Once Upon a Time in Mexico
by Big D
Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.
AN: A few slight edits have been made to chapter one. Mostly just contextual stuff that only I would care about, plus tweaking a couple of things that Dark Syaoran pointed out to me in his review.
"You sure you don't want to go out to lunch," John asked.
Riley let out a contented sigh and snuggled a little deeper into his chest. "I thought you were the one who said you wanted to avoid the unwashed masses."
John let his hand run along the length of her bare arm and twirled a lock of wavy blonde hair around his index finger. "I figured you might be bored. There's a little place around the corner that makes great hot sauce."
Riley made a face and moved up to kiss him again, her bare body sliding comfortably against his. "You're not quite bad enough at this for me to get bore--OOWWW!!!" She jumped and smacked him in the stomach when he pinched her in the side, cutting her off.
He gave her his best what-did-you-expect look and she humphed in response before going right back to using him as a pillow. John stroked her hair again and tried one more time to shake the incredibly aggravating but steadfast sense that the naked girl sprawled out on top of him was entirely too light and insubstantial, like she would blow away with the next strong breeze.
He closed his eyes and sighed. Mentally comparing the feel of the two girls who had had straddled and stripped for him in the last twelve hours was a perfectly normal thing for any red-blooded American teenage boy to do. What wasn't normal was that, in comparison to his personal-killing-machine/fake-sister/future-attempted-assassin, the supposed "real" girl was coming up a little short. He hadn't quite gotten to the point where he was picturing wide brown eyes instead of blue when Riley looked up at him or… god forbid… moaning Cameron's name while he was inside of her, but there was a niggling part of him that felt guilty for being here with her, something that hadn't happened in his room with Cameron. He had been utterly furious with her for trying to manipulate him yet again, but Riley hadn't crossed his mind once while they were together.
It was almost a relief when his cell phone rang and he had an excuse to disentangle himself from her. Riley groaned and grabbed at his wrist to stop him from answering it, but he shook her off. She was the only person in his life who called him just to chat. Everyone else he knew was far more economical with their words.
"It's probably your mom," she sighed and rolled over away from him.
Oddly enough, John found himself slightly relieved at the thought. If nothing else, it might give him an excuse to leave early. He glanced at the caller ID, then thumbed the phone open and set it to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Where the hell are you, John?"
John felt a cold shiver run down his spine, but it didn't have anything to do with the furious tone in Sarah's voice. He stood up and walked into the bathroom, carefully closing the door behind him.
"Is my mother alive?" He was surprised at how steady his voice was.
A split second's hesitation, then an entirely different voice came through the phone. "Sarah Connor's death is not my mission," Cromartie's, smooth deadpan answered. "She is alive, for now. You changed your code for communications?"
John opened the door a crack and glanced back out at Riley. She had rolled over into the warm spot he had left behind on the bed, curling up into a ball, oblivious to the world.
"Yeah," he answered. "We changed it."
"I thought you would have. A calculated risk, calling you without knowing it, but your disappearance put me at a tactical disadvantage."
"Well, ain't that a shame for you. I'm crying crocodile tears, I swear."
Silence for a moment. "Where are you?"
"Far enough away to disappear long before you get anywhere close."
"If you do that, then I will have no further use for Sarah Connor."
John closed his eyes and swore under his breath. This was every one of his worst nightmares come to life. "All I know for sure is that you have her cell," he countered, trying desperately to focus on the task at hand and not the idea of his mother at the mercy of a terminator. "How do I know that you actually have her? And don't insult either one of us by saying that you'll put her on the phone."
Cromartie's answer was immediate and devastating. "I retrieved her from 309 Calder Street in Los Angeles. She was installing a fireproof safe in the floor when I captured her."
John thought he was going to be sick. The goddamned thing had already been in their house once, and had left after apparently satisfying itself that John Connor didn't live there. Why the hell would it come back?
"What do you want?"
"To terminate you and fulfill my primary mission objective," Cromartie answered almost offhandedly. "Surrender yourself and I will release Sarah Connor unharmed."
'Next time you do what you're trained to do and RUN!!!' His mother's voice screamed inside of his head words that had been drilled into him since the day he could speak and understand. 'You can not risk yourself, not even for me. Do you understand?! You're too important!'
He remembered what she said after Cameron had stopped him from trying to save Jordan before she killed herself. It was a different conversation, in a different context, but the same message.
'You can't be a hero, John.'
"Isn't that who I'm supposed to be," he said quietly. It was the same question he had asked her at the time. She'd never given him an answer.
"I didn't catch that," Cromartie said over the phone, bringing him back to the present. "What's your answer?"
"I'm in Mexico," he said, then gave the town and hotel information.
It didn't take the terminator more that a second or two to calculate the distances. "I am approximately two hours and forty six minutes from your location. If you are not there when I arrive, I will terminate Sarah Connor and continue searching for you."
John snapped the phone closed and bowed his head in frustration. He knew exactly how his mother would see this, as the worst kind of betrayal imaginable. She had sacrificed everything to protect and prepare him for his destiny, and now he was putting it all on the line to save her life, something she had told him never to do under any circumstance.
He glanced at his watch. "Get a grip, John. Time's a-wasting." He opened the phone again and scrolled down to Cameron's number, then hesitated and hit Derek's instead. Maybe it was stupid, but explaining to her exactly where he was and what he was doing there held very little appeal at the moment.
"Yeah." His uncle's voice sounded strained and more than a little aggravated, but that was nothing unusual. John hit the emergency code and waited for the proper response, which came after a brief muttered curse from the older man.
"I'm in trouble. Where are you?"
A note of concern crept into Derek's voice. "At the supply drop. The metal's here with me."
There had to be a story behind that, but John didn't have time to ask. "Cromartie has mom. He's on his way here."
A few seconds of silence. "Where are you?"
John told him. And about the deal he had made. He could hear his uncle moving around, gathering weapons and ammo. If Derek had a comment to make about why John was in Mexico or whether or not he was an idiot for risking himself to save his mother, he didn't mention it. Cameron said something in the background that John couldn't make out, but Derek ignored her.
"Jesus Christ, John. How far away is the machine?"
"About two hours and forty… three minutes, give or take. Maybe less."
The background noise stopped. Derek took a deep breath.
"He's going to beat us there."
It wasn't an apology. Just a fact.
"I know," John answered quietly. "Don't worry about being on time, just don't be late."
Derek's voice was even harder than normal. "I won't. You got a plan?"
"Working on it."
"Well work fast. You're gonna need to buy us a few minutes."
"I'll see what I can do."
Another heartbeat or two worth of silence.
"John?"
"Yeah?"
"See you in three hours."
John felt a ghost of a smile cross his face. "See you then."
He closed the phone again and marched into the bedroom, grabbing his clothes off the dresser and quickly sliding into them. He picked up Riley's stuff and tossed them unceremoniously on top of her, drawing an angry hiss from the blonde girl.
"Riley, get up. You need to go."
She snatched her panties off her head and glared up at him. "What's your damage, John?"
He sat down and pulled his boots on. "I don't have time for an argument. You remember that guy who came by my house looking for Cam? He kidnapped my mother and he's on his way here to kill me right now."
He half expected her to laugh at him or ask him what the hell he was talking about, but all she did was gape in shock for a few seconds, then start putting on her clothes. He finished dressing and pulled a wad of cash from his pocket.
"You remember where the bus stop is, right? One leaves for LA every hour at fifteen past until sundown."
He counted out three hundred dollars and held it out towards her. She looked at him as it he were insane.
"What's that for?"
John let out a frustrated breath. "There's no time for this, Riley. You need to run. He won't come after you if you're away from me."
She stood up, pulling her shirt on. "John, if someone's coming to kill you, then we both need to run."
He stopped and stared at her. "I just told you he has my mother. I can't run."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Well I'm not leaving you. So you can either come with me or tell me what I can do to help."
John glanced at his watch again. No time for this. "Fine. Fuck it. Grab your jacket."
He opened the door and walked out into the courtyard, not bothering to wait for her, and broke into a loping jog towards the setting sun. Riley caught up a few seconds later, puffing noticeably but keeping the pace.
"Where are we going?"
He glanced over at her, wondering why she insisted on staying but letting it slide for now. "Never hunt a Connor on it's home turf."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"You remember that cabana on the beach I mentioned earlier? Where me and my mom used to live?"
"Yeah."
"She stashed some supplies nearby. We're going to go fetch them and give Cromartie a big surprise when he shows up."
She shot him a slightly worried look. "When you say 'supplies', I take it you're not talking about bottled water and duct tape, right?"
He shrugged. "There's some of that there too, but it's the .50 caliber armor piercing rounds I'm after."
They jogged in silence for a few moments before Riley spoke again.
"You know, John, I don't get to say things like this very often, so I hope you can understand where I'm coming from."
"What's that?"
She looked over at him again. "Your family is fucking weird."
He didn't really have a response for that, so he ignored it and upped the pace even further. Riley surprised him again by continuing to match him, even though she was obviously having to push herself. The tourists and festival goers thinned out as they moved away from the center of town and it wasn't long before he turned them down a narrow switchback trail that branched off from the main road and led down towards the ocean. He looked at his watch again. They were making good time, but he still needed to figure out how he was going to get what they needed from Sarah weapons stash all the way back to the hotel without getting arrested.
He kept his head down in thought, letting his feet guide him down the familiar path that he had taken a thousand times as a child, and didn't notice at first that Riley had pulled up and slowed to a walk. He turned around to snap at her to move faster, but stopped at the confused look on her face.
"Are you sure this is the right place," she asked, staring at something behind him.
"Of course I'm sure, I--" He glanced over his shoulder and felt his jaw drop open in shock. "What the fucking hell is THAT!"
She stepped up and stood next to him. "It wasn't there when you lived here before?"
"No! My HOUSE was there when I lived here before!"
She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. "That's just wrong. Why would they put one right on the beach like that?"
John numbly broke into a run again, Riley following behind him. He kept thinking that if only he got close enough, the monstrosity in front of him would fade away and prove itself to be some kind of stress-induced hallucination. That faint hope was dashed when his foot landed solidly on the leading edge of a sea of asphalt surrounding the brand new Wal-Mart SuperCenter that had been built squarely on top of one of the few places on Earth that he had really considered home.
He stopped again looked around despairingly. "You know, sometimes I wonder if the human race is really worth the effort," he said out loud.
Riley glanced at him uncomfortably and tried to change the subject. "So do you think your mother's stuff is still around here?"
John sighed and pointed at a large, open greenhouse. "If it is, it's somewhere underneath the Home and Garden Center."
"So we're kinda screwed, right?"
"Yeah, we're definitely screwed."
He felt her touch his arm and turned to face her. He'd never seen her look so serious, not even back in the hotel room when he told her Cromartie was coming to kill him.
"John… we can still run. Your mom wouldn't want you to get hurt if there's nothing you can do."
He felt his resolve firm. "I'm not running. I just… I just need to figure something else out."
'Alright, Connor,' he thought to himself, running a hand through his hair and wracking his brain for some kind of plan. 'What would mom do?' He knew the answer to that. 'She'd tell you to stop being an idiot and run for your life. Okay, never mind that… what would dad do?'
He stopped and grinned, a wry chuckle escaping his lips. "You know, that just might work."
He turned back to Riley. "Do you have your cell phone?"
She blinked at him. "Yeah, I think so." She patted her pockets and reached into one, handing it to him.
John checked the signal and glanced at the power attachment before nodding to himself. He grabbed Riley's hand, pulling her towards the store at a dead sprint.
SARAH'S P.O.V.
The border crossing had been the worst part.
Sarah wasn't sure why the machine had decided to take her into Mexico, but she had easily recognized the sounds of the mass crossing at San Ysidro into Tijuana. She had been forced to lay there quietly in the trunk while the border guards walked between the cars, close enough that she could hear them chatting amongst themselves. Perversely, she found herself praying that none of them would recognize the man driving the car as the same one who had butchered two dozen FBI agents, or think to look in the trunk where she was tied up and being held against her will.
If that happened, Cromartie wouldn't hesitate to kill everyone in the area. The only way Sarah could protect them was to do nothing, even if it ended up costing her own life whenever they got where they were going.
So she laid there, sweat streaming into her eyes and soaking through her shirt, trying not to make a sound when all she wanted to do was howl. The sun beat down mercilessly against the unforgiving steel surrounding her, slowly baking her in her own skin. Once they were across the border, the terminator opened up the throttle, sending them screaming down rough dirt roads, where every pothole and ditch left her suspended in midair for half a second before she came crashing down again on her side. As the endless minutes ticked by, she actually began to wonder if Cromartie had somehow forgotten about her, or if he was going to just leave her inside this tiny metal box until the heat and ruthless pounding saved him the trouble of putting a bullet in her.
That thought, and the images it brought to the front of her mind, sent a stab of primal, instinctive terror rushing through her. It was the same kind of instinct that drove coyotes to gnaw off their own legs rather than stay locked in a trap, waiting for the hunter to show up. Several moments later she realized that she was screaming uncontrollably and kicking against the inside of the trunk in a panicked rage. She felt a sharp crack in her left foot and realized that she had broken her big toe.
They must not have been driving through a populated area, because Cromartie didn't even slow down during her outburst. Sarah rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, trying to will away the helpless tears that were gathering there. The only comfort she could draw from the situation was that she didn't know where John was and couldn't tell Cromartie no matter what he did to her. She had never been so grateful for her son's current attack of teenaged angst as she had been when the terminator had opened the door to his room and he hadn't been there.
The knowledge that at least he was safe soothed her mind and helped her bring herself back under control. She had to have faith that no matter what happened to her, Derek would look after him, and continue to prepare him for what was to come. Cameron would be there as well, though she still found trusting the female terminator nearly impossible after the car bomb. More to the point, she found it hard to trust her after what she had said while John had been trying to remove her chip. If Sarah had ever needed any proof that Cameron was manipulating him, that was it.
'I need her,' was what he told Derek afterwards. 'She saves my life.'
Despite her own misgivings, Sarah prayed that he was right.
The car slowed down and she could hear the sounds of a small bustling town all around them. Laughter and torrents of rapid-fire Spanish being spoken reached her easily, only slightly muffled by the lid of the trunk. Again, she held her tongue. These people had no idea what kind of monster was moving among them, and it needed to stay that way or they would all be in danger.
They stopped and she listened as Cromartie got out and racked the slide of his pistol. A few seconds later the trunk opened and Sarah flinched away from the blazing light of the Mexican day. She felt a hand around her neck as Cromartie lifted her out of the car, setting her down on the ground. Her eyes were still having trouble adjusting, but she could hear the people around them running away as they realized that something very bad was going down. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw a flash of incongruous long blonde hair, but it disappeared before she could get a decent look. The terminator half pushed, half dragged her by the neck towards what looked like a small hotel built around a courtyard.
Finally getting a good look at the place, she realized where they were and felt like someone had stabbed her in the stomach.
"JOHN!!!" she screamed, her throat raw from dehydration. "RUN!!!"
Cromartie shifted his grip on her neck so she could barely breathe, much less yell. He frog marched them towards the exact center of the dusty courtyard and stared unblinkingly at single door set into the far wall.
"Come out, John," he said, raising his voice.
Sarah struggled madly against his grip, but she might as well have been trying to hold back the tide. She tried to scream again, but the sound wouldn't come. Cromartie lifted her clear of the ground, legs kicking in a useless frenzy, and placed the muzzle of his gun at the back of her head.
"Last chance," the terminator said.
Sarah felt her heart shatter as the door opened, showing her son standing several steps back, partially hidden by shadows but clearly recognizable. His arms were folded easily across his chest and he stared at Cromartie with calculated disdain.
"Let her go," he said.
He wasn't asking, or even begging. It was an order.
The first and last one that General John Connor would ever give.
Cromartie tossed her to the side with terrifyingly casual power. Sarah went spinning ass over elbows, sliding along the stony ground until she fetched up hard against the bottom of the wall on the other side of the courtyard. Her elbow and shoulder ached like fire, but she scrambled to her feet and stared in horror as Cromartie strode quickly towards the open door where John was, the pistol in his hand barking shot after shot. The gunfire continued as he entered the hotel room and Sarah broke into a run, already knowing that she was too late.
She was about twenty feet from the door when the entire wall in front of her exploded, flinging her backwards through the air. A flash of white light filled her vision as the back of her head slammed into the ground and the world went mercifully black.
JOHN'S P.O.V
"Do you know what you need to do?"
Riley rolled her eyes at him as she finished filling a huge black trash bag with the leftovers from their little science experiment. Or as John liked to think of it, Dad's secret family recipe for roasted cyborg. Moth balls, corn syrup, ammonia, and a few other normally innocuous household goodies, which in the hands of Kyle Reece and Sarah Conner's little boy had quickly become something far deadlier. He'd added a few extra touches of his own, mostly to cut down on the prep time, but the basic formula was the same.
"Don't worry, John, I can handle it." She shrugged. "The running away is my favorite part of this plan."
He glanced up at her over the big mirror he had taken down from the bathroom.
"You should go. He'll be here soon."
She finished tying up the bag and set it on the bed, then walked over towards him and put a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down for a soft, lingering kiss. She leaned her head against his chest.
"I want to tell you something before I go, just in case I don't get a chance later."
He put his arms around her waist.
"What's that?"
She glanced up at him, a smile tugging one side of her mouth.
"This is the worst date I've ever been on."
He couldn't help but laugh.
"Seriously," she said, "the next time you feel like sharing one of your favorite childhood memories, bury the urge, okay?"
"All right, I promise," he told her. "I guess that means I should cancel that trip to the LA River, huh?"
She frowned. "What happened at the LA River?"
He grinned in remembrance. "My Uncle Bob gave me a ride on his motorcycle down there once. Some other stuff happened, but you wouldn't believe me if I told you."
She kissed him again and backed away shaking her head.
"Like I said… fucking weird."
He shrugged. "What can I say. My family puts the anal in dysfunctional."
She made a horrified face.
"Bad images, John… just… bad."
Riley picked up the bag and went to leave, casting a final look over her shoulder before stepping very carefully over the recently replaced floorboards in front of the door and walking out. John didn't watch her go. He was having trouble reconciling the smiling, almost painfully normal girl he had been going out with for the last few weeks with the person who had chosen to stay and help him get ready for Cromartie's arrival, and he knew that if he let himself dwell on it for too long he'd only end up distracting himself from the task at hand.
A few more twists of the wrench on the modified frame he had thrown together for the mirror and all that was left was to make sure it was in the right place. He made a few on-the-fly calculations and pushed the mirror about five feet from the door, tilted at an angle so that from outside it would reflect the dark space just next to the door. Cromartie would want to see him before he let Sarah go, but John wasn't quite stupid enough to put himself in the direct line-of-sight of an armed terminator.
He stood back and glanced warily at the floorboards.
"Maybe not that stupid, but not terribly bright either," he muttered to himself.
A cracked, rasping scream from outside told him it was finally show time.
"JOHN!!! RUN!!!"
John felt a pulse of white-hot rage go through him at the tortured sound of his mother's voice, but crushed it ruthlessly. No distractions. He needed to be perfect if this was going to work. He moved over and set himself into place, pulling out his cell phone and scrolling down to Riley's number.
299,792,458 meters per second. That was how fast light traveled. The digital signal from a cell phone moved at an almost identical speed, but when you factored in the time it took for the signal to travel to the nearest cell tower and back again, plus the time the relatively simplistic computers in both phones took to process the call, the wait between hitting send and actually hearing the other phone ring was about nine and a half seconds.
John knew. He had timed it.
Repeatedly.
Nine and a half seconds was slightly less than eternity when you were caught between an angry terminator who was holding your mother hostage and a great big pile of homemade plastic explosives, but that was where he found himself at the moment.
"Come out, John," Cromartie's voice called to him from outside.
Maybe it was his imagination, but he almost thought he heard a note of satisfaction in the cyborg's tone.
John glanced up at the ceiling, not knowing if anyone was listening, but unable to stop himself.
"Please, God," he whispered. "Give me this one thing. Please don't take her away from me."
"Last chance."
Gathering himself, he reached over and swung the door open with one hand. As he did, he stepped back and folded his arms, concealing the phone against his ribs, thumb resting on the send key. In the reflection of the mirror, he could see Cromartie holding his mother up by the neck, her legs jerking in midair like she was hanging from a noose. The terminator had his gun pressed against her head.
"Let her go," he barked, the words coming out before he knew what he was saying.
Whether by design or some odd sense of wanting to honor their deal, Cromartie did just that, flinging Sarah aside and stepping forward, weapon raised. The mirror shattered as the first bullets smashed into it and John lifted his arm to shield himself from the spray of glass, pressing the button on his phone as he did.
Nine and a half seconds and counting.
He didn't have far to go, but neither did Cromartie. John sensed more than saw him in the doorway as he sprinted across the room and felt a searing pain tear through his right shoulder. He stumbled forward, diving into the empty hot tub, the water having been replaced with pillows set there to break his fall, just as a second shot grazed him behind the left ear.
Three…
Two…
One…
John had just enough time to pull the mattress from the bed down on top of him and shove his fingers in his ears before the bomb underneath Cromartie's feet went off. Riley had somewhat perversely changed the ringtone on her phone after he told her what he wanted to use it for, and the last thing he heard before roaring, ungodly thunder filled the room was the opening line from "Sympathy for the Devil" drifting up from the floor.
"Please allow me to introduce myself…"
BBBBOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was bigger than he'd thought it'd be. For one horrifying second, John was certain he'd killed himself, that the ceiling would come down on top of him at any moment. The shockwave rattled his bones and snatched the breath away from him, leaving him disorientated and gasping.
He didn't know how long it was that he laid there at the bottom of that tub, but at some point it occurred to him that he was still alive and that it was probably time to get the fuck out of there. Every single inch of him ached, and his shoulder felt like someone was stabbing him with red-hot razor blades, but he managed to force himself to his feet, shedding the now burning mattress as he did.
What was left of the room was unrecognizable. He doubted that a single stick of furniture, or anything else bigger than a breadbox, had survived the blast. He glanced around, looking for Cromartie, and nearly fell over himself when he realized that the cyborg had landed not more than four feet away from him, half embedded into the wall next to the tub. The flesh around his feet had been shredded to mid-thigh, leaving the legs of his metal endoskeleton exposed, scorched and slightly bent, but seemingly functional. The impact with the wall had taken off the left side of his face and most of the skin on that arm. The gun he had been carrying was nowhere to be seen.
One hundred and twenty seconds until it reactivated, and John didn't have a clue how much time he had left. It was possible that it was down for the count, but he wasn't willing to underestimate Cromartie yet again. Every time he'd done that before… every time he thought he was finally safe and the terminator couldn't find him, he'd turn around and there it was again, waiting for him.
John felt his lips curl back into a snarl as he looked down at the thing.
No more. Not after today.
But first things first. This wasn't the time or the place. He needed to get Cromartie away from town before he could safely deal with it. Massive explosions not withstanding, he wanted to make sure that no one else got hurt. Turning towards the now mostly missing front wall, he stumbled out into the impossibly bright, late afternoon sun.
God, had it really been less than a day since Cameron had tried to convince him to break it off with Riley?
That thought was shoved away when his eyes landed on the frighteningly still form of his mother, sprawled out on the ground about forty feet away. He wasn't sure how he crossed the intervening space, but the next thing he knew, he was kneeling down beside her, pressing trembling fingers to the side of her neck and nearly passing out with relief when he felt a strong, steady pulse there.
He put his mouth down near her ear.
"Mom, you need to get up now. Please."
Her head rolled to the side, a few feeble coughs escaping her lips.
"Come on, mom, don't you think you've played damsel in distress enough for one day? I swear if you make me carry you, I'll never let you live it down."
That seemed to put a little life in her. Her light green eyes… his eyes, opened a fraction, the beginnings of a glare beginning to stir in them.
"Who are you calling a damsel in distress, boy," she growled, then suddenly seemed to remember where she was.
Sarah's eyes popped open as she came fully awake and her arms shot out to wrap desperately around him.
God, John," she nearly sobbed. "I thought I'd lost you."
He pulled them both to their feet and they leaned against each other as they quickly moved towards the arch that led out into the street.
"Yeah, well… I was never worried," he lied through his teeth. "Had it under control the whole time."
She glanced up at him, not buying a word, but grateful for the attempt at cheering her up.
"Alright, mastermind," she said wryly. "If you're so smart, how the hell are we supposed to get out of here?"
That question was answered by the blue Charger convertible that pulled up in front of them in a cloud of dust and gravel. Riley pulled off her sunglasses, looking them up and down from the driver's seat.
"Hey, Mrs. Baum. Need a ride?"
Sarah stared at the girl like she'd never seen her before. "Riley, what in god's name are you doing here?"
"I'm the getaway driver," she grinned, then shrugged in seeming disappointment. "I wanted to be live bait, but we flipped for it and John won."
The bait in question glanced at the car and let out a low, approving whistle. "Holy shit, this is Cromartie's car?"
Riley drummed on the steering wheel excitedly. "I know, it's awesome! Can I keep it? I love the racing stripe!"
"Screw that," John said flatly. "My plan, my bomb. That means I keep the spoils of war."
Riley frowned, then stopped and looked at something behind them, her face going blank.
"John? We need to go. Right now."
He turned around and looked out through the arch and across the courtyard. Cromartie had pulled himself out of the wreckage and was standing perfectly still just outside what was left of the honeymoon suite. The sun gleamed off the side of his face that was now only exposed metal, but somehow his single blazing red eye seemed even brighter.
There was a lingering moment where the three humans and one terminator stared at each other, and then John felt his mother grab him and tackle them both into the backseat of the convertible. At that exact second, Cromartie broke into a dead sprint towards them, steel alloy toes digging into the ground to give him more traction.
"DRIVE," Sarah screamed.
One of John's most vivid memories of the time right after his mother had been arrested and sent to the mental institution was during his first day at a real school, when his teacher explained to them that, if a cheetah were to race a top-fuel dragster along the length of the classroom, the cheetah would win easily. Naturally enough, the idea of a living creature being able to defeat a machine at it's own game greatly appealed to him and had stuck with him ever since.
Watching the terminator close the gap between them at a blatantly unfair speed while their car spun its tires and fought for grip on the road, John briefly wondered where a good cheetah was when you needed it. Cromartie was nearly at the arch leading out of the courtyard before the Charger finally lurched into motion. Riley hauled the steering wheel to the right and they cut hard towards the street, nearly fishtailing with Cromartie hot on their heels.
The cyborg gave a final lunge of effort and caught the bumper with one hand, dragging himself up onto the back of the car. John flung himself backwards as a metallic fist swung through the place where his head had been a second earlier and found himself laying halfway between the front seats, his wounded shoulder screaming in agony. Cromartie reached for Sarah and he acted instinctively, reaching out with one hand and dragging the steering wheel hard to the side again. The car spun in a circle and Cromartie was hurled off, his legs dragging along the ground with one hand gripping a fender tight enough that his fingers were gouged into the steel.
John heaved himself sideways, careful not to bang into the gear shift but heedless of the pain in his shoulder, and slid into the front seat. Between his feet was what looked like a gift bag from a local tourist trap. He glanced inside and pulled out an HK-5 with the stock removed.
"Mom," he shouted, reaching back to hand it to her, grip first.
Sarah grabbed the weapon and hauled back on the bolt in one smooth motion. Holding it with both hands, she stood up in the backseat and unloaded the entire clip over the side, directly into Cromartie's face. The 9mm cartridges slammed into its armored skull so rapidly that it sounded like a single long, high-pitched whine rather than individual pings, gouging even more holes into the cybernetic flesh and denting the hyper alloy underneath. One lucky shot tore through the exposed eye, extinguishing the single burning red light there and leaving it half blind.
Riley turned hard again, trying to shake the damn thing off, but it wouldn't budge. Cromartie reached up with his free hand grabbed the barrel of Sarah's machine pistol, crushing it and tearing it out of her grasp.
"John Connor will be terminated," it growled, a slight digital echo accompanying the unfamiliar tinge of anger in its voice.
John pumped the action of the shotgun he that was loading while his mother was fighting the terminator and turned around in his seat, pointing the barrel down at it.
"Say that to my face and see what happens."
He shifted his aim down to the cyborg's hand and fired, blowing a hole in the fender where Cromartie was latched on. The shotgun bucked hard into his injured shoulder and he nearly fell over the side before Sarah reached out and caught him. Cromartie fell off the side of the car, tumbling into the street before finally righting himself and racing after them again.
"Uncle Bob taught me that, too," he said to Riley as he painfully eased himself back down in his seat. "But in fairness, I'm the one who explained to him about the importance of dramatic one-liners."
Sarah gave him an I-am-not-amused look and took the shotgun. "Don't get him started about the fucking catchphrases, Riley."
Riley glanced between mother and son, giving them each a look that said quite clearly she thought they were both completely insane, then decided that the best course of action was to keep her mouth shut and drive.
"Turn left here and swing around," John told her, pointing towards the intersection. "We need to be going north."
"Cromartie won't stay gone for long," Sarah said. "He'll find a ride pretty quick, and the only listed road out of here is that one. We can cut east and lose him on the trail around the quarry. That's not on any of the maps."
John glanced back at her. "That would work if I wanted to lose him, but I don't. Turn left, Riley."
He flipped open his phone and hit Derek's speedial. Sarah started to argue with him, but stopped when he held up a hand. He gave her a slightly disbelieving look, but all she did was shrug and go back to watching behind them.
"John," Derek's slightly panicked voice came through the phone. "Are you all right?"
He thumbed the code to confirm his identity, but his uncle wasn't having any of it.
"Enough with the stupid fucking buttons, John," Derek snapped. "What the hell is going on!"
John shook his head. "I'm good. Mom's here. Where are you?"
"About twenty minutes out."
"Perfect. Listen, there's a crossroad in a valley a couple of miles north of town. When you get there I want you and Cam to set up and wait for us. Did you bring your grenade launcher?"
He could practically hear the eager grin in the older man's voice. "Got a brand new one."
"Good. We're going to bring Cromartie to you, so be ready when we get there."
"We will. Where's the machine now?"
John whipped his head around as he heard a siren and squealing tires behind him. For a second, he thought the local authorities had finally gotten their act together and started coming after them, but quickly spotted the terminator behind the wheel of the speeding police truck.
"Right on my ass," he answered. "I'll call you back."
He snapped the phone shut and directed Riley down a narrow back alley that linked up with the main road about half a mile from where they were. Cromartie skidded into the alley, nearly on top of them. The cyborg reared back a fist and smashed a hole his own windshield, then reached into the seat beside him and pulled out the service revolver of whichever poor sap he had stolen the truck from.
"GET DOWN," Sarah yelled, ducking behind the backseat as Cromartie unloaded his weapon into the car. John grabbed Riley and pulled her down with him, the car banging into either side of the alley like a pinball machine with no one steering.
"That's some plan, John," Sarah snapped at him between the seats. "Let's not lose him!"
"Hey! How was I supposed to know he'd find another gun so fast?"
She glared at him again and crouched over the back of the seat, returning fire with the shotgun. Cromartie gunned his engine and slammed into the back of the Charger, sending them sliding forward at an angle, the car scraping either side of the alley diagonally.
"This is a car chase, Riley," John said, reaching down and pressing the accelerator with his hand. "The gas pedal is your friend."
The engine roared, but didn't gain much speed.
"I can't reach the shifter," she yelled.
John cursed under his breath. "Mom! What's he doing?!"
Sarah peeked over the backseat. "Can't tell! Reloading, I think!"
"Shit! Riley, move over and let me drive!"
"Move where!"
Sarah answered that by grabbing the girl by the hair and dragging her into the backseat, then shoving her to the floor. John flashed her a half apologetic look as he heaved himself into the driver's seat and steadied them out, the pain from his injured shoulder still flaring, but manageable for the moment.
"JOHN!!!"
He glanced back at the sound of his mother's scream and suddenly wished he was down on the floor with Riley, even if it meant being dragged by the hair. Somewhere in that truck, Cromartie had found a 12 gauge shotgun, which he had shoved one-handed through the hole in the windshield, the barrel pointing directly at John's face.
Three things happened nearly simultaneously. Sarah turned around and wrapped herself around the back of John's seat, trying to use her body to shield him from the blast. John ducked down and jammed on the brakes of the Charger, letting the police truck slam into the back of them.
A half second later, Cromartie pulled the trigger.
The roar of the shotgun and the sound of twisting metal and breaking glass as the two vehicles slammed together filled John's ears, but he didn't dare turn to look behind him, terrified of what he would see. He threw the car back into gear and floored the gas, easily pulling away from the truck now that he'd blunted it's momentum. The converted police Bronco that the cyborg had commandeered just didn't have enough engine to keep up with the Charger from a standing start. He tore out of the alleyway and yanked the steering wheel to the left, working the handbrake and the clutch at the same time, forcing them into a powerslide that put them onto the main road going north, Cromartie still following but now steadily losing ground.
John took a deep breath. "Mom," he called tentatively, still refusing to look over his shoulder.
"I'm here," Sarah said, putting a hand on his arm. "I think you knocked off his aim right there at the end."
"You're not hit?"
No, I'm good."
"What about Riley?"
"I think I'm going to throw up."
John looked down and to his right and was met by a pair of miserable blue eyes.
"What happened to the gas pedal being your friend?"
He gave her an unapologetic shrug.
"If you're going to be sick, do it over the side," Sarah said, reloading the shotgun.
Riley glanced back at John, who shrugged again.
"Don't look at me. The last time I had the flu, she made me run two miles in the rain before she'd give me chicken soup. Said it was good training."
"Fucking weird," Riley muttered one more time.
John pulled out his phone again, weaving through the light local traffic at about a hundred miles an hour while Sarah kept an eye on the terminator in pursuit.
"Derek, where are you?"
"At the ambush," his uncle answered. "We're good to go on this end."
"We'll be there in three minutes," John told him. "Blue convertible. Cromartie's in a police truck about thirty seconds behind us."
"Got it."
John snapped the phone closed and called over his shoulder.
"You guys ready?"
"Damn straight," his mother growled. "Let's kill that metal motherfucker!"
Riley just ducked a little lower on the floor of the car. Probably the wisest course of action, all things considered.
John looked up into the rearview mirror and let his foot off the accelerator a fraction.
"Heeere, puppy-puppy-puppy," he sang softly. "Come chase the nice tasty rabbit."
He let the terminator get just close enough to keep it following them, but safely out of shotgun range. The last of the traffic disappeared as they neared the low, boulder-strewn valley and John opened up the throttle, not wanting to take a chance on getting caught in the crossfire.
Riley peeked out between the seats at the seemingly empty crossroads.
"You sure this is the right place," she asked. "I don't see them."
John grinned as they reached the bottom of the valley and tore through, leaving Cromartie in the dust.
"That's kinda the point."
As if that were a signal, the sound of heavy machine gun fire split the air to their left and John saw Cromartie's truck swerve wildly in the mirror, it's front tires blown out and engine shredded. The wounded truck skidded into a low, flat boulder just off the side of the road and rolled over on its side, sliding forty feet into the Mexican scrub. A dull thumping noise echoed up from the opposite side of the road and the truck exploded into a ball of flames. Two more grenades slammed into it in rapid succession, ripping it in nearly in half.
John threw them into a vicious one-eighty turn and gunned it back towards the ambush spot. He wanted to see this… needed to see it.
They arrived just in time to see Derek emerge from cover, a wicked-looking twelve shot grenade launcher cradled in his hands as he continued to fire shot after shot into the now destroyed vehicle. Cameron approached from the other side of the road, toting a .50 caliber machine gun that was nearly as large as she was, just as easily as John would carry his laptop. The two of them pumped a relentless torrent of fire into the now burning police truck, methodically tearing it to pieces.
John stopped the car and got out, walking towards the carnage. Sarah hissed a curse and went to join him, telling Riley to stay in the car and rushing over to take a position where she was walking slightly in front of him, shotgun at the ready. As they approached, Cameron looked over her shoulder at him, a flicker of dismay passing across her face. She dropped the machine gun she was holding and sprinted towards them.
"You're hurt," she said, then turned to look at Derek. "You didn't say that he was hurt."
John's uncle still had his weapon trained on the blazing wreckage, but glanced worriedly over at them. "I didn't know, you stupid metal bitch!"
Cameron reach out to touch his shoulder, probably wanting to scan him and find out how bad the damage was, but John brushed past her and kept going. He was still having trouble figuring out how he was supposed to act around her, and right now didn't seem like the best time to open that can of worms. Maybe it wasn't fair, but he didn't think he had the energy for fair at the moment.
The sound of metal moving against metal reached them as they approached the truck. Both Sarah and Cameron quickly stepped in front him, not letting him go any further. Derek slung the grenade launcher over his shoulder and picked the machine gun up off the ground, grunting with the effort.
"Persistent fucker, isn't he," Derek growled.
It was a sorry excuse for a terminator that finally worked its way free of the burned out truck. All the flesh had been torn off of Cromartie's endoskeleton, and its right arm was the only limb that was still attached and functional. The shotgun that it had used in the alley had been ejected in the crash and lay almost fifty feet away, but the machine dug its fingers into the sand and began dragging itself towards it. Sarah walked over and picked it up, tucking it under one arm.
Still undeterred, Cromartie turned its single functioning eye on John and started hauling itself towards him. Cameron let out a sound he'd never heard her make before, something very close to a growl, and strode towards it, planting a single booted foot into the center of its back and taking its remaining arm in both hands, ripping it clean out of the socket with a single powerful motion.
John reached into his back pocket and pulled out the heavy duty multi-tool he had taken to carrying with him. Cameron knelt down on Cromartie's back and yanked its head up, nearly bending it backwards. It's single red eye narrowed, focusing on him as he stepped forward.
"You cannot stop the future," it said, its voice now little more than digital static.
John squatted down on his heels and stared right back.
"You say that, but Skynet still keeps trying." He shook his head and popped open the port cover that protected Cromartie's CPU. "But if you're so concerned about the future… here's a little spoiler."
He leaned down as if he were going to whisper something into where the cyborg's ear used to be, then yanked its chip out with his opposite hand. Cromartie gave a final jerk, then went completely still, nothing more than charred metal anymore. John turned the CPU over in his fingers, then sighed and stood up, sticking it in his pocket as he turned to walk away.
"We win."
(end)
AN: I've decided to go ahead and expand this into a multi-chapter fic. The new title is a reference to a line from the Director's Cut of T2, where John is explaining about his childhood to Uncle Bob.
"See, I grew up in places like this, so I just thought that was how people lived," John said, checking the chamber of an AK-47. "Riding around in helicopters, learning how to blow shit up. But then when my mom got busted, I got put into a regular school."
He pitched his voice into a mocking whine. "All the other kids were into Nintendo."
The idea here is to explore a John Connor who's less concerned with being "normal" and more willing to take a leading role in the shaping of his own destiny. This story won't follow all the way through towards any kind of potential final battle with Skynet, but will focus on how John handles his first true battle with the machines. It'll be John/Cam eventually, but I plan to make them work for it. I wanted to include some more wrap-up at the end, where the two of them would have interacted more closely, but the chapter ran long and I pushed it back into chapter three.
Riley came off a lot better in this than I'd planned, particularly when you consider that I despise everything about her character. Not sure what to think about that. Be on the look out for a pistol-whipping to come her way before long.
The Wal-Mart thing is a blatant ripoff of a similar scene in Gross Pointe Blank. I realize that the Wal-Marts in Mexico aren't actually called "Wal-Mart", (They're the biggest private employer in the country, but most of the stores are a subsidiary called Bodega Aurrera) however I left the name in because the reference is on that everyone should understand.
Bonus nerd points and maybe a mention in the next chapter for anyone who recognizes the address that Cromartie mentioned. Credit for the "Say that to my face" line goes to Darius at DLP and his defense of the lol-worthy phenomenon known as "Canadian Politics."
Big D