She boldly approached Cyberdyne's glass front door and pulled the handle.
Nothing happened. I guess maybe they're waiting for us. Her breath grew shaky and her palms began to sweat.
The glass was tinted; from four feet away it might as well have been opaque.
Sarah leaned forward and made out a man behind a desk watching her. She tapped on the glass and waved the security guard toward her.
He mouthed, "We're closed."
She took the laser out of her pocket and pretended she was a phone; lowering her head, she pulled her ear. She continued to wave the guard toward her, looking up at him from under the rim of her hat.
He kept waving his hands in a negative sign and saying they were closed, and she continued lo alternately lap on the door and wave him forward. Al last, looking intensely exasperated, he pushed himself up from his seal and came lo the door. Unlocking it, he pushed it open a few inches.
"We—are—closed," he enunciated.
"Hold on, please," Sarah said lo The taser. "I have an appointment," she said to the guard.
"There's nobody here," he insisted. "The place is empty."
"Check your appointment book," Sarah said. "I'll be listed."
He glanced al The MP armband and looked uncertain.
Sarah, holding The laser against her shoulder as though she didn't want it to overhear, sighed noisily.
"Will you just check. Please," she said. "I'm sure I would have been contacted if my appointment was canceled."
"We-11," he said. "I guess Ms. Burns is still here…"
"Thai's who I'm supposed lo see," Sarah told him. "Could you please just let me in and tell her I'm here." He stood looking al her uncertainly. "Sometime today would be good," she said sarcastically.
The guard stood back and gestured her in with his head. Then he locked The door behind them and led her lo his desk. He sat down and called up a page on the computer.
"I'm sorry about This," Sarah said quietly.
The guard turned toward her and she triggered the taser; the twin cords shot out with an electronic zzzzrrrnng, hitting him full in the stomach. He went down and bounced and jittered on the floor while fifty thousand volts shot through his body and his muscles convulsed.
Sarah pressed the button that released the cords, snapped a new set into the
taser's base, and stepped over his body before he even became still. Placing her briefcase on the desk, she opened it and took out some duct tape. Bending over the guard, she checked his pulse; fast, but steady. Then she slapped a piece of tape over his mouth and turned him over. With a few quick moves she had him bound, feet to wrists, and more securely gagged. Quickly she patted him over and withdrew his master key-card, then she shoved him under the desk.
Glancing at the computer, she noticed the page he'd brought up had been replaced by a prompt that asked what information the guard was looking for. She typed in "games," hoping that anyone watching over the system, if anyone was, would assume that a bored guard was looking for entertainment. The computer responded with a full-page scolding about playing games on company time.
Sarah raised an eyebrow. They can't seriously imagine that anyone is going to go to the trouble of reading all that, she thought. It's a self administered spanking!
She tapped in the sequence that John had given them and it brought up security; with a few taps she disabled the silent alarm. Something I should have done last time, she thought bitterly. Then she brought up the door locks and changed the entry code to test mode, one that only she, John, and Dieter knew. Then she shut the computer down and rose.
Sarah looked around. The guard's desk stood alone in a very unwelcoming lobby. No chairs for the comfort of waiting visitors, no plants to soften the harsh lines of the place. Just a polished floor and the desk, behind which was a short, wide corridor that ended in a pair of double doors. This led to the storage area, where she hoped to find her bomb-making materials. On either side of the corridor were a pair of elevators.
The desk itself was one of those that had a high shelf in front with the desk space consisting of another shelf below. Even when he wasn't tied up underneath it the guard would be very hard to see from the front.
Which is a plus, Sarah thought. Some passerby glancing through the door wouldn't really expect to see anyone.
She stood still, listening carefully: there was no sound but the sigh of the air-conditioning, and the air it put out had the utter sterility of a high-priced recirculation system. Apparently the guard hadn't been kidding; no one was here.
No one but Ms. Burns, that is, whoever she is.
A group of monitors on the guard's desk showed her from several angles, so there were several cameras mounted around the place. But she saw no point in worrying about them. If she succeeded, they'd soon be so much melted plastic along with their tapes; if she failed, Cyberdyne would know who had invaded them anyway.
Snapping her briefcase closed, she took the key out of her pocket and jogged toward the storage area. The door opened smoothly on the first try. Sarah let out her breath in relief. She'd been half expecting an alarm to go off, or for some secret code to be required.
Sarah entered a warehouse-sized space and made a little sound of despair. This is going to take longer than I'd hoped. She looked around and noticed a bank of elevators along the front wall, flanking the corridor. The elevators had front and back doors. How sensible! she thought in surprise. They've actually made it convenient for people to get supplies. She'd assumed that she would have to drag
everything out front, risking discovery.
This is going to be a snap, she thought.
FT. LAUREL BASE HOSPITAL: THE PRESENT
John looked around the room through slitted eyes; he was in a state of well-controlled terror, not knowing whom he was with or where he was. He couldn't see much, but he saw enough to know he wasn't alone: a man's legs with one foot crossed over his knee were visible off to his side.
He was in a hospital room, from what he could see. There was another bed to his left, but it was empty. The door to the hall was closed. He lay still, which wasn't hard; he was feeling very weak. Better, though. Someone's given me fluids and a trank. I should hurt more. Head's a little fuzzy.
The door opened and a gray-haired man with glasses came in; from his white coat he was a doctor.
"Isn't he awake yet?" the doctor asked, moving quickly to John's side. He took up the boy's wrist and checked his pulse.
"If he is, he hasn't said anything," Dyson said.
He sounded tired, but John was grateful to hear his voice. If Dyson was still here maybe he wasn't going to be turned over to the master Terminator.
The doctor reached over and lifted one of John's eyelids; he turned on a penlight and John blinked involuntarily.
"Aha! Playing possum were you," the doctor said cheerfully. "Well, I need to ask you a few questions, then you can go back to sleep if you like." He asked a few brisk questions to test memory and visual acuteness. "Are you in pain?" he asked finally.
"I'm comfortable," John said.
"Really?" The doctor glanced at his watch. "Some people have a pretty high threshold of pain, but yours is remarkable. You should be very aware of that shoulder right now, since you're due for a shot of Demerol."
"I'm fine," John said again. "I don't like drugs."
"I wish more of your generation felt that way," the doctor said, making a note on the chart. "Are you hungry?"