Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. I was stuck for a bit on what direction I wanted this to go. I think I have finally figured it out!

I want to thank the people that reviewed and the ones that added me to their alerts! This chapter is a little longer than usual so I hope that makes you all happy!

Let me know what you think of this chapter!

Lots of love!

~!DDM!~

Usual disclaimers apply!

The skin of my thigh was covered in severe burns, a large portion of it was actually missing! I was glad that the room didn't smell like charred skin. The hem of my improvised dress was badly scorched, fabric burnt away in several places. What really threw me through a loop though was that no bone or muscle was exposed like you would expect with the kind of trauma that my leg obviously sustained from the mine, the wound wasn't even all that large, only taking up about three quarters of my thigh, it didn't even hurt as much as I would have thought. No, what really rocked me, was that it was all wire and metal beneath the skin!

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!" I was starting to officially freak out now. If it wasn't bad enough that I woke up chained in a dungeon, now I had to contend with the fact that my leg looked like something out of a science fiction movie. "Oh my god! "Oh my god! Oh my..."

"Would you shut up!" the guard snapped angrily, finally breaking his stoney silence.

"Shut up? Shut up? Do you see this? Do you see it! Its... its...oh my god!"

"Yeah, you're a machine, don't pretend to be so surprised."

"Who is pretending? Do you see this? This is freaky!" I tugged at the chains again, taking deep breaths to stave off a total meltdown. I have always been good at keeping myself together in stressful situations but this whole thing was really beginning to test my limits.

"Where is Marcus?" I demanded next, trying to push my confusing new development to the back of my mind to analyze later and focus instead on something I knew for sure, Marcus was my friend, and he wasn't sitting next to me so he had to be somewhere else. I couldn't even entertain the idea that he wasn't next to me because he was hurt or dead. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts!

"I am done talking to you, machine."

"My name is Odessa."

"Whatever, machine."

I huffed angrily and slouched as much at my restraints would let me. I am not a machine, I think I would know if I were a machine or not. I was born, I had parents, I went to school, I had friends...I died, I woke up years later...I fell more than one hundred feet off a fast moving, flying machine into water without so much as a scratch, a magnetic mine blew me off my feet...

Oh my god I thought I knew what confusion was when I woke up in the rain, now I don't know what to think anymore! I was so lost in my mental freak out that I didn't even notice when the door was dragged open. I didn't realize that someone else had entered my little dungeon until they cleared their throat. I looked up and came face to face with a ruggedly handsome, scowling man. He had his arms crossed and was staring intently at me. I drew my legs up close to me, ignoring the stab of pain it caused, trying to look as small as possible.

"Why are you here?" the man demanded. His voice was deep like Marcus' but sounded like it had a handful of gravel thrown into it. I had heard it somewhere before.

"Who are you?" I asked cautiously.

"My name is John Connor, but you already knew that, didn't you." Of course, that is why I asked, genius.

"You are the man from the radio." I finally put the voice to the name. We listened to this man talk about the Resistance after Marcus had fixed Kyle's radio back in LA. God that seemed like a life time ago when in actuality it had only been a few days.

"Why are you here?" he demanded again.

"Some friends of ours were snatched by some kind of flying machine, Blair said if anyone could help us find them, it was you."

"'Our' friends? You mean your partner, the male machine."

"Marcus isn't my partner, he is my friend. We have been searching this god forsaken place for someone who could help us figure out what the hell is going on. Blair said you would be able to help us. But you won't, will you? You won't help us get them back and you won't help us figure out what has happened to us." I was trying hard not to cry. He turned away from me to talk quietly with the man still guarding the door.

"You were surprised when you saw your leg." It was a statement not a question. "The other one was surprised too. As if neither of you knew that you were machines." before I could answer, there was another knock on the door. A dark skinned man poked his head into the room.

"What is it Barns?" John asked, clearly irritated.

"Blair said you wanted to see me." John looked confused for a couple of seconds before realization dawned on his face at the same moment that it appeared on the man named Barns' face. They both hurried out of the room, leaving me with my unfriendly guard. It was quiet besides the soft drip of water as it trickled from a crack in a pipe, when the room walls shook slightly, something exploded near my little cell. I wasn't pleased with how natural it was starting to feel to be around things like that. What was it with these people and blowing things up?

"What is going on?" I asked when the sound of shouting and many pairs of feet rushing past floated in from under the door. Without answering my guard left, slamming the door behind him.

I was all alone for quite a while before the door was forcefully open and John Connor made an appearance again, looking less than collected. He was looking at me in a new way, it was more intense than than the way he looked at me during his first visit.

"What do you call yourself, machine?" he demanded. This man does not know how to ask for things nicely.

"My name isOdessa and I'm not a machine, I am a doctor." He was quiet for a minute, that intense look never leaving his face. He was trying hard to figure something out but was having trouble. "What happened out there?"

"Your partner escaped."

"Marcus is gone? How?"

"Blair helped him escape." I nodded in understanding. It didn't really surprise me that she helped him get out of whatever situation he was in and left me to my fate.

"Blair helped him escape, does that mean that she is still here?" he seemed surprised that I even asked.

"She is being held for questioning."

"So she is okay isn't she?" He nodded once. I was glad that she was alright, just because she doesn't like me doesn't mean that I have to dislike her back. John came closer, crouching down to my level, I flinched away from him involuntarily and that seemed to bother him.

"He said he doesn't know what he is."

"Marcus?" he nodded, then waited, obviously expecting me to say something.

"He and I woke up together."

The eyebrows shot up and I know that my face turned red.

"Not like that!" Perv! "We woke up in the mud, being pelted by rain, surrounded by bodies and bits of what I am pretty sure was helicopter. I'm supposed to be dead! I died! People aren't supposed to come back after they die, it's usually a pretty permanent condition." I was fighting back tears again.

"You died?" I nodded.

"I did! I was minding my own business having lunch with my best friend and a man walked right up to me and shot me! Just shot me for no reason!"

"When?"

"When did I die?" he nodded. "It was 2004."

Again with the silence, the intense and calculating look. I had no idea what was going through his mind and I wasn't sure that I really even wanted to know.

"You know Kyle Reese?" he demanded, I nodded. I was doing that a lot around him.

"How?

"Why?" I asked cautiously, I like Kyle and if this man wanted to hurt him I didn't want to be the one who gave him up.

"How do you know him?" he demanded again.

"Why do you want to know?" I demanded right back.

"He is very important to me, to the Resistance. If you know where he is, I need to know." It was my turn to study his face intently, searching for any sign that he was lying.

"We met him in LA. It was the first place we found after we woke up. He saved us from something that he called a Terminator. He said it was a T600."

"Was he alone?"

"No, he had a little mute girl with him. Her name is Star. He said they were the last of the Resistance in LA."

"The other machine, he said Kyle Reese was in Skynet."

"He and Star both were snatched by some flying craft. That is why we came here. We found Blair after her jet went down. She said that if we were having problems with machines, you were the one to talk to." he just stared at me for a few minutes.

"You said you are a doctor?" that question came as a surprise.

"Yes..."

"Do you have much experience?" I couldn't help but wonder where he was going with this.

"I died before I could finish my first full day of work but I know my trade and I am good at what I do."

"Your partner, Marcus," He seemed really hung up on the idea of Marcus as my partner. "He said he would help me find Kyle Reese inside Skynet before it gets bombed. I've put a lot of faith in him, do you think he will pull through for me?" he must be used to being in charge and listened to because everything he asked was voiced as a demand.

"Did he say he would help?" I got a curt nod in response. "Then he will do it."

"Can I put the same faith in you?"