Rising Storm t2-2 Page 6

  *Similar interests?* she asked.

  *Beyond making fools of fools,* he typed with a smile. *But first we should get

  to know each other.*

  *And how are we going to do that? And why should I trust you?*

  *Trust?* he wrote. * You trust these guys? Hey, at least I'm not threatening to kill you if we ever meet*

  *Good point. Okay, I'll ditch the creeps. They're getting more excited than is good for them anyway.* Watcher was gone for a moment then came back. *So, what do you want?*

  *What drew you to that particular site?* John asked.

  *It's rude to answer a question with a question,* Watcher pointed out.

  *True, but I'm asking.*

  And he wasn't going to answer any questions until he had a satisfactory answer.

  *Whatever. I was just looking around when I found it. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just killing time. Y'know? But something about the Sarah Connor story reached me. Maybe it was that lone-wolf thing. I'm a sucker for underdogs.*

  Underdog, John thought. Yeah, I guess that pretty well describes my mother. At least in the old days. God! He was still only sixteen and he actually had "old days" to refer back to.

  *It turned out to be a really strange site,* Watcher went on. *And as for these idiots, I just can't help myself. I've gotta poke 'em.*

  *People who take themselves very seriously can also be very dangerous,* John warned. *So how's the weather on the East Coast?* he asked, deciding to throw her a curve.

  There was a long wait for Watcher's next post. Hope I haven't scared her off.

  *Probably not as warm as it is waaaay down south,* Watcher finally replied.

  John caught his breath. Sure hope she doesn't scare me off. *Okay,* he wrote,

  *this demonstrates why it's a bad idea to tease the crazies. One of them might be computer literate.*

  *It may be cocky,* Watcher replied, *but I like to think of myself as being a little more than merely "literate."*

  *Actually I think you are, too. The dangerous part is in assuming that because you're smart no one else is. It's always unwise to underestimate people. Leads to nasty surprises.*

  Listen to me, he thought, I received this advice from masters and I've found it to be true.

  Once again there was a long pause. *Are you warning me against yourself?

  Whatever. What I really want to know is, what do you want?*

  His brief review of Dorset's school records had made her sound like a straight arrow. What he'd observed of her interactions with the Luddites told him she had nerve and could think on her feet. The way she'd hidden her tracks told him she was damn smart. The way she'd found him told him she might be dangerous if

  she wasn't handled right.

  *I'm head of a kind of watchers' group, no pun intended,* he explained. Or I would be if I hadn't just thought it up this minute. You'll be my first recruit! He hoped. *We keep our eyes on military/industrial projects, just in case they get it into their heads to do something hinky. We're always on the lookout for new talent. Want to join?*

  *Okay, here's my problem,* she answered. *Think of where I met you. Now, how do I know you're not a Luddite extremist yourself?*

  *Tough one,* he agreed. *Ideally I would meet you face-to-face.* Which I would loooove to do, he thought. *And that would give us an opportunity to get a feel for each other. But that's obviously not going to happen. I could call you,*

  he suggested.

  *All right,* she replied, and typed a number. *Four o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

  Eastern Standard Time.*

  *Why not now?* he asked.

  *It's not my number,* she wrote.

  Then she was gone. Wow, John thought, grinning wryly, I'd better practice my adult voice.

  PESCADERD STATE HOSPITAL,

  CALIFORNIA, NOVEMBER

  Sarah didn't dislike Dr. Ray; she just didn't respect him. She did think that he

  might be useful, however, if she handled herself right. In a way, being back in one of the beige-dingy interview rooms of a mental hospital was almost homelike; she'd spent a lot of time at the last one.

  This time she didn't have cigarettes to occupy her hands during the medical pseudointerrogations, though. Times had changed, a hospital would never get away with letting a patient smoke, and besides— she'd quit. She wished the longing for them would quit, too. Sarah looked out at the gray rain, a California winter day that gave the lie to several songs, and then back at her "counselor."

  Ray was clearly ambitious. The tone he took with staff and students indicated that he fancied himself as an up-and-coming "great man." He was one of those energetic, intense men with a thin ascetic face and a long, wiry body.

  When he was having a session with Sarah she felt as though he were trying to pull sanity out of its hiding place in her skull by sheer will. He was almost scary.

  And maybe it was the knowledge that John was in safe hands with Dieter, or maybe it was the six-year vacation from fighting Skynet, but she was infinitely more sane at this moment than she had been the last time she found herself in an institution.

  Which should make it that much easier to convince Ray that she was curable and not dangerous. If she handled herself right then she would find herself in minimum security by the time she was fully healed. And minimum security was one short step from freedom.

  Ray's dark eyes bored into hers as he waited for her to speak. That was how he always started a session, by allowing the patient to make the first move. There

  certainly weren't any distractions in the slightly rundown, institutional-bland, disinfectant-smelling room.

  "I've been sleeping very well," Sarah said, injecting a tentative note into her voice. She lowered her eyes shyly. "Even without the painkillers."

  "You could still have those if you thought you needed them," Ray said.

  Sarah shook her head wordlessly.

  "Do you dislike drugs, Sarah?"

  She waited a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," she said. "I think I do.

  I'm grateful they were there when the pain was bad. But when I don't need them I don't like to take them."

  Ray nodded encouragingly. "When you were at Pescadero before, you were given a lot of drugs, weren't you?"

  "Oh, yes," Sarah agreed wryly. "A lot of drugs. Dr. Silberman did believe in better living through chemistry." She looked thoughtful. "That's probably why I dislike them."

  She'd have to be careful or she'd forget who was leading who here. But Ray was nodding, a little smile tugged at his thin lips. So, Silberman and his treatment of her were something of a sore spot. Or maybe a challenge.

  "And how do you feel about Cyberdyne now?" the doctor asked.

  Sarah took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling; she bit her lip, then finally met the doctor's eyes. "I… don't seem to have any feelings at all about Cyberdyne," she admitted. With a shrug she went on, "Right now I can't believe that I actually had anything to do with the explosion. It doesn't feel like I did that. It's as though this is about someone else entirely instead of about me." She waited a moment, looking into Ray's eyes. "Does that make any sense?"

  "You're doing fine," he assured her, briefly smiling. "So you're telling me that you feel completely removed from the act of destroying Cyberdyne?"

  "Yes," she said simply. Then sighed. "But I know it was me. I know that I did it.

  It just doesn't make any sense to me now."

  "And if Cyberdyne hadn't been destroyed? If you'd failed?"

  Sarah frowned, then shook her head. "I can't answer that. If I'd failed… I might well still want to destroy the company. But then again, maybe I would have been satisfied with just the attempt." She looked up at him. "Why do I want to do this sort of thing, Doctor? What's wrong with me? Does it have a name? Can it be cured?" She allowed tears that weren't entirely fake to fill her eyes. "What's going to happen to me?"

  Ray looked solemn and held his silence for a minute.

  "I
think we can help you, Sarah. If you're willing to be helped. Since a great deal really does depend on you and your willingness to be cured, I can't answer for the long term. But in the short term you'll go on trial. I've good reason to hope that you'll be held here after your evaluation and that eventually the state will commit you to my care." He held up his hands, then dropped them to his lap.

  "How long you remain here is up to you."

  She smiled at that, she couldn't help it. It might take time, but she was going to go free. She might not even have to escape.

  Dr. Ray sat across from Jordan Dyson, a coffee table liberally speckled with old cup rings between them, and waited for the former FBI agent to speak.

  Jordan finally sighed. He recognized the technique; put someone in a non-stimulating environment, which Pescadero State certainly was, and wait. Most people couldn't take the silence, and started talking. There was no point in disappointing the good doctor's expectations.

  "Okay," he said, "you asked me here. I assume you had a reason."

  The doctor smiled a secret smile and nodded. "Yes," he said quietly. "I did."

  Then he went silent again.

  "Uh-huh," Jordan said. "Are you going to let me in on it? Because I do have a life beyond these walls, Doctor. Things to do, people to see."

  "I wanted to talk to you about Sarah Connor," Ray admitted. "You were very kind to her when you were both in the hospital. I wondered why, when you'd spent so many years trying to bring her to justice."

  Jordan shrugged, and drank a little of the brown sludge the Pescadero coffee machines dispensed. "Maybe I just wanted to be sure that she'd live to stand trial.

  Maybe I've been born again and wanted to forgive her.

  Or maybe I've come into some new information that left her innocent of my brother's murder."

  Ray nodded, never taking his eyes from Jordan's. "And which is it?" he asked, his voice gentle.

  Jordan just stared back for a minute, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Why do you ask?"

  The doctor grinned. "I apologize," he said. "It can be hard to turn off the doctor-patient dynamic. My goal is to help Sarah. If you wanted to be of help to her, too, I was thinking that I could arrange for you to visit her. It might be helpful to you as well," he suggested.

  Jordan took a deep breath and looked thoughtful.

  This is good, he thought. Very good. I wonder if Sarah suggested it. Certainly it would ease John's worries if he could tell them how she was doing here in Pescadero. And it would allow him to keep his promise not to let them drug her insensible. He looked up.

  "I came into new information, nothing I can prove, that Sarah Connor wasn't responsible for my brother's death. Yes, he was there because she brought him there, but she did not kill him, and she did not intend for him to die."

  Jordan tightened his lips. "That was hard to accept. But I received this information from two independent sources, so I couldn't refuse to believe it. And that changed things for me. I finally realized that it was time for me to move on."

  He adjusted his position in his chair. "And once I met the woman"—he shook his

  head—"it was obvious that she was acting under some sort of compulsion. She isn't a vicious killer, she didn't want to hurt anybody, but she had to destroy Cyberdyne. Why"-he shrugged—"maybe you can tell me."

  Ray nodded solemnly, but didn't rise to the bait.

  "In the hospital," Dyson continued, "she was a different person. Entirely different. Of course"—he waved his hand—"the circumstances were also completely different, so I don't know…" He petered out, looking exasperated.

  The doctor studied him for a while as though waiting for him to continue.

  "Would you be willing to speak with her again?" he finally asked.

  Jordan bit his lips, frowning, then opened them as though to say something, but he kept silent.

  "As I said, I think it could be beneficial to both of you. It might well help you to put the pain behind you."

  Looking thoughtful, Jordan sat silent for another moment, then looked up decisively. "All right," he said. "I'll do it." I'll have to get word to Paraguay somehow. This weather-report thing has its limits.

  VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY

  John was watching the clock, waiting to call Watcher, aka Wendy Dorset, when Dieter came into his room, all smiles.

  "Good news," he said.

  John didn't doubt it; the big man fairly lit up the room with good vibes. It made a nice change from the solemn Teutonic atmosphere they'd all been living in for the last three months. He sat up, setting aside the magazine he'd been reading.

  "What's up?" he asked.

  "Your mother is up for a move to minimum security," Dieter said, his blue eyes aglow. "Sometime in the next six weeks, Jordan said."

  "You spoke to Jordan directly?" John was both surprised and disappointed.

  Surprised that Dyson would risk it, disappointed that Dieter hadn't called him to get on the line.

  "For about forty seconds only," Dieter said. "I barely had a chance to say hello and he was gone again. He said he'd call back at the next opportunity. After three months of tapping his phone with no results, he's sure they'll soon move on.

  There's never enough manpower or equipment," von Rossbach added.

  You should know, John thought. He glanced at the time; almost exactly four.

  "I'm about to call a possible recruit named Watcher," he said regretfully. "I think she might be useful. Can I talk to you later about this?"

  Dieter nodded cheerfully. "Yes," he agreed. "We have much to talk about."

  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

  Wendy brushed back her smooth dark red hair and eyed the phone lying on the table before her, willing it to ring, as she took a sip of the cooling coffee. Her eyes swept the almost empty confines of the shabby cafe, with its bored waitress

  and long-dead pastries behind filmy glass; she felt nervous, wary… and a bit excited, she admitted to herself.

  Perhaps this secret watchdog group could help. Perhaps they were part of the problem and were onto her and just trying to find out what she knew before they

  —

  Wow, she thought sardonically, great plot line, there. Maybe I should take a course in screenwriting. Zzzzzt! Cue the black helicopter!

  Real life didn't have a plot. It just bumbled aimlessly on its way, unless you directed it by sheer force of will. Which was harder to do than to say, she knew.

  She'd seen that in her lather's life. When he was her age he'd been an ardent activist, fighting against the war in Vietnam, fighting for civil rights.

  Now he ran a moderately successful insurance business, just like his dad had done. And as far as Wendy could tell, he had no idea how he'd gotten from firebrand to burnout. She saw herself at his age, complacently middle class, being careful not to rock the boat too hard.

  Did middle age bring about a failure of will, or did you just have more to lose? I guess, she thought, that you always have a lot to lose, it just seems less important when you're young. So I guess it's better that you're inclined to fight the good fight when you're young and don't have a lot of commitments. Yeah, commitments, that's the glue that slows you down, and when it sets, well, your life's over, I guess.

  Wendy lifted a brow. Maybe this wasn't the best attitude to assume when she was about to meet AM. Or anyone else for that matter.

  She tapped the cell phone on the table before her. It belonged to the house mother, a really nice woman who left it all over the place, so it wouldn't be missed. Everyone "borrowed" it, then returned it with a cheerful "Were you looking for this?" She glanced at her watch. It was four; AM should—

  The phone rang.

  She bit her lip and stared at it. Just before the third ring she picked it up. "Yeah?"

  she said.

  "Watcher?"

  It was a young voice; the youth of it hit her before the fact that it was also a male voice. "How old are you?" she demanded.

  There
was a long-drawn-out sigh. "I get a lot of that," he said dryly. "Not as young as I sound, I know that for sure." Damn! he thought. "Does it matter?"

  "Ye-ah! Why would I want to get involved in someone's high-school project?

  Look, kid—

  "I found you, didn't I?" John asked, letting his voice get hard. "It took about a minute."

  "Oh, no it didn't," Wendy snapped back. She'd worked very hard obscuring her trail, no way some kid could find it in less than an hour.

  "Wendy, if I'd known you were going to be so judgmental about my voice, I would have had you speak to one of my associates. If this is an issue for you I

  can hang up now. It's up to you."

  Associates, she thought. The kid has associates. Well, that was intriguing.

  Besides, though he sounded young he sure didn't come across as a kid. Still…

  "Look, this was supposed to be a get-acquainted conversation," she said at last.

  "So why don't you tell me something about yourself and, uh, your organization, I guess."

  "We're not exactly an organization," John explained, relaxing a little. "We don't have a central location, for example. Our associates are spread all over the world, all over the Net—

  "Do you have a central address where their reports can be accessed," Wendy interrupted. "I mean I assume that you're collecting information for a reason, which means that you interpret what you collect. Presumably you allow your contributors to assist in that."

  "Actually…" John thought for a moment. How to put this? "Evaluating the kind of information we're going after isn't something a person can just walk in and do.

  You need training."

  "So, train me." Wendy tapped a fingernail on the Formica table. "That's my price

  'cause I don't work for free, and I refuse to work blind."

  John raised his eyebrows at that. He didn't need a loose cannon on board.

  "You're not even hired yet and you want a seat on the board," he protested with a light laugh.

  "Look, why did you even want to talk to me if you don't think I'm worth investing time in?" She was beginning to get annoyed. Speaking of time, this is a waste of it.

  "It was obvious that you're very smart," John said. "Also that you might be so bored you didn't realize you were killing time in a very dangerous way. A lot of you computer jockeys think that what you're doing on-line isn't real and doesn't count. You think you're perfectly safe behind your keyboards and monitors, but let me tell you, Wendy, if you kick the tiger hard enough it will find you and it won't be friendly. Those are real fanatics you were talking to."