Disclaimer: I do not own Terminator movies or the series or any of the characters.
Terminator: The John Connor Chronicles
"Sometimes in life, you just need to ask a simple question; why are we alive? Or what's our purpose? It holds so much depth in the mystery of life as we know it. To live means to use the opportunity that God has given us to make a difference. The future, and even the past, will always depend on the present. We make our destiny and who we want to be.
The view point is from outside a glassy window, where we see Sarah Connor staring out, and deep in thought.
I thought I knew my life purpose. To protect my son. To stop Judgment Day. Before it all got ripped away from me. I don't know anymore how to be strong. My strength has left me. No more John. No more Kyle. No more Derek. Even no more the terminator girl that used to live with us. Somehow we are family, and a very twisted one of that. But I rally strength from them.
I feel like a stranger in this world. It has no place for me. My world is always centered to John, and his are centered to me. My son, whenever you are, just remember…
I'll always find you…"
Sarah closed her eyes as a few drops of tears make their ways to her cheeks.
Moving forward to 2027, John Connor was staring out besides a window too.
"I'll always find you too, Mom," he whispered, closing his eyes.
"Wait. Stop the car!" FBI Agent Auldridge ordered. Two nearest police immediately stopped the black SUV that was making its way out of the basement parking lot. The driver seat's window was opened.
"James Ellison! Your CEO's office's just got busted. Any idea where to find her?" Auldrige asked casually.
"She is on a vacation. Private. Agent, I don't think she's available for the next few weeks," Ellison answered.
"Vacation, huh? I see. Then why's that her daughter, Savannah Weaver, still in school?" Auldridge asked.
"Well, it's a business trip. Ms. Weaver has asked me to take care of Savannah while she's gone."
"Alright, James. Now let me check your car. It's the procedure, I'm afraid," Auldrige said. He opened the back door and immediately was hit in the head.
"Go," the voice of Sarah Connor ordered. Ellison pulled the gear quickly while Sarah closed the door.
"Can you go faster?" Sarah shouted at Ellison. The situation was quickly getting out of hand. The sound of sirens was ringing loudly in their ears as they avoided the police cars that came after them.
"I'm trying," Ellison said tensely. He made a veer around a corner. The situation was tense. Cops were pursuing their car.
"Turn left. The right one would lead to a dead end," Sarah ordered. Ellison did as he was told. The car turned left.
"At least they're not terminators," Sarah murmured quietly. Ellison heard that and spared a moment to look incredulously at her.
"In situation like this, that's all you can say? We don't have your cyborg with us, Sarah. Well, her body is in the back, but still… They're going to get us arrested," Ellison exclaimed.
Sarah glared at him. "I've experienced much worse than you could ever dream." Silence fell over them as Ellison concentrated back to his own task. Ellison looked up. "Sarah, there's a helicopter up there," he said with a growing fear. What have he done so that he was now involved in this situation?
Sarah looked up too and saw the helicopter above them. "Take turn everywhere you can. Don't stay too long on one street. That will confuse them," she said, not letting her own panic and fear clouded her thinking.
Unfortunately, fate was not on their side that day. It was never on their side anyway. They met a dead end.
"Sh*t, we're f*cked up," Sarah exclaimed.
"What do we do now?" Ellison's voice betrayed his fear and hopelessness to their situation. The car had stopped and couldn't turn back. The cops were on their back.
Sarah sighed. "There is no other option. Ellison, help me," she said.
Ellison, puzzled by her statement, only complied. Sarah opened the back door.
"What are we going to do with her?" Ellison said, seeing Cameron's body.
"Hide her, somewhere," Sarah said, searching for a place to hide the body.
"Bury her?" Ellison suggested.
"Yes. That's a good idea. There is some shovels below the seat," Sarah said. Her eyes were looking at the police's direction, ensuring that they would have enough time.
Ellison took out the shovels, all the while wondering just what dangers the Connors had to face everyday so that they would have brought emergency firearms, medics, and even shovels with them. They worked as quickly as they could, burying Cameron's body to the ground. The sounds of sirens were getting closer, encouraging them to do it faster.
"Freeze! Both of you! Drop your weapons!" a voice behind them indicated that the police had found them. Seeing no other option, they dropped their shovels and, in Sarah's case, her weapon from its holster.
"Hands up!" the lead policeman ordered again. Sarah and Ellison complied. Sarah and Ellison's hands were quickly handcuffed as the reporters who had arrived at the scene swarmed the policemen to look for information.
Ellison glanced at Sarah. She appeared to be just as resigned to the circumstances as he was, but her face was firm, she held her head high, as though she didn't do anything wrong but yet was unjustly arrested. It couldn't be any closer to the truth.
Fate was certainly a b*tch.
"Megan, you'd better search for another John Connor out there." If it was that easy… At least I'm not the only one who does not trust myself. Think about it, what sane person will entrust any responsibility of leadership, moreover in a desperate war against an almost-impossible-to-defeat enemy? Yeah, definitely cannot blame him for reacting the way he did. John fought the urge to roll his eyes. Not knowing what to response, he just kept quiet.
Nilsons stared at John long and hard, analyzing him. "Come on here, son. Sit right here," he finally said, after deciding that this kid wasn't a joke. John seated next to him, finding himself desperately wanted to be anywhere other than this place. The occupants of the room were openly staring at him, judging him, analyzing him, or else, he didn't know. Awkward silence lapsed over the room.
"Now, now. I'm William Nilsons. What's your name once again?" Nilsons said in a fatherly manner. Even though John appreciated his kindness, he did not like being treated like a kid.
John threw a discreet annoying glare at him. It went unnoticed. Suppressing his annoyance, John decided to play along. He threw a smile at Nilsons. "It's John."
"Alright, John. You know that you are extremely lucky to get a name that is getting popular around here. You know what I'm talking, right? The rumors?" Again, he was treating John as if he didn't know anything.
"Yeah, I suppose," John answered, idly wondering where this was going.
"Well, sorry to bring you here, kid. She," he pointed his finger toward Megan, "thought that you were that person."
"I understand," John stated, starting to get amused of this whole situation.
"The funny thing is that we don't even know that this person is just an idea or not," Nilsons said.
"Okay," John replied, fighting the urge to just leave this place and laugh. Even fate had a sense of humor apparently.
"Look, I'm sorry to get you involved in this joke – I don't know who has started it anyway – but here's the thing. Why don't you gather your cellmates and anyone around your age to see you guys' opinion about who's got to take charge in this place," Nilsons said.
"Sure," John said with a little smile.
"Fine then, you are excused now," Nilsons smiled back.
"Thank you," said John, getting up. It didn't matter to him if they were going to think of him as a rumor, a made-up. He was never power hungry. He'd seen the consequences and responsibilities of one in high power, before he himself became one. Yes, he had accepted his destiny. Yes, he knew what had to happen. But yet, no one was going to blame him if he just let things work out on their own. There were more experienced and battle-hardened people around him. They weren't going to consider a sixteen year old boy with little experiences of war, albeit was trained very well. John wasn't going to force that either. If there was one thing he had learned from his past experiences, was that fate had its ways to make things happen. He still acknowledged that there is no fate but what we make for ourselves; the message from his mother, from his father and eventually, from his future self. But it didn't change the fact that some things just had to happen. We could advert fate a bit for our advantages, but there were huge consequences if one managed to change their fate completely.
"Wait a minute!" a female voice spoke, halting John in his steps. Eyes turned toward one red-haired woman, and John got a familiar feeling that he knew her somewhere, or some when.
"What if he is the one they're talking about? You can at least give him a chance to explain everything," she said, her eyes didn't leave John. John now knew that she knew something about him, and he did not like the way she spoke of him as if he was important or something. Well, maybe he was, but he still didn't like it nevertheless.
Nilsons seemed to be the unspoken leader, because he spoke and got to decide every time. John thought what was the whole point of voting a leader if he had known that he was going to be chosen? Maybe he wanted to be humble, or give every person opportunity to voice their opinions.
Nilsons seemed to be considering the red-haired woman's suggestion. "Good suggestion. So John, are you the John Connor who has been on the rumors or not?" he said, very, very straightforwardly.
John considered the best way to answer that question. Great, now he was 'the John Connor' already. For obvious reasons he didn't like it at all. And answering with a direct 'yes' would not be a good option. So, sarcasm was probably the best option.
"Obviously not. As you can see, I'm just a sixteen year olds. Besides, you've just interrogated me to prove that one," he said, sarcasm etched heavily in his tone.
He saw that the red-haired woman was just openly gaping at him.
Nilsons was looking at him with confusion and yet an amused expression.
The rest of the room was either not understanding what was going on or just keeping their silence as always, adding every awkward effect for John.
Sarcasm was not really the best option after all.
The last thing he remembered was being hit by none other than Sarah Connor herself in the head and then everything went black.
Agent Paul Auldridge knew better than to stuck his nose in none-of-his-business situations. Curiosity could kill the cat. He had known that long since he became an FBI agent. Then he should have known better than to stuck his nose in Sarah Connor's business.
It was never simple with Sarah Connor. That was one of the things that attracted his interest to this woman. From day one, her cause was never clear. She never admitted that she was guilty for the murder of Miles Dyson, for example. Instead she came with a most outrageous justification for her cause that one could ever think of; machines take over the earth. When he first heard that, he had snorted. Honestly, did this woman not able to come up with a more logical excuse? But she stayed firm to her reason. When people didn't believe her, she chose to keep her silence, rather than denying her only-existed-in-sci-fi-movies reason.
As he went to investigate the intriguing case of Sarah Connor, he eventually figured that everything was deeper and more complicated that what it looked like in the surface.
The series of events, the cases and anomalies that happened was related in a way that couldn't be possible, but somehow was true. It was a hell of a revelation, the biggest yet he had found throughout his whole career.
It started in 1984, where a man named Kyle Reese confessed a crazy tale about how he was sent from the future, by one John Connor, and claimed that SkyNet, a computer defense system, would soon take over the world and start hunting down what was left of mankind to extinction. When he had found this, he knew that it couldn't be just a coincidence that John Connor was involved in the tale. If it was a conspiracy, then the person behind all of this was both crazy and genius. What person would set a well-planned and big conspiracy like this just to free one local terrorist from her jail? Then again, Sarah Connor was not a terrorist back then. It was ten years before she got caught in her attempt to destroy a computer facility.
Paul then dug deeper searching the answer to solve the Sarah Connor mystery, as he had dubbed it. He found one case. It was in Pescadero State Hospital, where they kept Sarah Connor. Witnesses reported that they saw a mysterious man with a young boy around ten was trying to break out Connor from the hospital. Another mysterious man dressed in cop uniform appeared to be hindering their effort. The fight broke off. What caught his attention was that one witness saw that both men did inhuman things. One of them got shot in the chest but didn't seem to be affected by it at all.
Curiosity got better of him. He searched among the files of FBI cases and found one, happening in 1999. A teacher, apparently and without reason, took a shot at one student in the classroom. The said student miraculously escaped the scene. Witnesses said that the teacher had some kind of robot legs, and the targeted student was identified as John Reese. It was an irony. John Connor and Kyle Reese combined together. That must not be a coincidence.
After that was the most famous case to date of Sarah Connor, the bank explosion. Sarah Connor, John Connor and a girl identified as Cameron Phillips were declared dead in that explosion. The FBI got their rest.
Eight years went by. He had searched for anything suspicious during those years but could find nothing. Then, something caught his eyes. It was a small report on an old newspaper about three people being naked in the middle of the street. He opened YouTube in his laptop to see this civilian's video. What he saw confirmed his suspect. Those people were the same Sarah Connor, John Connor and Cameron Phillips, all looking the same as they were eight years ago. Time travel? Check.
Following that was a set of strange and horrible cases, including the murders of three mysterious men, psychologist Dr. Sherman, specialist in face surgery Dr. Lynn, and finally twenty FBI agents at the hand of a mysterious person. The kidnapping of Savannah Weaver only added the growing list. He finally got his answer when Sarah Connor was caught, as he tried to figure out the woman's motive which led him to this discovery.
Sarah Connor was innocent.
Time travel was true.
Machines from the future did exist.
It was the only explanation.
And he watched the surveillance video of the talk between Sarah Connor and James Ellison, and between Sarah Connor and Father Armando Bonilla. Then it clicked on him.
Sarah Connor didn't believe him when he tried to tell her that.
But he knew, that he was already in for the fight against the machines, because if curiosity killed the cat, he was not going to let the truth kill him.
-To be continued-
Author's Note: Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy my story. John's plan in taking over the camp will be explained in later chapter. :)
I'm new as an author and I know my current capability. I'd appreciate your tolerance for my grammar or spelling mistakes. As the proverbs said, practice makes perfect. One of the reviewers of a story I once read said that it was the way you could get better.
Anyway, every time I post a new story I am really eager to read the feedbacks. So, give me your own opinion by pressing the 'Review' button below. All will be appreciated.
