CONTINUUM
-Common Ground-
Thank you to Mouse56 and rnbm for your reviews.
Chapter Two
-Tuesday, March 18 2008 (17:32)
Outside the Everate Community Dance Studio
Catherine parked their stolen car outside Savannah's dance studio. The four of them got out of the car and started making their way towards the main entrance where all the children were standing around waiting to be picked up. As they got closer John slowed, staying at the outskirts of the crowed and stretching out an arm to keep Cameron back as well while Catherine made her way to Savannah.
"Did you have a good time?" Catherine asked her 'daughter' pleasantly as the eight year old got up from the bench she had been waiting on.
"Mom!" she said wrapping her arms around the shapeshifter's middle. Then she spotted John Henry. "John Henry!" she said stepping back. "You're out of your basement?"
"Yes," the cyborg said nodding.
"I didn't know you could do that,"
"A story for another time, dear," Catherine said. "Certainly another place," Taking her by the hand Catherine led Savannah from the front of the building and towards their car.
"Are you sure James Ellison and Sarah Connor will come here?" John Henry asked once they had cleared the crowd.
"Reasonably," Catherine said. There was a commotion behind them and they turned to see Sarah Connor sprinting towards her son. "Definitely."
John turned just as his mother reached him, and a moment later found himself wrapped in her arms. John quickly hugged her back.
"I though I'd lost you," Sarah whispered in his ear.
"Mr. Ellison," John Henry said as the former FBI agent came up to them a few moments later.
"John Henry," he said with a nod. "You're back," he said to Catherine.
"What does he mean?" Savannah said looking up at her mother.
"We seem to be drawing some attention," Catherine said looking at the crowed milling about the entrance to the dance studio. "Perhaps we should move this someplace else."
Sarah and John broke apart and the group moved down the sidewalk until they reached the stolen car.
"Mr. Ellison, do you know what the situation at ZeiraCorp is?" Catherine asked.
James shrugged. "We left right after you two…" Ellison paused for a moment, not wanting to go into to much detail with Savannah standing there. "I would assume that police and fire crews were in route. Other than that I have no idea."
Catherine nodded. "Yes, well I'm sure there are several people who are looking for me, I should make an appearance," She knelt down if front of Savannah. "You remember Sarah, right?" The girl nodded. "Well I need you to go with her for a few hours while me and Mr. Ellison go back to work, alright?" After a few moments Savannah nodded again. "Good."
The shapeshifter stood and turned to face Sarah. "May I assume that if I leave my daughter in your hands I will see her again?"
Sarah's eyes flashed. She was about to speak when John headed her off. "We can't exactly hang around here. How will we get in touch?"
"You have a cell phone Ms. Connor?"
"Not really, I just got out of prison."
"Of course. Mr. Ellison?"
James nodded, pulling his phone out of his jacket pocket and handing it to John.
"Good. John Henry, it would be best if you stayed with them for now," She looked down at her daughter. "I'll see you in a few hours, Savannah. Mr. Ellison, we'll take your car," As the two of them left Catherine fished the car keys out of her pocket and handed them to John.
"Alright, let's go," Sarah said after they had left, holding her hand out to John for the keys. "Are we sure we want to take him with us?" Sarah asked nodding at John Henry.
"Yes," John said shortly as he opened the front passenger side door for Savannah.
"What about you, Tin Miss," Sarah asked as she moved around to the driver side. "All sorted out?" Cameron didn't respond. "Hey, girly."
"She's… not exactly herself right now," John said.
"What, is there another lose wire?"
"Not really," John responded. "I'll explain later."
Sarah shrugged. "Fine. Lets go then."
-18:06
ZeiraCorp Headquarters
James pulled up into a parking space in front of the ZeiraCorp building. The area was full of police cruisers, fire trucks and ambulances as emergence response crews moved about. "Are you sure we want to do this?" he asked Catherine.
She nodded. "Yes," She looked over at Ellison. "Why should they suspect us of anything? We're the victims."
"Yeah," James muttered to himself as he opened his door. "Cuz the police never suspect them."
The two of them made their way up the sidewalk towards the building's entrance before a police officer moved in their path.
"We have a situation here," he said. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
"I'm Catherine Weaver," the shapeshifter informed him.
"That's very nice for you. I'm still going to need you to go back to your car-"
"I. Am. The. Owner. Of. This. Building." Catherine elaborated. "I would imagine you have superiors who would like to ask me questions."
"Ah, in that case… follow me," He led them into the building's main lobby towards a group of people. "Detective Edmore," He said. "This woman says she owns the building."
The Detective turned to look at them. "Mrs. Weaver. You are a hard women to find. Mind telling me where you've been?"
"Mind telling me what crashed into my building?"
"I don't remember saying something crashed into anything."
"And yet I'm fairly sure my question is still valid," Catherine shot back.
"Alright. We're still not sure what it was. The leading theory is that it's some kind of drone, like what the military uses in Afghanistan, but obviously that raises a lot more questions then it solves. Now, where have you been?"
"Out of contact," Catherine responded. "I left around 10 o'clock. I only just heard about what happened, which is when I returned."
"And what about you, Mr. Ellison?" Detective Edmore asked.
James folded his arms across his chest. "The same."
"Really? What a coincidence. Of course anyone who enters or leaves this building signs in electronically, but we can't seem to access that right now. Or quite a lot of the security footage, which of course makes it hard to collaborate your story."
"Detective, what possible reason would I have for lying?" Catherine asked.
"Did I say anything about lying?" Edmore asked. He smirked as he saw more people entering the building. "It doesn't matter, you're not going to be talking to me much longer anyway."
"Special Agent Graham Tanaka," one of the newcomers said pulling out his badge as he approached them. "I'm taking over this investigation."
"I was wondering how long it would take the FBI to crash the party," Detective Edmore said. "Honestly I expected you guys here two or three hours ago at least."
"Sorry I'm late," Tanaka said. He looked at Ellison. "James, what a wonder meeting you here."
"Graham."
"So, mind telling me what's going on here?"
"Hey, I only showed up five minutes before you did."
"Is that so? And you are?" he said looking at Catherine.
"Catherine Weaver. I'm the CEO of this corporation."
"Well then I guess I'll be talking to you in a minute. In the mean time, Detective, what did you say your name was?"
"Richard Edmore."
"Fine. Fill me in."
As the two men walked a short distance away James turned to Catherine. "Well I suppose we had a bit of luck with the security footage."
"Hm. My guess would be it isn't luck so much as Cameron."
"The Connor's cyborg?"
"Yes. When she gave John Henry her CPU she and him switched places. She, that is her programing, is currently inhabiting the Babylon AI platform, and is therefore hooked into all of this building's systems."
"But didn't I see her with you, John and John Henry?"
"That was a new body we constructed for her. She still needs to be downloaded into it."
"Ah, okay then." James said. "So what do we do now?"
"I'm working on a plan."
"Well work fast," James said as Special Agent Tanaka turned around and started walking back towards them.
"So, Mrs. Weaver," he said. "Can you think of anyone who would want to kill you?"
"You think I was the target?"
"Well this drone, or whatever it was, it crashed right into your office, so yeah, I do."
Catherine thought for a moment. "No Agent Tanaka, I can't."
"Hm. What about you Ellison? You've been working here for what, over four months now? What do you think?"
James shrugged. "There was the incident a few days ago involving Sarah Connor, but she's in custody, so I don't see how she could be involved in this."
"Actually she escaped earlier today during the incident at the county jail."
"Incident?" Catherine said questioningly.
"Yeah, you know, the thing…" Graham looked between the two off them. "Where the hell have you two been for the last seven hours, under a rock?"
"Something like that," Catherine said.
"Wanna be more specific?"
"Not particularly," Catherine responded.
"I insist."
"Even if she has just escaped, do you think she's capable of this?" James asked quickly.
"My understanding is that the woman is nuts," Graham said. "She blew up a building. You should know that better then most, Ellison, you were the one who tried to bring her in nine years ago."
"I'm not asking if she would do it, I'm asking if she could do it," James said. "Detective Edmore wasn't particularly clear about what it is that crashed into the building, but…"
Graham nodded. "Yeah, I see your point. Obviously our investigation is still in the preliminary stages. Once we know exactly what it was that hit the building and where it came from we should have a better chance of figuring out who's behind this."
"But tell me," he continued, "are you sure you can't think of anyone else who might want to kill you?"
"This is one of the leading corporations in the field of computer development, Agent Tanaka. Apart from the fringe elements, of which Sarah Connor is not the only member, though obviously one of the more violent, we have a number of rival companies, any of whom would not mind seeing ZeiraCorp in ruins. A few of them probably even have the capability of pulling something like this off. But I can't imagine any of them actually doing it. Even if one of them would go so far as to kill me, and I stress the word 'if', I'm sure they would try something less, spectacular."
"Well someone did try, Mrs. Weaver," Graham said. "I'll be keeping in touch. Now if you'll excuse me." With that the FBI agent moved off to talk with one of his own people.
"You did a good job of diverting him from the question of where we've been," Catherine said.
"Oh I'm sure he noticed," James said. "He's not going to stop asking. Sooner or later we're going to have to give him an answer, and the longer we hold off the more suspicious he's going to be."
"If you were in his position what would you think was going on?" Catherine asked.
"I'd try not to form any theories this early on."
"But if you had to."
James shrugged. "We apparently both left around the same time, both of us have no idea what's been going on today, and we arrived here together. If I had to guess at this point I'd say we're having an affair of some kind."
Catherine considered this. "Not the most ideal cover, but it is plausible and fairly straight forward."
"You're joking."
"Do you have a better idea, Mr. Ellison?" Catherine asked.
James shook his head. "Wonderful."
"I'm sure we'll be as discrete as possible," Catherine said. "Now, we should make contact with Cameron," The two of them made their way through the lobby till they reached a doorway. Going through it they walked down a hallway until they came to another door, which Catherine opened. Stepping inside she turned on the lights revealing a small room with a simple computer sitting on a desk.
"What's this room for?" James asked.
Catherine shrugged. "For the moment not much. We just need access to a computer hooked up to the building's network. Cameron," she said more loudly. "Can you hear us?"
After a few moments the computer monitor switched on.
Yes._
"Good. Did you hear our conversation in the lobby with the FBI agent?"
Yes._
"Can you edit the building's security footage to match our story?"
I have already begun removing all footage including Sarah and John.
I believe I can also make the necessary adjustments to fit your alibi._
Catherine nodded. "Good. We were able to construct a new body for you in the future. We should be able to download you into it within a few days."
I understand._
"Ah, Cameron," James said. "Can you hear what Agent Tanaka is saying? What Detective Edmore said, anything we need to know?"
Yes. So far they are still trying to figure out what hit the building.
At the moment they do not seem overly suspicious of you.
Agent Tanaka is talking. He finds your reluctance to give an adequate
explanation as to your whereabouts questionable._
"Yeah," James said. "I thought he would."
One of his people just suggested you are sleeping together.
We may have another problem though._
The computer screen switched to a still frame from the security footage zoomed in on a man's face.
He claimed to be a Detective Franks with the LAPD. However he has made
several attempts to get into the sub levels, I believe his objective was
the server farms that currently house my programing. When trying to
get past a door he demonstrated excessive force for a human.
I believe that there is a high probability that he is a machine._
"But he hasn't gotten in yet?" Catherine asked.
For the moment he seems to be concerned with maintaining his cover.
None of the other police have shown any interest in the basement so far.
There are enough other people around that he hasn't had that much time
to make his attempts._
Catherine nodded. "We'll look into it. You have Mr. Ellison's cell phone number, right?"
Yes._
"Good. We gave it to John. I need you to call him and ask him where they are."
Wait a moment. _
Catherine and James waited several minutes before an address appeared on the screen.
"Good. Inform them we should be there shortly."
Acknowledged._
Is there anything else you think we need to know?"
Not at the moment._
"Alright. We should be in contact soon," The monitor switched off and Catherine and James left the room, returning to the lobby.
"So what do you want to do about this detective?" James asked.
"The one Cameron thinks is a machine? I'm not sure yet," Catherine said casually glancing around the room. "However he seems to have taken an interest in us, he's standing over there. Don't look."
"Right," James said, shifting so that he was facing almost the opposite direction. "What should we do?"
"Leave and see if he follows us."
They walked across the lobby towards the exit. Once they were out of the building they turned left and started heading towards Ellison's car.
"Take your time starting the car," Catherine said as they got in, "but don't show an interest in anything else," For her part Catherine sat back in her seat, watching the cars go by while James adjusted the mirrors. "He just walked past us."
"Yeah, I saw him," James said. "Probably going for his own car so he can follow us."
"Well, give him a few moments, then start driving. Take us somewhere sparsely populated."
James nodded, and a few seconds later turned the car on and pulled out into traffic. "Is he following us?"
"I think so," Over the next several minutes Ellison made a number of turns, general heading in the direction of the city's industrial district. "Hm, yes, definitely."
"What's the plan?"
"Find someplace deserted and deal with him."
James glanced over at her. "We don't have any weapons."
"That won't be a problem."
Several minutes later they pulled into a large but empty parking lot in front of an old building in an advanced state of disrepair. After a few moments the detective's car pulled in after them.
"Stay here," Catherine said opening her door and walking towards the other vehicle.
The detective got out of his car. "Mind telling me what you're doing here?" he asked pulling out his badge.
Catherine came to a stop a few feet away from him. "Mind telling me why you were following me? I was under the impression that we were free to go."
The detective pulled out his gun and started firing at Catherine, the bullets only doing minimal damage. Catherine raised one of her arms, her hand turning to quicksilver before lancing out towards the other terminator, piercing his chest and destroying his power core. A moment later Catherine retracted her arm, allowing it to turn back to flesh as she walked towards the fallen machine. As she knelt down next to him the terminator turned his head to look at her, still fighting for life. Catherine grabbed his head, cutting away the flesh covering his CPU port and removing his chip. Almost immediately the surface of the CPU ignited as it came into contact with the air, destroying it.
Catherine put the ruined chip in her pocket, then picked up the terminator and deposited him in the trunk of Ellison's SUV.
"Let's go," she said getting back into the front passenger side seat.