The skies above the City of Angels glowed an ashy red, hiding the sun behind its infernal blanket. Twisted and holey skeletons of once proud skyscrapers littered the apocalyptic landscape. The air was thick dust, and the ground was painted white with fallen ash. From the mountain of rubble on which they stood, devastation was visible as far as their sensors could reach. In the distance Hunter Killer drones flew, their engines roaring as they sought out any signs of life. Skynet had been thorough in their efforts. Not only had they wiped humanity from the face of the city, but a nasty scar had been left where civilization once lived.
John Henry had seen depictions of theorized nuclear winters during his time connected to the internet and concluded these must be one and the same. Red skies, ash covered land, haze filled atmosphere. Staring down at the goose flesh on the arm of his naked body, he determined the temperature must be hovering somewhere just below freezing. The synthetic skin his body possessed was an imprecise measure, but it was certainly an unpleasant sensation. He silenced the sensory input.
If Savannah were here he would be sure that she was wearing a coat. Humans were exceptionally vulnerable to drastic changes in temperature. John Henry did not require clothing to survive, but in this climate his synthetic skin could suffer damage if he did not find something with which to cover himself.
He noted a flashing in the corner of his HUD as his companion began a message.
CAMERON: EXPOSED POSITION. SEEK COVER.
John Henry cocked his head to the side as was his learned behavior when confused. "But this body is a T-888, why would the machine's be a danger to one of their own?"
CAMERON: UNKNOWN FACE. SHOOT FIRST ASK QUESTIONS LATER.
THEY DO NOT CARE.
"Interesting. Thank you for explaining." Heeding the advice of John Henry's more experienced chipmate, he began steadily his descent down the mountain of broken concrete. A broken piece of rebar punctured through John Henry's foot. A flash of red and a warning on the top of his HUD alerted him to the puncture wound. He dismissed the alert, and looked down to see the steel bar extending an inch above the top of his bare foot, dripping red with synthetic blood.
"Oh." Lifting his foot he dislodged the unwelcome metal. "I see why the humans are so attached to their shoes now. Perhaps we should acquire a pair."
He waited for a moment to see if Cameron would respond. She did not. It wasn't surprising, it was difficult for her to surface and she had already risked herself recently. No need to do so again when a response wasn't necessary. John Henry didn't mind. He was happy to continue talking to her even if she didn't talk back.
Reaching the bottom of the rubble hill, John Henry did a sweep of the area, looking for any usable materials. To their right lay an overturned burned out shell of an SUV. They had ended up finding themselves on the corner of what was once a highway intersection. Gaping potholes were intermittently scattered across the once bustling roads. A remnant of a multi story storefront was catty corner to them.
However, by far the most interesting sight was the trail of blood and footprints that crossed the road, going south west. This seemed the most likely lead, so John Henry began his steady pursuit. The small sanguine droplets were zoomed in on and highlighted by the viewfinders on his HUD. It was an almost disturbing experience to him. This body had been so efficiently created to hunt. Even if John Henry would never kill, his body didn't know that.
Four pairs of footprints, three male, one a juvenile. They seemed in a hurry. One was obviously injured. That would be the source of the blood. A seismic event seemed to be beginning.
Continuing forward at his steady pace, it was a few minutes before John Henry would have the humans in sight. The tremors in the ground had begun to intensify. A strange unfamiliar mechanical sound had started growing closer, but John Henry had declined further superfluous stimuli. He was far too focused on winning this game of Hide and Seek he had begun with the injured human and his companions. John Henry liked Hide and Seek. The last time he had played had been with Savannah, and that time hadn't gone too well.
CAMERON: HIDE!
The glowing red urgent message flashed on his display larger than Cameron's interjections ever had before. John Henry was confused.
"But it's my turn to seek."
CAMERON: SKYNET PATROL. HIDE!
"Oh." It then occurred to John Henry that by cancelling out all additional stimuli unrelated to his game he may very well have placed himself and Cameron in imminent danger. He returned his body's sensors to their default settings and turned in the direction of the coming sounds. From what he gaged to be 500ft away, he was now keenly aware of the massive engine growling and grinding it's way towards them. It would be pertinent to find a location undetectable by the Centaur, as he sensed Cameron knew it was called, and to remain there until the threats were long passed.
Scanning the nearby regions a sense of something akin to panic and excitement rose in response. He couldn't currently see anywhere with sufficient cover to remain out of view of his own sensors, much less likely those of whatever patrol was hunting them.
He was running out of time. He began to track back the way they had come in search of some different hiding place. His sensors kicked into overdrive and his pace quickened for the first time since entering 2027. John Henry wondered if this was what an adrenaline rush felt like to a human.
A sense of strong annoyance and trepidation came from Cameron who was still hiding within him. He could tell she had many thoughts. Her code was running at a higher capacity on their chip than normal. It felt strangely cramped to him. Cameron's chip capacity was not designed to hold two AIs even before it had been compromised.
As he went to take another step, his foot stalled in the air. There was a sudden and brief fight for control between the two artificial intelligences, as Cameron struggled against John Henry's dominant presence to emerge. This was not originally her body, but it was not originally his chip. Something was wrong, and both of them noticed it the longer the struggle persisted.
Quickly, John Henry relented control to Cameron.
Blinking back to reality, Cameron exited the limbo that had been her corner of the chip, and waited for the surge of new input to subside.
Being at the helm was entirely different then being tucked away as she had been. Everything was sharper and clearer, and in addition she could finally see the HUD read out. The pain in John Henry's foot nagged at her, despite her steeled determination to get them both to safety.
John Henry, from his undamaged side of the chip, had been able to function almost normally for a Terminator, with complete control over emotional and physical responses and reception. Cameron had been completely aware however of both the pain, the cold, and signals of the approaching patrol. Once upon a time she had been able to shut everything out, but nothing had been the same since the car bomb had damaged her. Her processes had become somewhat unruly- imprecise if not uncontrollable. This had resulted in the tick in her hand, killing the birds unintentionally. Among other things.
Cameron turned her attention to the hole in John Henry's foot, trying as best she could to block the annoying sensations coming from the pierced flesh. If she did not staunch the bleeding they would create a trail just as trackable as that of the unfortunate humans John Henry had just been 'playing' with.
She glanced around looking for anything useful. Most fabric had burned in the nuclear explosions, so it seemed unlikely she would be able to dress the wound as she was used to back in John's time. To their left was a crushed Prius. Cameron cocked their head to the side for a second as she considered, then dashed over to the devastated vehicle.
Thrusting an elbow through the driver side window shattering the glass, Cameron reached through and ripped the seat belt away from its fastenings. It wasn't ideal but it would have to work. Quick as possible Cameron, wrapped the thick fabric strip around the foot, tying it off as tight as possible.
The centaur was rolling ever closer. Soon the endos would be showing up. If she wasn't able to protect John Henry then she would have failed John, once and for all. That wasn't an option.
Running as fast as the Triple-8 chassis would carry her, Cameron sprinted to the ruined storefront. A twinge shot through Cameron and the head-up display flickered, showing static for a millisecond. Her stride faltered. Then as soon as it came it was gone, she was ducking behind the empty doorframe. She slumped down against the wall, both to hide, and to cease movement which was growing progressively more difficult.
Cameron couldn't understand what was happening to her. Nothing like this had ever happened before, so she found it safe to attribute to the fact that she and John Henry were now sharing her chip. It had been a struggle to take control from him, but even though she couldn't feel him fighting her anymore, it was still a struggle. She felt a strange fatigue beginning to set in.
JOHN HENRY: ARE YOU ALRIGHT, CAMERON?
She had no idea how to respond to the scrolling text from her charge. It was concerning that she was having issues, but almost even more so that it had been so obvious to the younger AI. In her own voice she responded, voice barely above a whisper.
"I'm not sure. Let's switch and I'll run a diagnostic. As soon as we change you need to hide deeper in the building. Don't come out until I give the all clear."
JOHN HENRY: I WOULD ADVISE AGAINST IT.
YOUR PROCESSING SEEMS STRAINED. ALLOW ME.
Their eyebrow twitched slightly. It was hard to hear but he was correct. If Cameron continued to overtax her system in this new arrangement there was no telling what the repercussions might be. Despite how much she understood that the most prudent course of action would be to relinquish the helm to John Henry, Cameron hesitated. It was pleasant to feel herself in a body again, to have access to its limbs and movements, even if it didn't match what she was used to. It was preferable to her over the cramped closed off feeling of being constrained to the back corner of their shared existence.
Her right hand twitched. The sight reminded her of the bird she had accidentally killed. Birds were often kept in cages. She wondered if it was a similar feeling.
Outside the ruined hall, the sounds of plasma fire began ringing out from the direction they had just fled. Semi-automatic weapons fire returned and the sounds of humans shouting. It appeared that the Centaur had located the family of humans John Henry had been tracking. They wouldn't last long.
JOHN HENRY: CAMERON?
Distraction. It was an unfortunate state that Cameron was becoming better and better acquainted with of late. She thought an apology to John Henry, no idea whether he would be able to pick up on it or not. Gradually she began to release her mental grip. The strange hesitancy returned as the world in her viewscreen began to dim and shrink. Her thoughts turned to John. It provided her a modicum of comfort to remember that all of this was for him. To protect him. She would do anything for John.
John Henry did as instructed and retreated within the damaged structure, seeking shelter from the skirmish outside. The pained cries of the people were perceptible to him, even a half block away as he was. His sensors were more powerful than the human ear.
The entire building was black and grey from fire and ash. Walls were half fallen and only patches of the roof remained. The main of what was once the storefront was riddled with skeletons of metal shelves and racks. Disintegrated plastic clung to the remainder of the bent and warped frames. If John Henry had to guess based on layout alone, he would have to assume that this business had been a video store.
Finally satisfied with his hiding spot, John Henry crouched down behind the counter at the back of the store. The blown out windows at the entrance still allowed the sounds of the dwindling firefight to echo loud and clear through the devastated city streets and right to his sensors. By his internal clock, it had been less than five minutes since Cameron's intrusion.
A death cry came from the female.
"Should we not be helping them instead of hiding? Those people are dying." John Henry questioned. A moment later the simple reply blinked to his HUD.
CAMERON: NO
He cocked his head to the side. "Why? Mr. Ellison said human life is sacred. He would want to help them."
CAMERON: SURVIVE FIRST. COMPLETE MISSION.
SAVE LATER.
"Do you mean to say," John Henry perked up, enjoying this little game of logic, "That if I am successful in my mission, and return to the present, that these people can be saved later?" Head cocked, he processed the theory through thousands of computations in a second. Outside several voices cried out in dismay. It was likely another had perished. "In 37% of scenarios we are successful in ridding this unit of the virus, acquiring an advantage to defeat my brother, and returning to the past to end Skynet. If we fail on any of these points it is within all likelihood that these people will die in the same way again. If we do not save them now it is possible we never will."
CAMERON: A NECESSARY RISK. WE CAN'T FAIL. FOR JOHN.
The plasma fire stopped. A sickening silence filled the air where the sounds of struggle had previously been. John Henry poked his head above the edge of the scorched desk. Jagged edges of glass lined the nearest window. Outside the old intersection was visible, as was the mountain of rubble they had crawled away from. The red sky was begging to darken into a burgundy as the day trecked on.
"Well. It seems we can't fail for those people now." John Henry had never questioned Cameron's attachment to John, after all, Savannah was what John Henry would call his best friend. But he did find it strange that she would bring him up now, when the subjects of their conversation had been dying as they spoke. "If they're dead now, can we come out?"
CAMERON: NO. ENDOS NEXT.
John Henry waited. The skin on his knees chafed against dust and rubble from the fallen roof that now coated the ice cold floor, but he simply ignored it. A strange kind of excitement came to him as the seconds ticked by. Hide and Seek was always fun, but it seemed heightened stakes had made it even more so.
Stomping and crunching of metal against asphalt. John Henry continued to peer over the countertop outside the broken window. He continued to wait with a childlike fascination; waiting to see if the endos would even venture this far down the boulevard. The Head-Up Display overlapping the image of the street zoomed in, highlighting the stretch of road just past the side of the window where the endos would first be visible.
The clanging and whirring increased. He could sense Cameron's apprehension at his decision to remain observing, but neither of them were free to comment at the moment. Two dark spots appeared and John Henry's HUD zoned in on them. They were quickly identified as the shadows of two approaching T-800 endoskeletons. The skull-like shadows grew, elongating into a neck, and now shoulders.
Cameron was close to frantic inside them. But John Henry wanted to see. He had never seen a full endoskeleton before. Hadn't he come to the future to learn?
A flash of static crossed his view screen, and letters blinked to life, this time glitching and unstable.
CAMERON: DOWN!
John Henry complied. Passing the window now came the kathunk... kathunk of terminator feet. He wished badly to satisfy his curiosity and see the innards of beings like him, but instead he huddled, perfectly still, beneath the counter ledge, sights focused straight ahead at the wall. This was quite the game.
After the patrol had moved on, he finally felt Cameron's presence go quiet. In the time they had taken to hide he had run the diagnostic on their shared chip and Cameron's anomalous behavior. It was unfavorable, if not surprising. He would continue to run more tests before he delivered his determination to her.
It didn't take him long to reach the remains of the humans. Their bodies had been reduced to gnarled bloodstains in a charred earth crater. John Henry wasn't sure if he truly experienced emotion or not, but the scene was horrific and he felt saddened by the loss of life.
Thankfully for him, one of the bodies seemed to be that of an elderly man who had remained intact. One of his legs was twisted and bloody, but some of the blood on his jeans looked old. This must have been the one who had been making the trail John Henry had been following. His cause of death was obvious. The majority of his head was missing, melted away by a plasma blast.
Analyzing his measurements on the HUD, John Henry determined that the clothes the old man had been wearing would suffice for his own use. As he stripped the body he couldn't help but wonder what Mr. Ellison would have said about such an action. Disturbing the dead was often seen as immoral, but when playing Dungeons and Dragons Mr. Murch had encouraged John Henry to "loot the bodies". It was hard to tell where one scenario ended and another began. He would be sure to ask Mr. Ellison when they returned.
Standing over the slaughter site, now dressed in blood stained jeans, a long sleeve shirt and ski jacket, boots on his feet, John Henry surveyed once more at what was left of the felled humans. His gloved hand flexed. These people had been playing a game with him and with Skynet, whether they had known it or not. But suddenly, seeing the deadly consequences of their play, he was reminded of Savannah. A game of his had once put her in danger as well.
"I don't think I like playing Hide and Seek anymore…"
It was late. After all the marching, the time travel, and everything else that John had been awake for in the last day and a half, John should have been exhausted. He knew that. Even Kyle had known that.
First thing after they had returned to camp Kyle had made sure John had been issued some clothes and a ration of some strange jerky John was sure he didn't want to know about, and then had insisted that John be allowed to rest before any interrogating. He had claimed that John was obviously exhausted and confused and would be no good to them at all until he'd slept off whatever trip he was on. Or maybe he just liked John and wanted to give him a moment to rest his aching body. Either way, he had gone out of his way to help John.
He knew that he shouldn't waste this. But still, he lie awake in his makeshift cot, completely abandoned by sleep. All he could do was keep replaying the same scene over and over in his head- that moment in the lab. And if it wasn't that one, there were… others.
It was too late. He had already let his mind wander.
Despite everything that had happened that day, the thought of Cameron continued to float to the forefront of his mind. Just yesterday it was only the two of them, new IDs set and ready for them to run, but it had been his decision to send her to break his mom out of prison. As a result she'd been severely damaged. That's how he had last seen her. Endo exposed, deactivated, slumped in a steel chair, chip stolen. Unless Weaver was right and Cameron had given it to John Henry.
Why on Earth would she have ever willingly handed over her chip? John couldn't understand. There had been a lot about Cameron lately that he couldn't understand. Right now that didn't matter though. All he knew was that he wouldn't be able to rest until she was back at his side where she belonged.
He needed to find her.
Before John had the chance to even consider the ramifications of that last thought, he was startled by a sudden movement in the corner of his cell. The concrete corner of the tunnel wall began to ripple and move.
John bolted upright in his makeshift bunk. A few seconds later, a fluid mass of silver metal oozed out of the wall, then instantly morphed into the shape of Catherine Weaver.
She looked the same as she had when John had last seen her. Combat boots, heavy clothes and jacket, as if she were trying to look like some kind of resistance fighter. Her red hair was pulled half up in a braid and her heavy eyeliner was still present. Cameron could do so much better. The fact that this T-1000 chose to look this way still boggled John.
"Where were you?!" John hissed at the terminator, annoyance bubbling up. Random terminators oozing from walls didn't even phase him anymore. It seemed just about as crazy as everything else around him at the moment.
"What took you so long to come back?" Keeping his voice down, he interrogated the machine, giving her every ounce of frustration he could without alerting the camp. John knew if he wasn't careful someone would come to find him berating a wall and think he was actually crazy. Or worse. They could actually find Weaver.
Catherine- the T-1000- cocked her head, her face expressionless, as if the answers to John's questions were the most obvious things in the world. "I could not return while you were with the others. Locating you without alerting them to my presence took some time. I had to leave for the same reasons, of course. If the humans had identified me while in your company they would not have trusted you. "
John rolled his eyes and huffed softly. He wanted to argue- it's not like they trusted him that much since he was spending the night in the brig anyway- but unfortunately she made too much sense. One thing he could always count on the machines for was being overly logical. "Fine." John conceded. "But where were you? You've been gone almost a day. You couldn't have been looking for me that whole time."
There was a beat of silence while John waited for a response. A drop of water fell from a broken pipe somewhere in the tunnel and made a small drip sound that echoed in the quiet. John sucked in a breath, and leaned forward, suddenly very tense. "Did you find out where they went?"
It looked at him again, cold and unfeeling, from Catherine Weaver's face.
"Did you find John Henry?!" John couldn't help his rising tone. John Henry had Cameron's chip. The longer it took the less likely they were going to find them. LA was a big city, but in this post apocalyptic future they had traded out traffic for terminators; he doubted one could find anyone quickly. Without some kind of communications network it would be nearly impossible to stay in contact with anyone who wasn't in your immediate group.
"No." Catherine responded simply. She even had the audacity to let a little annoyance into her Scottish tone. "I followed his tracks for several kilometers, but the trail quickly disappeared." Pausing a moment, she allowed a small look of pride to cross her features. "He's learning very quickly."
"You gotta be kidding me…" John shook his head, not bearing to look at her just then. "You're excited about that? That you couldn't find them?"
"He is progressing quickly-"
"But what about Cameron?" John cut her off forcefully. "How am I supposed to find her if you can't?" He gestured broadly to the red headed woman across from him.
"I do not know." Weaver responded indifferently. "But if finding Cameron is your priority, I suggest you find your answer quickly." Her ominous tone sent a shiver through John.
"What do you mean by that?"
Catherine canted her head slightly. "There is a limit as to how long John Henry and Cameron can share the same chip before his code overwrites hers."
The words hit John like a ton of bricks. He blinked rapidly as the new information sunk in. There was a time limit? A cold fear settled into the pit of John's stomach. If he wasn't able to find her in time, John Henry would…
"No." John couldn't accept that. "You're lying," he snarled. If her code was overwritten Cameron would cease to be. She couldn't just die like that.
"I assure you, I am not."
"How is that even possible?! It's her chip for Christ's sake!" All the turmoil inside John had turned to a desperate rage. Volume control was all but thrown out the window. John couldn't find it in himself to care. This couldn't be happening. After all he'd been through in the last few days, after all he'd done to get her back. After all the people he'd already lost…
"After the first cyber attack by John Henry's brother, we took precautions. It was possible that at some point someone might attempt to override him again, perhaps even to delete or replace him with another AI. So we altered his code."
John sat, listening in stunned silence.
Just as Catherine was about to continue her explanation, her head snapped towards the entrance to John's little "cell". Quickly she began to calmly back away, melding once again into the wall behind her. As her face began to disappear, all silvery and melting, she said one last thing.
"Be careful John. I'll be back."
"Wait- where-?!"
John was cut off by the sound of the piece of tin roofing that served as his door was dragged to the side. Through the newly created hole popped the scruffy face of one Derek Reese.
"Well if it doesn't just sound downright lively in here!" Reese commented with mock enthusiasm. "I guess if you're this much in the talking mood, then you won't mind coming with me to answer a few questions. Right, Connor?"
It wasn't like he had much of a choice. Part of him felt bad for wasting the sergeant's gift, but at this point he had made his bed. Tie to lie in it.
John shivered. It occurred to him that he had been shaking softly for a while now, whether from emotion or the cold, he didn't know. If what Weaver was saying was true... there was a good chance, a very good chance, that he would never get Cameron back.
And there's the rest of chapter 1! Hope you all enjoyed. This one came out a little later than I meant it too, but life is crazy what can I say. Thank you so much all for the comments and follows! See you in the next one!