The T-1000 morphed into its Janelle Voight form, and waved down a taxi.
"Say,"' it said. "That's a nice cab..."
It abandoned the cab in a downtown back street, then returned to its hotel room, taking a route through a narrow alleyway. Once there, it fast-forwarded through the remaining videos from the Voight house. None were of any help. Time to make a long-term plan. The police had the other evidence and would, no doubt, review it carefully. For the next seven days, the T-1000 would check developments within the L.A.P.D. That was something it had mastered.
There was no other immediate lead, and it assessed a probability that the Connors would avoid leaving any truly useful information on computer disk. That suggested another approach. In the future that the T-1000 came from, Skynet's records showed that John Connor's guerrilla forces first appeared in rural Argentina. The records were patchy until 2022, when Connor was encountered back in California, but it stood to reason that he would be in Argentina, or a neighboring country, on Judgment Day. That also explained how he would survive the nuclear devastation in the Northern Hemisphere.
For the T-1000, it was easy to morph into whatever form was required to outwit security systems and board airplanes. It could infiltrate the Argentinean information systems just as easily as it had those of the Los Angeles police. Even if it had to wait until after Judgment Day, sooner or later Connor would show his face in public.
The T-1000 could be very patient. It would complete its mission, using police information from as many countries as it had to.
Seven days later, it left the hotel for the last time.
"I won't be back, dear," it said to the woman at the front desk.
"Hold on," she said. She raised the hinged counter and ran after the T-1000, touching its arm. "How do you want to pay?"
Its right hand morphed into a sword-like weapon as it turned to her.
The liquid-metal Terminator smiled sweetly. "Like this..."
ARGENTINA
1997
It all unfolded as they knew it would, as the messages from the future had said. First, the announcements from Cyberdyne about its radical new computer hardware, then the major defense contracts. The U.S. upgraded its stealth bombers to operate unmanned, controlled by Cyberdyne nanochips. The government announced funding for more and more ambitious projects, culminating in the Skynet system.
Now he was growing up, John realized the burden that his mother had taken on. For him, it had been slightly unreal, back in 1994. He'd been just a kid, able to treat almost anything as cool—getting shot at, having his own Terminator to order around. Some things went deeper, like finding out his mom was an okay human being. But, like the adults around him always said, kids were so adaptable.
Well, he didn't feel so adaptable anymore, just determined, and scared, and angry.
He was not yet thirteen.
It seemed like he'd been given the worst of both worlds. Nothing they'd done had changed the march of events. Maybe they should have tried harder, as Sarah had wanted, before they left the States. At the same time, even his predicted victory over Skynet was uncertain. He'd need to fight every single inch, as if he'd never had the message from 2029. As his father had told Sarah, that was only one possible future.
Now he watched as the people around him came to understand what was happening, where their world was heading. It was just like he'd experienced in L.A., the realization that Sarah was sane, and the rest of the world was crazy. For the Tejadas, it came as a shock, the way events fell into place exactly as John and Sarah had said they would. For years, as long as they'd known him, Raoul had talked about nuclear war. He'd been even worse since they'd moved to his ranch. He'd always expected war, but now it was rushing at him like an express train.
Raoul spent his money, converting it to resources they'd need to survive. Once Judgment Day came, money in bank accounts would be worthless. The es-tancia was a nest of activity. It started to morph, as the Tejadas developed new priorities, stockpiling food, clothing, medicines, fuel, weapons, and ammunition, extending the underground bunkers, strengthening fences and guard towers, setting up control booths, putting in more alarms. With each day that passed, the property looked more and more like a military base. Raoul's people went armed. Only the herd of grazing cattle was unchanged, and even that would not last forever, not when the bombs fell and the nuclear winter came. The "Uncle Bob" T-800 worked round the clock, never needing to sleep, keeping close to John, like a hired bodyguard.
Raoul could never warm to the Terminator. His dog, Hercules, kept a safe distance from it, barking frantically if it came too close. Still, the big cybernetic organism was worth a dozen men, hefting huge weights, advising on tactics and fortifications. It was a walking library of military knowledge.
John and Sarah never stopped: laboring by day, planning at night, fitting in exercise, weapons practice, and combat training whenever they could. Without giving away their location, they became active on the Internet, and not just contacting friends. John grew adept at sending encrypted data through untraceable paths, laying out the message about Skynet fully and accurately for anyone who was prepared to consider it with an open mind. Soon it was all over the Net. If any record survived after Judgment Day, it would show that they knew things they could not possibly have known without information from the future.
Some people started to notice, and not everyone thought it was a good idea to hand military decisions over to machines. There were even demonstrations against Skynet, but the project went ahead.
Deep into the nights, John and Sarah worked through the issues with Raoul and Gabriela Tejada, drawing up contingency plans. John already thought of their group as the human Resistance. The T-800 kept close to his side, offering its own insights. John just wished that, upstream in time, in 2029, he'd given it more files on what lay ahead. It was vague about their future.
E-mails went back and forth between John and Franco Salceda, debating, predicting the future, arguing about the meanings of events. As the months went on, Franco became less scornful, more willing to concede points. It looked like the Salcedas were getting worried big-time about the Skynet project. They could see that John really knew stuff.
"Move down here," John wrote to Franco one night. "Just do it—all of you. Please, don't argue. Don't let Enrique argue. If she has to, your mom will talk him round."
Nothing came back for a week. John tried to put it out of his mind, but then there was a message in his in-box when he checked it after dinner. "Expect us soon, amigo," Franco wrote. "We'll be there. Everyone sends love."
John read it twice, checking there was nothing else it could mean. "Yes!" he said—then wondered how he should feel about it. Small triumphs like this were tainted. Every such feeling assumed the worst—that Judgment Day was coming.
He printed off the message and ran to show Sarah and the Tejadas. The T-800 met him in a hallway outside his room. "Where are you going?" it said.
"I've gotta show Mom this," John said. He waved it in front of the Terminator. It took the printout, read it quickly, and passed it back.
"Very good."
"Cool, you mean," John said, still trying to teach the Terminator how to lighten up. "That's cool. Got it?"
"That's cool."
He'd grown used to the T-800, but the novelty had worn off. In fact, it could be a drag always having it around, cutting down his privacy. But he needed it to guard him. Sooner or later, the T-1000 would track him down again. When it found him, he knew he'd need all the help he could get.
Sarah, Raoul, and Gabriela were out on the back porch of Raoul's house, sharing a drink with Willard and a few others.