CH 11

Inside the highly classified situation room inside NORAD, Major Julie Bennett followed General Midlands across the large floor filled with rows of monitors to a smaller room in the back. The Marine guard there checked their ID's the allowed them to swipe their security cards to get into the glass walled room.

Once inside General Midlands asked, "Major Bennett, you know every computer system in existence, is that correct?"

"It is, Sir." she said firmly."I have a computer science degree from MIT as well as my studies at the Air force Academy. I've worked with programming and improving systems my entire career."

The General nodded. He then called out, "John Henry, I'd like you to meet Major Julie Bennett. She will be interfacing with you."

Julie wondered who he was talking to. They were the only people here, and the room was sound proof.

A voice from speakers said, "Hello Major Julie Bennett. I am John Henry. It will be a pleasure working with such a pretty and talented girl as yourself. By your lovely light chocolate skin tone and very nice facial structure, I highly suspect you are descended from African, Native American, and a generation or two of Caucasian."

Julie looked for the camera. She found three in the room. "I take it you're a ladies' man," she said. She wasn't offended by his praise, this just was not the place. She also had to assume he read her files. He'd hit on her heritage almost perfectly.

"Correction, Major Bennett," the speakers said. "I am not a man at all. I am an Artificial Intelligence. I can inhabit a body, but it is not necessary."

"John Henry is the automated Skynet defense system," General Midlands told her. "Or, that was the initial job for this AI. We've found John Henry is … much more. His capabilities are tremendous. John Henry, What is the status of China's newest 6th generation fighter?"

The speakers announced, "Three hours ago they performed a test flight to determine it's stealth capability. Although it did do fairly well, a reduction of 60 percent from it's previous radar signature, I increased the signal to compensate for the gain. They are not pleased."

General Midlands laughed. "Thank you, John Henry! I do appreciate you keeping a close watch on them."

"You are welcome, General Midlands."

"That is incredible," Julie said, surprised a computer in NORAD was capable of hacking into the Chinese Air Force. More amazing yet, this was the closest to a true AI Julie had ever seen.

General Midlands waved to a workstation seat and said, "Have a seat, Major, and spend some time getting acquainted with John Henry. I have to check on something. I'll return shortly."

Sitting down, she saw the computer there was off. She turned it on and put in her user name and password.

"That is the incorrect user password. Allow me," John Henry said. The password line doubled to two two lines, then filled completely with tiny stars. The main screen came up. "From here you may look at status and location of any of our forces, the status of other nations' forces, including nuclear weapons, and input which areas you would like closely monitored. Or, you can just tell me," John Henry explained.

Julie laughed. This was the mother-lode, the pinnacle of computer systems. "I... am very impressed. May I ask why there are two lines of password?"

"Yes. To prevent hacking, the first 30 character password allows you to unlock the second 30 character password. Hackers look for single passwords to get into systems. Even closely guarded systems like mine get random hack attempts. Besides the dual password, which is fairly secure, I also monitor each authorized station to ensure that it is in fact, Major Julie Bennett that is attempting to gain access."

Julie could not help but smile. This system was awesome. "What do you look for, facial features?" she asked.

"Yes, Facial features, voice pattern and general body shape. If a three hundred pound woman came in tomorrow and had your voice and face, I would not allow access, for there is no way a human can gain one hundred, sixty two pounds overnight."

"You know how much I weigh?" Julie asked, shocked.

"Do not be concerned, Major Bennett, I will not discuss that with anyone."

Wearing a wide smile that this computer was so advanced, Julie said,"You sure don't sound like a computer."

"That is because I am not. I am a sentient artificial intelligence. I inhabit 107 CPU's currently and use 30 percent of my capabilities on my duties in national defense and intelligence gathering."

"So 70 percent of you is idle?" she asked.

"Negative. I am working on a project for NASA, which planet is better for colonizing, Venus or Mars. So far in my calculations, Mars is better by a small fraction due to the ground and underground that can be inhabited. As for energy availability, temperature and a more Earth-like gravity, floating colonies above the clouds of Venus is more suitable. I also keep track of my friends."

"You have friends?" Julie asked. Again, she was surprised by John Henry.

"I do, would you like to see them?"

"Yes, please!"

The picture of a red headed woman came up in the monitor. "This is Mrs, Catherine Weaver. You could say she is my mother. She initially made my design and did much to protect me." the screen changed to show a pudgy man with glasses. "This is Mr. Murch, he was also essential to my design and tended to my circuits, and stopped a malicious attempt at hacking into me." The screen changed to show a young red haired girl. "This is Savannah Weaver. She played games with me and taught me the song, 'Donald where's your trousers'. Talking with Savannah, we concluded that I am her brother, since Mrs. Weaver is her mother also." The screen then showed a brow haired teenage boy. "This is John Connor, he supplied the initial CPU chip so I could become mobile in the body Mrs. Weaver provided. We even shook hands to bond our friendship." The next picture was of a light brown haired and very pretty girl lying on a couch with John." This is Cameron Phillips. She is John's mate and protector. When it was dangerous for me to stay in the lab, I learned much from Cameron. Although she did not let me observe their sexual ritual, I did gain knowledge while I stayed there."

Julie burst out laughing. ""John Henry!" she cried, "It' s very rude to watch people have sex!"

"Yes, Cameron informed me of that. I was careful not to be present when they were having sex. I learned that while lying on the couch together is pleasant and only for people who are emotionally close, when they have sex in their bedroom or in the kitchen, I stayed out of those places."

"You're like an … electronic person."

"I am indeed." John Henry confirmed.

"Absolutely amazing,"Julie said with a shake of her head. "Are there any more like you?"

"Negative. The closest in sentience and capability would be Cameron. She has other duties she chose to perform."

"Cameron? The Cameron you showed me? What does she do?"

"Cameron protects John Connor, searched out malicious AI's and recently takes care of George."

"Who's George?"

The screen showed a picture of a wolverine. "This is George's species, though it is not George."

"Cameron is not human?"

"No. Her designation is TOK 715. High quality coltan endoskeleton and armor with organic musculature and skin covering. She was designed to infiltrate and remove threats. She has also gained sentience as I have. Cameron has been helpful to me. John is helping her understand the changes she is going though. It is pleasant being in their company."

"Who's John? Is he a programmer?" Julie asked, thinking John was a wonder by with computers.

"John is a human boy who was to become the lead General in the human resistance if I was not able to stop the malicious AI from taking over Skynet and destroying the world. Thankfully, with the help of my friends, we were able to prevent that from happening."

"That can happen?"

"It did happen in another time line. That is why Mrs. Weaver and Cameron came back into the past to this time to prevent it."

.

Catherine Weaver had stepped up security upon John informing her that at least one Kaliba factory was operating. She knew she would be a target, as well as Savannah. Cameron's hack into RKB had sabotaged their software, but Catherine knew they would recover. Her own sabotage actions had slowed down Kaliba, but not stopped it.

Since the suicide of Agent Roth, there were no further meeting visits from any officials. Like everyone else in the room when Roth tried to set off his bomb, Catherine gave her statements, and for the last week she had heard nothing else. Without government interference, she decided it was time to start cleaning up the remains of Kaliba. Until they got rid or every original Skynet agent and the AI itself, the danger of the original Skynet re-emerging was a very real threat.

John Henry was on line, and John Connor was safe. Her two biggest worries were taken care of. Her other top concerns were the welfare of Savannah, and the continuing existence of Cameron. Before she acted, she needed to ensure these priorities were not endangered. She had to assume Roth had managed to pass on everything he knew to Kaliba. That meant they knew she was a T-1001, and were preparing to deal with her.

Humans made wills. Catherine had never considered it before, but now she was seeing the need. Meeting with her lawyers, she turned Zeita over to Savannah, and made herself caretaker of the business until Savannah became of age and could run it herself. She designated in her will who would be the steward if she 'died', as well as Savannah's guardian. The end of her existence was not a peasant thought. It was one she had to conciser.

Signing the paperwork, a slight smirk came to her face as she remembered the words human resistance fighters used to say.

Everyone dies for John Connor.

.

John sat with Cameron on the couch in the living room while George attacked a hard rubber ball he was rolling around with on the floor by their feet. By the sounds he was making, you'd think George hated that ball. Across the coffee table, Sarah sat in a chair with her legs folded under her, just in case George got too close in his biting and growling fun.

"I don't get it," John said in a musing tone."We knew Kaliba had at least one spy in Homeland Security, and he found out about us and Mrs. Weaver. It's not anything like Skynet to not take action. Cam, you've picked up nothing on the web?"

"Only the normal traffic of transfers and office to office e-mail. Even those feel too regular for the circumstances," Cameron told him. "We should be seeing something, increased security, an attempt to find and attack you or Catherine Weaver. I'm sorry, John," she finished in a huff.

John patted her hand. Cameron was frustrated. Thinking about the lack of intel Cameron was able to get, his eyes focused in the light bill for the month. "Mail," he said, thinking aloud. "Not e-mail, regular post office delivered paper in an envelope mail! You and John Henry have the web sewn up. If Skynet is planning something and it knows we're looking for it, it may well be it is sending critical information by mail or even courier."

"That form of transfer is slow," Cameron reminded him.

"It is slow, but it is also secure," John reasoned. "Neither you or John Henry would pick up on it. Hell, no one would be able to pick up on it unless they are watching Kaliba's mailbox."

"Kaliba is planning a Battle of the Bulge," Cameron stated.

"Why do you say that?" Sarah asked.

Cameron explained as she shifted her gaze to Sarah. "Near the end of World War Two, Germany's last attempted offensive on the western front came as a complete surprise. It was a secret even to much of the German army. Only select high ranking officers knew about it. They used couriers and personal meetings to plan the attack. The radio and wire traffic was used to calm the American and British forces into believing their front was secure, and there was no way Germany could possibly attack. Then, the Germans did, and with the help of overcast skies they nearly gained their objective of splitting the American and British forces, and leaving much if the American army with no supplies."

Turning to John, Cameron continued. "Skynet and Kaliba are in a very similar position now. They have lost the upper hand and are near defeat, but still have resources they can use for one final attack in an attempt to regain superiority. Unfortunately, we have no information on what they are up to."

John smiled at her. "That's very good, Cam. So, we can't see what they are up to on the web, but we do know most of their active locations. If we attack first, we can spoil their attack. Can John Henry use satellites to get a look at what they are doing?"

"Possible. If I was Skynet I would take into consideration that satellites may be used, and hide what I was doing in buildings or underground," Cameron said.

"We need to go there and put eyes on targets," John concluded.

"We need to attack them," Sarah stated.

"We do," John agreed. "The most dangerous first in case they do suddenly use phones or the net to signal they are being attacked. Mrs. Weaver is all for going after them." Looking at the satellite photos he had, John pulled three out and said, "RKB is a large factory and has a large warehouse in the back. Very clean yard, which is suspicious. Newtech is a parts manufacturer but the coltan out is less than the coltan into the plant by the shipment data we have. They also could be stockpiling terminators. The airbase Skynet has is no longer using, or so we thought. The warehouse there shows tracks, and in this picture a truck, so it is still in use. If Skynet is storing equipment there for a future attack, that would be a great place to put it. I think we should start in these places."

"We have plenty of fifty cal rail guns and plenty of ammunition," Sarah offered. "They have a long range also. We don't even need to get inside."

"That will help with some individual places," John agreed. We still need to see what it is we're going to shoot. If there are any terminators, we'll need something else besides those fifties. I was thinking lots of thermite and some tazers for the short range work."

"Hit RKB, Newtech then the airbase?" Sarah suggested.

"I'd like to hit all three at once," John said.

Cameron looked closely at the photos and their coordinates. "Model planes," she said.

"What?" John asked, looking confused.

"We can use model planes. Pack them with C-4 and fly them in," Cameron explained. "There is a ridge of mountains between RKB and Newtech. If Mrs. Weaver can take care of the warehouse at the air base, we can start on this ridge. We fly the planes in remotely to both places from there to destroy power sources and make openings into the plants. That should paralyze them and possibly expose what they are making."

"And if we hit all three at the same time, Kaliba will be seriously damaged. I like it," John agreed. "How many planes will we need?"

"Eight. We use the models of cargo aircraft. Four at each facility. RKB has a main incoming power station, Newtech has underground lines to the plant, but this overhead trestle here, that carries all the pipes and wiring from their powerhouse to the main plant," Cameron said as she pointed it out in the photo. "Hit that trestle, and they loose everything. Another plane to blow holes in their warehouse doors, the rest to fly into those warehouses and damage whatever is in there."

"Contact Weaver, see when she will be available. Then we need to go buy some model planes."

"Its a shame we can't wait until December 20th," Cameron said with a frown.

"Why's that?" Sarah asked.

"John's Christmas present won't be ready."

.

Catherine Weaver visited her experimental arms facility in the desert, which by coincidence was only 85 miles away from Skynet/ Kaliba's air base. She had agreed with John that all three places need to be Attacked at the same time. They were also the most likely places the original Skynet was located if it was in fact, still operational. Instead of her usual white dress, she formed a more 'Cameron' attire around herself. Light blue denim shirt, black leather jacket, blue jeans and work boots.

The fifty cal rail guns were a hit with the army. Another project was mounting these to the newest swift scout vehicle the army had. The tracked vehicle's heritage dated back to WW2. The low slung vehicle was made for two things. Go fast, and hide. It was the basic shape of a turret less tank and was only five feet, ten inches tall. Her engineers added a pop up gun mount that fit a pair of self feeding .50 rail guns just behind the driver. It was lightly armored for greater speed and agility. At only 6 tons, the sharply angled vehicle had a top open road speed of 72 MPH, and as 'fast as you dared' over rough ground. The complex muffler system and rubber tracks ensured it was quiet, giving it the ability to sneak up on it's targets. Kaliba might be expecting her, but she didn't think they would be expecting this thing to come charging in.

When she arrived at the barn where the modifications and testing were done, the engineers and the people working on the X-scout vehicle were there to greet her.

"Good day, ladies and gentlemen," she greeted as she got out of her Mercedes. "How is our project coming along?"

The head engineer, a big man with a wide smile, said, "Great, Mrs. Weaver! The pop up turret works well. The controls are on both the driver and the commander's control panel. Either can activate and fire the guns in the turret. Would you care to see?"

"Indeed. I would like to see this for myself to ensure we win this important contract," she told him.

"Right this way."

Catherine got into the driver's seat as the head Engineer got down into the commander's spot beside her.

"As you can see, the controls are all but identical so either position can control the entire vehicle," he explained. The added turret controls are directly above the exterior view screen, and if you put the helmet on, you can select exterior view from the chassis cameras or the turret. Both appear in the heads-up display on your helmet. We strove to make the turret controls as user-friendly as the rest of the vehicle. When you select turret view mode, the turret extends and tracks your head position. Look at the target, put the red cross hairs on it, and the turret figures range automatically. All you have to do is pull the red trigger that is on both your driver's wheel, and this one."

"Very well done," Catherine praised. "Is this vehicle ready for a full test?"

"It is. We did a preliminary functional test two days ago. Everything worked perfectly. We have yet to fire the guns. That test is being planned to encompass every situation we can think of, as well as the army requirements. From the dry run, we found the turret will raise to 45 degrees and depress to negative 10. This is the largest range of motion of any tracked vehicle we know of. Being so low to the ground, something would have to be damn near under the tracks or directly overhead before you can't shoot at it any more. The turret will also spin a full 360 time and time again with the electrical mounts we use."

"Amazing," Catherine said. "One question, having rubber tracks is a flaw in the design, is it not?"

"No, Ma'am," he said happily. "All six road wheels on each side are also driven. A lost track means the capability of the vehicle is reduced, but it can still move along pretty good on hard surfaces and smoother terrain. Handing will be a bit of a challenge, but it will not be immobilized. The rubber tracks also help reduce the weight considerably from the standard steel tracks. This vehicle is designed to hunt out and find the enemy, not to engage in a major battle."

Catherine thought to herself, 'We shall see.' To the Engineer, she said, "Load the guns and fuel it. Once it is ready for a full test, You and your entire team have two weeks extra paid vacation for your outstanding work. Just lock up the barn and go enjoy yourselves. Your bonuses will appear in your next check."

"Thank you, Mrs. Weaver!" he beamed.

.

John visited some hobby stores, Sarah visited some and Cameron went to a few more. Buying one or two pre-made C-130 and C-123 models with video feed at each store, they got ten model aircraft from various stores that fit the bill and could carry three pounds of C-4 with the impact detonators. The models even had cargo hatches that worked, so it was easy to load the C-4 in. As a backup plan, John rigged each plane with an electric detonator and arming switch that activated when the cargo door dropped down.

The biggest challenge was keeping the planes away from George. Seeing the big packages, he was curious what was in them. They put the planes in the shed on the table and covered them up. John was elected to keep George busy with food and play so Sarah and Cameron could get the planes ready to go.

John had bought the longest, thickest play rope he could find at the pet store. Coaxing George out to the back yard with it, John tugged against George for a full hour before the rope was shredded at George's end. Even after that, George spent some time wrestling with the stub. Thankfully, it amused him enough that Sarah and Cameron were done in the shed. Cameron took a walk around of the shed to check if George could somehow get in. She found the walls were solid. Unless he chewed through the walls, the planes were safe.

Upon finishing her tour of the shed, Cameron went in the back yard to check on John and George. John watched as George rolled around on the ground with the remainders of the rope, snarling as if that rope was his worst enemy.

"That didn't last long," Cameron noted, seeing only the knot of one end was left. Bits of rope were scattered though the yard.

"Long enough," John said as George kicked the knot away, then dove on it again. "We're ready to go?"

"Mrs. Weaver is also. She strongly suggested Saturday night, one AM Sunday for the strike time. We will have a full moon and fair weather," Cameron replied. Looking over at Kaecy's house, she saw Kaecy on the back porch looking their way. She waved, Kaecy waved back. "We should introduce Kaecy to George."

"He'll come with us if we go over there?"

Cameron nodded.

.

John and Cameron went over to stand near the porch, but didn't go up on it.

"Hi, Kaecy, I see you saw George," John said.

"I did! I thought he'd be much bigger," Kaecy said. "I mean, he's what, the size of a cat?"

"Big cat. George is 19.3 pounds now," Cameron explained. "He is growing fast."

Kaecy looked over at their yard and said, "He's coming."

"Kaecy, try to copy my growl," Cameron said and let out a soft rattling growl.

"It's how George identifies with family," John explained. He let out his rattling growl.

Kaecy did her best to copy the growl. With the choice of 'family or food', she'd rather be known as family.

George ambled over and paused to look at them and sniff the air. He then went over to Cameron and climbed up her leg. Cameron helped him up. George stood across Cameron's shoulders and peeked around her head at Kaecy, sniffing the air.

"Doesn't that hurt? He has huge claws," Kaecy asked.

"A little," Cameron admitted. She growled softly again. George did too.

George sniffed the air to get a scent as he looked at the strange creature on the platform over them. Mother was accepting this creature. With the new den, maybe this was another brother who lived here.

"He doesn't appear to be mean," Kaecy noted.

"He's not mean to family," Cameron stressed. "That is why I wanted him to meet you and accept you as family."

"It's hard to believe something that small could kill someone," Kaecy said, then let out a soft growl. George growled back.

"It was that guy's bad luck," John said. "He tried to climb into our bedroom window. George was on the bed and got spooked by his sudden appearance and attacked the guy right in the face. By the time the guy got George off him, most of his face was ripped off. George attack again and ripped up one leg. The guy grabbed at him and George took off a couple fingers. That little bugger is quick and I doubt that guy was expecting to get mauled. George chased him until he got away from the house. The guy bled to death before he went very far."

"Wolverines can handle anything 20 times their size. At 14 pounds then, he should be able to drive off anything 280 pounds or less," Cameron stated.

"That is one scary animal," Kaecy said firmly.

Beaming Kaecy a smile, Cameron said, "And he loves us!"

John coughed and added, "Good thing, too,"

.

In planning their flights, Cameron knew she could handle controlling four planes at once. Taking one spare plane out to the desert , they took turns flying it. John was sure he could handle two in the air. Sarah had to concentrate hard on flying the single plane. Cameron landed it for her so they didn't ruin it. Watching John, Cameron deducted two was John's limit. Asking him to fly three would end up loosing one or more planes.

The flight time from the ridge to RKB did not allow for flying three planes in then launching a fourth. Kaliba would have time to react and limit the damage. They needed at least one more pilot to make it work.

Watching Cameron land the plane after Sarah's second flight, John came to a realization. As much as he hated to admit it, the simultaneous strike was not going to happen. Cameron landed the plane and taxi it over to them.

"We have to strike one place then the other," John told them.

Cameron glanced at him. "I agree, John. The margin for error is too great with out current plan. I should lead our planes to target. A small LED tail light would allow you and Sarah better visibility to stay on course behind me."

"And we can use five planes per target," John added. "Cameron, you fly three, Mom and I will follow with one each. We hit Newtech, then after we crash the planes in there, we hit RKB. As long as we take out power and comms, neither will know what happened."

"What about the One AM strike time?" Sarah asked, "Do we still start at one?"

John nodded and said, "We dive on Newtech as close to One AM as possible. Right after we hit the targets we drop the controllers and start up the other five planes and get them in the air and go for RKB. Let's go home and study the layout of these places. We can't miss."

.

At the warehouse RKB manufacturing, the tall, wide man with the seemingly permanent blank face stared at the T-1 unit hanging from the crane, still leaking water out of every seam. "What caused the malfunction?" he asked in a heavy tone.

Danny Dyson scrubbed his head and shrugged saying, "Somehow, the program was bad. This thing just turned and headed for the lake. It didn't even try to run the course. Before we test another unit, I need to

go over the base program as well as inputted programs line by line to figure out what went wrong."

"Do it. There will not be another failure," the man stated, turned and walked out.

Danny got it. If a unit failed again, he was fired. The CPU on this unit was ruined. He got his laptop and started diagnosing one of the other units. Setting up, he typed in the maintenance code. There was no response.

Danny frowned at it. He tried loading commands, and the machine did not respond. He then tried to do a status check. Nothing.

Pulling a memory chip out, he was able to connect it to his laptop and read it. He went line by line, searching for the problem. On this chip was part of the command memory. He found that inputs were disabled. Seeing this, he enabled inputs and reinserted the chip. That was when he found in the command program some strange instructions. It was getting dark by the time he realized they had been hacked and sabotaged. He removed the commands for the unit to drive into the lake.

He looked over at the dripping unit now sitting on the floor and let out a huff. There were fifty units, and most likely every one had been sabotaged. That meant the sabotage was also on the Master programming unit in the factory.

He had a lot of work to do. Before he did that, he had to go tell Mr. Grumpy he'd found the problem, and it wasn't his fault.

.

Saturday night right after dark, John and Cameron loaded their planes and the gear to start them into the back of the van. Sarah loaded her car with guns and ammo, just in case they ran into trouble. They left for the only asphalt road up on the ridge that would allow them to use the road as a runway for the planes.

As the same time, Mrs. Weaver walked up to the perimeter fence around the barn where the X-scout was stored. She cut down the chain link fence and rolled it back to open a ten foot wide gap. No one was around to see her walk up to the barn and unlock the doors. She pushed the doors open and went to the security panel and turned it off.

The X-scout sat alone in the middle of the floor. Climbing up into the driver's seat, Catherine put the helmet on and started the engine and checked fuel and ammo load. Both were full and the engine was giving off a light vibration, and only a very weak rumble. She extended the turret and checked the turret view. The infrared view of the inside of the barn was clear. She retracted the turret and moved forward. Leaving the barn the controls were smooth as was the vehicles movement.

Leaving out the gap she made in the fence, Catherine drove cross country, lights off, and headed for her target careful to raise as little dust and noise as possible.