Disclaimer: I don't own anything Terminator-y or Chronicle-like.
Summary: Post Judgment Day. John Connor was searching for something, but what was searching for wasn't what he found.
A/N: Just a little something I wrote based on the preview for Allison from Palmdale.
John Connor lifted his plasma rifle and peered into the night. The low buzz of an HK filled his ears and its artificial lights searched the ground several miles away. It was searching too, but for what? They were hidden for the time being, but it wouldn't be too long until that prowling HK was finally upon them. They weren't safe though, far from it, no one was ever safe.
He glanced over his shoulder at the small group of resistance fighters spread out through the piles of rubble, of concrete and steel and bone. They formed a diamond, each one tasked with scanning the sky and the rubble below for the slightest hint of a metal. They all thought that there should be more than just three other resistance fighters accompanying the leader of mankind, but John wouldn't hear of it. Moving in numbers was risky at best. Numbers made excessive noise, they took up valuable space, they made it harder to hide; all of those things were deadly. Four men squads were the protocol and John made sure they stuck to it.
John nodded his head at the man kneeling ten metres away at the eastern tip of the diamond and began to jog forward, making sure to stay under the cover of the piles of rubble. The others would follow. He wanted this done fast, they didn't have much time; they may have already run out.
"John?" The whispered voice reached his ear, temporarily drowning out the increasingly loud buzz of the HK.
John glanced back, his eyes falling on the rough, dirt-streaked form of the man from the western-tip of the diamond. "What is it, Matt?" he asked.
"Kyle spotted three more HK's to the south. It's not a normal patrol. They're looking for something."
John looked past Matt and directed his gaze to the south. Kyle was right. The flooding search lights of three HK's could be seen in the distance, effectively cutting off their way back to the tunnels – cutting off their way back home. "We'll be fine." He said in an equally low voice. "We'll be gone before they get here."
John frowned as he listened to Matt leave. The appearance of more HK's troubled him; he wouldn't have been surprised if there were a couple of terminators patrolling around this area as well. If this were any other mission, John would have been sure that the machines had discovered their tracks; but this wasn't a normal mission. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and muttered under his breath, "They're searching too."
The resistance fighters had stopped and were grouped not far behind him now. They knew what the appearance of more machines meant too, though their perception was different to John's own. All they knew was that they were looking for something. They didn't know that the machines were also hunting for the same thing.
"Keep tight." John hissed at them. "We move north-east, towards the river!"
The resistance fighters glanced at each other in surprise but didn't say anything. The river was a machine hotspot. The resistance never went anywhere near there unless it was in force.
John looked up again. The first HK was closer now – a lot closer then it should have been. It knows.
"Come on!" John said urgently.
Debris slipped and fell to the ground under John's feet as he ran. He wasn't concerned with being quiet now. They had to get there before the machines – he had to get there before the machines.
Lights flashed. Some close by, others in the distance. How did they know where to look? How did they know?
"John!" One of his soldiers – Kyle – shouted and John skidded to a halt, raising his gun to his shoulder. His finger was poised on the trigger, ready to squeeze at the slightest hint of a machine.
Kyle was pointed at something – someone – lying just beyond a collapsed building. John's heart leapt in his chest as he ran forward over rubble and dirt, towards the weak-running river and the body lying as if broken on its shore. The machine factory gleamed in the moonlight several miles down-river. The sound of its mechanical whirling reached his ears, even from this distance.
He was aware of the other soldiers running with him. They too had spotted the body lying on the shore.
"Holy…!" John heard Matt say in astonishment. "Is that— is that who I think it is?"
The roar of the approaching HK's beat in John's ears, drowning out the sound of his own furiously beating heart. He fell to his knees beside the body. It was a girl, barely sixteen or seventeen. Bloody, battered, bruised. Her chest rising and falling so softly John thought he must be imagining it. Is she breathing? He pressed his ear to her chest, desperately listening for the slightest sound. How can she breath?
Thump. It was weak, much too weak.
"She's been shot!"
Thump, thump. It was there. A heartbeat. How…?
"John! Is she alive?"
A weak, pain filled moan escaped from the girl's parched lips. Pain? John drew away from her chest, reaching forward to cup the back of her head. How can she have a heart? How can it beat? Her hair was streaked with dirt and blood until the brown tresses barely looked brown. He smoothed a clump of crusted hair from across her face and looked down at her grubby, tear-streaked cheeks. Tears? These things don't cry .These things don't feel pain, emotion. Is she…?
It couldn't be.
"Did she escape from the factory?" Kyle's voice sounded. He was kneeling on the other side of the girl, fumbling for a scrap of cloth to press against the girl's gunshot. Her clothing had been torn, revealing a wet patch of blood. John noticed that both of her hands were sticky with the red fluid from where she had pressed against her side in an attempt to stop the bleeding. She doesn't have an endoskeleton. She's flesh and bone and blood! Is she…? How can she be…?
"John, the HK's!" Matt and the other soldier Williams were scanning the sky, their plasma rifles ready to fire the instant they were spotted.
His soldiers were shouting now, desperately trying to reach him over the roar of the oncoming HK's. They knew as well as he did that the machines were looking for them now. They knew that there were humans out in the open and they weren't going to stop until they found them.
"Kyle!" John said urgently, and the younger man nodded, pressing a relatively clean rag against the girl's pulsing wound. Machines don't bleed, not like this.
As soon as pressure was applied to the girl's gunshot, the girl cried out weakly, as if that feeble sound was all the energy her body could muster. Her eyes opened, revealing the pair of chocolate-coloured orbs underneath. Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears and her mouth opened and closed pitifully.
She was a girl.
Not a machine.
Not a terminator.
Human.
"You're going to be okay." John told her, reassuring her as if she were a child. "You're okay. You're safe."
The roar of the HK's grew louder, as if mocking his words – his lies. John looked up and glared at them. Another few minutes and he wouldn't have to worry about the girl. The machines would kill all of them where they stood.
"John! We need to go! Now!" One of the soldiers shouted at him, John didn't know who.
The girl's mouth opened for a second time and John leaned closer, desperately trying to hear her words.
He held his breath as the girl he knew as Cameron Phillips whispered a frail, pain-ridden, desperate whisper in his straining ear.
"Help me… Help me please!"