MERCY
Now it was only a question of time. That was something Thomas knew for sure. The only thing that was left open: how much of it? Hopefully, he wouldn't need to last much longer…
The situation was almost impossible to bear. This helplessness! Jammed with both legs under a heavy steel girder. Completely immobilized. And it's not like he was able to relevantly move the arms either. Probably his vertebral column had been damaged during the impact.
And then there was this hell of a pain! Completely unbearable… Thomas was wondering how long he would be able to persevere. No, how long he would be FORCED to persevere!
The collapsed building under which he was buried was quite far away from their base. Not many humans would pass this desolated area. All other members of his squad had already been terminated by the machines. Somehow he envied them. That was a death a soldier could "live" with. How would he have to perish? Would he freeze during the post-apocalyptic night? Would he be eaten alive by rats and other vermine? Or even worse: would he live through the night and be damned to slowly die of thirst during the next few days?
Thomas was suddenly interrupted in his gloomy thoughts by a noise in his direct proximity. With a lot of effort, he tried to turn his head a little bit. And then he saw her: a young woman. Relieve started to flood through his veins, and he was on the verge of calling out to her, when something made him stop. His soldier instincts screamed out to him that something was fishy about this person. Why would she be out here completely alone? Why does she look so clean and neat? So he decided to rather observe her for a moment. His suspicions were quickly confirmed when he saw her picking up some heavy debris that were lying in her way, like they where pillows.
"Damn it!", he thought. "Would have been too good to be true."
So he hold his breath and tried to be as quiet as possible, hoping the machine wouldn't perform any thermo-scans. Fortunately the terminator didn't seem to take any notice of him and continued its way without interruption. Relieved, Thomas observed the Terminator as it put more and more distance between them.
But when the machine was almost out of sight, a tide of new desperation swept over the soldier. "Oh, screw it", he muttered to himself, gathered all his strength of will and shouted as loud as he could: "Hey, toaster! Over here!"
On its way, the TOK unit went once more over its mission plan:
Step 1: locomotion. Reach the Connor camp as soon as possible.
Step 2: infiltration. Pretend to be Allison Young as convincingly as possible in order to penetrate the camp and get into proximity of John Connor.
Step 3: termination. Put an end to John Connor's live.
Step 4: demotivation. Place John Connor's head on a spike for everybody to see. Wait 7 minutes in a hideout, so that panic can spread and as many people as possible can see the head by themselves.
Step 5: termination. Kill 66% of the humans at the Connor camp. Let 34% evade, so that they can spread the news among other humans.
Step 6: destruction. Put explosives on critical spots in all the camp and detonate them.
Step 7: post-mission directives: Attend the nearest Skynet depot, go into standby and await new instructions.
The unit was ripped from its "thoughts", when its audio receptors heard a human voice. "Hey, toaster! Over here!" The machine turned around in order to locate the source of the noise. In a blink the HUD came up with an adequate analysis:
Identification: Unknown foot soldier of lower rank.
Medical state: Expiration imminent.
Risk level: Minimal.
Recommended course of action: Ignore.
Simultaneously, the machine tried to interpret the content of the verbal communication.
Toaster. Kitchen device, used by humans in the pre-judgement day era in order to roast bread. Figurative: Derogative term used for machines by referring to their lack of free will and primitiveness. Often used by resistance fighters for Skynet's terminators.
Since the TOK unit was the only machine in the periphery, she concluded that the exclamation must have been directed to herself. She was a little bit offended in her machine pride that her disguise as a human woman had been exposed so easily. But since she was still in her locomotion phase, and not actively in infiltration mode, she didn't give much importance to these thoughts.
She knew that she should simply pursue her mission. The fact that she had been recognized was irrelevant. With a probability of 99,54% this human would have expired, before another human would find him. And even when not, this would hardly jeopardize the mission.
Nevertheless she decided against following the HUD recommendations and adapted her marching route in order to attend the injured man. Not because of any risk to the mission, but because she was deeply intrigued by the situation.
The incident didn't match the expected human behavior. Unarmed humans that identified a terminator as such usually tried to flee or to hide. Since this specimen was deprived of the first alternative, hiding would have been the obvious course of action. Actually, the TOK unit had already passed the direct proximity, so all the human would have needed to do was staying quiet. It didn't make any sense why he voluntarily draught attention to his presence and tried to directly contact its enemy.
As one of the best infiltrators, it was very important for the TOK unit to understand human behavior as good as possible, so that she could imitate it flawlessly. So in its desire for self perfection, the machine decided to accept a minor postponement of its primary mission by interacting with this human and learning more about his motives.
Of course, she also executed all the necessary controls in order to avoid an ambush, including intensive thermo-scans of the area, but she concluded that the injured human was really alone, didn't conceal any weapons he could still use in his current state and was therefor no danger to her.
In the mean time, the soldier had tensely observed how the terminator had stopped in its path for a moment, and was now approaching him steadily. On one hand, he cursed himself for his spontaneous reaction. Lying completely defenseless on the floor while a terminator came closer definitely wasn't agreeable. And yet, he also felt relieved that all would soon be over.
"So, go on, fucking tin can! Kill me", he spat out with bitterness.
He was quite confused when he saw that the machine inclined its head and gave him a questioning look. No attack till now. He was also surprised about the appearance of the terminator. Never before had he seen a model that looked so human.
"What are you waiting for?", he stuttered. "Do what you always do!"
"You want to be terminated?", the woman asked, and sounded a little confused herself. "Why?"
Thomas was prepared to a lot of things, but not this. Since when do machines ask questions before taking action?
"I… What?! It doesn't matter. Just do it!"
"Negative", the woman answered monotonously. "This is not part of my mission. There's no valid reason to delay my mission by terminating you. And you're perishing anyway."
"But why did you come over here then?"
"I need to understand", the machine explained. "I want to know why you called out to me, even though you've recognized me as a terminator. I like to understand why a human desires death."
"Like you could understand that, fucking robot…", the soldier cursed. "You don't understand anything! Killing is all you're capable of! Obeying orders is all you can do! You're just cheap tools!"
"Just give it a try", the machine offered patiently.
"Forget it", the soldier shook his head.
For a moment, the cyborg considered to torture the human in order to force the truth out of him. But after a short appreciation it concluded that her mere curiosity would not justify such an important delay of the mission.
"As you wish", the machine answered regretfully, turned around and started to walk away.
The injured was really astonished that a terminator would give up so quickly. "No, wait!", he tried to call the machine back.
The machine immediately stopped and had a questioning look at Thomas. "Yes?"
"Kill me", he whispered. "I can't take it anymore…"
The cyborg once more inclined her head and seemed to wait for further explanations.
"I… lie here. I can't move. I know that I'm going to die, and that nobody will be around to help me. But in the worst case, it could still take days for me to finally die. And I have so much pain. I… I don't want to feel anymore. I don't want to think anymore. About my upcoming death. I just… I want it all to be finally over."
The cyborg seemed to muse about the soldier's words for a moment. Than she nodded. "You feel a lot of pain. Pain is hard to bear for humans. You prefer death to pain."
The soldier groaned desperately. So the machine was stating the obvious. But then it continued its reflections: "And you lack hope. There's nothing left for you to hold on to. No objectives to reach, no mission to fulfill. There is nothing left you could fight for. But you're not able to self terminate in your current position."
"Yes, exactly…", the soldier replied, surprised how far the machine has come in its reflections. "I… Kill me now!"
"Thank you for explaining", the TOK unit said and gave an almost human, gratifying smile to the human. Then she turned around and started to walk away.
"No!", the soldier shouted with a mixture of despair and anger. "That… You can't do that! Kill me! I have explained everything you wanted to know. Now do it! It won't cost you anything. It's what you do! What you're good at! What reasons would there be NOT to kill me?"
And then he whispered a quiet, tearful "please".
Again, he machine stopped in her track. She turned around, came closer and bent over the injured man. She looked deeply into his eyes, put her hands around his neck and pushed with all her strength.
The man tried to gasp for air a few more times, before it eventually went out. At the end, a final death rattle escaped his mouth, that, with some free interpretation, could have sounded like a "thanks".
Slowly, the machine got up, and spoke a friendly "you're welcome", even if she knew that the human was already dead by now.
While she continued her route, she realized that she felt content with herself in a certain degree, but she didn't really understand why. Was it, because she's just terminated another human for Skynet? Who would have died anyway, and as a matter of fact had only costed her time? She didn't know…