A/N: This was an interesting chapter to write because
I really didn't know how to write FJ, we really didn't know much about him.
Read and Review as always!
FYI: This is the longest single chapter to date
Chapter 26 : Two Generations Collide
John Connor woke up to the sound of someone knocking on his door. He didn't want to see anyone so he didn't get up. He just readjusted his baby girl on his chest and closed his eyes. He stayed that way for about a minute before someone tapped him on the shoulder. He jerked awake and saw Weaver standing next to him. He groaned in realization that no door could keep her out forever.
"What do you want"? He growled out. Weaver looked at him like he was a petulant child and slapped him in the face. Once he fully realized that Weaver slapped him, he turned around with a shocked look on his face.
"You want to hide in your room like a child whose dog just died, or are you going to be a man who is worthy of a being like Cameron and help us get her back"!? Weaver raged at the 17-year-old. John winced a little at being told off like a child. Meanwhile Allison woke up and looked up at her dad.
"Momma"? She asked in sad tone that broke through John's selfish sorrow. John's face hardened in determination and he stood up with his daughter.
"Yes, I will. Would you mind waiting for me outside so I can get us both ready"? Weaver smirked ever so slightly and turned to walk out the door. As she was closing the door John said something back she wasn't expecting.
"Thank you for that Weaver". She looked back for a second before continuing on her way. "Where was she after my 16th birthday"? He wondered to himself.
John let out a long breath as he forced down his teenage angst and focused on the task on hand. He fed Allison who for once didn't have a smile on her face and ate quietly. It was like the life had just been drained out of them. He picked her up when she was done and walked down the hall to find Amanda, he needed her to watch Allison while he figured out what he was going to do. He walked up to the Evans door and knocked on it. A few seconds later a red-eyed Amanda greeted him.
"Hey John, what can I do for you"? She put on a smile that was as fake as his.
"Would you mind watching Allison while I try to figure out what we're going to do"?
"I would love to, we always have fun together don't we". She said while taking Allison from John.
Allison giggled a little, but she was nowhere near her normal cheery self.
"How are you holding up"? John asked her. Amanda's face saddened a little before she answered him.
"Better than you I bet". She said sorrowfully. John simply closed his eyes for a second to help get his emotions under control.
"I swear to you I will bring her back, I won't give up unless I die". Amanda smiled and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I know you won't, thank you". John decided to change to a happier subject before leaving.
"How's the baby"? He pointed to her baby bump that was growing rather rapidly lately.
"Great, the baby started kicking yesterday" John got curious and decided to ask her something.
"What does it feel like"? She scrunched her face up for a second before answering.
"Really strange". She paused for a second. "Would you like to feel it? The baby is kicking right now".
John hesitated for a second but carefully laid his hand on Amanda's protruding abdomen. He gasped a little when the baby kicked his hand. Amanda giggled a little when he did.
"Yeah, that is pretty awesome". He said while he smiled, he wished that he could do that with Cameron one day, but he knew that was impossible. He sighed and said goodbye. Amanda stopped him on his way out and said something she hoped would help.
"Hopefully things will get better John". John looked back with sorrow clear on his face.
"People keep saying that, but face it, anyone who has ever heard the name Skynet has had their life ruined by it". He left Amanda behind with his daughter and he went on his way to the CNC.
Five minutes later he walked into CNC to the sight of John Henry looking at a burnt out circuit board.
"Morning Mr. Connor" John Henry knew better than to call this morning a good morning.
"What do we have John Henry"? The cyborg looked up at him and spoke.
"The reason our friends disappeared". John put his hands over his eyes in disgust. The love of his life was gone because of a stupid component failure.
"You've got to be kidding..." He sighed and continued. "I guess we need to go to LA and get a new one don't we"? John Henry nodded.
"I already ordered one and it's ready to be picked up, we can leave immediately if you want to".
"Yes, have Weaver prepare the jet. I want you to go with us John Henry".
"You and I will need disguises". John Henry said to John as he was walking away.
"I know, I'll get us some hats and sunglasses".
John Henry was a little excited to see the city with his own eyes, he had almost always been cooped up somewhere because he couldn't go out or because he was needed here more. He went ahead and called up Weaver over the intercom only to find she had the jet ready. His mother always planned ahead...
July 23, 2009 9am : Downtown LA
A single spark about 4 feet off the ground flashed a few times before exploding into blue semi transparent sphere shooting arcs of electricity onto the surrounding pavement and walls of the alley it was appearing in. The bubble disappeared leaving a naked forty-year old man with brown hair and a scarred body. He spit two objects from his mouth before inhaling deeply and letting it out slowly.
He picked up the two objects and headed down the alley. He quickly ran into a trio of homeless people who stopped talking when they saw him.
"What do we have here"? One of the drunk men said. The time traveller simply set down the objects in his hand on a crate before getting in a fighting stance.
"What we have here is a problem" Another of the three spoke. The naked man walked over to them and stopped in the middle.
"Darn right" He said in an emotionless voice and he lashed out with an upper cut to the man in front of him, knocking him out. He ducked a drunken punch from the left and a boot kick from the right before he stood up and punched the one on the left and the drunk fell to the floor like a rag doll. The one on the right tried to hit him with a bottle of booze. The scarred man ducked and hit him with a broken baseball bat lying on the ground. He wordlessly went over and undressed one of the men and put on his cloths. He put the vial and what looked like a large USB drive into his pocket and walked down the street.
The man, General John Connor, was a little uncomfortable walking in a undamaged downtown LA, he hadn't seen the place before J-day in 2011. He wondered how different this timeline was to his own, "hopefully not too much" he thought to himself. He needed to know the date since stationary TDEs were infamous for sending you back to the wrong date if the smallest problem arose in the machine. The Engineer said as much upon his first return to 2027 not long before the end of the war. Connor walked over to a trash can and picked up a news paper. He cursed very loudly when he saw the date. He was nearly two years late in arriving. Connor sat down on a bench as the sun higher in the sky and people walked by hoping that nothing had happened to ones he came to warn. He needed to get on the Internet fast and find out what was going on.
Lucky for him there was a twenty-four hour internet cafe across the street. He went in and paid with some of the drunk man's money he stole. He sat down at the computer and opened the browser, something he barely remembered how to do. He typed in the search bar his mothers name and found out quite a bit. He saw that they had time jumped like he had been told. He didn't know their exact destination date but he figured 8 years from what he was reading in the news reports. He found out that Sarah had been arrested a few months back but escaped afterward with the help of a machine from the sound of it. He hoped Cameron hadn't been suicidal and gone in there, they must have had help from another; perhaps Cameron and the T-1001 had met up. He needed to find them and he needed to find them quickly before the rogues carried out their plans. He plugged in the usb drive into the computer and activated it. The drive was actually a heavily modified T-600 cpu used to break into computers, but had other hardware added on as well. The computer screen went black and soon the typical Resistance OS activated. He started using the complex search engine built into the OS to find traces of them. About ten minutes later the computer got a hit on a traffic camera about two miles away. He pulled up the live footage and saw his younger self getting out of the car with two people he didn't recognize. He didn't appear to be under duress so he wasn't being kidnapped; he checked the address of the store they went into and found out it was an electronics supply store. He needed to make it there fast if he wanted to catch them. He unplugged the drive and left.
Meanwhile the younger John Connor, Catherine Weaver, and John Henry got out of the car. The walked across the street to the electronics store. They were greeted by the clerk and John Henry told them what they were picking up. The clerk told him it would be a few minutes and he walked into the back. John walked over to JH to ask him a question.
"If we fix the drone, how will that help us find them"? JH turned to him before responding.
"When we fix it we won't be able to tell much, we need to use the time machine a few times to get a better idea of where and when they might have gone". John agreed and nodded.
"I have one temporal mission in mind, that means two time travels, is that enough"? JH shook his head no.
"Three times is what I calculate to be the minimum amount to get a picture of what the space time continuum looks like, and even then we have the problem of locating them to a specific timeline". John thought deeply about what he would do with a need for an extra trip though time...
"Okay, how long to get the drone up and running again"?
"No more that thirty minutes when we get back". John was glad that it would be done quickly. They were interrupted by the clerk walking back to the counter with the part. JH payed for it and the trio walked out the door. Suddenly John brought up that it would be best to see if they could buy two of them just in case. They went back in and waited twenty minutes for the part to be dug out of the warehouse and brought to the front. When they did John Henry checked it out to be sure it was the same board and that it was in perfect condition. He looked at John and gave him a nod of confirmation and they left the store.
General Connor ran down the side walk at break neck pace trying to get his younger self's location. He ran past people and bumping into a few who yelled curses at him at him, but he didn't care because he had better things to do. He ran those two miles in a time that would have made Bedell smile. That man was a pain in his butt sometimes before he died, but he was the best runner that he had known. Connor was no slow poke himself and with the medical tech they had stolen from Skynet years prior he had been kept in excellent shape physically. He finally arrived breathing hard as he sat down on a bench and caught his breath. He looked at the store front and waited for them to come out. He wasn't sure what he would think about meeting the next generation of John Connor, and from what his search results had shown him they looked exactly the same, something he doubted would happen, but it seems fate wanted some things to stay the same in this timeline.
His thoughts were interrupted by the trio coming out of the store. He spotted young John and a tall man with brown hair he didn't recognize talking together with a red headed woman walking behind them searching the street with her eyes. His machine alarm went off in his head and realized that his younger self was with two unknown machines. He tensed up as the red head's eyes locked onto him and narrowed suspiciously, but quickly widened into one of extreme surprise. She didn't say anything as his younger self and the other man, get into the rental car. She walked over to him and sat down on the bench next to him. She continued to look at him with a curious look on her face until she spoke.
"What are you doing here General Connor"? She spoke in her smooth Scottish accent.
"Just call me Connor, I hate being called General". He paused momentarily before continuing. "Who are you and why are you with him"? She smirked a bit before answering, something he didn't expect from a machine.
"You should know who I am". She said as her eyes flashed silver. Connor had a moment of realization on his face before answering.
"T-1001". He laughed a bit before he continued. "Seems your plans have been set in motion and completed if that cyborg in the car is who I think it is". Weaver smirked a little before she answered him.
"Yes, that machine is the embodiment of my work, John Henry".
"After I sent the Engineer back a second time to early 2006 with you, he came back using that time machine he built in the basement of your building and gave me a report of what was going on".
"I figured that, but the question remains, why are you here"? He looked down at the ground and let out a sigh before answering.
"I was supposed to arrive in 2007, not long after they had jumped to this time, but I arrived this morning instead. We had some rogue jumpers and I wanted to warn them personally, and I wanted to make sure they wouldn't give you any trouble".
"They almost did, but your younger self handled it well for his age". Catherine paused for a second before asking him one last question. "Would you mind coming with us? We had an incident recently and we could use your experience with time travel". Connor looked at her funny before answering her weird question.
"Time travel incident"? Weaver gave him an ominous look.
"You should have your younger self explain, but will you come with us"? Connor looked out into the street in deep thought, he didn't want young John to think he was here to take over, but he needed to finish what he started with Cameron, he needed to complete her. He hoped his younger self hadn't been a complete jerk to her like he had been when he first reprogrammed her. He still wondered how that machine had the ability to grow on people the way she did, how she managed to worm into his heart. He still thought it was weird to love a machine as a daughter, but then again he had seen stranger things in the future...
"Yes, I have something I need to do still, but I don't want to reveal myself yet". He said while putting on the hood of his coat. Weaver stood up and motioned for him to sit in the front seat. He got in and didn't turn around. Weaver got in the car and was instantly questioned by John Henry.
"Ms. Weaver who is this"? John Connor added on before she could answer.
"And why is he with us"? Weaver put up her hand to signal silence.
"He will tell you who is when he is ready, but he is on our side, both Cameron and I know him well". John had his suspicions but didn't say anything. John Henry accepted what she had to say and quietly ran scans on the stranger.
Nobody talked on the way back to the airport, John's mind was concerned more with the mission at hand while John Henry was focusing on this human who he could not identify due to the hood covering his head. The stranger is the first out of the car and heads for the plane, but John wouldn't take anyone back to Crystal Peak without knowing who they were and what they were doing here. He walked quickly up to the stranger and spun him around and pressed his arm against the man's chest as he backed him into the plane.
"Look, I don't know who you are, and I don't care if Weaver says she knows you, you're not going with us unless you tell me who you are". The man's face was still partly hidden by the hood, but John could see that the man had a nasty y shaped scar on his left cheek that extended up onto his forehead. The man pushed him off and tore back his hood. John Henry cocked his head a little at who he saw but young John Connor looked at him in confusion.
"What, haven't figured out who I am yet"? The forty-four year old man said sarcastically. General Connor didn't like being rough-housed and if it wasn't for the fact that this was his younger self he would have pulverized him. Young John looked at the man's eyes closely and saw something he recognized, and then it hit him like a ten ton terminator. This was the man he blamed for a lot of his problems, but also the one who gave him Cameron and Derek, the one who gave his mother a second chance. This was THE John Connor that Cameron, Kyle, and Derek had looked up to so much. He felt light headed for a second before shaking it away.
"Why the hell are you here"? He managed to get out.
"I have my reasons". Connor said to John, something the young man didn't take kindly.
"Yeah, always keeping secrets and giving me and my family a headache for months on end; you're a real piece of work aren't you"?
"Why? Do you think I got all the answers? I gave you more clues about the future than I could have dreamed at your age"!
"Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but then again, it can also kill you, as it almost did me". John turned as he walked up the steps.
"What do you mean"? The General said.
"Cameron". John got onto the plane before his older self could see the tears welling in his eyes.
John Henry walked over to greet the man he had been told so much about by Weaver.
"Hello General, my name is John Henry". Connor glared at him for calling him that, but shook his hand anyway.
"So you're supposed to be the good brother right"? John Henry smirked a little.
"You could say that".
"What model of T-888 are you using, I don't recognize it".
"It is the same machine sent back to kill your younger self, the skin has been replaced and modeled after an actor who was killed by him".
"What kind of chip are you using"? Connor almost feared the answer, he knew a TOK chip was the only one capable of holding something like him.
"A custom triple T-888 chip configuration me and your younger self came up with". Connor was relieved and impressed at the same time.
"Huh, three main CPU's"? John Henry nodded. Weaver interrupted them at that moment.
"We need to go, we have a lot of work to do when we get back". Both got on board and Weaver taxied the jet to the runway.
Connor sat across the aisle from his younger self while John Henry joined Weaver in the cockpit. He looked at this timeline's version of him with curiosity, he could tell he was upset about something and he wanted to know what.
"John". He said and the seventeen year old looked over at him.
"What"? Connor rolled his eyes at his teenage angst he remembered so well.
"Are you going to tell me why you broke down after you mentioned Cameron's name"? John let out a deep breath and answered him.
"She's gone..." Connor hitched a breath at that, something John noticed.
"What do you mean gone"? His voice turned stone cold, one that demanded a straight forward answer.
"Time displaced by accident, her and two others". Connor leaned his head back on the seat and sighed.
"So that's why she wanted me to come along, to get them back".
"Yeah I guess. I want you to answer my original question; why are you here"? Connor got up and sat next to John.
"It's something between me and Cameron, but I will tell you about my future". John looked at him.
"Fine, I, but I know the biggest part of the story between Cameron, Derek, and Jesse". Connor cringed at Jesse's name.
"I doubt they know the whole story, but I'll tell you what I know". He paused, trying to decide where to start.
"In early 2027 my adopted daughter..."
"Allison Young" John interrupted. Connor raised an eyebrow, but continued
"... was captured and had a one of a kind machine built to look and be like her, TOK-715 was her Skynet designation, and that machine killed her. Cameron didn't know if she had told her the truth about my camp so she tortured a group of soldiers Skynet captured and got my location. We were moving out when she arrived, and I knew it wasn't Allison right away, she just didn't seem right. She tried to kill me when she got close, but I got always carried a heavy duty taser around for situations like this. I didn't have time to pull the taser before she attacked, but I knew how to dodge terminators moves and she was no different. I dodged her first few moves and I dived out of the way when Perry shot her with his heavy duty plasma rifle, the kind he took down Centaurs with. Her lower spine and most of her hip was destroyed. right after she was shot I heard a scream and I thought someone had been hit by shrapnel, but no one was there but us three. I deduced rather quickly it was Cameron who was crying, crying from the pain of so much damage. Something I had never seen before in a machine. I knelt down next to her and turned her over. She looked at me, but did nothing, she had tears in her eyes...
(Flashback)
January 28, 2027 (Previous timeline)
General John Connor looked down at the machine who had been blown in half, dumbfounded at the sight that greeted him. The machine who had replaced and most likely killed his daughter and had tried to kill him, was lying on the floor crying. He knelt down next to her, stunned beyond belief at what he was seeing.
"Please help me". The machine managed to get out between whimpers of pain.
"Why would I help you"?! She simply looked away for a second before he heard another spark from her endo caused by her ripped spinal cord, causing her to cry out again.
"Pppleasee..., it hurts". Connor wasn't big on torture and it was hard to watch a machine with Allison's face obviously in pain.
"Why would I help you if you're trying to kill me"? She looked at him as her simulated breaths grew rapid and uneven.
"Do with me as you please, just stop the pain"! She cried out at the end as another wire arced onto another. Connor knelt next to her and pulled out his knife.
"What are you doing"? She asked with fear on her face.
"You want the pain to end"? She nodded and closed her eyes tightly as more sensory channels were sent off by power supply lines shorting into them.
"Then let me take your chip out"! She consented and turned her head for easier access, Connor was surprised by this, but proceeded to cut into her scalp and subsequently pop the cover off. Right before he pulled the chip out she said one last thing.
"Will you bring me back? I don't want to die". Connor said nothing and pulled the chip. He stared at the strange design and put it in his pocket. Perry finally spoke up after he shut down the machine.
"What the hell was that Connor? Machines don't feel pain, nor do they cry"!
"This one does, and I got a feeling Skynet took her design too far. A little pain allowed her to override her mission to kill me so she could end the suffering. How human..."
"Override the mission she was created for"? Perry snorted a little. "Maybe Skynet is finding out what it was like for us when we found out our creations don't always follow orders". Connor nodded.
"If that is true, then maybe Skynet will have more turn on it, could you imagine a machine resistance"? He paused for a second. "I'm going to reprogram this one, and keep her close. If she is as special as I think, then we may have found a terminator worth letting live after this is all over".
"What ever you say Connor, but her body is trashed why not just glean info from the chip and destroy it"?
"She killed Allison, that I have no doubt in my mind, I will make her be the greatest accomplishment of the person she killed. I will rebuild her and finish what Allison started".
"Huh, but I think you're going to take it a step further aren't you"?
"You have no idea". Connor bent down and picked up her torso while Perry picked up her legs and twisted hip and took her to the machine shop at Serrano Point where they rebuilt her spine and hip out of superior hyper-alloy, and they replaced key armor plates on her as well; life as the General's body guard wasn't without risk.
General John Connor knew special when he saw it. This was not the first time he had seen a machine like this...
(End Flashback)
"... We finished her right before we took on Skynet's forces at Topanga Canyon, but she wasn't reprogrammed yet so we battled and won against them without her, but as you know they sent the Model 101 after mom once again so I had to send back the only person I considered a true friend, Kyle Reese. I destroyed that place after we captured the critical components of the machine. We rebuilt it in Depot II at the Serrano Point complex and used it for the mission I sent Derek and his team back, and the T-800 that protected you from the T-1000. It was also the same one I sent the Engineer back with".
Connor paused for a second, wanting to know something so he asked John a question.
"How did you and Derek get along"?
"Fine, he even figured out who my father was". Connor nodded and continued.
"Cameron was brought online and she was as stoic and emotionless as every other machine I had met, but after a few days I noticed differences in her and I began to talk to her, eventually she became my own personal therapist of sorts, helped me sort out a lot of crap I needed to go through in my head. I never did tell her who my father was though. Derek himself I had to deal with after he got back, he hated the fact that she was kept around because of what she did to him and to Allison. He also hated that we were programming machines to be on our side. Not long afterward he was captured again and tortured, broken down by a man named Charles Fischer, the most notorious of the Greys. He broke out of there, no one knows how, but he did. We nursed him back to life and by June of 2027 He was okay physically, but mentally he was tortured. He lost respect for his own life and went out on a suicide mission to get the lone survivor of a plague to bring her back. The lucky son of a gun barely got the cure in time. His mental condition continued to get worse and by the time I needed to send him back, he was a mess. I had him knocked out and brought to a room no one but me, Cameron and Justin Perry knew about. It was the same machine they used to pull some of Allison's memories when she died, but it could also be used to alter the memories of the living, and so we erased all of his memories about Charles Fischer and those in which he mentioned or thought about him. The treatment worked perfectly and he was his normal self before we sent him back. We also ordered the members of his team to never mention Fischer again so he wouldn't ask about him. After he was gone the war turned for the worst for the machines, and thanks to Cameron's insight, we won by late December of 2027. We did have an incident on a nuclear sub that lost us valuable help in the final battle, but everything worked out in the end".
John mulled over what he had heard and it corresponded with what everyone else had told him, but he had other questions.
"What about Weaver? I know bits and pieces of her story, but I don't know how she came back in time, did you send her"?
"Yes, I sent her after about a month after Cameron and I had the Engineer tag along, who had already returned from 1963. He built the time machine in Ziera Corp's basement and gave me info on how this timeline was developing and basic stats on you, mom, and Cameron because I didn't want him to get too close and attract Cameron's attention. He left not long after you saved Bedell. Unfortunately not long after he got back he was captured by a group of Greys who had been infiltrating our base and still served Skynet. They tortured him and got wind of what Weaver was doing, but luckily they didn't get that much out of him before we found their location. They managed to create a group of triple eights with modified chips to hunt down or replace certain people critical to the project and the resistance. We took over the place and killed most. We hacked into their computers and were able to find dates and target list we used to figure out what the heck was going to happen, we also found out about several other machines that had been sent back before the end of the war that we didn't know about. A few of them, according to the Engineer had been taken out by you guys. There is one more that won't appear until New Years eve next year, but that doesn't matter yet. Anyway one of my soldiers volunteered to take the mission and he memorized the list. We were attacked by the last T-888 in the complex and we think he may have been shot on the way out. That is part of the reason I wanted to come back two years ago, not now".
John decided to put some of the General's concerns to rest.
"He made it though, he wrote the names on our basement wall in his own blood before he died and warned us about the Greenway Terminator in time for us to stop Serrano from being destroyed. We also the Fields sisters. The machine that was sent to kill me destroyed the machine meant to replace Ellison because he believed that Ellison would lead him to us eventually. Dr. Sherman's terminator was a female T-888 and Cameron took her out no problem. The last ended up working for Skynet in this time period but was taken out by Weaver when he tried to kill her. The one that was supposed to arrive in 2010 was accidentally sent back to 1920, he ended up hiding in a wall for a long time before Cameron figured out who he was when she saw him in a picture and tracked him down. However, there has been two machines that you didn't mention, but they too are dead".
He paused for a second before continuing.
"She didn't tell us about the one from 1920 for a long time, she kept a lot of secrets. Mom nearly killed her for it too." John's voice trailed off.
"That's good the machines have been taken out. I didn't know she'd keep so much from you, I told her not to talk about somethings until she thought you were ready, but she seems to have taken it to the extreme".
"Yeah, her secrets, and everyone else's nearly tore us all apart. A lot of people had to die for us to finally set things straight". They sat in silence for a while before John smiled at who Connor was going to meet.
"You're going to have the biggest sense of deja vu' when you see who's all at the base". Connor gulped slightly at the thought of seeing those who had died for him alive once more.
"Who do you all have there"? He asked, trying to keep his emotions behind his blank face.
"Mom obviously, but the rest are going to be my secret". John finished in a raised voice so the machines wouldn't spoil his fun.
"Mom is going to be hard enough for me as it is". They were just about there so they didn't say a word as the plane landed and taxied to the hanger. Connor looked out the window and saw where they were.
"Crystal Peak? Did Weaver buy this place and renovate it"?
"No, someone else did". Connor knew his younger self was getting back at him for making Cameron keep secrets from him so he didn't probe further. They were about to get out of the plane but Connor saw Sarah who stood at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for John with a baby in her arms. John smiled at her and ran down the stairs to greet her.
"Hey mom, how have you two been"? Sarah smiled a little and responded.
"Okay I guess concerning the circumstances, but were glad your back". That was when Sarah noticed the man at the top of the stairs was looking at her with a face full of regret and sadness.
"Who's that"? John looked around at his previous future self and motioned for him to come down.
"A man we thought we'd never meet". Sarah looked at him with a funny face, but turned to the stranger and looked at him intently. She thought hard and she knew that she recognized that face, that hair, those eyes... Then a light bulb as bright as the sun went off in her head.
"I can't be..." John just smirked a little. Future John walked slowly over to the woman who his best friend had fell in love with and been sent back in time for, the next version of the woman who he missed terribly but had lost so long ago.
"Hello mom". The older man said to her. She looked at him and didn't know what to think; this man was always an idea in her head, someone who she was only beginning to see in her John. She could scarcely believe her eyes. She handed Allison over to John and walked forward to the man who had given her Kyle and John.
"Nice to meet you". She put out her hand to shake his, but he would have none of this formality crap, he had waited too long to see her again and now he had. He enveloped in a tight hug which caught Sarah by total surprise. John just looked on suppressing a smile while he played with Allison
"In my timeline you died years ago, I couldn't even be by your side when you died. I'm glad Cameron took my advice and took you to the future; you don't know how hard it would have been on him if you had died".
"I might still, the future is not set..."
"...there is no fate but we make for ourselves. I know, my Sarah told me that too". Sarah laughed in his arms at that thought.
"I wonder which John Connor actually came up with that". She joked.
"I wondered that myself" Future John muttered. He let go of Sarah and turned to John and looked curiously at the one year old in his arms.
"Who is that"? He asked. John turned the baby to look at his future self. Allison looked at the man and smiled. Connor just looked at her, he couldn't quiet place her face...
John looked at the General and held her out for him to take. He reluctantly took the child and held her in his arms.
"Hello what's your name" He said to her and smiled at the happy child. She turned her little head ever so slightly that her left eyebrow fell into sight. Connor's eyes widened and brimmed with tears at realization of who he was holding.
"Is this..."? He said in a disbelieving voice to John. John smiled and walked over to them and let Allison take his finger in her fist. He looked at his daughter and spoke to her.
"I don't know Allison, should we let him stay or not"? The baby giggled and laughed in response.
"I take that as a yes". John said to his Future self. Connor wasn't really listening though, he stared at the baby before bringing her little body close and hugging her tight. Connor said something through the tears that were streaming down his face that only Allison could hear.
"I'm so sorry I couldn't save you". Allison pushed away and he let her up, she looked into his sad green eyes and put a small hand on his cheek as if saying she forgave him. Connor gave her back to John and he walked down the hanger a bit, struggling to keep it all under control. Sarah spoke to John in a low voice.
"He's not as machine like as Derek lead me to believe".
"Yeah, he is a lot like me..." John said back to her. Sarah walked ahead and put a hand on his back and spoke to him in a soft, but tough voice she had perfected over the years.
"We can't save everyone, we've lost people here too John and I'm sure we'll lose more". Connor shook his head and looked at her.
"She was the one person I hoped I could hold onto and call family after everyone else was gone". He exhaled and drew the emotions in once more. "If Cameron hadn't been as special as she was, if she had been like the rest...I don't think I could have gone on; I am so tired of being alone". General John Connor put his mask on once more and breathed out heavily one more time before the four of them went into the bunker.
Weaver and John Henry had watched the whole thing in interest, but got to work on the drone as soon as they left...
Connor, John, Sarah and Allison went down and gave Connor the tour, he was above and beyond impressed, he would have killed to have a base like this in the future.
"Who set this all up, Weaver is the only one who has the money to do this that I know of". John answered before Sarah could.
"Her name is Annika, she is a very special person. That's all I'm going to say until you meet her, and we can't do that until we find Cameron".
"Fine, I can wait". Connor gripped the CPU in his pocket thinking just how easy it might be to find them with this wonderful invention the Engineer had come up with.
"I want you to meet the rest of the team, Mom would you mind putting Allison down for a nap"? Sarah shook her head no and took her grand-baby to her room. Both John Connor's continued on though out the halls until they got to the weapons testing range. In there was Bedell and Josh shooting some of the Barrett Sniper rifles they had bought in the last shipment. Both put their guns down when John walked into the room.
"How you doing Connor". Bedell greeted him with a handshake. Future John couldn't get the similarities out of his head at the way this Bedell greeted his younger self, but guilt also rose in him as he remembered his Bedell's fate...
"Who's he"? Bedell pointed with his chin at the man standing behind John. John smiled and introduced his future self.
"Bedell, Josh, I want you to meet a new arrival from the future, after the war has ended".
"Does he have a name"? Josh joked. Connor knew that voice, the man looked different without the burn scars on the right side of his face, but this was definitively his best bubble tech scientist.
"Josh Evans"? Connor asked to confirm his suspicions. Josh looked him with surprise on his face.
"How do you know my name"? Connor chuckled a little and answered the bewildered man.
"How could I forget the best Engineer I ever had"? Martin and Josh were confused as ever while John couldn't believe what he just heard.
"He's the Engineer that built the bank vault time machine"? Connor nodded. Martin had enough of this little guessing game and spoke up.
"Connor who is this guy"? John just stood by his future self before answering.
"This is General John Connor, former leader of the Resistance and conqueror of Skynet". Connor just smirked at his younger self's intro and shook the hands of the two stunned men.
"Why is he here Connor"? Martin asked. John looked at Future John and answered them with a serious face that made him look like his older self.
"He has some unfinished business to take care of, and he's going to help us get those we lost back".
"Did you say I'm the Engineer? The one he and Cameron told us about"? General Connor just nodded. A few more words were said before the two John's left them alone. Bedell spoke up one last time before they began shooting again.
"He ought to make things interesting". Josh looked at him and agreed, two John Connors was going to be interesting indeed.
John and Future John made their way to the mess hall in search of others. When they got there they found Savannah, Ellison, Alicia, Amanda, Lauren, and Sydney.
"Looks like everyone else is here". John said. "Recognize anyone"?
"I think that's Lauren Fields over there, and Amanda Evans over there".
"Yeah that's them alright. We also have James Ellison, a former FBI agent who got mixed up in all this a long time ago, Savannah Weaver, the daughter of the real Catherine Weaver, and Alicia, Martin's girlfriend". Connor felt relieved that no one else here had died in the future for him, but there was one nagging question in his head; where was Derek Reese?
"John, where's Derek"? John's face fell and Connor didn't need anymore of an answer than that.
"How"?
"Triple eight shot him in the head while rescuing Savannah". Sorrow evident in his voice. Connor kept his face cold as he usually did, but internally he was sad that he had died, but at least he got to die in paradise and not hell.
"I'm sorry to hear that". He let a little sympathy creep into his voice. John waved him off and refocused, they needed to get Cameron and Annika back, and the T-1000 as well he reminded himself. He still didn't like him...
"I need to show you our time travel experiment". John said and the two left the mess hall and went back to the hanger. John led his future self over to the drone where Weaver and John Henry were running diagnostics now that the circuit board was replaced.
"What do we have"? John said in a commanding tone that almost made Connor roll his eyes.
"I wonder if that's what I sound like when giving orders". He thought to himself.
John Henry answered his question in his usual monotone.
"We don't know where they went but we do know the firing pattern of the emitters so we know the date and place, but not the timeline".
"Which is a problem". John said as Connor gripped the CPU in his hand and brought it out.
"No it's not, not when you have this and a temporal beacon built into Cameron's chest". Weaver smiled a little, she had been right, Connor did steal Skynet's last temporal invention and had it completed. John looked at him like he was God or something so Connor decided to explain.
"I had the Engineer cook this up once Cameron was sent back, if I ever need to locate her, this would be how I could do so".
"How did you put the beacon in her if she was already gone"? John asked.
"The beacon was finished and installed before she went back, I had this portable version of the locator made later". John thought that was reasonable.
"So what is it exactly"? John asked.
"At it's core it's a T-600 CPU, but the other hardware is the miniaturized temporal beacon/receiver".
"Nice". John said as he looked at the device. Connor had questions about the drone itself.
"What is this thing? I don't recognize it at all".
"It's one of the drones Skynet is making in this time, we modified it by adding a T-900 plasma reactor and other things to make it useful even after J-Day".
"Finally figured out you couldn't stop it huh"? John exhaled a long sigh and nodded.
"We might have been able to knowing what we do now, but the infant Skynet is to powerful and spread out to kill now".
"How did mom take it"?
"I haven't told her yet". Connor knew why, but decided to get this conversation back on track.
"I see the design similarities to the one's in the future. I guess Cameron finally took on the experiment she wanted to try once, but I didn't let her due to resource constraints".
"Yeah, but you got to admit this thing is a lot like Back to the Future" Connor laughed at that, he may be old now, but he never forgot movies that dealt with time travel.
"I think we better see where our friends have gone to, don't you think"? Weaver said in a voice that held a little impatience in it.
"I agree, let's go". With that they went back to the CNC where they plugged the device into the center table/console. The security measures built in blocked the device, but John Henry allowed it to run in a Virtual Machine so not to interfere with base ops. General Connor typed in his pass codes and accessed the temporal beacon. He sent out a signal that would activate her beacon no matter what timeline she was in, but since she had been to three timelines now they had to eliminate this one and the one she came from originally.
"Will she know that it has been activated"? Connor shook his head no.
"I never connected the device to anything but her power source, didn't have time to do it". John nodded and they waited for it to respond.
The device hummed while it sent the subspace signal, lucky them it didn't take much power to send such a signal if you had the right materials...
About a minute after they had begun sending the signal, the computer beeped as it received one back. Both John's breathed a sigh of relief that she was still alive. The device showed them a temporal map of the space time continuum and all the different timelines that existed. It looked like a giant tree, all timelines had a common past but some timelines were branches off of another while others stood alone on the trunk. The one they were in now was one that stood alone, and because of Myron Stark their's went back the farthest down the trunk. The timelines went from oldest to newest from left to right on the tree. They were at the far right while Cameron's signal was only a few timelines over from the left. It also seemed that her timeline was a branch off of another beginning around mid 2004. Cameron's signal gave them temporal coordinates that the T-600 CPU interpreted as a date, time, and place. The result came up on the screen
"According to this she arrive in an older timeline, exactly ten years from now yesterday and it says she was there for three days before the beacon quit transmitting".
"Which means"? John asked.
"Which means she either found a way home, or..."
"She was destroyed". Connor shook his head yes.
"We need to go there now". John said in determination. John Henry looked up at him and laid out his plan.
"John, the drone doesn't have the computing power to accurately get you there, I knew that a mission like this might be necessary when we were designing it so I built three ports into the drone so my chips could be installed into it. I will be able to accompany you without taking up space and ensure we get to our destination at the right place and time". Both John's were impressed with the machine's foresightedness.
"You take after your mother you know"? John Henry looked at him confused for a second before his face smirked ever so slightly.
"You could say that". Connor hid a smile, this machine was proving to be quite interesting, if not entertaining.
"Weaver, would you mind going with us just in case we run into trouble"? Weaver agreed to go along and hide in the nooks and crannies of the drone during the ride.
"Mr. Connor, remember that before we save them we need to do at least three normal jumps to fully understand this time machine before we attempt one that bridges timelines". John remembered that now, he needed to perform the mission the drone was originally intended for.
"Right, I've figured out who else I plan to save with the extra jump we need to perform". John smiled in thought as just whom he deemed worthy to save. "So this is what it's like to play God..." He thought to himself.
"Who would that be General"? Connor mocked his younger self which earned him a glare.
"One Derek Thomas Reese, that's who". Everyone in the room agreed it would be useful to bring back an experienced resistance soldier.
"How do we plan on saving them without disrupting the timeline"? Weaver asked the three John's. Weaver was a great organizer, businesswoman, and assassin, but advanced theoretical science was beyond her.
"We use you to replace them and then have you be the one who dies and is carried off by the police. We know both were cremated so all you have to do is escape and leave some prop behind to be the ash. The hardest part is going to be kidnapping them without anyone noticing".
"How are we going to make me look human when I'm shot, I doubt warped liquid metal will convince anyone, by the way, who else are we saving"? John forgot that he needed to tell everyone else the original purpose for this mission.
"Andrew Goode, If we are to save Annika, we have to save him".
"I agree, it would be interesting to meet my father".
"He would be a very valuable addition to the team, we have already seen his work in John Henry and Annika". At this point, Connor's head was spinning.
"Hold on, who is Andrew Goode again"?
"In your future he was part of the team that created Skynet, but escaped and changed his name. You knew him as Billy Wisher".
"Derek's friend? Huh, never would have guessed".
"Derek killed him in this time period because of that, he regretted it later on because he was his best friend in the future". John finished explaining before moving on. "And in this timeline he created the chess program that later became John Henry".
"I see, and Annika is a machine I take it"? John nodded.
"Trying to describe her and what she's done for us... You'll just have to meet her, all I can say is that she is as special as Cameron". Connor wondered if his younger self could handle so many machines running around this place; he also sensed that Annika sounded a lot like someone he once knew...
"So, you save Andy first, then Derek, then come back here. We sort out the data and go get Cameron and the others". Future John said.
John nodded and they began to plan out how to make Weaver appear human when shot. They figured that they could put fake blood into her matrix so that when she was shot, the metal wouldn't show. The mixed some up in the kitchen and everyone laughed when the T-1001 drank about 2 gallons of the stuff. She created a fake cardiovascular system so she could bleed convincingly. They tested it on the range and it looked very real. They noticed that Weaver would have to wear real cloths to make the guise perfect in Andy's situation. They ran diagnostics on the drone and got it ready for John Henry's chips insertion into the main body of the machine. While John changed into the flight suit they made for flying this machine, it was bullet proof as well. The suit was black and looked like a one piece leather motorcycle suit, it had a lot of pockets and snaps and a zipper in the front. Weaver cut into JH's head in three places while he shut down so she could safely pull the chips. A panel on top where the human or humanoid machine would lay was removable and a 7 inch port cover was under it. They removed the hyper alloy cover and inserted the chips before they replaced the cover and panel. Weaver flowed into the insides of the drone and solidified there.
"Can you keep everything together here until I get back"? John asked his Future self.
"I think I can manage". John chuckled a little and said good bye to his mother and Allison.
"I love you Allison, I'll be home as soon as I can". He kissed his daughter on the head and got onto the drone.
John Henry closed the clamps over John's body after he put on the helmet and laid down in the humanoid shaped indentation on the top of the hull. His feet were clamped to the sides of the beam going to the tail and his fists were level with his head as he gripped the handle bars recessed in the hull. The clamps held him immobile to prevent whiplash in the event of rapid or turbulent motion. The drone's plasma reactor powered up to full power and the plasma capacitor began to charge. JH took off and raised the landing gear. He flew the machine out of the hanger and accelerated to the appropriate speed and set the target destination, October 25, 2007, 5am. JH started the time displacement sequence and the capacitor discharged. John was having the time of his life as the machine flew faster and the blue bolts were flying all around him. He watched the electro-plasma shield form and extend around him and the drone. In an instant he only saw white as the fabric of the space time continuum was pierced and they disappeared in a flash of blue fire...
A/N: If anyone was confused about who was talking in the story, let me know and I will repost the chapter.
Next chapter is all about John saving Andy and Derek.