Free T2 - 01 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Dark Futures by Russell Blackford Page B

Wolfe, a formidable combatant who had been terminated by Hunter-Killer machines on the Canadian West Coast.
    Eve could easily pass for a human soldier with a strong body and exaggerated military bearing. Her T-799 design was the test for a new T-800 series, incorporating human tissue, fashioned on actual human models, deployable for infiltration work. She'd already field-tested the new concept by infiltrating the human Resistance in the shattered urban labyrinth of New York City . That first mission had blooded her and opened the way for more Terminators like her, but such missions no longer mattered to Eve. She'd now been sent back for something far more important: to protect Skynet in its infancy. Skynet would soon reach self-awareness. Without her intervention, it would be at the humans' mercy.
    She headed directly uphill, brushing leaves and branches to one side, knowing that she would soon pick up the winding road, which would make the climb easier and guide her efficiently to her target. It was a warm, still night, and nothing disturbed her. There were lights far away in the valley and on other slopes. An isolated cluster of brighter lights appeared higher up the mountain.
    A vehicle's high-beam headlights spilled across her momentarily, through the trees and scrub, then disappeared down the mountainside. She detected an infrared reading as the car passed on her left. Eve forced her way quickly through the walls of scrub, finding the road, then ran towards Cyberdyne's research base, the Advanced Defense Systems Complex. She knew she would find one entrance built into the rock above her—1500 feet below the mountain's summit. That cluster of lights, higher up the slope, must be her target. She ran now, passing a turnoff on her right that led to the other entrance. She maintained her top speed of twenty miles per hour, for which her fuel cell could sustain her almost indefinitely.
    Minutes later, there were more lights behind her in the distance. She pivoted on her heel, turning as she ran, jogging backwards. Bright lights in the humans' visible spectrum flashed into her eyes. There was the swishing of tires, the low-pitched snarl and infrared glow of an automobile engine. She stopped directly in the vehicle's path as it squealed to a halt. Perhaps it was the same car as before, investigating the lightning-like effect of the displacement field. She assessed it as a late model, unmarked sedan.
    It pulled over to the shoulder of the road, gravel crunching under its tires. Its headlights dimmed but stayed trained on her. Two Air Force personnel stepped out, leaving the car running. They wore pale uniforms and sidearms ; one carried a long-handled flashlight. Eve waited dispassionately, analyzing their body dimensions as they approached. Their clothes might be useful, though neither of them closely matched her body shape. The weapons and car she could certainly use.
    Both of them were male. The driver was a black man, tall and very bulky—well over
200 pounds
. His passenger, the one with the flashlight, was a wiry, fair-skinned Caucasian, somewhat under six-foot, perhaps
160 pounds
. She would almost fill out his uniform. "I need your clothing, your guns and your car," she said.
    "What the hell is this?" said the Caucasian. He glanced to his partner.
    "Quickly!" Eve said.
    The black man spoke in what she recognized as a "soothing" tone—the exaggeratedly tolerant way that humans spoke when they wanted to avoid violence. "Lady," he said in a slow drawl, "is this some kind of joke?" He looked her up and down, then glanced all round the edges of the road, as if to satisfy himself that she was naked—the humans had a nudity taboo—and that she had no vehicle nearby. "If you're trying to make a protest, you can't do it like this. This is a restricted area. Just being here is a serious federal offense. How did you get this far?"
    "Irrelevant," she said.
    "I don't think you're listening to what I'm saying. You can't come