Infiltrator

'It's just lousy timing is all,' he said sullenly.

'Hey,' von Rossbach said, patting him gently, 'we might find out what we want to know in the first hour. You never know. So don't have such a long face, okay?'

Jackson smiled a blatantly false smile and started to close the front door.

'Hi,' John said, blocking him. He came in lugging his small suitcase and looked up at the spiral staircase, the pale tile floor with scattered Moroccan rugs, the white-painted louvered doors looking out on pool and garden. 'Cool,' he said, reaching out and shaking Skye's hand enthusiastically. 'Nice place, man.

Thanks!'

'Hi,' Jackson said, looking him over and closing the door again.

'Excuse me,' Sarah said, stopping the door with a firm hand.

Jackson blinked and then hastily tied his robe shut as Sarah looked him over. He glanced at von Rossbach.

'Friends of mine,' Dieter said unnecessarily.

'Where's the washroom?' Sarah asked.

'Down that way, second door on the left,' Skye said automatically.

'We can all have our own rooms, yes?' von Rossbach said.

'Yuh,' their host agreed, somewhat bemused.

'Good. We'll turn in now, since we're all pretty tired,' Dieter said. 'When Sarah comes back you can show us to our rooms.'

'Sure,' Skye said.

'I would appreciate it if you would stay home tomorrow morning to answer any questions we might have regarding your equipment,' von Rossbach said easily.

Jackson's shoulders slumped.

'Of course,' he said with mock graciousness. 'What kind of a host would I be if I considered my own welfare before your convenience?'

'A bad one,' Dieter said, still smiling. 'And I know that you would never do anything that might upset your guests. That might lead to your being off-line for more than a few days. Yes?'

'Yes,' Jackson bit off.

Sarah returned, and paused, frowning at his tone of voice.

'Sorry,' Skye said. He was a man who had always found it hard to be surly to an attractive woman. 'It's just late and all like that.'

'It is,' she agreed. 'And I'm sorry to have wakened you.' She held out her hand and he took it. 'I assure you, we wouldn't inconvenience you like this if it wasn't important.'

Jackson stood a little straighter at that. 'Thank you,' he said, sounding honestly grateful. 'I won't ask any questions, I know you can't tell me anything. But I

appreciate someone' —he glared at von Rossbach—'taking my feelings into consideration.' With a smile he gestured toward the stairs. 'The rooms are already made up, so all you need to do is crash. Every room has its own bath. If there's anything that you need or want, Sarah'—he raised her hand to his lips

—'my room is the last one at the end of the hall. Here, let me get that,' he said as she bent to pick up her case.

She smiled at him and followed him up the stairs, making polite replies to his small talk. John raised an eyebrow and gave Dieter a she'll-do-anything-for-the-mission look. Dieter just smiled and waved him onward.

'Hey, cool setup,' John Connor said. 'Nice. Two-gig Pents, virtual keys, mondo bandwidth… seriously rad, my man. I love these thin-film displays, too.'

'How come you never look at girls that way?' Sarah said.

'I do, Mom; just not in front of you.'

Dieter snorted; even if it did make him seem like an old fart, he couldn't regard computers as anything but tools.

'Anything I can get you?' Skye said, a faint touch of sarcasm in his tone.

'Sure,' John said, with a charming smile, slipping a headset on and adjusting the mike. 'A couple of cans of Jolt and some cookies would be cool. Thanks.'

Skye turned to the stairs, muttering. This end of his house was open-plan, all pale wood and minimalist furniture looking out onto a veranda that surrounded it on three sides; the visitors had moved in chairs to give each a seat behind one of

the thin-screen displays. Warm air blew in, smelling of sea salt and the dry olive scrub that covered the land beyond the pink-stuccoed garden wall, and faintly of the jasmine in pots beside the pool.

'Ah,' John said, popping the top of a can of Jolt and taking a noisy sip.

'Okey-dokey.' He cracked his knuckles and poised his hands, wiggling the fingers like a 19th-century concert pianist. 'Now, let's get radical.'

Dieter smiled wryly and began. Now, the first thing is to get into the Sector computers, he thought. That would be easy enough—you never really retired.

Behind him he heard a combination of swift tapping and a low murmur, John accessing the Web by a combination of voice command and keystrokes; the thought of how much concentration that must take made the Austrian's head hurt in sympathy. Sarah was proceeding methodically, referring to a checklist beside her terminal.

'Hey, am I the world-savior hero or what,' John said. 'Ok… yeah, dump-save it… whoa! Defensive worm program! Don't worry, I dodged it… yeah, we're positive here.'

Dieter blinked at the split-screen image that came up. 'Advanced Technology Systems Inc., Sacramento, California?' he said.

'Yeah, that's definitely their off-site storage,' John said. 'Look at the record—

daily mega-dumps. Looks like a complete discrete backup twice a day, twelve and twelve.'

He frowned. 'The only thing that bothers me is the company name.'

'Why?' his mother said, not taking her eyes from her own screen.

'I mean, Advanced Technologies, in Sacramento?'

'Coastal chauvinist,' she said.

CHAPTER TWENTY

CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS: THE PRESENT

Serena shifted minutely in her chair, slightly uncomfortable from the laparoscopic surgery her third Terminator had performed last night. Her second had found another host for a fertilized egg and so she'd had one removed and had shipped it off this morning.

This new host would not be given drugs to speed the growth of her fetus. And the clone itself would be allowed to grow more normally. For the sake of the mission, Serena wanted the first to be a well-grown child within six weeks' time.

But since none of the T-950s had been pushed this hard, there was no way of telling what the ultimate product would be like. For now she had to be content with her second's assurance that the fetus appeared to be developing normally.

The 1-950 was delighted to finally have that project on-line, even if it had left her a bit sore this morning. She focused her attention on Cyberdyne's CEO.

Roger Colvin sighed and dropped the report she'd given him onto the desk. He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose for a moment, then sighed again.

'Why don't you summarize for me, Ms. Burns,' he suggested.

'Certainly,' she said crisply. 'There are some important contradictions here.

When the plane was going down, the pilot, presumed to be Mary Warren, was screaming 'the engines, the engines,' but subsequent examination of the aircraft has shown no sign of engine trouble. In fact there appear to