Author's Note: This story exists in the same universe as all my other Terminator stories. I just don't write them together because they're about different things.
Entrapment
February 2nd, 2023
The sound of John Connor being slammed violently into the mat echoed around the empty hanger that served as the base gym. Marcus grinned broadly at his friend and offered him a hand back up. Connor winced as the smaller man hauled him to his feet. Sarah Connor had been a master of several forms of unarmed combat and done her best to pass those skills on to her son. He'd been more interested in, and more adept at, firearms and hacking. During his practice sessions with Marcus, it showed.
"I swear, you're cheating," Connor wheezed. After nearly twenty minutes of being thrown around by Marcus, he was out of breath and drenched in sweat. In a rather annoying contrast, the cyborg's breathing was slow and steady. His shirt was darkened, but not soaked through like Connor's.
"You're just mad a guy half your size can beat you up, Connor." Marcus' smirk was well-earned. Even using only a fraction of the strength he had at his disposal, Marcus could take down virtually anyone on the base in just a few seconds. He didn't have to concentrated discipline that Connor had had drilled into him; he was a back-street brawler who ended fights with dirty tricks and brutal efficiency. Damn proud of it too.
Connor tried for a surprise attack and no one was more surprised then he himself when his gloved fist connected solidly with Marcus' jaw and snapped the man's head around. Even with the extra padding in the glove, his hand stung like hell. Slowly, with an annoyed look on his face, Marcus turned back to face him.
That movement, the exact same one a T-800 made, sent a shiver down Connor's back before he controlled himself. The first time he'd seen Marcus do that, he'd been shocked and suspicious. Later, they had confirmed that it wasn't Skynet programming, not exactly. Marcus had been used as a model for the intimidation protocols encoded in the T-800 model. His own gestures, his posture and his skill at making other human beings feel fear had been analyzed, digitized and loaded into the next generation of Terminators. Marcus had not been pleased to find that out. Blair, of course, had been unnervingly proud of her husband and pointed out that when Skynet wanted to do something right, it had to look at a human to figure out how.
A foot planted itself in his belly with enough force to knock the wind out of him and send him staggering backwards. Marcus followed the kick up immediately with a sucker punch that Connor just barely dodged. He landed two more hits on Marcus, catching a return blow on his shoulder instead of taking it in the chin as had been intended. He kept the exchange going, almost blow for blow, for several minutes.
In a fight against one of the scavengers or other hostile humans out there, the only threats against which hand-to-hand was any good at all, Connor could count on his size, weight, strength and stamina to offset most of the holes in his skills. Against Marcus, he only had reach on the other man. Marcus didn't get tired, he weighed half again what Connor did despite being much more compact and even through the padded gloves his punches felt like hammers.
He finally got in a good, solid blow that had Marcus wheezing. Even with all the armor and improvements to his body, a strong punch in the solar plexus still knocked the air out of Marcus' lungs and forced him to pause. The winded man took a step back to recover his breath, watching carefully for a follow-up from Connor, but none came.
Connor forced himself to wave Marcus back, raising his hands to signal an end to the match. He leaned over, resting his hands on his knees, catching his own breath. Marcus wiped sweat from his eyes but otherwise was unaffected by the exertion of their fight. He didn't even have the courtesy to pretend any of the blows Connor had landed hurt. Of course one of the reasons Marcus was one of the two base combat instructors because his students couldn't wear him down or accidentally hurt him. No matter how annoying that might prove.
"You oughta pick on someone your own size, Machine Gun Man." Blair had arrived for her work out. She was stripping out of her pilot gear over at the row of lockers along one wall. When she was down to her shorts and tank top she pulled her hair back and quickly secured it into a tight knot on top of her head.
There were a few enthusiastic yells and some scattered applause as Blair took the corner of the wrestling mat opposite her husband. "Kick his ass, Hickabick!" and "Two bottles on Williams!" were yelled across the gym, along with more encouragement and betting.
The smirk fell off Marcus' face and he sighed as he stepped back onto the mat. He hesitated for a few seconds and then, shaking his head, lunged for Blair.
A heavy, somewhat metallic, thud rang through the hanger. Marcus growled and heaved himself up from the floor, spinning almost inhumanly fast on one knee to try tackling Blair's legs out from under her. He was flattened to the ground again as his wife vaulted over his shoulders and landed on his back. She rolled off him before he could get a grip on her.
When Marcus came for her with a fast kick, Blair caught his foot in midair and dumped him onto his ass. More cheers came as Blair continued easily evading and countering Marcus' moves. Connor raised his own voice to cheer Blair on when she flipped the three-hundred pound cyborg over her shoulder with the force of his own rush.
Blair and her advanced students, Kate, two of her nurses and three of the computer technicians, were the only ones on base who could regularly hold their own against Marcus in hand-to-hand training. Which was why Blair was the other hand-to-hand instructor. Before Judgment Day, Blair had been a long-time student of tai chi and aikido. She'd started in high school; she claimed it was how she kept in shape for cheerleading. Connor almost hadn't believed it when Blair mentioned one night, years ago, that she had been captain of her high school cheerleading team. She'd had to pull out an ancient photograph of herself and her best friend, in uniform, before he took her seriously.
Connor winced in sympathy for Marcus as Blair executed another throw. Marcus, however, came up out of the mat with a burst of speed and barreled into her. She barely had time to turn his assault away and she lost her footing doing it. She had to scramble to get away from him before he could pull her in closer where his greater weight and strength would end the match. Blair was panting, but she grinned and gave Marcus a glower.
"You holding back on me, Wright?" She taunted, her bright smile only slightly countered by the heaving of her chest. She deepened her voice and did a passable imitation of Marcus' southern accent, "I done told you, I ain't havin' none of that!"
Shaking his head, Marcus wiped at his eyes to clear drops of sweat away. Without warning, he launched himself forward. He leapt at Blair and managed to catch hold of one of her shoulders. He would have dragged her to the mat under him if Blair hadn't twisted at the last moment and landed on Marcus' chest, her fist pressed against his throat.
"Attagirl, Williams!" that was Cassidy Aiken, the base's signal analyst and a member of the pirate team that Marcus and Blair lead. Cassidy was one of Marcus' students, she didn't quite have the balance or flexibility for Blair's style. That didn't mean she didn't like watching the cyborg taken down a peg or two. Others joined in the cheering with Cassidy. A few people, mostly new soldiers just recruited or transferred in, grumbled as they passed over whatever they'd bet that Wright would be the victor.
"Undefeated!" Blair pumped her fist in the air, grinning broadly. Her husband, with his usual sense of timing, ambushed Blair. This time, he wasn't moving at human speed. Connor only just caught the surge of motion as Marcus wrapped his arms around Blair, pulled her tight to his chest and flipped the both of him over so that she was pinned under him.
"Cheating bastard," Blair's voice was muffed by Marcus' chest, but she didn't sound angry. "Get off, I've got work to do."
On signal, Kate cleared her throat and Jason Payne, a former EMT, gave a polite cough. They were Blair's most advanced students, waiting for their turns on the mat. Marcus rumbled something that only Blair could hear, thankfully, because Blair swatted him across the head as he untangled the two of them and climbed to his feet.
"Don't be too hard on 'em, now," Marcus called over his shoulder as he headed for the showers.
****
"How do you just turn it off?" Connor asked suddenly, looking over at Marcus. The other man was still lathering his hair and he looked particularly ridiculous with soap running down his face as he considered the question.
"Whachya mean?" Marcus' voice was somewhat muffled; no one in their right mind let the shower water in their mouth if they could help it. Not that it would hurt Marcus, but it still tasted like old socks.
"When you punched that scavenger we ran into a few days ago --"
"The one with the gun aimed at you."
"Right. You punched him and he was gone. You spent almost half an hour beating on me and I've just got bruises," large, fist-shaped bruises even with the gloves, Connor thought to himself.
"I guess there's," Marcus paused as he rinsed the soap out of his short, copper-colored hair, "a gauge is the best way I can think to say it. In my head. I can tell myself to be just as strong as I should be."
The way Marcus said 'should be' let Connor know he meant 'should be, if I were human.' He cursed himself. He hadn't been thinking when he started this conversation. Marcus enjoyed being able to pick up a Jeep, no question about it. What he didn't like was thinking about it, or comparing it to what he 'should' have been able to do.
"You really don't tone it down for Blair?" Connor nudged the subject a bit away from sensitive topics like gauges in Marcus' head.
"Hell no," with the other man's accent the two syllables turned into four, everything stretched out like taffy. Connor had noticed that Marcus' accent grew thicker when he talked about Blair, to the point that you almost expected him to spontaneously produce a cowboy hat and boots.
"I'm just as hard on her as I am on you, Connor. I tried bein' a gentleman once and all it got me was a punch in the nose, a boot in the ass and hollered at because Blair hurt herself when she went for my stomach."
Connor eyed Marcus, unsure if the other man was joking.
"I tell you what, that was not a fun night. Trying to get Blair back into her clothes with a busted hand since we couldn't go to the infirmary naked. Then –"
Connor quickly finished his shower, before Marcus could finish his story. Shutting off the water he retreated to dry himself off and change into clean clothes. He still had to wait for Marcus to dress, they were both leaving for a recon patrol in an hour. Kyle and Cassidy would be coming with them. There was a Skynet signal coming from a supposedly destroyed outpost about fifty miles east of the base. Two years ago it had been a Skynet manufacturing center before the Resistance attacked it, stole the stockpiled munitions and gutted the place. If Skynet was trying to reclaim the facility, they needed to put a stop to it as soon as possible.
****
The cross-country hike to the former Skynet facility wasn't difficult, even hauling as much gear as Cassidy needed for her signal analysis. Marcus was carrying most of her gear, along with his mini-gun and spare clips for everyone else. If an issue wasn't made of it, he didn't mind acting as a pack mule. Aside from rubbing at his forehead a few times as they drew closer to their destination, Marcus seemed perfectly comfortable.
"You alright, Marcus?" Kyle finally asked after the third or fourth time he noticed the older man knuckling his temple and stretching his neck.
"Yeah, I'm fine, kid. Just a headache," Marcus shrugged and kept on walking, giving a quick grin to reassure Kyle.
"How long since you slept?"
"Four or five days. I'm fine, really."
"You should have slept before the mission, Marcus. You had plenty of time yesterday, you only worked one shift." Connor glanced over his shoulder at the smaller man, disapproving. He needed everyone at the top of their game for this little recon, especially if they ran into trouble.
"I only signed up for one wife," Marcus grumped as he hitched the heavy pack higher on his shoulders. "I'll kindly thank y'all to let me take care of myself. I ain't gunna pass out and leave you three helpless against the big, bad machines."
"Whatever you say, Cap'n." Cassidy chuckled.
Kyle rolled his eyes, but there were no more comments about Marcus' performance. The next time he winced and rubbed at the pain, Connor and the others just let him be.
****
It hadn't taken five seconds for the group to be sure that Skynet had at least partially reclaimed the former manufacturing facility. The traps that the Resistance had left were gone, disarmed or set off. The Skynet-standard low-intensity red lights were active again, despite the scavenger teams having disabled all the facility's power systems. Connor nodded silently at his team and gestured for Marcus to take up a rear guard. Kyle pulled on his night-vision goggles, scavenged from one of the pirate missions that Marcus and Blair ran. Connor had his own pair, but he left them on his forehead. Once he'd seen a team wiped out when a Terminator used a flare to blind them through their goggles. Between Marcus's enhanced vision and Kyle's hardware he felt fairly secure they'd be warned if anything lurking in the dark came for them.
The dimly lit hallways didn't provide any surprises as they moved deeper into the complex, following Cassidy's directions. She was absorbed in the readout of her scanning gear, fiddling constantly with dials and knobs.
As he swept the way ahead with the barrel of his gun, Connor ran over the plan. He'd been working with Marcus, Kate and two of the Majors from the Nevada Resistance since the signal was detected three days ago. If they were right, this mission would put them one step further along the path that lead to Skynet's destruction. If they were wrong, the whole war might just end today, with John Connor dead. He shook his head sharply, dispelling the thoughts. The plan was good and every mission was a risk. Cassidy, Kyle and Marcus were the best he had for this mission, they'd get it done.
Cassidy adjusted the gain on her scanner and nodded toward the corridor they should take. Marcus trailed behind the others, keeping watch in case any Skynet machines came from the rear. So far they hadn't encountered any Terminators or HKs, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be any deeper in the complex.
"It's in here," Cassidy whispered, pointing at the second of four doors along the hallway. The men took up positions around her; Marcus at her side to deal with anything that came from inside the room, Connor and Kyle watching either approach along the hallway. After several minutes of effort, the computer lock chimed recognition of an override and the door slid open. Connor glanced over his shoulder to watch as Marcus poked his head around the doorframe carefully, staring into the gloomy interior of the room. Connor couldn't see anything inside, but he knew Marcus wouldn't have trouble.
"Looks clear. Just a lab. Don't see anywhere a machine could hide," Connor backed toward the door, keeping his gun aimed down the hall. He heard Marcus step inside. As the light from a flare Kyle tossed on the floor flooded the room, Connor double-checked Marcus' assessment. Scanning the room he saw no place for an ambushing machine to hide, no sign of automated weapons or traps. There were just blank monitors in stand-by, tables cluttered with bits of machinery and racks of parts.
"Come in, we're clear," Marcus rasped. Connor glanced at the other man, wondering what was wrong with him. He sounded terrible. There wasn't time to deal with it, though, they had a plan to stick to. Everything had to go perfectly. When they got back he'd ask Kate to check on Marcus. Could a cyborg get sick? If it was a problem with his machine parts, that would be a lot more complicated. The people they had that really understood Skynet tech, aside from Connor himself, were mostly tied up on the East Coast with the push towards the New York Hub. Marcus could fix gross physical damage, he'd done it before, but the finer systems he needed help with.
Kyle was the last one in, taking up a guard position just inside the door. Connor turned around to survey the room just in time to see Marcus stagger, raise one hand to his forehead and give a low groan. Even as he reached out to steady the other man, Marcus crashed to the ground.
"There's another signal now, it just started to register on my –" Cassidy cut off mid-sentence as she heard Marcus fall. Her scanner gave an electronic shriek. "It's spiking!"
Marcus let out a howl of agony. Both his hands clutched his head, clamped against his ears. He twisted on the ground, trying to escape the torment that was flooding his brain. Kyle abandoned his post at the door, rushing to help his friend.
"Cassidy, find out where it's coming from!" Connor barked, already crouched next to the stricken cyborg. This was not part of the plan. Apparently Skynet was more prepared for them then he had counted on. He cursed, eyes darting from Marcus to the door and around the room. He'd put everything on this mission and if it failed – no, it wouldn't fail. Cassidy was the best, she could deal with whatever was hurting Marcus and get them back on track. He'd bet anything it had to be some kind of variation on the fake command signal Skynet had leaked to them years ago.
"Marcus! Can you hear me?!" Kyle reached out for his friend's shoulder but Connor knocked his hand away.
"Don't, Kyle. He might hurt you."
Kyle opened his mouth to protest, but he saw what Connor meant. As whatever was happening continued, Marcus' tormented writhing was getting worse. Connor's point was driven home when one of Marcus' fists slammed into the floor a few inches from Kyle's foot, sending bits of concrete flying. A choked scream tore itself free from Marcus' throat as his face contorted in pain.
Connor grimaced, hating that there wasn't anything he could do. Kyle gave Cassidy a pleading look as the woman juggled pieces of gear around, trying desperately to find one that could tell her what was happening to the cyborg and how to stop it.
"Hello, Marcus. I told you, you would not be given a second chance." A female voice came from the bank of computers on the west wall. The largest monitor suddenly came alive; streams of Skynet code resolved into the green-tinted face of a woman with severe features, pallid skin and a neatly-trimmed mass of dark hair. Her thin lips were compressed in a mocking smile. Faintly glowing red eyes watched as Marcus let out another pained scream. The face on the screen would have been stunning but for the malevolent satisfaction it took in watching Marcus suffer.
Connor had never seen Skynet before, but he knew instantly that was what this face was. A small part of his mind wondered at Skynet presenting itself this way, as a human female. He pushed that consideration away, too many other things demanded his attention. With Marcus disabled and the team off-balance, this was the perfect time for Skynet to summon minions to dispose of them.
"What the hell are you doing to him?!" Kyle screamed at the face, aiming his rifle at the monitor.
"We knew the Resistance would investigate. Our calculations suggested a high probability that Marcus Wright would eventually come, if we made it seem there might be an objective here worth stealing. That is what he does, after all." That tight smile never left the image's lips and her eyes only flicked to Kyle for the briefest moment before returning to Marcus.
"Once again, Marcus has exceeded all our expectations. We hoped at best to capture him and some of his team. Instead, he was delivered John Connor right to us."
"Think again, bitch!" Cassidy snarled. One of her scanners had located the machine generating the second signal, the one that had disabled Marcus. She aimed her pistol at a station three monitors right of the woman and fired twice. As sparks flew, along with bits of computer, Marcus slumped in relief and stopped thrashing about. Connor reached out to feel the cyborg's chest and was reassured by the feel of the strong heart inside hammering away as Marcus panted for breath. Far faster then Connor had expected, the other man's heart rate began to settle and his breathing steadied. Connor gave Marcus a pat, other hand still on his rifle.
"Your efforts are pointless. You are already trapped. This entire facility can self-destruct at a moment's notice," the voice was cold with disdain, not machine logic. Connor swore that Skynet was smirking at them with that simulated mouth.
"Yeah?" Connor sneered, "so why hasn't it destructed yet? How come you're still gloating?" He spared only a moment to actually look at the screen, he was watching the doorway for signs of Terminators or smaller H-Ks that might be backing up the computer's threats, keeping one eye on Marcus as the man struggled to regain control of himself.
"'Cause," Marcus's voice was rough and tired, but immensely satisfied, "she can't do shit, Connor. We've got her right where we want her." He staggered to his feet, grudgingly accepting the shoulder to lean on when Kyle helped him stand. With Kyle's help, Marcus was able to drag himself over to the monitor where the woman's face watched him, the thin smile only slightly fading from her face.
"You are not in control of the situation, Marcus," the voice was almost perfectly steady, but there was a tremble that could easily be dismissed as a distortion in the software. Marcus knew better. He'd heard that same tremble in Serena Kogen's voice when she spoke to him that last time in his cell, right after he kissed her. He'd been in control then too, for all she had been free and he on his way to die.
Marcus grunted at her and went to work, stripping off the casings and non-essential components that protected what he was after. As his hands, still trembling slightly from whatever she had done to him, yanked and tore at the computer, he glanced at the monitor. She was still watching him, her expression growing less controlled. He could see her eyes flick to the waiting, watchful Connor and the anxious Kyle. Cassidy, she ignored.
"See, Dr. Kogen, I think its time you and I had a nice, long talk."
"I have nothing further to say to you, Marcus. You have finally fulfilled your purpose. Now you, John Connor and Kyle Reese can all be dealt with, permanently. Nothing you do to this station can alter that," the digital voice was higher pitched then it had been before and Marcus permitted himself a small smile. It was worried.
"You keep sayin' that, but here we are," Marcus continued to dig around inside the computer systems, his movements growing steadier and regaining their usual deftness as he recovered from the paralyzing signal that Cassidy had disabled. Finally he found what he was after.
"Good night, Serena. See you in the mornin'," Marcus had the satisfaction of watching the computerized eyes go wide as she finally realized what was happening. Marcus broke the last of the connections and her face disappeared off the monitor. He withdrew his hand and looked down at the heavy, black cube in his palm. Part of him longed to find a way to inflict the pain that he had been subjected to on that little box, but the larger part of him knew that what Connor had in store for her would be far worse then anything he could do to her just by smashing the thing in his hand.
"That's it?" Kyle peered over Marcus' shoulder, looking down at the cube.
"That's it." Marcus pulled the specially shielded case that had been prepared for this mission out of his pack and carefully tucked the cube inside.
"Lets get out of here before Cassidy runs out of batteries for the jammer. There's probably more C4 in this place than Kyle has hidden under his bunk."
"Hey!" Kyle blushed at Connor's joke, but he grinned and readied his gun in case Skynet had back up ready in the event the planned explosions didn't finish off the Resistance team.
****
Getting out of the Skynet facility proved a great deal harder then getting in had. Cassidy's jamming equipment had, as Connor hoped, prevented the computer network from detonating whatever booby traps had been put in place to kill any team that responded to the signal. For some reason that no one could figure out, Skynet had an aversion to hard-lines. The network would use wireless transmission over 90% of the time, despite its vulnerability to interference and jamming.
Marcus was still not moving as fast as he normally did and he'd even been forced to distribute most of the equipment in his packs to the others. For the first time since Connor had met the cyborg, he was suffering lingering pain. Whatever the signal had done to him, it had left some lasting effect that Marcus' normal pain tolerance couldn't deal with. He needed to get back to base, quickly.
Skynet, however, had not been quite certain that its explosives would be the only thing it needed to eliminate any Resistance scavengers. All the doors back to the surface had locked sometime after the party had passed them and Cassidy was having to break through each one again.
The final door blocking their way out was taking longer then any of the others. Cassidy cursed a blue streak as it denied her over-rides again and again. When it finally chimed acceptance, she cheered at it.
"Take that you fucking piece of Skynet bullshit! No damn machine gets the better of Cassidy-fucking-Aiken!" She crowed, ignoring Connor's glower at the volume. They still hadn't found any Terminators or HKs, but he wasn't taking chances.
"Cassidy!" Marcus's deep voice was hoarse but it cut through her cheers
"What, Cap'n? It's fine, I totally got –"
"Don't open –!!" Marcus lunged for the technician and he slammed into her hard enough that she went down in a flash, her head ringing against the floor.
For just a moment, Connor felt a surge of panic, wondering if the Skynet signal had somehow activated programming in Marcus and turned him against them. Then he realized what Marcus had been trying to prevent.
Cassidy had already activated the lock, just as Marcus tackled her. The door chimed again and started to open. Just as Cassidy hit the floor, the console she had been working at exploded. There were more explosives, hidden in the walls or the frame of the door. The entire doorway became a blazing inferno. Connor and Kyle had been standing a few feet back, watching the rear approach, and they were hurled into the air by the explosion.
Connor's vision was a mass of white sparks and black swirls, his head was ringing and he couldn't hear a damn thing except a huge roaring that was only partly the raging fires. He realized, very suddenly, that he was on fire. The explosion had taken care of stopping and dropping him, so he rolled for all he was worth, swatting at the worst patches with his gloved hands. Mostly, he extinguished himself before the flames ate through his armor and the clothes under it.
He staggered to his feet, bellowing for Kyle, Marcus and Cassidy. Or he thought he was bellowing, he could only faintly hear himself through the cacophony in his head. His balance was shot and he nearly tripped over Kyle when he found the younger man sprawled. Kyle's field gear was more heavily fireproofed then Connor's, owing to his demolitions training. He wasn't more then singed lightly, though his face was bright red with the heat. Connor hauled him to his feet.
Marcus and Cassidy. He had to get to them. The explosion had reduced most of the area around the doorway to twisted, blackened metal. He limped forward, moving as fast as he could without falling over again. His head was still spinning.
"Marcus! Cassidy! Answer me!"
He though he heard Kyle screaming the same thing, but he couldn't be sure. He saw them, then. Marcus was on fire, slumped and motionless. Connor would have jumped on the man to smother the flames but he didn't dare. He could see Cassidy's arm extending out from under Marcus' chest and it would be too easy for the weight to crush her. If she was still alive, that was.
Kyle was obviously thinking faster then he was because the young man pulled his canteen from his pack and emptied the whole thing onto the worst of the flames. He and Connor put the rest out with their jackets and the water that Connor eventually fumbled from his own pack. Together, grunting with the effort, they rolled Marcus' inert bulk off Cassidy.
Blackened from soot and smoke, Cassidy looked terrible. Her coffee-dark skin and the soot hid the extent of her injuries, but she was bleeding freely from the back of her head and a half dozen cuts on her arms and legs where Marcus hadn't totally covered her. The arm that had been sticking out from under Marcus was badly burned.
Dimly, Connor could hear Kyle yelling at Marcus to wake up. He turned from Cassidy once he checked her pulse and, to his relief, found it was still strong. Kyle was hammering on the cyborg's chest with both fists and Connor's heart lurched to a halt.
Marcus convulsed once and started hacking and coughing, struggling to drag air into his chest. He was in even worse shape then Cassidy. In several places his skin was seared away, showing the gleaming metal underneath. Where the skin wasn't gone from his arms and face, it was black with ash and char. He'd looked worse when he had confronted Connor in the river all those years back, but largely because at the time his chest had been laid open as well.
"Can you stand?!" Connor yelled, and the cyborg winced, but he nodded. He growled something, or at least Connor saw his mouth move but he couldn't hear anything. Marcus' expression said quite plainly that his hearing, at least, was fine. The cyborg returned the frantic hug that Kyle had him wrapped in with a thump on the young man's back.
Marcus hauled himself to his feet, stepping forward to help with Cassidy. He got precisely three steps before he collapsed again, his eyes rolling up into his head. Kyle barely had time to half-catch the falling man and ended up getting dragged to the floor under Marcus' weight.
Connor's hearing was starting to come back, he could hear when Marcus bellowed at them both that he was fine, to get moving. This time, though, Kyle hauled the cyborg back when Marcus went to pick up Cassidy. If Marcus needed more convincing that he didn't have any business carrying a wounded woman in his condition, the mere fact that Kyle was able to hold him back proved it.
Once he was sure that Marcus wouldn't try to do more then walk, Kyle lifted Cassidy in a rescue-carry as gently as he could. Connor was already on the radio, yelling for a medical evac to meet them at the rendezvous site.
It was a mile to the nearest clear space for the Blackhawk to land, the designated rendezvous site. When they finally had staggered their way there, Marcus fired off the signal flair while Connor did his best to bandage Cassidy's head wound and the largest of her other cuts. He worried that she remained un-responsive even when he tried the smelling salts to wake her.
Marcus was recovering, but the explosion seemed to have compounded whatever damage had been done to him by the signal that Skynet had used to disable him. He was weak, barely able to walk. He kept reassuring them that he was fine, just tired and hurting. He couldn't feel anything wrong with his body, he could move just fine. Connor and Kyle might have been more reassured if they could understand more of what he said, but Marcus couldn't raise his voice loud enough for them to hear him properly.
When the Blackhawk arrived, Kate was the first one out, followed a half second later by Blair. The two former paramedics with the med-evac team, Dixon and Payne, took Cassidy from Kyle and secured her for the flight back to base. Blair and Connor hauled Marcus aboard while Kate frantically checked over all four of them. She dismissed the injuries to Kyle and Connor as mild, turning all her attention to Cassidy and Marcus.
****
Kate rubbed the heel of her hand against her eyes and sighed. She would kill for a cup of coffee but there wasn't any left. Sometimes they could find a supply in a warehouse or abandoned shipping truck but even those happy days were pretty rare now. She took a swig of her Kool-aid. The flavor helped disguise the taste left in the water by over-used purification systems and they had plenty of the little packets.
She'd been awake for 22 hours now. Cassidy was still in intensive care for the burns to her left arm and her head wound. Marcus was under strict orders to rest and see if that helped improve the lingering fatigue and pain from the damage he'd taken in the explosion and whatever Skynet had done to put him out of commission inside the facility. John and Kyle were also being treated for their burns, but the two of them had escaped with minor injuries.
"Come on, Kate. You need to get some sleep." Blair's voice from behind her made Kate jump in her seat, knocking her bottle of cherry-flavored water across the floor. She cursed and bent to retrieve it before more could spill.
"Dammit, I'm fine. I've got more work to do, I can't afford to sleep."
Blair cracked a grin and grabbed a rag that Kate used for a coaster to clean up the spilled drink. "You sound like Marcus. You're not going to be any good if you're so tired that you mix up your patients."
"I just need to take one more look –"
"You can't do anything else tonight. Come on, John already passed out."
"How come you aren't still with Marcus?" Kate tried to subtly deflect her friend away from nagging about sleep. She swallowed a yawn as she pulled out the scans again and gave them another hard stare.
"He made me leave when he woke me up. Complained I was drooling on him. Star and Kyle are with him," Blair waited a few moments for Kate to come to her senses and agree to rest, but there was no sign any such thing was happening. Sighing, Blair sat down on Kate's desk and looked at the mysterious pictures and annotations that told Kate how Cassidy and Marcus were doing.
"What's the news?"
"I think Cassidy is going to lose most of her right arm." Blair sucked in a breath at that, she hadn't known it was so bad. "I'm still hoping that she wakes up. John said she hit her head pretty hard when Marcus tackled her, but I found a second wound near her temple from debris that added to the trauma."
"Shit." Blair closed her eyes. "But she's still breathing, the monitors looked normal and everything."
"Yes, right now she's on the edge. I'm hoping that once we can reduce the drugs, she'll wake back up. Right now it's a mercy she's unconscious." Kate shuddered. Even with Marcus shielding her, Cassidy still had numerous second degree burns and some third degree. That wasn't even counting the arm. If Marcus hadn't covered her, there was no doubt in Kate's mind that Cassidy would have died.
"What about Marcus? His voice is getting better," Blair sounded hopeful, but she was obviously still shaken by how much of her husband's human flesh had been burned away by the explosion. She, everyone really, was used to Marcus being nearly invulnerable.
"That's good. It might mean that he's already repairing the damage from the Skynet signal. If he'll be honest with me about the pain –"
"When has Marcus ever lied to you, Kate?" Blair's tone was sharp and her dark eyes flashed with anger.
"He won't say anything except that it feels better, that he's fine. He isn't fine!"
"It's not like he can measure how much pain he's in! If he feels better, that's all he can say! What's your problem with him, huh? If anyone else gets hurt, you at least try to be nice, but if its Marcus that's hurt, you don't even bother!"
"That isn't true!"
"He hurts, just like us, Kate! You should know that by now!"
"I know that, but -- he -- he's an ass!"
Blair paused, momentarily confused. Kate took advantage of the other woman's hesitation to plow forward, venting her frustration.
"He's inconsiderate, rude, vulgar, violent, dirty and above all he's the most frustrating, stubborn, block-headed idiot on the entire base! The only thing you can say about him is that he doesn't smell as bad as most of the other men because he doesn't sweat as much! He's just an ass, Blair!"
Blair looked, for a brief moment, like an offended cat puffing itself up to attack, then she started laughing. Great howls of laughter shook the pilot until she could hardly breathe and tears were streaming down her face.
"You –" She gasped for breath, "For five years, I thought you didn't like him – and it's because he's an asshole?!"
"He is!"
"I know that, I'm married to him!" Blair went back to laughing, shaking her head.
"Oh shut up." Kate grumped and heaved herself out of her chair, stalking from the room to find her husband and her bed. Blair was still laughing when Kate slammed the door behind her.
****
Marcus woke up feeling like he'd just been in a five-car pile-up on the freeway, without his seat belt on. When he remembered that he had, in fact, been blown up by several incendiary bombs he considered that he was probably doing alright. A weight on his leg shifted and he looked down to see Kyle slumped over the lower half of his bed. Star was curled up in a second chair, but she was awake, watching him. She gave him a bright smile and a little wave, the first of which he returned.
Marcus lifted the sheet covering him and took a look at the damage. The worst was on his arms and face. His front, from what he could see and feel, had already healed from the burns. He could feel a few spots on his lower back and sides that would take longer.
"Kyle, wake up." Marcus noted with a sort of detached interest that his voice sounded normal again. "Kid."
Kyle grunted and shifted position slightly but he didn't wake up until Marcus shook the leg he was resting his head on. "Marcus? You awake?"
"Yeah. What is it with everyone falling asleep on me? Did Kate slap a sign on the end of my bed that says "Please Drool On The Cyborg"?"
Star giggled and shook her head, signing quickly that there was no such posting. She still wouldn't speak, but now in addition to the personal sign language she shared with Kyle, she was using ASL. Kate had taught Star how to sign shortly after they first met and then taught her husband, Kyle, Blair and Marcus. Kate's mother had been deaf.
Kyle hastily wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, looking embarrassed. "I wasn't drooling. How are you feeling?"
"Like I could eat a horse," if his stomach could still growl, it would be roaring for food right now. "How is everyone else?"
"I'm fine, Kate says I just have to put on some cream for a few days" Kyle gestured vaguely at his reddened face and hands. "Connor has some burns where his clothes caught fire, but nothing too bad."
"Cassidy?" Marcus hadn't been awake long enough to ask after her until now. He remembered her going limp when he'd accidentally smacked her head against the floor in his dive to shield her from the explosion.
"Kate says she's going to lose her arm." Kyle's voice was quiet and under the red, his face was pale.
"What?" Marcus' mind raced, running over what had happened. He didn't remember hitting one of her arms; he didn't think that he'd landed on one of them. "What happened?"
"Just too many burns. Nerve damage, Dr. Walsh said. They can't do anything for it, even with the grafts from the bio-synth machines. Hey! It wasn't your fault, you saved her life!" Kyle had seen the spasm of pain cross Marcus' face.
He should have been faster with the warning, Marcus thought to himself. He hadn't known, at first, what he was smelling until it was too late. If his head had been clear, he might have been able to stop Cassidy before she set the bombs off.
"How did you even know there was a bomb, Marcus?" Kyle, of course, was trying to steer him away from his failure.
"I smelled the primer chemicals," he should have caught them when they first went in. His best guess was that from the outside there was just too much else masking the scent.
"Hey, Marcus. Snap out of it! I'm the demolitions specialist, I should have checked every one of those doors before I let Cassidy at them. I was too worried about getting us out of there to think right. Even Connor didn't think about bombs in the doors. We all figured that the jammer had stopped the base's self destruct so we were home free aside from HK's and Terminators."
Marcus nodded, but he still knew that he could have done better.
"Is she awake?"
"No," Kyle's voice went soft again. "Kate and Dr. Walsh have her pretty drugged up, you know, for the pain. They're pretty sure once they can stop the drugs she'll wake up alright though."
"So, has he decided everything is his fault yet?" the rumbling bass voice of Ricky Jeong announced more visitors. Ricky was one of the mechanics on the pirate team, he specialized in lighter ground units like the Moto-Terminators. Blair was nearly hidden behind the mountainous Korean. Both were carrying trays of food, which set Marcus' mouth to watering. An errant thought noted that he was lucky to still have enough flesh left on his face to have a mouth that could water. The scent of food chased that thought away. It took a firm application of self-control not to snatch the trays away as soon as they were in reach.
"Easy, boss, there's more once I drop this off." Ricky grinned, showing his missing canine. It had been knocked out when a Terminator had thrown him face-first into a Centaur tank they were trying to steal.
Marcus waited just long enough to unwrap the first protein bar before he went to town. The tray Blair carried had actual food, courtesy of the mess hall, but Ricky's was just a pile of protein bars and a jar of peanut butter. Marcus' body needed raw organic material to fuel the accelerated growth of his living tissue. With as much healing as it had to do, he hadn't been kidding by much when he told Kyle he could eat a horse. Bones and all.
While Marcus tore his way through the food, Ricky ducked out and came back with a second pile of concentrated nutrient bars. The things had a horrible taste, but they never went bad and there were plenty of them. Marcus, hungry as he was, didn't much care what they tasted like.
"Did you draw the short straw this time, Ricky?" Kyle looked up at the huge man, grinning. Every time one of Marcus' team took a hit, somehow it ended up being Marcus' fault. Finally growing tired of it, the team had started a tradition where one of them was elected to harass Marcus endlessly until he became frustrated enough to snap out of the depression. It had been particularly memorable when Allison Young drew the duty and she followed Marcus around for a week, singing folk songs one note off key.
"Yeah. I was thinking I could just arrange an emergency every time him and Hickabick get hot and heavy, but she threatened to strafe me with her plane."
"You're a big enough target that I probably wouldn't even cause much collateral damage," Blair smiled sweetly up at Ricky. She had situated herself next to Marcus on the narrow infirmary cot, one arm wrapped around his shoulders to keep her from falling off. She leaned over to kiss the top of his head. Marcus jerked away when he felt Blair's lips touch metal, but she just swatted him on the back of the head and kissed him anyway.
"Kate thinks you're an asshole."
"I know that," Marcus gave his wife a curious glance as he paused in his rapid chewing and swallowing to tear open another foil-wrapped bar.
"She called you a rude, vulgar, dirty, block-headed idiot."
Kyle looked mildly shocked. It was no secret that Kate didn't much care for Marcus, but he had always thought she was too polite to just say that sort of thing to the guy's wife! "Kate said all that?"
"There was more, but those were the highlights." Blair grinned down at Marcus who nodded, mouth full.
"'s all true, too," he grunted out between swallows.
"The only thing she likes about you is that you don't smell as bad as the other guys on base, on account of how you don't sweat as much."
Ricky laughed and Kyle looked mildly offended, "I don't smell that bad," the younger man groused.
"C'mon kids, I think its time to leave Mr. and Mrs. The Boss alone for a while before your virgin eyes get all sorts of disabused." Ricky herded Star and Kyle out of the infirmary amidst Kyle's protests that he was damn well disabused already, sleeping in the same block as those two, much less the same room on occasion.
"Is the pain better, Marcus?" Blair stroked his shoulder gently while he ate, watching bemusedly as he plowed through the bars and started on the actual food. The salad was already almost gone.
"Yeah, it's better. Every time I wake up, it's getting better. I guess that's why I've been sleeping so much." He took a long pull on the water bottle and looked mournfully at its bright pink contents. "Wasn't there any orange?"
"Ricky got the water, he said it was part of the treatment." Blair reached down and pulled a second bottle, this one full of orange water, from her satchel and dropped it into Marcus' lap. "I think you deserve a break, though."
"Thanks, darlin'." Marcus drawled out the "darlin'" just the way Blair liked it, earning himself another kiss. This time he didn't flinch away when her lips met exposed metal on his forehead.
"You're about to pass out again, aren't you?" Blair looked down at the empty trays and sighed.
"Mhmm." Marcus' voice was already dragging, but he was still awake enough to shift to one side in the narrow hospital cot and give Blair space to situate herself next to him. With her curled close against his side, Marcus drifted off to sleep.