Remember the Future
Summary: The mere existence of Mikasa Ackerman is an obstacle for a future ruled by the machines. A powerful cyborg is sent through time to terminate her before it's too late, while the human Resistance entrusts to a young soldier the mission of protecting her at all cost. Terminator AU. Based off the first two "Terminator" films.
If you haven't seen the first two Terminator movies, I totally recommend you to watch them some day! However, it's not required to do so in order to read and, hopefully, enjoy this fic. If you haven't seen them then at least you won't spoil yourself (?)
I'll do my best to properly explain what's going on. I'll try to stick to the original plot.
Chapter 1. Somebody's watching me
X
Pescadero State Hospital, 1995
"I've been following this case for a long time and it is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting ones that I've had the luck to study throughout my whole career. It's about a thirty year old woman diagnosed with a schizoaffective disorder, depression, anxiety, violent acting-outs, persecution delirium…"
The deep voice of the grey-haired chief psychiatrist echoed in the corridor. In the seclusion wing of high security, a small young group in impeccable white robes were following him, nodding and taking notes.
"Her delusional ideation is fascinating, I would say unique. The patient is convinced that a robot called 'Terminator' was sent from nothing else but the future to terminate her, of course. Said robot appears identical to human beings: it has hair, eyes, flesh and skin able to bleed. Isn't it an original delusion? I bet you've never heard something like it before."
The young criminal psychology students smiled and murmured among themselves. The doctor answered some of their questions until he stopped in front of an enforced door painted in white. It had a small window through which the interior of a padded room was visible. Inside, a woman was exercising, hanging with both arms from the leg of a metallic bed that she had turned around for that purpose. The mattress had been thrown away and the sheets and covers were stacked in a corner. The room was a complete mess.
The psychiatrist knocked the thick rectangular glass. Everyone observed with full attention how the woman let go of the metal leg and turned around with indifference towards them. Black hair fell smooth and wet around her thin face bathed in sweat.
"Good morning, Mikasa," he greeted her in an unpleasant smile.
"Good morning, Doctor Zackley, how's the leg and hand doing?" Mikasa asked. The patent threat in her voice was muffled through the door, but her glare radiated a fierceness that quickly dissipated the smile on the lips of Darius Zackley.
"Wonderfully," he answered, aggravated. After moving away from Mikasa's room, the psychiatrist adjusted his glasses and turned towards his students to explain the strange exchange: "She stabbed my leg with a pencil and stapled my hand weeks ago."
The students couldn't help but let out surprised gasps.
"This woman is a public danger," one of them pointed out in a whisper.
Zackley nodded, starting to walk again. The rest of the people surrounding him followed him immediately.
"Despite all the treatments applied, the patient has not evolved as we expected. She had tried to escape at least three times already... Last time, after beating one of the nurses, she got very close to achieving it." He continued explaining. "Another interesting fact about the architecture of her delusions is that, supposedly, a soldier from the future traveled through time to protect her from the murderous robot in 1984," the sound of his words was getting lost through the distance, "and here comes the best part…"
X
The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged on for decades. But the final battle will not be fought in the future. It would be fought in our present.
Tonight…
X
Los Angeles, 1984
Everything indicated that today would be a great day. This morning she received the results of her Calculus exam, getting one of the highest grades, and now the pockets of her apron were bulgy under the weight of the tips. After piling up the dirty dishes beside the sink and washing her hands, she left the kitchen. She took all the coins and bucks from her pockets and let them fall inside the big pencil case that she kept since middle school.
"Woah!" exclaimed Hannah when she arrived after her, giving to one of the cookers her order notes. "My clients haven't been so generous."
"I was lucky," Mikasa said. She uncapped a water bottle and drank a sip. "I got a table with bank executives, I think. You know, those guys that shit money."
"Well, if you say so…" Hannah wasn't very convinced.
"Luck. Yeah, sure," Ymir appeared out of nowhere and pinched Mikasa's cheeks, "They obviously gave you a juicy tip because you're too hot." She said, suggestively looking her up and down and winking.
"Hey, sassy, does your girlfriend know that you hit on me on a daily basis?" Mikasa questioned her, feigning annoyance. "Shush! Don't laugh, Hannah."
"Oh, she would like to hit on you too… Wait, what is this, Ackerman? Are you blushing?" Ymir teased.
Mikasa groaned, rolled her eyes and waved her hand away so she could not pinch her cheeks again. Ymir could be irritating.
"No, I'm not."
There was movement near them and Thomas peeked out from the kitchen, saying that the order for table five was ready.
Mikasa swiftly put three plates on a tray and went to the destination table. She moved between chairs, tables and clients with a grace worthy of a ballet dancer, though she only practiced until she was eleven years old because her parents couldn't afford paying the lessons anymore. She announced the name of each plate and put them in front of the corresponding diner. She took a look at the wall clock. It was almost six pm. She was about to end her shift.
She brought the empty tray to her chest and moved her head slightly to the rhythm of "99 Red Balloons" playing in the background. A group of four teenagers seated in table seven hummed the chorus. Mikasa exchanged amused looks and grins with the girls. One of them covered her face as she laughed, embarrassed maybe.
The plan was get to home, take a shower and go out to dance with Sasha, as she promised. It was Friday and there was no way her best friend would allow her to stay locked in studying, like how she had done last weekend. Thanks to that, Sasha had called her a 'nerd' about twenty times a day for a whole week.
When she got to the apartment they both shared, she hung her keys in the hall and noted that the red light from the telephone was shining. She pressed the button to listen to the recorded messages as she took off her shoes and massaged a foot.
A beep.
"Hello sweetheart," she could listen to the soft and kind voice of her mother, "I was just calling to see how are you doing and to let you know that we adore and miss you. Your father has gone to play bowling with his friends and has asked me to send you kisses from his part. I wish everything is going well and hopefully we can see you soon."
Between work and her studies she almost never had the time or energy to go see her parents, but at least she called them from time to time. She could never be ungrateful with them.
Another beep.
"Hi-hello Mikasa…" Ah, it was Jean. Again. "Do you have any plans for Saturday? I was thinking that perhaps we could go to the theater to watch Ghostbusters. I've been told it is super good… And, well, that… Call me."
The girl let out a tired sigh. Jean was being way too persistent lately, despite her making it more than clear that she wasn't interested nor had intentions of coming back to him. The relationship had ended about half a year ago and the poor lad hadn't gotten over it yet. He still didn't seem to realize that Mikasa needed a lot of time alone to get to calmly analyze and comprehend her own dilemmas.
Her relationship with Jean had lasted around two years and, despite not having complains about it, Mikasa had decided to put an end to it because she didn't feel in love anymore, so it was unfair to stay with him. More than once she had found herself wishing to be with someone else and gazing at other men, as if she was expecting to cross magical glances with the authentic love of her life. She couldn't keep doing that to Jean, who was an excellent boy and deserved someone that loved him in the way he wanted and needed. Someone that could give him their one hundred percent.
Curiously, after she was single again she ended her ridiculous love search, and she only devoted herself to study, work and having fun with her friends.
However, in the last couple of weeks she had been feeling weirdly anxious. Instead of looking for the love of her life, sometimes she was looking for any sign of imminent danger. It was as if she was afraid that something was going to happen without having the slightest idea of what. This had been annoying her mostly in her free time, for when she had nothing to occupy herself with, her mind wandered too much. Regarding the unpleasant sensation, the only certainty she had was that she must remain alert, not let her guard down too much and stay prepared for-
Mikasa bounced when there was a heavy plunk against the door, but soon she heard familiar laughter and the clatter of some keys.
"Mikaaaaasaaaa!" screamed Sasha with joy, hitting herself with the corner of the couch once she entered the apartment and dragging a tall short-haired guy behind her.
"Sasha! Connie!" she greeted both love birds, smiling as she shook her head. It was evident that the girls' night had just been cancelled.
Connie offered her a lazy grin as he erratically followed his sometimes-girlfriend to her room. He tripped with the edge of a carpet on the way and crashed against the wall, after which Sasha let out a hysterical laugh.
"I told you not to drink too much piña colada," Sasha said to Connie before clumsily rolling her arms around his neck and kissing him with a radiant grin hanging from her lips.
Once they both locked themselves inside her friend's room, Mikasa let out a sigh.
Those two were crazy for each other, but they had a weird intermittent relationship. She knew Sasha valued her independence way too much, but to Mikasa it seemed like her friend was just scared of, well, getting serious with Connie. Sometimes she had caught her trying to call him, but then she would notice her regretting it midway and hanging up the phone before even finishing dialing his number, repeating to herself that they were just friends and nothing but friends in a whisper… Sure, Sasha.
After a short shower, Mikasa went to her room where she laid in bed. She needed to stay horizontal for a good while after spending too many hours on her feet.
To avoid thinking about things that will only make her anxious, Mikasa put on her headphones and pressed her Walkman's play button. She turned up the volume as much as possible to also drown out the noises coming from the next room. Since the volume wasn't enough, she had to press with both hands the pads of the headphones against her ears so she could isolate herself better.
She hit fast forward to skip as much as she could from "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John because no, in this moment she couldn't listen to that song. The next one was "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler and she let it run for a bit. It had been so long since she listened to it.
Turn around
Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round
Turn around
Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of-
Uh, no. Please nope, thanks. She pressed the forward button for some seconds, but she wasn't in the mood to listen to the next song either. She pressed the stop-eject button. The compartment opened and she extracted the cassette, introducing another one with a more appropriate music mix. Soon "Beat it" by Michael Jackson flooded her ears. Good, at least that one had nothing to do with anything sexual or romantic, right?
At the beginning Mikasa only moved her lips, but after some verses she decided to sing aloud, to the sound of the lyrics. She didn't have to worry if she sang way too loud; Sasha wasn't even sleeping.
"You have to show them that you're really not scared, you're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare," she rose a fist in the air and shook her head to the music's rhythm against her pillow, "They'll kick you, then they beat you, then they'll tell you it's fair. So beat it, but you want to be bad! Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it. No one wants to be defeated!"
Almost an hour later she got bored of laying on the bed. She changed her clothes and was on the verge of returning Jean's call to at least hang out with him as friends, but then she thought it better.
She left the building dressed in a long sleeved pink shirt that could be buttoned in the upper part, a purple jacket and light blue jeans. Nothing flashy, however, slightly before turning towards Pico Boulevard she felt observed and got the horrible impression that someone was following her, so she turned back on several occasions to try to make sure no one was doing so. To her relief, she didn't see anyone suspicious. She decided to speed up her steps anyways until she got inside one of the many fast-food restaurants available in that area.
Ok. Nothing was going on, she was just being a bit paranoid for sure.
She ordered some French fries and a Pepsi and ate them as she fixed her sight on a small TV behind the counter, just as the other clients were doing.
The night news broadcast was covering the monstrous murder of three punk youngsters in the streets. The first one of them had been found only on his underwear with a broken neck, while the second got his heart ripped out and the third one got impaled.
God. She got chills. Who and how could they do something like that? That was worthy of a gory horror film.
Mikasa made a grimace of disgust as she observed the red liquid in which she dipped one of her last French fries. She put it aside, feeling slightly sick. She was cleaning the rest of the salt and oil from her fingers on a tissue when she raised her eyes and noted that, from the street, a guy with long dark hair wearing a military green coat was looking at her. By his general appearance, the first thing that came to her mind was that he was a junkie or a hobo, or both.
Or maybe he wasn't any of that…
A metalhead, perhaps? Some of them were very odd.
She turned around in case the stranger was actually gazing at someone else, but she felt creeped out a bit when she didn't find anyone at the table from behind. The few people who were still inside of the restaurant were seated at the counter close to the wall or at the tables near the large window facing the street.
When Mikasa turned, the stranger was already gone. A chill ran down her spine. She was the only one seated at the middle tables. That man had been looking at her, directly at her.
She tensed her shoulders.
She tried to repeat in her head once again that nothing was happening, that everything was fine. Everything was normal. It was just her imagination. Yeah. She better go back home soon to keep singing her favorite songs, this time at full lung to get rid of all the stress. Sasha and Connie wouldn't mind, they were drunk and too busy fucking anyway. Although it was more likely that the two had already fainted by the time she arrived, so they wouldn't know anything.
Keeping that thread of thought, inhaling and exhaling consciously a couple of times, she got up from the chair and went to the exit. She glanced ahead and then to both sides of the street before venturing out, clutching her fingers tightly to the fabric of her open jacket. The night breeze played, making small waves with her hair as she walked.
There were common, normal people walking around there. It was Friday. All good. No one had been killed that night: it was just a creative propaganda for a new movie in the style of "Friday the 13th", or something like that. Those punk boys were actors and they were alive.
All in order. It was a matter of her continuing to put one foot in front of the other until she reached her apartment in about twenty-five minutes… or less if she started to run, because ultimately someone was following her.
Someone was after her. She could almost feel the incredible weight of that gaze fixed on the back of her neck.
They were following her. Shit.
Heart in her throat, Mikasa turned her head slightly and found the same guy who had been watching her while she ate, the one who looked like a hobo.
Why was he following her?
What the hell did he want? To kill her?
He was already at less than two meters behind her. He would catch her at any moment.
Should she get close to someone out there and pretend that she was accompanied, or simply run and scream for help?
Mikasa didn't feel like she was able to do anything like that. The air felt too heavy for her lungs. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she was about to burst out crying in fear. She took a nervous look around her. She was pretty close to Tech Noir, she could clearly see its name in red neon lights. Picking up the pace, she got inside the nightclub when she got the chance. At least there was a bunch of people and it would be easier for the stranger to lose sight of her. She couldn't get back home with that man still going after her. She couldn't allow him to know where she lived… That is, if the crazy dude let her get home without murdering her and slicing her into tiny pieces before, of course.
"Hi, do you have a phone?" Mikasa asked hurriedly once she was in front of the admission ticket seller. She stared behind her to make sure her stalker hadn't followed her in there, and she almost felt relieved when she saw him pass by outside… For now, at least.
"Yes, in the back on the left, near the toilets," the woman answered, "It's four fifty."
Mikasa gave her a ten dollar buck and didn't wait to get the change despite the seller calling out to her.
Everyone inside there was having a blast. Dancing, drinking, flirting, chatting and laughing. She, however, was made a bundle of nerves and visceral fear. Feeling completely lonely and defenseless, not knowing what exactly to do and repressing the terrible desire to cry that was about to drown her, she looked around her for a thousandth time and grabbed the receiver of the phone taped to the wall with more force than necessary.
Music rumbled all over the place. Her trembling fingers marked the three-digit number she never thought she would need in her life and that for some unusual reason seemed not to work properly.
She dialed again: 9-1-1… Crap. She couldn't even listen to the tone and no one was answering, no one! With a ragged breath, she hung up the receiver in frustration, but soon picked it up again. She dialed her own number, hoping for at least Sasha to please answer.
"Hey, Earthling! I see you successfully broke through our super security barrier. Very skillful. Only geniuses manage to communicate with the secret lair of Mikasa and Sasha..." it was the recording of Sasha on the fucking answering machine.
She closed her eyelids tight and waited impatiently for the chatter to end.
"Sasha, I hope everything is fine. I need your help: there is a guy who has been following me and I swear he has me terrified. I can't get out of here alone. I feel that I am in danger and I haven't been able to communicate with 911, but I'll try again. I hid at Tech Noir, in Pico Boulevard. Come with Connie to pick me up as soon as you can, please. I'll wait for you here. Come quickly."
When she dialed the emergency number again, the tone finally rang. But it was only answered with a female voice saying that all of the lines were busy, encouraging her to stay on the line in case a patrol car was needed.
Awesome.
Hugging herself, Mikasa sat on an empty table. After a while she was fidgeting with her hands and fingers. Most of the people were on the dance floor, but she was unable to get between that sea of people and stand there or pretend to dance, at least to make it more difficult for that stranger to find her. She sensed that her knees would fail if she did anything other than sitting down. Never in her life had she felt as useless as she did now.
She tried to get distracted by the song that was playing now, but it was the first time she listened to it. She hummed the chorus awkwardly, which was easy enough.
You've got me burnin'
You've got me burnin'
God. It was impossible to distract herself. Her stalker was already in there for sure, keeping an eye on her.
As if she had summoned him, Mikasa again felt preyed by a penetrating gaze and she soon met the big eyes of that man. He was sitting in a casual way on one of the tall chairs next to the bar. He should have been in his twenties. The straight hair surpassed his shoulders.
She suddenly saw him rolling a hand inside his coat in a quick movement, where he seemed to be hiding something the size of a baseball bat.
Before even seeing what was he hiding and what he had planned to do with it, Mikasa was surprised by a powerful beam of reddish light that came from her left. As she looked to her side, she found the disturbing blank stare of a short, black-haired man in a black leather jacket with spikes on his shoulders, who was aiming a gun at her head with a laser pointer.
The world stopped for a moment. Mikasa didn't know what to think, what to say and much less what to do. But it didn't matter, because in any case that heartless new stranger would give her a fucking shot in the head and everything would be over for her. She was fucked up and didn't even know why things were going to end for her like this.
Just before the expressionless man pressed the trigger and put an end to her short life, time flowed again for Mikasa. She could hear the shrill and horrified cries in the background as if someone, without warning, had put play to a VCR that had previously been paused in the middle of an action sequence at full volume: she heard and witnessed the shotgun shots that shook, pushed and pierced mercilessly the body of her potential murderer, which she soon saw collapsing on the ground in front of her.
Mikasa saw the blood flow through the several bullet wounds that had collided against the chest of the man who only moments ago had pointed a gun at her in cold blood.
A hand grabbed her arm firmly, forcing her out of her stupor and up from the floor where she had fallen to her knees at some point. It was the guy who had been following her before, the one who she had been fleeing that night. The one who seemed to have been hiding something inside his coat while sitting at the bar.
Mikasa now knew he had been hiding a shotgun and that he had shot the other asshole who wanted to kill her.
He... Had he saved her? What was happening?
She couldn't speak.
Her stalker shook her by the shoulders, then took her by the hand and began to drag her urgently toward the exit in the middle of the chaos. Reacting suddenly, Mikasa got rid of his grip by screaming and pushing him.
At that precise moment, the assassin rose again carelessly and aimed his gun at her, as if he had not been shot at least six times with a damn shotgun.
"Move! Get out of here, now!" commanded the stranger that saved her, as he shot mercilessly against the unbeatable assassin.
Mikasa's eyes widened and she ran while the loud shots and the desperate screams of the rest of the people drowned out the background music. Behind her, someone let out a hoarse moan and collided with her, causing her to lose her balance. She fell to the ground and the person who was behind her fell on top of her, crushing her.
People ran terrified. More shots. More screams. People were collapsing near her after the shooting. People dying, dead people!
When the noise of the weapons ceased at last, the dead weight above her that barely allowed her to breathe, disappeared.
Someone helped her to get up. It was him again, the man who had saved her life not once, but twice at this point, and she didn't understand why. She didn't understand anything.
She looked at him, dazed.
The sweat beaded the forehead of the stranger and his green eyes pierced her, determined and wild under a frown.
"Come with me if you want to live," he said firmly as he grabbed her arm again, as if he really was not willing to allow her to take another option apart from the one he had already given her.
And there was certainly no other option than that one, because Mikasa Ackerman wanted to live.
More than ever, she had to live.
A/N: thanks to Heidi for proofreading this and for always helping me out with Engrish in general!
About the fic, the first scene is based off a specific scene from Terminator 2 that I love. If you watched the movie you might remember it. I changed some details over here and over there about it, though. The rest of this chapter is mostly based off the first movie, though there are lots of changes because, for example, there's no way that there's more than one "Mikasa Ackerman" in Los Angeles - that only works with more common names, like "Sarah Connor", lmao (in the movie, the Terminator starts killing off all the women named "Sarah Connor" that he finds in a phone guide).
I tried to keep some details to remain loyal to the original story, but I can't just go around making everything exactly the same, otherwise, what's the point?
Btw, I wonder if you guys realized who the "Terminator" is, because he's so NOT like Arnold that it makes me giggle xD though I swear I picked him for valid reasons!
The chapter title is a song by Rockwell, from the 80's. I created a playlist for this story and you can find the link in my profile.