Epp 8

James Ellison took Mary Tok to track down a possible lead with him. In one of Sarah's accounts, they had witnessed a prototype H/K unit rise up out of a remote pond. He had the location, and to destroy anything there they found, Mary had brought along three bricks of C-4 and timer/detonators that Sarah had acquired. She also brought along one of the now fully assembled a plasma rifles in case this facility was guarded.

Since the unit had come up out of the water, Mary had Ellison stop at a dive shop to get an underwater mask and hand held light, then at a hardware store for 200 feet of rope.

It didn't take Ellison as long as he thought it would to find the pond. Mary gave Ellison the plasma rifle 'just in case'. She put the mask on grabbed the light and tied the rope around her waist. "If I need to get pulled up, I will jerk on the rope three times. One jerk means to give me more slack," Mary explained.

Looking at the small pond and the surrounding land, Ellison didn't see any buildings, or how anything could be down inside that pond. He picked up the rope and nodded to her. "If I see anything, I'll jerk twice," he told her.

"Understood." Mary said. She walked into the water. The first few feet the water deepened slowly. Mary was knee deep when the bottom dropped. She plunged down out of sight. The rope went taunt, pulling on Ellison. Hauling back, he managed to keep from being pulled in. He felt a jerk on the line.

Underwater, Mary turned her light on and inspected the vertical wall in front of her as she was slowly lowered down. The concrete wall gave way to a set of steel doors. She caught the edge in one hand and stepped onto the bottom edge. She heard the soft noise of machinery. Panning the light around, there was nothing in the pond, and no other doors or hatchways. She jerked on the rope three times.

As Ellison huffed and hauled, Mary helped as much as she could to get herself back up to the surface. The tugs weren't that hard, so Mary began climbing the rope. Once she got a purchase on the upper edge of the underwater silo, she hauled herself back up into shallow water.

James Ellison had not focused on Mary's attire. As she climbed up out of the water, he sure was noticing it now. Her light cream colored summer shirt was translucent and sticking to her, outlining her dark blue bra and the generous breasts within. Her shorts already close fitting completed the outline of her curvy form. "Dear God," he panted. It was a good thing he was tired from hauling, Mary was about the sexiest thing he'd ever seen.

Looking at the exhausted Ellison, she said, "There is a set of doors under the pond. I found no way to open them on this side. Machinery is working beyond those doors." As she spoke, she untied the rope from her wrist and threw a length of rope into the water. "I will need a brick of C-4."

Wanting to be sure she got the doors open, Mary formed the brick into a long 'V' shaped charge and set the timer in the middle. This time she hung the light around her neck with a length of rope, and had Ellison tie the end of to his car. Climbing back down the rope, she pressed the rope like shaped charge around the edges of the underwater doors, set the timer for five minutes, then climbed back up the rope.

Once back on land, she pulled the rope out of the water and backed up towards the car.

"Mr. Ellison, we need to move back," she said.

"What did you set it for?" he asked. He tried hard not to focus on her chest and failed, flicking his eyes down a couple times.

"Five minutes. Two minutes, ten seconds left."

Ellison walked back to the car and waited for the explosion.

"I suspect those doors are the outer doors to an air lock. If the inner doors are shut, we will have to blow them also," Mary said as she watched the pond.

"There could be people inside," Ellison warned.

Mary paused then said, "Doubtful. I believe whatever is in there, is automated. There should be something in there to give us an identity of, or lead to Kailba."

"I hope you're ..."

The ground shuddered as a dome of white water rose up out of the pond. The water erupted to shoot high in the air and rain back down. Under the short, heavy rain, the pond drained down to show a large silo type hole on the ground.

Ellison stumbled. That wasn't five minutes.

"Apparently the inner doors were open," Mary said. She walked back to the pond.

From the silo opening, bright flashes and smoke belched out. The ground began trembling.

Ellison ran up and grabbed Mary's arm. "We better get out of here," he said.

"Yes, the facility under us is unstable."

They ran back to the car. Mary threw her mask, light and the rifle In the back seat as Ellison started the car. Ellison stomped on the gas and drove a hundred yards down the road before stopping to look back.

Behind them, the ground near the pond back to almost to the road, rose up, cracked, then fell in on itself, belching black smoke as smoke and flame shot up out of the silo.

"It self destructed," Ellison said.

"Yes. Kaliba does not want to be found. We better get ready, someone will be coming," Mary agreed.

"Ready?" Ellison asked. "Don't you mean run?"

"No. If we run, whoever it is will know we did it. Turn the car around, we'll get out and look at it for a while. You don't have a camera, do you?"

Ellison cast her a 'you're crazy' look, and turned the car around. They got out, Mary put the plasma rifle in the foot well of her passenger seat. They stood in front of the car, looking at the large depression in the ground.

On an impulse, Ellison took out his phone and said, "I'm calling it in. For how close to the road that depression is, it could be a traffic hazard. How do we explain you being soaked?"

"I don't know."

.

Elanore went with Mrs. Weaver to Weaver's temporary 'main' office, which was a smaller six story building previously used for back up storage and auxiliary offices. While Mrs. Weaver took care of organizing her new offices and talking to her employees, Elanore had the job of searching for anyone who wasn't human. Although Weaver had no proof Kaliba had a spy in her company, anything could have happened while they were gone.

For a storage facility, Elenore thought the building looked pretty good. The people were nice to her when she passed them, having no clue she was scanning them for simple things like a heartbeat and a thermal survey to see if they were human or not. She freely told people her name. When a man chuckled, she explained her grandmother was adopted by an Asian family, and she didn't know if there was a 'Tic' clan. Since she had taken a facial structure similar to Catherine, some asked if they were related. Happily telling them Catherine was her Grandmother, she learned to add that Catherine looked young for her age.

Elanore was glad to see people were friendly and in good spirits.

Coming to an open atrium where the lunch room was, complete with large sky lights and a large round fountain made of fake stone that bore a few fake plants and a waterfall, Elanore noted this place was all but empty. On either side of the Atrium were lunch counters, and many tables doted the floor.

Near the fountain was a single man looking at some papers at a table near the fountain. Doing a thermal scan and listening for a heartbeat fro him, Elanore found he had no heartbeat. The thermal scan also showed his limbs were cool, yet heat radiated from his chest.

"Hello, I am Elanore Tok." she said as she walked up to him.

The man ignored her. This close, she could see the paper he was looking at was a solid text of one's and zeros. A quick scan showed it was computer code.

"You are reading straight computer code? How unusual," she said.

The man got up to walk away from her.

Elanore ran in front of him. "Sir, you are rude. Won't you even say hello?" she asked.

He responded by pulling a gun. Elanore grabbed the gun and tried to twist it out of his hand. She was able to turn the barrel so when he shot, it missed her, but his strength left no doubt. He was a terminator. She punched him in the face. His head turned then turned back. He punched her.

Elanore tried to dodge the punch by pulling her head back. He still clipped her chin, turning her head. Gripping his gun tightly, she pulled herself close and and kicked his legs out from under him. Grabbing the elbow of his gun arm, she pulled and pushed hard, meaning to break his arm. She did hear a metallic crack. She also felt him grab her knee. He threw her to land on a table. The table fell over and sent chairs flying.

Inheriting combat experience from her mother, Elanore quickly got up and ran after the terminator heading for the outside door. Angling into him, she body blocked him into the wall, then threw him at the fountain. He landed in a crash of table and chairs.

One important thing Cameron's combat experience told her was do not let the enemy recover. Elanore ran at the man who was getting up. She snapped up a chair. Aiming at his head, she swung to rip the right side of his head open. He tried to grab her one armed. She pushed the chair at him. As he flung the chair away, Elanore tried a move she had seen on the TV watching a martial arts movie. Quickly, she spun around in a circle and kicked him. The move worked. The terminator flew back into the fountain, slamming into the waterfall.

Elanore charged and tackled the terminator in the pool below the waterfall. Holding his good arm, she ripped at his chip cover as he struggled under her. She got the cover off and pulled his chip. His last attempt to escape dropped her in the water, but she had his chip.

"What is going on in here?" a security guard asked as he came in to see the destruction.

"A fight," Elanore explained, keeping her hand with the chip under water so he wouldn't see it. "Could you get Mrs. Weaver and tell her we have a problem, please?"

Wearing a shocked look, the guard asked, "Did you kill that man?"

"This is not a man, but yes, I killed him. He was a spy. I need Mrs. Weaver here. Please hurry." Elanore told him.

The guard ran out, calling on his radio.

Elanore sat up on the dead terminator and noticed the chip had not self destructed. It was intact.

.

The only people who came to the site were the police Ellison had called. He explained they had heard a noise and seen smoke up ahead, and rounding the corner this was what they found. The police marked off the area and thanked him for turning it in. Mary waited in the car.

"I'm sorry," Mary said as they drove down the road.

Ellison glanced at her. "For what?" he asked.

"I failed. I did not find any information that was there about Kaliba," Mary said, blank faced.

"You did not fail," Ellison told her firmly. "You got rid of a Sky Net manufacturing facility. Even though we didn't get what we wanted, we still won. Every win helps. You did good," he assured her.

"Thank you for saying so."

"It's the truth."

They were silent for a moment, then Mary asked, "Do we have any other leads?"

"No, we don't," he said with a huff. "This one was a stretch, at best."

Mary looked out the window as they rode along. She was happy that Mr. Ellison praised her. Still, she felt bad that she had not found what they came for. Unless they found and stopped Kaliba, they would not be able to stop Sky Net.

.

John had made it a point to spend the day with his mother. Armed with their new ID's and credit cards in their names, he and Sarah went car shopping. Cameron was aching to come, but John insisted he needed to work things out alone with his mother.

The nearest dealership to the Weaver house was two and a half miles away. John didn't mind the walk, and Sarah was eager to get out of the house.

At first, they shared a quiet tension. John broke the silence.

"Mom, I know it seems ... anything but normal, but Cam and I do love each other," he offered.

Watching straight ahead, Sarah said in a monotone voice, "You mean her programs are telling her to return affection."

John rolled his eyes. "No, mom! Look, when she told me she was yelling at me because I had chased her into the future. It was not a quiet, romantic scene. We were trying to get the alternator out of a car while we were hiding from an H/K. She was pissed at me for being there. I mean, her eyes were red and her hand was twitching like crazy."

"She was right, you should not have gone after her, John," Sarah stated.

John frowned at her. "Did you even hear me? Cam didn't tell me she loved me in some tender moment. She was angry, I was angry! She said it as a matter of fact. Almost like it was an afterthought."

"And you believed it," Sarah said with a snort.

"Yes, I do! Mom, you weren't there."

Sarah spared her son a glance. "You weren't having a tender moment when I slammed those trucks together to pin Tin Miss in place so you could pull her chip either. She said she loved you then too, didn't she? John, she was only trying to trick you!"

"That's not right," John said in a huff.

"OH!" Sarah said in mock surprise, "She wasn't trying to kill you that day?"

"Yes, she was," John said with a sigh. "Look, Mom, That day Cameron was in an explosion. Her primary software was off line. The base Sky Net program took over, THAT is why she tried to kill me. When you rammed her between those trucks, it allowed her to reboot. When she said she was fixed and begged me to not kill her, she wasn't lying."

"And what's to keep her from going bad again?" Sarah asked heavily.

"When John Henry built her new chip and transferred her into it, he left out the base Sky Net program. It's not part of her any more," John explained.

"And you know this how?" Sarah asked.

"Cam told me and I believe her."

Sarah let out a sarcastic laugh. Stopping she frowned at him and said, "John! She IS a machine and always WILL BE a MACHINE! There is nothing human about Cameron at all. Did it ever occur to you she may be playing 'miss nice FUCK TOY' to make you lower your guard?"

John scowled at her. "There was no call for that, Mom," he said heavily.

"There is, when you refuse to see what Cameron really is," Sarah insisted. "John, I know she has done good for us. I know the older you sent her back to protect you. I also know she has gone bad in the past, and maybe, just maybe, she is trying to ensure you don't pull her chip again? This time permanently?"

"Then why would she give me the detonator to explode the charge she put in her own head?" John yelled back. Seeing Sarah's look of disbelief, he added, "That's right, Mom. Cam was afraid she might go bad again, so she gave me a detonator to kill her to make sure she didn't hurt me if she lost control again. If she is trying to protect herself, why would she do that?"

Sarah stared at her son. "She has you wrapped around her finger, doesn't she?" she asked.

"No, Mom, she doesn't," John said, becoming irritated at her. "Believe it or not, our relationship is not all happiness and joy. Like I told you, we've already had a couple fights, and yes, I put up with Max because Cam likes him, but somehow I can't warm up to a dog that bit me in the ass the first time Cam and I tried to make out!"

Sarah stared at John briefly then laughed. "Maybe he was trying to tell you something?" she said sarcastically.

"OK, FINE! Let's just go buy a car," John said and stomped off.

Sarah followed her son quietly for a while. Seeing he was getting father ahead in his angry stomping, she called, "John, wait up." Reluctantly, he stopped to wait for her.

Sarah caught up to him. One thing she didn't want to do was alienate her son. Carefully arraigning her words, she said, "John, I do realize how you feel about Tin Miss. Just please understand how I feel. I want you to be careful, John. Don't take everything she says at face value and never forget, she is a machine."

John nodded and said, "I know Cam's a machine. I get reminded about it every day. Cam's also more than just a machine. She does have real feelings, Mom. Can you accept that?"

"I'll try," Sarah conceded.

"That's all I'm asking."

Sarah nodded and offered John a brief smile. "Come on, let's go buy a car."

.

Mrs. Weaver took control of the atrium situation. The first thing she did was collect the chip from Elanore to get it analyzed to see why it didn't self destruct. Next, she got Elanore out of there with the T-888 body before she called in a team to clean the place up.

Having Elanore carry the body, Mrs Weaver took her down to the garage and had her put the body in Weaver's car. Once the body was hidden, she had Elanore collect the papers the T-888 was looking at to see what they were.

Sitting in Mrs. Weaver's office, Elanore scanned the papers and explained. "The first lines are pass codes, names and passwords. Next is a list of computers by Zeita Corp serial number, each referenced to a pass code."

"So that machine got everything needed to hack us," Weaver said bluntly.

"Yes, it appears so. He obviously was filing this information away when I found him," Elanore agreed. She looked at the next page, and the next. "There is information about which computers hold sensitive information, including bank accounts, bank card numbers, projects, and employee records."

"It, and whoever sent it wanted to destroy my company," Weaver concluded.

"That is a safe assumption," Elanore agreed.

'Then let's see what's on this chip," Weaver said, and took it out of her pocket.

.

In the kitchen, Cameron inspected Gregory's face. His cheeks and some of his forehead were still bare, but he had reconstructed his nose and mouth, and the skin around them. "Your skin regrowth is happening at a slower rate than expected. Do you have damage elsewhere?" she asked.

"No, Mother. I am taking in protein as fast as my system can process it. There must be a malfunction," Gregory said.

Cameron had noted Gregory was only eating lean meats. "From now on, I will prepare bacon for you. The carbohydrates in the fat should speed up your processing system. That will allow you eat more nutrients and regrow skin at a faster rate," she told him.

"Thank you for explaining, Mother."

"That is what mothers do." As Cameron told him this, a slight smile came to her face. In helping Gregory, she was being more than just a mother in name. She liked that.

"Is Gregory getting better?" came a small voice from by the door.

Cameron looked to see Savannah in the doorway. Max slipped by her, his tail wagging. He probably thought someone had food. "Yes, he is," Cameron said and put the bandages back in place.

"Cameron, do you have metal bones like Gregory does?" Savannah asked.

Cameron noticed there was no hesitation or fear in Savannah's question. She was simply curious. "That is correct, Savannah. We are like John Henry. But you can't tell anyone. People would not understand," she explained.

Savannah nodded and said, "This is like when people have different skin color and are not treated very good, right? My teacher said it's called prejudice, and no one should be prejudice, but some people still are, right?"

"That is very good, Savannah," Cameron said with a smile. "Only in this case, people would be very prejudice, and it would cause problems if anyone knew. That's why you can't tell anyone."

"I won't I promise!" Savannah said firmly. After a pause, she asked, "Cameron, when I sit on Mommy's lap, it feels cold. Does she have metal bones too?"

"You will have to ask your Mommy to explain. It is her place to tell you, not mine."

"OK. Hey Cameron, I can't find Max's ball and he wants to play. Have you seen it?"

Cameron did a quick file scan of her and Sarah cleaning the house. "Yes, it is in the cabinet next to the Grandfather clock, right side, second shelf," she said.

"OK, thank you! Come on Max, I know where the ball is!" Savannah said happily and ran out. Max followed her.

.

The new Suburban was not John or Sarah's first pick, but each year vehicles kept getting smaller, and they needed the room as well as four wheel drive. The salesman was very happy to sell them the high-priced vehicle. John had to remember to sign the paperwork 'John Tok'. To sign it 'Baum' would be a big mistake.

Leaving the dealership, John noticed Jake waving to them from the side of the road. He pulled over. Jake got in and beamed John a creepy 'John Henry' smile.

"Step Father, this vehicle is tight. It has plenty of room, the windows are tinted to obscure the contents and the color will not draw attention to us," Jake said happily.

"What are you doing out here?" Sarah asked.

"Mother said Step Father wanted to be alone with you and did not want Mother to come, so she sent me. I followed one hundred yards back so I would be able to give you your privacy, yet remain close enough to monitor you," Jake explained.

"Thank you for thinking of us," John said.

"You are welcome, Step Father," Jake said with his grin.

John grimaced at the name Jake was using. "Ahh, Jake? You don't need to call me step father every time you speak. You can call me John."

"Yes, if that is what you prefer," Jake agreed.

"It is," John assured him.

They got home to find Mary and Elanore had returned from their outings. Sitting in the living room, Mary waved. "Hello Jake, Step Father, Grandmother. Elanore has news. Gregory went to get Mother so we can all hear the news at the same time."

After Elanore made her greeting with 'Step Father' John had another item to bring up once they were all together. Gregory came in with Cameron. Gregory sat beside his sisters and Jake, Cameron settled down beside John, scooping his hand up. Sarah pretended not to see.

"We have a chip," Elanore began, and told how she had obtained it. "Grandmother Catherine and I concluded that the chip was coated with a chemical that made it self destruct when exposed to air. Because I took it out under water, and held it under water for one minute, fifty two seconds, the coating washed off allowing Grandmother to study it."

"What did you and Mrs. Weaver find?" John asked.

"The Kaliba group consists only of two remaining T-888's and five Grays. They run four companies that we now have the names and addresses of, as well as their manufacturing and research facilities. Grandmother Catherine has given John Henry the list, but only wants him to verify one of the locations. To keep Sky Net from becoming suspicions, she requests we research the other companies to verify what was on the chip from separate locations."

"That is the smart thing to do," John said with a nod. "There are Internet cafes in the city. I'll drive Mary, Elanore and Jake to verify each one. Get addresses for as many of their buildings as possible, CEO names as well, they are most likely our Grays and Triple Eights. Log on as if you were looking for work, that will be the least suspicious. Once we know where they are and who's in charge we'll work out an attack plan."

"Yes, Step Father," they chorused, and got up.

"Whoa, whoa," John said raising his hands up. "Not right this minute! Cam is finishing making dinner. We'll go after dinner."

Cameron added, "If it is only during dinner, we will sit together as a family if at all possible."

"Yes, Mother," they chorused.

"We should tell Father," Jake said.

That wasn't exactly why John hadn't wanted to go right yet. He wanted to get some of Cameron's cooking while it was still hot. Still, what she said wasn't a bad idea. "We will tell him as soon as we can," John assured them.