The silicon-and-metal part of Serena's brain connected her to the remote computer that was monitoring Goldberg, data trickling in through electrodes finer than a human hair knitted into the organic neural nets. The picture that came up on her eyes was of the Terminator that Skynet had sent to eliminate Sarah Connor. Even boosted by her superior processor, the picture was grainy.
She supposed that was why Goldberg had sent it by e-mail. There was nothing else, though. A quick check showed a call-in-progress from Goldberg to a phone number in Paraguay. She had forgotten to check the fax lines, but she was sure that if she did look, there would be one to Paraguay. She ran a check on the address belonging to the phone number.
Dieter von Rossbach, rancher. Oh, really? And why would a rancher in Paraguay happen to need information on the Connors? Because he thinks he's found them.
She ordered the computer to search for information on this Dieter. Who would undoubtedly turn out to be more than a mere cow herder, she was sure.
Meanwhile she would seek permission to send someone down to South America to look into this situation. Without hesitation she called Paul Warren.
Behind her, the liquid in the vat gurgled, and the metal and ceramic of the Terminator's structure gradually disappeared beneath the spreading web of pink and pulsing crimson. Life mated with death, in the service of a sentience that was neither.
PAUL WARREN'S RESIDENCE, BEVERLY HILLS: THE PRESENT
Warren sat at the head of the table and sipped his dessert wine, letting the conversation flow around him as he admired the dining room. One wall of the room was a row of French doors opening out onto a flagstone patio. Stairs led
from there down to a lawn and garden. In the daytime the dining room was full of light, making rainbows in the Italian crystal of the chandelier. The remaining walls were decorated with a watered ivory silk and paintings of some of his wife's ancestors: a grim, dyspeptic-looking crowd of Yankee bluebloods, looking as if they were sniffing in disapproval of the scents of Kauna coffee and jasmine tea and sacher-torte wafting toward them.
The guests were his wife's friends and they rather bored him. But then, I suppose I rather bore them. He being little more than a computer geek… No culture with a capital K. Still, a lot of Mary's friends were in politics and it didn't hurt to have connections.
They preferred to dine without covering the table's softly glowing dark wood. So each setting had a linen place mat, trimmed with intricate Spanish cutwork and a matching napkin. More heirlooms. The dishes were German porcelain, thin enough to see your fingers through, writhing with a design of tiny roses and dripping twenty-four-karat gold. Paul thought the candy-pink design was headache inducing, but women seemed to love it. The crystal was French. His wife sneered that anyone could own Waterford; the kiss of death as far as Mary was concerned. The silverware was from her mother's family, solid and heavy and almost as ornate as the plates.
He took another sip of his wine and tuned in to what his wife was saying to the state-senatorial candidate on her left. Then he tuned out again. She was refining the man's opinion on school budgets. An opinion she'd given him in the first place.
Their maid slipped in quietly and murmured to him that he had a phone call.
Paul looked apologetically at his wife and her guests. Mary's lecture continued, but her upper lip twitched as if she'd just smelled something exceedingly impolite. He put down his napkin and rose, following the maid out of the room.
Warren went across the hall to the small room he used for a home office.
Originally it was going to be quite large, but Mary had the architect whittle away at it—to expand the dining room, to widen the hall—until it wasn't much more than a cubicle. It existed more for the tax break than anything else. Mary didn't like him taking work home.
"Hello?" he said. Suddenly a knot of tension gripped his neck. It was late for a call from work. Not another bombing? he thought desperately.
"Mr. Warren? This is Serena Burns. I'm sorry to call you at home, but something has come up that I feel I must pursue as soon as possible. I think I might have a lead on the Connors' whereabouts and I'd like your permission to send someone out to investigate."
"You found them?" Paul squeaked. He couldn't believe it! She'd been working for Cyberdyne for only two weeks and she already had a line on those murdering bastards?
"I'm not certain, sir, that's why I wanted your okay. It's going to put a hole in the budget, I'm afraid."
While Warren stood at his desk, flummoxed, his wife strode in, her face set in righteous anger, and seized the phone. He was so startled that he gave it up without a fight.
"Whoever this is," Mary Warren said icily, "and whatever this is about, it—and you—can wait until tomorrow. My husband and I are entertaining guests. Good night!"
She hung up the phone and turned to her husband. "You can't let them start calling you at all hours like that, Paul." She stabbed the dark surface of the desk with a pale finger. "I am not going to be one of those work-widows who only get to see their husbands when they come home to shower and change clothes. I thought we had that understood between us." She glared at him.
"Mary, we may have a lead on the terrorists who destroyed the factory and murdered Miles Dyson."
She raised one brow coolly. "Who?" she asked.
Warren let out an exasperated breath. When she was in this mood he wouldn't get anywhere with her.
He led his wife out of his office, she closed the door behind her so firmly he looked over his shoulder at her. Mary's face was set. He knew she wouldn't give him any opportunities to call his security chief back tonight. He turned away and tightened his lips once more. He hated scenes, and if they fought he wouldn't be able to sleep at all. Not to mention the havoc it would wreak on his digestion.
Warren adjusted his face to a pleasant smile and apologized for leaving his guests for so long.
"A new, overly enthusiastic employee," he explained.
John Rudnick, a newly elected judge, nodded solemnly.
"Some of these kids would take over your life if you let them," he said. "We've got a strict rule about it at home." He smiled at his wife, who returned him a you'd-better-believe-it smile.
Paul shrugged. "So do we," he said.
"Perhaps tomorrow, when you go to work," Mary said with arctic calm, "you should make that clear to the person who called you."
"I intend to, dear," he said, and changed the subject.
Serena hung up the phone, genuinely astonished. She'd been trained to a strict and all-consuming pragmatism; otherwise she might have had trouble believing the evidence of her own ears. She stood with her hand on the receiver, certain that Warren would call her right back. Surely this was a bizarre way for one spouse to treat another? Even by pre-Skynet human standards.
She crossed her arms and stared down at the quiet phone. One thing is certain, she thought, if Mary Warren is going to make herself an obstacle, then Mary Warren is going to have to be eliminated.
Serena had been considering an affair with either Colvin or Warren as a means of ensuring that she would always know what was going on. Paul Warren might be the more receptive of the pair.
Or perhaps not, she thought as the minutes lengthened.
Humans, especially the males, had extremely fragile egos. Being humiliated like that in front of an employee, especially a female, couldn't be good for Warren's.
He would probably be embarrassed the next time they met. She put one hand on her hip and sighed.