AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a fairly short effort, a short prologue & two medium length chapters. I decided it would probably be easiest if I just posted it all at once. I hope you enjoy. As always, comments of a positive nature and criticisms are appreciated equally. G
A MEETING OF TWO GREAT MINDS -- PROLOUGE
Sarah had always hated the east coast, & this city more than any other. It was all dirt & grime and darkness, shadows covering the streets even in the daytime. It was worse at night. Los Angeles had gotten much too hot, with at least half a dozen triple eights after them there. They had a lead on the source of the damned HK they'd seen. It had been built in LA, but her source said it had been moved back here. He was in a position to know, & she'd paid through the nose for the information. There wasn't much left of the diamonds they'd been selling off a bit at a time.
She pulled the black Suburban over to the curb in front of a tall, ominous-looking building, the gothic architecture making it seem like something straight out of Amsterdam, or some crazy horror film.
"Is this it?" John asked from the backseat. "It doesn't look like much."
Cameron tilted her head, peering out the window in that odd way she had. "This is a bad tactical position," she said. "Too many places to hide, to attack from."
"This is it," Sarah said, the softness of her voice masking the sharp-edged steel underneath.
They all got out of the car, each drawing a weapon. In this city, she doubted that anyone would even notice. Sarah took a 9mm Baretta from the holster she'd tucked at the back of her belt, under her jacket. She flipped the safety to the off-position with her thumb. She had thirteen shots in the clip and one already in the pipe, plus two more clips in her coat pocket.
Derek produced the .45 caliber hand-cannon that he liked to carry. He pulled back on the slide, jacking a shell into the chamber. It packed more punch than her nine, but three clips gave him only 24 shots to her 40.
John had a 9mm Sig-Sauer, but it was still in the holster. His primary weapon today was the mini-laptop that he was carrying. On it, he'd managed to hack into the city planning office, and he'd brought up blueprints of the building. Security was impressive, but somewhere inside was the HK prototype. They were going to find it & destroy it before it could become fully operational.
To the casual observer, anyone who didn't know better might take Cameron to be the least of them. She was petite, and pretty, but that was offset somewhat at the moment by the pump-action 12 gauge Mossberg that she was carrying. She'd already jacked a shell in, and had six more loaded, plus a dozen or so in her pockets. She also had a Sig-Sauer tucked into her waistband.
"Best entry point is around back," John said, indicating an alley to their left. Cameron led the way with the others following, all of them wary, watching for any sign of resistance, any sign that another trip-eight, or worse might be lying in wait. What none of them saw was the large, dark shape that watched them from the roof of an adjacent building, moving with them. There was something about them that seemed off. Normally, by now, he'd have made his move, taking them down, the guns alone enough of a reason, but something told him to hold back. And, he'd long ago learned to trust his instincts, so he watched and waited, …for now.
A MEETING OF TWO GREAT MINDS – -- CHAPTER ONE -- Valmarik Electronics
He watched from above, shadowing them as they moved into the alley behind the Valmarik Electronics building. His mind noted and filed away small details about each member of the group. The older man had the bearing, the attitude of a soldier. His eyes never seemed to stop moving, watching every direction at once. The boy was also wary, but he seemed to be relying on the others. His focus was on the small laptop he carried. He'd be their techie. The older woman moved with a confident grace. He pegged her as the leader. They all seemed to be following her, though she was not actually in front. The girl was the strangest of them. She took the position in front, and there was something about her, about the way she moved.
It took less than two seconds for it to click into place for him. Victor Stone, John Mason. They moved in a very similar fashion. The girl was at least partially cybernetic. That changed things. He'd considered dropping a flash grenade in and dropping amongst them. His initial estimate was that he'd put them all down in under three seconds with no serious injuries to himself. Depending on the level of the girl's cybernetic implants, that plan might turn to disaster. He decided to simply watch a little longer. After all, he'd been planning to break into Valmarik himself tonight and see what had caused them to triple their security in the last few days. He was never truly comfortable having any Luthercorp subsidiaries operating in his city, but given the circumstances, even less so lately.
The group moved to the rear door. There'd been no security response yet, despite the multiple cameras overlooking the alleyway. The boy must have jacked the camera feed and set it on a loop. If the cameras had just gone dark, security would have responded by now. He was impressed. It had to have been done remotely. Unless, of course, they were walking into a trap.
The young girl reached for the electronic keypad next to the door, but a word from the boy stopped her short. He pointed to a spot on the wall, maybe a meter away. She moved to it and punched a hole in the wall. It seemed effortless. Enhanced strength. Damage resistant. The boy pulled a bundle of wires loose, looked down at the laptop on the ground next to him, and proceeded to bypass the alarm wire. The boy was good. It took him less than a minute. Of course it would have taken himself around thirty seconds, and Selina probably less than twenty. She was the best he'd ever seen. Of course, neither of them would have been able to punch a hole through the wall, though there were other methods.
The machine girl moved back to the reinforced door and punched a hole through it. It took her several swings. Once she'd managed, she reached inside and tore it open. She leveled the shotgun and moved inside. The others followed her.
Once they were completely inside, he began to move, preparing to drop down and follow them, when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Men had moved into position at either end of the alley. They hadn't been there before, so they'd come from inside, or from one of the other, nearby buildings. Each carried an M-16A1 assault rifle. So, a trap then.
Gunfire erupted from inside. It sounded like another automatic rifle, interspersed with the three handheld automatics and an occasional eruption from the Mossberg. The two men and the older woman backed out into the alleyway, firing back down the hall, with the boy between them. It was clear that they were trying to use their own bodies to shield him. Both turned to face the men at the ends of the alley.
They'd begun advancing, and each raised his rifle. From their movements, it was clear that they were cybernetic as well. The older man screamed out, "Metal!!!!" He raised his .45 and fired just as a round from the machine at his end of the alley hit his left thigh.
The woman fired several rounds, each hitting the face of the other machine as she yelled out, "John, get behind the dumpster." The boy didn't hesitate, diving for cover. She followed, but a round from one of the machines hit her right shoulder and her pistol dropped from numbed fingers. The older man scrambled after them on his bad leg.
The machine-girl appeared in the doorway, seemingly locked in a hand to hand wrestling match with a man twice her size. Considering the strength she'd shown earlier, she should have thrown him around without a problem. That made him likely to be another machine. As for that, his advantage in size seemed to be of minimal effect.
The other two continued moving down the alley, firing off an occasional round at the pinned humans. The boy screamed, "Cameron!!!!" It was time to act.
Gathering up the edges of his cape, he leapt from the rooftop, the air catching in the cape, making it act somewhat like a parachute. It slowed his fall enough. All the gunfire ceased, as everyone, except the machine-girl and the machine-man she wrestled turned to him. He landed roughly, immediately going into a short forward roll to absorb some of the impact. He came out of the roll with a, large, razor sharp shuriken in each hand shaped like a bat. A quick flick of the wrists, and the shurikens buried themselves into the flesh covering on the necks of the two advancing machines.
Behind him he heard, "Holy shit!", as well as "No way, he's real???". And finally, "Throwing stars against Terminators???" That last was said in an incredulous manner, and in the woman's voice. Just as the two machines raised their rifles to him, he turned toward her and let a small grin tug at one corner of his mouth, visible under the cowl.
"Now," he said, and a bright white light filled the alley, and the crackling sound of lightning as both shurikens erupted with a ball of static-electricity that surrounded the heads & upper bodies of the two triple-eights. Both jerked a bit and then fell to the ground, immobile.
The woman reacted first, "Run John, get to the truck." She and the man stepped out, he more gingerly, but holding the .45 steadily on the machine-girl & her opponent, waiting for an opening. The woman held the boy's Sig-Sauer, in her left hand, pointed steadily at the center of the Batman's chest.
He stood motionless, staring at her from under the cowl. Sarah Connor was not a woman to be intimidated easily, but a small shiver ran through her. She slowly backed down the alley as she heard the engine of the Suburban turn over. "Cameron," she said, "finish it. We need to go."
The machine-girl, Cameron, suddenly stopped resisting the machine-man, allowing him to drive her back across the alley. At the last second, she spun to the side, allowing him to drive himself into the opposite wall instead of her. She broke free from his grasp, giving Derek the chance he'd been waiting for. He emptied his clip into the face of the trip-eight from less than six feet away. As it staggered, Cameron lifted it over her head and tossed it, head-first into the wall across the way.
Derek turned and limped down the alley to the Suburban now idling at the end.
Cameron jumped onto the back of the Trip-eight and twisted its head around so that the eyes were looking at her from behind. She put her knee at the base of its neck and continued to twist until there was the unmistakable sound of metal shearing. Finally, a pop and the thing seemed to go limp in her arms. It had taken maybe ten seconds.
From the end of the alley, Sarah screamed, "Cameron, let's go! No more than 30 seconds before the others get up!" The pain in her shoulder was terrible. She was afraid she might pass out.
The Batman stepped aside, letting Cameron pass, though he flicked his wrist as she went by, snagging a tiny tracking dot on the outside of the leather coat she wore. He'd already tagged the truck.
Considering the other woman's statement, he decided they'd definitely encountered these things before. They must re-boot after an elctro-shock. He flipped open the hardened plastic cover of the mini-computer built into his utility belt and hit a key. Both shurikens erupted with another electro-magnetic burst. Since when did Luthor have access to this kind of Cybernetic tech?
He'd come back another night. Clearly the facility was on alert now, not that he couldn't still find a way to slip past them despite that fact. He was certain that he could, but the others had intrigued him. He sent another remote signal from the mini-computer.
Half a block away, the engine roared to life on a sleek, black car. Headlights flashed and the vehicle accelerated out onto the main road and skidded to a stop at the end of the alley, the top sliding back to allow the dark figure to take his seat behind the wheel. Within seconds, he was accelerating off again, in the general direction the Suburban had taken. A pair of blips, one on top of the other, so that they seemed to be just one, showed on a dashboard screen that they were heading east, toward the East End, roughly a mile ahead.
He touched another button activating a secured com-link. "Oracle," he said. "I'm sending digital photos of four people. Run them against every database and send me the results."
"As soon as I get something, you'll have it," came the expected reply. And he continued to drive through the dark, Gotham night.
A MEETING OF TWO GREAT MINDS – -- CHAPTER TWO – The Meeting
John was driving, keeping the Suburban just at the speed limit, and careful to avoid running any lights. There was no sense in getting them pulled over for some traffic violation. In the back, Cameron was doing what she could to tend to Derek and Sarah's wounds.
"This does not appear to be too serious," Cameron said, after giving Derek's leg a quick once over.
"No," he agreed. "It's a through and through. If an artery had been nicked, the blood loss would be much worse." She reached over the seat and pulled some gauze and athletic tape from an open bag back there.
"Wrap it tight," she said. "The pressure should stop the bleeding."
"Yeah, thanks for the tip," he answered, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Just take care of Sarah."
"Affirmative," Cameron said, moving to examine Sarah's shoulder wound. If she even recognized the sarcasm, she didn't show it.
For her part, Sarah was gritting her teeth and trying not to show just how much pain she was in. It felt like someone had jabbed a knife into her shoulder and was twisting the blade every few seconds. Each bump they hit only intensified the pain.
John braked the vehicle to a stop at a light. He'd been watching the mirrors closely for any signs of pursuit, but he'd seen none. Once they'd reached a full stop, he put the truck in park and opened the door. Stepping about halfway out, he scanned the skies all around them, searching for any sign of the HK. Again he saw nothing, slipping quickly back in and pulling his door closed. They were back in drive and moving when the light went green. "I think we're clear," John said.
Sarah flinched a bit when Cameron tore open her sleeve to get a better look. She was constantly surprised at the delicate touch the machine could have when she chose to. She probed gently at Sarah's shoulder, causing Sarah to groan and draw a sharp breath in through her teeth.
"The bullet seems to be lodged in the joint of her shoulder," Cameron said. "If I try to remove it, she could lose all function in her right arm."
"Shit," Derek said.
"We need to find a doctor, and fast," John said.
"No hospitals," Sarah forced out, through her labored breaths and clenched teeth.
"I know, Mom," John said.
"Maybe we can find a little clinic, or maybe snatch up some doc leaving one of the hospitals and convince them to do a little patch-up work," Reese said as he worked on his own leg. He grunted a bit as he wrapped the wound tight enough to be sure the consistent pressure would stop the bleeding.
"We'll need medical supplies as well," John said. "I think a clinic is the best bet."
"Docs are required by law to report any gunshot wounds," Reese reminded him.
"I know," john said. "We may need to convince them otherwise."
"Turn left into the alley just after the next light," Cameron said, though she never looked up from Sarah's shoulder.
"Why?" John asked.
"When our vehicle stops moving, Colonel Wayne will come to investigate. He will know where we can find a doctor without the danger of the authorities being alerted."
"Colonel Wayne?" all three of the truck's other occupants asked at the same time.
"The man in the mask, from the alley outside Valamrek Electronics," she said.
"The Batman?" John could barely conceal the surprise in his voice. "You recognized him?"
"Only his battle uniform," she said.
"From the future?"
"Yes."
"Hold on a second," Reese interjected. "You're saying that the Batman, the guy who just saved our asses, is Colonel Wayne, the Resistance Commander of the northeastern US region in the future?"
"Yes," Cameron said.
John turned into the alley Cameron had indicated, leaving the engine to idle, but killing the lights, so as to draw less attention to them. He turned toward them, looking back over the seat. "You knew him too?" he asked Derek.
"No," Reese answered as he finished bandaging his leg, bending it and moving it a few times to test both the bandage and the leg. It hurt, but not too much for him to function. "I heard about him. I heard he wore some strange costume, but I guess I never put two and two together. Rumor had it that you learned a lot of your strategy and techie wizardry from him."
"Is Wayne his first name or his last?" John asked, his eyes shifting from Reese to Cameron and back, inviting either one to answer.
Reese shrugged. Cameron said, "It is the only name he gave."
"So, we don't really know," John said. "Wait a minute. If he was the commander of this region, and we were in California, how did you,…we meet him?"
"You did," Cameron said. "He contacted your command center and arranged a secret meeting at a location in Baja. He gave you a lot of very important equipment to help you organize the resistance in the early days. He never told you how he got there. At least, that is what you told me."
Sarah was finding it harder to get a breath, the pain was getting worse. She caught some movement through the front window, over Cameron's shoulder. "He's here," she said through a groan.
They'd all been preoccupied enough that none of them had seen him approach, not that they'd have seen him anyway, unless he wanted them to.
Reese started to reach for his weapon, but Cameron grabbed his arm. "That would be unwise," she said.
Reese nodded. "In the future," he said, "there is a rumor that you once watched him take down two trip-eights single-handedly. I wonder if we just saw that, back in the alley."
"Negative," Cameron said. "Future you told me about the story in question. It occurs ten years from now, in Baja. He defeats three triple-eights, using his hands and a k-bar fighting knife."
There was plenty of shock to go around. A quick glance showed them that the Batman was still standing in the alley, in front of the truck. He hadn't moved.
"I'm going to talk to him," John said.
"Wait…," Derek started to move, as if to join him.
"Stay here," John said. There was something in his voice that made the older man pause, and then nod in agreement. He'd heard that voice before, that assurance, that aura of command, from General John Connor. It was the first time he'd heard it on this side of Judgment Day.
The Batman stood, watching them through the tinted glass of the windshield. It should have been enough to prevent him from seeing inside, but the lenses in his cowl adjusted in order to allow him to see through. He was able to read some of the conversation, at least the comments coming from those facing him, but he heard it all. Before showing himself, he'd dropped a miniaturized vibration mic on the rear windshield. It sent a signal directly to his com-link. So, they thought they were from the future. Perhaps some of them were. Stranger things had happened.
The young man stepped out of the car, careful to show that neither hand held a weapon, but not in such an obvious manner as to raise them both. "Thanks for your help back there," he said.
The Batman nodded once. "Anyone whose agenda runs against Luthor's is someone I'm willing to hear out, so long as they don't cross the line," he said. His voice was deep, and raspy. John doubted that it was real one.
"Luthor?" John asked. "Valmarek Electronics is owned by Luthorcorp?"
"The link is well hidden, but yes."
"We need to get into that building."
"Why?" the Batman asked.
"They're building a machine, a prototype."
"And you want to destroy it, why?"
"That's kind of a long story," John said. "Right now, we need to find a doctor. One of my people is wounded."
"Two," the Batman said, "by my count."
"One seriously," John amended.
"Your mother, Sarah?"
John was shocked. How did he know? How much did he know? "You know who we are, but not why we want to eliminate the HK?"
Batman ran the acronym through his mind at lightning speed. HK. There was a company in Star City called Handro-Kinson. They made airplane parts. No. The boy had said "the HK", and he'd described it as a prototype. He decided a straightforward answer was best. "That's correct." There was no need to let them know how he'd learned about them, or how he'd found them. Not yet. "You're mother is wanted for the bombing of a technology company in California. Escaped, with your help, from Tuscadero State Mental Hospital a few years back. The other man with you, whose name I don't know,…yet, escaped LAPD custody a few months ago. He is wanted for murder. Is this story of yours good enough for me not to take you down and turn you in to the authorities?"
"Yes." The Batman was surprised by the simplicity of the boy's answer. Against everything his brain saying, his gut told him to let it play out. There was something here he needed to know.
"And the machine?" he asked. "She's from the future?" He hoped to shake the boy by bringing up even more he shouldn't know.
"Her and my uncle," the boy said.
"Leave the alley and turn left, right at the first light, and then turn into the lot behind the parking garage on your left. At the far, back left corner of the lot is an alley. Down the alley, knock on the first door on the left. It is unmarked. Ask for Doctor Thompkins. She's an older woman. The clinic is hers. Tell her you were sent by a blackbird. She'll patch up your wounded, and she won't turn you in."
The boy nodded his thanks and then turned back to the truck.
The Batman decided that he needed to change the assessment he'd made earlier, in the alley outside Valmarek. The woman, Sarah, might have been leading them in their assault on the place, but the boy was their leader. "What does HK stand for?" he asked.
"Hunter-Killer," John said. "It's the first of thousands of robots that will try to hunt down and kill every human being on the planet."
As he slid behind the wheel, the Batman reached skyward with one hand, some sort of device in it. There was a sound, of compressed air, not overly loud, and a line shot to the top the building, followed by the man himself rising quickly out of the alley.
"Did you hear those directions, Cameron," John asked.
"Yes."
He put the truck in drive and backed out of the alley, moving off toward the clinic.
"We'll dump this truck after getting Mom and Derek to that doctor. He must have planted some sort of tracker on it to find us so quickly," John said.
"He did say there was a parking garage nearby," Cameron answered. "We should be able to find alternate transportation there."
"After we rest up some, we can take another swing at taking out the HK," Derek said.
"If it's still there," Sarah said, her voice weak.
"It won't be," John said. "By morning, it'll be destroyed. We have to figure out how to keep them from making more."
"You think he will take out the HK?" Cameron asked.
"Oh yeah," John said. "And I'm fairly certain we'll be seeing him again." He drove on toward the clinic, his mind searching for what their next move should be.
I considered the possibility of writing this as an ongoing story, but I just don't have the muse with me on it. If someone else would like to take a stab at picking up where I left off and running with it, please feel free. G