NOTES: This is a prequel to "Only Lonely" and "Fuzzy Dice". It's not necessary to have read those stories, but I'd recommend it.

SUMMARY: After capturing a new type of terminator General Connor faces a personal crisis, while his future father confronts a frightening new enemy in the forbidden wastes of the Arctic Circle. Prequel to the 'Only Lonely' series.

DISCLAIMER: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

"The Killer I Created"
Chapter 10
T.R. Samuels

Wind and snow howled in on a whirlwind as the main entrance to the terminal was heaved open and Kyle Reese staggered inside. The ambient temperature was only a few degrees higher inside the building, but to Reese it felt like swapping a freezer for a furnace. His ears and nose burnt red as he pealed away the hood of his parka and changed weapon hands, extracting his frozen fingers from the grenade launcher as he stumbled on tired legs into Starbucks.

'Never again!' He decided right there and then. 'I'm never coming to the Arctic ever again!'

Why anyone would want to live in such a frozen hellhole was beyond him as he fell onto the leather couch and felt the room spin, muscles throbbing and locking-up with lactic poisoning. The campfire had burnt out and needed to be rekindled, but the thought of doing that only renewed his exhaustion. Right now he just wanted to close his eyes for a while and get some rest. Holden could just wait until morning. He was fine where he was and Reese was in no condition to maul him all the way out here in the arduous wake of his hard fought victory.

The thought of it put a smile on his face. It was the grin of a winner.

'No rush.' He thought with palpable reprieve for the first time in ages. 'There's nothing out there now.'

The Monster breathed heavily as it staggered naked through the snow, wrapping its arms around itself as the cold began attacking its supple flesh. What had been thick fur and leathery hide had been shed for the soft and pliable skin of a human being that goose pimpled furiously against the freezing wind. Any normal human would have frozen to death in minutes, but the Monster pressed on through the storm and the darkness, driven by a will that was entirely inhuman and a hunger that burnt to match.

It had scrubbed itself clean in the snow, removing the blood and synovia until its pale skin had glowed pink with abrasion. Now it needed to get inside and find shelter – the most basic human need – find clothing and warmth until it felt safe enough to seek out what it truly desired.

All at once it stumbled upon a broken opening into the terminal that emerged out of the storm, the doors torn off their hinges from within, leading into an ample corridor. It stalked inside, out of the storm and peered through the darkness, its vision piercing the black to find blast patterns, rubble mounds, and smashed walls riddles with bullet holes and scorch marks.

It remembered being trapped here with its prey, the meat just out of reach, struggling down and becoming trapped like a cat clawing at a mouse hole. To its new form it was chasm of space as it slid its way over the mounds of broken concrete, avoiding the sharp barbs of exposed rebars as it crept silently and unchallenged into the inner sanctity of the atrium.

Reese let out a loud snore and woke himself with a start. His hand squeezed the grip of the launcher and his other arm snatched out, seizing the weapon from its companion's hold before he accidentally pulled the trigger. He'd only dozed off for a few minutes and his sudden arousal made him feel hung over.

"Shit!" He cursed, fingers burning from contact with the cold metal. He dropped the launcher in his lap and blew into his clasped hands, warming them in a balm of hot breath. It would become freezing in here soon with the damage to the building. He needed to shore the place up or find a nice cosy room in the back. Get a fire going. Get a few fires going.

He went to get up, but his chest protested with a sharp pain, what he was certain was one, maybe two, cracked ribs from when the Monster kicked him across the hangar.

It was no use. He had to get Holden. If only so the medic could check him out. He ought to be feeling better now. Better than he felt anyway. At the very least he could keep him from dying in his sleep or killing himself.

Reese groaned loudly as he heaved upwards to the edge of the couch, leaning forward to rest his upper body weight on his knees. After a moment he reached under his belly and pulled out the launcher, bringing it up for inspection. It was tired ritual by now, drummed into him since he was a child by Derek.

'Always check your weapon between combat, Kyle.' He could hear him say. 'Never assume it works. Check! Check! Check!'

The M320 grenade launcher was a strange looking thing when detached from its parent rifle. It looked like an oversized, one-shot pistol slapped together from mismatching parts and had a sliding shoulder stock thrown on for good measure.

He brought the thing forward and clicked open the barrel, the black cylinder flicking out to the side, spitting the unused grenade onto his lap. He lifted the weapon to the moonlight and looked down the riffled barrel. Clean enough. He clicked it back in, sans grenade, and tried the trigger. Click. Everything seemed fine and he reloaded the grenade and flicked on the safety.

'Time to fetch Holden.'

Groaning with sharp complaint he hauled himself onto stiffened legs, feeling several stone heavier than he remembered as he lumbered off in the direction of the refectory kitchens by way of the rabbit warren, groaning when he thought about climbing over the pile of rubble.

As he approached the entrance to the corridors, he came to a halt.

Something didn't feel right.

Reese glanced around, digging out his flashlight and shone it down the corridor. There was nothing there. Turning around he flashed the cone of light around the atrium, moving along the line of windows of the nearby clothes store. The gangly silhouettes of mannequins and crooked clothes racks swept over the wall of the inner store, making shadow puppets of terminators and monsters in his mind's eye. The dummies of chiselled men still stood together, some clothed, some not, their masculinity let down spectacularly by a distinct lack of endowment – though the female one made him grin.

'God damn-it, Reese. You're really getting paranoid.'

He turned around and headed off down the ruined corridor.

Behind him in the clothes store, the female mannequin came back to life and pulled a fur-lined, imitation amauti from a hanger.

It would have been so easy to have attacked him just then, pounce on his back and tear the human apart, but the Monster remembered it was no longer a monster. It was down-sized and weakened, trapped in this imitation body its creator had set that would have to serve until it regained enough energy and protein to assume its former size and shape. Until then it would have to be patient and pick its battles carefully.

It dressed as quickly as it could, finding fragments of instructions of how to dress from its handful of basic files, clasping the belt together on a pair of khakis before it went to reach for some shoes.

"Fooled you…" Reese's voice was low and deadly, tinged with mockery as it emanated from somewhere behind her. "I'm not stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice. Put your hands up and turn around slowly."

The Monster took a breath, remaining calm and superior as it lifted its spindly arms and turned around to face him. Its vision was flooded by the beam from the human's flashlight, but it saw through the glare to the expression of Reese's face as it contorted in the sinking horror of recognition.

The grenade launcher drooped in his hand as realisation nearly knocked Reese over and his mouth hung open. He huffed and shook his head, not certain he could believe it.

"Out of everyone I thought it could be… I never thought it would be you…"

The Monster stared back at him, head swaying gently like a predator judging distance as it looked into him with jet black irises, the light of his torch glistening in them like jewels, as beautiful and unsettling as those of a starved jaguar – made infinitely more so as Reese stared wide-eyed into the innocent visage of Allison Young.

He felt himself shaking, his worn body overdosing on the smallest hit of adrenaline, knowing what this thing was and what it had been. He swallowed hard at the reality of holding John Connor's girlfriend in his sights, feeling his nerve falter as his finger eased from the trigger.

"This can't be happening…" His voice was a hoarse murmur. "You can't be real…"

The Monster stood silent. Watching him with childish eyes. Unable or unwilling to talk. The effect made it seem chillingly unpredictable.

"What did they do? Kill Ally and make you to replace her?" His mind whirled, trying to put it together fast and see the sense of it. "What did Skynet do when you went…?"

It hit him like a gut kick, deduction rushing him, the result clearer than a summer's day from childhood.

Skynet had replaced Allison with a machine. This thing. Then when it turned on them and was disposed of to the Arctic they would have tried again, a thousand times if necessary, eliminated the flaws of her genetic formula and sent it straight into Serrano. They'd have to. Because a machine that looked like Allison had only one purpose.

Reese felt the bottom of his world fall away and his rage boiled over. He took aim and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Horror sank down his spine in cold needles as the launcher jammed. He flipped it open, reloaded, and pulled the trigger again.

Click.

Reese swallowed hard, eyes rising slowly from the weapon.

'Oh shit…'

The Monster looked up from the end of the barrel to meet his gaze, skewering him with ravenous intent. Her mouth widened, ruby lips parting in a voracious smile over jagged, triangular teeth.

Reese turned and bolted from the store. He had to reach Holden and get his sidearm.

The Monster burst through the window and landed on top of him, knocking him down onto the unyielding marble in a hail of shattered glass and sunk her teeth into his shoulder.

Reese roared in agony and rolled over, flipping her off his back and swung the grenade launcher down like a baton, clubbing her in the side of the head. She snarled as he loomed over her and caught his arm in a crushing grip, squeezing the muscles in his forearm and causing his hand to clench. He squeezed the trigger with his finger and the jam came lose, firing the stubborn grenade with a deafening squeal where it slammed into a wall, showering them in plaster dust and concrete ejecta.

Reese broke her hold and rolled onto his knees, tossing the spent launcher aside and drew his knife, flipping it into an ice-pick grip and drove it down at the Monster with everything he had.

His thrust stopped short of her chest, his entire strength and body weight held off by a pair of skinny arms that looked weaker than chopsticks. He bared his teeth and heaved down harder, glaring into her eyes as they struggled, the trembling tip of the dagger only inches away.

"JUST… FUCKING… DIE!!!"

The Monsters eyes were crazed, like it was enjoying this. The fighting and the blood thirst whetting its appetite. A rivulet of Reese's blood rolled from the corner of her mouth as her jaws parted and a feral, guttural sound rumbled up in her throat.

Suddenly her legs scissored outwards and clamped around his waist like a vice, crushing his torso and his strength faltered. She struck him in the side of the head, spinning him over onto his back until she was on him and her mouth went for his throat.

Reese reacted with his forearm, just getting it between them as her jaws snapped shut above his eyeball and saliva dripped on his cheek. He tried frantically to reach the launcher with his other hand has she pushed down, desperate for anything as the bone in his arm began bending painfully and she inched closer to his jugular and it river of metallic nectar.

A gunshot tore through the air and the Monster stiffened. The light faded in her eyes and she grimaced.

Reese blinked as he felt her strength vanish and reacted with military instinct.

He reached up and swung his arm hard around her throat, clamping around her neck and rolled over on the jagged debris until he had her in an inescapable reverse headlock. He avoided her arms as they flayed wildly and he twisted with all he had left.

There was a sickening snap and the Monster's body went limp.

Reese held on for several seconds, yanking violently two more times to ensure the spine was completely severed before pushing off in a rumpled, breathless heap. For a few seconds he just laid still, breathing hard, head swimming until the adrenaline ebbed.

He rolled onto his side and saw the bullet wound in the Monster's back, looking over quickly to the entrance to the rabbit warren where Holden leant feebly in the doorframe, like a chain smoker that had just run the hundred metre, smoke curling from the 9mm as it dangling loose in his hand.

"Is it dead already?!" The medic demanded in exasperation.

"Yeah…" Reese's breathing began to ease and he looked over at the body. He chuffed with morbid humour. "Short of cutting her head off and driving a stake though her heart."

Holden made a half chuckle. Then he looked from the Monster to Reese.

"I'll go find an axe…"

####

Deep beneath the monolithic cooling towers of Serrano Point there was a subterranean complex of unrivalled magnitude. Delving through soil and granite was a catacomb labyrinth, far from sunlight and civilian eyes in a honeycomb of vault-like chambers between endless tunnels of reinforced concrete, welded steel, and the crushing weight of earth. It had been built in the last years of human civilisation for the storage of dangerous, radioactive material.

On the day the world ended, less only a fraction of this facility had been used for purpose. Half a dozen storage cells filled to capacity with spent nuclear fuel and transuranic material entombed forever within form cast sarcophagi – the rest had lay empty, converted for another purpose now it was firmly in the hands of the Resistance. What was once designed as a repository for the most toxic substances known to man was now home to hundreds of people – a refuge established after its capture for what remained of the continent's native inhabitants that had not been culled by Skynet.

Moreover however, it was a military installation. Serrano Point was the main beachhead in North America and the new headquarters of Tech-Com. While the civilians remained on the higher sub-levels, Tech-Com controlled the plant on the surface, the surrounding hillsides, and the vast facility beneath, some of it filled with all manner of Skynet hardware they had been only too happy to appropriate from the retreating machine army.

The day the first soldiers had secured the lower levels was every tech's birthday, Easter, and Christmas rolled into one.

What had been intended for nuclear waste had been used by Skynet to store things just as deadly to the survival of humankind. Many of the vaults had been used for storage of munitions, vehicles, experimental technology, and countless intelligence anecdotes that had painted a clear picture of Skynet's intentions for a massive counteroffensive that it had planned to launch. The surprise attack and capture of Serrano had put a hefty dent in those plans, but it was still a cold and sobering thought that the Resistance had dodged such an imminent bullet.

In one of the chambers the walls, floor, and ceiling had been inlayed with a void of lightweight metal framing and acrylic glass panels to create an achromatic chamber of stark white – a clean room Skynet had used as a maintenance hub for its infiltration terminators. After falling into Resistance hands, Connor had ordered it to be converted using the blueprints of the prototype for the reprogramming lab he had experimented with before building the finished version on the rig. After recent events, he was glad that as a rule, he always kept a backup of everything.

General Connor sat in that very chamber now, looking down on the central table amidst the gyroscopic array, primitive and less polished than the finished version, running his eyes up and down the new life he had created only hours earlier with the help of the liquid metal terminator.

For better or worse, it was done. The machine known as Allison Phillips was reprogrammed.

The act itself had felt like a twisted cross between birth and euthanasia – the mercy killing of a terminally ill patient for the necessary organs and raw material to build another life. He had watched as he pressed the button and chip had been erased in a few seconds, wiping the slate clean of memory and personality, every shred that made her 'Allison', leaving only the master core programming behind – an unalterable vanguard of Skynet directives that was tied inexorably to the collection of programs that allowed her to process and interpret data – how to move, how to talk, how to analyse and have sensation – every basic instruction that weaved together to form the underpinning of her unique and precious consciousness.

Whilst it might have been possible to alter this program, would she be able to function again afterwards? Write her name? Tie shoelaces? String a sentence together? Tell the difference between a dog and a cat? Even a single error in the human brain could impede it forever. Far more importantly though – would she still be capable of the things no terminator had ever been before?

Sapience? Introspection? The orchestra of passion, motion and emotion? It was brain surgery in the silicon sense.

With other terminators it had been relatively easy to alter a copy of the master program and rewrite it from scratch, remove the Skynet influence through a painstaking though onetime process of trial and error. But those machines, even the T888s, were not nearly as sophisticated as her.

It had taken days to map out and make the minuscule alterations that would change her in the sparing way he hoped, fundamentally altering the processes of her perceptions without damaging her. Over that he had implanted a layer of interconnecting programs that would act as a filter to the hardwiring beneath, allowing additional tiers of thought and examination to take place before she decided upon any action. He had tapped out source code until his fingers hurt, blessedly augmented by the T-1001's greater speed and efficiency and after days of ceaseless struggle their work was finally completed – an atrocious struggle marred by setbacks, arguments, and crushing avenues of failure before the hard-earned elation of victory was finally achieved.

As a whole, very little had actually been changed. She would retain the intrinsic qualities of her unique design – abstract thought, sentience, individuality – everything that made her superior to any other terminator. It was interesting in itself that the machine-god had gone so far, broken the rules of its own creation, but the requirements of a duplicate personality had made it a calculated necessity.

You couldn't fit a V12 engine in a go-cart.

After the ordeal, he and the T-1001 had parted ways once again and he had gone straight to his new quarters, imbibing several measures of amber medicine and falling instantly into a deep and exhausted sleep. After seventeen hours he had risen again, feeling like a reanimate corpse and brought himself up to speed with a conference of his generals on everything he had missed before making haste to the lab where she was right where he left her.

Now here he sat, preparing to switch her back on and face the moment of inimitable truth.

Connor didn't know exactly what was going to happen. There was a real possibility that she might never wake up at all, that his meddling was too liberal and she would crash in a nanosecond without the authority of the rigid and logical underpinning of Skynet's core program.

She would have a choice. She would not have to follow programmed directives if she didn't want to. It would be entirely her prerogative one way or the other. It was what he had come to learn was the greatest gift a machine could be given.

The ability to choose.

Not the right to choose or the privilege, but the simple capacity of making a single decision that was entirely one's own and not the compelled result of entrenched commands.

The general in him had considered just making her loyal off the bat, a happy little warrior that would die for the Resistance, no questions asked. But the human being in him had wanted deep down to reach out, give the touch of humanity to something inhuman and allow it to grow on its own. Human beings had such a tried and accomplished history of despoiling and uglifying what was beautiful. Just this once, Connor had wanted to it to remain.

Taking hold of his nerve and praying silently, he reached out and inserted her chip into the CPU port, pressing down the fold of scalp like the hairpiece of a china doll and watched and waited with baited breath.

For an interminable era, nothing seemed to happen.

Then her eyes fluttered open and she turned her head towards him. She recoiled in confusion.

"Don't be frightened," He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder as the other cupped her hair. "Everything's going to be alright."

She blinked at him, looking his features all over in search of some ungraspable recognition. Her brow furrowed so slightly is was almost indiscernible.

"Who are you?"

John felt the wrecking ball of ambivalence collide with his heart. There was elation that she was awake and functional, intelligent and aware. It had worked! But still a sliver of his consciousness despaired that the person he loved was truly gone forever.

"My name's John Connor. What's yours?"

This was the next little acid test. Now he would see if the tiny, self-fulfilling program he had added last would work as intended – comparing the thousands-strong litany of human names that were appropriate and select one she instinctually preferred. Every person needed a name. It was the first gift given by a parent for a child to be identified with forever.

"Cameron." She said firmly. "My name is Cameron."

John rolled his mouth around the word, deciding whether he liked it and if there were any unfortunate rhymes. He frowned as a sudden horror occurred to him.

"Isn't that a boy's name?" He blurted.

Her eyes drew dangerously together.

"Alright… Cameron it is."

Despite the situation's gravitas he found himself smiling like school kid, wondered and amazed as anyone did in the presence of a newborn life. Suddenly he became aware of his proximity and pulled back into his chair to give her space.

"Do you know what you are, Cameron?"

Her eyes turned to the ceiling, bringing her hands to her face where she examined the regenerated flesh, the acoustics of the room amplifying each of her scrutinies. "I'm a machine. A terminator. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton." As the words left her mouth her vision became inlayed by a heads-up display, bombarding her with a thousand applets of useful information about herself and the world around her.

A chronometer began tracking time, a compass swivelled, and a directive flashed in front of her in vehement red, demanding she take action immediately.

SUBJECT IDENTIFIED: JOHN CONNOR

TERMINATE

Cameron looked up at the man she'd just met, considering the edict objectively for a moment. There was a comfort to be taken in orders, especially for someone that had never had to think for themselves. She felt the physical strength in herself and the urge to flex that potential. It would be such a simple matter to lash out, grab his throat in her hand and crush his windpipe, or snap his neck, pull his spinal column from his body.

John frowned slightly, curious and incautious. "What are you thinking about?"

She stared at him for a few moments, cocking her head to the side as she studied him. He looked very tired. Not so much in body, but his eyes delved deep into an exhausted soul. He had the look of a man that had just come through a drawn out ordeal of fear and worry, been sick with it, suffered all that he was capable of suffering. Cameron didn't know how she knew this, but she did, and somewhere inside her twinged a cord of empathy.

John had been so kind to her already, and nothing inside her made her want to hurt him. She wasn't built to be cruel and neither did she choose to be.

She gave him a tiny smile.

"Nothing."

TERMINATION OVERIDE

"I'm not thinking about anything."

He returned the smile and offered her his hand. "Okay then." She took it and he helped her upright on the platform, helping her past the complex gyro to swing her legs over the side and sat down quietly beside her, watching as she looked down at herself for the first time. He grinned as she flexed the toes on her bare feet and she tugged the white gown away from her chest, looking down to see what was there.

"John?" She turned to him, voice small and timid, an intangible whiff of instinct shying her from the answer. "Where did I come from?"

Connor felt a part of his world fall down. Cold descended with a barbed swallow as his smile vanished, despite the virtual certainty that this terrible question would be among the first she would ask. He had wrestled with it last night and throughout his dreams with what he would say to her. How he would explain. What words he could possibly use that would do justice to it all and spare her the inevitable burden. But do you look an innocent in the eyes and explain that for them to exist, the person you loved had to die?

The same way you tell a man half your age that he's your father.

You don't.

His smile returned, tinged with regret, and he squeezed her hand with reassurance. "You were created by an artificial intelligence called Skynet – a computer system that is trying to exterminate mankind and its allies. Us. We're called the Resistance." He swallowed the lump and took the plunge. Sometimes a kind lie was better than the terrible truth. "There was an accident. You were hurt and failed your mission. I reprogrammed you so that you don't have to follow orders or programming if you don't want to. You're free. And I'll teach you everything you want to know. You're safe with me. With us." His promise was that of the kindness and warmth of an omniscient father.

"But if I'm a machine…" She was curtailed with a dismissal wave.

"There are lots of machines on our side. Lots of humans that aren't." She frowned and he tried to think. He needed an explanation that was an absolute. That was how you explained things to a child. "If you want to destroy and enslave, you're with them. If you want to live and be free, you're with us. It doesn't matter what you are anymore."

Her frown deepened at the thought of the unknown that lay ahead. "What will I do in the Resistance?"

Connor's smile returned. He'd already thought about that. "Well," He began, making it as casual as he could, but still somehow feeling like a salesman. "I'm the leader of the Resistance. A couple of my bodyguards recently had with an… accident. I need someone to watch my back. You'd be working for me. Where I go, you'll go. So you'll get to see lots of things." He prayed she would say yes as he gave an affable shrug, determined not to overcook this. "I mean, if you're interested?"

Cameron pondered it for all of a second.

####

In another part of Serrano Point, white smoke curled around the stark light of a laptop computer screen in the darkness of the Engineers' quarters. The chamber was about the size of a garage and with Phillips' constant smoking had an atmosphere thicker than an opium den. He had just moved in and what possessions he had requisitioned from the base stores were still packed in numerous boxes around the room awaiting their inevitable decanter. He had put in the request to the quartermaster for 'necessary supplies' before they had even touched down a few hours ago and it had all been waiting when he arrived.

Desk, chair, bed, table, computer, phone – ice machine, mini-fridge, drinks cabinet – all the necessities.

A genius needs his little luxuries.

Inside he was still seething over the mothballing of Keadas and his carelessness with Perry in the lab. From now on he would be more militant in his counter-surveillance. He took some comfort though that he had saved all data and material pertaining to the project, his little labour of love, and their had been no real physical setback to his work. With the right resources and the quelling of faint hearts, it could continue as though it had never been interrupted.

One day, once the dust had settled, and in spite of Connor's veto – Keadas would live again. He would make sure of it. The project might be politically toxic now, a poison chalice from which no one in military authority would drink – but nothing lasted forever. When the climate eventually shifted, the wheel finally turned, and opinion was cultivated in the right direction, Phillips would resurrect it, his baby's faux start forgotten and whitewashed like the troubled beginnings of nuclear power.

Even the most radioactive material had a half-life.

More than anything, he was still reeling from Connor's recent side-step into madness – the little episode that had recently deprived him, and indeed the entire Resistance, of a veritable wealth of resources. Even the mere committal, let alone ultimate sacrifice of so many assets to the rescue of a single soldier was something he never thought the man capable of, and he was sure by now it had disseminated down the ranks as a seed of discord amidst the general's senior staff and his lieutenants in the field.

It was possible of course that Phillips wasn't aware of the full facts, and that the mission to Svalbard was a task of some importance he was hitherto unaware of. But he doubted it. Like hell it was important! All they had to do was pick up a box of seeds for the Ashnan Study! Something else had gone on two days ago when they all left the oil rig in a hurry, and he was going to find out what.

From now on, he would be keeping a close eye on this 'Kyle Reese'.

His finger sprang off the keyboard after skipping through a digital recording in five-second intervals, finally reaching what it was he was looking for. He sat the cigar to the corner of his mouth and curled his legs beneath him on the bed, drawing the laptop closer for a better look, face bathing in the greyscale light as he tapped play, hitting the repeater once the seconds of blurred activity were over and the selected footage began an endless repeating loop.

Phillips gazed at the screen with idle interest, more curious than anything. Then his attention began to grow. He sat up straighter and furrowed his brow, finger joggling the speed as what began as offhand curiosity bloomed into all-out obsession, drawing him past the point of no return as he reviewed the last few seconds of footage from the HK-Predator's gun camera.

Before long his eyes had become lascivious opals, head shaking in refusal, transfixed on what he was seeing until his finger jabbed pause, freezing the video on a single image in the instant before the Banshee hit, only a frame before it all cut to static and centred the target it had engaged in the middle of the picture.

The cigar fell from his mouth and landed on the bedcovers. His attention never left the screen.

What looked back at him out of the shimmering liquid crystal made his skin tingle and his blood turn to ice – the face of something he had never imagined could exist as it stared back at him with the jet black eyes of a predator beyond a maw of jagged teeth. The image was a still of pure carnage, a frame of rage and ferocity to the nth degree that if properly directed would slaughter anything and everything in its path.

The breath pushed out of him and left him weak in its wake. He was awed. Dumbstruck. For the first time truly lost for words save for one thing that wheezed out of him with a timorous smile.

"Beautiful…"

His hand reached over to his nightstand, clicking the lamp on and reached into his leather satchel. After routing aside documents, pens, and a Chinese finger trap, he found it, pulling out the crimson glass vial and held it up to the light. His eyes rolled along the brownish-red tint that hugged the inner walls before reaching the printed label.

#715 – "Young, Allison" specialist infiltrator – unknown series – 'Technica Opus Keadas'

He twirled the tube into a triumphant fist and his mouth stretched into a smile.

####

SYSTEM INTERUPT

RUNNING DIAGNOSTIC

Steve the terminator opened his eyes as he lay on his back in the snow, looking up into the ragged clouds that swept above him in the sky as the higher functions of his CPU came back online. Then he flipped over violently and exploded into action, struggling onto all-fours as he looked around for the attacking Monster and scrambled back to his feet, preparing to assault the creature again before it had time to recover.

"Easy tiger!"

Steve whirled at the voice and came up against the figure of Reese as he leant against the side of a snowmobile, comfortable and relaxed, the terminator's plasma rifle clutched gently in his gloved hands.

"I'm afraid it's all over, Steve-o. You missed the big finish." Reese made a show of checking his watch. "It's been about forty-odd hours since the Monster bought the farm."

The machine blinked as it chewed over the human's euphemism with distaste, taking the moment to glance around at the continuous white that surrounded them in almost every direction. He quickly surmised that he had been brought to this location on the back of the snowmobile and dumped, likely unceremoniously, onto the snow of a gradual incline that crested in the distance, what lay beyond obscured from view. He looked in the opposite direction and saw the rocky line of the shore, the dark water lapping gently against a beach of grey stones and pebbles that shrank in both directions into the distance.

He turned back to Reese.

"The Monster is defeated?"

"Terminated." Reese quipped, pondering idly that whoever between the three of them that had dealt the Monster's death blow might never be determined.

Not long after the final skirmish on the floor of the atrium, Holden and Reese had decided to take no chances. Braving the storm once again they had brought the humanoid remains to the edge of the burning hangar, the flames still raging hard and kicking up the airfield's temperature to something remarkably bearable. There Reese had dug an impromptu hollow between a pair of sastrugi and they had thrown the body in, using a plastic container of kerosene from an old heating furnace and some methylated spirit to soak it liberally before setting it alight, watching carefully to ensure that it burnt down completely to a charred, carbonised crisp.

After what they had been through, neither would settle for anything less than absolute certainty that it was finally gone, no matter what new form it had taken, and with hardened hearts they had religiously presided over the Monster's funeral pyre. It was during this time that Reese had gone for a cleansing stroll, thinking of Allison and how it had felt like a cremation before he stumbled across Steve, half buried under a snowdrift. Nearby had been the plasma rifle.

The reactivated machine nodded with austere satisfaction, twitching his head just slightly as his primary objective was marked complete and his standing directives reasserted their authority.

He advanced toward the sergeant with obvious intent.

"Whoa!" Reese sprang off from the snowmobile like it had just caught fire and lifted the rifle to the ready. "Hold it!"

Steve stopped, looking remorselessly into the human. No fear. No hesitation. No pity or remorse. It was colder than the land around them and in a flick of a switch was his enemy again.

Reese shook his head, never more clear on the fact that he was dealing with a machine. "You fuckers just don't give up do you?!"

Whatever remorse he may have felt abotu betraying his one-time partner vanished, the pre-emptive action of removing Steve's chip vindicated a hundred times over. Despite appearances, these things were not people. They were machines in every sense. There was no bargaining or reasoning with a machine. It was designed to kill and exterminate and it would never stop until every one of them was dead.

"You'd have really killed me just now. After all we've been through."

They weren't questions. He already knew the answers.

"Of course." Steve stated flatly, as though it were the plainest thing in the universe. "I'm a terminator."

Reese released a thwarted breath that crystallised on the wind, shaking his head in disappointment.

"I guess I should've known. Is it really that easy for you?" He wasn't about to let this slide, he wanted to see if a robot could be made to squirm. "How can you trust someone to have your back then kill them a second later? Why'd you even bother saving my life?"

He watched patiently as the terminator cocked its head, at least giving the answer the benefit of thought before answering.

"I did what was necessary for the mission. Nothing is more important than the mission."

Reese found it somewhere in himself to give a small smile at that. At least they could agree on something, but his desire for some sliver of repentance was a lost cause. You couldn't shame the shameless.

"I'll remember that. Might come in handy one day." He gazed at the stoic machine before nodding off past its shoulder, down the shoreline to the craggy face of a mountain in the misty distance. "Start walking in that direction. If you follow the coast then after about thirty-five miles or so you'll find an old mining town called Barentsburg. You should be safe there until Skynet comes looking for you."

Steve turned slowly, following the human's gaze as he listened to the instructions and frowned, turning back to Reese utterly perplexed. He had run the numbers in the instant before he went to attack, the chances of reprieve in the face of failure hardly worth calculating. Suspicion clouded his thought processes in the wake of such a magnanimous act of charity.

"Why?"

Reese shrugged, not entirely understanding it himself. Being human, he didn't need to. "You saved my life, now I'm saving yours." He stated simply, as though it were the plainest thing in the universe. The machine's frown deepened. "It's a human thing. Mercy. Compassion. Treat others as you'd like to be…" He shook his head with futility. "You wouldn't understand."

For several seconds, Steve regarded him coldly, perhaps making the effort to try and comprehend or at least relishing the opportunity to observe a human first hand that had completely lost his mind. That had certainly been Holden's reaction when Reese had told him what he intended that morning.

"I'll remember that. Might come in handy one day." The machine parroted his earlier remark.

"You're welcome." Reese began to step away before turning back. "By the way. If you have a change of heart on your little sojourn and decide to come back for us…" He hefted the rifle in his hands, careful to keep his thumb over the charge indicator on the wholly depleted battery. "I won't think twice, I'll just blow your fucking head off. Understand?"

The machine stood unmoving and looked back at him, causing his heart to skip several beats in fear that the ever observant sentinel had detected his bluff and was about to call it.

Then Steve nodded his head. "I understand."

Silent relief hissed out of Reese and he backed away, uneager to outstay his welcome and got far enough away from the watchful terminator before he was well out of striking range and all but home free. Before he did, he took one last look at the machine.

"See you round, Steve." He said, then smiled with a sardonic afterthought. "And watch out for polar bears."

Reese turned his back and walked away, ready to head off, breathing easier as he reached the snowmobile and prepared to climb onboard before the machine stopped everything with a single word.

"Reese…?"

The sergeant froze. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest as the sound of his own surname cut through him like a blade.

It knew his name. How long had it known who he was? He scoured his memory for the instant when his vigilance had slipped as his hand slid slowly around the belly of the oversized rifle. He turned steadily to face the treacherous machine, ready for imminent attack.

Snow and mist curled in the distance between them that in another time and place would be dust and tumbleweed. Time slowed down to an agony, loaded with tension as the two adversaries and one time allies regarded one another for the final time.

Then Steve's mouth curled into a wry and genuine smile before uttering the inimitable words that one day, in another time and place, under the guise of a federal agent and a high school science teacher, become his immortal trademark catchphrase.

"Thank you for your cooperation."

Reese watched then in silence as the machine turned around and trudged off through the snow, hydraulic limbs ploughing through the mounded ice drifts until Steve shrank into the distance, the imposing figure fading into the perpetual white and he disappeared into the swirling mist.

Yeah… Steve was Cromartie all along. This was one of the earliest of my story concepts and is not something tacked on at the end. If you look back through the story you'll see that some of the things Cromartie says and does in the series he actually learnt from Kyle – and vice versa.

Hope you liked it. Epilogue to come.

Please read and review.