Vera shuddered and turned away from the Terminator, burying her head on his shoulder. She began to shake. "Oh God," she said.
Dieter put his arms around her and let her rest for a moment, then he urged her to rise. "I'll dispose of this," he said, planning how ho would do it even as he reassured her. "You should go have a brandy and lie down. I'll come and talk to you later."
"Don't," she said, rising to her feet, her face determinedly turned away from the Terminator. "I need to be alone."
She walked away like an old woman and Dieter watched her, frowning, uncertain what to do. His options were limited; stay and risk her turning him away, or go on his own. He didn't think she'd mention the Terminator to anyone; she was intelligent enough to imagine the consequences of that.
Dieter looked at his disposal problem and decided to stay. With such unequivocal proof presenting itself to her, she just might come through for him.
CHAPTER TEN
MIT CAMPUS
Snog's small room—bed-sitter with kitchenette—was surprisingly neat. Maybe that was because everything that wasn't a computer or a book had been eliminated.
"Can't work in clutter man." Snog himself said in response to John's initial, evaluating glance around the room. "Makes me feel like the inside of my head's
messed up."
John raised his brows and nodded. The answer to his unspoken comment made sense to him. After two years in a military academy he found it difficult to tolerate mess himself.
There were five of them besides John in the cramped room, Wendy the only female. Two of the guys were long and thin with unruly mops of hair, one dark-haired, the other a redhead, both with glasses. The other two, one of them Snog, were on the hefty side, both bearded, with even longer, wilder hair and no glasses.
Wendy pointed to the dark-haired skinny guy. "Brad," she said. He and John nodded and smiled at each other. She indicated the big fella who'd passed them the word about this meeting in the student union. "Carl." Carl nodded, too.
"Yam," Wendy said with a nod at the redhead.
"Hi," John said.
"So you're the mystery man," Snog said—sneered, rather.
"Yup, that's me," John said. What's your problem?
"Kinda young, aren't you?"
John's heart sank a bit. These guys weren't exactly senior professors, for cryin'
out loud. He'd have thought that people who probably got a lot of "you're so young!" stuff thrown their way would be more tolerant. At least toward similarly young people.
They all looked at him as though waiting for a speech. John looked around and took a seat on the bed next to Yam. "Don't let me interfere with your meeting, guys," he said.
The others all looked at Wendy, who shrugged and took off her jacket, then settled down on the floor. "So," she said, "has anybody got something to report?"
She looked around. "Snog?"
He pointed to his beefy chest. "Me?" He sounded surprised.
"You called the meeting," she pointed out dryly.
With a snort he said, "That was before I knew it was going to be the children's hour."
"Just how old are you?" John asked without looking at him.
"Nineteen," Snog said. He tilted his head toward John. "And you?"
"Eighteen." In February, John added mentally. "A whole year younger than you are. I can't believe you're making such a stink about it—you're not exactly a geriatric case yourself."
"Thing is," Carl said in a soothing voice, "you're not even out of high school."
"And I never will be," John said, giving him a direct look. "High school is a luxury I can't afford."
"Is that because you're from… South America?" Wendy asked sympathetically.
John stared at her for a moment, then laughed; he couldn't help it. It was such a typically North American assumption. And they were all so naively arrogant!
But smart. You could feel that they were smart. If he could recruit these people it would be a very good thing.
"Of course not!" he said, grinning. "I meant that I don't have the time to waste."
"Oh," Snog said, "so I guess that means we're wasting our time, too, huh?"
"No. It means I'm not you. My genius, if I even have any, lies in other directions." John met his eyes until Snog casually looked away. Maybe it was time to take a risk.
"Who the hell do you think you are, kid?" Snog asked, gazing at the ceiling.
"I'm Sarah Connor's son."
ENCINAS HALFWAY HOUSE
Dr. Silberman's nervousness was affecting the group. Most of the participants were scowling, and fidgeting to an even greater extent than nicotine withdrawal usually produced. They cast glances around the room looking for the disturbance and those glances usually landed on Sarah, where they became accusing. Clearly the participants liked their doctor.
That came as a surprise to Sarah; she remembered him as condescending, not at all a lovable trait.
It was something of a mixed group. Few of these people were severely mentally
ill. Those that were functioned very well if they kept up their medications. One was a recovering drug addict. Sarah supposed that she must be listed as one of the most severely ill, given her record.
The session had been going on for a while, through obviously well-worn channels; the participants didn't even seem to be paying attention to what they themselves were saying. Eventually the discussion petered out and all eyes were on Sarah again.
"Yes, I'm sorry, Sarah," Silberman said at last. "I'd meant to introduce you immediately, but we began rather quickly. Group, this is Sarah Connor."
"Hey, I've heard of you!" a man said. "You blew up that company, right?"
Sarah's head flopped forward as though she were embarrassed and she looked up through her bangs, smiling shyly. "I'm afraid so." Straightening up, she asked,
"What can I say?"
She let them draw the whole story out of her. She squirmed and hesitated and made them work for it. Through it all Silberman just watched her.
Well, he always did have her number. Her best efforts to tell him what he wanted to hear had always failed. He knew she still believed in Skynet and Judgment Day—which probably meant he still thought she was a homicidal loon. Busting out of the violent ward by breaking his arm, taking him as a hostage, and threatening to hypo his carotid full of drain cleaner had probably reinforced that conviction, and God knew he'd had enough time to rationalize away the glimpse he'd had of the T-1000 pulling its liquid body through a door of steel bars.
Silberman could barely take his eyes off her. Sarah Connor evoked feelings that made him want to call his own therapist. In fact, he should call her. He should also not have allowed himself to become involved in her therapy. Precisely because he knew she didn't need therapy. She needed to be believed. He now understood, all too well, how that felt.
But that little pissant Ray had made noises about how good it would be for him to face her, face his fears, and so on. So he'd decided to play the good little professional and include her in his group. Besides, he'd rather slit his wrists than let Ray see how rattled he was.
After her escape he'd told anyone who'd listen exactly what he'd seen. He completely forgot that he was the only one left conscious except for the Connors and their big friend. So he was the only one who'd seen that thing squeeze itself through the bars, then turn its hands into pry bars to open the elevator doors.
He'd seen it shrug off a shotgun blast to its chest.
Obviously they'd sent him on medical leave; also obviously they hoped never to welcome him back. To them his story represented a severe psychotic break brought on by trauma. You don't want a crazy doctor trying to treat the insane.