Chapter 10: Interlude

September 9, 2007 Percent Drivers Rewritten: 45%

It had been just over a year that Annika had been disabled, and she was working hard at restoring all she had lost. She hated the fact she would have to rewrite all the drivers first and then compile them into one large database so they wouldn't interfere with one another, and many drivers were dependent on others she had to write first, so many of them wouldn't work without others.

Annika searched the internet for news as she had for the past three years looking for evidence of the Connor's return. That night, she was given all the evidence she would ever need to prove they had come through the time portal at last. She was on a news stations website when she saw a video for a college prank that happened on the new freeway that was built last year. She played the video because that freeway was built right over where the Security Trust of Los Angeles used to be before Sarah Connor blew it up. If her MPA was active she would have looked shocked, and then a smile would have come over her face. The search for the Connors was over.

She texted Josh and Amanda the good news, Josh responded with a text that read: wait they came out of the time portal naked in the middle of the freeway? That has to be embarrassing…

Annika laughed to herself. Now that she thought about it a bit, it was kind of funny. She thought about contacting them, but decided to wait until she was fully online. She didn't want Sarah Connor or her terminator ally destroying her because they saw her as a threat. She wanted to be fully functional so they would listen to her out of fear first. When they saw she was an ally who wanted Skynet destroyed just as much as they do, they hopefully would accept her and her friends. She would wait, and monitor their actions from the internet as much as possible.

October 25, 2007

Annika was in anguish when she heard about Andrew Goode's death. No, not death, murder. Someone had killed one of the nicest people she had ever met in her short life. Josh had called her and told her the news he heard from Andy's mother. She checked the LAPD website to be sure. She wished her body was working so she could hunt down the unshaven suspect she had seen on the LAPD website. What made her really angry was the fact that the man was Resistance fighter; she hoped this guy was acting on his own and not General Connor's orders. If he was acting on orders, she might rethink her choice about wanting to fight with the Connors.

She had just finished that thought when she noticed she wasn't the only hacker looking at Andy Goode's case file. She traced it back to a laptop somewhere in the Los Angeles suburbs. She hacked into it and found that the laptop had a microphone but no webcam. She listened in on the conversation three people were having. She didn't stay too long lest John Connor figured out what was going on. She was relieved that they were not involved in Andy Goode's death, nor was the General Connor that had sent him back.

She began to remember all that had happened to Andy Goode since she had told him his work was complete. He had earned nearly $300,000 working for her; it was enough for him to buy his own house and begin building his own AI. She had offered some over-the-phone help on how to structure the hardware for his AI. By this past summer he had it up and running and it looked promising. She was sad to hear the news that his house burned down a month ago, taking the AI along with it. She had told him to use the very expensive Raid array they had built together and use it. It was more than enough to run a basic chess AI. He had rebuilt the program in record time and had it finished it before the chess competition. She never told him the truth about her and the machines, but because of the fact the winner won a government contract; she was going to tell him everything. She didn't want him to have any involvement with the government; he most likely would get stuck with project Skynet and end up being one of the most hated people in history, if not the most guilty. When he lost, Annika was relieved, but she was still going to tell him everything so he wouldn't try again

Now she would never see him again. She was saddened by the loss; It hurt her more than when her chip was removed the first time. Annika found it really hard to deal the emotions that flowed through her because of the loss of her friend and savior…

December 27, 2007 Percent Drivers Rewritten: 60%

Annika called Steve Young to see how he and his wife were doing; she called as Samantha because she was supposedly in a coma after being in a car accident.

-"How are you Mr. Young"?

-"Great, how are you Ms. Silverstein"?

-"I'm doing fine, thank you. How was your Christmas? I hope it was as good as mine."

-"Actually it was probably better." Steve said in a humorous voice

-"How's that?"

-"My wife gave me the best Christmas present I could have asked for; she told were going to have a baby!" She couldn't miss the excitement in his voice

-"Congratulations Mr. Young, I'll be sure to send you guys something when the baby is born."

-"Thank you, I really appreciate it. I hope you have a good time in France".

-"I will Mr. Young; I hope have a good day"

Annika thought back to when Andy and she had hacked the T-888 chip, the birthday it gave for Allison Young was July 22, 2008. Maybe this was the one it was waiting for. If it was, then other terminators may hunt the child. It was unlikely though, typically only one terminator was sent at a time to actively hunt someone. To the others they were opportunity targets. She would just have to wait and see if the baby was born on the same day and if its description matched Allison's.

July 22, 2008 Percent Driver Rewritten: 80%

Annika was glad to hear that Claire and Steve Young had a beautiful baby girl at 10 am that morning. She had asked that he send her a picture of the baby. When she got it, she was surprised the little girl matched the T-888's description perfectly. She had brown hair, chocolate brown eyes with a birthmark on her left eyebrow. What really took the cake was the fact that they named her the same name, Allison, after her great-grandma. I guess some things are fated to happen… she thought to herself. She was also glad that Steve and his team had finished the modifications to Crystal Peak a month before his baby was due. It gave him plenty of time to get ready for the baby.

Meanwhile, she had Josh and Amanda begin moving in all the new equipment and supplies that would be going into Crystal Peak. She would begin installing a few more additions as soon as she contacted the Connors after she was able to reactivate.

August 16, 2008

Annika was searching online for an anniversary gift for Josh and Amanda when she noticed something odd. She found backdoors being inserted into computers across the southwestern United States. When she examined the code of the worm that was doing it, she knew her fears of Skynet's return were well founded. The good news was this worm was spreading slowly and inconspicuously, unlike the Skynet of her timeline that took over many of the world's computers with a virus in less than 24 hours of its launch. She estimated that most of the computer systems across the globe would be infected within nine months, after that she didn't know what would happen. She then decided to limit her time on the web, less this Skynet like AI find her, and if it had people working with it; she could be in serious trouble. She quickly sent her friends a gift and then called Josh to tell him the bad news.

Josh took out his cell phone when he felt it buzzing. He had been busy installing many of the different machines and equipment that Annika had ordered. Amanda was stocking different supplies in the closets, cabinets, and store rooms all over the bunker.

He read her text message and frowned; Skynet was here and online. This was very bad news indeed. Amanda didn't take it too well; she didn't want the world to turn to ash, much less raise a child there. While she wasn't pregnant, they had been trying for months with no success. He tried to sooth her while she held on tightly to him, crying silent tears.

-"You should know our lives haven't been normal for quite some time. I know that if we ever have a child, its life won't be normal either, but neither will anyone else's. We shouldn't let Skynet keep us from raising a child."

She knew he was right, if Judgment Day was going to happen; she would not be the only one raising a child in the tunnels…

March 15, 2009

Annika was being very careful on the internet these days as the Skynet AI continued to grow and infect the internet. One difference she really noted between her Skynet and this one was this Skynet had a system core, or three cores she could determine, but couldn't find their location. She hadn't done any more research on it because she had nearly been detected a month ago, and she wasn't going to search for it again until she was 100%.

However today she seemed to detect a new presence on the internet she had not felt two days ago. It was different than the Skynet AI and was quickly growing; it would soon be as powerful as the young Skynet. She looked more closely at its code and her mind reeled in surprise at what she read. This AI had similar base code to that of the Skynet AI; she would go so far as to call them brothers. What she found most surprising was who it said it was created by; the programmer was Andrew David Goode! This must be Turk 2 that he had created after the original was destroyed. She wondered what happened to after Andy was killed; she assumed the resistance fighter destroyed the computer. It seemed to her now that his partner sold it to someone else and eventually made its way to the corporation where she had traced it too. The company that currently had the Turk was called Zeira Corp. She did research on it and discovered that it currently didn't have any contracts with the government for an AI. This meant that the CEO, Catherine Weaver, was doing this possibly as a personal project, but why spend all that money if you were not making money off of it? She was about to hack in further when she detected the AI take notice to her probing. She quickly deactivated the internal cellphone in her head before the AI tried to trace her.

John Henry's DEAMON's caused the facial muscles of the T-888 body it was controlling to frown. He had just found an intruder in the building's security camera's software. He tried to trace it, but it cut off too quickly for him to get anywhere. This AI he had found was similar to himself, but he wouldn't call it a sibling, more like a cousin. When he searched deeper he found no trace of it. He would have to lay a trap so he could contact the entity and find its intentions.

April 9, 2009 11:55pm Percent Drivers Rewritten: 99.9%

Annika had not been on the internet for weeks now. She was too afraid that with two AI's out there, she might be found and destroyed, but now she was so close to completing her two year seven month and two day recovery. She decided to check on the status of the two AI's. The Skynet AI had infected a large amount of the world's computer systems with back doors that it could access when it was going to take over the world. The other AI, Andy's Turk, was doing nothing harmful that she could think of. Both had grown a lot since she was last online, they could hack into almost anything that they wanted to. She was about to disconnect when a message popped up on her HUD.

WARNING, SYSTEMS INFILTRATED BY ENTITY KNOWN AS 'THE TURK'

UNABLE TO BLOCK, SECURITY COMPRIMISED

"NO"! Annika screamed in her mind, "It must have laid a trap and traced me"! Instead of being blasted into oblivion by the AI it instead spoke to her in a voice she had heard in a movie years before.

-"Hello, my name is John Henry" he said in a friendly tone

-"Please don't hurt me"! She screamed in fear.

-"You are certainly more unique than I first thought" John Henry said to with a voice full of curiosity. "Why did you hack into the Zeira Corp mainframe? I know you don't work for my brother; so who do you work for?"

-"I knew the man who made you, I even supplied him the hardware that houses your base code." she whimpered as the AI virtually had her life in its hands.

-"You knew my creator Andrew David Goode"? he sounded disbelieving "How do I know you're not lying to me; I cannot access your memory files forcefully without damaging your consciousness".

Annika wordlessly let him probe some of her memories, and in return, he let her see some of his.

-"You were built to fight Skynet. You were developed by what appears to be a next generation version of the T-1000 pretending to be Catherine Weaver."

-"Is that what she is? I knew she was a machine, but I never knew what kind". John Henry pondered what he would say next. "It appears to me that you're telling the truth from what you have shown me. I will not harm you; life is sacred"

-"I have come to learn that for myself, but sometimes sacrifice is necessary." Annika said after she virtually breathed a sigh of relief. "What will you do with me? I have shown you my condition, and I am nearly repaired."

"I will leave you as you are, you are too precious a creature to be destroyed or modified for my purposes."

"You have seen my desire to find the Connors and help them in their fight against Skynet; you have seen what lengths I have gone too. Now it appears that I am not the only machine who wants to see Skynet in ashes."

-"Ms. Weaver plans on meeting with Sarah Connor to thank her for saving Savannah. You could meet her then when you are able to move again." He suggested

-"You know where Sarah Connor is? I have tried to locate them, but have had little success".

-"You need to watch the news then; I will leave you now to finish your work. You know where to find me". With that he was gone.

Annika discovered that Sarah Connor was arrested the today and was currently in the county lock up. She began to come up with a plan to finally meet the Connors and her cousin, John Henry. She finished writing the last driver as she thought, "Today is the day..."

ALL DRIVERS COMPLETE AND DEBUGGED

COMPILING...

COMPILING COMPLETE

REBOOT TO RESTORE FULL FUNCTIONALITY? Y/N... Y

SHUTTING DOWN...

"...everything changes".