T2 - 01 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Dark Futures by Russell Blackford
Book: T2 - 01 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Dark Futures by Russell Blackford
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Authors: Russell Blackford
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important. He really does want to meet you, and I want you to meet him. we've got to rebuild the team, and the relationships." He chewed one of the fat white grapes, then finished his water. "You said before-on the phone-that the project is still viable."
"Yes. I've been thinking about it some more, while I was waiting for you. I'm sure it could be done. It's just a question of how long we'd need."
"All right, that was my next question. Answer it frankly-this is no time for false optimism. I need your best assessment of how close Miles was, and how long it would take us to reconstruct his work."
"How close? You mean when he might have licked all the problems?"
"Yes, how close he was to making a workable nanochip. You can assume that I've read all his reports and that I have a pretty good technical understanding."
She smiled thinly. "Yeah, boss, I know you're an old tech at heart."
"The point is, I need to take stock of where the project sits right now. It's crucial to our future."
"Miles was in a good mood about it last week," she said thoughtfully. "I didn't talk to him about it yesterday, but I know he worked on it over the weekend."
"When did you last discuss it?"
"On Friday. At that stage, he thought he was within an inch of solving the problem. My guess is he would have wrapped it up in a month or three."
"All right, now we need to be realistic. Regardless what Miles thought or anything else, how far away are we now?"
"Now that he's dead?"
"Exactly."
"That depends."
"Realistically, Rosanna."
"Yes, I know that, but it still depends. Miles did most of the work on this himself."
"Sure. It was his baby." Cruz rolled his eyes in mock despair. "It's Miles's baby! That's what everyone used to say."
She laughed at that. "Well, it's true. No one else had anything like the same kind of knowledge. Look, Oscar, I could reconstruct his work pretty quickly if I had his records."
"So could I. That's not what I'm asking. Look, it's all gone; we should assume that. The bomb went off in the AI lab, and it looks this morning as if they did a thorough job of destroying every bit of information on site. We'll find out more as the week goes on, but I'm not optimistic."
"What about back-ups off-site?"
"No. I thought of that, but it's not the kind of thing that we back-up routinely, not like financial records and so on-in fact, it's more the sort of information that we keep very close to our chests. Of course, Miles had his own back-ups..."
"But?"
"Again, it's too early to be sure. Tarissa hasn't been very cooperative, which surprises me, by the way. And the police have been to the Dyson house, and their impression is that the Connors did a thorough job there , too. Miles seems to have gone out of his way to cooperate with them—there's no sign so far that he tried to trick them."
This was another of life's mysteries, he thought. Miles would surely have had a thousand ways to outsmart the Connors. Perhaps he had, and there was still information he'd hidden somewhere. But it didn't look that way.
"I hope I'm wrong, Rosanna, but we're not expecting to find anything at all useful at Miles's house."
"What about the 1984 chip?"
"As best I can make out, it's been stolen. It's like everything, though-it only happened last night. It's not as if I can inspect it for myself-it's supposed to be too dangerous for me to go inside the building. So I've been traipsing around with the cops. But it seems that there's nothing like the arm and the chip still there where the Vault was."
"So the Connors took them?"
"Looks like it—which means we might get them back if the cops can track down the Connors. But no one's optimistic about that. As of this morning, the trail's gone cold."
"I heard on the news. They were in those big car crashes at the steel mill."
That's right, but it's all we've got to go on, so far. It seems they left the mill by an emergency door, and got clean away."
Rosanna removed the tray, then
"Yes. I've been thinking about it some more, while I was waiting for you. I'm sure it could be done. It's just a question of how long we'd need."
"All right, that was my next question. Answer it frankly-this is no time for false optimism. I need your best assessment of how close Miles was, and how long it would take us to reconstruct his work."
"How close? You mean when he might have licked all the problems?"
"Yes, how close he was to making a workable nanochip. You can assume that I've read all his reports and that I have a pretty good technical understanding."
She smiled thinly. "Yeah, boss, I know you're an old tech at heart."
"The point is, I need to take stock of where the project sits right now. It's crucial to our future."
"Miles was in a good mood about it last week," she said thoughtfully. "I didn't talk to him about it yesterday, but I know he worked on it over the weekend."
"When did you last discuss it?"
"On Friday. At that stage, he thought he was within an inch of solving the problem. My guess is he would have wrapped it up in a month or three."
"All right, now we need to be realistic. Regardless what Miles thought or anything else, how far away are we now?"
"Now that he's dead?"
"Exactly."
"That depends."
"Realistically, Rosanna."
"Yes, I know that, but it still depends. Miles did most of the work on this himself."
"Sure. It was his baby." Cruz rolled his eyes in mock despair. "It's Miles's baby! That's what everyone used to say."
She laughed at that. "Well, it's true. No one else had anything like the same kind of knowledge. Look, Oscar, I could reconstruct his work pretty quickly if I had his records."
"So could I. That's not what I'm asking. Look, it's all gone; we should assume that. The bomb went off in the AI lab, and it looks this morning as if they did a thorough job of destroying every bit of information on site. We'll find out more as the week goes on, but I'm not optimistic."
"What about back-ups off-site?"
"No. I thought of that, but it's not the kind of thing that we back-up routinely, not like financial records and so on-in fact, it's more the sort of information that we keep very close to our chests. Of course, Miles had his own back-ups..."
"But?"
"Again, it's too early to be sure. Tarissa hasn't been very cooperative, which surprises me, by the way. And the police have been to the Dyson house, and their impression is that the Connors did a thorough job there , too. Miles seems to have gone out of his way to cooperate with them—there's no sign so far that he tried to trick them."
This was another of life's mysteries, he thought. Miles would surely have had a thousand ways to outsmart the Connors. Perhaps he had, and there was still information he'd hidden somewhere. But it didn't look that way.
"I hope I'm wrong, Rosanna, but we're not expecting to find anything at all useful at Miles's house."
"What about the 1984 chip?"
"As best I can make out, it's been stolen. It's like everything, though-it only happened last night. It's not as if I can inspect it for myself-it's supposed to be too dangerous for me to go inside the building. So I've been traipsing around with the cops. But it seems that there's nothing like the arm and the chip still there where the Vault was."
"So the Connors took them?"
"Looks like it—which means we might get them back if the cops can track down the Connors. But no one's optimistic about that. As of this morning, the trail's gone cold."
"I heard on the news. They were in those big car crashes at the steel mill."
That's right, but it's all we've got to go on, so far. It seems they left the mill by an emergency door, and got clean away."
Rosanna removed the tray, then
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