The Future War

'Okay, let's do a sort. By date of manufacture. Aha.' None of the vehicles in the oddest accidents were more than two years old.

'Now let's check on who manufactured them. Using my own nasty, paranoid-bitch search parameters.'

Their most vital computer components had been made in automated factories that were only minimally under human direction. And each of these accidents was firmly in the 90

percent that were being blamed on their operators.

'Shit,' she said, with quiet sincerity.

With a few key taps she pulled up a report she'd already written about the automated factories. Some of their informants had sent photos of some secret military facilities in remote parts of the United States and overseas. They'd apparently started as U.S. military facilities and then, somehow, had proliferated.

Sarah wondered if any information about these facilities had been declassified, and went to work. Three hours later she found good reason to cut loose with a litany of curses that would have impressed even the far- traveled Dieter. Buried in an insignificant memo dated three years earlier, and written to request information about a shipment of rebar, was a casual mention that Paul Warren had complained that the shipment was very late and he'd like to know why.

Paul Warren was president of Cyberdyne Systems.

* * *

Dieter stared at her for so long that Sarah began to fidget.

'Well?' she demanded. 'What do you think?'

He shrugged. 'Shit,' he said.

'That's what I thought,' she said, and rubbed her nose. 'Shit.'

John looked from one to the other, frowning. 'Could it possibly be,' he asked with exaggerated patience, 'that we're forcing the facts to fit a particular premise?'

Sarah tightened her lips and looked away; slowly leaning back in her chair, she glanced sideways at Dieter. She hated that he was being called on to arbitrate between her and her son, but he had much more patience than she did, and besides, he was less personally involved.

'Explain,' Dieter said.

John chewed his lower lip as he gathered his thoughts, then raised his hands. 'Look, this stuff sounds like you've been reading Midnight World. Cyberdyne is just a company. It's not the bogeyman. Anytime it, or one of its officers, is mentioned doesn't necessarily mean that they're out to get us.' He looked at his mother. 'Mom, did you check for similar accidents for the previous two years, concerning vehicles that had as many computer components?'

Sarah turned and gave him a look. 'Why, yes, son, I did. First of all'—she held up a finger—'up until two years ago most vehicles didn't contain the number of computer components that they do today. Those that did had highly specialized functions and were generally not available to the public. Second, in slightly over sixty-two percent of those accidents, mechanical failure of some sort was found to be the cause. Third, given who we met working at Cyberdyne several years ago, and whose look-alike you met at Red Seal Base, I can't help making a connection between Cyberdyne, Skynet, automated factories, and these freakish accidents.'

She glared at him, tight-lipped. 'Could it possibly be that you're refusing to see the obvious because it doesn't fit your theories?'

John turned his face away, and holding up his hands rose from his chair. 'I can see this isn't going to get us anywhere,' he said. Without another word he walked out of the room.

Sarah leaned back and slowly closed her eyes. Dieter sat with his chin in one hand and watched her silently.

'I can't kill him,' she said at last, as though surrendering a cherished notion. 'He's supposed to save the human race.'

Dieter snorted a laugh. 'He will, liebling.' He shook his head.

'He just has things he must come to terms with. Have patience.'

Sarah couldn't help but smile every time he called her that.

True she was tiny when standing next to him, but she had never thought of herself as any sort of diminutive. 'I need to get out of here,' she said. 'Let's go to the Junction.'

It was more than ninety miles to Delta Junction, which meant that they might be gone overnight, depending on what they decided to do once they got there. But just heading down to the Klondike wouldn't take care of her restlessness.

'Good idea,' he said, and rose. 'You've made me glad my truck is more than five years old. Something I never expected to feel.'

'John's isn't, though.'

He looked at her worried face and grinned. 'Something that should occur to him anytime now.' He grabbed their jackets and herded her out of the house.

* * *

John was seated at his computer looking over some schematics that Ike Chamberlain, Dieter's gun-geek friend, had sent him. They'd been trying to work out some of the gaps in the info John had rescued from the Terminator's head, with only moderate success. Part of the problem was that the materials they needed either didn't exist yet or were classified, as in

'burn-before-reading-and-deny-they-exist' classified; like the perfect dielectric the plasma gun required.

He heard Dieter's truck start up and heave itself into reverse, then grind its way up the gravel drive toward the road. His concentration broken, John dropped back in his chair and rested his chin on his hand.

Why am I being such a jerk? he wondered.

It wasn't a familiar sensation and he didn't like it. He knew that Dieter and his mother were right. Even if their confidence in Wendy's intervention was 100 percent, it was only common sense to have a backup plan. He'd been taught this so early and had it drummed into him so often that not having one gave him a terribly uncomfortable feeling.

Like not wearing underwear to a wedding.

It felt wrong. So why was he not only not making such a plan himself, but insisting that neither Dieter nor his mother make one? Although, knowing his mom, she probably already had, with two backup fallbacks.

He shook his head in frustration and glanced at the schematic. With a muttered curse he saved it and grabbed the disk with his mother's report on it. He pushed it in the slot and did nothing.

Why? he asked himself. Why hesitate, why don't I want to know?

Maybe because if his mother was right and Skynet was sentient, then maybe Wendy's program, far from stopping Judgment Day, might actually be the cause of it. And it was me that pressed enter.

The horror of it rippled over his skin like an army of ants.

Was it us? Something went wrong… we were interrupted … I misunderstood? he thought incoherently. Did I make Skynet sentient? He forced himself to remember Wendy's face as she lay in pain. Her lips formed a word.

He couldn't do this. John stood abruptly and walked back and forth, rubbing his face vigorously and pushing back his hair. I can't! he thought, holding up his hands as if to ward off an insistent interrogator. Wendy, he thought longingly, desperately. I don't want to…

He forced down the rising panic, concentrating on his breathing until he felt less shaky. Here's the truth, he told himself, you're having panic attacks. You think you're controlling them when you're really just avoiding them. It felt good to finally admit it to himself.

His mother had often told him when he was growing up, 'Lie when you have to, lie to anyone you want to, even me if you think it's necessary, but never lie to yourself. That way lies madness.'

At one time he'd thought, Well, you ought to know, Mom. That had been the low point of their relationship—shortly before he'd met the incontrovertible truth about Terminators.

Now they were at another low point. At least then I could blame ignorance, or maybe even