Cameron rested the T8 on its side across the rear wings of the car . She held its head and neck carefully lowered its top half into the hood . In the same movement its knees were curled up into its chest . She then folded its lower legs so its heels were touching against its backside. From where Ellison is standing Cameron puts him in mind of a child, self-absorbed in the task of carefully packing away and an oversize doll .
There was something respectful in the way she was handling the broken machine.
Cameron examined the endoskeleton . On a piece of old carpet , in the boot of the Mercedes , the broken T8 was utterly lifeless . She knows endoskeletons are be built to last. This one could survive most things, maybe for thousands of years and when the car is no more than a streak of rust in geological strata, it would still be there timeless, as a prehistoric skeleton. It was built to survive the attrition of time, but not Thermite. She'd find an isolated spot and torch the metal carcass later.
She took one last look at the T-8s empty port housing and shut the hood on it.
Cameron turned quickly and began walking in his direction . Ellison swallowed and he could feel Rain's hand tightly gripping his own. His mind couldn't make sense of what he had just witnessed. This slightly built, young girl -nothing human could possibly have fought in the way she did , or survive, like she had . She had broken a machine that looked like man into pieces and picked them up off the floor. He could feel the sweat on his back , cold as seeping fear. Everything Sarah Connor had screamed and ranted about on the Pescadero video tapes had to have been true.
Cameron seemed to flow across the space between them . Instinctively Ellison tried get Rain behind him . She wouldn't budge. He might as well have been trying pull at a firmly rooted tree.
"Let go of his hand and go sit in the car." Cameron sounded almost like "the General", Rain had seen and heard in The War footage. It was was her voice , as Rain had heard it, narrating in The First Book Of Sarah .
The eight year old girl hesitated and scowled back at her.
"That is an order " Cameron prompted .
Rain scrunched her lips together and stood her ground.
Cameron put her hands on her hips and stood to one side of Rain. She was staring intently at Ellison , almost impatiently looking him up and down , scanning his physiology. Ellison turned and looked at her and then looked down at Rain. His free arm protectively held Rain.
"What is it ?" Cameron nearly barked the question. Rain didn't flinch.
"Cameron , I am so sorry, I absolutely don't mean any disrespect , but you don't know who this is do you?
" Who this is? No . Should I? "
"This is James Ellison, he's an early believer, he's in the First Book Of ...
"OK stop, Rain , stop, right there."
Rain let go of Ellison's hand and almost threw herself towards Cameron. She wrapped her arms around her waist and held onto her tight.
"Please, General you will know him , it's in The Book" . Rain looks up at her . The lights of the cars on the flyover , briefly lit her dirt streaked face. Cameron strokes the top of the girls head her tone of voice softens. "Shhsh, you can have this hug now, but you are still in so much trouble young lady . What year are you from?"
Rain whispers the year she should be in. Cameron nods. She seems to be calculating, never taking her eyes off Ellison.,
Ellison takes in a sharp breath. Cameron's arm is across Rain pulling her in and the older girl is looking at him over the top of Rains head. Cameron's facial expression has softened, body language relaxed and the intensity is turned right down
Now , what appears to be a delicate female hand is outstretched towards him. She turns it over so he can see: Coltan knuckles protrude through the outer layer of skin . The skin around the metal is already healing and dry. Then the hand is held out, as an invitation.
"Mr. Ellison, General Cameron Connor, apparently " She speaks with quiet, matter-of-fact confidence.
Ellison exhales a sigh of relief. Nothing makes sense, but sense doesn't matter right now. He's alive.
Cameron's handshake is gentle but firm. Surprisingly the exposed metal his fingers press against, is warm.
They have been driving for over an hour. Rain has been assessing Cameron's evasion strategy. She is making loops and turns , trying to identify and flush out any possible tail. There is nothing behind or in front of them.
Rain shifts in the leather seats at the back of of the Mercedes so she can see both Ellison and General Cameron . Between long silent pauses Cameron has been patiently explaining to Ellison why there was T8 in the boot of her car, what it is, where it came from and what it's sole purpose was. Ellison has been quietly nodding and asking sensible questions. He's a believer now, you can see it in his eyes.
He relates something that makes absolute sense in this context.- If Sarah Connor's story had not seemed so unbelievable, he and many others would have had no problem believing in her.
They are out on the highway heading back to Red Valley. For miles , apart form trucks, they are the only traffic on the road. There's an orange glow over the first range of sandstone hills. Ellison realises just how is grateful he is to have lived to see this morning's-sun, rise.
Ellison sits back in his seat. Through a windshield , spattered with green squashed insects, he marvels at the light bursting over the top of the red hills. He listens to an eight year child's voice telling him the story of Judgement Day and what followed. Its simple poignancy touches him in a way an adult version could not.
He's been listening for twenty seven minutes when Ellison asks : "I don't get this bit, why were there so many orphans , what happened to all the adults?" Part of him wishes he hadn't , when he hears the answer.
"So," (Ellison tries to contain his emotions ) " , "Towards the end of The War, humans were capturing and reprogramming machines- Terminators, in response began -reprogramming (-is that the right word? ), - human POW's to fight on their side, and they had these neural interfaces- that's like something they put in your brain and it makes you do things that you don't really want to?
"Something like that," replies Rain. She suddenly looks lost in on a deep track of thought.
"So what happened, was there some great big battles and the adults were all killed?- Is that what happened to you mummy and daddy, I'm so sorry I should have ..?
Rain doesn't answer. Her mum died days before The Storming Of The Wire. That's what she was told . That is all she knows.
There's a silence.
Cautiously Rain glances up at Cameron who catches her looking at her through the rear view mirror. Rain has more tactical sense than to relate this part of the story . Rain knows why General Cameron Connor was wiped and sent back to 1999, but she is not sure if Cameron has worked it out yet, and Rain sure isn't going to be the one to give her that piece of information.
Rain purses her lips and shrugs, she's already learning to play the game. She says she doesn't know what happened to all the reprogrammed adults. They got killed. Children were never used in the field because the ones that lived , were subject to medical testing for organic -AI interface.
"Why would they do that to children?" Ellison asks .
An eight year old girl looks at him like he has just asked the most dumbass -basic question ever.
"Because the sentience programmes won't work without the organic interface, and they couldn't force The War to stalemate without the interface ( of course) "
"Hang on, please" , says Ellison, " So, John Connor deliberately got himself into Century Work camp to ensure Yoshiko Yamanto's survival , so that she can work out the programme that eventually forces The War to stalemate, because he already has prior knowledge the only possible outcome of the war, in which anything survives, is Assimilation- so living things, sorry I mean sentience, like you, evolve . Any point , the whole thing might go wrong and give the machines the definitive advantage, and that would end all life, of any kind, on earth.- And nothing is actually ever fixed, erm, predestined?
Ellison runs his hands through his hair. He folds his hands like praying hands over his mouth. It is a while before he speaks again : When he does he simply says- "That's got to be the biggest gamble in human history."
"Its was. It is ", replied Cameron " and John is going to have to take it again in few years time."
The car is pulling into a diner Cameron asks if Ellison wants breakfast. Maybe he needs to use the toilet facilities ? Ellison tells her the FBI will be trawling three states already, looking for a missing black agent and a blonde eight year old female.
Cameron glances into the back seat through the the mirror and says "Rain". It sounds like a command.
Ellison looks around and can't believe what he is seeing.
Rain's organic layer is darkling, her pigmentation chamaelon-like is changing, her hair is becoming curled, in front of his eyes she is taking the appearance of a child of mixed race. Under her organic layer her Polymetic Endo is reshaping itself , her facial structure is remodelling itself. It could be Ellison's own daughter, if he had one. (What he can't see, is, when she held his hand she automatically registered his DNA , and now she can even produce a compatible sample if she has to.)
Ellison shakes his head in disbelief. A deeper instinct tells him where this is heading.
To be continued.
