Infiltrator

'Meaning that I don't have to jump when they whistle. Meaning that I believe there's something behind all that you did that I very much want to understand.

Meaning that I don't believe that you are a madwoman or a terrorist. I've met enough people of that stripe over the years that I can usually recognize them by the third meeting.' He shook his head slowly. 'There's something different about you.'

'So you're just curious?' Sarah tipped her head to one side and began to drum her fingers on the arm of her chair. 'Would you like some… coffee?'

'Yes.' He smiled. 'I would, thank you.'

When Sarah left the room John didn't even attempt to talk to von Rossbach, but played with the dog. Dieter sat quietly, watching them and listening to the sounds from the kitchen. His mind was in a resting state, receiving input but not thinking about it, simply waiting.

In about ten minutes Sarah returned bearing a tray with coffee and slices of pound cake. She put it on the low table before the couch and began to pour. John

drifted over and sat in the other armchair. The dog lay down at his feet, bright eyes moving from one human to the other. When Sarah had poured them each a cup they sat and sipped in silence, as though participating in some meditative ceremony.

After a few minutes Dieter put his cup and saucer on the table beside him and said, 'Let me tell you how I found out about you. If you'll remember, our first meeting was somewhat dramatic.'

Sarah's full lips lifted in a half smile and she nodded.

'I didn't believe a word you told me,' he said.

She closed her eyes and shrugged.

'I didn't think you did,' Sarah said. 'But I didn't know then that it would be a problem.'

'I sent my old partner a drawing that I did of you and asked him if there was anything on file about Suzanne Krieger.' Dieter went on to tell them about the information Jeff had sent, explaining that Griego was his friend's idea as well. 'It was when he sent me the case histories that I became confused,' he explained.

'One time you're fleeing the man with my face, the next he's your accomplice.

And then when you first saw me you bolted, and that was real fear I saw on your face. I don't understand, how could that be? And who is he anyway?'

Sarah and John glanced at each other, then Sarah looked at von Rossbach, her expression weary. 'You won't believe me,' she said.

'I have an open mind,' Dieter said.

John snorted. 'Hey, I didn't believe her until the Terminator showed up.'

'The man with my face,' Dieter said.

'It wasn't a man,' Sarah said. 'It was an 'it.' A machine. And there were two of them. The first one was programmed to kill me, the other to help John.'

Dieter nodded. He'd get back to that later.

'When he— it got you out of the asylum, why didn't you just run for the border then? Why go to Cyberdyne and kill Miles Dyson?'

'I didn't kill Miles Dyson,' Sarah's eyes bored into his. 'I couldn't. And in the end I didn't want to. He was a good man, and a brave one. The police killed him

—or at least they shot him enough times to kill him.' She winced, her eyes on her coffee. 'I'd like to believe that, because it would make me less guilty.

Otherwise the explosion did it. But it was never my intention that he should die.'

Dieter nodded, then glanced at John, who was looking down at the pup, sound asleep on his foot. 'But why go to Cyberdyne at all? You could have gotten away clean. All of you, but you risked it all, even your son, to destroy a computer company. I don't understand.'

Sarah smiled to herself, she let her eyes roam her comfortable living room. This was so civilized, a nice chat about chaos over coffee and cake.

'If you know anything about this,' she said, returning her gaze to Dieter, 'then

you must have heard about Judgment Day.'

He nodded. 'Yes. I read about it in your medical records.'

Her brows went up. ,

'You've read my medical records?' He nodded. Sarah grinned at his uncomfortable expression. 'Boy, I'd love to read them myself.'

'They're very interesting.'

'I'll bet they are,' John muttered. 'A first-class piece of fiction writing. Science fiction.'

'Horror, if you want to specify the genre,' Sarah said and smiled at him. Then she turned back to Dieter.

'I was never delusional,' she said. 'Everything I said was true, the Terminators, Skynet, Judgment Day, all of it. It's true.'

'You gave the date of the world's end as—' Dieter stopped speaking when Sarah held up her hand.

'We destroyed Cyberdyne because, according to the Terminator, Cyberdyne was going to create Skynet and Skynet was going to start a nuclear war. By eliminating all of their records as well as the two items they harvested from the first Terminator, we eliminated their ability to continue the project.'

She settled herself more comfortably into her chair. 'Which ended the threat.'

Sarah took a sip of her coffee.

Dieter shook his head.

'What?' John snapped, sitting forward in his chair, frowning.

The pup lifted its head sleepily at his tone, with a muffled wrufff? of protest as its warm communion with a friendly human was interrupted.

Von Rossbach continued to look at Sarah, who was staring at him, frozen-faced.

'Tell us,' she said. Her scalp felt too tight suddenly and the hand gripping her saucer turned white at the knuckles.

'They've started up operations again on an army base. An underground installation this time. I've also been told that they have recovered some item you were supposed to have stolen during your raid.' Dieter watched the color slowly drain from both their faces.

'That's impossible,' Sarah said quietly. 'We destroyed those things, threw them into a vat of molten metal.' She shook her head. 'There's no way they could have survived.'

'The arm,' John said, sounding strangely far away. 'When he came up the conveyer belt with the grenade launcher he had only one arm left.' He looked at his mother. 'There were all these wires and shit hanging out of his other sleeve!'

Sarah flashed to her feet, spilling the cup and saucer onto the floor, and looked around her as though there were a fire but she didn't know where. 'Oh no,' she said, pressing her hands to her head. 'No! Dammit!' She dropped her hands,

clenched them into fists. 'How? How could they start up again? We destroyed everything, everything! Even Miles's personal papers. He said that everything was there—his work, his team's work, all of it.' She dropped into her chair again and stared at Dieter. 'How?' she asked.

'They secretly backed up everything they had,' Dieter told her. 'It's common procedure. They just didn't tell their employees that they were doing it. That way the backup records would be safe. You can't even torture someone into telling you things they don't know.'

Sarah got up and began to pace slowly. She felt as though he'd just told her a loved one had died. Tears pricked at her eyelids and her throat grew tight. Get over it, she told herself fiercely. You have to move on. What are you going to do?

Think!

John sat in shock. He felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach, knocking all the air out of him. He watched his mother pace as though she were in another dimension, smaller somehow and far away.

Then, as one, they turned to Dieter, the same expression on their faces. Dieter had felt it on his own face