Chapter 1
She was gone.
"John, we can't."
Cameron was gone. Her body had been wrecked by the prison assault, John wasn't even sure if it was reparable at this point. She had said herself that she wasn't 100%, and that was saying something coming from her. But he couldn't dwell on that. It was the least of his concerns in that moment.
"He's got her chip!"
John had pleaded with his mother. She didn't get it.
"...He's got her."
John Henry, the other AI, had taken her from him. Taken the chip right out of her head and transported them both to the future. Cameron's essence was somewhere out there, being held by some psycho Skynet wannabe. John hadn't even had time to think about it. He just knew that he needed to get her back.
"...Mom?"
Sarah was gone. His mother. She had stared him in the face as the TDE powered up, as she shook her head backing out of its radius. John had been shocked. Confused. Even if she didn't care about finding Cameron, his mother had never left him before. He had pleaded with her, unspeaking, begging her to help him. Why? Why wasn't she coming with him?
"I'll stop it."
In a blue flash of crackling electricity, she was gone too.
The next thing he knew, John had materialized in the future. Naked, afraid, and in pain, he was suddenly thrust into the apocalyptic world of his nightmares. Surrounded by painfully familiar faces, in a future where the name John Connor seemingly meant nothing.
Weaver was gone. She had disappeared the second the patrol had rounded the corner. He had no idea where she went or how he was supposed to find her again. All he had left was the repeating scene playing over and over in his head.
They were all gone.
He was all alone.
"I love you too"
Sarah whispered into the air where her son had just stood. He was gone. He had just… disappeared. A part of her was in shock and total disbelief at what had just happened. Her baby boy had just followed a machine into a distant and uncertain future to 'rescue' another machine. A machine that sat deactivated not ten feet from her.
It was absurd. She had trained him his entire life to fight Skynet and its terminators. Taught him what they were. How had she failed him so completely that he would risk his life for one?
But deep down she knew better. John had always had a soft spot for it- her. Whatever. Consciously she had always chalked it up to him being a hormonal teenager, trusting that he knew better than to…
Apparently she was wrong.
By the time she figured out what was really going on it had been far too late.
She couldn't stop him from chasing after her chip. One feeble attempt was all she could manage. Maybe if she had had more time Sarah could have talked him out of it.
Instead she was left in the almost empty ZeiraCorp basement, staring into space, wondering where she had gone wrong, and how she was going to keep her promise. How she was going to make sure that the future her John ended up in wasn't a living hell.
"Sarah..." A man's voice broke through her reverie. A hand touched her shoulder. "We have to go."
"Don't touch me." Sarah shrugged his hand off, jerking away from the sudden contact. Turning slowly, she saw a troubled looking Ellison. He had probably been trying to get her attention for a little while now. It occurred to her that her ally was also probably in shock, and that had been unnecessarily rude of her. Flicking her eyes to the side and taking a quick breath, she managed to squeeze out a halfhearted, "Sorry."
"It's alright…" Ellison absentmindedly responded in kind. The man looked disturbed to Sarah. Dazed and confused. Pretty much how she felt- minus the parental guilt and sense of bereavement. He licked his lips before continuing, heaving a sigh of his own. "But we have to get out of here. It isn't safe. Whoever it is that attacked us isn't through. They're still gonna try and come for John Henry…" He faltered over the name, no doubt still wrestling with Weaver's words to him. "They won't know he isn't here anymore. We can't be here when they come for him."
Sarah looked around the strange computer lab they had been left in. It was cold, the walls and floor an equally cold grey. The screens to her left still flashed their sad little message in neon green letters:
I'M SORRY JOHN
I'M SORRY JOHN
I'M SORRY J_
Sarah cursed internally as she snapped her eyes away from the blinking screens. And of course, there it was- The elephant in the room begging for her attention. The deactivated and damaged form of Cameron– slumped in the steel chair by the metal table– was there just over Ellison's shoulder. Sarah hadn't looked at her since John and the liquid had jumped. A sick feeling began to rise in the pit of her stomach.
"Kaliba." Sarah shot at Ellison as she strode by him, heading for the table. "They're the ones behind this."
"That the group that made the other AI?" James asked Sarah's back as she passed him.
"What do you think?" Sarah wasn't totally sure herself but it made too much sense. "They made the prototype drone." She wasn't even looking at Ellison, she was too busy at the moment.
"Sarah, what are you doing?" James furrowed his brow towards the mildly unhinged woman. She paused, her hands under the cyborg's armpits.
"We can't leave her here." It seemed so obvious to her. She nodded her head at the stiff form in her hands, hair flopping with the motion. "If someone is following us, there's no way in hell that I'm just going to hand over a weapon like this."
Ellison rolled his eyes slightly before gesturing to the battered shell. "Look at it. What are they gonna do with that? It isn't exactly functional."
"They could study it, learn from her. She was supposed to be advanced." The brunette paused for a moment before cocking an eyebrow. "Or worse... They could fix her."
James let that sink in for a second as he watched Sarah continued struggling to hoist Cameron's dead weight off the chair. He couldn't hope to understand all the layers to that comment.
"Skynet already has access to drones and Triple-8s. They can have another tech advantage over my dead body."
"What in the holy-!?" A frantic voice came from the doorway of the room.
The two occupants whipped their heads back to identify the intruder. Sarah dropped Cameron with a hollow thud and reached behind her back for the handgun tucked in her pants. Former agent Ellison did the same. In half a second, the unwitting third-party had two pistols trained on his face.
"Don't shoot!" A scrawny geek-type man threw his hands up in the air above his head and screwed his eyes shut tight behind his wide rimmed glasses. The man was bald, wearing glasses, slacks, and a plaid button up shirt.
"Mr. Murch?" Ellison lowered his pistol and stared incredulous at the computer technician in the doorway. "What are you doing here?"
Sarah glanced back and forth between the two men, assessing the situation. "You know this guy?" She gestured with the barrel of her gun towards the terrified nerd.
"Murch." James nodded in recognition. Reaching under his suit coat he tucked the pistol back in it's holster. "He's a technician here. One of the ones working most closely on John Henry."
"A- Actually? I'm a software engineer." The man dressed in the button down and tie- Murch- corrected the head of security with a shaky voice. Actually, all of him was shaking.
"Where did you come from? Were you followed?" Sarah grilled him, not willing to drop her gun yet. Her eyes' focus shifted to the hallway behind him.
"What? Uh, no!" He protested, confused and incredulous. "I work here! I just came from the bathroom. I heard this really loud noise and-" His eyes went wide as his attention finally shifted back to the room behind them. Sarah watched as his gaze drifted from the bloodied knife on the table to the gory face and exposed endoskeleton of the terminator at her feet. "What the hell happened here?"
James and Sarah exchanged glances, neither one entirely sure how to summarize what had just transpired. Murch slowly lowered his hands. Brow creased with concern he glanced from the flashing writing on the walls to the loose cord that rested on the table. Right where their pet project AI should have been plugged in.
"Where's John Henry?" His face was now going pale. If this man had worked closely on ZeiraCorp's Artificial Intelligence program he would have known that it was impossible for John Henry to leave. It should have been.
"We don't have time for this." Sara brushed the scientist's questions aside brusquely. She was half a second from resuming her attempts at hauling Cameron's chassis out of there when she noticed the geek had zoned out looking at the back wall full of electronics. That should have been the computers and hardware that had housed the John Henry program, she reckoned.
A thought came to her.
She glanced back and forth between the gobsmacked man, who unbeknownst to himself was now very much out of a job, and the glass cases of electronics. For a hard second she just stared at the Turk. Its three glowing red dots seemed to mock her.
"Is this stuff important?" Sarah pointed to the Turk and surrounding equipment.
"Yes!" Glasses gawked at her like he was offended anyone would even ask.
Well. That answered that question.
"This hardware is invaluable."
Sarah wasn't paying attention to his words anymore. She pulled the pistol out from her belt and looked the glass cases up and down. Not quite… Looking down, she spotted Cameron's fallen shotgun on the ground.
"It's been running the most complex AI in the world and- Hey! What are you doing?!"
Cocking the previously discarded weapon, Sarah aimed it at the wall of server banks. She didn't bother answering. Instead she pumped the forestock and pulled the trigger, firing volley after volley of rounds into the equipment. Glass shattered and screens cracked. Sparks flew out of the previously static towers of electronics. She only stopped when the mag was empty and there was nothing left to fire. It would have to do. It would have to be enough.
"Oh… god!" Murch looked like he was about to burst into tears. It seemed like he was barely managing to stay on his feet. Unfortunately for him, Sarah didn't care.
"Alright. Let's move." Sarah stated definitively.
This time when she tried to move Cameron, Ellison was right there helping her out. Sarah resumed her previous position behind the damaged cyborg's back, arms linked under armpits. James Ellison took the legs. It seemed to him the less optimal position for the two of them, seeing as he was stronger and taller than Sarah, but she didn't seem in the reasoning mood.
"Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?!" Shouting in protest, Murch watched as the two figures carrying the third made their way through the door frame.
"No time to explain. Sorry Matt." The former ZeiraCorp head of security shook his head at his co-worker as he passed by. Sarah paused and looked at the computer geek- Matt Murch seemed to be his full name- and made a split second decision. It wouldn't be long now before Kaliba burst in guns a-blazing.
"Come with us if you want to live."
The glass bulbs on the string of lights dimmed intermittently, swaying softly, struggling to light the damp concrete tunnel. The two scouting parties had combined, and now trudged together down the winding sewer system.
John stumbled down the hallway, bare feet cold and stinging from the tunnel floor, trying to catch up with his uncle. Or, not-uncle...? It was too sudden and too confusing to pin down at the moment. Plus John had bigger fish to fry.
"So- You've really never heard of a John Connor?" He clutched the heavy jacket he wore close to himself. Underneath he was still naked, and unfortunately there was only so much the coat could do. Kyle's coat. His Father. Who was walking less than ten feet in front of him.
"No, kid. For the last time- I've never heard of anyone named 'John Connor', alright?" Derek side eyed him, his tone one of pure annoyance. "And if you ask one more time- I'll-"
The elder Reese paused, looking for an appropriate punishment. Kyle glanced back over his shoulder at Derek and the strange kid, flashing him an annoying smirk in response to his struggle. Derek made a mental note to deal with his little brother's insubordinate attitude when he was done with the troublesome new guy.
"'I'll throw you in the brig!" It came out a little more hostile than Derek had intended, but he was still staring at his brother's smug mug and he just couldn't help himself. He turned his attention back just in time to see the kid almost faceplant.
Seeing Kyle do anything made John's brain go blank. He'd short circuited the second his father looked his way, and in his distracted state forgot to watch where he was going. His left foot found a patch of broken concrete, scraping it pretty good, and causing John to almost lose his balance. He quickly sucked in a sharp breath of discomfort. Some leader of humanity he was turning out to be. Only in the future ten minutes and he'd already hurt himself.
Idiot.
"Sorry…" John hissed out.
Bemused, Derek watched the mysterious stranger with narrowed eyes. He wasn't quite sure what to make of this kid. He wasn't metal, that was beyond obvious at this point. Didn't mean he was a friendly though. For all Derek knew, this 'John Connor' could very well be a Grey. Just because he seemed incompetent didn't make him trustworthy.
The sound of a female stifling a snigger reached John from the back of the group. Under normal circumstances he would have totally turned red and found a rock to hide under, but this wasn't high school. John was on a mission, and there were way too many unknown variables to let himself get distracted.
This entire future was throwing him off. Somehow it hadn't been anything like he had expected, but everything like he hadn't. He had watched Derek get shot and buried not even a week ago, yet here he was again, right as rain. Only it wasn't his Derek. He didn't even recognize John.
And then of course there was Kyle. John's father. Or, would-be father. Every time John saw him his chest tightened and it became a struggle to breathe. He wasn't that impressive of a man- slightly shorter than Derek, blonde- but John recognized himself in the younger Reese brother. The moment he had seen him he had just known. His eyes were kind, just like Sarah had said they would be.
John hadn't realized he had been staring until the butt of a rifle was jammed into his ribs.
"Keep moving!" The gruff voice of the asain man who had found John prodded him forward. Corporal Lee, if John remembered correctly.
Jolting back into motion, John settled into a position in the middle of the group. In front of him marched his uncle, father, and another male soldier he didn't know the name of. Directly behind him was the Corporal's gun and the other three soldiers. Their German Shepherd walked at the back of the group with its handler, a dark skinned woman.
The tunnels were damp and cold. Pipes ran along the sides of the concrete walls, some intact, some broken. Water dripped from somewhere, and a frigid draft continued to buffet the strings of lights. As John continued to limp, favoring his freshly skinned foot, he passed a spot of graffiti on the rounded tunnel wall to his left. In bold black letters it said simply:
DONT DIE
The message seemed a little bleak, but the others didn't seem to even register its existence. Just like John…
He still couldn't wrap his head around that. His entire life he had been told he was some sort of messiah, the future leader of mankind, that without him humanity would be eradicated. And yet here he marched, naked save for a stolen jacket, in this future he hadn't been there for. In a resistance he didn't start. They certainly seemed organized to him. A subtle shaking set into John's frame. It could have been from the cold of course, his body certainly wasn't used to temperatures like this. Or, it could have been the thought that his entire life had been a lie. Maybe he wasn't needed after all…
"So, tell me kid," Derek Reese called back over his shoulder to the young man. "How'd you know my name?" Turning back he eyed John up and down. "Like I said.. we've never met."
"Uh," John tugged the green jacket closer to him. How had he not thought this through yet? He'd been so distracted by his surroundings he'd forgotten to think of a story. "It's uh… Kinda hard to explain."
John licked his lips anxiously before taking the plunge into his next question. Whatever answer he got would give him a much better idea of what kind of feature he had been zapped into. "I guess you wouldn't believe me if I said I was a time traveler from twenty years ago, would you?"
Derek wasn't the only one that shot John, a look that clearly questioned his sanity. "Uh, no."
John gave a halfhearted chuckle, attempting to hide his internal panic. "Yeah.. I figured as much." If Derek and his men had never heard of time travel then that didn't spell easy odds of getting back home once he found Cameron. If he found Cameron. "It's a long story." John amended. He knew it was a lame answer, but he hoped it would buy him some time.
"Don't worry," This time Kyle spoke from the front of the group. "You'll have plenty of time to explain everything when we get back to camp." He glanced over his shoulder at John, truly addressing him for the first time since their groups had joined. "Like why you're wearing my coat."
A few snickers rose from the marching resistance fighters. John's face grew hot. That was gonna be a tough one to explain.
"Hey," John shuffled forward over the half lit ground, trying to get closer to Kyle Reese. His squad had just returned from some kind of recon so it was possible they might know something. "I- I'm actually looking for someone. A man? Tall, blonde- real serious face. Maybe you've seen him?"
Passing an offshoot tunnel to their right John smelled something rank and decaying. Looking down the dark passageway, he could see rubble everywhere on the scorched ground and overturned barrels that must have once held fires. Whoever had lived there before didn't anymore… one way or another.
"Sorry. Didn't see anyone while we were out." Kyle's voice surprised John. Somehow it didn't hold the same hostility as the others.
"This guy got a name? He a friend of yours or somethin'?" And there was the hostility. Leave it to Derek.
"No! I mean," John sighed, aggravated. "Not really. He… took a friend of mine. I'm just trying to find her."
Just then a rumbling came from above their heads. Dust rained down from the ceiling onto the party. The little lights flickered sporadically as the tunnel shook. One hand of John's shot up to guard his head, the other still clutched his coat close to him against the cold. The sounds and tremors were growing steadily more intense.
Derek made some sort of signal with his hand and all the resistance fighters around them crouched down suddenly. John glanced around, lost. "Centaur! Get down!" The lieutenant hissed at John. He did as he was told, quickly crouching in place
"Wha-"
John was suddenly cut off by a hand clasped over his mouth as a familiar feminine voice hissed in his ear "Quiet!"
Above them the rumbling continued, and the ground continued to shake. Dust and debris continued to dislodge. Strange sounds of blasts reverberated through the earth above. Gunfire of some kind. Sounds echoed through a nearby tunnel, channeling the strange sounds of discharges through from a manhole cover near the surface.
It was unlike anything John had ever heard in person before. Other than in sci-fi movies maybe. So this must be what the plasma guns sound like. John thought.
Something that sounded like distant human screams pierced through the thrumming of engines and creaking metal. The plasma fire stopped. He found himself holding his breath. No one said anything or moved a muscle. After another few tense moments, the rumbling began to subside, as whatever mechanical beast raged above ground began to move on.
The hand over John's mouth stayed fast, not releasing him until the sounds had totally faded and the shaking had stopped. As the two squad's slowly began to stand back up, he finally was able to see the girl that had silenced him. A petite brunette. It was the girl that looked like her. Allison.
John couldn't help it. He was too confused and overwhelmed at this point not to be pissed. "What the hell was that?!"
"What the hell do you mean 'what the hell was that'?!" The familiar roar of his uncle. Derek Reese brandished his rifle and began stalking towards John, livid. "You never had a Centaur go overhead before? What is wrong with you? You could have got us all killed!"
"Derek." A hand pressed into the elder Reese's path, stopping him in his tracks. Derek whipped his glare around to see his younger brother, standing to the side between him and John. "That's enough."
There was a brief battle of wills between the Reese boys, as their green and blue eyes clashed in a silent argument. Flexing his jaw, Derek shook his head, apparently giving in. "Fine. But he's your problem now." He poked Kyle in the chest for emphasis. Turning to leave, he stopped for a moment, glancing back and forth between Kyle and John with brows furrowed. With a shake of his head Derek returned to leading the troupe.
Kyle Reese gave the strange boy a once over. The brown haired boy looked healthy and well fed- a rarity these days. There was something off about this 'John Connor'. Maybe even multiple somethings. He looked panicked or angry half the time, seemed to recognize his brother who swore they'd never met, and he didn't even seem to recognize a Centaur patrol. Not to mention he showed up deep in unclaimed territory wearing only Kyle's coat.
He had to admit it. None of it made sense, and all of it was wildly suspicious. Yet even so, for god knows what reason he was drawn to- even kind of protective of- the strange teen. Maybe it was just the fact that he was young. Maybe it was his eyes.
Clapping a hand to the boy's shoulder Kyle stared into those oddly familiar eyes. "Gotta be more careful Connor. I stuck my neck out for you, don't make me regret it."
John stared back at Kyle. There was no way he wasn't cold in just a t-shirt and flack jacket, and John felt somewhat guilty. Somehow that was easier to focus on than the fact that his not-father had just stood up for him. He couldn't even speak. All he could do in response was to give a nod.
Trudging on it took them through the rubble and halflight, it took them another twenty minutes before they reached base camp. Cameron-
No. Allison. John struggled to remind himself everytime he looked over at the girl tromping along nearby him that she wasn't her. She looked exactly like her. He couldn't believe it. The first time he'd seen her he'd thought she was Cameron; he'd been so relieved. But then she touched the dog and it hit him like a ton of bricks. Dogs hated terminators. There was no way she could be his Cameron.
If he was being honest with himself, that wasn't even true. He hadn't noticed the dog really at all until a moment later. No, he knew that whoever this girl was, she wasn't Cameron the moment she looked at him. Without a hint of recognition, indifferent and uncaring. It unsettled him far more than he'd like to admit.
Eventually the tunnel they had been following came to a dead end. Well, not so much a dead end as a sharp turn. It continued on to the right, but the curve was so that John couldn't see anything past it or the fighters in front of him. They would have to fully exit the turn before any of the rest of the sewer system would be visible.
John kicked himself internally for not having memorized the sewer system maps back when he had had the chance. They had gone too far from ZeiraCorp for him to ever be able to guess where they were now.
Rounding the joint in the sewer system they found themselves on a straight-away that ended in a barricade. An unnatural wall of scrap metal, steel barrels stacked and lashed together with heavy duty rope, sand bags, Jersey barriers, and barbed wire cut straight through the tunnel. The upper region of the barricade was draped in cloth, the barrels of sentinel guns poking out beneath it. A single reinforced door set right in the middle served as an entrance. If John didn't know any better he might have thought they had salvaged it from a prison or something.
"HALT." A voice rang out from behind the barrier. John could hear the cocking of the guns up top, ready for anything. "Identify yourselves!"
"Commanding officer First Lieutenant Derek Reese, returning with Patrol Squad 3!" Derek shouted back from the front of the pack. He didn't even break his stride. If anything the usually somber man regained a little pep in his step. A more pleasant expression played over his face, and John recognized it.
It was the same look his uncle had always gotten when they returned home without dying. The recognition sent a pang through John's chest. That man had been his uncle, and his uncle was dead, that much was certain. John had watched as his uncle Derek had been shot in the head by a T-888. And yet… the man in front of him was also Derek Reese. John wondered if his uncle had ever felt anything similar to this when he looked at John in the past.
"Commanding officer First Sergeant Kyle Reese, returning with Recon Squad 7." The blond brother called out next in turn. John could sense the energy rising in the group of men and women around him. It was the home stretch. All they had to do was make it to the front door without any catastrophes and they would be safe for the night- day?- or at least as safe as could be.
A clack came from the steel door as a slit window was opened in the middle of it. Voices could be mimicked. It made sense they would need visual confirmation also. A moment later the voice called back out. "Who's the new face?"
John could feel the guns trained on him without even having to look. It was just a gut thing at this point.
"Just some tunnel rat we picked up in a corner." Derek seemed more at ease now. He looked back over John with an amused smirk. "Says his name is John Connor."
The entire group had now come to stand before the large door. Something cold touched the back of John's knee and he just about jumped out of his skin. Whirling around not a thought concerning his dignity, he was met by the sight of a German Shepherd sniffing him intently.
"Hey," John hissed at the dog. "That tickles.." It began to nose its way up under the edge of his coat. "Knock it off!" John tried to push the dog's face away, but it bared its teeth a hair and a low rumble began deep in its throat. He went rigid. He wasn't really in a good position to pick a fight with their attack dog at the moment.
"You sure he's not metal?" The door from the voice came again, suddenly suspicious.
The dog licked John's bare knee and shiver ran through his whole body. It was warm and slimy and he hated everything.
Derek snorted dismissively. "Anything but."
Much to John's relief the handler reined her dog back in, ending his humiliation. The border guard, apparently satisfied, shut the small window with a 'shunk' and rapidly followed with a series of clicks and thunks as he unlatched the locks. A moment later the door creaked open, allowing entry to the ragtag group.
John followed, taking his turn to step through the barricade entrance when it came to him. He was well aware of the several guns trained on him, both from in front and behind. The faces of the resistance guards were dirty, gaunt, and full of distrust. They probably didn't get many visitors. John tried to keep his head down and look as unthreatening as possible.
Someone bumped into his shoulder as they passed him from behind.
"Welcome to Base Camp." The girl said to him, pausing to look him in the eye before she hurried on to wherever she was going. Her brown hair swirled around her and her chocolate eyes were uncertain.
"Thanks…" he breathed back. A twinge crossed his face. She was beautiful, of course. But that look in her eyes… This girl looked like Cameron, but he had never seen any emotion like that from her before. Cameron was always sure of everything- especially when it came to John. The fact that this girl was here in front of him confused him in ways he could have never expected. It almost felt like the universe was playing a prank on one John Connor.
Everything passed in a blur as John's brain struggled to take in all he was seeing entering the camp. Partitions and cloths were hung haphazardly to create the illusion of privacy all around. Countless off shoots and little tunnels exited off the main cavernous area they had entered. Dozens of people milled around, some in fatigues or combat gear like the squads that had found John, but many more in tattered and distressed clothing. They were all dirty and thin, these "civilians" John called them for lack of a better word.
The world seemed to be in slow motion when he passed the first bonfire. Two families were huddled around it, tending what appeared to be rat carcasses turning on spits. A handful of dirty faced children played some kind of game on the grimy floor nearby.
It looked like Jacks, but John had to take a closer look to be sure. They were playing with empty shell casings. Their little fingers were cracked and chafing, but even so, they were the only people John had yet seen with any sense of joy. It had to be their age. They were far too young to yet understand the horror of the world around them.
"We offer them protection." Kyle explained. He had stopped when he had noticed John gawking. The two young men now stood side by side, the light from the fire casting matching shadows behind them. "They're better off here than most."
"Aren't there others? Other camps with the resistance that can help people like them?" John couldn't help it. He was sickened by the wrongness of it all. The cold, the destruction, the filth. The inhumanity of starving mothers roasting rats so their children have something to eat.
"Others?" Kyle's blue eyes narrowed curiously. This mystery kid couldn't be serious. How could he not know? "We're all that's left."
AN: Hey hi hello! Sorry this came out later than I was intending and the formatting is so bad. I still don't really know what I'm doing on here. Also sorry the Prologue and the beginning of chapter one are the same if that annoyed anyone. There's a good chance I'll delete the prologue later. Well anyways! Chapter one part one is here and part two will be joining it very very soon! Thank you for reading and I hope you'll stick around for the rest!
And yes! I did win NaNoWriMo, so there's plenty more story to come.