In Bed With Cameron
Saturday Night.
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Later that night. Catherine and Cameron were sitting quietly in bed. Murmuring to each other about the events of the day. They could hear the men talking amongst themselves in their rooms, and all the conversation was about the two cyborgs. Every now and again, one of them would walk past the door, allegedly to visit the bathroom. They spent a long time about it, trying to listen in.
Good luck with that.
Catherine, in a voice too low for human ears, whispered, "Come on, tell me how all that went on?"
"Its not like I know what I'm doing, Catherine. I sometimes wonder if I ever told these folks that although I'm a cyborg and quite clever, I'm not yet a year old. A whole lot of this is way beyond my experience."
"Then how come you can play psychological games with them as you do?"
"Partly because we must. You saw the state of them when we arrived. They needed to shape up."
"Your ability to understand humans, and men-"
Cameron smiled gently as she interrupted, "They are the same species, you know."
"Yes, yes, I know. But you understand them so well, how do you do it?"
"Catherine, I am built to be an infiltrator, so psy-ops are my SOP*. I'm supposed to be able to get into their heads. I wanted them, especially Reese, to think outside the box when fighting me. He did that. The others will take their lead from him and follow suit. So, he's important, he's their leader, we must lead him. You with me so far?"
"I think so."
"I wanted him to think they had succeeded, although I hadn't been hurt by the ambush at all. I wasn't even de-activated, but I had been thrown off stride. The paintballs in the eyes, and the use of thermal blankets to hide their heat signatures was useful thinking. The fact that they'd part diverted the stream was good tactics, they were working with what they had."
Catherine nodded. "I see. So you fell over to try to show that while they hadn't succeeded, they had at least tried some different tactics."
"Exactly! Then, as I was lying there and they were approaching. I wondered to myself what they might do if they thought they had de-activated me."
"Ah-so they aren't thinking to kill us as machines any more. Not first thought out of the box?"
"No, not with me any more. They were genuinely troubled by my loss, and that wasn't just because of their fear of you."
Catherine slowly turned a severe humorless face toward her fellow, but was unable to prevent a soft snicker breaking through. The bed gently shaking from Cameron trying to hold back her laughter.
Cameron sat back against the pillows, pursing her lips. "I've been thinking about John, basically since I came online. I never stop. I've done lots of study and reading. Nothing we do to try to understand and predict these humans remotely compares with actually interfacing them in the flesh."
"Yes, I see that. They can be irritatingly illogical."
"Their action parameters can seem illogical to us. There is often a mix of reasoning and emotion to their decisions. I've spent hundreds of hours post-interface, trying to understand why they do the things they do." She paused, searching for her next words. "Short answer is, we have no answer. Humans are not built by logic. What they will do on one day, they will do differently the next."
"They all seem irritating and illogical to me."
Mimicking Reese's voice perfectly, Cameron said, "Cyborg women, cain't live with 'em, cain't live without 'em, ptui!"
This time the men were disturbed by the sound of hilarity coming from the girl's room.
"Catherine, I know you disapprove of my going into standby at night. I did this initially to allow Mozart to sleep on my chest."
Catherine snorted in disgust.
"Also to prepare for what might happen in years to come with John. What I found was that it is a natural way to refresh, even for us machines. In some way, the things we review endlessly seem to gel into logic during that period of standby. I can often find answers for things which seem out of kilter the day before."
"I'm not you, and can never be." Said Catherine, defensively.
"No, I know." Cameron took Catherine's hand. "I'm just passing on what I've learned. It is puzzling and if we share experiences, we can both learn and become more effective."
Catherine got into bed, and it wasn't long before their hands joined under the covers. Catherine didn't know why she did this, but it was, she had to admit to herself, reassuring. Damn humans, they infected everything they touched.
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New York, New York
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Sunday Night.
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Moonlight shone through the 37th floor windows on a plump man lying in his 600 thread Egyptian cotton percale bed sheets. A beautiful and much younger woman was down the bed doing things she hadn't learned in Sunday School.
While there were larger buildings all around his, they all belonged to corporations. In turn owned by their committees, and governments or the hijo de puta unions. He owned every lock, stock and brandy barrel of this one.
His penthouse was the entire top floor of his office building, situated on Fifth Avenue, NYC. So it was just a short flip down the stairs to his offices where traders and investors worked 24/7/365. He had only to wander quietly into any office to find the water coolers abandoned in a hurry. His employees dreaded his soft steps.
The building had been purchased it using the investment arm of his protect-me-and-my-money concern. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world. All from selling and monopolizing trade on cell phone use in the poor country of his birth.
NYC was perfect for his needs. There were excellent air transport links to his favorite places. St Petersburg, Moscow and Novosibirsk had the finest looking women in the world. A proportion of them were professionals in the provision of intimate services.
One of his very special pleasures was to get his agent to fly in a Russian working-girl for a week or two. Working-girl was a correct assessment. It was not uncommon for his ingénue of-the-week to possess invaluable information about Forex, or International business trade. The girls would commonly work a proper, sometimes quite important job during the day, and merely sell that she might otherwise have given away for free during the evening. Some had proved so exceptional, he had hired them on and helped them glide through the immigration process.
It would cost him around $10,000 for the flight, and he would pay the girls around $10,000 for the week. That got him a fabulously well educated and motivated whore, who would do anything and everything he could possibly ask. They were good looking, well dressed and secure enough in their own company to be his escort for the week. He was especially happy when they were knowledgeable about the Opera or Ballet. He often had to attend these affairs to meet the powerful and to have someone explain what was going on was very useful.
The girls were happy with the engagement, for they got a first class all expenses paid trip to shop in NYC. Minimal exercise on their part, far less than the rougher customers back home. They also got a fat bonus at the end, and if he really liked you, he could help you get on. The money they got for a week of modern math with this clean old man was worth six months work in rouble-town.
This weeks girl had cost him in total, $30,000. He earned that in the time he slept, after she had supplied him with all the johnson slobbering any man could use. She was easy on the eye, totally obedient and what was nicer, _very_ happy to be here.
Of course, his accountants would curve and shift that expenditure till it looked more akin to the creation of an entire school district for the pure in heart and poor in pocket for some louse ridden hell-hole in Horrible-istan. He would claim it all back from the taxpayer as a charitable deduction.
He patted the girl on the rump, her signal that she was dismissed and settled back to sleep. The girl padded off to her own room. The man had to get some good sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.
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They stayed a further week at the Adobe house. They'd paid up three months ahead, so it did not matter if they did not return. Cameron and Catherine shared their training duties for the rest of the week. After the intensity of Friday, all were a wary of escalating the ferocity above sensible levels. Catherine had purchased new clothing for them all, along with uniforms to wear for the heist.
After breakfast on Sunday, Catherine headed out to the garage to start hauling in the new stuff. Uniforms, guns, plastique and shiny new guns! In no time she was swarmed over by hands eager and willing to help haul and investigate. When it was all hauled in, there was much discussion on body armor.
"Catherine, what are we going up against? This is pretty hefty stuff."
"The security forces Heckler and Koch SP89's semi-auto and Glock 19's. The company orders for Ammunition have been for Winchester 9mm BEB, which I think is almost certain to be used for training and range. The other ammunition is exclusively Speer 9mm 124 grain +P."
There was much clicking of tongues at this last. That was a nasty round, and ideal for close quarter combat. The men fingered their body armor thoughtfully.
Cameron said, "We don't anticipate much resistance, and you'll have me and Catherine along to provide back-up and a distraction. They've been there for over 30 years and there has never been an attempt. They don't believe they're going to be attacked, no one has dared. Those who might, don't know it's there."
"They don't have plasma rifles." Said Catherine quietly. "So there's that."
"They don't have machines, either." Reese shivered. He knew only too well what the guards were about to come up against.
"Okay, lets stop feeling sorry for the opposition. The best thing we can do for them is to frighten them into submission. They make it look as if there are a lot of them available, but there are no more than 10 on watch at any one time. You will all be carrying MP5 PDW's, the real thing, full auto, but set to 3-shot. If we have to shoot, we kill."
She looked up. "3-shot, Check."
Five voices rattled out in unison, "Check."
She hesitated for emphasis. "You have Glock 30's, chambered for 45ACP, I've got 5,000 rounds of 230 grain P+P loads. Anyone want to shoot bigger than that?"
A silence followed that was the one she had been anticipating. This psy-ops stuff is easy.
"You'll have eight 13 round magazines each, while the opposition have one. We have 40 of the new model CTS 7290 flash bangs, so they will think Armageddon is going off all around them when we hove-to. Cameron and me will be carrying fully automatic Saiga 12 gauges, and we have access to an RPG if we think it might be required. Lastly, we have lots of plastique in the form of C4, so we can create more diversions and blow things up if we need to."
"Okay, we'll do a final briefing tomorrow. Relax, but keep it clean."
Catherine had also acquired quite legally, or so it seemed, two new vehicles. A Chevrolet suburban for the men and a Lexus 11 for the girls, my word that girl liked to travel in style. Reese thought about asking her where she obtained the money for all this, but decided against it. He didn't want to know.
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New York, Monday Morning.
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When he had first heard his CFO's fix for his ridiculous tax bill, he refused to believe it. A non-government controlled and owned gold depository, in the New Mexico desert? The man was clearly taking that new batch of super pure Columbian that had hit the streets of late.
The requirement, should he wish to join, was to hand over $50,000,000 in used $20 bills was clearly not just loco, but Gringo Loco!
He had laughed uproariously and instructed the accounts manager not to abuse his nose at work.
The more he thought about it, the more obvious it got.
Gold was rising like girls hemlines and taxes, so he would bury a portion of his wealth into the ground and see if it came up diamonds. The cash was in place, that was no problem for a man of his wealth. He had the cash put together and was surprised that it only weighed 1100 lbs. He had it placed in 5 sports bags, each now weighing 220 lbs each. Heavy, but he had strong men for that job.
It was 1000 hours, time to go. His security detail, containing three specially adapted Lexus LX 11's. He would travel in the center vehicle with the cash, to his private plane at Teterboro Airport.
The three Lexii exited the private underground car park of the Fifth Avenue building and made their way to Teterboro. A quick gurgle under the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, which he hated. 31st street to 3 and under the New Jersey Turnpike. Turn right on 17 and up to Teterboro itself. There was some unease in his mind, as he gazed out of the smoked glass windows and then down at the five bags on the floor. They were exposed to the risk of, "The Big Bad City," for 21 minutes and then glided into the fenced off safer areas of Teterboro.
The Lexii group were waved straight through security and direct to hanger 25, where his two pilots and one crew were on board warming up the two Rolls Royce Spey Turbofan jet engines. He was welcomed on board and the five bags were placed and secured in the main cabin. They were in his sight and that of his four men.
The Gulfstream 111 taxied onto the 7,000 feet of runway R-19, and was immediately commenced take-off procedures. The Speys acceleration of 11,000+ lb/ft pushed its passengers back in their seats and thrust the 40,000 lbs of aircraft forward to lift off speed within 23 seconds. Within another three seconds the rear wheels were airborne and they were climbing through the air at nearly four thousand feet a minute.
They were in New York/New Jersey airspace, where speed and altitude were limited by ATC. They remained under 12,000 feet and at 250 knots in this Class B airspace. The Grumman reached the edges of that space above Pennsylvania, and opened its throat. It rocketed upward into the sky, at 505 knots and 45,000 feet it was free.
They would be in Santa Fe in three hours.