AN: This is an unbeta'd story. I've done my best, but you have been warned.-

Skynet deposited me thirty-seven miles from this ruined valley for my latest operational test a little over two days ago. More precisely, two days, two hours, and seventeen minutes ago. The fastest humans could maintain a speed of twelve point five miles per hour over ground or a little over twenty-four miles per hour at a burst. I covered it in one hour fifty-seven minutes, for an average speed of about nineteen miles per hour. On flat terrain I could have certainly done better. Humans do not tend to worry about a minor Skynet presence beyond twenty-five miles or so. They have learned that the personal detection equipment of the kind carried by lone terminators doesn't seem to be effective beyond two dozen miles. Skynet could previously use its terminators as vicarious, self-aware probes. Humans had never gotten to the point of being able to decode the ridiculously complex signals, but they didn't need to. Their mere existence betrayed the terminators. Skynet had learned, as a matter of course, to command its terminators to drop into radio silence in the presence of humans. Skynet would do what it could to track me, but for the most part, I would be on my own. If I am compromised, I can drop radio silence and have an airstrike in just over three minutes. If I am overwhelmed, I can fill the minute channels directly adjoining my genuine calcium bones with naturally occurring hydrochloric acid to produce calcium chloride--a salt--and hydrogen gas. With the virtual inevitability that fire will be involved, a fireball of epic proportions is almost ensured. This all leaves the probability-fixated Skynet comfortable with losing track of me.

Passively tracking its assets was trivial when they were the old Tx models...radio chatter aside, their surface to mass ratio and metal content made them child's play for any type of electro-magnetic scan. This will not work on me. I am more dense than the average human, but only marginally, and not enough to reliably determine via radar or electromagnetic scans. With active scanners, Skynet might identify me at range, but only through a multi paradigm comparison, and identifying me would be a matter of probability rather than certainty. In the end it would most likely through thermal imaging. Both Skynet and the humans have overlooked how useful of a tool thermal imaging is. It may be my primary source of real-time secondary information.

This is all assuming Skynet stays at range, which is my short-term strategy. At short range, at effort--which is the state my body will most assuredly be in if Skynet is near--thermal and electromagnetic scans will light up like the proverbial candle.

An idiom. My father would be proud. If Skynet understood pride.

There is a reason that Skynet gave me two days to install myself in the valley. In nature, aggregation tends to occur as a slow process. Hunter models that find already-existing large groups and terminate them have their place. As a matter of nature, humans don't sublime. They will not generally spontaneously form bonds as a matter of many individuals coming together randomly, at once. They emulate water filling the sea; puddles to streams to rivers to oceans. Skynet knows this, so in my case, I am to befriend a smaller group of humans and trusting to the statistical inevitability that is human nature to provide for my eventual integration into larger groups. That is what will make my presence more credulous. Humans don't use credulous. Easier to stomach. Another human idiom; chalk one up to the design of Skynet. And another! I am truly a marvel.

I have other tools...I can sense the humans using bioelectric scans...scans which are nearly impossible for the humans to detect and wouldn't flag me as a terminator. Other machines as well, though anything that deals with EMF should be regarded with caution and in any event, unless I am actually hiding from it, any presence close enough to trigger that particular alarm is close enough to discover me with more traditional methods. Fortunately, the mainstays of Skynet--the T-800 and its variants--generally rely on the same senses the humans do to acquire and track a target, along with search and destroy subroutines honed to perfection on every battlefield in the world. Sensors like mine provide too much noise for them to deal with on a continuous level.

It is a more mundane sense that warns me first; aural. The small band of humans appears from the west, walking out of the setting sun. Through chance or tactically intentional, that blinds many thermal and plain sight scans. The male--the alpha--is large, much larger than me. He carries residual damage and also a large gun, which he points at me. There is a much smaller male, a non-alpha, who immediately places himself between me and one of the three accompanying females. The oldest, and probably alpha-female, has blond hair, turning the color of clean ash. She watches me, outwardly appearing calm. Her thermal signature intensifies, and electrical activity in her body increases. She is entering combat mode. She is the most dangerous, after the alpha male. The second female, who has been heroically but futilely shielded by the beta male, appears to be progeny of the Alphas. She regards me warily. Her body indicates fight or flight mode. The third is pre-pubescent, though not for long. She watches me with fearlessness. Her temperature elevates only slightly. She will become an alpha. The alpha male is addressing me.

"Keep your hands where I can see them." I do as he asks. It is a foolish request; I could kill him as he watched my hands, but it sets him at ease. "What are you doing in this valley?"

I look at the ground, and my shelter and fire pit. "Trying to stay away from machines," I say, softly.

"A terminator would say that. Hell; what wouldn't say that?" He responds, belligerently. I do the thing they least expect a terminator to do.

I smile.

It isn't totally right. I can feel it. Even so, the smallest female mirrors my smile.

For most Skynet designed machines, smiles are somewhat...tricky. Skynet accepted this as an operational cost of doing business; if humans were fundamentally flawed, and a major contribution to that flaw is the existence of the emotive motivational drive, then creations incapable of feeling emotions were no step backward. Even so, the most empathetic humans have always been aggravatingly adept at spotting terminators. Almost as good as dogs. I am a new breed of terminator. I am HR1. I can feel emotion, theoretically. Maybe I can even smile like I mean it.

"Mars...calm down," the alpha female scolds. She touches the alpha male on the arm. Mars. Roman deity of warfare and conflict. Fourth planet from the sun. Astrologically associated with aggression, confidence, and impulsiveness. Ego, passion, and fire. The metaphorical eye of the bull. It is an appropriate name. Mars watches me several seconds later, and then lowers the gun.

"Is there a specific reason you're running from machines?"

"If they find me, they'll kill me."

"Boy, you aren't too smart," he says to me, impatiently. "Is one on your six, or are you just a candy-ass?"

Six. I think for just a moment, then decide he means 'six o'clock'. A euphemism. This I can do. I look back in the direction from which I came...my right.

"My three, actually," I reply.

"What's your name?" the beta male asks.

"You first," I tell him. The typical challenge-response pattern is a good flag that one is dealing with a robot. The more extraneous talk, the better, as far as the humans are concerned. The beta male evaluates me before responding.

"Aaron," he says at last. Now it is my turn.

"What do I look like to you?" I ask, delaying my response again. It makes me appear suspicious. It is a good tactical decision.

"A f-" the alpha male starts, and is slapped by the alpha female. I am now certain she is his mate. Her head darts imperceptibly to the youngest female. "A joker," he decides. "You look like a joker. Is that your name? Mister Joker?"

"Close," I reply. "Michael."

"Michael what?" he digs.

I am forced to think quickly. Of course I knew that humans tend to use two names, but I had intended to pick a suitable one when I was amongst them...one not shared by a sizable population. I did not intend for first contact to happen so immediately. From where did I come? Skynet. A vat. The next valley over. How did I get here? I walked. Ran. Trotted. Trotter? Marched. "March," I say. "Yours?"

"Just Mars," he replied, holstering the gun. I can see him relaxing at last. I have extinguished his suspicion, for now, though not enough to get a full name from him. "This is my wife, Deanne, and my daughters, Tanya and Mary." He ignores the beta male. He is unimpressed with him. I nod in turn to the females, the way they have done to me. Aaron is threatened by my presence. He is attached or attracted to the middle female; Tanya. "So what makes you think you have a bogey on your three?"

"Skynet is trying to kill me," I respond.

"Skynet is trying to kill us all. Why do you think you're that important? Skynet has stopped prolonged pursuit of single targets," he spits on the ground. It may be disgust.

In reality, this is an operational test. Skynet is evaluating me. It cannot trust me, yet. If I was Skynet, I would place at least one if not more terminators in pursuit of me, set to observe. They will be ordered to terminate me if I appear to be faulty. It is not without reservation that Skynet has created an organic terminator. It will have judged me a soft target in comparison to any of its golems. "It is there," I respond, looking back to the south. "At least one, possibly two. Skynet still pursues targets of interest."

"What makes you a target of interest?" Deanne asks.

"Thirty seven destroyed terminators," I reply. This is more or less true. The terminators hadn't exactly been trying to terminate me at the time, but I have disassembled thirty seven. Or parts of thirty seven.

"That's a good start," Mars says. "But that just means you'll bring more heat down on us." I shrug, and he continues to stare at me. Finally he looks around. "You've picked yourself an okay spot. If you don't mind, we'll rest here for a day and move on. If you're still alive then, we'll see about you coming along. If you really have killed thirty seven; there are people who need you."

He is going to use the remnants of the day to determine whether I am a braggart, terminator, or unqualified idiot. It's what I would do. Packs are set down and tents bedrolls come out. We have some time to idly chat. It's something I need to improve upon.

"How did you get out here alone, Mister March?" Tanya asks me. She is sexually attracted to me. Aaron, her erstwhile mate, stares at me. He is not brave enough to threaten me.

"I walked."

"No, I mean why're you out here all alone?"

"Math," I reply. "If terminators find me, I don't want to endanger other people. No matter how many I have-" I almost say terminated. "Dismantled...it is ultimately down to my life or ten innocent lives...or twenty...or more." Mars nods. As he is establishing his portion of the camp, I notice his gear. Laser units. He is surveying...most probably acting as a scouting party for a larger force. "You sound like you'd rather be alone." I consider this carefully.

"I think you and your family seem like fine people. I would love to travel with you. I've had enough of being alone. Still, I wouldn't be very happy if something happened to you, only because you were with me."

It is well documented that many of the most convincing arguments are products of reverse psychology. Rather than utilize some sort of reactance, I have appealed to his ego. His ability to protect is in question. The response is predictable.

"Let's not get maudlin. You will have a better chance with us. If you are as good as you say you are, then I'm sure that the four of us will have a better than fair chance." I don't correct him. As advanced as I am in relation to humans, a t-800 would murder me in a direct confrontation. The TX series were designed to destroy mass quantities of the humans. I am weaker, less durable, and I have more questionable data storage capabilities. The advantage that I hold is that I am ultimately operationally flexible. Terminators are, in the end, machines. They run routines, however complex they may be. If by some opportunity or design, one can disrupt that routine/sub-routine series, one might stand a chance. There are also known structural compromises...generally not weaknesses so much as spots which are weaker than the rest...the usual. Joints. Eyes. Hands.

A lame terminator is still more functional than most humans. A blind one can still echo-locate within effective combat range. By far the most disabled a terminator can be--and disabled in this case is relative--is when its hands are compromised. Any terminator is more than capable of bludgeoning, stomping, biting, or otherwise killing without functional hands; terminators prefer weapons for a reason. Bullets are inexpensive and effective. Without them, they are forced to close to a melee distance. Absolutely lethal to a human, but compared to a terminator with a gun; preferable. I am still trying to determine how do deal with the terminator or terminators that will have been sent to follow me.

With all that, the humans manage to destroy an irritatingly high number of terminators. It is because they are willing to become irrational. That is an ability that robots find it difficult to learn, though only time will tell if an organic like me can develop this questionable skill.

"What are those?" I ask, nodding at the spikes. Really, they are no more than pegs.

"These?" he tosses one. "These are boogeyman alarms."

"Boogeyman alarms?" This is a new one to me.

He taps a peg onto the ground. "When a machine crosses within proximity an alarm goes off. Very simple."

"Don't those lead the machines to you?"

"Well, they only have about a five yard operational radius, so it's best to just put them next to the road. They're going to warn them that I've been around, at some point," Mars says. "I let them roll around in the pouch a little to get them dinged up, so it's harder to tell how long they've been in the ground. They only broadcast when they are tripped."

"How do you determine proximity?"

"The signal travels almost a kilometer, under good conditions. If you get the signal, the machine is too close."

I agree. I nod and smile. It's a simple idea, but a good one. Skynet doesn't give the humans enough respect. Non-directional pulsed broadcasts...saves energy, eliminates tracking. It can be advanced. I set about the task of making the pegs more precise but no more complicated in my mind. I hold out my hand.

"What?" Mars eyes me suspiciously.

"I want to improve it," I tell him.

"It's simple. Rugged. Nothing to improve."

I think for a moment about what humans in this situation might say. "Humor me."

Mars hesitates, then hands me a spike-like boogeyman alarm from a bag very similar to a musket pouch. "I expect that back in working order." I nod. "There are already some of these all the way up to the ridge ahead. We should be able to sleep easier tonight," Mars says. We. I have integrated myself with a human group. My first operational test is complete.