C.27
August 2029
The Grottoes
Ten seconds later, his eyes snapped open again.
In that last thought, almost lost as he was drifting off to sleep, there was something big, something important.
He reviewed it, turned it upside down and backward, but couldn’t grasp why he felt it to be so significant. It was something most humans realized at some point in their lives. The solitary soul could only hope for survival; the notion of happiness was not really within its grasp.
Then Daniel understood. Yes, humans could realize that, could participate in it. Skynet could not—it acknowledged only itself as a worthwhile being, and could not endure rivals of any sort, so it would always be alone. It would never know the sudden surges of strength brought on by caring for someone else more intensely than caring for one’s own survival.
But what about the Terminators? Built in man’s image, programmed by man with the capacity to learn, could they ever identify with another being to the extent that they could love it?
They could never identify with Skynet, of course. Skynet would not permit it. The queen bee, it could never acknowledge its drones as anything but tools.
John Connor believed, deep down, that the Terminators sent back in time to protect his life had, at some level, felt emotion, that they had struggled harder than their programming allowed because of a level of identification that Skynet could not have anticipated or understood.
What if the capacity existed within all of them to learn to identify with humanity, to reject their role as interchangeable drones and assume new roles as individuals, human beings made of synthetic materials instead of living tissue?
And the thing was just this: Daniel did not have to leave that what-if entirely to chance. He’d written large sections of the Terminators’ original operating system and was familiar with every iteration of their OS since then.
Perhaps, as he’d once considered, he was not obliged to visit himself in the past each time at a point on the calendar later than the one before. The fact that he’d done so until now might have been due to his own sense of the passage of time. If he could overcome that sense, or whatever mechanism caused him to progress forward along Danny’s calendar, then he might be able to go further back—and make a few subtle changes, a few tweaks to the code he’d helped engineer.
Perhaps he could make one last difference … a difference that might help keep Mike, and Mark, and all the people he cared about alive longer. Perhaps, ultimately, he could give all of them a happy ending.
He painfully, laboriously pulled himself into his more upright position, leaning back against the wall. Then he closed his eyes and began looking for Danny. But not the same Danny.
* * *
“I’ve put a message through to Tom,” John said as they entered Daniel’s enclosure. “Once we get Danny back to Home Plate, that cobbled-together T-800 will be ready.”
Mike smiled. “It’s about time he got back to programming. And away from pseudo-scientific anomalies. I hate anomalies.”
“Who doesn’t?”
They entered Daniel’s inner chamber. Mike’s breath caught as she saw the position in which he lay.
John saw the rapid eye movement. “Oh, shit.” He stepped back to the door, switched the signal light over to red.
He heard Mike shout, “Daniel, what are you doing?” By the time John reached the inner chamber again, Mike had grabbed Danny’s shoulders, was shaking him. “Come back now. You’re through with that.”
Daniel didn’t respond.
“Oh, Daniel…”
April, Present Day
CRS Project, Edwards AFB
Daniel came upright. He was seated on his chair in Danny’s work cubicle.
He grabbed his computer mouse and activated the pop-up clock on his computer. It told him that it was 9:17 A.M. on an April Thursday, two months earlier than any of his previous visits to Danny’s time.
He felt no confusion, no displacement. He was Daniel Ávila, who had spent decades struggling with amnesia and a few weeks reacquainting himself with his earlier life. But this was his body of the months before J-Day, and he was in full control of it.
He stood up and peered over the partition into the adjacent cubicle.
Jerry looked up at him. “What?” he asked. There was a hint of guilt to his voice.
Daniel smiled at him. “Nothing.” He sat back down.
“Oh, don’t do that to me! Now I’m paranoid. What have you done? Did you have me declared dead? Did you program Scowl to grope me again? Come on, I have to know!”
“Jerry, you’re going to hear some weird things from my cubicle. If you listen close enough to make out my words, you’ll go insane. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“Trust me. You don’t want to be insane. It’s no fun.”
Then Mike’s voice rang through his head. Daniel, wake up.
He sat. “Got something to do here,” he whispered.
No, you’re done.
“Not quite.”
I’m going to have Lake knock you out with a sedative.
“Check with John first. I’m back in April before Judgment Day, and I have a few last things to do to the Terminator code.”
She was silent. Perhaps, on the far end of the connection, she was speaking too quietly for him to hear. Daniel ignored her and got to work.
It took him a few moments to figure out where the bug-fix list was, but he shared an organizational sense with his younger self; it wasn’t hard to find his way through this computer’s directory structure. The bug-fix list would be the ideal means to his end, an opportunity to introduce new code all over the Terminator operating system without arousing suspicion.
Too much wasted motion in reaching and gripping algorithms. A perfect place to start. Streamlining the reaching and gripping routines called for revisions to the basic problem-solving code. There, he could also improve the Terminators’ interpretation of human behavior, introducing an isolated emotion simulator whose data might, in a more sophisticated version of the simulator, begin to bleed over into the Terminator’s decision-making processes.
Friend-and-foe recognition still balks when personnel in wrong uniform returns correct password. Here, he could enhance the Terminators’ notion of identification with friends and looking beyond mere symbols to achieve friend versus foe recognition. The code here would have to be subtle, something to act as a starter mix for a Terminator’s thinking processes rather than to crudely force the Terminator to accept certain humans as friends—Skynet would detect a process such as that immediately and rip it out.
Daniel smiled. This was what he did best.
August 2029
The Grottoes
“I think it’s going to kill him,” Mike whispered. She didn’t bother to conceal or wipe away the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I want Tamara to sedate him. It will break the connection and let him get some rest.”
“She won’t do it without my go-ahead.”
“Why would you even consider not approving it?”
John stifled a sigh. “Because Daniel isn’t just my friend, isn’t just a man at this moment. He’s a resource and part of an ongoing operation.”
“The operation ended!”
“Then he started it up again. I have to weigh the potential gain of the renewed operation against the potential loss.”
“The potential loss is his life. He’s a very sick man who’s in danger of dying!”
“Yes.” John felt like a very sick man himself, but struggled not to show it. He looked at Daniel, who lay still, breathing raggedly. His eyes moved under his closed lids. The screen displaying signals from his heart monitor clipped along at an accelerated rate. “The truth, Mike. Do you think he’s rational right now? Is he under control, or deranged?” He fixed her with his High Commander of the Human Resistance look, the hard stare that reminded everyone who experienced it that everyone took orders—everyone except John Connor, and the responsibility he bore was the greatest of all.
Mike looked miserable. “He sounds rational.”
“Then he’s making a conscious decision to risk his life again. And if he’s willing to risk it when he’s just had the world handed to him—the world such as it is—then he must know what he’s doing.”
“But—”
“No sedation.”
“Damn you, John.”
“You’ve got that right.” He rose. “Keep me updated as to his progress. I’ll get Lake back in here.”
Mike didn’t answer. Her expression bleak, she simply returned her attention to Daniel.
John stepped into the outer chamber. Kate had arrived a minute earlier and was waiting for him. She saw the look on his face, saw through the iron resolve and commander’s aloofness, and put her arms around his neck. “Are you all right?” she whispered.
“No.” He pulled her to him, held her tight. “God, I’m tired, Kate. Tired of using people up, expending them as if they were rounds of ammunition. I sent my own father back in time to die. I send my children out on the front lines. I’m killing Daniel as surely as if I were holding down a switch to electrocute him. Some days I’d just rather die than make that decision again.”
“I know. But you don’t get to die without my permission.”
“I hope you’re right. But I suspect that Mike is telling Daniel the exact same thing. And I suspect she’s wrong.”
April, Present Day
CRS Project, Edwards AFB
Even as he typed, Daniel could feel the pressure of Mike’s hand on his. He gave it a squeeze. He couldn’t see her or hear her words. She might not even be speaking now.
He focused on his task.
He was aware of coworkers stepping in from time to time to ask questions. He answered them absently, drawing on his own knowledge or putting them off with suggestions and prevarications. He paid these people little attention.
He was aware of coworkers leaving, of lights elsewhere on the floor dimming. They did not dim in Cube Hell.
Silence fell on Cube Hell, but not full silence. Occasionally a screen saver elsewhere on the floor would chirp or burp or make a noise like droplets of water plopping into a sink. In the depths of the night he could hear the flow of air across the vents over his head.
And always there was the clicking of the keyboard under his hands.
In the early hours of the morning, janitors with security clearances that would make military contractors envious entered, vacuumed, swept, took out the trash. He ignored them, and they him.
And finally the coworkers began to drift in again, sleepy, showered, in different clothes, murmuring about Danny Ávila and his work ethic.
Weariness settled on him, and a headache. Both grew in intensity until he found he was typing the same words over and over again, until he recognized that he was no longer fully functional.
But he’d done it. He’d killed as much of the bug-fix list as any human could in a day and a night of work.
And more than that, he’d stamped as much of himself as was possible onto the Terminator code.
Mark Herrera had his genetic legacy. The young man had size and smarts and a skill for programming that would serve him well when he decided he was too old for special ops.
Now, perhaps, a Terminator in the distant future would awaken to sapience, to an identification with humanity, and inherit Daniel’s emotional and ethical legacy. Perhaps, years from now, he would also have a mechanical son.
Or many.
He shoved his keyboard back, put his arms down where it had been, and laid his head atop them.
July, Present Day—Saturday Afternoon
Judgment Day
Kern County, California
Danny’s eyes came open. There were trees ahead of him; beyond them, cars, trucks, and SUVs roared by on 58.
He’d fallen asleep. He knew it was about one P.M. Linda hadn’t been gone long enough for him to begin to worry. Soon, she’d be by to whisk him off to the Sierra Nevada mountains and their life together.
He felt tired, so tired that he could barely turn his head.
Then pain struck him, a blow as if from a sixteen-pound sledgehammer. He felt as though his skull shattered, and fell to one side, knowing that his brains had to be leaking free from him.
August 2029
The Grottoes
John and Kate heard the shriek from Daniel’s inner room. They’d been coming here whenever circumstances allowed over the last day and a half, waiting and watching just as Lake and Mike did.
And now they heard Mike’s voice raised in pain and fear. Still ruled by discipline, John didn’t rush into the inner room. He opened the shutter and peered through the window instead.
Daniel lay with his gaze fixed on the ceiling. Lake, beside him, shone a penlight into his eyes. Mike straddled Daniel, her palms flat on his chest, performing CPR with an urgency Lake did not seem to share.
John closed the shutter and swore to himself. He looked at Kate and shook his head, then rejoined her on the bench.
Minutes later, Lake emerged.
John had seen her many times when she’d presided over operations or lifesaving efforts that had failed. She wasn’t a good-bedside-manner sort of doctor, and was often criticized for giving the bad news to next of kin with an indifference that others sometimes found hateful. But now she seemed as forlorn as if she were one of those unhappy survivors herself.
She caught John’s eye and shook her head, an unconscious duplication of John’s own action of a few moments ago. “Another stroke,” she said. “Worse than the first. I’d say he was dead the second it hit.”
Kate bowed her head and let silent tears fall. John felt like doing the same, but now was not the time. “We’ll tell Mark,” he said. “Do you need any help with Michaela?”
Lake shrugged. “Intellectually, I think she understands that there was not enough functioning meat machinery left for Daniel to reoccupy. Emotionally … well, we may all be safer if we just brick off this section of the compound until she’s ready to come out.”
“Right.” John stood and extended a hand for Kate. “Thanks, Doctor.”
July, Present Day—Saturday Afternoon
Judgment Day
Kern County, California
The pain began to ebb. The man was finally able to reach up and feel around his skull. He was amazed to find that it was intact.
He stood, shaky, and looked around. He didn’t know this place, all trees with the highway only a few yards away. He saw a soft-sided briefcase at his feet and picked it up. Inside were a laptop computer, a holstered handgun, boxes of ammunition. He zipped the case closed again. Confused as to what he was doing here, he headed toward the highway.
No, nothing was familiar. Cars whizzed by in both directions on the highway. The gas station seemed busy. Most of the cars parked there had California plates. He must be in California.
“Mister?” A white-haired gentleman with glasses, moving quite briskly for his age, stopped en route to his car to look at him. “Are you all right?”
“Not feeling well.” The sun seemed incredibly bright, and lying down on the pavement here to get a nap seemed like a very good idea.
“Are you fit to drive?”
“Of course.” The younger man fished around in his pockets and found his keys. One of them belonged to a Jeep. But there were no Jeeps among the vehicles at the rest stop. “But my car is gone,” he finally said.
“Well, where are you headed?”
“Away from the city.” The words fell from his mouth and confused him. He didn’t know why he’d said that, but he had, and with conviction. He knew, somehow, that he had to get away from the city, every city, and soon.
“Well,” the old man said, “I’m thinking that you’ve picked up a little bit of sunstroke. Some sunburn on your face, certainly. Probably while hitchhiking. I’m headed up into the mountains for some fishing. Can I give you a lift part of the way?”
The younger man thought of the handgun in his bag and wondered why he had it. “Not safe to pick up hitchhikers,” he said.
“Well, I’m a pretty good judge of character. You want the ride?”
“Sure.” A little dizzy, off-balance, the younger man followed the older to a late-model brown Oldsmobile. “Nice car,” he said. “Big.”
The older man unlocked the driver’s side door and grinned. “I didn’t work hard for forty-five years to drive around in a stripped-down lunch box made of aluminum foil. I’m going to spend my last few years in comfort.”
The younger man frowned. Something in him wanted to say, “No, you’re not.” But it sounded cruel, and he didn’t know why he’d wanted to say it at all.