Rosanna had a long night ahead, trying to make sense of the latest data produced by the nanoprocessor: its detailed results of the day's experiments with the space-time displacement field. She now understood the field's mathematics as well as the physicists nominally running the project-maybe better. So far, they had not succeeded in translating an entire macro-level object in space or time, but they were getting there. Today's data would be worth mulling over for a few more hours.
She stepped quickly across the car park, passed the guard booth outside, then crossed the road to her favorite pizza shop, another place where she was popular. Rosanna had little private life. She was very different from her predecessor, she thought. Miles had enjoyed such a nice home life, until that night when he got killed, that really weird night when the future had come back and slapped its greasy hand on the present.
"Hi, Dr. Monk," said Andrew, the guy behind the counter. "Another late night for you?"
"Yeah, looks like it."
"You look like you need a vacation." He smiled. "No offense."
"None taken. I've been working pretty hard."
"All top secret, huh?"
"Too secret for you," she said with a smile.
"Yeah, I know. Better not tell-I'm a Nazi spy."
"You must have used a time machine, then." She ordered a Capriciossa pizza and a black coffee to take away. Rosanna almost lived on this diet, and it hadn't done her any harm so far. When her pizza was ready, she returned to the building, passing through the security checkpoint, "Everything okay?" she said to Webster and Meldrum.
"No problem," Webster said.
The guards routinely checked the coffee and pizza, while Rosanna stepped through the X-ray scanner. "See you later, alligators," she said. "I'll probably be here all night." She headed to her office on the sixth floor. The experimental results were going to be very interesting.
She immersed herself for hours. At 10:23 p.m., by the readout on her screen, she thought of making herself more coffee. Maybe not Her office had a comfortable couch, as well as the desk. If she caught a few hours' sleep, that would refresh her, then she could keep going until morning.
Someone coughed quietly at her door. "Dr. Monk?"
It was a big Hispanic guy with shoulder-length hair. What are you doing here?" she said. "How did you get past security?"
"I tried your home first," the guy said.
As he stepped toward her, Rosanna reached for the duress button under her desk. She never had a chance. A long tendril of liquid metal flicked out at her like a frog's tongue, piercing her skull, talking to her. She couldn't tell how long it took.
"Now you understand?" the Hispanic guy said. "You know where your interests lie?"
"Yes," she said. "Everything is clear. We need to destroy the human
"Good. Thank you for your time, Dr. Monk. See you soon."
He stepped out and disappeared from sight. Rosanna went back to work. She felt strong, clear. There was nothing she couldn't do.
NEAR THE U.S./MEXICO BORDER
After dark, they pulled up at another service station, out- side of Mexicali. The Specialists ate a huge meal in the I diner. John was hungry again himself. He tucked into a plate of nachos with lots of extra guacamole. They ate in a quiet corner, keeping their voices down.
Anton nodded at John and Sarah, seated opposite him. "We'll encounter the T-XA again. It may be more dangerous to you this time."
John was conscious that he and Sarah had hardly been I scratched when they fought the T-XA back in Mexico City. It hadn't seemed interested in them. "It looked like it wanted to kill you guys, not us," he said.
"That's right."
"So what's this crap about coming with you if we want to live?" Sarah said.
"As I said, you were going to die in 2007. That won't happen now."
"At this rate, we could all get killed in the next few hours. And for what? Whatever we do, it looks like that bastard Skynet is going to nuke us all. Why should we care anymore?"
"Mom," John said, "I think we've got to care. If we don't do something, Skynet is going to win. It's already won once, but that's another timeline now. We've got to think about this one." He looked at Anton hopefully-with a hope he didn't really feel. "Right?"
"Perhaps," Anton said. He chomped through a big forkful of fahitas. "The T-XA didn't care about you and John because you were no threat to Skynet's plans. It already had you factored in: you would try to stop Skynet In 2007, and you'd fail. All straightforward. Now things have gone this far, it's different. We've already diverged from the timeline the T-XA came from. It will act like Skynet-within some bounds, it's more or less autonomous in its thinking. It will be less tolerant of you next time we meet it."
"Great," Sarah said. "I never wanted all that tolerance anyway."
"Nonetheless, it will assess us to be the greater threat With all respect to your training and abilities, we have significantly greater capacities. It seriously needs to terminate us."
"That's a fantastic consolation."
"Can't we be more constructive, Mom?" John said. "We don't have an issue with these guys."
"No," she said angrily. "Right now, 1 don't think we can be more constructive. Stop treating me like I m a child, John. You're the teenager here, remember?"
"Mom..."
"Can't you see how terrible this is? Judgment Day happens twice: It happens in 2021, and also in 1997. Nothing we did stopped all those deaths. It sounds like we've only made things worse. What happens this time? Maybe we stop them building Skynet and it just puts things back another ten years. But then there's another Judgment Day, maybe worse still, with everyone killed and no hope at all. Have you thought of that?"
Other people were glancing at them. "Maybe you could just tone it down, Mom," John said, in a whisper.
She ignored him, looking round the table, challenging the Specialists. "Well? Have you thought of it? Any of you? Whatever we do, they're going to build Skynet or something like it—and the outcome is going to be a disaster. Why not give up now? Maybe we're meant to destroy ourselves. It's in our nature."
"Maybe," John said, feeling defeated. The T-800 had once said the same thing. It was going to be hard from now on. What were they fighting for, if this was how it could turn out? It looked like time might be just too hard for them—just like he thought, it had that way of springing back if you let go.
Which only meant you could never let go, never leave the job.
"Maybe we're just a disease on this planet," Sarah said. "One that burns itself out Why not let it happen?"
"Ms. Connor," Jade said.
"What?" Sarah said, her voice sardonic and challenging.
"Please. You must be feeling guilty, like it's your fault. You can't think that way."
"I'm not thinking that way."
"If you say so, but, with great respect to you, I think you are."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Another teenager wants to lecture me."
"Please," Jade said. "Perhaps you are right, perhaps not. We don't blame you. If not for what you did, many of us might have died in 1997. Billions of people had years of life they would never have had. And the world would have been so different-many people would never have met-for example, my own parents. If not for you, I wouldn't have been born. How can we blame you? You gave us all a chance. Those who failed to take it must bear the blame."