Content Warning: See author's profile for details (don't spoil it for yourself if you don't have to – it's not that bad. Honest)

Tuesday 27th August 1996 – 2.34pm

The house phone rang.

"Mom?" Markus stopped to listen for a response. "Mooooooom... Mooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm?"

Still nothing. Then Markus suddenly remembered she'd taken Felicity shopping. Dad was at mass, so, sighing, Markus tucked the shirt he was folding into the bottom of his suitcase and shuffled down the long hall.

"Hello?"

"Is this Markus Sackhoff?"

Markus didn't recognise the voice, but it was female.

"Uh, yeah."

"I need you to listen. It's not safe. Get your family and get out. Go somewhere you've never been before, stay away from everyone you know and hide. I'll send someone to find you."

Markus had no idea how to respond to this.

"Um... yeah... right. Who is this?"

"Get out Markus. You have about two days before he finds you."

The phone line died. Markus stood there for a few moments. What are you supposed to do after a call like that? He decided to ignore it, went back to packing all his stuff and promptly forgot about the whole thing.

Saturday 13th October 2029 – 8.37am

"Erica, she's back!" Neil rushed towards them. He grabbed Erica's hand and started to drag her across the crowded room, but Erica pulled away.

"I'll be back in a minute Mom." She fixed her mother's blanket, checked the level of water in the glass on the floor by her bed. Neil danced with impatience. Erica touched her mother's face gently, waking her fully from her half-doze.

"I'll be right back," she repeated. Her mother groaned in response and turned away. Erica sighed and allowed Neil to pull her off. They ran full pelt across the vast busy room, dodging make-shift cots and people who were shuffling about the business of getting up. Once word spread, they would follow in their masses, but for the moment it was a normal morning.

"Erica, where are you going?" a croaky voice called from a under a blanket from the left. A gnarled old face appeared from its depths. "She's back Mr. Sansom, she's back!"

A murmur raced around the surrounding cots. There was a flurry of movement as people began to follow them. Had Erica and Neil turned around, they would have seen the rumour ripple across the room, followed by a lot of hurried activity, but they were already out of the door, splashing down the cramped tunnel. A pipe had burst sometime last week, and they still hadn't gotten around to cleaning up properly; there'd been a big assault on a work-camp the next day, and almost all the maintenance crew had been re-assigned. They'd suffered heavy losses and they were left short. Still, someone would get to it eventually.

Two minutes later they arrived in the barn. Without needing to discuss it, they headed to the back and climbed the stairs. The best view was always from the balcony. The room was already pretty full, but they didn't have much trouble pushing their way to the front.

Then they waited. She'd have to be de-briefed by Connor and probably Sackhoff and one or two others. Then they'd decide exactly how much to reveal to the waiting masses. They were very careful about this – it was impossible to tell exactly how many skin-jobs were hiding in the crowd, although their numbers had been so depleted lately that a newcomer would be easily recognised.

There'd been rumours that they'd begun replacing captured members of the resistance, but everyone was checked out thoroughly after rescue, and for security reasons, no-one but the soldiers were allowed leave the camp. Still, the idea that someone you'd known since childhood could turn around one day and blow your head off...

Thursday 29th August 1996 – 9.17am

Almost everything Markus owned was stuffed into the car. They'd played a very complicated game of tetris with suitcases of clothes, an old computer, duvets, pillows, books, and a whole host of other things that Markus probably would never need.

The roof rack was over-loaded too – bike, surfboard and kayak were piled on top of each other, strapped down tightly. The kayak paddle ran along the middle of the car, from the back wind-shield to the front. There was just about room in the car for himself, Felicity and his parents.

They settled in for the long drive. Markus' mother handed out hard boiled sweets while remarking "I don't know when or how you're going to need a surfboard or a kayak in New York City dear. You won't even have a car to get them anywhere."

It was not the first time this particular point had been brought up, but Markus didn't care. He wanted them with him, and he was going to find a way to use them, so he ignored her and said to Felicity; "it'll be your turn next lil'sis'. Six years time. Still want to be an astronaut?"

This wasn't as outlandish as when other twelve year olds said they wanted to be an astronaut. Felicity was smart, fearless and determined. She hadn't come across anything she really wanted before that she hadn't gotten, and Markus saw no reason that this should be any different.

She shrugged. "Better than studying philosophy, dear brother. I'm really not sure what you're planning on doing with that degree."

Markus didn't know either, but he decided to ignore her too.

"Why do I have to come anyway Mom? I was going to go to the Mall with Brit."

"The Mall? How unlike you," Markus teased. Felicity glared at him.

"You have to come to say goodbye to your brother. You probably won't see him again for quite a while."

This set Markus thinking – how long would it actually be? At least Christmas anyway. It was too long to travel just for the weekend. He had this sudden premonition that he'd never see them again, and the phone call he'd gotten the other day sprung into mind, but he shrugged it off.

"Anyway, you can't stay at home on your own for a few days. And we're going to see Les Mis tomorrow night, and you'll like the hotel - there's a spa."

If the thought of going to see a Broadway show and having a massage was supposed to appease Felicity, her parents didn't know her very well. She detested musicals with a passion and didn't like people touching her, so she stared angrily out the window for the next half hour. But Felicity, having a naturally talkative disposition, eventually got over it and chatted happily until Markus began to fantasize about hitting her over the head with something very heavy.

Two or three hours later they pulled in at a gas station. Everyone got out to stretch their legs – as Felicity said, "I just want to stand up." Their mother, Nancy, began to fill the tank, while their father, James, went to buy something full of saturated fat for lunch.

Markus headed for the bathroom. On his way, a battered old puce volvo pulled in. The driver, a very large, very intense man, stared at Markus very intently, but Markus didn't notice him.

For the next few hours, the puce volvo trailed them, but there was nothing unusual about this; they were on the motorway, and everyone had to follow everyone for as long as they were driving. The volvo blended in about three cars behind, and didn't do anything suspicious, so none of them even saw it.

Felicity tired out and fell asleep, and James began to give Markus unsolicited advice. "Don't borrow money – everyone else will be as broke as you are. And no drugs. Always use a condom." This received a scandalized "James!" from Nancy – both of Markus' parents were very religious, but James was a little more pragmatic about things like college students having sex before marriage.

In any case, James continued as though she hadn't said anything. "Don't leave your assignments until 4am the night before. Take out the bins in the kitchen every once in a while, your room-mates will love you for it." This went on for the rest of the journey.

Saturday 13th October 2029 – 9.35 am

The crowd was seriously impatient. Erica shifted from aching foot to equally sore foot. This de-brief was taking longer than usual. In Erica's experience, this was either very good or very bad. She should be dying to get back to her mother, but in truth, she was glad of the break. She'd barely left her bedside since she'd taken a turn for the worse a few days ago. The medic said it didn't look good, and he'd send in the doctor as soon as she got back from camp thirty-four, but there was no telling when that would be – the machines patrolled the route much more frequently now.

Camp thirty-four. There'd been ninety-seven once, all over the country – no telling how many across the world, but they'd slowly lost touch, more and more in the last few months. Some had purposely gone out of contact for security reasons – though Erica wasn't too clear on what those security reasons were.

They were down to thirteen that they could be sure of. This one, camp nineteen, was one of the biggest, and had once held over 8,000 people, but that had been in the beginning, before Erica had been born. Since then, the war had claimed many, but disease and starvation had killed even more. Those who signed up to fight got more rations than everyone else, but these days that was a death sentence too.

Finally, another half-hour later, the door opened. They'd made a make-shift stage at the front out of some old tables. John Connor and Markus Sackhoff – his second-in-command - clambered up. Both were middle-aged – ancient these days, and now retired to command, but both had proved themselves in battle more than almost anyone else.

There was no mic, no way of projecting their voices and even shouting as loud as they could, it was difficult for those at the back to hear. The audience went completely silent as they began to talk.

"Around 8 o clock this morning, our informant within the Skynet ranks returned." This sentence was remarkable for many reasons. For starters, every informant that had tried to infiltrate Skynet had been pretty much immediately detected and killed. This one, Alison, was the only one to succeed, and the only one to return. For a very good reason – she was one of them.

"We have received information that will allow us to strike a massive – possibly fatal - blow to the machines." A shocked murmur rippled through the room. This wasn't possible. It couldn't be true. The idea of an end to the war was something everyone had stopped hoping for a very long time ago; it had been only a matter of time before the human race was extinguished completely.

Connor silenced them with a wave of his hand. "This is what I have been hoping for. But it will be dangerous. We will need every single body capable of holding a gun. I am lowering the age for joining the resistance from seventeen to fourteen. And it is now mandatory, barring -" the audience was no longer silent. A furious buzzing came from them and people began to push forward through the crowd. Erica was not sure what they intended to do, but it could not be good. "-barring a valid cert from one of our medics".

Oh god. It dawned on Erica. She'd just turned seventeen, and had no intentions to ever join the fight – how could she with her mother... – but that was an excuse really, she'd always thought she was too much of a coward to ever... But now there was no choice. Her heart fluttered. She couldn't breathe, she felt faint. She grabbed Neil's shoulder for support. He – usually so attentive, was wrapped up in his own thoughts.

"I cannot reveal the nature of the plan at this moment" - that wasn't unusual, everything was on a need to know basis. "But we have a very short window of opportunity to make this work. Training for all our new recruits will begin today at 10.30 hours." Connor didn't seem to quite understand how his speech was affecting the people gathered in front of him.

Erica glanced at her watch – it was 10.11 now. 19 minutes. Shit.

Sackhoff clambered off the table, and Connor went to follow him but turned back around. Erica saw him look wordlessly at the seething crowd, searching their faces for something. She didn't know what, but he left, clearly dissatisfied.