feelings about nuclear energy.' He led them through it step-by-step, pointed out that other resources could be exploited, other plans could be made. 'The thing is, nobody is going to invest in those other alternatives if we're all talked into building more nuclear plants. And, no matter what they say, nuclear power isn't clean, it isn't safe. Now the ^resident wants to give them unlimited protection from liability. How safe does that make you feel?'
Ron actually had a guest on the show tonight who held a dissenting view, and the guy had a good case. He also had a temper and a tendency to take things personally, which Ron fully intended to exploit. Waste not want not, was, after all, one of the New Luddites' mottos.
He broke for a commercial, promising a great show when they came back. Then an announcer's voice took over, describing an environmentally friendly array of cleaning products. Ron moved across the stage and took his place behind the desk, smiling out at his audience. He could feel that this was going to work out
well.
Clea tuned out the commercial and thought about what she'd been watching. Ron Labane was one <)f Serena's projects that Clea had taken over with some enthusiasm. She saw potential here to confuse and divide the humans that her predecessor hadn't fully exploited. What better way to keep the humans as weak as possible, to make sure that as little as possible survived Judgment Day to be used against the sudden onslaught of the killer machines, than to encourage a fear of technology?
Labane was making nuclear power the issue du jour on his inaugural program. It was an emotional issue for humans—especially Americans, for some reason.
They were constantly fighting the opening of these highly efficient power plants.
Which was surely in Skynet's interests. Keeping the power-dependent humans from having all the juice they wanted would destabilize things nicely. It would create factions, even among the rich and powerful, and it would drive the proles nuts.
As for their perfectly valid fear of nuclear waste, well, an accident had been arranged.
With part of her mind still on the program, Clea contacted her T-101. Through its eyes she saw that the truck it had stolen was behind the convoy carrying some West Coast nuclear waste to its Southwestern dump site.
She glanced at the television image in the upper corner of her screen. But first she'd wait until Ron's program was over. It seemed the polite thing to do.
The Terminator kept a precise distance between himself and the truck in front of him: exactly one hundred and fifty meters. The unmarked eighteen-wheeler carrying the specially designed cargo container was accompanied by two vans, also unmarked. It was all very discreet. Had they not known exactly what they were looking for, they would never have been able to find this particular truck.
The T-101 glanced at the body beside it. It had entered the propane truck's cab at a truck stop and waited for the driver to return. When he did, it had broken his neck before the human had even been aware of its presence. Soon the I-950
would signal the T-101 to go ahead and the body would be needed to stand in for it when investigators sifted through the wreckage.
*Now,* the Infiltrator sent.
The Terminator pressed its booted foot down and sped toward the truck in front of it. The waste truck's companion van tried to move in front of the propane truck, but the Terminator calculated angles as it manuvered and struck the van at precisely the right point to send it spinning off the road and into the first of the few buildings that had begun to appear by the side of the road. It disappeared into the flimsy structure, sending glass flying.
With nothing in its way, the Terminator pulled up beside the waste truck, swerved into the far lane so that it could aim the propane truck at the carrier's exact center, and rammed it at eighty miles an hour, knocking the carrier onto its side with a screech of metal against pavement. The propane truck climbed on top of the rig and then collapsed slowly onto its side, but didn't rupture.
The Terminator was out of the cab and onto the street in seconds, a grenade launcher in its hands. While the van up ahead was backing up, fast, it took aim and fired. The propane truck burst into magenta flame, the blast picked the van up like a dry leaf and flung it nearly a thousand meters, it ripped and burned every inch of flesh from the front of the Terminator's skeleton, leaving only smoking patches on its back. Briefly the T-101 went off- line.
When it came back to itself, burning debris was still falling and the buildings along the highway had been blown flat all around the explosion. Its internal monitors reported radioactive contamination at a very high level.
*Mission accomplished,* it sent.
*Status?* the I-950 queried.
*External sheath severely compromised, no secondary damage, some nuclear contamination.*
* Acknowledged.* It looked around itself. Off in the distance it saw a house, undamaged by the blast. Humans had come outside to gawk at the fire. Where there were humans there would be transportation. It headed for them.
Ron offered the last few energy-saving tips and said good night when Tony came tearing onstage. For a split second he thought he'd made an error in his timing
and had left them with a ridiculous amount of dead air. The audience began to rustle and murmur.
Then Tony slipped him a news report and said, 'It's an accident. Maybe. Some asshole in a propane truck rammed into a nuclear-waste carrier right in the middle of a small town in New Mexico. There's a news blackout. Apparently the whole state is out.'
Ron turned to the audience and clapped his hands. When they'd quieted down he said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I have some terrible news.'
He read them the report in his hand, just the bare, unadorned facts. 'I'm told there's a news blackout on this incident, which means that this is all we may know for some time. I'd like you all to bow your heads with me and pray for the people of New Mexico.' After a moment's silence he lifted his head and looked at them solemnly.
'Now let's all just remain calm,' he said. 'We'll know more by and by. But when you get home I'd like you to write your congressman or -woman and tell them we don't want any more accidents like this one.'
People applauded enthusiastically, rising to their feet and clapping with an energy that spoke of their anger and their horror. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, they stopped and began filing out, murmuring to one another.
Ron watched them go, a little seed of anger burning in his breast. This could have happened at the beginning of the show, and ruined everything.
On the other hand, since they
publicist on this. He'd work up a statement emphasizing that his show had been talking about the dangers of nuclear power just before the news broke.
Ron smirked; there was nothing quite like being able to say 'I told you so!'
The show ended, and it hadn't been all that bad for blatant propaganda. As the credits began to roll someone came running in from offstage. Sarah got up, not really thinking anything about it except that the New Luddites didn't have top-quality people running their programs. The nurse switched to another channel, where a news anchor was announcing that a fuel truck had crashed into an eighteen-wheeler carrying nuclear waste.
The anchor went on to say that background radiation as far away as Albuquerque had jumped by over 700 percent…
