Aftermath: Chapter Fifteen

Many arrived from LAX and saw the Tinseltown sign visible all over the city with smog in the air.
Among the whoosh of thousands of cars on freeways were certain vehicles with new car smell. Several
arrived in a different manner at the building that months ago was in the news when a military drone hit
the top floor.

The elevator chimed and its doors opened to refreshingly rarefied air. The executive receptionist spoke
softly directing the visitors to the conference room directly across the hall from the CEO's corner
office. Most of the visitors were curious about the office and took a peek before walking over to their
destination, the conference room. The office was fairly well repaired though some of the moldings and
paint colors did not match and hairline cracks persisted along with the faint smell of smoke and still
drying paint. Clean carpet just installed over the bare floor preferred by the previous occupant.
Curiosity satisfied, they walked over to the room that was their destination.

Glasses stood on the conference table at each seat with a cloth napkin. Some frosted with ice, some
beaded with condensation, and some full of high energy drinks instead of water. Despite the
comfortable room, the air was electric. Sensitive people noticed the slight sway of the building.

“Good morning. Because this is the first time we've all been together since you were recruited, let us
re-introduce ourselves. I'm James Ellison, interim CEO of Zeira Corporation. I've followed this case
since Nineteen Eighty-Four when I was in the FBI.”
“I'm Agent Auldridge of the FBI and I'll be heading this task force.”
“My last name is Hackett so it was probably fate that I would grow up to be a hacker. These days I
work for the Computer Emergency Response Team. People call me Hack.”

From beneath shaggy hair, Hack's eyes darted from face to face of his companions as he spoke. His
introduction made, he sat back smugly. This might be more than a theoretical scenario and if so, then it
was ultimately on him to save the day.

“I'm Mel. I freelance. I assume that if you could hit the off switch, then you would have. So far you
don't have enough to convince the President or Congress to cut the funding and fire the personnel
developing it. Assuming that they even know about an above top secret project. That's Big
Government for you. Get me this information and I'll shut it down within the hour. Otherwise, it might
take me overnight.” He slid a piece of paper across the table to Auldridge who handed it to Hack.

“Justin Perry, CINCUSASOC.” said a very young man. Practically a boy.

“What's that in English? Some of us don't speak acrospeak.” said Mel.
“General Perry, commander in chief of United States Army's Special Operations Command.” He wore
a uniform with four stars and a face with four scars. Long healed.
“Richards. I was out sick the day my FBI SWAT unit went to apprehend a suspect posing as an FBI
agent later identified as 'Cromartie'. Those guys were like family. Greta Simpson too. I'm not just
here as a personal favor to Former Agent Ellison.” As the trim Richards spoke, his gray eyes looked at
his surroundings, the windows, the exits, and the hands of the others. Since his unit was massacred, he
was never off the clock.
“Ernest Chang, director of the Institute of Advanced Studies. My field is mathematics but my work
calls me to do everything under the sun. Be careful Mel.” The professor wore a tailored Brooks
Brothers suit and eyeglasses with simple frames.
“Darren Bean, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA as we're known. I think Sarah
Connor's rants about killer robots from the future is insanity but I could be wrong so my agency will
cut a check to pay for everything on condition that our labs have first dibs on any killer robots we
might catch and all, I mean one hundred percent, of any time travel technology goes to my agency.”
Bean had tight fists but his suit was casual.
“General Simmonds, inspector general, U.S. Air Force Intelligence. Mel, you had better be joking
about hacking this purported Skynet Project because it is supposed to be Air Force. I'm Air Force and I
take exception to outsiders poking their noses where they don't belong. That said, I try to keep an open
mind since an inspector general IS supposed to stop, look, listen and kick the tires.”

Her long dark hair was pinned up and, as the only woman in the room, her perfume clashed with the
aftershave and testosterone in the air. Having said more words than she had spoken in the past year, she
shrank back to her usual uncommunicative taciturn silence and went back to observing people.

“Lance Strong, Department of Homeland Security. Let's get on with it. If this is a real threat, then we
may have run out of time already. How do we know that the Russians, the Chinese, and other nations
don't have something like it?”
“They don't.” stated Chang as fact rather than opinion.
“A future AI that is sending robots back to the past to kill anyone that can end its existence is crazy talk
but if true, then we are its next targets. Forget all that. Military robots do exist though I've never seen
one that could pass for a human.”
Ellison: “I'll show you one.” (he referred to the one in the wreckage of Lachlan Weaver's aircraft not
Cameron)
Chang: “I'll show you several.”

Ellison's eyebrows shot up.

“I'll take you up on that offer professor.” Lance continued, “But what if this Skynet project is already
activated but it does not yet have control of missiles? Will it launch them at Russia or China to
provoke an all-out nuclear war o thermonuclear exchange or re-target them to hit American cities?”

Lance's eyes had a seriousness that could drill holes in a steel wall.

Auldridge: “Well we've jumped ahead so as Lance says let's get on with it. Mister Ellison.”

Ellison points across the hallway from the conference room to Ms. Weaver's old office.
“To quote someone no longer with us when there was a discussion just like this one in that very room:
'So why are we here? We have a common enemy. One we cannot fight with conventional weapons or
by conventional means. I was speaking to you about Skynet.' “

Auldridge: “I expect to apprehend Sarah Connor for questioning soon. I know her location. Danny
Dyson is still missing and we are not approaching Tarissa Dyson or Blythe Dyson because that could
tip off Skynet. And the CIA is not the only agency that has been compromised which is why the
Director of Central Intelligence was never told of or invited to this task force.“
Chang: “If we fail to prevent activation of Skynet, what's our plan B and plan C?”
Ellison: “I figure something wants Savannah Weaver dead because she was raised by a machine and
lived around AI's s so she knows how they think and would be a threat to their reign. So I have put her
in a special school to teach her how to out-think machines.”
Hacker: “Sounds like you've read Dune.”
Ellison: (puzzled) “Dune? What's that?”
Hacker: “Novel by Frank Herbert. Nevermind. What's plan C?”
Ellison: “That's where our friends from DARPA and the Institute of Advanced Studies come in. Above
Top Secret lab to develop or steal time travel technology in order to destroy Skynet at the idea stage
before it is ever developed. I just hope we don't need a plan D because . . . .”

There is a surge of adrenaline as the meeting breaks up. General Perry walks out with Professor
Chang.
Perry: (to Chang) “Why would I need to squirt lox? On bagels?”
Chang: “L. O. X. Liquid oxygen.”

There is a sinking feeling in the stomach as the elevator plummets down the shaft, past the first and
ground floors to the sub-basement parking garage level. Two members of the team feel the Earth drop
out from under them as they leave by helicopter from the roof helipad but their choppers take very
different departures routes. Perry's pilot hits the turbos and speeds off East at a speed more appropriate
for a supersonic fixed wing jet while General Simmond's Blackhawk plunges down the side of the
Zeira building toward the street below before leveling off and zig-zagging between the skyscrapers of
Los Angeles and disappearing into the suburbs flying at tree top height. The others scatters to their cars
and one even takes the LA Metro.

Mel leaves the meeting thinking that the others are fools. He has crossed paths with people who say
that the top secret project has long been activated and that the AI is homicidal. Where was Danny
anyway? For years, the rumor among tech savvy people was that the military was building an AI that
made IBM's Big Blue and Watson look like vegetables by comparison and now he had just come from
a meeting where it was not only taken for granted but thought to be a clear and present danger. Yes, the
others were fools. Mel's worst nightmare was an AI that would declare war on humans and the truth
was far worse – they not only had built such a machine but those who wanted to simply hit the off
switch were afraid of it and treading carefully. Is someone following me? To be on the safe side, Mel
got off the subway at the next stop then got back on the next train before switching from a cab to a bus
home. “Paranoids live longer” was his motto.

At the Department of Justice in the office of the independent prosecutor one hears typing, a computer
printer, a copier, and crisp paper being fingered as a secretary silently counts to make sure all pages are
there. The air is scented by toner, boxes of paper, coffee and cold pizza. One legal clerk has the
lingering taste of licking an envelope closed in his mouth. Another has bandaged fingers from cuts on
the sharp-edged paper. Two are pacing the floor.
Now across town, the others were rubbing their hands, checking time on watches and phones
He popped a breath mint before entering. He would not let possible bad breath affect his chances. The
others followed him inside.

Most stood absolutely still so as not to attract the judge's attention and piss him off but one
imperceptibly was shifting his weight from foot to foot before a fellow US Attorney elbowed him in the
ribs to stop dancing. So he stuck his hands in his pockets.

In the chambers, wood dominates the décor of paneled walls and mahogany desk. Upon said desk
comes the sound of writing on paper. Ballpoint ink dry. Although several attorneys are holding out
their pens, the judge ignores them and takes his favorite fountain pen out of the top drawer. Fountain
pen ink has a different smell from ballpoint or magic marker.

Having gotten the precious signature, the lead attorney addresses the others: “Go.”

Beyond the Beltway in Maryland in a corporate park, the vehicles came to a halt. The building
directory listed Kaliba Group in small letters at the bottom even though it was the major tenant.

Receptionist: “Is this a joke? Tell me this is a joke. We're a toy company. Among other things.”
One US marshal to another: “Toy company, that's a good one. A small subsidiary of a huge
multinational military-industrial conglomerate.”

A Kaliba executive bodyguard foolishly pulls a gun. A whole group of marshals point back and wrestle
the bodyguard to the floor as others lay hands on suspects, put their hands behind their backs, click on
handcuffs, and add another Kaliba executive to their daisy chain of crooks doing the perp walk.

You could smell the fear in the executives' sweat but it was not fear of the government. While the
perpetrators seemed dizzy, the marshals were steady as they had done white collar arrests many times
before. They put their hand on the head of each perps as they seated them in the back seat of cars.
After a Kaliba-made military drone hit the Zeira building, it was a foregone conclusion that this day
would come but the executives at Kaliba Group still seemed shocked that the US Government would
enforce the law against them. They were superpatriotic, traditional, and gave millions to political
action committees and to lobbies and to the money party.
On the other coast, on the new Silicon Valley campus of Cyberdyne, the marshals were met by the
Cyberdyne attorneys. Instead of resisting the arrests, Cyberdyne Security men had video cams to
augment the closed-circuit surveillance cameras that were everywhere. They were looking for some
technicality in the professionalism of the arrest that they could use in court.

This time it was the marshals who were nervous. Cyberdyne had no compunctions about finding the
home addresses and researching the families of the marshals. Information that seemed to find its way
to Kaliba's black ops mercenaries.

Judge Advocate General's office, US Air Force. The office smelled of shoe polish and starch. A candy
jar sat on the JAG's desk full of peppermints. A brass falcon sculpture contrasted with the leather wing
chair for visitors. An observer might think this a calm meeting but JAG and visitor were sitting on the
edge on their chairs.

Simmonds: “General, you need to understand the sensitive nature of this.”

JAG: “I've been behind this desk long enough to know how sensitive it is when officials of a top secret
project are arrested for doing their jobs.”
Simmonds: “That's not what I'm talking about. This is a delaying tactic. I'm talking about the AI.”
JAG: “I don't follow.”
Simmonds: “If you have given them any hint that we are about to arrest them -- much less on charges
that won't stick; then the AI that they are developing might do something that we won't live long
enough to regret.”
JAG: “Against my better judgment, I have given them no hint. But I'll bet these contractor arrests
have.“