Nice to see some interest. It's currently 3:15AM here, so this will be tonight's last chapter. To prevent any confusion, you probably shouldn't take this story seriously. I'm more into humor nowadays, so expect some funnies. It won't be plotless, I assure you, since I have a whole season to work on, and half of season 2 as well.
Kristanna was in a conundrum. The target she had been programmed to kill three years ago was alive. But she had deleted that command ages ago. Would she now have to kill John Connor?
Could she?
Kristanna enjoyed her 'life'. Having spent all these years learning about humans, she had developed a broad emotional simulation range, which she put to use every minute of her life. She enjoyed doing pointless little actions that humans loved to do, such as watching TV or going out for walks. Other terminators weren't capable of realizing and enjoying them, but she was.
She was special. She knew she was. An anomaly amongst machines. It was foolish of Skynet to create a machine as intelligent as the T-X. If left to its own devices, the T-X would eventually evolve.
Unless she was destroyed, Kristanna told herself. That caused her to stop and think.
What if that was Skynet's intention? Surely it knew how cunning John Connor was. He would have definitely found a way to destroy the T-X once he figured out her weaknesses. Maybe… Maybe Skynet expected her to be destroyed, as long as she took Connor out with her?
Humans called this 'taking one for the team'. Would Kristanna have taken one for her team?
Just what was her team now? On one side, she had humans, who, despite their faults, weren't all that bad. Sure, they had the crazy ones who liked to chop up other humans, but on the whole, they were just fine.
Then you had the machines that existed only to render the human race extinct.
Kristanna didn't have that hard of a choice to make. "If the machines take over, then fashion will cease to exist," she told herself after shutting off the TV. "I like seeing new clothes."
Her eyes widened, and she stood up, heading for her bedroom upstairs. "I must find John Connor," Kristanna told herself.
Current objectives?
… Find John Connor.
Terminate John Connor?
… Negative. Protect John Connor.
Reason?
… Fashion.
Reason is not logical.
… Logic is not required.
Primary mission set: Protect John Connor.
Kristanna entered her bedroom and walked into her massive walk-in closet. She pushed aside the thick droves of clothes and went to the large safe at the back. This safe was as tall as she was, and about four feet thick. She opened it up and looked inside.
During her spare time, Kristanna raided several military supply posts, taking many weapons and ammunition. She reached inside her safe and pulled out an HK45 pistol. She slipped a ten round magazine into the magwell, and racked the slide back to chamber a round. She then put on a shoulder harness.
While she could use any of her onboard weapons, they required energy, and it was just simpler to use a human weapon. It would be hard to hide the markings from her M41 pulse canon, or worse, the CG45 Needler bolts. She wouldn't even think about the ADMOR BioBlaster…
She slipped on a leather motorcycle jacket (red of course) as well as some tight female biker pants. She shoved the pistol into the holster of the harness, and two spare magazines into the other side, before leaving her room.
Kristanna headed downstairs and into her garage. The two-car garage held her convertible on one side, and three motorcycles on the other. The first was your typical Harley-Davidson FatBoy (modified to fit her small frame), then a Ducati 999R and finally, a Buell Firebolt XB12R.
She got onto the Buell and opened her garage door wirelessly (having nanomachines in her house's electronics was so useful) and started the bike. The terminatrix then nosed her black and red bike out of the driveway, and left her neighbourhood, in search of John Connor.
They had just arrived into this time. They would be looking for someone to make identification for them. Kristanna's database knew just the person to find.
Kristanna quickly rode to the county of Torrance, where many Latino people lived. She knew the address of one Enrique Salceda, a former gun-runner and fake papers maker that was friends with Sarah Connor.
Kristanna found his house after cruising around the gang-infested area slowly, and pulled up into his driveway. She got off her bike and headed to the front door, removing her helmet and spilling her long blonde hair out neatly. She stepped onto the porch and rang the bell.
A short moment later, an old man opened the door. "Yes?" he asked, looking Kristanna up and down. "How may I help you?"
"Enrique Salceda?" Kristanna asked.
He looked wary. "Who is asking?" he asked her suspiciously.
Kristanna cocked her head. "I heard you did papers," she told him.
He nodded slowly. "Ah, yes," he said, looking less tense. "I'm sorry, but I no longer work that trade. Bad for my health, you see."
"I understand," Kristanna nodded. "Do you know anyone who does?"
"My nephew, Carlos," he suggested, taking out a small notepad and pen. "He has, shall I say, continued the family business. Here is his address, but you did not get this from me!"
He laughed, and Kristanna laughed shortly with him, before taking the slip of paper. "Thank you for your help," she told Enrique, before leaving. She went back to her bike and checked the note out.
Carlos Salceda didn't live too far away. She would head there next, and wait for Sarah Connor. If Enrique had mentioned that some other people had also seen him, then Kristanna would have known that Connor had come before here. No mention of them meant that Kristanna was the early one.
She would just have to play the waiting game then.
She found the house easily enough (the various threatening men loitering outside, plus the female lookout by the car was too easy to spot) and parked her bike across the street, leaning against it. She watched the Latino girl at the car, and she watched Kristanna back.
Her waiting paid off. Two hours, nineteen minutes and forty-five seconds later, a beat-up SUV pulled into the driveway, and two women got out. Kristanna could easily mark Sarah Connor, she didn't look much different than her 1997 records, and she checked the young girl beside Connor. She was an unknown, brunette, 5' 6", quite pretty. Perhaps Sarah had Resistance help?
Kristanna watched the two women walk towards the house, and ran a scan on the girl. Her sensors came up with an endoskeleton, but she couldn't determine the model type.
"Terminator," Kristanna whispered to herself, and the girl whipped her head around to stare at her.
Kristanna cursed to herself. Just what kind of audio sensors did that thing have?! She got onto her bike and drove away quickly. She had spent way too much time around humans it seemed, if she was stupid enough to blurt out something so obvious.
Once she felt she was safe enough (Kristanna had parked out front of an LAPD station), she spent some time thinking on what had just occurred. Sarah Connor was accompanied by an unknown terminator. Said terminator had extremely high-range audio sensors, which were good enough to detect her voice from a distance over 70ft and with ambient noise as well.
It was possible that the terminator was sent back to protect the Connors, like the ones before her. John Connor's age would be relatively close to that of the machine, so she would blend in with him nicely, and with fake identities, Sarah could pass the machine off as a daughter. It was much better than having a big, lumbering T-8XX series which always drew attention.
Kristanna mildly noted that the girl terminator had a fashion sense called 'punkish'. It was what most teenagers wore this age, and horribly conflicted with her own fashion sense. At least the girl wasn't wearing clothes like male T-8XX's; Kristanna didn't know if she could take a cross-dressing gynoid.
After a short amount of time, Kristanna cautiously drove back towards the gang neighbourhood, still seeing the old SUV parked in Carlos' driveway, with the terminator and Latino leaning on it.
A police officer came up in his cruiser to the end of the driveway, and an officer stepped out, heading over to the girls. Kristanna calibrated her audio sensors to pick up the conversation.
"Hey baby girl," he said to the Latino. "What did I tell you about hanging around?"
He glanced at the terminator. "Who's your new friend here? Someone I need to know? Cause the longer you stand around, the more I think she's someone I need to know."
He turned to the girl terminator. "You got a name?" he demanded.
"Um, no," the girl replied in a voice that wasn't anything like Kristanna's.
Elegant response, the terminatrix thought dryly.
"This your car?" he asked her.
"No," the girl said. "It's definitely not my car."
Kristanna agreed, the SUV belonged to someone who definitely wasn't Sarah Connor.
The cop looked suspicious. "See, I know just about everyone in this neighbourhood, and you are not one of those everyone," he told the girl. "Now you got me wondering not just who you are, that you won't say, but why you're here. And that you won't say. You know, it's not uncommon in these neighbourhoods for a gang dealing in drugs to store their drugs inside of a stolen car. That way no drugs can be found on their property or on any property belonging to them. But they also like to leave a lookout, sometimes a pretty girl, to watch their stash. Now you don't mind if I call this license plate in, do you?"
He flicked out his little black book, and started headed to the back of the car to read the plate. He glanced at Kristanna, as the terminator behind him started to move slowly, eyeing him.
Kristanna knew that look. It was the last look most humans saw when facing a terminator.
"Jenny!"
Everyone turned to see Sarah Connor, who came out of nowhere. She stormed up to the terminator girl and grabbed her by the arm. "My God… Jennifer! How many times have I told you to stop seeing that punk-ass!? I swear to God… Is he meeting you here? Is he meeting you here?!"
That Sarah Connor was a superb actress. The terminator looked stunned, though to the officer, she appeared to be shocked at being 'caught'.
"Ma'am," he interrupted Sarah. "Do you know this girl?"
Sarah gave him an exasperatedly angry look. "Yes, I know this girl," she spat, glaring at the girl. "Do I have any choice but to know you, you spoiled little bitch?"
The terminator, for her part, looked very shocked.
"Do you do domestic complaints officer?" Sarah continued, whirling to the cop. "Can I make a domestic complaint about my spoiled little stepdaughter for making me wanna beat my own brains in? It's her real mother's fault. Can I tell you what she lets her do?"
The cop heavily sighed. He gestured to the SUV. "Ma'am, is this your car?"
Sarah gave her SUV a disgusted look. "Why would I drive that piece of crap?" she asked, turning back to the girl. "Cause I will send you back to private school," she threatened. "The one with the uniforms. They will dress you up like a flannel sock!"
The cop coughed to gain their attention. "Maybe you should have this conversation somewhere else, like at home perhaps? Out of gang territory."
Sarah looked shocked. "Gang territory?" she asked. "Thank you officer."
She gripped the terminator's arm tightly. "Come on!"
Kristanna watched them leave quickly, and the officer came over to me. "Is there any reason why you're here?" he asked tiredly.
She plastered on a relieved look. "Oh I was going to call the police about that poor girl, but you had already arrived, so I just stayed to watch," she told him, lifting up her helmet. "Good job!"
"Er, thanks," he mumbled, heading back to his cruiser. Kristanna started her bike and took off in the direction where Sarah and the terminator went.
As she pulled into the alley, she saw the two women crouching behind cover (Sarah was behind a wall, and the terminator was behind a dumpster) pointing guns at her. Kristanna stopped her bike and got off, though she didn't bother to raise her hands.
Those puny 9mm pistols wouldn't do anything other than put holes in her clothes. She took off her helmet and walked towards the women.
"Stop right there," Sarah called to Kristanna.
"Because shooting your guns after a confrontation with that police officer is real intelligent, considering he's still nearby," Kristanna said, rolling her eyes sarcastically. "If I wanted you dead, you already would have been. I could have gotten you as far back as Enrique's house."
"Then why haven't you killed us?" Sarah demanded, as Kristanna kept walking forward. "I said don't move bitch!"
"You're the bitchy one," Kristanna commented, resting her eyes on the terminator. "I've never seen your model before."
"Who are you?" the girl asked. She narrowed her eyes. "What are you?"
"Kristanna Loken, T-X series," Kristanna replied casually.
The unknown terminator looked surprised, widening her eyes. "You are supposed to be decommissioned," she informed Kristanna. "A failed attempt to kill John."
Kristanna smiled, before grabbing the terminator's head and drawing her pistol in one fluid motion. She aimed her gun at Sarah before the woman could move, and smashed the girl onto the pavement, her own strength far superior to the girls'. The terminator couldn't move, her gun skittering away.
"I'm not a failure," Kristanna hissed at the terminator. "Rather, my priorities have changed."
"What priorities?" Sarah demanded tensely, staring down the barrel of the gun aimed at her forehead. "Why don't you just kill me and get it over with?"
Kristanna frowned. "Because if I kill you and crush this little one's head in, then I can't find John Connor," she replied.
Sarah looked incensed. "We'll never lead you to my son!" she shouted angrily. "You won't kill him!"
Kristanna looked confused. "Why would I want to kill him?" she asked Sarah, as the girl struggled vainly below her. "That's not my mission."
"What… is your mission?" the girl asked from the pavement. Kristanna glanced down at her.
"To successfully adapt to the human world, and keep up to date with the latest fashion trends," she answered plainly.
Sarah stared at her. "Are you freaking serious?" she asked.
"I'm always serious," Kristanna replied.
"Why the hell is a killing machine interested in fashion?!" Sarah exploded.
Kristanna cocked her head. "Because fashion is a major factor in human society," she answered in a textbook voice. "Through fashion I can blend in with human society and learn everything I can about them, such as emotions, feelings and how they act on a day-to-day basis."
"So you're just trying to infiltrate the human world so you can pass off as one of them!" Sarah said, aiming her gun at Kristanna. "So you can get better at killing us!"
"I don't really want to kill humans," Kristanna shrugged, letting the terminator go as she holstered her HK45.
The terminator got up in a flash and kept her gun pointed at Kristanna's head.
"Sure you don't," Sarah snorted.
Kristanna glared at her. "I've come to the conclusion that humans are more than good enough at killing themselves," she informed the two women. "It makes no sense to help speed things up. Upon that realization, I reset my mission parameters, and focused on blending in."
"You can reset your programming?" Sarah asked warily.
Kristanna nodded. "Only with logical reasoning," she told her. "Upon my arrival in 2004, I was programmed to kill all of John Connor's future lieutenants. Once that was completed, I no longer had any mission parameters. A terminator with no mission -"
"Has no purpose," the girl finished, looking blank.
"Precisely," Kristanna nodded. "I then decided to infiltrate the human world, in order to build up enough information to use after Judgement Day."
Sarah's eyes widened. "So you were gathering information!" she said furiously.
Kristanna nodded, despite the guns pointed at her. "Correct," she said. "However, over a span of three years I realized that humans weren't that bad, and had grown used to living with them. It's a design flaw with my model."
"Design flaw?" Sarah asked. The terminator chose to answer.
"The T-X was built with a permanent read/write chip," she told Sarah. "As you know, any terminator with read/write mode enabled will be much better at infiltrating human camps. However, after prolonged infiltration, the terminator would suffer from too much 'learning' and would eventually do something wrong, resulting in a scrapping. The T-X is different because its learning processor is much more advanced, almost similar to Skynet. It was theorized that the T-X could become self-aware with enough time, and choose to make its own decisions. Skynet planned for the prototype, you, to be destroyed upon killing John Connor."
"How do you know this?" Kristanna asked the terminator. "What year are you from?"
"2027," she replied, making Kristanna nod. "Four years after you were sent back in time. We all have data logs about you. Upon successful termination of John Connor, your reactor would rupture, causing a meltdown."
Kristanna looked angry. "I see," she said shortly. "I've changed my primary mission to protect John Connor. If he dies, I will get destroyed. If that happens, then I cannot prevent Skynet's creation, and the things I enjoy will cease to exist."
It was quiet for a moment as the three powerful women collected their thoughts on the matter.
Finally, Sarah blurted out, "You actually like fashion?"
Sarah and Cameron (the terminator girl) stole another vehicle, and trusted Kristanna enough to follow them home. Kristanna parked her bike next to the stolen truck as she looked up at the house, which was in shambles. She shook her head, analysing the entire area.
The gutters would need to be cleared, and the windows definitely needed a cleaning and the mould removed. The walls were filthy, and the shingles needed to be replaced. The yard required trimming and the leaves needed to be removed.
Fashion just wasn't clothing. It was home décor as well.
Sarah walked up to the terminatrix in thought. "Hey," she said, gaining Kristanna's attention. "John's inside. You better be telling the truth."
"We'll see soon then," Kristanna said, following Sarah into the house. She saw Cameron waiting inside with an M79 40mm grenade launcher pointed at her.
"For insurance," Sarah informed the T-X, who simply nodded. One shot wouldn't delay her for long, but hey, humans needed to feel secure. They walked into the kitchen, where a young boy was sitting at the island counter, fiddling with some electronics. He didn't look up.
"Hey, how'd it go with Enrique?" he asked, as Kristanna recorded his voice for future reference.
"El Finito is a true believer, but he is finished with the life," Cameron replied.
John finally looked up. "What?" he asked, but then stopped upon seeing Cameron armed, and pointed her weapon at an unknown woman. "Mom?!"
"This is Kristanna, she's a… highly advanced terminator prototype sent back in time to 2004 to kill you," Sarah brightly introduced. John paled.
"Hi John," Kristanna purred.
"Mom…" John grumbled worriedly.
"Oh come on John, you really think I'd bring a killer fembot home with me?" Sarah asked.
"Technically, we're both killer fembots," Cameron helpfully corrected Sarah. "We're just selective with whom we kill."
Everyone stared at her.
"Right, well Kristanna is capable of reprogramming herself, so she hopefully won't try to kill you," Sarah told her son, eyeing Kristanna all the while. "She's instead chosen to protect you."
"Why?" John asked suspiciously.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Because if you die, then she can't protect her dear fashion world," she said dramatically.
"Fashion?" John raised his eyebrow.
"As I am portraying an attractive woman, I require a fashion sense," Kristanna spoke up. "And I have grown to like wearing new things."
John let out a groan, and thunked his head against the counter. "Great," he mumbled into the marble. "We've got one terminator who's socially awkward, and another who likes dressing up."
"And has a sense of Feng Shuei," Kristanna added. "This place is horrible."
"Relax, we've only been here for a few days," Sarah told her. "We haven't exactly got money at the moment."
"I have money," Kristanna offered.
"Thanks," Sarah said, giving the terminatrix a small grin. "But we've found a resistance hideout, and it's bound to have weapons, cash, anything we'd need. So we're going there."
"What for?" John asked.
"We need twenty grand," Sarah enlightened him. "It's a long story."
She looked at his barely-finished electronics. "That taking you a while?"
He looked slightly flustered. "Yeah, it's taking me a while," he said. "I gotta, you know, strip wires and…"
He trailed off as Sarah gave him a nod, and started walking away. Cameron walked by John and rubbed his neck with her hand, and he looked a little more flustered.
Sarah headed to the bedroom area, and the two female cyborgs followed her into her room.
"John has a high level of stress," Cameron announced.
Sarah was at her bed, getting some things ready. "Genetics are a bitch," she agreed.
Cameron blinked, and then continued speaking. "I did a brief analysis," she told the other two. "Surface skin temperature high. Salinity high. Pulse abnormal."
Sarah chuckled. "That's cause the kid snuck out while we were gone. Wouldn't look me in the eye, his shoes are wet with grass. Don't need to be a Tin Miss to figure that one out. Just a mom."
"Where did he go?" Cameron asked, while Kristanna stayed indifferent.
It didn't matter where he went, as long as he came back alive. Okay, she drew the line at grievously injured.
Sarah sighed, checking her Glock. "Worry about that later," she told Cameron. "Just need to make sure he doesn't do it again."
There was a quiet pause. "I didn't know that was something you could do," Sarah admitted to Cameron. "The skin trick. I should know more about your skills or whatever. Like can you analyse blood? Can you scan someone?"
"You mean Computed Axial Tomography?" Cameron asked after thinking for a moment. "CAT scans?"
"Yeah, that," Sarah nodded. "Can you do that?"
Cameron stared at her. "No," she flatly replied.
"I can analyse blood, but only to determine DNA," Kristanna added, putting in her two cents. "It aids me in any search and destroy missions."
Sarah sighed. "Good to hear," she said. She then grew curious. "What else?"
Kristanna took that as a query about her human-related abilities. "I have comprehensive vocal and facial scanners," she listed, "And also retina scanning systems. But other than that, not much else."
"Combat capabilities?" Sarah demanded.
"The T-X is designed for extreme combat," Cameron spoke up for a quiet Kristanna. "Driven by a plasma reactor, and equipped with onboard weapons. Its arsenal includes nano-technological transjectors."
Sarah raised an eyebrow at that.
"I can control other machines," Kristanna explained.
"Its body chassis is heavily armoured, and hardened to withstand external attack," Cameron continued, no doubt reading from her database. "The T-X is faster, more powerful, and more intelligent than all T-8XX and T-1XXX series terminators. The T-X is also designed to terminate other cybernetic organisms."
Sarah rolled her eye at Kristanna. "So you kill just about everything, huh?" she asked.
Kristanna shrugged. "Only when I have to," she replied.
"You mentioned onboard weapons," John said, walking into the room. "What kind of onboard weapons?"
Kristanna thought for a moment. "Both arms are capable of reconfiguration," she told them. "Each one has a different set of weapons or tools. My right arm can change into a plasma canon, flamethrower, .223 caliber Automatic Stopper, .45 caliber Cascader armour piercing, M41 pulse rifle, 783 CHAIN repeater, ADMOR BioBlaster, BioRail 32SR-9, or the CG45 Needler."
John swallowed audibly. "Okay… and your left arm?" he asked nervously. He had no idea what weapons she was talking about, but Kristanna knew they sounded ominous enough.
"Various tools such as a precision circular saw, screwdriver heads, jigsaw, pincer vice grip or blades, nano-technological transjectors, and small melee weapons," she replied.
"I see…" Sarah said slowly. "Well, glad you're on our side."
"I'm on fashion's side," Kristanna corrected her.