CONTINUUM

-Common Ground-

Chapter Eleven

-Monday, March 24 2008 (12:41)

Portland, Oregon

"Who's Carter?" James asked after a moment. The three of them watched as the other car pulled out onto the street and drove away. "Aren't we going to follow them?" James asked when Sarah made no move to go after them. She and Cameron exchanged glances.

"No," Sarah finally said. "Carter is a terminator we ran into over five months ago. We left him locked in a bunker, or so we thought," she looked at Cameron. "How the hell did he get out?"

Cameron shook her head. "I have no idea."

"A bunker?"

"He was stockpiling coltan, a key component of the hyper-alloy that makes up the T-888 endoskeletons," Cameron explained. "He sealed himself inside a military bunker with a shipment of the mineral. He was most likely planning to remain there with it until after Judgment Day when it could be used to manufacture terminators. We were able to get in and relive him of it while trapping him inside."

"Or so we though," Sarah added. "The question is what is he doing with Harkins? And what happens this Wednesday?"

"I have another question," James said. "Would he recognize you if he saw you just now?"

"He would most likely recognize Sarah," Cameron said. "And he would defiantly recognize me."

"Do you think he saw us?" Sarah asked.

"I… don't know."

-12:45

The Weaver Residence

John handed Savannah her plate with a sandwich on it, then grabbed his own, following her out of the kitchen and into the living room.

"So, what have you been… doing?" John asked awkwardly.

Savannah shrugged. "My mom wants me to be home schooled now, so I don't really leave the house. I'm spending most of my time with John Henry."

John nodded as he picked up his sandwich. He had noticed that. So had his mother. To say she wasn't particularly thrilled would be an understatement. John wasn't entirely sure how he felt about it. They all agreed that it was too dangerous for Savannah to go to school, or anywhere where one of them wasn't nearby. The problem was Sarah's only experience with children was in teaching them how to be paramilitary commandos, and beyond his belief that that was a less then desirable upbringing John wasn't much better. Neither of them was really sure what one was supposed to do with a normal eight year-old. And once he got past his automatic reaction to it, John had to admit that Savannah's relationship with John Henry wasn't an unhealthy one.

"Do you miss going to school?" John asked. Savannah swallowed.

"Not really. I never really had any friends, and it was boring."

"Yeah, but you learn stuff," John said. "And that's important." At that comment Savannah made a face, causing John to laugh. As John watched her he was struck by how… different she was from the woman he had known in 2028. Of course she was different; she was still a child, and a fairly innocent one. She would grow up, but if they stopped SkyNet she would never become the person he had known. Which was what she had wanted, what the future Savannah had wanted. John was suddenly struck by the thought that maybe it was the same for him. He wanted to stop SkyNet as much so that he wouldn't have to save the world as to save it. But as he sat there looking at his half eaten sandwich John found himself wondering how his future-self felt about the whole thing. How if they succeeded he would most likely cease to exist. He had tried to imagine the world from that perspective, what could someday be his perspective before, and even after his time in the future he could still only manage the occasional glimpse of insight. And he rarely liked what he saw.

John was brought out of his thoughts by the ringing of his cellphone. He pulled it out of his pocket, and seeing that the call was from his mother opened it. He heard a series of tones and sent the return signal.

"We may have a problem," Sarah said.

"That didn't take long. What is it?"

"You remember Carter?"

"You mean the terminator I was locked in a bunker with for over a hour? Yeah, he sort of left and impression," John's voice took on a hard edge. "Why?"

"Apparently he's friends with our future Congressman. We're not really sure why."

"Have you been made?"

"Don't know that either."

"Son of a…" John noticed Savannah watching him and allowed that sentence to trail off. "So he was with Harkins?" John asked standing. "Like they knew each other?"

"Yeah."

"I'll go talk to John Henry, see if he saw anything of him when he was doing his research."

"Where are you going?" Savannah asked.

"To see John Henry."

"Yeah, I heard you the first-"

"I was talking to Savannah," John said making his way down the hall. He reached the room where John Henry had been spending most of his time. It was mostly bare, A desk set against the wall with a computer on it and in the center of the room there was a table with several files stacked on it. On the desk next to the computer was the cord John Henry used to physically connect himself to the computer, and through it the Internet. It currently wasn't being used. As John entered the room John Henry turned to face him.

"Ah, when you were looking at Harkins, the people working with him, did you find like, pictures of any of them?"

John Henry nodded. "Yes, mostly from driver's licenses."

"Right, ah," John put the phone back to his ear. "Do you have any idea who he was pretending to be?"

"No. He was with Harkins when he visited the diner."

"The one where he's running his campaign? Well it's a place to start. John Henry, what about the people involved with his campaign?"

John Henry started going through the computer files. "There are still only a few official staff, it's mostly just unpaid part-time volunteers at this point, I don't have any information on them. This is his campaign manager."

John looked at the picture on the screen. "Oh hell, and there it is. It's his campaign manager," he said into the phone, "Sean O'Brian. That's who Carter's pretending to be. I hadn't found a picture of him by the time you guys left, and you said it wasn't important… You think this is another Greenway of Vick Chamberlain?"

"That's one of the things were going to have to find out. Look into him, I want to know everything there is."

"Right. How long are you guys going to be up there?"

"Seeing as we still have no idea what the hell is going on I really can't say. Love you."

"You too," John hung up the phone.

"What was that about?" John Henry asked.

"That guy, O'Brian, he's a terminator we ran into a few months ago."

John Henry looked at the computer screen. "What's he doing with Harkins?"

"No idea. When we ran into him he was going by the name Carter. His mission was to stockpile coltan for SkyNet. You don't think this has something to do with that?"

John Henry considered the question for a moment. "Unlikely."

John shook his head. "Yeah, I didn't think so."

-13:27

Yaris Propulsions, San Francisco

Graham looked up as the conference room door opened and the second of the two engineers entered the room. He had finished interviewing the first about ten minutes ago.

"Take a seat," Graham said. The man nodded, quickly shuffling forward and pulling out a chair to sit down. He seemed nerves, but not overly so considering the circumstances. Graham reached out and turned on the tape recorder sitting in front of him. "Alright it is Monday, March 24 2008 at about 1:30pm. I'm Special Agent Graham Tanaka, and you are Frank Tulsa, a design engineer for Yaris Propulsions, correct?"

The man nodded again. "Ah, yes."

"Alright. Can you tell me what you were doing on the night of Monday, March 17th?"

"We were finishing up our tests on the T-7 Zeta. We'd finished making upgrades to the control system and we wanted to make sure everything worked before our live test on, well it would have been… tomorrow."

Graham nodded. "And who was involved in this?"

"Ah, myself, the project leader Casey Dobson, Daren Folklen, Harry Vaun, Mary Thompson, two assistant researchers, Michael Peters, and Jack-"

"Folklen, he left early in the afternoon?"

"Ah yeah, his kid had this thing… I don't remember what."

"And when everything was done who oversaw the lockdown of the drone?"

"Ah, it was my codes, but both Thompson and Dobson were there. And ah," Tulsa thought for a moment, "one of the technicians, Bob Sedaka."

"And when was the T-7 Zeta to be checked out of storage again?"

"Tomorrow."

"By whom?"

"Probably either myself or Dobson."

"Are you two the only ones with access?"

Tulsa shook his head. "No. Ah, Harry Vaun, Mary Thompson, Fisher Dills, anyone involved with running the T-7 project as a whole really, along with the senior most people running the company, I'm not sure I can name all of them."

"That's alright," Graham said. "Anyone who does accesses it would show up on a log though, right."

"Of course."

"Is there anyway someone could access it without that being recorded?"

"There shouldn't be, no."

Graham nodded, but before he could continue his cellphone began to ring. Graham pulled it out while reaching over to switch off the tape recorder while standing. "Excuse me for a moment," he said before answering his phone. "Agent Tanaka."

"It's Russell, I'm at Harry Vaun's apartment. I spent about two minutes knocking on his door before the landlord came by, said the guy either hadn't come in or hadn't left in about two days. Anyway he agreed to let me in."

Graham made his way out of the conference room into the outside hallway. "Yeah, I sort of wish you hadn't done that. If a Judge decides that that constitutes an illegal search-"

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to be an issue. I'm in his kitchen right now and so is Mr. Vaun. More specifically he's on the floor with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. From the look of the body I'm guessing he's been like this for a while now."

Graham swore. "Alright, I'll get over there as soon as I can."

-13:41

The Johansson Residence

"What can you tell us about his relationship with her?" Harry asked. He and his partner sat with Riley Dawson's former foster parents in their living room.

Jeffry Johansson glanced at his wife. "John only came over a few times," he said. "They were usually at his house."

"When was the last time you saw him or Riley?" Carrie asked.

"We last saw Riley a little over two weeks ago," Kay Johansson replied. "A few days later John came by looking for her. About the same time she called, said not to worry and that she wasn't coming back. She asked to talk to John for a moment, then she hung up."

"Riley had problems, like a lot of foster kids," Jeffry said. "She tended to be… distant. When she first started going out with John we thought it was a good sign, as far as we knew she'd never really spend much time interacting with anyone her own age since she came to us. Or really interacting with anyone for that matter. There was an… incident," Jeffry looked at his wife again. "A few months ago, between Riley and my wife."

"She… some of the other foster kids were fighting over the TV or something," Kay said. "Normal kid stuff. Riley just, exploded. Screamed, said didn't we know that none of it mattered, that we were all going to die, that there be nothing left but… bleached sculls."

"Were there any other incidences like that?" Carrie asked.

Kay nodded. "A while later she, tried to commit suicide. Cut her wrists. This was at John's house, actually. They called an ambulance, and she was okay, but…"

"We tried to talk to her about it," Jeffry said. "Suggested that she go see someone, but she would always retreat to her room, or just leave the house, so after a while I guess we just let it be, tried to let her know we were here for her."

"Shortly before Riley disappeared her school's guidance counselor came by," Kay said. "Riley had actually dropped out sometime earlier, anyway she came by, said that Riley had been having problems. Seemed to think that John might be the cause of a lot of them."

"I didn't really want to believe her," Jeffry said. "I mean like I said we hadn't seen much of him, but John seemed like a good kid. But, a few days later his mother, Sarah, came by. Wanted to talk about Riley. Apparently right before she… cut herself, John had noticed that she had a burse on her forehead. And Sarah," Jeffry's mouth tightened. "wanted to know if I was the one who gave it to her. She didn't come right out and say it, but it was pretty clear where she was going. So I told her to go to hell, though not in those exact words, and told her about the visit from the guidance counselor."

"What was Sarah's response from that?" Harry asked.

"She wanted to know exactly what the counselor had said, so I gave her her contact information. The counselor had left it incase we wanted to talk about anything."

"Ah, do you still have…" Harry trailed off as Jeffry stood and went over to a desk in the corner of the room and pulled out a piece of paper. Then he walked over to Harry and handed it to him. "After called and said she wasn't coming back we informed CPS," he said sitting down. "We haven't heard from her since. As far as I know she hasn't turned up."

"What about the Connor's?" Carrie asked.

"After John came by looking for her and she called we haven't seen them either," Kay said.

"Is there anything else either of you can think to tell us?" Harry asked.

"I don't…" Jeffry and Kay looked at each other again," I don't think so," he said. "I mean… no not really," he finished with a final shake of his head.

Harry and Carrie stood. "Well we'll talk to CPS. If you hear from Riley call us."

Jeffry nodded. "Of course. Do you… think she's alright?"

"We hope so," Carrie said.