the former FBI agent. 'Connor seems to like you,'
he observed.
'Connor is still woozy,' Dyson replied. 'We'll have to wait to see how she really feels.' He put down the book he'd been reading. 'What do you need to know?'
Tricker looked at Jordan for a long time before he answered. Part of that time he was thinking about his new assignment. But he returned his mind to the business at hand with the discipline born of years in the field. Dyson was looking back at him with a bland expression that he could probably hold for a very long time.
What would he like to know? He'd like to know why Dyson was in Connor's room every day giving her encouragement and sips of water after spending the last almost seven years hunting her down in the belief that the Connors had killed his brother in the original attack on Cyberdyne. And what had happened to her son, and how much had the kid helped her blow up Cyberdyne a second time? And how the hell had Connor gotten that wound? The gunshots were standard enough, but the one in her middle looked, the doctor had said, like someone had done it with their
But he didn't think he was going to find out what he wanted to know. Dyson was
clearly a reluctant witness and Tricker had other things to do. Ah, well. You had to have a high frustration tolerance in this line of work.
After a moment he leaned forward, resting one hand on the back of Jordan's chair. 'I'd like to know why you're suddenly on her side,' he said confidentially.
He searched Dyson's eyes for a moment, then tightened his lips and straightened.
'But I doubt I ever will.' Tricker gave him an assessing look. 'Watch your back, Dyson,' he said, and left the room.
Jordan looked at the door for a moment, then leaned his head against the chair back.
Kurt Viemeister stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows of his luxurious home without seeing the mountain and surf and crimson-cloud sunset they framed.
He tightened a massive fist. What gave that government stooge the right… ?
Kurt stopped himself with an effort. Might gave Tricker the right. The government had kept backup copies of the data on his project—
copies which he himself, the creator, had been forbidden to keep! Now they would only release them to him if he agreed to work on it in the place they chose under still more of their insane restrictions. It was maddening!
He turned on his heel and went to his weight room. He stripped to his shorts, put on a belt, and began to use the Nautilus.
His project—
himself grow calmer as the effort purged the fight-flight toxins from his blood.
The government needed him to complete the project, and they had to know it.
Being a necessary part of things gave him some leverage. Unfortunately, given the current location of the project, once he committed himself, they had the upper hand again. Even more so than before. So.
He sat up and wiped his face with a towel. Who was he kidding? Once he was at their secret base they could ignore any of his demands with impunity and he knew that. Kurt lay back on the bench with a deep sigh. His need to complete his work was like an addiction, and knowing he couldn't do so until they let him was agony.
No. This time the ignorant weaklings had him right where they wanted him and he had no choice but to give them what they wanted. Very well, he would concede. Though he would, of course, make them pay dearly for his defeat.
And who knew, one day, he might get to pound Tricker's face right off its bones.
With that happy thought firmly in mind he went back to his regimen, feeling better if not satisfied.
Roger Colvin, CEO of Cyberdyne, leaned back in his chair as his eyes strayed to the figures on his computer.
'Roge,' Paul Warren said patiently, recalling his friend's attention.
Colvin looked up guiltily. 'Sorry,' he said. He gestured at his screen. 'Some of the numbers just changed and it caught my eye.'
Warren tightened his lips. He knew the truth, which was that no one wanted to hear how much he missed his wife, how he was haunted by questions about her death. Was it murder, suicide, an accident?
He was better now about not launching into maudlin monologues than he had been, but the questions and the soul-searching went on and on. By now, though, even his most patient friends, like Roger, wished that he would turn it off.
Especially during business hours.
Of course, for people at their level it was always business hours. So, back to work.
Now that Cyberdyne had the automated factory as their premier project, it behooved them to work their asses off.
'What have we got?' Warren asked.
Colvin sat forward, relieved that his friend was temporarily back in the groove.
'It's very good, in fact. I don't know how they're doing it, but we're a month and a half ahead of schedule now.'
'Maybe that's because they're totally isolated out there and want to get back to their homes,' Warren suggested.
The factory was going up in the middle of nowhere, no towns around for a hundred miles, and if there had been any, they'd be inaccessible because there was no road leading to the site. And there never would be.
Right now everything was being done by humans and helicopters. But when the factory was finished all supplies would be flown in on unmanned drones, self-guided by one of Cyberdyne's most advanced onboard computers. Raw materials would be removed from the transports by a small army of their latest generation of independently functioning robots. Finished weapons would be delivered to warehouses the same way. No humans involved at all until the end point, and even that was optional.
The Pentagon loved the idea.
Colvin grinned. 'You might be right,' he said. 'I'm glad because they tell me the weather gets fierce up there in the winter.'
Warren grunted. 'Have you heard anything else about the Skynet project?'
The CEO shook his head. 'I don't expect to either. I also have no idea what happened to our beloved Tricker. Last contact was with someone else.'
Warren raised a brow at that. So even the indestructible Tricker could be pulled up short. Nice to know. 'So when can we get into production?'
Colvin handed him a printout. 'By the end of the month,' he said with a cocky smile, and leaned back in his chair. 'Not bad, eh?'
'Not bad at all.' Warren laughed and shook his head. 'And boy, do we need a
success right now.'
'Couldn't have said it better myself,' the CEO agreed.
John clicked a few keys and found himself on the Sarah Connor Web site; the von Rossbach estate might look like the Paraguayan equivalent of backwoods, but the satellite-link communications were first-rate, with outlets in every room.
Things had calmed down at the site over the last few months. There were occasional updates, and old E-mail got cleared away, but it was very different from the days when it was new.
What he was here for was the secret Luddite chat room, where things remained hot. In fact, the Luddite movement seemed to be getting stronger and more active worldwide—it had practically gone mainstream, putting up political candidates and organizing outreach stations and Web sites. Unfortunately, this was accompanied by an
