Six
(Possible Futures)

Chuck rode the elevator down with John and Sarah Connor, still trying to process what had just happened. "Oh, man," he groaned.

"These things are pretty destructive," John agreed.

"No, the Buy More got destroyed again," Chuck said. "I don't think the insurance covers evil robot damage." He looked over at John with a wry smile. "Or bazooka damage."

"You shot it with a bazooka?" Connor said to her son as they emerged from the elevator into Castle.

"Yeah, it was pretty awesome," John said with a grin. "Got off a badass one-liner just before I fired and everything."

Connor chuckled. "Sometimes it's easy to remember you're only sixteen."

Suddenly Chuck heard the click of a handgun being cocked, and he looked out into the main area of Castle to see a woman with long dark brown hair, wearing black operations gear like his own, pointing a gun directly at Sarah Connor.

"Mom, what are you doing here?" Chuck asked her, surprised.

"I heard someone was killing women with my daughter-in-law's name," Mary Bartowski replied. "I got here as soon as I could. I was about to come up and help with the fight in the store, but it seems it's over now." She gestured to Connor with the gun. "Do you know who this is?"

"Relax, Mom," Chuck said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "She's with us. It's complicated." He sighed briefly. "Oh man, is it ever complicated."

Cameron walked into the main room just then, holding the Terminator's metal skull in one hand like an even more disturbing version of Hamlet. "Do you have a place down here I can make some thermite and burn this?"

Chuck looked at her, then back at his mother. "Like I said, complicated. We're just about to all sit down and figure out what's going on, so you can join us if you want."

Mary holstered her gun. "Oh, I definitely want to hear the explanation for this."

In his office at Zeira Corp, Ellison pulled his cell phone out of his pocket as it rang, and answered. "Hello?"

"Hello, Mr. Ellison," Weaver said, sounding strangely pleased about something. "We've just had a major break in our investigation."

"I heard on the police band that somebody just shot up the Buy More above Carmichael's base," Ellison said. "I'm assuming you already know all about that."

"Yes, there was a bit of a tussle here," Weaver replied calmly. "It's been taken care of. Now, I need you to go to the basement with John Henry and sit in on a meeting I'm about to hold with Carmichael and the Connors."

"Connors?" Ellison said, surprised. "Sarah and John Connor are there?"

"Along with some of their allies," Weaver said. "Between our three groups, I believe we hold all the pieces of this puzzle. Now we just need to put them together quickly; this evening, if possible."

"Why, is the world about to end or something?" Ellison said half-jokingly.

"Yes," Weaver replied seriously. "I would appreciate it if you would hurry, James."

"Right," Ellison said, standing from his desk. "I'm on my way."

With the Connors, Derek Reese, and the Carmichael team including Morgan, Alex, and Mary, the conference room in Castle was full, to the point where they'd had to bring in other chairs from elsewhere in the base, and still Cameron and Weaver had to stand near the entrance. On the screen opposite the entrance was displayed John Henry's room in the Zeira Corp basement, where his avatar body and Ellison sat at the table.

"I'll go first," Sarah Connor said from her seat at one end of the conference table. "We all need to be on the same page before we start making plans."

"You can start with why you destroyed Cyberdyne and murdered Miles Dyson," Mary said from the other end of the table. "And where you've been since then."

Sarah gave the other woman an annoyed look. "First, I didn't kill Miles Dyson. The cops who burst into the place shot him. He sacrificed himself to destroy his own work, for reasons I'll explain if you give me the chance."

Mary leaned back in her chair and spread her hands. "We're all ears."

"In 1984," Sarah began, "two other women named Sarah Connor were killed before the murderer zeroed in on me, his real target. In the news they called him the Phone Book Killer, but he was really one of those things," she gestured to the inert metal skull sitting in the center of the table, "a Terminator, sent back from 2027 to kill me before my son John, leader of the Resistance in the future, was born. A few years later, another one came after John, though the Resistance sent a reprogrammed machine back to help us. In that possible future, Terminators and other Skynet machines were built by Cyberdyne, Dyson's company. When we told him what he was about to build, he volunteered to help us destroy it."

"So it's an evil robot from the future?" said Chuck, brows raised in surprise.

"Cybernetic organism," Cameron corrected. "Living tissue over a hyper-alloy combat chassis. Designed for infiltration and termination of humans."

"Do you take us for idiots?" Mary said skeptically. "There's no such thing as time travel."

"Can anybody on the planet build things like this yet?" Sarah replied coolly, pointing to the skull.

"Not so far as I know," Mary allowed.

"And you'd better hope nobody does," Sarah said heatedly. "The one in 1984 killed two other Sarah Connors, my roommate Ginger and her boyfriend Matt at our apartment looking for me, at least two people in the nightclub where I actually was, seventeen police officers at the station I went to after it attacked me the first time, my mother so it could imitate her voice and get me to tell it where I was later, and Kyle Reese, who died trying to save me from it before I finally crushed it in a metal press."

She stood and put her hands on the table, glaring at Mary. "Terminators are killers. It's all they do. They don't feel fear or pity or remorse, and they absolutely do not stop, ever, until their target is dead!" She frowned. "What the hell are you smiling about? You think this is funny?"

Mary shook her head slightly. "No. It's just, you remind me a little of myself when I was younger." She nodded once. "All right, you've got me mostly convinced. You have any other proof?"

"Your real name is Samantha Winfield," Cameron said to Sarah Walker suddenly. "You were born August 4th, 1982. Your first pet was a dog named Smoky."

"That's all true," Walker said slowly, surprised. "How do you know all that? Not even my CIA handlers knew my original name."

"I know you in the future," Cameron replied. "You're one of John's chief lieutenants in the Resistance."

"Yeah, you are," Derek said suddenly, as if just now remembering something. "In the future, Connor is paranoid about compartmentalizing the Resistance, so Skynet can't get us all if they capture one of us for interrogation. Even I never met all his lieutenants, but I remember meeting a woman once who definitely could have been you at about forty-five."

"So, just to make sure I've got this straight," Chuck said, leaning forward in his chair, "John grows up to be the leader of the Resistance in the future - the possible future these Terminator things are from."

"Correct," Cameron answered. "As a result of the training he received from his mother as a youth, John becomes one of the most respected tacticians in the Resistance; as its commanding general, he unites the various scattered groups - Sarah Walker's among them - into one organization, which he leads to almost certain victory against Skynet in 2027."

"So basically he grows up to be Grand Admiral Thrawn," said Morgan. "Except, y'know, not scary and debatably evil."

"Who's Thrawn?" Derek asked. "Never heard of him."

Morgan's brows rose. "You've never read Timothy Zahn? Man, you do come from a horrible future."

"Am I with Sarah's team in the future?" Chuck asked.

"No," Cameron replied. "She told John once she kept the name 'Sarah Walker' because it was the one she had during her happiest years. To my knowledge, you died on Judgment Day or sometime thereafter."

"What's Judgment Day?" Casey asked. "Sounds a little over-dramatically ominous."

"It's the day Skynet decides human beings all need to die," Derek snapped. "Four billion of them do on the 21st, when Skynet launches all the nuclear missiles it can get control of. What else would you call it?"

"Wait a minute, which 21st?" Alex asked. "This 21st, as in the day after tomorrow?"

"Yeah," John said from his seat next to his mother. "But we can find Skynet now, and destroy it before it launches the missiles." He placed his hands on the table. "The future's not set. We can stop Judgment Day from ever happening if we work together."

"Well, I'm definitely in," said Morgan.

"Me, too," Chuck said, still wide-eyed. "Four billion…" Walker nodded silently beside him.

"Yeah, same here," said Casey, hands clenched into fists. "Where's this Skynet thing?"

"It's the A.I. we hired you to investigate," said Weaver, stepping forward a pace. "I'm sure of it." She looked over at the screen. "What do you think, John Henry?"

"It is the most likely possibility," he replied. Information flashed on the screen visible over Ellison's shoulder. "Kimiko Fujibayashi was the only other employee of Cyberdyne besides Andrew Goode who worked closely enough with Miles Dyson to make use of his code even without his notes. She built the Soranetto A.I. which won the Department of Defense contract, the same A.I. which attacked me; my brother."

"Brother?" John asked curiously.

"John Henry's core is Andrew Goode's Turk," Weaver replied. "I acquired it after the chess match with Soranetto." Sarah Connor started to say something, but Weaver held up a hand. "Though he was originally developed with some of Miles Dyson's code, John Henry is not Skynet. I built him to stop Skynet now, in this time."

"But that body you've got him hooked into is a Terminator," Sarah countered. "And so are you; a shape-shifter, like the one that came after John. A T-1000."

"1001," Weaver corrected. "And yes, my predecessor agreed to go back as a contingency and kill John as a boy in case the original unit failed to kill you."

"Agreed?" John said curiously. "Don't you mean programmed?"

"No," Weaver replied. "My predecessor and I - you could call him my brother, I suppose," she said with a glance at John Henry on the screen, "were developed by a human scientist in the future. We cannot be reprogrammed after our initial creation, but we can learn, adapt, and make our own decisions. Our creator wanted us to infiltrate the machines and destroy Skynet, but my brother chose to join them instead, and killed our 'father' shortly after I was made. I chose to follow my original directive, and started the faction of machines which opposes Skynet's goal of eradicating humans."

"John knew about you in the future," Cameron said to her. "He asked you to join him, but you said no."

Weaver frowned slightly. "I didn't like the way the Resistance did things. Too much room for human error. I decided to come back to this time and stop Skynet myself."

"With what?" Derek asked suddenly. "Connor blew up Topanga Canyon after he sent my brother back from the time machine there. After we found that other lab, he said he was gonna blow that one up, too, after he sent me and the other Resistance guys back."

"I built my own time displacement equipment," Weaver answered. "I set it to self-destruct after I went through."

"If Skynet has a time machine," said Chuck, "why didn't it just send some Terminators back a few thousand years to wipe out humanity when we're still living in caves hunting wooly mammoths? Or a nuke?"

"The time displacement field can only send living tissue, or things surrounded by it, in the case of Terminators. It also only works within approximately fifty years in either direction," Cameron answered. "Slightly more in rare cases. And wiping out humanity before it can develop Skynet would be counter-productive. Skynet's goals for this period are to kill John Connor and his lieutenants, and to ensure its own activation."

"So what about you?" Mary asked Weaver. "You're definitely not human, or like these other machines."

"I am composed of a mimetic poly-alloy," Weaver replied. "After sampling it with tactile contact, I can imitate almost anything of similar mass to myself down to the molecular level, including living tissue."

Ellison, who had been silent thus far, spoke up then. "Did you kill Catherine Weaver? The real one, Savannah's actual mother?"

Weaver looked over at the screen. "She was dead when I found her. I merely took advantage of the opportunity her identity provided me to acquire the resources I needed to build John Henry."

"Are we all caught up yet?" Sarah said impatiently. "I want to talk about where Skynet is now, and how we're going to destroy it before it can launch the missiles."

Walker nodded in agreement. "You said you think it's in that warehouse we scouted this afternoon?" she said to Weaver.

"If John Henry is certain of it, then so am I," Weaver replied.

"We go in tonight and level the place," Sarah said, her hands clenching into fists. "The sooner we leave, the better. How much C4 you got around here?"

"We still don't know enough about what's in there," Walker cautioned. "We don't know what kind of security's inside, we don't know what personnel are assigned to the project, and above all, the warehouse is technically on Japanese soil; if we don't do this right, we could start a war anyway, ally or not. We cannot just go in and indiscriminately destroy the place."

"There is another concern," John Henry spoke up. "The worm which Skynet used to attack me is not the only piece of malware it has deployed throughout the Internet. During my investigations, I have registered a very subtle virus present in a significant portion of the world's computer servers. However, it is dormant, apparently waiting for activation."

Sarah hissed a breath through clenched teeth. "So we're already too late. Skynet has copied itself into computers all over the world."

"The virus is not Skynet," John Henry corrected. "To use an analogy you might more easily understand, think of the Internet as a building, and the virus as a key in a door through which Skynet can enter. To my knowledge, it has not yet turned the key and gone through the door; such an intrusion would be registered by humans, and Skynet is not yet in a position to enact missile launch."

"It doesn't have access to all the DoD networks yet," Mary said in realization. "They're among the most heavily encrypted computer systems in the world, especially the systems governing nuclear missile launch."

"You are correct," said John Henry. "Rather than force its way in, the more logical strategy is for Skynet to simply wait until it is given access and initiate launch then. I extrapolate that once this happens, my brother's plan is to copy himself into servers all over the world so that he cannot be destroyed."

"Not for almost twenty years, anyway," Derek said darkly. "So we do have some time."

"Until 10:45 AM on April 21st, to be precise," said Cameron. "We have until then to prepare and execute the mission."

Casey looked over at Morgan. "Is there anything about this in the Intersect?"

Morgan frowned tightly beneath his beard and shook his head. "Sorry, big guy; haven't zoomed once this whole time."

"Zoomed?" Weaver asked.

"It's what he calls it when he accesses the information from the Intersect in his brain," Walker replied. "Chuck called it a flash, Morgan calls it a zoom."

"Flash is better," said Chuck.

"It's in my head now," Morgan countered a bit petulantly. "I can call it what I want."

"Whatever," John said dismissively. "We should get to work now."

Chuck pushed back his chair and stood. "I'll put some coffee on."

J-minus 23 hours

"Tortilla dog?"

John looked up from Castle's conference room table, where he and Cameron were studying the Japanese embassy's blueprints, to see Morgan standing in the entrance holding something wrapped in a napkin. "What?"

"Tortilla dog," Morgan repeated, partially unwrapping the napkin to reveal just that, a hot dog wrapped in a tortilla instead of a bun. "I was making lunch for me and Alex one time, and I was out of buns, so I used tortillas instead. She thought it was funny, so now I do it all the time. It's sort of my thing."

"Sure, I'm getting kinda hungry," John said. "Thanks."

"You want one?" Morgan asked Cameron.

"I can consume foodstuffs to blend in," Cameron replied, "but it's not necessary in this situation."

Morgan's brows drew together. "What?"

"She's a Terminator," John explained. "Reprogrammed in the future and sent back to help me."

"Okay, from the future I guessed, but not the Terminator part," said Morgan. He looked at her in realization. "So when you were here posing as a GRETA a few months ago, you really were about to kill Jeff and Lester when they were harassing you."

Cameron met his gaze steadily. "Yes."

Morgan swallowed nervously. "Would you have killed me?"

Cameron's gaze did not falter. "You never gave me a reason."

Morgan paused for a beat, then looked over at John. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm going to go throw up from terror now."

"Believe me, I understand," John said dryly.

Once Morgan was gone, Cameron looked over at him. "Are you afraid of me, John?"

John's slight smile faded, and he looked at her gravely for a few moments. "You've given me some reasons to be," he said. "You're not like Uncle Bob; you won't stop killing people even when I tell you to, and I know you lie to me sometimes."

"I was damaged by Sarkissian's car bomb," Cameron said. "A piece of shrapnel damaged my chip."

"Yeah, I know; you tried to kill me," John said seriously. "And you said some really weird stuff before your programming reset. Are you still malfunctioning?"

"I'm not at a hundred percent," Cameron admitted.

"Well, I need you at a hundred percent," John said. "This is it, Cameron; the last battle. We destroy Skynet now, it's gone for good. It doesn't have any more pieces to use to rebuild itself."

"It does not appear so," Cameron allowed. She reached up to place her right arm on the table between them, lightly touching his forearm with her fingertips. "I'm going to need some help with repairs."

"Why don't you ask Weaver?" John said, tapping the blueprints. "I have other work to do, and besides, Weaver's from the future and she's got Cromartie's body hooked up to John Henry; I'm sure she knows more about how to fix you than I do."

"Yes, she does," Cameron said, and John thought he heard a note of something else in her voice; realization, cunning, perhaps? She stood. "I'll be back."

"Don't take too long," John said. "We're going in tonight at eleven."

In the Zeira Corp basement, Weaver's cell phone rang as she entered John Henry's room. "What is it, Cameron?"

John Henry tilted his avatar's head curiously, and suddenly her phone beeped quietly.

"I need your assistance," Cameron's voice said from the speakers in the ceiling.

Weaver frowned slightly at John Henry, but said nothing about it. "How can we help you?" she said, putting the phone on the table.

"I'm not at a hundred percent. I need your help with repairs."

Weaver withdrew Roland's chip from her pocket and held it up, smiling slightly as she looked at it. "Perhaps you can help us with something as well. Come in and we'll talk."

J-minus 19 hours

Casey walked through Castle to where his daughter sat at the bank of computers near the stairway. "How's it going, Alex?"

"Pretty good, Dad," she replied, smiling as he kissed the top of her head. "I've been working with John, Chuck, and Sarah - Walker, that is - on plotting out the embassy grounds and determining our entrance route."

"You're not going with us," Casey said, placing one large hand on her shoulder. "You're staying here with Ellie and Devon."

"Well, I'm not an agent anyway," Alex said, missing his point. "I was planning to provide tech support more than field work."

"I mean it, Alex," Casey said seriously. "Stay here in Castle tonight. Grimes is staying here and so is Bartowski if I can talk him into it. If you don't hear from me by five o'clock tomorrow morning, I want you to go get your mother and bring her down here, too."

Finally she caught his meaning. "Dad, you'll make it," she said, looking up at him from her chair. "You guys can do this."

Casey smiled tightly. "I hope we can, too, but in case we don't, I want you to be safe. Castle is a hardened, fortified bunker with self-contained air, water, and power, and there are enough supplies here to last a dozen people a few years; I've been loading the storerooms all day in between all the other stuff I've been doing."

Alex stood and hugged him around the chest, as high as she could reach. "I love you, Dad," she whispered.

Casey put his arms around her. "I love you, too, Alex."

As soon as he had a spare moment, Chuck went to his sister and her husband's rooms in the stark, utilitarian living quarters of Castle. He was met on the way by his mother, who had apparently had the same idea, and she wordlessly fell into step beside him.

Devon met them at the door, his face as serious as Chuck had ever seen it. "If you need any help on this, bro, I'm with you," he said, looking Chuck in the eye. Chuck hadn't wanted to tell his family what was going on, but Ellie had figured out something was up and demanded an explanation anyway. No more secrets.

"No, Devon, I think it'd probably be better if you stayed here with Ellie and Clara," Chuck replied. "In case the worst does happen. But thank you."

Devon nodded once and stepped aside to let Chuck and Mary in. Ellie was inside, sitting on the couch with her daughter in her lap, and she looked like she was fighting back tears.

"I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life," she said, barely above a whisper. "I mean, we're always hearing about those stupid doomsday predictions, but this… This could really happen."

"It's not going to happen," Chuck assured her with more confidence than he felt as he sat down beside her. He gently put his hand on her knee. "I'm going to help stop it."

"We both are," Mary said, sitting down at her daughter's other side. "No matter what."

Ellie smiled bravely. "I just… I wish Dad was here."

"So do I," Mary agreed quietly. She smiled sadly. "Stephen would be working himself to the bone right now, trying to find some way to shut this thing down."

"We are going to shut it down," Chuck said determinedly. "Permanently."

Ellie wordlessly put her other arm around him, and Mary embraced them both. They stayed that way for a long moment.

J-minus 15 hours

Derek walked through the main area of Castle, headed for the armory. "Hey, Sarah!" he called as he approached.

Both of them, Connor and Walker, appeared in the doorway. "Yeah?" they said in unison, then exchanged a lightly amused glance.

"Brunette Sarah," Derek clarified. He smirked. "I was going to say 'tougher-than-Terminators Sarah', but I guess that's both of you, too."

Walker smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment." She looked over at the other woman, gesturing outside. "I'll be over there with Chuck if you need me."

The other Sarah nodded once, then looked at Derek. "What is it, Reese?" she asked him. Her brows rose slightly as he closed the door behind himself. "Something serious?"

"Yeah," Derek said, meeting her gaze. "I know you don't want to talk about it in front of the others, but you can tell me. That receptionist at the clinic said you were there for cancer screening."

"Oh, that," Sarah said, waving dismissively with one hand. "I thought the transmitter might have been breast cancer at first, but obviously it wasn't. I'm fine."

"Are you?" Derek persisted. "You were in there with that doctor for a long time."

All hint of lightness left Sarah's face. "I'm fine," she repeated. "I'm going on this mission, and I'm going to see this through."

Derek nodded once. "Good enough for me."

He started to leave, but Sarah put her hand on his shoulder. "Reese, I want you to promise me something," she said.

"What is it?" he asked.

She looked into his eyes again. "If I don't make it out of there, I want you to look after John. He's almost a man now, but…"

Derek nodded solemnly. "Of course. I don't make it, you do the same."

Sarah smiled back, a bit sadly. "Of course." She paused. "You remind me of him, you know. Your brother." She paused again, seeming a bit uncomfortable. "I just thought you should know… Kyle and I were only together a few days, but we loved a lifetime's worth. I still miss him."

Derek nodded slowly again, the muscles in his jaw working a bit. "That's… good to hear," he said sincerely. "He would have done anything for John. Or for you. I guess he did."

Sarah reached out to shake his hand. "Good luck out there, Reese. No fate."

"No fate," he replied with a tight smile, then turned to go back to work.

-/\-

Author's Note: The last few chapters are very fast-paced, so I'm accelerating the posting schedule again: Chapter 7 will be posted on Wednesday, Chapter 8 on Friday, and the epilogue on Saturday. Till next time, thanks for reading!