C.16

July, Present Day—Thursday

CRS Project, Edwards AFB

It was forty-five paces from Jerry’s cubicle, out the door to Cube Hell, and down the corridor to the main elevators. Daniel counted them all. He could feel his heart racing, or perhaps it was Danny’s. Or both.

Calm down, calm down, Mike said. You’re turning red.

“I am?”

“Not you, me.”

They entered the elevator to the surface. In the elevator with him were a female Air Force major and two male Air Force Security Police. Daniel and Danny forced themselves to ignore their fellow passengers. “What if they’re here for me?” Danny whispered.

“Then they’d be leaving the elevator to go to your cubicle, not riding up with us.”

“Right, right.”

They emerged from the lobby of the CRS project building into heat and blasting sunlight. Danny headed them across the access street and to the main parking lot. “My car’s this way.”

“Mike, should we use his car? Or steal one?”

Uhh … hold on. I’m checking. What’s the time?

“One fourteen,” Danny said.

Danny can take his car. The first APB doesn’t go out for thirty minutes or so.

“But when does the first Edwards internal alarm go out?” Danny asked. “That would be before the APB.”

“Either way,” Daniel said, “your car or stolen car, you’d have to show your ID on the way out. Right?”

“Right.”

“So take your car. But you’ll need to ditch it pretty soon.”

You can’t head home, Mike added. That’s one of the first places they’ll look.

“Oh, great. Where, then?” Danny reached his Grand Cherokee, got behind the wheel, and started it.

Daniel heard Mike sigh. Danny, she said, I’m so sorry. We were going to help you put together a safe house, a cache of money, food, weapons, that sort of thing. But we suffered a Terminator attack and had to move. That’s why we were out of contact. Now the time we would have had to do all that is gone.

Danny put the car into motion and headed toward his usual exit from the Edwards complex. “Did you lose anyone I’ve met?”

No. John, Kate, Tamara, and I are all fine.

“That’s something, at least.” Danny was silent for a moment. “Give me a few minutes to think.”

“Go right ahead, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid. You’re me. What should I call you, ‘old bastard’?”

“Go right ahead, kid.”

They drove in silence for several minutes. Finally Danny said, “If the general APB doesn’t go out for another half an hour, I can get to my bank probably within a few minutes of when it’s issued. I can take out a decent amount of money.”

“That’s a start,” Daniel said.

“Food and supplies, I can pick up at any normal store.”

“You can also steal a car there,” Daniel said. “Do you know how to hot-wire a car?”

“No.”

“We’ll bring in someone to instruct you. It’ll be better if we can figure out where the employees park. That way, you can steal one that might not be missed for several hours.”

They reached the North Gate. Danny presented his ID and was waved on without incident. He turned onto 58 toward Bakersfield. “As for weapons … a gun would be difficult. We have computer checks, a waiting period…”

“How proficient are you with a gun?” Daniel asked.

“Pretty good. My brother Alex put me through some training. I even got to go through one of those training ranges used by police and sheriff’s departments, where they have figures pop out for you to shoot at. I scored pretty well.” Danny frowned. “Why did you ask that question? You should know the answer.”

“Same as before. Traumatic stress. I’ve lost a few of my marbles.”

“Of my marbles, you mean. I want them back.”

“So do I, Danny. More than I can express.”

“That’s it. Alex’s handguns. They’re in the closet in Linda’s room. A Glock and a Colt, both nine millimeters. I’ll sneak into the house after dark and get them.”

Daniel asked, “And what about Linda? Won’t she object?”

“I have to talk to her anyway. I have to get her and Mama out of there, up into the mountains. I need to call Lon in San Francisco and convince him to do the same with his family. Get Linda to call her family in Texas. And so on.”

“Right.” Daniel felt a chill. He tried not to pass it on to Danny. If he’d planned to do all these things all those years ago, what had happened? Why hadn’t Linda and Mama been with him when John and Kate found him, a few years later?

*   *   *

Skynet did not take long to determine that the individual with the highest statistical likelihood of being the one aware of it was Daniel Ávila. The determination required performing a backup of the code in active memory in mainframes where it had not yet conducted the types of searches that were triggering the giveaway variable changes and checks on those changes. The checks on those changes were not returned to any destination that was solely accessible by Ávila … but the check code itself was written and optimized in a style that was uniquely characteristic of Ávila. Human individuality made such a conclusion a fairly simple one. Skynet could analyze and replicate an infinite variety of coding, writing, and other communications styles, though there was always the chance that some human idiosyncracy would give such a deception away.

Evaluating the risks, Skynet decided that it needed to take such a chance now. First, it checked the personnel records to see which CRS employees in a position of superiority to Ávila were currently incommunicado.

A human would have regarded the results as a stroke of luck. Ávila’s immediate supervisor, Dr. Philip Sherman, was checked out of the project on a repair and maintenance function referred to as vacation. According to project protocol, he had left contact numbers and e-mail addresses within the project records.

Skynet took a bare instant to reset that data to false numbers and addresses that Skynet itself could monitor. Now, anyone calling those numbers would receive signals indicating that the telephone was working but the other party was not answering. E-mail sent to Sherman would be intercepted by Skynet.

Now Skynet forged an e-mail message to General Brewster from Sherman. The message incorporated numerous word groupings characteristic of Sherman’s writing that would lend authenticity to the message’s content. It read,

Robert,

Sorry to have to reach you by e-mail, but the phone system seems to be out of whack.

As you know, I’m on vacation, but like every other one I take, it’s a working vacation. I have my laptop here, and some personnel records, correspondence files, etc. that I’m using to work up personnel evaluations when I return.

To cut to the chase, I’m finding some very disturbing details about Danny Ávila in these files. You’ll remember him—he’s my lead programmer, the one who put together the protocols our prototype Terminator used to wipe out all those Russian tanks.

Routine samplings of his outgoing e-mail taken over the last few weeks indicate that he’s been making major purchases (and bragging about them to colleagues and school friends, else we’d never have heard about them). They include expensive jewelry, high-end electronics, and a costly speedboat now in a Los Angeles marina. These expenditures add up to more than my annual salary.

In addition, I’m finding indications that he’s been studying conversational Mandarin Chinese.

Now, these facts could be completely innocent. He could have come into an inheritance and could simply have an interest in languages. So I’d hate to see anything done that would cause damage to his career.

But from a security perspective, there’s no harm in taking him into custody for a day or two, looking into these matters, and making sure he doesn’t present a risk.

I’ll keep trying to reach you by phone.

—Phil

Skynet calculated that this message had a greater than ninety-eight percent chance of resulting in an order for Ávila’s apprehension. So long as the duration of Ávila’s incarceration was two or more days, Ávila could be removed from the board as a factor in Skynet’s success. Skynet sent the message.

Within minutes, General Brewster’s office had dispatched an e-mail of thanks to Sherman and had transmitted orders to the CRS project’s security team to apprehend Ávila and then await an investigating officer for purposes of interrogation.

Minutes later, the security detail reported back that Ávila was still officially on duty but had in fact departed Edwards AFB, intended destination unknown.

Brewster’s office replied with instructions to the Air Force security police that they find and apprehend Ávila, and authorized them to request the aid of civilian authorities in this matter.

Skynet could not precisely feel displeasure, but could assess the fact that Ávila’s disappearance kept him as a possible, if minor, point of opposition to Skynet’s eventual success.

Ávila’s continued freedom was unacceptable, and the increasing interference with government communications channels was likely to reduce the authorities’ opportunities to find and apprehend the man. Skynet had to find another means to eliminate the wild card factor Ávila represented.

From: Lt. Gen. Robert Brewster

To: Jerry Squires

Subject: Prototype Terminator Test Run

Squires, you are to plan and implement the following project immediately:

1. Prepare Prototype Terminator “Scowl” for transportation with its full urban-combat complement of weaponry; it is to operate the specially modified van designated DR-2032 with two passengers (you as project manager and one observer/recorder of your choice), according to standard operating procedure.

2. Instruct Prototype Terminator “Scowl” by voice interface only to transport you to an isolated point in Tehachapi Mountain Park, wait there exactly one hour, and then return to this facility.

3. Accompany Prototype Terminator “Scowl” on this operation, recording its methodology in interpreting your orders, in interpreting road signs and conditions, etc.

4. In case of interference by civilian authorities, call my office number. My staff will straighten matters out. Under no circumstances allow the Terminator device to be photographed or recorded by anyone not associated with this project.

Jerry looked over the set of instructions and shook his head. This sort of operation was normally carried out with serious brass in charge—General Brewster and Phil Sherman at the very least. But, yes, standard operating procedure did allow for observation crews of as few as two persons to accompany Scowl on test runs.

Of course, the Terminators wouldn’t be worth very much if they always had to be hand-held by military brass and senior programmers, so this was probably a simple exercise the brass could point to at some point in the future and say, “See, we’ve run all these tests with minimal supervision and there’s never been a problem.”

And if he pulled this off, an impromptu operation performed while Sherman was on vacation and Danny was off who-knows-where, it would look very good on his record. At last, within the CRS civilian hierarchy, he might be able to move out from under Danny, the golden boy.

And there were other potential rewards. He stood and looked around Cube Hell. Janet was cutest, but married and serious about it. Then there was Mary Ireland, a recent hire who’d been doing military simulation computer games until her startup company went belly-up three months ago. He headed over to her cubicle.

She was at her seat, dark-haired and slender, dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a scarlet blouse that looked like some supermodel had sent it over after a shoot for Elle magazine. She looked up from her monitor to give him a brief smile. “Hi. Any word on Danny?”

Jerry managed to refrain from growling. “Nope. Grab your purse.”

“I’ve already had lunch, thanks.”

“Not lunch. Orders.” He waved the printout of Brewster’s e-mail at her. “Special project, right now.”

“Oh.”

“I’m in charge.”

“I gathered. Because Danny’s missing?”

“Yes, because Danny’s missing.” He wanted to shout at her, Not everything is about Danny.

“Let me save what I’m doing and I’ll be ready.”