Chapter 2: Clouds Over California

It had been just over a week since they had first arrived in the future. Since then, John Henry had finished building Cameron's new endoskeleton and his new CPU. Since Weaver was with them, she was able to transfer John Henry into the new CPU and put him and Cameron into their respective endoskeletons, which would have taken John Henry a lengthy amount of time to accomplish by himself. In the days that followed, Weaver had 'obtained' clothing for both Cameron and John Henry, which, to Cameron's surprise, fit quite well. Catherine Weaver is very efficient, Cameron thought to herself. John Henry was very efficient also. He had been able to successfully re-create Cameron's bio-disguise by typing in the necessary characteristics, which he had deducted from observation and information stored on Cameron's CPU, into the machine that produced the bio-disguises. John Henry had completed the task in an impressive 23 minutes and 6 seconds. Furthermore, John Henry had discovered schematics for a new SkyNet prototype. By calculating the differences between this prototype and the 900 series, John Henry was able to devise a new endoskeleton design based on Cameron's TOK-715 endoskeleton. Essentially, it was the same old TOK-715, it just had structural improvements, newer components and a more advanced coltan alloy as well as improvements to power distribution, and a more efficient power source. In addition, her CPU had improved processing speed, a much larger storage capacity and through having shared a chip with John Henry she detected that her very programming itself had been improved and altered. The SkyNet termination directives had been replaced with some of John Henry's own programming. In fact, it wasn't just the SkyNet directives, she found that she no longer had a mission parameters whatsoever. Whilst this caused her alarm and at first, she quickly realised that this was not a problem, otherwise she would have simply shut down, yet the fact she remained active and that she still wished to protect John puzzled her.

Cameron's thought processes turned to John. Catherine Weaver knew where he was and she had managed to follow the resistance fighters who had discovered him at a distance. Catherine Weaver had decided against infiltrating the base at that present time as she wished to locate John Henry. Cameron was worried about John. Whilst she estimate that there was a 98.4% chance that the resistance in this timeline would not kill John, every second he spent away from her was another second that he was at risk. Cameron contemplated on these feelings. Whilst she had had the capacity to understand and mimic human emotions, she had slowly begun to be able to develop and feel them genuinely. She had noticed that since sharing her CPU with John Henry, her ability to feel and process actual emotions had increased faster than if she had been left to develop them on her own. Most likely due to the fact that John Henry had overwritten the old SkyNet programming with parts of his own. She also noticed that she no longer twitched erratically, probably the result of John Henry removing her mission parameters. This interested Cameron. Still, she could sense that she was experiencing a significant amount of the sensation known as 'concern'. She had to find John as fast as humanly possibly... no, as fast as 'machinely' possibly. Cameron felt a brief surge of 'humour'.

"Cameron," Catherine Weaver's voice sounded behind her. Cameron turned to face the T-1001.

They had moved to an abandoned derelict building that was not too far off from the resistance base where John was being held, although far away enough so that they would not be disturbed by any resistance patrols. After John Henry had finished collecting the information he had come to the future to collate, they had to retrieve John Connor and then use a TDE to return to the past. Now, that objective was coming to fruition. Catherine Weaver had successfully infiltrated the resistance base and made contact with John Connor. The resistance in this time-line had met with heavy losses, although managed to 'stick a thorn' in SkyNet's 'paw'. The base in question was being led by none other than Savannah Weaver, the daughter of the woman whom the T-1001 was impersonating. John had managed to persuade this version of Savannah Weaver into letting them into base for 'negotiations'. Presumably, John intended to help these people and obviously had informed Savannah Weaver of the strategic importance of utilising the help of three rogue terminators. Catherine Weaver, the mastermind behind the rebel machine faction, John Henry, an AI built to oppose SkyNet and Cameron herself, a highly advanced prototype who also had detailed information on the resistance and SkyNet from her original timeline.

"It is now precisely 57 minutes until the rendezvous time, we should leave now," Catherine Weaver informed her. Of course, Cameron had been already aware of this, but had decided to wait for Catherine Weaver to interrupt her from thinking about John. The T-1001 observed Cameron carefully. It noticed that Cameron had been acting strangely since she had been re-activated, which seemed to be directly correlated to the situation John Connor was in. The T-1001 found this to be very interesting, although, for now, they needed to concentrate on their principle objective, returning to the year 2009 AD with John Connor.

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Detective Komoszewski studied the scene carefully. Jim Komoszewski was known for his diligent observation and sincerity when he worked and today was no different as he carefully swept his eyes across the crime scene. Laying in the road were the corpses of three unfortunates whose night out drinking had ended in a rather grisly fashion. Two of the party had survived, as it was they who had contacted the police, and from their reports they encountered a naked woman who promptly proceeded to kill one of their party and those who ran to assist them. Of course, having the quality of being intoxicated with copious amounts of hard liquor, and the overall fantastical nature of the events described, Detective Komoszewski took their report with a grain of salt. Lying on the ground in front of him lay a mangled, and for some reason naked, corpse with what appeared to be a hole the size of fist that went straight through the deceased man's chest. A few feet next to him was his friend who had met with a similar fate. There was an equally sized hole roughly where his heart would be and laying on the road next to him was a human heart. Detective Komoszewski turned to his left to see another unfortunate embedded in the front of someone's car. From what he could tell, Detective Komoszewski guessed that something had struck him with an incredible amount of force. Not only was this man thrown several feet through the air and not only was every bone in his chest area broken, but he had hit the car with such force that he left an impression several inches deep.

Not that such things fazed him. Detective Komoszewski was a hard no-nonsense working man, of Polish ancestry, who had seen his fair share of violent deaths. His chiselled face gave the impression experience and professionalism that, of course, he had and although in his late 30s, his face appeared that of a man much more advanced in age and wisdom. He was very good at his job, which is why he was a Lieutenant and why he was currently assigned to this peculiar job.

"So... what do you think?" he suddenly asked his partner, Detective Elizabeth Mitchell, rather nonchalantly. His partner was almost the exact opposite of who he was. Whilst he was completely indifferent to pretty much everything, she, who was in her mid-20s, was lively and exuberant. She was stood by the car keenly taking photos of the poor man still embedded in it.

"Well," she began. "I think this is going to be one of those 'interesting' cases,"

Komoszewski chuckled to himself quietly. Of course, 'interesting' meant it was going to be tough. They had had their fare share of weird cases, and none of them had been easy. Of course, that had not stopped from them from solving the cases. He turned his gaze from the body embedded in the car to a small crater just ahead of where the other two bodies lay. Whilst there was bits and pieces of rubble, he saw that it was a perfect semi-sphere that was around half a foot deep. Reports from the witnesses and the first emergency services personnel who arrived on the scene both confirmed that, earlier, the crater had had smoke emanating from it. 'Interesting' indeed.

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It had not taken long for the T-1001 to be located. Of course, it was not John or any of the resistance that found it, but it had successfully infiltrated the base and suddenly appeared in John's quarter's one day. John had freaked out a little, but managed to conceal most of surprise. John had informed the T-1001 that this base was run by Savannah Weaver, and that she would be interested in talking with it about a possible alliance. The problem being that the T-1001 had not planned on helping the resistance in this timeline and simply wanted to return to 2009 straight away and so took some convincing until it warmed to the idea, if a T-1001 could warm to anything. After explaining the logical benefits that allying with this resistance would bring, namely, that it would in their acquisition of a TDE amongst other reasons, the T-1001 agreed.

Convincing Savannah of the benefits of allying with the 'rebel faction' of terminators later on had been more difficult, but devising a plan of arranging a meeting between them without letting anybody know that there was a T-1001 lurking in the base was hardest thing for John to do. However, it wasn't long until he had discovered that someone in the base had actually ran into a terminator that didn't kill him and, obtaining the name of the area upon which this incident occurred persuaded Savannah to let him a few resistance fighters go out there to see if they could find these 'friendly' terminators. John, of course, knew that he would find them, as he told the T-1001 when and where to meet. It was elaborate, and arguably unnecessary, yet if John had revealed that he had spoken with a T-1001 in the resistance base then he was not sure that even Savannah would trust him anymore.

So here he was, carefully traipsing across the scarred landscape of post-judgement day Los Angeles with a squad of resistance fighters who more than likely thought this was a wild goose chase. Luckily, it was Derek and Kyle's squad who had been assigned to go with him, meaning that he at least had a few 'friendly faces', if you could call them that.

"So, I'm your uncle, huh?" Derek asked him suddenly.

Derek had been walking with his brother for most of the journey, and since John's attention had drifted from the surroundings to thinking about finding Cameron et al., he was mildly surprised to find Derek stood right next to him. He needed to stop doing that. Letting your mind wander in post judgement day Los Angeles was a sure way to get you and your squad killed.

"Yeah," John replied after a brief pause. "How did you know?" John guessed that Savannah had told him, and also told them about Cameron being a cyborg judging by the odd looks Allison had given him.

"Weaver told me," Derek replied, confirming John's guess. "Man, I'd never guess in a million years that your story might actually be true. That's some crazy shit,"

John chuckled. "Yeah, well, I didn't believe stuff like that either until a T-1000 tried to assassinate me when I was a kid,"

Derek looked at him with a look of mild disbelief on his face, "How the hell did you survive that?" Not that Derek didn't believe him, it's just that no human he had met had ever survived an encounter with a 'liquid T'.

"Oh, my 'future self' sent back a re-programmed a T-800 to protect me. It froze the T-1000 with liquid nitrogen and shattered it with a bullet. Then, after the T-1000 had reformed itself, my mother emptied a few shotgun rounds into it as we were stood on this walkway overlooking a vat of molten steel, then our T-800 shot it with a grenade launcher, sending it into the steel,"

Whilst Derek was seriously impressed, he found it difficult to accept that John would willingly work with metal, even if it was "reprogrammed".

"Man, I still don't know how you can trust metal," Derek commented. "I know they'd be reprogrammed, but I still wouldn't be able to trust them. I mean, what if they turned on you? And you really believe that we can trust these so-called 'rebel' terminators?"

"I don't," John replied. "But they are the only chance we have. Sometimes you've just got to fire with fire, and when it comes down it, machines are replaceable... humans aren't,"

Derek took in the reply with a look of contemplation upon his face and gave a small nod of approval. He had not known his nephew from another timeline very well, or even spoken to him much, but he already liked him and could see that he was a strong kid.

"What about that terminator you had round you back in the past?" Derek probed further. "From what Allison told us you said, she made it sound like your girlfriend,"

John chuckled briefly. John figured that was why she kept giving him disapproving looks.

"No, she's my protector... at least that's all she is for now," John replied.

Derek noticed that he referred to it as 'she'. Derek decided to drop it. He knew from what he had been told that John had just as much experience as he, if not more, when it came to dealing with terminators. Derek just hoped John knew what he was doing, falling in love with a machine. He guessed that the alternate version of himself probably had already tried to dissuade John, and so decided to change the subject. "So, since I'm your uncle, does that mean..."

"That Kyle is my father?" John finished Derek's question for him. "Yeah."

However, their conversation was interrupted by the roar of dual VTOL engines in the near distance.

"HK!" someone bellowed, and immediately everybody dove to take cover.

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It was currently late evening and most of the people who worked at city hall had already left for the day. All that remained were a few security guards, and few people on late shift that were just finishing. Security had tightened since an incident a few months ago when two people broke in via an underground bunker by using plastic explosives and then proceeded to attempt to upload a virus on the experimental ARTY system. Not that their failed attempt mattered as it crashed on its own later anyway. What this did mean, however, was that security had been improved dramatically. The security guard stationed by the main entrance let the last of the late working employees out before locking the door after them. He glanced outside briefly surveying the streets outside before returning to his post however as he turned he was surprised to come face to face with a woman he had never met before standing right before him. Before he could do anything, she grabbed his right shoulder and lifted him off the ground. Instead of focusing on the impossibility of the situation, the guard reached for his gun, yet before he could so much as move a muscle, the woman had grabbed the gun out of his holster and was now pointing it at a spot on his forehead.

"Tell me where the federal records are," the woman asked demanded nonchalantly, her face expressionless.

"W-w-what do you want with the federal records? Are you some kind of terrorist?" the guard managed to get out defiantly.

"I need access to the federal records, tell me where they are now," the woman replied more forcefully with a mild tone of annoyance in her voice. The guard felt her increase pressure on her grip she had on his shoulder and felt a sharp increase in pain as his collar bone came close to breaking.

"Ah! A-alright! I'll tell you!" the guard groaned. "They're in the eastern part of the 2nd floor... at the back of the building."

The woman watched the guard squirm for a bit before replying. "Thank you. Your assistance is no longer required," and before the poor guard could do anything she shot him right between the eyes and casually tossed him over her shoulder before walking off to the location he had given her. There had been a 23% chance that he could have lied to her, but these were acceptable odds.

She casually walked on as guards coming to investigate the gunshot started firing at her, seemingly with no effect, killing the guards with a single shot each as she walked.

She finally reached her destination and quickly located the precise room she was searching when she arrived at a door marked "Federal Records Room". As she opened the door, she was greeted by rows of shelves stacked with files. Humans were fond of obsolete methods of storing data it seemed. As she looked, she quickly saw what she was looking for, a computer terminal linked to the servers containing the digital copy of the contents of the files. After quickly accessing the search utility, she entered in the parameters of her query. She was looking specifically for female law enforcement officers who were due to be transferred to the FBI, of similar height and frame to herself, preferably with few friends and no immediate or close family. Within a few minutes, the search utility returned three near matches. After analysing the records, the woman selected one in particular who fit the bill perfectly. After memorising the data, she quickly wiped the search and left.

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It was now two days since John had gone off into the future and Sarah wasn't any closer to finding and destroying SkyNet. In fact, she still hadn't disposed of Cameron's body yet, why she had no idea. She hated metal, even if they were on "her side". She especially disliked Cameron, for a number of things but mostly because John had gone off on some suicide mission to bring her back from the future. Still, she here she was, with Cameron's endoskeleton and what remained of her bio-disguise still intact slumped in the corner. Was it because that, despite Cameron being a terminator, she had some respect for 'her'? No. She had respected Uncle Bob, but she was still glad and eager to destroy 'him'. Maybe it was because she still held on the belief that her son would return to her and that he would be angry if she had destroyed Cameron's body. Why had John gone after Cameron? There was no tactical reason to, his future self would have sent another protector. Unless he didn't want another protector. She still refused to believe that John actually could love Cameron. Yet the way he had said "He's got her" reeked of it.

She was interrupted from her thoughts by James Ellison entering the room. He glanced at Cameron's former body and raised his left eyebrow slightly.

"I see you still haven't disposed of the body," he said in that annoyingly cool tone of his. Sarah felt a slight tinge of anger, but mostly annoyance and how cool Ellison could behave. Of course, she had seen him when he wasn't so cool, so that bought some humour to her mind.

"No," Sarah replied simply, with a minor hint of abrasiveness in her voice. "What can I say. Carrying a 200kg+ metal endoskeleton to suitable location and then destroying it with thermite is not exactly easy when you're alone in the basement of a major corporation building that is probably being watched by FBI," That was the most plausible excuse she could think of.

"Listen, if you're not going to destroy it we could..." Ellison began but was cut off by Sarah's emphatic answer before he could finish.

"No," Sarah knew what he was going to suggest. He was going to suggest coming to the FBI with it in order to prove she was not crazy. "Kaliba could get their hands on it, and besides, SkyNet could have sent terminators to infiltrate the FBI,"

Of course, the real reason, and the reason why she had not destroyed Cameron's body yet was because if John returned with Cameron's CPU, then he would be angry if her body wasn't still there. She did not want to risk alienating herself from her son even further, even if meant possibly putting up with John and Cameron being together. It still made no sense to her and it pained her to think about it, but she conceded that it was a genuine possibility.

"I could call Auldridge here. We could tell him about Kaliba and the potential threat from SkyNet," Ellison continued. "About the actual threat from SkyNet. Because if we can convince the world that you're telling the truth, then we can stop that goddamned machine... all of them, before they are even made,"

Sarah admired Ellison's passion, but she was still genuinely unsure that the plan would work let alone the reasons she had contemplated previously.

"No, it's too risky." she replied resolutely. "Someone is going to have to dispose of it. We can't do it here, and I can't leave,"

Ellison saw where this was going. "I could take it somewhere and then dispose of it discreetly. Although, I run the risk of being seen by the FBI. I'll do it tomorrow,"

Ellison turned to leave but Sarah interrupted him before he could exit.

"Do you really think we can trust this 'Catherine Weaver'? Afterall, she is one of 'them', and we have no idea if she was telling the truth about John Henry,"

"Well, if 'she' had wanted us dead, I'm sure she would have killed us the moment we entered her office. I'm not sure if we can trust her, but we don't exactly have much choice,"

Ellison exited and returned to his usual duties.

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Agent Auldridge had finished going over the testimonies of the guards who were on duty when Sarah Connor was broken out of custody. From the reports, the Connor's accomplice 'Cameron' waltzed in right through the front door with a shotgun, opened fire on the guards and then went and freed Sarah Connor and somehow all the prisoner's were let loose, allowing Sarah Connor and 'Cameron' to escape in the confusion. The reports from the guards also indicated that 'Cameron' had taken considerable time to open fire on them and took multiple hits before returning fire, and did not even seem to fire at the guards. However, what caused Auldridge to frown was not only did this 'Cameron' take direct assault rifle fire without even flinching, but someone managed to hack into the prison controls in a matter of seconds. Auldridge did not know of any body armour or any hacking equipment that could accomplish these things. Whilst he was thinking, he was interrupted by a knock at his office door.

"Come in," he said, whilst still glancing at the reports in front of him.

He looked up to see Agent Barnes, the man he had instructed to keep an eye on the Zeira Corp building, walk through the door followed by a nervous looking woman who appeared to be in her mid-to-late 20s.

"This is the latest addition to the Bureau," Barnes informed Auldridge, gesturing to the woman behind him. "Helena Johnson."

Agent Auldridge stood in order to approach the new agent and greet her.

"Welcome to the Bureau Miss Johnson, or should I say, Agent Johnson," Auldridge said, smiling pleasantly whilst offering a handshake.

She looked at his hand, almost as if she were unsure what to do, for a few second before shaking it. Auldridge noticed that she had a particularly strong grip, which, whilst perhaps a bit odd for someone who appeared to be a bit shy, impressed Auldridge slightly.

"So what made you want to join the Sarah Connor case?" Auldridge asked her. "Most Agents usually start out on something small,"

"Well, the Connors and their associates are dangerous individuals. It would be in the best interest of the public if they were put behind bars as soon as humanly possible," she replied cheerfully, yet almost timidly. "Besides, my father was a cop at West Highland police station in 1984 when the Connors unidentified male accomplice attacked. He was one of the 17 who lost their lives that night."

"I see. Well, I hope you are settling in okay, as for now, Agent Barnes here will give you your specific assignment,"

With that, Agent Barnes led the new Agent out of Auldridge's office. Auldridge went back to his desk to look over the various reports that he had received.

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Detective Komoszewski had finished going over all the evidence from the crime scene and had gotten the CCTV tapes from the cameras in the area. For some reason, the cameras directly in the region had malfunctioned and stopped working precisely during the time the event the surviving witnesses described. The only ones that worked were too far away or obscured. Interestingly, before the cameras in the area cut out, Komoszewski noticed slight electrical interference in each of the cameras. So, three dead drunks who had quite literally torn to pieces, two survivors frantically babbling about some alien woman who appeared in the middle of some kind of electrical storm, a crater about a three foot in diameter and a perfect semi-spherical shape that had smoke coming from it, the CCTV cameras in the immediate area shorting out and just managing to catch glimpses of electrical interference. This sounded too much like something from the X Files. Detective Komoszewski was willing to bet a transformer had overloaded and exploded, although that did leave a few minor anomalies. As he was sat there thinking about these things, his partner walked through the door.

"You're 'gonna want to hear about this," she said with a look of bemusement on her face. "It appears as if our drunken friends might have been telling the truth. An unidentified female matching the description given by the witnesses broke into City Hall, broke into the Federal Records room and killed pretty much every guard who got in the way."

He looked up at her with his left eyebrow raised in a semi-comical yet interested expression.

"Oh really?" he commented casually. "Rip anyone's heart out or impale someone on her hand this time?"

"No, but we pulled the CCTV footage and it shows this woman lifting a security guard about twice her body mass up by the right shoulder about a foot of the ground and then proceeding to kill most of the guards in one to two hits each, all headshots."

"What the hell?" he exclaimed in mild disbelief. "Were there any surviving guards?"

"Barely," Detective Mitchell replied. "Those that tried to stop her promptly had their brains blown out. When SWAT teams arrived, she was nowhere to be seen, yet all the exits and entrances were still locked and secure,"

"So Xena the mass-murdering princess shows up, kills some random guys, steal their clothes and then sneaks into City Hall, makes her way to the federal records room whilst terminating those who get her in way and then disappears without a trace,"

This certainly was 'interesting'.

"That's not all, we've got witnesses reporting some naked guy walking into a bar and then stealing some guy's clothes a few hours ago. Sounds similar to our mystery woman" Mitchell added.

"Well, this just keeps on getting better and better," Komoszewski remarked. "Is the world being overrun by naked people or something?"

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Rubble was still flying after the HK had swooped overheard. Everyone had managed to get out of the way in time but how long they stayed alive after this was another matter. Allison was slightly dazed as a piece of rock had hit her squarely on the head. She could see some of the other ahead running for better cover and/or better spots to shoot at the HK from. However, as she was still dazed the HK was returning and it was heading straight for her position. There was no way she would be able to shoot it down in her present state so she desperately began to scramble to try and run. However, before she could even move direct plasma rifle fire struck the HK from behind her. The HK dithered, taking time to try and re-adjust its balance after losing an engine, however more fire hit the second engine causing the HK to crash to the ground violently. Allison looked up behind her to see her double staring back. It took a moment for Allison to register what she was exactly seeing, but even then she had no idea what to think.

"Come with me if you want to live," it said, offering an outstretched hand. In the other hand it held a phased plasma rifle, which presumably had been the one that had taken out the HK. This couldn't be THE Cameron could it? Before Allison could do or say anything, the terminator grabbed Allison's arm and yanked her out of the way whilst it opened fire on something else. Allison looked up to see the smouldering remains of a T-600 that had appeared.

"Where is John Connor?" it asked her.

"He was with Derek Reese," she replied. "You're not Cameron are you?"

"How did you know my name?"

"John told me about you,"

Cameron tilted 'her' head slightly. "Take me to John now,"

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As soon as the HK had attacked their position, Derek had pushed John down and used his own body to shield John from any possible damage. Derek grabbed John and ran for cover behind a large piece of building that had fallen onto the ground. Kyle was nearby and most of their group had made it to or were on their way to reaching cover. John saw Allison struggling to get up as the HK was bearing down on her and was surprised to see someone who looked exactly like Allison appear from behind her and take the HK down with a plasma rifle and then put Allison behind cover whilst it took out a T-600 that had come round the corner. It wasn't... Cameron?

"Hello John," the voice of Catherine Weaver came from behind him. "We should move away from this location,"

Derek leaped up. He had not heard anybody, or anything, sneak up behind them. This was probably the liquid metal he had heard about, still it paid to be cautious.

"Identify yourself!" Derek demanded.

"I think you know that if I had wished to kill you, I would not have alerted you to my presence," Weaver informed him.

"Relax Derek, this is who we've come out here to find," John told him.

Derek glanced at John and then continued to stare at Weaver. "Relax, my ass," he replied defiantly. "You may trust these things, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pretend like they're our pets or something,"

"Well, Mr. Reese, perhaps it is best to inform you that mine and John's associate, who is also a terminator has just shot down that Hunter Killer and T-600. SkyNet will have more forces in the area en route, so I say again, we should move away from here. Oh, and Mr. Reese, don't even refer to me as a pet," Weaver's voice contained a slight hint of anger with that last comment. Machines could not feel emotions, or so Derek had believed. This just made Derek more cautious.

"John," came another voice.

John turned around to see two Allisons, or rather Allison and someone who looked just like Allison holding a massive plasma rifle one-handedly.

"Cameron?" John blurted out immediately.

Cameron walked closer, right up to John, whilst Allison went over to where Derek was stood.

"John?" Cameron replied. "Why did you follow me? It's dangerous for you here."

John noticed that there was a hint of worry in her voice, but also a small level of anger.

Before John could say anything, Cameron grabbed John by the ankles and casually tossed him over her shoulder and walked over to where Weaver and Derek were standing.

"We need to go... now." She told Weaver and then turned to face Derek. "Derek Reese, gather your men and then lead the way to your base."

Derek gave a bemused look as he watched John squirm and protest under Cameron's grip.

"Sure thing," he smirked and went off to find his brother, who was presumably amongst those who were holding off the advancing T-600s just down from his current position.

"Thanks for helping me back there," Allison told Cameron, still a little freaked out at having her exact double in front of her, and with her long-held resentment of machines keeping her from being completely comfortable around Cameron and Weaver.

"You're welcome," Cameron replied almost cheerily. "Stop squirming John, you will bring attention to our location,"

"Then put me down!" John exclaimed irritably.

Cameron dropped John squarely on his back.

"Real smooth Cameron," John grumbled.

"Your coming here has jeopardised the future John," Cameron sounded scarily like his mother. "I could not be sure if you would jeopardise it further. Now stay down, whilst Derek Reese gathers his squad,"

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks for asking," John retorted.

Weaver and Allison looked at the scene with as much amusement as a post-J-day environment would allow.

Within a few minutes Derek re-appeared with Kyle and the rest of their squad. A few had taken some hits, yet they had managed to take down most of the T-600s that had started appearing. Something was odd, SkyNet would not commit this kind of force for a low target, especially since it had lost a substantial amount of refineries and factories.

"We're all ready to go and fall back to base," Derek told Weaver. "But something is up, SkyNet is throwing everything it's got in the area at us. It's only been T-600s and an HK so far, but more will be coming and SkyNet might start sending something more advanced,"

"Do not worry Mr. Reese," Weaver replied calmly. "We have something 'up our sleeve' as you humans would put it,"

As soon as Catherine Weaver had said that, the ground began to rumble as something big made its way to their location. Suddenly, an HK tank appeared over the hill behind Weaver, however, it appeared to be different. Its head was missing and instead had some kind of cockpit/control booth with what appeared to be a man standing inside it.

"We have acquired a ground level Hunter Killer, modified for our purposes of course," Weaver informed them in her usual machine coolness. "John Henry has constructed a new control interface that should allow for a machine or human driver and also has the ability to take passengers,"

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Savannah Weaver paced her office impatiently. The group she had sent out to meet with these 'rebel' Terminators had not radioed in yet and she could hear distant booms. Either they had run into SkyNet, had been ambushed... or these friendly terminators were not as friendly as John Connor had believed them to be. Whilst it was unlikely that these machines would have turned on John after helping him for so long, nothing was impossible and, after all, that is was how SkyNet began.

As she was thinking about these things, a soldier appeared in the doorway.

"Ma'am, it's the Reese's squad," he informed her. "They're on their way in a hotwired HK Tank under fire from Aerial HKs as well as ground units,"

Savannah had heard and seen many things in her life, but a hotwired HK Tank?

"Get teams on the outer defences," she ordered. "And don't forget to tell them that that HK Tank is a friendly. The last thing we need is one of our own getting a lucky shot with a rocket launcher and taking out our own squad,"

Savannah made her way to the operations room. Whilst they had lost most of their communications in the last major battle against SkyNet, they still had radio communications and some limited radar. From there, she would be able to communicate with her teams stationed around the base as well as the Reese's squad and would be able to direct them appropriately.

Once in the operations room, she was saluted by the officer who had temporarily taken charge.

"At ease Colonel Leo," she told him. "So tell me, what's happening out there that I don't already know,"

Colonel Leo was a particularly grizzled man who had been a retired army officer when J-Day occurred. Whilst he was old, he had experienced and was able to teach Savannah a lot about strategy and combat tactics. She had been particularly surprised when he recommender her for promotion over himself, but he had said that the resistance good young officers and that he was too old to lead an entire base now. He was happy being in charge of operations and he did a good job too. Everybody respected him, and he was one of the few Savannah let call her by her first name.

"Well, our boys are coming in hotter than Dante's inferno out there. I don't why the hell SkyNet is so obsessed about one ragtag bunch of resistance soldiers, so it looks like that boy you find might have been telling the truth about them friendly terminators," he replied, pausing to spit tobacco into a tin he had for that very purpose.

That was one thing that amused Savannah. No matter that it was hell on earth, Colonel Leo always seemed to have chewing tobacco on him.

"Either way, we've got soldiers on our outer defences like you ordered. They may have been battered in the last offensive, but they've still got some juice in 'em. Now, we've got some unidentified radar signatures nearby. It could be because our last surviving is damaged, but it ain't no HKs."

"Last I heard, the resistance had lost all of their aircraft. Any idea what they could be?"

"I have no idea, but we'll find out if they're friendly in a hot minute,"

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John sat in the back of the HK Tank. John Henry had modified the HK Tank so that it had a driver's canopy/cockpit area instead of a head, and using the remains from Aerial HKs, had constructed a passenger transport area. Standing next to him was Cameron still holding the gargantuan plasma rifle and keeping a look out in case anything came at them from behind. The rest of the squad had armed additional plasma cannons that John Henry had attached to the HK, or were busy shooting at various ground targets through slits in the side and so weren't paying attention. Derek and Kyle were talking to Catherine Weaver in the driver area, which was surprisingly spacious from what John had seen.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" John asked her. This was probably not the time, but they had enough people looking out for/taking out threats. "Other than, 'you shouldn't have come here?'"

John knew he had expected too much and had subsequently been disappointed when Cameron didn't even seem to pay any attention to him.

"What do you want me to say John?" she replied still looking through the slit in the back of the passenger area. She turned to face him, "I am glad that you are alright, but you risked everything coming here. You should have stayed behind,"

"I couldn't have," John protested. "I need you. I can't afford to lose you,"

"And I can't afford to lose you, John," Cameron replied.

This response surprised John. Maybe she did feel something after all. Although, it was her usual vaguely worded cryptic half-sentence. He needed to ask her about that later.

The air was suddenly filled with the noise of jet engines and glaringly loud bursts of Gatling gun fire. Were those A10 Warthogs? However, these sounds were drowned out by an even larger roar as a gargantuan aircraft soared overhead at high altitude and began bombarding ground targets with minigun, Bofor cannon and howitzer fire. If John's eyes weren't playing tricks on him then he was looking right at a Lockheed AC-130U 'Spooky' Gunship. How the hell had these survived J-Day, or the massive offensive against SkyNet that had taken place months ago? Just as long as they didn't open fire on their HK Tank and kept SkyNet forces off of them.

After a few minutes, they had destroyed all of the pursuing ground units and the remaining Aerial HKs were beginning to retreat. By that time, the HK Tank was in the vicinity of the main base, and came to a stop by a large surviving section of wall. John was wondering why they had stopped when suddenly they began to sink slowly in the ground. They were on some kind of cargo elevator. John looked up to see the A10s and the AC130U begin their descent and he could see various resistance fighters running about various sections of wall, obviously going off to new posts. Well, at least nobody has been killed, a miracle in post-J-day times. A few had been injured but thankfully nothing too bad. Once everybody was inside, the de-briefing would begin, and hopefully they'd be able to help the resistance in this timeline.