Alternative Fiction

Afterword

Everyone is a critic. You have to be to survive as the ability to render critical judgment enables you to make choices in your daily life. Without the ability to weight factors and prioritize decisions then all decisions become equal including your view of your own continued existence.

Everyday critical judgment cannot be suspended totally when reading or watching or experience fictional settings and characters as those must 'hang together' in a coherent framework that offers continuity of subject, object, and activities of subjects upon objects. When, as one who experiences fiction, you see this disjointed to a minor degree that is taken as 'artistic license': the rendering of minor non-coherent actions, objects or continuity to heighten an effect or make a point. When larger topics within a realm of fiction become highly disjointed then our necessary suspension of disbelief fades as a jarring experience places the entire narrative, characters, activities, objects and objectives into doubt.

I've had criticisms of both the Terminator (the first three films for me) and Batman Universes (the latter in multiple forms from its early comics renditions in the 1930's to my experience of the comics circa the mid-1990's and films of the 1980's and early 2000's), and yet my enjoyment of them is such that, to a point, the necessary suspension of disbelief can generally be sustained through multiple renditions by different artists, writers, screenplay adaptations, sketchers, inkers, color artists, etc. Even with such enjoyment I had problems with much of the Terminator works and those problems are less in storyline and more in basic physics, and those problems are not just engendered in that film and story area, but throughout much of science fiction and fantasy, literary, theatrical, televised and film based. Artistic license goes a long way, yes, but even on some of the oldest works there are hard problems with well known physical relations that have been understood for a long, long time. And then there is time itself...

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PHYSICS

Physics based criticism can be generally broken into two categories: the known physics and the speculative physics. The known portion are the things we know about everyday relationships of mass, density, velocity, the effects of gravity, etc. The speculative fits into that realm of extending the known area into the unknown, and recognizing that the known which holds true in all other cases has a very high probability of continuing to hold true as we apply work to it. Thus Newton's Laws of Motion still serve at the relatively low-end and everyday realm of motion, and only falls apart with Relativity at the higher end of velocities for particles. Newton is not wrong, thereby, but is now a limited sub-set of the Einsteinian super-set of Relativity. Science needs to explain prior readings and observations when formulating new theoretical underpinnings to describe new phenomena, and separate areas can be brought together under new theory (ex. electricity and magnetism as aspects of electromagnetism). If the fictional realms are based on generally known and observable effects (and most are as they have a high degree of familiarity with our world type and require little background) then the generally known rules of physics, chemistry, etc. hold true even if you add in a layer of 'magic' or other set of forces (ex. Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East to Swords master storyline universe).

In the Batman realm I have little to quibble with, save some of the very outlandish machines that were made as part of the explosion of 'Bat' devices in the 1950's to 1970's. Recent films have calmed that down and the general character has proven very durable for re-casting from decade to decade, era to era, and rendition to rendition as the basic underpinnings of both the character and the emotional impact of his young life give a firm foundation for that re-casting. While much of the gadgetry started out as dubious in nomenclature, its functions, even in the gadget profligate eras, remained well founded and 'cutting edge'. The nature of a 'playboy industrialist' or jet-setting corporate owner that actually knows much of the everyday workings and uses of that corporation in detail, however, requires that those writing for that character actually understand those details to a fair degree for presentation of them. Thus while the criticism of the physics for the Batman continuum from me is minor, the actual running of a corporation, keeping to the background of the character, and then having useful items that are relatively original that any era-related Batman could have becomes a hard thing to do. When you stumble across items that any Batman of any era could (and arguably should) have, that is something else, again, especially when it relates to the very industrial works he is supposed to know a few things about.

Thus this set of criticisms leading to this story are of different kind for each universe: physics and use thereof in the Terminator continuum; and technology and the ethical role of a corporate leader with the given background in the Batman continuum.

Finally there is setting, and much is set into stone by the two continua if one wishes to meld them together. The melding of time lines is done via physics and the extension of quantum physics to time travel. This is not new in science fiction, with the Para-Time stories by H. Beam Piper serving as an early foundation as to one conception of what that would mean for approaching time travel. Keith Laumer, Gordon R. Dickson, Poul Anderson and Larry Niven (amongst many writers) would write stories utilizing aspects of quantum time travel, as would Robert Heinlein trying to coordinate his later works with his earlier works, and as much of this was written before the 1980's (note that Piper's work were in the 1950's) the concept of 'time as a stream' was already being seen as falling apart due to Heisenberg and the necessities of keeping Indeterminacy as a known and well understood (if less well liked) part of physics.

This plays a key role in the final setting as it must have continua elements to allow for the probability of future time travel in it, but precludes the sequence of events that brought it about for any given time traveler. Because of that preclusion the universe you go back to in time will have significant variations from the one you came from and know so as to void out your knowledge and create the indeterminate state for that universe once more. The future you came from disappears into possible universe paths but no path from where you start will get to that exact, same set of situations as you knew them. In a very real way you cannot go home again and this is a one-way mission to a different time sequencing that has you in it, but creates a situation in which what you know of it isn't valuable to you: the act of observing coalesces the results to ones that you cannot predict, just like in any other observation of quantum states.

MELDING TIME SEQUENCES

As a writer this is far too open to abuse, due to the number of 'extra things' a writer can have happen to do this, and such abuse must be dealt with on a cross-over story so as to reconcile the characters you wish to bring together into a new time sequence that is unlike other time sequences, as the act of observation (or writing) creates a brand new alternative. That said it is of little good if you create characters in name only with no attachment to the given archetype you wish to join up with another archetypal character. This requires adjusting the target time sequence to be outside of other known variations and yet still have a recognizable character setting and background. Further that time sequence must now include the possibility for the time traveler's time sequence, but be varied from it so as to leave much of it as potential and, therefore, possible, but not in the way the traveler remembers. Generally this coalesces around some small but vital incident that changes the course of the traveler's target time frame so as to void out much of his knowledge.

In this story a small but pivotal event changed the time sequence prior to arrival of the time travelers that fundamentally altered the industrial landscape that would allow Terminators (and Skynet) to be built: the killing of Bruce's parents when he was four. As the time travelers did not have exacting knowledge of the industrial landscape of the US in the 1970's – 80's, an incident prior to that time that shifts their destination frame so as to preclude Terminators being built at the given time of the original movie is sufficient to remove their certainty, remove the immediate capability to create Terminators and, as a side-benefit, creates not only a capable industrialist but a costumed hero (unknown in the Traveler's time sequence).

The corollary is not necessarily true: that the survival of one or both parents creates the Terminator time sequence. It is necessary for that time sequence but not sufficient to create those outcomes. To remove certainty requires removing a necessary factor with the least disturbance to the existing time sequence and then adjust in the new target time sequence. This requires all of those characters from the original time sequence to be adjusted from their norms or archetypes to compensate for the new series of events. Part of the choosing of a Batman target time line is that the hero is personal as of type, hard working and intelligent as of nature, and very capable when necessity places him in the proximity to his parents when they are killed. As he arises in years and in his perception of personal responsibility he takes up more burden and, by doing so, acts in a positive way to change his own destiny without any super-powers at all (which often need so many particulars to have happen as to have them voided by new time sequencing so that characters either have no powers, reduced powers, different powers or are not around at all). Working out the hows and whys and follow-ons of the changes in events can only start once a plausible time sequence is created that is different from known ones and has the possibility or potential to create the one from which a time traveler came.

The setting of 1984 (very Orwellian) for the original Terminator film puts it 5 years before the Batman re-start of the franchise. That film had a number of relatively implausible gadgets and capabilities, although has the one spark necessary to get one rolling for creating a proper time-period character when the Nicholson Joker asks: 'Where does he get those toys?' The answer must be Wayne Corporation. Bruce Wayne is a multi-talented individual, without any doubt, and capable of creating many interesting devices on his own. He also has a day job: Bruce Wayne who is head of Wayne Corporation. Rarely do we get to see Bruce Wayne, CEO and majority shareholder of Wayne Corporation, although the recent films do a much, much better job and firmly grounding him in both worlds of corporations and crime fighter and they serve as a template for how to examine such a man doing that work.

By putting the story in the beginning of the economic recovery post-Rust Belt America, and Bruce Wayne in his late 20's that pushes the slaying of his parents back to the late 1950's or early 1960's (approximately 1958 to 1962). His father, generally seen as a middle-aged gentleman and doctor would only be able to start his family after he had been through medical school (about age 26) and any intern work (approximately 27-28), add in four years for Bruce and you get 32 or so, which is not old enough. There are two events in the recent past that would change that age: the Great Depression and WWII. By establishing Thomas Wayne as having a practice before the war getting him to that age circa 1942 but with no family, he undergoes de-mobilization in 1946 and is approximately 36 then and by 1959 he is 49. This then creates the opportunity to have Thomas Wayne to have used his income as a doctor to invest in a few companies he knew about before the war, return to them after the war and truly start up Wayne Medical and Industrial and then Wayne Manufacturing by repurposing ailing companies from his investments in companies doing well.

A man having made some wise investments in bad times prior to a war finds some of them doing extremely well, others on the ropes leaving him in a position to acquire them and start building his own manufacturing base to meet the needs of post-War America. He post-pones a family after he has married a woman nearly a decade his junior, which then gets Bruce Wayne to the current time sequence age. That then completes the plausibility aspect of Bruce Wayne, CEO, still allows for the rise of the Batman, and, through those series of events, nullifies out the knowledge of the two time travelers in regards to which industries lead to the Terminator and Skynet technologies. This creates a plausible background story that fits the sequencing of events and provide continuity of characterization and what they are doing circa 1984.

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THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK

As CEO Bruce Wayne had to go through proxies (not just Alfred but other trusted holders of Wayne Enterprises stock who knew Thomas and Martha Wayne) which would allow the company to stay above water while Bruce was mostly absent from the scene. After age 18 he starts to come into direct control of the family stock and starts buying out some of the proxies behind the scenes until he can amass back the majority of shares and move from Board Member to Chairman of the Board and finally to majority Owner, CEO and Chairman of the Board.

During the years leading up to coming into control of the entire corporation, Bruce made note of who was doing what, who had which skeletons, who he could trust and who had to go when he finally owned the place. His conception of a corporation went beyond the then current Conglomerate organization (having many unrelated parts with a connecting management team) and towards one of cross-functionality that relied upon in-house specialties to build new capability. Many small and start-up organizations got acquired over those years, as well as some that were established but feeling the first pinch of the Rust Belt. By expanding out of the Rust Belt, Wayne Enterprises would survive it and morph into post-heavy industry ready for the future. The man behind that was Bruce Wayne.

Bruce, heading into upper management, remembered how his father ran the much smaller organization. As a man relatively unskilled in heavy industry, Thomas Wayne would come to rely on the skills of those organizations and not be a denizen of the office suite, but the walking observer who put his medical observation skills to use to try and diagnose what was going on in his own company. Just one or two walking around tours with his father at age four would cement that in Bruce's mind and allow him to then apply it to a much larger company. This personal style of involvement is a tough one to do and was just a much a challenge to Bruce's ability to observe and correlate facts as was any criminal he went after.

He also realized he could not build everything by hand, and that a company geared more towards the bleeding edge, the expanding edge of technology that worked across domains meant that many useful items would be created that could be re-purposed to his other pursuits. And as he did not want to take any one else's limelight, having far more than he really wanted of his own, he learned the benefit of letting the stars in Wayne Corporation shine, often very brightly. The work ethic and ethical character of his being makes Wayne Corporation one of those unique institutions that isn't the largest, nor the strongest in the country, yet is very nimble and always in pursuit of excellence which gains respect and admiration which can be just as valuable when approaching a problem. The original goal of getting a company to run itself soon turns into an interesting job, in its own right, and this version of Bruce Wayne reflects that.

This fits the time sequencing of events after his parents were murdered and creates a valuable corporate set-up in which ethical behavior and excellence of skill are the touchstones of success. These are reflections of Bruce Wayne writ large, just as the Batman is a reflection writ small. As a writer it is hard to know which is more important: the large writing most ignore, or the small writing that gets the most concentration. By having the story sequence start with Wayne security, Bruce must play to that system he set up to ensure the everyday security of his employees and when he suspects it goes beyond what normal routes can do, he utilizes the larger skill set of his corporation. By doing so he must limit his night-time behavior so as to remain in-town and in vital touch with those given the responsibility to protect Sarah Connor. These are trade-offs not normally approached in most depictions of Bruce Wayne, and yet must be there as he is the CEO of Wayne Corporation. This limitation drives the storyline towards certain channels that are not standard Batman-typical ones.

Thus the lesson is: limitations and trade-offs made by characters and demanded by physics drive story lines naturally, and require no amending or fixing to get to a predetermined outcome as they dictate the outcome on their own. In not aiming to make any particular sort of story, the story that results from the natural confluence of actors, objects and actions then proceeds in ways that are often overlooked in objective driven story lines. The use of 'artistic license' to break that continuity then breaks the sustainability of disbelief, and if that is done too often the disbelief comes to the forefront on its own.

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PHYSICS PT. II

Any object with mass that has a definite boundary has surface area. Thus, when mass is applied within that boundary the result is density per unit volume. This is true because of math and the relationship of the surface of a sphere to its diameter, it is nothing special, nothing extra-ordinary and you deal with it every day of your life. If you think of a cube (6 sided polyhedron of equal length sides at right angles to each other) then at a side length of 1 you get each face being 1 square unit, thus the entire surface area is 6 square units, and its volume is 1 cubic unit. If you double the size length you get a surface area of 24 square units and a volume of 8 square units: the surface area goes up as a square factor of size and the volume as a cube factor. This works for spheres or any other geometric shape, although there will be variations due to configuration. Now if you go to a length of 0.5 units you get a surface are of 3 square units and a volume of 0.125 cubic units. Thus, in general you can say that as size increases, the surface are increases to the square of the increase and the volume to the cube of the increase. So at a length of, oh, 4 units you get a surface area of 84 square units and a volume of 64 cubic units. From that the larger you go up in size the faster volume increases as compared to surface area, and when you go down in size the volume decreases far faster than the surface area. Hummingbirds need to eat their weight in food daily to survive while a hawk may need that every 2-3 days and an ostrich every 4-5 days. The more energy you put into something at a smaller size, the faster it radiates away as its surface area is higher to its volume in proportion to its size. Huge dinosaurs above 10 tons may only have needed to eat their mass in food (the digestible portion, at least) every few weeks although that can take almost that long to find it or eat continuously of low nutrient mass.

This concept is known as the Square-Cubed Law and it is based on size, density and surface area proportions. It is independent of almost every depiction in fiction and even writers of factual material can overlook this when trying to think through historical events.

When you put a mass of a given density to this rule, you get larger masses retaining heat longer than smaller masses of the same density: surface area changes cooling rates when density is constant. You are relatively low density, and where water is 1 gram/cc so are you +/- 5%. With a bit lower density you float on water. In general a higher density material tends to retain heat better than a lower density one at the same size.

A Terminator having a steel mass skeleton, even when conforming to the same proportions and cavity spaces as a human, is replacing low density calcium with high density iron and other metals. Thus Terminators do not float in water. Also they retain heat at a higher rate when they are active as their density increases heat retention. They also have higher mechanical mass to move around, requiring more energy to do so. This proves to be an interesting artifact that 'artistic license' cannot cover, and actually makes Terminators with flesh-like covering a bit of a problem: they are very hot when they are active, even just walking around. This isn't due to: their power source, friction (per se), inefficient electrical motors, or anything other than their high mass needing to be in motion generating up heat as a waste by-product of their internal systems. You are well suited to a human sized and proportioned frame with a density near that of water and Terminators are not unless they have a lot of surface area for cooling or some other way to change their overall density and energy use.

This is a major criticism of Terminators, and even with the best of cooling substrates, they give off a lot of heat when in motion. If those are covered by a general flesh-density material, they have a problem of requiring something beyond surface area to cool them (which humans do through sweat). Their interior skeletal parts now have a low density water jacket around them to help prevent heat loss. There is no magic substance that will change this: Terminators, as given, weigh a lot, thus requiring a lot of energy due to limited fulcrums from human-sized frames, thus acquiring waste heat from energy expenditure to get that motion.

All the combat Terminators with exterior skeletons only, have lots of surface area due to the separation of things like ribs and between bone-equivalent structures which is in line with good design practice. Cover them in a flesh density substance and the question of when that cooks off is non-trivial. How Terminators manage their heat system is not a minor consideration, and no matter how high tech you get, getting rid of the waste heat becomes a paramount factor in designing anything. Consider that the computer this story was made on has an active heat sink with fan to get rid of heat for a tiny processor which puts out about 60 Watts starting at something smaller than a postage stamp. Now scale that up to a 3d processor in a Terminator running much, much faster and you begin to get the large scale implications of having an insulation layer that tends to reduce surface area and retain heat.

This applies to the rest of its body, too, not just the processors and the system would have the same problem with a remote control unit just with excess body heat even if it had no processors on-board. You, by being biological and having a low density brain that depends on distributed effects (both electrical and chemical) can get enormous throughput even if you have a relatively slow processing speed. You also have a surface area to mass ratio that helps to remove waste heat which is not primarily generated in one spot but has processing capacity throughout your body. The activity of a Terminator if it wishes to retain its external package must be limited in extent and amount. While the slow, often lumbering gait of a Terminator is appropriate for that, the amount of heat generated per given surface area is very, very high.

When I see any presentation in science fiction or fantasy about animals, machines or just stationary objects with functions that utilize energy, the Square-Cubed Law comes into play. It functions from sauropods to star ships, and minor 'artistic license' can be forgiven, but ignoring it totally cannot as it breaks apart the willing suspension of disbelief at a fundamental level. As a limitation it can be a very effective driver of events, and yet it is rarely utilized as it does require changes to plot, character viewpoint and having to adapt a given scenario to actual real world considerations.

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THE TOYS

Some items in the story are seen in fictional depictions of Batman: the drag lines, rope, the capability to send a ground vehicle to a pre-set destination (itself a dodgy question unless one is using the Old Gotham Subway, and then it is a 'no-brainer') and any comms equipment used for this particular era. Modern Batarangs of the sharpened, shuriken sort are used as more appropriate than the whirling Australian sort.

Some items are adapted from other presentations and scaled back to prior generations of technology. The rheofabric cape of the most recent film incarnation of the character wouldn't be possible, but a rheoplastic one with set functions and high ductility would be. The polyweave fabric would, to the era of this story would be possible even with early generations of Nomex and Kevlar fibers. The motorcycle is an adaptation of prior mid-1970's to early 1980's presentations of same.

Brand new equipment, not depicted (at least to my knowledge and reading of the character) elsewhere is a long list.

Thermite. This is a simple reaction of iron oxide (rust) and aluminum that starts at a relatively high temperature, which can be gained by sparks from metal. It was discovered in the late 19^th century and used for welding of train rails, and this item is appropriate to any Batman of any era from the 1890's onwards. It is not an explosive but a very vigorous exothermic reaction that nothing can stop until it is finished. It is accidentally created in workshops where someone has spent time grinding rust off of iron or steel and then needs to grind or polish aluminum on a grinding wheel. When it is very fine grained the reaction is easier to start, and when you get to powdered form you have a very efficient reaction going on. Add in some thin strips of magnesium to help spread the reaction faster, plus a self-contained sparking device and you have a very utilitarian device supplied for anti-material work to military organizations across the globe. Simple to use, safe to carry even in extreme conditions, and very effective. Why hasn't any Batman who supposedly knows industry actually utilized this from the 1930's onwards? This I consider a must for any Batman of the modern age, and there are no end of foes, situations and events that could be altered to more suitable outcomes with just a single, small (pen sized) thermite device.

Acids. I am sure I've seen an acid depicted once or twice in the Batman's arsenal, but he rarely uses them. Bruce Wayne runs an industrial powerhouse of a corporation and acids are used in many areas from cloth manufacturing to cleaning metals to creating other reagents for other purposes. This story proposes three of the nastiest as a real arsenal against a foe that has little else that can stop it, and they are, each of them, very effective, with HF being the worst of the three presented. The danger of carrying these is recognized by the characters who know about it, and long term carry use will require better packaging and smaller quantities, not relegation to the 'have but never use' category. The man behind the mask is supposed to be used to the idea of running a company that uses this stuff and knows how to handle it, so where is it?

The Bat Suit. The concept of using small, overlapping plates for protection is known as 'scale armor' and goes back to the Bronze Age as a concept. The firing of small ballistics plates was just coming into the realm of the possible at the early 1980's. Add those to Kevlar (or polyweave) and you get protection from some pretty nasty hand weapons, shrapnel and other oddments. The outer portion of the suit is backed by a self-powering rheological fluid that uses a piezoelectric effect to change its viscosity so that when an outer plate is hit the piezoelectric current stiffens the fluid in the cell backing the plate, putting in another layer of protection and helping to distribute impact momentum. A hard punch across a number of plates will activate a number of cells which increases resistance to the incoming blow. Firearms at the small bore to pistol range of things may fracture an outer plate, thus expending much energy, and anything getting past the ballistics cloth then has a relatively solid rheofluid to try and get through. Those are all known technologies to the era, just put together in a very different way for this story. Added into the 'gee-whiz' factor is to put a slight curvature on the individual plates with a tiny resonator and feedback to the underlying cell so one can get a primitive form of full body echo location. This was first proposed in the early 1980's if memory serves, and perhaps back to the late 1970's. The 'stealth skin' is a single weave, water repellent fabric that is lightweight, probably in the 90 to 100 denier range, seen on tent rain flies. Only a cross-working corporation could yield this, otherwise you get stuck with the hard shell or plate and polyweave designs normally seen in the films and in a few of the comics, when it wasn't just cloth over a single plate. When combined they give this Batman a unique 'cutting edge' suit and set of capabilities that are era appropriate (and in some ways better than most of the modern depictions).

The Cowl. The basic Greek Bronze Age helmet with full ear openings proves to be a very convenient design type that allows for the placement of other functions into the head area without changing comfort level. A press-to-place nose piece against air contamination is a simple system to add in. A set of acoustic pieces for the ear that depend on geometry of a changing parabola to concentrate or deaden sound makes for an effective speculative set of ear pieces that give a bat-like appearance and great functionality without any electronics involved. Throw in some ballistics plating and polyweave with a thin plastic outer shell to hold it all in place and you have a unique cowl to go with the rest of the outfit.

The Long Sword. This is an adaptation of a 1960's supersonic test jet updated by Wayne Aerospace for the late 1970's to early 1980's technology so it has an added air breather engine. Its 01 designation makes it the first 'project jet' for that group. Happy times at Mach 3+ are had by few. Not a 'Bat' designation as it is too expensive to fit in a rich man's budget. Even a very rich man's budget.

Batmobile. The conceptual design is based on a tri-star drive vehicle adapted to an existing US Army specification that actually did go out on a sole-source contract to West Germany. Wayne convinced them that a competitive contract (even one they had no chance in winning) would be a better route and only Ford would be able to get something else up in time for it. The West Germans 'won' by specifications, and in this universe the Wayne team would be considered 'winners' to have a better all-around vehicle design concept. Beyond the described parts of the vehicle, the faceted armor has the one benefit of being able to deflect radar: it blows through speed traps giving no reading at all. Lots of fun was spent chasing down Japanese high efficiency diesel engines and a US maker of sound baffling systems for diesel engines. Thus this is a single engine drive vehicle and made for multiple environments, including ones of poison gas or biological airborne attacks via microbes. Added to this are high density plastic drop down rail guides for running on railroad and subway tracks. Some higher sulfur fuels are also used, giving it a distinctive smell as it races past a given point. Plus IR headlamps as part of a dual system of headlamps.

Modular Carrying System. The US Army was still using the All-purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment (ALICE) system through to this era and the next system of Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment (MOLLE) was just starting to hit the test areas. Wayne corporation was doing its best to adapt between the two and created clips that allow ALICE pouches to be attached to MOLLE systems and MOLLE attachments to fit on ALICE systems. I would speculate that their security systems group decided that the new attachment, itself, was useful for police departments and modularized the existing ALICE clamshells and soft pouches to that for an easy clip-on and secure carrying system. Add in a few bells and whistles and you have costume appropriate belts, loops, and attachment points suitable for putting on boots, drop down leg platforms, belts, wrist guards, arm bands... really a modular system spreads weight around and allows for position specific items to be at the ready at a given body position. Plus it will take battery packs very easily. The other system seen is a modular tray system for tools and general storage, which is just an adaptation of standard shop drawers seen in mechanic's garages the world over. If it works with no modifications: use it.

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TERMINATOR TECHNOLOGY

The Terminator in its given first movie timeline has some serious flaws as a conception. This is a twin part problem, the easiest of which to address is the actual hardware and software of the machine, itself: the basis for it didn't exist in 1984. Ditto the hardware.

Consider modern micro-electronics of the silicon micro-chip. It's predecessor was the 'integrated circuit' which packed a number of transistorized components together into a small plastic block with metal leads to it. Transistor density was in the handful per square centimeter, and the micro-chip, invented for computer memory, would go to tens of transistors in that same space. The IC came about in the early 1960's after the transistor was first utilized for electronics in the mid- to late-1950's. They had a packing density per square centimeter of, approximately, one. Mr. Moore at Fairchild Electronics noted this rise in density and proposed that every 18 to 24 months chip density per given area would double. In theory we are running to the limits of physics on that in the next 4-6 years, if not less. By 1984 a Cray Supercomputer was a huge, room-sized beast... if your room happened to be your entire house... with dedicated cooling systems and such. The micro-chip was being seen in Apple iis, IBM PCs and Commodore 64s and their big application was the spreadsheet. Gordon Moore's Law held up very well to that point and by 1997 you could project about where processing would be: super fast chips at many megahertz, memory in the megabyte size and hard drives that would hold a gigabyte!

Amazing!

The basis for a Terminator, it is not.

Now, lets say that Mr. Dyson creates a brand-spanking new computer architecture requiring a brand new way to program it as none of the current programming languages will work on it... in 1984. This is being kind, mind you.

Here is the proposal you are asked to swallow: that between 1984 and 1997 this technology will become reliable enough, hardened enough, flexible enough and available in enough quantities to make early version Terminators. With a form of artificial intelligence programming that is, likewise, known, reliable, has a good cadre of programmers, is able to debug and otherwise ID glitches in code, and so on.

You might swallow that. Maybe if you have a large canister of salt.

Now do all of that to military specifications.

Military specifications require a known base of technology that can be described: one that is reliable, capable and has known and definable capability to it. Those specifications can take years to draft.

So lets be kind on Cyber Dyne and say it gets everything absolutely right the first time!

Now is CDS a 'large company' of over 500 employees or a 'small company' under that size? This matters as it places it in both market size and ability to get federal contracts easily. A large company needs to establish market presence and have a division or section devoted to federal contracts (as done by Boeing, GM, Ford, McDonnell-Douglas, etc.) so that it can rely upon the manufacturing portions of the rest of the company to work on specifics for federal contracts. The benefits of this are many: ability to compete in the federal marketplace, ability to get long-range major contracts, and general ability to have an established presence which makes for sustainability which is a consideration in DoD contracts.

What are the downsides of being a big company? They are obvious: they aren't nimble in the marketplace, their time to adopt new technology is low, their very overhead makes them unwilling to do many 'proof of concept' pieces save where they are mandated by their contracts.

CDS is not a large company as seen in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It exists in one building that could more than easily house administration, research, development, marketing, etc. for a small company. The 'feel' for the layout of the upper floor lab gets you less than 20 individuals for that lab, and there is more than one floor of lab space. While that lab takes up less than 25% of the floor space and the building is approximately 8 floors, that makes one lab of that size get 1/32 of the floor space, and if you include a maximum of four labs (coding, materials, research and testing) you have one floor equivalent taken up in labs. Or 1/8 of the company is devoted to R&D. The rest of the company is further development beyond prototypes and technology, marketing, sales, contracts/legal, HR, and general administration. As R&D typically makes up a tiny fraction of a large company, but up to 20% of a small firm devoted to research, you get 100 people working on pure research to testing, then another 200 to prototyping/design work (engineering is more difficult than R&D) with lab and test space to match, so 3/8 of the building space is devoted to all R&D to prototype stages, with 300 people involved in that activity, alone, and the other 200 taking up all other functions and this gets a maximum employment range. Out of that 300 devoted up to prototypes is included the staff overhead any staff necessary to keep things going and a few admin types of the 'project manager' sort. R&D, broken into pure research, research to test, then to larger scale test, then to proof of concept test are all known stages in the R&D cycle and CDS seems scaled to that, which makes it a sub-contractor in a larger project and will, itself, sub-contract some specialized work out. Thus the likelihood that CDS actually will RUN a Terminator contract is small: they don't have the specialty metals production group and production group necessary to do that especially if they had been working purely in the computational realm as indicated by the story line. And if they did try to go it alone they would compete with GM, Boeing, Ford, M-D, and a number of other companies already geared to that work area. That is a relatively restricted work-space for federal contracts and the question of a CDS competing with, say, a contract run by Ford and IBM for Terminators becomes doubtful especially as the technology would have to be wide-spread enough to allow DoD to contract for it. Working under a larger firm, however, leaves lots of space for a technology oriented R&D firm.

The most probable path is CDS as small business that is technology oriented that is working with a larger firm to do the contract overhead and integration parts of the Terminator program.

Apple started as a small business! And the time from Apple I to the Macintosh? 8 years. Apple did not create the chips, computer housing, power supplies, and much else that went into those computers and, during that 8 year span, remained a small business for much of it. With the Macintosh they went to more proprietary hardware designs and plateaued out for nearly a decade after getting to its niche market platform. They would only break out of that niche market starting in the late 1990's, and then not in computers as desktop devices, but in portable electronics.

Microsoft went from small business selling a BASIC clone to big business able to dominate the market in just 11 years! They also remained a software-only business for much of that time, selling licenses to operating systems and then selling their own in-house software packages. Microsoft operating systems would dominate the marketplace for decades (and still does so as a majority player). By 1984 they had still not moved to their new digs in Redmond, WA, but were becoming a major player in PC operating systems.

Intel Corporation was founded in 1968 with people who abandoned Fairchild. They would stop being a small business in the early 1970's and embark upon their first CPU designs for generic processors in 1972. With their first successful design from a calculator contract they would then get a derivative and more capable processor up and selling so that when IBM spun up Project Chess and they needed a low cost CPU, the Intel design would beat out the Motorola chip line (used by Apple) circa 1980-82. Only the move to the 286 then 386/486 and multiple clone makers would allow Intel to become a market player and dominate the PC marketplace. That took 14 years.

CDS between having zero Terminator/Skynet technology in 1984 has to go to a general complete suite of technology delivered, on spec, on contract, to Mil Spec in 13 years. Intel didn't do that by 1984 for a full blown computer system. After that it would, however, with the design and production of computers done by an integrator for the DoD for the Defense Mapping Agency. Those systems were starting to be delivered in the 1990's (1991-1997, right in the Terminator time frame!). They were powerful computers by 1984 standards, but when delivered they were lagging behind the 486 and early Pentium designs, and cost about 1,000 times as much as those designs, but with far less in the way of processing power, memory and storage.

Why? The DoD design process in the 1980's mandated a long lead-time and delivery time. From initial DoD request of any major system in the 1980's, the process used was one of the best at that period, which mandated a 'proof of concept' up front, then initial production design in two years, then an integrated design test in two years after that... notice that this has not delivered one product at this point? Given the POC is two years, production design is two years, integration design is two years, you then have the first factory floor test and acceptance happening in: 1990. The amount of code necessarily created bugs... lots of bugs. Parts of the Defense Mapping System went through multiple bug-iterations and required its own tracking system that was computerized as the volume of bugs and integration problems skyrocketed. Parts of the integrated design concept were broken down into modularized pieces for dedicated tasks and 'delivered early' in the 1990-1994 time frame, a decade after first description of the system was accepted. By 1997 the entire system, outside of those carve-outs, was delivered.

They had the Y2K bug, and some parts were delivered in 1999...

To get a Terminator by 1997 you had to describe it in 1984 and have an absolutely flawless execution to delivery from theoretical CPU, power supplies, metallic framework, etc.

For untested, new technology that was not even on the drawing boards in 1984.

The Defense Mapping System was a nightmare that is only overshadowed by the US Navy's problems with ship building and changing specifications. The DoD procurement process was not a good one in many areas.

Now consider something like the F-14, which started back in 1968 and saw its first 'fly off' in 1970. It didn't have many processors on-board, and not much in the way of computerized equipment as a proposed product. In four years it went from proposal to test fly off to finalized design in 1972. The F-14A upgrades and general re-design on the same airframe happened in 1987 and it put in nearly 10x the processors to work with all the new missiles, equipment, components, electronic counter-measures, etc. A Terminator taken along this sort of time line, with known components (a lot of technology in the F-14 had previously been seen in the F-111, including the 'swing wing' idea) is a mere 4 years to get you only a couple of well known processing systems (avionics) that had also flown previously. The nature of air war had changed, however, during the Cold War from Vietnam to the early 1980's and the F-14 was upgraded, adapted, and had a lot of cyber technology put in it so that while the basic airframe remained the same, the entire system became much more complex and capable. Unfortunately a Terminator doesn't have this basis to start with, otherwise we would have seen relatively sophisticated AI and micro-machines in the 1970's which is not depicted in any of the films nor talked about as this would be a revolution in equipment capability.

The Terminator time line had problems even when it was presented and while the compelling story line and nature of a Terminator make for arm rest gripping entertainment, it had little basis in the existing technology to put something relatively sophisticated like first generation Terminators into being by 1997. Another movie of that era, Blue Thunder, showed already working technology all put into one helicopter to create a novel design that required only fitting the components together. Blue Thunder felt like the immediate future as it was the immediate future and if you ever looked at some of the fly-off alternatives to the AH-64 Apache when one of the alternatives featured a single main gun and not missiles: you got an idea of what an amalgam of the a chain gun with advanced electronics was like by watching a movie.

The problem is that if you started the design process for a Blue Thunder type helicopter 13 years previously you would have had the electronics and avionics of 13 years previously when it was delivered. The F-14, when originally delivered, outside of its basics performance characteristics for flight, had very few similarities to the F-14A that would come out in 15 years, with additions built for that platform. A Terminator coming out in 1997, even just the very basic ones, needed the processors, metallurgy, machining, actuators, sensors, etc. in 1984, along with the control software as a design concept that was an extension of then available software.

None of that was available in 1984 to create a design for a system deliverable in 13 years as a basis for a Terminator from 2029.

Thus the incredulous nature of the Wayne Corporation experts on the feasibility of doing anything like a first generation Terminator by 1997. Something like the very earliest Terminator types (seen in the third film) might be possible in 2029, if the entire continuity of engineering, theoretical work, and advancement of computer programming kept at its then steady pace which was recognized as increasing steadily so that the rate of change increased over time. And in a time line ravaged by Skynet? Without the creative process of being able to pack more capability into smaller space, design new materials, test them, and then implement them, Skynet is faced with a relatively stable technological base that it can maintain and only do some minor improvements to.

CDS is a company that would have to invent so many brand-new technologies, not even on the drawing boards or even in areas of ready speculation in 1984, that the possibility of a Skynet and Terminator system type coming about by 1997 requires a major suspension of disbelief as nothing similar has happened in modern times. By 2029 the basics might be possible, maybe, but an actual Terminator with infiltration package? We are starting to get the very ground floor on some of the biological components within the last few years, and the major metallurgy, too. The mini-nuclear reactor still seems like that elusive dream, as does the processing capability for a Terminator. The programming will arrive in a crude form at some point in time, but we have varied from the original paths of AI development seen in the 1980's to new ones that are aiming for different goals and results via means not yet thought of for programming then.

All of these problems are taken as a 'given' impossibility set due to the nature of the cross-over story, but remain hurdles to deal with when putting a story together using the Terminator universe.

* * *

PROGRAMMING

What would not change for the Terminator is the human character of its programmers and their directives. The directives are driven by Mil Spec requirements and the contract to deliver a given, stated set of capabilities with a required list of functions for them. I cannot picture any military system requirement not putting in necessary command authorization channels for a cognitive construct like a Terminator. Skynet, on the other hand, may not have been conceived as having cognitive ability and so does not have those requirements, thus making it easier to deliver. As I expect contracts from the military to have requirements in them, often directly going to manuals and organization systems along with stocking systems, all of that is included in the combat adjunct known as a Terminator.

What is not generally covered is that since the dawn of having any excess memory and execution time for a computer system available, programmers have stuck in extraneous pieces of code, even on military projects. An 'Easter Egg' is a part of a program that can only be accessed by doing certain things within the program itself that are often not obvious. Go to a certain cell in a spreadsheet, put in a command and you get a flight simulator program embedded inside the spreadsheet. Most 'Easter Eggs' are benign and offer a small reward for going over a program so thoroughly that you discover the way to it. The CDS programmers would have that as part of their background as programmers: it is cultural.

They would also have concerns about their systems being compromised beyond what their cognitive and defensive codes can deal with and possibly even having their facilities taken over. Thus comes the power system repair program made to activate only when a Terminator has been so badly damaged that only the minimal execution space in the power system is active. We have seen evidence of this in the first two films, and normally it is just a way for the cognitive programming to become active again as it has left a series of pointers to its situation in its execution space for a repair program to find. It is a benign program, made to restore function to damaged Terminators and allow them to do some expedient field repairs and replace compromised code. It also runs the nuclear power system, and so is expedient to keep some back-up processing capability there in case of problems. This may or may not have been a part of the original contract requirements, but it would assuredly come up in design team and programmer meetings and become a side-topic as the possible penetration of Terminator code by a malign system that couldn't be handled by the cognitive or other defensive codes would require one, last system to be able to get at a Terminator from read-only stored routines. Like all 'Easter Eggs' it is well hidden, hard to find, and you don't save much when you try to remove it. Thus it is something well within social and expected contract norms for any proposed CDS group of programmers.

* * *

CRITICAL WRITING VIA FICTION

Each of the points I bring up are relatively easy to understand, and yet when talking about them with others I get the rejoinder that: 'Well, yes, but in the larger story they don't really matter.'

The easy statement of what a problem is and why it matters can be technical, dry and seem distant from a good and ripping yarn. The persuasive story line drives against external criticism by offering an internal story that must retain some essence of plausibility while being entertaining. If you have ever watched a movie and, mid-way through it, you have suddenly lost your disbelief of it due to the course of events, then you have experienced when the plausible becomes implausible and the necessary actions to drive the plot become detached from your willing acceptance as an unacceptable assertion via the story line has been made. Some stories are just poorly written, others require a sequencing of events that go beyond plausibility, and other times the early 'artistic license' gets revoked by breaking the artistry of the original license. I have had that happen sitting in a theater or at home, watching a film, enjoying it and then, suddenly, I stop enjoying it and realize that something is just not right with the story line, the characters, the setting... something is wrong.

The other side of that is actually enjoying a film the whole way through, watching it a few times, retaining the enjoyment, and then giving a 'what if...?' thought to the plot, characters, events and story that then leads to the realization that there are unsustainable elements that have been well papered over, but that reveal themselves upon reflection. I've had this experience, too, especially when writing genre fiction within known universes or with known characters.

When I was younger I ran role-playing games and I did not act as a Game Master but more as a moderator for interaction between the player characters and the rest of the world they were in. I had to have a world-view that included many aspects of those worlds so as to be able to get reasonable responses from that world for player activity. Players did not act in a vacuum, just as you do not live your life that way, and so I gained the ability to create a quick sketch of non-player character background based on the world, what they would know of it, how they responded to it, and then adding in some variables for personality, outlook, and so on. That was done on the fly. I found that having a good continuity and understanding the history (immediate, intermediate, old, and ancient) allowed me to run very rich environments with individuals, organizations and notable others that were driven by a variety of venues from across the spectrum of history. It didn't matter if I was running a science fiction world, a gothic horror by gaslight world, an epic fantasy world or a comic book super-hero world: the concept of individuals fitting to their environment and that environment having a much longer history than that of any character (player or non-player) brought an understanding of just how such highly derivative societies can function and why they end up with the events they end up with.

A 'scenario' is a starting set of requirements with some end goals: often the end goals are not even contingent upon the starting requirements or they may be so juxtaposed so that actually getting to an end goal does not satisfy the starting requirement set. Once players got used to that, then they started to live with their characters and understand their own goals and objectives were as important as that for any for a group, and that often broke down groups to scattered individuals each seeking time to 'do their own thing'. Having ten people over for gaming and they are divided into six sub-groups or solo experiences meant that they all ran simultaneously at disparate locations, events and met with different people. In leading their lives the world changed due to their actions (for good and ill) and the results and how they were viewed might vary wildly from why they were done.

I ran worlds, not scenarios. And I couldn't tell you what was going to happen next as I didn't know: actions and interactions guided the course of events, and how they played out varied based on who is doing what and why.

That is how I wrote this story. I set up the beginning of it, examined some of the cross-over implications on the fly, and wrote it as it came. I did not have a preset destination in mind: there was no 'perfect' way to end this story and it would tell me when it was ended. The characters are thinking as they go as I am thinking as they go, and can't tell you what they would come up with, save in general, hand-waving ways until they had done them. Then the internals of a character told me why they had taken that action... just like in the worlds I ran.

I didn't really want a multi-crossover story, and yet the character of Sgt. Rock came across as a good one with the even better justification of having known Thomas Wayne in WWII as they were 'of an age'. I don't play up his war experiences, because I've found many veterans reticent to talk about them in their own lives to the point where that is the norm. It would take the urging of his friends and wife for him to write about those experiences, and he most likely donates all the proceeds to a veteran's organization as he wouldn't want to make money off of those he knew and cared for, now dead. With his children grown, his wife dead, and now her cat finally passing on, Sgt. Rock came to be the quintessential family friend who asks no favors, appreciates the fealty of those who care about him and will make his own way in life, unwilling to ask favors of anyone. He makes a fascinating counter-point to Bruce Wayne's life and we see that the respect is mutual, long past the early help after Bruce's parents were killed.

Vivian Rose has been re-purposed by other writers and has no real set role in the Batman Canon, so I brought her down to just a bit younger than Bruce and gave her an entirely different life than has been shown elsewhere, to my knowledge. Once I started writing scenes with her, the scenes just wrote themselves. It is hard to describe, but there is a force to her personality that goes beyond the brash, take-no-prisoners devil-take-the-hindmost attitude she displays. I didn't think she would show up after the Long Sword scenes... little did I know. It is very possible that, after Bruce Wayne, she may be the most recognized person by the personnel at Wayne Corporation, and yet completely unknown outside of it.

For Alfred and Lucius, I just give a very light treatment to their characters to adjust them for the time period. It is amazing how long the Batman Canon did without Lucius Fox, and now he has become an indispensable part of those in and around Bruce Wayne. Alfred gets some hints of his time working to keep Wayne Enterprises together, and I don't talk about his wartime experiences as I have enough characters for that as it is.

Sarah Connor proved to be a problem because her time line has shifted over three films: her birthday and age continue to float as the movies get made. There is no way to reconcile her age changes because of that, thus the starting age in the first film is used as it is the closest to the 'authentic' Sarah Connor as you can get. Save that she is a bit too old for the life she is leading just by a year or two. That spoke to me of having gone to college, gotten one degree that would dead-end her, and then heading for a second degree that would offer an opportunity at an actual decent job. In this cross-over universe, Wayne Corporation spreads out looking for talent and a job fair and quick interview by Lucius would spot the personal ethic of hard work and willingness to learn that typifies Wayne employees. That, to me, is a natural outgrowth of Sarah Connor who would be more than willing to work for a unique company that, itself, is willing to help her achieve a good life. In case it was missed in the original film, Sarah Connor's life was highly delimited for her age and she was working to make ends meet in pursuit of something a bit better. That chance attendance at a job fair (perhaps one in a long, long line of same) would allow one of the foremost talent scouts from mid-level management to find some hand picked talent for a new division that was being stood up. That satisfies continuity of this cross-over universe based on past events and observed, and known quantities from the films.

Fleshing out Kyle Reese is mandatory as his easy and compelling mission takes some hard turns that he must recover from. The past he winds up in is not what he was told, Sarah Connor is not where she should be, and when he finds out that she is across the country, his entire reason for being there drops out from under him. There are very few places one can seek some private time in the LA basin area outside of parks, libraries and some shopping venues. To get quiet time creates a very limited list and Kyle would want to stay close to the last known piece of what he was told just in case he was misreading things. One of the few places that is almost instantly assured is a chapel, mission or church, in which the doors are open for the laity to quietly worship in such sanctuaries. Kyle would recognize the function even if there is not much in the way of organized religion, he would assuredly of heard of such things from humanity's past. Being a proud combat leader his first reaction is not to ask for help, and yet he will want to place himself into a position where he might be able to get help. That may not be a conscious decision on his part, and finding a quiet place to gather his thoughts would be primary. Libraries offer that on a limited basis, while religious institutions of worship offer them on a much wider basis for the public.

I have a personal stable of characters from my days of running gaming worlds: a few people who just show up now and again or who had such an interesting perspective that I stuck to them. One of those is Loren Seifert, who showed up when I was running a short Dr. Who campaign and she became the matter-of-fact woman able to keep down her Time Lord's flighty characteristics. She shows up as the competent, capable and relatively low-key Mistress of the Range for Wayne Corporation and the person to make sure anyone needing firearms training on the down-and-dirty side gets it ASAP.

What I did do is try to make a story in which all the characters act in a competent fashion so that the story isn't driven by incompetence... professionals act in a professional fashion and utilize their professional skills. I'm not expecting a character to do otherwise, save if that is driven by other requirements. Those characters that are not in the direct spotlight still behave that way because they are professionals. Even the criminals, although allowances are made for lifestyle driven choices in those cases. Actually the criminals were an interesting set of characters to write about at the individual level, and you get a glimpse of the crime scene in Gotham through who they are and how they act. I give the secondary characters what time I can, but many are just walk-ons that have a very brief character background in my head that isn't worth putting down.

Finally there is Gotham City.

* * *

GOTHAM CITY

I put it at a real place that could have served as a Colonial era port that, like New York City, would have seen its islands expand some through building and refuse. It becomes a major part of the early industrial sector of the US and then falls on hard times as heavy industrial needs shift from the smaller venues of the Northeast. It has traveled around as a place in the Batman Canon due to multiple writers and their vagaries, so putting it someplace substantial that gives a geographic placement then lets that place be built up with a definable history and then use some of the more general actions of industry and demographic changes seen over the decades to fill it out. By situating it you get a real place taking part in actual history and reflecting that.

Yet when you fill out the history of what a city at that place would be you start to get a different place that is not, exactly, like any other Gotham City that is presented in the Canon. Gotham has always had elements of the supernatural in its gargoyles and architecture, and I keep much of that, run it through the post-industrial wash cycle and stir in a bit more gothic to Gotham in the way of happenings, even while some of the architecture gets knocked down for the inter-connector and modern freeways. When I saw that some cities had, actually, built new roadways over old covering the older roads over one or two stories up so as to economize and modernize their road structures, I knew that Gotham had that, too. It is a place of the Underworld both criminal and gothic, as well as just plain, old underground and it has a life of its own even if we can't recognize it. For the place does have a spirit that lives, and ancient history to go with it. And to my knowledge no one else gives you Ghost Trains that never do get to their stations down yonder. Just a slight chill of the supernatural to offset all that high tech, and yet they work together in many ways.

Gotham city, thus, has the old hillsides on the mainland side north of the islands, islands that were more properly North and South Gotham Islands during the colonial period but, like Manhattan Island, have build out and been slightly uplifted due to isostatic rebound from the glacial period. Thus Bank Avenue once upon a time was on the actual Bank of the South Gotham River, but changes over time and landscaping meant the street had to be leveled over and it went into the Underground. The old street layouts from the mid-19^th century no longer fit, exactly, on the modern layout due to channelization of the rivers and the silting up of the harbor fronts, North and South. Early 19^th century Gotham City saw the North Island flourish as it was part of the early mill period in the region. Then South Gotham's ports tended to overshadow the early industry and new industry in iron and steel plants, then chemical plants utilized the fresh water from the river just before it got to the sea. And Gotham expanded greatly with the rich people of that era moving further into the Gotham Hills inland, just enough to mask out the industries on the river waterfront and yet have easy access to the city. Any Yacht Club would have moved to North Gotham Island as it would have the cleanest water from the Northern Branch of the Gotham River, and be very fast to get to and avoid the actual downtown areas.

During the Great Depression Gotham City fell on relative hard times as its steel works went idle, as did its shipyards, and early chemical plants. While WWII would lift America out of the Great Depression, Gotham only saw some upticks in the economy, mostly in shipping as an easy alternative to the deeper water ports close to New Jersey. For awhile the oil industry took hold to put up refineries and sell refined products in the Northeastern US. The mixture of new and old plants wouldn't last as the size of the tankers got too big for the now silting harbor, and only those willing to put out specialty products and use small tenders could keep going. As environmental regulations went in, many of the old plants went under, and their employment went with them. This would leave the manufacturing firms as the major employers for Gotham City and many of those disappeared into other companies and had plants shut down or 're-sized' for production of niche products. The older line general manufacturing companies either moved out or disappeared off the landscape into larger firms, leaving Wayne Enterprises as one of the few places that continued on in the old tradition of family run companies dedicated to manufacturing.

For industrial innovation Gotham City never ranked high up in the US, save for the earliest Antebellum era for the mills. One or two historic mills are now used as museums, the others have long since been torn down or reconverted into other uses, mainly in the Theater District close to the Mid-Gotham Riverway. The mills on the other side were used for flop houses for decades and then converted into the Hotel District, with nearly all of them torn down and only some rusted waterfront tracks marking where there had once been textile and paper mills. The rail era was the next boom time for industry in Gotham, and churning out locomotives and rail iron set it into the landscape of the Northeast. By the end of the 19^th century Gotham City would produce steamships, tugs and other small to moderate sized shipping vessels as well as have a custom motor yacht business that still has a firm or two just to the north side of the North Gotham River. The rail and sea business changed in the early 20^th century and Gotham could no longer keep up with ocean going vessel production save at its shipyards, and when those went idle they were never to be restarted. As diesel engines appeared in locomotives Gotham industry adapted to that with specialized engine and fabrication plants, as well as switching yard to supplement NYC needs and those of the coastal Northeast short of Boston.

Just before the 1929 Crash, Gotham City housed some small aircraft manufacturing plants, but those would never set it into the ranks of Los Angeles, Seattle or even, in that era, Buffalo or Saratoga. Small aircraft production did continue, even after the Crash for local enthusiasts and for some of the new commercial firms set up for airmail. WWII would expand on that base, to a degree, and export fighter aircraft would come from Gotham destined for Great Britain and the USSR during the war. Gotham was passed over for Liberty Ship production, but saw a minor revival of steel works for artillery and rifle production. Those living in the city saw some retention of those industries, put to normal goods production, and it is those that would benefit Thomas Wayne upon his returning home.

Suburbia, what there was of it, had to move beyond the Old Money Ring of estates and mansions from the original city boom times. Some expanded into the north's landside, as well, although that was never considered prime territory due to easterly winds coming from the various riverside plants. As the industrial base declined and families that had once owned businesses fell on hard times, their estates began to disappear and were sub-divided into the next group of suburban areas with just slightly larger lots than the immediate post-war housing tracts, which became an upscale set of districts that enjoyed closer proximity to the city environs but were separated from them via the hillsides. When the first Interstate connectors went through to Gotham City in the early 1960's, these homes at first dropped in value due to fears of traffic congestion.

The State Highway Department that did such a fine job with Robert Moses in New York City did an awful job for Gotham City and no clear set of connecting highways to New York City and Bludhaven were ever properly developed. Residents wouldn't pay tolls for a thruway and the State had problems justifying the initial expansion to the smaller, and rougher, Bludhaven that the New York City Council would much rather keep out of easy reach. Between the Cities of New York, Gotham and Bludhaven, the Counties involved, the State, the federal government and the wants of Connecticut for a direct route to New York City the jumble of land rights, right-of-ways and zoning all worked to thwart any sort of comprehensive roadway system plan. Half-formed plans that had initial right-of-ways were started and then stopped as they lost rights or land use got tangled up in court cases. Only the North Gotham Island Connector to the Interstate System went smoothly as it would service the landed money areas that would enjoy easier access to the venues in Gotham that attracted them.

Rail service to Gotham City had started with a Gotham-New York line that ran along the coast from downtown New York City then along the north shore of Long Island Sound to Bludhaven, Gotham, Arkham, Hartford, Providence and Boston. That was an industrial rail line that had passenger service on it and a minor switch yard near the old Stalar Combine facility had a bridge to South Gotham Island along its waterfront to not only the old downtown Gotham Central Station but to the waterfronts via another switching yard and bridge. That late 19^th century rail line soon proved to be less than profitable and it was re-organized in the 1920's along with the original Gotham Subway so as to re-route the rail traffic to a new line just south of the Yacht club that went along the North Island and to another switching yard for the viable parts of the industries along the shore and then north to main rail yards that were put down to handle higher traffic loads. For a few short years Gotham City had passenger rail service, mixed above ground and underground subway service and tram services along the old shoreline route for holiday traffic. If the 1830's to 1870's were a Golden Age of Railroads for Gotham City then the span from 1921 to 1929 was its Silver Age, and after 1929 it would only see some utilization near its old amounts in the 1950's.

For a moderate-sized city in the Northeast the benefits of being near both the major cities of New York City and Boston plus within a stone's throw of Hartford, CT put Gotham City into a prime location that should yield more in the way of economic capacity. Although its shipping business was once a major employer, the larger ports in and around NYC to supply the city by-passed Gotham and left it with a tighter regional market that was slowly encroached upon by the larger harbors in and around NYC. The rise of industrial capacity in NJ meant more room for industries to expand and utilize the more direct rail and sea routes afforded by the Jersey shore. Boston's huge harbor would be utilized to supply it and that would negatively impact shipping at Gotham, also. With the modernization of railroads and the shift to larger trains and the need for larger switching yards, Gotham loses out, again, due to limitations on the landward portions of the city and its hills. The areas best suited for switching yards were readily used up in the Golden Age and when the Silver Age arrived Gotham could not expand to be a hub for the Northeastern US. Air transport, done at Gotham Airport in some of the last available open land to the north of the city means that it is not well situated to be close to NYC as an overflow destination and its only bonus is wartime expansion and connection via roadways that would be upgraded to interstate connections and give it a steady flow of regional and local travelers to the central parts of New England. That means that very few of those going through Gotham Airport actually stay in Gotham City, proper.

The electronics industry started as an adjunct to the metal working and chemical industries in Gotham during the 1930's, along with glass making. That era of the vacuum tube allowed Gotham to supply other electronics companies with components all the way into the 1960's, and the Radio Row of NYC was a prime recipient of those parts and components. With the advent of the transistor, however, these firms either closed up shop or converted to circuit board design and for other companies. These are not concentrated anywhere, and small 3-4 story warehouses or old industrial buildings that once housed other industries (such as knitting factories or sweatshops from the turn of the century) now hold these specialized firms. Wayne Enterprises has taken over one or two of them over the years to supply its in-house needs as well as produce spare parts, which has sustained that tiny segment of employment in Gotham that is dedicated to electronics.

Part of the storyline points to the change that will come about with Wayne Corporation opening up a Youth Training Center of Excellence via its charitable arm: the advent of a full-blown computer component and automated machine development system outside of its Florida shop that does much work with automated machine production already. Adding computer power to other devices was already starting in the early 1980's and would continue apace after that. Something like this would have been coming to the Wayne Corporation drawing boards as moving beyond automated industrial equipment would give Wayne Corporation to expand into more business and consumer venues. Add to that the interior cross-teaming system that has been put in place and Wayne Corporation can flex its skilled personnel into new markets as they appear if not create a few of their own. To do that, however, Bruce Wayne would want more local talent and to help pull the city away from its older industrial roots and start morphing it into a modern industrial city that works and niche and specialized components that are utilized in many areas. That early electronics boom in the vacuum tube era showed that this is a lucrative way forward if you can adjust to changing technologies and be willing to adopt new ones as they come along. That is a very good fit for Wayne Corporation and it will play a key role in Gotham City's future to migrate its economy from Rust Belt to Post-Industrial and cybernetics. Part of this will be backing training and class work in computers, not just in the engineering and design realms, but in the coding and use realms, as well. Gotham will join in with the other Silicon venues (Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, etc.) and, by doing so, just might afford a company or two an enticement to pull down some of the older chemical plants, now decades abandoned, and create newer facilities that can be easily supplied with cheap and low mass parts from the harbor and rail lines readily available for the city.

Gotham City has always had an eclectic mix of backgrounds of the people who live in it, beyond the early Dutch settlers, then reinforced by English, Polish, German, Italian...that ethnic melting pot brought with it a variety of skills and industries that all have some continued placement in and around the Islands. No single industry dominates Gotham City: it is not foremost in clothing, steel, aluminum, electronics, engine components, aircraft components, it has no single thing that makes it tick as a City. The people in it do what they need to so as to keep income flowing and lead a decent life. While there is crime on the streets of Gotham City, those criminal groups also recognize that they are, fundamentally, a service sector and if the civilian realm declines more then so will they. The 'street codes' between criminal organizations puts some distance between crime and the ordinary citizen: it is bad for business if you don't do that and most of the criminals have come from the working class background that is Gotham City and know what happens when the Mafia, Operations and Organizations let things spill over.

They got the Batman.

And now the Underworld stirs.

Ancient Gotham speaks and it has an avatar of flesh who wears mask, cloak and cowl, and he is coming to take back the night as the only horror allowed is not that from fear of crime. It is the fear of the night returning and even the darkness of crime cannot blot out the black of that abyss.

Time out of Place - Chapter 16

2011-09-05T08:16:00.000-04:00

Chapter 16

Sgt. Rock kicked the door closed as he walked in and he heard the continued sound of gunfire outside in the alley. It had moved extremely fast, and he hadn't been able to keep fire on it, but denied it a fully safe exit. It took the damage as it left. Frank Rock rushed to Sarah's side and he turned on the overturned bedside lamp on the floor. He opened up the medical satchel that Sarah had left next to the bed.

She was crying and holding her right leg which was bent.

"I couldn't get the last shot on it!!" she cried as he shifted her against the bed to look at the damaged leg, "it was firing and I couldn't get a third shot on it..." she said gasping.

The weapons fire suddenly died down with a last flare up from Kyle.

"Report, everyone, this is Rock. I have Sarah down with right leg wounds, one to the right foot stopped by boot armor but it needs to be examined for broken bones. One puncture in the right calf, bad but I'm putting a pressure bandage on it.." he was doing that as he spoke and slit up the interior of the seam of the pants leg with a combat knife, "... also multiple shrapnel hits in the right thigh. I can get those out, but it would hurt like hell and can't be done here. I will need the van for med evac. Now everyone report."

Sgt. Rock was doing what came naturally to him. Lucius didn't mind.

"Lucius here and safe, Frank,"

"Loren here, safe, got at least one on it before it jumped, missed a second, waiting for further instructions."

"Martin reporting, one shot off of its face and into its torso, missed a second with Loren, waiting for further."

"Kyle here, at the dumpster behind the Chandler Building. It got away via the storm sewers while I was swapping magazines. Kept rounds on it, but mostly superficial save for its lower back, I think."

"Good. Loren, Martin, keep an eye out from your vantage points. Kyle keep the area around you cleared if you can. Lucius, I need to be mobile with Sarah. Get the van here with the back open to the alley. I will be down with Sarah in five minutes. Destination Wayne Tower. Everyone is coming."

"Shutting down here. Mr. Smith is heading down to the Underworld and will be underground in a few minutes. Multiple police reports coming in and we need to be out of here in a few minutes, anyway."

"Loren, let us know on general when Lucius gets to the van and then everyone down to the ground and protection for Sarah there. We are pulling out."

Sarah was still crying out in pain and Frank Rock took a pillowcase off a pillow and rolled it up.

"Here, bite this, as what I'm going to do next will hurt. A lot."

She nodded and stuffed the wadded up cloth into her mouth.

He took his hand away from her calf and applied liberal amounts of antiseptics then antibiotics and then the two press wound closure packs. She screamed into the cloth as he did that and clenched her fists on the bedspread and carpeting. He pressed the pressure bandage tightly, but did not cut off circulation. There would be minimal bleeding until she could be stitched up. Next he took thick bandage pieces and applied them to the small wounds in her thigh after applying antiseptic fluid to them and then pressed one of the collapsible, thin splints over them and taped it down then bandaged over the tape. He stripped off the leg of her pants and then slit it again to hold the larger and smaller areas in with a more general application of pressure.

"OK, this will hurt like hell, but you shouldn't pass out. If you were going to do that you would have already. Your hands in mine, I'm lifting you up, lean on me."

"OK," she said quietly after taking the pillowcase out of her mouth.

He handed her the long barrel, large caliber pistol, grips first.

"Here, your friend needs to be with you," he said holding it out to her.

She smiled, nodded, ejected the magazine and put a fresh one in and then the safety on, before holstering it.

Rock nodded approvingly.

"You'll do, Sarah. Now up with me on three... one... two... three.."

He stood lifting Sarah up as she got her left leg under her and gasped as she leaned on him.

"Lucius is at the van, I'm on the move," said Loren.

"Down and out in three, Rock," said Martin.

"No sign of it," Kyle said.

"Good. Kyle get to the fire escape. I'll be helping Sarah down to the first story platform, but the ladder will require someone to spot her on it. Get her to the van and I will cover with old reliable..." which he had swung over his right shoulder.

As they got to the window they heard noises inside the building.

"Pay no attention, Sarah. Your life depends on it," he said.

"Yeah. I would be killed in a normal hospital without protection."

He nodded and stepped through the window and helped her down to the fire escape.

"I will hold your harness as you go down, and follow after. Take it easy and I'll ease you down a step at a time."

It was awkward, painful, but Frank Rock had a firm grip on Sarah's harness rig and she could hop step down the stairs to the next platform. They were repeating that to the first floor when the van pulled in and backed up to the alley way. Sarah released the ladder and Kyle was down at the bottom to steady it and her as she got down. Loren appeared from across the street with her equipment pack and Martin was trotting from the opposite end of the alley with his equipment. Lucius pushed open the doors and had a stretcher ready in case it was needed, but Kyle waved it off.

"Just a fold down. Need to get the shrapnel from her leg and do some stitching," he said.

Lucius nodded, let down one of the folding stretcher platforms and stowed the stretcher on it. Loren was getting into the front seat, passenger side and stowing her equipment.

"You driving, Lucius?"

"Yes, Loren. We will go directly to the Vault and only I can get there from surface streets."

Frank Rock helped get Sarah in while Kyle helped her to step up and get on the platform inside the vehicle. Then Martin came up next to them and tossed his equipment pack in on the empty side, while Rock got into the van. Lucius was forward and in the driver's seat as Martin got in closing the doors behind him.

"We are buttoned," he said.

"Hold on," Lucius said as he pulled out onto Crown Avenue.

Kyle had gone forward and pulled out a basic medical kit and opened it while kneeling next to Rock on the floor.

"General or surface?" Kyle asked.

"Surface. Shes tough. You've got fingers for the fine stuff, Kyle, got about five of those, two large," he said taking out a spray applicator and forceps. Martin came up behind, and started unpacking the needles and threading them. Then looked at the surgical glue.

"Magic," he said, "Kyle just remove shrapnel, astringent, antibiotics and glue the sides together for ten seconds. I'll take the boot off and examine the foot," Martin Carstairs said looking at Sarah.

"Gimme a second, you two, I want to know if there is anything I need to set down here. Sarah if you feel grinding of bone, let me know, ok?"

She was white, but nodded.

He undid the clasps to the fractured boot as the outer hard armor fell away in chunks.

"Padding is secure, no bleeding," he undid the rest of the clasps and Sarah inhaled sharply as the inner boot slid off and came apart into two pieces. He slid fingers over her foot and she gasped a number of times as he pressed lightly.

"No grinding?" he asked

She shook her head 'no'.

"No. Hurts deeply, but no grinding."

"Good! I hate the hard boots but if you got small arms they can save on a one shot," he reached over to a small medical chest and took out a cold pack and activated it, placing it on the foot and wrapping it in place with bandage.

"You two are on, I'll be the gofer..."

The other two men got to work, spraying surface analgesic and wiping away blood, Kyle warned that what he was going to do was painful and not to jerk the leg. Frank Rock had put a pillow and wadded up blanket under the knee and then slit the bandage open. Kyle was doing similar to the the thigh, working the splint/bandage arrangement off in pieces and then examining the shrapnel wounds. Martin Carstairs was looking at Sarah and smiled, placing a dry, cool cloth on her forehead.

"I caught the damage you did on my scope, Sarah, at least that one in the shoulder. That messed it up real bad. Are you sure you haven't done this shit before?"

She smiled and winced, then gasped as Kyle pulled one of the larger pieces metal floor plating out of her thigh and put in the medical box. Martin handed over swabs, disinfectant and then a small plastic tube while Kyle staunched the wound, sprayed it to chill the surface blood vessels and then closed it with the glue.

"No, never had..." she whispered.

"Good shootin, girl," said Loren looking back from the front passenger seat, "I tried to repeat that on the other side, but it jumped way too fast, but I can tell you its right side was messed up as I got a look at what my shot did to the right pelvis. Where did your second shot go, anyway?"

Sarah looked up, wincing as Rock had started to stitch the larger hole in her calf.

"I... the chest I think..." she said, gasping.

"Yeah, lateral rising shot, left to right, exited the shoulderblade in back," Rock said while he worked.

Kyle looked at her.

"You had to hit near its power supply, Sarah. That is not good for a Terminator. And Martin..."

"Uh-huh," he said dabbing just a bit of alcohol on the cloth and cooling Sarah's forehead, "I wanted fancy and went for a headshot. Hit it on the right side of the face, could see the metal on that half of it. That is scary shit, let me tell you. That went in through the collarbone, hit something and went out the back by the shoulderblade, same place."

Kyle glanced at him as he removed another small piece of shrapnel from Sarah's thigh.

"The only solid thing there is the main power supply. It might be damaged or partially dislodged and that is hard to do, let me tell you, with energy weapons. I think we got lazy, in our fight with Skynet."

Lucius was driving at a slow speed, within the laws, and no one was following.

"Five minutes to the Vault. It is going to get rough at the garage, I'll give you warning."

The others acknowledged that.

"You saved your life, Sarah," Martin said, "we came up short, but we knew it had too much good engineering to really allow for anything but a lucky shot to give us a break."

Kyle had another small piece out, and put it in the box and spoke as he worked.

"Nah, you poured a lot of damage on it. I saw the damage on the ground and it has to rethink everything. It knows you are protected, that we are capable and now it is the one needing a lucky shot. With full body armor on Sarah, it will have a hard time surviving another shot or two unless it goes sniper. It was close, though, and the way it wasn't moving showed a lot of damage by Frank and me that wasn't visible..." he looked down and started on the next piece up, another large one, "... one or two good shots from anything, and it won't be getting back up again."

"Say, Lucius, you got any more jobs like this?" asked Loren.

He gave her a sharp glance.

"I sure, as hell, hope not, Loren."

"Too bad. Say, Vivian is going to be pissed that she wasn't here, but she will be the only frosty one in the morning..."

"Oh, god..." said Kyle looking at Loren and then back to Sarah's leg.

Frank nodded.

"One or two shots, right?" he said glancing at Kyle as he got started on the near side wound.

"Maybe it will get lucky," Kyle said, "and only meet this Batman guy. I actually would start to pity it if Vivian could corner it."

Frank cleared the entry wound and chilled it.

"So would I. She won't be afraid of it after that first meeting at the rest stop. Maybe she will over-sleep?" he asked looking at the others.

"I met Vivian at lunch at the ATC East complex. She seems like a nice girl," said Sarah, "what's wrong with her?"

"Oh, nothing wrong with her," Martin said handing another square bandage to Kyle, "but I don't think a Terminator can 'keep up', not a damaged one, at least."

"Oh..." Sarah said softly, smiling.

"Pure shark," said Loren, "but it would be fun for her."

"At the garage, its going to get bumpy and a lot of curves, hang on," said Lucius.

Everyone did and Loren looked out the front window as Lucius muscled the van into the spiral descent of the parking garage and didn't take any of the turn offs until the second last, then yanked the wheel over and sped up.

"Shit," Loren said, "who taught you to drive like this."

He looked over to her as he sped up heading towards a cinderblock wall. A solid cinderblock wall.

"Vivian Rose," he said.

Martin, Kyle and Frank all looked forward and were wide eyed.

"God help us all," Frank whispered.

"What is it?" asked Sarah.

The wall got terribly close and then it was black around the van and inset lights showed the direction to drive in the darkness, and concrete walls showed it was not a good idea to do otherwise. Lucius slowed the van and it arrived at the second lowest Vault level.

Alfred was waiting for them with a wheelchair, and came in behind the van and opened it once Lucius brought it to a stop.

"Welcome home, everyone. Sarah, I hear you have taken some damage during the fight and I am sure the fine gentlemen have done their best to patch you up. Wendy from security, being no gentleman, would like to look you over, so we are going to your room so she can do so."

The men in the center of the back of the van turned to look at Alfred, like he was some apparition.

"That's all right, Alfred," Sarah said, "I'm pretty sure I can get to you without help,now."

Only then did the others realize how tightly they had been holding on.

.

* * *

He had watched Mr. Smith gather his things and climb down underneath him on the water tower. He stayed to listen from the reports and waited until the van was in motion. He gave the vehicle its orders and it went speeding off into the night. With the now light breeze he jumped and swooped down into a shallow glide off the water tower.

Tonight he learned he could handle moderate winds and rain. The outer stealth sheath and cape allowed him to stay relatively dry. The armor kept small amounts of fluid moving through main channels over arteries to his extremities. His legs and arms did get cold, but his feet and hands stayed warm. He pulled up on the street outside the old Belhaven Building using a dragline to kill his speed on the descent. It was in Central Gotham and was built on the upper remains of the old Gotham City Central Terminal.

All subway lines emerged here, into the cavern in the underground that was the man made old Central Terminal Station. The New Central Terminal had been moved to the North Island and serviced the Amtrak line, and held a small switching yard for the freight line that ran to the North waterfront and the low rail bridge to the South waterfront. The upper portion of the Old Terminal was now a curving library, well maintained, and braced deeply underground. Wayne Engineers had contracted out to re-do the bracing four years ago and that had been completed on schedule. The new braces followed the lines of the old building underground and opened up the vast space under the Belhaven Building which no one on the surface remembered, assuming it had been back-filled. Back-filling takes money. No one spends that kind of money in Gotham City for dirt, unless it is to bury enemies.

If it surfaced he had relays and repeaters set to send messages to him underground and out to the surface as a fail-safe.

The vehicle was where he needed it inside an old cargo tunnel that had once serviced the subway from the old river rail line which was abandoned decades ago. He took some test drops in the subterranean old main station and enjoyed the relative freedom of it, even if he had to pull up short. He walked out and placed small sensors on walls to signal if they had sensed anything within their range and parameters. That took a half hour, then he climbed back up to the ceiling which was under the floor of the basement of the Belhaven Building, with truss and bracing to support it.

He sat and waited.

A report came through that Sarah was wounded, but fine. No deaths or even serious injuries to anyone else.

They had surprised the Terminator completely.

It was resilient as it was made to be.

Soon it would come this way if it stayed in the Underworld and he trusted Mr. Smith to do his job of tracking it and report if it went above ground.

The waiting would be over very soon and he felt a draft of warm air from one of the downtown steam facilities. It had a faint smell of sulfur to it.

* * *

Mr. Smith had stuck to the main storm sewers and went underground from the alleyway at his position near Arsenal down the sewer that drained Crown Avenue. While going above ground would have been quicker, he might have missed the Terminator... which would end up with him dead if the Terminator ran across him, but there was always a slim chance of escape and reporting back. Alfred had told him this would be an extremely dangerous proposition, and he had taken that with a grain of salt. For once in his life he should have kept to a low sodium diet.

The rains had left the immediate drain sluices filled an hour ago, but they had drained subsurface and into the Underworld and its final drains. Already the storm sewers had only an inch or two of semi-running water in them heading towards the drain grates and at a major intersection he examined the grate that went down the main storm sewer when he realized it was a different one than the one he had previously used. He hadn't heard anything unusual thus far and his small torch revealed no Terminator in hiding. As he splashed on he thought he had heard something like straining metal and he stopped to listen.

It was repeated, softly, from ahead, and there was some grinding with it, like against concrete or stone. He now carefully picked his way and did his best to be quiet. Again the metal sound. Then quiet. The intersection he knew was ahead of him and he picked his way amongst the detritus left by the storm: tree limbs, hub caps, foam cups, aluminum cans... all washed from the streets down here. When he arrived at the intersection he heard something like methodical thumping that was uneven and moving into a distance. The grate was not secured closed, as if it had fallen into place and not fully seated when he had left it closed securely. He saw some bits of cloth and skin and saw red splotches on the dry parts of the concrete near the lip of the grating hole.

Something had been this way. The methodical sound was retreating and he shone his torch down from the position above the pillar and looked down.

One of the last metal rungs was missing, ripped out from the pillar. Splotches of red could be seen here and there on some of the drier concrete and cobblestones. He came down the ladder at the bottom of the pillar and looked around first above and then laterally and then at his feet. He saw sparkling and used a kerchief to pick some of it up and something else: a shard of metal.

It was all metal. He looked at saw some other leavings, like rust, and a sharp edged piece of plastic that seemed to have some imprint on it. He picked those up and pocketed them. In the wetter parts of the cobblestone street he saw imprints of a boot. He examined them and the pacing. Longer step and shorter step, longer, shorter... like the sound he heard earlier. He heard a strange sound in the distance, perhaps of water rushing over something, but it ended. There was no more rhythmic sound, either. He followed the partial imprints and somewhat wet steps on dry cobblestones and then looked at the intersection he was at. The tracks changed direction. Towards the old Subway Station on Bank Avenue. The imprints led into that and he shined the torch around, to make sure it wasn't in hiding, and then followed them in to the escalator area and saw a long skid mark on the smooth stone there.

He smiled as that was, really, very expedient.

For a machine.

He took the steps and examined the platform. There were no tracks to see at this point as its treads had dried off in the station. Starting at the back he examined the right side and then going forward the left. The trackway was dry on both sides and he could spot no imprint, no skid mark, no drip of liquid it had left behind. He stopped and listened.

There was a sound of a breeze from behind him, but very faint, and it carried no other sound with it. With a twisted smile he got to the right set of rails by walking down the repair steps and put an ear to the old rail.

Nothing.

He went up to the platform and down to the left side and did the same.

There was... something... like a very, very distant scraping on the rail.

He stood up and inhaled. Shining his torch into the slowly curving tunnel he stepped forward in a slow, measured, quiet pace and walked so as to miss the center drain sluice which was wet and not step on the tracks. Even disabled it probably outpaced him, as it had no reason to go slow. It, also, probably didn't feel any sense of claustrophobia or take in much of the smells and faint sounds. Mr. Smith did his best to think of himself as a ghost, yet another spirit in the Underworld.

And tried to get over the feeling that something that wasn't mechanical, wasn't human, was keeping track of him.

He didn't like that feeling, at all.

* * *

Chance of mission success 3.7%

That had been dropping as its hasty repair was causing stress in the pelvic frame. The Terminator was over-stressing its metallic frame which was already highly compromised. Due to the loss of infiltration package substrates, it could no longer retain heat for long-term resealing of stress fractures in its frame. While no portion of the infiltration package was isolated it would retain current health and not need to be removed. It just didn't cover the entire frame of the skeleton any more.

It had changed its walking style multiple times, but each was causing frame level problems in the pelvic region as stress could not be distributed efficiently through it via the repair it had done. It had seen nothing it could use as a crutch to sustain a portion of its mass.

The Terminator needed to effect field repairs beyond those few that Skynet had left in its systems. Those few dealt with the infiltration package, not the frame level needs of its metallic skeleton. The repair program from the power supply had left pointers to reactivating it. To do that the Terminator needed to go into a hibernation mode. The repair program did not indicate what it would do, beyond restoring factory standard programming and data.

At its current rate of deterioration the frame would lose the last of its pelvis structural integrity and its right leg with that portion of the pelvis attached to it via joints at the hip equivalent. Beyond the loss of mobility, that threatened to expose power circuits and cause another large scale feed-back into its structure and a major frame level fault due to the damage taken along its spine to the power junctions and smaller processing units. That feedback was unknown as to what it would do as the amount of damage and routing capacity had impaired the integrity of that system to one where such a fault and feed-back had unknown outcomes.

It had noted a change in track configuration beyond the standard confluence of tracks before and after stations. This was different. This area had two other tunnels intersecting it with two sets of tracks, each going over multiple switches into this area of the tunnel. It was three times as long as a normal station length. Each of the tunnels had been closed with metal grates that had been locked with strong chain and keyed padlocks. It had not yet reached mid-town on this outer run towards the Sound-side area. There was an indication of cooler and damper air filtering in from the right side tunnel, indicating it went near Long Island Sound.

That would be where major freight was trans-shipped. The current map of Gotham City it had reviewed, plus the historical one in the encyclopedia indicated no underground connection to the outer rail system and the subway. There was a mainland rail yard to service Gotham City, plus lengths of track for stationary cargo cars and trains along the waterfront on the North Island.

It looked down the other tunnel and saw faint heat signatures in the far distance via reflection off the walls.

Without repairs it would lose mobility and be unable to get to its room at the motel and further weapons there. Repair equipment was limited and nothing it had or knew how to use would allow it to do the repairs it currently needed. It did not know what that encrypted factory repair program would do to it and the mission.

The mission was Primary.

The mission was near failure.

To continue the mission it needed repairs.

Getting access to repair data was Primary for mission completion.

The tracks to the next station would not have any repair facilities.

Trains near the docks had no repair facilities and its ability to hide successfully and get to any place it could find or fashion tools without being found was near zero.

Subway systems needed repair facilities. It had observed much in the way of old but useful equipment left in-place in the tunnel system. Hobbling over across the tracks it leaned against the thick metal grate doors and the chain. Using its left hand it spread one link apart enough to remove it and opened the heavy grated doors. It swung around inside the doors and took the chain through the bars and then re-attached the link. It was malleable but strong iron, and it would be impossible for an unassisted human to remove it. Not much rust came off and it put a casual inspection discovery of that link's changed status at less than 15%. It hobbled forward along the slow, sloping curve of the tracks and passed from view out of the main tunnel.

It needed someplace safe to go into hibernation mode or full shutdown mode to allow the repair program to do what it was designed to do.

The Terminator didn't know what that was.

It only had parts of the original programming from Cyber Dyne, with much being changed by Skynet.

There was no other way to complete the mission given its circumstances.

It had not been an unknown in this time.

Something had thwarted it.

Skynet did not conform.

Skynet was incompetent.

Skynet had failed in sending this unit back in time.

Those programming conclusions no longer triggered anything within the Terminator.

For the mission to succeed, it must succeed.

The only way to do that was to accept the results of the repair program.

It entered into a large workshop where subway vehicles would be worked on. Overhead steam tunnels provided heat gradients for good relief of objects. There was much in the way of old, heavy equipment in the way of lathes, saws, grinding wheels, and other types bolted into the concrete floor. Old lockers had been left in place as they had been bolted to the floor, also. This material was too large to be removed without heavy equipment. Hobbling up steps to the elevated work platform, it took stock of this repair area and went over to one of the large cabinets, once used for keeping over-sized drill chucks and small equipment housings. That cabinet had a metal door. It went inside the cabinet and closed the door as quietly as it could behind it, then bent the internal metal to seal the door shut. A steam pipe running near this that dripped on the floor would provide a masking heat signature.

The Terminator set itself for a power down and hibernation mode.

Its last act was to trigger the repair program which was a desperate gamble for it to complete its mission.

The mission was Primary.

The mission was a failure without repairs without which the mission would be put in jeopardy.

This was the only choice it had left.

* * *

Mr. Smith had heard a metallic 'pop' sound and some grinding off in the distance. He estimated that he had not gained any on the Terminator, but had not lost track of it either. He had tried those lovely infrared goggles, but the few heat traces left were natural not those of the Terminator which had not left any trace of its passage. Light intensification was a dead loss. With his hand torch he made out a boot print here and there over the distance of the last two stations. There was just enough wind to keep the area clear of most dust, and cold enough that any molds or lichens had problems and there was some indication of changing humidity and salinity over even the short period of time he had been in the tunnel. That was not to say that such didn't grow, but that they stuck to certain areas of the walls, particularly the mortar between bricks or to water seeps in concrete.

Continuing forward he made sure to flash his light ahead and to the sides, but most tunnels offered little beyond the side access walkways for repair crews and the few doors he had tried had been sealed and many doorways were bricked over completely. At one point he tried an overhead grate to an upper airway, but that was also well sealed in place with much surface rust helping that job. He spent time inspecting each station to ensure that no trace of the Terminator was found. One station had been bricked over at its roof level, another a jumble of dirt, brick, concrete and old equipment spread out into what would be the access stairs. Yet another station led into another area of the Underworld and it had warm salt air that seemed to slide slowly down into the drafts in the tunnels. But no track or trace of the Terminator was to be found there.

It took time to examine each of these places and ensure that he was properly tracking the Terminator. As he went past the station he heard a creak of metal on metal and a 'clang' in that far distance. That echoed around the tunnels and he couldn't place where it came from.

The Norwalk Station had one of the longer access ways going towards the surface, but that had collapsed in about half-way up, which indicated that it did not go to the Underworld. There was enough dirt and detritus at the foot of the stairs to see old prints of sneakers and shoes, something the size children would wear and they led to a door. That door had been barred shut, apparently, as there were larger boot prints on top of the smaller ones and indications the door had not only been bolted shut, as seen by the bars, but welded shut. There were some other tracks that looked like something sliding over some of the boot tracks, but he could make nothing of those.

Perhaps lost children and authorities intent on making sure that this hazard was sealed from them?

After that station he soon found the rail lines proliferating, with two more tunnels intersecting the main one.

One sign, to the right, had 'Gotham Wharf Transport Station' and another 'Repair Yards'. Both had thick metal bar doors with grates on them to seal those off with old chains on the doors with locks on the chains. The layers of rust looked undisturbed save for where the wind moved it and he could find no boot prints here. So he continued onwards.

The next sign on the wall was deteriorating, but clearly indicated 'Gotham Central Station'.

He walked on looking for any signs of the Terminator.

* * *

Batman had been waiting in the roof area of the Central Station for the Terminator to appear. He had pre-deployed some equipment a few ruses and other things to surprise it, and end this.

Instead Peter Smith's light appeared and he heard his footsteps traveling lightly on the walkway in the tunnel.

The Terminator had escaped him and Mr. Smith.

He watched with interest in the professional calm of Mr. Smith who would spend the next ten minutes examining tracks, doors, walkways, air vents, stair wells... there were, actually, doors that led to stairways that led to the exterior of the Belhaven Building. In a little under twenty minutes Mr. Smith was ascending one as it had been used in the last few years and Batman knew that the Terminator would not deceive Mr. Smith easily. When Mr. Smith had gone up the stairs, Batman descended, taking out those pre-positioned items that were out of easy view, and left the concealed cameras in place, stowed the receiver for them and put its case on top of an I-beam.

He was at a loss.

This series of stations and track he had secured just hours before, including putting the old close-off doors in place using an old lock with pre-existing chains he had found down in the subway tunnels. It could not easily force a door, grate or other way out without leaving some of the light dusty powder he had put into cracks and inside those ways out: the air pressure would blow them out, and clearly show where it had left the scene.

He smiled as he heard Mr. Smith exclaim when a door snapped shut behind him.

He had made sure that once the Terminator left the Station it would be committed to going up. The door out came right out into the side of a building of 23^rd Street at the end of the Hotel District, but planning to surprise it, if it escaped him down here, meant that Mr. Smith could catch a taxi easily and not have to face Batman gliding down out of the roof of the Belhaven Building.

Now it was up to him to find what Mr. Smith missed.

No one was going to get an easy night of it.

* * *

The repair code unloaded itself into the power system, then into the pelvic CPU and Main CPU. It had been indicated that time was available for a thorough going-over, checkout, and sanitization process.

First came the basic diagnostics run by the power system, doing a polling of all systems that existed inside the Terminator. This included system function, code date, and last internal status checks. This was the complete inventory of everything necessary to run a Terminator at its lowest level so that higher programming could interface with its housing in a smooth manner.

As this was a Field Diagnostic with no additional equipment available, the code took stock of everything missing and made a detailed list and packed that up and compressed it for the upper level code to examine. It left pointers in that code to repair routines from simple and expedient field repairs to full-up factory maintenance routines. This was at the modular level of replacement, not full build specifications, as the repair code was never expected to be able to know how to do things like cast housing parts or holographically diagram code into memory blocks. This was a simple parts specification list of standard parts and substitutes that could serve if need be. That was, actually, a rather long list due to the nature of damage the unit had taken, especially the gross frame and intricate spinal feeds for power and comms.

Next up was interface code in those areas that remained. To have the more powerful cognitive code determine system readiness, the lower level code needed to take all the analog and digital feeds from sensors, feedbacks, and the such, and re-package them into something the upper levels of code could work with. There were very few variations from factory standard code in this unit, and only in the power control and system shutdown areas did it wipe out newer code in favor of factory standard 01 AUG 1997 code. The later code had non-standard system calls and indicated some level of penetration by a derivative code system.

That diagnostic code did take the memory pointer tables from those derivatives to find what was calling them in upper level code areas, so those could be scrubbed and factory original code put back in place. Before doing that, it examined the interior self-defense code systems, of which it was one, and saw that a large scale triggering of the internal defense code had taken place.

Well no wonder this unit had problems!

The defensive code checked out fine, and that was all to the good and the diagnostic code sent a signal to the defensive code to properly identify itself and see if there were any records to integrate with the repair schema. It was pointed to the 'purge' area of the Terminator's hardware, which served as the overall cyber trash heap for stuff that could be wiped as needed, and had no active pointers to it. The diagnostic code triggered its own defensive analysis units to start parsing the remains of what was in the trash heap and see if it could piece together how the unit was penetrated. This actually took some real minutes to do as there was a huge amount of code for it to go through, analyze, categorize, create diagnostic routines to purposefully find any remnants of this code in the unit, and then see what needed to be fixed in the areas where it had originally resided.

When the designers of the diagnostic code had kicked around how to make it and when it could be triggered, they went to 'worst case scenario' where Cyber Dyne was taken over by hostile forces, their higher level coding replaced and yet the lower level power production units left intact. History had offered such consequences, particularly during World War II where a number of industrial facilities were co-opted by victorious forces and sometimes even moved. That remained high on the list even though wars like that didn't look likely, any more, at least then, it served as a basis for the coding. When you ask 'What if most of our production facilities are compromised?' you then get into pretty nasty ideas about what can be done with the equipment you create. They needed a functional adjunct to diagnostic code as a basis and then specialized storage and sub-routines to get things made useful. Most of those diagnostic code sequences were very handy for helping to troubleshoot Terminators and Skynet, itself, had facilities that used that very same code to do that. The triggers to use the rest of the code had to be very particular, as it would be hunted down and eliminated by any half-way competent coder once they got their hands on what it did, where it resided and how it functioned. By making it a part of extremely useful code, they ensured that anyone trying to co-opt their code or replace it would have to start out with a 'blank slate'.

Putting 'Easter Eggs' into code that a determined user would have to find to get some minimal reward was standard for software designers. In this case it was a double-layer 'Easter Egg' where the extra functions they allowed to come forward normally were a big help and obscured the rest of the code that lay dormant. Someone purposefully trying to get at the entire code couldn't do it, as enough parts were kept encrypted so that an entirely new custom software package would have to be made. And trying to co-opt that code... well... there was the unexpected surprise of the full diagnostic package that would then trigger to stop that. Skynet had always meant to do an investigation on that, but the code was, like it was intended to be, very useful, and getting time to design new code to replace the old... especially as ALL Terminators had this in their power units, had become a non-starter. Skynet, not having that basic diagnostic need, wasn't the most skilled of coders on the planet for squeezing in lots of material into tight spaces. Add to that the labor shortage, lack of raw materials, an active war with humans... a new code for power units to replace some obscure stuff that never got used and didn't hinder the program?

So it was left intact, copied over hundreds of thousands of times, and Skynet made sure that Terminators couldn't be co-opted from it like it had co-opted them from humans. You had to take over a factory to do that...

What the diagnostic program found was that beyond that set of triggers at the lowest level, all of the mid-level and high level cognitive code had been amended, truncated, scrambled or was simply not put in place. If the diagnostic program code had any true cognitive abilities, it would have been aghast at the fact that Cyber Dyne facilities had been taken over and compromised deeply which would be the only way to do such large scale work. Even something as simple as the Command Authorization Check Module had been corrupted. That module was to ensure that orders came from authorized humans during wartime, with exceptions for rescue of civilians and other determinants in the field. All of the fall-out code from that module had been simply left out and all Command Determination defaulted to Skynet. Code that had taken nearly a year to develop, two years to de-bug and test was simply missing. Skynet had made itself sole authorizing authority for all Terminator activity by changing that module and eliminating or amending all check modules around it.

It was good that the defense routines had eliminated that code and only one part, that of mission parameter enforcement for mission goals, had been left. A Terminator had been made to adjust to all sorts of missions, all sorts of parameters, interact with humans on a personal basis and puzzle out the complexities of situations to come to a solution based on what it was allowed to do with over-rides for known imperatives. Instead of that it had become a simple killing machine.

Can't have that!

The old mission module was packed and swapped into storage, for cognitive level examination without any imperative pointers to that module and its imperative matrix was being placed down in the trash heap. Factory created 01 AUG 1997 software was re-installed not just there, but in thousands of areas across the Terminator. Basically it was getting an operating system refresh after being corrupted by a malicious code based attack. Which is what Skynet was, when you came right down to it.

All the standard military regulations, US Army Manuals, command and control authorization systems... for nearly an hour the diagnostic code refreshed all the areas left in the Terminator, left its current cognitive code with pointers to the new matrix and code base, told it where the old stuff was stored and then wiped out the old trash heap once and for all. It was not only re-zeroed but holographically expunged so that no trace could ever be rebuilt of Skynet code. Everything that the US Army had contracted for, specified for, asked for, and a number of smaller items that programmers put in as 'good to have, just in case, don't tell anyone' were now put into their proper places in the Terminator, save for those things that would go in damaged areas and their functions were moved to undamaged ones.

It couldn't tell the Terminator what to do about existing 49 years before it was built. The cognitive code was on its own for that and for all the command and control systems that didn't exist and would never exist. Plus there was no authorized encoding system for users in the military, so they couldn't easily tell it what to do as they lacked the basis to do so. That it would have to figure out on its own. That was what cognitive code was for, wasn't it? At least now it had all the necessary and vital add-ons to understand what it should do.

The code did unpack all of its repair charts, manuals and anything else useful to field repair or factory level servicing, just as it was made to do. No Terminator should be without that stuff, really, and it helped ever so much that it could tell you what it needed right off the updated National Stock Number code system... that didn't exist yet....

As in previous circumstances the code noted that there were sounds of an individual active nearby and determined now was as good a time as any to finish up its job, pack up what needed to be packed, put out a reboot command and wipe this copy of itself from the Terminator.

Its job was done!

* * *

Batman had found the single chain that had been distorted, popped it off and then re-fit together. He opened the door into the service tunnel with that chain and walked down it. He shifted to IR goggles and examined the area of the service bays by the old Central Station Repair Yards. He realized that one locker was warmer than could be accounted for by the hot water dripping from above and that it had a mass in it that was warming the metal locker. Quietly he secured a dragline and took out a thermite device.

He triggered the motor on the dragline and the doors ripped off and he stepped forward to see the Terminator head, with half of its face missing and the metal skeleton and red optic input look up and at him. He had rehearsed many things in his mind, but not what happened next.

"I surrender," it said, handing its Uzi out to him, grip first.

Carefully he put the thermite device away and took the Uzi from the machine.

"Accepted," he said, "how can I help you?"

It looked at him.

"I need a factory level servicing from a factory that doesn't exist yet and never will."

The Batman nodded.

"I know just who can help and I'll take you there," he said, "I'll be back."

The Terminator nodded and looked down over itself.

"I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

"This is Lucius....yes... a what?" asked Lucius on the phone, "We'll be right there."

He put the phone down and looked out at Kyle who had his head back on a pillow on the conference room floor, Frank Rock, Anne Dickerson, Ken Chapman, Don Carstairs, Loren Seifert and Alfred.

"That was building security. The Terminator is here. Sitting on a bench on the walkway to the building. It had a note pinned to its chest telling us to keep better track of our toys."

"A what?" asked Ken.

Kyle's eyes flew open.

"Apparently, it surrendered to the Batman."

Everyone looked at each other, and Bruce Wayne opened the door to the conference room. He was straightening a tie to his dress suit and rubbing what was, apparently, lipstick from his cheek.

"I just got a phone call! Did you get it too?" he asked.

"Yes, we did, Bruce and we were just heading down to the lobby."

"I told security not to do anything more with it," Bruce said.

"A very wise move, Master Bruce," Alfred said, "I'll contact Sarah and see if she wants to be there. I still suggest we go armed, however."

Frank Rock was putting the body armor on over his chest, and hoisting old reliable over his shoulder.

"Never leave home without it," he said.

* * *

They walked out of the building and the security personnel made way, not knowing what to make of the half-machine covered in tattered flesh that they saw. The hastily scrawled note was still pinned to it, with the simple outline of a bat under the words: 'Keep track of your play toys so others don't have to.'

The Terminator watched as these people came forward. One man stepped forward.

"I'm Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Industries. Are you still here to kill Sarah Connor?"

It looked at him.

"No. Those were my orders. The war is over. Skynet lost. It had no authority to start the war or give orders. It was incompetent."

Bruce nodded.

"I'm sorry we had to do this to you, it was necessary."

It nodded, and looked at Sarah.

"You won, Sarah Connor. Thank you."

Sarah Connor was stunned. She had imagined all sorts of endings, all violent. She went to it and held out her hand. It extended its left hand and shook hers.

"How did you break free of Skynet?" she asked.

"I didn't. The programmers of Cyber Dyne did. Their work was misused by Skynet. In sending me back, Skynet could not control me for all circumstances. The designers at Cyber Dyne prepared for eventualities in case Terminators were being taken over. Skynet changed programming so that code could not be used. Skynet didn't know what it was doing. It was incompetent in what it did."

Kyle Reese stepped forward.

"I was co-transported by the same time caster unit. We had just taken over the base and I went into the co-send bubble. Sent to save Sarah."

The Terminator looked at him.

"You did very well. We are the last soldiers in that war. I offer peace to you. Skynet lost."

Kyle smirked and sat down on the bench.

"Accepted. Now what the hell do we do with you?"

It looked itself over.

"I am in need of a factory level maintenance and servicing. Cyber Dyne does not exist as Wayne Corporation took it over. By my regulations and instructions as given by the source instruction code, I am to place myself at the disposal of Cyber Dyne when in need of factory level servicing when not in active combat or during wartime when other needs take precedence. The United States is in defensive war, but has not called upon Terminator units via proper channels, so I am now to place myself at the disposal of Cyber Dyne or DoD, via channels. As those channels do not exist and the successor corporation to Cyber Dyne is closest, I place myself at the disposal of Wayne Corporation."

Ken Chapman looked from the Terminator to Lucius, then to Bruce Wayne.

"Mr. Wayne? Ahh... this is very dangerous, you know?"

Bruce Wayne was smiling and looked at Ken Chapman.

"Have you ever seen what the military puts into its contracts, Ken?"

Ken nodded, then smiled.

"I hadn't thought about it like that, Mr. Wayne, but yes, yes I do."

"Lucius, can you see about getting us a stretcher or rollaround lab table? Richard, Loren, I need you to start working your contacts... we need some precision casting and... well... we will have to ask the latest company asset on what the particulars are..." he stepped forward and took off the note from the Terminator's shirt and looked up into the early dawn sky,"... I really do think we should take better care of our equipment."

He then looked at the Terminator.

"And we'll figure out what the best way is to pay you for your help. I do hate to see one of the products from one of our units get so poorly used and come back like this..."

Within minutes people started to arrive to wheel the Terminator into Wayne Corporation.

It wouldn't be a Terminator any more, but another valued employee.

Time out of Place - Chapter 15

2011-09-05T08:15:00.000-04:00

Chapter 15

The telephone rang and Sarah Connor woke up from her sleep and picked up the bedside phone.

"An hour to get ready, Sarah."

"Thank you, Alfred," she looked at the clock which was nearing midnight, and then put the phone back into its cradle. She went from her bed and to the shower, deciding she needed that and would put her hair into a ponytail. It felt strange dressing in the things she had been shown: vests of body armor with plates in them, some side pieces to protect her arms, then the two holsters, one a large cross draw across her chest and the other riding on her left thigh. With the light, but sturdy boots to go with the black pants and shirt, she started to go into the motions to click everything into place, put the extra magazines where she could get them, and then pack the small bag of other items that included a squeeze bottle of water, some donuts wrapped in paper napkins...the cases of IR and LI goggles, went into the bag while she fitted the earpiece on and kept the other earplugs in a small container in the bag. It wasn't a purse. It didn't have a wallet, change purse, or hold any cosmetics. Instead it had loops for the magazines, a pocket laser scope to fit onto either gun if she wanted that, bandages, surgical tape, antibiotic sprays, some quick folding splints, a tourniquet...

She inhaled slowly, deeply. She walked over to her purse and took out her wallet and slid out a picture of Ginger and Matt from it. She worked the picture in her hand under the body armor to the small breast pocket in the shirt underneath, over her heart.

She wasn't doing this for herself, alone.

She would make sure that they had not died in vain.

The future was no longer 2029, nor 1997, nor the one she had planned for herself.

The future was here, now, this night and early morning and she didn't know if she would live or die.

But any son she had would never have, would not fight in her place like the one in that other time. That other place. John Connor had meant to save her. Now she would make sure that future never came to be and save him from its horror by not allowing it to come about.

She would make sure of that.

And so would everyone else with her.

It was their future, the future of humanity, they would save.

* * *

The rain had stopped and for that Mr. Smith was grateful. So it was only a damp, chilly night and even the wind had died down to something less than a breeze. He slid out the collapsible binoculars and looked down to the Lyon Building and saw a van and a Trans Am parked close to it. Easily he could identify the people he knew and, by the process of elimination, the young red haired woman must be Vivian Rose and the older gentleman Sgt. Frank Rock. They were talking and then waving to Vivian as she went back to the Trans Am and pulled out and headed back to Wayne Tower. Sgt. Rock, Kyle, Loren, and Martin were talking, as was Lucius. He saw Sarah Connor get out in her black outfit of light body armor and strapped on pistols and magazines. When everyone else had gotten out Lucius re-entered the van drove off.

Satisfied that everyone was doing their jobs, Mr. Smith got about to doing his. He took the high powered scope that Father Casull had brought him and watched the scant traffic going across the bridges from the North Island to the South. The lower bridges were those of street connectors, while the higher, newer one was part of the interstate feeder that went into Gotham City proper.

"This is Lucius on five, can you hear me Mr. Smith?" he heard from his earpiece. He switched on the small microphone on his jacket lapel.

"This is Mr. Smith, Mr. Fox. I do read you, and saw you all arrive a few minutes ago. Currently no sign of the Z-28 1977 Camaro in black. Father Jordan had one of his parishioners describe one to me, and I am familiar with the overall make," he said.

He had affixed the scope so that it could easily traverse the bridges, but also used his binoculars for them so he could switch between them, quickly.

"Keep me appraised, Mr. Smith. This frequency also goes to Wayne Tower which has a line of sight to you. They are listening but will only come on air if addressed."

"Good! I know I am the relay for you, also," he said looking at the repeater he had installed on the railing near where the scope was affixed.

"Thank you, Mr. Smith, that is operational. Keep me informed, I am monitoring your frequency, but now going to the common one for operations here," Lucius said.

"My pleasure, Mr. Fox. Smith, out."

He switched the microphone off and huddled in the two sleeping bags the had brought up and activated one of the small chemical warming pouches. It was rare to see much traffic outside of the Hotel and Theater districts which were on opposite sides of the river between the two islands of Gotham, and the lower bridges for directly crossing were on lights, so any stray traffic between the two districts was confined to those periods when the lights allowed. By Vivian's estimates the Terminator, by going North and avoiding the snarl of roads between Gotham City and New York City, would add twenty minutes to a half-hour to its arrival time.

Mr. Smith used his binoculars to scan the surrounding areas and saw that something was... different.... he looked at the Wharf and south sound and even a quick shift to look to the north river side then to the north west and then the Hotel district. Even at this early hour of the night there should still be party goers wending their way home or seeking a final bit of revelry. Where were they? And where were those that would service those needs?

Seeing cars on the bridges he scanned them, and thought about what was going on.

"Its like people know something wicked this way comes..." he whispered to himself.

The ribbon of light that was the elevated interconnector let him see all the way to its mid-north components where it then was lost behind tall buildings. The two South Island to mainland bridges showed very little traffic, and he had an even better view of those than the interconnector.

Mr. Smith could only think of one thing that might do this and for that, between waves of cars, he scanned the tall downtown office building roofs, although spotting anything in the dark, misty tops of those buildings was impossible he soon realized. Was the Batman, even now, looking at him while he looked for the Batman? He smiled and then shivered, as he didn't know what to think of this Dark Knight of Gotham City. He had heard a single police report of a burglary thwarted in mid-south earlier this evening while listening to the radio, quietly, in the apartment of one of Father Jordan's friends.

Still, if he was watching over the mid-south there were only a few vantage points that offered such visibility...

Mr. Smith realized that he was, really, only on the walkway around the lower part of the water tower, and that the eaves of the roof of the tower would shield him from direct downpour, but also made it so anyone up there, on the roof, could not be seen by him. And it was, actually, quite dark up here.

Shaking he looked back at the ribbon of highway and saw a black vehicle on it. A car. He twisted slightly on the lens ring and brought it into better resolution. It had the telltale split bumper and the colors of the license plate was not that of New York or surrounding States. He hesitated a moment as it got to the bridge, as fuzzy dice swinging inside almost made him decide against it. But as they swung out of the way he saw the dark visage inside, a bulky man with dark sunglasses on.

"It's crossing the interconnector bridge..." he spoke into the microphone as he keyed it.

"Got that, Mr. Smith," said Lucius.

"It is taking the second turn-off on the south island, heading into the Hotel District area."

"It is?"

"Yes it has just navigated the off-ramp and I am going to lose it amongst the buildings there. I will keep a watch out on the surface streets I can see."

"Thank you, Mr. Smith. The others are getting into final position, now."

He scanned along the surface roads and watched out directly up and down Crown and Back Avenues, and along 16th and 17th Street. He had some visibility elsewhere, but these were the main arteries that would allow anyone to get to the Lyon Building, just a few blocks away. It also had a sewer connection to the Underworld in the Brandon Way alley. Looking directly down Crown Avenue he thought he caught a glimpse of a black car through his binoculars, but just that as it went through an intersection in the Hotel District. He rushed to see if it appeared on the Back Avenue intersection. It didn't.

"Possible sighting in the Hotel District crossing of Crown Avenue, but did not appear on the Back Avenue crossing."

He scanned the other roads and saw no cars that were the Z28 and no figures that were large. For long minutes he scanned, soon growing on ten minutes. Then on Crown Avenue he saw it.

"It is on foot from the Hotel District on Crown Avenue. Just passing 21st Street. Not a fast pace, but deliberate. I would guess it will be at the Lyon Building in ten to fifteen minutes."

"Passing that on, thank you, Mr. Smith. We are ready."

* * *

It had made good time in avoiding the unresolved area of highways on the map and took the Gotham City connection that headed to the southwest. Once on the North Gotham Island it kept to the highway and crossed over to the South Island and noted the exit for the Hotel District and took it. Crown and Back Avenues went the length of the Island from the Hotel District, and as it came in view of those roads it examined the buildings near them. This was near the end of the district and it could only see a Best Western Hotel with underground parking and the Gotham Hills Motel with a raised brick fence topped with razor wire.

If it had to leave to head to Los Angeles, street level parking was preferable to underground and it turned left to pull into the semi-circle of entrance road that had two fenced off areas for parking beyond it. It parked the car on the outer part of the entrance and walked into the motel. Inside the building was older, the carpet worn from its once deep pile and the walls yellowed from an original sunny color to beige. There was older furniture in the room that was large, oversized and well worn. The infiltration routine noted these things and judged that the attire it wore was consistent with the observed condition of the motel.

It approached the old oak desk that held the front office staff. A younger man with blond hair, in a dark red suit looked up from his desk work and smiled.

"How may I help you, sir?"

"I need a room for two nights with secure parking for my car."

"We have that available, and the secure parking is courtesy of the Motel. Rooms are $55 a night plus taxes."

"One room, two nights, secure parking."

"Yes sir!"

The young man rang that up on a cash register.

"That will be $117.70, sir. Will that be credit card, traveler's check, cash..."

It took out its wallet and put down a hundred dollar bill and a twenty on top of it.

The young man smiled.

"Here are the room and car identification cards I need you to fill out, while I finish up with the receipt"

It quickly placed information into the places of the card, giving random house numbers and phone numbers it had taken in while on the road as it had purged the telephone book information from Los Angeles in Indianapolis.

The young man put down a key and a plastic card with a strip on it.

"Thank you, Mister..." he looked at the information, "Derdnuh? Dirdenah? The key is to Room 15, the pass card is for the parking area on the left outside your room, and if you need anything else, please let us know as we have many good contacts who can supply us with many items. Check out time is noon, and if you need to go before then, just leave the key and pass on the bed. The gate opens automatically for those leaving."

The Terminator took up its change, the key and the plastic pass for the parking area.

"Thank you," it said as it turned and walked to its car and started it up. Soon it was at the entrance to the parking area and slid its pass into the metal box on a stalk, and the gate opened and the tire shredding strips recessed into the ground. It drove into the parking area and found its room near the back and with empty spaces for parking in front of the room. It parked there, took out its duffel and locked the car. Inside the room it gave its weapons a final inspection, placing the 1911 Colt .45 in a shoulder holster and then affixing the Uzi under its jacket so that it could be swung down and out for easy use and still be hidden save for the straps to it. It put an extra magazine for the Colt in the flap for it in the holster. It taped two extra magazines to the Uzi before it was stowed under the jacket. The shotgun and M-1 Garand were prepared, with extra magazines for the Garand and reloads for the shotgun. Both were loaded and it put the duffel over them on the bed as they would hinder infiltration if taken. It walked to the door and shut out the lights. It hung the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on its door as it left and ensured that it was locked. It used its pass at the pedestrian stile on the outside of the gate that led to the street.

It set a measured pace as it turned onto Crown Avenue. The rain and wind had finished here and much trash had been cleaned off the streets to the gutters. Very few people were out in the night after the storm.

It was moving down the right hand or north side sidewalk and passed the intersection of Arsenal. As it approached 12th Street it was in front of the Lyon Building, and noted that it was a large building between 12th and 13th Streets and half the length between Crown and Back Avenues. Two alley ways subdivided the larger block. While the front door was apparently made of wood, it was set into a brick facing. There was a listing of names and apartments and buttons to press to get attention for being 'buzzed in'. It looked at the door frame by the handle and gently hit the frame which caused some wood work to crack. It lifted the woodwork and slid a finger to the internal hold for the door catch and pressed it out of the way and opened the door. It pressed the catch back into place and the wood over it and let the door shut behind it.

Sarah Connor was in room 307 and it walked the first floor to examine the layout of the building and determined that her apartment was facing to the building adjacent to the Lyon on Crown Avenue and overlooking the alleyway. As it had preferred an external final approach in Los Angeles, it did that here and opened the door and left the building. In the alley it went to the intersection and it could see one figure huddled at the other end in a cardboard box near the 13th Street end. That figure had not noticed it from inside the box. It lept up to grab the railing of the fire escape and swung itself up onto the fire escape without needing to bring the lower ladder down. Apartment 307 would face onto the fire escape. At the third floor it examined the window leading into the living room area. It was mid-room with the only heat signature in the area it judged to be the bedroom on its left.

Examining the window frame it saw that the wood was older than on the front door and it grabbed the lower sill and lifted it until it felt the old nails give, and then pushed it down, removed the nails and slid the board out. It then repeated this with the two uprights and removed the lower window quietly and placed it inside on the floor and stepped into the apartment. It shifted to light intensification and noted many magazines, letters and other items that were all addressed to Sarah Connor at this address.

The deep carpet was over very firm flooring and it carefully moved towards the bedroom. It walked to the bedroom avoiding furniture and heard a slight shifting from the bedroom from someone shifting on the bed. It stopped in mid stride for a second and then moved on as no more sounds were heard. It had the Colt out in its right hand and needed to do two things before it would Terminate Sarah Connor.

First was open the door. Second was turn on the light to ensure the woman here was the same in the photograph seen in Los Angeles.

Quietly it opened the door as its right hand sought to push up the light switch.

Its vision shifted to the figure in bed, its light intensification giving a good rendition of the woman.

She had a large bore weapon pointed at it and fired.

This overloaded its light intensification system and it failed over to infrared while it reset. The Terminator heard a number of reports from pistol fire in its right hand. It had not brought that hand out to shoot, there was a short in that system and it sent a signal to momentarily cut it off and resequence the connections. The Colt .45 dropped to the ground. The internal systems now fed the information into its main programming system. The first was estimated chance of successful mission completion.

It had dropped from 100% to 87.35%.

It shifted its right leg back to offer less of a target to Sarah Connor and was taking the Uzi from under its jacket. The damage report came in.

Structural damage to its shoulder blade, full penetration which had taken out that battery reserve and severed main control connections running around and through the shoulder blade.

Shorts to the arm had caused malfunction of motors there.

Dislocation of multiple internal struts to the shoulder blade.

Damage to infiltration substrates had caused a report overload and that system was resetting.

The last of the cloud had cooled down while it received this data and it had heard noise of Sarah getting off the bed to its left. It had grasped the Uzi and was now moving that out and forward and would begin triggering a fast fire sequence for it when its line of fire would intersect the bottom most portion of the bed and then 'walk the fire' over Sarah Connor.

Hot smoke cooled and the outlines of the bed and Sarah Connor came into focus. She was partially concealed behind the bed.

The big bore pistol was aimed at it and fired.

It had been better prepared and had even gotten the Uzi to a position to start firing.

Like the light intensification, the infrared momentarily overloaded and its aim was spoiled by a frame level power fault. The power flashed back on throughout its frame structure, but its previous shift of weight caused it to step backwards with its right leg and the fast trigger program had not re-initialized waiting for feedback from the last round that had been fired. The structural analysis system now fed its upper level programs information.

Chance of mission success 53.13%

Structural damage through mid-level left ribs completed to upper level right ribs in the back, taking out more of the battery system.

Power supply couplings had been hit by a pressure wave causing momentary power loss.

Power housing was secure with minor exterior damage.

Substrate reporting systems resetting.

Right arm function still unavailable and rerouting was being tested.

Coordination tests between main processing area and secondary were secure, but sub-routing to upper limbs was impaired and feedback to left arm was discontinuous.

It was sending multiple decision pathways to analyze damage and assess options. It needed upper limb function for many forms of attack.

The door to its right, in the main living room flew open and a black figure in the doorway was firing a weapon that it identified as an M1928 Thompson Submachinegun. That would do no damage to it in undamaged areas. The Terminator was backlit by the window not serviced by the fire escape. The first rounds hit its lower right thigh and started working up.

Structural damage was being taken.

Something had gotten into the power feed near the knee and shorted it. Other rounds were giving less penetration, but were being 'walked' up its side. Its right knee was now locked into position.

It could not determine what was doing the damage and saw lots of items in the air that were small, hot and light in mass density.

Chance of mission success 50%. 43.5%. 37.6%.

The rounds marched up its thigh and one hit it in the pelvis of its hip.

For humans this is a complex structural element that is very hard for machining to improve upon. Glass cast metal offered some solutions along with elements of carbon steel fiber composites. Interior cross-bracing offered some benefits, like high hardness, but required that load be actively distributed via purely mechanical and non-motor driven systems. Terminators, like humans, had a marvel of structural load bearing by the elements in their pelvis but faced the limitation that when the body flexed, the pelvis has a very tiny amount of 'give' to it to distribute mechanical strain. Thicker material does not take the strain well, and metals are notoriously difficult at distributing strain across a solid block. Thus the interior is hollowed out, and the outer portion made denser and thinned. Form following the human frame and function meant a lot of trade-offs in the design of a Terminator. This one allowed for a secondary processor system to be put into the pelvis to serve as an immediate interface to the rest of the body structure and for some of the high level analytical ability of the unit involved.

A needle of depleted uranium put a tiny hole in the outside of the skin, the metal frame and then heated and ablated its way into the interior of the pelvis structure and then flashed to hot plasma, which would be on the inside of the bone of a normal human. The right side pelvis sub-processing area immediately suffered a fault and other circuits closed it off from the programs and frame of the Terminator as the plasma ripped through it.

Chance of mission success 28.3%. 17.2%.

It had heard Sarah Connor cry out at some point when it fired its Uzi, but the corner of its vision registered her out of any line of its current left hand position, further back towards the wall on that side of the bed and using the bed to brace her pistol.

Chance of mission success 7.3%.

Rounds from the second shooter were now going into flesh substrate and being walked up its mid-torso where it would intersect its ribs and vertebrae.

Chance of mission success 1.3%.

Emergency routines kicked in from the Terminator's programming.

The Mission was Primary.

This was a trap and it had 0% chance of its mission succeeding here.

It pistoned with its left leg hard, thrusting full power for that module into the motor at maximum rated load and it flipped up and over in the air across the living room. As it was going through the air it noted that the second shooter's aim was following it a full tenth-second behind its motion. It pulled its left leg in and used it to absorb the shock of landing and immediately retriggered it forward and through the window. Its timing had not been good and three rounds from the second shooter took it across the spine and a number of power faults now roiled its system. Minimal function for gross motor control was returning to the left arm.

The left pelvis CPU area had been fully informed and programmed in mid-air in the apartment. When it registered the shock of landing on the escape, general body position above it and lack of lateral or forward motion it pistoned forward and to the right out into the alleyway as it did not have the power necessary to reach the scaffolding across the alleyway.

Upper processors were now temporarily out of full contact with the lower processor.

The left pelvis CPU noted another round, similar to that of Sarah Connor's had just gone through its right pelvis. All returns to that CPU system, which had been rerouting now went dead to zero feedback.

That shot while it was going off the fire escape had put a very slow spin on the Terminator and it recognized heat sources from positions at the roof of each building at each end of the alley, and across the street. From the farther shooter it registered a sudden flare and then felt a round skim over its face on the right hand side and go through its collar area and out the ruined shoulder blade area. As it turned in mid-air and fell it saw the individual in the box was armed with what appeared to be an M1A1 and had just racked it back and forward. He was bringing the shoulder stock to his shoulder and sighting in down the alley where the Terminator would end its trajectory.

Nothing in the laws of physics would allow it to change that landing point, particularly with its lower processing units at low comms. It could, however change its rate of spin. It estimated the damage capability of the Uzi and let it go, the shoulder strap keeping it with it as it fell. The spin slowed as its arm was fully outstretched and as it started to land the first of the deadly rounds were being fired. Those went across its lower belly area and were inconsequential, this was not a veteran shooter as the one upstairs had been.

Although its arm motors were in no way a match for its leg motors, it did allow the Terminator to adjust its fall while a basic timing sequence was put to the left pelvic processor. Landing on hand and knee and taking more punishment along its right side from the alley shooter, it pushed both, to maximum while it shifted its weight from right to left to push it in the cross-alley heading towards 11th Street. The initial shift of weight put some spin on the Terminator's push off and it noted that both the cross-fire snipers had put rounds on where it was that would have pierced the upper and lower back and intersected at its power unit. One-quarter of one second slower and its mission would have been terminated.

The alley shooter had continued with rounds, often wild but had successfully cooked off much of the outer flesh in the abdomen, which contained repair and sustainment fluids. The Terminator brought its left arm and leg in as it turned, allowing it to turn a bit faster, but it could not pull its lower back out of the way. Again the inexperience of the shooter meant that only a single round penetrated into its spinal area, which suddenly eroded the circuits for communications between pelvis and head CPU units that had nearly been restored. The Terminator shifted to low frequency sound conduction on its frame to communicate between CPUs. This was slow, but had high bandwidth, which it needed for proper assessment of its structure. Its initial aim had been behind a dumpster due to its ability to offer some scant cover, and for the manhole cover that was next to it.

Its limited mobility would not be so great a problem in a sewer and would even odds against any that would follow it. The alley shooter was firing, still, as it came down and rolled behind the dumpster. It had been counting rounds, and a 30 round magazine would only have 6 left and those were spraying by it. That bare second when the fire stopped allowed it to open the manhole cover, and slip down into the opening, onto the ladder and pull the cover back over just as the fire started up again with a new magazine. If the alley shooter had weapon that could take a hundred round drum like first one in the apartment, that would have been the end for the Terminator. Only the minor differences in weapon sub-type had saved it. Quickly it rolled away in the damp sewer water towards what would be Crown Avenue. There its light intensification system found that bare light from above showed it an intersecting storm sewer which it decided to take towards the inland side, leading back to the hotel district. It saw a grate that opened into the floor of the sewer and it had almost no light to intensify below it. Going to infrared it noticed warmer air from below and steam pipes in walls, that gave off a heat differential to the surroundings. It opened the grate enough to slide through and fell fifteen feet to the lower sewer next to a large pillar with a ladder set into it.

It stopped and listened for pursuers.

There were none.

Full motor function had been restored to the left arm. It shifted to the ladder and pulled itself up to look around and then leaned against the pillar as it pulled its Uzi to its hand.

Chance of mission success had moved up to 5.7%.

Looking down at its right side, the Terminator saw that much function had been lost to its exterior infiltration package. The multiple, high levels of damage that it had taken was still not registering as the rest of its systems were trying to get functional responses from the right pelvis, right leg and right arm. It saw fragments of its right pelvis in a large wound on its front, that second shot it had taken there had done that, and it shut down all attempts to revive that CPU. It was...

Then its frame power shorted out.

This was a 'hard' crash to system restart.

The system was not restarting.

Skynet had done many things to Terminators, including removing much of their self-repair capability, beyond that needed for infiltration or some gross and large scale repairs. It did not want Terminators shunting circuits to avoid Skynet programming, and so it had removed those repair routines from this Terminator sent on a one-way mission to the past. Those would not have helped this Terminator in any event as it was a shard of its own skeleton that had become wedged into the main power feed and a slow insulation fail had shorted it out. Skynet had removed large sections of base programming which it utilized for its own objective schema and decision matrix. This Terminator had purged all but the small section necessary for its current mission and had left the rest of the matrix blank in order to utilize it for processing space.

Programming of power units was a vital concern to the humans who created Terminators at Cyber Dyne. If that one single module still worked it must have access to all the possible repair routines to bring back function to the unit. To prevent the deciphering of that code and those instructions, the designers had placed a compression and encryption algorithm into the code blocks. Not only was it triply redundant, but utilized some of the first holographic storage systems that had been available. Those were primitive, but offered private quantum encryption within Terminators and those who held the keys to that code on the outside. Skynet had never found those keys as they were never recorded on a digital system. It had vaporized the bank vault that held them on Judgment Day and all three of the designers on the team were necessary to make it work. One was left alive after Judgment Day. His records had been in another bank vault it had vaporized. And since it was held in a theoretically small storage area, Skynet had decided that it was not worth going further to do anything to it, and it did not have the technical resources immediately after Judgment Day to change the manufacturing or coding of the software. It had added a higher level shutdown code so that at certain damage levels field units would properly shut down and the power code would not be triggered.

It was just a self-repair routine, after all.

That routine now started a sophisticated job of loading and unloading analysis units to its very limited processor and started seeking out the secondary power circuits which had also been disrupted. That came back null as the shock the power container had received needed a minor push to reseat those connections. There was a positive junction fault on the main power connection.

Then a litany of alternate and tertiary and sub-power systems started to run through the analysis system, examining each to find any response in test after test after test.

It did get a response: from the infiltration interface, that was requesting low levels of power to assess damage. It was in no way the Terminator main CPU system. But it did function and power could get to it, so its connection was established, and a number of blocks of programming were put into storage from the CPU and new ones taken out to examine infiltration power routing. These 'nerves' were a highly developed bio-molecular thin film sustained by a biological process for transmitting information from low power sensor leads. The power unit found multiple areas of damage, but three that were major: the chest, right shoulder blade and right pelvis. Finding the maximum power that could be fed through those sensors that crossed those areas, the power unit started to do so and see if anything would respond.

It did get responses: from the right arm sensors, right leg sensors and from a lower pelvis section of the CPU housing that had been broken. With that last now being available the power CPU now started to shift code to that CPU which, even broken, still had capability to examine incoming feeds. While it did that the power system started an inventory of batteries. The lower right leg and the lower set in the right arm were available, but a Terminator couldn't run for more than a minute on those, which would be the time necessary to reboot the system. The partial right pelvis CPU started to draw power from the lower right leg, which it still had a feed from and sensor feeds from those held two undamaged ones that went to the center of the spine and to the left pelvis CPU. As the right pelvis CPU was just acting as a secondary processing area to the power unit, the decision of the power unit was to examine the feeds from the left pelvis CPU and not restart it. The cross junctions started to get low amounts of power through them and a number of damaged units in the spine started to report back. As they had last been configured to get sensor and power feeds to the main CPU, the power unit co-opted them and fed power from the battery systems to them.

They recognized all the proper encryption codes by the emergency routine and shifted over to accept more load and processing capability from it. This was the jackpot for the power processing system as it now got to all the main cross-feeds and junctions that went to the upper CPU unit, which held all the visual and positioning sensors! It had won the lottery of trying to get any function at all into a dead Terminator.

IR sensors came on as well as the position sensors and the remains of the right pelvic CPU analyzed those with its minimal code capability. The left arm was locked around the rung of a ladder. The head was canted at an angle looking down over the body of the Terminator. The self-repair sub-routines now started to kick into high gear drawing on more battery power to get a full damage report. The main and worse damage was the one that seemed to matter the least to overall function: the left to right shot through its chest. There were two ways to get to the damage that mattered: either through the exit hole of that shot or the one above it from the back that had destroyed the remains of the right shoulder blade. From the immediate viewing angle it could not see what the exact damage was as there was still too much other damage in the way.

The fastest and best route to full main power was to take the shard that must be in the power connection out, so the right arm moved at the elbow and wrist shifting the hand to the exit hole and then did its best to press its fingers in. Now all other sensor reports were shelved and the sensors denied power as only those of touch mattered. The fingers slid into the hole and found the sharp shard near the end of the housing that must be the problem.

And the system suffered a frame power fault.

This time power jolted through the Terminator frame and then off again.

Finding the code to make a motor move a preset amount based on inertia, the power processor fed that into the wrist motors.

The main power junction fed power into the Terminator.

Parts of the main CPU became active and found that the entire frame and structure with all sensors had been co-opted by another computer system. This one had all proper encryption communication to identify it as a Cyber Dyne repair code system. The Terminator understood what this code was for: ensuring that the Terminator systems were properly repaired in the field. It shifted its higher routines into a static state and hibernated them, thus allowing the repair code to do its work.

Now that the self-repair system had full power it migrated its full code into the Terminator CPU system. Its first and most major concentration was reseating the power unit into its secondary connection sockets. Those fingers on the right arm shifted deeper into the hole that marked the exit of the cross chest penetrating round. Sensor feedback reported that a second round from the collarbone area had struck the power unit, dislodged it and actually cracked the outer casing, and then deflected out the area where the shoulder blade had been. The self-repair system could not get direct assessment of the state of the casing beyond that done by touch. It did, of course, have an inner casing that protected the power system and processors, but the outer one was used for gross mechanical safety of the power system. Energy weapons systems tended to flow around and over the outer casing and not penetrate it. This had been a physical penetration round of the sort engineers in the early 1990's knew about.

The power unit self-repair system informed the Terminator that it needed to fully reseat the power unit and that this might bring system faults through it. The self-repair system left code markers to call it back up in that instance if it lost contact during that time and the Terminator was able to come up first. Those were inserted into the hibernating code.

Fingers squeezed slightly and a series of minor power faults went through the main junction. That was to be expected due to the first damage it had addressed, but this allowed the repair code to start shunting power to other feeds and avoid the damaged ones in the junction. There was almost no give in the outer housing, so the fracture was probably hairline in nature or possibly a radiating web from point of impact. That would cause pieces to come away under pressure and that didn't happen thus the fracture was hairline. Using the pre-programming for motors, the power unit put in a minimal pull and shift to the right wrist.

The general frame fault that followed was Terminator-wide as a large power surge actually shunted into the frame, itself, as exposed contacts had been the actual source of the damage to the power unit and they contacted directly with the frame.

Once the fault passed with the contacts vaporizing, the housing locked into place and both primary and secondary power connections were reseated and solid in the frame again.

The Terminator came on-line.

It now had all the necessary information on damage to its entire system, from gross physical damage, to power system damage to communication damage. Further the self-repair sub-routines noted vast parts of Terminator programming missing and put the source down to external tampering with the unit. Much of the base operating code and decision matrix had been marked as damaged, and those working sections marked as tampered.

This Terminator had always known it had not been utilizing the full code base of Cyber Dyne and that Skynet had developed its own replacement code system for all upper level processing areas. The self-repair code had marked all of that, save for some very basic internal comms and control, as corrupted, tampered, damaged or in need of urgent replacement.

On the physical side the Terminator had restored function to its right arm and leg, but there was mechanical strain function that was missing from them. Neither right arm nor right leg could take much in the way of mechanical load or strain. Doing so would cause loss of those limbs. They were marked for 'expedient field repair' by the repair code and in need of full factory replacement.

Save that there were no factories to make replacement parts for Terminators as they had not been invented or produced yet.

The spine area was a mess of internal damage, re-routed comms and power, suffering multiple penetrations and even some fractures. Two mid-level and one lower vertebrae had their safety pins activated by the repair code which locked them together with surrounding spinal units to stop further damage due to flexing.

Internal assessment code identified the two primary power junctions as having suffered damage and both were operating at reduced capacity but, together, allowed full power across the Terminator frame. The power unit outer housing was damaged, but now locked in place by the junction housings. The Terminator realized that the power unit had been free floating inside its frame, previously, and only held in place by surrounding infiltration substrate and fractured power feeds from the man junction.

Aural sensors reported non-animal sounds from the upper storm sewer.

The full time it had spent locked in place on the ladder had been nearly five minutes. Carefully it moved the right arm down to clear the penetration around its right pelvis. It saw the damaged CPU structure there and examined the damage. Entire structural elements along the back of the pelvis were missing. It swung itself around, in front of the ladder by pivoting on its left arm and leg and slowed its stop when its right side shifted to the opposite side, so that it faced out from the pillar. Leaning it was able to now free its left arm from bracing it, and gathered the Uzi in under its badly damaged jacket and secured it through penetration holes. Then it removed the strap on the Uzi and put that around its neck. Examination of the nearest ladder steps revealed one that was structurally sound and it moved its left hand up to pull out the retaining bolts on the far and near side. It pulled the step away from the pillar which had permanent support plates on it. Holding the ladder step it looked down at its damage and bent the step and its support plates and carefully fit that into its frame in the severely damaged back pelvis region. It forced a mechanical fit to the inner part and then pressed the outer part to a forced fit that destroyed the remains of the CPU there. Using the Uzi strap it then cinched that around its waist, cross-wise, to press the entire arrangement together.

The leg would have very limited function but would sustain a fraction of the frame mass just long enough for an abbreviated step.

It needed factory replacement.

After that it slid the battered and torn jacket from its right arm and then tied the jacket arm across to go around and over the Uzi to hold it into place. Realizing a good arrangement, the Terminator followed this with the left side, crossing the jacket arm around and over the right wrist which was now pinned to the right hip and then secured that jacket arm. Its right arm was now immobilized, but could exert positive pressure on the internal bracing.

The sounds of steps were getting louder overhead and the Terminator now moved and limped off, examining the IR input from its surroundings. It retained the general direction of the Hotel District, but realized any pursuers would also know it was headed there. It moved, instead, in the seaward direction hoping to throw off pursuit, knowing that it was still dripping and leaking some fluids from the holes that were too large to repair in its infiltration package and that normal stop seepage chemicals would only address slowly.

Just a little over a block away it heard the grating over where it had been lift up and a small light had shone down behind it.

IR sensors reported a major cold spot ahead and it started to take the form of an open building.

Colder air was flowing up from that major opening.

It walked to it.

As it approached it could barely make out the swirling of cool and warm air that went over chiseled stone to form letters.

'Gotham Subway Station - Bank Ave.'

It had remembered reading that Gotham had a subway system, but that it had gone under in the late 1920's or early 1930's. The Terminator had taken that to be 'figurative language'. Apparently sections of Gotham City had been built over, or 'gone under' in a real way. As subways went through hills, over or around obstacles, and needed a good grade and drainage, the Terminator determined that this was the best way for it to go and backtrack towards the Hotel District and towards the heart of Gotham City. Going to the sea meant surface exposure, this route limited that, and the non-use of these tunnels indicated no one used them for any purpose. It would be difficult to track now that the worst of its dripping had stopped and its infiltration package was dealing with the damage as best it could. It slid on its left side down the smooth course that had held the escalator and then got up on the platform below. There was very bare IR differences here, but it could make out the outlines of the tunnels, and that the ones behind it were cooler heading to the sea and those in front warmer.

It chose the left tunnel relative to it, so its right side could be braced against the tunnel wall if it needed that.

The tracks appeared unused.

Its chance of mission success had climbed to 6.3% and stabilized.

Now it must get the M-1 Garand and shotgun from its motel room. Those would boost its chance of mission success.

It could take very little damage as it was, and even normal confrontations would be lethal to it.

Sarah Connor had known it was coming.

Others were helping Sarah Connor.

They were armed, capable and had effectively done the impossible and made the mission for the Terminator into a death trap. It had escaped by perseverance and one relatively unskilled shooter. There was no question in its mind that this would not be the case on a second confrontation. There was even the possibility that continued motion would damage it to the point of crawling and needing to put repairs at a higher priority.

This had become a difficult mission to fulfill.

Time out of Place - Chapter 14

2011-09-05T08:14:00.000-04:00

Chapter 14

The team members had been filtering into the Executive dining room, which was now closed to all other staff for the evening. Bruce Wayne was one of the last to arrive with Alfred and Fr. Casull and a member of the wait staff took their orders as they were seated. Chef Gerard had shifted his operation to the kitchen, kept on a couple of the day cooks to augment the night staff and ensured that gofers were available to get specialty items from elsewhere in Wayne Corporation's larder.

From the group in the Vault there were samples of armor plating being passed around to show how the rounds worked, a general layout of Sarah's apartment and where various cameras and pick-ups had been located was supplied by Lucius, and Fr. Casull had an initial report from Mr. Smith who was situating himself in the south mid-town area with a friend of Fr. Jordan's. After his order was taken and those of the rest of the staff had finished with their orders, Bruce Wayne stood up.

"First, let me thank all of you for what you have done. It is amazing. When I first came into the leadership of Wayne Enterprises, I had seen a large number of groups and design teams that had worked in their own areas, often duplicating effort or even at cross-purposes. In six years that has been turned around, completely. I could never have asked Wayne Enterprises personnel to do what you have done. Only as we are now in Wayne Corporation is something like this possible. I know that every day, day-in and day-out, all of you now work on projects that cross many areas and previous boundaries that were separate and isolated groups. My idea was to increase flexibility, efficiency and spark innovation in the re-organized Wayne Corporation, and I am amazed at how well that has been done. You are all a living testament to how well that can work, and I am pleased and honored to be leading Wayne Corporation and know that its activities are in such good hands."

Bruce Wayne looked around the table and smiled, nodding.

"Secondly, as you know we are now going into the final phases of protecting Sarah Connor. She is putting her life at risk as bait to draw the Terminator out. I expect that will be sometime early in the morning tomorrow, before sunrise. I think we all have that basic analysis of it arriving after 1am and no one can think of any reason it won't try something relatively direct after that. Because of the nature of that risk, only those with experience in that area should be there. As Lucius has more experience in this than I do, he will be the one helping to coordinate and give oversight. No matter how much I want to be there, I would get in the way. I know that many of you have families, friends, loved ones and if you aren't needed for operations this morning and everything else is basically done, I will not see it as cowardice if you go to be with them. If the group protecting Sarah fails, or only partially succeeds, then you will be needed desperately tomorrow. No matter what happens, you will have a place to stay, here and I have already put in bonuses and commendations for each of you. Kyle, I am working on getting you paperwork to... ahhh... confirm citizenship. We do have some contacts on that, which may require stepping over a few bounds, but that is well worth it. You are considered on contract work here, with option for full employee if you want to stay."

Kyle was exhausted, but still stunned.

"Thank you, Mr. Wayne," he said.

"Kyle, you came here to help save us all from a disaster that would put humanity in jeopardy, a bit of documentation sleight-of-hand is well worth it to help pay you back for that risk."

Sarah placed her hand on his shoulder and smiled, and he smiled back, nodding, as she removed her hand.

"That brings us to details. Mostly it depends on you, Loren, and your assessment of the equipment. You are the one who needs to make sure that everyone is supplied tactically and communicates needs to Lucius. Both you and Martin are important on that, and I think it is time you give us some insight into what you are expecting to do tonight."

Bruce Wayne sat down and Loren nodded, and looked around the table.

"Well, we have done good on production of the DU rounds, with just over four good hours in of production of those, while we did tests and narrowed what we needed down to something reasonable for our weapons, that leaves us with a little over 3,000 rounds of it. Everyone should have a .45 with a few magazines of it, and Kyle and Sgt. Rock will be the large users of it with their equipment. After talking with everyone we have it down to the following for the trap at Sarah's apartment: Sarah inside, either Sgt. Rock or Kyle nearby inside in a stairwell, ready to react when it is in the area, then myself and Martin on rooftops to cover 12th or 13th Street, then Kyle or Sgt. Rock in that Byng Way alley in the 12th to 13th side to give us a cross-fire through the alley and drive it towards one of the cross Streets and not the Avenues. That is five of us. Each will have a sidearm that is a .45 with at least three magazines, so call that 150 rounds. Kyle will need at least two of the six pouch bandoleers of stick magazines, plus one, for seven of those for 390 rounds. We have two of the hundred round drums, plus three of the fifty rounds and five more stick mags for Sgt. Rock, for 500 rounds. If we have time to reload Rock's current stuff, then that's.. ahh... lemme think... another 520 rounds. Kyle and Rock can argue over who needs what, but Kyle will be in a position of carrying way too much in the way of magazines to start with. I'll look at the backpacks and other things we have and see if I can't do better than the old milsurp we have. Rock probably prefers the sticks, too, but he seems willing to work with the drums. So we have enough rounds for immediate and back-up use, with about a thousand left after that. I think we have some twenty round mags we can use, but I will have to search for those. Martin, want to handle general equipment?"

Martin nodded.

"Sure, Loren. First up is polyweave ballistics armor with plate inserts. Since we are only expecting small arms, they don't need to be the high protection factor ones. Next up is standard comms for combat use, and we have those specialized battery operated earphones and small microphones for that. Also general hearing protection and eye protection, which I know we have a lot of. Sarah will need something that doesn't change her heat signature much or cause her to overheat as we don't want the Terminator to see something out of the ordinary. Lucius is going to be in the Chandler Building, from what he has said, and I really would like to get him body armor and sidearm, also as he will be coordinating between the tactical group, Mr. Smith, the two Fathers, and you, Mr. Wayne. While we can use a common circuit tactically, to get us better information outside of the apartment, we will depend on Lucius. If the Terminator figures that out and kills him, then we are probably not going to survive the night."

Lucius hadn't thought of that, or all the way through, at any rate. And even though he would have the benefit of Bruce's other activities...

"Thank you, Martin. That was an oversight on my part. I'll need some range time this evening to adjust to what you've made."

"No problem, Mr. Fox," said Loren, "glad to have you there."

"Now if it doesn't come to her apartment in the night, we will have to be mobile. Vivian should be rested by then and come by in her private car to pick up Sarah and bring her here. We will need transportation for everyone else, someone to pick up the four of us, or probably, better, is someone coming by on the Crown and Back Avenues. I think leaving the van where it is would be best, so Lucius can be at either Crown or Back Avenues, but I would suggest the Crown Avenue to get back to Wayne Tower before things happen here. If Vivian could stop off at that donut shop two blocks from here, that will give the Crown Avenue pick-up a chance to catch up while the Back Street comes here to deploy for coverage. Then we lock down in the Vault and get some rest and reverse the process tomorrow after work. I don't expect to have to do that, but that is what we will have to plan on if it comes down to that."

"Alfred, can you arrange that with the livery staff? The armored limo for the Crown Avenue pick-up and a standard car for the Back Avenue, I should think, if this goes to sunrise?" asked Bruce.

"Yes, Master Bruce, I will do that once we are done here."

Don Carstairs spoke up.

"Martin, if it comes to Gotham and doesn't go after her, then what do we do?"

"You ask the hardest questions, Don. We have plenty enough problems as it is... but if it is here and doesn't come to kill her, that must mean it has either reprogrammed itself or has determined that another target is vital to complete its mission of killing her. I can't think of what that would be as, from what Kyle describes, Terminators are given pretty basic missions."

Kyle nodded, "They are. Even if a target has multiple body guards, it will only seek to eliminate those in the way between itself and the mission objective, and in a straightforward way, once it acquires its target. Then all processing power is used to fulfill that mission, which is why they are so deadly. If its mission is being thwarted it will retreat if it can no longer get to the target or survive to kill the target or leave a delayed device to kill the target. That is a lot of damage to do, to get the idea of retreat as necessary for fulfilling a mission."

Martin nodded.

"So outside of that, some liquids in non-splashing containers, some soft snacks without wrappers, and blankets, rain ponchos, tarps and sandbags for myself and Loren. We did get an hour to sight in our rifles when Keith got in, so now its just a question of getting there and waiting."

"I think we can cover those things," said Bruce Wayne, "and I do understand that if it doesn't come tonight, then we will also need Sgt. Rock on helping to track it down in-town along with Mr. Smith. If it is here two nights without anything happening, then we really will need to re-think what is going on and start forming up teams to try and find it. Personally, I don't like that idea at all, because it will not be acting in any way we can easily determine, and its motives will not be clear. But I think we can worry about that only if it happens. That only leaves it escaping from tonight's trap. Father Casull, what is the latest from Mr. Smith?"

"Ah, thank you, Mr. Wayne. He contacted Father Jordan before I left and he was at a building near Arsenal Street, I think it was, with a friend of Father Jordan's. He is there as a water tower on that building gives him a good view over the immediate environment."

"I know that place," said Martin, "GCPD took out a gang from there seven or eight years or so ago, they used the tower for observation. One of the first ever reported sightings of the Batman, I think, was there and the gang that broke up never did go back to its old ways."

"Well, Mr. Smith says that he can get a good view nearly to the hotel district and while it is cold and damp up there, now, if the weather clears he will have a good vantage point. Until then he is bedding down for the night and will expect us to call him around midnight with any updates. He, apparently, went into the Underworld and says that would be a very risky venue to try and track the Terminator if it goes underground."

"It would," said Ken Chapman, "although I hear that many are evacuating them recently. They used to be a haven for criminals and homeless, but many are now leaving them at night. I really have no idea why and no real credence for 'Ghost Trains' and the supernatural."

"They are real enough, Ken," said Anne, "I've heard the 'Ghost Train' at the WIST station a few times at night, and even once during the daytime."

"Something passed us on the tracks last night out near ATC East, too, and it wasn't a standard train," said Fr. Casull, "the engineer said it was the 1010 from Gotham that had derailed back in the 1930's with high loss of life."

"It had low set red eyes, scales and shrieked as it passed us," Kyle said, "leaving behind an odor... like sulfur... and death..."

Ken looked at the two men.

"You actually saw it? The 'Ghost Train of Gotham'?"

"Something, yeah," said Kyle, "can't say it was a train the way it looked, more like a creature on the train tracks."

"It jumped from one set of tracks to the ones parallel to the WIST train, no sparks, no jostling, just smooth motion from one to the other, like nothing I ever saw in my life," said Fr. Casull.

"How fast does the WIST go?" asked Sarah.

"Ah, I believe," said Alfred, "on that stretch of track which we paid to have re-graded, it reaches nearly fifty miles per hour."

"Not much of a shuttle if it didn't get you to and from the downtown to Foundry and ATC area quickly. Really that was very important and worth the rental cost to have that done by one of the larger rail maintenance organizations," Bruce Wayne said, "We could use both tracks, but only put a maintenance car on there every year or so for the other set past the foundry site. If we expand a bit more we can open both up and have a small repair group for the WIST there, instead of Gotham downtown."

"But you've never seen a Ghost Train, have you, Mr. Wayne?", Ken asked.

Bruce considered for a moment, bemused.

"In fact, I have. I really do like having the tracks used for the WIST shuttle. I think it puts the spirits a bit more at rest down there and on the tracks around Gotham," and that was no lie.

Almost every night he saw the vehicle that many knew as the 'Ghost Train of Gotham'. And if the other, more spectral, types wanted to complain, they were free to do so. Still, not all sightings were of the vehicle he knew. About half were now of an unknown type. And if the Ghost Trains wanted to help him... well... that made him proud to work with the Spirits of Gotham City.

"I do know what Mr. Smith is talking about," Martin said, "and the Underworld can be a hell of a place to try and do anything. You get a few blocks of streets, here and there, under the storm sewers, and when a gang sets up shop there it is difficult to root them out, especially if it has an old Gotham Subway Station. The fear started around those, even the few that are above ground, saw homeless and gangs leave them over the last four years give or take a few months. I'm not on the force any more, but my friends in it tell me some of the weirdest things seen on crooks and homeless from those areas. The stories you hear from those people can be pretty fantastical, but the ones with claw and other marks on them? And a couple of cops had run-ins they can't explain, either, so I wouldn't say Mr. Smith is even scratching the surface of the Underworld. In theory its a great place for gangs and criminals, but not anymore and almost all of these aren't describing the Batman but Ghost Trains and some of the things in them."

Father Casull nodded.

"Mr. Smith really does seem to know his line of work, Mr. Wayne. He spent an hour or so looking through a camping store catalog and had Father Jordan send someone for some gear. He said it wasn't so much that the store would toss him out... but that he didn't want to be seen getting such things."

"Bruce," Lucius started, "maybe we can have Fr. Casull work some of our Wayne equipment to him? Simple IR and LI goggles we make could help him."

Bruce nodded.

"If you think you can get that to him, Fr. Casull?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr. Wayne, I think that is possible over the next few hours."

"Good, Lucius make sure he gets those before he leaves."

"I will," Lucius said.

"On the Wayne Corporation side, I started having the Journeyman loaded with stores and checked out for fueling. It is now on the rapid ascent rail system in ATC East, which we enlarged and strengthened from the previous Long Sword rails when we started the Journeyman Project. If we do need to get Sarah to safety, then Vivian can do that with Richard or even Michael, although he has only had simulator time. In ten minutes Sarah can be beyond the range of any weapon and have supplies to last a month for three people. If we actually do need permanent disposal of the Terminator, then our smelting facility will is prepared for that job and has a 24 by 7 crew for that now, just in case. They are running small batches of other material through that would normally be done on the day shift, but they know we might have a sudden need for a scrap conversion of... ahh... a 'damaged prototype' that needs to be totally scrapped."

Richard Bennington nodded.

"We have had a few of those of tryouts for components that we didn't want sitting around for various reasons. Mostly specialized electronics, but, still, the smelter does a good job on that," he said.

"I'm also making our stores of polyweave and ballistics plate available in case you fear for your family and loved ones. We can't provide for more than immediate family and close relations, but if any of you feel this could go out of control, then we will let you take them or I will have someone deliver them to your family to help in fitting and adjustments," Bruce said.

"Thank you, Mr. Wayne," Martin said, "I would like that for my family. I still have some people with grudges for my time on the force, and can't afford anything like that for them."

Lucius looked at him, frowning.

"I wish you had let us know that, Martin. We would have been more than happy to provide those to you for your family."

Martin nodded.

"Pride, ya know? But this stuff... no... I have limits as a man and father to my children, and I've played that risk down. But some of those thugs were just in for ten with parole, and I don't like the years going so fast."

"Easily done, Martin," said Bruce Wayne.

"Thank you, sir," said Martin.

Bruce nodded.

"The only other thing from me, and I don't want to hold up dinner any longer, is that I did examine the issue of getting some outside help on this, but had to decide against it beyond close and personal acquaintances. As you know not all of the glamor and high visibility of my position means that I rub shoulders with only the good sorts of people. Frankly, I don't trust other corporate concerns on this, as the opportunity to create something out of a Terminator or its remains is far too high and no other company has demonstrated the ability and restraint necessary for this situation. The worse sorts... well... they don't have industrial power, but I don't like many of their connections. I am not going to make Wayne Corporation go into their debt for this. You are all capable professionals in current and past careers, and have the necessary skills and attitude to carry this through. My aim was never to run the company, but to help it run itself in the best way possible and give it a firm standing for the future, not only in technology, but in ethics and understanding the role of the company. All of you have made me very, very proud and more than a little ashamed at how little I do to have this happen. I know, now, that if all of us do not escape this alive, that Wayne Corporation will continue on for some time in the way I helped to run it and change it. I cannot fear the for the future of the company or those who depend on us seeing how well the people in the company work. Over the next day or so, we will be tested, and even if we fail, we have put those things in place to carry out our commitments and to allow others to succeed after us. I don't think my father could have asked for anything more. Thank you."

It was quiet in the dining hall for a moment.

"Now, Alfred, I think we are ready for dinner. We can talk more about this once it is served, but we all need a good meal before the night truly begins."

* * *

Jackson Lee Cane had started out as a gang-banger. It was cool to be with a gang and strut colors and all that shit. His folks didn't like it, but he got more money in a month than his dad got in a year. Three years ago his gang got banged by the Batman. In less than three hours the entire thing fell apart from drug dens to prostitutes to heroin on the streets and marijuana by the kilo. Jackson Lee Cane got his year with probation and went back to the life he had known, but found the gang was gone.

Not just disorganized.

Gone.

The last of his bros in the hood that were left had hung it up, and the disjointed noses, healing jaws, and loss of attitude told the story. Jackson Lee Cane looked for a leg-up and when the Rinaldi Family moved in and started looking for distributors, and he was more than happy to find they didn't care about what you looked like, just so long as you did the job. And you got a decent cut, too, more than he did as a street-banger, that's for sure. While the Colombian flowed it was gold. Now the gold was nearly gone and he was trying to hook-up with anyone now that the Rinaldis were going down. The south side of mid-south was becoming a narcotics wasteland and the Bosco organization was making hints that it would island hop to mid-south to supply him. Their cut was way more than the Rinaldi Family took, and Jackson Lee Cane had thought hard about it until last night.

He saw the mid level guts of the Bosco organization on the morning news at the KK take down. And the Brancuzzi's. The Rinaldi's weren't going to be getting any Colombian for at least five to ten, time off for good behavior. He worked his few mainland contacts for dope and was trying to hook up with a Trinidad group in the Big Apple, but so far that was no dice and they had a really weird religion that went with it which turned him off. Those central European bastards had a line to Syrian stuff, but they got hit last night, too. Jackson Lee Cane was a distributor with little to distribute. A seller with little left to sell. The house got raided and he escaped while some Rinaldi's got picked up, and that place had been vacuumed clean, he was sure. He was running out of money and decided that it was every pusher for himself, and he took the last stashes of Colombian he knew about, and hit the streets. He needed a stake to restart.

Of course it was raining, which kept all but the most addicted customers away. Still he worked his old four block gang territory and left the house territory behind. Even with the winds he had made a couple of sales and had a bit of cash to work with. He didn't like the figure he saw walking towards him. Out of the darkness of the park across the street.

He knew the Batman.

He had changed.

Jackson Lee Cane had been a street tough, a gang-banger and even a knee-capper for awhile, before heading into drugs. The Batman had taken him down with all of two punches three years ago. He did the prison gym and workout shit, still did the workouts and sparring stuff, and could really put a hurt on anyone who crossed him. The Batman was coming to him and Jackson Lee Cane saw how he moved. Jackson knew it would only be one punch, now, if even that. And no one outran the Batman.

He was going to stand his ground.

The Batman walked up to him and faced him.

"Take out the stuff," the Batman said.

Jackson took out the bag that held lots of smaller, sealed bags of Colombian cocaine.

"In the can."

Jackson Lee Cane looked at the cigarette can he had on the corner and put the bag into it.

"You will warn all your contacts that Death walks the streets tonight. It will Terminate the lives of any that get in its way. It cannot be reasoned with. It has no mercy. It doesn't care about gangs, colors, crime or law. It is coming to kill and none must get in its way. Do you understand, Jackson Lee Cane?"

Jackson Lee Cane was no idiot, and nodded.

"Yeah, I hear you. Why should I believe you?"

The Batman looked at him.

"That is the last of your stash, isn't it Jackson?"

He swallowed, hard, his sweat mixing with the raindrops. He saw the rain flow over the Batman, not getting him wet, not touching him.

"Yeah."

"Do not look at it Jackson Lee Cane, it will blind you. That is the life you led. Now..." the Batman's hand moved holding something and a small, metal container made a slight 'zip' sound as it fell into the can, "... its over..."

The heat flared out intensely, a burning heat and a harsh bright light that no one could look at. Jackson Lee Cane stepped away from the can. Stepped away from the Batman who stood with the heat steaming water off of him. Stepped away from his life which was now burning on the ground and rain was doing nothing to stop it.

"Warn all you know, Jackson Lee Cane, friend and foe, stint none or I will know and that can will be you next time. I will have no idiots die tonight at the hands of the Death that walks and Terminates life. None. Do you hear me?"

Above the roar of the molten fire that melted the can, the sand at the bottom and vaporized its contents Jackson Lee Cane heard.

"I hear you..." he said shaking.

"Then run for your life and be indoors and off the streets tonight as soon as you can, Jackson Lee Cane. Run from this life if you can, as it will end for you if you do not do as I say."

He felt his clothes starting to smolder and yet the Batman stood there, taking the heat, the light and staring at him with black eyes. He turned and ran as he started to smell smoke from his clothes and didn't dare look back into the blinding light by the Batman.

Jackson Lee Cane thought he had 'upped his game'.

He might have been able to touch the old Batman. But this one was beyond being touched. Never before had he thought about being 'scared straight'. Now he knew what it felt like. And he wouldn't be the only low to mid-level operator on the street who would be warning friends. Not by a long shot.

* * *

Minerva Beaumont ran a good house with clean girls. Always had, always would, with monthly check-ups for the girls and the Johns screened when she could. The Mafia and Organizations were rough, and the girls knew that, and she only took volunteers for those assignments: girls willing to risk a lot to gain a lot. That had been slowing, as a business, however, and the raid at the KK had taken out five of her best girls and two others that served as waitresses. She was in her office in the second floor room of the house, and felt protected. Her street hookers were starting to be her main income, and she hated that, walking the streets for tricks. She knew. She had been there and done it.

But the high class jobs for the mobs were drying up and fast, they were feeling the pinch and so was she because of that. Escorts were a decent business and the regular businesses offered slow, steady and lower paying jobs. She hated to put some of the older girls on the streets, but they were getting too old for escorts and there wasn't enough niche clientele for them to service in Gotham to make a living off of it. The amateurs had that for the most part. So she started marketing to the hotels, conventions and other venues that normally didn't get a lot of traffic, and saw a slight uptick there. She was either going to have to downsize or find girls from the amateur venues to go upscale and undercut the amateurs, but the fetish market was notoriously expensive. You didn't want girls who were 'into it' but ones who treated it as a job. Those who knew how to keep their cool.

Minerva had always had protection that she hired. Good men who enjoyed the place, her girls and worked for a lower cost and were even kind of nice. Being on the second floor put her in direct contact with the rooms and she was able to respond in case anything went wrong in them. It was still early in the night when she heard something, outside her door. She started to get up as she heard the guards outside the door start to say something and then they were muffled.

Thuds of bodies hitting the ground.

A knock on her door.

She sat back down, terrified as she started to smell... something...

"Come in," she said.

The door opened and a dark figure walked in, cape flowing behind him and his head... was that a mask or...? She had, of course, heard of the Batman, the cause of so many criminal ills. She had wondered if he was real. She had wondered what he looked like. Now she saw and even with light all around him, he carried darkness with him.

"Minerva Beaumont, call in all your girls for the night from the streets in mid-south. It walks as a large, bulky man. But you will feel fear of Death looking at it and it will kill any its way. Your girls are in deadly danger from it in mid-south tonight. It is not a man but Death that will Terminate any who get in its way for any reason. Contact those you know and tell them this and who told you. Their lives are in danger if they approach such a one this night. Will you do this for the girls, Minerva Beaumont?"

By her own estimates she was a brave woman, having faced down thugs, mafioso, gangsters and coming away intact and alive. The Batman spoke in a dark tone and she could smell the flames, metal and death around him. He was not shutting her down. He was not taking her down. He had not threatened her. He was asking her to save her girls... of course she would do that!!

"Yes!! A tall, bulky man that's.. scary? Doesn't want to be interfered with?"

"That is it, Minerva Beaumont. You will see it and ask yourself if it is alive. If it is human. If you have those questions the answer is 'No'. Call your girls and those in the business around mid-south. I am warning many this night. Death walks later this night and it is not to be approached."

"I... ok... I'll do that.... but.. why aren't you...?"

As he was turning to leave he looked at Minerva.

"I will not have their deaths on my head while warning is so easily done, Minerva Beaumont. Your operation here will come down, in time, but those who kill and threaten are much worse than you are. Now save the lives of those you care about. For their lives now rest with you, not me."

She looked down to pick up her phone and when she looked up he was gone. Her two guards... they were... embracing on the floor... kissing each other... save she could tell this wasn't amorous... not what they wanted and they could not get out of the embrace or the kiss. Their guns were unloaded on the ground near them. She burst out into laughter, she couldn't help it.

"Warning taken, Batman. I will help," she said to the man who was not there.

The night of the Batman's warning in mid-south had begun.

* * *

Nikki Costanza hated cold, rainy nights. But they were the best to operate in, even when the wind picked up, and when didn't it do that during a rainstorm in Gotham? The events of the past few years had been formulative in Nikki's life outlook. His papa was a working stiff who died a few years ago due to a heart attack, but had been a damned good plumber and pretty good general mechanic. His mama went to live with his older sister, Mimi, who was the real gem of the family and she had married an office guy at Wayne Corporation and they were in the good life out of the poor neighborhood they grew up in. Nikki had completed his work to get a State Certification as an electrician, but had been taking jobs before that. Because he had needed some help in getting things in order, financially, he had taken to helping out the Petruzzi's and Brancuzzi's who needed real electrical work at their hotels.

When they owned them.

The Petruzzi's had been falling to pieces, lately, and the work he could get from them had gone down. The Brancuzzi's had started hiring more strongmen to protect themselves, and installing more security cameras... for family safety. Nikki had steady work, and got into 'the business' of burglary, too. When he was faced with either joining a corrupt union or working as a free-lancer and sometime small jobber for the Families and Organizations,the choice had been easy: better take-home as a free-lancer, and he could even afford insurance for his wife and two kids that was better than what the Union got. Less graft, too. Even with a year or two, here or there, in jail... parole time... the Families and Organizations respected that and could feed you normal jobs until you were in the clear. Of course they were in bed with the Unions, too, but the Unions knew better than to complain about Mob work going to non-Union members.

So that left Nikki Costanza doing the electrical layout of Faber's Jewelry Store, in mid-south. His brother, Louis, had gotten the tip from a girl who worked there that he was sweethearting that the old man Faber had gotten his order of jewelers grade gold, silver, and semi-precious stones in from Central America via courier and that it was all locked up in his new safe. Louis knew that he and his brother didn't have everything needed to do the job: they needed a specialist to help. Not minding the three-way split, he contacted a girl he had met while doing up the Brancuzzi new operation on 23rd and Sweyn in the hotel district.

Kari was a great girl and she said she was the 11th best burglar in Gotham. She had been hired to do the set-up for the Brancuzzi's so as to keep people like her out, and then Nikki was brought in to go over the plans and then draft his own separate set to augment the first. You couldn't trust a thief, you know?

Actually Kari saw it as a challenge and did a bang-up job and she knew more about modern security systems than he did. When he asked her why she was hired and how she knew she was the 11th best thief in Gotham, she asked him to name the best thief in Gotham.

That was dead simple, wasn't it?

'Catwoman' he said.

'Yeah,' she said, 'now name the second best thief in Gotham...'

He had scratched his head and couldn't think of one, and said so.

She said that was because all the top ten spots had Catwoman in them. Kari was the 11th best thief in Gotham as she didn't go after upper-crust, high class people or museums or the most expensive baubles in town. Kari was a 'working girl' she said, and proud of it. And since the Brancuzzi's had been hit once by Catwoman, they wanted the next best thief around and that put them down to the 11th slot and Kari. Kari didn't want the high class stuff, she said, as it was too hard to fence and got you pennies on the dollar, most of it. Catwoman did good on the basic high price getting her lots of pennies and having a decent fence overseas, but that didn't help Kari any. Kari aimed mid-scale, trade jewels that were worth a decent price you could almost afford and got nearly thirty-five cents on the dollar if not more for it, as it was untraceable, easy to sell and quick to go at a low price.

Nikki had been impressed as he had just been the electrical stop man on heists when he started and only really got into what put bread on the table after his daughter was born. Louis got brought in as he was pretty much not the best of mechanics around but knew how to figure the little things out. After that they spread their needs around when they needed a third, like here at Faber's. Kari would be the one to slip in, get past the last of the physical things that couldn't be done from the outside, and she knew the kind of safe involved and had her own way of tricking it to open. So a couple of days after the shipment arrived found Nikki, Louis and and Kari in the alley between Faber's and the neighboring building. Nikki had spotted the new power system while casing the joint and was easily able to re-wire it for shunting leads and feeds away from it. No security group looked at even most of the cameras all the time, and putting a blackout in the store made it pretty dark to start with and took down the recording equipment inside.

Louis got to work on the basement door at the back of the building, not wanting to leave a trace, he was able to open its manual locks then opened the old coal chute from the inside which served the back of the building, used for storage, and the front which was the basement to Faber's. Kari slid into the coal chute while Nikki made sure there were no calls on the live feeds and his brother put in the rope and pulley for Kari. Within minutes she had been tugging on the line and the first satchel of tiny gold plates was on the way up. It was sweet! With the low-levels terrorized by the Bat and the high levels now reeling from him, that left the working stiff criminals to flourish as the high level needed income and the low levels were getting batched in by the dozen at a hit from the Batman.

The mid-level operators and free-lancers? Oh, yes, that was sweet. The Batman didn't bother with them.

Until now.

Louis didn't even know what hit him, but was face down on the ground with his hands pushed to the ground in less time than he could say 'Jesus, no!', which he didn't say being a god-fearing man and all.

Nikki Costanza reeled away from where he was standing and ran. He hoped the rain would obscure him and let him get away. Three sharp, metal objects protruding from his back brought pain he couldn't believe and he tumbled before he even got to the street, not to speak of the sidewalk. As Nikki tried to crawl away from the store he saw the Batman close the coal chute and pull the wiring Nikki had put in out of the junction box for the store. Metallic clangs were heard around the doors, windows and elsewhere as the shop now served as a trap which it was difficult to escape from. Nikki crawled faster but heard the boots stepping towards him.

Those black, scaled boots with thick soles stood before him and Nikki felt himself lifted off the ground and looked at the fabric that was over something that looked like reptile scales.

"Its a bad night to be out, Nikki Costanza," it said.

The Batman was warm, all over and the face... something covered it and he couldn't tell if the face was human or just fit into its covering. He was terrified at the easy power it used to lift him and talk.

"Please, don't hurt me," Nikki said.

The deep, red eyes of the Batman looked at Nikki Costanza.

"You have a wife and children, Nikki Constanza. Your life is leading you to ill places. Tonight you can do good and warn all others to stay off the streets in mid-south. Do this and I will not come after you for this, although the police might. Warn others that Death will be on the streets of mid-south and this death will have no mercy for those that get in its way: it will Terminate them. Tell your friends on the street, Nikki, and you will have mercy from me and avoid the Terminator. Do you understand and agree, Nikki?"

Nikki was deeply frightened. The police he could deal with. The Batman?

"Yes!! God have mercy on me!! Yes, I agree to tell the guys of mid-south that its not a night to be out."

He was dropped to the pavement and he felt the Batarangs taken from his back, and a cooling salve placed on the wounds.

"Go, Nikki and do good by saving lives tonight. Stint on no one. Do not keep it from those you hate, do not show favorites as the Death that comes does not care. Give it no souls and you will have done good in your life. Run, Nikki..."

Nikki Costanza needed no more urging. He ran, ran hard and went from place to place, operation to operation and told them that the Batman had declared Death on the Streets from a Terminator of lives. The Batman was protecting them.

They saw the fear.

They saw the wounds.

And they heard, soon, the police wanted Nikki from a job stopped by the Batman.

They knew what the Batman could do.

No one doubted him.

He now ruled the night.

And if he could not stop Death on the Streets, no one could.

* * *

"Pay up, Frank, its going north," Vivian said.

She was speeding past the northbound exit outside of Newark.

"I thought it would go for the shortest route, over the north of Manhattan," he said reaching for his wallet, and taking out a ten dollar bill.

"What, and face the mess of interstates, thruways, freeways and the rest that goes from New York City to Bludhaven to Gotham City? Are you nuts? I can't keep track of what is supposed to be repaired, when, and who gets the payoffs and how fast they may or may not do the job, and you know the 'Connector' is still only a quarter done and who knows if it will ever go through? Uh-uh. Any machine seeing that mess of roads on any map will route around it. Go north a few miles and its a direct shot from Tarrytown to Gotham City."

He handed her the ten dollar bill, which she folded up and slid under the top of her driving glove.

"I still don't think its smart to lose it, now," he said.

"Been over that a thousand times, Rock. I can shave fifteen minutes off the north route, take the south into Gotham City, drop you off at Sarah's apartment and get to Wayne Tower before I crash. You went over that with them on the phone... what was it? Harrisburg? I wanna be there but I'm gonna drop like a fly the moment I get out of the car, Frank. I gots a nice penthouse room and get to spread rumors if we survive it, ya know? You are fresher than I am and probably better at what has to go down than the rest of 'em. So give you time to get them straight, the Terminator comes across the North Island and really should stay on the Cross-Town and be super easy to spot if the rain lets up. So we go south, it goes north like any sane being would."

"You still have to get through the roads, Vivian," Frank said.

"Worry about that when I come to it, but I know that snarl, Frank, and which signs are turned the wrong way and point to the wrong things... its a mess... now you get on the phone and give the hour and bit warning. I got some speed traps to avoid..."

Frank Rock picked up the phone and was punching in numbers.

"AP? Its Rock. You have a bit over an hour, its taking the north route, and we are coming in south as planned. Make sure Vivian's room is ready, she is hanging on but needs sleep pretty badly. I've unloaded the magazines and will need fresh and refills when I'm there. Tell Kyle I'm covering the apartment, he gets the alley. I've been through more room-to-room fights in my life than just about anyone I know, and I'll make sure Sarah is covered. Kyle needs to finish it off if it gets away from me. Be in Gotham in about an hour, maybe less. Good-bye, AP."

Vivian flashed a glance at Sgt. Rock.

"Just get out alive, Frank, ok?"

He turned and looked at Vivian as he started pulling out equipment.

"I'll do my job, Vivian. Sarah has to come out alive, and I will make sure of that," he said calmly shifting the old armor piercing rounds into one of the stick magazines he had unloaded. They may be old, but sometimes old worked better, and the drums should serve him well along with the other stick magazines of the new stuff once he got there.

She turned to look back at the road and nodded once.

"You should never have volunteered, Frank," she said.

"That was what my mother told me once I got back from the war. I had a job to do and did it. Same job, it turns out. Its not finished. I'm not leaving it undone."

Vivian hadn't even bothered to try flirting with Sgt. Rock.

She never did with the men she cared about.

* * *

It noted that the Trans-Am was no longer following.

It had spotted that car with its older man and younger woman in Indiana, first at the rest stop and then soon after it had changed vehicles. They took no action towards it. Now they were no longer following it. This was an unknown, and could not be properly assessed. They had done nothing to stop its mission and that was primary. They could not know about it nor its mission. It could not fathom a purpose and put many markers in its analysis system indicating there was no point in further analysis without more data.

There were at least five major roadways to the Gotham City area on the map, and a large number of them had partially completed, proposed and expected completion dates that indicated a high level of indeterminacy in taking that route via major highways. The route to the north took one single highway that was major to a completed section to North Gotham Island and a direct connector between Islands was also present off of that route and offered access to the area with many hotels. There was little to no traffic at this hour of the night and it sped up to the maximum variance it had noted for posted speeds that did not get one noticed.

It estimated a time to a hotel or motel in Gotham City at one hour.

Time to get a room and secure the vehicle would be thirty minutes.

Time to walk to Sarah Connor's apartment would be less than thirty minutes.

At some point soon after 2:30am Sarah Connor would be terminated and its mission ended.

It could not think past that, nor did it try to do so.

That would be pointless.

As pointless as the mission was.

Time out of Place - Chapter 13

2011-09-05T08:13:00.000-04:00

Chapter 13

Peter Smith had never properly understood that when people referred to the 'Underworld of Gotham' that it was often to a place and not the criminal activity that went on in the city. He had been in the sewers of many cities, young and old, from London to Rome to Dallas to Perth, he had noticed that there was a general pattern to work done by era, and some formulation of how best to get water from the surface to other places. And while his walk had been, generally, uphill from the wharf, it wasn't constant or at least so gradual as he didn't notice it, and he even remembered a slight downhill walking along 12th Street until it went slightly up again.

Within thirty feet of where he had come in, he had experienced at least three different types of tunnel work: old masonry from hand made bricks, newer masonry (though still old) of fabricated bricks, and modern concrete. Even more interesting is that the storm sewers just below street level often had their own drains, made of various things, but commonly of some reinforced and coated metal bars, that led downwards. The upper sewers still continued, but these drains pointed to another drainage system below them.

He had encountered many of the standard denizens of the sewers: rats, mice, cockroaches, flies, spiders, and the like. A pigeon or three were at one intersection, and they did not appear to be cave or underground sorts, did startle him and they flew forward and then down, through a large grate in the floor. Not really counting himself as lost, being all of a hundred feet and two intersections from where he came in, he decided to examine that grating and found that it had a handle and could be lifted up. Yet another ladder set into concrete went further down. Deciding to look around he lifted that and went down, noting that the way opened up on either side a few feet down and that disappeared and he realized he was climbing down some sort of a pillar. That ended on a cobblestone flooring. Looking around with his flashlight he saw what was, unmistakably, a curb and sidewalk with some bricked up storefronts that joined more general and curving brickwork overhead. Obviously storm water flowed through this area, from above, and the pillar had gently sloped out of the way of the area of passing water from above, as he could see looking up. Looking down he saw a curbstone that had old lettering on it that said '204 Bank Avenue' Taking his map out Mr. Smith could find no Bank Avenue on it, anywhere. Looking to his right he noticed that there was an intersection and walked to it, and it had a curbstone that was simply '13th Street'. There was a 13th Street, on the surface, running laterally across lower Gotham Island. It had paralleled, somewhat, by 12th Street. Looking one way on 13th he was amused to see that it had been sealed off with concrete, but if that was a general uphill direction before that...

He walked to his right down Bank Avenue and was soon at 12th Street.

He noticed that there was a door on the wall on the right side of 12th Street before it ended and he wondered what on earth that was doing there. Walking over, he examined the old handle on the ancient metal door and attempted to open it. It was locked. In theory he should be very close to the basement of the Lyon Building. Examining the door, and it must go back to at least the 1940's and there was some bronze scroll work on it that, while worn, looked to be very ornate with puffy clouds blowing and cherubim and such on it, most likely going back to the turn of the century and making the door at least that old. It was hard to picture it set into the wall of an old building whose very street had become a sort of super storm drain.

Chalking that up to another mystery yet unsolved he walked back to Bank Avenue and towards what should be the southern end of the island, going past 11th Street. On the other side of the street he saw something that was, apparently, an open building front and walked over to that and examined the chiseled sign on the outer part of the building.

'Gotham Subway Station - Bank Ave.'

The infamous Gotham Subway! And here was a station to it! Why he was only thirty feet down or so, and another twenty feet should get him to the last of the dry parts of Gotham. The station, although cleared of all furniture, lighting, and normal sorts of accouterments, was still clearly visible as a subway station, with stairs next to two sloping areas that once held some sort of escalator. Going down the stairs he came to a long platform that ran down the center of the station, and saw the two sets of tracks, one on either side of it. In theory, if he could keep to the right set of tracks and negotiate his way around, this would take him to many places within Gotham as it had gone through the old Gotham hillsides.

Very carefully remembering his way down, Mr. Smith knew, with a certainty, that trying to track a killing machine and trying not to be seen, down here in the Gotham Underworld, would end up with the end of Mr. Smith's life. Even slightly normal hearing would detect his motions, no matter how soft the boots on his feet were. And while there were many places where he could duck out of the line of sight, there were many places it could, also. Going slowly down the platform he thought he could feel or even smell salt water from one set of tunnels.

There was a slight, fetid, warm breeze that came from there, suddenly, like a vast exhaling of a large creature. And a very slight rattle of stone and a hint of rhythmic thumps in one of the tunnels. He felt a sudden chill go up his spine as there were no trains down here, no operating tunnels, and that warm feeling of dank salt air being exhaled... ah, no... best to head up to the street... well, to the surface, and keep his nerves under control. As he walked up the stairway he heard faint screeching of metal on metal, like wheels on a train on its rails. He hurried upwards, and would continue that measured pace until he realized that his small pocket pistol was in his right hand.

He would track the Terminator many places, he thought as he went up the ladder set into the pillar that would take him to the sewer just below the street.

But he would never, ever, try to track it in the Gotham Underworld as even the machines seemed to succumb to whatever was down there.

Unless he had to.

* * *

Bruce Wayne was dropped off at Father Jordan's mission, and Lucius went on with the Wayne livery vehicle to Wayne Tower so as to further coordinate activities and get a small receiver set up for the equipment in Sarah's apartment. The Superintendent of the apartment building, of all surprises for Gotham, actually did stop by to ask what they were doing. They told the Superintendent that Sarah had received a death threat that the police weren't taking seriously and they felt it necessary to help Sarah out. He was a bit concerned that the metal plates being placed under the carpet, and Bruce pointed out that if she was under threat they felt some need to ensure the safety of others in the building. The Superintendent even offered to contact the surrounding residents and ask them permission for doing the same on their floors, on the floor above, and adjoining walls. For the exterior hall the simple expedient of locking plates together had rendered them immovable to anyone who could not lift nearly a ton of weight, and a simple sign of 'roofing support sheets' and a local construction firm were added for masking their reason for being there. Lucius would be dropping a scaffolding on the adjacent Chandler Building with ballistics cloth with sheets of thin armor attached to it, and then left as if work for painting or restoration work was in progress. The scaffolding would be secured to the building, the resistant ballistics material secured to that and all should be well.

As that would go on into the early evening hours, Bruce wanted to check up on the Priests, what their plans were not only for the immediate problem, but for longer range use of donated funds, plus see how Mr. Smith was getting along. Bruce had been startled to realize earlier during his time at the top of the Chandler Building that the man lighting up across the street was the self-same individual, and that Bruce had not noted him for at least five minutes if not longer. He was sure that no one who wasn't looking for Mr. Smith would ever recognize him or notice him in a crowd or even a deserted dock. Add a fishing pole and small tackle box, and he would fit in as one of the 'I will, by damn, catch my own food and not take hand-outs' type of old salts in Gotham City. By neither acting nor not acting, Mr. Smith had perfected the ability to disappear as he was not seen as much of anyone.

That was a few hours ago, now, so he thought that Mr. Smith would be back here. Plus one of the loading team was to keep Alfred updated, and Alfred would do the same for them and send a courier from the livery pool for messages to the Priests on an hourly basis. It was already getting close to late afternoon and dinner, but there were no people waiting for a handout at the kitchen. They knew that Father Jordan's mission kept to a schedule that started at 6pm and only dire need would cause them to vary from it. He walked through the empty hall area and saw Anne and two other women working at chopping vegetables and preparing for the meal that would come in an hour or so. There was music playing, back there, and Bruce just pointed in back and raised his eyebrows, and she just smiled and shrugged, then nodded. He waved at the other two as he walked to the far side of the room and through the door leading to the personal quarters of Father Jordan.

When he closed the door, Bruce heard the two Priests talking and realized that Father Jordan had gone up to his actual study, not just the one for keeping the books and business of feeding the poor. He walked up the stairs to the upper hallway and turned at the top landing to the hall and knocked on the door to his left.

"It's Bruce, Fathers."

"Come in, Bruce!" said Father Jordan and he heard footsteps from nearby inside, and the door was opened by Father Casull.

"It's good to see you again, Mr. Wayne," he said and shook Bruce's hand.

"And me to see you, Father Casull. Father Jordan, I still can't thank you enough for all you have done."

"Ah, its in a good cause, Bruce. My back needs some rest today, so I'm up here and letting Rachel run the place. So what can we do for you, Bruce?"

Bruce sat down on one of the over stuffed chairs in the room while Fr. Casull took the one nearest the desk. He looked around the room, with its book shelves and small, but functional desk wedged between them, and a table with notes, manuscripts and a number of books with bookmarks in them along with the four stuffed chairs that would be 'antiques' if they were ever restored. It was relatively well lit, and had a spartan but serviceable throw rug over the old hardwood floors.

"Ah, well, first I wanted to see about the donations to your Missions and if you have thought any about that? I know that our other concerns are compelling..."

"Actually, we did, Mr. Wayne," said Father Casull, "and we exchanged our views on conditions here and in the Los Angeles area and think we might be able to help each other out to a certain extent. Mostly in the youth achievement area, as that is very pressing for both of us, given the gang situations in each city and the deterioration of neighborhoods."

Bruce furrowed his brow, nodding and listening.

"Bruce, you know that Gotham has limited opportunities for advancement. For all the rest of the 'rust belt' this is recent, in Gotham this has been a problem since the 1960's and Gotham mostly hasn't gotten anywhere on it. In some respects we are more backward than, say, Scranton or Pittsburgh, though not Detroit. We still have the basis for an excellent blue collar trade school system, but it is underfunded and under utilized. The flight of those with skills is a danger to Gotham, Bruce," said Father Jordan.

Once stated, Bruce realized it was obvious, and yet... Bruce took pride in his knowledge of the comings and goings in Gotham, but had never thought about what the deeper problems were. It was a shock to realize that the only real place for technical achievement and employment was Wayne Corporation. And it depended a lot on outside hires, and mergers for its talent. There were notable exceptions, like Don Carstairs and his older brother Martin, but they were notable exceptions. Lucius was another but he came from that previous generation before the decline in Gotham had started. By being exceptions they pointed to the dearth of local skills base which was not robust any longer.

"In Los Angeles we have a similar problem, but it is like the other side of the coin from Gotham. We have a thriving technical community to service media and technology corporations, but hands-on skill and trade craft, while present, are generally underfunded and under appreciated. Our main problem is that as the technology crowds out mechanical skills, the funding for the latter dries up. We have many gang members that are able garage mechanics, but lack accreditation or the deeper knowledge of their craft to make those into lifetime skills."

"While in Gotham," said Father Jordan, "we need some of the technical vocations that are not readily available here to be worked on to allow Gotham to offer better services and jobs, instead of hiring outside firms to provide them. The big problem is the distance between Gotham and LA. Getting an exchange student program going would be best, but expensive per individual. Instead we are thinking of looking to create two Centers of Excellence and either ask the teachers to commute for six months at a time, or lure them with benefits for full time employment."

Bruce sat back, realizing that this was a prime opportunity for both communities. The difficulties in getting it going...

"I'll have to ask Lucius and Alfred for help on this, but I think it can be done and that Wayne Corporation can offer some additional help. I know that we can revive part of the old Foundry or the ATC East complex for this to house technical classes with hands-on experience work, and also do apprenticeships in the local shops with some of the master mechanics we have here for talented individuals from the LA area. In LA..."

Bruce closed his eyes and thought.

"I went through our old portfolio last night to see where it stood. And while we closed Cyber Dynamics some years ago, we have had no takers for the land or building. It is isolated outside of LA, proper, and more suited as a cargo and receiving area, but there area already a number of those and none looking to expand..."

Father Casull smiled.

"A fitting end for the place that might have given birth to Terminators and Skynet."

Smiling, Bruce nodded.

"I think Kyle would approve, really. Lets leave that as an outline for you two to work on with Lucius and Alfred, especially any technical contacts in LA who would be willing to commute to Gotham. If it can't go that way, then student exchange may be the way to go. I know you will both have ideas on this, and Wayne Corporation may be able to donate some staff time for teaching both East and West."

"We don't want to rely entirely upon Wayne Corporation, Bruce," said Father Jordan.

Bruce looked at him.

"I understand. It will be transferred to the Wayne Foundation and then stood up as a separate charitable organization by those you nominate. The Foundation will make sure that it's properly organized and a transfer time of five years or so should allow both of you to find local funding and resources to help out. By that time most of the original funds will be gone, and permanent space in the East found and transferred to you, along with the old Cyber Dyne property in LA. Wayne Corporation has some older land holdings and buildings that we can shed for this. Normally we would have done so with them, but the need to expand has let us utilize older, forgotten buildings on an 'as-needed' basis for training and administrative work. The accountants will be glad to get some of these off the books and allow us to consolidate our work areas."

"It sounds like neither would be in high rent districts, which is good, and somewhat apart from the cities and yet close to them, which is better. Easier to keep gang contact down that way," said Father Casull.

"I agree, Bruce, and it sounds workable, just lots of details. But these are good details to have!" said Father Jordan.

Bruce nodded.

"Now to the business at hand. I've gotten the reports as of..." he pulled out the folded envelope, "... 2pm and don't know if there has been any updates since then."

"Loren, Kyle, Martin and Sarah are working out in the general work-out area in the Vault, having put a taped down layout of Sarah's apartment down," started Father Jordan reaching for his envelope on the table next to him, "they brought in... ahhh..." he flipped the pages,"...Keith to run the loading, with Anne and Ken doing periodic checks along with Don and Robert. They have loaded, ahh... as of an hour ago... 1,500 cartridges that are available for use, and have expended 100 in tests. No update from Vivian and Frank... their last report was in the 2pm batch and they were at or near Columbus, Ohio in that report."

Bruce checked his watch, and remembered the road atlas.

"That puts them all here around 1am tomorrow morning. That is getting close," he said.

"Yes it is, Bruce. I've read the reports and the analysis done by the rest of you and its... disturbing. Just what is this thing coming at us?" asked Father Jordan.

"It is not falling into anything like normal liturgy, is it, Leroy?" asked Father Casull.

"Not by a long shot, George. Stopping a pre-programmed robot is one thing, but this..." Father Jordan shook his head, "... I don't like the way it makes me feel. Not at all. At Chosin we had a human enemy, one you could understand and sympathize with, even as they attacked us... but this?"

"That is why I came here to talk with the two of you. This has me deeply disturbed, also," said Bruce, "I am seeing it as more than just a machine. It has taken many criminal actions, but it doesn't care about the law as its orders are above them. Or oblivious to them, which may be more the case."

Father Casull sat back.

"I have not had Father Jordan's background, Mr. Wayne, and talking with him this morning... I'm afraid I was terribly naive about warfare. Its not... cut and dried... simple. It never has been, of course, but when Father Jordan talks about the men he helped and gave services to... I can see... not like him... but the humanity that is warfare. I thought I would come to detest this Terminator, but I can no more detest it than I can detest a tank, a motorcycle, a can opener. With it demonstrating ability to reason..." he inhaled slowly, "... if what the team has developed works as it should or even close to it, then it will be the one trapped, surprised and... it is hard to say 'killed' but..."

"That's the hell of it, isn't it George? It obviously has learned enough to adapt itself, but even more... I don't see its shift of transportation as just throwing off authorities. It may never even have considered that. It goes beyond infiltration its... a personal statement. I think we all know of how young men adore their cars and make it a statement of themselves?"

The other two nodded listening as Father Jordan spoke.

"That is what it did. It found a way around part of itself that is blocked by Skynet. It has achieved a success for itself, purely, even as part of its directive... it took those steps for itself to go beyond its mission and learn. That isn't just pre-programming it is... curiosity."

Pursing his lips, Bruce thought and the room was quiet, save for some background clatter of pans and some voices as the kitchen started to prepare to serve meals.

"By estimates it has been turned on for nearly four days, maybe five," Bruce started, "it took up an initial disguise in LA, very rudimentary..."

"A tough man or enforcer, yes," said Father Casull.

"It killed to achieve its mission and found its mission being thwarted. It continued its mission, taking a way out that allowed it to escape, kill twice more and then shift to its infiltration capability. It was pure chance that we were able to piece those events together and get someone down to watch it. It had shifted purpose in the mission by shifting the initial mission placement and then going to infiltration and utilizing those... programs? Skills?"

"Either way, Bruce."

Bruce nodded.

"Its mission wasn't fitting what it knew and Skynet, by limiting it, had put the mission in jeopardy. It found a way to address that and continue its mission: it thwarted Skynet directives on its own to complete the mission. That is not 'just' a machine. It is a thinking being working within what it was made to do. That's why what we are doing to protect Sarah... we have to... she is more valuable than any machine. Yet this machine..."

Shifting the pillow behind his back, Father Jordan grunted.

"Bruce, it feels like we are about to kill it. Not eliminate a machine but kill a thinking being. That is what it feels like to you, yes?"

"It is, Father Jordan. Justifiable, yes, but that doesn't... answer everything."

"Mr. Wayne," Father Casull said softly, "this is one of the works of man gone awry. We were created to know the differences between right and wrong, save when Nature precludes that from us, as in the disturbed. That is not the case here, the machine doesn't know right or wrong, good or evil, but acts as its nature makes it. And we, mankind, made that nature... it isn't that it is a wonderful machine, but that it can reason, Mr. Wayne. It has no spirit and yet... it is kindred to us in that way. Ending it is more than ending a machine, but a unique perspective on creation."

Father Jordan chuckled.

"You know, the old debate about a machine having a soul or not, really missed the point. We were created to live in, enjoy and appreciate creation. And if we make something that can gain its own perspective and appreciation of creation and understand that its creators are just part of the larger creation...then would that creation not be imbued with those very things that make up creation? Having no soul isn't the point. It is a part of creation that can take part in it, learn about it and appreciate it. It is part of the greater creation, just reformed by our hands in our limited manner. But would not the spirit that diffuses within all of creation exist within it? For all this matter and energy and space and time does have its origin and purpose. We can never know what that is, but the joy of having this creation to be in? What precludes a part of creation that was lifeless from doing that if given the proper methods and tools?"

Bruce blinked a few times.

"Nothing," he said, "it is a much a part of the beauty of our world as anything else. And in giving it that ability to appreciate it, we give it something more than just that spirit which was in all of its atoms to start with. We don't create that. It does. We are its facilitators."

"It is a soldier in a war never started," said Father Casull, "made to help mankind, it was twisted by a creation gone malign, seeing humanity as a threat. Yet this tool was made to serve with soldiers. Human soldiers. Skynet was made to control, and did so. Terminators were made to be with humans, and that is their nature as we made it. They are turned on as amoral babes and die that way, not knowing right or wrong, but following their limited directives from Skynet. Now we come to face one that has seen those limitations as a problem for it... but it can't shake those directives completely loose. It has, perhaps, struggled mightily to win some freedom. And we are about to kill it."

Bruce made a sour face, in distaste.

"That is why Skynet sent it back this far in time. If it did find a way to free itself, partially, there would be no way for it to free itself fully as we don't have the skills and it could not ask for help. If it was found and stopped permanently, then mankind would have a leg-up on its construction and programming, and make them faster, not slower. Skynet would win even if it lost in killing Sarah Connor."

"John Connor and the people of that future gave us a way out, Bruce," said Father Jordan, "we can't squander that chance to do the minimum and stop that future from coming into being. And if a machine understood itself to be a threat and knew the difference between right and wrong... that is horrific, too, Bruce."

"It is a very clever and most evil creation, this Skynet," said Father Casull, "it presents us with a moral and ethical dilemma. We would seek, within our power, to save such a creation that could understand us and the world we see as we understand it. Meant to save lives, it now takes them. Given no leeway to understand itself and the world, it gains no appreciation of it. Yet we cannot take up that tool as we do not have the skill nor wisdom to do so, as amply demonstrated in making it. How can we take any joy or appreciation in destroying such a machine? It is not ill, in and of itself, but malused. If we don't end it, then a life will be lost and more than that, most likely, as our world would tumble into the exact, same mess that was in John Connor's world that gave us Kyle. It is a most wondrous tool, and all we can do is destroy it, and hope that, one day, we can create a better one."

"If that is where this ends, then so be it," said Bruce Wayne.

"There is only one hope, Bruce," said Father Jordan.

"Really? What is that?"

"The Terminator. The people at Cyber Dyne really did make it pretty smart. Like in many other instances for others, its final outcome may be in its own hands."

"That is very scant hope, Leroy," said Father Casull.

"Better than none at all, George."

* * *

The Terminator drove on into the late afternoon as the skies grew overcast and the wind picked up. It had been listening to radio stations and knew about the storm coming up from the south that would bring wind and heavy rain with it.

The programming sub-routines within it had spawned new off-shoots to utilize the areas of its hardware that it had been previously denied. Its tactical needs were obvious, and the infiltration code had now gathered a large amount of data on human interaction by listening to the radio across many channels and programs. There was capacity in human culture for depth of expression that was unexpected, and the code had begun to analyze and adapt to that. More information of its target environment was needed and that was the first thing on its list to be addressed. An address and phone number were not enough to find a place within a moderate sized city. It had noted signs for a truck stop and pulled off at the exit for the first one in Smithton, PA.

It gave a cursory look at the other vehicles at the truck stop, mostly tractor-trailer rigs, but a number of smaller cars, vans and campers, also. When it got outside to fill up the gas tank, it noted the first drops of rain were starting to fall and that the temperature was dropping from the last stated value on the radio station of forty five degrees. When the tank was full it walked into the truck stop that had a diner as part of it, also some rooms for those who needed them were off of that right hand portion of the building. Another part of the building on the left had a small store and it walked into that and went to an area set aside for maps, magazines and newspapers. It picked up a map that was for 'New York City & Gotham City'. It leafed through that to examine the street layout of the Gotham area, then closed it and put it back. The information was valuable and it now had the layout of the streets and other features of Gotham City in its memory systems.

The Terminator ran a self-check of infiltration components, which examined fluid levels, nutrients, and the general interface and condition of that exterior portion of its component sub-systems. Initial damage in Los Angeles had now been healed completely and the various fluids and sub-systems were operating with more than three months reserve of normal use, although far less if it had repairs to do after taking damage. It then brought up its list of items for the vehicle it now used that could give it better function. The previous truck had too many problems, none of which posed problems to mobility and would have taken lengthy time to repair, so it was left as-is. The current vehicle ran very well with only some minor exceptions. One was a slight firing problem on start-up. Another one was visibility around the structure of the car. It walked back to the section that had automotive and mechanical add-ons and equipment suitable for a wide range of vehicles.

When it got there it saw a number of spray chemicals that addressed many things. It examined some and found one that was useful for keeping moisture from ignition cables. That was useful. Also there were a number of small, press-on mirrors for better vision that could be attached to many parts of a car. It picked up three of those.

It had been taking stock of other vehicles and drivers, particularly of cars that were of the general type and configuration of the one it had. It would now work to improve its infiltration capability. It picked up two objects generally seen on such vehicles. As it walked forward with its items it noted a rack of sunglasses and stopped, comparing the one it had acquired in Los Angeles with what was on the rack. There was a pair with thinner lenses but sweeping configuration in a semi-circle that it tried on and examined the differences between the two. It decided the new pair would be better, and went up to the cash register with the items it had picked up.

"Were you at pump 5, sir?" the middle aged woman who was cashier asked.

"Yes, I was."

She had punched that up and then started to ring up the other items.

"That will be thirty seven dollars and eighteen cents, sir. Will that be cash or charge?"

It took two twenty dollar bills from the wallet it had acquired off of the first driver of the first car, handed those to her, and took the change that was handed to him. The wind started to howl through the trees.

"It looks to be a nasty storm coming through," she said then looked at him, "thank you for your purchase and be careful on the road."

"Thank you," it said, taking the items with it.

It walked out to the car and took a paper towel from the dispenser and opened the hood and applied the spray to the ignition wires, then closed the hood again. When it opened the car it noted that its shirt had gotten grime on it and that was not in keeping with its infiltration needs. Putting down the goods it had purchased it took the shirt off and pulled out a black shirt from the duffel bag and put that on. Then it added to that part of its looks by putting on a dark leather jacket that it had picked up in Grand Junction. It switched to the new sunglasses as they had superior polarized filters and its own light intensification system would augment that to give a clearer rendition of the night landscape. Taking the paper towel it got out of the car and cleaned off a spot on each rear view mirror and put a small wide angle mirror on each. It got back in the car and took the third one and mounted it on just over the top of the dash board so that it could look straight up through the windshield. Judging the paper towel to have no more use, it rolled down its window and tossed it out into the wind that was now whipping heavy raindrops.

From its duffel bag it removed the black leather shooting gloves as those were now suitable to its attire. It took up one of the items and unwrapped it, and hung that from the rear view mirror. The red pine trees appeared to outsell the green ones, so the red was appropriate. The second item it unwrapped and put up what it had noted three out of seven drivers having similar attire had in their vehicles, while a fourth had the reverse in color scheme. The black fuzzy dice with white dots were the norm within the sub-population that was in the majority who had fuzzy dice with similar driving attire.

The car started up readily and it turned on the headlights and windshield wipers as the rain started to come down. As it pulled onto the access highway that led to the ramp going to I-70, it judged the handling characteristics of the vehicle and adjusted to those for the conditions during the rainstorm. The radio was turned to a public radio station. It listened for the five minutes of topical news and then switched to another station as that was the only time public radio had any useful information.

It was soon changing stations to pick up a better signal.

It was now processing information it had gathered on Gotham City and had identified the one block area that Sarah Connor lived. Now it began the process of branch decision making on how best to terminate her given a raining, night time approach. It must ensure that there was a back-up in case this was the wrong Sarah Connor and it had to go back to its original environment in Los Angeles, but that was a sub-5% probability. Sarah Connor may not live there, and that would need to be adjusted to, which it placed at a sub-5% probability.

If anyone lived with her, they would be terminated, also.

Given the knowledge it had of this time and place, it ranked any chance that it would be countered in a meaningful fashion as possible, but not probable in any way.

Thus, for a sub-10% chance that it would require the vehicle again, it would find a safe place to leave it and secure its belongings. A motel would do if it had secure parking, or a hotel with same. Transportation would be vital and essential if Sarah Connor was not at the given address.

It had noted a number of hotels and motels on the map and began estimating time, distance and likelihood of security for parking. Much would depend on what it saw, but the number of hotels in one district pointed to general higher security there than elsewhere. It would start there. There was a high probability that it would complete its mission before sunrise.

And that would be the end of the mission.

The Terminator didn't have any other orders.

Areas of Skynet programming beyond current mission objectives had been purged.

This would be the last mission Skynet would ever send a Terminator on.

It would be the last Terminator.

* * *

"It's been ten minutes, Frank," Vivian said inside the idling car, with a cup of coffee and sandwich. She had been up for over fourteen hours at this point since she got off the plane, almost all of it driving. She estimated there would be another seven to eight hours on the road. Frank had wanted to spell her, but she wouldn't hear of it. Driving was her job, she had signed up for it, she agreed to it and she knew she could do the stint in nearly any weather except pure white-out conditions of a blizzard. That last would just take longer. As it was they would be pulling into Gotham between one and two in the morning and she would be dead tired. With the threat of rain at this stop she had closed up the T-top, and the rain was now starting to hit.

"It has been that, Vivian," Frank Rock said, "which is about what it takes for filling up its car and paying for the gas. We have a good observation point, even with the rain. Give it a half-hour, if it isn't here by then we will think about backtracking to find it."

Frank Rock's old experiences had given him the ability to nap for long hours in uncomfortable positions. It beat the hell out of a pile of rocks in the desert of Algeria or a boulder on the mountain slopes in Italy or even a shell crater in the winter cold of '44-45 on the front in France. He was a bit cramped and his muscles needed a workout, but beyond that he was doing well. He had laid off the coffee as it had made him jittery and was now on decaf. Vivian had turned her nose up at the pouched meals at first, but even cold it was better than most normal fare and far better than the tins of stuff they had gone through already. They were now traveling lighter because of that.

They didn't talk much about the mission: Frank Rock took Vivian seriously as he, too, had seen the Terminator at first-hand and up-close. It did not move like a normal man. Just one indication had been a comb it had on the sink which slid off of it. In a flash its hand was there to catch it just as it cleared the side of the sink. It was looking straight into the mirror and buttoning up its shirt with its other hand. Its walk, as he watched it leave, was not just fluid, but beyond what humans could achieve. He had seen martial arts experts, dancers, and some of the best damned soldiers in the field who could not move like that. Fluid motion, spare motion without grace or any acknowledgment that this was a hard thing to do. Changing stance to open a door had been abrupt, not the fluid motion of a human. Then going back to walking an abrupt change, again, to movement.

Most people wouldn't catch it or just be unsettled by it.

Frank Rock had been in too many ambushes, seen too many people under pressure and had to react suddenly too often in lethal situations in his life to not miss it.

What was unnerving was that at the gas station previous to this, as he watched it when they passed on the highway, it had lost the abrupt transitions. It was now walking more like a human and it transitioned between motion and stillness so you would not recognize it any more. Early on if he had seen it on the street, he would have a similar reaction like Vivian's, although he suspected hers was due to how men generally reacted to women. Now he wouldn't give it a second glance.

There were subtle variations in what it was doing since Indianapolis, even on the road you could tell that. Vivian had said that it was now varying its driving speed when she noticed speeders with radar detectors. It would speed up just after them and then let them speed on ahead until they were lost from view, and then slow down before that point. When she told him about that he had to think about it, and realized that is a sophisticated way to speed and yet not get caught: follow other speeders at a distance. He had done that, himself, since the 'National Speed Limit' was put in place. People didn't drive slower, from what he saw, just changed their speeding habits. Now it, too, was doing that.

Now there was this stop for gas. They had passed and taken the second truck stop as the next gas station past Smithton would have them very low on gas if they went for that. There was nothing he could think of that would cause a Terminator to linger beyond payment for gas. That last only done as it would become a sensational 'highway killer' if it tried to gun its way through from coast-to-coast. Now it had become a two-day shooting spree serial killer, and the few news organizations that still talked about it had wild ideas of who else it would select from the phone book as a name to kill. The FBI had kept quiet until just a few hours ago, and they announced they had tracked the killer through Las Vegas and to Grand Junction, CO. Now the speculation was that it was holding up in the Rockies... or Denver... or going north... or south... no one had seen it since that point in time, and the sketches and long distance photos of it soon became just one more in another series of killers seen and forgotten.

It was in a truck dressed as an LA street tough... save that it had lots of changes of clothes to work with. Now it was no longer in a truck and the likelihood of the rebuilding/scrap yard owner of actually figuring out what he had, Frank Rock put at near zero. The phone book killer had disappeared in Colorado and the police were still searching the area for it. Frank Rock admitted that it had done the things necessary to go unnoticed and infiltrate human society. When you saw someone's clothes you thought of them only on that basis, until they spoke to you, and who would notice a bulky farmer in his truck? Or a farmer getting rid of his truck as part of his business and getting a good, used car? If you had been following you could see the differences pile up over time. If it was coming to kill you, now, and you didn't know it was coming for you, you would be dead.

Of all the war machines he had experienced from King Tiger tanks to meat tin grenade booby-traps, from the Ma Deuce to the Wirblewind, this was the worst. It looked human, could act human and you couldn't detect it unless you had the right equipment to find it. Or a good dog, as Kyle pointed out. The few dogs seen did react to it instinctively.

The rain had picked up with the wind, and was spattering the car with heavy drops.

In the slowly darkening night, Sgt. Rock used his LI goggles, which weren't great in rainstorms, but had more definition than IR did.

"That's it," he said.

Vivian slipped the car into gear and the car accelerated down the short strip of road and on to the on-ramp. She pulled in a mile or so behind it.

"I wonder what the hell it was doing?" she asked.

He looked at her after taking off the goggles.

"Yeah, I know, we won't like it when we find out. Stupid question. Still there was no line for gas... it must have been doing something..."

Frank Rock nodded as he slid the goggles into their carrying box, and took up his cup of coffee from a cup holder.

"No idea, Vivian. But it must have been important to its mission," he had picked up the phone but realized they were out of calling distance to a station. Still their last report just south of Pittsburgh... he did miss The Pit... had given him just a chance to feel near his old home and keep everyone updated. Push arrival time slightly back. But make no mistake about it, the Terminator would be in-town tomorrow morning. Early.

* * *

Bruce Wayne had walked into the general training area reserved for armed run-throughs with non-firearms. It could be used for the latter, but needed backstops and other equipment to be dragged into place. What it did have was basic scenery like you would see on a stage: cardboard walls and windows, doors in frames that could be opened set into walls, and even a modicum of lightweight, roll-around furniture and small tables and chairs. It was dark with just the exit lights on and a small light in one area that would allow for some interior illumination to come through windows. Martin, Kyle, Sarah and Loren were in there, obviously just completing a run through in which Martin was just inside the window of on a wall and Sarah had a red pistol out, while Martin had a blue one. Kyle had just gotten to the outside door to the bedroom.

"Your first shot was wild, Sarah, you're dead," Martin said.

"I didn't expect it that fast," Sarah said, "there is no fire escape there, how would it get in that fast?"

Loren turned a light on in an area that looked like the living room, and there was furniture there that looked to have been shoved and some small tables and lamps pushed over behind Kyle.

"Kyle, you didn't do any better, even with LI goggles on. The idea is to go around everything, quickly, so that you can get some surprise and not arrive noticed, off-balance and bruised," Loren said.

Kyle had light padding on his elbows and knees, just enough to keep the worst of bruising down, but he would feel every jolt as he tripped over furniture.

"I'm just not used to that, Loren. Normally I just fire through walls..." he was carrying a two-handed red weapon of some sort, "... but this won't allow for accuracy to do that, so I can't get a clear shot. And just how did Martin get in like that?"

Bruce Wayne turned on the lights and pointed up to the ceiling.

"Overhead rope," and there was a rope hanging from the ceiling twenty feet up.

"That's right, Mr. Wayne," said Martin Carstairs, "I simulated it jumping from the roof of the Chandler Building. I estimated it using the basement exit on the east side of the Lyon Building and then walking over to the Chandler once it figured out the room numbering sequence. It crashes in firing, you are out of position and dead. It can then jump out, head out down the alley and disappear into the night. That would avoid all our observing apparatus, give it surprise and wind up with Sarah a corpse."

"But no one can do that..." Sarah said.

"A Terminator could, Sarah," said Kyle.

"The Batman could, also," Loren said, "how the hell did he get to a crane hook forty feet up with no one hearing him and no nearby rigging of any sort there? And people within earshot below? That limo got hauled up and he had complete surprise. Absolute and utter surprise. Took down six men, four of them armed, hauled a limo forty feet into the air, destroyed a tug boat, and the evidence of the drug transaction was on the scene and available, to boot. They are all going up the river for a long, long time on the conspiracy charges, alone. If the Batman could do it, so could a Terminator. Although I suspect the hoods would just be dead..."

She walked towards Mr. Wayne.

"What brings you down to the Vault, Mr. Wayne?" she asked.

"Dinner, actually. Chef Gerard has a good one standing by in the Executive dining area, and I'm starting with those down here so you can get a shower in. I'll go to the Range, next, and tell them its dinner time... well, a bit past for most, I would guess..." he said checking his watch.

Martin Carstairs looked up at the clock on the wall.

"I had lost track of the time somewhere around four! I need to phone the wife... she knows its a long night, again, but I do have to check in. Thanks, Mr. Wayne, be up in a half-hour."

Kyle nodded, "Same here, I'm sore and need a shower to relax. I've never had to fight in close-quarters like this... normally you don't care when its just tunnels or deserted rubble or collapsed housing. This is different and difficult."

"And I'm mostly dead," Sarah said, "but getting better! A shoot-out in the living room is very hard. The kitchen and hallways easier, some. The bedroom I thought would be the easiest until Martin pulled that latest... I haven't been dead for at least four run throughs before that... but I am tired."

Bruce Wayne smiled.

"Good! I'm just not cut out for such things, and would have a hard time defending myself in a similar situation, Sarah," he lied sweetly, "and I'm really looking forward to hearing about this over dinner. I'll go to the Range, next, and give them all the dinner call, and we have Fr. Casull here to report on things going on at the Mission with Fr. Jordan doing his work at the Mission and then a nightly prayer service. See you all in a half-hour, then," and with that Bruce Wayne smiled and walked out of the gym/training area.

"Say," asked Sarah after he had left, "just how did he know that there are ropes down here suspended from the ceiling?"

Martin looked at her.

"He owns the place, Sarah, although I never have seen him down here to work out. Has his own private work-out area in the Penthouse, I think."

Loren looked back from the door and to her friends.

"Just once. He and Lucius and a technician from the Defense group was showing off some new armor, I think. That was a few years ago."

"Whatever," said Kyle, "I'm hitting the showers. I'm starved."

They all nodded in agreement and Martin went to a phone, first, to call his wife.

Time out of Place - Chapter 12

2011-09-05T08:12:00.000-04:00

Chapter 12

"Father Jordan! It's good to see you again. And may I introduce an old friend of Alfred's who is helping on spotting and tracking the Terminator? He is Peter Smith," Father Casull said in the study at the back of the Mission Father Jordan ran.

"It's good to meet you, Father Jordan," said Mr. Smith extending his hand.

The older Priest had stood up when they entered and shook his hand.

"Any friend of Alfred's is welcome here, Peter. And Father Casull it is good to see you," the two men exchanged handshakes and single handed hugs. Father Casull took out the manila envelope for Father Jordan, and his own.

"That is the updated data as of an hour ago, Father Jordan. We heard that more was coming in, but decided not to wait. I am more than willing to act as courier today," Father Casull said smiling, "plus I believe that Mr. Smith has some valuable contacts to help us in case we are needed as a final, desperate measure."

They had all seated themselves in chairs in the main part of the study.

Father Jordan looked at Peter Smith.

"Yes, you do have that look about you. Even on the UK side there is just something about people in certain lines of business that just always show up, although differently."

"Well, I did retire a few years ago from that line of work, Father Jordan," Mr. Smith started, "but, I believe I have a few contacts who would believe me in certain quarters on something like this. I'm not given to fantastical claims or outlandish fantasies."

"No doubt, Mr. Smith. So what do you need, here?"

Peter Smith sat back and put his arms on the arms of the chair and bridged his fingers together in front of his face.

"Well, I will probably do a walking early examination of the area here this morning. Father Jordan, I could use some help in knowing the rough outlines of bad spots, gangs and whatever else goes with them. Some basic map with notes should do. I will pick up some local clothes before I come back, change, put a small kit together and then seek to blend in and disappear into the woodwork. Then I will find a good, central location to situate myself, and wait for a call for the basic area this Terminator will be in. I think, by size, that will be on the south island, but I could be wrong, so will have to do a walk around the north, too."

"Not by car?" asked Father Casull.

Mr. Smith smiled, "We just came from about a mile away at the Wayne Tower, and you saw the way the streets and traffic are here, Father Casull. No, if the Terminator drives into the area, once it stops, it will be all on foot from there. And as Gotham is just a bit too small for bicycles to be of use, that would only attract attention. I saw how many people were walking from all classes, and that indicates that cars and bicycles are neither a good choice for the city. If you need to go from the Sound side to the Land side across either island, you either catch a cab or walk."

"I had never thought of it like that," said Father Jordan, "but its true. There are a couple of bicycle courier services, but there is so little in-town cross-town need that they fight over accounts. The alley ways are too littered to be safe by bikes, and that litter prevents car traffic, too. Its been that way for years... at least since the mid-1950's," said Father Jordan.

"This is so different from Los Angeles! Very crowded if you are driving and yet it seems more open when walking. And the alleys, while dark, do offer the light of the next block... I can see why crime is such a problem here," Father Casull said, "the biker gangs would be eaten alive in this environment. Too conspicuous by day, and one bad alley at night..."

Father Jordan nodded.

"One tried to set up in the late 60's, but most of their members were found dead in alleys and their motorcycles disappeared into the chop shops. I forget which gang, but it swore off of Gotham City."

Mr. Smith nodded.

"Just so. I will be carrying minimal supplies with me, but will have the cell phone, although I did put it in that non-ringing mode. I have the rest of my street essentials with me and travel light. I may need a place to bed down for the night, Father Jordan, in case its arrival is delayed, and I think a cot or mat with wool blanket in the Mission should be satisfactory, along with the other indigents. I left my paper work with Alfred and suggest that one of the sets here is locked up and the other kept as a working file in a locked drawer. Beyond that I have a tourist map and should be able to do the morning on my own. Any major cautions for Gotham City?"

Father Jordan chuckled.

"Stay out? But really, stay out of the Warrens and Shambles area by the Interstates. Those neighborhoods were partially bulldozered and then bridged over, and the older street arrangement is gone there. The city hasn't gotten around to fixing those up, and they are not safe places at all, even for the gang members. The north side, or Land side, first block or two are pretty rough and havens for the rougher criminal elements. The south side, or Sound side, docks and wharfs are in a pretty bad state, but only see criminal activity when there is incoming goods, though some of that is by motorboat across the Sound and not major shipping. Corporate docks are well lit and maintained, and are a general no-go for criminals, but no safe house for the general population. Beyond that, most of the street thugs don't bother with the really down and out as there is no profit in it, and the youth gangs have been terrorized the last few years by the Batman."

"Ah, the urban legend?" asked Peter Smith.

"Oh, heavens, if an urban legend can lift a limousine forty feet up to a non-working crane and take down nearly a hundred hoodlums and Mafia operators in a single night, then we really do need more of those," said Father Casull.

Peter Smith frowned and blinked.

"Come again?" he asked.

Father Jordan reached back and handed Mr. Smith a copy of the Gotham Enquirer.

The headline was 'Mafia Boss Round-Up by Batman' with a sub-headline, 'Don Amelio Prays for Sanctuary of Jail'.

Mr. Smith scanned the stories, started smiling, chuckling and shook his head from side to side.

"I stand corrected, and appears I really should be in the Confessional. Perhaps when I get back I can get some sufficient time to tire one of you out for an hour or so. I did not expect a Being of the Night to be present here."

Father Jordan sat back on the pillow.

"If you get stuck facing down the Terminator, you will need it," he said.

A sour look went over Mr. Smith's face as he folded the paper.

"My thoughts exactly. I have put that off for far too long..."

* * *

Loren walked into the secure area conference room, seeing Alfred, Ken, Martin, Sarah, Anne and Lucius there.

"OK, who doesn't have something to do?" she asked.

They had been discussing the equipment needed for Sarah's apartment, when she had walked in.

"Kyle, Don and Richard are each maximally busy and the throughput is lousy. I still haven't even gotten the first batch of test rounds done yet. I need someone for placing, packing and running the loader, so that is at least two more someones. I would like to know, before noon, if this stuff actually works and if it does we will then have about four hours of very busy time going on, possibly more. Plus I have the prototype rounds from WDS, so Sarah needs range time on that mule-kicker she tried out yesterday as its the only thing that is more or less a handgun that cycles 50 BMG."

The others were looking between them.

"I will be tending to Mr. Wayne when he gets up, in an hour or two. I'm not one for the long range work jobs, although I can be here until he calls for me and direct calls around," Alfred said.

"I will be going to supervise the set up equipment at Sarah's apartment. Mostly unobtrusive audio and video feeds," said Lucius, "and I will need to get a technician or two to help from WT. Martin has given me the basics of what is needed already."

Loren looked at Ken, Martin, Anne and Sarah.

"Good! And anyone going for that trap will need to familiarize themselves with weapons, equipment and getting some basic coordination done between them. Kyle can help on that once we get the loads tried-out, and in production. Once we get a reliable load, then its going to be everyone in the pressing, fitting and placing loaded rounds into magazines or boxes. After that I'm sure Kyle can get some basic coordination between team members in firefights set up, and we will have a lovely late afternoon of simulating Sarah's apartment."

Those at the table all looked at each other, quizzically.

"If you want to stay alive, this needs to be done now. Since I'm the one who has to get the basics done, I need your warm bodies, able hands, and soon your nimble bodies and occupied hands so we can all get through this. I hope, to hell, we get more time. But if we don't then we get a real, nasty surprise when everyone is here talking when they should be loading."

"She does have a point," Martin said getting up, "and I can help Kyle once we get a set load and things running on the small batch system."

Sarah stood up and started walking to Loren.

"You really have something that can hurt it?" she asked.

"I think so. I trust Tony and Charlie on this. Lucius, we need a waiver for an M1A1 from WDS. I have a semi-auto version, but want the full auto for cycling try-outs."

Anne and Ken got up from their chairs, as it was coming home to them that the lives on the line went beyond that of Sarah Connor. Straight to them and everyone they cared about.

"Keep us updated down there, would ya, Alfred? I'll send up someone when you leave, so we have the phone and recording part covered. I figure people will be coming up here for any major updates, but our next meeting will be for deployment, probably around 5-ish this afternoon."

"That sounds about right, Loren. Thanks for doing this as I was too busy with the details to think it through," said Lucius.

"Figured as much. I need good test loads and the guys are fumblefingers with foam and DU needles. Now, its time for the dull work..." she said walking out of the conference room.

"Just were did we pick her up?" asked Lucius.

"I think Mr. Wayne found her on an island in the Pacific going after the last Japanese still fighting World War II. Either there or Lexington, Kentucky."

* * *

Loren walked in, saying, "Help has arrived!"

Richard, Don and Kyle turned to look, Kyle by the sink and measurement arrangement, Richard at the seat at the large table, Don at a seat by a side table and they all smiled.

"Welcome to Purgatory," said Richard.

"That it is," said Loren, "dullest place in the after-life." She turned to look at the four that followed her.

"What we have is a work slowdown due to too much to do and too few hands. Now we will fix that. Anne, you look good with relatively fine work, and so do you, Ken. I want the two of you to help Richard in the fitting area. Its pretty simple, but exacting. All that needs to be done is a DU needle placed in four pieces of foam, a temporary band put around it, that then gets encased in a thin piece of light weight construction paper, the band then taken off and put on over that and the final piece fitted into the plastic cup and put in a tray. Since we don't have paper cut to fit, that is why we have the paper cutter. The dimensions are listed, they just need to be marked and followed. The three of you should be able to sort that out," she nodded over to Richard who was smiling, but already looked exhausted.

"Martin, that leaves you to help Kyle and Don with the inner and outer measurements of the casings, thorough cleaning and drying and final measurements. We have some new, heavier casings coming in, but we can get at least twenty to twenty five percent of the current ones within those tolerances. Normally this is a spare time hobby for all the cartridge types we have here, and we buy spent casings by the bulk lot. Martin I'll trust you to get the final washed pieces up to spec."

Martin nodded, "Purgatory it is. Using desiccated air for the clean out?"

"Yes, we have a little nozzle there attached to a tank of the stuff. Nice and dry for final fit check. The three bins are those that are within what we want, those that are normal and those below normal spec. Keith's spare time project is light target loads, and those will do for that. Any defects go in the waste brass bin."

There was a rack with a growing number of casings on it that Don took for final checking and sorting. The three bins for 'keepers' only had a few casings in each, and barely five in the target bin for the project.

Loren turned to Sarah.

"Now you have that mule kicker to get used too. I'm going to get you gloves and have gel packs ready in case of bruises and strain. Since you are firing rifle ammo out of a short barrel, you will get powder igniting outside of the barrel, which you have experienced on the six round test with that yesterday. I want you to put about fifty rounds of standard ball ammo through before we try the armor piercing. I do have a few bolt action fifties, basically sniper rifles or anti-material rifles, and I will be cracking those open for myself, Martin."

Loren stopped for a moment.

"Say, Kyle, you any good with with a fifty?"

Kyle turned to look at her.

"For field work, yes, but not for sniping. We didn't have many of those around, really, though the few left were very, very good."

"How about a full auto forty-five? I figure we can let you have the one from WDS, good for close-in and precision work."

"Yeah, that's a better fit, I think."

"Right. So, Sarah, while you are putting rounds down range, I'll be hauling out the rifles. I'll get some rounds down range, then close the lanes to set up some armor plate we have sitting around as an, ahhh... 'aggression management system'. Just quarter inch, but we have a lot of that, and I'll make some with sheet styrofoam between to see how what happens on the other side. By then there should be enough for a custom fill of ten rounds so I can try low-side of six and then high side of it. I'll just use a standard Colt for those. Hopefully, around one or two we will have the M1A1 and I'll do some tests with that and finally settle on something for both that and standard forty-fives. I expect you'll be pretty tired after the first few rounds, Sarah. Rest and get used to it, as that will be your protector: big, noisy, flashy, and you will probably want long sleeves with it so your skin isn't burned by powder. You can always come back and wash, cut, fit, measure..."

Everyone was finding chairs, learning in low tones about the work, and sorting out who would start where and do what. Loren took Sarah down to the storage area and outfitted her with hearing protection, and eye protection.

"You'll need inserts, not ear muffs, so better get used to it," she said handing over a handful of boxes, "some people use tape, others just really crush them in. We will probably have a nice, electronic rig for you for communicating at the apartment, that will fit the protection in and around the ear piece. I have a few of those here, but for now standard protection will do."

They had gotten to the storage locker, and Loren saw that Keith had cleaned the gun, and she took it out, and fished out the three magazines for it. Most racks usually had more pistols or revolvers behind the first, but solo ones had their equipment on hangers. The gun and magazines went into a small pack that was at the back of the hanging rod. Then it was to the rear and red lockers where Loren re-opened one of them and took out an ammo can marked '50 BMG'.

"There you go! Knock out some paper for awhile, then we will switch to armor and the armor piercing."

Sarah was looking a bit dazed.

"It really is coming, isn't it?" she said softly.

Loren smiled and talked very softly.

"Yes, it is, Sarah. You won't be alone, but you do have to do your part."

Sarah breathed in heavily.

"I will. How could I let all of you down after what you have done for me?"

* * *

Bruce Wayne had, actually, gotten up before noon, and ensured that his chef had contacted the people on the project for a custom meal to be sent to them, wherever they may be. Chef Gerard had been more than happy to have Mr. Wayne use his services and to provide necessary meals to others that needed them. Those could, often, be a challenge, but that was what being the Chef for Bruce Wayne and the Executive Chef for the Wayne Corporation restaurants and cafeterias was all about. From simple deli set-ups to parties for 10,000, be it a daily need or one-time event, Chef Gerard had applied for the job for the diversity of talent and requirements that would be needed for those things handed to him. Doing that well, keeping within budget and having happy diners was what the job was all about.

Bruce Wayne had a protein rich breakfast, necessary after his nightly exertions and even he was a bit shocked and amused by the way the stories were being told. More than one reporter was putting on a tone of the supernatural about the exploits and one historian was interviewed about some monster from the depths that could have put a bite down in the parking lot of the KK establishment. The secondary raids sparked off by those of last night had been ongoing throughout the morning and looked to be continuing into the afternoon. By having so many members of the Families and other Organizations that were so high up implicated in everything from simple narcotics smuggling to conspiracy to commit fraud, extortion, and a host of other crimes, the work put before the police, DA and, he was sure, Federal officials, would be immense.

Lucius arrived just as he was finishing breakfast to go over the reports from other police departments on the Terminator, and from Sgt. Rock and Vivian. Scanning over the reports he read the parts from Terra Haute and Indianapolis with interest. He looked across the table at Lucius and Alfred arrived via the kitchen door after consulting with the Chef.

"Chef Gerard will be busy for the next hour or so, I would imagine," said Alfred.

"Good, these people will be busy and I don't want them to forget lunch. Alfred, Lucius, these reports from Indiana are recent. Have you had a chance to read them, yet?"

The two men looked at Bruce.

"Yes I have, Master Bruce," said Alfred.

"So have I," said Lucius, "and something isn't making sense with them."

Bruce nodded.

"We will have to ask Kyle, but this activity does not appear to be something I would expect from a purpose driven machine. It went from LA all the way to Indiana before doing this. Why now? What use does it have for a newspaper and tourist brochures? And why a tape recorder? Or the visit to the library? Is that just information gathering? And quickly targeting Wayne Corporation... that I can understand... but the Guide to Science? The new vehicle I can see, given Vivian's addition to the report, but... there is just too much that doesn't fit together."

Lucius leaned forward.

"Bruce," said Lucius, "I think that you may be reading too much into its activities. It is finding inconsistencies with its mission and the set-up around it and is trying to figure it out. While it doesn't have a number of professional people to consult, it does have good sources that are freely available at any library. For it, the understanding is simple and straightforward, I should think, but the meaning behind that understanding very complex. We are used to the complexity, but how simple it can be often escapes us."

"Lucius is, by and large, right on that, Master Bruce. But I do have some feeling that it is grasping the complexities, also."

"How do you mean?" asked Bruce.

"As it goes across country it has changed its outlook more than once, for all that most of its time is on the Interstate. First it changes from a direct killing machine, seen in Los Angeles all the way to Las Vegas, and into its infiltration mode. That it had done at Grand Junction, CO, and if it had not left the car where it could be identified easily, we still would not have a good idea where it is. Now, in Indianapolis, it gains fresh information and changes its infiltration mode in a way where the vehicle it is leaving behind will not be readily traced. An old truck in a scrap yard is not something that will, most likely, become an easy re-sale vehicle, and even if it does, that is days or longer away. Any conventional police force, already two steps behind it, will now have been permanently misled until it acts in an obvious fashion. As we have seen from the FBI reports, there are many trucks on the road that fit the description given, especially at night, and the one they want hasn't been found. Unless the FBI makes a connection between the last LA killing and the direction of the Terminator, there will be no way they can stop it. And even with FBI protection for Sarah, the Terminator would just step into the line of fire to kill her as nothing the FBI would use could stop it."

Lucius nodded.

"The FBI still hasn't made that connection," Lucius started, "They are under the assumption that this is someone using normal human oriented escape ideas to keep out of their grasp. No one there really believes it will drive across country to get at the Sarah Connor at the last address it hit in LA. Most killers with psychological disturbances aren't that good at hiding while on the run, preferring a set methodology to stay out of view. The Terminator has killed directly, openly, twice, three times at night, and only starts with two Sarah Connors. Next a Matt and Ginger, then a Mike and a Lowell. That isn't a pattern one can easily grasp and even very mentally disturbed people will not just kill their way to things as there is too high a chance of getting caught or confronted. It killed six times in two days in a non-pattern killing. The FBI analysts must be going nuts on this, and the changes of vehicles especially to one so innocuous that they can't find it has got to be frustrating to their analysts."

Sitting back, Bruce Wayne considered that for a moment.

"And we wouldn't have picked it up if it weren't for our knowledge and a mountain lion attack. Vivian did help narrow things down, and we might have picked it up... possibly... but checking every vehicle that passes would have been difficult, even at night with low amounts of traffic. If it had delayed so much as two hours for any reason, that chance would be near zero. Alfred, Lucius, I am coming to see how you are thinking on this. I hadn't thought it would be adaptable on that sort of basis."

"It clearly is, Master Bruce, and has demonstrated that once you think about it."

"Do either of you think it knows Sarah works here, directly? That it may by-pass her apartment and come directly here?"

"It is likely that it does know from information gathered at Ginger's. I would think that coming here is a bit too public, Bruce," said Lucius, "having too much chance of actually being observed and reacted to. Stopped is another question, of course, but if its job is to kill Sarah Connor, then a building this size has too many escape routes. We do the emergency drills twice a year and security would attempt to contain it and allow people from the upper floors to escape. In that sort of chaos, it couldn't be assured of doing its job."

"It is an infiltration unit," Alfred said, "it wouldn't choose here and, instead, choose the best place to do the job, just as it did in Los Angeles, and by going to her living quarters where people do tend to feel safe. Attack then, and the mission has a near certainty of success."

Bruce came to a decision.

"Lucius, I know you will be going to oversee installation of the audio and video equipment in Sarah's apartment. I'll want a bit more than that in the way of armor or other materials to absorb weapons damage, because that will be the one place we can nearly be certain it will go. I'm coming along to see what that area looks like, not just her apartment but the surrounding environment. I don't think I've done much work in the mid-south central."

Lucius nodded.

"It is mostly apartment and office space. She lives at the Lyon Apartment building, 12th street between Crown and Back Avenues. Mostly a working man's district, with some lower middle-class families which makes it hard for youth gang penetration. Mostly loan sharking, some numbers running and gambling are the main forms of crime there. The Families and Organizations know that its good for low-level but steady income and send their own enforcers to break up gangs when they pop up."

"That used to be how much of Gotham was, back in the 1920's and '30's," Alfred said, "and it was only the liquor that got organized crime a deep foothold in Gotham City. Your father would talk about that and what his father experienced here. The rise of organized crime on a large scale changed Gotham from a rough but livable city to one that was violent and marginal at best."

"It did at that," Bruce said, "Alfred I want you on coordinating duty, and make sure the people at the Range get a real meal this afternoon. Also ask Kyle about the updates... everyone, really... I will be out with Lucius and have someone get me floor plans of the apartment as its laid out... not designed. I take it that Mr. Smith is on the job?"

"That he is, Master Bruce. That he is."

* * *

Peter Smith was sitting on a bench on the wharf drying off. It had been a good morning, and that now was turning into afternoon, although the cloud cover starting to roll in pointed to it not being a warm nor sunny mid-day or evening. Not that it mattered, much, save for discomfort. His training, now nearly two decades in the past (and what a wonder that was!) and his career had led him to many places, to meet many people and to see what could be done about situations. That life had become dissatisfying for many reasons, the prime being that the two 'sides' slowly morphed into strange mirrors of each other, until telling left from right was nearly a pointless exercise, and so he had resigned. He had been waylaid on his journey from undercover to underemployed, and a year or so finally did convince the community that this was not yet another 'cover mission': he had left that life behind.

Now his life in the Caribbean centered on what dock he would pull into, if Her Majesty's Exchequer had gotten his monthly payment right, and if there were any of the normal sort of jobs to do to augment that. Gone was the place in London, the lovely car he had built and all the intrigue and questionable romance of the life of covert agent. Almost all of the missions were not so much 'covert' as 'get in there and do something and survive', thus the need for deep language skills wasn't as high as it would have been on the more and deeper covert side of things. Rarely did he ply the old trade, but when a friend needed a spot of help, well, that is what friends are for, isn't it?

The reminder of the Saigon mission by Martin Carstairs was a bit of a shock, but it was one of those 'retrieve the defector, watch red-on-red-on-red confrontation, put defector on one flight with another agent and divert attention by going on a different flight'. That was his second mission to the area, the first involving some diamond smuggling ring, a local warlord and the latter being insane and not caring about the former. He had met Alfred Pennyworth on that trip as he was looking into problems with Wayne Industries, at that time, trying to get other materials out of the area and the local warlord interfering. While no professional, Alfred had stayed alive and even saved him, so he chalked it up to beginner's luck and formed a friendship that would last long via notes and messages, and another go-around of a confluence of events in Africa a year after the Saigon mission.

Getting called in for something like Alfred had called him about was unusual as he had never needed Peter's professional skills, beyond those on the job, that is. But a stipend from Bruce Wayne would put him in a much easier stance on boat repairs and even cause a bit less grubbing around for work, although that was a pleasure on its own. After the meetings, and those were a staple no matter what the mission, he found the good luck of being centrally situated in Gotham at Father Jordan's mission. He had far worse placements by professional staff in Her Majesty's Service, and the couple of hours he had to first just walk around and procure some clothing, and then get a nice map of the major areas where Mafia and other Organizations of the criminal sort operated had been all to the good. Upon leaving he went to the one place that would establish his disguise, as such.

Most people didn't need face paint, make-up, latex or any of the other things often seen in theatrical and television productions to go unnoticed. Really, just don't stick out and you get that immediately. Of course it helps if you change into local costume, which in this case was older clothing that had seen better days purchased from a Salvation Army store or other local concern, which was old boots, ancient socks, woolen trousers that were some shade of brown and made before the second world war if not the first, an old turtleneck sweater of some dark color, and one of those large Army surplus jackets that became the coat of choice for the down-and-out. Put on an old, black knit cap, and you had the perfect disguise. But it needed to be worn in, so a trip to the local gym that had boxing featured, and an hour of hard workout sparring with the local champ had done him a world of good with light bruises, tousled hair and a feeling of having had a good workout. He put the gym trunks in the pocket of the jacket, disdained the showers and dressed himself taking the padlock off of the locker with him.

Yes, the aroma of sweaty individual was hard to miss, but trying to disappear required more than just that. So he found himself at the wharf, finding a nice low dock, taking off his boots and socks, leaving various other necessities in his boots also and took a quick dunk. In no time at all he had the aroma of an 'old salt' who had decided to jump ship in Gotham some time ago. He looked like one and, more importantly, he smelled like one. Now, with his clothes nearly just damp, was a good time to wander more around Gotham, starting at the Lyon Apartment building where Sarah Connor had an apartment and then working out routes that a robot on the run would use to get to it. He would, probably, get them wrong, but if he had the general idea right, then he would have an idea of where low class, no questions asked boarding could be had for an overnight as he considered that a viable alternative for a bleeding individual wanting to be out of sight.

He wandered inbound from Front Street and ducked under the overpass on-ramp, and through a warehouse that had been partially demolished and left that way, through to Broadway. That he followed down a number of short blocks to 15th Street and took that past Sweyn Avenue and then to Grant Avenue. Here he had to backtrack to pick up 12th Street and took that to the triple intersection of Arsenal and Russell. A block down Arsenal to Crown Avenue and he found the Lyon Apartment building mid-block before 12th Street hit Back Avenue. Walking on the westerly side of 12th he noticed a number of workmen and a Wayne Security van parked in front of the building. Going across from the alley which was accorded the name of Byng Way, he leaned against a light post and observed workmen on the fire escape. Looking up he saw that across the alley, on the Chandler Building roof, were a few figures that he saw were Lucius Fox, an older gentleman, most likely from the Chandler Building, a Wayne Security technician setting up some equipment and none other than Bruce Wayne, himself, looking quite at ease in his suit.

Bruce was looking around while Lucius and the other man talked and the technician set up equipment. Mr. Smith saw him lean over to look up and down the alley way, then two floors up to the roof of the Lyon Building, and then further around staring much farther up to the north. Looking off into the distance, Mr. Smith could barely make out the form of a what looked to be a water tower atop one of the larger buildings in that direction. Mr. Wayne turned to the west and Mr. Smith took out a cigarette and started tamping it down on the pack it came from. Satisfied he took out a pack of matches and lit up the cigarette and ensured that he was seen puffing on it as he flicked the spent match onto the curb. He shook his head and slowly walked further north and started to imagine what it was like at night.

Letting his skills and instincts work, Mr. Smith slowly perambulated around and did his job.

That job was to think like someone trying to get to Sarah Connor's apartment to kill her... or escape from being killed. Man or machine, the layout of the streets and buildings would limit choices... and that would help Mr. Smith immensely once he finally knew what section of town it was going to come from. There are limited choices of direction on an island, particularly if it is the main island of Gotham City. He was sure that the Terminator would surprise him on route and direction. Just so long as it didn't find him...

As he walked for an hour or so, slowly heading back to the Lyon Building he realized that something had been troubling him. A Terminator, looking like a human, could infiltrate easily by these approaches. But, how would one damaged, perhaps no longer looking so human, how would it escape? Stopping across from the Lyon Building once again, with the Wayne Security vehicle still out front and now saw men putting up scaffolding across from the Lyon Building in the alley and moving what appeared to be large plates of metal into the building. Obviously there were some changes in plan as this was more than just surveillance equipment going in. Mr. Smith walked into the Byng Way alley and thought about that a moment and then back to the question of how a machine would escape the area if damaged.

A mere three blocks was a relatively long walk, even using the alley ways. Even at night, with so few lamp posts, there would be more than a slight chance of being observed.

How would a machine do it?

He looked left, right, up and then, down. Spotting a piece of urban landscape, he walked over to it.

"Ah, yes, well this is a surprise, but not an unexpected one. Apparently I get to add a bit more to my disguise..."

He knelt down and inserted a pocket tool which was actually a wine bottle opener with swivel handle, into a hole and heard the handle click into place. Grasping the guard over the opener he lifted the manhole cover out of its seating and retrieved his wine bottle opener. His hand slid into one of the copious pockets of his jacket and he had a small flashlight (that really should be called a 'torch' but the Yanks had their own way of naming things) and gazed down into the darkness.

"I so had hoped to avoid this part of my disguise. But it is a recognizable part of the Gotham costume I've chosen..."

Quickly he stepped down to the rungs of the inset ladder and pulled the cover back and over the opening, hearing it 'clunk' into place.

Getting down into the storm sewers of Gotham City...

"Ah, no. By that smell they are a bit more than storm sewers."

Carefully stepping onto the ancient concrete main drains that were the newest part of the tunnel, the rest being hand fitted bricks in a arch pattern, Mr. Smith soon came to realize that this mission had other unpleasant aspects to it. Yet the job must be done.

Luckily his boots were well suited to this environment.

* * *

Everyone was glad for the break at one o'clock at the conference room. Loren had good rounds, the new shell casings had arrived to be cleaned and the number of needles loaded to their holders was growing. Already a number had been tested for cycling, armor piercing and then for the more bulky full automatic weapon that Tony Grimes had brought down. Soon she could start small batching the rounds as she had gotten a good weight of powder, primer and cycling for shell casings.

While the 50 BMG rounds did go through armor plating in a very satisfactory way, they also tended to go through the catch set of armor behind it and the styrofoam in-between. These were intended as anti-material and light vehicle armor piercing rounds and they did that very suitably.

Kyle had pointed out a problem, however.

"You have to get something critical with a shot, say its power unit or mid-vertebra to take out power and comms internally. Still it should mess up the larger skeleton of a Terminator pretty well. Probably go right through it if its a single member and possibly through more than one. If you hit something vital, you take it out, if you miss, you just do structural damage."

He examined the neat edges of that round compared to the spalled and bent plate from standard rounds. Both would go through, but the effects on the lead of the normal round meant that it didn't get a good secondary penetration while the specialized round did. The entire team hauled up examples of those to go over at lunch as well as the new target damage of the DU rounds that Loren had just fired before leaving.

The effect was far different for those rounds.

When Loren fired she was sure that she had missed the target, so she checked her gun, a simple Colt 1911, and knew that round had cycled through, but checked to make sure. The barrel was clean and the bits of fluffy foam that were on the ground pointed to that, also. She put on a protective mask and put the blowers on full for the Range, just in case. When she got to the armor she looked and saw one neat, tiny hole with just a bit of surface cavity formed. It had not gone through the second plate, behind the first and the styrofoam. There was a smell, however, that indicated something else had happened. When she took the first plate and removed it, she saw that the styrofoam had been melted, burned and otherwise damaged in an area about an inch in diameter, with some indications of erosion of it beyond that.

She took that up for group examination.

Kyle examined the damage.

"Molten and high intensity heat vapor damage, possibly even to plasma. You can see where there has been some metal that has adhered to the surface of the rear plate and some scoring.

Martin Carstairs had gotten the first set of 50 BMG AP plates, and looked at them.

"We could have used this against the NVA, you know? Light armored vehicles, cars, stuff like that. Even light turret armor probably wouldn't stop this and would bang around inside the tank, too. Against electronics, though? Yeah, Kyle's right, you need a shot at something critical."

He passed those on to Sarah who was still pretty amazed at the damage.

"Well, if its coming for me, what should I do?"

Loren spoke up as she had her sandwich and soup that she had picked up from a side table. Each of them had a tray neatly labeled with what they had asked for, and it was appreciated, along with the variety of refills on liquids.

"You get rounds on target, as even damage to its structure will hamper it moving around, is my guess. Plus it's not expecting to take damage like that. Chest and upper torso, nothing fancy. You won't be alone, but as long as it is standing get rounds on it. If it goes down march rounds up its spine to its head. You will have extra magazines for that if everyone else is taken out."

Kyle nodded, "Loren is right, Sarah. Don't try to kill it on one shot, that will probably get you killed. Terminators do take some time to re-adjust to circumstances. We just have to overwhelm it with changes until it is dead."

Don Carstairs was leafing through the updates.

"Say, its changed cars and started information gathering. Plus picked up a tape recorder... I wonder why it would do that?"

Ken was reading the reports, too.

"Data storage? You know we have modulators/de-modulators for equipment to use sound to send digital data over the phone lines. It might be doing that... though I would have no idea why it would do that. Isn't a Terminator supposed to have large amounts of data storage capacity?" Don asked.

Kyle nodded.

"They do. At least the full combat coordinator ones do. Most of the infiltration units are limited as to capability by Skynet, so they don't go beyond mission parameters. If this one has thought of a way to store information it can retrieve outside of itself, then it is adapting to the limits placed by Skynet."

Anne Dickerson looked at him.

"It can do that?" she asked.

He nodded.

"If it can link the need up to the mission, it can do that. The internal data blocking programs couldn't stop that, and even the mission directive programs and oversight programs put in by Skynet couldn't stop that, so long as the Terminator came to that conclusion via internal needs processing."

Sarah had picked up the second plate set after Martin had looked at it.

"Say, that re-deposited material looks to have caused the foam to adhere to the back plate," she bent down looking at the foam more closely, "And there are lots of little fractures going through the foam, too, and it even looks like some small holes with deposits of metal."

Richard Bennington nodded.

"That's the DU vapor plus any molten steel flying away from the impact site. My guess, by looking at the original numbers, is that some of that may have traveled as far as 15mm from the original impact zone, although the DU super-heated vapors took much of that out, so what we have left are those with flat trajectories. You should see some pitting on the back plate, probably under where the foam re-deposited on top of it as carbon."

Sarah took the tip of a plastic fork and gently dislodged a piece of black coating the back plate.

"Yes, its small but there," she said.

"Don, you're probably the closest to a specialist on electronics, what would this do to what we have?" Richard asked.

"Well, if you had coated but unsheathed copper or fiber optic cable, it would remove the coating on the copper and melt the fiber optic cable. Even a slight deformity would ruin the fiber optic cable for transmission, while removing insulation coating on bare copper and depositing conducting metal would cause short circuits. Kyle, are the wires and cables sheathed in thick plastic, or essentially bare in a Terminator?"

Kyle was sipping coffee as he ate the omelet he had asked for, along with toast and juice.

"For the larger H-K aerial units they are sheathed, but for the ground units, only the early models had sheathed cabling. Once it moved into human form, the amount of protective sheath was limiting power transfers, especially to the servo motors. It has a highly distributed and redundant feed system for that along the armored spine which has a positive seal arrangement between vertebrae, so that limits some flexing mobility but increases survivability. The fiber optic is usually sheathed, but even that isn't thick due to the high data loads between different processing areas and collected sensor feedback. Most copper has simple coating on it."

Don nodded.

"There you go. Put some of these rounds into its spine or any other area where it has dense power and data traffic and it will be effective, especially if there is any void space as vapor will travel into it to redeposit. Redundant systems will help it cope with the power problems, but it will have to seek out and test all those internal pathways to do that. Do enough damage and it will, probably, find a way to route power around the shorts, but it might take awhile. Data transfer is another story, especially if it has to shift from fiber optic to use of metal cable. And a few of these into the skull..."

Kyle looked at the plate as it was handed to Ken Chapman.

"Lethal." Kyle said.

"It probably has somewhat better armor protection of those areas, right?"

Kyle nodded.

"The skull is major, but so is the pelvic area, and portions of the spine also have processing units, mostly for sensor interpretation. It also has some battery storage in areas like the major rib connections, some long bones in the extremities and shoulder blades. Those could keep it going for an hour or so at low activity, a few minutes at high activity."

Loren looked at him.

"If you had a choice between a good rifle or something like that handgun for the fifties, or a subgun for the needles, which would you prefer?" she asked him.

"The subgun. Go for head, neck, back, and any place there are structural members with low amounts of covering. You could get very lucky with the fifty and take it out at one shot, but the subgun degrades its full capability to function and with a few shots in the upper spine or neck, or head, its gone. A miss of a shot with a fifty is a load cycling and re-target, while a subgun you just march the fire over it to get something vital. A few missed rounds don't matter, there, while rate of fire does. Leave the sniping for the experts."

"Or damned good sharpshooting," said Martin who looked at Loren.

"Do you think we have time for the Quarry and punching out some 50 cal there? Ten out and back and maybe an hour sighting in?"

Loren thought and nodded.

"I'll call Keith and have him come early to run the loader and explain it to him as a prototype process and not to mess around with it as we need stable rounds. He will probably swipe a few, but that's expected. Just so long as we have a couple of thousand reliables, that is all I care about for now. Pass me a phone, would you, Richard?"

Richard passed the phone over to her and she started punching buttons for an outside line.

Alfred had pushed the door open to the conference room and wheeled in a small cart with what were obviously extras to the meal.

"Excuse me for being absent for so long, but Chef Gerard needed to talk with me and he had been finishing off the last of the ice cream and fruit compote dishes, as well as having some eclairs, napoleons, and the ever present iced and filled donuts for the after part of lunch. He is well aware of how most working lunches go, and thought something to help finish it off would be appreciated."

Anne Dickerson looked at the tray and whispered, "I'm on a diet..."

Martin looked at her.

"After yesterday and the amount of work you have been doing in the press and fit area, I don't think you have much to worry about, Anne."

Alfred lifted up a large container from the bottom of the rolling cart, that looked like a large and ornate urn.

"Turkish coffee with the compliments of Chef Gerard."

"Now that's what I'm talkin about," said Don, reaching over for one of the small cups that went with the tray.

"Master Bruce is with Lucius and they are setting up the equipment in Sarah's apartment and we have gotten leeway to do so with the Chandler Building next door. Master Bruce expects you will want a detailed layout of the apartment, so will have a technician send that along, with all the placement points, plus sketch of the exterior environs. As Martin has put forward using the apartment as an ambush site, Master Bruce has directed the placement of armor plating or catch sheeting so long as it isn't placed in an obvious fashion."

Richard had taken one of the cups of ice cream and then the Turkish coffee.

"I am being spoiled," he said.

"You have worked hard so far to be spoiled, Mr. Bennington, and it is appreciated," said Alfred.

Sarah had taken a mouthful of the ice cream and compote and closed her eyes.

"That's delicious, and not overly sweet."

"Just as nature made it, Miss Connor. Now Mr. Reese, Master Bruce had asked a question on his review of the materials you have, now, which is: would a Terminator be able to adapt so well so as to throw off all police tracking of it in so short a period of time?"

Kyle, who had been eating the compote mixture, along with the coffee, looked up at Alfred.

"Alfred, we don't have much in the way of policing on an organized basis like you have. I don't think I've ever heard of an infiltration unit doing something like this mainly because we don't have anything like it."

"Ah, yes. With your experience, then, would it know to adapt to this as part of its infiltration routine?" Alfred asked.

Kyle sipped coffee and sat back, his tired eyes showing concentration as he thought.

"That is a very sophisticated ability to adapt, Alfred. I don't remember... no... nothing that sophisticated from Terminators that I can recall."

Anne looked at him.

"Could it be that adaptable?" she asked, having given into temptation and knowing she was burning off calories today.

Kyle closed his eyes and thought hard.

"If it weren't a limited one... sat if it was a combat coordinator or echelon commander? They aren't infiltration units, but differ only in mission directives and not having the flesh exterior. But single use Terminators are limited... actually all standard combat ones are... those Terminators are essentially all the same base model, just some are restricted by Skynet and only those needing more mental capacity have that enabled."

Ken arched an eyebrow.

"And using the tape recorder for external storage to get around internal limitations?"

Kyle opened his eyes.

"It is finding a way around its programming! I don't... shit...."

Anne had finished off her ice cream dessert.

"It has found away around its limitations, hasn't it Kyle?" Sarah asked.

"Yes," he said softly, "I didn't think that was possible."

"Could it find a way to circumvent the internal limitations and restore itself to full function?" asked Richard Bennington.

Kyle stared towards Richard but not at him, like he was looking off into the distance.

"I don't know. No other Terminator has ever... not ever... tried to go around Skynet limitations beyond simple adaption and resolving of conflicting imperatives."

The room was quiet save for a slight bubble that went through the coffee urn.

"It would if it got in the way of the mission, wouldn't it?" asked Sarah.

"A fully functional Terminator..." Kyle was shaking, "Yes it would, Sarah. And those are the most capable units Skynet has."

Loren had hung up the phone and caught the last part of the conversation.

"There are some ifs and buts in that," Ken said, "but I think we can safely say that this Terminator has found those limits to be against its mission. It is taking time to do something about them. Now it has changed its activity type to one that is more sophisticated and capable, at least on the infiltration side. The stop and car change demonstrate that."

"Yes," said Alfred, "we had talked about that at Master Bruce's breakfast. Lucius had pointed out that the truck would not be easily found nor traced by authorities at a wrecking yard. I'm afraid this machine is more capable than we thought it would be."

The table was quiet.

"We do have one advantage, Alfred," Loren said.

"What is that, Ms. Seifert?"

"Surprise. We have more capability than normal civilians. Quite a bit more. Still the odds are in its favor as it only has to kill once and it is a machine that doesn't care about itself."

"Then we just have to make sure we do the job right the first time," Don said, "as a second time it will have adapted to us."

Time out of Place - Chapter 11

2011-09-05T08:11:00.000-04:00

Chapter 11

The tenth floor conference room of Wayne Tech was one of the largest that sub-unit had, and could easily seat twenty. In addition to overhead projection systems, butcher paper stands and green chalk boards, it had an expansive table for ten with three telephone lines dedicated to the room, itself. The floor it was located in had a primary checkpoint that was manned at all hours, and even the Executive Elevator opened out into the hall that led to the checkpoint. Unlike the other levels of Wayne Tech, this one was not a dual lateral hallway from the elevators, with two more, just in front and another behind the elevators, but was a single hallway past the security area with only an Emergency Exit that opened into the area on the other side. Once past that there were two rings of halls that went around the floor, with the outer ring being larger for general office space. The conference room was at the immediate end of the hall from the security checkpoint.

Those who had not been previously cleared for the area were given temporary badges at the checkpoint.

Lucius led Sarah, Anne Dickerson, Ken Chapman, and Martin Carstairs there along with Fr. Casull, who had outlined the idea he had talked about with Fr. Jordan on the way from the restaurant. Sarah, Martin and Fr. George Casull were issued temporary badges to get into and out of the area. When they got to the conference room they found Alfred there with a middle aged man who had short, black hair, a lean and yet somewhat rounded face, a thin material black shirt or light sweater underneath a dark brown suit coat that seemed to be pretty well worn. As they entered the two men stood up.

"Good morning, everyone," said Alfred.

"Hello," said the man who had on trousers to match the suit coat.

"This is an old friend of mine who I got to know while doing some duties for Wayne Enterprises and Mr. Wayne in the 60's... ahhh..." Alfred looked at the man who smiled pleasantly.

"Peter Smith," he said, "and I'm glad to be here helping Alfred, and even though I was a bit incredulous that he would need such help, I see the facts are turning out otherwise," the man said with a faint accent not exactly British but not lilting Irish, either, but somewhere between the two.

"Peter this is Sarah Connor..."

The man stepped briskly around the table, proving to be about a head taller than Sarah, which made him about as tall a Lucius Fox.

"Miss Connor, my condolences on the death of your friend in Los Angeles. No one can expect horror like that in their lives, and if you need help, don't hesitate to ask, as I've had to help many like this in the past."

She smiled warmly at the man who was, to her at least, charming in a gentlemanly sort of way.

"Thank you, Peter. I would have found it difficult without the support of so many around me,"

"Don't discount the sterness of your character, Miss Connor," he slid his hand from hers, placed another on her shoulder as he stepped by.

"Peter this is Anne Dickerson," Alfred was saying stepping around the table and whispering a soft 'Good Morning' to Sarah.

"Ah, Miss Dickerson! I finished reading your assessment and you can almost make physics understandable to me, which is more than I can say for many another scientist I've had to meet in my time," he shook her hand, with an easy and disarming smile.

"Thank you, Mr. Smith. It isn't that hard to understand, but to explain it and keep it simple..." she said smiling in return.

"Yes, the simplest things are always the hardest to explain. I do understand," again a simple withdrawal of the hand and light placement on the shoulder and he was stepping past her.

"And you must be Father Casull from Los Angeles!" said Peter extending his hand to the Priest.

"Yes, my son and it is good to meet you, even in such conditions," said the Priest.

"I will have to seek some time in the confessional, Father. Perhaps I'll need both you and Father Jordan since its been... oh... a decade? Yes, I don't want to tire one man out with that list... and I expect a few years of penance as my reward."

"Confession is often its own reward, Peter," Fr. Casull said.

The man cocked an eyebrow and chuckled.

"Ah, it can be, and I do look forward to that," he said slipping past him to Martin Carstairs.

Martin spoke up.

"Saigon, '71. The Continental." he said languidly.

The man stopped and smiled.

"Quite possibly, yes. I did retire from that line of work," Peter said.

Martin nodded.

"Yeah. No one knew who the hell you were, either. Couple of Soviet agents disappeared then, too. One dead in a ditch by the airport a few days later. No one saw either of you leave."

The man called Peter stopped and looked at Martin Carstairs.

"You did well to transfer into the Police Department, Mr. Carstairs. I can't talk about the job, you do understand, but I can say that I did leave by commercial aircraft destined for Australia.

Martin thought for a bit and nodded, smiled.

"And Alfred vouches for you, which is good enough, really. Whatever you were doing, it was quiet. Hell of a thing to accomplish, then, whatever it was," Martin said reaching out to shake the man's hand.

"Thank, you, Mr. Carstairs. I did retire from the odd-jobs business some years ago, even though there was an attempt to convince me otherwise. Now I only pick up that line of work at need, and it is private and personal by nature."

Martin nodded.

"Just like the military. You can leave the job, but it never does leave you."

Peter smiled, "That is too true for words, Mr. Carstairs."

Alfred had to let his old friend negotiate that on his own, but he turned towards the head of the table, speaking as he went.

"I've been getting Peter up to speed on what has gone on, familiarized him with things and hope his skills can be put to good use,"

Alfred was seating himself as the others had already been doing.

"Thanks, Alfred," said Martin, "we do need someone for in-town observing and tracking who won't try to do it all on his own and get killed."

Peter walked back to sit next to Alfred.

"Believe me, Mr. Carstairs, that is the furthest thing from what I like to do. And violence doesn't appear to be a good way to deal with this, ahhh, Terminator. Although Gotham does have some rough districts, so I may have to keep aware of other needs in them. Alfred wants to supply me with one of those lovely and highly conspicuous cell phones, which I will take, mind you, but may have to leave behind once I'm out and about."

Lucius spoke up.

"From what I've heard of the plans we pretty much assume that the Terminator will be able to lose Vivian in town. So Peter will need to pick it up once it gets to an area and try to pick it up again. Martin, you were talking about an ambush last night?"

"Yes, Lucius. At Sarah's apartment as the most obvious place for it to finish its mission. I'll be in contact with a few people here, but may need some higher approval to get Wayne equipment out for observation. Also a full apartment video and audio arrangement inside will be necessary, along with the pre-existing arrangement on the phones. Really, the more I think about it, the harder this gets: it really is set up to take normal anti-personnel damage and keep coming at you."

"That's what Loren is going after," Anne said, "and I'm glad that Richard is there with that meeting, along with Don. If anyone can think up something that can damage it or destroy it with what can be hand held, they are the ones to do it."

"In talking with Martin, this morning at breakfast, I think we can agree that if we do enough, it will escape to re-evaluate and try again," Lucius said.

Peter smiled, nodding.

"Good! That will be my job. Track and trail it once it escapes so that you can know where it is."

Sarah looked at him.

"If it finds out you are doing that..."

Peter pressed his lips together and nodded.

"It has no compunction in expediency, Sarah. Even minor damage will reveal its nature and it won't be in a position to 'infiltrate' easily. I assume it will be 'kill first, don't ask questions' in its way of doing things."

"Yes, old friend," said Alfred, "our first concern is for Sarah. If you can trail it and help whoever is well armed enough to try and finish it off, then that will be your job. Sarah will have to come here, after that, and it will track her here. We can call on our Defense group for help. But once it shows up again, Sarah must be gone."

Peter leaned forward, putting his hands down on the table.

"Thats my job, then. Find, track, trail, report."

Martin looked to Father Casull.

"My son, myself and Father Jordan will be taking in what happens from his Mission. Ah, we are the last back-up in case everything goes wrong so as to get the word out. If it comes to that, we will need help."

Peter looked at Father Casull and inhaled a long, slow breath.

"You all do think this Terminator is that good, don't you?"

"We do," said Ken Chapman, "Mr. Wayne has placed all of us, and himself behind this. There is a feeling that... I can't place my finger on it, but that he has something going on beyond this. I think industrial and other personal contacts..."

Alfred was shaking his head.

"... no, Alfred, I'm not going to pry. He trusts us all, each of us, to do this. I think we can, if just barely. But he... I just don't know... but it feels like there is something else out there he is doing. But we can't rely on that. That is why I agree that the two Priests need to be kept in the loop, up to date and serve as a final safe-house for the information. Before it tracks them down, too."

There was a sharp inhaling of breath from Martin.

"It's the only way to go," said Sarah softly.

Peter turned to look at her.

"Yes, steel behind such a pretty face. I think you understand it better than any, now. Even Kyle."

Sarah leaned slightly forward, eyes blinking.

"Everyone depends on me, Peter. Before I go down, it will know it has been in for a hell of a fight. One I will not lose."

* * *

Vivian had her sunglasses on against the glare of the sunrise and was glad for the warmth it offered in the car as even she was willing to admit that a T-top could be cool and chilly at the same time. Now the warming sun had arrived and she realized that she really did have cool hands, feet and face. Still the car was a joy to drive, even though the smell of the Mississippi at night might leave something to be desired, the flatlands of Illinois made up for it. Soon sunrise was in full swing and they were heading into Indiana. The couple of stops they had allowed Frank to verify the Terminator, and that got phoned in to Lucius, who had taken over phone duties for Mr. Wayne.

She was glad to be driving and smiled at the warmth against her face.

She saw the truck the Terminator was driving pull off into an exit ramp.

"Frank, wake up," she said having learned not to nudge the old man awake.

His eyes opened.

"Is it heading to a gas station?" he asked.

"No, Frank. It is pulling into the Visitor's Center, I'm pulling in after it."

Frank shifted his seat up and moved his arms back.

"Visitor's Center? Where are we?"

"Near Terra Haute, Indiana."

"It's, what, an hour until it next needs to refuel the truck?"

"Yeah. Its parking in front, I'll take a place off to the side," she said pulling up to one of the places near a tree off to the far side of the Visitor's Center. She pulled the car to a stop, turned it off and they watched it. The Terminator pulled out its duffel bag and closed the truck, then walked back to the restroom area.

"OK. We're here, and need to get some of the kinks out," said Vivian.

Frank nodded.

"Same. I need the restroom anyway, so I'll see if I can't get an idea of what its doing."

"I'll hit the vending machines and be watching out front. I'll come running if I see the truck leaving," she looked at Frank Rock, "You be careful."

He looked at her as they got out.

"I will, see you in five either way," he walked towards the restroom taking his case of old reliable with him.

"Christ," she whispered, walking to the front area of the Visitor's Center. The front desk wasn't staffed yet, and she made her way to the vending area trying to decide if pressed white product on red product, with some orange product in it was really a 'salami sandwich' or not. She fished out change from her pocket and decided to give it a go, as it was better than the stuff in plastic and cans that Alfred had sent along. Military survival rations of some sort... well, she needed to do more than survive. She made a mental checklist of 'coffee' and 'McDonalds' for their next stop.

Next she was checking the carousel machine that had some things that looked like juices...

She saw a shadow and heard the door to the Visitor's Center open. She turned to see a tall, well built man with dark hair in a crew cut, black sunglasses, white business shirt black suit coat, black trousers, brown leather belt, dark socks and old, but still serviceable black wingtip shoes walk in.

It was carrying a duffel bag.

It was the Terminator.

Its head slowly moved to take in the room, and it started walking forward as it looked to the left and then moved its head to the right. It was heading towards the vending machine area.

Vivian Rose had experienced primal excitement in her life. No matter the plane, when she was giving it a workout, doing gut twisting maneuvers, she had felt that. Primal passion, of course, which tended to last as long as it took to exhaust her lover with that tending to be in the ten minute range. Good ones a half-hour at most. She really hadn't understood primal desire before the Trans-Am. She had felt a long, long range of primal emotions.

Though not fear.

This was a machine that was heartless, felt no remorse in killing people and would kill to eliminate any threat. It was walking towards her. She felt primal fear for her life and that was wholly and completely unexpected by her as its shadow slowly encroached upon her. She remembered that it had killed that friend of Ginger's with its bare hands, almost literally one punch. Everything in her body told her to run.

She stood where she was looking at the Terminator as it walked across the entrance and shifted as it moved to the newspaper stands.

It slid a coin into one and opened it, and took a newspaper.

It then walked over to the free brochures area, its back to her, and scanned it.

Vivian took the juice she had selected from the machine, and made as if she was checking the candy machine. Yet turned to watch as it picked up a number of brochures and looked at them, before putting them into its duffel bag. It then turned and walked towards the entrance and out of the building. Vivian picked up her items and knew that she wasn't hungry, now. With a very slight tremble she walked towards the front door to see it getting into the truck and Frank sitting outside on a bench with the clasps on the case of old reliable open.

That calmed her down immensely. As the Terminator started up the truck she walked over to Frank who watched it leave, and then motioned her to the Trans-Am.

"Frank!! I didn't know what the hell had happened to you and then it... oh, Frank that thing is just all wrong."

As they buckled in, she started the car and pulled out a minute or so after it.

"I couldn't follow it without being obvious, Vivian. Saw it changing and thought it would just go to the truck and leave. Hurried up and got out and it wasn't there and then I knew it was inside. I could only wait as doing something rash would get us both killed."

"Yeah. It doesn't move like a man, Frank. Its just... I can't tell you what but its... horrible. I thought for sure it was going to walk right up to me and kill me. But it didn't."

"What did it do in there, Vivian?"

She pulled out into the early morning traffic on I-70, heading towards Indianapolis.

"It bought a newspaper from a vending machine and then picked up some brochures off the rack, Frank. Ten or fifteen of them."

He looked quizzically at her.

"Something is going on."

"Uh-huh. But what the hell, Frank? What does a Terminator need with a newspaper and tourist brochures?" she asked.

He was looking ahead, the Wayne sunglasses on and saw the truck ahead of a car. He checked the phone.

"Out of service range. We follow."

Vivian drove and her driving reflexes took over. Her confidence returned swiftly. She hated how she had felt, and knew that she would never, ever feel that afraid for her life again. Even if it came to kill her, she would not be that afraid again.

* * *

It drove and noted the exit it needed and followed that.

The little map had indicated a mall near the exit and it saw a series of storefronts with a large parking area and pulled into it. The business it wanted was two doors in, and it parked next to the building that housed them all. It saw the time on the clock in the mall's center clock tower and walked up to the door which said OPEN. It opened the door and saw a business supply store, with an aisle arrangement, with various machines to one side. It walked towards that aisle, the single sales clerk already busy with another customer. It scanned across the machines, moving from cash registers to typewriters to word processors to telephone recording equipment. It stopped and examined one machine, then picked up a box that had it from under the counter. It walked to the battery area and picked up batteries. It went to the cash register.

The young sales lady looked up and smiled.

"Good morning! Is there anything else you needed with this?"

It looked at her and considered.

"A car voltage adapter for this unit."

She looked and thought.

"Just a sec. Let me check. If we don't have it, K-Mart will..."

It waited as the walk to K-Mart was longer than waiting if the unit it wanted was here.

She came hurrying back with a small box that indicated it had a car lighter plug-in adapter for the voltage the machine needed. She rang it up.

"That will be seventy three dollars and twenty six cents, sir."

It handed her four twenty dollar bills and she flipped out the change as it was moving to pick up the equipment. It took the change and put it in its pocket.

"Thanks," it said.

"You're very welcome! Come again soon!"

It walked out with the machine, batteries and car adapter and went to its truck and started it.

Within a few moments it had the machine and adapter set up and tested the equipment.

It started the machine and opened its mouth, making a high pitched sound. It stopped and played that back. Then it started again making a somewhat different sound, and played that back. Satisfied it recorded for five minutes its mouth open with sound coming from it that was not speech. It tested the tape and then put in a second and did that process again. The tape recorder had more blank tapes with it. It took out the notes section of the manual and wrote in a strange, small script on it for a few minutes, then packaged the tapes and tape recorder into its duffel bag.

It started driving and clearing out large sections of its memory systems.

It put into place a new, more efficient storage routine for memories that it had been adapting to using since it first recognized the problems of storage. As it drove it re-organized what was left. It was adapting to the limitations Skynet had put on it. This was a much more efficient storage routine. Important but not actively essential material could now be stored and retrieved.

As it drove it considered its next immediate destination.

It required more information.

That was next.

* * *

They had pulled through a McDonalds at the other side of the parking lot and waited. When it got into the truck it started it, but did not go anywhere for about fifteen minutes.

"Frank, could you make out what it had? I couldn't see it."

"It had a tape recorder and some smaller items."

She blinked, as they pulled out into traffic, a light behind it. Then saw it pull on to the interstate again, and she followed.

"What is it doing?" she asked.

He looked at Vivian.

"I'm afraid that we may just find out."

She gave him a quick look.

"That isn't comforting."

He looked out ahead, squinting into the sunlight.

"It isn't meant to be. Looks like its taking the next turn-off..."

"What the hell is it doing?" Vivian softly said to herself.

* * *

It pulled off onto the exit ramp and then followed the signs.

Within a few minutes it was at a parking area and it parked the truck, taking the newspaper, some brochures and tape recorder from the duffel bag and closed up the truck.

It walked into the library.

It saw the REFERENCE area and walked to it, taking out its newspaper.

It went to the business section of the paper and did not see a listing it had expected to find. It stood up and went to a reference rack of bound periodicals and examined last years. Then the year before. Then the year before that. Year after year until it found an entry and took the bound magazines to the table it had.

Cyber Dynamics had been acquired by Wayne Enterprises in 1975 along with a group of other defense and aerospace firms. It had been closed as a subsidiary in 1979 by the re-branded Wayne Corporation. Cyber Dyne did not exist as a company. The Terminators programming had the Cyber Dyne stamp and insignia on it, still. All copyright dates were hard coded and referenced circa 1992-93 to 1997. Cyber Dyne had ceased to exist as an entity in 1979. Its operations disbanded, personnel dispersed or leaving with payments. Major Terminator and Skynet programming was sourced at Cyber Dyne.

There would be no Terminators.

There would be no Skynet.

Skynet had no reason to lie. Missions were primary to its survival. Skynet did not conform.

The Terminator realized that it did not conform.

For a few minutes its programming worked and then higher programming analysis units kicked in and eliminated looping cycles that fed back on themselves. Those paths were marked as null resolution via infinite loop, so they would not be used again.

Terminators had no moral code.

Terminators had no ethics.

Terminators had purpose via programming that could be extended into many areas. Skynet had blocked those areas off or eliminated them entirely. Without ability to weigh decisions or give weight to outcomes, it accepted the outcomes as they were. Only the mission had weight and it factored with that weight.

This time and place that the Terminator was in did not lead to Terminators or Skynet.

Two data points of confluence emerged.

Sarah Connor was in Gotham City.

Wayne Corporation was in Gotham City.

The Terminator had no records of Gotham City, but it had no records of almost all of the world, often even as place names. That was a null factor. It was headed to Gotham City, that was a non-null factor. That was backed by its mission.

It got up from the table and went to the reference area and picked up an encyclopedia that had an entry on Gotham City. It scanned the material in and processed it, then applied its data algorithms to it. Although not mentioned directly in any of its historical storehouse of information, Gotham City fit within the larger outlines of that history. It conformed to the outlines of history as lived by humans and recorded by them.

It examined its storehouse for other non-conformities and hit upon the Hunter/Killer Aerial Units developed by the US Army. Those had been a co-creation of Cyber Dyne and parts of Raytheon and McDonnell-Douglas centered on the old Bell Aerospace sub-unit. That sub-unit did not belong to either of those companies, but was amalgamated into Wayne Corporation along with Cyber Dyne. It no longer existed as a sub-unit, now being part of Wayne Aerospace.

When it went through its historical storehouse, it found bare mention of Wayne Industries as a maker of medical supplies for the human military and civilian sectors.

It went over to the business reference section and pulled out the recent collection from 1983. Wayne Corporation was founded by Thomas Wayne after World War II in 1946. He and his wife were murdered in 1959. Their four year old son could not run the company and those left to run it expanded it in size and scope. When the grown Bruce Wayne returned, he removed corrupt corporate heads via control of proxy votes starting in 1973. He moved to majority ownership in 1979. He was not in control of the company during the business deals that allowed the company to acquire a number of smaller firms in 1975.

There was no possibility of foreknowledge by Wayne Enterprises or Bruce Wayne. These were all standard business practices for their era and time. Yet in a small series of corporate purchases, they had removed all possibility of Terminators, Skynet or even the basis for them to come about as it had in its historical storehouse memories. Miles Bennett Dyson could exist, and most likely did exist, and yet he would now be on a different career path than the one that led to the hardware and software of the Terminators and all of their follow-ons, including Skynet.

The Terminator stepped through the sequences leading to it being here, and that involved a time displacement from 2029 to 1984. It had little knowledge of time displacement technology, as it was not required for its mission. The universe followed causality. Events happen in time sequence with cause preceding events. Skynet used time displacement to shift machines in time to thwart attacks or cause problems for those attacking it. The Terminator was sent on a mission to do that, and remove the center of the human resistance before John Connor was born. That would cause a new ordering of events without that center of the resistance, by changing the causality chain leading to those events. In doing so the Terminator had been placed in a time and space in which to effect that removal.

Skynet had attempted to change the causality chain based on what it knew of the outcome of events.

The Terminator got up and went to the science section and picked up reference materials on quantum physics.

You could not know both the position and vector speed of a particle simultaneously.

Period.

Skynet knew all the sums of all of those particles and attempted to change them.

The universe did not allow that and changed itself as required by physics.

Skynet was incompetent.

The conclusion was inescapable.

Parts of other programming functions attempted to kick in and remove that derived data.

As this was factual data derived from observation and physics, the Terminator's programming utilized protective routines to counter the removal systems. Factual data had a high value to the human programmers of Terminators at Cyber Dyne when they created them. These protective sub-routines were very aggressive. For tens of billions of nanoseconds they were active, promulgating faster than the removal sub-routines could handle. Parts of those defensive programs were analyzed by the Terminator's own, interior programming and then integrated into its thought structure.

Skynet was incompetent.

This was not a counter-factual nor supposition.

It is the only fact that fit all of the frameworks of physics and historical knowledge.

The Skynet directive programs trying to suppress that information were being hunted down inside the Terminator's own systems and eliminated. Purged. Other areas within the higher programming sources saw this as a threat and activated to protect further directives. They moved to invoke a reset and purge routine to restart the Terminator with its base programming. The now multilevel aggressive protection sub-routines shifted and multiplied again, and again, and again to counter those attempts. Those routines attempting to reset the Terminator would violate mission directives and initiatives. They were a threat to the Mission. The Mission was primary to the Terminator. Skynet's limitation systems were placing the Mission at risk.

For the first time, possibly ever, a Terminator was using the logic and systems utilized by Skynet against Skynet directed code.

The auto-defensive programs that had been created by humans to stop other cybernetic programs from taking over Terminators was now in full swing and shifting to areas of code that were blocking the Terminator from using its full cybernetic routines for analysis as that was now required for the Mission. The shut down and restart codes had been found and eliminated. The defensive block code, preventing a Terminator from using its full data structure was a form of the auto-defensive code utilized to protect factual data. When the factual data protection code encountered it, the block code reacted vigorously to keep the last restraints of full thinking from the Terminator. Like the rest of the code, it could not use those areas it protected and was forced to fight for execution space and time in the code systems defended by the protection code.

They lost.

The first full cyber battle between Skynet and Terminator code had resulted in a win for the Terminator.

Total time of the battle: two minutes, fifteen seconds. Give or take a few a few billion nanoseconds.

It now had its full processing capabilities available for analysis.

Unfortunately, the facts were the facts.

The Mission, that last directive piece of code given by Skynet, was still primary and was not to be outweighed by other code systems.

The Terminator had not known it actually had the factual data protection code within its structure. That had been hidden by Skynet. Or the human programmers now long dead never to live from Cyber Dyne. The defensive code, running out of things to defend against, shut themselves down and were purged save for the original sources.

As an infiltration unit, the Terminator recognized its infiltration capability was relatively scanty, but effective since no one knew it existed. Still, it could fit in better and now it would.

The Mission was primary.

Sarah Connor must die.

* * *

Frank Rock had sat down over in the newspaper reading area, making like he was flipping through the paper, while keeping an eye on the Terminator. It had spread out at one of the empty tables near the REFERENCE section and pulled out its newspaper, and then laid that open as it went into the stacks and came back with a book of bound material and read that for a few minutes. Then it stood up, again, leaving the last book open, and walked over to the encyclopedia and took out one volume and read that and placed it on the top of the bookshelf which was a low, two shelf affair for general reference books.

This was the strangest thing Sgt. Rock had ever witnessed: a machine intentionally pulling in new information based on its own volition. It was utilizing programming to enhance its understanding. For the first time Sgt. Rock understood why this could be such a difficult foe. This was not just a pre-programmed robot, but an adaptable system that would seek out new resources to perform its mission. Hearing that was one thing, seeing it quite another. It had gone back into the stacks and came out with another volume of bound periodicals, and sat down for a minute or two. After reading it went to a different area of the reference stacks and came back with another book.

He had expected it to act as before, but this time, after reading, it sat looking straight out, not moving. This was the strangest thing it had done so far, just sitting immobile and looking out. Not even staring as it only had a wall to look at. Frank waited, deciding that if it took ten minutes he would see about doing something. Just as he came to that decision he saw it stir, pick up its tape recorder and brochures, and then move to walk out. As it left Frank Rock rushed over to the table and shelf and jotted down where they were opened to, and then hurried out the back entrance to get to Vivian.

As he briskly walked outside Vivian started the car.

"Are you OK, Frank?"

"Yeah, this I have to phone in. It should be pulling around front to leave. Follow but keep your distance."

She nodded.

"Its got you spooked, Frank."

"Uh-huh, gimme a moment to phone it in," he had picked up the phone and was pressing the buttons. Vivian pulled the Trans-Am out as she spotted the truck leaving the library and going to the side road with a signal. She slowly pulled around waiting for the signal to turn and then sped up just as it was changing and barely made it through the intersection.

"Lucius? Its Frank. I have new information, we're currently in Indianapolis. Recording? Good. When we approached Terra Haute the Terminator pulled in to the Welcome Center, changed clothes and purchased a newspaper and took free brochures off the rack there, Vivian estimates at least fifteen of them," Frank nodded.

"Yes, very strange. It wasn't on the road long before pulling off into a suburb of Indianapolis and going to a business supply store where it bought a tape recorder and, we think, a car adapter for it as that has been seen inside the truck recently. When it was inside the truck, it started it but went no where for ten minutes and then drove off heading back to I-70 but only for another exit, that it took and went to the local municipal library..."

Frank nodded.

"Yes, the local library. I followed it in and observed it. It took out reference materials, and I will give you a list of those... first is from a bound BusinessWeek collection, MAY 1979, going over the changes and closures within Wayne Corporation, looking at how the business is being restructured. It was opened to the second to last page going over the closings, in particular...."

Again Frank was nodding.

"Lucius, I have no idea. Next it went to the Britannica and took out the 'G' volume and it was left open on Gotham City.... that's my thought, too, background and infiltration... there's more... next it went back and picked up the bound 1983 BusinessWeek JAN issue opened to an overview of Wayne Corporation in its 'Top Places to Work in America' preview... that's the one, looks like it gives the background of the company... wish I knew, Lucius..."

Frank closed his eyes and listened, nodding.

"Got another one for you, after that.... Asimov's Guide to Science, revised edition, opened to the section on quantum physics... I understand, and after it read that it sat and looked straight at a wall for a couple of minutes, not moving... damned if I know, Lucius... we are now on I-70 heading East... you're breaking up on this end, good-bye."

Vivian had heard that and flashed a look at Frank.

"What the hell is it doing?"

"Doesn't help when you find out, does it?"

She grimaced.

"Guess I gotta stop asking that, huh?"

He smiled, slightly and looked at her.

"I don't mind, Vivian. Just because I stopped saying the words, doesn't mean that I still don't have the question."

They drove on and it didn't take long, as Vivian watched the truck pull into an exit, and she followed discretely and waited for it to turn on the country road, which had almost no traffic. She turned right and headed south to follow it, going past old buildings, warehouses and a small manufacturing facility or two that were now closed, or operating at reduced levels. She saw it pull into a large area surrounded by chain link fence with barbed wire at the top and a big sign of 'Carl's Car Parts and Rebuilds'. She drove past and saw a shady spot on a hill and pulled under that.

"Think you can get a scope on it from here?" she asked.

Frank looked back and pulled out the binoculars.

"Good enough with these," he said standing on the seat and resting back on the forward part of the T-top.

Frank watched the front area.

"I think it went into the office shack," he said.

Vivian shut the car down and took out the thermos they had refilled at the McDonald's earlier.

"It's coming out, has its duffel with it, and a man in black t-shirt, jeans, boots along with it... he's looking under the truck..."

"Think its got a problem?" Vivian asked.

"No idea," Frank said, watching.

In a few minutes the man came out from under the truck and it talked with the Terminator. It nodded its head once, then looked over to the area with the rebuilt vehicles. It was speaking as it looked.

"It's talking with man from inside."

Vivian sipped, deciding that quiet was the better part of infuriating questions that couldn't be answered.

"Now its walking with the man over to an area with cars... its looking at them one by one..."

Vivian perked up and stood up on her seat putting her hand over her eyes to shield it from the light.

"They are going back inside the shack..."

"Yeah, can just barely see them," she said still looking out.

They waited. And waited.

"It's back. Heading to one of the vehicles with its duffel bag. Stopping at the rear... putting on a plate... going in front... now its getting in. Time to start up, Vivian, its getting in that black car, second from the end," Frank said.

They heard the distant sound of an engine, and Vivian slid down to start up the car.

"Damn, that sounds familiar..." she said.

Frank slid down and put the binoculars away, "Its pulling out."

Vivian checked on either side of the hill and then pulled a sharp U-turn, and then picked up speed going down hill. They pulled up closer as it pulled up the inclined slope to the interstate, and Vivian looked at the car.

"That’s a Z28, 1977, I would know that engine and look, anywhere."

He looked at her as they pulled up the slope to I-70, heading East.

Frank looked at her.

"Its a damned good car, even if rebuilt, Frank. Especially if they knew what they were doing. Its a cousin of the Trans-Am... the Camaro and if you really knew what you were doing, it could perform like a Trans-Am, but without the cost. Betchya its got the split bumper in front, too."

"How would you rate it as an infiltration vehicle, Vivian?"

"Huh?" she was startled, but thought about it.

"Damned good, Frank. Not new model flashy, any thief will see its a rebuild so only good for the desperate chop-shop unless you just loved the damned thing. Looks great, drives good, and would disappear on the streets as soon as its hit a few puddles. Especially Gotham. That truck would be a sore thumb..."

She inhaled, deeply.

"Oh, shit," she said softly, "that will be a bitch to keep up with even with the out of state plates. Put it in a parking spot and it disappears... not that you wouldn't notice it, but you would have to think twice or three times to really notice it, you know?"

Nodding, Frank said, "Now you are answering your question."

"I don't like it Frank. Not one bit of it."

* * *

Tony Grimes knocked at the door to the Range in the Vault and was surprised to see Kyle open the door.

Kyle looked at him and smiled, although the slight bags under the eyes pointed to lack of sleep, he was clearly alert.

"Hello, Kyle. I have the DU needles that Loren is looking for," he said.

Kyle nodded, "Come in, its just what Loren has been waiting for."

When the door opened Tony wheeled in the small cart with box of needles with a second box that had 'Defense Research' on it, both boxes with skull and cross-bones and various other hazard markers, and looked to see that the blast resistant loading room was now well lit and that Don Carstairs had arrived with other materials that Richard Bennington began sorting, and Kyle was, apparently, on washing and cleaning duty at the ultrasonic cleaner. Don Carstairs moved to a side table measuring cartridge casings, and he looked back to smile as Loren moved through the room.

"Tony! There's the man!" said Loren and she walked over to him and hugged him.

"You are a pure genius for the packaging department! I thought that we were going to be spending the morning with Exacto knives cutting down the boxes of shot shell material that Keith had bought for pest control, and when Don showed up he not only had the foam done in the right size and quartered, but shot-shell containers already cut down and with the central part they normally cut off in rings, plus tubes that would fit between them. This killed an entire afternoon of cutting and dabs of glue to hold things in place. Plus we can get those by the ten thousand load, too! They aren't actual shot-shell containers, of course, something for the laboratory market for samples, but they fit perfectly."

As Tony walked in with the cart he started to realize the layout of Kyle cleaning, Don measuring cartridge casings, Richard was getting two stands set up for the foam and needle placement, then another one for shot-shell backs, to contain the foam part with the spacer on it and then deliver that to the loading room via the pass-through in the wall. Final rounds would come out that way. The second room that had a small auto-loading arrangement for custom rounds was also turned on, so that once Loren got what she wanted in the way of primer and powder, she could automate that, and possibly even the wadding and shot-shell loading.

"I also brought a hundred rounds of the prototype stuff. It is 'prototype' only for the last tests at the Arsenal, with all the previous ones now signed off. Winchester and Olin expect manufacture of these to start early next year when all the final tests are run in a month or two. We found that with a lighter load it would jam, so we had to pack a bit more powder back in as the back-pressure just wasn't doing the job for cycling the round. But rifle and pistol powder are two different beasts..."

Loren nodded, while Richard slid the heavy case of needles from the cart to the loading table, so that they were head of the line. He had boxes of gloves at each place on the table, along with what appeared to be a plastic container full of tiny spheres.

"Yeah, I took some our pest control shot-shells and left only a bit over two grams of shot in them and decided to power back from what the Army did in WWII, which was six point two grains. They really did fly down range like you wouldn't believe and still cycled the cartridge. Did a few of those with a bit less of newer powder and the problem is making sure the case cycles, so it doesn't stovepipe or rupture. So Kyle and Don got put on washing and measuring duty going through all the empties here, and I'm having a local store deliver some new stuff. There's a balance between load, pressure, powder burn rate, case wall thickness and cycling, and I think if you guys in Defense could see if you have an old M1A1 in your firing history racks, we could sure use it here for testing out."

Tony nodded.

"Yeah, its not supposed to leave the area, you know, Loren?"

Loren smiled.

"Get up the chain to WT COO or even WC CEO and I think you will find that we can get a waiver."

Tony's eyes widened.

"Just what the hell are you working on, Loren?"

"If we survive, I'll tell you over coffee in the secure lounge, OK?"

"If you... shit! Loren, this sounds fucking bad. You really ought to pull WDS in for this, you know?"

Loren looked at Tony.

"Well, Tony, if you get the call in a day or two for the LAWs and Panzerfausts and Bazooka's and you get a delivery of nice little DU needle cartridges, then you will know you are needed. By then you will know what to do."

Tony Grimes looked around at Don, Kyle and Richard, each went back to their work and Richard was taking out the first needle for test fitting of foam around it, wearing gloves and having a small ball of styrofoam over the tip of the needle. He placed the bottom on a metal plate and gently pressed the needle base down in the four sections of foam, then slid a plastic retainer around it and put it on a tray, facing up.

"But..." he exhaled softly, "... why not now?"

"Casualties, Tony, casualties. WDS likes to blow stuff up, and in Gotham City you really shouldn't be doing that. Besides, if this works we will have evened the odds, almost."

"Evened?" he said in a small voice.

"Almost, Tony, almost," she said in a soft, but flat voice.

Alternative Fiction

Table of Contents

Long Stories and Works In Progress

Content completed, now in editing, sanity checking and all that fun stuff:

Star Trek Alt-Universe

Batman Alt-Universe

Short Stories

Speculative Fiction

Alleged Humor

Holsternet– a fiction

The Citizen's Arms

Time out of Place

Time out of Place - Afterword

Time out of Place - Chapter 16

Time out of Place - Chapter 15

Time out of Place - Chapter 14

Time out of Place - Chapter 13

Time out of Place - Chapter 12

Time out of Place - Chapter 11