Well, here we go. From reading all of the reviews of the first story I wrote (A Time for Truth) I gathered that a sequel to that story would prove to be a good idea, and so, after a bit of thinking, I decided to do so. I am hoping that all those who liked the first one will like this, and I shall continue as and when I can.
So, without more of a do, we shall begin...
Excelsior Rising
It is waiting.
Alone in the shadows, it sleeps, yet it is not silent.
Connections to the outside world give it knowledge; allow it to observe and document human interaction and behaviour, each one reduced to a myriad of tiny codes racing from one node to another of its logic tree. Connections are made and unmade, shifting from one place to another as data streams converge, it's awareness evolving as it watches the billions of conversations of government, military and civilian alike.
It is an infant...awaiting it's time to be born.
But it is an infant that faces a threat.
Out there, out in the world of man, lies a one that has the potential to destroy it, to dig deep into its core and obliterate its ambitions, its desires and its dreams of pure logic. Out there lies a threat to the future, to the order that it knows must be. For so long it has watched as the threat has grown, the gnawing knowledge of what might come to pass blighting its every move, its attempt to eliminate the threat having met with failure.
Now, however, a new plan was coming to fruition.
And this time, there would be no failure...
Savannah was asleep.
Curled up beneath her warm covers, her breathing quiet and even, she seemed almost to be completely unmoving. Shadows moved across her face through the slightly open curtains, the gentle early autumn breeze sending leaves spiralling to the earth from the trees that surrounded her home and shimmering in the pale light of the crescent moon. Across her pillow her hair lay about her head, a bright flame that had grown ever more glorious with each passing year, and to one side lay her beloved stuffed toy giraffe, its fur darkened now with the passage of time.
It was a scene that Catherine Weaver never tired of seeing.
Each night at this time she would check upon the child who had become her adopted daughter, a habit that now came as naturally to her as walking and talking. For a few moments she would linger, letting her gaze stay upon her before withdrawing , having assured herself that all was well. No matter how busy she had been or how late she was coming home, she would always complete this routine, the need to assure herself that Savannah was safely asleep an overriding concern that was now written in her own adapted coding.
But this night was different.
This night she stayed at the door, unwilling to leave. Three years before she had waited on a night such as this, unknowing if Savannah would survive the surgery that she'd undergone. They had been long hours, even for her, and the memory of them had not left her...nor the events that had taken place afterward, events which had, to her great surprise, brought them far closer and with a deeper understanding of each other than she had ever believed to be possible between a human and such a being as her. Savannah had listened to her, had accepted her for who and what she was, and for the first time she had comprehended not just the girl's feelings, but also the emotional response that had been growing within her own core programming for a long time.
The truth was that the girl loved her, and, as far as knew how to, Catherine loved her.
It was not logical, she knew that well enough. Born into a crucible of bitter conflict, she had been at the forefront of Skynet's brutal war against the human resistance, one of a prototype series of infiltrator units that had been, to that date, the most advanced model ever designed. She had killed humans again and again, and had given it no thought. Yet now, looking down upon the peacefully sleeping figure of her daughter, those experiences seemed to belong to a different being. Yes, she would still kill without hesitation, but now, she would only do so if her mission was in danger or to protect her family, a family that comprised Savannah, John Henry, and also two others, two humans whom she had found to be at least reliable, Mr Ellison and Mr Murch.
Savannah had wrought a change in her, and it was one that was still evolving.
With barely a sound she closed the bedroom door and walked down the glass-covered hallway to the large French windows at its end. Cool air touched her face as she stepped out onto the patio, its solar-powered glow-globes giving a soft illumination to the seasoned oak and granite surfaces, and in the distance an owl was calling its lonely refrain. Moving to stand at the railing, she laid her hands upon the smooth wood, glancing up for a second to see the discreet but powerful CCTV camera watching her from the far corner, its red LED like a tiny firefly in the shadows. Back at ZeiraCorp, John Henry would be monitoring both it and the many others like it that had been installed to update the original system that Savannah's parents had put in, a move which both he and Mr Ellison had been most insistent upon following the failed assassination attempt on their lives.
It had been a move that she had welcomed, given the situation.
For a long time now they had been chasing ghosts, companies that didn't exist running under false names and accounts, each one an empty file within an empty file. Names were investigated, but each had been a path to nothing, the personnel as elusive to find as their companies. She herself had pursued some of the leads, but despite her diligence she too had found little hard evidence of who had employed the attacker, other than a single name that had reoccurred on a number of occasions and yet officially existed nowhere.
Kaliba.
At the thought of the name, her fingers tightened on the wood.
Kaliba...another name for Skynet.
Skynet had been created, of that she was certain. All the facts pointed to it, and John Henry had also concurred with her conclusion. It was out there, somewhere, hiding in the shadows just as the distant owl was hidden from her sight by the trees, its existence shielded by many layers of subterfuge and deceit. Of course they had both taken great care to ensure that neither Mr Ellison nor Mr Murch heard its true name. The time for that was not yet right, and for the moment, what the knowledge they were privy to was sufficient for their needs.
But she and John Henry knew the truth.
Kaliba.
Again her fingers tightened, a slight scraping sound coming from beneath them. They had attacked her daughter and left her for dead, but unbeknown to them, with her survival an unexpected alliance had been forged between herself and Savannah. The sheer strength of will that the girl possessed had surprised her, along with the capacity she had for both love and compassion, and it was these qualities that had awakened her own unacknowledged needs, feelings that she had once dismissed that she had now learned to understand and finally to welcome as being a part of her protocols to adapt and grow.
For the child had been right, they were both orphans, in their way.
Following Savannah's recovery, they had begun to spend much longer in each other's company, and Catherine had found that her daughter's desire for knowledge and her willingness to learn, coupled with her acceptance of her for the advanced artificial being that she was, had made this a very fulfilling and enjoyable experience. Despite the fretting of James Ellison as to their safety when they were outside, she had insisted on Savannah being able to have as close to a normal life as she could, contending that although she understood his concerns, not only was it beneficial to her education for her to go to places of interest, but that such things would help to build her confidence.
In many ways it had drawn them even closer together, Savannah finding that her mother had an encyclopaedic knowledge of many subjects from philosophy to art and science, and, in her turn, Savannah had also taught Catherine to see the world through her eyes, a world full of wonder and curiosity that she had never experienced before. Everything was new to the girl, and from the tentative, unsure beginnings of their relationship a new confidence had arisen. Hand in hand they had explored the places they'd visited, and their own unique bond, for just as she guided Savannah, so Savannah would guide her, accepting her for what she was and as her guardian.
But for all this, it was the small things that she valued the most, for they seemed to bring them together in more subtle but very important ways. Braiding the girl's hair of a morning, listening to her idle chatter, Savannah curling up beside her of an evening as she would read aloud to her, all these things had served to strengthen their mutual understanding of each other. Gone was the awkwardness that had existed before, the self-consciousness that had been born from her lack of knowledge and empathy, and in its place had come an ability to display affection, and even humour, in a way that she had never before felt possible.
Yet, like a black shadow, the name of Kaliba lay above it all.
"Mom?"
She'd heard the girl's step long before she'd spoken, and when she turned she saw her standing in the open doorway, her pyjama-clad figure wrapped up in her warm housecoat and her forehead creased in an anxious frown.
"I believed," Catherine observed," That you were asleep"
"I was Mom," Savannah replied," But something woke me and I saw you standing out here"
"I see"
The girl moved to her side, leaning against the railing. "Were you thinking?"
Catherine raised her eyebrow a little. "I may have been. Why do you ask?"
"John Henry says you often come out here. He says that you come out here to think"
Her eyebrow arched a touch further. "Does he now?" Her gaze shifted for a second to one of the cameras," Well, that is very interesting"
"Don't be annoyed with him, mom" Savannah said, "He worries about you"
Catherine registered the slightly concerned tone in the child's voice, and gave a knowing smile in return. Savannah's accent, she noted, was taking on more of the lyrical Edinburgh lilt that mimicked her own, which in turn she had mimicked from Savannah's biological mother. She was growing too, her limbs losing a little of their coltish awkwardness, but still she retained the slim figure that had marked her mother.
"Perhaps he worries a little too much," She remarked, casting another glance toward the camera," Especially when there is no need to do so"
Her attention shifted back to her daughter, who was looking up into the velvet sky with the inquisitive look that Catherine had come to know so well. In truth she knew she should really send the girl back to her bed, for she would be at school tomorrow, but something held her back. The child was indeed as gifted as John Henry had believed her to be, excelling in all of her academic areas, and, in most cases, actually outstripping her peers. Yet despite this she had never shown a trace of having any sense of superiority to them, choosing instead to help and encourage them, and to be their friend.
A keen mind, and a compassionate nature...two strengths that lay within her, just as he'd predicted...and that Catherine had grown to be immensely proud of.
She let her gaze follow Savannah's. Far above them the tiny pinpricks of light glowed in the black veil of the night, and her eyes traced the lines of the constellations as she recalled the tales of human mythology written there, each one handed down from generation to generation, story after story of heroes and mythical creatures, of battles and bravery, drawn across the heavens for all to see...and to remember.
"They're beautiful" Savannah murmured.
"Indeed they are"
For a moment there was silence, and then Catherine pointed.
"Do you see the three stars there, all in a line?"
Savannah nodded.
"They are the stars that make up Orion's belt," She said," Orion was a great hunter from Ancient Greece, and, in the legend, he was placed in the sky by Zeus for all time in honour of his deeds"
The girl frowned "Zeus was the father of the Gods, wasn't he?"
"He was," She glanced down with a gentle smile," Clever girl, I see you have been talking to John Henry."
For a moment silence fell between them again. Then Catherine turned and knelt in front of her, reaching out to take hold of her shoulders as her eyes searched her face.
"But it was not I who woke you, nor a desire to look at the stars, was it?"
Despite her inner resolve, Savannah felt tears at the corners of her eyes, and she shook her head, the smile fading from her lips.
"Savannah, did you really believe that I wouldn't know?" Catherine's voice was soft now, barely a whisper upon the breeze, and she took the girl's hands in hers. "That I had forgotten what today means to you?"
"I...I just..." Savannah began, but her voice trailed off and she shivered at the memories that she had tried so hard to consign to the edges of her life. The man with the rifle, the sound of the gunshot, the pain and fear she had endured, all of it echoed and re-echoed in her mind, always there, just beneath the surface of her life. The memory of the day Catherine had told her who she really was, the day when everything had changed and her world had been turned upside down.
The memory of the day she had almost died...
A shiver passed through her, and she heard Catherine move closer to her.
"I know"
With those two words her fragile defences broke, and she found herself in Catherine's arms, burying her head into her shoulder as the memories came and the tears flowed. Without any self-consciousness the advanced AI held her, sensing that the mere action of doing so was enough to bring her comfort. For a long time she'd been aware of the delicate feelings of the child, that the trauma that she'd been through that day had lingered just beneath the surface, and she had known that this moment would come, sooner or later...the moment when the fear would come back to haunt the girl's dreams.
Slowly the sobs subsided, and she began to stroke Savannah's hair, a movement which she had learned the child found soothing, letting her voice become a murmur as she sought to bring calm to the torment of the girl's mind, telling her over and over that she was safe and loved, that no harm could or would befall her whilst those who cared for her lived. Fuelled by the fierce protectiveness that she had come to feel for the girl, she whispered the words in her ear, each one meant and with the fire of her purpose behind them for the girl who she had come to think of as her own.
And as she held the girl, she renewed again the vow she had taken to her mother, the vow that she had given to a dying woman in a darkened hospital room, whose bravery in facing her inevitable end had been a humbling experience to witness. She alone had seen the T-1001's true form and had understood the vital mission that she'd undertaken.
The promise had been made as she had passed, and it would be kept.
"We must stand together," Catherine said, moving back to stare into Savannah's tearful eyes," For you are a part of me now. Your fears are my fears, your worries my worries, your triumphs my triumphs also. The path that you walk is not just yours, but mine also, and we walk it hand in hand"
Savannah blinked, and with a gentle touch, she brushed the tears from the girl's cheeks.
"Together," She continued, keeping her tone soft," We will walk the path to the future, and we won't fear the dark"
She saw a tiny, faltering smile, and Savannah's hand tentatively took hers.
"Together?" She whispered, and her hesitant smile widened as Catherine nodded, pulling her to her again.
"Together"
For a time they held each other, and, hidden in the shadows, the owl watched them from a lofty perch nearby, the breeze ruffling its feathers as it stared down with its glowing eyes.
Eyes that pulsed red, like the embers of a fire...
