Jordan tapped his fingers against his chin. Of course, he could join the firm in a lesser position. Being in the FBI would definitely be an entree to Cyberdyne then. The difficulty would be in getting the time; he really did not want to quit.
The difficulty would also lie in surviving up to a six-month break in his career.
But I have to get inside there! It was the only way he could get to know the workings of the place, get to know the people, maybe get into the files that most people didn't get to see.
But most important, he needed to be present at Cyberdyne because he was certain, as certain as anyone relying on pure gut instinct could be, that within three months the Connors would find out about Miles's project starting up again.
And then they'd come knocking on Cyberdyne's doors. Probably with high explosives.
Jordan sighed. I wonder if I can work out some kind of part-time arrangement?
LOS ANGELES: THE PRESENT
Danny pushed his home fries around his plate while he stared into space, apparently unaware that his mother had stopped eating to watch him, as if she knew he had something to say that he didn't think she'd want to hear.
Tarissa pursed her lips, then smiled. "You have something on your mind son?"
"I've been thinking," he said, with an alacrity that made her blink. It was rare that
he was so forthcoming these days. "I think we ought to tell him."
Tarissa felt like she'd been punched in the gut. She looked down, fiddled with her napkin for a moment, then folded and dropped it onto the table. She looked at her son's determined face. "Don't think I haven't thought about it, Dan," she said quietly. "I have—a lot. Especially right after it happened."
It suddenly occurred to her that she'd known instantly who and what Dan meant.
She tipped her head, considering him. "But I couldn't think how to make him believe me, honey. Look what happened to Sarah Connor. All that time in Pescadero." Tarissa shook her head sadly. "Didn't matter that she was telling the truth. Nobody believed her."
Tarissa sat back and let out her breath in a long sigh. She looked across the table at Danny and knew she might as well be looking across the country. She wasn't reaching him.
"I don't want to go to that place," she said between her teeth. "I freely admit it scares me to death. I saw what it did to that woman." Tarissa put her hand to her forehead. "If I had told your uncle what happened just after… your father died, I am absolutely certain that I'd have ended up in a straitjacket."
Dan nodded. "And I was just a little kid," he said. "No way could I back up your story." He leaned forward, his hands reaching out. "But I'm older now! I'm sure he'd believe me now."
Tarissa tilted her head, a pained expression on her face.
"Mom! We have to tell him," Dan said in measured tones. "This is destroying his
life! And if he ever does find the Connors, he'll destroy them! C'mon, Mom, we've got to tell him!"
God, she thought fondly, he's so dramatic. But maybe he's right. Maybe it is time. She sighed. "All right. But I want him here with us when we tell him. I want him to be able to look us in the eye."
It might just be the one thing that destroyed their relationship. But Danny was right, this was torturing her brother-in-law and they couldn't just stand back, knowing the truth, and not try to help. Maybe knowing everything would help.
Dan nodded solemnly.
"Good," he said. "But don't leave it too long. I've got a feeling he might do something drastic, like talkthe FBI."
CHAPTER NINE
SERENA'S LABORATORY: THE
PRESENT
A soft, long inhalation of breath, a pause of thirty seconds, then the long, slow exhale. Serena sat cross-legged on the steel table, her eyes half-closed as she breathed. Attending to her breathing helped to center her, allowing her to ignore the pain.
Her lap filled with blood as her hands worked, slicing into the skin of her abdomen, sliding out the small parcels that contained the neural-net processors and power cells that would activate her small army of T-l0ls.
The diminutive plastic-wrapped processors were a new generation, more advanced than the chips that had activated her teachers. These were smaller, slimmer, and even more efficient. As were the power cells, three to each Terminator, one of Skynet's innovations, introduced just before she'd left.
For all their light weight and smaller design Serena would be glad to be rid of them. She had been constantly aware of them just beneath the surface of her skin and concerned that she might damage them in some way. But with no safe place to store them she'd kept them close.
Now she possessed the equivalent of a vault. Serena paused in her work and looked around the long, narrow room. It was approximately thirty feet long and fourteen feet wide, with the ceiling six feet six inches from the floor: neither she nor the machines she'd be creating needed the psychological comfort of a ceiling high above their heads. Brightened by banks of fluorescent lights, gleaming steel tables, and glassed-doored cabinets, it made a pleasant place to work. True, it still stank of the antimagnetic white paint she'd used, but the air-scrubber was doing an excellent job of thinning the fumes.
Across the room the heads of two T-l0ls propped on a steel table grinned at her with demented glee. The backs of their gleaming skulls were open and waiting for the gifts of life and intelligence. Her fingers twitched with eagerness to get back to work. She picked up the scalpel and made another cut. It's a little like giving birth, actually, she thought, and smiled with grim humor.
Beside her, the culture-growing vats she'd adapted hummed contentedly as they grew flesh for her new subordinates. In the far corner of the room, well out of the way, two hulking, headless metal skeletons stood, their large, intricate hands
hanging by their sides. Already in place was the delicate system of nutrient pumps and the fine net of permeable plastic "capillaries" that would feed the Terminators' coating of skin and flesh.
Beside them were the large tanks in which they would lie, washed in a nutrient broth, while their new skin surface grew around them. The muscles needed to animate the T-l0ls faces with their self-contained nervous system were also progressing nicely. These would interact directly with the T-101's neural-net processor for the maximum effect.
She'd had some trouble with the eyes, though. For now they would be given glass eyes, which should pass muster behind sunglasses. She'd have to correct that flaw as soon as possible. Details were important.
Of course the Terminators could be useful even without a coating of skin, so she'd given herself a head start on them. Now that the lab was constructed she was eager to move into high gear, and the extra hands would be most welcome.
Tomorrow, finally, she was to start her job at Cyberdyne. It would be necessary to leave the biotech work to the T-l0ls. Not that they'd have much to do for several days beyond minding the cultivators. And learning how to function unobtrusively here. Blending in was part of their programming, but the more they were exposed to people the better they functioned.
But in order for them to do anything they had to have brains. That meant that tonight she would have to test out each chip to ten-tenths capacity. Otherwise she dared not let the Terminators work alone.
She slipped out the last package. It was almost a sensual feeling, moist, slippery,
the hot feel of the plastic in her hand, the sense of slackness where she'd been filled.