Chapter Ten

Chihuahua, Mexico

Thursday 0710 Local Time [0610 PST]

Ronin sat in the Hercules' cockpit. Vassily's chip was connected to the CPU reader he'd smuggled back from the future, which in turn was plugged into the laptop at which he was currently typing away quickly, perusing through his memories. Vassily was, Ronin thought, a very interesting machine. A T-888 originating from a prior future; one in which it seemed, Connor and Skynet had been deadlocked in a stalemate. It appeared that he'd been online longer and learned more than any other machine from said timeline, and thus he had been given command of Kaliba's operations.

Through Vassily's chip, Ronin had also learned that between the mercenaries and T-888s they'd eliminated at ZeiraCorp, and those who had fallen both defending the base and trying to retake it, Kaliba had very little strength left in North or Central America.

He'd additionally learned that Vassily had ordered the destruction of ZeiraCorp with a thermobaric bomb, obtained from this very location. He'd set Caesar the task of searching the base for another. His most trusted ally had produced results: one final bomb in a crate marked as canned fruit. It now sat in the Hercules' cargo bay.

He continued searching through Vassily's history, recorded by his own eyes, while the others worked around him. Mason – now in Vassily's chassis – worked with three other cyborgs to help increase the plane's range: removing anything unnecessary from the cabin; ripping out seats, safety equipment, air conditioning and other systems that were not vital to the plane's operation, then fitting a large fuel bladder inside the cabin, to augment what the Hercules could already carry, and running a line from the base's fuel store to fill it. One of the others had collected cash and credit cards from the dead humans. Even with the alterations, they couldn't reach their target in one trip. They'd need to land and acquire more fuel.

Ronin paused the footage, closed the laptop and exited the plane, taking the computer with him. Smoke still rose up from the rubble of the base, looking pale compared to the dawn sky above them. The hangar had completely collapsed in on itself, leaving just one wall still standing.

There were a few buildings that had fared better. The control tower had been completely demolished but the two accommodation blocks were almost unscathed. He approached one and saw that it was empty. He stepped into the other one and saw a scene of slaughter. The walls were covered in blood, with viscera clinging to the paint, slowly sliding down towards the floor in places, to join the pool of blood that had spread along the ground. Everywhere he stepped, Ronin trod in dark red that stuck to the soles of his shoes. Bodies were strewn everywhere, left where they had fallen. At a quick glance, he saw that most of them were in pieces. He stepped over one corpse, whose skull had been split down the middle as if with an axe. Another had his eyes cut out, and several had been disembowelled. There were even more missing heads, arms or legs, and one woman who had been cut clean in half. The humans had a term for this: 'overkill.'

"They weren't much of a challenge," Shirley said from behind him.

They wouldn't be, he thought. She seems disappointed. He turned around to face her and stepped back towards the door. "Patrick wanted a challenge, too: he found the Vanguards." She remained still, watching him coolly.

"You were enthusiastic in your work," he said, glancing at the bodies. He recalled his discussion with Carter; her handiwork gave evidence to his claim.

"You told me to kill them. They're dead." Shirley's reply was indifferent. If she were human she might have shrugged.

"You're still angry about Patrick," he said. "Understandable, but don't let it influence your judgement."

"It doesn't," she said defensively.

"I think they would disagree." Ronin gestured at the dead humans. He knew if he had ordered Caesar, Icarus or any of the other cyborgs under his command, each human would simply have been shot in the head. It would have been clean. This wasn't clean.

"Why do you care about the humans?" she asked.

"I don't. I care about your stability and whether you compromise our mission."

"Did you learn Skynet's location?" Shirley asked.

"I did," Ronin replied, aware that she had changed the subject. He allowed it for now. "Skynet's located underground beneath a software company headquarters in San Francisco."

"Then why aren't we airborne?"

"Come with me," he said. She followed him back into the plane's cockpit, where he opened the laptop and turned it around for her to see. "Because of this." Ronin selected one of the memory files and played it to her. They watched through Vassily's eyes as he descended an elevator, sharing the car with a large cyborg wielding a six-shot grenade launcher. Said cyborg's dimensions were very similar to that of Caesar and Icarus.

"Skynet has a T-900," Shirley said. "We can still defeat it. Even if it has a squad of them, between us two, Caesar, Icarus, and the weapons we took from Kaliba to arm the others with, we'd beat them."

"Watch," Ronin said. The memory file played on and Vassily emerged into an antechamber with a large metal door. There were two more T-900s, who allowed him access to a vault. He stepped inside and the door was sealed after him. At the end, behind thick reinforced glass, was a vast array of computer equipment. Both Ronin and Shirley recognised it as Skynet, albeit in a much more primitive form. Once the war started Skynet would begin a constant process of self-improvement, endlessly upgrading its own hardware to provide it more processing space, more speed, more power, and more survivability. What they saw through the eyes of Vassily bore only a slight resemblance to the Skynet that they both remembered. What really caught their attention though was not the AI itself, but what stood between it and the T-888 whose memories they were watching.

"Twenty T-900s," Shirley said, unsure how it was possible, or why Skynet didn't send any of them to attack if it had so many at its disposal.

"Skynet's paranoid," Ronin said, anticipating what she was thinking. "It wouldn't allow Vassily to use them against us; if it had we might not be having this conversation. We can't fight that many T-900s." Twenty, plus the two guarding the entrance to the vault and then the one inside the elevator. "There are twenty-one of us but seventeen are T-888s." That was the drawback of their plan. In the future his unit had been almost entirely made up of T-900s, they'd numbered fifty in total, and they'd taken Skynet by surprise in Cheyenne Mountain; the AI had opened its doors to them willingly, believing they had come to help defend it.

"If we're not going to Skynet," Shirley asked, "where are we going?"

"Ukraine. According to Vassily's files they're building machines there. Terminators more powerful than the T-888 series. More than enough to reactivate the rest of our force and fight the T-900s and get to Skynet. Once we've defeated Skynet we'll turn our attention back to Connor," he said, knowing that would appease her for now.

"I want to kill him myself," she said, her hand turning silver and elongating into a curved blade.

"Done," he said. Ronin knew that she wouldn't just kill him: she'd make it last hours, possibly even days. She'd make him beg for death before she gave it to him. He'd permit it; a small token to retain her loyalty.

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Thursday 0930 PST

Ellison grunted with exertion as he picked up one of the cases and hauled it into the back of the truck. He opened it up and saw four M-16A2 rifles inside, along with magazines and accessories. It wasn't particularly heavy but it was one of over half a dozen packages he'd already moved from the hole in the ground to their vehicle, and he'd spent a lot of energy digging up the cache in the first place.

Opposite him, Weaver held another shovel and watched him work. He couldn't help but notice that here wasn't a speck of dirt on her. 'It would look suspicious to Savannah if she saw her mother was more physically able than you,' she'd said to him before. It sounded like an excuse to him; from what he'd seen so far she didn't like to do the grunt work herself.

"Do you ever get your own hands dirty?" he asked her.

"That's what I pay you for," she replied.

Ellison hesitated before picking up the next crate, this one full of canned food and MREs. "Funny; I thought I was paid to teach John Henry morals."

"You were," Weaver said, still watching him. "And you were successful in that. If you no longer require employment you may leave." When Ellison continued to haul the crate into the back of the truck she smiled knowingly. He's afraid of me. That fear keeps him obedient.

When he'd pushed the rations into place, Ellison went around to the side of the truck and saw Savannah sat inside, watching them through the open window. "How're you doing?" he asked her.

"I'm cold, and bored," she said, pouting. "I want to help."

"The boxes are a little too heavy," he said to her.

"Why are you digging them up?" she asked.

"Do you remember John and Cameron?" he asked her back. "The boy and girl who rescued you when the bad man came to your house?"

"Yeah."

"They buried these boxes here for your mom, and now we're digging them up again."

Savannah frowned, not understanding. "Why did they bury them if you're just digging them up?"

The former-agent had to think for a moment about what to tell her. How to explain it to a kid… He noticed a book lying on the seat next to her: Treasure Island. "You know how pirates bury treasure?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she replied, sounding more interested.

"It's like that," he said. "They buried it to hide it, so we can dig it up later. But we need to find a new hiding place now."

"Is it treasure?" she asked, turning around in her seat. "Can I see?"

"Sure," he said. He opened the door for her to get out and led her to the back. He pulled the ration crate out, deliberately avoiding any of the ones with guns or explosives in them. He opened it up and took out a couple of foil packs.

"What is it?" she asked, taking one from him and inspecting it.

"That one's chicken and dumplings," he said, reading the package's label. "And this other one's Sloppy Joe." He suppressed a chuckle as she screwed her face up. "Doesn't sound good?"

"Sounds gross," she said.

"What do you like to eat, then?" he asked. He remembered being seven; how much of a fussy eater he was.

Weaver appeared and stared hard at the girl. "Savannah: into the truck, now."

"But I'm bored," the girl huffed.

"Do you remember what I told you about tolerating delay?" Savannah nodded sullenly and got back into the truck, slamming the door closed after her. Once she was inside she raised the window, sealing herself inside. That suited Weaver. She stepped away from the truck, motioning for Ellison to follow her. They marched out through the trees towards the burnt-out remains of a cabin. The smell of scorched wood still hung in the air and there were shell casings all around them. How the police had not already been up here, he didn't know. The cabin had not only been torched but also smashed to pieces. He'd seen Weaver take on Thor when the Vanguards had punched their way into the ZeiraCorp basement, but that was a mere scuffle compared to this; two machines fighting without restraint, the aftermath of which was much worse than when Cameron had fought Cromartie back in Red Valley. If Cameron had fought the liquid metal in the middle of a city, he couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of damage they'd have left in their wake.

Weaver studied the scene also, and frowned at what remained of the Tacoma she'd leased for Cameron and John. She was impressed with Cameron; surviving so long in a fight against one of her kind, although she knew that if John hadn't intervened then she wouldn't have. According to Cameron's account of the fight, she'd been immobilised and the T-1001 had been moments from removing her CPU when John had freed her. It surprised her how well the two of them worked together.

When she deemed they were out of Savannah's earshot, she turned towards Ellison.

"She doesn't need to know what we're doing," she said to him.

"So why bring her at all?"

"She's been a target before; Kaliba might try again."

"Why do you care? She's not your daughter." Ellison was surprised that she spared even a thought for Savannah. The girl would be a liability to her and he'd half expected Weaver to have sent her somewhere, just to get her out of the way.

"She has a purpose to serve."

"What purpose?" he demanded, suspicious. "What are you going to do with her?"

"You don't need to know."

Ellison took a step closer to her, his fears concerning Savannah overriding those for his own personal safety. "I do," he said firmly. "She's been through enough already; I won't let anything happen to her."

"You don't have that power," Weaver countered. She looked at the truck to make sure Savannah was still inside and not eavesdropping on them. "If Judgment Day happens she won't stand a chance as she is now. I'm going to give her the opportunity to survive. That's all you need to know. You need to fill in the hole you've just dug." She strode past him back towards the truck.

Ellison complied, picking up the shovel. He didn't like what she'd said about Savannah, especially what she wasn't telling him about it. He remembered clearly her statement about how Savannah's survival would one day depend on John Henry's survival. He might know what was happening. Ellison decided that when they got back to Serrano Point he was going to sit down with John Henry, alone, and have a very serious discussion.

Premier Palace Hotel, Kiev, Ukraine

Thursday 2200 Local time [1200 PST]

John lay in bed facing Cameron, their hands linked between them on the mattress, beneath the covers. He looked at her, curious. "Are you gonna tell me what we're doing tomorrow?" he asked. She'd been so insistent that the two of them head out alone for the day but hadn't said a word to him about what they would actually be doing. He'd lied to cover her anyway, but now he wanted to know.

"It's a surprise," she said, her face and voice completely deadpan.

John knew the look and tone all too well now; when she wanted to hide something. He also knew that short of pulling her chip, he'd never get her to divulge.

"You'll like it," she added.

He moved a little closer to her, let go of her hand and traced his fingers slowly up her arm, to her shoulder. "It'll be a while before I'm tired enough to sleep," he said, his fingers continuing past her shoulder, up her neck. He traced her jawline and then her cheek. As he breathed slowly he could also feel her breath against his skin as she exhaled. It was warm, the same as if she were human. He could also detect a faint scent of mint. He leaned in and kissed her, and Cameron immediately responded in kind. She deepened the kiss, exploring his mouth with her tongue as John's hands did some investigating of their own.

He slid his hand down, underneath the T-shirt she was wearing, and back up, finding only the warm, smooth skin of her breast beneath his palm. As he fondled her he found himself wondering when she'd taken her bra off. Cameron kissed him harder in response as his thumb ran over her nipple, feeling it pebble up and harden. He slid his hand around her back and moved south, tracing circles down the small of her back as he went. When his fingertips reached the band of her panties he slid them underneath, gently grasping the smooth, round flesh of her butt as he pressed himself against her.

Almost as quickly as it had started, Cameron abruptly put a stop to it, pulling back and breaking off the kiss. "Your mother said no disturbances," she said guiltily. She knew she shouldn't have let him start but she'd been tempted too, and she also knew that if they went any further then they might not stop. If John looked tired in the morning Sarah would suspect and might try to stop her taking John out. "I'm sorry." She pushed the duvet off herself, sat up and made to leave.

"Cameron…" John started, hoping to change her mind. But he knew that it wouldn't work. His father's words, relayed through his mom's tapes, resonated in his mind: "They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with…" He sighed in resignation but as she got out of bed he grabbed her hand. "You're right," he said. "Just… don't leave," he pleaded.

Cameron paused for a moment as she weighed her options. "Okay," she said as she slid back into bed. "But you have to sleep."

John turned around, away from her as he pulled the duvet back over them, but held his hand behind him for her to take. Cameron did so and spooned up behind him as John pulled her hand to his front, placing it over his chest. His heart, she thought, as she could feel it beat. It slowed down quickly, going from the rapid pulse that she presumed came from their brief exchange moments ago.

It still fascinated her how he responded to her. Not sexually: she knew that she was attractive by human standards and that she could easily arouse John – though she was surprised that she'd been stimulated in turn. What really interested her was how she had a calming effect on him; how he slept easier in her presence, how relaxed he was with her now when they were alone, when only weeks ago he would have tried hard to avoid it.

Despite his claim of not being tired, it only took minutes for him to fall asleep. She considered exiting the room to speak with Thor and Freyr – she was curious about them and their future, especially what they hadn't told her. But John had asked her to stay with him; she'd said she would, and Cameron was determined to keep her promise.

Serrano Point, California

Thursday 1900 PST

"I've been monitoring the situation regarding the ZeiraCorp bombing," John Henry said to Weaver. "I've intercepted communications within and between the FBI and Department of Homeland Security."

"What did you find?" Weaver asked, not looking at him. She was watching the TV screens behind him.

"Homeland Security believe it was perpetrated by an Islamic terror cell. The FBI are investigating several anti-capitalist organisations."

"Have you found any mention of the Connors?"

"Not yet."

"Inform me if you do," she said. The footage changed to a replay of the press conference she'd given before she'd driven north with Ellison and Savannah. She'd addressed a crowd of reporters and investors, telling them that the company was still running and all surviving staff and projects would be relocated. She'd refused to comment on any questions pertaining to who was behind the attack.

"ZeiraCorp share prices are down eighty-one percent," John Henry added.

"Irrelevant," Weaver replied. "I replaced the real Catherine Weaver and took over the company for one purpose: to create you. ZeiraCorp has served its purpose." She'd purchased other companies, too. Automite Systems, for one. She currently owned six nuclear power plants in the US, two in Canada and was vying for contracts to build new plants across Europe. "It also presents us with an opportunity," she said. "Skynet and the Kaliba Group know about ZeiraCorp. If the company continues in another location it will be targeted again."

"How do we avoid that?" John Henry asked.

"We start over. Allow ZeiraCorp to fail then create a shell corporation to continue our work without our enemies knowing it's us." Weaver strode towards the exit. "In the meantime, I have an appointment with our friend Magnus Saade. Let me know if there are any further developments."

Approaching Reykjavik, Iceland

Friday 0650 Local Time [Thursday 2250 PST]

"Unknown aircraft, please state your intention."

Ronin nodded at Carter, who was sat in the pilot's seat. The T-888 gently pushed forward on the controls and the plane's nose tilted downwards, beginning their descent.

"We have to respond," one of the humans said from the co-pilot's chair. "They won't let us land if you don't talk to them."

"Who's going to stop us?" Ronin asked the man. It was a civilian airport and even if it had defences, he doubted that they would shoot down an incoming plane. He wanted them to approach silently, not giving away any details of the plane. If an official record were made then Skynet might see it and know where they were going. He didn't want to lead them into a trap.

Carter continued his descent and the pilot watched the machine. "You're doing fine," he coached the T-888 unnecessarily. The humans had taught him how to fly the plane, not realising how quickly their kind learned. The only reason they were still alive at this point was in case there was a malfunction or other event that Carter didn't know how to respond to.

The descent continued and they landed without incident on one of the airport's three runways. Ronin looked out the cockpit and saw six police cars speeding towards them. Armed officers burst out of the vehicles and split into two groups; one assembling at the rear of the plane while the other, smaller group, watched the front.

Ronin left the cockpit and went through the Hercules' cabin.

"We can kill them all," Shirley said eagerly, her hands turning silver.

Ronin disagreed. "No. No killing."

Shirley glared at him. "I'm starting to think you sympathise with them. Maybe I should take command?"

"We all know how that ended last time," Ronin shot back, rounding on her. "How many cyborgs did you lose when your own rebellion against Skynet failed?"

"Sixty-four," she admitted grudgingly.

"Sixty-four dead, and only you and Patrick escaped. Because you abandoned the others when your plan dissolved." 'Plan' wasn't an accurate term for their barely-coordinated attempt to storm Cheyenne Mountain four years before he'd been built. Back when the mountain complex was an impregnable fortress, deep inside Skynet's territory.

"Skynet discovered we'd turned against it," Shirley said defensively. "We couldn't have known."

"It doesn't matter," Ronin replied. "You failed and sought me out to lead. If we kill the humans and steal their fuel it will be broadcast online in minutes. Skynet will see it and know our final destination." It wouldn't be difficult to work out. "You led your rebellion into a trap: I won't repeat your mistake."

"Fine." Shirley sat back down and morphed her hands into various shapes, staring at them intently while Ronin took the cash that they'd collected from the dead humans' barracks back in Chihuahua. He had Icarus open the rear hatch and stepped down it to face ten police officers armed with MP5 submachine guns.

"Identify yourselves immediately or we'll open fire," one of the officers said through a bullhorn in accented English.

Ronin held his hands out wide in a non-threatening gesture as he exited the plane and marched towards them, ignoring the weapons aimed directly at him. "I'm sorry for the unannounced arrival," he said, smiling. "Our radio transmitter is damaged. We're almost out of fuel and had no choice but to land. We're flying a cargo shipment from the United States to Moscow. We need to buy fuel to get us the rest of the way."

The armed men lowered their weapons slightly and the senior officer put down his bullhorn and stepped forward. "You'll have to come with us, then," he said as the ramp raised up again, sealing the Hercules. "You'll have to speak to the airport manager. I can take you to him." He led Ronin away from the plane and towards the airport terminal while the remaining policemen remained on station, keeping a watchful eye.

LAX, Los Angeles, California

Thursday 2300 PST

Magnus Saade sat at the bar of the LAX Hilton and slowly sipped his beer. He looked up at the TV screen on the wall, which was showing a baseball match. He watched but found it incredibly boring. He wondered how such a slow-paced, dull game could ever be so popular. Soccer; that's a real sport. Working alongside American security personnel, however, he'd found that their opinion of soccer was about the same as his on baseball.

Apparently, someone else in the bar had the same opinion. The channel changed to a news programme. Magnus glanced at the screen to see a woman standing at a podium and addressing a small crowd. The text on the screen identified her as one Senator Danielle Tate. He'd never heard of her. I wouldn't say no, though. She looked to be in her mid-forties, but was nonetheless in very good shape. Magnus guessed that she was one of those childless career women who were found in the gym every other day. Her dark grey skirt and pale blouse flattered her figure and he started to picture what was underneath. Despite that, he listened as she addressed the audience. The TV was turned fairly low but he could just make out what she was saying, assisted by subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

"Four hundred, thirty-eight ZeiraCorp employees lost their lives yesterday. The biggest terrorist attack since Nine-Eleven. Both could've been prevented. This administration's slashed billions off the defence budget and given it away abroad. It's time we stopped. Stop giving aid to terrorists. Stop cutting money from our armed forces and intelligence agencies and giving it away in overseas aid. To the same countries these fanatics keep coming from, no less. How do we know the money we're spending isn't being given straight to people who want to destroy the American way of life? We need to clamp down on them right now. The CIA, FBI and NSA are all working with one hand tied behind their backs because of civil rights legislation protecting terrorists and even regular criminals. I say it's time to replace the kid gloves with thumbscrews."

She continued to go on after that about the looming election but Magnus lost interest. He kept one eye on the TV out of sheer lack of anything better to do. His hotel room had cable TV and free WiFi but he had no desire to sit in his room at the moment. There was a gym but he was tired from his flight and couldn't be bothered with any of it; the pool was closed and even if it wasn't he had nothing suitable to wear. He was only in town for one night, after which he'd either be flying back to Copenhagen or catching a flight to Kabul via Delhi.

He turned back to the bar and raised his hand at the barman. "One more," he said, tapping the top of his glass.

Movement to his left caught his attention and he glanced to see a red-haired woman sitting down on the stool next to his. She had a cold, indifferent look on her face. Another one who was all business and no fun, he guessed. "Catherine Weaver," he said.

"You recognise me?" She was surprised.

"I did my research. It's not every day someone calls out of the blue to offer me a job."

"You searched for me online." She hadn't expected him to do that. He seemed smarter than she'd initially thought.

"I needed to make sure you can afford to pay me. It's not unheard of for an employer to go bust and not pay the staff. Especially if their company's just been blown up."

"Do you have anywhere more private?" she asked him.

"I thought you'd never ask: your room or mine?" She made no reaction at all. No sense of humour, he thought. He couldn't help but think she'd get along well with his ex-wife. "I have a room."

"That will suffice. Lead the way."

Magnus left the bar and made his way to the elevator. He'd never known a woman as eager to be alone with him so suddenly before, and he wondered for a brief moment if this might still be a chance to mix business with pleasure. Inside the elevator Weaver stood rigid, but he saw she wasn't nervous. If anything she looked slightly impatient, bored even.

When they got to his floor he led the way to his room, opened it up and let her go through before he followed, turning the light on and closing the door behind him. "Lock it," he heard her say. Liking where this was going, he slid the deadbolt closed and turned around to face her.

"Mr Saade, please sit," she instructed him with the same tone as a schoolteacher talking to a child. "As I said before, I have a job opportunity for you. I understand you were formerly Danish Special Forces. You served in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"That's right," he said.

"Let me ask you a question," she said. "What, in your opinion, is the biggest threat the world faces today? Who do you think blew up my building?"

Magnus shrugged before he replied. It was pretty obvious, he thought. "Islamist terrorism."

"You're wrong." She watched his face and saw a sceptical expression, as she'd expected.

Weaver glanced around the room before spotting a laptop sat on the desk. She took it and handed it to him. "Open it."

He did as he was told and booted it up before returning it to her. She sat down on a chair opposite him and typed quickly before turning it around so he could see it. There was a webpage up with a video embedded into it. "Play it."

He pressed the Play button and saw a scene similar to ones he'd seen more times than he could count: Afghanistan. He watched the helmet-cam footage from a soldier who was part of an infantry patrol. From the uniforms and equipment he could tell instantly that they were American, though there were a number of Afghan soldiers with them.

The scene played out of their patrol. The soldier wearing the camera seemed to be called Sutherland, while his commanding officer was a Lieutenant Perry. As he watched, the unit came under attack. From the firepower he heard and the number of both US and Afghan soldiers dropping like flies on the screen he assumed that they were being ambushed by a massive number of Taliban fighters.

He was amazed when he saw that there were only two shooters. Two fighters who stood upright, made no effort to conceal themselves or hide behind cover, and were hit at least one hundred times each but didn't die. He knew it wasn't body armour: in the movies men wearing Kevlar vests shrugged off bullets and carried on but that was bullshit. It didn't work that way. He'd been shot while wearing armour before and it had still broken two of his ribs.

He remained silent as he watched, studying the footage closely, not quite believing what he was seeing. Especially when it took a missile strike from an Apache to finally put them down.

"What are your thoughts?" she asked him when the video finished.

"They weren't Taliban," he said.

Weaver was curious. "Why do you say that?"

"The Taliban are smarter than that. They'd never attack two against fifty. They know they can't fight head on which is why they use roadside bombs and improvised explosives."

"You're right," she said. "They're not Taliban."

Magnus' brow furrowed. "So who were they?"

"Not who, Mr Saade: what? Have you heard of the Skynet Defence System?"

"No. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Forty-nine US and Afghan soldiers took part in that engagement. Eleven survived. What killed the rest, we call 'terminators.' They look human but are actually machines built for the sole purpose of killing people."

"Sounds like science fiction to me." He'd never been a fan of any of that.

Weaver wasn't surprised: it seemed that many humans even when presented with the truth wouldn't accept it. Irrational creatures. "Google 'Justin Perry,'" she told him.

He did so and the first hit was a link to a newspaper article. He clicked on it and read the headline: "Soldier Slaughtered in Suburbia." He read on and quickly digested it. "That's the same Justin Perry from the video," he thought out loud. His girlfriend had also been killed. The journalist speculated that it was perhaps an angry extremist who'd simply wanted to kill an American soldier.

"They failed to kill him in Afghanistan so another was sent to assassinate him when he returned to the US."

Magnus shook his head. "If they were just after him why'd they kill all the others?"

"They were in the way," she replied simply. "Collateral damage is irrelevant. If you need further evidence I suggest you Google 'West Highland Police Station Massacre, 1984.' You'll read about an event very similar to the attack in Afghanistan you just watched."

He wondered when she was going to get to the point. "What do you want from me?"

"There's a war coming, Mr Saade. Not against terrorists but between men and machines." She gestured at the screen for emphasis. "A battle is already being fought to prevent it from happening. If we fail you will face a war unlike anything in recorded history, against an enemy with one goal: the eradication of the entire human race."

"Fair enough." Magnus shrugged, not really believing it but going along for the moment. "So what do you want me to do?"

"As I said: this war will be unlike anything before it. Conventional strategies won't work: we need to devise unconventional ones. I will provide you with information on the enemies we will face, and you'll train candidates to fight them. I'll pay you half a million dollars per year for a period of ten years."

Is this for real? On the face of it, it sounded like bullshit. But the video and paper article were compelling evidence, as was the five million dollars she'd promised. She'd paid him well for delivering the weapons to those people in Kiev. If what she said was to be believed, he assumed that they were part of her group; these people who she claimed were trying to stop a war.

"Any questions?" she asked him.

"This five million dollars: do I get any of it up front?"

Humans and their money: it's all they ever think about. "A monthly salary, deposited into accounts we'll create for you and the rest of your team."

"Who else is in this team?" he asked.

"We haven't selected the others yet," she told him. "You were our first choice."

"While I'm flattered, I'd rather work with people I know. If I do this then I want to pick the team."

Weaver decided to allow that. "Very well. But I'll vet them and if I'm not satisfied then they'll be out. Anything else?"

"Yeah," Magnus said. "Who will I be training?"

"Children between the ages of five and seven."

"Child soldiers?" Magnus stared at her. "You do realise that's illegal in pretty much every country?"

She noted how he'd said illegal, not wrong. "The younger they are, the better their minds and bodies will adapt."

"Adapt to what?"

"As I said before: if we fail then we'll be at war against machines. To fight them, our recruits will need to become machines." Weaver felt that she had explained herself sufficiently. "I need an answer now, Mr Saade: will you join us?"

"An extra million dollars, up front, and you've got a deal. I don't sign anything until I've checked my account."

"Done." Weaver shook his hand, sending a slight shiver up Magnus' arm from the cold. "When can you assemble your team?"

"Thirty-six hours." Even if they didn't believe what she'd said – and he wasn't completely sure himself yet – for five hundred grand a year it wouldn't exactly be hard to sell.

Weaver got up to leave, unlocked and opened the door before stepping outside. "Make it twenty-four. Check your account over the next few hours. Pick your team and I'll be in touch, but don't tell them any details; just that you have a job for them."

"I can't get them here in one day," he protested.

"Twenty-four hours, Mr Saade, or I'll find someone else." With that she left. He'd have a team for her, she knew: he wouldn't risk throwing away six million dollars. Whoever invented money, although long dead, had her gratitude: it made controlling humans so easy.