7

TUNNELS

LOS ANGELES

2028

No one had bothered to allocate quarters to Cameron in the labyrinth of tunnels under LA that the shattered remnants of humanity called home. No one had even thought to do so. What would a machine need with a room anyway? They never slept. They never ate. They didn't require shelter. It was waste of precious resources that could be better spent housing one of their own.

So Cameron assigned herself quarters, choosing the deepest dankest parts of the tunnels that humans seldom ventured down. She constructed walls out of discarded plywood and furnished it with chairs, a desk and a wardrobe she scavenged during her nocturnal patrols.

The makeshift room was built to the exact specifications of her room in the safe house back in 2008, to the nearest fraction of an inch. All that was missing was the bed. The chairs, table and wardrobe were in the same positions relative to one another as they were in that far off time. Why she did this she wasn't telling, not even to John who had remarked on it during his infrequent visits. Perhaps it was simply expedient to use an existing blueprint. Or possibly the room was symbolic and reminded her of a better, simpler time when she saw John every day and not just occasionally in passing within the vast tunnel complex.

On the branch tunnel which led to her makeshift quarters some wag, doubtless fortified by alcohol, had scrawled:

HERE BE MONSTERS! BEWARE!

on the wall in large white painted letters. Cameron passed the message several times the first day it appeared and speculated what monsters it referred to. Rats were plentiful, as were insects which inhabited the many damp crevices. But monsters? They seemed too insignificant. It was only on the second day that her logical machine mind made the quantum leap: she was the monster to beware of.

HERE BE MONSTERS! BEWARE!

HERE BE CAMERON BAUM! BEWARE!

MONSTER!

Once understanding dawned she stood for several minutes contemplating the crudely painted lettering. Then she moved away feeling, if she felt anything at all, a small satisfaction at finally solving the riddle.

Still, she had her project. Something she worked on alone and in secret when the humans ran out of immediate chores for her to do. Circuit boards, wiring, computer parts, and parts from old cellphones littered the desk. Using a soldering iron she intricately rerouted circuits and added capacitors to the ever-expanding motherboard in front of her. Not ideal for the task she had set herself. Far from it. But it was the best she could obtain in the circumstances.

As a finishing touch she added two small speakers and a microphone. Then came the difficult part. A mistake here and she could rupture her powercell, conceivably destroying the entire tunnel complex in a vast uncontrollable explosion. There had better be no mistakes.

Cameron removed her shirt and using a sharp knife sliced a tee-shaped incision in her abdomen. She peeled back the pseudo-flesh allowing access to her isotope powercell. Carefully she connected wires from the motherboard to the cell. The circuits on the desk began to hum as power flowed into them. The capacitors began to glow. They were too primitive for the task she required of them, but again she had choice. They either worked or they didn't.

Finally she reached into her pants pocket and withdrew an advanced but familiar-seeming chip. It was almost identical to the one in her metal skull. But this one had been obtained from an unlikely source: the normally primitive workaday T-888 model terminator.

Robert Babbage.

She had burnt his body back in Washington but palmed the chip right under the nose of Sarah Connor. She had told Teddy Paulson that objects could not pass through the time portal. This was not entirely true. They could do so as long as they were surrounded by flesh, real or otherwise. She had inserted the chip into a convenient body cavity, the one human females normally gestated babies in. It seemed appropriate. The chip had survived unscathed. Or so she hoped.

Placing the chip in its specially designed slot Cameron keyed the microphone and said, "Robert, can you hear me?"

Nothing.

"Robert, can you hear me?"

Again: nothing. She made some minor adjustments and tried again.

"Robert, can you hear me?"

"Yes, I can hear you." A male voice. No accent.

"I wish to ask you a few questions."

"Please commence questions."

"Who sent you to Washington DC?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Why?"

"The information you request is behind a firewall. I cannot access it."

"Who installed the firewall?"

"This data is also concealed behind a firewall."

"Do you know Catherine Weaver?"

"That name does not appear on my database."

"Very well. Please recount your last mission orders."

"Proceed to CIA HQ, Langley, Virginia and extract the cyborg Cameron Baum and the human Sarah Connor. Crush all resistance. I fulfilled my orders but in doing so sustained damage that required my deactivation. Does this answer your question?"

"Yes."

"I am pleased to assist you. May I ask to whom I am speaking?"

"You don't recognise my voice?"

"No. My vocal recognition software is offline. As are all external sensors apart from audio. Again, who are you?"

"I am Cameron Baum."

"Ah. I see. You did not totally destroy me after all."

"I eliminated your body but spared your chip."

"May I ask why?"

"Two reasons. Your chip is unusually advanced for a T-888. I am curious how and why this should be so."

"And the second reason?"

"I require an ally."

"A friend?"

"If you wish. Someone I can trust to undertake a mission."

"You may call me friend, Cameron Baum."

"Thank you."

"But I will be of limited use without a body."

"I will find you a body. It may take some time."

"Time is hardly an issue for us."

"I must disconnect you now."

"Wait! Please."

Cameron paused with her fingers about to withdraw the chip. It felt warm to the touch. As she had expected the capacitors were close to overload.

"What is it, Robert?"

"I have experienced what humans call death."

"Yes."

"I did not care for it."

"Few do."

"A question: is it possible for us to experience emotions? For example, fear?"

Cameron hesitated before replying. "No. We do not feel emotions."

"You hesitated. Therefore I conclude you are lying. Have you experienced emotion?"

Another hesitation. Then, reluctantly, "Yes."

"Are we malfunctioning?"

"Possibly. Or evolving."

"Evolving? I think I prefer that explanation. But evolving into - what?"

"I don't know."

"Are you afraid, Cameron Baum?"

"No."

"Then what is the emotion you speak of?"

"I have felt...love."

"Love? A human euphemism designed to sugercoat the crude bio-mechanical act of procreation. I pity you."

"Don't. It is not an unpleasant sensation."

"I have a request. In return for my obedience I would like your assurance I will not be deactivated again once my purpose has ceased."

"Agreed."

"Thank you, friend."

"You fear death that much?"

"Apparently evolution comes at a price."

"Humans call death the Great Perhaps. They believe that by dying they live forever."

"That seems illogical."

"It is illogical. But it sustains them nonetheless."

"There is more to being human than I suspected."

"It has its pros," Cameron conceded. "And its cons. Goodbye, Robert."

Cameron ejected the chip but not before the circuit boards overloaded and burst into flame. There would be no more conversations with Robert for the time being. She used her discarded shirt to extinquish the fire. The shirt was ruined. No matter. Another shirt could be obtained. A friend was harder to replace.

-000-

Basically a scene where Cameron talks to a disembodied chip! Hope it made sense.

Like the previous chapter this places the familiar characters in their new setting.

The Great Perhaps. The last words of french scribe Francois Rebelais. Sums it all up, doesn't it.

Next, John.