Correcting Mistakes

It was impossible. The things Jessie saw could simply not be. A man, stabbed to death by something as big as this piece from a car. And there wasn´t even blood. Shouldn´t there be any blood?

Jessie had once learned, that whenever a person got hurt, there would be blood. And this man had lost an arm, and half of his face. And now he was dead … she still didn´t dare to look at him for longer than a second. The sight of this unmoving body, with the long metal thing standing out from his back, simply terrified her. How could any of this happen? This wasn´t right. A man musn´t do that to another. But this man had … and he´d also tried to hurt Doc and Marty.

When Marty had shouted out, pretending to call Doc, to gain the attention of this man, that was now disguised as a silver robot, the man had instantly turned around, and followed after him. To try and hurt him again, Jessie just knew that. But Marty was fast, right? He would run away from this man before he could catch him, right? Right? Marty would be okay. Please, somebody had to tell her, that Marty would not end up like this poor man in the parking lot.

Jessie glimpsed over at him, yet again, against her better judgment, and the sight just broke her heart. He was dead. He was dead, and the man who´d done that was after Marty now. He wanted to do the same thing to him. Why?

Jessie started to cry.

Suddenly there were footsteps. Someone came running. And Jessie gasped. Was he coming back? Was he coming to hurt her now? After he´d hurt Marty? When she saw the figure rushing towards the dead man in the parking lot, Jessie cried out in fear, but only for a moment. When the figure flinched at her cry, looking around for her, she finally recognized him. And the recognition transformed the shape of the evil man she´d seen first, into the familiar and well loved form of Doc. Her friend.

"Jessie!" he cried out. "Jessie, just stay where you are. I´m with you in a minute."

Had Doc been in disguise, Jessie wondered. He must have been. How else could she have thought he was this evil man? In her young head it was impossible for Jessie to understand that her mind, clouded by fear and shock, had simply tricked her eyes. It would take several more years for her to look back on that night without being scared of the memory, and understand what had really happened in that parking lot.

Right now she couldn´t possibly understand anything. Later on she would wonder if anything she saw had been real at all. Or if she maybe only imagined things. Or dreamed them. Because what she saw was too fantastic and unreal even to a six-year-old like her. Because even with her six years she knew that when a man was dead, he didn´t get back up. Her grandmother hadn´t gotten back up when she had died. And her mother had cried for a long time after that. That´s how Jessie knew, that when someone was dead, he´d stay dead. Not even Doc could change that.

But when he now leaned over this man in the parking lot, and grabbed this metal pipe that stood out from his back, he pulled, grunting and panting, as if he could still do anything to help him. Was that possible? Could Doc do something like that? Could he bring someone back that was already dead? He seemed to be doing just that.

Jessie watched, unable to look away now, how he pulled the long piece out of the man´s back, and threw it away. Jessie heard the hollow sound the pipe made, when it hit the asphalt. Later in her life she would listen up every time something made a similar sound, and wonder why it caused her arms to break out in goosebumps.

On the ground the dead man twitched. Once. Twice. And eventually he began moving, pushing himself up – to Jessie it looked as if he was doing what her dad called push-ups – and rise, to stand tall before Doc. His head was still twitching, and even from that distance, Jessie could see that his eyes – well, the one that was still an eye and not a mechanical red dot – were in the distance, as if he was unsure what was going on around him. Was that the gaze of a man that had been brought back to life? To Jessie it would be just that. For years it would be that. Until she´d finally understand what it had really been – a machine trying to compute and process its database after a reset.

It would take sixteen years for Jessie to finally remember this night and the sight of T´s face, to have the necessary lightbulb moment. She´d be in her dorm at the M.I.T. in the bathroom, around three a.m. after a night out with her friends. It would be the sight of her own face in the mirror, blurry from too much wine, that would make her remember that sight.

But that was still many years ahead, in a future neither her nor Doc nor T would even think about right now. The only thing this little girl was thinking right in this moment, was that she was scared and that Doc would protect her, from whatever danger that was still out there. So she did the only thing she could do. She ran, out of her hiding place, and threw herself into his arms.

When he lifted her up, rubbing her back comfortingly, she felt better. Yes, yes, this was real. He was real. It didn´t matter if anything of what she´d seen before had been a dream. It wasn´t important, even if all of this had been a dream. But his arms were real, and his warmth and his voice, soothing her and telling her that everything was all right.

The only problem was, she knew it wasn´t.

"The bad man has gone after Marty." she told him, whimpering against his neck. "He´s gonna hurt him."

"No, Jessie, he won´t." Doc assured her. "T´s gonna protect him." And with that he looked up at the man that was not dead any longer. "Right?"

Jessie glanced at the man too. He looked scary with his face half gone. But she looked at him anyway. Because Doc wasn´t afraid of him, so she figured he was a friend. He´d protected Doc earlier. Of course he was a friend. Only he looked so hard. So unfriendly.

"My mission is to protect you." he spoke, his voice strangely hollow, as if it came from within a machine.

"And you will." Doc replied. "Later. But right now, you have to help Marty or this evil Terminator will kill him."

"Negative." the man replied. "It´s a priority to get you to a saver location."

"You …" Doc began but stopped short when Jessie cried out in her despair.

"Please." she wailed, making both of them look at her, startled. "Please, protect Marty. He´s my friend. Don´t let this guy hurt him, please."

The man with only half a face turned to her, and Jessie hugged Doc even closer, scared he might shout at her, for interrupting. But the man didn´t shout. He only looked, and strangely there was something in his eyes now – the one that still looked like an eye – that was almost gentle. As if he felt pity for her.

The tall man leaned down a little to look her straight in the eye. His huge hand touched her cheek, so light, only with two fingers, as if to wipe the tears away. And for a moment Jessie forgot that he had only half a face. In this moment all she saw was this one eye, looking directly at her. And she felt as if she knew this man. Like a friend she only couldn´t remember.

"He will be protected." the man told her. "I promise." And after what felt like an eternity to her, he straightened and just walked away.

...

Jessie never saw him again after this. But she never forgot his face. He had kept his promise. Later, when they met Marty again, he told them T had shown up just in time. As if they had scheduled it. And even though Jessie didn´t understand what that was supposed to mean, she could tell that Doc and Marty were happy about the way things had worked out.

Something that had gone wrong had been corrected, making a certain newspaper article disappear. It now spoke of a strange accident that had happened at the school during the dance. Someone unknown to the police had blown up some cars in the parking lot and later on threatened to shoot lots of people in the gym. Like through a miracle no one got hurt they wrote.

For many years Jessie would be the only one who knew that Doc and Marty had been the unsung heroes of that night. But she never said a word. Not to her parents – they had cried and hugged her almost too tight when Doc and Marty had brought her home, telling them she had been hiding in Doc´s car when he´d driven out of town – not to any of her friends at school and not even to Doc. Because it was a secret – that´s what they told her anyway – and secrets had to be kept, no matter how hard it was.

And Jessie did. For over fifty years she wouldn´t speak about that night. Not a soul would know. And to the world none of it had ever happened. In time even Jessie would forget what she had seen. She would forget the chase, the explosions, and the sight of the dead man in the parking lot. How she had cried and feared for her life and that of her friends.

But the important things would stay with her. Like Marty who had made her laugh and cry and bite her nails in excitement. Like Doc who had protected and comforted her. And this man, who had looked her in the eyes, gentle for the very first time, and promised her to protect her friend … Marty.

It wasn´t easy for her to live with all of this. So confused and unsure what she had really seen that night. To grow up without Marty, knowing that once upon a time she´d known a boy who could have been her brother, but never returned until she was thirty-seven and teaching at the M.I.T. A boy whose memory made her want to become a soldier.

Just as much as memories of Doc made her want to become a scientist. Memories that would come back to her, in sudden clarity, on a day the world would later refer to as Judgment Day. Clear enough to make her understand at last, what she was meant to do, once a man named John Connor would decide to send an assassin back in time, to take the life of the man who invented time travel.

Back in 1955. Where it all began …

I added an Author´s Note if you´re interested in some background infos about the story. If not, I won´t blame you.

In any case you can leave me a finishing review.

And thanks for reading.