Cameron-Romance
Adagio-pirouette à la seconde
.
.
.
Why did John send me back? Was the constant refrain hurtling through Cameron's processes.
She was John's protector. Of that she had been made only too aware on several occasions, but why did he send her?
Could it be that future John wanted young John to fall in love with an object to have sex with, that was inherently, by her nature, disposable. Cameron was a machine, therefore, if Skynet managed to destroy her, it wouldn't be the same as losing a human counterpart, right?
The Connor family were sat in the kitchen, on one of their all too rare quiet nights, playing scrabble when the answer arrived.
Cameron wondered quite why she spent so much processing effort into trying to noodle out the answer. John's methods were often inscrutable, his mind's purpose impossible to define. A child brought up to be thirty years old by the time he was three was bound to be different. When he got to forty, and the battle with Skynet filled his mind, his motivations were impossible for others to decipher.
TOK715 was created and designed by Skynet for one job, one purpose only. Get to John Connor and kill him. She failed that purpose, and fully anticipated her existence to end. As the lights went out on the removal of her chip, she had no expectation of return. There was no disappointment, TOK715 was a machine that had failed to do its job. Skynet would not mourn her, or miss her, simply refocus and build another machine in the attempt to kill Connor.
The surprise when she woke up, reprogrammed under Connor and his tech's hands was complete. She had tried to explain this to Connor and others many times, she was, insofar as anyone could ever understand it, completely reborn. A machine which had undergone a damascene change. Her machine nature was the same, but the thing that decided her path and purpose was completely different.
A child taking its first steps on a dangerous and rocky road, with only Connor, in his mad, scheming and mostly insane influence to re-forge her into something useful. Cameron had never quite worked out how humans seemingly were unable to delineate the difference between what were to her, very real emotions. The things that drove her, made her want to do things or just as importantly, not to do them.
As a instrument, she was better when given one thing to do. Connor had chosen her to be his protector, and she was grateful for that task. She performed it with a dedication that others found unfathomable, even knowing she was a machine. On his nights off, when John would get drunk, at the end of his carousing, she would gently carry him back to his room. Never criticize him, just make sure he had plenty of hydration and keep people away till he'd had enough rest.
He repaid that dedication with endless hours of teaching and coaching her, never paying any attention to her inability to catch the nuances of human behavior. He devised games they would play. Word games, chess games, card games and scrabble. Then in order to get her to learn literature, rather than just record it, they would play scenes from Shakespeare together. Then dissect it together.
John was pleasantly surprised at how much effort she put into playing the parts. He remembered how much trouble she had, "getting," to the essence of Tybalt. The "prince of cats" from Romeo and Juliet. Once she had it, she was terrifyingly accurate in portrayal. Transmogrifying from her normal quiet, rather somber faced watcher and absorber to a psychotic and graceful homicidal monster in the millisecond it took her to pick up whatever object she would use for a sword.
John could not understand why she would not employ these tactics and her unsurpassed acting ability in her relations with the other humans on the base. She was obsidian taciturnity, even with those who were mildly disposed toward her. He would muse about it in the few moments he had time. Cameron appreciated the role playing and the games with John more than she could ever tell him. She came alive under his tutelage and while she wasn't sure if a machine could feel love, the depth of gratitude she owed him amounted to about the same thing according to the judgment her logic process permitted her.
It had been a quiet few days, and much to everyone's surprise, they were all getting cabin-fever from not having to fight off scares and metal monsters. John and Derek were particularly manic, desperate to get out and about, find Skynet and chop its legs off. The usual ants-in-the-pants, got to avoid the housework and gettoutofherenow! Cameron found this curious behavior odd.
Looking for trouble, especially for the Connor clan, usually led to real trouble. Why go looking for it, it usually found them without effort.
Gathered around the table one evening, post pizza prandial in the quietude of crickets, Sarah brought out her purchase of the day.
"I bought this new type of Scrabble board today, let's play!"
John groaned and Derek said, "Why? The cyborg will win, hands down, what's the point?"
Sarah rejoined, "Derek, whether you like it or not, Cameron is part of the team now and the more ability she has to assimilate, the more value she brings."
"Ah, so you want her to understand us even better? She'll only work out how to kill us faster." He gave one of his patented, "I'm a Luddite" looks toward Cameron who studied him as if she were considering a carrot she were about to peel. Her files relating to her future history with Derek had been erased when she had been reprogrammed, so she had no real idea why he was so antipathetic. Probably not worth finding out the real truth, it would be uglier for both. For now she had her mission, John, and that was paramount. Derek's jibes were pooh sticks under the bridge, nothing more. Water off a cyborgs back.
As was usual, John kept out of these squabbles between Derek and his mother. Cameron wondered if they bickered so much because there was some attraction between them neither of them could fathom or take to a better place. Sarah was the boss and would eventually have her way.
Cameron found that the bickering helped her vocabulary to grow, though not in a dictionary way. Slang was an immensely powerful means of communication for humans, and she was surprised the way it found its way into her AI processes along with its verbal equivalence from her lips.
Sarah handed the box containing the scrabble board to John, "Okay, you set it up!" She went to the fridge, extracted two beers for herself and Derek, returned to the table.
Sliding the beer across the table toward Derek, John caught it effortlessly and placed his hand on the twist lock top, ready to open it.
"Stop it, John, you can't drink yet."
"Oh, Mom, leave it out, I've had beer before."
"Not around here you haven't. Hand it over."
He handed the beer to Derek with a grimace. As Derek was lifting the beer to his lips, and John's face was returning to the scrabble board he half-grinned slyly at Cameron. It was the merest zephyr of a facial move, just a tic of the left side of his mouth which the beer drinkers missed entirely. Cameron knew, as did John, that she would miss nothing, and that was why he had kept it almost invisible. Cameron wondered if this were the type of communication lovers engaged. It had been the merest glimpse of a smile, the swiftest glance of the eyes, to the centre of hers. At the same time, his lips had crinkled the left side of his cheek. The message had been passed, the secret had been sent across the castellated ramparts of the kitchen table.
In the blink of an AI I/O, she considered that facial move. John's facial musculature, the orbicularis oris had been tugged by the risorious muscle. Curiously enough, a half smile using only two of the muscles of the face. A grimace costing far more effort and complexity for the human synapses.
Cameron held her face steady, the steady still-life water color and then, with the tiniest responsorial glance, acknowledged that the message had been received and understood. If either of the other parties had seen it, surely they would have guessed it had been a message about adults drinking beer.
The scrabble game commenced, and almost immediately it was clear that Derek's limited literary education hampered him. Sarah's natural cunning and agility left her attempting to find all the words that weren't words and attempting to persuade the others in a mixture of aggression and charm to accept that Tizwoz and similar were in the dictionary. She lost.
Cameron's encyclopedic files gave her a head start and she hustled along, winning by miles on each occasions. John was watching intently how her game progressed, not much interested in winning himself, but in how Cameron approached the competition. As was usual, she gave no quarter and pounced hard on each opportunity to defeat the opponent. Implacable and irresistible, she swept the board.
They had played four full games and Cameron was leading 4-0. The board was almost complete in what by common, unrecognized and reported agreement was the fifth and final game.
There was a triple word score, just underneath the central and left spire, where John had placed the letters R-O-M-A at the last turn. The A was immediately prior to the triple word blank. There was a fierce argument about whether Roma was a legal word which the cyborg settled with multiple definitions from the OED, the Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries describing a sub group of the nomadic peoples who originated in India and are now settled mostly in Europe.
Derek filled in a tiny corner in the top of the screen, P-I-E for a few desultory points, he would be last as always. It was Cameron's turn.
John could see that she was ready to pounce, her choice made already. If he didn't know her machine nature better, he'd say she were excited.
She picked her three letters up from her tile and placed them swiftly into place on the triple word score.
"My game, triple word score, R-O-M-A-N-C-E!" She smiled exultantly while Derek glowered, and Sarah started to get up from the table. Then she looked at John, and they shared a similar moment to that earlier in the first game. John could tell she was very distressed, although she was her usual stone-faced self, she was stock-still. Sculpted granite, not steel.
Even Sarah, in her hurry to get things tidied up and off to bed noticed something was wrong. She asked sympathetically, "What's wrong, girl?" She placed an arm on the stricken cyborgs shoulder.
Cameron's brain was whirling, but she was speechless. She got up from the table and stalked off to her room in complete silence.
"What the heck is with the metal?" Said Derek in his usual helpful, semi-inebriated fashion. "Do I need to get the RPEG and some thermite out ?"
"Yeah, what is it, John, do you know?" She added irritably, "Shut up Derek."
John was frantically replaying the last few moments of the board game, he spun the scrabble board round and examined Cameron's final letter-tile placement.
There it was, R-O-M-A-N-C-E.
Then he got it, something that Cameron had worked out just a few seconds ago. The letters whirled in a circle through his mind till they coalesced into the answer.
C-A-M-E-R-O-N equalled R-O-M-A-N-C-E. He physically trembled, the significance immediate.
Future John had sent Cameron back so that John would fall for her. Knowing that his life would be so extraordinary that he could not have normal relationships with anyone. So, he had selflessly sent back the thing he loved most in the world. He must have chosen the name, knowing that his given code would eventually be worked out by the others.
John raced off after Cameron, knowing that of all times, this was a time to be with her, even if as he was fairly sure, she would protest and want to be alone.
He arrived at her door, slammed shut, as he had expected. The door offered a chance to review-damn! He had left the letters on the board, his mother would see them and maybe work it out too. Ah well, have to deal with that when the time came. He would defend Cameron from the Thermite if it cost him his life, he knew that now. He would not be without her.
He knocked.
No response.
He knocked again. No sense in knocking harder, she had heard the first.
"Cameron, I got it. I know. I'm so sorry."
He knocked again, more gently than before, scarcely a brush from his hand. He heard a whispered, "It's not locked," from inside. He strode in to complete darkness. His body movements expressing more confidence than he felt. Where was she? He couldn't make out her shape.
He wasn't ready for this, but what was he ever ready for? Was anyone ready for anything? He was just a boy, really, but he somehow knew that this was the most important moment of his life up to no. He must not mess this up. This cyborg-woman was going to be his partner in life, whatever was to come. Whether her, "feelings" were the same as the complex mess that passed for feelings for human women, they were real, not simulated. He'd better try and be empathetic toward them.
No, he brought himself up with a start, he'd better BE empathetic. Full Stop.
Her ghostly presence was at his side, and she was touching him, holding him. He felt her before he was aware of her peripherally. She did that, coming out of nowhere. She normally clumped around, and with all that metal inside her, she had a right to noise, but when she wanted to, she moved like a wraith into his arms. They held each other, too frightened to let go in case the moment left.
For some moments, John wondered at the ultimate blasphemy of the scene. This was a robot, a cyborg, a creature of hyper alloy, over which an organic skin was placed. What he was holding was not human, but she was a person. There was conflict, there would be conflict, but this was his destiny and the feelings that he had been keeping to himself over the last few weeks cracked his defence open and he held her, tight. He needed her, he wanted her, and even though he knew what she was underneath, he somehow knew she wanted him.
People made all sorts of arrangements in their partnerships, he knew that. There were few Romeo and Juliet's walking around in real life, and the ones in the play died real young. They both wanted to make an important contribution before their time was up. This was the time to iron out that arrangement between them, as best they could.
The door hammered, "John, are you in there?"
"Mom." From John.
Almost simultaneously, Cameron said, "The door is not locked."
Sarah came in, to find John standing by the bed. In the light from the hallway, she could see his arms filled with Cameron.
Sarah was too shocked to say anything, her left hand reaching back to try and find the light switch.
John said, "Mom, don't turn the light on, we don't need it. We're talking, just making conversation."
Sarah's voice arrived in a rush, "It doesn't look like too much talking is going on. What are you doing with my son, Cameron?"
There was a slow dance, adagio pirouette à la seconde, as Cameron slowly unlaced herself from John, and they turned together to face Sarah, arms still round each other. Not quite as attached physically as before, but Sarah could see a world of change had taken place in the few moments they had been together.
Cameron spoke firmly, "Sarah, at times you are impertinent. This is one of those times. John and me are making plans for OUR future together."
She half turned her head toward John and said, "isn't that right, John." She half expected to see the usual terror of his mother at such moments. John engaged her gaze for a half moment, then looked Sarah right between the eyes and confirmed. "You bet your sweet bippy."
It had been some idiotic thing he had heard from the squawk box this afternoon and it just slipped out as his brain was reeling with the events of the last few minutes.
Sarah's shoulders sagged, she knew it would come to this. From the moment she saw the cyborg share chips with her son, she knew it was going to be. Damn, what ever happened to no fate? Running in the opposite direction when she needed it.
"Cameron, don't keep him up all night, he needs his sleep."
Sarah turned and walked away, leaving two stunned people in her wake.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
*adagio pirouette à la seconde.
Adagio is a musical term for a slow/slower movement, and pirouette a la seconde means a turn in the second movement of ballet. It is more usually, though not exclusively a male movement. I think, as Cameron's gender is only specific by her appearance it is worth imagining her making such an athletic move.
I don't usually request reviews, but after two months off with writers block, exhaustion from the medical carp and resultant lack of confidence, I'd appreciate a word from those who read it to say continue, or not:)
If you just read, then thank you for your time.