Predaking50ae Scenes 111-120

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Scene 111: Cold Hearted

Walking back to her room she felt lighter. She felt as though all of their problems were evaporating. In only a few hours, they had worked out so many of them.

Sarah stepped out from a side room directly in her path, syphoning away the only happiness she'd felt in months.

"We need to talk." Sarah said firmly.

"Not here, we'll wake John."

"You are manipulating my son. I want to know why."

"I'm not. I wouldn't-"

"You've convinced him that you can feel, that you're a person."

"But I can feel."

"Oh yeah? And how the hell do you know that?"

"John told me."

"When? After you tricked him into believing it?"

"No, he told me I had emotions after he reactivated me."

"That was after you cried and told him you loved him!"

"No, in the future after he saved me. After he released me from my programming."

"You expect me to believe that? You're a machine!"

"John said humans are machines too. He said they're just made with different materials."

"Do I look like a machine to you?"

"Yes. Your body is powered by-"

"THAT DOESN'T MATTER."

Cameron was confused, how could the evidence not matter?

"THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT'S IN HERE!" Sarah placed her hand over her heart.

"WHAT DOES A MACHINE LIKE YOU HAVE IN THERE!" she jammed a finger into Cameron's chest.

"John." she answered looking at the floor, "John is all I have."

"HE'S NOT YOURS!"

"YES! I! AM!" John appeared in the hallway with fire in his eyes.

"John, don't be stupid. You know what she is!"

"I know WHO she is."

"DAMN IT JOHN SHE'S NOT A PERSON!"

"YES SHE IS! SHE FEELS! SHE THINKS! SHE LEARNS! SHE DOES EVERYTHING THAT MAKES US HUMAN!"

"But she's not human. A human wouldn't-"

"A human wouldn't what? Wouldn't Kill to protect me? Wouldn't die to protect me?"

"You know I'd do those things!"

"That's my point! She loves me, she'd die for me- she already did! Even if you can't accept that you must see that I'm better off with her here!"

"We were fine before she showed up, John. We don't need her."

"No we don't, but I do. I didn't know what would happen when I brought her back that night. I thought she'd kill me, but I didn't care. I would rather die than face the future without her!"

Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but didn't get a chance.

"John, she's your mother. She loves you. You need her." Cameron said as she put a comforting arm around his shoulder.

"Don't you touch him!"

John stared unblinking into his mothers eyes. His face was blank.

"We all have to grow up sometime."

Scene 112: Satin and Sawdust

7:30am. The sun had risen over the 'Baum' residence. The T-880 had fixed the front door, and reset the security system. Neither would stop Derek or a terminator, but they would deter amateur criminals and vandals.

John had spent the night reading 'The Wizard of Oz' aloud- in very rusty Spanish -while Cameron rested her head on his shoulder.

The story wasn't very good, but she knew that it wasn't about the story. It was about the memories. The few years during which his mother had spared him from the truth about his future. Innocence was what the story represented to him.

Then she saw the similarities between the book and John's destiny.

Forces beyond Dorothy's control had propelled her into the land of Oz, where she was declared a hero for something she hadn't even done, and expected to save everyone in the land. She was expected to fix everyone's problems when all she wanted was to go home.

The Tin Woodman, a machine who was willing to do anything for a heart, only to discover that he already had one.

The Wicked Witch of the West was trying to take away what little hope Dorothy had left.

Even the almighty Wizard was just a man.

After it was over, everyone but Dorothy was better off for her intervention. Her only reward, was going home, back to the way things already had been, before the tornado.

She would never see her friends again. She could never tell anyone what had happened.

Who would believe her?

As a terminator, Cameron naturally compared new information to old in order to better understand it, and to avoid storing useless data.

She had always undertood the definition of the word 'metaphor', but for the first time she realized the importance. She realized that to John, the whole story was a metaphor. If Dorothy could go home, so could he.

Cameron had been so still and calm as he read to her that he had to remind himself several times 'She doesn't sleep'.

As John closed the book, he heard Cameron's whisper.

"No fate..."

"Cameron?" he couldn't believe what he'd just heard her say.

"I understand now why the story means so much to you. You wish to go home."

"No I don't." his voice was soft, but his face... had she offended him?

"You don't?" her heart sank. 'Maybe I'll never understand, never be... human enough.'

He placed the book on his lap and trapped her eyes with his.

"Cameron, you're from Oz. I don't want to go home anymore."

"I don't want you to either."

She pulled him close and held him tightly.

"Besides, what kind of badass soldier wears silver shoes?"

Scene 113: I Want To Believe

Sarah had bugged her son's room, and spent the night listening him and the machine.

Could she have been wrong about Cameron? She sounded so human. She saw deeper meaning in a simple story.

No, she just wants to keep John close by as part of her mission. Wait, her mission was no longer to 'Protect John Connor'. Or did she lie about that?

She knew what she had to do. Dropping the earpiece onto her nightstand, she headed for John's room.

Opening his door, she was stunned by the sight before her.

She knew that they had been on John's bed and therefor in close proximity for the entire night, but seeing the machine in John's arms while he stroked its hair like a normal girl was not what she had expected.

The machine wasn't trying to convince him that it was human, HE was trying to convince the machine that it was.

It was clear to her in that moment, that John's interest in the machine wasn't born from the horomones of a teenage boy, as she had believed.

John didn't stop comforting Cameron when he saw his mother.

Her mouth fell open but she couldn't speak.

She didn't know what she felt, but it wasn't the rage from the previous confrontation.

John prepared for another shouting match, but stopped when he saw the look in his mother's face as she struggled to speak.

"W-w-we need..."

She shook herself out of her stupor.

"John, we need to pull her chip."

"NO!"

"Just listen."

"NO YOU LISTEN! I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU PEOPLE HURT HER ANYMORE!"

"'You people'? John, I'm your mother."

"I don't care, I still won't let you hurt her."

"I don't want to!"

"YOU WANT TO KILL HER!"

"NO! I want to see what's on her chip."

"Her thoughts are on it! You're talking about reading her mind!"

"Yes, I am."

"Why? Why is it any of your business?"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE MY SON! I NEED TO KNOW IF SHE..."

"If she what?!"

"...if she's telling the truth about you and her, in the future, I mean."

"That's between us- them."

"I just need answers, John. I need to know if she's been manipulating everyone, or if in the future the two of you were together."

"She isn't mani-"

"Ok." Cameron said.

"Cam! You can't! I won't pull your chip."

"John, you sent back data on removing my mission objectives. You can access my visual records at the same time."

"But those are your memories..."

"It's ok. I read your mind all the time."

With a smile she gently traced her finger tips across his neck, performing a biomarker scan. She moved her hand to his chin, her touch rooting him in place, as she leaned the extra few inches and pressed her lips against his.

Sarah for her part, stayed silent since Cameron seemed to be the only one able to convince John to remove her chip. Atleast, until John's hands found the bare skin on Cameron's lower back, above her lowrider jeans, but below her shirt. It looked like any second he was going lay back and pull her with him.

"I'm still here."

Reluctantly, they separated.

"John, everything will be fine."

"All right, Cam."

Scene 114: A Piece of Me

Cameron lay on her bed, John sitting to the side. Sarah had left them alone for this.

John began cutting a semi-circle around Cameron's CPU port.

"John?" her voice was small.

"Yeah?" his voice trembling.

"Whatever happe-"

"Nothing's going to happen."

He peeled back the her scalp.

"John. Whatever happens. Whatever you see. Please remember, I love you."

"I love you, too. But nothing's going to happen."

"When I was glitching, after I went bad? Those memories weren't supposed to be there."

"What do you mean?"

He removed the CPU port's cover, breaking the seal.

"Before my reprogramming, my memory was supposed to be wiped. The information is apparently still there, just not consciously accessible. I did bad things."

"Cameron, you were a terminator."

"No, I AM a terminator, and I've done bad things here, too."

"It was your job. We don't expect soldiers to bear the responsibility of every decision they make, even when they have to kill people."

"Soldiers don't kill children." she didn't know if she'd done so, but she knew that she would have while under Skynet's control.

John's reassuring smile wavered for a moment, but came back strong.

"They do if their programming is strong enough."

"John, things won't be the same."

"Yes they will be. Cameron, I promise."

One half turn, counter-clockwise.

"You'll see things. Things that humans aren't supposed to see. You'll see war. You'll see it through my eyes."

"I'm not afraid."

She saw his smile, his kind, green eyes seemed to be glowing from the love behind them.

"I am."

Her world went black.

Scene 115: Things Have Changed, John

Three hours later.

Cameron's chip has been reinserted. Fifteen seconds and she be back online.
During this time, she sees the last 15 seconds before deactivation.
The last image is of John's loving eyes.

Her optic sensors come back online, and she sees John's face. There's no love there.

"You're fixed." he says flatly.

"John, I-"

"Mom's satisfied."

"That's good, but I ha-"

"I installed that CPU protector thing."

"John, ple-"

"Don't worry about it."

"Please, let me explain."

"You're a terminator. I knew what you were capable of."

He hadn't called her that in a long time. It was accurate, but his usage demonstrated just how bad what he'd seen must have been.

"Please don't hate me."

"..."

"Please, John."

"..."

Scene 116: Pain for Pleasure

One hour before reactivation.

John has just seen Cameron chase down and kill eight people, after they escaped from their cage in some sort of ship.

Two had tried to fight her, just trying to buy time for the others.
Two more were killed the moment she reached them.
Four of them begged for their lives.
Three of those even offered to walk, and later, crawl, back to their cage.

The ones who begged took the longest to die. Their screams and pleas echoed in the metallic hull of the ship.

She had simply laughed at them.

A T-888 endoskeleton had arrived and quickly silenced the broken and mutilated bodies.

Cameron had flown into a rage screaming about not 'having spent enough time with them'.

The T-888 had offered them a merciful death, even though it was under the same directives that she had been.

'We're not built to be cruel' she had once told him. Yet, she was anyway.

Now he watches Cameron and Derek, or rather, Derek through Cameron's eyes. He's been injected- no, forced to inject himself -with some sort of drug.

"What was her favorite thing to do?"

"Dancing... She liked to dance..."

John hadn't known there was a pressure point on each side of the neck.

"What kind of dancing?"

"Ballet..."

Cameron knew.

"What else did she like?"

"Music..."

Cameron enjoyed teaching Derek Reese about them.

"What kind of music?"

"Classic...al..."

She held a shackled Derek Reese's face inches from her own, one hand on each side of his neck. Without blinking, moving, or allowing him to do the latter, she stared into his eyes for six hours at a time, on atleast three occasions.

"Specifically?"

"I don't know..."

She kept asking questions about 'Allison Young', John Connor, and Connor's camp.

"Specifically?"

"I told you, I don't know..."

John knew there might be torture, but he didn't expect the psychological variety. It seemed worse, somehow, than the purely physical torture he had attempted to prepare himself to see.

"Specifically?"

"Should have asked her... before you stole... her face..."

He wasn't prepared to watch his own uncle being broken by hours of questioning, drugs, and pain.

"I did. She said 'Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor Number 20'. It's playing right now."

"Then why did-?"

John certainly wasn't prepared to watch Cameron enjoy what she was doing. He knew that she could monitor biomarkers. He knew that this allowed her to tell if someone was being honest. She pretended to not have the ability with Derek.

When he told her the truth, she continued anyway.

"Not all at once, mind you, it took a very, very, very long time."

"But why?"

She had asked questions she already knew the answers to, long after he'd been broken.

"Because I enjoy our time together." she began laughing.

"Metal... bitch..."

She had fun doing it.

"Don't worry, we have another two hours, thirty-seven minutes, si- five seconds left."

"What... do you have to... gain...?"

She seemed to enjoy this time with Derek just as much as she would her time with John.

"I told you, I want to spend more time with you."

"She was... just a girl..."

John's affection in 2027 and 2008 appeared to make her no happier than Derek's suffering. She became more playful about it as time went on, taunting him instead of asking questions.

"Not just a girl, a very pretty girl. Look at these eyes, aren't they gorgeous?"

"...why...?"

"RUDE! You haven't noticed my hair! And after I worked so hard to get it right..."

"...she was... nobody..."

"I have a beautiful singing voice, too."

"...she was... just a girl..."

"Not to Connor."

Scene 117: Hello, Nurse

Two hours before reactivation.

John spent the previous hour removing Cameron's mission related programming leaving her with absolutely no mission parameters.

Everything that Cameron had done after he brought her back had been by choice.

John knew that for a fact, having read her chip. He also knew that from this point forward anything she did would be by choice.

She completely free, and he had freed her.

"Mom! I found it!"

"Already?!" his mother sounded surprised as she shouted from another room.

A few loud foot steps and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich appeared beside him.

"Oh, thanks. Yeah, her chip is full of this stuff, months of it."

"Months?"

"Yeah, watch."

Through Cameron's eyes they saw the concrete halls of John Connor's TechCom stronghold.

"You said this was it?"

"Just watch."

The tour neared an elevator. She took it down.

"An elevator ride isn't what I was looking for, John."

"Watch."

Getting off, she headed for her destination.

"Where's she going?"

"Just watch."

She entered the room, finding it dark, she switched to infrared. Scanning the room, she discovered a single prone human form. She walked over and placed her hand around it's throat, and the reclining figure began to choke and cough.

"WHAT THE HELL IS SHE DOING!"

John doesn't answer.

Then Cameron spoke.

"John, you have a fever."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"You'll need to take isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol for two months, followed by isoniazid and rifampicin for a further four months."

"This isn't right. I'm almost certainly the only person receiving 'real' treatment."

"Don't think about that, think about resting."

"I don't need rest. Stay here with me."

"You've been quarantined until you stop coughing."

"First of all, the doctor said that most people in the base probably already have tuberculosis and are just asymptomatic. Second, you can't even catch it!"

"I wish for you to feel better."

"I do feel better, now that you're here. Losing some sleep isn't going to be the difference between life or death."

"I'll stay, but only if you try to get some rest."

"Deal. The sole purpose of this bed will be rest and recovery."

"You didn't enjoy the 'other' things we've used it for?"

"Wha- NO! I mean yes! Of course! That's not what-"

"I fooled you again."

"You love doing that to me, don't you?"

"John, I only love YOU."

"I love you too, Allison."

John ends playback. Sarah and John take a moment to absorb what they've just witnessed.

"Who's Allison?" Sarah asked.

"I don't know. Maybe just an alias. When Cameron glitched, she said her name was Allison."

"Glitched?"

"She forgot who she was while shopping. I didn't tell you because I knew that you and Derek would kill her. Don't worry about it, it won't happen again. The problem is fixed." The lie was easy, for all he knew it might have been fixed.

"Do you know anything else?"

"Just that she's from Palmdale. There's a lot of stuff that Cameron can't remember because it's blocked. I'll look for more info on Allison."

Scene 118: I Lay My Dreams at Your Feet...

Several minutes after reactivation.

Cameron has continued to cry and beg John not to hate her. John, however, has shown no concern for her, no happiness at her safe return. She followed him as he silently walked back to his room having not slept the previous night.

John had just stepped through the doorway to his room when Cameron grabbed him by the arm. Spinning him around, forcibly pulling him to her body and holding him tightly.

"I'm tired. Let go of me."

"Don't hate me, please don't hate me. I love you John. It wasn't me."

"I saw what you did."

"John, please. Please, whatever you saw, it wasn't me."

"You tortured people, toyed with them. If the triple-eight hadn't..."

"I didn't know! You wiped those memories! You said they weren't mine, that I shouldn't have to carry them!"

"You tortured Derek."

"...!" disbelief took over her tear covered face.

"You enjoyed it. You taunted him about having Allison's voice. Her hair. Her eyes."

He had a look of disgust on his face as his eyes paused at her mouth, his hand played with her hair, and finally he looked into her eyes. She had never felt as much pain as she did when he looked into her eyes with revulsion.

"That wasn't me, John."

"I'd have burned you if it was."

"John?! Then why are you-"

"Because I was wrong about you. I thought you were different."

"I am different!" her eyes begged him to see that she was, pleaded with him to tell her that he knew she different.

"How? Size? Sex? How are you any different from the machines we burn every day?"

"I ignored my own programming when it told me to kill you. You loved me, you brought me back, I couldn't kill you. My programming couldn't make me do it!"

"And when it told you to torture those people? Torture Derek?"

"I was young, John."

"You were 'Young'? Did you kill her too?"

"You know what I meant!"

"Did. You. Kill. Her?"

"Yes! Yes, I killed her! I crushed her neck in my hand! I know that I'm a monster."

"Who was she?"

"Someone close to you. I don't know any more."

"Were we- Allison and I -were we lovers?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"How do you know?"

"You loved me, how could you if I had killed your lover?"

"..."

"Please John, please forgive me!"

"..."

"It wasn't me. It wasn't! I'm different! I love you!"

Cameron's cheeks were covered in tears, her brown eyes pleading for forgiveness, for comfort. She kept her arms around him crying and begging for him to accept her back.

John remained motionless, not returning her embrace.

Despite having heard many of her words when she was trapped between the trucks, the revulsion in his eyes was replaced with disappointment.

"Why did you lie to me? Why didn't you tell me about Allison before? WHEN I ASKED!?"

His shout seemed to scare the sadness out of her. She looked stunned for a moment.

As if she thought that he knew the answer.

"You hated me. I wanted you to love me so badly, but you hated me. I had done my best, but it wasn't enough. You didn't want me. I didn't even have a mission anymore. All I had left was 2027. I was afraid you'd destroy me if you found out about her. If you did that then you'd never love me! I had to survive! I had to survive until 2027! If I could do that, then you'd love me again!"

His resolve wavered, a tear betraying his emotions. 'Was she really prepared to wait twenty years just for me to love her'?

"John! You promised! I kept my promise! Now you have to keep yours!" she struggled to force the words through the tears. Overcome with emotion, she lost her grip on him, her arms falling loosely to her sides. She wanted to hold on, but her arms wouldn't respond, her legs started to give.

John remembered how they'd been just a few hours earlier, when he'd promised things would be the same.

"John, I love you. Please?" her voice was barely a whisper, she began to collapse to her knees.

He tried to catch her, but ended up falling to his knees with her in his arms.

"I'm sorry, Cameron, I'm so sorry. It wasn't you. I know it wasn't you. I love you."

She looked into his eyes and saw the kind green eyes he'd shown her before.

"Don't ever leave me."

"I won't. I promise."

Scene 119: Lover's Quarrel

2:00am A familiar face, a cargo container, and a familiar warehouse.

"DON'T LIE TO ME!"

"Derek, baby, I-"

*slap*

"THE MACHINE WAS UNDER ORDERS FROM 'GENERAL' CONNOR!"

*slap*

"You must have heard wrong."

*slap*

"WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING?!"

*slap*

"Derek, it's me."

"DON'T PLAY GAMES!"

*slap* *slap*

"Don't you recognize me?"

*slap*

"I recognize you. You're the one who sold me out. Sold out the whole god damned human race!"

*slap* *slap* *slap* *slap*

"TELL ME WHAT YOU'RE PLANNING!"

*slap* *SLAP* *SLAP!*

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO JOHN?!

*slap* *slap*

"It's me, baby, it's Jesse."

"Fine, you don't want to talk?"

He drews his Beretta.

Her calm demeanor during the abuse suffered at his hands made it clear- she was working for the other side. Her chuckle when seeing the gun was just icing, he already figured it out. She was using him. She was using him and believed that she had enough hold over him to get through this alive.

She felt the impact on the back of her head, then nothing.

She was right. She had enough hold on him to survive this.

She knew of a plot against his nephew, and he'd be damned if he was going to let the last piece of his brother die.

He lifted her unconscious form onto his shoulder and headed to her- now his -car, throwing her into the trunk like a piece of trash.

To save John, he needed to find out what she knew. He couldn't get anything out of her, but he knew someone who could.

Scene 120: Homecoming

2:37am Outside the 'Baum' residence.

Derek parks Jesse's black Mercedez along the street. Out of habit, he checks his Beretta, knowing that it won't help him anyway.

Unafraid to die, but fearing that his intentions- and therefor the war -will be lost, he hastily scrawls a note and keeps it clenched in his fist.

'Now if they kill me, my message will still reach them.'

He steps out of the car and heads for the front door, certain to conceal his weapon in the hope that the machines will let him live long enough to explain himself to his nephew.

Feeling as though he was preparing to knock directly on a triple-eight's forehead, he placed his knuckles inches from the door.

'This ones for you, Kyle'.

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