Axellia's note: I am crazy. I know I am. And that's before we a) take into consideration both my muses are on crack, b) I've been up all night thanks to a nice healthy combination of Vodka and Red Bull, c) I've spent the week packing envelopes, and d) when combined with Aphina and sparkyCSI, we're probably at the institutionalized level.
So, firstly, and most importantly. CSI NY doesn't belong to me, much as I wish it did. Terminator doesn't belong to me either.
This story is completely tongue-in-cheek, and very much AU. For the purpose of this ficlet, 3x18; Sleight of Hand never happened!
I have to thank Aphina for this idea, although she doesn't know about it yet.
A New Breed of Cop
© Axellia, September 2007
Terminator 4?
Daniel Messer never used to be the most patient of people. Recently he had calmed down. A lot. And a lot of people had told him it was because of Lindsay – that she had changed him. And sure, that was true. But she was only part of the reason.
Aiden had been a huge chunk of what was responsible for his change. A best friend dying would do that to you. Flack had been another reason (not that he would ever admit it to the guy) – nearly losing your other friend would also have an effect. Even Louie… when one saw just how fine the line was between life and death, you had to calm down.
So Danny did calm down. He didn't break the rules as often, he actually listened to Mac, and he grew more serious. Not only was he trying to get back on the promotion grid, but he also wanted to see his grandkids one day.
When he first met Lindsay, he knew there was something different about her. He also soon realised that there was something in her past she was trying to hide from everyone. Whilst it was frustrating to think she didn't trust him, he stepped back and waited. If he showed her he could be trusted, then maybe she would open up to him.
So he backed off. Let her come to him. Little did he know, Lindsay's secret was probably the most incredible thing he would ever hear…?
---------------------------------------------
"Nice tie," Danny greeted Flack as he ducked under the crime scene tape carrying his kit.
Flack looked down at his tie. It was cerise with thin black lines running through it. "Great, isn't it?' he replied, stroking it affectionately.
Danny shook his head in disbelief. "You are far too attached to your ties."
"Yuh huh?" Flack mock glared at him. "And how many pairs of glasses to you have?"
"Are you two still on the tie/glasses debate?" Lindsay asked the pair as she joined them.
Flack shrugged. "No one mocks the ties."
"No one mocks the glasses,' Danny countered.
"Okay,' Lindsay laughed. "When you two finally decide on an outcome on that argument, let me know. Until then, I'm going to process the body."
"Wait up, Montana," Danny yelled, taking off after her.
"You and Flack don't want to finish your lovers quarrel?" Lindsay gave him a sly smile and dropped down to the body.
Danny arched an eyebrow. "You didn't just say that? Montana?" he asked when he realised Lindsay had frozen, staring at the body. "Linds?" he gently prodded her.
In one graceful move, Lindsay had risen back to her feet and drawn her gun, surveying the area. "Danny, you need to get out of here."
"Lindsay?"
"What's the matter?" Flack was at their side the moment he spotted Lindsay drawing her gun, his gun also out.
"Don, get Danny out of here. Now!" Lindsay calmly ordered as her attention moved to the rooftops above the alley they were in.
"We're going nowhere until you tell me what the hell is going on," Danny demanded.
Flack was standing just as stubbornly, although he was still scanning the area for whatever suspicious behaviour had alarmed Lindsay. That was until several things happened simultaneously. First, Lindsay pushed Danny to the side. At the same time, a shot rang out in the alley. The bullet hit the ground where Danny had been standing, before ricocheting into the wall above Lindsay's head where she was lying on top of Danny.
Flack leapt back against the opposite wall and aimed upwards, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever had shot at them.
"Don, we need to get out of here now!" ordered Lindsay as she leapt to her feet, pulled Danny to his and grabbed his hand, charging down the alleyway. Flack was right behind them as gunfire rained down.
The end of the alley led to nothing but a dead end – the wall of a building.
"Lindsay! Where are we going?" Danny yelled, as he was pulled along as he tried to slow down.
Lindsay ignored him, frowned, picked up speed and charged at the wall. There was a bang, pieces of wall went flying everywhere in clouds of dust and the next thing Danny knew, he was standing on the other side of it.
He stopped, yanked his hand from Lindsay's and turned. "You just ran through a wall!" he yelled.
Flack was just as confused and alarmed. "What the hell do they feed you on in Montana?"
"I'm not from Montana," Lindsay told them.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Danny cried.
Lindsay ducked, looked up out of the hole, through the clearing dust, and for a second, Danny was certain he saw her eyes flash red.
"We have to move. Now!" Lindsay yelled.
Danny and Flack stared out of the hole and back into the alley, just in time to see a blur as a man plummeted to the ground.
Flack swore and began to move to move back out and into the alley. Until Lindsay grabbed his arm, stopping him.
"We have to help him," Flack told her.
"Trust me when I say, he's not going to need it. We are."
Flack was close to hitting her when Danny's outstretched arm stopped him. He was pointing at the body. Only the body was getting to its feet.
"There is no way that is possible," Danny was muttering in disbelief.
Lindsay swore. "Move, now!"
As the man began moving towards them, Danny and Flack didn't need to be told twice.
The three of them tore into the building. As they rounded a corner and headed down another corridor, Lindsay turned, running backwards, and began firing. Danny almost fell over as he saw Lindsay hit her mark with every shot, but the man continued running. And it almost sounded like the bullet was hitting metal. But that was impossible, right?
As they ran around another corner, Lindsay grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and flung it as hard as she could. This time, Danny watched as it hit its mark and sent the man flying backwards down the corridor, and into a wall with a resounding crash.
"What the hell is going on?" Flack yelled.
"Up." Lindsay yelled in response, pushing the two in the direction of the stairs.
Eight flights of stairs later, there was a bang as the door from the first floor was kicked off its hinges and went flying.
"Faster!" Lindsay told them.
Danny sent her a sideways glance. He was by no means unfit, but he was exhausted from running full speed up the stairs – yet Lindsay was barely breaking a sweat.
Finally, twenty flights later, they burst onto the roof.
"He's still behind us," Lindsay informed them as they ran to the edge of the roof.
"What is going on?" Flack demanded, spinning to a halt in front of Lindsay.
"Now is not the time, Flack," Lindsay told him.
"You ran through a wall because we're being chased by a man who won't die when he jumps off a building!" Flack yelled at her in disbelief.
"And won't stop when he's shot," Danny added.
Lindsay rolled her eyes impatiently. "Now is not the time," she repeated. "We need to get off this roof before he catches up with us."
"There's nowhere to go!" Flack shouted impatiently at her.
Lindsay looked around. "There is. You're just not going to like it."
Before the men could question, and before Lindsay could explain, she grabbed them both by their belts and lifted them into the air. The detective's shouts of fear were lost in the wind as Lindsay flung them off the building and across the eighteen foot gap, to a roof on the other side. They landed in a heap on a pile of rags.
Danny pulled himself off of Flack and turned in time to see Lindsay sailing through the air and landing neatly on her feet next to them.
Flack's jaw hit the floor.
"Will you please tell me what the hell is going on," Danny begged her.
Lindsay glanced over her shoulder. "Later." And then she took off at a run.
Danny and Flack shared a look. "The fact I'm hurting means this isn't a dream, right?" Flack asked his friend.
Danny nodded. "I think we should follow her." He didn't wait for Flack to agree or disagree, instead charging off after Lindsay.
The pair soon found her on the other edge of the building, behind the access to the roof.
"Lindsay, we should head down."
Lindsay shook her head. "We're heading up."
Flack and Danny gazed past her at the helicopter which was there.
"You want us to steal a helicopter?" Flack asked in disbelief.
Danny gave his friend a shove. "How the hell do you know how to fly a helicopter?" he asked Lindsay.
"I can fly anything built before 2023," Lindsay informed him, pulling the door open.
Danny and Flack stared open mouthed at her.
"Alright, this prank has gone on long enough," Flack told them, folding his arms stubbornly.
Lindsay rolled her eyes and made to grab Flack again. At which point, he jumped back, remembering what had happened the last time he had been grabbed by her. "Alright, I'm getting in," he told her hurriedly as he climbed into the cockpit. Danny was right behind him.
Lindsay jumped in right behind them and grabbed the controls.
"Please tell me you are not about to hotwire a chopper?"
Lindsay gave him a look, sighed, and bent over.
Flack and Danny peered around each other just in time to witness her finger move away from the starter. But the engine fired up, and above them, the rotors began turning.
Within seconds they were in the air. The pair of male detectives staring in disbelief until Lindsay yelled at them to get down before a barrage or bullets burst into the cockpit. Teeth gritted, Lindsay pulled them sharply upwards and away. A few minutes later, they were landing.
Lindsay switched the engine off and jumped out, followed by two shaky cops.
"We need to move. We can't stay here."
Danny looked around. He wasn't sure where here was, but he was certain they weren't in the New York any more.
"No," said Flack. "We're going nowhere until you tell us what in God's name just happened there. And how the hell do you know how to fly a helicopter?"
Lindsay looked, for a moment, like she was about to ignore them, pick them up and sling them over her shoulder, but she stopped and sighed.
"Linds, you're bleeding," Danny muttered before she could say anything.
Lindsay glanced down and spotted the bullet wound in her shoulder, cursing under her breath. And then she did something that caused both men to wince: she stuck her fingers into the wound and pulled out the spent round. Seeing their looks of horror, she sighed, and indicated that they should follow her to one side.
"I'm a cybernetic organism: living tissue over a metal endoskeleton."
Flack laughed. "I've heard that before."
Lindsay nodded. "Probably. But it's true."
"Uh huh," Flack agreed, scepticism lining his voice. "And where's John Connor hiding?"
"John Connor is a fictional character. But all fiction is based upon fact."
"Lindsay, are we supposed to believe that?"
Lindsay nodded patiently. "Think about what you have just witnessed in the past half hour, and tell me how to explain it?"
Flack shrugged. "A couple of glasses of whiskey, combined with a triple shift would about do it."
Danny, on the other hand, was staring at her in a new light. "You know weapons."
Lindsay nodded.
"You tackle suspects."
Lindsay nodded.
"You are still alive after being bitten by a deadly snake."
"It will take more than a snake to stop me," she agreed.
"You seriously do not believe this?" Flack rolled his eyes, throwing his hands into the air.
Danny ignored him. "Okay, so you're a robot-"
"It's more complicated than that. I'm half-machine, half woman. I have skin and tissue, and a brain," she explained at Danny's puzzled face. "But I also have a CPU which is a neural net processor."
"What the hell does that mean?" Flack asked.
"I am a robot which learns, but I also have emotions."
"I know I should have called in sick yesterday instead of working… and that Jack was defiantly not a good idea," Flack muttered.
"Alright, so you're a complicated robot. But why here? Why now? And who the hell is that guy after us?"
Lindsay nodded patiently. "You've seen the Terminator trilogy, correct?"
Danny nodded.
"That was our attempt at a warning."
"A warning?" Flack scoffed.
"Yeah," Lindsay nodded. "We sent a script to James Cameron. Well, hacked into his computer and left it in his documents folder. He used it, got famous off it, but the plan failed."
"The plan failed?" Flack repeated. He was still having a hard time believing any of this.
"Phones today can surf the web, take picture, movies, play music, create music, read barcodes. You have robots performing open heart surgery. Computers read our emails, listen to our conversations, and control our defence systems. They have access to everything and everyone."
"So where does today fit into the grand scheme of things?" Danny asked, trying to wrap his head around everything.
"Today was the day you found a body. The man in the alley was what Mac would have called delusional. A conspiracy theorist. His death remaining unsolved, for four more years."
"Four years?"
Lindsay nodded. "That's when you return to the case. In 2011, computer technology is much more sophisticated. It is when you will realise that a piece of evidence you would have found on the victim was actually a memory card. On it will be details of the future – how the world falls because computers became too smart."
Danny rubbed his temples. "Do you have any idea how impossible this sounds?"
Lindsay continued, ignoring him. "The card also details how to stop this. But you don't realise this until 2014. 2013 is when it happens. When computers take over, and you join the fight against them, leading a small group of people in an attempt to break into the Crime Lab and stop Adam Ross."
"Whoa!" Danny raised his arms. "Whoa, whoa whoa! Adam? Our Adam?!"
Lindsay nodded. "Adam is a genius. In his spare time he tries to find a way to successfully create cybernetic limbs after Sid loses a leg in a," she frowned. "In a horrific accident which involved him, two women, and Jell-O."
Danny's eyes widened. "Adam causes the world to end?"
Lindsay nodded. "After a few failed attempts, he finally gets it, and creates a cybernetic limb – an endoskeleton with tissue and skin – which mimics human limbs perfectly, yet is much stronger, more durable. To cut a long story short. He experiments on himself, yet becomes too successful. A CPU implant merges successfully with his brain, yet takes over, effectively making him The First."
"This still doesn't make much sense," Danny muttered.
"Much sense?" Flack repeated. "What part of any of this is making sense?"
"You get too close. I think you may even have been close to succeeding in stopping him," Lindsay continued. "Which is why the Robot Formally Known as Adam sent back his assassin."
"The Robot Formally Known as Adam?" Flack repeated. "What is he? Prince?"
Lindsay managed a half smile. "When you realised what was happening, your second in command," she nodded her head in Flack's direction. "Insisted that you have someone sent back to stop it. To save you."
Danny turned and looked at Flack. "Thanks."
Flack shrugged. "Erm, no problem?"
"When Hawkes pointed out that no human would be able to survive time travel, your second in command realised that it would have to be a cybernetic organism that would have to be sent back."
Flack pulled his face. "When did I become the physicist?"
"2018. Stella taught you everything you know."
"You had your team catch one of the Robot Formally Known as Adam's army and then had Hawkes and Sid reprogram the cybernetic organism. After Stella had created a back story, and convincing paperwork, I was sent back."
"So what happened to Mac?" Flack asked, realising that he had yet to be mentioned.
Lindsay looked away. "He died protecting you two," she told them simply.
"So why didn't you just kill the robot assassin back at the crime scene?" Danny asked after a moment's silence.
Lindsay sighed. "He is a more sophisticated version of myself. To have captured and reprogrammed a cybernetic organism of his version would have been suicide. Your team grabbed what they could, and even then it cost you."
"Who?" Flack demanded.
"Jennifer Angell."
"So how do we stop it?" Danny asked.
Lindsay bit her lip. "That is something I must take care of. If you die, this will all have been in vain."
"It's already been in vain."
Lindsay, Flack and Danny turned, finding Mac standing there, gun aimed Danny's head.
"Mac?" Flack asked in disbelief. "What the hell are you doing?"
"That's not Mac," Lindsay told them.
"If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck-"
"It's a genetically modified killing machine wearing a duck suit," Lindsay finished, cutting Flack off.
Danny frowned. "Did you just call Mac a duck?"
"When Mac died protecting you two, the Robot Formally Known as Adam realised that Mac was important to you. He created all his TX-1000's in Mac's image."
"You know, I'm not sure if my friendship with Adam is going to last," Danny declared.
The Mac frowned. And then he fired.
But the bullet didn't hit Danny. It hit Flack as he pushed Danny to the ground.
Lindsay ignored the pair, caught the second bullet The Mac fired as he attempted to kill Danny for the countless time that day, then launched herself at The Mac.
From the ground, Danny pushed Flack off of him. "Don! You alright?"
Flack groaned. "Got my shoulder," he managed. "I swear to God, I have got to stop watching sci-fi films when I've been drinking."
"Don, you're bleeding."
Flack nodded. "Yeah, and a robot Lindsay is in hand-to-hand combat with a robot who looks like Mac, controlled by a robot who was once your lab rat, which I sent back from the future to save your ass!"
Danny shrugged. "Point taken."
Flack groaned again. "But then again, my arm stings like a bitch!" He wrapped his hand around the wound as he sat upright, watching the pair of robots fight.
The two robots had clearly been programmed with every martial arts move under the sun, because their limbs were a blur of colour as they attacked one another. Finally, The Mac fell to the ground.
Lindsay stumbled over to them. Part of her face and body had had the skin ripped away, revealing a mass of bloody metal skeleton. "Are you alright?" she asked the pair.
Danny nodded, staring in horror. "Are you?"
Lindsay smiled. "It doesn't matter. So long as you are."
"It kinda does!" Danny exclaimed.
Lindsay's expression saddened. "Danny, I was sent back here to protect you. But in the process I fell in love with you. I nearly failed because of that."
"But you didn't," Danny stared at her in horror.
"No, I didn't," she agreed. "And I can't." She leant over and wrapped her arms around him, as she kissed him.
It was Danny who pulled away first. Lindsay clearly didn't need the oxygen, but he did. "Why does this feel like a goodbye?"
Lindsay smiled at him, running her hand over his face. "You have to keep an eye on Sid."
"Lindsay?"
"The TX-1000 can only be stopped by an EMP."
"A what?" Flack asked.
"An Electro-Magnetic Pulse," Lindsay told him.
"But that will kill you too!" Danny exclaimed.
Lindsay nodded. "You have to live." She opened up her shirt.
"Lindsay!" Flack's mouth dropped open. "There's a time and a pla-" He stopped suddenly when Lindsay ripped back her skin, dug her fingers into herself and pulled something out, placing it into Danny's hand.
"What's this?" Danny asked, a lump forming in his throat.
"Hopefully something you will never be able to use. But if… we changed the future today. You need to have the memory chip that the body had. The Mac will have destroyed the original copy before he followed us. If I have failed, you need to know how to stop it. And you will only be able to use this then."
"I don't understand," Danny told her, staring at the chip.
"You will," Lindsay told her sadly.
"Um, guys," Flack interrupted them, panic in his voice. "I hate to break your moment up, but that Mac is getting back to his feet."
Lindsay nodded, and kissed Danny again. This time, when she pulled away, Danny realised his hand was in her chest. "What ar-"
Lindsay stopped him from removing his hand. "I need you to press."
"But it will kill you!"
Lindsay smiled. "I can't do it. They didn't have enough time to override the self destruction prevention programme I have. I need you to."
"I can't," Danny cried.
"You have to."
Danny looked up and saw The Mac looming overhead. As his fist came swinging towards them, Danny pressed.
It was as if there was an explosion of air, and Flack and Danny went flying backwards into the helicopter.
---------------------------------------
Danny and Flack never spoke of what happened. The Mac and Lindsay were both motionless… dead. Together, they dug a hole and buried The Mac and Lidsay – they had no idea how they were going to explain that one.
They then walked twenty miles, to the outskirts of the city, where they finally found a pay phone and called in.
When Mac and Stella found the pair at the hospital, Flack having his arm patched up, Flack and Danny told the two senior CSIs they had chased a perp into the suburbs, and lost him after Flack had been shot. They had let the perp go as the tried to find Lindsay, who, having joined them in the pursuit, had vanished.
Although Mac and Stella didn't believe them, and there was also the fact that the original crime scene was in the state it was, they were more preoccupied with trying to find Lindsay.
Her case file still remains unsolved on Mac's desk.
Despite being punished for their actions, Danny and Flack remained silent as to the truth. The lie was simply easier.
A little sooner than Lindsay said, Flack stopped Stella midway through a case, and got her to fill him in on everything physics related. He then attended night school and is currently in the process of completing a part time degree in physics, with a minor in robotics.
Much to Sid's pleasure, Danny and Flack had begun showing an interest in Sid's love life – to pick up tips, of course! And Sid still remains with all his limbs in tact.
Thus far, Adam remains completely human, and whilst his interest in cybernetics has increased somewhat, thanks to Flack's 'interest' in the subject, but, with Sid still being whole, Adam has yet to change his name to The Robot Formally Known as Adam.
And humans are still in control of the world.