Chapter Two: Identity Positive

*John's POV*

John and Tim had stopped at an ATM to get some cash, because John forgot to take some from the house when they left. John pulled out a small but somewhat bulky electronic device from his backpack, and attached to it was a wired blank card. John spoke softly to himself as he was at the ATM, "Please insert your stolen card now." He put the wired card into the slot and the device started to retrieve a PIN to display on the readout.

Tim spoke, "Will you hurry up? This is taking too long." John seemed to ignore him as spoke more to himself as the device was finishing retrieving a PIN, "Go baby, go baby, go baby... alright!" The PIN was on the readout clear as day now, and John proceeded to enter the PIN. Tim spoke again, "Where'd you learn this stuff from, anyway?"

"From my mom, my real mom, I mean," John replied, "Withdraw three, zero, zero bucks. Come on, baby, come on, come on... yes!" The device worked, the money had dispensed from the ATM. John grabbed it and they quickly rushed back to John's bike. John blurted out, "Piece of cake" as they packed their stuff onto the bike. Tim noticed a picture of a woman hanging loose in John's backpack and queried, "That her?" Believing it to be John's mother.

"Yes," John confirmed in a tone that didn't sound happy as he tucked the photo deeper into his backpack.

"She's pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah, but everyone else says she's a complete psycho. That's why she's locked up in Pescadero, it's a mental institute. She tried to blow up a computer factory, but got subdued by force and arrested."

"No shit..."

"It is what is. Come on, let's go spend some money."

They set off on the bike, eventually taking the flood channels to get to their destination.

*POV shift to Eric*

The Terminator and I had been riding through L.A. on our stolen bikes, for what felt like for hours, looking for John. Even though I didn't like to steal, I had to do so in order to complete the mission I volunteered to take. Isn't that something? I was wearing sunglasses that seemed to contour to my face, which helped a good deal in keeping the wind out of my eyes. I had to focus, even though a part of me was in complete awe of all the buildings and abundance of traffic. It was the first time in my life I had seen L.A. without it being completely in ruins.

Then I noticed the Terminator was pulling over on the other side of the street. I followed suit and saw what it saw: Two kids riding dirt bike riding out of the flood channels. "Is that him," I thought to myself, and what the machine said next definitely confirmed it, "I have identified John Connor on that vehicle." We couldn't get to him right away from our current position, and a part of me still didn't want to let the cyborg take point, but it spotted John first, and I knew it'd be a better tracker than I would. I simply said, "Let's go." I then followed the Terminator. "John… Even though you've never met me before in your life in this time period, you're still my comrade and friend, and I'll fight to the bitter end for you. Besides, I owe you my life for saving me from the darkness that was my own despair…"

We eventually came upon a mall called the Galleria, and found John's bike in the parking garage. "He's here." The machine and I parked, and concealed our weapons on our persons, and we began looking around the mall. We swiped a box of roses along the way to help the machine better conceal its own shotgun. I didn't need one for myself because my long jacket had done well with concealing mine so far. A similar feeling of uneasiness started flooding my body again as we searched the mall. "I don't know why, but I have a suspicion that the liquid metal is here too." I whispered to the Terminator, and it replied, "It is possible. We must locate John Connor before the T-1000 does." Yeah, no kidding.

*POV shift to John*

John and Tim were passing time in the arcade. John was playing Missile Command until it was game over, and then Tim told him, "I'm gonna get some more quarters, I'll be back." John replied, "Cool." After a few minutes went by, John was at the Afterburner machine, and he was on a roll with the game, but Tim came up with an alarmed look on his face.

"John!"

"Not now, not now."

"Listen, there's a cop scoping for you, check it out!"

John peeked over Tim's shoulder to see the cop, showing kids a photo and asking about him, and then one of them pointed into his direction and his mind went into red alert mode. Tim said, "Split man, just go," John simply said, "Alright." He knew Tim was going to try to stall the cop so he could get away, as he took off from the arcade machine and took the back door out of the arcade. John ran as fast as he could through the corridors. They seemed to be for the utility and maintenance workers of the mall, and they also served as emergency exits, but John didn't care. A cop was after him for who knows what, and something told him that cop was no ordinary officer.

He just kept running, passing by a guy that tried to tell him he wasn't supposed to be in there until he burst through a door and turned to his right, but found himself stopped in his tracks at the sight of two men walking in his direction. One was wearing a dark leather jacket and pants that made him look like a biker, had short brown hair, wearing sunglasses and seemed to be six feet tall. For some reason, he was carrying a box of roses. The other man was somewhat shorter than the biker guy, and he had short, dark brown hair himself, but wasn't wearing sunglasses. His outfit consisted of a long dark jacket that went down to his knees, what seemed like a white T-shirt, and grey cargo pants. He looked more like a drifter compared to the taller guy.

Suddenly, the taller man opened the box of roses to reveal a shotgun in his hand, the roses fell out as he readied it, and the drifter pulled a shotgun of his own, that was just like the taller one's, out of his long jacket and readied his. John turned and went back through the door he came through, and tried to go through the door on the side, but it was locked, he tried another one, but it was locked too. He saw the two men were through the door and they aimed their shotguns, and then the cop appeared from the other end of the corridor aiming his pistol in John's direction. John was petrified by the situation he was in. He seemed to be trapped between a rock and a hard place…

A/N: I know, cliffhangers are annoying, but that's part of the excitement! What do you think of my OC so far? I plan to put in an explanation of his past later on in the story. Reviews will be greatly appreciated!