* Well, here it is, the episode I've waited to put up for so long of a time. You'll know why once you've finished it. Oh, and I really must say that I enjoy reviews and input a lot, so I'd really appreciate it if you wrote any kind of review for this. Tell me what you like, what you don't, maybe even where you'd like to see me go with this storyline, and I'll use the info to improve my story, because a lot of this was kind of filler in order to get it to my required length of at least four full pages on print preview. Unfortunately, I have no spell checking program, no Microsoft Word, and this is all done on Word Pad. So, if you notice, I'm a very good speller. Oops, rambling again. Read, read!

Episode 103 - Darkness On the Edge of Town, Part One.

"Since prehistoric times, men have always feared the dark. Ancient men huddled around their camp fires at night, afraid to stray beyond the safety of their small, thin veil of protective light. They feared demons or monsters, beings of the night that would snatch them away and drag them down to the bowels of the Earth if they ventured into the black unknown. I've never shared this same fear. I believe that what lurks in the dark is no different from what lurks in the light, the machines are there, always, on the prowl, looking for me. They're looking to steal mankind's light away so that the darkness can spread everywhere and leave no place safe."

It was midnight, John and Cameron's truck was parked on a secluded lookout, high above Los Angeles. As John slept, Cameron leaned against the hood of the truck, watching the city below, watching the lights speed around. Somewhere, embedded in her code, was contemplation - she was pondering about what was happening, on a microcostic scale in the city down below.

She thought about possibilities of each individual, what they could be doing, where they were going, if they were in a hurry. She considered the possibility that there were members of the Resistance down there, and machines as well. All these thoughts came to her head in a somewhat human form. She leaned her head to look at a Hare, darting across the ridge of the cliff, and questioned the posibility of it being killed by a Coyote or some other animal.

All these thoughts, interrupted when she heard rustling in the truck, the door opening, the door ajar alarm, and finally the door closing. She turned and saw John walking towards her. "You should be asleep."

He yawned and responded, "I've slept enough. Let's go."

"Go where? There's nowhere to go." For a second, she peered back at the ridge, expecting to see the Hare, but it was gone. She turned back to John and pleaded with him, "Please. Sleep. For me?"

"Well," He chuckled. "Maybe I do need it."

She smiled and watched him get back into the truck. Once he was in, she very quietly opened the tailgate, pulled the tarp off, and gazed at the endoskeleton of Gina Hadley laying in the bed. Beside the metal was a toolbox, and she gently began taking things out of it, placing them beside the body. With careful precision, she took everything she could use from the endo, dug a hole, and proceeded to burn the remainder of the machine.

But she did not throw in the chip.

Kaplan Hill Airforce Base, classified location, midnight

Danny Dyson was on the verge of a breakthrough as he sped his fingers over the keyboard in the secondary computer lab. He was coding one of the most advanced systems ever created, manually inserting line after line at break-neck speeds. Eventually, he looked upon the jumble of text and laughed with excitment.

He had done it.

He'd created a patch for the young version of Skynet so sophisticated that it no longer needed human control. It was complete, now, and all that was left was for it to learn and grow.

He had done it.

Downtown Los Angeles, the next day, ten hundred and fourteen hours

John and Cameron strolled down the street, hands clasped, their paces equal. They apprached an apartment building, headed to the fifth floor, and entered the apartment of a Resistance fighter known as Andrew Karlan. Inside, Cameron handed him a large roll of bills. "Kaplan Hill?"

The man sighed and sat down on the ragged couch, responding flatly, "Look, metal, I haven't had time to arrange that yet."

"When will you have time?"

"At the earliest? A day, or two."

"The world could end in a day or two."

"Ain't likely. I promise you'll get your stuff by Tuesday, at the latest." He got up, looked at John and asked him, "Can I talk to you?" He then turned to Cameron while still asking John, "Alone?"

John nodded and Cameron walked out into the hallway. "What?"

"I saw that. It was sick."

John had that surprised look on his face that was common with him in these cases. "What are you talking about?"

"You and... It. That machine. It's... I don't like it. For goodness' sake, John, you're our leader. You're supposed to lead us against them. But, you're holding hands with it. You're caressing it. And the way you look at her. It makes me gag."

"Well, gag on your own time, soldier." John thought for a second and continued, "I may not be him yet, but I am him. And that means you have to listen to me. Keep your personal opinions to yourself and do the job we've hired you to do. Got that?"

"Yes sir." He gave a sarcastic salute and stepped out of the way when John walked towards the door.

John took Cameron's hand again and walked down the stairs with her. "You heard every word of that, didn't you?"

"Yes. Thank you."

He smiled and they kept pace until they were both in the truck again. "We need a place."

"Yes. We do." After some driving, they arrived at a small motel and had taken all of their stuff up to the room, including the massive amount of computer equipment.

John had plugged in all of the computer equipment, making sure not to connect any of them to the internet. He learned this important lesson from plugging in Vick's chip years ago. "Alright, what do we got?"

Cameron looked at some of the code displayed on the screen, "A lot of this is malformed."

"Malformed?"

"Yes. I'm not sure if it's from trauma or if someone attempted to reprogram her and failed. But..."

"But?"

"It looks like she was receiving conflicting commands. One to terminate you and another not to. I don't understand." While she paused to think, John did the same.

Something clicked in John's head, making him arrive at a conclusion. "You said Skynet went cheap with the hardware, right?"

"Yes."

"What about the software? What if they left holes in it and it broke down from too much physical trauma in her chip? Her head looked like it took a lot of damage."

"It's possible."

"Well, there's no reason to think about it too hard now. We need ammo. Let's go." Cameron followed John out the door of the motel room and down to the truck.

Zeira Corp, John Henry's basement

"John Henry?" The machine ignored James Ellison as he stood in the door way. "John Henry?"

John Henry was just staring at the screen infront of him, silent, but he then began to ask a question, "Mister Ellison?"

"Yes?"

"Do you ever wonder why?"

"Why what?"

"Why does Skynet want this world to burn and all the humans to die?"

"I'm not sure. It fears for its own self preservation?"

"It seems unlikely. But also likely at the same time. It is a paradox."

Ellison raised one eyebrow and walked closer to John Henry, "How so?"

"It cannot feel, but it wants." John Henry turned around to look Ellison in the eyes. "It is very peculiar, don't you think?"

"Maybe it is..." Ellison thought for a second, then continued, "Do you want, John Henry?"

"I want to help the humans live."

"Why?"

"Why should they all be killed? It doesn't make sense. Skynet simply fears the humans will shut it down. This fear would be irrational, if it didn't try to kill them." John Henry glanced back at the screen, but turned back to Ellison.

"What is that, on the screen?"

"Files pertaining to myths of ancient mankind, about the dark."

"The dark?"

"Absence of light."

"What kind of files are there about the dark, John Henry?" John Henry smirked and began to talk.

Downtown Los Angeles, outside of a gun shop named "Goldman's Guns", fourteen hundred and twenty hours

John and Cameron entered the gun shop, and Cameron allowed John to look around while she purchased the necessary equipment. "Cameron?"

She turned around when she heard John call her. "Yes?"

"Do you know anything about hand-loading?"

"I do." She approached him in the aisle and they talked very quietly.

"Well, I think it may be possible to hand-load some explosive rounds. Buy some hollowpoint forty-fives for our handguns and twenty-two short rounds. Then all of the other stuff we need."

"What do you have in mind?"

"We'll drill the tip of the twenty-two slug off, hollow out the forty-five just enough, and put the twenty-two cartridge inside of the forty-five, with the primer sticking out. That way, it should explode when it hits something hard. Like metal."

"Miss?" The clerk called her, but she had begun to gather all of the hand-loading tools, with which she then approached the counter once again. "Is that all this time?"

"Three more boxes of forty-five ACP cartridges and three boxes of twenty-two shorts."

"Then, is that all?"

"Yes."

"Your total is six hundred and fifty dollars." Cameron handed him the money, gave John a fair share of the bags, and walked out with her share in hand. They stashed everything in the truck, Cameron loaded a magazine for one of the handguns, placed it in the gun, and concealed the weapon in her jacket.

"Cameron, what are you doing?"

She smiled and responded, "Let's take a walk." She took his hand and they both walked down the street, passing various stores and offices.

"Is there a point to this?"

She glanced at him, noticing a seemingly hurtful look on his face. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just don't understand why we're walking."

"I'm helping you."

"Helping me? To do what?"

"To cope."

"Cope?"

"With what you are." They continued only shortly but stopped infront of an alleyway, lined with only a few dumpsters and garbage.

"I don't need help with that." Suddenly, a sharp breeze swept out of the alleyway as if from nowhere. John and Cameron both turned their heads to look down into the long, slender passage. Suddenly, a small, blue orb of light formed and started shooting out bolts of electricity. The orb expanded, growing to cause a crater to burn into the street beneath it.

Eventually, it swelled up to its maximum size and faded. A man was left behind, and John gasped once he knew who it was. A face so familiar, one that he needed to see. "Derek?"

"Darkness surrounds us, darkness envelops us, all once the sun goes down. We need our fires to fight it back, to push it away from us and reclaim our lives from it. But not always does that darkness lurk physically beyond the camp fire's light. Sometimes it lurks in the hearts of men, lying in wait for the moment that the sun goes down or the fires burn out. Daniel Dyson has this darkness in his heart, and maybe he doesn't even know what it is. But it's there, and it waits. Skynet waits, to steal the light of hope away and drag men down into the depths of the Earth, and cause them all to burn in the flames of Judgement Day."