I'm baaaaack! took me a while to find time to jot all this down today. Hope you enjoy!
Drabble 9-Law of Signs
"And so after you find the variable you set it equal to whatever the equation gives you, in this case you get an angle, a side and another side. What's the measurement for angle A? John? Mr. Baum!"
John glanced up bleary eyed from the white spot in his notebook he'd been staring at during the math teacher's explanation. He peered at the board curiously.
"Well?"
"That would be pi over 4 sir."
"Thank you. Better late then never I suppose." the teacher turned and wrote something on the board. Everyone in the class tittered. John sighed heavily.
Cheri Westin watched him from her place further back in the class. Cameron sat next to him, struggling inwardly not to do the worksheet too fast. In order to stay in the same class with John, she had to maintain a certain grade average…that was far below her true capabilities. It took all her will to come up with reasonable wrong answers every 3.5256 questions. She didn't notice John's listlessness.
"Alright, do questions 5-25 on page 98 quietly. Any questions, raise your hand, don't ask a buddy."
Cameron scribbled quietly with everyone else for 5 minutes. Then she looked up and noticed John still staring at his notebook.
"Are you having trouble? I can help you." she whispered. The math teacher was circling the room. She kept her eye on him.
"no, I'm good." John murmured.
"You don't seem good."
"Is there a problem, Ms. Baum?"
Cameron flashed a nervous grin. "No, sir." and she went back to her notebook.
She scribbled hurriedly on a scrap of paper and slipped it onto John's desk. He stared at it for a second before picking it up and reading it.
It was all the answers for the work. John rolled his eyes and stifled a little chuckle before slipping the paper into his hoodie pocket. Cameron watched him, confused.
"Why can't you be a normal annoying sister? It would make you so much less infuriating." he whispered.
She just stared at him.
The bell rang and jolted him out of his reverie. He gathered his books and headed out into the hallway before Cameron could follow. She managed to anyway and he rolled his eyes again.
"You know I'm not really your sister." She said quietly.
"Duh. I'm sort of glad you're not. I'd've gone nuts by now."
She flashed a rare smile. It seemed so genuine, John had to wrench his eyes away from her.
"Cameron Baum?" a sinister sounding voice asked. Cameron turned. A black suited man with an oddly proportioned head stared at her, unblinkingly.
Cromartie…
Cameron transformed before John's eyes.
She flipped her hair and frowned at the terminator. "Uhhh no. Who's that? I'm Summer Landon. Boy, have you got your info mixed up! C'mon Tyler." she pulled John along by his arm.
Her hand was holding his arm so tightly he winced. She looked really worried. He'd never seen her look that way before. They turned the corner down a side hallway. Cameron pinned him to the wall with her free hand, and watched the people pass by the main hall on her right.
5 minutes passed. 10. Everyone had left for the day. The hall was empty, as far as she could see. She relinquished her hold on John's shirt collar and crept out of the side hall…
2 shots rang out. Metallic clangs filled the air. Cameron pulled back. Her arm was smoking slightly and her shoulder was very slightly bloodied.
"Wait here." she said sternly. John made to argue. She put a finger over his lips.
"I mean it."
Helplessly, he watched her go put herself in danger yet again…
For him.
Drabble 10-A Little White Lie
"You said he wouldn't come back!"
"I meant it at the time. Something must have tipped him off."
"What?"
"I'm not sure. Sarkissian maybe?"
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Well, gee, Cameron, now what? He knows I go to that school now. We're going to have to move AGAIN! I'll never graduate at this rate."
Cameron gave him a look of sympathy. He merely stared. More and more humanlike every day…
"Graduating is the least of your problems."
"Well, I'd like to try to."
"I know. I don't why but I know you do."
Cameron gave a slight twitch and held her shot arm for a second.
"Hey…what's wrong? They were just bullets…nothing you haven't handled before…" John's voice was shaky, unsure.
"True. I don't know…I've been feeling slight electrical surges every 5.62 seconds. It throws off my balance matrix and reasoning compartments of my chip. They bullet may have severed a vital wire…"
She stopped and sat down on the curb down a relatively quiet alleyway.
"You need to take it out." she said simply, and began taking off her blouse.
"Wait! Wait! Why now? Can't we wait till we get to the house? Where all the equipment is? What if I get electrocuted or something?" John tried not to stare at her pristine skin and white bra as she finally got her blouse off. No shame. Something she evidently hadn't yet learned.
And he wasn't exactly minding.
"You won't. I can't keep having these surges. They'll shut down my main functions in a matter of minutes. Without proper power from the battery, I can't function. We need this fixed now, John."
She pulled him down by the wrist and leaned close, exposing her shoulder and holding out her arm. A slightly bloody rim of skin was all that stood in the way between her outer casing and her inner workings. He held his breath and stuck two fingers into the hole.
Fumbling for a minute or so he felt a sharp shock travel up his arm. Frightened, he pulled away. "You said I wouldn't get shocked!"
Cameron eyed him with slight annoyance. "I lied. Would you have done it if I'd told you you might be?"
John thought.
"Good point."
He stuck his fingers back in and after a minute more of fumbling he pulled out the severely mangled piece of metal. It had bent clear in half on contact with her main chassis.
"Good. Next." she held out her arm.
This one took less time, and he had the bullet out sooner. No shocks either. So no wires broken there.
"Thank you." Cameron said quietly when he'd finished and pocketed the bullet shards. She suddenly couldn't look at him.
"No problem…now what?"
"I…you need to sauter the wire back together…"
John pushed his hair back, flustered. "But I don't have a sautering iron! I know we should have waited till we got home!"
Cameron didn't answer. She just looked up at him helplessly.
"Hurry…"
Drabble 11-Good
"Look at her John."
He didn't look up.
"Look at her!" Sarah's voice was heavy with emotion.
He finally wrenched his eyes up from where they'd been staring at the floor. Cameron was standing by the front window, the setting sun hitting her full in the face. She wasn't blinking. She looked so beautiful…
"Does she look like the sort of person you can trust over your own mother?"
John looked to his left. Sarah stood there, pointing accusingly at their Terminator Protector. Like she'd betrayed all their trusts by simply doing her job.
But John knew that wasn't why Sarah was upset.
He remembered it well enough. An ops mission on a facility that was building a super speed math computer. Another potential baby Skynet. The place had been crawling with T-800's. Derek had barely made it out by the skin of his teeth, Sarah with him.
He'd had to choose.
In one direction, the invincible Cameron, kicking and punching and clawing her way to safety. In another, his mother and uncle, cowering, hiding and hoping.
At the time, there had been no other option.
He'd swung his gun around and began to help Cameron. They'd made it outside safely in less time then it took Sarah and Derek to surface, both battered and bruised.
Cameron had looked at him, a small secret smile on her face and brushed bits of ceiling debris off his shoulder and hair. It was an affectionate gesture, just like that time he'd felt her brush his neck.
"Good." she'd said. His heart soared.
Now he was paying for it.
"Don't you ever do that again! I don't care if she can demolish buildings or kill people with one swing, brute strength isn't everything John!" Sarah was near tears.
"I thought you knew that."
John stood up, took a few steps and turned.
"I do. It's what helped me make my decision."
And he continued walking over to Cameron by the window and took her hand.
Please review! XOXOXO-my reviewers!
