April 15, 2010

TJ stared out the window at the blurry scenes of life as Tyler took a quick curve, nearly on two wheels. Tyler had announced earlier that the supplies were running low, the last of the bandages were wrapped around Destiny's injuries, and there was never such a thing as too much ammo. TJ offered to go but after he had planned to take John, he thought about bowing out. Now he wished he had. Tyler drove like a maniac and with them together talking in the front seat. TJ felt like a tag-along.

Dark shadows dancing around her. Explosions to the east. Darting out of the light. Metal creaking behind her. She turned in time to be struck in side of head. A jolt went through her body and she awoke. Racheal smiled faintly and dabbed some rubbing alcohol near her wound. Destiny winced.

"Sorry, I was trying to not wake you. The wrapping keeps coming open. We're out of bandages, sent Ty to get some more but he and the boys should be back by now." Racheal frowned at her watch.

TJ and John weaved in and around corners. Navigating through the streets like a labyrinth. The shopping had gone well enough. Tyler only threatened a few salesmen. The problem came when the boys were loading the supplies in the car. Nothing looked wrong to them till Tyler yelled "Metal!" followed by "Run!"How long had they been running? TJ and John slowed to a stop and listened. Silence.

"Do you think Tyler is?" John asked.

TJ shook his head. Shuffling sounds behind them. Both boys turn to see an unfamiliar man at the end of the alley.

"John, run." TJ pushed at him.

The man pulled out his gun and aimed for John.

"Move!" TJ yelled and shoved John away as the man fired.

An explosion in his right shoulder and he yelled in pain. John took off down another set of corridors as TJ went to shove him again, catching another bullet in his lower back. He collapsed to the floor. The machine fell to the ground next to him. A shadow loomed over the two of them and his mind dissolved into darkness.

John knew he was dead when the alley he ducked into revealed itself to be a dead end. The sound of footsteps in a nearby alley. No time to correct his mistake. Bracing himself, he opened the lid of a dumpster and climbed. Not the ideal hiding spot but better than being pumped full of bullets. He curled up in a ball and listened.

"Kid?"

Tyler's voice. But most likely not Tyler.

"Come on, Kid. It's me. We talked on the roof, you wanted to take a dive, remember?"

Tyler.John climbed out of the dumpster and ran to meet him.

"The metal?"

Tyler held out his hand to show a beat up chip.

"Is TJ…."

"Nah, not yet but he will be." Tyler said and picked TJ up from behind a corner.

"We need to get him home." John said

Tyler nodded to the direction of the car.

"You drive."

Racheal came down the stairs as the car screeched to a stop in the driveway. She grabbed the gun in the back of her pants and opened the door as Tyler darted past her carrying TJ. "Kid's been shot."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Never would have guessed." She turned back the sound of tires to see John pulling out the driveway.

"Where's John going!?" Racheal yelled.

"To get Charley!" Tyler yelled back from the kitchen.

Racheal ran back to the kitchen to help Tyler. After cutting his shirt off , she used the ripped pieces to help keep pressure of his wound. Racheal tied a piece of his shirt to his shoulder wound. "Looks like a through N through. But his back…if we can't get it out and closed up, he'll bleed to death."

Tyler pushed at TJ's body. "He's out,right?"

"Out cold."

"Good." Tyler pulled a Swiss Army knife and rinsed it under rubbing alcohol from under the sink. Racheal looked up at him.

"You know where the bullet is?"

"Nope."

"So you're going in on a whim? Are you…? Oh right, stupid question."

Tyler smirked and stuck the scissors extension in TJ's back. He nudged the instrument around until he found the bullet. "Bingo." Racheal turned towards a scrambling sound to see her younger self and Destiny standing at the foot of the stairs.

" Get me some towels and the supplies from the… s**t. John took the car. Just….. get some towels, sewing kit and rubbing alcohol." Both girls took off in separate directions.

Tyler pulled the bullet from TJ's back and set it on the table. He began stuffing the wound with bits of TJ's shirt to slow the blood loss. Destiny and the younger Racheal ran into the kitchen and laid out the supplies Racheal ordered and began handing them to the temporary medics. John and Charley burst through the front door, carrying a variety of medical supplies. Racheal looks from them back to TJ and sighed

Charley began looking around the room to Tyler and Racheal to the wounded boy on the table to the teenaged girls next to Sarah. "Who are…" He started to ask.
"I think introductions are best for later." Racheal snapped.

"Complicated?" Charley asked.

"You have no idea." Racheal replied with a strange spark in her eyes.

Charley began unpacking his supplies and looked at the amount of blood TJ was losing as well as the blood on the table , Tyler and Racheal. "He'll need blood. A lot of it. Do we have a donor?"

"He's A-. Eliminates every person here but Sarah and me."

Charley nodded. " We'd be better off using you, you're kind of a big guy. You'd have more blood than Sarah."

"He's a perfect match too." John said.

Tyler's face darkened.

Charley stitched up TJ's wounds. "All right. Guess we should get started on that. Kid's lost around 4 units of blood. Quicker we get started, the better off he'll be." Charley pulled a needle from his bag. "Going to need you to hold out your arm."

Tyler pulled his arm back to himself. "I'm not infecting him."

Racheal looked at Tyler then at TJ with a twinge of sympathy. "I can't stay for this." She said and left the room to sit in the living room.

"Someone gonna fill me in? Charley asked.

John stood at the opposite of the kitchen table and leaned over to stare at Tyler. "He needs to live. I'm going to need him someday."

Tyler glanced back at him. "It will destroy him."

"You handled it. Give him the blood, Tyler."

John glanced at Charley. "Tyler has nanoattroids in his blood. It's a piece of Skynet tech like tiny machines in his blood. Tyler can survive things other humans can't because it speeds his healing. But it's designed for human mind control. It embeds itself in his brain and nervous system, sometimes when Tyler gets too mad or something. It takes control. If he gives blood to TJ then he gives the nanos to TJ. It's dangerous and painful."

"and I'm not doing it to him." Tyler remarked.

"But I'm John Connor. You have to do as I say."

"I don't care, kid. I'm not Cameron. You can't order me around."

"Just give him the damn blood, Tyler." Sarah called from across the room.

Destiny, Racheal and John sat in a circle on the living room floor. Destiny dealt another hand to the younger Racheal.

"Bust." Racheal said miserably.

"I'm bored." Destiny announced and dropped the cards. "

"You could always start on your homework." The older Racheal said from the couch.

"I'm not that bored." Destiny smirked towards her mother and picked the cards back up. The younger Racheal peered into the kitchen at Tyler giving TJ his blood.

"Will those nano-things hurt him?"

"Cause extreme headaches sometimes. They'll take over his mind and he'll be same as a Skynet-sent terminator. He'll kill anyone on Skynet's hitlist." John answered.

"Fun." The younger Racheal replied sarcastically.

For three days TJ had been fighting the nanos as John called them.

For three days, TJ sat in his room, buried his head in his hands and screamed in agony. The nanos were embedding in his brain and nervous system. A painful and long process. During which only Tyler, Sarah and Destiny would be near him. The machine, Cameron, had said he was a threat. Unstable. And Racheal believed it. TJ had been healed. He had survived but at a great cost. There were times were he lost all emotion, when his face became a blank, when he saw John as a target not a friend. When a simple game of Monopoly turned deadly.

The four teens had been enjoying their game. Winning, losing, laughter and teasing; Until TJ got a headache. TJ buried his head in his hands and cringed.

"Teej, are you okay?" Racheal asked as he started to shudder. When he looked up, his face was void of emotion. "Run!" Destiny yelled and shoved John at the door. Racheal jumped to her feet and ran out the door. John had been slower to react. TJ wrapped his left hand around John's throat and began to squeeze.

Destiny jumped on his back. "Let go of him!"

TJ tilted his head and increased pressure as John's attempted calls for help became strangled gurgles. Frustrated, Destiny jumped back off and broke a chair over TJ's back. Not enough to knock him out but enough to make him drop John. He scrambled to his feet and ran.

TJ moved to follow him and Destiny blocked the door. "Tyler!" She yelled down the stairs. If anyone could stop TJ in this minute, he could. TJ raced past her like she wasn't even there. She heard the front door open. She hoped that meant John got away. Or at least a good headstart. Sounds of furniture being thrown, the wall exploding? Destiny shot to the bottom of the stairs just in time to see Tyler slam TJ into a wall. Chunks of the walls fell to the floor. Tyler gripped his arm around TJ's throat and held him struggling till he dropped to the floor.

"Timing." Destiny huffed. Tyler swung TJ over his shoulders and carried him upstairs. Sarah texted on her phone and a minute later John walked back in the front door. John looked at the damage on the walls and furniture.

"TJ?"

"More like Tyler using TJ to wipe the walls."

John nodded and looked at Destiny. "Nice shot with the chair."

"Yeah well you die, I die. Can we get back to our game now?"

John nodded and looked around." Where's Racheal?"

Racheal stood in the doorway of the kitchen trembling as she surveyed the damage.

"Hey." John said as he moved towards her. "It's okay." He promised.

Racheal shook. "His face…he was like one of those things. You almost died... It's not okay.. ok?" John wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed, holding her tightly against him, trying to soothe her.

"I'm always moments from death. You were the smart one to run away. Beat me by a mile." John said. Racheal smiled faintly and realized Destiny was watching her curiously, sadly.

It felt weird for her to watch her parents as teens slowly drawing to each other, while she had known them as her parents her entire life with the good and the bad that came with it. It felt like she was a ghost watching an important part of the past that, like the trees and grass, she was never meant to see. Love she might never know.