As is the formality here: I do not own any of the Terminator franchise, I am not making any kind of money off of this fan fic, so forth and so on
A Day of Tragedies
28 February 2007
2300 PST
John Connor punched the wall, leaving a small dent and causing a shooting pain up through his wrist. He knew it would probably leave a dark blue bruise, the worst kind, but it couldn't compare to the pain and anger he felt inside.
"So that's what you resort to? Car bombs; you think you're the friggin mafia?" he said as he gazed out the window, "A little too late, you bastard. You got the wrong target. You missed me and hit…someone very special. You're going to wish it was me." In his innermost core, John felt dumb and melodramatic talking to nothing, but something had to bear the brunt of his anger. It was about the fifth time in the past five hours he had given this little monologue and it was getting annoying…even to him.
His best friend was a terminator; a nearly indestructible machine…nearly indestructible. Tasked with the mundane mission of picking up a birthday cake from the supermarket for John, Cameron Philips, the terminator, got into the Connors' jeep to disembark for the store. When she turned the key, she saw in her rearview mirror, the face of the Armenian organized crime kingpin, Sarkissian, a man who was supposed to be dead, walking away. Too late, Cameron knew something was wrong just as the jeep exploded. John had been in his room at the time, talking with his mother, when they felt the rumble and heard the boom. They rushed outside to find the flaming jeep, and Cameron falling out and trying to escape the heat. She was in very bad shape.
Unable to contain himself anymore, he walked quickly out of the room. He found his mother, Sarah, and his Uncle Derek in the kitchen. Unaware of his presence, they continued talking.
"Look, we just need to get up and go. Get the thermite, burn her, and that'll be the end of it," Derek said, leaning back a little too casually against the counter, "then we go. Drive down to San Diego for a bit to get off the radar, make raids up here but…well, if we actually think that they're keeping the Turk in LA, we're underestimating them. So we wait till we have a positive ID on its location, we take it out…it's gone, we find some way to take out Cromartie, and that's the end of it."
Sarah sighed, "Neither of us like…that thing, but we need her. Unless we're willing to start shooting up more 'roids than Barry Bonds, none of us here can go toe to toe with Cromartie."
"Oh, come on! Give me an M107, I'll shoot his head off from a mile away!" Derek walked forward and leaned on the table, "We're going to destroy them all anyway, once we find the Turk and Cromartie. Why not get it over with now when her limbs are all mangled to hell and she can't fight back?"
Sarah's green eyes were bit glassy, much to John's surprise. No matter what you felt about somebody, it was difficult to watch a brother, or sister, in arms go down.
"I really don't know, Derek. On one hand, we do need a metal and…well, I'll have to convince John of this, but she—it—is a nothing more than a high tech tool, and we'll just have to throw it away once she's outlived her usefulness. But, on the other hand, the thing is not too useful right now and…"
John couldn't take any more of this. They were talking about burning up Cameron like it was nothing…like they were going to be throwing away an old TV set. Yes, the car bomb had done a number on her, but John was sure she could be repaired. And yes, they did need her, but more importantly, John wanted her there. He wasn't going to trick himself anymore. Cameron, though she was a cyborg assassin reprogrammed to be a protector, a piece of hardware who looked like a girl, was now a part of his life. She was the best friend he had since Tim, when he was ten years old, and a loyal companion.
Quickly and quietly, he walked into Cameron's room, where she was lying on the bed. The queen-size bed, John thought, was unfair since she never slept anyway, and he was stuck with a lumpy, old, college dorm type bed. But right now, he did not care about that in the least. As he entered the room, Cameron turned and looked at him, offering—was it a sad?—smile.
"Hi," she breathed out, sounding all too much like a severely injury or dying human. Her face was torn up a bit, and bits of the metallic endoskeleton shown through, and her silky brown hair was a mess, but to John, she was still gorgeous. Her body, however, was an absolute wreck. One of her legs was broken at the knee join, and the coltan skeleton was poking out, dripping some of the blood from her skin layer mixed with some other kind of liquid from a broken vain-like tube onto a rag. Cameron's right arm was shredded like the frayed end of a torn phone cable, and her left arm made an awful grinding sound when she moved it.
"Hey," John said as he bit his lip, "What's up with your voice?"
"My voice chip…was damaged," Cameron's eyes drooped tiredly, "And my power generator is having problems, so I don't have much energy," she looked up at him again and she tried to lift her arm. She winced, "The damage must be severe…" Cameron grit her teeth as she repositioned her arm, "John, help me rest my arm…I want to change position but I need some help."
John moved quickly over to the bed and sat down, assisting Cameron in moving her arm so that it rested on her abdomen. After the arm was at rest, John left his hand there, stroking her hand, looking into her eyes with a mixture of anger—anger at the person who did this—pity for the all-too-human machine, and sadness that he was probably going to lose her.
"You're angry with me," she said, cocking her head like she usually did when she was trying to read non-verbal signals.
John shook his head, "Not at all. I'm just worried about you."
"I'm sorry I failed my mission," she said, "I'm sorry I ruined your birthday."
"Cameron, Cameron, no!" John almost laughed at this, "No, you didn't ruin my birthday, whoever did this to you ruined it." He stroked her forehead, "And we're going to fix you up and get you better."
Cameron smiled, unable to move much of anything but her right leg, which itself was somewhat loose. "You're worried about me."
"Yes."
"You care about me."
John sucked in his bottom lip a bit and nodded again, "I care a lot about you."
"Even though I'm just a machine? And not a very good one, since I wasn't even able to go get your cake?" there was a twinge of hurt that John could have sworn he heard in Cameron's voice.
"I don't think of you as a machine. I always think of you as Cameron Phillips," he said, looking down at her, "Do you need anything?"
"She's a robot, John," Derek appeared behind John and caused him to jump a mile. Derek's face was colder than the steel that made up Cameron's body.
"Holy freakin' crap, Derek." John said, regaining his breath, "You scared the bejezus out of me."
Without a word, Derek walked over to the bed and looked at Cameron. "You're shot to shit and I don't think we can repair you," he said without any emotion, "You're no more use to us. We're going to have to do the thermite thing with you."
"No!" John protested, "No, we can get parts, we have a block of coltan…"
"Do you see a manual laying around?" Derek retorted, "this thing was built—by robots—twenty years from now. They don't even have a "repair shop" then because they don't care about individual models. One goes down, so what? There's a bunch more."
John gritted his teeth and walked toward the window before turning in anger and sadness, "There's got to be something we can do. Derek, she got injured helping us…it's not like I'm in some kind of denial about her stabbing us in the back. She was attacked, you got that? We have to help her!"
Derek softened for a minute, looking down at his shoes, "John, there's nothing we can do."
"John," Cameron said with a look of pain, "he's right. I'm of no use to you and I should be terminated."
"No," John said, "No, we're not giving up that easily. I'll take an engineering class at a community college, I'll find some time-jump thing left by the resistance or something, but I'm not going to just let you burn her up like she's some old piece of garbage! After all she's done for us!"
"John, I repeat myself, I am no use to you…"
"I don't care, Cameron!" John burst out, nearly crying again, "I don't care if the resistance sends me a hundred replacements! Have you learned anything about humans? We have to work for a common good, but the reason for that is that every individual is worth something," there was silence as John gave his speech, "A soldier dies in battle. A person doesn't say, 'screw it, we got a ton more. Forget about that guy,' they honor him like he was the greatest hero to ever live. And…and a mother loses a kid, she doesn't say, 'I'll just have another one,' that one dead child will be remembered forever. Do you understand? This isn't about the mission, this…"
"John, right now, the mission has to be everything!" Sarah walked into the room, her face showing a mixture of sadness, guilt, and an acceptance of the grim truth, "Without it, her…I don't know…death, destruction, whatever you want to call it, will be in vain anyway," Sarah cupped her son's chin, "Don't lose sight of our goal. In the end, everything will be better."
John looked away, pondering his mother's words. On one hand, he was training to be a great military leader, and he would have to make difficult decisions and accept the departure of loved ones. On the other hand, why did they need to get rid of Cameron, especially without a second thought of what could be done with her?
"If it's the thing about destroying all terminators…well, that didn't work too well, did it? We killed Uncle Bob, and now we're here," John wiped a tear away, "Mom, please…"
Sarah was, as Derek put it, "tough as nuclear nails" but she was kind and motherly as well, especially to her beloved only son. She threw her strong arms around John and kissed the top of his head, beginning to cry herself, more at seeing her son so devastated.
"I know this is hard. Believe it or not, I don't like it much either," she whispered to him, "I know how much you bonded with it…"
"HER!" John snapped, pushing his mother away, "It's a she! I know you just see her as a robot, but she has a name! I've accepted that she's a robot, but I don't care…her name is Cameron! Call her that, not 'it'!
Sarah sighed as she looked at the chipping wood floor at her feet, "Ok, 'she.' I know how much you bonded with 'her', and I know you consider her like a sister," At least that's what Sarah hoped John considered Cameron. She didn't feel right about the alternative…the other thing he might feel about the robot disguised as a drop dead, grade A knockout of a girl.
"Cameron and I have gotten close…I don't see her as terminator, even if that's what she is…"
"John, I know, I know," Sarah cut him off quietly. She hated seeing John this pained and he wasn't going to change that. She would have to use a different tactic, "There's nothing else we can do though. And if you really do care, would you want her to be like this? Reduced to a mangled mass of tin? She can't learn, she can't help us, and if anyone gets a hold of her, which they will, that could bring Judgment Day even faster! You know that she wouldn't want that anymore than us, right?"
John fell back against the wall and slid down the floor. He wrapped his arms around his knees and began to rock back and forth, just thinking.
"I can't do this," he finally managed to choke out, "not her."
"Even she said it needed to be done, though," Sarah said.
"Of course she did. She's still in the process of learning about the value of life. If you just gave he a chance," John looked up and gritted his teeth so hard, he felt a sharp pain shoot through his incisors, then he stared straight ahead and sighed, "I can't do this. You'll have to."
Kelly's Pub
Los Angeles, CA
0015 Hours
1 March 2007
Agent James Ellison grimaced at his half empty glass of gin and tonic. Having a drink after work was a relatively infrequent occurrence, as it was just the way he was was geared. He had been raised by a conservative, God-fearing black family in Georgia, and there was never any alcohol consumption allowed by anybody so long as they lived under his father's roof…either in the house or anywhere else. Though this was never a rule in his house, he never drank much anyway. Occasionally, Ellison and his wife would have a glass of wine at dinner, or maybe he would have a beer or two with friends, but he was never much for hard liquor. He saw its primary purpose as being for getting people drunk good and fast, and he considered drunkenness a sin. But right now, he just needed something to calm his nerves, soften the pain, and help him sleep later.
All around Ellison, there were varieties of people. There were a few rowdy, somewhat buzzed college kids, whom the bartender was keeping a close eye on in case he needed to throw them out. There were a couple blue collar guys, probably just ending their shift at some distribution center. One or two depressed old men sat next to the agent at the bar, sipping slowly on Budweisers and Guinnesses, and there were of course the usual happy Irish immigrants who knew the pub owner. Ellison did not know any of them at all, and he felt completely alone.
Maybe I should have just called Sharon and gone to dinner he thought as he scratched the top of his bald head, What the hell am I doing here? I'm going to be out of a job and sharing a room with Silberman at Pescadaro by the end the month probably.
Because of him, or so he felt, eleven dedicated FBI agents were dead, and his worst fears were confirmed. His original assignment, to track down the supposedly psychotic murderer Sarah Connor had taken an absolutely horrific turn. To start, the terminators that she claimed were coming back in time to kill her and her son, were real. He saw one first hand; it had wiped out a heavily armed FBI SWAT team, leaving only one other survivor other than himself in critical condition. Without even blinking, the terminator, going by the pseudonym 'Cromartie' calmly shot down or snapped the necks of each agent that attempted to take him down, and threw the bodies out of his apartment window into the pool area below. Agent Curtis Taylor, who was actually an operative with the Hostage Rescue Team on a training mission, was the other survivor. He had come down from his sniping position to drag any possible survivors to safety, only to be shot multiple times and have his arm ripped off by Cromartie. However, the machine had left before checking to see if his final victim was actually dead, so when paramedic Charley Dixon showed up, he was able to stabilize the badly injured agent, barely stopping Taylor from going into a cardiac arrest.
When they arrived at the hospital, the doctors' prognosis was very grim; Taylor had severe internal bleeding, his remaining arm was shattered beyond use, and most likely he would be dead within a day…and they could count out ever even thinking about the prospect of Taylor walking, or doing anything by himself, again. This grim cloud hung over Ellison and the hospital staff for awhile, then he showed up.
Without so much as an introduction, handshake, or even a smile to indicate greeting, the large doctor, who looked better suited for bodybuilding than prosthetics, neurology, and reconstructive surgery simply said, "I have spoken to the patient and contacted his family. They have all approved of me performing an experimental surgery that will not only restore his health to full status, but increase his strength by up to two hundred percent."
Ellison had known who he was. Anyone who was in law enforcement in the Los Angeles area for the past twenty-two years knew who this doctor—if he really was even a doctor—was. One of the other physicians introduced the large, Germanic man as Dr. Robert Schwartz from Vienna, saying that he had spent the last ten years doing experimental treatments on badly injured and disfigured patients, all of which had been shown to be staggeringly successful and were just awaiting approval from the Surgeon General.
Schwartz could tell, by looking at Ellison's steely, yet mournful eyes, that Ellison knew…he knew about him, and he knew about what happened and what would happen. When the other physicians had left, Schwartz had smiled and assured the agent, "It's alright. I know what you are thinking and why you don't trust me. I am on your side, and your friend will live. He will probably be able to match what did this to him hand-to-hand after his surgery. He will be the first of them…I give you my word."
With that, the doctor had turned and gone to prep for surgery, leaving Ellison shaken, but somewhat calmer, with a question on his mind: the first of what? At any rate, Curtis, Ellison knew, was dead without the treatment, so he had no choice but to trust this strange doctor. For the next six hours, Ellison was in constant prayer, begging forgiveness for leading the other agents to their deaths, and asking for the Lord's guidance and wisdom in helping the doctors. He needed to wait and get the word so that he could relay the surgery results to Taylor's incoming family. Finally, Schwartz had come out, given the good news that the surgery was successful, and Ellison could contact Taylor's incoming family and tell them not to worry. But even with success, the day was still a tragedy.
A day when even one agent died was a tragedy, but eleven families would be getting "the call". He was also sure to lose his job…or so he thought. He could not seem to catch Sarah Connor for starters, that was a big enough black mark, and even if he was not really responsible for the massacre, the rule of the government when something went wrong was that someone was to blame, and the fact was, as the leader of the operation and only one of two survivors, he would be the prime target.
There was just too much going on this day for even a veteran G-Man like Ellison: Cyborgs from the future, dead agents, the only hope against the cyborgs was a fugitive on the FBI Top Ten, and he had just received a call from the LAPD that a car bomb had exploded over in low income neighborhood, and it may have been connected to the massacre. He would check that out later…maybe. Right now, he just needed a drink.