Rising Storm

interview rooms of a mental hospital was almost homelike; she'd spent a lot of time at the last one.

This time she didn't have cigarettes to occupy her hands during the medical pseudointerrogations, though. Times had changed, a hospital would never get away with letting a patient smoke, and besides— she'd quit. She wished the longing for them would quit, too. Sarah looked out at the gray rain, a California winter day that gave the lie to several songs, and then back at her 'counselor.'

Ray was clearly ambitious. The tone he took with staff and students indicated that he fancied himself as an up-and-coming 'great man.' He was one of those energetic, intense men with a thin ascetic face and a long, wiry body.

When he was having a session with Sarah she felt as though he were trying to pull sanity out of its hiding place in her skull by sheer will. He was almost scary.

And maybe it was the knowledge that John was in safe hands with Dieter, or maybe it was the six-year vacation from fighting Skynet, but she was infinitely more sane at this moment than she had been the last time she found herself in an institution.

Which should make it that much easier to convince Ray that she was curable and not dangerous. If she handled herself right then she would find herself in minimum security by the time she was fully healed. And minimum security was one short step from freedom.

Ray's dark eyes bored into hers as he waited for her to speak. That was how he always started a session, by allowing the patient to make the first move. There

certainly weren't any distractions in the slightly rundown, institutional-bland, disinfectant-smelling room.

'I've been sleeping very well,' Sarah said, injecting a tentative note into her voice. She lowered her eyes shyly. 'Even without the painkillers.'

'You could still have those if you thought you needed them,' Ray said.

Sarah shook her head wordlessly.

'Do you dislike drugs, Sarah?'

She waited a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. 'Yes,' she said. 'I think I do.

I'm grateful they were there when the pain was bad. But when I don't need them I don't like to take them.'

Ray nodded encouragingly. 'When you were at Pescadero before, you were given a lot of drugs, weren't you?'

'Oh, yes,' Sarah agreed wryly. 'A lot of drugs. Dr. Silberman did believe in better living through chemistry.' She looked thoughtful. 'That's probably why I dislike them.'

She'd have to be careful or she'd forget who was leading who here. But Ray was nodding, a little smile tugged at his thin lips. So, Silberman and his treatment of her were something of a sore spot. Or maybe a challenge.

'And how do you feel about Cyberdyne now?' the doctor asked.

Sarah took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling; she bit her lip, then finally met the doctor's eyes. 'I… don't seem to have any feelings at all about Cyberdyne,' she admitted. With a shrug she went on, 'Right now I can't believe that I actually had anything to do with the explosion. It doesn't feel like I did that. It's as though this is about someone else entirely instead of about me.' She waited a moment, looking into Ray's eyes. 'Does that make any sense?'

'You're doing fine,' he assured her, briefly smiling. 'So you're telling me that you feel completely removed from the act of destroying Cyberdyne?'

'Yes,' she said simply. Then sighed. 'But I know it was me. I know that I did it.

It just doesn't make any sense to me now.'

'And if Cyberdyne hadn't been destroyed? If you'd failed?'

Sarah frowned, then shook her head. 'I can't answer that. If I'd failed… I might well still want to destroy the company. But then again, maybe I would have been satisfied with just the attempt.' She looked up at him. 'Why do I want to do this sort of thing, Doctor? What's wrong with me? Does it have a name? Can it be cured?' She allowed tears that weren't entirely fake to fill her eyes. 'What's going to happen to me?'

Ray looked solemn and held his silence for a minute.

'I think we can help you, Sarah. If you're willing to be helped. Since a great deal really does depend on you and your willingness to be cured, I can't answer for the long term. But in the short term you'll go on trial. I've good reason to hope that you'll be held here after your evaluation and that eventually the state will commit you to my care.' He held up his hands, then dropped them to his lap.

'How long you remain here is up to you.'

She smiled at that, she couldn't help it. It might take time, but she was going to go free. She might not even have to escape.

Dr. Ray sat across from Jordan Dyson, a coffee table liberally speckled with old cup rings between them, and waited for the former FBI agent to speak.

Jordan finally sighed. He recognized the technique; put someone in a non-stimulating environment, which Pescadero State certainly was, and wait. Most people couldn't take the silence, and started talking. There was no point in disappointing the good doctor's expectations.

'Okay,' he said, 'you asked me here. I assume you had a reason.'

The doctor smiled a secret smile and nodded. 'Yes,' he said quietly. 'I did.'

Then he went silent again.

'Uh-huh,' Jordan said. 'Are you going to let me in on it? Because I do have a life beyond these walls, Doctor. Things to do, people to see.'

'I wanted to talk to you about Sarah Connor,' Ray admitted. 'You were very kind to her when you were both in the hospital. I wondered why, when you'd spent so many years trying to bring her to justice.'

Jordan shrugged, and drank a little of the brown sludge the Pescadero coffee machines dispensed. 'Maybe I just wanted to be sure that she'd live to stand trial.

Maybe I've been born again and wanted to forgive her.

Or maybe I've come into some new information that left her innocent of my brother's murder.'

Ray nodded, never taking his eyes from Jordan's. 'And which is it?' he asked, his voice gentle.

Jordan just stared back for a minute, chewing on the inside of his cheek. 'Why do you ask?'

The doctor grinned. 'I apologize,' he said. 'It can be hard to turn off the doctor-patient dynamic. My goal is to help Sarah. If you wanted to be of help to her, too, I was thinking that I could arrange for you to visit her. It might be helpful to you as well,' he suggested.

Jordan took a deep breath and looked thoughtful.

This is good, he thought. Very good. I wonder if Sarah suggested it. Certainly it would ease John's worries if he could tell them how she was doing here in Pescadero. And it would allow him to keep his promise not to let them drug her insensible. He looked up.

'I came into new information, nothing I can prove, that Sarah Connor wasn't responsible for my brother's death. Yes, he was there because she brought him there, but she did not kill him, and she did not intend for him to die.'

Jordan tightened his lips. 'That was hard to accept. But I received this information from two independent sources, so I couldn't refuse to believe it. And that changed things for me. I finally realized that it was time for me to move on.'

He adjusted his position in his chair. 'And once I met the woman'—he shook his

head—'it was obvious that she was acting under some sort of compulsion. She isn't a vicious killer, she didn't want to hurt anybody, but she had to destroy Cyberdyne. Why'-he shrugged—'maybe you can tell me.'

Ray nodded solemnly, but didn't rise to the bait.

'In the hospital,' Dyson continued, 'she was a different person. Entirely different. Of course'—he waved his hand—'the circumstances were also completely different, so I don't know…' He petered out, looking exasperated.

The doctor studied him for a while as though waiting for him to continue.

'Would you be willing to speak with her again?' he finally asked.

Jordan bit his lips, frowning, then opened them as though to say something, but he kept silent.