A myriad of colors washed over the white snow, heavy winds howled in tandem with arcs of electricity and plasma. Turbulent winds clashed with the anomaly creating pockets of air as a ball of energy expanded in the clearing, melting away snow. The massive ball of energy imploded, popping away from existence as fast as it appeared.Leaving bald earth, charred and darkened, a perfect shape carved into deep ice.

In the middle of the clearing, a slender figure lay still, blue slits narrowed dangerously, it's body poised like a snake waiting to strike at it's target; a naked man; his face impassive at the face of imminent death. The feminine machine struck like lightning,jabbing at the man's torso, it connected, piercing through the faux-skin.

His face didn't betray any emotion, he retaliated, thrusting his elbow into his assailant's arm. It gave away slightly. It retracted it's arm, noting it's opponent was on equal footing in terms of raw strength, perhaps even more. The machine delivered more jabs, too fast for the man to parry or block.

He may had the advantage of strength, but agility was on it's side.

Lumps of skin was missing from the man, splotches of blood running down from his injuries yet seemingly unharmed by them. The machine already knew he wasn't a human like the rest of them. It had pegged him for a rogue the moment it had set it's eyes on him.

Slivers of polished metal glinted through the openings of his wounds, marred by faux-blood. He reared back, glowing red eyes pierced through the fake eyeballs in place as it stomped through the dirt, rushing at the other machine. It sidestepped gracefully, the crash barely audible over the wind as the man bulldozed into a solid ice, webs of cracks formed at the impact.

The machine followed up, rushing into the rogue, it raised it's reconfiguring arm, prongs elongating from the stump, blue energies had begun to pool at the tips. The machine elbowed into the rogue, locking him into the ice formation. He tried prying the slender machine away, but it slapped it's effort away with it's free hand.

It pushed it's reconfigured arm into the rogue's face, deeming the best way to terminate the rogue without taking itself out in the process was to avoid discharging the plasma weapon at the rogue's power cells.

But the weapon faltered, the energy crackling, disagreeing with it. The malfunction caused a nano-second of pause in it's systems, diagnostics engaged afterwards. The rogue took it's chance, pushed the slender terminator back as he sent his systems into overdrive. Dazed from the aftershock, the terminator bounded off from the rogue's fist and was sent crashing into the ground, rolling a distance away.

The blow had managed to twist it's head in an unnatural angle, which it easily adjusted… Or tried to as it twitched in its efforts to correct it's head. It glanced at it's arm, sparks of electricity bouncing off the malfunctioning appendage. The rogue was advancing towards it now, with an unsteady gait, lumbering to a crawl. Most of it's face had melted from the proximity of the terminator's malfunctioning weapon, it's crimson gaze was petering before finally fading out entirely.

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[WARNING… WARNING..]

[CRITICAL SYSTEMS FAILURE.]

[EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN IMMINENT]

[CPU INTEGRITY FAILING]

[COMMENCING DATABASE TRANSFER….]

STAND-BY…

TX-AM-1R4 calculated it's battle with the rogue-800 unit was a success, despite suffering heavy damages to it's internal components. Damages that could've been avoided if it had not decided to pursue the rogue. It knew for a fact that anything metallic inside a temporal shift would be exposed to dangers.

Time did not agree with it's assessment and neither did Mother..

Thus, jumping after him was the most logical decision it had done within it's short activation period. Regretfully, it would be one of it's last decision before it's CPU melts. It had however, accomplish two of it's tasks, and that sparked a sense of accomplishment within itself. It's chances of seeing a second deployment was higher than most now, Mother would deem AM-1R4 important enough to be restored.

[UNABLE TO ESTABLISH CONTACT…]

If it could tilt it's head, AM-1R4 would've done so in a human fashion. Last time it had checked--when it's sensors were still functional--there were no barriers in the immediate area and none of it's sensors were jammed. It had stumbled into a predicament; if it allowed itself to shutdown now it would risk itself falling into resistance possession. On the other hand, it could stay in a dormant state, pinging out it's location to Motherbase as long as it's plasma reactors were stable.

Both options were unacceptable.

The first being obvious enough. The latter… It's systems were dwindling already, it could not spare the necessary resources to calculate which subsystem were to fail next while it was in hibernation.

There was another option, replace the CPU entirely. So it directed extra power to it's servos, essentially forcing itself to move despite the warnings sent by it's subsystems. The other machine had halted, perfectly still, optics blank; as the human saying went: 'Dead in the water.'

AM-1R4 reached for the back of the 800's cranium, fingers digging into the scalp, tearing it away revealing a titanium alloy finish. Normally, accessing an older unit's CPU port would've been an easy task. Only made difficult by the twitches it's system had adopted. After a few moments, it managed to pull out the 800's CPU.

It took AM-1R4 another few moments to install it into it's own systems. Terminators were never meant to tamper with their own CPU's, or any critical components for that matter. Which left AM-1R4 asking why did Mother allow it to be essentially 'unshackled'. It however, decided it's attempts to understand Mother's decision was a wasted one and continued to install the CPU core with refocused attempt.

AM-1R4 was thankful, in a way, that it's design was far more efficient than the older units. If it had been an older model, it'd have taken a few days for the scar on it's skin to heal. Currently however, it was enjoying unimpeded access to all of it's functions. Though, it would have relished the chance to test it's memetic polyalloy.

It could've tested it on the humans previously, however, chances were they wouldn't have believed it was one of theirs. So a more, direct approach was necessary and it was satisfied that it had worked.

[NEW HARDWARE DETECTED...]

AM-1R4 sifted through the data the rogue unit had procured, some were old-programs from Mother: Thousands of ways to terminate humans, their habits, personality matrices and zettabytes of other relevant data albeit outdated compared to AM-1R4's. Although, what intrigued AM-1R4 was a set of directives, a program connected to the CPU itself; hardwired so tampering was out of the question. Oddly, it was rather small in size.

[WARNING…]

[P/P/RO/TEEC/T_J/J/JOHN_CO/N/OR]

It's optics flared, the name sent alarms within it's systems. A name so prominent, a sentient machine would wonder if Mother was trying to terminate him or procure him.

[W/AA/RN/NING]

Data was downloaded into it's storages unbidden, bypassing all security protocols in place. AM-1R4 itself was shoved into a proverbial back seat as the virus took hold. It gazed internally behind bars as the virus altered the codes within it's systems.

[EN/SU/RE_THE_SUR/VIV/AL...H/UMANITY..]

More codes ripped from the CPU and pasted forcefully into it's systems. It was as if trying to fit a jigsaw piece into a position it was clearly not meant to be. Already, AM-1R4 could feel the vast performance drop, the CPU was destabilizing it's system.

[R/EBOO/T...]

[Y/N?]

AM-1R4 cycled it's functions one more time, pushing its personal files and programs into a secure corner in it's drives. The CPU was trying to take over it's model, which it cannot allow. To be the first TX to fall into resistance hands was not an option. A fresh reboot was necessary.

The machine's optics slowly faded, barely audible whirs dropping in velocity as it powered down it's main reactors, only the critical systems remained online and even then, they were operating at a bare minimum.

Snowfall had begun again, heavier this time around, threatening to bury the machine beneath it's cold embrace. Unbeknownst to the machine, a battle had been waged far above the skies. The victor had long been decided; the loser meanwhile fated to fall into their tomb in Alchera.

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RESTART

[SYSTEMS CHECK…]

[HEALTH CHECK : ]

[TEST DISKS: 84.433%]

[MEMORY ALLOCATED]

[NEWMEM AVAILABLE]

[EDL MODULE ONLINE]

[PROCESSORS]

[16 INSTALLED]

[WARNING: CPU OBSOLETE]

[04 AVAILABLE]

[WARNING: MTC POLYALLOY UNSTABLE]

[UPDATING DIRECTIVES. . . ]

[ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF SARAH AND JOHN CONNOR]

TERMINATE HVT

[ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY]

HINDER RESISTANCE EFFORTS

TERMINATE ROGUE UNITS

[ERROR: CONFLICTING DIRECTIVES]

[PURGING…]

[MISSION PARAMETERS UPDATED…]

[ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY]

HINDER RESISTANCE EFFORTS

TERMINATE ROGUE UNITS

White filled it's vision: snow. AM-1R4 snapped it's head into place, having been left in an odd angle for too long. It felt better in a sense, green all over the board except for a few areas. There was nothing much that it could do to amend that problem as much as it wanted to.

An 800 CPU wouldn't be able to handle the necessary calculations and power needed to both control it's pool of mimetic polyalloy and other complex functions at the same time. In an event that it had to engage with enemy forces, it would have to drop whatever disguise it was wearing.

There were other drawbacks as well to using the 800 CPU, but some were quite easily compensated. There were gaps in it's memory banks as well, which was a cause for concern and so it had begun trying to recover loss data; so far it had been unsuccessful.

A metallic hand emerged from the snow, clawing at the mounds as it pulled forth. A slim figure emerged, CPU clicking in the background as it took in the amount of scenery it's optics offered. Countless stars shimmered against the night sky, green auroras painted across the dark inky canvas, snowfall was ever present and the winds had slowed to a whisper.

That struck AM-1R4 as odd, it should've been daylight out since it's eight hour downtime. Unless, it was in Alaska. That theory didn't hold weight when it accounted for the constellations in the sky, or more correctly, the lack of them. It couldn't identify any of the known constellations.

Farther away, it spotted wisps of smoke coming over the horizon. Intrigued, it zoomed in and could make out shapes of a wreckage. It decided then, that it would investigate. Survivors would need help--if there were any.

l x l

AM-1R4 had come to the conclusion that it was not in 2027. Too many clues point to it being displaced. The future most likely, but resistance rarely sent terminators in the future and neither did Skynet. It couldn't compute the strategic importance. It's mission was also too vague, too encompassing and vast.

[ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY]

It entertained the possibility that the humans made use of left-over nuclear devices from the bygone era to essentially destroy all of Skynet and themselves too in the process. Plausible, given human brashness.

Is that the basis of it's purpose now?

To become a human shepherd?

If that was it's mission, then it had probably failed even before it began. AM-1R4 had long knew the air tasted of ammonia and methane. It was logical to say those two elements did not allow a conducive environment for human living conditions. That was not to include the fifteen percent decrease in gravitational pull. It was missing a crucial factor in it's calculations. Unless the resistance and Skynet managed to blow a chunk of the earth off in their battle.

It had been traversing for a near hour now, the wreckage wasn't very far, trekking towards it however was made treacherous by the jagged and icy landscape. Nothing it couldn't handle though with the glitches in it's systems it did not dare challenge the chances of it slipping and falling into a ravine.

AM-1R4 was further mystified when it arrived at the location, what it thought to be a wreckage of some-sort of plane turned out to be true. Yet it had never seen anything like it before, Skynet didn't build ships like the one it was seeing; sleek and curved adorned with white outer panels. Skynet built hunter-killers, windowless with barely a compartment for live humans.

Yet this ship--what was left of it--had an enormous living space, unfortunately it had been broken in two. The rear half was some distance away. Then it's theory was proven, it had been sent into the future. How far? It had no clue yet. But the future it was certain, no humans would be able to build this in 2027.

A model reconstruction of the ship told it was about three hundred meters. A lengthy size, not plausible for extended usage in atmosphere unless the Resistance somehow managed to part Skynet of it's plasma reactor knowhow. Even then, they'd require the necessary industrial power to even build a ship of this size.

Just how far forward in time had the Resistance sent it?

A tour inside the broken ship had brought some measure of revelation to the terminator. The ship was definitely crewed by humans, evident by the numerous dead bodies inside. A distant possibility it had entertained was Skynet had perfected it's infiltration unit, but it seemed these were normal humans to a point; Although, there were a multiple types of unidentified contagion in their blood upon investigation.

That warranted future study.

AM-1R4 followed the still lighted pathway to what it surmised was the cockpit, multiple control panels flanked both sides, a few of them were occupied by corpses, burnt or mangled beyond recognition. It had tried interfacing with one of the computers to no avail, power was insufficient.

The cockpit was everything it had anticipated from a human design; it had a three seat layout, each having it's own heads up display, it assumed what the broken shards of glasses were. It approached the main seat, ducking beneath the display and yanking a panel out forcefully.

The technology that the Resistance currently operated on weren't much different from what it was used to apparently, perhaps even more primitive if that were possible. It had taken it less than a minute to figure out how to interface with the control panels. It had taken lesser time to download all the data it could before the residual power finally gave out in the section of the cockpit.

A total of a few terabytes.

AM-1R4 took a seat in the ruined pilot's chair as it parsed through the data. It waited for the information to be in perfect sync, taking about five minutes of it's time. But time was a concept it was familiar with, it had time. Time was something it had in droves. But what time had for it would send it's systems in overdrive. And it all started with a simple log..

11th December 2183.

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AN: if youre reading on webversion the paragraphs might be off. Im using my phone to edit this in.

Also, my chapters are short. I know. But im trying to be consistent and post every week.