Author's note: I do not own the characters, the space-time continuum, etc.
Summary: The story begins six years after the events of 219: Today Is the Day. Sarah ditched Derek and Cameron and kept John hidden in the lighthouse with Charley Dixon. She felt that Jesse's treason was Derek's and that Riley's murder was an omen. A storm gathers and in the eye of the storm stands a girl from the future, Cameron. Space and time have been stretched between John and her. She will travel with unexpected companions on an unexpected journey to find her way back.
CROSSING LINES
PART ONE
THE FOUR CORNERS
CHAPTER SIX
IN WHICH THE QUEENS MEET AT THE FOUR CORNERS
Richard Gray stood in many places simultaneously. He had his feet on each side of the bronze disk marking the virtual area where the four states met. It had been a hot day, a 120-Fahrenheit day, and he had only seen a few tourists interested enough in having their feet overlapping four American states to bear with the suffocating heat. The nine flags – two for each state and one US flag – sat still in the air. Each state had its own spacious quadrant made of concrete with benches and a porch that lined the periphery. Gray came to seat under the porch of New Mexico's quadrant, drenched in sweat. He sat on a wooden bench at the right end of the porch and was alone for a while in the scorching shadows. Some kids were taking pictures of their feet in the center of the monument and soon enough, they were gone. A man made his way behind the rocky pillars and beneath the porch. He was tall with sandy hair and a sandy complexion. Like him, he was dressed in civilian clothes and Gray preferred it that way. He was not willing to endure the arid weather in combat fatigues… the desert was already a sufficient, vivid reminder of Iraq. He sat behind a desk, now, and he was aiming for a bigger desk. Gray wrinkled his nose in disgust. The man reeked of perspiration and piss.
"What's up with this place?" asked the man. "Can't they meet in an air-conditioned building?"
"The place is flat," said Gray. "No spot for snipers. It's a bureaucratic conundrum, too: can't put a drone or a chopper up there unless you have the consent of the four states."
He chuckled. "Crafty bitches, huh?"
Gray despised the man already. He was just another adrenaline junkie, another beat veteran with balls two times bigger than brains. When it came to the Connor woman and the girl, the slightest faux pas could end with charred bodies.
"One of them bitches cut down six of ours in Seattle," stated Gray. "You should show respect."
The man grabbed his crotch. "I'll show her some respect, all right. The boss needs her head. Didn't say anything about the body. Anyway, sir," he added, "you shouldn't be alone in the field. Our contact is here. He's waiting for you in the car." And the man departed in the dazzling light.
Gray bit the inside of his mouth. Shit. He was getting claustrophobic in the truck and the idea of being trapped in it with their contact released butterflies in his stomach… not the pretty, bright-colored kind of butterflies. The boss had said they were dangerous men. Cold-blood killers. Gray grabbed a smoke, drew on it quickly and neatly crushed the butt under his heel. He made his way out of the monument. The men were in place: on the benches in the open, under the shade of the porches or pacing up and down the concrete lanes. Gray stepped into the rear of a black Humvee and breathed relief when the cool air of the compartment gushed under his armpits.
The man with the sandy face was on the passenger's seat, cleaning and greasing his handgun. The driver was a younger, white man with black eyes and a shaven head. He looked flustered. Gray remembered from the file that his name was Robert but he wasn't sure. The man sitting on the backseats, though, Gray had never seen. He was built like a Coke machine with bright blue eyes and short-cropped blond hair. He sat still, not breathing, not blinking, and Gray immediately regretted the crushing heat outside the Humvee. He tried to compose himself.
"Where is the other one?" he asked, stammering a bit.
The humongous man turned inexpressive eyes toward him. "Alexander didn't make the rendezvous. He's a mad dog. He likes the hunt. Doesn't work well with humans."
It was a strange thing to say, thought Gray. "So, you're Cargo," he said and the man nodded. "I was told you had encountered the targets before, that you know their modus operandi."
"I know that they will meet here."
"Who's your informer? We've been looking for the Connors and the girl for years."
"It happened before." He opened the thick file on his lap and skimmed through it. He tapped a sausage-like fingertip on one of the photograph. "You lost Reese," he stated.
"Reese? He goes by the name of Fields, now. We lost him in Seattle."
"The girl helped him."
Gray nodded. In his opinion, Fields, or Reese, was a low-life. He'd been running solo for three years getting small-time gigs in the state Washington and most of them were legit anyway.
"What's his purpose in this?" asked Gray.
"He knows a lot. And he's a good lure. The girl will always save him. She's a skin-lover." Cargo spat the word skin.
"If he had intel on her she could have executed him. The girl's a regular Hannibal Lecter. The Seattle PD thinks he's dead: his dental records were flagged."
"And you don't believe that," stated Cargo.
Gray shook his head. "We had six men on the job. The precinct wrapped and mailed six bodies to the coroner. Well, six bodies, two heads and a scalp. The girl's a savage."
Cargo flipped the pages of the file. He ran his fingers on one of the photographs with reverence. "She's a queen, Richard Gray. Your kind cannot understand that."
Gray gulped nervously. Cargo was looking at a black-and-white picture. It had been taken in a dusty, wooden building filled with benches and the girl was dressed in a simple white dress.
"The picture's outdated," said Gray. "She's cut and dyed her hair blond." Cargo was looking intently at her and Gray added, "It's from her wedding. We understand she kept her husband's name."
"What is it?"
"Cole."
"Interesting."
"Hardly. The guy's dead and it's a common name."
Cargo turned toward him and produced some sort of a smile. It resembled a ugly scar actually. He had a proper scar on his jaw, showing a shiny material underneath, like a mandible prosthesis. "I meant, you Grays are interesting," he said. "You always bring us the most tiny details."
Gray didn't know what he meant by that. A radio spat statics in the front of the truck.
"Call incoming," said Sandy from the passenger's seat. He handed them two plastic pieces attached to the radio with curly wires. White noise was followed by a woman voice, crackling.
"White queen takes pawn."
A second female answered, "Black queen takes knight."
"Got news from the rook. Where are you?"
"Eastbound on the 40."
"Are you being followed?"
A pause. "Not now. We had a jumper on our tail though."
"Alexander," hissed Cargo. He leaned over and pressed a button on the radio. They were all shocked into silence when he interrupted the line and spoke in the mouth-piece with Sarah Connor's voice, "Okay. We maintain the rendezvous. You'll seat under Utah's porch and wait for my call."
"Copy that, white queen. Where will you be?"
"New Mexico's porch."
"Thank you for explaining… oh, I forgot."
"Yes?"
"How's Wolfy?"
"Wolfy's fine."
The line went dead abruptly. Cargo crushed the mouth-piece in his huge hand. "We've been made," he growled. "They made us."
"What the fuck was that?" snarled Sandy. "The plan was to get both of them. You broke the line and you fucked up the code. Connor's a paranoid freak, she won't come near –"
Cargo's hand snapped the passenger's seat headrest, bending the thing and Sandy's head at a right angle. His spine made the sound of broken twigs.
"Only the girl matters," said Cargo in the deafening silence that followed.
"Ohfuckfuckfuck," muttered the driver.
Gray was frozen in his seat; his mouth opened and closed itself several times but no sound would come out.
"Get your men back into the vehicles and gear up," ordered Cargo. "We'll find the girl on the interstate. Let's hunt."
"Take the wheel," said Cameron. Derek grabbed it and maintained the course while Cameron slid into his seat and he did the same with hers.
"What was that?" he uttered, stepping on the gas pedal to regain speed.
"We've been made," she answered. "That's what Sarah wanted to tell me. They are waiting for us at the Four Corners."
"And who are they? The same guys that wanted me in Seattle?"
"I think so," said Cameron. "They have a cyborg with them this time."
"Are you sure?"
Cameron nodded. "Voice mimicry. I asked about Wolfy."
"What does that mean?"
"John's dog back in 1995. When I asked about Wolfy, Sarah should have known. The name of the dog was Max."
Derek cursed under his breath. "I'm getting to old for this. What's the plan now?"
"Drive straight. They'll try to catch us on the road."
"Do you hear yourself, woman?"
She was the one bulletproof, here, and rushing headlong into a trap was a gross concept that was not coded in his genes.
"They'll get us if we leave the interstate," she said. "The others cars will hinder the chase."
"You want to use the civilians as goddamn shields?"
"Trust me, Reese. And keep your head."
She opened the window and before he could shout an umpteenth fuck, she'd squeezed through the gap and disappeared from view. He heard a loud thump when she landed on the truck's bed.
"Keep your head, Reese," he muttered to himself. "Keep your head in order to… keep your head. Yeah, sounds about right."
Derek maintained the truck propelled at sixty miles per hour on the tarmac. He just wanted to burst through the side rail and bury himself deep into the desert, dig a hole somewhere and wait for the storm to pass. But he didn't.
"She knows what she's doing," he stated for his own sake, "The bitch knows what she's doing."
The smell was unbearable. Sandy's body was slouched against the window and his bowels and bladder had emptied themselves. Cargo still sat on the backseats next to Gray. His head was bowed down and his eyes were closed. Gray told himself that it was his chance. His chance to slam open the door and roll out of the truck. He looked at the blurry road. They were dashing on the interstate at ninety miles per hour.
"I can't do that. I can't do that," he whispered to himself.
The driver had his hands clenched on the steering wheel, not daring to take his eyes off the road. They had glanced only once at each other in the rear-view mirror and they both knew that the safest choice was to obey.
Gray's phone rang and he answered with shaky hands and a shaky voice. "Yes?"
"Sir," said a man, "The target's ETA was 2030 at the Four Corners. We should run into them any minute, now. We need some intel on their vehicle."
Gray turned around to look through the rear windshield. The three black vans were still following in their path and he found some comfort in this.
"I don't have the information yet," answered Gray.
"Your contact knows what he's doing?"
Gray glanced nervously at the humongous, sleeping figure. He had said that he would sense her, he would sense the girl as they approached her. Another day, Gray would have laughed and called him a dumb oaf. Right now he was ready to believe every word that might come out of his mouth.
"He knows what he's doing," said Gray and hung up.
The young driver was now darting glances at him in the rear-view mirror. His face was glowing with sweat despite the air-conditioning.
"I heard Carl's voice," he said. He hadn't pronounced a single word during the last hour.
"It was him."
"We are approaching the target, right?"
Gray nodded and the boy exhaled slowly. "We're gonna die," he murmured.
"Robert, is it?" And the young man nodded. "Keep your head, son," said Gray, maintaining a steady voice, but actually, he was close to shit his own self: their mission was to ram into the girl's vehicle at high speed and send her spinning off the road.
Both men knew that such a collision would certainly squash their bodies into goo. Gray hated scratch tickets but he was willing to take the small probability of surviving the frontal impact rather than disobeying Cargo.
The huge man opened his eyes. "One mile. Straight ahead," he said. "A common truck." He leaned over and put his hand on the steering wheel, maintaining a death-grip on it. "Just keep your foot on the gas pedal, human," he ordered.
"Ohgod ohgod…"
The boy shut his eyes tightly and Gray couldn't do anything but stare at the road ahead. The land around them was merging into a blur at one hundred and twenty miles per hour. When he saw the truck on the horizon, he grasped the backseats and the truck's ceiling, trying to brace himself… then he saw her. Only for a second. She was standing on the roof of the truck with a rifle and some kind of sword strapped to her waist. The rifle was taller than she was.
Their windshield exploded and the compartment was splattered with Robert's blood and Gray felt inertia and gravity battle each other when they hit the rail and span into the air. That was all he knew until they crushed on the ground and the world turned black and red.
The rifle roared above him and made his ears throb painfully. Derek braked and veered abruptly to avoid the Humvee spinning out-of-control and a small human shape came crashing on the hood of the Dodge Ram. Cameron buried her fingers in the sheet metal in the last moment to stop her fall. Derek could only see her face and arms: the rest of her was hanging loose on the truck's nose.
"Watch out!" he shouted.
She launched herself forward on the hood and grabbed the wiper blades a split-second before Derek hurtled the Dodge Ram and burst the metal rail to avoid a black van dashing toward them. Cameron's body was shoved to the side by the sudden impact and the wiper blades she was grasping tore themselves out of the windshield. Derek floored the throttle in the arid land, engulfing them in a cloud of brown dust and he saw the shapes of three vans following his tracks. A burst of rounds struck their rear and Derek made a sharp turn. One of the bullets crossed the entire compartment and shattered the windshield.
"You gotta be kidding me!" he cursed.
Cameron was now hanging on the side of the Dodge Ram by her fingers. Derek ducked behind the wheel when another burst riddled the seats and the dashboard.
"Fuck!" He could hear Cano whimpering on the backseats. He was curled into a ball on the carpeted floor. "Hang on, boy!"
He drove deeper into the desolated landscape. The dust was surrounding them like a shroud and he heard tires squealed just behind him and he kept on going, shouting prayers and insults to unknown gods. Then he caught a glimpse of a revving shadow on his right, hidden in the cloud of dust… and Cameron disappeared. Shit. He bumped into something sharp and he felt a rocky, steady ground under the tires. When he saw Cameron again, he did not comprehend the situation right away: she was on the back of a black motorbike, sprinting ahead of him. The motorbike braked and made a U-turn in a trail of white smoke then it bolted forward and crossed paths with him.
"What the –"
He could see them in the rear-view mirror: Cameron was grabbing the rider's waist with one arm. With the other, she was lifting a hubcap as a shield, deflecting random bullets, then she threw it like a giant Frisbee and it penetrated the windshield of one of the vans. She unsheathed her sword and they drove straight toward the black vans. It was a mad reenactment of jousting. Derek lost track of them and continued to propel the Dodge Ram forward. Another bike came at his side.
"You're hit!" yelled Sarah Connor behind the full face helmet and over the roar of the road.
He saw blood gushing from his shoulder. Sarah Connor grabbed the wheel, stabilizing the truck as they lost speed and came to a halt.
She opened the door and Derek tumbled out of his seat; she knelt and ripped his Hawaiian shirt open. Then she took something from her backpack: a long red tube.
"You got big, Reese," she said.
"And you look like a thigh bone," he mumbled.
"Got cancer."
"What was it?"
"Don't ask. Remitted."
"Niceties done, then. Just do it."
"I'm sorry for this," she said, then she lit the flare and stuck the flame in his shoulder.
She maintained him on the ground as she cauterized the wound and he dropped unconscious from the pain.
Gray crawled out of the wreck and spat foam and blood in the sand. The black skin of his hands was torn like a purse turned inside out. He was lifted from the ground and brought close to something he didn't really understand. It was a face. One half belonged to the killer, the humongous man. Cargo. The other half belonged to someone else. Or something else. It was a piece of metal soiled with gore and sand and inside it, a red diode was gleaming. Gray felt a hot liquid dripping down his ankles as he pissed himself in terror.
The half-Cargo thing swung him on his shoulder and marched forward. The sand changed into asphalt and Gray heard tires squealed then the sound of broken glass and a pool of blood appeared between the huge feet of the monster. Gray was shoved into the backseats of a sedan and the vehicle bolted on the road. They ran over something soft and mushy and soon enough, they had left the fuming Humvee behind and were driving toward the setting sun.
You're alive, thought Gray, and he started to weep uncontrollably. You're alive.
It was a new moon and the sky was a pool of dark ink speckled with billions of stars. Cameron could see behind it. She could see the shape of clouds bigger than the solar system and she could feel red giants collapsing in a burst of dying light and she could hear the rhythm of black holes dancing and merging.
She waved and an engine came humming behind her. Sarah Connor accelerated and stabilized the Honda to her level. They had improvised a harness with straps and tied Derek Reese to Sarah's back and around the bike's frame. Cameron grabbed his neck and gently slid her fingers beneath the helmet. She felt a steady pulse and she raised her thumb for Sarah to see. Charley Dixon's bike, a huge Suzuki, was scouting the road fifty feet ahead. They had wrapped up and strapped Cano into a blanket and tied him to Charley's back, a smaller, furrier version of Reese. The dog would take an occasional peek out of the blanket, spilling a fair amount of saliva on Charley's shoulder, and Cameron felt she was fine. She was okay. She had kept everyone safe.
She rested her head on John's shoulder and stared at the sky. Sometimes he would put his gloved hand on hers and Cameron would realize she was squeezing his midsection too hard and she would release the pressure slightly. She didn't really need to have her arms around his waist but she did it anyway. They hadn't spoke a single word since he had taken her from the Dodge Ram's hood onto the back of his Royal Enfield. They had slayed the men with guns and swords. Blood, bones and brain matter had soiled the sand. They had ridden with furious anger… and the men had met her. They had met Hera. They had met Hela. She was war and she was death. She was a goddess in this barren land and they had witnessed her divine fury.
They had strapped Derek and the dog and drove a hundred miles inland before refilling the gas tanks. They had stopped on the side of the road to reattach Derek to Sarah's bike and make him drink some water. They had made a halt in a vacant lot somewhere in the suburbs of Albuquerque and still, Cameron and John had not shared a single word. Charley had dismounted and set Cano free. He was now helping Sarah removing the straps and the helmet off a groggy Derek Reese. He checked his wound and Derek shrugged off his hand. He wanted to walk on his own. John put the kickstand and Cameron clutched onto him from behind.
"Come on!" yelled Sarah Connor, waving at them. "We need to burn the bikes and get going."
Cameron got off the leather seat and John did the same, massaging the insides of his thighs. They lit a flare and set fire to the bikes and the helmets with some remnants of thermite as a firelighter. Charley Dixon mourned loudly the bikes and their searing fate and they left the vacant lot. Derek staggered a bit but shoved Sarah aside when she tried to help him. He didn't want to be touched by the woman just yet. His bravado faltered quickly and he put himself between Cameron and John, resting his arms on their shoulders and they walked along the quiet streets.
They finally arrived to the front porch of a nondescript house. A salamander was engraved on the side of the entrance. A young girl opened the front door and she hugged tightly Charley, then Sarah and John. She ignored Derek and stood in front of Cameron, mouth agape. She hesitated for a split-second before wrapping her arms around her. She wouldn't let go, so Cameron lifted her slightly from the ground with one arm – the girl was a few inches shy from her height – and she entered the house. The redhead finally let go of her and Cameron made no comment when she saw Riley Dawson, even though she thought: divergence. She made no comment when she saw an old version of James Ellison standing precariously on his feet, carrying around a coat rack with a bag of saline strapped on it. She set down her backpack in the kitchen and Cano gnawed the fabric angrily, dragging the thing away. The dog knew what was inside and his wrath had not faltered. Not one bit.
Cameron stood still in the kitchen, watching the quiet street through the window. She was the sentry, always. People fussed and talked and cursed around her. James and Derek were left in the living room together, both of them linked to a bag of saline hanging on the coat rack. Charley had put Derek under with a homemade cocktail of benzodiazepines diluted in whiskey (a blend from Tennessee), then disinfected his wound with hydrogen peroxide and sutured it neatly. Luckily, the bullet had made a clean path through his shoulder and avoided major blood vessels.
Cameron felt tension and anger. The young redhead was standing behind her with her arms crossed. She had proclaimed that no blond bitch should approach Cameron and that, please, Sarah, leave her alone. And they all spoke between them and sighed in relief and hugged and rustled and they grew quieter and quieter.
Sarah and Charley made their way upstairs, they became breathless for a few minutes and then they were calm. Derek and James slept top to tail in the large couch, the former convict and the FBI agent, virtually handcuffed together to the coat rack and the bag of saline. Riley went to sleep in one of the bedrooms and the young girl fetched a pillow and slept on the ground in the living room, a few feet from the couch. Cano came smelling Cameron and rubbed his snout in all kind of intimate places, which was a way of marking his territory and showing his happiness. Then he went into the living room, curled into a ball and slept with his head resting on Derek's hand, which was hanging loose from the couch. And for the first time in the last three days, the world was quiet.
A pair of arms came around her waist and a head rested on her shoulder. The arms had grown big and the head stood higher than it used to be and the stubble scratched the nape of her neck. He squeezed her hard against his torso, resting his weight on her and she felt that he had gained nearly thirty pounds. His head lolled and he fell asleep several times.
"You're home," said John.
He let go of her and made his way upstairs. Cameron looked at the sky that was taking a soothing shade of pink. She smiled.
"I'm home."
Author's note: I don't know if I'll publish Part Two, it will depend on the feedback I get from this. I thank you all for reading my story.
