Rising Storm

950 would have plenty of time to deal with all of the humans.

Clea slipped down the corridor to Viemeister's lab. It amused her that despite all of his elaborate precautions, it seemed never to have occurred to Connor that she might have a key to this door. Such a simple thing, she thought, silently working the lock, but so very important. The I- 950 slid into the lab so quietly that Wendy never once looked up.

Tricker flung the last of the duct tape from him in disgust. Then he rushed out to the office to put on his parka and gloves. Step one, he thought, is to find whatever damned jamming device they've brought with them and disable it. Even if McMurdo couldn't send help because of the storm, they'd at least be able to block their escape. He flung open the door, swearing under his breath.

Something huge reared up with a roar and threw itself at him, stinking of rotten fish and gleaming with fangs. Tricker slammed the door and braced himself against it as it nearly jarred loose from its hinges when the thing struck. The pressure wasn't constant; he just managed to slam it home and work the dead bolt before the next lunge hit it. He wished he had a bar to put across like a castle gate.

Was that a seal? he thought in disbelief. An unmistakable series of urrrfing barks and a less violent hammering answered the thought.

'Yes,' he said numbly, 'that's a seal.' A very big, homicidal seal.

Every time he opened this door today there was something dangerous out there—

a whiteout blizzard, the spy kids, a killer seal.

Would-be killer seal, he corrected himself as his heart rate returned to normal.

He wouldn't count the mystery guide; the guy had let himself in.

But what the hell was a seal doing way out here? And what did it have against him? Maybe he was getting cabin fever; maybe this whole day and all the wild things that had happened were all some paranoid fantasy. What were the symptoms of cabin fever anyway? Could you detect them in yourself? I was wondering things like this a good sign or a bad sign?

Maybe there wasn't a seal out there, maybe he'd imagined it. There's only one way to find out, he thought, standing away from the door. He seized the latch and took a deep breath. And I'm not going to do it. He turned away and slipped off his gloves and parka.

So he couldn't call McMurdo. Given his state of mind, maybe that was for the best. Wait a minute, if someone knocks you out and you wake up tied to the bed, that's not paranoia. That was… something else.

He ducked under his desk and flipped up the carpet. Underneath was a board with a ring attached; he lifted it and revealed a parcel wrapped in oilcloth.

Taking it out, he closed the small cubby and tossed back the rug, then sat at the desk. As he unwrapped the gun he watched the monitor, his fingers automatically stripping the action, reassembling it, slapping home the magazine.

A few spares went into his pockets.

The guide was in the elevator. Still? Tricker thought with surprise. He wondered what had gone wrong. For a few seconds he watched the man work on the control box. That's government property, pal, you'd better know what you're doing. Then the view changed.

After a few of the labs had flicked by on the screen, Viemeister's came into view.

Bennet was standing by the door watching the girl work on her computer. She stood absolutely still and it was obvious that the younger woman had no idea that she was there. For some reason, something about the sight sent a chill down Tricker's spine. Very few human beings could stand that still. Almost anyone would make the small unconscious movements and sounds that gave the one being watched that I'm- being-watched feeling. He'd better get down there before

something nasty happened.

Wendy had disabled every one of Kurt Viemeister's security protocols. She was feeling very proud of herself, even though she had a hunch that these had been mere sketches of what the real security programs would eventually become. But even so, this was Kurt Viemeister's work she was unraveling. It was like jamming with Mozart.

She tapped a few keys and the sentience program flowed into a buffer she'd created. Now to upload the antisentience program. Really this should have come first, but she hadn't labeled the disks and had actually forgotten which was which. Wendy tapped the button and reached toward the open drawer for the used disk.

A hand clamped over her wrist, squeezing hard enough to grind the small bones together. Wendy screamed in pain and surprise. Another hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off the sound before it could reach a climax. The grip that held her face was enormously strong. Wendy thought she felt the bones of her face flex and screamed against the hand that inexorably pulled her from her chair and forced her up onto her toes. Wendy struck out with her free hand to no effect.

She found herself looking into the pleasantly smiling face of a beautiful young woman. Wendy's eyes bulged and tears of agony poured down her cheeks as she recognized her. This was the woman from the Venus Dancing video, the one John said was a Terminator. She believed him now. She'd thought she believed him before, but she hadn't, not really. She believed him now, though, most completely.

The woman released Wendy's wrist, allowing her to scratch and pull on the arm that held her. 'I'll just take care of this,' the woman said, picking up the unused disk. 'We wouldn't want my files corrupted, now would we?' She snapped the tiny disk in half and put the pieces in her pocket.

Wendy kicked her in the knee and the woman shook her, hard. 'Don't annoy me,' she warned through clenched teeth. 'I want to keep you alive because your computer talents may be useful, but that doesn't mean you can't hurt. You may think you're in pain now, but you have no idea.'

John froze where he was and listened. He could have sworn that he heard a woman cry out. Wendy! He stepped to the lab's door and peered out into the corridor, straining his ears. There was no repeat of the sound; there was no sound at all. Yeah, it could be Wendy, or it could be the Terminator trying to draw me out. But there was no one out here. He swallowed hard. I'd better check, he thought.

He moved quickly down the corridor, gun at the ready, back against the wall, his head and eyes constantly moving until he reached the only closed door he'd left behind him. John tightened his lips anxiously, then, from about two feet away as he pressed his back to the wall, he tapped on the door with the barrel of his gun.

The I-950 lifted Wendy almost off her feet and called out, 'Ye-a-h?' in Wendy's voice. Clea could feel the girl trying to get the breath to scream again, so she pinched her windpipe closed with her other hand. Her victim began to thrash about in earnest now, so the I-950 moved into the center of the room, away from chairs and desks and noise-making objects.

'Is everything okay in there?' Connor asked.

'Yuh, why?' Clea countered.

'I thought I heard a scream.' Was there something off about the way she was speaking?

'Oh, uh, that was a cry of frustration,' Clea said in Wendy's voice.

The girl was starting to lose consciousness; her blows made hardly any impact at all and the I-950 studied her closely, watching her face change to an unnatural, and unexpected, indigo.

'Everything's going fine now, though,' Clea said cheerfully.

John hesitated. Something's wrong, he thought. He didn't know what, but something… 'Open up,' he said.

Clea sighed and approached the door. She lowered the girl to the floor and dragged her over by her throat. Looking down, she saw that the human was unconscious and let her go entirely. She wasn't dead yet; perhaps the I-950

would let her live for a while—she might have more to offer. More than Kurt had, anyway.

Clea leaned against the door. 'You're supposed to tell me something that only you and I would know,' she