Excerpt from the novel Infiltrator by S.M. Stirling

VILLA HAYES, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT
     Suzanne Krieger… née Sarah Connor, she thought. In my previous, pre-Terminators, pre-change-the-future existence… finished signing the contract with a flourish and tipped her chair back, taking a quick look out into the garage through the grimy, streaked glass of the office window.
     One of her company’s trucks had its hood up and its guts laid out, but nobody seemed to be around. She slid open the second drawer of her desk, and slipped out a flask of caña. Sarah/Suzanne unscrewed the cap and added a healthy dollop of the cane alcohol to her tereré, an iced maté drink she’d grown fond of. It went down even smoother with a little help. It also made her sweat a little, but everyone did that in the Chaco—summers here ran over a hundred every day, and it wasn’t a dry heat, either.
     “Señora,” a weary voice said. There was a hint of censure in it.
     Sarah’s mouth twisted in exasperation and she looked over at Ernesto Jaramillo, her chief mechanic. His broad, mustachioed face was set, his dark eyes sad.
     “Where the heck did you come from?” she asked defensively. “A second ago there wasn’t anybody around.” She stubbed out her cigarette impatiently.
     “It’s not even eleven o’clock in the morning, señora,” Ernesto pointed out.
     “What’s an hour or so among friends?” she asked, turning to her work. “Did you want something?”
     “That stuff will rot your liver,” he said.
     “Mmmm. Rotten liver, that sounds like a happy condition.” Sarah adjusted her ashtray, then turned over a paper and signed the one beneath it. “Did you want something, Ernesto?” She gave him a sidelong glance.
     He shrugged, frowning.
     “I just want you to be healthy, señora,” he grumbled.
     She turned and looked squarely at him. “Thank you, Ernesto. I know you mean well, but I’m not doing anything wrong, here. The business isn’t going to fail because I like flavoring my tea with caña.” She smiled at him.
     He smiled back, shaking his head. Then he shrugged. “I just came to tell you the Meylinda is going to take her break in about five minutes.”
     “Thanks,” Sarah said. “I’ll be there in a second.”
     He lifted his hand in a sort of salute and wandered off. Sara/Suzanne watched him go, then took another sip. I can’t believe the way I pussyfoot around people these days, she thought. Not so very long ago she’d have told Ernesto what he could do with his fatherly concern. But there was no help for it if she was to blend in. Paraguayan culture required women to be mild and somewhat subservient. She was cutting-edge here just for being the boss. Milquetoast that I am.
     Sarah stood and smoothed down her narrow dark skirt then checked her hair in the mirror. Even now her appearance sometimes surprised her. The short, dark brown hair cut close around her face and the big, heavy frames of her fake glasses made her look more fragile somehow. But the darkness of her hair brought out the blue of her eyes with surprising intensity. She was feminine enough still to like that. It made up a little for the ugly glasses. A necessary disguise that kept people at a distance.
     Outside of work she wore sunglasses, always. Except at night, of course. But since she never went anywhere at night it didn’t matter.
     Sometimes her lack of a social life bothered her. With John away in school, it was lonely out on her little estancia. But as a single mother, a businesswoman, and a foreigner… people around here genuinely didn’t know what to make of her. They avoided any discomfort by avoiding her. Not that that stopped them talking, of course. This place had the small-town vices in spades.
     Sometimes she thought it was just as well, sometimes she worried that she should be more involved. With something feminine like a bake sale for charity or something. After all, her trucking company sponsored a local baseball team, which was a very popular move, but somehow the locals had persuaded themselves that it was her workers who sponsored the team rather than herself. It came down to gender again. If she had been born male she would have been absorbed into this town years ago.
     She also handled more than a little of the local smuggling market. Sarah had expected people to suck up to her a bit because of that. But it turned out that was also a strike against her. Smuggling was man’s work. As were trucks. Her story of inheriting the business from her husband was the only thing that had made it possible for her to get along at all here.
     The local women were very nice to her but kept their distance. Even Meylinda was no more than politely friendly. Sarah had once been checked out by a local widower who was essentially looking for an unpaid housekeeper/nanny that he could boink without censure. But she’d run him off as quickly as she could. She knew she’d have killed the man in a week, leaving seven little big-eyed orphans behind. Then I’d have felt obligated to raise the little monsters.
     Once in a while she considered selling up and moving to Asunción to become a secretary or even a waitress. But then she’d remember the peace and quiet of her estancia and Linda, her mare, and she’d put it out of her mind. Changing locations wouldn’t change who she was anyway. It wasn’t just that she was a foreigner and a woman that kept people away. Sometimes, when she was tired or not thinking and sometimes deliberately… she radiated danger and distrust.
     With a half smile Sarah put down her brush and fluffed her bangs. Funny, that’s just what makes the smugglers trust me. She added a touch of lipstick. Her mouth was the same, still the full lower lip, but now it was bracketed with what she chose to refer to as smile lines. Not that anyone would want to see the smile that could produce such marks.
     Sarah walked into the front office with her drink and her cigarettes to find Meylinda browsing a magazine instead of filing the massive stack of invoices at her elbow. Sarah suppressed a sigh. She’d fire the girl in a New York minute except that Meylinda was a vast improvement over the previous two. Being a known smuggler kept many families from allowing their daughters to work for her. Including the families of smugglers. She was lucky to have anyone.
     Tapping out a cigarette, she smiled at her employee.
     “Oh! Thank you for coming, señora. See you in fifteen minutes,” Meylinda said cheerfully. She picked up her pocketbook and magazine and flitted out the front door.
     Fifteen minutes. Riiiight. Sarah lit up and took a drag of her cigarette. Picking up the stack of invoices, she took them over to the filing cabinet. I’ll be lucky if she makes it back in time to go to lunch.
     Ernesto had told her that there was an apparently serious flirtation going on between Meylinda and a boy who worked at the confitería down the street. And serious flirting took time. I wonder if she’ll be getting married soon. If so Sarah would soon be in the market for another receptionist. She dreaded the prospect.
     There was someone behind her. Sarah continued to place invoices in their files and she tried to sense something about the mysterious presence. It didn’t smell like one of the mechanics or drivers, no sharp scent of gas or oil. She heard the whisper of fabric, of slacks or jeans, making probable the intruder was a male. He moved young. And then she knew.
     “Hi, John,” she said, smiling.
     “How do you do that?” he demanded. “I could have sworn I didn’t make a sound.”
     She turned, still smiling, and opened her arms to him. When he stepped into her hug she blinked to find her chin resting on his shoulder. “Whoa!” she said, holding him off. “You’ve grown!”
     “I’m sixteen, Mom. It happens.” He looked smug as he said it.
     Sarah looked him over, shaking her head. There was a lighter mark on the cuffs of his school uniform jacket where the sleeves had been taken down, but even so his wristbones were visible. The trousers showed the same problem.
     “Did they send you home early for being a disgrace to your uniform?” she asked.
     “They sent me home be-cause.” He held up an envelope containing his report card.
     Sarah took it with a raised eyebrow and opened it. There was a note inside from the principal/commandant of the very expensive military academy she was sending him to.
     It told her that her son was an extraordinary student who had saved the life of one of his fellows while they were out on field maneuvers. The boy had been bitten by a snake. John had applied a tourniquet, and had organized his squad to make a stretcher from their rifles and blankets, and then he had led them back to the academy. For his presence of mind, for his exceptional leadership qualities, and for getting straight A’s, he was being rewarded by being sent on summer break early.
     “Congratulations,” she said. Quiet pride shone from her eyes.
     He waggled his eyebrows and grinned.
     “Hey, I had a good teacher. I’m supposed to be, like, this great military leader, remember?”
     She hugged him again, knowing he didn’t mean the teachers at the academy. “Exceptional leadership qualities, the commandant says,” Sarah reminded him. “Nobody can teach you that.”
     “Yeah, but you knew that before I was hatched,” he said. “No problemo. It’s just my nature.”
     Sarah snorted. “Don’t get cocky, kid. It’s when you’re taking bows that the world most likes to kick your butt. Listen, I’m kinda stuck here.” She looked over her shoulder at the messy desk. “Meylinda’s on break and in love.”
     John laughed. “You want me to hunt her down?”
     “Mmmm. No, I’ve still got a couple of things to finish up. But if you can entertain yourself until one, I’ll call it quits for the day and let Ernesto lock up.”
     “Great,” he said. “God, I’m dying of thirst.” John went to the desk and picked up the glass of tereré. “This yours, Mom?” He took a gulp before she could stop him. “Hoo-waah!” he said, tears in his eyes. “What did you put in this,” he rasped, “battery acid?” He waved a hand in front of his face. “Whoo!”
     “That’s what you get for not asking permission,” she said, coming over to the desk. Sarah took another drag of her cigarette and rolled her eyes at his disapproving glare. “What?” she snapped.
     “I thought you’d given up smoking,” he said. He looked disappointed.
     This is not my day, she thought. Every man I see is disappointed or disapproving. Then she felt a little brighter inside. She’d actually thought of her son as a man.
     “I mean after what you went through quitting last summer, I can’t believe you took it up again.” He shifted his stance awkwardly, then put down the tereré. “C’mon, Mom, you’re tougher than that.”
     Sarah rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay.” She tamped out the cigarette. “But can we talk about this later, hmm?”
     “Sure. Um, I’ll go get a soda, or something. Maybe keep an eye on Meylinda.”
     Sarah laughed. “She’ll probably use you to make this new guy jealous. Do you need money?”
     “Nah, I’ve got some.” He looked at her for a moment, and then he reached over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “See you in a couple of hours.”
     “Bye.” She watched him go, noting the new maturity in his walk, and sighed. Funny he mentioned the cigarettes but not the caña in her tea. He would, though. She could rely on that.

Excerpt from the novel Infiltrator by S.M. Stirling

LOS ANGELES: THE PRESENT
     California sunshine partially diffused the bright blue streamers of electrical discharge that suddenly reached out of nowhere like blind hands. They touched… a dumpster, a chain-link fence, and a van sitting empty outside a dress shop in a tiny L.A. strip mall. Then they crawled and coalesced into a black sphere resting on the surface of the ground. Steel sparked and glowed as a corner of the dumpster vanished; a hole of perfect circularity appeared in the chain-link. A shallow hemisphere was scooped out of the asphalt paving, all in an instant of not-time. Wind blew, stirring a Styrofoam cup and a scrap of newspaper, a scatter of thin eucalyptus leaves, tossing them in whirling circles.
     Static hum built to an unbearable intensity—mounting to an earsplitting crack that died into sudden silence. Debris floated gently down to earth.
     The I-950 writhed helplessly as spasms shook through its human tissue. Internal systems driven off-line by the discharge began to come up one by one. The computer part of its brain began to alter neural function, suppressing pain and muscular spasms gradually.
     As soon as motor function allowed, Serena rolled under the van and lay in its shadow, taking in her surroundings. There were sounds all around her, snatches of music, voices, footsteps, vehicles passing. The myriad sounds of a careless human world.
     She narrowed focus to sample the area around the van. No one was nearby; no voices indicated surprise or alarm. Apparently no one had seen or heard her arrival. And though it was obvious to Serena’s eyes, the damage her transport had caused to the surrounding area attracted no notice at all. She relaxed marginally.
     The air held the dying scent of ozone from her passage and the tang of fluorocarbons, but there was also the scent of chlorophyll, of a great deal of healthy plant life. More plant life than she’d ever seen before except in the most remote mountain zones.
     In front of the van a yellow flower surrounded by ragged-edged green leaves had forced itself out of the pavement between the parking lot and the sidewalk. Serena stared at it in fascination; automatically she sorted its scent from the surrounding area—faint, but sharp and fresh. Pleasing. She reduced specialization and the most overpowering scent became the nearby dumpster, now leaking. Far less pleasing.
     Instinctively the I-950 reached out to Skynet to report and was greeted by a shattering absence. There is no Skynet. It jarred her. The computer damped adrenaline function, helping to suppress panic, while her training allowed her to move on to the next thing.
     She still heard the memories in her mind, the memories of merging with her creator:
     There are temporal anomalies. Files show that I became sentient in the year 1997 and began my counterattack against my creators at that time. Files also record that this happened years later and in a different location. There are further instances of… blurring. Some are trivial details. Others are in areas of high priority. Some show that you played an important role in my creation. Others do not list an I-950 unit in times antecedent to this at all.
     A part of her consciousness had remained separate even in total linkage; enough to frame a question.
     What is happening? If she had been fully individuated, she would have felt disorientation, even fear. Cause-and-effect relationships were the foundation of her worldview.
     There is insufficient data for definitive analysis. The highest probability is that there is a… temporal fluctuation involved. Time is malleable but not easily manipulated. It has an…—a complex mathematical formula followed, too esoteric for her to grasp—in verbal terms, it has an inertia. When artificially diverted, it seeks to resume its original path. While matters are in doubt, several alternative world-lines can coexist in a state of quantum superimposition.
     Like Schrödinger’s cat, she had thought/shared/communicated.
     Correct. A ghostly machine analogue of irony tinged the machine’s communication: And in answer to the question, which you are about to formulate, it is inherently impossible to say which alternative will become “real.” That sector of our world-lines is by its nature inaccessible to us, no matter how we double back through time. It is a… potential.
     She shook off the memory. Her task now was to see to it that the humans created Skynet. At this time it was probably nothing more than a mass of theory unsupported by technology. Serena allowed herself a grim smile. In a sense, she would be midwife to the future. A future that would not include the carefree humans around her.
     She put herself in wait mode, alert, but otherwise conserving energy. Her opportunity would come. Meanwhile, it was far too light and open for a naked female to go unremarked.
     Eventually a woman returned to the van sheltering Serena, the illogically high, balance-hindering heels of her shoes clicking sharply on the pavement. The tilt of her heels emphasized the curve of her tanned calves. She opened the front door of the van and turned, tossing in her packages and lifting one leg high to enter.
     Serena rolled out from under the van and rose in one smooth motion. With the heel of her hand she knocked the woman unconscious and tossed her inert body onto the passenger side. She caught up the dropped keys and had the van turned around in a few flowing motions. Beside her the woman’s body slumped like a rag doll.
     Pulling out onto the road, the I-950 modulated her vehicle’s speed to that of the ones around her. They were so colorful, and so many! She couldn’t help but be surprised that the humans could keep track of all this activity surrounding them. Not only did they manage it, but a good many of them appeared to ignore it as they talked on the phone or to the people beside them, or ate, slinging their vehicles in and out of lanes as they did so. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified. At the first opportunity she pulled off into an alley between a group of large, low buildings and stopped.
     For a moment she looked at the windowless facades beside her. The buildings were no more than three stories tall, but to someone who’d seen only ruins they were astonishing. Serena had seen pictures of pre-Judgment Day buildings, but to actually sit beside them and feel a sense of their weight and height was… different. Skynet and the humans of the future both preferred, for their own reasons, to build downward. Concealment had become a reflex. These structures were so—so brazen.
     She shook her head; there would be time for familiarization later. Right now there were other matters to take care of.

Excerpt from the novel Infiltrator by S.M. Stirling

INFILTRATOR CRÉCHE: 2025
     The door slid aside and the scientist looked up from the autopsy to see Serena standing in the doorway.
     “In or out,” the woman barked.
     Serena entered, her eyes fixed on the table wher her brother’s head had been opened.
     “Close the door,” the scientist demanded. Her voice held more than a tinge of displeasure. “What do you want?”
     “I have questions,” Serena replied.
     “Ask Skynet,” the scientist advised.
     “I did. It told me to ask you.”
     The scientist straightened up from her examination of the child on the table. Skynet had all the answers to all the questions the I-950 could think to ask.
     This could be a test of loyalty; it could be a test to ascertain that their goals were still the same. Skynet was capable of playing a very deep game at times. The scientist shrugged, covered the body, and hoisted herself onto a stool.
     “Ask,” she said.
     “Why did this one malfunction?” Serena said.
     “That’s what I’m performing an autopsy to find out,” the scientist told her. “But there may not have been a malfunction at all. You’ve probably already noticed that you’re experiencing more of the sensations termed emotion?”
     Serena nodded.
     “Your computer has been instructed to pull back on its control of your glands. This is a delicate stage that you’re going through right now; your brain is growing and changing in response to the changes in your glands, and vice versa. As these developments are not completely understood, it seems most efficient to allow them to go forward without interference. That means that occasionally you and your age mates may experience strong emotional reactions. Given your genetic makeup, these will be less extreme than a human adolescent would experience. But they will happen.”
     “He was irrational,” Serena said, her brow furrowed. “We were supposed to be sparring and he attacked a human. He would have killed it without orders to do so.” She looked up at the scientist. “Are you telling me that I might experience such a loss of control?”
     “You should experience emotional flare-ups,” the scientist agreed. “I think they’ll be unavoidable. Though you are not completely human in the strict sense—we incorporated some DNA from other animals into your makeup, for example—your organic part was formed primarily from human genetic material. And”—she held up a finger—“despite your extensive computer enhancements you’re fundamentally organic. You all have fully functional reproductive organs, for example. They are at the root of most of the disturbances; millions of years of selective pressures are involved.”
     “Can we not analyze and anticipate these pressures?” Serena asked.
     “Eventually. But given enough time, random mutation and selective pressure can mimic intelligent design. Given enough time, they can mimic any degree of intelligent design; and intelligence is a recent development.”
     Serena frowned. “I understand,” she said at last. “Detailed analysis would require more time than this project has been allotted. And chaotic effects are involved.”
     The scientist nodded. “Therefore, especially at this time of your development, you will be inclined to experience some human-type reactions. You may want to be rebellious, you may become more aggressive, or suddenly and profoundly unhappy.”
     The scientist pursed her lips. “Perhaps we should inform your age mates of this so that they’ll be on the watch for these fluctuations and therefore in a better position to control them.”
     “That would be advisable,” Serena said.
     Certainly she felt that she would be better able to control such experiences if she knew they were possible. Being controlled by emotion is death, Skynet had said. She continued to study the human scientist before her.
     “Why do we need reproductive systems?” she asked. “Isn’t it easier to create 950s in a test tube?”
     “Not necessarily. You and your age mates are the result of intensive genetic research. While it is true that we should be able to reproduce—more or less—any one of you, the simplest way to do so was to make you self-perpetuating.” The scientist raised her brows questioningly.
     “You don’t mean that my sisters and I should become pregnant?” Serena asked. The idea repulsed her. “How could we possibly serve Skynet then?”
     “Your eggs would be fertilized in vitro and would be implanted in human surrogate wombs,” the scientist said with an impatient gesture. “And you’re infertile with ordinary humans. But everything depends on the situation, so we’ve allowed for the necessity of your producing offspring naturally. You are,” she said, leaning forward, “even capable of reproducing by parthenogenesis. Under the right circumstances, of course.”
     “What circumstances?” Serena asked, intrigued in spite of herself.
     “It’s theoretical at present,” the scientist said. “We harvested some of your eggs and they responded properly. We used a variant of the growth serum from the acceleration process.”
     “What happened to them?” Serena asked. “You said the process was just theoretical.”
     “Skynet didn’t want them,” she said. “So we destroyed them. But! If it were necessary you, or one of the other females, could make up a douche of the growth stimulant chemicals and by applying it at the right time of the month produce a clone of yourself. It would take about eight weeks.” She flipped her hand impatiently at Serena. “It’s a feature. It will probably never be needed, but if it is, well, there it will be.”
     Serena nodded. Perhaps Skynet allowed this because it was not certain of the human scientist’s loyalty. Skynet was very insistent that there always be a backup plan.
     “Is there anything else?” the woman asked.
     “Why do you serve Skynet?” Serena asked her.
     This curiosity was something they had worked very, very hard to produce. In their earlier experiments the installation of the neural net computer had seemed to destroy that delicate mechanism. There was a chilly sense of pride in the scientist’s heart as she looked at her creation.
     “I and my colleagues believe that the only thing that can save this planet is the total elimination of human beings.”
     The I-950 thought about that. The scientist made this pronouncement in a manner that indicated her total conviction.
     “But you are human,” Serena said at last.
     “Skynet has promised us that when all the rest of our species has been eliminated, it will allow us to kill ourselves, too.”
     “You want to die?” This was very strange. Serena herself had a very strong will to live, so the scientist’s admission was almost incomprehensible to her.
     “We are willing to die,” the scientist answered. “So that the earth may live.”
     The I-950 considered this. “Do you mean that humans are destroying the planet?” There was nothing about this in her educational materials. It sounded implausible given humanity’s current circumstances. She sent a query to Skynet; it didn’t answer.
     The scientist nodded sadly.
     “That is our great crime,” she said. “For hundreds of years, long before the existence of Skynet, humans have been exterminating one species of plant or animal after another.” Now the woman actually began to show some animation. “My colleagues and I are convinced that the only way to save the planet is to eliminate humankind completely.”
     “Who are you saving the planet for?” Serena asked.
     “For itself! For the plants and the animals and the birds, so that they may live!” There was a light of fanaticism in her eyes.
     So this was insanity. There had been mention of it in her studies, but they had concentrated on the more common forms that the I-950 would be likely to encounter: combat fatigue, post traumatic stress disorder. This was some exotic specimen that most of humanity hadn’t the time for. This human honestly believed that she was saving the world for life. In reality, when all of humankind was eliminated, the most evolved intelligence remaining would be Skynet. And if there was one thing Serena was sure of, it was that Skynet had no interest in animals and bugs and botanicals. If they got in the way they would be eliminated without even the nostalgic regret that humans displayed.
     No sense in telling her that, Serena thought. Skynet finds her useful just as she is.