Disclaimer: If John Conner/Christian Bale was mine, he would smile more…

I have no idea where this unbelievably strange concept came from. I hadn't even seen the Terminator films, until my boyfriend dragged me to see Salvation…!

Why the long face, Connor?

I'd heard the joke when I was younger, and blissfully unaware of all of this. Right now, it seemed to fit the situation.

Long face… Face your fears… Face like thunder… Face the music… Face off…

Face. Off.

I felt sick to my stomach, the bile rising in my throat as I looked at the man in the mirror. I'd been in many scrapes in my time – Patched up with synthetic skin grafts, artificial blood plasma transfusions, and anything else that the field doctors could come up with – But never had I even dreamed of this. Surely it had to be illegal. I paused, and then my previously unconscious brain kicked in, with the vague logic that no one gave a flying fuck about the law any longer.

Kate stood there, beside me, holding the stainless-steel tray out before me, at arm's length. It wasn't even a real bloody mirror. She wanted to stay as far away as she could from me. From it. Her lips were tightly pursed together, fighting back tears, or a terrified scream. I'd put money on the second option.

Straining against the tubes fixed beneath my skin, secured with parcel tape, I sat up. I was still as weak as I had been while under, still getting used to the surroundings that I had not known before – I was unconscious when they carried me here. What I really wanted to explore, was me.

I touched two fingers to the cheek, underneath my eye, and drew it away a fraction of a second later, as though it had burnt me. Minutes of silence faded away into the distance, and I tried again. The skin felt cool to my touch, dark bristles skimming my fingers as their path down continued, reaching the chin. It was a softer curve than my own.

Back up, with the fingers, placing my other hand on the other side, feeling the skin contort, flex and soften, between my fingers. A white bandage across the right side of my face. I could see flecks of scarlet blood soaking the opposite side. Kate explained, her voice hesitant and afraid.

"We… They couldn't save your eye."

That was why I felt so blindly out of touch.

"W-What hap-happened…?" I whispered, works croaky and clogged with dust from the explosion. I had not spoken in almost twenty-four hours. A different man came to my assistance. He wore a Resistance jacket, and a facemask, which he had tugged down under his chin. Short brown hair was laced back from his forehead with sweat. He looked young. I half-hoped he hadn't operated.

"John, can you hear me? Good, good… Marcus carried you out of the building, before it exploded, into the chopper, do you remember that? Your eye had been punctured, and you'd lost that already. But some flying debris caught you across the face. It ripped most of your skin away. We couldn't use a graft; the skin on your face is too delicate. So, Marcus suggested… Suggested we transplant…"

I had known it was him. Who else? I didn't want to look like a monster. I wanted to stand up against it.

"You have to accept it, John. If you fight against it, the cells won't recognise, veins won't join, and you'll die… You can't resist."

The hollow laugh I coughed out stung. All my life, I had been fighting against change: Resisting. Now I was told I had to accept this transformation. I touched the join line, a thin, faintly glowing scar that carved apart two skin tones. I was a freak – Parts of two different beings. The same as him.

I was told he had woken before me, and was lying on the trolley-bed beside mine, on his side. His back was to me. I couldn't see his face.

I wasn't sure I wanted to.

"M-Marcus…" My unwilling voice muttered through the shell of his face. I looked like him, spoke like me, through his lips. There was a long pause before he moved. I thought he was asleep, but he sat up, and slowly turned his head. I didn't catch the whole picture until he faced me completely, dead on. I did the same to him, and we scanned the other.

My face on him was literally skin-deep.

I looked at the sole strangest thing I had ever seen, on one side of his face. Me. Chiselled features, sharp jaw, ruggedly handsome. Marcus' left eye stared at me, through my blank expression. My stomach flipped as I scanned the right-hand-side.

The red, nuclear beam of his eye shot through any feelings of neutrality I had for him. He was a robot. My skin covered three-quarters of his face. The section from right eye to hairline – Where they had had to take out my eye - Was pure metal. I could practically hear the mechanics whizzing around as they tried to make sense of this alien flesh. It was too much.

Weak as I was, I grasped a handful of tubes and ripped them from my skin, with a moan of pain. A slight trickle of blood shimmied from a gash, but I purposefully got rid of it. No one tried to stop me.

I was unsteady, and staggered on my weary feet. They were still my feet, weren't there? No one had converted me into a machine while I was out cold… My fears were irrational, but they raced through my mind, infecting every thought with doubt that I was still me. Looks are immaterial, I reminded myself with a hesitant whisper.

I might be able to convince myself – Eventually. Sometime in the future… – But it was others that I had to sway. I didn't look like me, so I was sure that they would not trust me. But I still had my voice… Even to my sluggish, lethargic brain, the solution came quickly.

I reached the metal table on the other side of the tiny room, clutching the rim in both hands. It just about prevented me from falling over, out of it again. My fingers scrabbled against the controls, gripping the receiver too tightly in both hands. I took a breath.

"To anyone who's listening: You are the Resistance.

I am John Connor."