Chapter Twelve

The icy water had long since ceased to sting at John. At first the cold had felt like burning and every nerve ending in his body had been on fire, but now he was numb. He kept kicking forwards even though he could no longer feel his legs, and at times he wasn't even sure if they were still working. He pushed through the water and pulled with his arms – they too felt dead and heavy, as if they had turned to lead. He couldn't feel or move his fingers to keep them together, and his progress became even slower and more laborious. It didn't help that he still had his vest on, loaded with ammunition and a day's supply of food, weighing him down and forcing him to work even harder.

It seemed like he'd been swimming forever. He tried to think how far and how long he'd been in the water for, but nothing came to him except a light-headed, dizzy feeling, forcing him to suck in more air. He inhaled a mouthful of water and coughed violently as it went down his throat, freezing him even more from the inside. He kept going, driving himself forward, not daring to look back in case he turned himself around and headed the wrong way; or worse, saw a gleaming chrome monster chasing him through the water.

He continued to swim, feeling more drained than he had ever felt in his life. The cold had sapped all his energy and all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. A little bit more, he told himself. He still couldn't see anything but he knew it would be there soon enough. A few more minutes, and then he could lie down and rest for a little while.

Once more John slid his right hand forward and kicked with his feet. As he pulled his arm back through the water again, this time he felt it brush against something solid. His other hand did the same as he continued to stroke; it felt like mud. He stopped swimming and put his feet down onto solid ground. Finally! The water came up to the middle of his thighs, but at least it was shallow. He looked forward and saw the shore in front of him, only feet away. He stepped forward slowly, wading through the water and sucking in air greedily, wheezing. His chest burned from the effort of just breathing properly, but he continued to plough forward.

He felt something grip him and turned his head to see someone wrapping their arm around his shoulder and helping him forward. As soon as he was on the shore John dropped to his knees and bent over, panting, with his head on the pebbly beach as a wave of sheer exhaustion washed over him. He was done; he had nothing left. All he wanted to do was sleep, get some rest.

Cameron squatted down with him. "Are you okay?" she asked. He had taken longer than she'd expected and it had worried her. She'd seen him almost the entire time as he swam but she'd felt useless, being unable to help him. A few times he'd started swimming the wrong way and she'd called out to him; he'd managed to right his course but she didn't know if he'd understood her instructions or had just moved towards the noise. Either way, he was here now, but he was suffering.

"What?" John asked, almost breathless.

"We have to go." Cameron pulled him up to his feet but John just dropped to his knees again.

"Tired," he mumbled drunkenly, his eyes closed.

"You can't sleep yet," Cameron said as she hauled him up again. As she did so, she checked his vital signs. She could see his skin had lost all colour and he'd turned pale, could feel him shivering violently as she held him up and scanned him, frowning even before she had any results. His pulse was low, breathing shallow and very slow, and most worrying was his skin temperature: 83.33 degrees.

She forced John to stay on his feet, holding him up in a strong grip. "John?" His eyes were closed and his whole body slumped, his chin rested on his chest and she knew if she were to release him he'd fall to the ground. "John!" Cameron slapped him hard across the face and slowly he raised his head to look at her.

"Owww," he moaned, looking at her with glazed-over, bloodshot, drunken eyes. "Wha… was tha…"

"John!" Cameron snapped and shook him. He roused slightly and started to focus on her. "What's my name?" she asked sternly. John said nothing and tried to turn away from her but his movements were slow and feeble, and he didn't seem to realise she was holding onto him. "What am I?" she added.

John struggled to think, not sure if he even heard her question right. He drew a blank and said nothing for a moment as he tried to remember. Katie? Kelly… Carrie… that one sounded closer but still wasn't right… Cameron! "Camer… Camemero…" he tailed off, slurring. He knew it but he couldn't get the word out. Why is she asking? "Cameron!" he burst out, glad to be able to spit it out.

Cameron frowned and pulled him closer to her. "You have hypothermia," she said slowly so he might understand what she was telling him. "We have to move; I need you to walk with me." She pulled the magazine out of his rifle, ejected the chambered round and reloaded it, made sure the safety was on and handed the weapon back to him without cocking it. She didn't want to risk him accidentally firing and announcing their location to the T-1001.

She moved off first and set the pace, marching away from the lake and into the tree line, moving deeper into the woods. If the T-1001 hadn't seen them then it would most likely follow the closed road around the park in a circuit, looking for them. Their best chance to evade it was to take the harder, longer route.

She blazed the trail ahead and kept her rifle shouldered, watching out for any and all signs of movement. The forest was extremely quiet, however; the animals were either hibernating or just plain hiding from her. She found it ironic that wildlife was always afraid of her when terminators never killed animals, apart from Resistance guard dogs.

She looked back and saw John ambling behind her drunkenly. He swayed slightly and moved slowly, showing no sense of urgency despite what was chasing them. His HK-417 hung loosely from its strap and bounced off his hip without him even seeming to notice. Cameron frowned, knowing this was bad. John had become hyper-vigilant in recent months; he always checked the exits in every new place he went, he was always on edge, and he would normally never be so careless. She knew it was the hypothermia taking its toll but it didn't matter; if the T-1001 appeared now he would be helpless.

Not looking where he was going, John tripped over the root of a large tree and fell flat on his face. Cameron rushed over to him and heard him giggling, his voice muffled by the forest floor. She yanked him up to his feet and shook him, trying to rouse John and make him focus. "I need you to concentrate," she said. "We have to move faster."

"Where… where are we going?" John asked.

"Crater Lake Lodge," she reminded him.

John looked utterly stumped. "Crater Lake; what're we doing there?" Are we going swimming again? The last time had been terrible; he'd never felt so cold, but now he felt a lot warmer and a dip in the lake sounded pretty good. "Let's skinny dip in the lake." He grinned inanely as he pulled his rifle strap over his head and shrugged off his leather jacket.

"No!" Cameron grabbed his arms as he tried to peel off his soaked sweater. He got it halfway up his chest before she stopped him, high enough to see his whole body was still a deathly, pale white.

"I'm really hot," John complained, trying to fight her grip and get out of his clothes. The cold air felt good on his stomach and he wanted nothing more than to cool off. He struggled to get her arms away but couldn't, and Cameron sensed he seemed to have forgotten what she was. She lifted him up, one-handed, into the air and made her eyes glow blue.

"We have to go, now," Cameron urged him as she put his jacket back on and strapped his rifle to her back. "Remember the T-1001, John. It's going to kill you if it catches you. Move!" She shoved him forward, realising she was going to have to push him every step of the way.


Patrick quickly marched through the trees as he made his way up the hill that dominated Wizard Island, the conical mass of land two hundred metres from the west shore of the lake. This was the closest hiding place to the dock that they could choose, so the T-1001 searched in case they had decided to conceal themselves here. It was unlikely, as both Connor and Cameron knew of his kind and that the best strategy was to run rather than hide; though he didn't know what they were armed with besides their rifles and it was possible they were laying in ambush.

He hadn't seen in which direction they'd fled to; the spinning screw of the boat had sliced him into hundreds of pieces and it had taken time to reform himself. Dozens of smaller slivers of his form had sank, too small to be able to propel themselves through the water. One piece had been swallowed by a trout that had seemingly confused the portion of poly-alloy for something edible. When he'd located said fish he'd cut it in half to access his missing section. By the time he'd surfaced, complete, he had lost sight of them and was forced to search. Time was a critical factor now; Ronin had sent Caesar to slow down the Vanguards but he didn't know if the T-900 had been successful or not, or to what degree. He had kept his cell phone sealed inside an air pocket inside his body, but it had been shattered during the fight with Cameron. If the Vanguards reached Crater Lake before he found Connor, killing the human would be impossible.

He walked up to the top of the island, roughly three hundred metres above the surface of the lake, and looked down all around him, able to see from all angles simultaneously. He saw no sign of their boat and there was no other way off the island. The water temperature of the lake was below freezing; it would be dangerous for the human to swim in it, but not impossible.

Patrick waited and watched both the island and the lake, searching. Movement caught his attention down by the northern side of the island. He ran down the slope towards it, moving quickly through the trees in his way. He quickly closed the distance on his prey, still unable to see it properly through the trees and the foliage. He saw plants rustle ahead and sprinted towards it, rapidly closing the distance.

A bobcat burst out of hiding and dashed away from the T-1001 as quickly as it could, bounding away through the trees as it fled its unnatural pursuer. Patrick stopped and turned away from the feline, uninterested in the animal. They're not here. He walked through the woods to the edge of the island and looked out east towards the rest of the lake. They weren't on the island and there was no sign of them or the boat anywhere. They must have sunk the boat to conceal the direction they'd travelled. It was a very intelligent move and Patrick had expected nothing less from Connor and his cyborg.

He stepped into the lake and morphed his shape, elongating himself back into the eel-like configuration that was best for swimming, and darted throughthe water, swimming around the island back to the western shore and the cabins, making the distance in very little time. Given the freezing water temperature it made sense for them to have doubled back to the same shore they'd left from and minimised the risk of hypothermia.

Back on land he retook human form and walked up the beach, past the pier and through the woods towards the cabins. Even before he reached them he could see the one Connor and Cameron had occupied was completely ablaze; bright orange glowed through the trees and thick smoke billowed up into the air, illuminated by the light of the moon. When he reached the remains of the cabin he saw the fire had spread to their Tacoma, which sat on the ground and burned in an intense conflagration that he could feel even from a distance.

He saw no tracks in any direction but he knew they would likely make their way around the lake, keeping close to the road, where the route would be the easiest. If Connor had swam in the water he would likely be suffering the effects of the cold temperature, and would be unable to move well through the terrain. The road was his most likely choice, so Patrick decided he would follow that route around the lake until he caught up with them.


She walked through the trees slowly but John struggled to keep up, even with her slow pace. It had gotten worse as they'd marched on and now he was only semi-conscious and seemingly unaware of their surroundings or anything going on around them. John collapsed to the ground in a heap and just lay there, not making a single move to get to his feet and she had to once again pick him up bodily to get him upright. If she were human she might have become frustrated with John but as it was she was a lot more patient – despite the urgency of their situation – and she knew the hypothermia was getting worse.

Cameron pulled, pushed and dragged John with her, forcing him forward every step of the way, though their progress continued to be extremely slow. They could travel faster if she carried him but in his current condition she needed him to move. Even simple walking generated some body heat and kept his circulation going, and she needed him to continue doing that. If she carried him then his body wouldn't work at all and he'd just get colder and colder. She looked back in the direction of the lake and kept watch for any signs of movement. The T-1001 was out there somewhere, hunting for them, and she knew at their current pace it would only be a matter of time until it found them. They wouldn't stand a chance like this.

She moved faster, breaking into a brisk walk and dragging John with her, forcing him to struggle merely to keep up. She needed his heart rate and breathing to increase to keep the blood pumping through his body. "Faster!" she snapped, trying to compel him to pick up the pace by himself. Until they reached the lodge the only thing that would keep his hypothermia from getting worse was John himself.

Something wet landed on Cameron's face. She stopped, looked up and another hit her in the eye. She didn't blink but instead wiped it away. She saw white flakes falling all around them. The snow would only deteriorate John's condition.

"Keep moving," she urged John as she continued to drag him with her. "One foot in front of the other," she instructed as she once more set the tempo herself and forced him to keep up.

"Sleep…" John mumbled. She thought perhaps it was an improvement; he hadn't spoken since they left the lake, but a moment later the reality proved to be very different. John fell to his knees and lowered himself to the ground, curling up into a ball.

Cameron sighed. Even machines were not completely patient, and she felt extremely frustrated now as John impeded their progress. It wasn't his fault but that didn't make her feel any better. "You can't sleep," she said, trying to urge him to keep going.

"Sleeeeeep…" he muttered.

His rest was short-lived. Cameron dragged him back to his feet and once again slapped him hard across the face, leaving a visible red mark on his cheek. "If you sleep, you will die!" she warned John, hoping he could understand, but the look of confusion on his face told her otherwise. Again she set off, dragging him with her. "Keep moving," she urged him.

What was left of John's strength was finally sapped completely and his legs gave out from under him, almost pulling Cameron down with him as he fell. Immediately Cameron was down on her knees. "John!" She rolled him onto his back and realised his chest wasn't moving; there was no rise or fall. She put her hand underneath his nose but she couldn't feel any exhalation. She grabbed his wrist and scanned, but found nothing; no pulse.

Cameron froze momentarily, still holding John's arm, while myriad horrific thoughts raced through her mind in that instant.

She'd killed him.

She'd forced him into the lake, made him swim through the freezing water. She hadn't gone bad but she'd still killed John Connor. Derek and Sarah had been right; she'd been right. In less than a second she foresaw a future where the world was destroyed, mankind was gone, but she lived on, alone. She couldn't kill herself but without him she had nothing, was nothing. If he was gone she would let the T-1001 find her, take her chip; she didn't care.


Sarah opened her eyes and winced at the pounding in her skull. She tried to get up but her neck, back, and her arms screamed in pain when she moved. She noticed her helmet had gone and she could feel the air on her face. Despite the chilly air it felt quite nice; Just a shame the rest of me feels like crap. She recognised Thor's exposed, featureless metal face hovering over her; the only thing on it apart from his glowing blue eyes was the lightning bolt on under his right eye, which she barely made out in the darkness.

"What happened?"

"We were targeted by a sniper and crashed," Thor said. "I managed to prevent you suffering any serious injuries."

"How'd you manage that?" Sarah asked. She didn't feel like she wasn't hurt; she ached all over. She forced herself to raise her head slightly, and then slowly, agonisingly, she used her hands to prop herself up as she sat upright. She checked herself for injuries, prodding methodically all over her body. She winced in pain as she touched her chest, her left arm and her left thigh. She reckoned she'd cracked a couple of ribs and bruised her entire left hand side.

"I broke your fall," he said simply.

"Thanks…" she said, not feeling at all confident in herself for actually thanking a machine. She'd never once said it to Cameron and she was surprised the moment the word left her lips. She saw Aegir approach them from the tree line on the side of the road, plasma weapon still activated and extended from his forearm. "I couldn't find the sniper," he reported to Thor.

"I don't get it," Sarah confessed. She was seriously confused by this all now. "Whoever – or whatever – the sniper was, he had us dead to rights; why not finish us off?" It wasn't a terminator's typical M.O.; no machine would ever leave its targets alive, especially when they were in such a vulnerable position.

"No pre-Judgment Day sniper rifle would be effective against us," Aegir told her.

"Doesn't surprise me," Sarah quipped. "You look pretty dense."

"We weren't the target," Thor said before Aegir could answer back to Sarah. He helped her up to her feet and then went to inspect the bikes. They were completely mangled; he saw that the front wheel of the one he and Sarah had been riding was completely gone, and the engine in Aegir's had been blown out of place and lay strewn around the road. "It wasn't trying to kill us," he said to her. "The sniper shot the bikes, not us; he wants to slow us down."

Sarah didn't need to ask why. "John," she said, gulping in fear at what that meant. "There's another one trying to kill him." Taking out the bikes was meant to buy that one time to complete its mission. She took a few tentative steps and ignored the pain in her leg as she lifted it up; it was only muscle bruising and it would heal. After the first few steps to test herself she quickened her pace and marched along the hard shoulder, wincing with pain every time she put weight on her bruised left leg.

"We need to get to John," she said as she pushed herself harder. "Do you have any idea what kind of machine is after John?" she asked.

"Most of T-Zero's unit were T-900s," Thor told her.

"Never heard of them," she said.

"Terminators designed to destroy other machines," Aegir explained.

"Shit!" T-888s were bad enough; now she knew there were machines built to kill other terminators. She dreaded to think how Cameron would fare against one of those when she'd barely held her own against Vick and Cromartie in the past. "Can you two take one of these T-900s?" she asked.

"It's what we were built for," Thor said.

"This is too slow." Aegir grabbed Sarah by the back of her shirt and with one hand thrust her over his shoulder as easily as a man picking up a cat.

"What the hell are you doing?" she snapped at him, furious.

"I'm faster than you," he said simply and marched forwards. They moved away from the road into the tree line to avoid being seen by any traffic, and went through the woods, remaining parallel to the road.

"Put me down," Sarah growled. Thor nodded at Aegir, silently giving him a command to do as she said. Aegir lowered her to the ground and she glared up at him. "I don't need you to carry me."

Aegir strode past her and continued on his way. "Then keep up," he shot back at her. Thor and Sarah moved together, behind him. She stared at Aegir's bullet-riddled back as he forged ahead several feet in front of them and wondered why these two were so different to any other machine she'd encountered before. She hadn't expected to be called a monkey by one; that was for sure.

As much of an enigma as these two were, they weren't enough to distract Sarah from the pain shooting up the entire left half of her body with every step she took. Pain can be controlled, she told herself as she tried to will herself into ignoring it and focused on just putting one foot in front of the other.


Thump…

Cameron felt the slightest, tiniest throb emanate from John's wrist. She reduced the scope of her entire consciousness down to the point where her fingers touched his skin, focused entirely on it, unaware of anything else around her as those few square centimetres became everything that mattered.

Thump…

Cameron had never experienced anything like the relief that washed over her at the feel of such a tiny little beat in his wrist. Even in Mexico, when she'd been more afraid for him than she'd ever been; she remembered the urgency she'd felt at the time, ploughing straight into the police station when Derek Reese had been more cautious. It hadn't mattered to her because without John her life had no meaning. Those sensations, that feeling, paled in comparison to what she felt now.

His pulse was extremely low; only a few beats per minute, but it was there; so slow that even her scan hadn't detected it initially. Cameron pushed aside the relief that John was still alive; that was a condition that could rapidly change at any moment if she didn't get him to the lodge soon, but he was completely incapacitated. She decided her course of action wasn't working; his body was no longer generating any heat and he would be dead within hours if this continued, possibly sooner. She picked him up and slung him over her right shoulder, then began to run through the woods, dodging nimbly between the trees. John groaned quietly for a few seconds and was then silent. She knew he was still alive; she could feel his pulse, but it was fading.

She continued to run awkwardly with all of his weight on her right-hand side. She could have moved faster if she'd spread his weight over both her shoulders but Cameron was still alert to the T-1001 finding them and held her rifle in her left hand, although she knew that if it found them now there was little she could do to save John; she would only buy him a few minutes at most, and he couldn't do anything to save himself.

After almost an hour of running the Crater Lake Lodge finally came into view; a large, four-storey hotel that overlooked the south shore of the lake, set back two hundred feet from the water. Cameron moved to the main entrance and pushed the heavy wooden door open, breaking the lock as she did so. An alarm started to beep and she located the system and ripped it out, crushing it to pieces before she closed the door.

She had no way of knowing if the alarm would cause park rangers to come out to the lodge or not. The ranger who had turned them away from the park entrance had said the roads up here were too dangerous because of the snowfall. If it did it alert them, it would take time for them to arrive to investigate, by which time John should have recovered enough to exit the park through the woods.

Cameron carried John through the lodge; the interior was all polished wood and granite, designed to give the place a rustic charm and atmosphere that was lost on her. She knew that if the T-1001 came here it would approach from the road or the water, so she climbed the staircase to the top floor and selected a room with a lakeside view. They entered a large room with the same décor that was present throughout the hotel, with a large double bed, wardrobe, and a gas fireplace designed to look like an authentic log-burning one. She kept the lights off and drew the curtain back a fraction to look out of the window. She scanned the area but saw nothing approaching.

She carried John's unconscious body into the bathroom, switched the light on and turned on the shower. Unlike the cabins, the lodge seemed to have its own power and water supply, and hot water burst forth from the shower head. She turned the shower off and stripped John naked, running another scan as she worked. His pulse was only thirty beats a minute and his breathing so shallow she had trouble even sensing it.

Once John was completely naked she picked him up, lowered him carefully into the shower and curled him into a foetal position before turning the water back on and setting the temperature to maximum. Cameron took his clothes, went back to the bedroom and turned on the gas fire. She took out the hangers from the wardrobe and hung John's clothes on them. She jammed the metal hooks on the hangers into the wall just above the fire.

Cameron then found a plastic jug, went back into the bathroom, and ran the faucet until the water became hot. She added some cold water so it wouldn't be scalding, filled the jug to the top and took it to the bedroom where she placed it next to the lamp on the bedside cabinet. She had a complete and perfect mental inventory of what was in both her and John's webbing; she pulled out a packet of US Army issue fruit-flavoured hard candy and put it next to the water jug, along with a bar of chocolate. They were both full of sugar and that was exactly what John needed now.

She then put his boots in front of the fire to dry, and went back into the bathroom to check on John; he hadn't moved at all from where she'd placed him and he was still unconscious. She put her hand on him to scan his vital signs and found some improvement but it wasn't enough, and the water temperature was slowly starting to fall. It was likely there was only minimal gas in the tanks, which would be replenished before the park was open, and knew the fire was a higher priority than the shower; there were other ways to warm John's core temperature.

She switched off the shower, picked him up and began towelling him dry. It upset her to see John so helpless, so close to death, especially knowing if he did die she would be responsible. Once he was dry she carried him back into the bedroom, peeled back the thick duvet cover and placed him in bed. She then stripped herself naked, hung her own clothes up by the fire, next to his, and went into the bathroom.

Cameron stood in front of the mirror to assess her injuries. She was covered in welts, deep gashes, and over two-thirds of her face was purple, cut and bruised from being slammed face-first repeatedly into the ground and the cabin.

Her face had not been the only part of her to suffer damage; seven bullet wounds ran diagonally from just above her right breast to her left hip from where John had shot her through the liquid metal, and she had a long stab wound just above her navel. Worse than that was her scalp, though: she could feel a large flap of her scalp hanging loose off her skull where it had been cut into twice in a matter of hours. Her CPU port cover was still sealed but if John hadn't intervened she knew that the T-1001 would have opened it and removed her chip within seconds. She was meant to be his protector but she owed her life to John. Again.

She pushed the edges of her scalp back into place, knowing they would heal within hours. She left the bathroom and sat on the bed next to John.

"John!" She shook him and slapped the side of his face. He opened his eyes for a moment and looked at her; they were glazed over, barely aware of anything around him. Cameron sat him up slightly and his head sagged forward, chin leaning on his chest. Again, Cameron shook him and he roused, ever so slightly.

"Huh?"

"Drink this," Cameron handed John the water jug and moved it up to his lips. She tilted his head back, pulled his jaw open and poured some inside. Some deep, innate, animal part of John seemed to be aware of what was happening, and he swallowed on reflex. Cameron slowly continued to pour the warm water down his neck, knowing it would help warm him up from the inside. Ideally she would have had IV drips with warm saline, but she used what she had available.

Once he'd drunk it all down Cameron then took a piece of hard candy and placed it under John's tongue, before she lay him down on his side and pulled the cover over both of them. She lay behind John, spooning him and keeping as much of her body pressed tightly against his back as she could to share her body heat. She wrapped her arms around his chest and lay her head down on the pillow nuzzling the back of his neck and listening for any signs of entry or anything approaching the lodge, and hoping – something terminators never did, but still she found herself doing so – that they had enough time for John to recover and to leave before the T-1001 arrived.


After years of training and experience drilled into him by his mother, John Connor normally woke rapidly from his sleep and was instantly alert; a survival technique honed in the jungles of South America, so ingrained that it had become a part of him now. Unusually, John slowly stirred and drifted in and out of consciousness. He lay there in a semi-conscious daze without a care in the world for what seemed like forever.

Eventually he opened his eyes and sighed contentedly. He was surprised to find he was in a warm bed with a thick duvet over him, and it although was dark he could still make out enough in the gloomy greyness that the room was unfamiliar. He looked for an exit but couldn't see one from his position; there was an open door but he could make out the outline of a toilet; that definitely wasn't the way out. There was also the window, but without knowing where they were or how high up he had to mark it as only a maybe.

He then noticed the feel of a warm body against his, and a small, slender arm draped around his chest. He knew who it was without looking, and he could feel her smooth skin pressed against his back; enough to tell she was naked. As am I, he realised, feeling slightly embarrassed.

John turned around to face her in bed. She pulled her arm back and remained still. Even in the dark he could tell she was looking at him. "Where are we?" he asked, "Why are we naked?"

"What do you remember?" Cameron asked him, seeing the look of confusion on his face.

"Jumping into the lake… then just cold… and now this."

"You were suffering from hypothermia," Cameron told him. "You collapsed. I carried you to the Crater Lake Lodge, broke in, and put you in bed. You're naked because I took your wet clothes off and hung them up to dry."

"And you're naked because…" he prompted.

"To share body heat," Cameron explained. "You nearly died," she added, with a hint of sadness in her voice. "I don't know what I would have done if you did." John remembered what she'd said before, about how she didn't want to talk about him dying one day. He was her mission, he realised. By her very nature he was her be all and end all; he was literally everything to her. He felt slightly choked when he thought about it; there was no way he deserved that kind of devotion but she gave it nonetheless. He leaned towards her and kissed her again, picking up where they'd been interrupted in the cabin.

Cameron kissed him back and closed her eyes, copying John. He deepened the kiss, reached down to her hips and pulled her closer to him, pressing their bodies together as he let out a contented, pleasured moan and slid a hand between them to cup one of her breasts. She leaned into him but felt John growing hard against her. She broke the kiss and gently pushed him away.

"We should stop," she said, getting out of bed and standing upright.

John looked at her, worried that he'd read her wrong. Maybe she doesn't want that. "I'm sorry," he said, feeling more awkward by the second.

"If we continue we won't leave for some time, and the T-1001 is still out there." Cameron crossed the room and picked up her clothes from where she'd hung them up, and quickly dressed herself. She passed John's clothes to him and he got out of bed and started to put them on, thinking about what had just happened.

Her words echoed in his mind: 'If we continue we won't leave for some time.' He knew what that meant. There it is, he thought, she's thought about it, too. He was surprised, but also relieved. He wondered if she would actually get anything out of it if they'd had sex; if she could enjoy it. He pushed the thought aside; it was something for another time, when they weren't being hunted by a liquid metal killing machine.

Once they were both dressed John picked up his rifle, unloaded it and pulled back the cocking handle to release the chambered round. He stuck that back into the magazine, checked in the meagre light and with his fingers to make sure the chamber was empty and clear of any debris from the lake, then switched the safety off, aimed at the wall and pulled the trigger. The weapon clicked as he dry-fired, then put the magazine back into place, cocked the weapon and put the safety on. "Ready when you are," he said as he put his webbing vest on and pulled his jacket on over it.

Cameron opened the door slowly and poked her head out into the corridor, looking both ways and seeing nothing. She knew that the T-1001 was able to mimic anything and it could be part of the walls, ceiling or floor right now. The fact that it hadn't immediately emerged to attack them was evidence enough that it wasn't in this corridor. They moved almost silently past the other rooms and emerged onto the landing. There was a single elevator and also a flight of stairs leading down. Both of them knew which option was the best: Cameron, because the former option would create too much noise and advertise their presence if the machine was here; and John remembered the T-1000 almost killing them in the Pescadero elevator and knew he didn't want to be trapped in such a confined space with something like that. If it came to it he wanted to at least be able to run, have a chance even if it wasn't much of one.

They both descended the staircase quickly but quietly, Cameron leading the way and John taking the rear, and made their way down to the front foyer. Through the windows they could see snow falling heavily from the dark, pre-dawn sky. Just looking at it made John shiver with cold all over again, but he knew that it could also save their life; if it continued to snow like it was then it might cover their tracks and make it harder for the T-1001 to follow them.

"What happened to the alarm?" John saw the shattered pieces of plastic on the ground and the ruins of a keypad scattered around. Wires trailed from the wall where it had been ripped off.

"I did," Cameron replied simply. She hadn't seen any other entrance to the lodge apart from the front door; she'd prefer to have left by another exit but didn't know the layout and was unwilling to lose time looking for one and risk the T-1001 finding them. She led John out of the doorway, closed it behind them, and quickly they skirted round the front of the building, turning around a corner to the side. Both of them kept their head on a swivel and looked out for any sign of movement, but there was nothing around. They made their way to the back of the lodge; Cameron reasoned that it was most likely the liquid metal terminator would approach from the direction of the lake, which faced the front of the hotel, and she wanted to keep the building between them and it in case it approached while they were still there.

"Run for the tree line," Cameron instructed. She pushed John forward and ran alongside him, heading south for the woods a little over a hundred and fifty feet behind the lodge. They deliberately moved away from the road that led to the parking lot they'd passed on the way in. It was the easiest route and therefore the most likely one they'd take. John knew they had to do the last thing that the T-1001 would expect. No straight lines, no easy options.

Once they were through the tree line they slowed down to a jog and moved through the woods. John still felt tired from his ordeal in the lake but he pushed himself, knowing what would happen if the machine caught up with them. After several minutes they again slowed down to a steady but hurried march. It would take longer but it was also quieter, and it allowed John to get his breath back. It dawned on him that going through the woods at night at a lake, miles from anywhere and being stalked by a killing machine intent on literally slaughtering him was like they were in a horror movie. All we need is a stoner, a prom queen, and a kid in a wheelchair to show up, and we're pretty much living 'Friday The 13th'. Except, John decided, he'd take a psycho in a hockey mask over a T-1001 any day of the week. His life was far scarier than any horror movie.

"Did that terminator seem a little odd to you?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"How do you mean?" Cameron inquired.

"How it was when you fought it," he explained, "when it got the upper hand, I mean." He looked at Cameron but she just had a blank expression with a slightly tilted head. He knew that face: she didn't get it. "I told you about the T-1000 that came back to kill me when I was twelve, right?"

"Yes," Cameron said. Future-John had told her in detail; in 2027 he'd still had nightmares about it.

"When that one got the upper hand on the T-800 protecting me, it came straight for me. It didn't mess around. But this one went for you like the first one did after me." He'd seen it going for her chip; it didn't need to do that to stop her from fighting, and he'd never seen an enemy machine try to go for her CPU like that before. "I think it was after you as well," he said.

Cameron remained silent as they marched. She'd never considered that; she'd only thought about keeping John safe. It made sense to her; when she and Derek had been attacked by Kaliba they had attempted to extract her chip; it was likely that they would try again. They would want to use her CPU to gather intelligence or possibly even reprogram her against John. She found that possibility very disturbing; she'd rather be terminated.


Patrick entered the lodge through the main entrance and looked up at the floors above from the foyer. According to the information on the front desk there were seventy-two guest rooms, plus service areas, on four floors. It would take a long time to search. The T-1001 turned silver and melted down into a puddle on the ground, widening outwards like a spill on the floor.

The chrome mass then split into four pieces, which then reshaped themselves and started to rise up from the ground. They took shape: two arms, two legs, and a head each. By the time the process was finished, four perfectly-formed miniature Patricks stood in the foyer. Three of them ran up the stairs and took a floor each to search while the last one remained on the ground level and marched through to investigate the communal and service areas.

The fourth mini-Patrick dashed ahead of the other two on the staircase and quickly made it to the top floor. He moved through the upper storey of the lodge. Through the windows in the corridor he could see the lake bathed in light from the slowly rising sun, casting an orange hue over the water. He ignored the scenery outside and kicked a door open, quickly moving into the room to check. It was a large room with a double bed and two twin singles, with a lakeside view.

The beds were perfectly made, the floor vacuumed, and everything was clean and tidy. There was no sign anyone had been in the room recently. To be sure, Patrick crossed the room and checked the bathroom, finding nothing there either. The next three bedrooms also yielded no results.

Mini-Patrick opened the last door without having to force it, and stepped into the room. Instantly he detected heat traces; the other rooms had been much colder but there was residual warmth in the air. The sheets were crumpled; someone had slept in them recently. Considering the lodge was closed for winter, the terminator knew his quarry had been here. Instantly, his other three quarters knew what he did, and moved through the lodge to his location.

While they were en route, he crossed to the opposite room, facing away from the lake, and elongated his body so he was tall enough to see out of the window, leaving him looking skinny and gangly. The parking lot was empty, covered in snow that stretched to the tree line. He scanned the area and looked for any signs of them.

He saw it. Forty-five degrees left from his location: two pairs of footprints in the snow. Mini-Patrick opened the window and jumped outside, plummeting to the ground and splatting into a silver blob in the parking lot. Seconds later the other three copies of him emerged from windows on the other floors, landed in the lot with him and they converged, forming back into a single human form.

Whole and in one piece again, Patrick sprinted across the open ground to the tree line. Within seconds he was under cover of the trees and the snow became thinner, but their tracks were still visible. He continued to run at speed, following their footprints in the ground. Time was again a factor; he needed to catch up before the snowfall covered them and he lost the trail. It was seventeen miles in a straight line to the highway just outside the park: he knew that would be their destination. The T-1001 accelerated and ran as fast as he could, like a predator chasing its prey, closing in for the kill.