Excerpt from the novel Rising Storm by S.M. Stirling

MIT CAMPUS

     “Who the hell is Sarah Connor?” Snog asked.
     Wendy smacked his leg. “I told you about her, remember? She’s kind of a Luddite heroine.”
     “Oooh, her,” Carl said.
     “You’re Sarah Connor’s son?” Yam asked.
     “Yup.”
     “You’re daddy was from the future?” Snog asked.
     “That’s right,” John agreed. He wondered if Snog was worth the trouble.
     “Cool,” Carl said. He leaned forward eagerly. “So how does that work anyhow?”
     “Wait a minute!” Snog snapped. “You can’t just come in here and claim you’re John Connor! Give us some proof, for cryin’ out loud.”
     John laughed at him. “Do you seriously think I carry around some kind of irrefutable ID?” He shook his head, grinning. “Call up the FBI or Interpol Web site and scroll to my name. Look at the age-enhanced photo, then look at me.” He shrugged. “Best I can do for ya, buddy. Or you could just take me at my word.”
     They all stared at him, then turned toward Snog’s computer as he began to type in an address. In a few minutes they were looking at a photo of a smooth-shaven, rather young-looking John Connor. It had been blown up from a class picture taken when John was nine.
     John took off his glasses and turned his head to resemble the photo.
     “It’s kind of hard to tell with the fake beard,” Yam objected.
     John blushed. “Yeah, I’m finding it a little hard to take it off.”
     They all crowded close to the screen to study the image, then looked at John, then back at the screen.
     “Damn!” Brad said, impressed. “It really is you!”
     “Waaaiit a minute!” Snog protested. “I thought that we all agreed with the site about Sarah Connor being a victim of government mind-control experiments and that there are no Terminators except in her mind.” He turned to John. “You want me to believe you’re John Connor, show me a Terminator.”
     John chuckled; he couldn’t help it. “Well, they’re a little unwieldy to carry around since they run about six feet tall and weigh in at about five hundred pounds. But there is this.”
     He drew what looked like a candy bar from his pocket and peeled off the wrapper to reveal a tiny series of interconnected black blocks. “This is a Terminator’s CPU.”
     They gathered around, their eyes alight with pure greed, just one step away from their tongues hanging out.
     “It’s weird,” Snog conceded.
     “How does it work?” Wendy asked.
     “Well, people, that’s why I brought it with me.” John looked at each of them in turn, making eye contact. “I won’t leave it with you, however, unless you’re prepared to meet certain conditions.”
     “Hey, man,” Snog jeered, “we could promise you the world on a string and then when you leave do whatever the hell we want. I mean, what are ya gonna do about it?”
     John addressed himself to Snog. “First of all, we’re not certain that all the Terminators were taken out of play. So if you light this up without putting it in a Faraday cage, you might find yourself being visited by a whole Terminator. Second, if you exploit this with the wrong people you might be responsible for bringing on Judgment Day. Third, if the government finds out about this you just might disappear. Fourth, if you turn me in to the cops, one day I swear I will take you down.”
     “Oooo,” Wendy said. “Tough guy.”
     He looked at her. He genuinely liked Wendy, but she was expendable if necessary. He’d hate himself, but he’d do it.
     She saw something in his eyes that caused her to back down. “So what do you want from us?”
     “When we disconnected this the Terminator was probably changing or erasing information. If it’s possible I’d like to stop it from doing anything else and perhaps recover whatever information it tried to eliminate. This could be a gold mine.”
     “Or a crap mine,” Yam interjected. He reached out one long finger but didn’t touch the chip. “Fascinating design.”
     John’s lips tightened. He didn’t want to let go of the chip, but he couldn’t learn anything from it himself and he didn’t know any scientists. These kids were the best chance he had of utilizing this resource. It wasn’t a sure bet, but then neither was any other option.
     “If I entrust this to you to work on,” John said, “you could give us the edge that will allow us to beat Skynet. But you have to know that Skynet is capable of putting agents in the field anytime, anywhere. And it’s desperate. So you can’t afford to take any chances. Which means you can’t show or tell anybody about this without my clearance.”
     “Why would you trust us?” Snog asked, sounding for the first time as though he was willing to cut John some slack.
     “I’ve checked you guys out,” he said. “You’re all brilliant, this work is definitely within your capabilities. You have access to facilities that I don’t. And, you’re close enough to my age that I felt I could trust you.” Actually, that wasn’t true, but he thought they’d like hearing it.
     The guys looked smug, but Wendy said, “Hey, wait a minute! You just met my friends tonight. How could you possibly have checked them out?”
     John could feel the color rising in his face. “Uh. There was a slight—”
     “Invasion of privacy,” she snapped. Her eyes glittered with fury. “How dare you?”
     “I’m sorry, Wendy, I really am. But if I hadn’t been able to check you and your friends out, I wouldn’t have been able to come here.”
     She crossed her arms. “Yeah, well, I did a little checking on you, too, when I got interested in Sarah Connor’s story. You’re wanted for murder.”
     With a sigh John rewrapped the CPU. “I’ve never killed anybody in my life,” he said. Well, nobody human. Do sentient killing machines from the future count?
     “What about that ‘I’ll take you down’ stuff?” Snog mocked.
     “Nice to know somebody here knows bullshit when they smell it,” John said.
     Snog laughed. “He’s all right. “He held out his hand. “I’m in.”
     The relief in the room was palpable and Brad, Carl, and Yam all offered their hands as well. Only Wendy sat scowling at him. “I want you to promise me you’ll never invade my privacy again,” she said.
     John shook his head. “I can’t promise that. All I can promise is to respect your privacy as much as I can.” He could see that she didn’t like that. “Somethings are greater than our personal likes and dislikes,” he explained. “I genuinely don’t like making you unhappy with me. But I’m not going to lie to you if I can help it. What I’m trying to accomplish, what you’ll be helping me to accomplish, is more important than any one person or their privacy. I won’t abuse it. That’s all I can promise.” He met her eyes, willing her to believe him.
     “I don’t like it,” Wendy said frankly. She turned her head away, then gave a half shrug; looking back, she frowned at him. “I’ll have to get back to you on it. Meanwhile”—she looked around and let out her breath in a little huff—“I’m starved. Who’s up for pizza?”
     “Thought you’d never ask,” Carl muttered.