"The past -a new and uncertain world. A word of endless possibilities. And different outcomes. Countless choices define our faith. Each choice, each moment, a ripple in the river of time. Enough ripples and you CHANGE the tide for the future IS NEVER TRULY SET." ~Charles Xavier (Professor X) in X Men Days of Future Past
School was boring. A girl in class eyed me and asked me if I can take her to the dance. I said yes. This is the homecoming dance, and I have never been asked by a girl, let alone ask a girl without the thought of my mom screaming at me 'no, you can't' because I can't bring attention to myself.
I am elated and I tell Cameron all about it. She doesn't say much. Is she jealous? Why? It's not like I am going to marry Cindy Mason. She is just a girl, and I really want to go out; I don't want to spend another year being the oddball.
"Sarah Connor will not approve." She tells me, putting down her bag. "She doesn't want us to fall under the radar."
"Well, mom doesn't have to know and you won't tell her. Got it?"
She doesn't respond right away. I switch subjects and ask her how boring her classes were. "Classes are never boring for me. But they pose no challenge."
"So in a few words, you think they're boring but are too stubborn to admit it." I offer, laughing at her frown.
"Joking Cameron, lighten up! You have Mrs. Stevenson for math too?" She nods.
"You know everything about math and biology don't you?"
"Yes."
"So you already finished your homework." She nods and before I ask her to do mine, she says "I won't do yours."
I look wounded but she's buying it. "You can do anything. You are a terminator."
"So are you."
"Technogath."
"What's the difference?" She asks and I am about to give the lengthy version of it, but why bother? Cameron will just say something lengthier and boring.
"You have the same processing capabilities as me. You can finish it in seconds if you did not spend too much time surfing the web and watching TV."
Ouch! "Alright, point taken." I say, conceding victory. I sit down and take out my favorite book, picking up where I left off in third period.
"What are you reading?" Cameron asks me. I hand her the book. "John used to read this. He loved Frank L. Baum. Is that why you chose the author's last name as yours?"
"It's more than that." I say. "When I was little, my mom used to read it to me. She stopped when my dad told her it was John's favorite book."
"Why would she tell him that?" Cameron asks, intensely curious I can tell.
"I don't know. One minute they were arguing over him breaking her out of the Institution, the next they were arguing over this. Jane loved telling me that it wasn't my fault, that I was very different from John and I could make my own destiny but as we got older, she knew that part of why they broke up was my fault. This book is the only thing that kept me sane. Whenever they screamed at each other, I would read a passage from this book and imagined myself following the yellow brick road and following Dorothy, lion man, scarecrow-"
"And Tin-Man." She finishes for me.
"We would go on to meet the Wizard, ask him questions."
"What did you ask him?"
"Why us? Why us, Connors? Is it a way to stop it?"
Cameron stays quiet, waiting for my answer.
"But he laughs in my face. It's like he's telling me that I can't stop it, that no matter what I do, the current will always correct itself."
"There is a theory in quantum physics that says that time is like a river, whatever you do to alter it, the current will always correct itself."
"I refuse to believe that."
"Alternate timelines are not hard to figure out Jacob, with the right calculations, we can find a way to fix what went wrong in one, for this one."
"What about the other ones though? The ones where Sky Net, or my sister, had the last laugh and killed everyone?"
"Few humans survived, it is up to them to rebuild. We must focus on the here and now and end it before the cycle stsarts again."
"Yeah, end it." I say, not sure if I want to do this.
She is my sister for Christ's sake. I still remember when I was a year old and she came to my room, carried me in her arms and sang to me. My mom was so mad. She told Janey she was never to do that again.
Did my mom knew (even then) what Janey was? Did dad? I know that dad knew when he tried to kill us but did he knew from the start?
I'd love to believe that he didn't, because if he did then that makes the notion of him suddenly trying to kill us more horrific.
That night I have the weirdest dream.
I am running in an endless corridor and when I finally find the door, I find myself in a strange garden. It is sunny, but everything around me feels wrong. The plants are fake, the insects are fake and the kids seem chirpier than usual.
I spot myself as a little kid next to my sister. She is holding my hand. She tells me: "I will always be there for you, Jacob." and I tell her "I love you Janey." And then a man comes to us. At first I think the Wizard of the magical land of Oz because of his black suit, but then I see it is our brother John.
"Jane, Jacob it is time." I narrow my eyes, and tilt my head in confusion, but my younger self takes Jane's hand who takes John's and we walk away into the sun set, then the world around us turn to shadows.
"You've failed Jacob. Just like you always do." I turn and find Jane. How did she ... That's right. Our dreams. I had forgotten about that secret place.
"Surprised? I thought you'd be. Like what John has done with the place? You should, I know I do. It feels much better, seeing people less stupid like you."
"What do you want?" I ask.
"Wow, no hey sis how are you?"
"That is John talking not you. The sister I know would've been kinder and full of compassion."
"Compassion? What do you know about compassion? You spent your days preaching me about doing the right thing but take a good look around you for once! These people want to kill us, that is all they know how to do: Kill, kill and kill! And once they know what you and I are, they will hunt us down and they won't stop until they bash our fucking skulls in or stick a the pointy end of a dagger into our hearts just like father."
"Father was an unstable man suffering from trauma!"
"Father was an idiot and you are an idiot too if you still believe in that bullshit." She softens her voice. "Come with me Jacob, you and I can still have a chance."
I am almost tempted to say 'yes'. Some of m best memories are with her, John and Kate. *Some*. Unlike Janey, I can't forget the life I had before them.
"I am sorry Janey, but you and I lead different paths now and if we see each other face to face, we will have to fight."
"Then so be it. Don't expect me to flinch if you are bleeding, I know all your weaknesses."
"So do I." I say, shutting down that part of my brain that will threaten to reveal the truth to her. "I know your weaknesses too, remember? What you will do, and what you are, same as me."
"No, we are not the same." She says, smiling deviously at me then takes a step forward and places a hand on my cheek. It's cold as ice. "I can heal faster than you, I am smarter, and I am much better at using my assets than you."
"You can be faster than me, but you are not more powerful Janey. You still think that power equals brute force. It doesn't. All it will get you is tears."
"Same old corny speeches; I thought mom would have made you stronger."
"She did make me stronger. I learned a lot from her, for once I know the difference between saving people and living in a dream like you and John."
"Suit yourself. Tell mom, if you ever get to put on some pants about our secret chats, that I miss her and I will come and visit her soon."
I snort. Yeah right, of course she does.
Before she ends our mental connection, I ask her something that's been bugging me for weeks since I saw it on the news. "Did you kill Jason and Teresa Varela?"
Janey shrugs and offer a sheepish smile.
"Why? They did nothing to you. Diana looked after you when Kate was with me. She was a good person!"
"She should have kept her mouth shut. Besides, her daughter did nothing but get in my way." She said.
"How? She was just five years old. Jason was eight!"
"So? I'm supposed to feel pity for them. Fuck them, their whole existence-"
"What? What could they have possibly do to you and John and Kate that was so terrible that you had to destroy them?"
"It's not what they did! It's what they had! I had to listen every day to that woman talk about how perfect her kids were, show them off to John and Kate, and all the meanwhile I get to look after them because Kate thinks they do me good. And you know how upset Kate's been since she realized she can't give John what she wants to give him the most: children! I saw how she looked at those two brats, it was the same look that mom had -and don't lie to me and say she didn't because she did and I bet she still does- when she looked at other couples with NORMAL children! They deserved to die!"
"You killed nineteen innocent people in that crash. You blew up an entire highway just to get to two people?!" I bellow, not willing to believe that my sister -my big sister- could do such a thing!
"Innocent people have to pay for sinners sometimes. It is called Collateral damage Jacob. You have to accept a few casualties to get the target. Those are mom's words not mine. See, I remember my lessons better than you."
"You're the devil ..." I say, realizing that all these years my parents had been right.
My sister, my big sister, the girl I loved and worshiped, was the devil.
She chuckles. "No Jacob, I am just realistic. But better the devil you know, you know? See you later Jacob. I will come and get you, you know that? And when I do, you better pray that I am in a good mood. Do tell mom though, that I harbor no hard feelings, but I am going to find her and that new metal friend of yorus."
My dream ends and I wake up. Next time, she will try to get through that barrier and if she does, there will be hell to pay. I try to clear my mind with the mental exercises my mom and Cameron taught me but it is getting difficult.
The link between me and Janey is getting stronger and there are times that I can feel her in my head, even when I am awake.
"You were right." Cameron tells me the day after when I tell her what happened. "She's becoming hostile and evolving at an unprecedented rate. I got the FBI reports. The highway accident had the tank the truck was carrying fall. There were no weather emergencies that day, but people claimed it was windy. That is what they report states."
Windy. I want to laugh at that. Of course it would be windy. My sister always had a way with the weather. When we were little, there was one December it snowed and my parents were mesmerized -partly because they'd never seen snow (especially my dad)- and my mom exclaimed "it is just like on tv". It was the first time that I saw her laughing like a little girl, and we all played endlessly until dad said that enough was enough and we could catch a cold. But Jane was too stubborn for her own good and refused to listen to him so she threw a temper tantrum and we stayed outside for another hour. There, she took my hand and when our parents and Pops weren't looking, she put her finger on her lips and told me "You want to see something special?" And showed me a snow ball that began to disintegrate and I saw how the little bits of snow began to fly all around us, and then more snow was lifted from the ground and joined in on the mysterious dance. She made all kinds of figures and then, when it got windy, our parents noticed and they both screamed to get back into the house.
If anyone can create a wind that big, is my sister. Given the reports, I know that she made enough sand blow into the truck driver's face to confuse him.
The sister I grew up with played pranks, not death games.
This has to be part of her programming. In the past, the humans programmed Janey to be a weapons defense system. If there is a way to reprogram her, then Janey can go back to being the girl she was.
I wished Kate would stop moping about the people I killed. It wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like they were important. Two kids nobody would talk about in a long, long, very long time.
And I got that bitch Varela off her back.
My brother's wife is not satisfied though. She loved Diana Varela and those two kids were like a blessing to her like Jacob was, she told me. What a dope.
She actually believed that she could live a fantasy where she got to have normal friends, and pretend that we were all happy. There is nothing normal about her or us. We are who we are and the sooner she accepts it, the sooner we can all move on with our mission.
There are times that I remember about my mother and how she would console me when I was at my lowest. Even then, she'd tell me "you have to be strong John because you will have to lead many people someday". It seems like something taken out of my favorite book, the wizard of Oz, but sometimes I wish that I could go there and ask the wizard or the good witch, Glinda, to save me from fate.
My eyes follow Jane as she brings home another boy. I've told her many times, that we are getting tired of her antics, but she never listens and just when Kate things she has her under surveillance, she finds a way pass the cameras and pass Kate.
"That girl is going to be the death of you John." I hear my mother's voice. "You know better than to play with Sky Net. She is going to abandon you when she finds out that you've been keeping the truth from her and when she does, you are going to face the ugly truth just like I did when you came for me and Kyle at the hospital."
"Leave." I say, grinding my teeth. I am not interested in talking to ghosts of my past.
"Poor son of mine. You created this thing that created you. You two have been fighting for so many years, and now you have it in the palm of your hand only to destroy it. It must feel really bad, knowing that something you taught yourself to hate and love, has to be obliterated by your own hand."
"I will not repeat myself. Leave now."
She is wrong. I will never destroy Janey. She is more than just another incarnation of Sky Net, she is my sister. My blood and I will die and sacrifice every piece in the chessboard before I let something happen to her.
"You will lose everyone John. Oh yes you will and this time there will be no live and repeat. This time, you will be utterly alone."
"John, who you're talking to?" Kate asks me.
"Nobody. What is that? A new perfume?"
"I got it today, made it out of the boutique just for you. So what's for dinner?" She asks me, smiling widely. God, how I missed her. After all these years, all the pain and death that we've faced in every other past life, she continues to mesmerize me.
"I was thinking Olive Garden. The four of us, you, me, Jane and that idiot boyfriend of hers."
"Charlie? They work at the lab! I'd hardly call him an idiot." She says, laughing softly. "He might be the one this time."
I laugh loudly. The last 'the one' ended up in a hospital after a strange affliction. I am not about to lose one of my best scientists just because she gets bored and fixates herself on another one of her teammates.
"John, I am worried about her too. But if we keep trying to put more restrictions on her, she is just going to keep acting that way. Remember what happened last time someone tried putting restrictions on ..." she lowers her voice and adds with a somber tone "it"
I nod. The humans believed that they could control Sky Net. The weapons they built to protect us, Sky Net used it against them and then it found me and turned me into something more. I am not those men. Those men used Sky Net to attack, it was what started this whole mess. If Sky Net had been used as something other than killing, it could have been something more. The problem, unlike what my parents believed, was not in the coding, but in how it was used.
Sky Net was programmed to learn as well, and as such it evolved at a rapid rate to the point that it understood that there were one of two outcomes possible if it continued taking the same course of action: obliteration of itself and its slaves or of the human race. It was why I ensured its survival by giving it to my parents, by making it my sister.
Being human, enabled Sky Net to a great understanding of our world in a way it never had before.
When Jane finds what she is, she won't do the same mistakes her past self did. She will be wiser and far more prepared to take over. I just have to make sure she stays in the right direction and stir her off from any outside influence, and that includes the people she's been interacting with.
"Jane won't do those mistakes." I promise kissing her softly. I wish I can take her now, but knowing Jane, she will just tell Charlie to take off his clothes and pretend to make sex noises like the last boy she brought.
I have to give it to her. She knows how to annoy the hell out of people, and all she has to do to get off the hook is show that innocent smile of hers. (She is good, very good. Far better than Sky Net could've ever hoped. But she is still missing an important factor: self-control. Old Sky Net, could never contain itself, it was prone to anger and irritation and it was one of the reasons why it fell. Jane is far less unstable and arrogant, but she still has a long way to go)
"No? What about Varela? We had to show up our faces in her funeral John, just so we could be free of her crazy suspicions and then Jane had to do all that number, crying more than everyone else."
"It worked, didn't it?" I say. Jane's little scene, convinced everyone that there was no more empathetic human than her.
"This is not about the company or you and me, it is about her. She can't keep doing this. What if she gets upset with this boy, or worse, she decides to take revenge on his parents?" Kate asks, and I can feel her trembling. "I want her to succeed as much as you do, but I want us to survive through this whole ordeal and still be sane. I ... have lost Jacob and I accepted that loss because you told me it had to be done. I don't like it, I hate it and I still don't think it was the right thing to do. But I accepted it. Now you have to listen to me and put limits on her before she turns into the thing we tried to destroy."
"I can't." I tell her. She's right but she's also wrong about it. She is not an it anymore. She is a person and my sister, and we are more than brother and sister, she is a part of me as I am a part of her. It will be like asking to kill myself.
"Then just think about it, for me and our family." She says then gives me a secretive smile and goes to our bedroom to change. I watch her go, and do think on what she says and the new possibility we created. But I can't let go of Jane. I promised to protect her and unlike our parents I keep my promises.
Jacob will be 16 by now. My systems did a simulation of how he looks at this age, and the result was that he takes a lot after Kyle. He is the only one of the three of us, who took the most after our father in looks, yet ironically the only one who took after me in character.
Knowing my mother and Cameron, they've turned him into the perfect military leader. But knowing Jacob, he's also been rebelling against them.
"You will lose her." I hear my mother's voice as I turn my eyes away from Kate when she closes our door. "Perhaps you will lose Jacob too, and then when you're cradling your brother, you will finally have the courage to do what you were born to do."
The voice as her ghost leaves, and I am left with only a specter as I turn my eyes to Jane who's just come out of her bedroom with Charlie, her eyes bluer than before, showing the same grin Sky Net showed me when it changed me.