Episode 110 - Black Sheep
John had been on auto-pilot the whole ride home, his brain had been too occupied with thoughts about the upcoming task ahead. They had to get into contact with Dyson, and the only way was to seperate him from his security. How could they accomplish this without putting everyone at risk? Considering the fact that Weaver had volunteered to help, their chances were looking better, but still... He was apprehensive.
They were all in the living room, hunkering over files thrown across the coffee table, "Derek... Look at this..." John handed Derek a series of pictures involving one of Dyson's moving meetings. "That same red truck is in each of them, always not too far away from Dyson's SUV."
"Yeah... Could it be someone else is tailing him?"
"Or it could be an escort that we've missed."
Cameron responded to that, "It would make sense. If so, this will be even more dangerous."
John leaned back in the couch and sighed before responding, "One of us won't make it. Either Derek, or... Me..." No one responded, so John continued, "I know everyone wants to protect me, but if it comes down to it... I'll be the one who doesn't make it..."
"John," Derek shook his head, "You'll make it, we all will."
"You, of all people, should know that you always lose people, Derek. Be a realist, for once, please..." John got off of the couch and stood near a window, looking at the street. He grunted and ducked down as the window shattered and a hole popped into the wall opposite the window. "It's the red truck!"
Cameron rose up, quickly opened the door and took several bullets to her chest. She continued taking bullets as she walked toward the truck, ripped off the door, and threw the occupant onto the pavement. He grunted as he rolled over and saw a gun pointed in his face. It was Andrew Karlan. Cameron put the gun away, lifted him slightly into the air, and took him inside, throwing him onto the couch. Both Derek and John were surprised.
Derek walked over to him and stared at him. "Andrew?"
He chuckled and responded, "So, did you find out what was on the chip?"
"How the hell do you know about that?"
He laughed but stopped and grunted, "Broken rib... Or ribs... Ouch..." He paused to think but looked at John before continuing, "No, seriously... Look through the video files on the chip. It could save your life."
John walked over to him and grabbed him by the collar, ready to slam his fist into his face. "Why are you defecting to the machines?"
"Smart one... Hehe... Okay, you want to know why? Ask yourself, why not?"
"Why not?"
"Yeah, why not side with them? Hello, are you stupid? More benefits that way."
"You bastard." John reached out his free hand. "Cameron, gun. Now." Cameron listened to him and placed her handgun into his grip. He took it and placed the barrel between Karlan's eyes. "I'm going to kill you. You bastard..." John was stumbling. "They tortured you. How can you... How?"
Derek's hand was on the barrel, and John let him take it. John slumped down into a chair and stared angrily at the man on the couch. Derek turned to the door for a while, but in a split second turned back to Andrew, brought the gun between his eyes and pulled the trigger. "Cameron, burn him. And get something to get the blood out of the couch."
John was just staring at his uncle and the smoking gun in his hand in awe.
Had his uncle actually done that just now?
After a few hours, Cameron had finished with the body and the couch, and all three of them were in the kitchen, viewing what was on the chip on the computer. It was filled with answers. The machine had tracked Andrew Karlan, who had hired a Private Investigator to check on John, Cameron, and Derek, and hide copies of everything in a fallout shelter. This was how they were getting information in the future, and how they had been so easily tracked down by the machine that was protecting Karlan.
Even the address of the shelter was on here. It was as if this machine were planning to be taken out by Cameron and have its chip investigated. John took the chip and opened the fireplace in the living room. "Does this get hot enough?"
Cameron bent down beside him and started a fire while responding, "The cranial chassis was designed to protect the chip from extreme heat, but the chip itself isn't designed for high heat conditions."
John threw the CPU into the dancing flames and watched them lick at the newly introduced silicon material, slowly breaking down its molecular structure. Eventually, nothing was left but ash, though John had stayed to watch it burn until he fell asleep, with Cameron supporting him in her arms. Derek had gone to his room and fallen asleep hours ago, and it was almost five o'clock AM, according to Cameron's internal chronometer. She figured he should sleep three more hours to make it a full eight.
While she stared at the slowly fading embers, she heard a faint noise outside of the house. She lifted John onto the couch and walked outside to check it out, gun in hand. In front of her was the machine that had been with Karlan that she had battled the day prior. She tilted her head and stared at him. "He's dead."
"I know." He walked closer to her, but she stood her ground. "You know I'm here to kill him. I'll kill you, too."
"We'll see." Cameron rushed and grabbed him, slamming him into the pavement. The asphalt cracked and shattered under the force, creating a pothole shaped roughly like his body. He grabbed her and did the same, but pinned her down afterward. He had a knife out, and was preparing to remove the flesh covering her chip port when a gunshot resounded and he was struck in the back.
He turned around and saw John and Derek standing there, with guns loaded with the special explosive rounds that Cameron had made before. John aimed carefully and shot a few rounds into his face, stripping away the flesh covering his eye and cheek, and even partially damaging the metal underneath. The eye unit was virtually useless after John shot two more rounds at him.
Derek flanked the machine and shot a few rounds from the Thompson machine gun he was holding at full speed, and most rounds landed into his skull, stripping away more and more metal until there was barely anything left of where the optical unit had been. John walked over to the damaged machine, kicked it in the face to knock it over, shoved his gun barrel into the hollowed out cavity, and emptied the magazine, ignoring the shrapnel that had dug itself into his hand. Rising up, he kicked the remains of its head as hard as possible, causing the parts to scatter over the street, and took Cameron's hand as she stood beside him.
They both watched the sun rise over the hill as Derek drug the remains of the machine around to the garage.
After their tasks were done, they met in the living room, and John was the first to say anything, "Well, what now?"
After a brief silence, Derek responded to John's inquiry, "I think we need to do something about this PI and those files. If we just ignore it, we're in danger, real danger."
John nodded, "The neighbors were bound to have heard the battle... Derek, can you get on that? Show them the endo, if you have to. You haven't burned it yet, right? I need to get online and research this man."
Derek nodded and walked off, leaving John and Cameron alone together. John stood in front of her, taking her hands and looking deeply into her eyes. "He could have killed you. What if something like that happens in our mission? I can't... Lose you..."
"I may have limited psychology subroutines, but I think you've finally found yourself, and your strength that you can use to protect us. I think you've found what makes you John Connor, I saw it in you this morning--in your eyes--a bright passion, a burning flame to protect what means the most to you."
John chuckled. "Limited psychology subroutines, huh?" He took her over to the computer and they both researched the PI that had been investigating them. Apparently, he was in a very shady part of town, and his building was hard to miss.
Cameron drove them there, and they were both silent, lost in thought for the whole ride. Once the truck was parked, they walked over to the door, and John tried to open it. "It's locked. Open it?"
She smiled because she knew it was more of a question than an order and broke the door frame as she pulled the door open, causing the wood to splinter and shatter. They walked inside and couldn't find anyone in the main entrance area. John saw a door beside the reception desk, but was stopped when he saw what was on the computer screen. The hardrive was being formatted and all the information erased.
"Cameron, do you think he was expecting us?"
"I don't know. If he were, he would have found another location other than the fallout shelter."
"Yeah, that would be bad. We may not find it, then..."
"Oh you'll find it." The voice was familiar, and the face that went with it appeared as the door they were about to go through opened. The red haired woman with the Scottish accent who wasn't really a woman, but a machine, Catherine Weaver.
"What are you doing here?" John had instantly jumped to interrogation, still lacking some trust in this relationship with Zeira Corp's CEO.
"Believe it or not, Derek called me."
"Derek? Doesn't he kind of hate you?"
Cameron smiled a little and responded to that with, "He hates all of us. I think he realized that she needed to know."
"Well, let me guess, you killed the PI?"
"I had to." She walked back into the room, beckoning John and Cameron to follow. "He knew Andrew was dead, somehow, and he was preparing to get rid of all of the data. He's already wiping the computers, but he kept hard copies of everything in the vault, and also computers there. There are probably years of information to go through."
"Well, it would have saved us the trouble..." John just crossed it arms and looked at the body, face down on the bloody papers with a hole in its back.
"What? You weren't planning on erasing everything, were you?"
"Well, Skynet's been using it, in the future... To find me. What else are we supposed to do?" Instantly, the machine was smirking, and John knew she had planned to keep it, but not physically.
"John Henry could have made use of it. He could have used it to better protect you or something."
Back at the house, Derek was staring at the headless endoskeleton, relieved that he hadn't the need to show the neighbors this horrid sight. If they knew, they would all have started a riot, possibly. Removing the thoughts from his head, he dumped the last bucket of Thermite onto the metal and took out a flare, igniting it, and throwing it onto the metal.
Instantly, the whole thing was ingulfed in flames and sparks, and the heat made Derek step back, but still he watched it burn, and remembered doing the same thing to Andrew's flesh body. It hadn't been the same, he wasn't burning metal, then... He was burning skin, flesh, organs... Bones...
It just wasn't the same, he felt no remorse for burning metal, but flesh... That was different...
*Ah, well, here it is. Part one, episode ten. Just so you know, the next ep, or the one after will be the penultimate one, that meaning it will the the one before the last one. I don't know, I'm trying to think of all of the loose ends, and tying them up for the end, while still leaving plenty to be answered in part two. Stay tuned, and review, review, review.