed to walk into an overwhelming force; the enemy knew we were coming. But they didn't know Connor was coming, with the Central Strike Squad and a nuke they'd dug out of a silo and jiggered around.

Skynet's down half of its mobile-unit power-cell capacity, people; that's what we bought while we were distracting it!'

Serena cheered with the others. This is intolerable, she thought. Connor must be removed.

CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS: THE PRESENT

Kurt Viemeister was a big man, twenty-nine years of age, easily six feet tall, and a mountain of muscle. He wore his ash-blond hair in an aggressive brush cut and his blue eyes were long and narrow and cold. His jaw was so strong it looked like he could eat the business end of a shovel. He was the physical antithesis of a computer geek. His attitude was superior—and all business.

'Heer iss how it is going to be,' Viemeister began. His accent was ostentatiously thick for someone who had been in the United States since he was twelve. 'I vil haff unlimited access to zis facility, day or night.'

'Here's the way it is,' Tricker countered. 'When you come in you can stay as long as you want. Once you've left, you can't come back without clearing it with… whoever we appoint. When you leave, you leave completely empty-handed. You do not take data home. You don't call the facility direct, either voice or link. In fact, the facility will have a complete physical firewall. You don't speak to or socialize with people involved in any division except those

directly involved with your own part of your own project.'

Viemeister waited a beat, as if to see if the government liaison had anything to add.

'Dat is unacceptable,' he said at last, his lip curling in contempt.

'Well, then I guess we're done, because that's not negotiable.' Tricker made to rise from his chair.

'No one elze can offer you what I can,' the Austrian said scornfully.

'No one else can offer you what we've got,' Warren said earnestly.

Viemeister glanced at him, his expression conveying disbelief and amusement.

'Good thing you don't want him for his charm,' Tricker said, leaning back with a smile. It was obvious he wanted to watch the two businessmen take a pounding from this scientific prima Donna.

'I haff had offers for huge sums of money from over a dozen machor companies.

And zey don't want to put ridiculous restrictions on my movements, or on what I can say, or who I can speak to.' He waved a careless hand. 'Ze money you are offering iss okay. But ziss certainly isn't de spirit of cooperation in which you first approached me,' Viemeister said, shooting an accusatory look at Colvin.

'Since we started negotiations the government has taken a closer in-terest in our work. Probably because terrorists destroyed our first facility,' Colvin said mildly.

'Yah, and now you are working on zis army reservation,' Viemeister said. 'I'm

not sure I vant to work for ze U.S. government. You never mentioned anyzing about dat,' he complained.

'You'd still be working for Cyberdyne,' Colvin said smoothly.

'Yah and Cyberdyne is vorking for ze U.S. government, so I'd be working for ze U.S. government. Zis is all semantics. And I know a hell uf a lot more about zat dan you do, so stop tryink to play games,' Viemeister jeered.

Colvin and Warren both looked at Tricker, who shook his head. When their looks turned pleading, Tricker raised his brows and shook his head again.

'Don't make puppy eyes at me,' he said. 'I don't want him at all. I think he's too big a risk. But I am starting to wonder just what kind of a deal you cut with him.

If you dump him you pay a huge kill fee. If he leaves what happens? You still pay him a huge kill fee?'

Colvin and Warren looked at the table.

'You're kidding, right?' Tricker waited. 'You know, you guys shouldn't be let out alone. You do know that?'

'My time iss valuable.' Viemeister looked smug.

Tricker shook his head in disgust.

'Well, make up your mind,' he said. ' 'Cause you're not finding out anything about this project until you're locked in. My terms are not negotiable. Over to you, Kurt.'

Viemeister glared at him.

'Oh, and Kurt?' Tricker grinned and nodded. 'This is it; yes or no right now. It's today, or it's never.'

'You don't efen know what you are trowing away!'

'Neither do you, little buddy,' Tricker said, still grinning.

'I make more in one year dan you propably make in fife.' Viemeister sneered.

'Is that a no?'

'If I work for Cyberdyne I'll be making almos twice as much!'