A blood red tint touched the dark sky over the twinkling lights of a sprawling cityscape that looked like a desert mirage in the haze of busy Friday night traffic. Like the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz its great towering spires seemed like the center of the universe for the young and full of hope—hope for their face in a magazine, for their name in a black and white credit at the end of a movie. They were like flies drawn to the light of a zapper.
Some say that Los Angeles was built on a foundation of starlight and dreams. But those who had lived there long enough knew that the surface was a shiny glamor of lust hidden behind bright smiles. The sewers were filled with rivers of blood and tears and her foundation was built on matchsticks. It was a superficial world of youth, decadence, and insanity flirting with sparks, ready to catch ablaze at the slightest flinch.
There was no better timber for the fire than the old city. Like an unfaithful lover's storage locker, the trash strewn grimy streets and forgotten deco buildings were locked away. Whether it was progress or a vile act, the collection of mismatched architecture and dark windows with foreclosed notices were never meant to be seen again. In the night's breeze, whispers of the past echoed and creaked in this graveyard of lost civilization. It was a who's who of old boutiques, fitness centers, and toy stores. Like the fly-by-nights of Hollywood, their best times only stretched as far as those who were old enough to remember them in the rest homes their grandchildren had put them in. The buildings were a collection of fleeting memories and distant backgrounds to bitter lives of disappointment and regret. The world moved on many years ago without them, their withered structures and acid damaged roofs a tribute to what was and never will be again.
An old yellowed newspaper fluttered across the potholed asphalt like a tumble weed across the abandoned street. The old entertainment district still had the outlines of neon signs from ancient speakeasies and dives. There were a few weathered black letters of the last movie that had played at an abandoned, old-fashioned theater, once a favorite of Rudolf Valentino. Tall, dark buildings stood sentry against a background of shadowy mountains that overlooked the bleak setting. In the distance, an odd reflection of car headlights filled glass fixtures and neon bulbs of the signs. Just for the briefest of moments the bright light, like the phantom of yesterday, lit the decrepit haunts anew. But when the black Mustang approached the driver dimmed the headlights, folding the new life back into obscurity.
The silvery lights framed a bombastic sign of art deco design that announced enthusiastically of a world history exhibit inside the "World's Fair" museum. The driver exchanged a look with his companion before slowing their speed at the mouth of the adjacent alley. There were three cars parked inside; their make and model as recent as the late 2000's. Wordlessly, the driver casually passed up the closed museum with stained white stone, crowned with a greening golden dome, and swung the wheel to circle around.
For ten weeks the LAPD had been baffled. It started with the kidnapping of Brian Fogel, a multi-million dollar software developer contracted out to the biggest tech companies in the world. There was no ransom note or demands. Two days later a video was posted to YouTube of men in turbans in a subway under London beheading him. The Scotland Yard searched everywhere, and found nothing. Two weeks later, Kimberly Morgan, CEO of Cybertron Cybernetics was taken from her home. Three days later, she was beheaded on a video uploaded to Twitter, this time in a Roman catacomb. For weeks, project managers, CEO's, and division heads disappeared only to be killed days later in places all over the world, their bodies never found. Police Departments around the world in coordination with Interpol and intelligence agencies searched high and low for the Jihadists responsible for the killings. But there were no leads, no record of even a whisper of these cloaked men and their vicious reputation. Only in desperation to save the life of the latest kidnap victim did a lead present itself. Found by two consulting detectives hired by the mother of young Savannah Weaver, kidnapped from gymnastics yesterday.
It was a lead that led them to the deepest and oldest part of Los Angeles, where they were on a hunt for a team of rabid dogs that hid amongst the matchstick forest at the foundations of the center of the universe.
Detective Stories: Case #3
The Mad Jihadi
CRASH!
The middle set of double doors out of three main entrances to the closed private museum flew off their hinges as they smashed open on the sole of a boot. A tall shadow stood in the entrance for a long beat, before a second one superseded him inside. Petite and svelte, the shorter silhouette entered with a cold aggression, carrying dual Glock pistols searching for targets. The museum smelt of neglect and dust. Moonlight flooded from a floor to ceiling window, bathing a natural spotlight over roped off inventions. To the right sat an airplane made from chrome whose propellers were attached to the back. Tinted in amber from the night sky was an aerodynamic car with tail fins that sat collecting dust on the other side of the room. The girl surveyed the expansive lobby as the tall man with a barrel chest strode beside her. His emerald eyes narrowed as he read a tarp banner welcoming new visitors that hung across the ceiling amongst the vaulted replicas of Da Vinci's bat glider, and a chromed Messerschmitt ME 262.
The man and the girl wordlessly spilt apart to opposite sides of the lobby. Their boots clicked on the cracked black and white tile as they cleared the area. They met again in front of the beginning of the museum. A large open entrance was flanked by two carpeted staircase that lead up to the top floor. The young man quietly read a sign that pointed down for the new world history portion, and up was still the area for the 1939-1963 World's Fair items. While much of the museum was darkened, at the far end there was a soft glow of torchlight at the back lobby of the building.
Glaring suspiciously, the rugged young man motioned his partner to go up, while he began stalking toward the ground floor entrance. Almost immediately the girl holstered her weapon and grabbed him back. It was a gut feeling that the man had, that was shown in his eyes that his companion read as if spoken plainly—the main danger, the likelihood of an ambush, was on the ground floor.
"No, John." She whispered emotionlessly. She knew their roles should be reversed, especially in this kind of danger.
Still glaring, John ripped his sleeve from Cameron's grip. "You heard me." He whispered harshly. "Go!" He pointed to the upper floor. The cyborg tightened her cheek with a frown. It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that John knew something she didn't, but she still didn't like it.
He watched his partner go up the stairs till she disappeared into the darkness. With a deep sigh John Connor placed his hands in the pockets of Sarah's old double-breasted leather coat and made his approach into the wide hallway. He kept his eyes peeled, his head on a swivel, as he became consumed by darkness. Flicking back and forth, he stared out at the old glass cases filled with armor and artifacts, Chinese clay pots and Roman vases. At the first double doors he saw, he cautiously pushed open the already cracked doorway. He grunted in a grim satisfaction to find a complete replica of a Roman catacomb. It had been reconstructed to the last skull and cobwebbed iron gate for a more immersive educational experience. He squinted through the dim lights and saw a large, dark lake of dried blood. He kept focus, but rather than check every room, he took the catacombs as a sign that they were in the right place.
There hadn't been a lot to go on when Catherine Weaver had hired them to open their own investigation into the Jihadist's slaying. They had spent most of the day in the bunker going over all the evidence John Henry could steal for them. Cameron had formulated that since the police had shut down the airports six times already in the last six kidnappings, the extremists weren't traveling abroad. So, while Ellison and Agent Aldridge were looking for every private airfield in a six hour radius, John and Cameron were unsuccessfully checking abandoned movie studio lots. An hour ago he was ready to kill Cameron, who was being less than helpful not only reminding him how long Savannah had to live, but unkindly shooting down his random shots in the dark theories. That was when he noticed something in one of the evidence screenshots. In the particularly brutal murder of their "Old Friend" Alex Akagi it seemed that the killers had made a mistake that hadn't been noticed by the police or FBI.
At the recorded murder scene at the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto there was a painting in the background of a man that John recognized. He wasn't sure of his name, but he knew he seen it before. It was a painting of a famous Shinto high priest from the feudal era. It had hung in the shrine for centuries. However, the painting in question had been sold in the early-nineties in order to settle debts during the decade long Japanese recession. That was when he remembered where he had seen the painting before. In one of the last days he had spent with his mother, before they had locked Sarah Connor in Pescadero. They had spent it at the World's Fair Museum. John, always a fan of the art deco and fantastical futuristic ideas and designs of the 40's and 50's, had dragged Sarah here to see the new exhibit. They were some of the first people at the unveiling of the painting. That day had also had been the last happy memory they had made together for many years to come.
Walking through these halls he could still see the wind in her hair, the feeling of her strong arms around him as she lifted him up so that he could get a good look at the Samurai swords. He remembered the way they screwed around on the recreation of the observation deck on the Eiffel Tower. Sarah, waiting for her lost love, and John the American aviator, they run into each other's arms and run off to Kyoto Japan next door, giggling all the way. But of all the things he remembered the most about that afternoon, he remembered her toothy grin and the pure love in her eyes every time they were drawn to him.
Pausing in front of the Paris room, the sad, nostalgic, lilting smile that had crept over John's face fell away. He spotted in the reflection of the dusty Japanese armor case a man hidden away in the shadows, waiting to strike. In his hand was a long metallic tube with a white fuse like a stick of dynamite. Cautiously, as casually as he could, John began reaching for his Colt when a second shadow leapt out from behind him. He never had a chance to draw his weapon before he was in action.
His attacker was a tall man covered head to toe in Bedouin dress. His face veiled by a full faced turban and his body cloaked in a thick maroon desert robe. He took aggressive and untrained swings at John with an ancient Katana, the rusted blade embedded with Japanese runes. He swept the sharp sword across for John's torso, which he jumped back to avoid. Spinning, he swung for the throat, to which he missed. The youth was moving with the right footwork, the Jihadi was not. It was becoming obvious that the extremist was swinging the sword like a club or a baseball bat, wielding the weapon as a basic street thug might. Ducking and weaving out of the way, John waited for the man to make the wrong move. It finally presented itself the moment his enemy began overreaching. With a solid kick, the Katana went flying out of his hand with a rattle of metal scraping against tile. Reaching back, John struck the man with a hard blow to the solar plexus and hit him full in the face with a vicious upper cut in succession. The force of the blows landed the cloaked killer backward, sliding him down the hallway.
The sound of clicking caught the private detective's ear. He whirled quickly to find that the man from earlier was now trying to light the fuse of the bomb in hand with an unresponsive lighter. In his voice John heard the distinct sound of a rough Australian accent.
CRASH!
Smashing open another museum case in front of the Forbidden City room, John's relentless attacker, pulled out a Chinese Qiang from the broken glass. He pointed the long spear tied with red dyed horse hair at his enemy. Building up his aggression again, the Jihadi charged. The leaf shaped blade glinted sharply in his head long rush. The Extremist's attack was met with an easy side step. Missing once again, his enemy devolved to swing the ancient weapon wildly. John was reminded of the first lesson Sarah ever taught him—a weapon is useless in the hands of the inexperienced. Figuring out the steps to their dance, John took his eyes off his opponent when he saw the glow of light from a glass reflection and heard the fizzle of a fuse. When the sound of pounding feet behind him came, John knew he was going to have to time this just right.
With a lunge forward, John grabbed the red base of the Qiang with both hands. He pulled all his weight on the spear, dropping to his back, and pushing his legs up. Not wanting to surrender the spear, the tall covered man went with it, not being able to match John's strength. With his feet, the hero propelled the desert cloaked man overhead just as his partner threw the metal bomb. When extremist and metal tube met mid-air there was a brilliant blinding light and flash of intense heat. Rolling back to a knee, John covered his eyes with his forearm. The agonized scream of his attacker echoed through the hall for just a beat before he was suddenly silenced in a flash. The private eye watched with a grim squint as the thermite cooked the spear and piece of the terrorist, till he was fully incinerated.
He had been right all along, suspecting from the first moment they had breached the museum, that the ground floor had been a trap for Cameron. They were all banking on John taking the upstairs, and Cameron taking the direct approach. As the fire burned and the room filled with the sickly sweet smell of cooking meat, a just as violent fire was stoked into an inferno inside of John. First, they kidnapped an innocent girl, gunning down three cops in the process. Second, they planned on killing her mercilessly and record it. Now they plotted to kill the girl he loved. Justice was coming for them in one form or the other when he got his hands on the ringleader.
"NO!"
The shadowed man who had thrown the bomb ran toward the flame. He had a pained, more pronounced Australian accent. He dropped to his knees, ripping off his turban. He was revealed to have chiseled features and buzz cut hair. The muscled gladiator of a man was far from Middle Eastern decent. In the large fighter's moment of inconsolable grief John saw through the man's disguises and knew that these weren't terrorists. They were hired thugs off the street —top shelf street muscle by the size and skill sets they had. It only made John Connor hate them even more.
Terrorists killed out of a psychotic fervor; they killed because in their whacked out minds they thought it was right. But thugs like this killed and preyed on people for a criminal's dime. Their fortunes earned in the blood of their victim and the tears and fears of their loved ones. It was a life style adopted by Sarah Connor in her youth, a lifestyle that made John as a child ashamed of the food he bought, the toys he had … and the mother he loved more than anything in the world. When the large Australian man rose to his feet in a rage, the promise to be a better type of man than those Sarah Connor learned from filled John with a matched savagery when they met.
Their battling silhouettes against the thermite flames cast larger than life shadows on the walls of the aged corridors. After trading several blows, the hired gun let fly a heavy swing that John weaved out of the way of. Having him off balance, the rugged youth countered with a strike to the large gladiator's rib cage with all the force of a jack hammer. Shocked from the pain, the thug allowed John to grab the back of his head and hold him in place as he slammed his cannon ball fist over, over, and over again into the man's face. The sound of a nose crunching and the smell of fresh blood spiced the stale air swirling around the painful lesson that you never attack in anger. Twisting his large ear, John pulled the dazed thug's head down and slammed a forearm into his neck. The violent thunk it made was followed by a knee contacting with the man's gut. John flipped the mercenary violently, blood exploded all over the cracked tile as the Australian fell head first at an odd angle. A bone chilling crack traveled down the hall when John dropped his other knee on the captured arm. The man screamed, being pinned down by his broken limb, while John began pounding on the thug's face.
He saw every beheading, every murder the man helped commit and made him pay with every punch. The anger in him over the killings and the attempted murder of Cameron made John numbly think he might not stop till this bastard was dead and his face soup. Luckily the echo of distant gunfire halted the savage beating he was giving the large gladiator.
Above him the firefight raged. Tensing for a second, the youth helplessly listening to the violence meant for him. There had been no guarantee that the man behind this murder ring hadn't thought of a contingency in case he and Cameron had switched places. With all his might, John had to resist doubling back to go up there and help Cameron. There were many times since his mother and uncle's death when he'd forget who she was, what she was meant for. Their opponent's weapons were the smallest of the small arms, they couldn't hurt her and yet it hurt him to see her mangled. She was all he had left. He would forever live with the fear of never seeing her again. But like now, he had no choice but to trust her and power through that fear, because a child's life was on the line.
Not wanting to be surprised twice, John drew his weapon. Cautiously advancing the rest of the way through the dark hallway, he made his way toward the lit back lobby of the museum. The world exhibits seemed to be clear of bad guys. It was possible that they thought they'd need most of the crew to deal with him, rather than Cameron. But most likely whoever was behind this had a point to attack John personally.
Obviously from the thermite the mastermind knew that Cameron was a machine. They were also attacking major players in the tech world. These had all the earmarks of a future operation. It might be some resistance fighter with an axe to grind, like Derek when they first met him. In the back of John's mind he wondered if Riley's benefactor had finally shown her hand. In the year and half since Sarah and Derek's death, he had only seen the girl twice. It was after they returned home from New York City. The blond haired knockout had been waiting for them with surprise and sympathies when she was told about what had happened to Sarah and Derek. But the man who returned was no longer the boy that left. He was done playing her games, done with bubbly shifty eyed "Lucky" Riley Dawson. He was angry and unkind when he told her to get lost and fired a shot at her feet when she returned the next week, a final warning for her to never come back. In John's grief he wanted Cameron, needed Cameron and that was all … there wasn't room inside his fractured heart and tired soul for anyone else anymore. That wasn't to say that John hadn't been expecting the field officer in charge of Riley's little game to make a move … but this seems too overly violent of an escalation to be her and Riley's work.
He halted just at the mouth of the hallway that led to the back of the museum. The firefight upstairs was still roaring off the tall walls, traveling up to the domed roof. His eyes scanned the large lobby, before holding on the museums prized attraction. They had saved the biggest recreation of the world history experience for the last. In the middle of the room was a one story replica of a Mayan temple with stairs flanked on each step with jaguar statues. From below John could see a huddled shadow lying on the plateau. It was a small mass that was shaking like an autumn leaf.
"Savannah" John breathed.
It wasn't going to be easy getting up there. He remembered that there wasn't just a balcony at the end of the second story. But two marble staircases on each side of the room. It left plenty of spots for an ambush. Till Cameron worked her way to the back, he could be taking fire from everywhere in the room. He could wait, but if there was one thing he had learned from the losers that his mother hung around with it was that they weren't going to stay if there was no profit. They'd cut dead weight as fast as possible to escape a cage, and there was nothing more like dead weight to a criminal than a six year old little girl. John knew there were very few options left but to risk getting to her before some coward decides that Savannah wasn't worth the trouble.
He moved out of cover and into the open. He checked the corners first, moving quickly while keeping a clear eye for anything moving in the large room. On the deck above was flashing of firearms and the pained scream of a massacre. Each staircase was clear on both sides, if they had men posted, then they had clearly rushed off to fight Cameron. The path to the temple steps was lit by torches that flickered odd shapes on the old linoleum floors shaped like ancient stone. John stayed a low as possible, hitting the steps in full stride. He didn't like being so high up in a fight, and if his mother and uncle saw him do this, they'd lose their minds.
At the top of the temple he saw a little girl with bright flaming red hair. She was dressed in a shiny aqua colored leotard and white leggings that were soggy and stained yellow. Tears streamed down her freckled face as she looked up from her fetal ball. Above her a camera was pointed directly in her face. Once at the top of the plateau, John slid leg first next to the girl, keeping low.
"John?" She whimpered, too scared to even cry anymore in earshot of death's clamor.
He nodded covering her with his body, looking up to the balcony still a half a floor above. "Yeah, it's me." The poor girl was covered in the overpowering smell of urine. Her little hands and feet were tied with rough hemp. He kept his site lines as he reached for knife in his coat pocket.
"I'm so hungry." She sobbed.
Pulling open the medium shined blade from its wooden handle with his teeth, John began sawing through her ropes. "I know, honey … we'll get you something to eat!" The sound of a ricochet pinged off a plane model from above and struck the camera. Quickly John pulled the girl under him covering her head as the camera tumbled off the temple. He moved off her and cut the last of her ropes.
"Come on!" the hero crouched with open arms. The girl from the floor didn't hesitate to leap into his barrel chest, clutching the beaten leather shoulders of Sarah's male coat. Clutching the child, John slid down several steps, before flying down the rest of them as fast as balance would allow.
"John!"
CLUNCK!
As he hit the last step, he had kept his eyes on the exit, and not on the peripheral. Savannah saw the man before the golden idol he was carrying crashed into the side of John's head. The little girl screamed as her rescuer met the floor on his shoulder, subconsciously avoiding landing on Savannah with all his two hundred and ten pounds. The sound of his colt sliding away was masked by the buzzing in his head.
He released the girl, who ran for cover before even needing to be told. The force of the strike was enough to make John's vision blurry. He fought the blackout trying to drag him under. Flipping on his back, John saw a distorted figure walking toward him. He wore a long, black sand robe, his face covered by the same matching turban that he wore for every murder that was taped.
"I knew you and your machine would show up eventually … it took several sacrifices to finally gain your attention. But I knew that all it would take was the right pressure point."
Usually the extremist's voice was masked by audio tampering. But in person, he recognized it. John Connor knew who he was even before the man ripped off his face coverings. He should've known just by the pattern of the murders, the victims, and the rhetoric he read from his cue cards. His mother had told him how it had all went down a couple years ago; the last time that any one of them had contact with this nut job.
"Silberman." John growled like an offensive curse word.
Doctor Peter Silberman had shrunk in size since the last time John had seen him many years ago. His face had thinned in captivity, his eyes looked red and sallow, windows to a paranoid and addled mind. Gone was the arrogance of a headmaster. The inner demons of the reality of their world now seemingly controlled him. His always unhealthy, but well covered, obsession with Sarah Connor had replaced this man of science's reason with fervor. Sarah Connor had become his reason and religion.
"Recognized this place, John?" He asked. "Of course you do, it was the last place she took you. It was the last place you were a worthy of her lineage!" He ranted. His papery skin was sweating. The old man's face contorted into frown lines that gave him a demonic look. "She told me about this place … the last place where she trusted you. Now you must pay for your heresy!" He swooped on John with the idol raised to pummel his adversary.
But his closing distance was all John needed. He placed a hard heel in the doctor's diaphragm. Using the force of momentum from sitting up, John struck Silberman with an iron fist as the man keeled over. The psychotic stumbled back, the force of the punch and the weight of the idol caused him to collapse witless on the dusty linoleum.
Finding the right footing was like trying to balance on a merry-go-round. But John managed to at least find a knee, and spy Savannah hiding behind a jaguar. "Savannah!" he called for her. When the red -haired little gymnast ran, there was an innocent little bounce in her step. He dug his cellphone out of his coat pocket and handed it to the girl. "You take this phone and you run … do you hear me? Get out of here. Call Pastor Jim, tell him where you are! RUN and don't stop!" He shoved the girl toward where he came from. When she was gone, he steadied himself with a hand and found his feet.
CRACK!
Savannah had just disappeared and he found the balance to stand when a numbing pain shot through his shoulder. "AGH!" John let out a guttural grunt, immediately clutching the tender, sticky, warm spot gushing from the old leather on his shoulder. The surprise and suddenness of the pain dropped him to the floor again.
He rolled on his side, away from his gunshot wound to find Silberman with John's sleek .45 in hand. He stumbled toward him, though he kept his distance. Blood was running from the doctor's mouth and nose. With each huffed breath, blood trickled like a cracked dam. The pain was running rampant through John's mind. With a hard blow to the head and the shoulder wound it was getting hard to stay awake.
"She would be ashamed of you! You're not her son!" Silberman spoke like evangelist preacher come face to face with a high priest of the black church. "You fight for the police who oppressed her, hero to the establishment which was her enemy, and most egregious of your sins is how you lay with a metal monster in your bed. The evil spawn of all she stood against. You are not worthy of her name, of her blood …" Silberman held the Colt to John as if he were the Archangel Michael face to face with Lucifer at the end of days.
CRACK!
Silberman flinched before John did. There was a long pause of confusion. There had been a loud gunshot close by, but neither of them had accumulated a new wound. A white powder began to fall heavily on Silberman's shoulders and head like a flurry of snow. It was followed by the sound of crackling and ripping. Quicker and quicker did a shadow grow over the doctor.
SHRRRUUUFFF!
John had enough sense to roll out of the way just in time before a model of a floating house of the future came spinning from the ceiling to land on top of Doctor Silberman. When the cloud of dust settled, only the man's left hand and feet could be seen under the wreckage.
Squeezing his shoulder through pants, John looked up to the balcony. A head suddenly popped out from over the railing. Her chocolate hair hung over the edge, the girl's face had metal showing through gashes on both cheeks. Her golden eyes looked serious as they met his.
"Nice shot!" John shouted up to his guardian angel.
"How bad is it!?" Cameron called down. Concern overlapped the seawall of stoicism usually present.
"I'll live!" John sighed in relief.
She tightened what was left of her cheek. "Savannah?!" She asked.
"Outside with my cellphone!" He winced in pain.
"I'm coming!" She disappeared again.
"I'll be right here!" He called back staring at Silberman's unconscious body trapped underneath the glass house. After a beat, he dropped back down on the floor.
"Waiting for the lollipop guild!"
The streets were slick in the hours before twilight; a wet day in the land of the endless sun was a rarity, but it wasn't unheard of in Los Angeles. The smell of the rain on the neglected buildings of the old city gave the street an air of mold and mildew, even those still populated. In the swirling mist of the coming evening a single headlight gleamed through the obscurity of the weather. It highlighted an abandoned trolley station. On the tracks where the rusty skeletons of the public transportation vehicles still waiting for passengers that hadn't come in over forty years. The sleek black racing motorcycle that the headlight belonged to passed a large toy emporium with a rusted animatronic teddy bear whose cute button eyes had gone missing, leaving entrails of its wire guts hanging from its socket.
The rider turned onto the seaside and began trailing familiarly at the sparsely populated buildings. They stopped in front of a two story building of deco architecture with its back to the bay. It had a lighter color stone and the large windows were made from stained glass of red's, blues, and oranges. The entrance was walled off by a whitewashed limestone wall, its atrium tiled with orange. A strong iron gate barred the entrance, though it was left open. The unique building might have been mistaken for a fancy hotel or even a swanky club in the 30's or 40's. But the golden plaque engraved with "Connor & Baum Consulting Detectives" next to the iron gate labeled it an office.
The driver parked the motorcycle next to an old street lamp just outside the wall and dismounted. She had a svelte, graceful dancer's figure wrapped in a purple leather motorcycle jacket and tight blue jeans tucked into sleek boots. She wore a black helmet with two streaks of blue at the top and a dark visor. She dismounted the bike without a wasted movement. The gate squealed when it opened as she strode forward into an open Spanish plaza. The confined square had an ivory fountain. The water trickled and lapped in the serenity of the post-rain shower. Wet vines and ivy wrapped stone benches and the walls. The hacienda style opening had orange tile that looked newly replaced. It had taken the motorcycle driver almost three days and nights to rip out the old tile to place the deadly electric security paneling underneath. It had taken a little under a month to bullet proof the windows and reinforce the walls. But that was mostly because the man she loved insisted on helping. He was good at many things, but sometimes she liked it better when he didn't help her. It made things go faster.
On the glass front door was painted the name of "Connor & Baum" again. She pushed open the door to a large foyer. They had added fake foliage to fill in spaces. Their floors were made of a marble tile that she liked, mostly for the way shoes sounded in the loud echoes, another security measure. There was a large dark oak receptionist's desk sitting opposite a janitor's closet in the center of the room. At the far end was a wide staircase that led to a living loft space for long nights.
Manning the desk was a girl similar in age with the motorcyclist. She had grown out her mousey brown hair and wore a red button blouse with skinny jeans and sneakers. She had a large flat screen computer monitor in front of her, an assortment of needed office supplies for an assistant, and a framed picture. The picture showed the receptionist holding a baby girl, looking very happy in the loving arms of a young man in the black and gray uniform of the West Point Military Academy. But presently the young assistant seemed bemused while lounging in her office chair with an open newspaper. On the front page was a color picture of a concept model of the home of the future in 1939 planted firmly on top of Doctor Silberman, only revealing his feet and right hand.
"Connor & Baum bring the house down."
Lauren Fields looked up from reading, still chuckling to herself to find the other girl watching her. "Hey …" She closed the paper.
"Any messages?" Taking off her helmet, Cameron placed it on Lauren's desk. The golden eyed cyborg's long glossy hair was pinned in a tight bun, giving her a very sleek look in the glimmer of the gray light. Her long gaze was drawn to the cooing sounds behind Lauren.
"No, well I mean if you mean real messages, then no." She watched the slightly dampened girl pace behind her to an infant's playpen with a sign that said "Daycare" pined too it. Inside was a baby girl with auburn curls like her mother. Young Sydney Fields was too involved in playing with lettered blocks to notice her older sister's employer watching her with a little more interest than usual.
"Real messages?" Cameron asked turning her ear toward her assistant continuing to watch the child.
Lauren shrugged. "The Times wanted a statement, Inside Edition, TMZ … nothing important." She replied. "Or at least that's what the boss man tells me." She sighed.
"If John says it's not, then it's not." The cyborg rationalized conversationally.
The assistant shook her head. "I dunno, Cam … some of those boys were offering a lot of dough for an exclusive to talk to the 'fugitives turned hero' private eyes." She raised her eyebrows.
Flicking a momentary look to her assistant she frowned. "We don't do it for the ink and with the city settlement for the wrongful accusation of John and Sarah's involvement in the murder of Miles Dyson, money is longer an issue." She explained going back to watching Sydney.
Fields glared into her paper. "Speak for yourself. Try taking care of a baby and paying for pre-med classes." She muttered bitterly.
"How is it?"
The paper ruffled with brown eyes going from the comic strips to the forever beautiful girl. Cameron tilted her head at the baby, not noticing the suspicious look her friend was giving her. "Why?" She asked cautiously. It was happening more and more frequently that Cameron had been noticing and taking an interest in the baby. That and it seemed as if there was something different about the cyborg lately. She seemed pale, drained of color more and more in the last couple of weeks.
"Just making conversation." The cyborg replied.
Once again, the office manager and college student shrugged. "Sydney is a needy little piggy … doesn't let me sleep, always wants me to hold her, and probably has sanctions being drawn against her in Geneva every time she messes her diaper …" Lauren looked off in the distance for a long moment. "It's really the best job in the world." She smirked lovingly and went back to reading. She looked up again with a light bulb clicked on in her mind.
"Actually I had something I wanted to ask you." Her tone alerted Cameron. "I got the third degree from one of those trash guy douchebags. You know, one of those 'I'm not really a trash guy, I'm like an environmental protector, man.' Because they're saying that we're dumping bio-hazardous material into the ocean." Lauren dug through her desk. "Are you guys running forensic tests in the bunker?" She motioned to the janitor's closet.
Cameron frowned. "Not that I'm aware of." She paced to watch the office manager.
"Yeah … well they're saying we're dumping blood packets into the ocean … and some of them … washed up!" She slapped a dirty plastic cover on the desk in front of cyborg. The label said "O Negative" and the name of Sarah Baum just barely visible in permanent marker. Cameron's eyes widen just a margin, not enough to show alarm.
"I told the garbage guy to walk into traffic, but I have been seeing a bunch of these lying around. Also the blood bank in Van Nuys did call looking for us to investigate the theft of a ton of O Negative blood given by a Sarah Baum." She was watching Cameron carefully.
Blinkless, she met Lauren's eyes. "I needed it." her deadpan response was like a brick wall.
"I thought you said you weren't running forensic tests."
"We're not."
"Then why -?"
"I needed it."
Before Lauren could press why Cameron needed Sarah Connor's blood, the phone rang. She opened her mouth in confusion of the cyborg's mysterious deeds, turning her head back and forth between her boss and the phone. "You're lucky I'm not the judgmental type, Elena Gilbert." She addressed Cameron before picking up the phone. "Connor & Baum Consulting Detectives." She answered deceptively chipper.
Cameron took the blood packet that she had disposed of days ago. Both Sarah and John had donated to a blood bank the second day they had come to 2007. Short on money, it was the only way to make a quick buck. The cyborg girl looked over the blood packet and then turned her attention back to Sydney and her pink footy Pajamas. She watched the baby nibble on a stuffed rabbit's ear. She saw the innocence in her eyes and the simple joys of a world she knew nothing of yet. Babies seemed to have an effect on most humans that seldom is replicated in anything else on the planet. It was in their DNA, in their nature to protect and love them. That was why it took a bullet in the shoulder, and nearly losing him to a coma on the way to the hospital for Cameron Baum to realize what John needed in his life. What was needed to temper his reckless nature caused by grief of the loss of his mother and uncle.
"Yeah, just a minute, James." Lauren cupped the lower receiver of her phone. When she turned back she caught Cameron staring intently at the baby, her slender hand resting on her lower stomach. "Cam!" She whispered harshly. Emotionlessly she turned toward the assistant. "It's Lestrade." She hissed with a snort. The reference cracked the slightest of a ghosted grin on the Cyborg's lips. She shook her head wordlessly and moved on from Lauren's desk.
"Sorry, Jim … they just ducked out." The attractive tomboy lied easily to James Ellison while checking her fingernails. Cameron strode toward the janitor's closet and reached for the key in her pocket. Lauren motioned to her before she opened it. She pointed her away from the bunker in the direction of a wood paneled door with frosted glass and John Connor's name painted over it.
"So, Pastor Jim now that I've got you here I was reading the paper … yeah, kicking it retro ... in fact so retro that I couldn't understand some of the words they were using for our brave police commissioner. Yeah … tell me what does "Incognito" mean?"
Cameron opened the office door gently and walked inside, closing it behind her. The room was darkened by the closing day and heavy gray clouds. The office was large with wood paneled walls and the ceiling had a Tudor cottage design. All of the windows were frosted with little designed sections of stain glass. Centered was a large wooden table under a glass saucer covered light bulb. On the surface were locational and topographical maps of Big Bear. On top of those were the blue prints and a deed to a wood mill from the hall of county records downtown. Amongst them was an open copied police file with pictures of pine milled coffins, and a chrome mask made from the face of a Terminator endoskeleton.
To the far left underneath a concentration of windows was a black leather couch. Hanging from the walls in its nook was a small contingent of framed headlines and articles that read of "Connor & Baum collar Chrome Skull killer in Big Bear." And "Desert Canyon Heating & Air cover up exposed by Connor & Baum." On the opposite side of the office was a row of four large filing cabinets. Set on top was a priceless golden statue in the shape a falcon. The jewel encrusted Imperial Russian artifact had a fedora resting on its head and a smoking pipe in its beak.
All the way in the back was a heavy oaken desk of dark finish. It was mounted with three large flat screen monitors, half a dozen stacked files of research, and two picture frames. In a large cushioned leather office chair a man sat broodingly in the dark space. He was slumped in his chair, a fist placed underneath his nose as he watched a computer screen. The light shadowed his eyes, but highlighted heavy stubble. His dark hair messily styled, a lock hanging limply on his forehead. Cameron tilted her head with interest at John Connor's body language. She wondered when her John had become one with the John Connor she knew in the future. Though she was sure it might have something to do with the murder of Sarah and Derek.
She passively unzipped her damp purple jacket and shed the article of clothing, while pacing toward the sofa. Underneath were an open blue blouse and a long hemmed brown tank top that touched her thighs. Setting her jacket on the couch, she listened to what John was watching.
"In our top headlines, we're still covering the capture of Doctor Peter Silberman, the now confirmed Jihadist murderer. On Friday night former fugitive turned gumshoe for hire John Connor with his longtime partner Cameron Baum raided the Patricia Hughes World Fair museum in pursuit to recover Savannah Weaver —daughter of Ziera Corp. CEO, Catherine Weaver— who had been taken from her gymnastics class at the cost of two LAPD officers' lives. The raid concluded with five dead, one wounded, and the crippling of Doctor Peter Silberman, former chief of staff at Pescadero Asylum. Savannah Weaver, who is a citizen of Scotland, now makes this latest crime spree by the former psychologist an international affair. Ironically, the former chief of staff of Pescadero now resides in his old haunt's intensive treatment building as of tonight. Along with Doctor Silberman, the only surviving member of his hired associates Marcus Wright will be charged as an accessory to both the ten murders and eleven Kidnappings, while also facing charges of murder in the first degree of three LAPD officers as well as the death of his brother Anthony Wright."
"This latest closed case comes as another notch in the belt for Consulting Detective Agency "Connor & Baum" after solving the Chrome Skull murders two months ago. While some beleaguered police welcome the help with open arms, there are experts that disagree with the LAPD outsourcing investigations to handle the rash of recent "Theatrical" criminals, believing that the disconnect of police presence in the solving of these cases will only inspire a rash of dangerous "Vigilantism" within the city."
With a tap on a keyboard the screen paused on the mug shots of Marcus Wright. They were obviously not the ones that they had taken after the rescue of Savannah. Cameron remembered the Australian man looking as if he had been hit by a truck. But John seemed transfixed on him pensively; it was as if he knew him or, more to the point, the type of man he was, personally.
John muttered with a shake of his head. "That's three in two months, Angel." He sighed.
Cameron, who had thought he hadn't noticed she came in, just nodded. "It is an irregularity that so many of these type of criminals have started their activities so recently." She commiserated though there was a hidden truth in her voice.
"Come on …" John leaned back in the chair with a creek sensing that she was holding back. "Go on, Cam, say it." He baited without looking at her.
The girl blinked innocently, before deciding to voice her real thoughts on the situation. "The pardoning of Sarah for her crimes has emboldened these types of sociopathic idealists." She didn't soften the blow for John.
It was easily visible that the legitimacy that came with Sarah Connor's record being posthumously expunged of her past crimes had inspired others. It was never spoken of between the two of them, but both John and Cameron had come to the conclusion separately that in her status as a true legend in Urban Mythology Sarah had become the mother of a new form of dangerous crime. The police had taken to calling these theatrically eccentric criminals "Grays", a term meant for their odd breaks from the black and white pattern of usual crime in Los Angeles, as well as their predilection for their obsessive criminal activities tied to apocalyptic futures filled with a nuclear holocaust and killing machines.
"True Believers … that's what she used to call them." John seemed sad and depressed as he spoke of the type of men and women that they had been chasing lately. He continued to stare at the mugs of Marcus Wright lost in thought. "When I was fighting, Wright … he made me think of her." He spoke up. "I don't know, Cam …" He sighed with sorrow. "Several years ago, he could've been mom." She watched him glance at the framed pictures on his desk. One was of herself, standing in their bathroom wearing a black, form-fitting dress. John had taken it the night before she and Sarah had gone to a restaurant with Alex Akagi and his son, never knowing that they were victims of a scheme. She was smiling in the photo, because John had told her to a split second before he snapped the photo. The second one, and what John was focused on was a small framed laminated snapshot of a teenage Sarah Connor sitting in the driver's seat of an old Jeep. She was wearing an elegant white top and her long raven curls in a half hazard bun. On her young beautiful face was a sad longing for a lost love. The cyborg tilted her head in curiosity. It had never escaped her notice that John always matched the expression when looked at the picture.
"John?" She tilted her head in confusion.
He shook his head. "She was one of them, Angel. Mom was a professional gun moll, token Hench girl for anyone willing to pay. Planning kidnappings, heists … lying around in a bikini at the pool to give the muscle something to look at. She earned our money firing guns, stealing jewels, and beating on innocent people and other street thugs for money." There was shame in John's tone.
"She did what she had to, John. It was for survival." Cameron wasn't worried about Sarah's reputation as a top shelf criminal, as she was John's piece of mind.
There was a long beat. "I swore, Angel, I swore I'd never be like her. I'd never steal from innocent people, never draw blood for the type of men and women she did …" He trailed off.
Cameron tilted her head. "It bothers you." It wasn't a statement. "What Doctor Silberman told you?" She had heard his ranting of John's sins from her perch on top of the museum's second floor balcony. Since then John hadn't spoken much. She had attributed that to his injury, but now she saw that maybe it was more than that. The insinuation of disloyalty to Sarah was something that no one had ever accused them of so far.
A brooding silence fell over the man she loved. "Had they not died, had they lived past New York." He craned up to look at his cyborg companion. "How long before we'd be hunting, mom?" He asked.
"You're insinuating that had Sarah lived, she'd join Silberman?"
His face looked aged from guilt. "The day they put down mom and sent her to Pescadero, she was going to blow up a computer factory. Even when it was the middle of the night, the plant had a large shipment of microprocessors to put out, they had a night shift … had an international office. The night she attempted to blow up that place there was over 300 people at the plant. I couldn't defend her actions when I was nine years old. Couldn't say what she did was right, even till this day." He cleared his throat. "We took down Silberman, because he killed ten people in a brutal fashion. We call him evil. Mom was going to murder over 300 fathers, mothers, daughters, and sons. But what do we call her?" He shook his head. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about what she was going to do, and wonder how long before she'd start thinking about trying something like it again." John looked hollowed out and conflicted.
Golden eyes seemed blankly pensive. "It would seem counterproductive to our mission at the time." She offered innocently.
John stood up with a grunt. His arm still hung at his side gingerly. The gunshot had damaged some of his nerves to the point that had they not gone to the hospital, John could've lost the use of it. She watched John absently move toward the window overlooking the stormy bay below. In the obscured colored glass the mass of thick heavy gray clouds flashed with light, chopping the sea. In the background the sound of thunder shook some of the loose items on the desk.
Green eyes filled with a resurgence of dark fear that sparked like electricity in the reflection of the oncoming storm. "I'd have nightmares most every night … you remember?" He asked her calmly.
She turned to face him, though she didn't join him. "I do. You'd ask me to lay under the covers with you." She confirmed for him.
It seemed like yesterday, before his sixteenth birthday, before Riley. John Connor had just been a fifteen year old boy thrust into an old war in a new time period. In the worst nights, when the uncertainty of tomorrow followed him to his dreams, he reached for anything to save him from those hard hours before dawn. After awaking from the first nightmare, he'd ask Cameron to lay with him. They didn't talk about it, and no one knew, but there were some nights when John took her in his arms and held her like a drowning man to a life-saver. His only comfort was in the way she fit against him, molded to his body. When nothing made sense in this new world, he knew he could sit with his back against the wall and hold the one thing for the rest of his life that he would never let go, and would never let him go. Years later she was no longer a could-be, a possible future. With Sarah and Derek gone Cameron had become what John knew she would in those long dark hours. She was his everything.
"Every time you'd ask me what it was that haunted me?" He didn't look away. He seemed lost in images that he had tried so hard to burry.
"Yes, but all you would do was pull me closer and tell me that I wouldn't understand." The reminder made him nod. But this time as so recently he didn't hold back from her.
"It was the same nightmare every night. I'm standing on a suspended walkway of a warehouse filled with people. There's a killer dressed all in tight black leather. I fight her to protect everyone. I'd eventually wrestle the gun from her hand and shoot the woman. I remember always being filled with so much hatred for what she wanted to do. I'd hate her so much that I'd shoot her till she stopped twisting … but in the light … that woman was mom. I'd be horrified, shocked, and devoid of life. I'd look over the balcony, and the people I thought I saved, their eyes glowed red like machines. But when I turned back to the body it was no longer mom lying there. It was my own right hand."
A flash of lighting lit the dark office, silhouetting John against the violent light over the water. He lifted his right arm, flexing his hand, opening and closing the frost bitten fingers into a fist. It all occurred to his ageless partner that in the night that John had lost his mother, he had lost the feeling in most of his right hand.
She took a step toward him. "You told me that you stopped Sarah before she killed Miles Dyson and his wife when you were young. I believe with all reason that you, and you alone, were the sole reason that Sarah would never return to her old ways." She tilted her head. "As long as she loved you, she would never have taken a side opposite of you no matter what the stakes were. We would never have had to face Sarah in conflict." There was little console in her voice that remained emotionless as ever.
For the longest of moments John didn't say anything. He stared at his hand and seemed doubtful of it. "You know when I stopped having those dreams?" He asked.
"No" She tilted her head.
"The day she died." His voice was consumed with a guilt driven darkness.
Cameron had hoped her words would be enough to help him. But honestly she didn't know Sarah very well, John did. There were scenarios that she'd run in her mind in those days for times when Sarah would turn on John, if it happened. It seemed unlikely that she ever would, but it was only a matter of time before how Sarah Connor did things and how John Connor did things would clash.
Tightening her cheek, Cameron strode next to him. "Had Sarah and Derek lived, do you think we'd be together?" She asked. It had been their deaths that drove John into her arms, to see past the conditioning of his upbringing and the barriers between human and cyborg in his grief. John had told her that Riley was already on the way out by the time that they were heading for New York and the tension between John and herself was palpable alone in their Manhattan hotel suite through that November and late December. But how long would they skirt along those feelings? Would they still be haunting one another's steps and longing in the night with a single door separating them had Sarah and Derek made it out of that train alive?
The hardened sorrow of John's past plight fell and a small sad smile crept over his handsome features. He turned and reached out gently. His large hand brushed back her hair and caressed the flawlessly smooth skin of her cheek. "We're talking about the realm of what could have been." He took his thumb and rubbed a corner of her eyebrow affectionately. "You and me, Angel?" he closed the distance between them. "That was inevitable." He captured her shiny lips between his and put all his love, all his soul in the kiss. In a family of four, there was only two now. They were the last, all each other had in this world. A single kiss however small meant more to them than just about any possession they had between the two of them. When they broke apart John leaned his forehead against hers. Two smiles broke between them.
The office door opened casually, breaking up the intense emotional need that might have turned into something less appropriate in mere moments. Lauren had a baby duffle over one shoulder and the aforementioned in one arm. "Crank file" She announced obliviously. In her free hand was a stack of printed e-mails and letter envelopes.
John glared as Cameron broke eye contact to watch their office manager. "Knocking …" John turned toward their employee in irritation. "It's called knocking, Lauren." He chastised with gritted teeth.
To her credit their peer simply blinked with disinterest at his attitude that made most men flinch. She rolled her eyes and shook her head in sarcastic body language. She lifted the baby and then the mail to signal her friends the lack of the use of a knocking hand. Then she took Sydney and tapped her little body against the door to illustrate her point. When the baby girl giggled, gnawing on her thumb, the matter was concluded.
"Ah" John sighed and waved her off walking away from the girls. The Cyborg met her at the table and took the mail.
"Taking off …" She announced.
Cameron nodded. "Are you meeting up with Martin on his leave?" She asked.
At the mention of Martin Bedell, her fiancé, a large childlike happiness possessed every physical and spiritual fiber of the girls being. They had been introduced through John and Cameron at the mock funeral held for Sarah and Derek after the clearing of their names. Some of the Cadets from the Presidio came to honor Derek at Martin's behest, and Cameron had called Lauren. After the funeral they had a wake at the Irish pub that Derek and Sarah had frequented as told by a drunken picture on the wall of the two of them arm and arm on the same side of a booth. The photo now sat in frame in John and Cameron's bedroom. Those few who came were the souls saved by the bravery of two heroes with fake names that had touched their lives. By the end John was too drunk to stand, James Ellison was depressed, and Lauren Fields and Martin Bedell were in love. Some might have said that it was a whirlwind romance, but Cameron saw the steadiness and devotion they had for one another. When Derek Reese would say "Some things are meant to be" mostly to make Sarah angry, Cameron imagined that Lauren and Martin fit to the definition.
"Yeah, I'm picking him up at the airport. We're going up to San Francisco to meet his parents." She gushed following Cameron back to John's desk.
"What do they think of your engagement?" She asked, handing John the letters as he lounged broodingly in his chair.
Having a hand free, she shifted the baby to the other arm, and shrugged with her shoulder. "His Dad, "The Captain" thinks that having a wife and child to take care of is a good environment to ground him into responsibility." She got distracted by one of Sydney's noises. She kissed the baby's red curls.
"And his mom?" John asked.
Lauren narrowed her eyes sketchily "I'm after the family jewels." There was a mocking sinister tone in her humor.
John went through the stack of Kaliba research. "From what I heard, they've been yours since the Magic Castle caper." He read through a file.
There was a Cheshire grin that touched the girl's lips. "Misty Lee isn't the only one who knows a few "magic" tricks. If you remember, I come from a long line of women who know how to keep a few men interested at a time." She winked suggestively at Cameron. The cyborg frowned with a tilt of her head. "Never mind" She cleared her throat.
"We're coming back for a couple of days to ourselves. You guys should come by. It's been a while since we've all done something fun together that didn't involve masked serial killers, killing machines from the future, or criminal mastermind magicians." She motioning poignantly to the last Czar's falcon statue.
John didn't look up. "I'll think on it." The young man said, ironically, without a thought to it. Rolling her eyes she turned to Cameron pleadingly. The cyborg nodded quietly with acceptance at the double date invitation.
Lauren smirked. "I'll tell Marty you say hello …" She offered while walking away. Cameron turned to John who wasn't listening anymore. "Do you?" Lauren pushed. This time He caught her question.
"Do what?"
"Say hello?"
"Occasionally"
"How about now?"
"Sure" John was confused.
"Then, I'll tell him."
She bid farewell to the two of them, then playfully simulated her sister waving goodbye as well with a captured arm. Cameron turned her head in interest. It might not have been in her best interest to take Lauren Fields as an example of raising babies. But quietly she had begun to compile data on how it was done. It wouldn't be long now …
"Pregnancy"
Cameron turned quickly. "What?" She asked stoically at the word spoken to her. John was holding up an opened letter.
"Amelia Tate, the fashion mogul … the old crow wants us to investigate one of her top model who's pregnant. Find her lover and for a thirty thousand bonus, make him "leave her" our methods at our judgment." He shook his head. He didn't even ask for her opinion, he simply crushed the paper up in a ball.
Cameron blinked. "Amelia Tate is interested because she's engaging in deviant sexual behavior with the model. If Madison Forbes retires from the walkway to have and raise the baby, it means that Amelia Tate no longer has control over her. It's a sign of weakness to the rest of the fashion world. She's attempting to consolidate her power." John stared at her for a long moment without a word. "We should keep the letter." She nodded.
"Why?" he drew out in confusion.
"Because, if we don't respond than Amelia Tate will confront Madison Forbes after giving birth, and eventually murder her. She'll frame her lover, he'll go to death row and his lawyer will hire us to clear his name." She explained while walking across the office to sit on the leather sofa.
There was a long silence. "You got all that from a simple letter?" He unwadded it and reread sections of it again.
"I don't sleep." She replied.
John smirked. "Still reading the gossip rags are we?" He stood up with the stack of letters and e-mails.
Blinking, she watched him come to her. "At fashion week, Madison Forbes walked with a limp, a sign of prolonged sexual intercourse with penetration from a non-organic appendage. Later in interviews, a male reporter was asking her about her personal life, he was joking about asking her on a date. Amelia Tate placed her hands on the model's shoulders possessively. She also reused three jokes in the same interview about how Madison belonged to her." Cameron explained.
There was a playful lilt in the young man's suspicious frown. He settled onto the leather couch next to her and leaned back into the corner. John held the crank mail as secretively as a poker hand. "Let's try another, then." He whipped out a new letter. As he opened it, Cameron scooted over to him and turned over. She placed her head pillowed against his barrel chest. Curled up together, one of the strongest beings on earth looked almost fragile in the arms of the man she loved.
"Okay, R&B legend … Arianne Jones, says that her jewelry is going missing. She wants us to follow her husband Raymond. She says "Ray-Ray" is cheating on her with a young sexy Wiccan who runs a 'spell shop' in Van Nuys. Seems to think that they're hawking it to keep 'the white girl's heathen shop' afloat." He looked down at her as she looked up at him. He wiggled his eyebrows in a playful challenge. The ghost of a long dead John showed a spark of life in the brooding man.
The cyborg took a moment to think. Meanwhile John casually kissed her forehead, his hand slowly finding and lifting the hem of her tank top to her chest. "It's not Ray-Ray." She spoke up assuredly.
"Really" While he reread the note, his large hand began to absently massage Cameron's sleek stomach.
She twitched pleasantly at her favorite form of John's affection, but wouldn't let his cheating distraction stop her from winning. "It's not Ray-Ray, he isn't actually cheating on her. He has secretly opened his own Wiccan shop. He'd rather let his overtly religious wife think he's cheating than for her to tell the media that a strong independent black man believes in magic and the Earth Mother." She looked up for confirmation.
"Alright, I'll buy it … but who is it then?" He asked with a poignant rubbing of her navel.
She took a shallow inhale with another pleasant twitch. "Her granddaughter." She said shakily.
"Go on"
"Lil'Annie is taking her grandmother's diamonds in order to fill a certain 'bling' quota, to fit in at hip-hop parties in Atlanta where she's shopping her new album. In Ebony magazine there is a picture of her posing with several record executives. The cut of her diamonds and the design of the jewelry are at least 40 years old."
John scoffed out a laugh. "You read Ebony?" He shook his head. When Cameron didn't deny it he just gave a sigh of defeat into the top of her head. There was the smallest look of satisfaction on her blank face.
He caressed her belly quietly, after finding a new letter. After a pause he started to stroke a small swell absently, not conscious in a change to her smooth flat surface. Suddenly his hand stopped. It was a gradual realization of what he was feeling. He looked up from the crank letter feeling the mass under the supple skin. In his mind there was a blank, but in his instinct there was almost impossible certainty. When he whirled to Cameron her face was the picture that was in his mind, blank and expressionless. But behind her inherit façade as a killing machine there was an uncharacteristic air of vulnerability in the angelic innocence of her expectation of his discovery.
"Cam ..." He couldn't find the right words. What exactly was he going to ask? Was it even possible to ask what he wanted too? Was it even possible for her to be carrying what he felt in his blood she was carrying? He never thought that it could happen, granted he never thought of asking.
"Angel is that … what I think it is?" He laid his hand flat against the growing mass in her belly.
The girl blinked and looked down to his hand on her stomach. "No." She replied after a long moment. The youth gave a deep sigh of released tension and surprise. He must have been going insane, the pain killers screwing with his head. It wasn't possible for "that" to happen, it was why he hadn't used a condom yet. Cameron watched him rotate his wounded arm with a pained wince.
"It's a baby."
Author's Notes
La Isla Bonita is not required reading, but if you're interested in backstory on how John and Cameron got here, that would be your window. It's the hinge of the new Au I've been setting up.
After scrapping Because the Night: Volume II I've gone back to Hardware mode in building the AU universe. The guts of old Detective Stories are being used to set up a new story series which is why you've might have seen some of this before and might see other things down the road.