David Hagberg - Rise of the Machines

When he'd started making suggestions how to get onto the base, Kate had cut him off. "I'll take care of that part," she told him.

He'd exchanged a glance with Terminator, but then nodded and went back to his work.

"About ten miles and there'll be a sign for Cyber Research," she told Terminator. She got up and went to

where Connor was stuffing bricks of C-4 into satchels, and sat down across from him.

There seemed to be weapons and ammunition, rockets, grenades, explosives everywhere. She shook her head. "This is so..." She was at a loss. "God, there isn't even a word for what this is."

"Yeah," Connor said. He fastened the flap of a satchel and set it aside. "Look, none of it's going to happen. We get to your dad, pull the plug on Skynet, and the bombs won't fall." He nodded toward Terminator, driving. "He won't have to kill me someday. He'll never even exist."

Terminator looked up at them in the interior mirror, but said nothing. The rolling desert hills were bleak, almost like a moonscape.

"And you and me," Connor said. "We can go our separate ways."

Kate was confused. She didn't know how to take what John was telling her. She looked out the window at the passing desert, her thoughts drifting back to when she was a kid. She had to smile.

She turned back to Connor. "You know Mike Kripke's basement? That was the first time I ever kissed a guy." "Really," Connor said, grinning. "Now that's weird." Kate returned his grin, and they both laughed a little. Terminator glanced at their reflection. "Your levity is good," he said solemnly. "It relieves tension and the fear of death."

Connor gave a derisive snort, shook his head, and sat back. The up mood had evaporated in an instant.

CRS

A pretty young first lieutenant whose name tag read Hastings got off an elevator one floor below the Computer Center and headed down the broad, well-lit corridor as if she were on a mission.

There was a sense of urgency throughout the complex. Worldwide communications were failing, military networks were crashing, and a lot of the people here whose job it was to see that such things did not happen were in a near panic.

Hastings was blond, slender, and attractive in her Air Force blue cotton blouse and dark blue skirt Halfway down the corridor she stopped at a door that was marked by a placard:

CRS

T-l STORAGE BAY 3

Please make sure T-l unit power charge

connection is complete and secure at

hook-up point for proper charge transference.

The corridor was empty of people for the moment. Hastings tried the door, but it was locked. She turned the handle past its stop, snapping the lock pins as if they were matchsticks.

Checking again to make sure she had not been ob-

served, she slipped into the large, dimly lit room and closed the door behind her.

Row upon row of large, plastic-shrouded figures were packed into the storage bay. T-X hesitated only a moment to study the sensor readouts in her head-up display, before she ripped the plastic off the first T-l robot and tossed it aside.

The index finger of her left hand morphed into a long, slender drill bit that she used to enter the warrior robot's tiny skull case.

A millisecond later her fingertip glowed blue with plasma energy and she transferred a stream of data into the T-l's processor.

Finished almost as quickly as she had begun, T-X withdrew her data probe and moved to the next robot in line.

Edwards South Gate

Both times Kate had been out here the CRS complex had come as something of a surprise to her. First there was nothing but desert; rolling sand hills, scrub brush, Joshua trees. Then, over the crest of a low hill the complex was suddenly spread out in the distance.

Protected by a double row of razor wire, the gate manned by serious-looking armed Air Force Security Police, the main Research & Development facility was housed in an ultramodern three-story glass and steel

building that bristled with satellite dishes, laser guidance transmission heads, and its own separate power station and air-conditioning plant.

Some distance behind the rambling building from which a dozen different wings branched in all directions was the antennae farm for worldwide communications and data links from the upper gigahertz frequency range all the way down to ELF—Extremely Low Frequencies—used for communications with submarines.

In the basement and subbasement levels were beehives of laboratories where sensitive experiments took place around the clock. Beneath the hangars and stretching in a huge circle nearly a half mile in diameter was a supercooled particle accelerator, the electromagnets of which in themselves constituted a radiation hazard when operating at full power.

An airstrip ran east and west with a modern control tower and several hangars and maintenance buildings nearby. Several military transport aircraft, a number of helicopters, and several small private aircraft were parked on the ramp or inside the hangars.

Terminator spotted the LAPD helicopter in front of one of the hangars.

"T-X is already here," he said.

Kate scrambled to the passenger seat as they started down the long hill to the gate, still a half mile away. "How do you know?" she demanded, her heart in her throat

"The police helicopter. N-one-zero-zero-nine. It was in the air near the cemetery." Terminator pointed to the chopper on the ramp.

"Oh, God," Kate said. "Hurry." She turned to Connor. "Cover up that stuff. I'm going to talk our way onto the base."

Connor grabbed a blanket and covered the weapons and explosives as Terminator slowed for the gate.

A pair of Air Policemen stepped out and motioned for Terminator to stop. He pulled up and opened the side window. Kate leaned across to talk to the security cops. "I'm Kate Brewster. My dad, General Brewster, is expecting us," she said.

The security officers were dressed in BDUs with black berets, M16s slung over their shoulders. "May I see some identification, please?" the tech sergeant asked.

Kate took her driver's license out of the wallet in her jacket pocket and handed it down. "My fiance, Scott Peterson, is in back," she said. She smiled and placed a hand on Terminator's arm. "This is... Tom Peterson... his brother. Our best man."

The sergeant went into the guardhouse with Kate's ID, while the other guard kept a watchful eye on them. There was no traffic.

A couple of minutes later the sergeant came out and handed Kate's driver's license back. "The general's a little busy right now, ma'am. But his secretary's authorized your visit."

The second guard swung the gate open. "Straight ahead to the main entrance," the sergeant instructed. "Someone will meet you there and get you signed in."

"Thank you," Kate said. "Please hurry," she said under her breath to Terminator.

CRS Computer Center

CRS was at the highest state of readiness it had ever been. There was an air not so much of panic, but of expectation. Awe. A little trepidation.

General Brewster stood next to the Mainframe Duty Officer's console, looking up at the display on the large plasma screen on the back wall.

The field was deep blue, a Mercator projection of the western hemisphere centered on the North and South American continents, with the shoulder of Africa off to the right and the Pacific out to Guam to the left.

U.S. air, naval, and ground stations were highlighted by icons, the electronic networks connecting them marked by lines, along with the great circle flying and sailing routes to battle zones.

The display was labeled skynet battlefield management system. Tool bars were labeled firewall penetration. LOCAL DEFENSE NETS. SYSTEM STATUS.

In rapid succession every military network, base, unit, or weapons system currently en route came up with an on-line icon.