CHAPTER THREE
||||||||||==Connor Residence (6 November 2008)==||||||||||
John came down the creaky wooden steps of the house slowly, placing one foot in front of the other with a diligence and precaution he never knew he possessed. He didn't really want to confront his mom or Derek at the moment.
But he couldn't sneak by her.
"John," he stopped mid-stride when he heard the voice behind him, at the top of the stairs. It was soft, but suspicious.
How the hell did she get up there? John asked himself. He swore he had listened to her go down stairs on patrol. Why was she there? Was she waiting for him?
Stopping like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he brought himself to his full height but kept his back to her. "Yes, Cameron?" He asked coolly. He felt his jaw muscles flicker as he waited for her response.
"Where are you going?" she asked tentatively, waiting to gauge his response before she continued. He was dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt, with running shoes.
She watched John's shoulder slump, as if a new burden had been cast on top of him.
He grinded his teeth and closed his eyes. He kept his eyes closed and prayed she would not press the issue. Reluctantly he felt his mouth opening and his throat vibrating as he began to answer.
"I'm going for a run. Down to Griffith Park, maybe a walk, I don't know. Something besides sitting here in my room like I have for the last couple of uh… days," he over-explained. He heard her coming down the stairs and he turned around on the landing. "Why?"
"John… I should go with you," she said slowly. Her voice was quiet.
She debated bringing up Riley. John had spent months with her. He had put himself in danger to spend time with her. She replayed the memory of him running from her at the computer store and again when he'd implied he would not see Riley again.
The detailed files she kept on human psychology informed her that such a relationship of that duration usually resulted in prolonged feelings of sadness, even mild depression.
Cameron accessed her memory files, digging deeper in her quick analysis of John's behavior. John had seen her approximately on one hundred and forty-six separate occasions and spent over six hundred and thirty-eight hours with her.
"I'd like to go alone," John said. He counted the stairs Cameron had stepped down. She was two behind him. "Be alone. Cromartie's dead," his voice cracked.
Cameron tilted her head at this.
"John," Cameron said. "There are dangers."
He closed his eyes at the use of his name.
"Well, I'm going now," he turned swiftly and mechanically examined her She was wearing black cargo fatigues, her black tank top… he thought it was very similar to what she'd worn in Mexico… but no shoes, which he found odd. "And you're not dressed for running."
She took a step forward. "Then I will have to run in this." She ran the next statement through her neural net interaction subroutines. They recommended against the next line, but she overrode them.
" I might look like a freak, though," she said lightly, forcing herself to smile for John's benefit at the memory, before her own smile faded back to its neutral, passive line. John's scowl informed her the comment may have had the opposite effect of what she had been hoping for.
She looked down, hanging her head at her failure.
As a machine she could read the most minute change in facial features- micro expressions of the face and body were able to be scientifically linked with emotions and motivations. Even if she could not understand the emotion, she could academically differentiate them. Unfortunately, looking at the floor, she could not see the sympathy which flashed over John's face.
Sighing, he turned back around and threw himself over and onto the couch. "Fine," he smacked his knees, "five minutes then I'm gone, whether you're ready or not." He looked over to the TV remote and debated turning on the television to something, but a Thursday at a quarter past ten in the morning didn't have much on. He figured he could watch a trashy talk show for a few minutes.
He turned the TV off after flipping through the first few channels. Sensing something wrong he flickered his ears back… it was completely silent.
"Where's mom and Derek?" He asked himself in quiet contemplation.
"They're out," Cameron said, surprising John. He almost jumped off the couch, but caught himself. He hadn't even realized he'd asked himself the question out loud. "They're going to retrieve Cromartie's body. They should be there in two hours. If traffic conditions are optimal, John," she added with a matter-of-fact tone.
John looked her over again. She'd changed, quickly, as usual, into a pink Nike tank top and some short, very short, black Nike shorts and running shoes.
"Finally… ready, now?" He sighed in frustration, crossing his arms.
"It took me sixty-four seconds to get ready. Faster than you."
John looked her over once more before looking quickly at the door and getting up. He needed to escape the house and clear his mind, stay active. As he opened the door and let Cameron out first, he followed her down the steps. He felt something inside of him, struggling to get to the surface. Something told him everything would be changing.
John had spent his early, impressionable years growing up in hot, humid climates. The jungles of South and Central America weren't just hot; they had a drowning humidity to them where he felt he could swim through the air at times. The impression that had left was that he would take the dry heat of LA over the hot and humid climate of the jungle any day.
Deftly dodging a black Ford Taurus pulling out of a driveway, he thought back to a few weeks he'd spent in Florida when he was… nine or ten, he believed. It was… he was trying to remember… after he and his mom came back from South America. Yes, that was right. They'd come in by boat to Florida and his mom had somehow found the money to pay for a two week hotel stay on the beach, the Gulf coast side.
He didn't know how his mom had gotten the money… he didn't really want to know. Up until shooting forward in time and coming across Cameron and Derek (and their impressive skills related to thievery, particularly diamonds) they'd never had much money since his mom had been forced to take odd jobs which required little paperwork or references. They didn't want to make a trail anyone could follow.
Their life depended on leaving behind the smallest footprint they could.
John had loved the two weeks he and his mom had spent in Florida, on the Gulf coast, playing on the white beaches and swimming in the clear waters and having sandwiches and juice boxes on the beach. Despite the drenching humidity, which he hated, it had been one of the best times he'd ever had.
He and his mom, the inseparable duo he remembered, running around and splashing each other in the water. Even as a kid, knowing what was out there, that moment in time had been his and his mom's, theirs forever. He'd felt truly safe with her then.
"We've run five point three miles John," Cameron said, interrupting his thoughts. "Do you wish to return to the house?" She asked.
His muscles suddenly began aching with the unwanted and unappreciated statement on how far they'd run. He wanted to sarcastically thank her for jolting him away from his thoughts, but he still felt good enough to continue. And he didn't want to spoil this moment by saying anything negative. He didn't respond. Instead he just sped up as he saw Griffith Park up ahead.
Once inside, he dodged and weaved around some slower people; an older couple walking hand in hand, and a group of young kids playing and running around and screaming. He focused a little too long on the scene, the normalcy of it, and almost ploughed into another couple walking.
Thankfully Cameron alerted him before he did, and with an artful dodge and plant of his right foot, shot to the left and barely averted them. He threw back a 'Sorry!' for brushing against them and more than likely leaving behind a bit of sweat as evidence of his intrusion.
"Cameron, you're… n-not even… s-sweating," John said, shooting her a quick glance. He guessed they'd hit six miles, and he felt like he'd been running a bit faster than usual, and his muscles and lungs began to ache. He pressed on, letting the light breeze at his back carry him forward in defiance of his body urging him to stop.
"My thermoregulatory abilities are far more efficient than humans," she stated. "My power core is capable of sustaining significantly higher speeds at higher environmental temperatures and humidity for far longer periods of time before showing signs of thermoregulatory failure."
"So… you'll sweat if y-you… run faster and a lot l-longer?" John managed to say. He pumped back his arms to give himself a little boost.
"That is partially correct. However, I will not sweat profusely. My body does not possess large quantities of excess water."
"So… how do you c-cool… yourself then?"
Cameron looked over at him, while still maintaining her pace, and gave him a stoic look. "You don't want to know."
The teenager debate pressing the issue but then he noticed Cameron was two steps in front of him. She'd maintained a perfect side-by-side position with him since they'd begun.
What the hell? Is she racing me? He questioned. He sped up and matched her. Then she was two steps in front of him again. He sped up a second time. She and he repeated this maybe six, seven more times.
"Man bro' she's beatin' you good!" John heard another jogger yell as he approached.
"Yeah, yeah," John shot back, dismissing the other guy. If only he knew what was under there.
After a half mile of running through the park playing 'Chase the Cyborg' John was finally giving in to exhaustion as his muscles began demanding more oxygen than his lungs could supply. Cameron, who was still in front of him slowed down as well without even having to look back, her sensors alerting her to John's decreasing speed.
She twirled around, the pony tail she'd tied her hair into flopping over her shoulder.
"Did I win?" She asked.
John looked at her quizzically.
"Win? Were we playing a game?" John managed to ask between breaths as his body tried with all its tired effort to oxygenate his muscles. He had his hands on his knees and was hunched over.
"John, you should stand up, it is better than bending down because you may cramp," Cameron reminded him dutifully. John was going to remain hunched over, but he could already feel the cramps. Gritting his teeth he stood up. When he did so, he saw a small lip smile. "And yes. I increased my speed, you attempted to match and surpass mine. You attempted this for point six two miles. Many would classify that as an undeclared contest."
The future leader of mankind grunted. He admitted that yeah, it had been a contest. "Sure… you win…" he declared as he grabbed his shirt and started pulling it back and forth to fan himself.
"Thank you." John noticed she hesitated, but wanted to say something else. "It is almost eleven thirty."
"Hm… wait, so it's almost eleven thirty in how many seconds," he grinned.
Cameron cocked her head. "It is now exactly eleven thirty… and two seconds. There is a hot dog stand behind us a quarter mile if you want lunch."
"I didn't bring any money," he said reluctantly. Bringing his hand to his stomach, he did feel that common pang of hunger, and he swore his stomach growled at that exact moment just to spite him. Last night he'd thrown in a pepperoni Hot Pocket into the microwave and then stalked back up to his room.
Walking back and forth he kept his eyes on Cameron, not needing to cool down or stretch, standing there idly, patiently waiting, and watching him and the others run by. He knew she got nervous, or whatever killer robots from the future got, when he was out in wide open spaces like this.
She'd wanted to buy him a treadmill so he could run in the basement… which he considered a nice gesture, or a tactically sound one. He'd declined… something about running in the basement with blood on the walls (which his mother refused to cover) was a bit too freaky creepy for him. Just thinking about it now sent a shiver down his back in the seventy-degree weather.
"So… what to do now?" John wondered aloud, blowing out between his lips and looking off into the interior of the park, looking at but over the shoulder of his machine protector.
Cameron slowly reached into a hidden pocket in the inside of her waistband and pulled out a $20 bill. She held it up, with her look on her face like it was a treasure, or some devious secret between the two of them she was excited to reveal.
Ten minutes later after waiting in a line which seemed way too long for a park hot dog stand, John had his hotdog and a bottle of water. Cameron had one as well, plus her own bottle of water. He was surprised she'd actually spoken up right before he could say 'No, that's all,' when the vendor asked him if he wanted anything else.
They'd found a spot on the grass, and with a long, tired groan John sat down and propped his back against a tree with a thud. Cameron, in her machine precision, crossed one leg over the other and lowered herself until she sat cross legged facing John. He figured it was to watch for threats behind him.
John finished his hot dog fairly quickly then snapped open the seal on the water bottle and took a long swig. Trying to drink too much at once, he took a large gulp and started coughing and choking, and ended up dribbling water all over his shirt.
"Damnit," he muttered, wiping off his chin with a swipe from the back of his hand. He looked over at Cameron, who was looking at him, but her eyes were fixed passed him, scanning. That little something he'd felt at the house started to peck at him again. John couldn't help but think that a human girl would have laughed at his little display drooling display.
He looked back out into the park and people-watched for a minute before noticing her hot dog had only one, maybe two small bites nibbled from it.
"Are you going to finish that?" He asked, eyes arching as he eyed the presumably psuedo-meat product inside a soggy bun his machine protector was holding delicately in hand.
"No. But if we are going to return to the house in a timely manner, John, extra food may upset your stomach. It will be less of a challenge for me to win another race," she said in her typical, matter-of-fact monotone.
Again, John thought a human girl would have at least smiled or done something. She made a potentially fun challenge (as fun as it was to race a cyborg) sound dull and boring.
He shrugged as he refocused on the food and casually reached over for the hot dog. "Thanks, Cameron," he said with a bit of sardonic undertones.
He wasn't going to let good food… well, food, go to waste. One, two, three big bites and it was gone. He thought he spied a flash of annoyance on Cameron's face at his disregard for her advice.
Wiping his face and taking a long, but careful drink out of his water bottle he smacked his lips and stretched out. He had a nice rest, and he figured it was probably a bit past noon at the moment.
Looking around the park he furled his brown and frowned. Most of the park patrons were either young adults, office workers out for lunch, or people other than teenagers who were supposed to be in school. He felt a bit out of place.
"We should get back to the house," John declared, setting his hands on his hips and focusing his gaze back out of the park, down the long boulevard, and squinting to see if he could see the house from the park. "We've got what… like six miles to go?"
His cyborg protector used her hands to push herself up, and she scooped up her trash and handed it to John. "Yes, like six miles to go," she said. Without thinking John took the trash from her and walked over and tossed it into a bin. Cameron was following up behind him. "But you just ate two hot dogs. You may vomit."
Cameron was, in truth, less concerned about his physical state and more concerned about his mental well-being. An upset stomach was a minor inconvenience. A troubled mind was something else entirely. As she looked at John throw the trash away the burning, permanent image of him sitting in his room after his gun had 'accidentally' discharged flashed through her neural net. She felt the anticipation and dread as she'd leapt up the stairs with Sarah and Derek.
Sarah and Derek, she remembered with a clarity only a machine could posses, had pulled their guns. They'd thought someone had shot John, some intruder. Before Cameron had even landed one foot on the floor as she rushed to John's room she had known the gunshot was not some attacker, but his own… there had been no one with him. It had just been him. Alone.
The trash fell from John's hand as Cameron watched, the entire memory raced through her neural net at such a speed the world had literally slowed to a crawl from Cameron's perception.
As John turned Cameron noticed a tiredness in his eyes she hadn't seen since she'd jumped back from 2027. It was a tiredness which was brought on by loss which she had watch cascade into antipathy and loathing.
The look bothered Cameron. She had heard John cry to himself over Riley's death in bursts and fits, with the occasional fist or some other object being driven into the wall. Sarah had asked Cameron if John cried in the future. She has dodged the question.
The only concern John had shown Cameron was over Riley's body the night after returning to LA. That question had only been followed with a 'did you take care of it'? Cameron had nodded in the affirmative and simply mimicked his question, changing the wording into a statement.
She'd taken the body deep into the desert, dug a deep hole to prevent scavenging animals from appearing, and then put the body in. There was no ceremony, no wake, and no witnesses.
Cameron had then begun her elaborate charade to fool Riley's foster parents into believe she were still alive.
She had called them from Las Vegas and told them she, posing as Riley, had appreciated everything they had done for her. She had said she just wanted to get away from it all and experience life, a faster-paced life than she had been living in the suburbs of LA. She had then carefully crafted a doctored image of Riley with a pair of random people Cameron had photographed and emailed the images to the foster parents from a new Gmail account and a laptop.
Cameron had rented a long-term storage locker and stored the cellphone and laptop and was planning to return to Las Vegas in approximetly fifteen days time and then again shortly after the New Year to continue the charade.
The memory and plan distracted Cameron long enough for her to noticed the change in John's mood. She knew John cared about people, even if he didn't show it. People were John's problem. He cared.
John looked past her with what she saw as the calculating stare of the General and stopped a few feet behind her. "Well…" he shrugged, "think of it as training." Looking back he saw Cameron's head tilt. "In the future, to my understanding, you can't tell the terminator to give you a minute while you stretch out and digest, right? What if I need to run?"
Cameron was about to answer, but he bolted away from her.
Smirking, Cameron tilted her head and chin into her chest. Future John doesn't live here, this John does, she thought, then lunged after him.
"How… how far are we from the house, Camer-" John struggled and staggered into a half-crouch, and then threw up. He threw one hand up onto the back of a bench and stepped into the grass behind a bus stop and threw up. The other hand on his knee he bent down and gagged at seeing his own vomit, then threw up again.
"We're point nine-two miles from the house, John," Cameron answered. She was standing behind him with a passive look on her face, her hands hanging loose at her sides. To a casual passer-by they may have thought she was perversely intrigued by a young man vomiting.
John picked up on the little bit of stress she placed on the distance and chuckled slightly. He wrinkled his nose at the taste of vomit in his mouth and, swooshed his tongue around, then spit twice to get the remnant taste and chunks of hotdog out.
Smacking his lips, then licking them he had to spit again. A sour look washed over his face as he glanced sheepishly over at Cameron. "It tastes pretty bad coming up."
"I warned you," Cameron said, a little bit of a friendly taunt lacing the statement. But still, her gaze was passive and her eyes glassy.
"Bah," John swung his hand down and out, like he was trying to throw her words back at her. "It's training, right?"
"It is highly unlikely you would have evaded future terminators over a distance of nearly five miles, John."
"Yeah… but if you're with me," he panted, still trying to catch his breath from the racing and the vomiting, "you could just carry me and run away, right?"
Cameron tilted her head and looked at John. John, looking at her, thought it was her customary tilt-when-confused mannerism. But this one was different. It was more of that's-just-stupid sort of head tilt and look.
She also felt a sudden surge in her neural net at the implication he wanted her around for some time.
"Come on," he motioned with his head for her to follow him.
The two walked quietly for about ten minutes, John still smacking his lips, trying to get the second taste of hotdogs and ketchup out of his mouth, and Cameron just walked next to him. Usually she would walk with a foot or so between her and John, but he kept noticing every couple minutes her shoulder would brush up against his.
"Cameron… did you.. uh…" he didn't want to ask, but he had to. And he didn't think there would be any better time than now. He was relaxed, for the most part, and outside. He wasn't going to get mad and storm off like he had the day they were buying computers (the day Cromartie almost killed him the second time, at the pier he recalled). But he needed to know. "What did uh… what, uh, what did you do with Riley's body," he asked quietly, looking down at the pavement.
Cameron could go into details, with the specifics of how far into the desert she drove, where she buried the body, going to Las Vegas, but she decided a simple answer was the best answer.
"I went to the desert and buried her body, John."
"I should have been there."
"I'm sure she's in a better place, John," Cameron answered slowly.
He stopped and put his hand on her forearm. She stopped just as suddenly. As a machine, she didn't feel discomfort or embarrassment around others. But the way John was staring at her…
"Are you saying that to make me feel better, or do you actually believe it?" He asked, tightening his grip on her arm.
In the nanosecond she processed possible answers, she considered that she could fool humans into believing her. Her vocalizer could synthesize the necessary vocal tones and pitch which her detailed psychological files told her had a positive, trustworthy affect on humans. She controlled her facial muscles with such a precision she could make herself appear as if she truly, genuinely believed what she was saying and fool anyone.
She didn't want to fool John.
"Actually," John held up his hand, "I don't want an answer… not yet anyway. I know her soul's in a better place."
Something then happened John wasn't expecting. Cameron brought her other hand up and put it over the hand he was still using to grab her forearm. She squeezed it once then let go.
"I know, too, John," she said. She didn't have to modulate her vocalizer for false sincerity. She believed that. As much as Cameron had seen Riley as a 'threat' he had still cared for her, and she had accepted that he cared for her.
Cameron understood that Riley had been his only connection to normalcy.
Slowly, he released her arm and turned without saying a word. Cameron was walking a few steps behind him, unsure if she should walk next to him. She'd seen John's shock when her hand had gone up and squeeze his. Her neural net CPU hadn't even registered the action of her hyperalloy arm moving up, and her servos flexing her fingers in to squeeze until her hand was already in motion.
A machine built for the death of humans, a terminator, was trying to comfort the one who would lead the fight to exterminate the other, the machines.
The irony was not lost on either of them.
As they passed street vendors they turned into the residential areas, and quickly the sounds of zooming cars decreased until there was a slight hum.
And unexpectedly, this time for Cameron, John slowed down his pace ever so subtly until he was again walking shoulder to shoulder with Cameron.
She focused her system resources on her facial muscles, the servos which controlled her posture and gait, and her CPU directed her chassis, with incredibly precision to keep walking as if John's act meant nothing. As if she hadn't noticed. She couldn't let him see the effect he was having. Not now.
||||||||||==Mexico==||||||||||
"Damnit, Sarah, why didn't we bring the Tin Can?" Derek complained, wiping sweat from his eyes. He blinked twice, hard, to get the salt out before his eyes started burning. Squinting, he looked at his green shirt, which was covered in dirt and dust. "Damnit," he muttered. Using his shirt would just get more crap in his eyes.
He stood up and turned his back to the sun. He started blinking again as hard as he could, and finally got the sweat and salt out of his bloodshot eyes. Sarah stopped digging and half leaned and half collapsed into the side of the pit. Her clothes were probably twice as dirty as his. Derek looked her over and nodded. She certainly was the mother of the Future Leader of Mankind. He saw the determination in her he'd seen in The General in the future.
Not so much in John Connor recently, who'd been acting more like John Baum these last few months.
I thought the kid really stepped up at Presidio with Bedell… but after that, it's been one let down after another, he said to himself, taking in a deep breath to let his muscles relax.
"Come on, Reese, no stopping," she commanded, jumping back up to dig. "John needs some time. And someone needs to protect him."
"He's too close to the machine."
Sarah scoffed at that. Not wanting to start an argument she just brought the shoulder up and jabbed it into the drying ground under her feet. Raising it again, she let out her frustration with everything by jamming it back down a second, then a third time.
"Ignoring me isn't going to work, Sarah," Derek pointed out, moving closer and standing over her. He jammed his shoulder into the dirt and took a half step closer again.
She kept the shovel lodged in the ground, but started wiggling it free. "I'd move, Reese, or you're going to get this in your face when I bring it back up."
"Whatever. Riley was a distraction, Sarah. He still looked-"
She threw the shovel down, letting it bounce back up on the dirt and into the wall of the pit. "Derek, I think I know my son. He's close to the machine, even with Riley, I saw that. But he hasn't… he hasn't… held a gun up to any of us for it recently… has he? Plus you're barely there anymore."
Derek stuck out his finger and pointed at Sarah. "Exactly… I can see it because I'm not there all the time." And Jesse has told me a lot about it and him, he thought.
With the noon sun beating down on Sarah, and her shirt already dirty and wet from sweat, the last thing she wanted to do was argue.
"Just dig, Reese. We have a long drive back."
She wasn't sure if what she'd said was an invitation to bring the topic up again because there was a long ride back to talk about it, out of the heat and with some AC, or to drop it because it'd just be an uncomfortable silence and awkward tension on the long drive back.
A few more shovels of dirty and… and nothing. Her heart skipped, but Sarah controlled herself and took another shovel full of dirt. She let out a long held breath when she spotted the tip of Cromartie's boot. She reached down, and easily pulled the boot out.
"No, no, no," she said frantically. She began digging all over the place and ramming the shovel into the ground to feel any resistance, anything that might indicate a body. Nothing.
"Where the hell is he?" Derek asked. "He didn't just get up. John destroyed the chip. He smashed it into a thousand pieces. He smashed it. This isn't right," Derek kept saying, silently hoping if he kept repeating how this didn't make sense the body would appear.
"There's only one person who would be… stupid enough, crazy enough to do this… to, to dig the body up," Sarah managed to spit out between the heavy breaths of anger. "Let's go."
||||||||||==Los Angeles==|||||||||||
John and Cameron had walked the rest of the way back to their secluded neighborhood in relative silence. A few awkward coughs from John, a brush on the shoulder, and Cameron quickly turning her head to scan the street and behind them to avert John's glances were the highlights (or more accurately, awkward moments) of their journey along the suburban streets of the Calabasas Highlands
The pair lazily rounded the block corner which put them on their street and right in from of Kacy's house.
John looked up and sighed and hoping if he hesitated their house at the top of the hill would somehow lower itself, and he wouldn't have to trudge up the long driveway. Their house in the Calabasas Highlands was fairly private and 'secluded' for a suburban home in America's second largest city. Looking up John wished for a moment they were back in the old safe house, even if it was in a rough neighborhood before looking over at Cameron.
He heard a vibration, and saw Cameron crack open her cell phone.
Where the hell was she keeping that? John asked himself.
The machine protector flipped the clam shell phone up and checked the ID code, then typed in her own pass code.
"Yes… John's here with me. We were outside… we're walking back to the house now, we're at Kacy's… yes… yes, I understand. We'll find him right away, Sarah."
John had stopped and was watching Cameron as she slid the phone back into a small pocket on her tiny pair of shorts.
"Was that mom?"
Cameron took a moment.
"Yes… John… please do not over react and allow me to finish my entire statement," Cameron said quickly and then abruptly stopped. She waited until John shifted his weight and crossed his arms. He was ready. "Your mother and Derek could not find Cromartie's body and they believe Ellison may have taken it."
John nodded. Cameron waited… and was impressed he was not overreacting to the situation. Cromartie's chip was smashed, and he had no backup chips in his other ports. John Baum overreacts. John Connor does not. The electrical signals flowing through her neural net were very similar to human pride. She was glad he was not overreacting. He was ahead of where he needed to be.
"Then we'll shower up and grab some guns and go to Ellison's house," John avowed. "If he's betrayed us…"
Cameron's motion sensors detected an approaching contact from behind.
"Hi John, Cameron!" A loud voice shouted from behind them.
They both turned when they heard the sound of Kacy Corbin yelling out to greet them and entrap them in neighborly chit-chat. Relaxing his stance John let his arms fall to his side and turned and offered a 'neighborly' wave to Kacy. He forced a fake smile he knew the always sunny and beaming woman wouldn't pick up up.
John did appreciate her friendliness. She was probably the first neighbor who had actually talked to them, and with a little more effort, John would have realized she was the only one to have talked to them.
He looked off to the side, seeing a few houses which lined the main street. The neighbors from those houses seemed to conveniently 'forget' there was a house down the road and up the hill. Whatever.
John Connor turned to Cameron with a lop-sided grin, in case Kacy could see, and bobbed his head for her to follow him.
"Where have you two been?" She asked, smile wide as ever. She was rubbing her back, which she'd told them still hurt after delivering the baby a few months back. She and Trevor had named the boy Dell Trevor Corbin. "Oh, I know," she snapped her finger, "Pretty pink top, short shorts," she winked at Cameron, "and you John in your tee shirt, shorts, and running shoes, all sweaty… out running? And look at your sister, not a drop on her."
Cameron smiled, too wide, and John nudged her.
"Yeah, just trying to stay fit and all… Cameron used to run cross country, natural runner and all back in the Midwest. She can run circles around me," John said, trying his best to be neighborly, a skill he critically lacked. He looked at Cameron. "She never seems to get tired at anything she does."
"Bah… I'm still trying to lose all this baby weight. But hey," Kacy said sounding excited, "at least I don't look like a whale anymore. Now just a porpoise," she winked again and laughed and patted her stomach. "The baby daddy got me a gym membership… but I don't know if I should be happy at how it was sweet or a little ticked about what he's implying…" she grinned mycheiviously.
"You do not look fat," Cameron stated suddenly.
John bit down on his lip trying to keep from smiling at Cameron's statement. Kacy wasn't the size of a porpoise, but she still had the baby weight. Cameron's now blank expression changed to confusion when Kacey began to laugh.
"Uh… thanks, I think. But I don't look skinny either," she pouted. "Kidding… hey! Trevor… you know it's always on again off again with him, but whatever, he's being a good baby daddy, child support, coming in as much as he can… we might get married, might not, who knows… but anyway," Kacy said with a prolonged shrug, focusing back on her main point, "we're having a dinner. A few of my friends from work, a couple from Trevor's station and if you two and you mom and uncle are interested…?"
John nodded automatically at the invitation, buying a few precious section for his mind began quickly formulating a means to get his family out of this. The'd used 'business trips' and 'family vacations' as excuses before… and even John realized those excuses were getting a bit pathetic.
The eclectic household of time displaced humans, a machine, and a soldier from the future made for an odd mix and Sarah and Derek were adamant about not being friendly with the neighbors. Yet unfriendly neighbors is what got people talking, like they had some deep dark secret (and how true that was).
John breathed in through gritted teeth and looked down at the ground, hoping his machine protector would jump in to save the day again. He looked over, swaying forward on back on his feet, smiling and nodding at Cameron. She said nothing. Defeat in his eyes, he answered his kind and perky neighbor.
"I can definitely ask them. My mom and uncle have business out of state coming up for a week or so," John answered, lying.
Their cover story was that they both worked from home, doing vague 'consulting' work over the internet and teleconferencing. When they left, it was for 'business.'
He quickly resigned himself to the fact he may have to spend an evening with Kacy and Trevor. It's not that he didn't want to, because he did like Kacy, and he had met Trevor once. To John, he seemed like a nice guy; respectable, a straight shooter, moral. He and Cameron might have to take one for the Connor family.
"But yeah," John shrugged and continued, bringing his hand up to rest on his forearm, "if you give us a call or something or see us just let me or Cameron know and we'll pass it on." He perked up his voice to sound sincere.
"Excellent!" Kacy declared loudly with a broad smile. "Now, I have to go, baby and all that," she held up a baby monitor and shook it. "Trevor got this… it has a camera built in and he set up a wi-fi router so I can see my baby and hear him, even if I have to go outside… oh, and that reminds me why I am outside." She put her hand on John's chest. "Your cousin is a very nice young man. I saw him coming up about an hour ago, and he came down when no one was home. But he and I were talking and I walked him back up and gave him some water, since it's so hot for a November."
While she was talking her baby monitor sounded and she looked down and she missed the worried glares exchanged between the two.
"Which cousin?" Cameron asked, knowing John's voice would probably quiver if he asked. She tilted her head and took a step forward. "Which cousin, we have a couple," she asked, trying to put on a happy face.
"Yes, he said he's from your dad's side. He's been in college… like I said, very nice and very handsome. If I were ten years younger… but anyway, I've held you up. He was sitting up on the patio waiting. I told him he could wait with me here, but he insisted. Something about a long travel, time lag… coming in from a different time zone I guess, east coast" she shrugged again, completely oblivious to the ramification of a 'cousin' and 'time lag.'
Kacy didn't know she'd created an awkward moment between her and her two young neighbors nor did she know she had inadvertently set off a mental crisis in John and kicked Cameron's threat assessment protocols into overdrive.
Cameron looked over at John to tell silently tell him she would check it out, find out who was invading their home, and deal with the threat. But John was standing there composed, stoic even. He hadn't given Kacy any indication of the anxiety she had induced in the young future general.
"Oh, sorry… gotta go. Duty calls," Kacy said over a piercing wail from the baby monitor, giving them one last smile. She gave John a soft pat on the side of the arm, maybe a subtle indication she knew something was wrong, then turned back onto the front walk, passed her well-manicured bushes, and back into the cooled house.
John watched her until she went into her house, and until he could hear the low click of a door lock. Cameron was already staring up the drive, her eyes narrowing.
John looked down and could see both her hands, her fingers, which curled naturally like a human's hand to blend in, were balling up and twitching into fists.
She put her hand on John's chest and could feel the rise in his heart rate. Even through his shirt she could feel the chemicals running through his body which indicated a heightened state of alert. She could even feel his body shake as John took her hand off of his, aware she was scanning him. He turned to face her.
Cameron knew the look of Future John. The one where his eyes seem to glaze over, yet at the same time, focus on the objective. Where his shoulders moved slightly backwards and he pulled himself to his full height. The machine could see the slight fasciculations in the young general's cheek.
There was someone in their home and it was waiting for them.
AN: Thank you all for reading the first three chapters. I decided to post them to get a bit more into how the story will progress.
This is going to be going very, very AU from this point out. I also hope Riley's death was okay. I never really liked the character but thought she got a bad rap.
Is this a "Jameron" story... well, there will be definite John and Cameron interactions and their relationship does move forward. I like the more subtle approach to their relationship.
The next chapter I shall post on Wednesday, probably in the afternoon. This entire story is basically finished and I plan on updating once every five days or so.
