Rising Storm

Sarah leaned her chin on her fist and raised her brows. 'So did you have some Dulcinea in your life when you went into the field?'

He gave her a look that seemed to liquefy her bones. 'Maybe,' he said laconically. He gestured toward the printout. 'What do you think?'

Sarah straightened and, lowering her eyes, picked up the papers beside her plate, feeling desired and rejected at the same time. 'O-kay,' she said, all business again. 'This looks excellent. I'd be happier if we had a few more storage depots in central Mexico, because I think the U.S. and Canada will be hit harder. And I'd love to get my hands on something bigger than 120mm mortar.' She looked up at him. 'Don't worry, I know that's impossible. But this is impressive. We'll be in much better shape than I ever could have hoped for.' One corner of her full mouth lifted in sardonic amusement. 'Clearly your contacts are more reliable than mine.'

Dieter snorted. 'More money buys better contacts.'

***

John cut an apple with his pocketknife and gave the piece to Wendy, who offered it on her open palm to an enthusiastic Linda, Sarah's mare. She smiled at the feel of the horse's soft muzzle and warm breath.

'You breathe into their nostrils to introduce yourself,' he told her.

Wendy leaned forward and blew gently, but it seemed to her that Linda wasn't very interested, or else she was doing it wrong, or maybe the mare just wanted more apple. 'Gimme,' she said, taking the fruit from John's hand. She offered it to the horse and got a very positive reaction. 'I think she just smiled.'

Watching and listening to the horse crunch up the apple, John was inclined to agree. He put his hand between Wendy's shoulder blades and scratched gently.

She turned to him, her eyes twinkling, a dimple in her cheek.

'Are you getting us mixed up?' she asked, tilting her head at Linda.

'Sorry,' he said, blushing. 'No, not at all.'

'You're distracted, though.' She leaned an elbow on the corral fence. Linda nudged Wendy hopefully, knocking her off balance. John caught her, steadying her while he looked into her eyes.

'I love you,' he said.

She smiled. Leaning forward, she brushed a kiss across his lips. 'I love you, too.

But'—she held up a finger to forestall his kiss—'/am not so easily distracted.

Tell me what's on your mind, John. It isn't me, or at least not all me.'

He looked at her, his face grim, his eyes concerned. Then, looking up, he pointed to a tree. 'Let's go sit over there.'

As they approached the shade Wendy saw that a blanket and a picnic basket had been left there and she turned to John with a smile. 'No wonder you were willing to walk out on breakfast. When did you bring this out?'

'I didn't,' he answered, collapsing bonelessly onto the blanket. 'But I have friends in the right places.' He opened the basket and offered her something wrapped in a napkin. Wendy accepted it, going to her knees beside him. It turned out to be an extremely moist sort of savory pastry.

'It's good!' she said around a mouthful of oniony, cheesy, corn-muffin-y stuff.

'It's called sopa paraguaya, a traditional breakfast food. Marietta, the housekeeper, makes the best.' He opened the thermos and poured them each a cup of coffee with the milk and sugar already added.

'This I'm not so crazy about,' she said, making a face.

'Hey, it's got caffeine.' John took a long swallow. 'I didn't sleep much last night.'

'Me either,' Wendy said.

They were quiet for a while, filling the silence with eating and drinking. Marietta had packed fruit juice and Wendy eagerly drank that, leaving the too-sweet coffee to John.

'Tell me,' she finally said.

He looked at her questioningly.

'Don't give me that look,' she said, giving his shoulder a shove. 'It's so on your mind I can practically see digital letters running across your forehead. But if you insist I'll make it easy for you. When are you leaving, and where are you going, and what are you going to do when you get there?'

He bit his lips and looked into his coffee as though trying to divine the future from it.

Wendy gave him another shove. 'What's the point of holding out on me? Given where I am and what I already know.'

'Good point,' he admitted at last, sitting up. He shook his head. 'Mom will kill me for this.'

Wendy laughed. 'I seriously doubt that. Me, maybe. But from her at least, you're safe.'

John grinned and, putting his hand behind her head, pulled her toward him for a kiss, then let her go. 'We're going to Antarctica.'

'Cool,' she said, then laughing, held up her hands. 'No pun intended, honest.'

He smiled, then frowned. 'They've started up the Skynet project again at a secret base they've got down there. We're going to take it out.'

'Blow it up, you mean,' Wendy said.

Her face grew thoughtful and John kept silent, putting off what he saw as an inevitable argument. She would give him reasons why she should come and he would refuse. Then she'd be hurt and would in turn hurt him, by withdrawing, or even, perhaps, by saying something in anger. He lay down on his back and looked up at the tree and the blue sky just visible through its canopy of leaves.

'I think you might be making a mistake here,' she said slowly, still obviously thinking hard. 'You blow this thing up and they just rebuild it somewhere else.'

John looked over at her, but said nothing. Wendy turned to him eagerly.

'What you need to do is get something into the programming that will also become a part of their stored data. Something that will prevent the thing from becoming sentient!'

John blinked. 'Can that be done?' he asked, sitting up to face her.

'Yes. And it will probably be a lot easier than trying to make a machine sentient in the first place. And you know what?' She leaned close as though to kiss him.

'I've already done a lot of the work. So you do need me to come with you.' Then she did kiss him.

John pulled his head back after a moment to give her a speculative look. 'I'm not all that easily distracted myself, sweetheart. If you can write a program that will

do this, why can't we install it? Dieter and I are both computer literate.'

Wendy gave an exaggerated sigh. 'Well, I have most of the ideas down,' she admitted. 'But I was coming at the problem of AI from a different direction—

namely, creating self-awareness, not stifling it. So I'd have to rewrite the program.' She shrugged. 'And that will take a little time.'

'We don't have years,' he said, disappointed.

'It won't take years. I've already identified a number of factors that indicate sentience. Well,' she admitted with a deprecatory shrug, 'I've gotten a huge boost from Kurt Viemeister's articles. But those were just a springboard. I've gone much further. I can do this!' she insisted. 'By the time we get there I could have it ready to go.' Wendy tried to keep her expression neutral and to hide any trace of the mantra take me!, take me!, take me! that yammered in the back of her head.

John looked at her in astonishment. 'What you're saying is we wouldn't have to blow it up.'

'Not at all,' she agreed, nodding enthusiastically. 'It will be better if you don't because this way you'll corrupt all of their updated information. Just make it look like blowing it up was your goal, but you were prevented from following through and the program should pass unnoticed.' She bit her lip. Don't say too much, she cautioned herself. Let him work it through.

John looked up from his reverie. 'Let's go talk to Dieter.'

' Should pass unnoticed?' Dieter said. He folded his arms before him on his