John soon knew more about Cyberdyne than most of its employees. He understood its accounts, its business structure, its products, everything public about its research. When it moved its research arm to Colorado, he started to worry and ran from his room to tell Sarah about it. The new site was close to NORAD and a whole lot of other military stuff. Something was going on. She cursed quietly and her jaw got that determined look. Maybe Judgment Day was coming after all. All right, they'd have to deal with that.
It was late at night, but they went to Raoul's aerobics room at the back of the bungalows. There were gym mats on the floor, and a basic set of free weights in one corner. They trained hard, doing their bodybuilding and martial arts routines until the sweat poured off them and they stood, gasping, with their hands on their knees. Sarah's leg had never gotten completely better, but she still moved well.
But nothing else happened-no breakthroughs, no Cyberdyne chips getting put into aircraft, no government funding to build Skynet, or anything like it.
Late one night, in 1997, Sarah walked in while John was typing, searching, still trying to make sense of things. What was the government up to? What was Cyberdyne doing there in Colorado?
"John," Sarah said, "you've been getting bags under your eyes. Why don't you wind down for the night?"
He'd been checking the sites for military research tenders. Some of them sounded even weirder than the theories spouted by Willard and the Tejadas. The military wanted to test out all kinds of stuff. But nothing there looked quite like Skynet. He wondered whether it would ever show up like this. Willard and the others had theories about how the military worked, but John knew better than to take them too seriously. It was like a lot of other stuff around here. You took it for what it was worth, and no more. To a large extent, he had to teach himself.
"Okay, Mom," he said. "Just a minute." He didn't want to lose his train of thought so he kept typing and clicking the mouse while he talked. "I just want to finish this."
"If you stay up any later, you won't sleep. You know you need time to calm down before bed."
"Okay, okay. I said I won't be long." An interesting description of research for high-powered lasers caught his attention. He tried to make sense of the tender specifications, frowning as he peered at the screen.
"John!" Sarah said.
That startled him. "Hey?" He spun round on his swivel chair. "What?"
"Pay attention when I'm speaking to you." She wore a nightgown and her hair was combed out straight over her shoulders. She looked really intense-angry and worried at the same time. He didn't know what to say.
His mom had always been so cool, even when something was bothering her. Lately, though, she seemed upset all the time. She was often angry with him, especially when he was working at night. Didn't she understand how important it was? This was his real work. Sometimes he just needed to focus.
"John, you're a twelve-year-old boy," she said. "Don't you think it's strange that you spend your nights like this? You're acting like a work-obsessed yuppie. I'm starting to feel like a mother with an absent son." She took out a cigarette and lit it up, something she did only when she was stressed. Funny, she was so incredibly fit. Her martial arts skills were at least as good as his, and she was as strong as steel springs. But she still smoked, even though it was bad for her. It was like she needed it to express herself.
"But we have to keep checking," he said. "Someone's got to do it."
"Yeah." She looked at him carefully, finally giving the tiniest smile of appreciation, as she held the cigarette out to the side, letting it burn down. Some ash dropped on the wooden floor. "Poor John. It's a tough job, right?"
"What do you want me to do, Mom? You taught me how important it is."
"I know, I know. But I wouldn't want you to be my boyfriend. You'd never keep a date."
"Mom!"
She laughed. "Maybe you could take things a little bit easier."
"But if they ever build Skynet, Judgment Day could still come."
"I know. God, don't you think I know that? Skynet nearly killed us both. I won't forget it in a hurry. That's why we keep training. That's why we're holed up here at the end of the Earth."
"I like Argentina, Mom."
"Sure, sure." She shook her head like it wasn't important "We can't ever let up, John. I know that. But we need a better life than this. Both of us do. This isn't normal. Everyone out there in the real world thinks we're crazy." She waved the cigarette around, then ashed it in a saucer on one of John's shelves. "If we're not careful, it'll make us crazy. Then there are the people we're shacked up with here. They really are crazy, and dangerous-type crazy at that. Same with Enrique."
"Don't worry, I know. I can tell the difference."
"If not for Judgment Day, we'd run a mile from someone like Raoul. Just don't grow up thinking Raoul's normal. He's cunning as hell, and he's cultured and charming, and all the rest of it. But he's living in a world of his own."
"Don't worry, Mom. You always worry. I know about Raoul. He's cool, but he's nuts. Right?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"He's not like my father figure or something," John said dismissively. As they talked, he was starting to understand how she felt. "Mom, aren't you happy here? Maybe we could go somewhere else?"
"And do what? We can't show our faces back home. They'd catch us sooner or later."
"Where's home?" he said, making a joke of it. An angry look crossed her face again, and he said, "I mean really. We should be safe now. We could go somewhere else. Anywhere you want."
He knew that she still thought of California as home, but it didn't seem like that to him. After she'd met Kyle Reese, and Kyle had died fighting the first Terminator, Sarah had lived for a while in Mexico. John had been born there. He had no family in the U.S., hardly any friends. That first Terminator had also taken out Sarah's mother and her best friend. They had no one left. He'd grown up in so many countries that being in one of them in particular wasn't all that important. If it mattered to his mom, maybe they could move back closer to California.
"Why not?" he said. "Where do you want to live? We can move on, Mom. If Judgment Day's not going to happen now, we could go somewhere by ourselves. You know we could do it. We'd be okay. We can do all sorts of stuff."
"You're serious, aren't you?" she said. She looked at him wonderingly, as if she'd never thought of upping and leaving the estancia.
"It's only three months to Judgment Day. If nothing happens then, we could set up some kind of shop—I don't know-maybe back in Mexico. Maybe we could meet some normal people, for a change."
"I'll think about it," she said, sounding surprised at what she was saying.
John felt proud that he could talk sensibly like this to grown-ups, not like the kids his age back in LA. If there was no Judgment Day, why not head north? There was so much to see and do in Mexico. They could even visit the U.S. occasionally, if they were very careful. "I want you to be happy," he said. "I love you, Mom."
"I love you, too, John. But how about you finish up and get some sleep? Just this once, okay? Humor me."
"Okay," he said.
He hadn't expected the conversation to go like this. He felt a weight lift off his chest and fly away somewhere. They could probably live in different places as John grew up. They could move around, and see the sights. But they'd need to start somewhere.
They could lose themselves in the biggest, boldest city of them alclass="underline" Mexico City.
CHAPTER FOUR
SKYNET'S WORLD
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1994