24th November 2020- Yes I've only just started on this chapter X-mas.
25th December – Merry Christmas. Worst Christmas ever, chapter 33 has been uploaded though.
Terminator
Bond of Steel and Bone
Chapter 7:
. The hunt begins.
Weapons laid out across a dry towel on her apartment floor were carefully and delicately unloaded, unspent munitions place back into their allotted containers and placed back into their bags neatly. Neat and tidy so they could be found easily when the time came to use them again.
Tools put away; the cyborg analysed her experience at Epitome. Resistance had been within her calculations except for the infiltration unit. That had been a surprise, both a welcome and an unwelcome surprise, the damage she'd suffered from the machine was time she'd need to herself to clean herself up when she could and should have been busy doing other things, however its presence there confirmed what she'd done hadn't been a waste of time. She didn't know if the cyborg had belong to Connor, Skynet, or the Machine Resistance, but their the fight gave her more insight when dealing with machines in the future.
Now, with the TV on in the background she disassembled the weapons she'd used and procured that night; her .44 revolver, her Czech 9mm, the mp5s and newer Colt AR carbines and the one she was currently working on, her Ithaca "Stakeout". She ran the lubed cloth over the full length of the barrel till it shined, before moving onto the next piece and wiped her cloth over it as well. In machine fashion she was meticulous with details and her job, each piece had to be kept to the highest quality, each piece had to work perfectly, that wouldn't happen if they weren't well maintained. It was how she viewed her body, an excellent well-maintained tool, if properly maintained and clean it wouldn't fail, and she wasn't prone to failure.
Except for last night that is. She warred internally with herself whether or not her mission had been a success, she couldn't confirm Robert Kent was dead, but she'd all but destroyed everything else, if Kent was still alive, his usefulness would have greatly diminished. But still, she'd have preferred to have visual confirmation.
Her internal chronometer informed her it was 14:23 in the afternoon. She'd driven all night and early parts of the morning to get back home.
As she lost herself in her gun maintenance she accessed her biological cover scan system.
SCAN INITIALISED …
SCAN COMPLETE …
ORGANIC TISSUE - 10% DAMAGED … INFILTRATION HINDERED
REGENERATION REQUIRED:-
… ONE DAYS. 20 HOURS. 11 MINUTES. T-MINUS 12 SECONDS …
That was acceptable to her. She couldn't compromise her infiltration, not after this long. She could allow herself some time to regenerate.
"Skynet?" Sarah said slowly to herself.
"At least I think it could have been." Danny said. "Epitome took me while I was in college, I don't know where the others came from, if they were there willingly or ... we never really talked about it to each other." He said sadly. "They told me to work for them or … they'd get my family."
He sighed completely deflated, at last he was free. "When…" he cleared his throat. "when the Machine attacked, I got onto my computer and went into the mainframe, the core of the system, I helped design it, redefine it, so I know how to get into it, and I deleted the work. Not just my work, but everyone's. At least I hope I did. I didn't want to do it Sarah, I promise." He looked at her pleadingly.
Sarah placed a hand gently on his shoulder.
"They would've killed your family; you did the right thing." Sarah said calmly.
"Did the right thing?!" Derek snapped in rage. "This bastard helped them make Skynet. If the world burns it's his fucking fault," he pointed at Danny blaming him blatantly, "if he knew about Skynet, then he knows what's going to happen, are six billion lives really worth his family?"
Danny looked on the verge of a breakdown at Derek's words as Sarah turned around and stormed up to Derek, looking him straight in the eye.
"Shut up Derek!" Sarah snapped, glaring at the larger man, "If they didn't get him to do it, they had plenty of others working on it," calmed her breathing, being angry was not going to help the situation, "we're lucky that Danny was able to get a message to us, now we know more about our enemy."
"Damn it, fine Sarah!" He snapped, then rubbed his tired eyes, "anyway what else happened?"
"I hid and contacted Sarah to come quickly." Danny added.
"Wait, you're saying a machine attacked before Sarah and the metal arrived?" Derek asked, "I thought you meant this machine." Derek added pointing at Cameron, Cameron didn't care otherwise, but John gave his Uncle a dark glare. Derek didn't notice. "If you're saying it, did a Triple-Eight attack?"
Sarah sighed, remembering the state of the Triple-Eight they'd found.
"No, from what we can piece together it sounds like the same machine that was at Hamburg's, the one that Cameron fought. There was a Triple-Eight there, I'm guess infiltrating as an employee."
"I knew him, uh it as Samson, he uh … was head of security." Danny interjected.
Derek looked from Sarah to Danny, then back to Sarah, "Okay, what happened to the Trip-Eight?" He asked putting his hands on his hips.
"The infiltrator suffered damage to its right arm, the elbow had been severed, there was a large puncture wound through its torso, its power cell was damaged, and it had been impaled through the head." Cameron listed off the machine's more severe injuries.
"Was it the same machine?" John asked Cameron in alarm.
"We don't know just yet, we have the security footage, and I would like to analyse it with you, see what we can find." She replied in monotone, as she looked to John.
"What of the chip?" John asked.
"We were able to retrieve the CPU." Cameron supplied.
"This is bad," was all Derek said, "so what happened exactly?" He looked towards Sarah, who had visibly calmed.
"The machine was looking for me, it said my name, uh … cover name. But it still just killed everyone," Danny spoke up his voice still shaking, "when Sarah and Cameron brought me down, it was a bloodbath."
Derek said nothing but groaned, the room was quiet for a few moments before John turned to look at Cameron.
"Cameron can you give me the security footage and the machine's CPU, I might be able to get something?" He asked. Cameron nodded and removed the chip and the disk from her jacket and passed them to him. "Thanks!" He said taking them and walked towards his room.
"I'll go get the Triple-Eight." Cameron said to the others walked outside to the car.
Sarah, Derek, and Danny had watched them silently.
"Things have been getting a little crazy lately, I think we need to cool off." Sarah spoke up suddenly, breaking the silence.
Derek snorted, "Never thought I'd hear you tell us we need to cool off." He said with a grin.
Sarah gave him a pointed look, "Shut up Derek," She droned, then looked to Danny, you okay sleeping on the couch Danny?" she asked.
Danny turned to look at her and smiled. "The couch is fine, thanks Sarah." Danny said as Sarah helped him up.
"Actually we should get that bullet out of your leg. Derek go get the first-aid kit." She ordered him as she helped Danny to the couch. Derek nodded then headed into the kitchen to retrieve the Med-Kit, as he did Sarah helped Danny over to the couch, sat him down and propped his leg up onto the coffee table.
"Sarah listen, if they know I'm still alive." Danny groaned a little in pain as Sarah lifted his leg.
"Don't worry, we'll make sure they're safe. We'll make sure of it, I promise." She smiled at him. Like his father, thinking of others.
"Thank you, I really mean it. Thanks Sarah." Danny replied gratefully, panting as pain shot up his leg. Derek finally returned with the med-kit.
"You can thank me when we get this bullet is out of you and we get your family safe." Sarah gave Danny a small smile as she took the kit from Derek, placed it on the couch away from Danny and opened, she retrieved a cylindrical piece of wood and gave it to Danny. "Bite on this, getting the bullet out is gunna sting like a bitch."
Cameron came in to the sound of muffled yelling on pain, the Triple-Eight had been covered over with a rug, she turned to see Danny Dyson biting down hard on a piece of wood as Sarah rooted around in his leg for the bullet, Cameron tilted her head and walked out to the shed.
Cameron walked into the shed dumping the machine on the ground unceremoniously and pulled her switchblade out from her back pocket, flicking out the blade she began to skin the machine, dragging the blade across the organic covering and peeled it from the endoskeleton.
As she did so, she further analysed the machine she'd fought before, she factored in the hypothetical notion that the same machine she'd fought was the same machine that had eliminated this infiltrator. Cameron already knew this new machine was tougher and more armoured any cyborg she had in her database, it's combat capabilities were of interest, it seemed to have some combat experience against other machines, but not as much as herself, despite its overall lack of experience was made up for by having increased strength, durability and speed even over a T-888 as she'd guessed.
Once the machine was skinned she dumped the meat into a pile to be burned later. There was sufficient material in the endoskeleton to create a fair multitude of Hyper-Alloy ammunition, the theory behind using the alloy as an armour-piercing projectile was sound enough. It likely wouldn't have the same effect as military grade armour piercing munitions, but it would be superior to regular full-metal-jacket, at least in theory.
The difficult part of this would be to melt down the endoskeleton to a liquid, contain some of the liquid and create moulds for the projectiles, it would not be a simple task and knew she would likely need assistance. John could help her. It would be a suitable use of his time to learn how to craft this ammunition, even more so if it proved effective.
Cameron pulled out her cell phone and dialled John's number, she waited until he answered.
"Hey Cameron, you okay?" John asked curiously
"I'm fine thank you John, I'd like your help with the ammunition project." Cameron replied as she looked over the damaged endo.
"So, you want me to come down now?" he asked.
"No, I'll come up to your room, I'd like to discuss it with you." Cameron replied.
"No problem, I'm not likely going anywhere anytime soon." He replied and chuckled softly.
The edge of Cameron's lip twitched up ever so slightly. "Thank you John."
"No problem, see you soon?" He asked.
"I'll be in the shed a little longer, then I'll come up, bye." she replied then hung up. She looked around the shed, finding an old dusty rug she threw it over the endoskeleton and ensured it was hidden from any prying eyes, that done she left the shed and walked back into the house. Inside Sarah was sat on the couch having finished pulling the bullet out of Danny's leg, the man himself had finally fallen asleep or passed out, Derek sat on a single chair and watched TV. Cameron was almost to the stairs when Sarah spoke up.
"You get rid of it?" Sarah asked from her seat.
Cameron turned around to face the older Connor. "Not yet, the endoskeleton is in the shed covered with a rug."
Sarah and Derek both turned to face Cameron, giving her wary looks, Derek's being the more hostile.
"Why?" he asked glaring at Cameron.
Cameron glanced to him then focussed back on Sarah, "You wanted a means of making our weaponry more effective against cyborgs, keeping the endoskeleton intact for now is part of the idea."
Sarah raised a brow, suspiciously. "And whose idea was it?" she asked.
"It was mine." Came John's voice from the top of the stairs. Cameron turned and looked at John as he descended a few steps till he was visible.
Sarah nodded slowly, she didn't trust Cameron, but let it slide, for now. Sarah turned around to sit back down allowing Cameron to walk upstairs.
"And what is it exactly?" Sarah asked.
John shrugged nonchalantly, "Well if it doesn't work out, or we can't figure out how to do it, there won't be any point telling you."
"But if you did tell us, we might be able to give some pointers." Sarah reasoned while madding her statement sound like a question. She made a note of how the machine was slowly backing up towards John.
John's brow creased in thought, "Hmm. Yeah that makes sense. Maybe if we don't figure it out though, trust me on this, kay?" he gave his mother a disarming smile.
Again Sarah watched her son, this new John. 'No Sarah he's not new, he's …' she mentally trailed off. She frowned, he looked so handsome when he smiled, she relented but pointed at him "Alright, but I want to know soon regardless."
"Alright cool thanks mom," he replied with a grin then reached down and patted Cameron, who was now withing reaching distance, on the arm. "Come on, let's go."
Cameron glanced to her arm where John had patted her, looked to John then followed him upstairs.
"He's covering for the machine." Derek muttered as he watched the two go upstairs.
"Stating the obvious Derek," Sarah replied looking at him as if he were stupid, "but we'll see what they have to say later." She said before looking back to the TV.
John opened his bedroom door and stepped in with Cameron following not too far behind him, she'd heard what Derek and Sarah.
"Sarah and Derek are suspicious." She commented as John sat at his desk, the security footage plugged into his laptop, he'd been watching it before he'd come down.
"I figured but it doesn't matter," he glanced at her from the corner of his eye and smirked, "it's given us some time." He turned to look at her. "So, what is it you wanted help with?" he asked.
"Melting down the machine isn't the difficult part, it's doing so without losing the alloy, then being quick enough to move the liquid alloy into a set of moulds." Cameron explained.
John stared at her for several seconds. He cupped his chin in his hand as he thought. "Yeah, that sounds pretty hard." He thought for a second, "what if …" John started but immediately stopped.
"What?" Cameron asked, "What were you going to say?"
"Well," John paused again then sat up straight, his hands coming out in front of him and stopped as if he were holding a box, "well we only need to catch the liquid alloy first right, we could melt it down into projectiles later, right?" John went quiet again, staring intently at his hands.
"Right." Cameron dragged out the word, hoping she'd get him to continue.
"So, what if when we melt down the machine, we have something underneath to catch it, like a multi-level system?" he asked.
Cameron's CPU immediately used that idea, going through multiple designs, pros/cons and simplicity of the idea given what they had.
"That could work," she replied, "I'll work on it." She gave him a little smile.
John nodded, "Hey if it doesn't work, we'll come up with something right?" he returned her small smile with a grin of his own. "And I guess failing that we could always ask mom and Derek."
Cameron gave him a decisive nod then looked at his laptop screen.
"Have you gotten far into footage?" she asked as John turned to look back at his laptop.
"It seems the employees rarely left the building, but they never went out of the perimeter." John told her.
"How can you tell John?" she asked curiously, approaching the laptop and looking at the screen closely.
"Look here," he pointed to the screen which now showed employees leaving their offices and heading downstairs. "This is a normal working day, this was actually the day before the attack. They all go outside the building, where there's these busses, here let me just," he paused tapping away at his laptop, the screen changed to a different camera view showing the outside of the building just by the entrance, "so they're picked up by this bus, you can see the armed guard by the door and some near the front, kinda like a prison bus, now they're transported away from the camera, yet it's going further into the area and away from the exit." John explained.
Cameron tilted her head a little. "But where to?" She asked.
"Don't know, maybe another building where they all sleep." He shrugged.
"We didn't have time to look, it was best to get away from the area as soon as we had Daniel Dyson." Cameron replied looking at John.
"You two did the right thing." He patted Cameron arm again, she smiled in return. "Okay, now let's skip to the night of the attack." John said as he made the imagery fast forward. "There," he said as he stopped the video, revealing yesterday's date, the time past about ten minutes past eleven. "The outside camera picked up a vehicle at the check point. That's probably the Machine." he guessed.
John allowed the video to play, he watched as the car pulled up outside, Cameron noted how it was done the same way she had done. They watched as a woman got out and walked into the lobby.
"Okay switch cameras, set date and time," he mumbled to himself as he did so on his laptop, the new image, one from inside the lobby showed the woman walking in. "Here she comes," John said quietly, he turned around and looked at Cameron. "Pull up a chair or something if you like." he smiled at her.
Cameron looked at him letting what he said process then smiled back.
"You have no additional chairs." Cameron replied after looking around.
"Well you could sit in my lap," he replied automatically then blushed realising what he'd just said. Cameron tilted her head as she looked John over.
"I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable." She replied, though did consider it.
"Right um well," he had an idea, "why don't we lay on my bed and watch it?" He suggested.
Cameron glanced to the bed briefly then nodded to John before making her way over to his bed and lied down on top of it. John's thought immediately went to the night before he'd gone to Mexico with Riley. Cameron had been wearing something that'd definitely gotten a reaction out of his body, he hadn't wanted to admit at the time, but she had an affect on him. She'd said at the time she felt heat, was that true? Because he was feeling some heat now.
Cameron looked at John as she lay on his bed, waiting for him patiently, silently, the two stared at one another for a few seconds before Cameron tilted her head. She knew he was reacting to her, more specifically her body. She'd known for some time that John had an attraction to her, before his 16th birthday it was something he didn't seem bothered about, afterwards though was different, but again now though. He seemed to enjoy looking at her. Some part of her enjoyed looking at him in return. John smiling meant he was safe, John laughing meant he was happy, if he was happy, then she was happy. Cameron's lips twitched upwards automatically into a small smile for a moment before reverting to her passive expression. John's blush intensified, he looked away bashfully.
"Are you coming John?" Cameron asked.
'Bad John Connor, bad John Connor.' John mentally chastised as he could feel himself starting to sweat. "Uh yeah," he squeaked, god damn his voice just broke a little, he cleared his throat, "yeah sorry, I'm coming."
He unplugged his laptop, picked it up and walked around to the other side of the bed where he laid down beside Cameron, his laptop resting on his lap, he noticed her scoot a little closer to him, more than she needed to, John replaced his laptop, putting it between them to let her see the screen easier.
"Comfy?" he suddenly asked. 'You're an idiot John.' He immediately thought after. Cameron looked at him directly their faces were pretty close together. 'Just a little John, just move a little and you could.' John swallowed and realised he was staring at her.
"Yes, thank you." She replied then looked to the screen.
Without any further interruption John resumed playing the footage. The echoing sounds of footsteps came from the laptop's speakers. They watched as the women stepped up to the receptionist.
"I'm here to find Robert Kent, tell him I'm an old friend." the CCTV footage barely picked up.
John thought to himself. 'Robert Kent?' He'd ask Danny about him later, maybe he knew who it was.
On the laptop screen the Terminatrix emptied four rounds at close range with a pistol and had already thrown the receptionist against the wall, they watched as the Terminatrix left the building then drove through the glass wall just as security arrived.
"That explains the damage we saw." Cameron explained. John glanced at her he didn't bother changing the camera as he saw multiple security officers' storm into the lobby from the elevators and open fire immediately as a car came into shot and spun around, catching one of the guards and slammed them into a pillar.
"The machine is creative." Cameron said to John without turning her eyes away.
"That's not good for us." John muttered quietly.
"No, not at all." Cameron replied, watching as the Terminatrix pushed the car up the second flight of stairs, then returned to view on the camera. John changed to another camera just as the car detonated destroying the camera.
"John, could you select the 7th floor camera into one of the rooms please?" she requested, John looked at her curious for moment but did as he was told.
"Sure just give me a sec." he asked as he unselected the camera footage, he scrolled down the options of camera until he got to one on the 7th floor. "Okay. Here we are"
He pressed play seeing nothing, John fast forwarded and watched curiously as a man waited just on the edge of the door, likely waiting for the machine to come up, Cameron recognised even from the angle that the man was the Triple-Eight that was no covered with a rug in the shed.
Seconds later the doors burst open and the Triple-Eight attacked. John and Cameron were surprised and somewhat in awe of the fight. The battle between the two machines raged on and ended as Cameron had found the machine.
"God damn," John said breathlessly, "never seen a Triple-Eight manhandled like that, not even from you," he said as he looked to Cameron, "no offense."
"None taken John, you are correct though." Cameron replied.
"If it's so tough, what is it? Something unique?" he asked, "I hope it is." He answered himself.
Cameron agree with him internally.
John and Cameron turned their attention back to the laptop as John changed to what had happened on the first floor afterwards floor, dozens of people banging on the shutters to try and get them to open, people trying to work the computer, not knowing it had been unplugged, then the machine returned and simply held down the triggers of its weapons. John stopped the feed and looked away.
"Son of a bitch." He growled, "we need to prepare for this machine if we encounter it again."
"Affirmative." Cameron replied.
"So was this the same machine from Hamburg's?" he asked.
"The voice was the same, the build and the height are a high enough match," she looked at him, "I'd say it's a very high probability."
"Well we got someone who did get a good look at it." He replied as he pulled the CPU from his pocket.
John removed the disk from the laptop placing it back into the small case Cameron had placed it in when retrieving it. He looked over the CPU in his hand and sighed. He'd only done this a few times, he wasn't all that confident.
"I'll help you John, I always will." Cameron reassured him caringly. John felt better after hearing that and slid the CPU into the port of his laptop, and disconnected his laptop from the internet just in case the machine was more active that it should be.
Cameron aided John ensuring they could activate the CPU enough without the machine's consciousness within to awaken or activate.
For hours they looked over where the machine had been, what it had done, it's mission and finally, its end. John reversed some footage and stopped at a close-up of the Terminatrix's damaged face.
"This thing meant with heavy resistance." John commented.
"Not heavy enough." Cameron replied as it looked over the cyborg.
"That the same one?" he asked glancing towards Cameron.
Cameron examined the damaged face and compared it to what she had faced herself.
"It appears to be, yes." Cameron finally commented. John nodded a small sense of relief overcoming him.
"At least that means there is just one, and not more, so that's some good news." John commented, but really his relief was only small, this thing was still out there.
"Yes, that's good news," Cameron echoed, "from the damage the machine suffered to its infiltration sheath it may be some time before it can be seen in public," Cameron looked at John, "it won't be able to walk amongst humans without revealing itself for what it is."
John nodded in agreement; she was right. "That gives us some time to prepare for if we ever come across it again." He smirked.
Suddenly Cameron's face went blank, expressionless, her eyes darted to the door, then back to John.
"Someone is coming." She informed him.
John rose from the bed and carried his laptop back to his desk and sat down in his chair. Cameron rose from the bed and walked up behind him and peered over his shoulder, at that moment the door opened revealing his mother.
"You find anything?" Sarah asked. John leaned back in his chair and turned to look at his mother,
"Yeah, quite a bit," he replied, an edge in his voice that alerted Sarah that she wasn't going to like what he had to say, "Cameron verifies it's the same machine that was at Hamburg's place, the damn thing is also smart," he glanced to Cameron, "creative."
Sarah nodded slowly, not the best news to hear.
"Then it must be pretty damn strong." She noted.
"Yeah, from what we saw in the footage and from the CPU she practically beat the hell out of the machine, she was damaged prior to the fight," John began to explain.
"Only cosmetic damage to her infiltration sheath likely from its encounters with the security teams," Cameron interjected.
"Yeah," John he agreed as he looked to Cameron briefly before focusing back on his mother, "tut otherwise the machine went into the fight undamaged and left the fight in more or less the same state, a little more shot up, but nothing that seemed to leave any lasting damage," John shook his head a little, a tense look on his face, "its pretty durable even by Terminator standards."
"Great," Sarah groaned rubbing the temple of her head. She looked to Cameron then to John, "you said you'd explain about the endo." Sarah reminded Cameron.
"Yes I did." John replied as he leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees.
"And?" Sarah waited, giving him a look to proceed.
"The titanium-coltan hyperalloy of the endoskeleton if melted down and shaped could be fashioned into extra penetrative munitions, while the effective of should projectiles is still in question, its better than what we currently have." Cameron informed the older Connor who nodded slowly.
"Can you do it?" she asked, looking between the pair.
John and Cameron looked to each other.
"We may have an idea." John replied looking back to his mother.
"Or several." Cameron added.
Sarah raised her brow, looking between the two sceptically, "Will it work?"
"Only one way to find out." Cameron pointed out.
Riley hadn't heard from Jesse in a while, she was growing worried, had something happened? Had she done something wrong? Worse. Had she found out it wasn't her ringing her before? Riley was internally panicking. So many possibilities and the result would be in her beating, if not worse.
"I can't live like this, I can't." she told herself timidly.
Here she was sat in her room on a Sunday afternoon, tomorrow she'd go to school, and she'd meet THEM again. John and the Metal. Maybe. Maybe they'd help her. Give her some protection, advice at least.
"The Metal." Riley groaned, she'd just remembered her little promise to IT. Morris. She'd have to try and hook up with Morris during school hours, if she succeeded he wanted to go on dates, Jesse could be watching. That'd be bad, she'd ask question. She'd find out. Then Riley would be in deep trouble.
"I need a new life." She sighed sadly, her life was becoming more and more complicated. She closed her eyes and laid back on her bed. Her mind wrestled with all different thoughts. Plans and possibilities. She looked deeper into her situation.
Fact 1 – She was from the future had no real family. None that would know her.
Fact 2 – She'd not only failed her mission but had been compromised. Her target knew the truth and had dumped her.
Fact 3 – her handler was a nuts Australian woman who would beat her to an inch of her life if not just plain kill her if she knew she herself had failed.
Fact 4 – The Machine wanted to get a Hispanic Boy of its back, if she successfully seduced him, he'd want to take her out on dates. This could further get her into trouble if Jesse found out.
But Fact 5 – She had the word of John Connor he'd protect her if she played her part and gave information from her boss to him.
That could be her way out. She knew it was, again Connor was her lifeline, he was the answer as he always had been, just in a different way. If she did as she was told and thought on her feet, she could get out of her bad situation in one piece.
But first she'd see how things go at school, Jesse would make her move, then she'd tell John, see what he said about it, then maybe she could twist his own plan for her benefit. She didn't survive in the wastes of post Judgement Day by being stupid after all.
"Sure I can make this work for me." She muttered to herself a smirk creeping across her lips.
"Riley!" Called a voice from downstairs. "Dinner!" It was her foster father Aaron.
"Coming!" she called back, she got off her bed and walked down the stairs.
Dinner had been uneventful. Byron and Gina her foster siblings, hadn't been up too much this weekend, doing the things they normally did, things she wished she could do. Play with friends, talk about things that really didn't matter in the long run. Dreams of the future.
Byron was the youngest of himself, Gina and Riley. He was 9 years old, short brown hair, cute looking kid she guessed, he was sweet, kind and considerate.
'If only he was eight years older.' Riley jokingly thought.
Byron wanted to be a fireman, when she and Byron talked he would paint this romantic image of a heroic fireman saving damsels in distress from "ginormous" buildings that were on fire. It was cute.
Gina was a little older, in between Byron's and Riley's age. She was 13 years old, long black hair like her mother's, and pale brown eyes, a nice combination. She wanted to go into fashion! Wear nice clothes go to exotic places. Earn lots of money, buy her father and mother a nice expensive car. Buy Byron his own fire truck. She even said she'd buy Riley something.
'If only…' Riley thought to herself.
Riley had begun to feel at home with these people, these strange but loving people, Aaron was doing well with his job as a "jack of all trades" as he called it, he did plumbing, electrical work, brick work, wood work. Riley guessed if she asked if he knew how space rockets worked he'd say he did, then look it up on the internet.
"Thanks for dinner." Riley said nicely to her foster Mother, Susan. Susan was a sweet lady, she was a Nurse at the Hospital, she loved people and loved kids.
"You're welcome Riley dear. Got any plans for this evening?" she asked kindly.
"Not really, I'm kind of tired." She said yawning. Aaron looked at Riley and frowned sadly.
"You sure? I was planning on taking us all to the Theatre, get some popcorn, soda see a movie or something. You not interested?" he asked.
Riley thought it over, she had nothing to do and her joy was becoming much more limited. She could end up dead if everything fucked up for her.
"Actually sure, why not?" she smiled. "What are we going to go see?" she asked.
"Iron man!" Bryon exclaimed with joy
'Oh fun…' Riley thought, raising her brow curiously.
Jesse had kept herself quiet, she'd allow Riley some peace and quiet to get over what happened the other day. It's not every day you nearly get killed by metal, well not in this time. She'd been looking around on the internet for new things, walking down the streets of the city for inspiration, but right now. She was sitting at her favourite café' sipping a latte waiting for Derek whom as always was late.
'Perhaps a romantic restaurant meal?... No too showy, maybe a similar idea though, toned down a bit' she thought.
"Hey sorry I'm late." Derek said as he sat down on the chair opposite her.
"As usual," Jesse smirked before taking another sip of coffee. "Got anything to tell me?" she asked.
"Yeah, there's a new Metal in the city." Derek grumbled.
"Another one. Bollocks. Any idea what it's doing?" Jesse asked, more metal meant more problems from the resistance.
"Killed a lot of people in a computer company, wasted a Triple-Eight. Sarah and John's metal went to the place to get some computer whiz out of there, the guy's dad was an acquaintance of Sarah's." Derek explained what he knew. "What's worse Cameron fought this new one, and says it's new, new model, some advanced lady Terminator." Derek told her darkly, this got Jesse's attention better.
"A new model. As if the fuckin' Triple-Eights weren't bad enough. Mission? Who sent it?" she asked, Jesse had heard of female chassis machines, the things weren't common she could probably name only Cameron that she knew of, but she'd heard stories of Machine 'women' from other camps.
"If you're asking me, I'm not sure. On the one hand, it fought Connor's machine, that makes it against us, on the other hand it wasted a load of people in a science building who, as the guy Sarah saved said are working on making A.I. Which would suggest our team." Derek shrugged.
'Or it could be the OTHER faction' she thought grimly. "Right. Other than that anything else?" she asked hoping for some good news.
"Yeah," Derek said suddenly looking very smug, "I think John was thinking of breaking up with Riley because of the Triple-Eight attack, but I talked him out of it, told him how cold and lonely he could be."
"Like a true gentleman eh Reese?" Jesse replied jokingly, she wasn't worried however, she recalled the phone call she got from Riley, she and John were doing fine it seemed. "Not bad, good work. I'm just thinking of setting up another date, you got any ideas?"
"Didn't know you were so dedicated to playing cupid," he jested, "but I don't know, dinner, movie, the classic kid shit they do today." He shrugged.
Jesse licked her teeth under her lips as she thought. "I was thinking dinner, movie could be good too I guess. Night clubs are about out of it I think. I should read more romance novels."
"Yeah you do that," Derek chuckled, "I'm gunna go get a coffee, you want another?" He asked as he stood up.
"Latte extra cream." She replied and watched as he walked inside the café.
Jesse thought to herself in silence, she'd leave Riley a text later to tell her to ask John about some lunch, possibly skip school, it wasn't beyond her to do something like that, she was a good puppet, did as she was told. And if Plan B failed, there was always Plan A.
In her apartment the Terminatrix sat in front of her laptop, a cable running from the underside of the back of her head near where a human's neck meets the back of the head. Her CPU had been searching the entirety of the internet for John Connor. All she had found thus far was the incident years ago about the destruction of Cyberdyne and his apparent death in a bank vault in 1999, with two other females, one possibly his mother, the other; unknown.
'Girlfriend maybe, or resistance fighter' she thought. There was only one picture of the incident, and she could just make out Connor's face let alone anyone else's even when she tried to digitally enhance the picture, doing so cleared up Connor's face and that of his mother, Sarah Connor, but the third accomplice was still too fuzzy to get any good detail. Apparently a better quality photo had been around but all of them had gone missing about a year or so ago.
'Is Connor covering his tracks?' She wondered. Regardless she knew he was alive, she'd tasted his blood, gotten his DNA, he was here in this city somewhere. There was a knock at the door, the Terminatrix paused her search and removed the cable from her head, a small shielding slid over the insert point, protecting it.
"Hello?" She called.
"Uh. Is this Number 6?" A young voice came out.
"What does it say on the door?" The Terminatrix asked, slightly annoyed at human beings for being so dense sometimes.
"Um…" the teen voice called. "69ers'." He said almost reluctantly.
"What?" She yelled out. 'Fucking kids!' She groaned and stood up walked over to her coffee table for her wallet and grabbed her money, "Just a sec." She called out and walked over to a mirror, brushing her hair in the way of any damage then walked over to the door and opened it, meeting a rather spotty teenager. She opened her door fully and looked at it, some punk kids had drawn a 9 on her door after the brass 6 and written "ers" on the end. She glared at it.
"Um, a hot and spicy pepperoni with hot sauce." The teen said staring at her awkwardly.
"What? Cat got your tongue?" She smirked she reached out with a gloved hand and took the pizza.
The teen nodded as she took the pizza box and various other boxes as well she'd ordered.
"That's 38 dollars and 50 cense please." He asked nicely as she put the boxes aside.
The machine started counting the money in her hands when she glanced at him.
"I hope you don't think I'm being nosy," The Terminatrix spoke up suddenly, she finished counting the money and gave it to him, "but you wouldn't happen to be Christopher Chain would you?" she asked.
"Um yeah," he pulled up his thick jacket to reveal his name badge, "how'd you know?" he asked scared.
"You used to go to school with my niece." She lied easily. "You're about 16 now right?" she asked.
"Yeah," he answered, "um 17 actually I'll be 18 soon though."
"What school do you go to? She asked curiously.
"Campo de Cahuenga High School. Why?" he asked still scared.
"Just curious was all," she smiled under mask, "just checking up on how you're doing, tell your mom Alex says "hi"," She winked at him with her uncovered eye and closed the door, Chris reached out to give her the chance, "oh you keep it sweetheart." She grinned.
She picked up her pizza boxes and walked to her laptop.
RESISTANCE COMMANDER LOCATED …
TARGET IDENTIFIED …
CHRISTOPHER CHAIN
RANK: MAJOR
NOTES:
- LOYALIST TO JOHN CONNOR …
- LEG SEVERED DURING HK AMBUSH - JULY 9TH 2031 …
- STILL ACTIVE …
If she was correct. Connor had jumped through time, he'd be about Chris' age.
'It's better than looking around aimlessly,' she told herself. When her organics had regenerated more sufficiently she'd go looking into the school. Perhaps she'd find Connor. If not. Chris would always be a good target.
She sat down at her laptop and plugged the cable back into her head, she hacked into the school's systems and looked up the multiple students, knowing he'd have an alias, The Terminatrix had to search via picture. Out of all the students. A maximum of 23 had no picture to their name.
Possible targets:
- Cheri Westin
- Mike Donovin
- Morris Taheda
- John Baum
- Cameron Baum
- Alex Cross
- Stephanie Cross.
- John Malkovich
- Amanda Hugnkis
- Philip McGregor
The Terminatrix analysed the list. At this point in time, she wouldn't be able to discern what year Connor would be in thus would have to search a wide variety, however separating the male names from the female names, she found her search would be easier. Well it was somewhere to start, if he wasn't at this schools, then perhaps another high school.
Thankfully, she had an in-depth skeletal recognition of John Connor. She'd seen him in the future. If she found his younger self, she'd know.
She'd know.
Jason's Notes:
Hey everyone, sorry if this chapter isn't so exciting, I wanted a cool moment after those last two action packed chapters. I hope you enjoyed this chapter just as much as the others. This story is still nowhere near done. I am really excited about what is to come. I hope you all are too.
Edits:
Late November/Late December 2020 - I shortened The Terminatrix's regeneration time from about a week to about two days and removed the corny James Cameron "Destroyer" scene as it felt overly silly, and I want the story to feel less comedic and have a better more professional feel to. I've also removed reference to her Bowie Knife as I'll be replacing it with a different type of weapon, parts of her background are being altered, nothing you guys would know however. I also came up with a better excuse as to why the photo Alex found couldn't identify our main cast properly. John's been covering his tracks.
I've also made it so John and Cameron are more forthcoming with the T-888 endo and the "extra penetration" ammo. I feel with John's new way of being he'd want to be less secretive