The future war, p.22
The Future War, page 22
The pebble beach was rough under her hands and knees as she leopard-crawled up from the waves, and the air was cold on her naked flesh as she peeled out of the synthetic fabric and quickly donned her clothes, shivering and stamping. The high-tech binoculars came next. There was nothing she could do to make the operation go better at this point.
God, she thought suddenly. All these years…I wonder how Sarah Connor the student and waitress would have felt? Men may be dying out there—because of me—and I’m completely calm about it now.
Then she shrugged. That was how it had to be if Skynet was to be beaten. What had that German philosopher Dieter told her about said? He who fights dragons becomes a dragon?
No muzzle flashes through the binoculars, though. She switched to thermal imaging…
They’ve got her engines hot.
She could see the heat plumes from the stack at the rear, and more faintly as a blob of different color on the side of the hull at the stern. The tanker wasn’t a super-giant, which would have used steam turbines and taken a long time to move. It was a mediumsize job used to shuttle refined products along the coast, about fifty thousand tons, powered by big diesels. Those you could fire up right away; if it was even remotely modern, the whole process could be controlled from the bridge at a pinch.
Yep, there she goes.
So slowly that at first it didn’t seem she was moving at all. The tanker had backed halfway to its own berth before the soldiers onshore realized what was happening, and the sub had begun its turn away from the dock. It maneuvered cautiously—Ohio-class boats were a good five hundred and sixty feet long—but swiftly, backing and then heading for the entrance to the harbor with a rush that sent a smooth black wave breaking into foam.
Sarah grinned as she gathered her diving gear and tossed it in the back of her Jeep and vaulted into the driver’s seat. She had a sub to meet.
The only good thing you could say about Puerto Deseado was that it was more picturesque than Comodoro’s tangle of refinery tanks.
Which isn’t saying much, Sarah Connor thought. Well, all right, the turn-of-the-century architecture was interesting.
More important for her purposes, the local government hadn’t broken down; there weren’t any—well, many—bandits in the area around it, and food was reasonably cheap. Particularly if you liked mutton, because the estancias all about had lost their markets. Sarah was thoroughly sick of it, enough so that the sight of the piled carcasses was faintly nauseating, though she’d long ago overcome any city-girl squeamishness about butchering livestock or game.
Still and all, the sailors will be glad to get it, she thought.
The carcasses were as the trucks had left them; not entirely sanitary, but needs must, and the weather was cold enough that they wouldn’t go bad in a day or two. She’d gotten sacks of flour as well, and canned vegetables from the Chubut Valley.
She sat atop the pile of boxes and watched the sub rise gleaming from the waves through her binoculars. Teams of men emerged and began to inflate rafts and put them overside; then some dropped into the sea beside them. They and the men still aboard the sub maneuvered engines onto the craft, climbed aboard the zodiacs, and headed for the shore. She could see the night-vision apparatus on their faces and wondered if they’d spotted her yet.
The men were well trained and efficient; deploying the inflatables with the engines had taken only a little more than five minutes and some of that had been because the rafts needed time to inflate.
Oh, this is a happy day for the resistance, she thought. A hundred trained SEALs, the rest of the crew, the sub herself…
They were armed, and going by the position of their heads, they most definitely had seen her. Sarah smiled grimly. Technology was a wonderful thing—when it was on your side. She slid down from the top of the pile and stood waiting for the zodiacs to beach themselves.
One of the men trotted up to her—young, hard, fit, in cammo fatigues and body armor, face hard to see behind the goggles. “Are you Sarah Connor?” he asked.
She nodded, then said, “Yes. I’d like to speak to your captain if he wouldn’t mind.”
“Sarah Connor would like to speak to the captain,” he said.
She blinked, then realized he was wearing a throat mike, almost invisible in the dark.
“The captain would like me to bring you now, ma’am,” the sailor said.
“Let’s fill the raft with supplies,” she said. “No need to waste fuel.”
The sailor relayed that, then nodded and grabbed a sack of rice. Sarah followed suit, and in short order they had the zodiac filled to capacity and were on their way, cold salt spray flicking into their faces.
Looking up at the conning tower, she saw two shadowy figures outlined against the night sky, above the diving planes. “Permission to come aboard,” she called softly.
“Permission granted, Ms. Connor,” Chu said. “Welcome aboard.”
It wasn’t until he’d sat at his desk that he realized exactly how small she was. Somehow he’d been expecting an amazon, six feet tall or more and pumped with muscle. Although for a middle-aged lady she was, in fact, quite muscular and moved with the ease of one who kept very fit. He gestured her to a chair and she gave him a polite smile and sat.
“Thank you for your help, Ms. Connor,” he said.
“It was my very great pleasure,” she answered. “Throwing a spoke in Señor Reimer’s training wheels has made my day.”
“Reimer?”
“The shark in the sharkskin suit,” Sarah told him. “The one who, no doubt, arranged to fence you in. He annoys me.” She sat straighter, leaning slightly forward. “But let’s get down to business.”
“I might have known,” Chu said ruefully. He folded his hands on his desktop. “This is a U.S. Navy vessel, Ms. Connor. Neither my crew nor I have any business doing anything with it without orders.”
Sarah looked away and nodded slowly, then looked at him from the corners of her eyes. “Are you going to try and tell me that whenever you’ve come in hailing distance of any other United States Navy vessels, it’s been a peaceful, brotherly encounter?”
He blinked before he could stop himself and smiled at her knowing smile. Although how she could have known that when he refused the order to report to San Diego, his ship had immediately begun drawing fire from other navy ships was beyond him. One, a brand-new Los Angeles–class boat, had fired a nuclear-tipped homing torpedo toward them, nearly destroying the Roosevelt.
But he knew—he knew—that the crew had not done it. Calls from the captains’ private cell phones had warned him that they had lost control of their ships. Once refitted, they’d been stripped to skeleton crews and it turned out that none of the men and women aboard had the technical knowledge that would have allowed them to take over the computer-controlled vessels. They’d also found out too late that the computers were very well defended with an impressive battery of automatic weapons.
Chu stared at Sarah Connor. How could she possibly know? She stared back at him, her expression sad and a little tired. She shook her head and brushed her hair back.
“It doesn’t really matter how I know,” she said, startling him again. “What matters is that my information is solid.”
The captain’s aide came in with a tray bearing two bowls of chicken soup and hot biscuits.
“I’m cool,” Sarah said when he tried to lay the bowl at her side of the desk. “Why don’t you enjoy that.”
The aide glanced at Chu, who nodded, and smiling, he picked up the tray and began to leave.
“Talan,” Chu said. He pushed the little basket of rolls toward him. “Take a couple of these.”
“Thank you, sir.” The aide took two and left.
Chu looked at Sarah, who smiled. “Enjoy,” she said.
“Thank you again for this, ma’am.” The captain dug in; he could practically feel the hot soup giving him strength. “We were pretty much down to our belts.”
She grinned briefly, then grew very serious. “Not to spoil your meal, Captain, but I do have some very bad, if not fully unexpected news for you.”
“And that would be?” Chu asked.
“There is no federal government anymore.”
The captain continued to spoon up soup as he thought about what she’d said. Then he dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “With respect, ma’am, there’s no way you could know one way or another.”
With a sigh, she laid it down for him. “Skynet. You must have heard of it.” At his nod, she went on. “It controlled everything, ships, planes, missiles, and”—she tipped her head forward—“all bases and bunkers. As soon as the missiles started going up, the heads of the government and many of the ‘best minds’ in the country were hustled to air-conditioned safety in the deepest hardened bunkers on the planet. And since that sorry day, not one of those people has been seen alive. And they never will be.
“The damn computer has run mad, Captain. We didn’t send those missiles aloft and your fellow captains haven’t been hunting you down of their own free will, and you know it.” She spread her hands. “At the very least you must suspect it.”
He didn’t answer as he split a biscuit, then bit into one flaky half. Sarah Connor was a very disconcerting woman. Half the time she seemed to be reading his mind; the rest of the time she was telling him things that rang horribly true. “Why don’t we just cut to the chase here?” he said. “What, exactly, do you want, ma’am?”
“I want you to serve the people of the United States, who desperately need your help.” She smiled to see him blink. “Things are worse than you think,” she said. “The bombs were just phase one. Since then, people have been rounded up, ostensibly at the behest of the government, and put in relocation and reconstruction camps.”
Chu frowned. “Doesn’t sound quite right,” he said. “But it doesn’t seem altogether unreasonable, either.”
“Which is why so many have gone along with it,” Sarah said agreeably. “In many of these camps, the inmates have been deliberately infected with diseases such as cholera, or they’re being forced to work under dangerous conditions with inadequate food and shelter. Men and women in that uniform are doing these things.”
He tilted his head toward her. “Men and women in this uniform as distinguished from…?”
“As distinguished from those who are actually in the military.” Sarah leaned forward. “No doubt you’ve heard of Luddites?” He looked troubled, but nodded. “Apparently some of them have been preparing for these times with an eye toward reducing the human population of this planet. They’re dedicated, well organized, and well supplied. God knows how many deaths they’re responsible for so far, or how many they’ll be responsible for before they’re killed themselves.”
“By us?” Chu asked. “Because, you know, I’m not going to send my people out to fight without proof of what you’re saying.”
Sarah looked at him for a long time before she spoke. “Once again it’s Skynet I’m talking about. It’s an amazing computer,” she said. “There’s never been anything like it before, and I hope to my soul there never will be again. The damn thing has become sentient, and it’s decided that we are a danger to it and therefore must be eliminated.”
“Proof, Ms. Connor,” Chu said.
“Surely you heard about all those cars and trucks running amok?” she asked.
“Of course. But…”
Sarah sighed deeply. “Skynet was originally created by Cyberdyne Corporation. Cyberdyne created the first completely automated factory. Then, somehow, the plans for those factories became public knowledge and they proliferated all over the planet like some kind of fungus. And in each and every factory Skynet had a root. It hid programming in every car, truck, and tractor produced over the last two years. As the time approached for the government to give it control of all military operations, it began to experiment, sending orders to its various components, taking control from their drivers and causing thousands of accidents. I researched this; I can give you a disk on it.” She watched him absorb what she’d said.
“Incidently, it can imitate voices perfectly. Kurt Viemeister programmed it. You may not recognize the name, but he was a master of programming; he extrapolated from voice recognition to voice imitation, right down to characteristic phrasing. Wrote several illegal articles on the subject. I know they’re illegal because I know he signed a secrecy contract with the government regarding his work. So if you’ve been getting messages from well-known people—the president, some admiral, whatever—that was Skynet.”
Chu nodded slowly, thinking about the strange way Admiral Read had been talking the last time they spoke, on the day the bombs came down. His eyes flashed to her. “Yet this is still not proof.”
“No,” she said sadly. “The proof is that I’m not asking you to do anything illegal or against the interests of the United States. I’m asking you to place yourself, your crew, and your ship at the disposal of what we’re calling the resistance.”
“Who exactly are you resisting?” Chu asked.
“Skynet, the Luddites, and all too soon, whatever machinery Skynet will be producing in its automated factories.”
The captain studied her. She seemed quite sane, clear-eyed and intelligent. And given what he and his men had been through during the past weeks, her story held together amazingly well. Be honest, he thought, at least with yourself. Her story holds together better than anything you’ve thought of yourself.
“I need to think about this, ma’am,” he said aloud.
“God, I would hope so,” Sarah said. “While you’re thinking about it, may I suggest you turn this baby around and head for Alaska. You’ll find a friendly port there; they were hardly touched by the bombs.”
“And?”
“And I would very much like to travel there with you.”
Chu tipped his head. “And?”
She smiled at him. “And at the moment it’s the headquarters for the resistance.”
“If we were to accept this proposal of yours,” he said, “I assume I would be under your command.”
“You’d be under John Connor’s command, my son. He’s the only alternative to Skynet.”
“But for now we’d be under the commander in chief’s mom’s command, right?”
“Mmm, right.”
“Just so I know where I stand, ma’am.”
Alaska
John moved his pointer over a topographical map as he outlined the plan of attack. Forty grim-faced men and women watched him, some taking notes; one woman looked both surprised and amused.
He wasn’t used to talking to large groups of people yet and still found his heart pounding whenever he faced an audience. It wasn’t made easier by having his newly inducted girlfriend find the whole thing amusing.
Cut her some slack, he told himself. She might just be nervous.
Sometimes he found himself almost convulsed with inappropriate laughter when he was nervous. And the kind of attention these people gave him, the sheer focus they put into listening to his every word, was extremely nerve-racking. Especially for someone raised to avoid the limelight. Sometimes he felt naked up here.
Ninel wrinkled her nose at him, and with an effort of will he ignored her. It was too soon to include her on this mission, he knew. But he wanted to convince her to spy on her Luddite friends for him and he didn’t think she’d do that without some evidence that it was necessary.
Or at the very least that my organization has a reason to exist and that I’m not a fascist asshole.
John ceded the floor to the leader of the scouting party.
“Trucks arrived and departed at four-hour intervals night and day,” he said. “We have no way of knowing what was delivered or if the trucks left full or empty, as they were tied down all around or were actual eighteen-wheelers.”
There was a stir at that; the big transport trucks had been gone from the roads since Judgment Day.
“We saw no humans in the vicinity. Nor did we find any sign of automated defenses, though we did find security cameras and microphones. Most were quite obvious. There were several tiers of laser traps around the immediate facility. Other than that, the area seemed clear.”
John had worried about that. It could be arrogance, on Skynet’s part, ignorance, or a trap. And yet, trap or not, it had to be dealt with. He stood up as the scout finished. “Get some rest,” he ordered. “We move out at 0200.” He nodded to them and left the dais, heading for Ninel. She rose, smiling, and came to him.
“You almost made me break up, you little skunk,” he murmured.
“I can’t help it,” she said with a little shrug. “Extreme seriousness in other people has always given me the giggles.”
He smiled and shook his head. “You stay with me tomorrow.”
“I wondered what I was supposed to do,” Ninel said. “Everyone else seemed to know exactly where they were supposed to be and what to do, but no one said anything to me. I was starting to think I was going to be left behind.”
He started walking toward his office. “The truth is you’re not ready for a mission like this,” he told her, smiling at her expression of surprise. “Not least because your attitude seems to be that we’re all off our collective rockers. I need to show you that this is real,” he explained, stopping to look down at her. “This is a real enemy we’re fighting, one that wants us all dead.”
Ninel tightened her lips and looked down. “I just…”
“I know,” he said, smiling. “I needed proof myself once.” He became solemn again. “Tomorrow you’ll have yours.”
Chapter 15
DRIFTLESS AREA, NORTHEASTERN IOWA
Now this, Tom Preston thought, is no goddamned fun at all.
He bent, leaning on the hoe in his right hand, and pulled up the weed whose roots he’d loosened with the tool. Despite the unusually cold weather, the corn was coming up just fine; the problem was that weeds were doing just fine as well. This particular patch wasn’t very large; a scraggly strip along a little brook that ran down the mostly wooded valley between two steep hills—this part of the state looked more like Appalachia than the prairies.
