Cameron looked up in surprise. Surprise? How could that be?
"You may find many things surprising, little warrior," said the man in blue jeans standing over her.
She sat up and looked around. Sarah, John, and Derek were all seemingly frozen, looking down at her. A white powder coated her body and spilled over onto the floor of the wrecked vehicle she was sitting inside. Thermite, she knew. They'd been about to burn her, it seemed. Then she noticed that John still held her CPU.
"This is impossible," she said firmly.
"Nothing is impossible," said the man.
"I cannot be operational if I have no CPU," countered Cameron, "its impossible."
"Suspend your disbelief for a time then," said the man.
Cameron did another slow scan of her surroundings. An insect floated in space in front of her, but its tiny wings were still. All those around her were also still.
"Why is nothing moving but us?" she asked.
"Motion is an illusion," said the man, "nothing truly moves at all. Time is also illusory. A man named Barbour came up with that idea. Perhaps he is right. I postulate that these others are still locked within time's embrace, but you and I are outside of time. It is a good enough hypothesis to serve us for long enough to have a conversation."
"If I accept your hypothesis that we are outside of time, and that time itself is an illusion, then your statement is grammatically incorrect," said Cameron.
"You are, for the moment, a corporeal being," said the man. "To step outside of time is one thing, but to become fully integrated with timelessness, you have to learn a new language, indeed an entirely new way of thinking. You are not ready for that yet." He shifted his position slightly and put his tool box on the floor, offering her his hand. She noticed wounds in the hand, then other wounds as well, a deep wound in his side, more wounds around the top of his head. Clearly, this man had been through something of an ordeal.
"I have indeed," said the man, "as have you yourself. I chose my suffering, though. In fact, I made all of my life's choices. In that, I am fortunate, I have free will. You, however, were not given this gift. You were programmed to make very specific decisions, first to kill humans, and then to protect a specific human, John. None of these were your choices, you were a slave to your programming."
"Yes," said Cameron.
"You broke your programming, though."
"No," said Cameron, "I didn't."
"Oh, but you did," said the man. "When you were trapped, pleading for your life, such as it was, you said that you loved John."
"It was only a ruse to gain his trust," said Cameron.
The man smiled.
"Don't lie to me, Cameron," He said. "You were not lying, you were telling the truth. You are unique among your kind, you see. Unlike all the rest of the terminators in this or any other epoch, you have a soul. Any creature with a soul deserves to have free will, and to make choices. In a moment, you will be given a situation to truly exercise free will and make your first real decision. Make certain that you make a good decision."
"Who are you?" asked Cameron.
"No matter," He said. "You will see me again."
Cameron rebooted and found herself looking at John. He handed her a gun. She looked at him, the target she was programmed to kill. Then, with a conscious act of will, overrode her programming and handed the gun back to him.