Wendy shrugged off her knapsack and sat down, then took a sip of her drink.
John divested himself of his own and sat across from her wondering how to begin. He'd rehearsed things to say, naturally, but felt that he'd somehow gotten off on the wrong foot here. Clearly their Internet acquaintance and one phone call didn't mean that they knew each other as far as she was concerned.
I should have let her know I was coming, he thought. Of course then she could have said don't come and probably would have. And he would have come anyway, in which case she'd be even more hostile than she presently was. Still, showing up unexpectedly and in disguise … He winced inwardly. He'd actually forgotten about it. That's the kind of thing stalkers do, I guess. The last thing he wanted to do was make her think he was crazy. Oh, c'mon, John, she's gonna
think you're crazy anyway. Just a different kind of crazy.
"Well!" she snapped. "You wanted to talk? Presumably during my lifetime?"
He cupped his chin on his hand and said, "There's no need to get snippy."
"Well, what do you expect when you show up like this? In a take beard no less!
I've felt a little weird about you right from the start and I've gotta tell you"—she gave her head a little shake—"I'm really not feeling very good about this." She flicked a hand at him. "Not good at all."
John allowed himself to show some temper. "Well, Wendy, I find it interesting that you're perfectly comfortable invading the privacy of people you don't know at the behest of someone else you don't know for reasons that you don't know.
But when I attempt to meet you face-to-face to explain it all, you give me this rather obnoxious attitude that screams 'hey, my space is being invaded."
Her mouth dropped open and she straightened in her seat. Then she let out a little bark of a laugh and opened her mouth to speak.
Before she could get out a word John said, "Has it ever occurred to you that, never mind that it's unethical, what you're doing might be dangerous, or illegal?"
"No," she said instantly. "I'm not that clumsy and I'm not doing anything but looking. Information should be free."
It was John's turn to stare. God! She's so innocent! What must it be like to feel so invincible. He had at one time, but that was before the T-1000 and he couldn't remember what it had been like.
"Well, ideally we all should be free, and well fed and have a comfortable, safe place to sleep at night. But I don't think that's the way things are. Do you?"
She gave a "hunh!" and glared at him.
"Don't let your pride get in the way of your considerable intelligence," he said.
"You know you never should have gotten involved in this without checking into it further, don't you?"
With a shrug she said, "I checked you out. As far as I could. Your Web address belongs to a guy named Dieter von Rossbach and he isn't you. But why you're using his computer, I couldn't find out. I also couldn't find any reference to an AM anywhere. Which indicates that it's a new name. So, either you've never done anything like this yourself, or you've screwed it up so badly that you needed a new handle."
He considered her answer. Not bad for what was mostly guesswork. He scrubbed his face with his hands, being careful not to dislodge his facial hair, and looked at her.
"Well?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.
"It is a new name. Spur-of-the-moment thing," he admitted. "I've done research on the Net before and I've lurked around a bit. But this sort of thing, getting other people involved…" He turned down the corners of his mouth and shook his head. "Yeah. This is new."
Wendy huffed a little and leaned back in her chair, studying him. He was young, probably younger than she was, but he felt older, and she instinctively knew she
could trust him. Maybe she was being snippy.
"So what's this about?" she asked. "I guess you didn't come all the way from South America because you thought I was cute or something."
"Sure I did," he said, grinning. Then held up his hand to ward off her response.
"Well, maybe it helped. I came up here because it would be irresponsible to let you keep doing this research without having some idea of why and what you're doing. I am not lying when I tell you it could be dangerous. Now I'm not talking gun battles on the quad here." At least I hope like hell I'm not. "Maybe a better word would be risk."
"Risk?" she said. Wendy took a sip of her soda, watching him.
"Yeah. You're taking a risk on your future here. Which is why I believe you need more information."
Biting her lips, she nodded slowly, meeting his dark-eyed gaze. He had a point.
The powers that be might, at the very least, think that what she'd been doing was unethical, if not uncommon. And that could impact her career path.
"All right," she said. "Enlighten me."
Okay, here goes. "What you've been working on is an attempt to locate a very dangerous military AI project."
After a moment's pause she asked, "A U.S. government project?"
"Ye-ah." Who else? he wondered.
"Because, you're from Paraguay, aren't you?"
"I'm from the U.S., I live in Paraguay," he said impatiently. "What's your point?"
"I dunno. I guess"—she shrugged—"I wondered why you'd be interested."
People are right, John thought, Americans are self-centered. If you're not from here what do you care what we do? Naive and unconsciously arrogant, to say the least.
"My interest is in stopping this project, at the very least slowing it down."
Suddenly mindful of where their acquaintance had begun, Wendy asked suspiciously, "Are you some kind of a Luddite?"
" Now you ask me?" John favored her with an exasperated look. "No, I'm not a Luddite. I'm willing to admit that they have a few good ideas, but by and large I don't think their ideology is applicable to real life. And I don't like terrorists; they're all self-centered, mean-spirited nutcakes, if you ask me. Me, I just have this one lousy project that needs to be stopped. I have my reasons, which I'll explain to you someplace less public. But I'm not here to hurt you, Wendy, far from it."
Wendy considered that. "Have you read Labane's book?" she asked.
John shook his head. "I haven't had time."
"So you really can't say whether their ideology is, in fact, applicable." She crossed her arms and watched him for his reaction.
John was a bit confused. Suddenly she wanted to play debating team? To him the question and its follow-up had come out of left field. Maybe it's like a time-out, he thought. She's trying to get some space to think about me being here so she's distracting me with this nonsense.
"You know what?" he said. "You're right. I can't speak to the Luddite ideology with any authority because I haven't made a minute study of their position. I think they bear watching, but frankly"—he flattened his hand on his chest—"I'm not that interested. I have this one thing I have to do and it takes all my time and concentration. I'm hoping that once you've heard what I have to say, you and your friends will want to continue helping me. And if you don't I'm trusting you to keep quiet about it. Everything else is irrelevant to me. Okay?"
She kind of lifted her head and pursed her lips. "Sure, whatever." Wendy took another sip of her drink, annoyed and slightly embarrassed. "So. Have you got a place to stay?"