The fight had been ugly and vicious and violent. And that was AFTER an explosion-damaged Cameron had registered the image of John as a hulking Terminator and attacked it furiously, seeking to eliminate what she saw as a threat to the future savior of humanity. Derek and Sarah had wanted to destroy the bloodied, damaged Cameron afterwards, and only the look of murderous rage and ice-cold ruthlessness in John's eyes as he told them to stand down had made them back away fearfully.
The house was quiet now. After hours of screaming and shouting and threatening, Sarah had gone off to bed, and Derek had stormed off to find a bar – any bar, but preferably one with cheap beer and people he could beat up and take out his aggressions on.
John was still awake, though. He had remained at Cameron's bedside, unable—or unwilling—to go to his own room in case the still injured cyborg needed anything from him. The room was dark, black and empty. The dim glow from Cameron's exposed mechanical eye only served to emphasize the absence of light in the rest of the room.
The silence was broken by Cameron's thin voice, still damaged from the blast and the ensuing battle afterward. It sounded like her, yet … not. "I need to show you something."
"It's OK, it can wait," John whispered, shifting around and trying unsuccessfully to find a sitting position that didn't cause him pain. "You just concentrate on getting back to 100 percent."
"It can't wait," she insisted. "I should have given you this information before. It was an error on my part that I didn't. You need to know how to deactivate me permanently."
"What?" he asked disbelievingly.
"I nearly killed you today. Even though my mission was to protect you at all costs, I almost caused your death," she said.
"But you didn't. You were able to correct your programming. I know Mom and Derek are angry right now, but I promise you that I'll make them see that this wasn't your fault. The blast only caused a temporary malfunction, and we survived."
"You survived this time," she corrected him. "In my mission parameters, I underestimated the probability that I would be exposed to anything in this era that could cause this kind and this magnitude of damage to my internal processors. The historical records describe this time period in the United States as being relatively safe, but I failed to consider that you and Sarah Connor would of necessity be exposed to a higher threat environment, even now. I used statistical averages in my calculations even though outliers would have been more relevant in your case.
"The conclusion is inescapable," she continued. "To provide you with added protection from all threats—including myself—I must show you how to deactivate myself. Skynet designed all cyborgs with an instant kill switch in case damage caused a critical malfunction to their systems. Mine is located mmff mrphm …"
The last words out of Cameron's mouth were muffled as John clamped his hand over it. "No. I don't need to know, and I absolutely don't want you to tell me. In fact," he said, determination blazing from his eyes, "I order you not to divulge this information to anybody."
"This is illogical," she said flatly as she reached up with a metallic arm to remove his hand. "This information is a powerful weapon. It could save your life one day."
"I won't need it. I trust you," he insisted.
"You are wrong to do so," she said. "Your mother and your uncle are correct. Even though my programming is very specific regarding my mission to protect you at all costs, there is clearly a real possibility that an external event can lead to a dangerous deviation in my behavior. Even though it makes sense to keep me around now that I will be able to regain full functionality, your mother and your uncle are correct that I deserve to be terminated."
"No!" whispered John harshly, angrily. "No. You are all wrong. After all the times you've saved our lives, you've earned a second chance. And a third chance. And as far as I'm concerned, you've earned my trust, and my decision is final, and I won't be second guessing them. It's unproductive, and it's not what a man does.
"You made a mistake because you were injured and not in your right mind. We forgive people for that kind of thing," he said fiercely, slashing his arms as he spoke.
"That is inconsistent. People can be forgiven under those circumstances, but I am not a person. You know that," she said, a barely perceptible hint of sadness in her voice. "I'm just malfunctioning machinery. Discard and replace."
Ignoring the injuries he had suffered at her hands, John stood up, enraged. "You're human in every way that matters to me," he snarled. "And a lot more irreplaceable than a lot of humans I've met in my life. Don't you ever forget that!"
"I am a highly developed CPU and well engineered gears and machinery," Cameron replied. "Programming and metal, that's all."
"Your body is irrelevant. A human being isn't less of a human just because he requires a prosthetic limb. And he wouldn't be even if his entire body had to be replaced by mechanical parts," John argued, looking at her intently.
"And a human brain might be different from a CPU, but at the end of the day, it's just a computer based on organic chemicals and differently pattered electrical impulses," he said. "You are simply built differently from us. You can learn, you are self aware, and they might not recognize it, but in your own way, you can feel emotions. I've seen it. Don't think I don't know that after I piss you off you don't make my sparring workouts that much harder the next day. Or when mom calls you a tinhead that you manage to not tell her that dinner's burning that evening. Just because the emotions aren't obvious, just because they're based on patterned algorithms doesn't mean they don't exist or mean less … Geez, am I the only one the see this?"
Cameron was silent, looking at him for seconds, then minutes as John fought to regain his composure. "What?" he asked irritably. "What are you looking at?"
"I do not understand. I cannot fully deny your logic, as it involves moralistic concepts I have difficulty arguing against. But logic still dictates that, now that I've been proven to be a potentially lethal threat to you, that you take steps to eliminate that threat. Your continued existence is too important to history, and you know this. Why do you resist?" she asked plaintively, voice cracking suspiciously with emotion.
There was silence as John struggled to find words to explain how he thought of her. "Do you know what a samurai is?" he asked finally.
Cameron searched her databanks. "Etymologic analysis suggests that the word 'samurai' derives from a non-English language spoken by one of the Asian nations that were devastated in the events of Judgment Day. In the future, the language is rare enough that Skynet did not deem it necessary to program it into my databanks."
"Well, nice to know you don't know everything," he grumbled. "The samurai were knights in feudal Japan. They pledged their service to their lord, and the entire society did – and to a certain extent still does – live their lives based on a concept called 'giri' – it doesn't really translate into English very well, but you can think of giri as a moral commitment to duty or obligation. A samurai's obligation to be loyal to his lord was a part of giri
"But at the same time, in theory, giri had to be returned. If someone pledges loyalty to you, then you owe them the same amount of loyalty. A lord had certain obligations to the samurai who served him – to look after their wellbeing, to behave in a way his warriors would be proud of, that kind of thing. Understand?"
"Yes. Reciprocity." Cameron said.
"It's like that. You're committed to my safety and protection. You call it a mission. I think of it as giri. And in return -- well, I can't keep you out of danger. But I have an obligation to come as close to guaranteeing your safety as possible, and I will regard it as a moral failure if I ever fail to protect you.
"You hear that, assholes?" he said pitching his voice to carry into the hall where he knew his uncle had returned and was eavesdropping beside his mother. He sat down and grabbed Cameron's hand as a contented expression settled on the part of her face that wasn't exposed metalwork.
Derek stopped at the door to his room as Sarah continued down the hall to hers. "You know," he said, stopping Sarah in her tracks. "General John Connor was universally feared by every man in the Resistance. Some of them even hated him because of how harsh he could be. But when he asked for volunteers for suicide missions--and there were a lot of them--everybody would fight for the honor to be chosen. They feared him, but they would all die for him. Because they also knew that he would die for them in a heartbeat."
Tears ran down Sarah's face as she continued to face the end of the hall, not looking at Derek. "I guess this is where he learned to lead like that," Derek said as he entered his room, bitterly and sadly.
"Hey, Cameron?" John said half an hour later, still holding her hand.
"Yes John?" she replied.
"I lied to you earlier," he confessed.
After a heartbeat, she understood. "You don't feel a sense of obligation toward me. No giri," she said, the sudden blankness in her voice a true giveaway that she was masking her emotions.
"No! No, that's not what I meant!" John backpedaled furiously, stammering and beginning to blush. "I mean, I didn't LIE exactly. That's just not all of it.
"I do feel a sense of obligation toward you. But not the kind of obligation that someone has toward his protector or a soldier under his command. It's the sense of duty ... that a man feels to protect the ... to look after .. you know, the woman he loves," he finished in a rush, heartbeat racing rapidly.
"Ah," she said, the beginnings of a smile forming on her face. As it blazed brighter and brighter, she said softly, "Hey John?"
Cheeks still warm and bright red, John replied, "Yes?"
"If you love me, then it would be all right that I want to do this, right?"
And before he realized what had happened, she had pulled him toward her and crushed her lips to his in a passionate kiss. Grinning against his lips, she murmured, "Thank you for explaining."