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

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

     Almost into Oregon, on the east side of Goose Lake, nestled beneath the spreading, green canopy of old-growth pines, was a small log cabin. It had one story, a stone chimney, and three rooms, one with a glass wall facing the lake as well as a state-of-the-art woodstove. It also boasted its own generator plus a slew of more esoteric gadgets. For a rustic log cabin it was amazingly twenty-first century.
     Extending out into the lake nearby was a wooden pier; a small boat with an outboard motor was tied up at the far end. The pier was so low to the water that one could step aboard easily.
     At the very end of the pier, seated in an aluminum chair with yellow plastic webbing, was a big man of about sixty. His gray hair was covered with a battered khaki hat decorated with fishhooks and a plastic badge that held a fishing and a hunting license. He wore tan shorts, white socks with sandals, and a neon-orange shirt decorated with bright blue hibiscus blossoms and green hummingbirds.
     In one hand he held a high-end rod and reel, the butt end resting on his thigh. The other hand was curled in his lap; he appeared to be dozing. Beside him a can of beer sat atop a red-and-white cooler.
     Dieter had been observing this tranquil scene for over two hours from various locations around the cabin. It appeared that there wasn’t anybody around except for him and the old man. Which made a nice change. Several times now he’d had to abort contact with someone he wanted to recruit because of a Sector presence. But if they were here they were too well hidden for him to spot. Time to make his move. He crept silently toward the pier.
     The old man’s hand jerked and suddenly held a Walther P-38, old and well maintained and deadly, the 9mm eyehole looking as big as a cannon when it settled unwaveringly on Dieter’s face. His eyes moved to the tiny mirrors on the inner edge of his oversized sunglasses.
     “Jesus Christ, Dieter, what took you so damned long?” he demanded. “I thought my goddamned bladder was going to explode.” He stood up and held out the rod. “Here, reel this in and come into the cabin.”
     Dieter stood with his mouth open, caught flat-footed. Like some raw recruit, he thought.
     “How did you know?” he asked, accepting the rod.
     “Christ Almighty, you were making so much racket I thought I was being invaded by bears. Bring the beer in, too.”
     Von Rossbach watched the older man trot up the path to the cabin for a moment; then shaking his head, he began to reel in the unused lure. He’d always said the boss was psychic.
     When von Rossbach was a young agent assigned to Doc Holmes’s unit, he’d quickly become aware that his mentor possessed an acute situational awareness. And though Doc was well schooled in every facet of covert technology, he made it plain that he preferred his agents to rely mainly on their native faculties.
     “What are you gonna do if your batteries run out?” he’d ask sarcastically. “Go home?”
     Doc could be as exasperating as he was amazing. At some point whenever they got together, he left Dieter feeling like the overconfident young student in a kung fu movie who could never get the best of the master.
     Dieter tucked the rod under one arm, the chair under the other, and picked up the cooler. In a way it was kind of nice to know that he still had things to learn. At least it means that I’m not the old master yet. And he’s never made me walk over rice paper without tearing it, or asked me to trust the Force.
     When he entered the cabin Doc was flicking switches on what looked like an incredibly complex stereo unit.
     “Siddown,” Doc invited. “Have yourself a brew.”
     He continued to fiddle with the console, though no music began to play. Von Rossbach selected a beer and sat watching him, making no comment.
     Finally Holmes took a seat himself and, indicating the console, spoke as though continuing an ongoing conversation, “Yeah, the Sector promised me they wouldn’t keep me under observation when I retired. They lied.” He put a finger by his nose and winked. “But I never made them any promises in return. What I just did then was erase the little bit of conversation we just had and replace it with tweeting birds and lake water lapping the pier.” He grinned. “I pity the poor schmo they’ve got listening in on me; his brain is probably turning to New Age paste.” Taking a sip of beer, he studied his former agent.
     “So, what brings you here to Goose Lake? I heard you’d retired to Paraguay, of all places.”
     Dieter shifted in his chair. “Paraguay is nice,” he said, a bit defensively. “A little boring sometimes, but basically very nice.”
     With a snort Doc said, “So’s Goose Lake, if you like being bored out of your mind.” He wagged a finger. “You’ve been causing comment, dear boy. What’s this I hear about you and Sarah Connor?”
     “How do you know about that?” von Rossbach demanded.
     Doc looked smug. “Remember how I said I never made them any promises? Wellll… I found a way to keep myself updated. When you left I hear you just… left.”
     “I burned out all at once,” Dieter agreed. “I couldn’t wait to get out of there. They agreed.”
     “Wanna talk about it?” Doc asked.
     “Nothing to talk about,” von Rossbach said. “There was nothing particular about my last mission that made it my last. It just was. Maybe I didn’t take enough time between assignments, maybe I should have taken a desk job instead of staying in the field.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I don’t know; it was just over.”
     Holmes looked at him shrewdly. “I ask again, what’s this about Sarah Connor? Not like you to side with the terrorists.”
     Is that what they’re saying? Dieter thought. Of course it was, what else could they think? “Sarah Connor isn’t a terrorist,” he said aloud. His voice was flat when he said it; he didn’t expect to be believed.
     Doc raised a brow at that. “She’s not? She’s bombed at least three computer companies that we know of. Okay, two of them were Cyberdyne, but that still counts as three hits. Not to mention she’s guilty of drug smuggling and arms dealing. These are things that terrorists do, buddy.”
     Dieter sighed. He was about to risk something he really valued here—the continued respect of this man. “But what if she’s not crazy, Doc?” He looked up and met the other man’s eyes.
     Both of Doc’s brows went up at that. He sat contemplating his former agent for a while. “Not crazy,” he said at last.
     “Would you be willing to listen?” von Rossbach asked him.
     Holmes pursed his lips and blew out a stream of air. He shrugged. “Sure, what the hell, I haven’t got anything else on my schedule right now.”
     Dieter studied him carefully; if he didn’t buy this story, Dieter knew Doc would turn him in to the Sector in a New York minute. He ran one hand over his face, feeling desperate. Well, this is what you’re here for, he told himself.
     “It’s all true,” he said simply. Dieter waived his hands. “All of it.”
     For a moment Doc sat still, looking expectant. “That’s it?” he exclaimed. “That’s your explanation? ‘Cause, y’know, I’m sitting here waiting for something more. What if all I know about Sarah Connor is she likes to blow up computer companies?”
     Tossing his head impatiently, von Rossbach said, “You know more about the case than that! I know you better, Doc. I worked for you for ten years. If you saw my name connected with hers in the Sector’s files, you’d look into it. I know you would.”
     Doc waggled his head back and forth. “Okay, good call.” He went silent for a while, his eyes on the middle distance. “I have to admit I was very intrigued by that guy who shot up the police station, then ten years later showed up in a shopping mall.” He waved a hand at von Rossbach. “It was you! Except that at the time of both incidents, you were working for me, and in the first case, you were actually, physically, with me. So what am I supposed to think? I know you don’t have an evil identical twin. I know they say everybody has a double, but that’s bullshit.”
     Dieter watched Doc as he worked it through, the older man’s fingers tapping on the arms of his chair. Doc looked up at him. “Connor says this guy was some kind of robot.” A statement that was really a question.
     Dieter nodded. “I got to meet a couple of them, Doc. They looked exactly like me. I saw their insides; they’re made of metal. Rods and cams, hydraulics, a really impressive small power unit, computer controls—neural-net computers. They’re real.”
     After studying Dieter for a moment, Doc said, “So it follows that the ultimate killer computer and the Judgment Day crap… all that’s real, too?”
     “I hope not. That’s what Sarah has been trying to prevent all these years.” He bit his lip. “Unfortunately we’ve come to the conclusion that maybe it can’t be stopped. Maybe it’s meant to happen and there’s nothing that can be done to prevent it. The best we can do is mitigate the circumstances. Which is why I’m here.”
     “Yeah, Whang said you were recruiting people.”
     Doc waited him out. Dieter could feel heat creeping up his face. Only Doc could make him feel like a naive kid saying something stupid. “So I was hoping that we could rely on you to help when the time came.” There, that was it. This time he waited for Holmes to speak.
     “You’re serious about this, I can see that,” Doc said at last. “I’m not gonna tell you it makes me feel good; like you’ve found a nice hobby to enliven your retirement.” He tightened his lips to thin line, then met von Rossbach’s eyes. “But I’ve trusted you before now and been right. So… I’ll take a chance and agree to help you. But!” He held up a stern finger. “I’m not going to be party to any wacko terrorist behavior. If your girlfriend feels an urge to blow up anything else, I’d advise you to talk her out of it, or I’m gone. Got it?”
     “Yes,” Dieter said simply. “Thank you.”
     “So what do you want from me anyway?”
     “When the time comes we’ll need someplace marginally safe for people to go.” Dieter looked out at the peaceful lake. “This would make a good destination. We’ll also need your training skills.” He hesitated. “And we’ll need someplace to stockpile supplies.”
     Von Rossbach was enormously relieved. The fact that Holmes had agreed so readily meant that he’d given the matter study and thought. And where Doc led, others would follow; generations of Sector agents and allies had worked with, or trained under, the old man. He was glad he’d taken the chance and approached him.
     Doc nodded once or twice, then narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “How bad do you expect this thing to get?”
     “Bad,” Dieter said. “Not as bad as it would have been six years ago maybe. But bad. Billions dead. End of civilization as we know it. Possible extinction of the human race.”
     Holmes nodded, his eyes on the braided rug beneath his feet, then he looked up, his eyes sharp. “I really hope she’s crazy, Dieter, if that’s an improvement on the original version.”
     One corner of the Austrian’s mouth quirked in a half smile. “I wish she was.”

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.

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

ENCINAS HALFWAY HOUSE

     Dr. Silberman’s nervousness was affecting the group. Most of the participants were scowling, and fidgeting to an even greater extent than nicotine withdrawal usually produced. They cast glances around the room looking for the disturbance and those glances usually landed on Sarah, where they became accusing. Clearly the participants liked their doctor.
     That came as a surprise to Sarah; she remembered him as condescending, not at all a lovable trait.
     It was something of a mixed group. Few of these people were severely mentally ill. Those that were functioned very well if they kept up their medications. One was a recovering drug addict. Sarah supposed that she must be listed as one of the most severely ill, given her record.
     The session had been going on for a while, through obviously well-worn channels; the participants didn’t even seem to be paying attention to what they themselves were saying. Eventually the discussion petered out and all eyes were on Sarah again.
     “Yes, I’m sorry, Sarah,” Silberman said at last. “I’d meant to introduce you immediately, but we began rather quickly. Group, this is Sarah Connor.”
     “Hey, I’ve heard of you!” a man said. “You blew up that company, right?”
     Sarah’s head flopped forward as though she were embarrassed and she looked up through her bangs, smiling shyly. “I’m afraid so.” Straightening up, she asked, “What can I say?”
     She let them draw the whole story out of her. She squirmed and hesitated and made them work for it. Through it all Silberman just watched her.
     Well, he always did have her number. Her best efforts to tell him what he wanted to hear had always failed. He knew she still believed in Skynet and Judgment Day—which probably meant he still thought she was a homicidal loon. Busting out of the violent ward by breaking his arm, taking him as a hostage, and threatening to hypo his carotid full of drain cleaner had probably reinforced that conviction, and God knew he’d had enough time to rationalize away the glimpse he’d had of the T-1000 pulling its liquid body through a door of steel bars.

Silberman could barely take his eyes off her. Sarah Connor evoked feelings that made him want to call his own therapist. In fact, he should call her. He should also not have allowed himself to become involved in her therapy. Precisely because he knew she didn’t need therapy. She needed to be believed. He now understood, all too well, how that felt.
     But that little pissant Ray had made noises about how good it would be for him to face her, face his fears, and so on. So he’d decided to play the good little professional and include her in his group. Besides, he’d rather slit his wrists than let Ray see how rattled he was.
     After her escape he’d told anyone who’d listen exactly what he’d seen. He completely forgot that he was the only one left conscious except for the Connors and their big friend. So he was the only one who’d see that thing squeeze itself through the bars, then turn its hands into pry bars to open the elevator doors. He’d seen it shrug off a shotgun blast to its chest.
     Obviously they’d sent him on medical leave; also obviously they hoped never to welcome him back. To them his story represented a severe psychotic break brought on by trauma. You don’t want a crazy doctor trying to treat the insane. Though to be honest he hadn’t wanted to go back. Being unwanted was unpleasant enough—but Pescadero was the scene of the most terrifying events of his life. It had been very easy to turn his back on that place.
     He’d taken a long break from work, as long as his benefits and his savings would allow. And since he wasn’t working with patients, he worked on himself, trying to put himself back together. He’d sought therapy and willingly allowed the doctors to convince him that he’d imagined the whole thing. They assured him that in his understandable terror he’d bought into his own patient’s delusions. And he agreed.
     In time the nightmares had begun to fade and his belief in his therapist’s diagnoses became firm. What he’d seen was impossible; therefore it hadn’t happened. When it was time to go back to work he found that his attitude toward his profession had changed. Once it had been about his career; now he wanted to help people. So he’d sent in his formal resignation to Pescadero and begun looking into clinics.
     But after they found out about his reason for leaving his previous position, he got a lot of rejections. Which was ironic. How did they expect their patients to reintegrate with society when they wouldn’t reintegrate one of their own colleagues?
     Then a friend had told him about the halfway house. He’d felt comfortable here and he’d done good work with his patients, work he was proud of.
     But now here was Sarah Connor, and he had some decisions to make all over again. Because now he knew he hadn’t had a psychotic break; what he’d had was a taste of Sarah Connor’s reality.

Sarah explained, “Dr. Ray says that now that I’ve stopped this project from going forward and Cyberdyne has dropped it from their roster, I’ll probably never want to destroy their factory again. Obsession works that way sometimes, he says. So the board of review agreed to let me come here prior to my release.”
     “Will you have to go to jail after here?” a woman asked.
     Sarah shook her head. “Apparently not. Since I was insane at the time.”
     “Well, Sarah,” Dr. Silberman said with a weary smile, “we hope we can help you to overcome this obsession of yours.”
     “Thank you, Doctor.” Sarah smiled tentatively at him. “I know I was very hard on you when I knew you before and I’d like to apologize. I really can’t even imagine ever being that person again.”
     “I think, Sarah, that you will always rise to the occasion,” Silberman said enigmatically. He checked his watch. “Well, group, that’s it for today. We’ll meet again on Thursday.” He smiled, nodded, and rose from his seat.
     “I didn’t get to say anything,” a heavy young man protested.
     “I’m sorry about that, Dan.” Silberman patted his shoulder. “We’ll be certain to let you talk on Thursday.”
     As Sarah went by him at the door he leaned in close and said, “Sarah, I need to talk to you.”
     Well, I don’t want to talk to you, Connor thought. “Now?” She looked around nervously.
     “Now would be good.” Silberman gestured down the hallway toward his office.
     Her full lips jerked into a smile. “Sure,” she said, and preceded him down the hall.
     “Sit down,” he said as he closed his office door. Then the doctor went to his desk and sat. He looked at her for a long time, until she felt it was necessary to fidget. “After you left”—he spread his hands—“escaped, rather, I was in therapy for a long time.”
     “I’m sorry about that, Doctor,” Sarah said. And sincerely meant it. She didn’t like knowing what she knew either and she’d certainly never enjoyed therapy.
     “After about five years I was able to convince myself that what I saw was a delusion brought on by stress. Of course”—he rubbed a finger across his nose—“dealing with the fallout caused by having a complete breakdown under stress has been keeping me pretty involved ever since. Running a halfway house is a considerable step down the career ladder from my former position, you realize.”
     Sarah shifted uncomfortably.
     “And now you’re here,” he continued. “And… it’s all come back to me. As clear as the day it happened. And that’s the thing, Sarah. It did happen. So what I want to know is… how can I help?”
     Sarah’s jaw dropped. “Doctor?” she said.
     “I know.” He raised a hand to stop her. “How can you possibly trust me? You broke my arm, you threatened to kill me, and so on.” He leaned forward, his eyes eager. “But now I know for certain. What I saw was real!”
     She narrowed her eyes and looked at him sidelong. “Doctor, I’ve been over this with Dr. Ray. My obsession with Cyberdyne relates to my deeply buried resentment of their lawsuit when I was in the hospital years ago. He explained that I somehow displaced my legitimate anger and grief at the man who hurt me and murdered my mother onto the more accessible Cyberdyne. I bought into those other people’s psychotic fantasies because I’d been so hurt and traumatized. None of it was real. None of it could be real.”
     Silberman let out his breath with a huff. “I just want you to know, if you ever need my help, you have it.”
     “Thank you, Doctor.” Either he’s crazier than I ever was, or he’s telling the truth. But how was she supposed to tell?
     “I mean that sincerely, Sarah.”
     “I know you do,” she said gently. “Thank you.”