Disclaimer: The characters included in this story are the property of Warner Brothers and Josh Friedman.
Author's Note: The first chapter is mostly a re-hash of what you already know. I filled in the blanks with some of the characters' mind sets and thoughts.
Some days are better left never leaving one's bed. For the Connors, Sarah and her son, John, the last year had seen too many of those days, but it seemed that the battle with Skynet was nearing a critical juncture.
Since 1984, the Connors had been evading the attacks of Skynet, the computer system destined to become self-aware and take over the world, destroying humankind in the process. First a lone assassin—a terminator, a cybornetic organism designed by Skynet to infiltrate and kill human targets—was sent nearly 50 years back through time to kill Sarah, thus preventing the birth of John, who was destined to lead the humans to victory over the machines.
Failing this, Skynet's second option was to send another assasin back through time to a second point of contact with the Connors—1997—again in Los Angeles, to kill John. This too was unsuccessful, but the computer system remained dedicated to the task, sending a multitude of killers at the younger version of John.
These attacks confirmed two facts that Sarah had always feared: first, Skynet would never stop its attempts to kill John; and second, Judgment Day, the moment the computers unleash nuclear devastation on humankind, still loomed menacingly in the not-so-distant future.
More recently, the death of Sarah's old lover, Charley Dixon, who was protecting John from an attack by Skynet, began a series of events that would ulitmately lead to mankind's salvation. Then, on the trail of Caliba, a company apparently collaborating with Skynet, the Connors had saved Savannah Weaver, all of 6-years-old, from a similar fate. This mission cost the life of Derek Reese, John's uncle and another of his protectors from the future.
Thinking Savannah had been kidnapped, the police finally caught up with Sarah, who was actually holding Savannah in exchange for a meeting with her mother, Catherine, the head of the mysterious Zeira Corporation. John and Cameron, a cyborg that John of the future had sent back in time to protect his younger self and his mother, were forced to rescue Sarah from jail, an impossible task made possible by the terminator's combat capabilities.
Having accomplished the unthinkable, Cameron, Sarah and John evaded police and arrived at Zeira for the meeting with Weaver. James Ellison, a former FBI agent and the head of the corporation's security, escorted the latter two to Weaver's penthouse office, while the cyborg covertly investigated the building's basement.
Strangely, Weaver knew about Skynet, knew about Cameron's planned attack and, most disturbingly of all, knew who John was—the future leader of humankind.
But before Sarah could get her head around this information, an aircraft appeared in the window behind Weaver and suddenly hurtled itself suicidily at the office.
The four survived, but only because Weaver had transformed into a metal shield at the last moment, protecting the humans. It was a liquid-metal cyborg, just like the assasin sent to kill John in 1997, except this time, the machine was helping the humans.
The group escaped the drone's attack and scurried down the stairs of Zeira, towards the basement.
"We need to get out—they're trying to kill my son!" Sarah said to their terminatrix foe-turned-friend.
"No they're trying to kill my son!" Weaver corrected her. "Just like you are!"
"I'm sure she's done it," Sarah answered, referring to Cameron's planned destruction of Zeira's basement project. Sarah and John's visit with Weaver, after all, had merely been a diversion for Cameron's main assault.
"You better hope not," Weaver said in her peculiar Scottish accent. "Your John might save the world, but he can't do it without mine."
Finally at basement level three, the four quickly moved past the crumpled body of a security guard. He was either dead or unconscious, but there were clearly greater concerns, so they pressed on.
John, in fact, hurried past everyone else. Cameron said she wasn't 100 percent after the damage she had taken in rescuing Sarah from jail, and given her erratic behavior lately, he was understandably concerned.
Beyond that, John sensed closure was approaching. Could this be the defeat of Skynet before Judgment Day? Was this the moment everyone had been hoping for? Could he actually avoid his "destiny?" Would the deaths of Kyle, Riley, Charley, Derek and everyone else finally mean something?
It was all dashed in a heartbeat, however, and confusion reigned instead as he entered the laboratory. John was expecting to find evidence of a massive battle between two killing machines—broken furnitue and walls, smashed equipment, and hopefully the shattered hulk of one T-888.
Instead, Cameron's lifeless body sat slumped in a chair, her torso and head still riddled with bullet holes from Sarah's rescue. There was also no sign of John Henry, the former T-888 known to the Connors as Cromartie, which Zeira was now using as the anthropomorphic portion of their AI. In fact, John was so startled by what he saw that the others finally had a chance to catch up to him.
John couldn't tell if Cameron was deactivated or rebooting. To answer his own query, he quickly moved over to inspect her.
"Her chip—it's gone!" John announced, angrily. Glancing around, he then noticed Cameron's switch-blade on the table in front of them, open, with some skin and blood on its tip, presumably from Cameron's head. On the other side of a computer keyboard, was the unattached end of John Henry's interface cord. The implication was clear and John lost his temper.
"Well, where is he? The, the John Henry…" John stammered, yelling at Weaver. "He took her chip. Where did he go?"
Weaver briefly examined Cameron's head. "He didn't take the chip—she gave it to him," she announced, matter-of-factly.
"John," Sarah said, nodding at the computer monitors.
They all read, "I'm sorry John" in a repeating loop.
John's heart sank and he looked blankly at his mother as a dark realization rapidly coalesced in his mind.
"Where is he?" John asked Weaver, this time with considerably more control than the first.
"Not where," Weaver corrected. "When."
Weaver was clearly several steps ahead of the other three in her investigation and was adjusting the controls on a console next to the John Henry AI.
Ellison had finally heard enough, though. Speechless since the elevator ride to Weaver's penthouse, he needed to say something.
"What do you mean, 'When?'" he asked.
Sarah wasn't concerned with John Henry's absence, however. Her eyes had been glued on the AI.
"I know that, I've seen it before," she said to John, referring specifically to a small, black computer tower at the center of the whole contraption.
John turned and saw what she was staring at.
"Is that the Turk?" he asked his mother, but he didn't wait for a reply to the obvious question. "That's Andy Goode's Turk."
"Three dots," Sarah replied, almost apologetically, referring to a triangle of LEDs on the front of the computer. A dying messenger from the future had left the Connors several clues for battling Skynet by writing the clues in his own blood on their basement wall before he died. Most of the clues had panned out into something tangible, but the three dots remained a mystery. Until now.
Weaver continued her adjustments, but now it was Sarah's turn to be angry.
"You lying terminator bitch," she hissed at Weaver. "You're builidng Skynet!"
Weaver turned from the console, which was beginning a countdown, from 25. Puzzled a little, she said, "No, I was building something to fight it. And I'd watch who's calling who a bitch."
Touche, Sarah thought, twisting her neck in acknowledgment of the cyborg. But if meant it as an insult, Weaver clearly had very thick "skin" and was moving on.
"Coming, James?" she asked her security chief.
"Coming?" Ellison said, clealy confused.
"After John Henry," Weaver answered, "Our boy."
"He's not my boy, and you…." Ellison answered. He'd seen the terminators, the AI, the synthetic blood, the robotic parts, and all the death and mayhem they could produce, but Weaver's deception and sudden revelation had his head spinning.
"Do you mind picking up Savannah, then?" Weaver added, almost comically. "Gymnastics ends at 5:30."
Ellison was speechless. He wondered if the child was a machine as well.
The countdown had reached 10 and the telltale signs of a time displacment bubble were beginning to appear. Electrical arcs bounced off a blueish-purple sphere that was suddenly forming around Weaver, John, Sarah and Cameron.
John locked eyes with his mother. They were jumping through time—again.
"John, we can't," Sarah cautioned, as she backed out of the bubble.
"He's got her chip," John pleaded. "He's got her!"
There was something beyond desperation in John's voice. They had been so close to victory and to have it snatched away like this, seemingly at the last second, was infuriating and frustrating.
Moreover, John thought, it was frightening. For the last year, John and Cameron had been nearly inseparable. John of 2027 had sent the cyborg back to 1999 to protect his younger self. In that time, the two had learned much about each other's strengths and weaknesses. Could Skynet use that information against them if John Henry was to fall into their hands?
But John was also driven by something else, something besides his destiny. He had grown very close to Cameron, and even though she wasn't human, he felt he owed it to her to get some answers. He was too late in solving the mystery with Riley, but he was determined not to let that happen again, even if Cameron was just a machine.
And was she just a machine? John had silently berated himself for saying that to Cameron and he wondered how much it affected her. He was constantly debating the issue in his own mind, and there had been several near-intimate moments that the two had shared which John could just have written off as the normal hormonal response of a 16-year old boy. But didn't his future self re-program her? What was her agenda? What is his future self's agenda?
Cameron had said that she loved John, but that might have been a machine's desperate attempt to save itself. She was pinned, helpless and about to have her chip extracted in that instance.
How can a machine love? How can a machine be desperate? John's mind was in knots, but if there was one thing he did understand, it was loyalty.
Apart from the major exception when her chip had been compromised, Cameron's loyalty was unquestioned. There were many instances when John had gone out on a limb for her, even though Derek and Sarah both advised against it. The ultimate test of his loyalty was re-activating her after the failed attempt to murder him. Until now.
I'm sorry I doubted you, John had told Cameron apologetically after verifying the true cause of Riley's death. How could he not trust what was, essentially, an extension of himself?
Since her arrival, they had done everything together, from mundane everyday tasks to battling the assorted forces of Skynet. She was definitely more than a bodyguard. Indeed, Cameron was John's best friend. And she had saved his life, so now it was time to return the favor, to go out on a limb for her. Again.
However, John's opinion was not shared by his mother. Sarah wasn't joining them.
So this was it.
Recently, Sarah had come to the bitter realization that she would soon be separated from her son. She knew it at the lighthouse, but luck had interceded there, as the cancer scare was proven false. In jail, she was expecting the worst, either from Skynet or whatever hell the authorities could conjure up. She had even sent a message for John to leave her, but he rescued her instead.
Now it was time to let go. He had grown so much in the last year, especailly since the Cromartie incident in Mexico. He had figured out who Riley was, had ordered the death of Jessie, and more importantly, Derek had followed those orders. Although foolhardy, he had organized and executed her rescue, without too much risk to himself. Overall, she saw his slow acceptance of a destiny as humankind's future leader.
And he now had the ultimate protector—a shape-shifting cyborg whose mission clearly included the safety and security of her son. Did she trust Weaver? Trust is earned, Sarah thought, but Weaver could have let them all die in the penthouse, so the terminatrix passed with flying colors there.
Adding it all up, Sarah had made her decision: he was ready.
Even still, he couldn't believe she was backing out.
"Mom?" John said, surprised by her move.
"I'll stop it," she said, reassuringly, although how exactly she was to accomplish that was another matter.
The countdown reached zero, and, after a brilliant flash, they were gone. The table, chair, keyboard and switch blade had all vanished as well. John Henry's umbilical cord was severed at the approximate edge of the bubble.
While traveling in time, the senses are overwhelmed by an assortment of stimuli, and although it was the second time he had experienced it, John wasn't sure he would ever grow used to it.
The bombardment included a blinding light, a mixture of searing heat and numbing cold, a simultaneous sensation of needles pricking his skin and individual hairs being plucked from his body, and finally a release that John could only compare to the sudden relief when re-surfacing while swimming under water. In any event, John found his skin crawling and spine tingling, and yet it was all over in a millisecond.
Then the reality sets in. First, the embarassing realization that he was as naked as the day he was born. But more importantly, he thought, where am I? When am I?
John looked to his right to see Weaver in approximately the same predicament, probably asking the similar questions to herself.
His mother's last words to him—I'll stop it—were still fresh in his thoughts. "It" was a reference to Judgment Day, the day the machines declared war on humankind. Three billion men, women and children would be killed world-wide in the opening salvos, as the major nuclear powers responded to attack. The rest would be hunted down by the machines in the post-apocalyptic ruins.
The Connors thought they had prevented J-Day when they had destroyed Cyberdyne in 1997, but more terminators began coming after them only two years later. Cameron later informed them that J-Day was not prevented, only delayed. The new date: April 21, 2011.
All of this was running through John's mind as he looked around, trying to gauge where they were, and when. They were in what appeared to be a basement or a shelter of some kind, but the concrete walls were blown out here and there, with twisted rebar visible everywhere, either from explosions or some sort of fire fight. There were beds, cots, propane tanks, tables, chairs, pots and pans scattered about. The lighting was a crude arrangement of light bulbs strung together at uneven points on the ceiling. It smelled musty and dank. Definitely a make-shift arrangement, John thought distantly.
And, of course, around them was the circular pattern of fire and an indentation in the floor from the time-displacement much he remembered from the first time through. But something was missing.
"Where's Cameron?" he asked Weaver. "Where's her body?"
"It doesn't come through," Weaver answered matter-of-factly, as if she expected the question.
John nodded an acknowlegement, but didn't really understand the oddities of time travel. He looked around again at the tattered existence in evidence and began leaning toward the fact that they had traveled forward in time, post Judgment Day. They were in a resistance bunker, he concluded.
He turned to ask Weaver about it, but was startled by her suddenly clothed exterior. She was not wearing the white dress and heels from their departure from Zeira, but instead had on some sort of leather jacket with orange pants and leather boots. Of course, she wasn't really "wearing" anything, just appeared to be. In any event, he again became aware of his own plight, made all the more desperate by the approach of of yelling voices and barking dogs.
He scrambled to a nearby bed, found a coat, quickly slipped it on, and crouched in an attempt to avoid detection by the search parties. And it was none too soon, as flashlight beams panned where he had been standing only seconds before. A team of armed men, led by a German Shepherd, quickly scanned the corridor outside the room where John and Weaver were, but they clearly had a more distant target in mind and were gone more rapidly than they had arrived.
John stood up, re-joined Weaver, and the two scampered out of the room down the corridor in the opposite direction of the search party. John had advanced maybe 10 meters when he was stopped dead in his tracks by soldier with a rifle which looked to be bigger than he was.
"Got one! Got one!" the soldier yelled to unseen parties behind him.
"One what?" John answered, confused. But he looked back and around and saw that Weaver was no longer with him. Turning back to the soldier, he said, "What? Please, I'm not metal…"
"Don't' move!" the soldier ordered, leveling his rifle at John's head.
"Please, I swear, I haven't got anything!" John pleaded. It was literally true, except for the jacket. John's mind darted for answers again—how was he to explain his sudden arrival? "I'm human!" he blurted.
"'Cause I will blast you!" the soldier replied, seemingly immune to John's pathetic explanations.
"Stand down!" a familiar voice ordered from behind the soldier, who hesitantly lowered his weapon.
From the shadows emerged the speaker. It was Derek Reese.
He advanced between the soldier and John to examine their quary.
"Look in his eyes," Derek said, like a teacher to his student. "He's got about as much metal in it as you do."
Derek! Yes! He's alive! John beamed—eyes wide, huge smile—at Derek, his uncle, who had been killed just days ago in the Skynet attack on the Weaver household. Of course, that fate still loomed for Derek—it was in John's past, but his uncle's future. If time travel was anything, it was confusing.
But having his uncle back in his life was an unexpected twist that John should have anticipated, but didn't. Good old Derek. He looked the same—the perpetual 2-day growth of beard, the tattered, olive-green hunting coat, the knowing eyes. He was a natural leader, the kind of person others are instinctively drawn to and respect. John had grown to know and love him in the short time they spent together.
"Derek!" John said, unable to control himself. He wanted to hug him.
"Yeah?" Derek answered flatly, with considerably less enthusiasm.
John's heart sank. Derek didn't know him. Of course, why would he? Good god, time travel certainly keeps you guessing.
"John," he answered, meekly. "John Connor…"
"I know a lot people, kid," Derek replied, shaking his head. "Don't know you."
He then turned to the others and asked, almost sarcastically, "Anybody heard the name 'John Connor?'" They confirmed Derek's ignornace—no one knew the moniker.
For a moment, John thought he was joking. No, they were deadly serious. But how can that be?
Again, John's head was spinning. All at once he thought: Who's leading the resistance? Will I meet myself? No, future me, as he and Cameron had often referred to his 2027 self, is me. Of course! Then where is….
Before he could conjure the thought, Derek addressed him again.
"Hmm, well you know what? I think you're gonna be famous," Derek said, grinning and glancing over John's shoulder. "My brother's back and you're wearing his coat."
John turned around before Derek had finished his sentence. If his head was spinning before, it was now ready to explode. Walking toward him was Kyle Reese, his father.
John had never met Kyle, who died before John was born, protecting Sarah from the first terminator all those years ago. John's destiny was always two-fold: lead humankind to victory against the machines and send Kyle Reese back to 1984. The two missions were intimately intertwined.
It was like looking into a mirror, John thought. Kyle was about the same height and build as John, but Kyle's hair was a little lighter than his, and his father was trying to grow a beard, but the patchy peach-fuzz wasn't fooling anyone. Not much older than me, if at all.
"Every time I look at you, I see him," older Derek had told John when he first revealed that he knew Kyle to be John's father, that fateful day in the park. John had to agree with him on that point.
But it was surprising nonetheless, and John was speechless, awestruck. He wasn't expecting to meet his father this soon. He knew he would have to some day, at least to prepare him to defend his mother, but he wasn't ready now. So he just stood and exchanged a dumbfounded look with his father.
Then a figure emerged from behind Kyle that caught John's attention. As the figure leaned down to pet a German Shepherd, John suddenly realized it was….
Cameron! How? Did they find John Henry? Did they figure out how to repair her? Now his amazement and joy was unavoidable, and he did all he could to prevent his jaw from hitting the floor. He wanted to call to her, knowing she could easily fill in the missing pieces, but something was wrong, something about her was off.
Shouldn't she know of his arrival? And aren't the dogs trained to detect terminators? Then she looked up and matched his stare and he could see the confusion in her eyes and expression as well. She wasn't Cameron. She wasn't even a cyborg. She was a dead ringer for John's old cyber-companion, but she was human.
For John, the world suddenly came crashing down on him. A thousand questions came to mind—How can I explain my presence? What year is it? Where is Weaver? Where can I find some clothes? Am I to take command here? Is my mother still alive? Will I ever see her again? Who is the beautiful Cameron look-alike?
But no answers would be forthcoming, at least not right away. For now, for the first time in his life, he was truly alone.