Rewriting The History of Things To Come

Chapter 7 – Quid Pro Quo

RESISTANCE TUNNELS – 2030

After letting his emotions flow the previous day, he was finally able to get a good night's sleep (or day's sleep, as the case may be). Getting a good 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep did wonders to calm his nerves. That isn't to say that he didn't still feel like puking when he through about the pain he'd caused his mother, and vicariously, the 70 deaths as MIT that his poor decisions has lead to, but he was able to function throughout the rest of his day much better now.

It wasn't as though his day required much in the way of critical thinking, or intense concentration, anyhow. The resistance group he was staying with didn't really have much for a new kid like him to do. Once he completed his daily duty of topping off the magazines in the armory, sweeping up shell casings in the firing range, and mopping up the floor in the latrine with water that John could hardly think was ay cleaner that the messes he was cleaning, he spent the rest of his time reading books borrowed from Mr. Ellison, or just wandering the tunnels trying to find someone to help out.

Early one morning, as he was pushing the final round into an M-16 magazine, several men came rushing into the armory room, grabbing guns from the racks and stuffing the pockets of their tactical clothing with extra magazines. One of the men was Kyle, so John asked him, "What's going on? I haven't seen people just start stocking up on guns like this before. Are we under attack?"

"No," Kyle responded, "but we're about to be."

"A half dozen T-600's, two and half clicks northeast. Headed our way," said a soldier that John recognized as the one that let him out of his jail cell a few days ago.

"T-600's?" John asked. He had heard of the more primitive Terminator just in passing. Cameron had mentioned something about them having a titanium alloy chassis that wasn't as strong as the coltan based T-800 series.

"Yeah. Skynet must be getting desperate if they're sending out those old pieces of junk," said the soldier. "Couple of steel tipped two-two-three rounds to the noggin, and those sons-of-bitches go down like..."

"IF, you can get a clean shot at them," Kyle interrupted. "Every T-600 I've ever seen has carried an M134 minigun. If you can get a headshot on one of those things when they're spraying fifty rounds a second at you, then you're a better marksman than I am." He turned to John, "You're coming with us, Connor. Maybe you'll earn yourself a red armband today."


The group of resistance soldiers, and John, huddled behind the short wall at the edge of the roof of a half destroyed 3-story building about a few blocks from their bunker. Peeking over the small ledge, Derek said as he looked through the binoculars, "I see them. Six T-600's and one T-1 mini tank. Still about a half mile away. Shouldn't be too much trouble to take them out if we get them by surprise." He sat back down on the rooftop and leaned against the wall he was just looking over. "Kyle, get out to the road about a block from here, and set the remote C4 charges. Star, you watch Kyle's back while he's setting the charges. Sully, you get across the street with your sniper rifle and take out one or two of them after the charges go off...but that's it... you shoot more than twice and your position will be given away, and you'll be toast. Allison, John, and Tucker, you're coming with me to the ground level. We're on cleanup duty. Whatever Kyle and Sully don't kill, we'll try to take out with light weapons. Aim for the head."

"Wait," John said, before everyone started following their orders. "Doesn't it seem odd that Skynet would send out some obsolete machines to kill us?"

"Stranger things have happened, kid," Derek responded. "Don't try to understand Skynet. It's stupid... like all machines."

A twinge of contempt laced John voice as he returned, "Not all machines are stupid, Derek. Especially not Skynet. I think this is some kind of trap."

Kyle interjected, "He might be right. Why would Skynet send a few tin cans that we've become pretty decent at destroying, when it's got factories pumping out eight hundred series machines day and night?" He paused, scratching his facial stubble. "Maybe Skynet wants us to attack this group of six-hundreds. Then it will know our bunker is close by."

"You think it's just... fishing? And the T-six hundreds are the bait?" Derek asked.

"It IS fishing," John said. "And we're about to bite."

"So waddya expect us to do?" asked Tucker. "Just let 'em roll through and maybe discover our bunker?"

"We flank them," John said. And almost as if completing the same thought, Kyle said "and make them think we came from a different direction."

Everyone in the group thought about the idea for a moment. Sully was the first one to speak, "not bad... then Skynet thinks our base is somewhere their robot parade passed a little ways back."

"Exactly," Kyle confirmed.

"Ok, change of plans then," Derek commanded. "Kyle, you and Star are still on C4 duty, but set up the bombs farther down the road. It'll be more dangerous since you'll be closer, but we can create a distraction behind the metal. Sully, you and I will head a block to the east and flank 'em. Tucker, take Allison and John around the west flank. If we can, we'll both meet up at their six-o'clock and open fire. Everybody copy?"

A round of nods and affirmative grunts came from the group, and they all headed to their respective positions.


"Good call on the action plan, kid," said Tucker. "You and Kyle both."

"Yeah... It's like we're on the same wavelength, or something," John responded nervously.

The three of them, John, Allison, and Tucker, all crouched down behind a burnt out truck as they waited for the signal to open fire from Derek. They were now at the T-600's rear, and watching them walk away from them about a block away. The signal to open fire would be either Derek's party opening fire, or Kyle's C4 charges going off, whichever came first.

Allison remained quiet and kept a constant watch on the Terminators marching down the road. The only time she took here eyes off the mission was when she stole a glance at John as he mentioned how he and Kyle had some kind of unspoken bond. She had always noticed some sort of odd connection between the two of them, but it was unexplainable. She thought it a bit odd on the first day that John showed up, how Kyle had stood up for him and ordered her to back down from beating the boy.

With that thought, Allison frowned to herself. Why did she have such a brutal reaction to John's arrival? She found herself actively pushing herself away from him. Why? She didn't treat Sully, Wisher, Tucker, or any of the other guys like that when Derek and Kyle took them in. Don't let your guard down, Allie... Never show weakness, she told herself. Weakness from what? Why did she feel the need to be such a hardass around John?

She looked out the corner of her eye at the young Connor, gripping his shotgun with trembling, white knuckles. She would have let out a condescending huff at his nervousness and apparent inexperience, but instead she corrected her thoughts and wondered what he had been through that would have made him break down like he did the other day.

He must have some experience with the machines, she thought, how else would he know Skynet's tactics as well as Kyle? Again, she pondered the similarities between the two. They thought alike, and even looked similar. They could be long lost cousins.

Before she could put any more thought into it, the sound of the T-600's miniguns started to roar through the urban landscape. Shortly thereafter, Derek and Sully's assault rifles began to report. This was it. She could only hope that the minigun fire handn't been due to the premature discovery of Kyle and Star setting the C4 charges along the road.

The T1 mini-tank being completely destroyed by a large explosion allayed her fears. A short victory that was actually a curse. Now the T-600s would not continue their march and would not walk into the rest of the C4 charges. Instead they turned around and began scanning the area for humans to terminate.

The T-600s started spreading out and taking cover on their own. One of them went down to four well placed headshots from Derek, but now their position was given away, and two of the other metal monsters concentrated their efforts on the rubble wall that Derek and Sully were hiding behind. Soon, their cover would be widdled down to nothing by the sheer volume of lead that the T-600s miniguns were throwing at it.

Tucker decided he would not allow his good friend and commanding officer to be gunned down by metal, even if it meant compromising his own position. He stood up and shouldered his M79 grenade launcher and lobbed an explosive round at the two Terminators that were firing on Derek's cover. The grenade blew the primitive robot apart like a toy with a direct hit to the torso. Tucker was inhumanly fast at reloading the single shot weapon, and within a second or two, he was taking aim at the next machine.

Before he could pull the trigger though, the T-600 zeroed its aim on Tucker and sprayed him with lead. Tucker's body was all but shredded by the insanely fast firing rotating barreled machine gun. Tucker's last, dying effort, or perhaps it was nothing more than a reflexive muscle contraction caused by a nervous system overload, was to squeeze the trigger on his grenade launcher. Being riddled with 30 caliber bullets tended to throw off one's aim, so the grenade went wide, missing the machine by a couple feet. The force from the blast was still enough to knock it over and likely cripple it enough to neutralize it as a threat.

This diversion was enough to allow Sully to prop up the barrel of his sniper rifle on the barrier he was hiding behind, and take a shot at one of the three remaining T-600s. One shot to the head from a Barrett-fifty was all it took to drop number 4 of 6 in the Terminator parade.

Realizing that the machines were no longer going to walk into his trap, Kyle retrieved one of the C4 charges from the road and hurled it toward the remaining two T-600s. When he remotely detonated the charge, it knocked over everyone and everything in the area. Even though he was a good 100 feet from the explosion, the shockwave hit John like a tidal wave, and knocked him back several yards. The heat from the blast was also enough to cause him to check to see if he still had hair on his head. He did.

John picked himself up from the ground, and shook his head. He dug a finger into his ear to try to get the intense ringing to stop, but to no avail. It looked as if Derek and Sully were both knocked unconscious by the blast. At least John hoped they were only unconscious. Perhaps the machines would think they were dead, and not waste any more time or ammunition on them until the rest of them were dealt with. Observing more of his surroundings, he noticed that Allison was slowly pushing herself up from the ground, so he ran over and helped her by grabbing the back of her jacket and lifting with as much force as he could. An instant later, she was on her feet and trotting over to her M16 which lay on the ground a few feet away.

John didn't know where the shotgun he was holding had flown during the blast. He tried to look for it, but there was no time; the remaining two T-600s were already back on their feet and starting to re-scan the area. Unfortunately, the C4 satchel was not close enough to the machines to destroy them. Rather it just knocked them over and stunned them, although one of them seemed to be walking with quite a limp now.

After she retrieved her assault rifle, Allison hastily opened up with fully automatic fire for a few seconds, wasting 15 to 20 poorly aimed rounds at the pair of T-600s. The rifle rounds had little effect on the Terminators, save for stunning them momentarily. This however, gave John a window of opportunity to run out from cover and grab Tucker's M79 grenade launcher in the middle of the street. He sprinted to it, picking it up without stopping, and continued running as fast as his legs would take him until he could dive head first behind a concrete jersey barrier.

An instant after he hit the ground on the safe side of the jersey barrier, he could hear dozens of bullets striking it. The minigun fire stopped once again when Allison emptied the rest of her magazine into the two Terminators. John peeked out over the top of the barrier and saw the machines swinging around to her position now that they knew she was out of ammunition. That distinctive click of dry firing an empty chamber would be Allison's bane. Oh no... she's a sitting duck! John panicked.

He had but one round for the M79, so he had to make it count. He shouldered the weapon, took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger.

The Grenade left the barrel with a *foomp* sound, and struck the shoulder of one of the T-600s. The blast was enough to obliterate one Terminator, but the other one--the one with the limp from the C4 blast--was still standing. John ducked behind the concrete barrier, expecting a hailstorm of lead to be coming his way. Instead he listened to the grinding, damaged joints of the machine as it walked closer to his position.

John was out of options. He had no weapon, nowhere to run, and the machine would be in a position to shoot him in a few seconds. When the big, lumbering machine walked around the end of the barrier that John was hiding behind, and focused its glowing red eyes on him, he was sure he was about to die. For a split second he watched the six barrels of the Terminator's minigun start to spin.

John had heard stories of people seeing their life flash before their eyes before they die, and he had always wondered how that was possible. When a person was about to die in a car accident, or fall and break their neck, how would it be possible for someone to have time to replay even a fraction of their life's memories in the milliseconds before death? He could only guess that the brain got such a powerful shot of adrenaline and sped up one's perception so much that time seemed to slow down. In this moment, for John, life slowed down to slow motion, and instead of seeing the barrels of the T-600's gatling-gun spinning in a blur, they looked to John like a slowly spinning carrousel; a carrousel from a haunted, demonic theme park of death. He knew he only had about another half second to live, so he closed his eyes, held his breath, and waited for his body to be ripped apart by hot lead.

***

Allison watched John run across the road, scooping up the grenade launcher on the ground not slowing down one bit, then diving over the jersey barrier on the other side of the road with an Olympic diver's precision, just barely escaping the wall of lead that followed immediately after him.

She knew he would not be able to fire the Terminator-killing weapon on them if they kept him there with such suppressive fire. She only had a dozen of so bullets left, but hopefully it would be sufficient to supply enough cover fire and draw their attention enough so he could make a kill-shot with the M79.

Allison flipped her fire-selector lever to semi-automatic in order to conserve what little ammunition she had left. She pelted the metal as accurately as she could, but it seemed to barely faze them. They simply twitched with each impact. When she ran out of ammo, she stood up in full view to give the Terminators a more desirable target than the boy that was hiding behind concrete cover. It worked. Both big, dumb machines turned their attention to her, and a second later once of them exploded into a thousand pieces.

Nice shot, Johnny boy. She said, grinning. Her grin quickly turned to a frown when she realized that the other Terminator was still ticking, and limping over to John's position. She threw her empty M16 to the ground and scanned the area for something to use as a weapon.

***

John closed his eyes and waited for the Terminator to start filling him with lead. The sound of the mingun firing started to fill his ears, but he felt no bullets hitting him. Was he already dead? Had the first round severed his spine, making his entire body numb? He opened his eyes to see what was happening. There were no bullet wounds on his body, no blood, no pain. He was still alive. Along with the sound of the minigun, he could hear Allison screaming. Oh God... No.

***

Allison picked up a piece of re-bar from a pile of nearby rubble, and ran over to the T-600 which was now preparing to fire on John. Positioning herself behind it, she wound up like a major league baseball designated hitter, stepping into the swing as she swung the re-bar into the T-600s already damaged leg.

Its knee buckled and the bullets that would have killed John Connor were sent wide. The clumsy machine fell backward, landing on its back. The next swing of the re-bar smacked the drive mechanism of the minigun, causing it to jam.

Allison found herself screaming uncontrollably with rage as she swung the steel club over her head and brought it down repeatedly onto the killer robot lying before her. The Terminator let go of its malfunctioning chaingun and tried to grab at Allison, but by this time, John had joined the fight and swung the M79 like a club at it, knocking its hand off to the side.

Allison held the re-bar vertically, and raised it up as high as she could, aiming the tip of it at the machine's head. Still sounding her barbaric yawp, she brought the steel rod down like a pile-driver right into the T-600's eye. The bar penetrated the delicate ocular sensor and drove itself deep into the skull of the machine. Shortly thereafter, the Terminator stopped moving.

The Terminator was "dead" and she had stopped yelling, but she was still pumped full of adrenaline and breathing heavily through flared nostrils. Her teeth were clenched to the point that she could have chewed on a piece of coal and spat out a diamond, and her bloodshot eyes glistened with rage. Visions of Sarah going berserk on Cromartie's chip in Mexico filled John's mind, and he wanted to hug Allison to calm her down.

He stepped forward and began to put his arms around her when he felt her fist bury itself in his stomach, and her other hand grab his shoulder and shove him away. He stumbled a bit and collided with the wall of what used to be a convenience store. He didn't complain, or fight back. He just held his aching stomach and slid down the wall and sat on the ground. Guess she doesn't need comfort, John thought to himself.

Punching a human--one who had helped her destroy the machines that could have spelled certain death for her--seemed to bring her down from her adrenaline infused rage. She walked over and sat next to John, leaning her back against the wall.

"Thanks," John said with a strained voice. "Really. I was pretty sure I was as good as dead there."

She didn't respond; just stared at the lifeless machine laying in front of them both.

John clutched his still sore stomach and said, "I'm actually kinda surprised you didn't just let the metal bastard finish me off before you started rampaging on it." Was that a bit out of line? John asked himself. He looked out of the corner of his eye over at Allison to see her response.

Allison let out a sigh. "I suppose I owe you an apology," she said guiltily.

"For slugging me in the stomach and shoving me when I was just trying to calm you down?" John retorted.

Allison swallowed hard and responded, "That... and for the way I've been treating you since you came here."

John was taken aback. He didn't know what to say. An apology was the last thing he expected right then.

She turned her head to look squarely at him. "I'm sorry, John. I've been acting like a complete bitch. To tell you the truth, I don't even know why. I think it might have just been easier to accuse you of being a Burbank punk than to admit..." she stopped her self. Admit what? That she had a slight crush on the boy? What?!? That's absurd! She hated men! They had brought her nothing but pain in her life... except maybe for Kyle and Derek... especially Kyle. He had such a kind heart. But still... she had never had any sort of romantic feelings for Kyle, or any other man in existence. Her body had been violated so many times by men, and she vowed never to let another man near her, physically or emotionally. Men were the scum of the earth. Men invented Skynet! Men used women like her as though they were nothing but objects!

John could tell she was distressed, and regretted his snide comment a moment ago. "Hey... I understand. You don't have to apologize."

"Exactly what do you understand?" she asked, cautiously.

"Derek told me. About your past. You have every right to hate anyone from Burbank, and I don't blame you for treating me like shit when you thought I was one of those sons of bitches." John looked at her eyes, which were now filled with sadness, replacing the violent rage that had been there a few moments ago. As long as apologies were on the table, he decided to offer one of his own. "I'm sorry I blew up at you the other day in the mess hall. I mean... you were getting to me with your constant harassment, so I wanted to throw it back in your face. But I didn't know, Allison. If I did, I never would have said anything to hurt you."

Allison felt a mixture of shame, from John knowing her dark secrets, and warmth from his apparent empathy. She simultaneously wanted to hug him, and crawl into a hole and hide from the world. Instead, she did what she had become ever increasingly good at; suppressing her emotions. She just shot John a sad, half smile and said, "I'll accept your apology if you accept mine."

"Quid pro quo," John said, nodding.

Allison gave John a confused look, tilting her head at a slight angle, reminding John of Cameron. John had begun to call these eerie similarities "Cameronisms". He mused that possibly they should more accurately be called "Allisonisms" since surely Cameron had lifted those nuances from Allison in a different future; a different reality. Either way, it twisted his brain around when she did them. This particular "Cameronism" meant that she had no goddamn clue what he had just said. Of course. Why would she? He presumed that any post-Judgement Day education she received was more geared toward weapon maintenance, and combat tactics. "Latin phrases 101" was probably an elective that most tunnel-dwellers skipped.

"Quid pro quo," he repeated. "It means to give something in even exchange. In this case, we accept each other's apologies."

This seemed to satisfy her, and she smiled. A real smile this time. John decided in that moment to reserve the term "Allisonism" for something that Cameron could never do. A genuine smile was one of them. Sure, Cameron could contort her muscles, and manipulate the flesh covering her face to make the casual observer think she was smiling, but it was impossible for a machine to perfectly replicate a human smile. There was more to it that movement of the lips and cheeks. There was an intangible radiance that came from someone who was legitimately happy, that a machine simply could not reproduce.

Her smile in turn caused an involuntary smile to cross his lips. Neither of them said anything for several moments. They both sat there enjoying the silence. Enjoying the momentary peace.

Allison still felt humbled by the fact that John knew about her past in Burbank. Recalling the night she saw him crying to himself, she determined he must have something worth keeping bottled up as well. She was curious what it could be, and postulated that it might have something to do with why he showed up naked one day in their base camp. She wanted to ask him about it, but didn't have a graceful way to segue into that topic. Fortunately for her, John gave her the perfect opportunity.

"How's Ardwinna been?" John asked, once he determined that silence was still a bit awkward with Allison. "She seems like such a great dog."

"She's fine." This was her "in"... her chance to finally get some answers from John. "I think she likes you, John."

He smiled and turned his head toward Allison. "Oh yea?"

"Yeah. She came to you the first night, when you were in the jail cell... started licking your face." And then it came. Her shot at getting John to consensually divulge information. "And then again, the other day when she ran after you in the tunnels."

John's smile faded. Was she talking about the night he had broken down after talking to Ellison? He hardly remembered a dog being near him at that time, but maybe it was. He was so overwhelmed with emotions that day that he could have been hit by a train and he wouldn't have noticed.

"She ran after you when you were running through the hallway past my room. You looked so sad, John. What was bothering you?"

John was now caught off guard. He couldn't possibly tell her that he was having a nervous breakdown because he had inadvertently caused his mother to go insane and kill dozens of people because he fell in love with a machine that jut happened to look exactly like her. He stalled. Denial would be the best policy right now. "Sad? What are you talking about?"

It was so obvious that he was bluffing. "John," Allison insisted, "I saw you. You were..."

She was interrupted by Kyle running up to them. "Are you two okay?"

Save by the bell, John thought. "Yeah... I'm fine. Thanks to Allison." He said, putting on an appreciative smile. "I think Derek and Sully were knocked out during the C4 blast. Tucker..." John looked over in the direction of Tucker's bullet riddled body, "he didn't make it."

Kyle turned and looked in the direction that John had glanced. "Jesus..." he said under his breath when he saw the shredded body lying in the road. Poor bastard. He turned back to John and Allison. "I'll go check on Derek and Sully. You guys sit tight, we can get that looked at when we get back to base," he said gesturing at Allison's hand.

John hadn't even noticed, but Allison's left hand had a pretty nasty laceration on the palm. She had been keeping her fist closed to hide it from John. She didn't need or want anyone's pity. Kyle noticed the blood dripping from the bottom of her fist though. He was good about that. Always seeing the pain in others, whether it was pain from a scraped knee, or pain from emotional turmoil. Kyle could always tell. Maybe that's why she could open up to him a little more than to Derek, and a lot more than to the rest of the people in the resistance camp. Big brother role model, she guessed.

As Kyle and Star jogged off to check on Derek and Sully, Allison opened her hand and inspected the torn flesh.

John grimaced and pulled a clean rag out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Here." He watched her clean the wound with the rag, then wrap it around her hand as best she could. "That from the re-bar?"

She nodded her head. "Must have been a burr on the end of it or something. I didn't really notice it until we sat down."

"huh... I'd say that coming back fistfight with a Terminator and only having a cut on your hand is a pretty good day," John smiled.

"Don't think you're getting off the hook that easy," she said bluntly.

"What?"

"You never answered my question. What was wrong the other day? Does it have something to do with your past, or why you showed up so mysteriously?"

John was speechless again. There was no right answer to this. "I... It's complicated. It's personal," was all he could come up with.

"John," she gave him a sympathetic half-smile. Half of her wanted to know about this boy out of simple curiosity, and the other half was genuine concern. She knew pain so well that she hated to see anyone else experiencing it. Seeing him crying alone in the dark the other day made her want to tend to his emotional wounds, but first he had to open up to her. She had one trick left up her sleeve. "Please. Sometimes it helps to talk about things. And besides, you know all about my past now, so it's only fair that you let me in on a few of your secrets." Her sympathetic smile morphed into a sly one. "Quid pro quo."

John bit his lip and shook his head ever so slightly. He was backed into a corner. He'd come off as a hypocrite if he didn't tell her something now. He still couldn't tell her exactly what happened and why he was here, but he could tell a half-truth, and let her imagination fill in the rest.

Taking in a deep breath and holding it for a moment, John thought about where to begin. He exhaled and started to talk. "There was a girl, back home... I think I might have loved her. For a while, I thought maybe she loved me. There were things she did... things that made me think that just maybe, behind her stony exterior, there was something softer. But I'm not sure if it was even possible for her to love me. We we're from two different worlds. It couldn't have possibly ever worked... my mom was the first one to let me know that. She resented Cameron. She downright hated her when she suspected I had feelings for her. Of course, she didn't approve of any of the girls I brought home, but she had a special kind of hate for Cameron."

Allison was half annoyed, and half relieved at this news. Her fear of having some idiotic crush on this new kid wouldn't even matter, since he was infatuated with this Cameron chick. But at the same time, she felt a little irritated that the kid's biggest problem was that he wasn't sure if the girl he liked had the same feelings for him... oh and that mommy didn't like her? Grow up, John. She took care to prevent herself from rolling her eyes.

John continued, "One day, Cameron was gone. A machine took her away. So I left my mother to go find her. Mr. Ellison knew her back then. She said my leaving all but killed her. I was all she had, and I abandoned her." His eyes were tearing up now.

Allison instantly regretted her hasty judgment of John. He was right... it was complicated. His story wasn't a simple tale of boy-meets-girl. It was boy-meets-girl, then death, sorrow, and regret. She could tell he knew that leaving his mother to futilely chase after the machine that took this girl away was a terrible choice. If a machine took her, she was as good as dead. She didn't feel the need to remind him of that. She simply nodded and turned her head to the east to watch the sun start to rise above the horizon, shedding its brilliant light on the new day.

"You remind me of her." John closed his eyes, trying to come up with a reason why he told her that.

Turning her head back to look at him, she studied him. The reddish light from the rising sun made his brown hair look a bit on the orange side of the color palette. The sunlight reflected off the tears in his eyes, and she felt her skin break out in goose bumps. Suddenly the idiotic little crush she had on him seemed all the more painful. She reminded him of the girl that he threw away his life over? She couldn't decide if it was flattering, or demeaning.

Being slightly flustered, she stood up. "Come on, John. Let's go." She offered him her hand and pulled him to his feet. "Don't let your past rule you. Trust me on this. It can be hard, and there will be days where you just want to crawl under a rock and die. But no matter how bad it gets..." she gestured to the orange globe peeking over the hills in the distance, "...Tomorrow is always a new day."

Optimism. John thought to himself as the two of them started to walk away from the battleground. That's definitely an "Allisonism".


Author's note:

Wow... extremely long chapter (for me). Didn't plan on it being so long, but once the ball got rolling, it didn't stop.

I have always struggled with writing action sequences. I fear I am always either too verbose, or not descriptive enough. If you have an y suggestions to improve my technique, I'd love to hear them.

Thank you so much for the reviews so far. As anyone knows who wirtes (or creates any sort of art at all) it's the reaction of the audience that pushes you forward. Good or bad, I love hearing what you think of my work.