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

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

     Wendy brushed back her smooth dark red hair and eyed the phone lying on the table before her, willing it to ring, as she took a sip of the cooling coffee. Her eyes swept the almost empty confines of the shabby café, with its bored waitress and long-dead pastries behind filmy glass; she felt nervous, war… and a bit excited, she admitted to herself.
     Perhaps this secret watchdog group could help. Perhaps they were part of the problem and were onto her and just trying to find out what she knew before they—
     Wow, she thought sardonically, great plot line, there. Maybe I should take a course in screenwriting. Zzzzzt! Cue the black helicopter!
     Real life didn’t have a plot. It just bumbled aimlessly on its way, unless you directed it by sheer force of will. Which was harder to do than to say, she knew. She’d seen that in her father’s life. When he was her age he’d been an ardent activist, fighting against the war in Vietnam, fighting for civil rights.
     Now he ran a moderately successful insurance business, just like his dad had done. And as far as Wendy could tell, he had no idea how he’d gotten from firebrand to burnout. She saw herself at his age, complacently middle class, being careful not to rock the boat too hard.
     Did middle age bring about a failure of will, or did you just have more to lose? I guess, she thought, that you always have a lot to lose, it just seems less important when you’re young. So I guess it’s better that you’re inclined to fight the good fight when you’re young and don’t have a lot of commitments. Yeah, commitments, that’s the glue that slows you down, and when it sets, well, your life’s over, I guess.
     Wendy lifted a brow. Maybe this wasn’t the best attitude to assume when she was about to meet AM. Or anyone else for that matter.
     She tapped the cell phone on the table before her. It belonged to the house mother, a really nice woman who left it all over the place, so it wouldn’t be missed. Everyone “borrowed” it, then returned it with a cheerful “Were you looking for this?” She glanced at her watch. It was four; AM should—
     The phone rang.
     She bit her lip and stared at it. Just before the third ring she picked it up. “Yeah?” she said.
     “Watcher?”
     It was a young voice; the youth of it hit her before the fact that it was also a male voice. “How old are you?” she demanded.
     There was a long-drawn-out sigh. “I get a lot of that, he said dryly. “Not as young as I sound, I know that for sure.” Damn! he thought. “Does it matter?”
     “Ye-ah! Why would I want to get involved in someone’s high-school project? Look, kid—”
     “I found you, didn’t I?” John asked, letting his voice get hard. “It took about a minute.”
     “Oh, no it didn’t,” Wendy snapped back. She’d worked very hard obscuring her trail, no way some kid could find it in less than an hour.
     “Wendy, if I’d known you were going to be so judgmental about my voice, I would have had you speak to one of my associates. If this is an issue for you I can hang up now. It’s up to you.”
     Associates, she thought. The kid has associates. Well, that was intriguing. Besides, though he sounded young he sure didn’t come across as a kid. Still…
     “Look, this was supposed to be a get-acquainted conversation,” she said at last. “So why don’t you tell me something about yourself and, uh, your organization, I guess.”
     “We’re not exactly an organization,” John explained, relaxing a little. “We don’t have a central location, for example. Our associates are spread all over the world, all over the Net—”
     “Do you have a central address where their reports can be accessed,” Wendy interrupted. “I mean I assume that you’re collecting information for a reason, which means that you interpret what you collect. Presumably you allow your contributors to assist in that.”
     “Actually…” John thought for a moment. How to put this? “Evaluating the kind of information we’re going after isn’t something a person can just walk in and do. You need training.”
     “So, train me.” Wendy tapped a fingernail on the Formica table. “That’s my price ’cause I don’t work for free, and I refuse to work blind.”
     John raised his eyebrows at that. He didn’t need a loose cannon on board. “You’re not even hired yet and you want a seat on the board,” he protested with a light laugh.
     “Look, why did you even want to talk to me if you don’t think I’m worth investing time in?” She was beginning to get annoyed. Speaking of time, this is a waste of it.
     “It was obvious that you’re very smart,” John said. “Also that you might be so bored you didn’t realize you were killing time in a very dangerous way. A lot of you computer jockeys think that what you’re doing on-line isn’t real and doesn’t count. You think you’re perfectly safe behind your keyboards and monitors, but let me tell you, Wendy, if you kick the tiger hard enough it will find you and it won’t be friendly. Those are real fanatics you were talking to.”
     He paused and ran a hand through his dark hair. “I wanted to take your intelligence and talent and direct it into a useful channel. I’d like you to be safe, lady. You’re at MIT, for God’s sake! To the Luddite movement that’s like ground zero, and you think they couldn’t find you. You’re kidding yourself.”
     Hunh, Wendy thought, the kid’s really passionate about this. She knew she was suppressing the unease his words had awakened in her. Perhaps she had been foolish. Careless? Well, unwise, maybe.
     “So what do you want from me?” she asked quietly.
     “I want you to keep your eyes and ears open and to report to us anything you find out that might be useful. Useful being defined as something that will prevent harm from being done. I really don’t care which camp is generating the damage. Are you interested?”
     Wendy thought about it. Was she interested? I dunno, this all sounds kinda weird. A kid gathering information for some undisclosed reason and passing out dire warnings? I don’t think I want to get involved. It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough to do with her time, after all.
     “Sure,” she heard herself say. Then laughed at how she’d surprised herself.
     “What?” John asked.
     “Sure, whatever,” Wendy said. “I guess I’m game. Tell me what you want and I’ll try to get it for you.” It wasn’t like she was joining the army or something.
     So John told her what he was looking for, gave her a few Internet addresses he wanted her to check into and a few general guidelines. When he was finished he hesitated.
     “What?” she said.
     “You might like to recruit some friends to help you out,” he suggested. “People you can trust.”
     Wendy sighed. “Well, I’d like to think I’m unlikely to recruit people I don’t trust.”
     John winced. “Well, you know what I mean.”
     “Yeah, I guess. See you on-line, kid.”
     He could hear the smile in her voice and pressed his lips together impatiently. This wasn’t a terribly auspicious beginning to their relationship. He’d prefer that his recruits not find him amusing.
     Hey, he reminded himself, if she knew the real story she’d run a mile. Screaming.
     “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll keep in touch.” He hung up and sighed heavily. I really need to be grown up, he thought. Too bad it wasn’t something you could arrange. I guess I could work on my voice, or maybe get some sort of synthesizer. I feel grown up, I just don’t sound it. Oh, well. For real emergencies there was always Dieter.

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

VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY, NOVEMBER

     John clicked a few keys and found himself on the Sarah Connor Website; the von Rossbach estate might look like the Paraguayan equivalent of backwoods, but the satellite-link communications were first-rate, with outlets in every room.
     Things had calmed down at the site over the last few months. There were occasional updates, and old E-mail got cleared away, but it was very different from the days when it was new.
     What he was here for was the secret Luddite chat room, where things remained hot. In fact, the Luddite movement seemed to be getting stronger and more active worldwide—it had practically gone mainstream, putting up political candidates and organizing outreach stations and Web sites. Unfortunately, this was accompanied by an increase in terrorist acts both large and small every day, everywhere.
     The tone of the conversation in the rooms was different, too. It lacked the almost pleading exasperation of previous listings that wanted to teach and had become more militant. Much more us versus them. And that attitude, too, seemed to be becoming more mainstream with every passing day.
     John simply lurked in the topic and chat rooms, gathering information, but he’d noticed one user, styled Watcher, who occasionally shook things up. Lately the threats the Luddites made against Watcher for questioning their methods and ideas had become chilling.
     He decided to seek out this character. Someone with that sobriquet might know some very interesting things, and might be someone he could add to his growing list of informants on the Web.
     He was in luck; Watcher was on-line, discussing a recent bombing with the Luddites. If you could call such a hostile exchange a discussion. Good thing Watcher isn’t in the same room with these people. On the Internet the gloves came off and people said things they’d never say in meat space. But if you were right there with them when they were saying it… who knew what would happen.
     He glanced around his whitewashed bedroom with its black quebracho-timber rafters and tile floors. E-presence was very different from the physical world. It liberated the id. Maybe the people threatening to wear Watcher’s intestines as suspenders wouldn’t harm a fly in reality. But with all the bombings and beatings and vandalism going on, who could be sure anymore?
     John checked out the address at the top of Watcher’s messages and found it a dead end. But, he thought, there are other ways of finding you, buddy. After a tedious half hour he found the time Watcher had logged on, then correlated that with an IP address. That brought him to the MIT Web site in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cool, he thought, and not surprising. It was pretty obvious from his posts that Watcher was protechnology.
     Narrowing it down to the university was good, but he’d need some power to get the information he wanted. He constructed a password that got him into the operational side of the MIT site—a little lockpick-and-insertion program that Dieter had brought with him from the Sector was very useful here—and registered himself as a systems administrator. That essentially made him a system god, giving him access to all the on-site users’ real tags.
     He continued to trace Watcher, which was turning out to be a job and a half. This guy knows how to cover his tracks, he thought in admiration. Very definitively a good recruit if all worked out. Finally he located Watcher’s origin.
     Aha! A freshman student at MIT, Watcher was Wendy Dorset. John hacked into her school records, finding a picture. Cute, he thought. Not important, but nice to know. He pulled up an encrypted talk request and sent it to Watcher.
     *I’d like to talk with you,* he sent.
     There was a long pause. Finally she accepted the request, creating a secure shell in which they could speak. John’s screen split into he said/she sad columns, as did hers. Now they could communicate in real time.
     *Who are you?* Watcher asked.
     John’s tag was AM, which stood for Action Man, not necessarily something he would ever reveal.
     *I could be a friend,* John typed. *Why don’t you blow off these bozos. I think we have similar interests.*
     *Similar interests?* she asked.
     *Beyond making fools of fools,* he typed with a smile. *But first we should get to know each other.*
     *And how are we going to do that? And why should I trust you?*
     *Trust?* he wrote. *You trust these guys? Hey, at least I’m not threatening to kill you if we ever meet.*
     *Good point. Okay, I’ll ditch the creeps. They’re getting more excited than is good for them anyway.* Watcher was gone for a moment then came back. *So, what do you want?*
     *What drew you to that particular site?* John asked.
     *It’s rude to answer a question with a question,* Watcher pointed out.
     *True, but I’m asking.*
     And he wasn’t going to answer any questions until he had a satisfactory answer. *Whatever. I was just looking around when I found it. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just killing time. Y’know? But something about the Sarah Connor story reached me. Maybe it was that lone-wolf thing. I’m a sucker for underdogs.*
     Underdog, John thought. Yeah, I guess that pretty well describes my mother. At least in the old days. God! He was still only sixteen and he actually had “old days” to refer back to.
     *It turned out to be a really strange site,* Watcher went on. *And as for these idiots, I just can’t help myself. I’ve gotta poke ’em.*
     *People who take themselves very seriously can also be very dangerous,* John warned. *So how’s the weather on the East Coast?* e asked, deciding to throw her a curve.
     There was a long wait for Watcher’s next post. Hope I haven’t scared her off.
     *Probably not as warm as it is waaaay down south,* Watcher finally replied.
     John caught his breath. Sure hope she doesn’t scare me of. *Okay,* he wrote, *this demonstrates why it’s a bad idea to tease the crazies. One of them might be computer literate.*
     *It may be cocky,* Watcher replied, *but I like to think of myself as being a little more than merely “literate.”*
     *Actually I think you are, too. The dangerous part is in assuming that because you’re smart no one else is. It’s always unwise to underestimate people. Leads to nasty surprises.*
     Listen to me, he thought, I received this advice from masters and I’ve found it to be true.
     Once again there was a long pause. *Are you warning me against yourself? Whatever. What I really want to know is, what do you want?*
     His brief review of Dorset’s school records had made her sound like a straight arrow. What he’d observed of her interactions with the Luddites told him she had nerve and could think on her feet. The way she’d hidden her tracks told him she was damn smart. The way she’d found him told him she might be dangerous if she wasn’t handled right.
     *I’m head of a kind of watchers’ group, no pun intended,* he explained. Or I would be if I hadn’t just thought it up this minute. You’ll be my first recruit! He hoped. *We keep our eyes on military/industrial projects, just in case they get it into their heads to do something hinky. We’re always on the lookout for new talent. Want to join?*
     *Okay, here’s my problem,* she answered. *Think of where I met you. Now, how do I know you’re not a Luddite extremist yourself?*
     *Tough one,* he agreed. *Ideally I would meet you face-to-face.* Which I would loooove to do, he thought. *And that would give us an opportunity to get a feel for each other. But that’s obviously not going to happen. I could call you,* he suggested.
     *All right,* she replied, and typed a number. *Four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Eastern Standard Time.*
     *Why not now?* he asked.
     *It’s not my number,* she wrote.
     Then she was gone. Wow, John thought, grinning wryly, I’d better practice my adult voice.

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

CRAIG KIPFER’S OFFICE, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

     Craig Kipfer sat behind his brushed-steel-and-glass desk, behind a good half-dozen security checkpoints, inside his bombproof and EMP-hardened bunker of an office. It was hard to believe that the elegant, artfully lit room was a reinforced concrete box; the air was fresh and warm, and rich draperies hid what might have been a window. The complete absence of exterior sounds made the room eerily, almost threateningly quiet. Or perhaps the sense of threat came from the man behind the desk.
     He had a rumpled, middle-aged face that was still, somehow, good-naturedly boyish. Until you looked into his agate-green eyes. Then you couldn’t imagine him ever being anything so innocent as a child.
     The fading red hair hinted at an impulsive temperament. A tendency he had fought his entire life, so successfully that he was known among his peers for his iron control. A control which at this moment was sorely tried.
     Cyberdyne had been bombed out of existence. Again.
     Kipfer finished the report he’d already read twice and tapped his intercom.
     “Send him in,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet.
     The door lock buzzed and Tricker entered, carefully closing the soundproof door behind him. Kipfer indicated the chair before his desk with one finger and waited while his agent took it. Then he waited some more, his eyes never leaving Tricker’s face.
     Eventually Tricker blinked and dropped his eyes; a hint of color bloomed over his collar, testimony of his humiliation. Kipfer observed these signs and some part of him was mollified; the alpha wolf accepting submission from an inferior.
     “Does anyone know the full story of what happened that night?” Kipfer asked mildly. “Because, from my viewpoint, there are a lot of unanswered questions.”
     “If anyone knows the full story, or as much of it as matters, it’s Jordan Dyson,” Tricker said. “Unfortunately he’s covered. He has some very influential friends in the FBI who have made their interest obvious. And he has family who visit him daily. He’s also very familiar with interrogation techniques and is therefore not easy to question.”
     “So in spite of your own expertise in interrogation,” Kipfer said, leaning back in his chair, “you learned nothing except that you suspect he knows things he’s not telling.”
     Tricker stiffened under the implied criticism. He would have leaned on Dyson much harder but for the man’s FBI contacts in inconvenient places. As he had just made clear. There was always bad blood between agencies fighting over the same resources; and the blacker the agency, the greater the resentment from the aboveground boys. It was always wise to be diplomatic in circumstances like these. Kipfer knew this. If he hadn’t known all about interagency infighting he wouldn’t be seated on the other side of that desk. So his boss was being unfair, but that was life.
     “Exactly, sir,” Tricker said, after a minute pause.
     Craig put his elbows on the arms of his chair and folded his hands under his chin; he allowed his gaze to drop from his agent’s eyes, having made his point. Tricker was one of the best agents he had. No, probably the best.
     And he was right, there were limits to what one could, and should, do to a hostile witness, especially one from a competing agency. Professional courtesy and all. So if he couldn’t crack Dyson, it would take more than Kipfer was willing to sanction. Besides, the how of the thing wasn’t really important. After all, Sarah Connor was in custody once again and her son was only sixteen.
     Not that teenage boys weren’t potentially dangerous; there was a reason armies liked them. He just thought that they were more limited in the type of harm they could do than adults. He doubted the kid was still in the U.S., but they had Sarah Connor, and eventually that would bring the kid into the light.
     “One of the things that makes me suspicious of Dyson,” Tricker said cautiously, “is that he appears to have done a complete one-eighty on Sarah Connor. He’s been at her bedside or visiting her constantly since she was admitted to the hospital. The doctors and nurses I’ve interviewed say that his concern seems genuine. Connor herself, predictably, isn’t talking.”
     “That’s something of a departure for her, isn’t it?” Kipfer asked. “She’s always been on the talkative side before, going on for hours about killer robots and Judgment Day and so on.”
     “Going by the records we received from Pescadero, she’d be off at the slightest provocation.” Tricker shook his head. “But not this time. She just gives you this accusing look, like a kid getting teased by her classmates.”
     Kipfer lifted a few pages of Tricker’s report and read for a moment, then he dropped them. “You’ve taken the usual steps, I see. Keep me informed. Now”—he met Tricker’s eyes once more—“tell me about the project.”
     “Things are going very well, all things considered,” the agent replied.
     Which was true. The scientists and engineers at their disposal weren’t quite the top-flight talent that Cyberdyne had recruited, but they were plugging along. At least as far as he could tell, and he, unfortunately, was in the position of having to take their word for it.
     “Things would go better still,” Tricker added, “if we could manage to recruit Viemeister. And I think he could be tempted. His work is important to him and he was, according to the last reports we received from Cyberdyne, making great strides.But he’s still under contract to them, and since we don’t want to admit we have a clone project up and running, it’s going to take some delicate handling.”
     Kipfer made a rude sound and sat forward, pulling his chair into his desk. “Dr. Viemeister isn’t someone you handle delicately,” he said. “We’ve got enough on him to change his career from scientist to license-plate maker. Just hit him over the head with an ax handle and ship him to the base. When he wakes up tell him that. Then show him a fully equipped lab where he can pick up his project where he left off. I think you’ll find he’ll cooperate. Especially since he won’t have any other option. The guy’s not even a citizen.”
     Tricker frowned thoughtfully. “I thought he was naturalized.”
     “There’s no record of it,” Craig said easily. It wasn’t necessary to add: not anymore.
     Tricker allowed himself a slight smile. Sometimes it was fun working for the government—at least when you were working for this part of it. And since he really didn’t like Viemeister, seeing the arrogant kraut taken down was going to be pure pleasure. One of life’s little bonuses.
     “In any case he’s liable to be”—Kipfer waggled one hand—“upset about his new location.”
     “I think we can guarantee that he’ll be upset, sir,” Tricker dared to say.
     “So I’m going to assign you to the base, just to make sure things run smoothly, for… say the next few months.”
     Tricker’s jaw dropped; it only showed in his slightly parted lips, but an equivalent expression in an ordinary citizen would have included drool. “Sir, I have no scientific qualifications for observing this project,” he said carefully.
     “You’ll be handling security,” Kipfer said, his eyes like green nails. “My secretary has a package with all the necessary tickets and permits. You can pick it up on your way out.”
     “On my way out,” Tricker said. He felt as though his blood had frozen in his veins.
     “Yes. You have two days to wind up any outstanding business you may have.”
     His boss was giving him nothing, no opening to protest, no idea how long this ultra-dead-end assignment in America’s secret Siberia was to last. This was his punishment. He’d known in his heart that it was coming. You didn’t screw up an assignment this badly, losing the one artifact remaining to them, and not answer for it. After all, no one even knew what had become of Tricker’s predecessor. He took a deep breath.
     “That’ll be more than sufficient,” he said. If the powers that be were adamant that he be punished, he might as well take it with a little dignity.
     “Is there anything else you need to tell me?” Kipfer asked.
     “No, sir. I think we’ve covered everything.”
     Craig turned his attention to another file from his in-basket. “Then I guess I can let you go,” he said, looking up. “Bon voyage.”
     Tricker lifted one corner of his mouth in a pseudosmile.
     “Thank you, sir,” he said, rising. “I’ll send you a postcard.”
     Kipfer looked up, his eyes dead. “Just send your reports.”
     Tricker suppressed a sigh. “Yes, sir.”
     After the door closed, Kipfer put down the report he wasn’t really reading. He leaned back with a thoughtful frown. It was a waste of talent to send Tricker off to the hinterlands to cool his heels.
     Unfortunately the Cyberdyne fiasco required some sort of response. Craig sat up and opened the discarded file. He’d reclaim his agent in about six months. That ought to be long enough for Tricker to begin to despair of ever being rescued.
     Maybe it should be eight months. It depended on what came along. He supposed it was only just that he be deprived of something he valued, too. This disaster had occurred on his watch after all.
     Enough introspection. Kipfer turned his attention back to the new file.