Then he remembered what Dan had told him about the Connors, his ardent young face making it impossible to misjudge his opinion. So maybe Danny
would lend a hand at blasting Cyberdyne sky-high, after all.
Thank God the perimeter fence was finally in sight.
Ferri came out of the guard shack and hopped into Jordan's car. Then he pointed forward and Dyson took off.
"Whaddaya think?" Dyson asked.
The major turned in his seat and looked at Connor.
"What the hell do I know? I'd say he's asleep." He shook his head. "But for all I know, he's in a terminal coma."
"Jesus," Jordan breathed.
"The doc will tell us," Ferri said calmly. "Until then, just drive."
When they pulled up at the base hospital the Major went in and got a gurney and some attendants to take the boy out of the car. Inside he asked for two doctors by name. The second was on duty and was duly paged at the Major's request.
When he arrived, Ralph explained that the boy and his injuries were secret Cyberdyne business and that the hospital staff were bound to aid them as a matter of national security.
"Major, this boy looks to be under eighteen by a good few years and he's been shot! We can't keep something like this secret! At the very least his parents need to be notified," the doctor said reasonably.
"All I'm allowed to tell you, Doctor," Jordan interrupted, "is that this boy is in danger and must be guarded. I assure you, this won't be swept under a rug someplace. But sometimes timing can be more important than strict adherence to the rules."
"We're not talking rules here," the doctor insisted, "we're talking laws."
"If laws are being broken here, Doctor, I will take the responsibility," Jordan said gravely. "My object is to keep this boy alive. If you take it upon yourself to report his presence here, you may cost him his life and that will be your sole responsibility."
The Major and Dyson stared the doctor down. Reluctantly he agreed to abide by their conditions, then he got to work.
Jordan blew out his breath in relief and looked at the Major.
"I didn't think he was going to agree," he said quietly.
"Oh, he would have," Ralph assured him. "He was just trying to make me order him to do it. That way, see, it's totally my responsibility. But he's too good a doctor to let the kid lie there bleeding while he played that game." Ferri grinned.
"Sometimes having a conscience can be really inconvenient, y'know?"
Jordan's mouth tightened. "Unfortunately, yeah."
"And now," the officer said cheerfully, "It's your responsibility."
"Thanks."
CYBERDYNE: THE PRESENT
Serena sat in her darkened office watching the digital readout projected onto her eyes count down the seconds, the minutes, the hours. It was nine-fifteen and twenty-seven seconds. She had sent the doctor and nurse home at nine.
It was obvious that Dyson wasn't going to show up. Serena had been sifting through police reports, looking for arrests or accidents, or even abandoned cars.
Nothing.
Jordan should have been able to handle him as a trained agent.
The other and less palatable possibility was that Connor had subverted Dyson.
No.' she thought. Not possible. Why would he aid and abet the people that he knows killed his beloved brother? Answer, no reason.
Still, he was human. Best to keep an open mind. The adult John Connor had a record of inspiring humans to insane actions.
She blinked and the time readout stopped. No sense in wasting time; she had work to do, her own and Cyberdyne's. If Dyson showed up, he did. If not, not.
She thought that whatever had happened she could still look forward to a visit from Sarah Connor in the near future.
Two hours later, a considerable amount of report reading and writing had been accomplished. The phone rang and Serena patched in.
"Burns," she said crisply.
"Uh, Ms. Burns, this is Joe Cady of Aadvanced Security," a man said.
In the background she could hear shouting voices, trucks, running feet, a siren.
Aadvanced was the subcontractor she'd hired to watch the automated factory site. The military had wanted to keep a low profile. Aadvanced—despite the misspelling that made them first in the phone book—had a pretty good record.
Things did not sound good right now, however.
"What's happened, Mr. Cady?" Serena asked calmly.
"Some people came out of the night; they distracted us with a forest fire a few miles off. At least I think that was them. The fire-department guys said they thought the fire was arson. Then they snuck in and got the drop on us. They tied us up and locked us in the guard shack, took our cell phones, then they set bombs all over the place. Said they were the Luddite Liberation Army.
"When we got loose we sent a guy over to where the fire was to see if he could get us some help. They even blew our cars up, the bastards. So they've been gone a couple of hours at least." Cady's voice was shaking.
Serena gathered from this that he hadn't been sure the Luddites were going to leave them alive.
"How bad is the damage?" she asked. She quickly added, "I assume no one was hurt; you'd have told me if someone was hurt, wouldn't you?" She did, after all, have a role to play here.
"Yeah," Cady said. "I mean, no, nobody's hurt." He paused and she could hear him sucking his teeth. "The destruction is pretty near total," he said. "All the
machinery, all the construction supplies and the company's trailer, the area they'd leveled—everything is busted up, burning, or crapped up somehow. I never saw anything like it."
"Did they leave a message?" she asked.
They must have left a message, this whole thing is a message, of course.
"If they did, ma'am, it's gone now. They didn't leave anything with us or tell us to say anything, like a message. You know? It's just fire and smoke and mess here." Cady's voice faded away. "I'll look around, though."
A messenger has left a parcel for the president and CEO, Seven, stationed at the security desk, said. When I told her they weren't here she said she'd been instructed to give it to the next-most-important executive that was present.
Serena sent Six to retrieve it for her. Probably it was from the LLA. Luddite Liberation Army, of all the stupid names. These jerks wouldn't liberate their grandmother from backbreaking peasant labor by buying the old girl a washing machine. But they all had to have "Liberation" in their name. Serena supposed they would feel liberated if everybody else was forced to embrace their ideals.
"Have you informed anybody else about this?" she asked Cady. Barely a second had gone by in real time.
"Well… Tony brought back some of the firefighter guys, and they radioed the police, of course." He sounded nervous. "I dunno if that was okay or not, but we needed help and they were the only people we could contact."
The general is not going to like this, Serena thought. But I did warn him to let me handle security directly if he didn't want the army to take care of it. She shrugged mentally.
"If the authorities have questions that you can't answer, Mr. Cady, you may refer them to me at this number. I'll be here for several hours yet."
"Oh, thank you, ma'am. Yes, I'll do that," he groveled.
Pathetic, the T-950 thought.