The Future War

'John!' she said. He seemed to ignore her. Frowning, she tried again. 'John, this could be it. This could be how it starts.'

He stopped sweeping and stood looking off into the woods, his hands on the broomstick showing white around the knuckles.

'John?' she said.

'Show a little faith, why don't you?' he asked through his teeth. His voice was low and gruff, almost a growl.

Sarah bit her lips and tried again. 'You have to admit it's a worrisome development.'

'Look, Mom, I don't have to admit anything. Wendy took care of the problem. And she took care of it in a way that prevented the people who were creating Skynet from noticing that anything had been done. She wasn't trying to keep it from doing the job it was created to do, she was trying to prevent it from becoming sentient.' He waved a hand, smiling and somewhat condescending. 'Different things, Mom. Different things.'

Sarah looked at him, watching his eyes become dark pits with gleams in their depths in the rapidly fading light. For a moment she felt as though she didn't know him.

'Can you honestly tell me this doesn't worry you?' she asked.

He looked away, then tossed his head back and sighed. 'No,'

he said simply, and patted his stomach. He turned back to her with a grin. 'I felt it right here. But, Mom, what can we do? We can watch and wait and hope, but at this point that's all we can do.' His expression grew serious again. 'But my money is on Wendy. I believe in her work. I wish you did, too.'

Suddenly Sarah felt a hot flash of annoyance and decided that maybe they ought to clear the air about Wendy right now.

'John,' she began, her voice strong with anger.

'Hey, you two,' Dieter said.

Both of them started at the sound of his voice. It was true that the big Austrian walked softly, but both of them thought of themselves as having superior situational awareness. In other words, they considered it very difficult to sneak up on them. And here, without even trying, they'd been taken by surprise. They had both been feeling irritable; this didn't help.

'How long have you been there?' John asked sharply.

Dieter's brows rose. 'I haven't been here,' he said calmly. 'I have been approaching. So to answer your question, I just got here. To answer your next question, yes, I heard what you were talking about. You weren't making a secret of it that I could see.'

Sarah and John glanced at each other, then away, embarrassed.

'Supper is about ready,' the Austrian said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

'Oh,' Sarah said. 'Thanks for keeping an eye on things.' It had been her turn to cook tonight.

'Not a problem,' Dieter said easily. 'I knew you were distracted.' He looked at John, a brooding presence in the growing dark. 'Shall we go in?'

'Naw,' John said, shaking his head. He rested the broom against the table. 'I feel like heading for the Klondike.' He'd been finding the local bar a more comfortable place to be of late. He hopped off the platform and headed for his truck. 'Don't wait up for me.'

'Shouldn't you at least shower?' Sarah mumbled, folding her arms beneath her breasts.

'Good night,' Dieter called. He put his arm around her shoulders. 'I doubt the patrons of the Klondike will notice,' he murmured.

They watched John start the pickup, back up, and drive away before they spoke again.

'Let's go eat,' Dieter said.

'I think I've lost my appetite,' Sarah grumbled.

'Don't be silly, an old soldier like you knows you have to eat when you can.' Gently he turned her toward the house.

They walked in silence for a while; the butchering platform was some distance from the house for obvious reasons. As they walked, Sarah forced calm on herself, altering her breathing, forcing tight muscles to loosen. Dieter noticed these things but didn't comment, waiting for her to speak.

'I'm worried,' she said at last. Then hissed impatiently: 'No, I'm not. I'm scared.' Sarah stopped and turned toward him. 'I'm really scared, Dieter.'

'I know,' he said softly, and gathered her in his arms. 'You are wise to be scared. This is a worrisome development.'

'Well, that's what I said to John and he kind of went quietly ballistic. Like I was slanging Wendy's memory or something.'

She leaned her head on his chest and sighed. 'Something could have gone wrong with the program. She was a brilliant girl, I guess, but couldn't she have made a mistake? I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm trying to think strategically. Shouldn't we be preparing for the worst, just in case?'

She gave Dieter's chest a gentle thump with her fist, then buried her face against him. When she raised her head, he thought he could see the shine of tears on her cheeks, and when she spoke, her voice was choked.

'After all,' she said somewhat breathlessly, 'If there's never going to be a Skynet, then there wouldn't be a John. Would there?'

Dieter pursed his lips and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. His lady tended to ask hard questions. But then, she was more than tough enough to survive the answers. 'You're right,'

he said. 'On all points.'

Sarah turned and started walking toward the house, leaving him behind. 'So why can't he see that?' she demanded. 'Why is he taking this so personally?'

'Because he's emotionally involved,' he said.

Sarah spun toward him. 'He knows better than that,' she snapped.

Dieter knew she wasn't angry with him, or with John really, she was just worried; still, he couldn't help but feel it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black. 'Knowing better and being able to act accordingly is a lot harder at his age,' he reminded her. 'In fact, I haven't noticed it getting much easier as I get older.'

She raised one eyebrow, aware that he was commenting obliquely on her own emotional state. Then she sighed, feeling the energy draining right out of her with her breath. 'So, what do we do?'

He caught up to her and dropped his heavy arm around her shoulders again, then he kissed her brow. 'I think perhaps we should, very carefully, renew some of our old acquaintances. I'll head for the lower forty-eight in a couple of days. On 'business,'

which I've done often enough before that it shouldn't get his back up.'

'Lately his back is always up,' Sarah muttered.

Dieter kissed her brow again, a great smacking kiss. 'Come on, woman, I'm hungry.'

She smiled up at him and shook her head. 'Men!'

CHAPTER TWO

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Dieter von Rossbach leaned back in the chair. The Seattle coffeehouse bustled around them; his Austrian nose twitched at the odors. One thing he'd never been able to get Sarah to do was take coffee seriously.

'So officially you don't want to see me,' he said to the man opposite him.

There was a trick to talking against background noise so that you couldn't be overheard. There was specialist equipment that could overcome it, but if anyone was aiming a parabolic mike at him right now he was dead anyway. They didn't need evidence to arrest him.